Hard Evidence (7 page)

‘You mean doing karate, breaking a board, something like that?’ Hardy asked.

Farris nodded. ‘That circus stuff, breaking boards, that’s Owen. If he was showing off for some woman… hell, for anybody, he could break his whole hand and never mention it. One of his conceits was he didn’t feel pain like the rest of us.’

Hardy sat forward at the change of tone. This guy might love Owen Nash, but that wasn’t all he felt.

‘The little finger on this hand has two obviously healed breaks,’ Strout said, ‘that were never set.’

‘That sounds more like Owen.’

Strout straightened up in his chair, laced his fingers and stuck his arms out until his knuckles cracked. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘this doesn’t move me any further along in the line of identification. We could run a DNA scan, but without a sample of what we know to be Mr Nash’s tissue, it wouldn’t prove anything.’

Everyone sat in silence, all but Strout back in their seats. Farris still sat forward, eyes turned inward, trying to come up with something to settle the question. There was a knock on the door, and Sixto poked his head in. ‘There’s a Celine Nash out here to see Mr Farris.’

*     *     *     *     *

The woman’s startling blue eyes were red and puffed, dark circles under them as if she hadn’t slept in several days. Her mascara had run over too much makeup. In a black suit, black nylons, black gloves — even black onyx earrings — she was elegantly turned out, but she’d run her hands through her ash-colored hair too often, and it straggled in uneven shanks to her shoulders.

She came forward and hugged Farris, choking back a sob, and he held her for half a minute, patting her back. ‘It’s okay, honey, it’s okay. We still don’t know.’

She pulled back slightly, took Farris’s pocket handkerchief out and dabbed at her eyes. She briefly held herself to him again. Hardy saw her close her eyes as though gathering her strength. Then she turned to the other men. ‘Is one of you the coroner?’

Strout stepped forward. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I’m sorry, but I thought Ken said…’ She looked around as though lost. ‘I mean, when I heard coroner, I just assumed…’

‘No, ma’am, we just don’t know yet. You might see if you recognize this.’ Strout proffered the small ring box.

Celine stared at the ring for a moment. ‘What is this?’

‘It was on the hand,’ Strout said.

She took it from the box, looking at him quizzically. ‘But Daddy didn’t wear this ring. Ken, Daddy only wore Mom’s ring, didn’t he?’

‘I already told them that.’

The handkerchief went back to her eyes. She held it there a minute, applying some pressure. ‘Are you all right?’ Hardy asked. He moved forward.

Celine had gone a little pale. She gave Hardy a half-smile, but her eyes went back to Strout. ‘Well, then, this couldn’t be my father.’

Glitsky, in his softest voice, asked her when the last time was she had seen her father. Her eyes narrowed for an instant, and Hardy thought he saw a flash of resistance, perhaps even fear. ‘Why? I’m sorry, but who are you?’

Farris broke in and introduced everyone, after which Glitsky explained, ‘He may have gotten the ring after you’d seen him.’

She nodded, accepting that. ‘I don’t remember exactly. Two weeks ago, maybe. But he didn’t have this ring on then — he wouldn’t have worn it anyway. This just isn’t him.’

Farris, up beside her, looked at it again and shrugged. ‘He wasn’t much of a jewelry person.’

‘All right,’ Strout said. ‘It was worth a try. Thank y’all for your time.’

After he’d escorted them to the door, Strout shambled back, hands in his pockets, to Hardy and Glitsky. ‘It might be Owen Nash,’ he said simply. ‘Off the record, of course, but it might be. I’ll keep y’all informed.’

9

The garage had Glitsky’s car repaired and ready to go for him, so Hardy found himself walking alone through the parking lot at 5:45, ready to head for the Little Shamrock, where he was meeting Frannie. The fog, which had clung to downtown all day, had lifted, or moved west with the breeze off the Bay; the sky overhead was a cloudless evening blue.

Most of the staff at the Hall of Justice had gotten off at five, and the lot was about half empty. Two rows down from where Hardy was parked, Ken Farris sat in the driver’s seat of a Chrysler LeBaron convertible with its top down. Hardy slowed down and finally stopped.

Farris was staring into the distance, arms crossed over his chest, unmoving. He might have been a statue. He’d left Strout’s office with Celine Nash nearly forty-five minutes ago, and he was still in the parking lot? Maybe she had stayed and they had talked awhile. Still, Hardy found it odd. The man wasn’t even blinking. Maybe he was sitting up, dead.

Hardy crossed a couple of rows of parking places. He got to within ten feet of the LeBaron before Farris moved. It was a slight shift, but Hardy knew he was in view now.

‘I saw you sitting here so still,’ he said. ‘I wondered if you were all right.’

The mask gave way to a self-deprecating smile. ‘Relative term, “all right”. I guess I’m all right.’

Hardy gave him half a wave and had started to walk away, when Farris called his name. He came back to the car. ‘You know, Celine mentioned something. I don’t know. It might be relevant.’

Hardy cocked his head. ‘You wouldn’t be a lawyer, would you, Mr Farris?’

A flash of teeth. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Well, defining “all right” as a relative term. Something you might know as relevant. Those are lawyer words.’

Farris stuck out a hand. ‘Good hunch. Call me Ken, would you. Stanford, ’55. But I never practiced, other than being counsel for Owen.‘

‘Full-time job?’

‘And then some. Now I’m COO of Owen Industries. Owen’s CEO. Electronics, components, looking into HDTV.’

‘I don’t know what that is, HDTV.’

‘High-definition television. More dots on the screen. Better picture. The Japanese are miles ahead of us on it, but Owen liked it, so we’re moving ahead.’

‘So what’s your maybe-relevant information?’

‘Celine just mentioned it to me. Owen had told her he was going out on the
Eloise . .
.’

‘The
Eloise
?’

‘Owen’s sailboat. He was supposedly going out Saturday with May Shintaka — May Shinn she calls herself.’

‘His girlfriend?’

Farris made a face. ‘Something like that. More a mistress, I guess you’d say.’

‘He kept her, you mean? People really do that?’

Farris laughed without much humor. ‘Owen figured you paid for your women one way or the other. “Cost of doin’ bizness, Wheel” — he called me Wheel, like Ferris Wheel, spelled wrong of course — “cost of gettin‘ laid, same goddamn thing. Might as well pay for it up front. No bullshit.” ’

‘It’s an approach, I guess,’ Hardy said.

‘Mr Hardy…’

‘Dismas.’ Then, at the squinted question. ‘Dismas, the good thief on Calvary.’

‘Okay, Dismas. It’s not my approach, I’ve been married to my Betty twenty-five years. But Owen isn’t like me or anybody else I know. He loved Eloise, his wife, and after she died he knew he wasn’t going to love anybody else, so he wasn’t looking for love and wasn’t going to kid around about it. It might sound cold, but it was pretty honest.’

‘So this May Shinn…?’

‘He’s been pretty steady with her since January, February, around in there.’

‘Did she go out on Owen’s boat Saturday?’

‘Celine says he was planning on it. That’s all I know.’

‘If he did, our probabilities increase,’ Hardy said.

‘Why do you say that?… Oh, I see.’

‘Do you have a way to reach her, May Shinn? Find out right now.’

The shadows had lengthened, the breeze had died. Farris dug into his wallet and pulled out a square of white paper. ‘Emergency numbers. I don’t know why I never thought of May.’

Hardy walked back beside him as Farris punched numbers into his car phone. He squinted at the paper. Next to Shinn’s name, he had just enough light and distance to make out the numbers, just enough time to memorize them.

*     *     *     *     *

He thought he’d also have enough time to swing by the Marina on his way out to the Avenues. It wasn’t far out of the way. And if he could prove Owen had been on the ocean on Saturday, the day before a hand that might be his turned up inside a shark at the Steinhart, he thought he’d be on his way to having a case.

May Shintaka hadn’t been home — or she hadn’t answered her telephone. Ken Farris had gotten an answering machine and asked her to call him as soon as she could.

Now at full dusk, there was a traffic jam just outside the Marina Safeway. Hardy remembered. It was Wednesday, the night the Marina Safeway turned into a meat market, the yuppies picking up each other with clever lines about the freshness of the arugula or the relative merits of dried versus handmade pasta.

His Suzuki Samurai out of place in the row of Beemers and Miatas, Hardy waited in the line of traffic, feeling old — so much older than when he’d been a father the time before. He was really running late. He ought to call Frannie, or Moses, at the Shamrock. Let them know he was on his way.

Or else forget about stopping at the Marina. What did he expect to find on or around the
Eloise
that wouldn’t be there in the morning? Except that he was already here. He’d call the Shamrock from a pay phone. Frannie would be with her brother — it wouldn’t hurt the two of them to kill a little time together alone. He’d only be a minute or two looking at the boat.

The light changed and he got through it on the yellow, after which it was only two blocks to the Marina itself, two hundred craft along four long pontoons behind a jetty, the land side closed off with an eight-foot fence topped with barbed wire.

Hardy sometimes thought he must have been a sailor in an earlier life — he had a visceral reaction to anything nautical. He loved to fish, to scuba dive, to walk sharks —trying to will them to life as though he had a special bond with them.

Now the briny scent of the air pumped him up. Locke and Drysdale be damned — he felt in his bones he was onto something and he was going to pursue it.

The guardhouse was set in a manicured square of grass at the entrance to the boat area. Hardy knocked on the open door and walked in. The attendant was about nineteen, dressed in a green uniform with a name tag that read ‘Tom’. He stood up at his desk behind a low counter. ‘Help you?’

To Hardy’s right, he could see the boats through the picture window. Four strings of white Christmas lights glittered over the pontoons.

He showed the boy his D.A.‘s badge, which was not issued by the office and not officially condoned. Hardy had gotten his at a uniform store down the peninsula and knew it could come in handy, especially with people who perhaps couldn’t read but understood a badge. He asked the young man if they kept a log of boat departures.

‘We tried that,’ he said, ‘but most of the people here like to come and go as they please. Still, we generally have some idea who’s out.’

‘Is the
Eloise
here now?’

‘Sure.’ Tom looked out the window and pointed. ‘She’s that low forty-five-foot cruiser at the end of Two.’ In the fading light, the sailboat looked beautiful. ‘Last time she went out was Saturday.’

‘Saturday. Did Mr Nash take her out?’

Tom shrugged. ‘I suppose so, but I didn’t see him. She — the
Eloise —
was out when I came on.’

‘When was that?’

‘Around noon. I work twelve to eight.’

‘Does somebody else come on then, after eight?’

‘No. We close up till next morning at six. What’s all this about? Is Mr Nash in some trouble?’

Hardy gave him all he really had. ‘He’s missing. It’d be helpful to know who saw him last.’

Tom bit his cheek, thinking. ‘I don’t think you’ll have much luck here. José, the morning guy, said she was already out when he came on.’

‘At six in the morning?’

Tom shrugged, wanting to be helpful. Hardy could tell he was wrestling with something. ‘Sometimes José’ll be a little late,‘ he said finally. ’But when that happens, he always stays late and makes up the time.‘

Hardy fought down a shiver of frustration. ‘What time did he stay till on Saturday?’

Tom got a little evasive. ‘I don’t know exactly. Three, three-thirty, around there.’

‘So he wasn’t here until seven or seven-thirty?’ Another shrug. ‘I don’t know for sure. I wasn’t here, either.’ Hardy blew out a breath. ‘Okay, this isn’t about José anyway. Could I take a look on board the
Eloise
?

Grateful to abandon the discussion on José‘s tardiness, Tom bobbed his head. ’Sure. It’s pretty slow now anyway.‘

On their way out to the boat, Hardy learned that security wasn’t all it could be at the Marina. Though Tom had a ring of master keys for the boats and a key for the gate that opened through the fence, the reality was that people slipped through with other parties all the time and owners forgot to close the gate behind them, or even to lock their boats. Theft wasn’t rampant by any means, but neither was it unknown. But what could the attendants do? Tom and José tried, but they had no real authority. If the boat owners weren’t going to follow their own rules, whose fault was that?

Up close, the
Eloise
was even more impressive than it had looked from the guardhouse. With a wide boom, Hardy thought maybe twelve to fourteen feet, it was berthed perpendicular to the main pontoon, too big to maneuver into any of the slips. Technically, the boat was a ketch — two poles, one fore and one aft. The steering wheel was sunk into the deck so the aft boom would clear the head of a standing pilot.

Casting off under motor power, even at only five knots, Hardy figured it wouldn’t take three minutes on the straight shot to get out beyond the jetty.

‘You mind if we go aboard a minute?’

It was already too dark to see much on the deck, not that Hardy was looking for anything specific. Tom, meanwhile, walked forward to the cabin door. ‘See, this is what I mean.’

Hardy came up beside him.

‘They leave the door unlocked. What are we supposed to do?’

‘Anything get taken? Maybe you should check.’

It was so easy Hardy almost felt guilty, but not enough to stop himself from following Tom down the ladder into the cabin.

The boy turned on the lights and stopped. ‘No, everything looks okay,’ he said.

Hardy thought
okay
was a bit of an understatement. They were in a stateroom that was easily as large as Hardy’s living room. A zebra rug graced the polished hardwood floor. Original art — oils in heavy frames — hung along the walls. There was a black leather sofa and matching loveseat, an Eames chair or a good copy of one, a built-in entertainment center along an entire wall — two TVs, large speakers, VCR, tape deck, compact disc player.

Being aboard seemed to make Tom nervous — he fidgeted from foot to foot. ‘Maybe we better go back up, huh? Doesn’t look like anything’s gone.’

But Hardy was moving forward. ‘Might as well be sure,’ he said lightly. He was at the galley — tile floor, gas stove, full-size refrigerator. A glimpse at the wet bar —Glenfiddich, Paradis Cognac, Maker’s Mark Bourbon, top-shelf liquors.

He heard Tom coming up behind him and kept walking forward to where the bulkhead came down. A full bathroom, far too big to let it go as the ‘head.’ The master bedroom, up front, was as large as Rebecca’s new room, the queen-size bed neatly made. Two desks, one a rolltop, an exercycle and some dumbbells, more expensive knick-knacks.

‘This is something,’ Hardy said. Tom stood mutely behind him. ‘Are there rooms aft?’

Hardy ached to open a few drawers in the desks. Casually, he moved to the desk on the bed’s right and pulled at the top drawer. It appeared to have nothing useful — paper clips, pens, standard desk stuff. The drawer on top to the side contained what looked like sweat bands. Hardy reached in and felt around. Sweat-bands. ‘Nothing here,’ he said, lightly as he could, closing the drawer.

Then around the bed, hoping Tom would stay another minute. The rolltop was closed up, but the front drawer slid open. Same story — nothing. Hardy pulled the side top drawer. ‘I don’t know if we should…’ Tom said.

A quick glance down, the drawer open a couple of inches — inside, some maps, navigation stuff. He pushed it closed with his hip and turned around.

‘You’re right, good point.’ Mr Agreeable. ‘Let the police get a warrant.’ Hardy turned around and walked quickly back through the galley and stateroom, past the steps leading up to the deck, past another bathroom off the aft hallway, to the first guest bedroom — double bed, dresser, television, a floating Holiday Inn.

‘We really should go up,’ Tom said from the steps.

‘Okay,’ Hardy, casual but determined, browsed the route back along the opposite hallway, passing through the second room, which was mirrored from floor to ceiling and equipped with most of a complete Nautilus set, a stair-climber, more free weights. Owen Nash took his workouts seriously.

Up on the deck, Tom took a minute to carefully lock the cabin door. Hardy asked, ‘How’s a boat like this sail?’

Tom locked the door, double-checked it. ‘Well, it’s not a hot rod. It’s really for deep water.’

‘Could one man handle her?’

They were walking back up the pontoon to the office, Tom leading. ‘Oh sure. The sail’s are on power if you need it. Mr Nash went out alone a lot. Over to the Farallons and back. It’s harder in a smaller boat, but he liked it.’

‘What’s at the Farallons?’ He asked about the small rock islands twenty miles off San Francisco’s coast.

‘I don’t know,’ Tom said. ‘They say that’s where the great whites breed — you know, the sharks. Maybe he was into them.’

Bad pun, Hardy thought.

They were at the Purple Yet Wah, out in the Avenues on Clement. Moses McGuire was sucking on a crab claw. ‘Black bean sauce,’ he said. ‘I believe with black bean sauce on Dungeness crab we have reached the apex of modern civilization.’