Hardy 05 - Mercy Rule, The (49 page)

‘That’s right.’

‘Good. Now, continuing with the transcript, you told Inspector Lanier — well, maybe you can read what it says here. Would you do that?’

Blue took the paper and read the highlighted text. ‘ “And then some other noises.” ’

Soma patiently nodded, leading her through it. ‘In other words, Blue, aren’t you saying here that the noises occurred after this someone arrived upstairs?’

Her face took on a pained expression. ‘No, I don’t mean that.’

‘But didn’t you say “then some other noises”?’

Blue was shaking her head. ‘But I don’t mean
then
like meaning
after
. I mean
then
like
next thing I thought
.’

This was bad news for the young attorney, who hadn’t given much thought to the woman’s syntax. She’d said
then
, which to him meant
after
. In this context that’s all the word meant to him. To someone with a little less education than Soma, however, the word could be almost endlessly fluid.

As Hardy had discovered when he’d talked to Blue, preparing for his cross.

But Soma couldn’t leave it. It struck him as unfair. He had the right meaning and he was, somehow, wrong. He turned to the jury, including them, his voice getting that familiar stridency. ‘But then
means
after, Blue. Isn’t that the meaning of the word?’

Hardy could have objected that he was badgering the witness, but Soma was shooting himself in the foot anyway and Hardy thought he’d let him do it. Blue pulled herself up. ‘Sometime it might. But that’s just not what I meant.’

*
    
*
    
*
    
*
    
*

During one of the afternoon recesses a uniformed police officer stuck a note in front of Hardy. Glitsky wanted to know where he could meet Hardy in moderate privacy after he got off today. Hardy thought a moment, then scribbled his reply and sent the officer on his way.

Glitsky had saved Hardy’s bacon.

By authorizing Sarah to look into George and Debra’s possible connection to Sal’s murder, he’d relieved Hardy of any obligation to tell Leland that his money was being used to investigate his own family. It was a police matter now.

Hardy and Glitsky hadn’t said a lot of words the previous night about their ongoing feud. It was behind them, leaving its slightly bitter residue. Instead, they mostly talked about the lieutenant’s long interview with Sarah Evans, which had led him to reconsider his earlier decision to drop the investigation.

The rest of Hardy’s afternoon was taken up by four witnesses, various other residents of Sal’s building, people who’d seen Graham in the vicinity. Hardy asked each of them the same questions: had they ever witnessed anything like a fight between Sal and Graham? Did they see or hear a struggle of any kind in or around Sal’s apartment on May 9?

They all said no to everything.

*
    
*
    
*
    
*
    
*

The breeze was stiff out of the west, bending the cypresses in the Park as the lieutenant headed west along Lincoln. A fitful sunlight struggled through the intermittent cloud cover and, when it could, cast long shadows. Traffic was heavy until he turned on Masonic, winding his way back up to Edgewood.

He parked and got out of his car. There was no sign of any wind up here, though in the sky some angels had raked the cirrus into neat rows. He crossed the street and walked up to the address Hardy had given him.

Hardy was leaning against his car, his arms crossed over his chest. ‘You said private. I thought you’d like it here.’

The lieutenant threw another look all around. ‘What is this place?’

‘Graham Russo lives here.’

Glitsky nodded. ‘I wish I did.’ Then, ‘Evans and I had another talk today. We didn’t do this right.’

‘I know that.’

‘You know about Tosca and this guy Ising?’

‘Graham’s mentioned them both.’

‘You didn’t hire an investigator? Find out what they’ve been up to?’

Hardy told a fib of omission. ‘Money’s tight, Abe. I’m barely breaking even.’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t worry about who did it. It’s my job to get my client off.’

‘What I hear, you might be doing that.’

Again, a shrug. ‘It could happen, though we got a bad jury for it. So what are we doing up here, me and you?’

‘This time of day there’s lots of eyes at the Hall.’ Glitsky looked around the quiet street as though checking for spies. He took his time answering. ‘I wanted to let you know we’re going to keep looking. Evans wants to go and question the brother and sister directly, but that gets squirrely. We’d have to give them a reason, and then what?’

‘I’ve had the same problem.’

‘And these possible money angles.’ Glitsky shook his head. ‘Contrary to popular belief I don’t want to ace the wrong guy.’

‘Time’s running out, Abe. It might be too late already.’

‘I know,’ Glitsky said. ‘But for the record.’

There was only a slim chance it would do much good in the time he had left. Still, it was a grand gesture for a professional cop and administrator. ‘For the record,’ Hardy said, ‘I appreciate it.’

*
    
*
    
*
    
*
    
*

Frannie was asleep by nine.

Hardy tossed until eleven, then got up and turned on the news. After yesterday’s human-interest bombshell with Sarah and the fallout from her testimony, the trial was back to hot copy. Hardy learned that evidently he’d done well with Blue today; the newscaster reported that one of the prosecution’s major witnesses had failed to establish that any struggle had taken place in the apartment between Sal Russo and his son.

‘But tomorrow is Alison Li, the bank teller who—’ Hardy hit the remote and decided to give sleep another try.

31

This wasn’t possible, Hardy was telling himself. Could it be that his own stupidity was going to cost him the case? It looked that way right now. The four attorneys were in Salter’s chambers talking about the admissibility of the videotapes. Freeman might believe that the defense didn’t need them, that the entire money/bank issue was beside the point, but to Hardy they were the equivalent of a smoking gun for the defense. If the videotapes were admitted after Soma had gone to great lengths to prove that Graham had, for whatever reason, come to the bank on Friday, Hardy had
proof
that he hadn’t. It would devastate the prosecution’s argument.

But now it was looking as though it wasn’t going to happen. Drysdale and Soma hadn’t questioned the tape’s admissibility in any of the pretrial hearings, but now, with Alison Li coming up next, they’d requested this hearing in chambers, charging that Hardy couldn’t lay any foundation for the tape — what it was, where it came from, how it was relevant. It should be ruled inadmissible.

‘Judge’ — Hardy was on his feet in front of Salter’s desk — ‘I got this tape months ago. It was in my discovery that I shared with the prosecution. Mr Soma and Mr Drysdale have had every opportunity to review it. It clearly shows that my client didn’t go into the bank on Friday, which is one of the cornerstones of their case.’

If Hardy wasn’t so hot himself, he might have been concerned by his partner, David Freeman’s, posture. The old man was in a corner of the room, seated, arms crossed, keeping out of it. A bad sign in itself.

Drysdale, too, had recovered from his explosion of the other afternoon. He was low-affect here, and he did most of the talking.

Soma stood next to him, barely concealing his smugness. Drysale was talking: ‘We have no problem with the original tape, Judge. Our problem is with Mr Hardy’s copy.’

‘All right, so let’s use the original,’ Hardy said, giving up a point far too quickly. The greatest enemy in any trial was surprise, and Hardy had just opened himself up for another one.

‘We were told the original’s been erased.’ Soma couldn’t keep the note of triumph out of his voice.

Hardy had no idea how long Soma had known this, or for how long he’d been planning his ambush, but he was obviously enjoying the hell out of it now.

Hardy turned to him. ‘It has not been erased.’ But even as he said it, he knew it had to be true. Soma wouldn’t have any reason to bluff. ‘I asked the bank to save it.’

He had figured he had the copy. He’d even copied the
copy
to give to Soma and Drysdale. The efficient and personable Ms Reygosa, the manager, had assured Hardy that the bank would keep the original as backup.

With his infuriating calm, Drysdale was back at Salter. ‘Naturally, we wanted to review the original for accuracy after we’d seen Mr Hardy’s copy, Your Honor. Evidently the bank misinterpreted Mr Hardy’s request and thought that once the tape had been copied, they would be free to reuse it.’

Hardy pressed his fingers against his temples. This could not be happening. It was completely his incompetence. He couldn’t believe it, and there was no one to blame but himself. ‘Your Honor, I have the copy and it has remained unedited and in my possession—’

Soma cut him off, shaking his head in disagreement. ‘The copy could have come from Blockbuster, Your Honor. There’s no date or time on it. It could be anything.’

‘I’ll get Ms Reygosa to testify it is a complete and accurate copy of the original that’s been erased, Your Honor. That’s sufficient foundation.’

‘Alas, Mr Hardy’ — Soma’s dramatic reading made Hardy want to punch him — ‘Ms Reygosa didn’t make the copy. The copy was made by one Juan Xavier Gonzalez, who has returned to his native Honduras after somebody took a hard look at his immigration status.’

‘You son of a—’

‘Look, Diz.’ This was Drysdale, serious now, cutting Hardy off before he talked himself into a contempt fine. ‘Technical inadmissibility aside, your tapes are supposed to cover three working days, right? Twenty-four hours.’

‘We all know this,’ Hardy said.

‘Except they’re only a little over twenty-two and a half hours long. There’s an hour and a half missing.’

Hardy well remembered his day of fast-forwarding the videos to the good parts. Evidently Soma hadn’t let his own boredom make him sloppy.

Drysdale went on. ‘This guy Gonzalez not only erased the originals. He
couldn’t
have given you full copies.’ He turned to Salter. ‘There’s no foundation, Judge, and more to the point, these tapes don’t prove a thing.’ Drysdale didn’t have the gloating tone, but the words alone were enough.

Unnoticed by Hardy, Freeman had pulled himself out of his chair. Hardy felt a hand on his shoulder, reassuring.

Salter had heard enough. The tapes were inadmissible.

*
    
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*
    
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*

Gil Soma started on each witness with an enthusiasm that Hardy found daunting, especially so after the defeat he’d just suffered in chambers. No videotapes! After all of his effort to procure them. What a fool he was.

Now, on Thursday afternoon, Soma was approaching the end of his case in chief. From his self-confident demeanor it was clear that he barely, if at all, felt any of the wounds that Hardy had inflicted.

Alison Li started out as nervous as she’d been at the bank on the day Hardy had first interviewed her. Soma was gentle with her, leading her through the standard witness questions — name, place of business, and so on — gradually getting to the meat. ‘Ms Li, do you recognize the defendant here’ — pointing — ‘Graham Russo?’

‘Yes, I do. He’s a customer at the bank where I work.’

Pleased out of all proportion, Soma slowly walked back to his table and picked up a piece of paper, and entered it into evidence. ‘Now, Ms Li, I’d like you to look at People’s Fourteen here and tell us if you recognize this document.’

She took the paper and scanned it quickly. ‘Yes, this is a sign-in form for customers holding safe-deposit boxes.’

‘And did you see Graham Russo, the defendant, sign this document?’

‘Yes, I did.’

Now Soma put his enthusiasm to good use. ‘Ms Li, aren’t customers supposed to sign in
and date
this form?’

‘Yes.’

‘But, as we see here, Mr Russo didn’t do that, did he?’

‘No.’

‘Did you ask him to do it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And yet he didn’t?’

Hardy wanted to break up the rhythm, so he stood up. ‘Asked and answered, Your Honor.’

Perhaps Salter was sympathetic to Hardy’s despair. This wasn’t much of an objection. Still, the judge nodded. ‘True enough. Sustained. Move along, Mr Soma.’

But Soma had a knack for the small and telling variation. ‘Did the defendant give a reason why he wouldn’t put the date on this form?’

‘No. I didn’t notice. He said he would and I thought he did, but he didn’t.’

And so it went.

By the time Hardy stood to begin his cross-examination, Alison Li had drawn the picture clearly. Graham Russo had come in sometime that Friday afternoon and deposited something in his safe deposit box. He appeared nervous. He was in a hurry.

They thought they’d have the videotapes to fall back upon, and without them Hardy was forced to bring David Freeman’s argument into play. The defense team had prepared extensively for it, and Hardy was possessed of a near ethereal, desperate calm as he walked to the center of the courtroom.

He brought a smile forth and showed it to the witness. ‘Ms Li. You have testified that Graham Russo brought a briefcase with him on the afternoon in question. At any time, did you see the contents of the briefcase?’

Alison’s nerves were back in play. She shifted in her chair, looked at the jury, then at Soma, finally back to Hardy. ‘I never said I did.’

‘I didn’t say you did either.’ Hardy kept any threat out of his voice. They were having a conversation, that was all. ‘But I am asking you now. Did you see what was in the briefcase?’

‘No.’

‘Not at any time?’

‘No, never.’