Nothing but the Truth (12 page)
Frannie didn’t like that terminology. “Maybe technically, but that wasn’t what it was. He was saving them. And then, after he’d gone through all that, Bree was going to threaten the whole—”
He held up a hand. “Wait a minute, wait a minute! Forget about Bree. You’re telling me Ron lost the custody battle in court and then he took the kids? When was this?”
“I’m not sure exactly. Maybe six or eight years ago, I’d guess. It would have to be at least that.”
Hardy sat riveted to his chair, barely hearing her.
She continued. “He managed to get set up out here, change his name, get together with Bree. And everything was going along fine until she got involved with this Kerry . . .” She stopped.
Hardy couldn’t hold back the sarcasm. “Everything was going along fine except that he was wanted for kidnapping?”
“But that wasn’t a real problem—”
“Yes it was, Frannie. I don’t care what he told you.”
But she was shaking her head. “No. That was over. Nobody was looking for him anymore. There wasn’t a problem until he and Bree started fighting, and he thought even that would blow over until—”
Hardy cut her off again. His earlier patient and understanding persona was taking a beating. “Until she had the bad grace to get herself killed.” He dragged his palm across his forehead. “So where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
He tried to keep his voice modulated, but wasn’t entirely successful. “You realize of course that if the police get anywhere on this, they’re going to come to the conclusion that he killed her. The truth is,
I
think he killed her.”
I
think he killed her.”
“He didn’t kill her, Dismas. He’s desperate. He’s trying to save his children.”
“He kidnapped his children to save them. Maybe he killed his wife to save her. Or here’s a thought—maybe he killed his wife to save the kids again. Maybe he’ll kill you next.”
“He didn’t kill anybody. He’s not going to kill anybody.”
Hardy would have said that he’d been at the end of his tether when he arrived at the jail. Now there was no doubt about it—he was completely wrung out. Frannie’s hollow denial gonged in his ears, but he knew he was powerless to convince her of anything but what she already thought. Not today, in any case, not now.
He consciously reined himself in, sought a different path. “So Ron’s gone and you’re here. Telling the grand jury what you know can’t make any difference now to him.”
“Of course it can. If they search for him and find him, they’ll take his kids. But they’re not even trying to locate him yet—you told me that.”
“They will be, Frannie. He’s going to be their prime suspect as soon as he’s officially missing, which is going to happen like two minutes after Abe starts looking for him. By Tuesday morning when it meets again, the grand jury’s going to indict him for Bree’s murder, you wait and see.”
This hard fact—and Hardy believed it was the whole truth—finally seemed to get through to her. She slumped back in her chair, hugging his jacket around her. When she looked up at him, the fight had gone out of her. Still, she wasn’t backing down. She said it flatly. “He didn’t kill her, Dismas.”
He sighed. “All right, let’s go with that. Either way, what do you want me to do now?”
8
Lou the Greek’s was a dark bar/restaurant in the basement of a bail bondsman’s building across the street from the Hall of Justice. When Hardy was at court, he’d often stop into the place for some kind of lunch or a drink at the end of the day. Lou the Greek had married a Chinese woman, and every day she would put together her own version of California Asian cuisine.
All over the city, celebrity chefs were making their reputations and fortunes by marrying the finest ingredients from the Pacific Rim and creating stunning masterpieces—lobster ravioli in a lemon-grass-infused beurre blanc, tuna sashimi over Tuscan white beans with thyme and wasabi mustard.
Here at Lou’s you’d get stuffed grape leaves with sweet-and-sour sauce, fried squid floating in a bowl of dip made from garlic, cucumbers, and yogurt. Surprisingly, most of Lou’s wife’s stuff tasted pretty good even if the architecture of the plate, as they called it, left a little something to be desired.
But it was still hours from lunchtime, and Hardy wasn’t there to eat anyway. He was tucked into a corner booth around a mug of coffee, waiting for David Freeman.
After leaving Frannie, he’d gone by Glitsky’s empty office, leaving a note about Ron Beaumont’s absence, then went down to the third floor to confront Scott Randall personally—physically wasn’t even out of the question.
Even though it was well past eight o’clock, there wasn’t a soul in the entire DA’s wing. And they wondered why their conviction rates were in the toilet. Convictions, hell—they didn’t even
charge
crimes in San Francisco at the same rate as in other counties.
charge
crimes in San Francisco at the same rate as in other counties.
So Hardy went to Lou’s to wait, perhaps to try and think. He’d all but forgotten about the existence of the drinking breakfast crowd—guys and girls who were here when the door opened at six a.m. and had a couple of beers or a Bloody Mary. He recognized half a dozen fringe players from around the Hall and wondered how many of them recognized their need for a morning pick-me-up as any kind of danger sign.
But being a supercilious bastard was an easy game to play. At the moment, he didn’t feel he had much of a leg up on any of them. His wife was still in jail and all of his training, discipline, sobriety, and connections weren’t doing her any good at all.
For half a second he considered downing a couple of shots of something, put himself into creative mode, get out of his linear head until some great idea presented itself. Except that those great wet ideas, and he’d had plenty, never seemed to make the cut after the hangover.
Lou was silent with a surly edge this morning, and that suited Hardy to his toes. He pushed his mug toward the side of the table and got it topped up just as David Freeman slid into the booth across from him. “Hey Lou, give me one of those fast, would you? Three sugars, black. Christ, it’s dark in here. You ever notice that, Diz?”
“The food looks better that way. What did Braun say?”
Freeman wasn’t in any hurry to get to it. He fiddled with his jacket for minute, squirmed down into the leatherette seat. “Marian. You know I took her out a couple of times when we were both starting out. Everybody called her Marian the librarian of course. Great legs.” Freeman sighed, remembering, then clucked sympathetically. “She used to be a lot more fun.”
“We all did, David.”
“Not true. Take me, for example. I’m in my prime. Have been for a while, actually.”
“I’m happy for you,” Hardy replied. “What’s the opposite of prime? That’s where I am. What did Marian say about my wife?” Freeman had his hands folded on the table between them. Lou was back with his coffee and Freeman pulled it over in front of him, blowing on it, stalling. “David?”
A glance over the mug. “Truth is, and she didn’t make any bones about it, she’s not too happy with her.”
“Truth is, I’m not so much either.”
A pause. “So I gather she didn’t tell you the big secret?”
Hardy shrugged that off—he didn’t even want to start trying to explain this mess to David Freeman. If he got even a taste of the bone, he’d gnaw it to dust. “She says it’s a matter of honor. She gave her word—she can’t tell.” He made a face. “But that wasn’t the issue with Braun anyway.”
“No,” Freeman agreed. “Though that might have been better. If it was only a matter of law . . .” He let it hang there.
“She’s pissed?”
“Very.”
Hardy swore. “Would it help if I talked to her? Got Frannie to apologize? Did you tell her there are young children involved here?”
“I brought out the heavy artillery, Diz. She doesn’t— how can I put this?—give a shit. She said Frannie’s done it to herself. Braun’s never in her career had anybody show such disrespect for the bench.”
“That’s got to be an exaggeration.”
“It doesn’t matter if it is if that’s how the judge feels.” Freeman shrugged. “The two of ’em got into a catfight, Diz, that’s what happened.”
“But Frannie didn’t
do
anything, David. She’s going along living her life,
our
life. She’s not a criminal, not even a suspect for anything—”
do
anything, David. She’s going along living her life,
our
life. She’s not a criminal, not even a suspect for anything—”
“Material witness.”
“Not even that, not really.”
Again, Freeman’s maddening nonchalant shrug. The law was the law. You could rant about it all you want, as people complained about the weather, and to about as much effect. “It’s the grand jury, Diz. You know as well as I do. Hell, you’ve even used it.”
Hardy couldn’t deny it. Grand juries had awesome power. When he’d been a prosecutor, going before the grand jury had been one of his favorite pastimes. He would take a recalcitrant witness, put him in front of the panel without his attorney present, no judge to keep things on point, and keep that poor sucker up there for hours, often without a food or water or bathroom break, asking leading questions, doing whatever it took to get his evidence onto the record, because that’s what the grand jury was for.
And though Scott Randall was certainly abusing it now, Hardy had to remember that the grand jury had come into existence, and still functioned, as a vehicle to protect civil rights. Because of its secrecy provisions and the teeth with which infractions against them were enforced, the grand jury was the only place where prosecutors could get answers from scared or recalcitrant witnesses, where the truth could come out. Nobody could ever know you were even there or what you might have said. You were safe—from your enemies, from corrupt officials, from the prying media.
In theory, anyway.
But now Frannie. He would not have dreamed this could ever happen to someone in his personal life. And never to his wife. Frannie wasn’t living on the edge of the law. She wasn’t like the others. Except that now, to Marian Braun and Scott Randall, it appeared that she was.
Even after all of his experience with the law, this perspective hit him with almost a concussive force. The law could happen to anybody. Again, Freeman’s analogy with the weather. A hurricane had just swept Frannie up, and now she was in it.
But Freeman was resolutely moving ahead, as he did. Problem solving. “Have you talked to anybody yet who’s found the husband, what’s his name?”
“Beaumont. Ron Beaumont. No, Glitsky wasn’t around. I left him a note. I’m going back up after we’re done here. But let’s not leave Frannie.”
“I’m not leaving her. I think we ought to go to the newspapers with this after all. Even if Randall and Pratt don’t fold, Marian might be responsive to that kind of pressure. At least it’s worth a shot.” He drank some coffee. “But I think we need to consider cutting our losses.”
“Which are?”
“The four days. Unless they locate Mr. Beaumont and can get him to talk, she’s got herself a bigger problem than four days.”
Scott Randall was sitting comfortably in a folding chair, his legs crossed comfortably. With him in the large but spartan expanse of Sharron Pratt’s office were homicidelieutenant Abe Glitsky, homicide sergeants Tyler Coleman and Jorge Batavia, and Randall’s own DA’s investigator, Peter Struler. Randall was having himself a fine morning. At last, things were moving along on Beaumont, and all because of this Frannie Hardy woman.
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