Nothing but the Truth (64 page)
Except . . .
Except that Ron was lying. The conversion had been too swift and too unencumbered. He’d made his decision, all right, but it wasn’t to wait around for another day and go to court to clear all this up. Instead, Hardy had no doubt at all that at the appointed hour tomorrow morning, Ron and his children would be gone with no trace.
But if he were wrong.
His insides churned and his skin felt clammy. In front of him, his hands were clenched—the only way he could keep them from shaking.
Pushing himself up from the chair, he stood still, trying yet again to envision the struggle that must have occurred here. But nothing spoke to him. He crossed over to the French doors, unlocked them, pulled them open, stepped outside.
It was all the same. The planters with their meager shrubbery. The small table and chairs, exactly as they’d been when he’d first come here. Three steps brought him across the slippery tiles of the balcony to the rough iron grillwork.
He tested its strength and found it solid. He wasn’t tempted to lean his body into it, but again, hands on the rail, he was drawn to peer over and down to the enclosed rectangle of garden below. The sensation—the height itself—was mesmerizing. It held him there while seconds ticked until finally the vertigo straightened him up.
Backing away, he shuddered, wondering at the primeval power of the urge to fall—death’s easy, frighteningly inviting availability with one instant of weakness.
Or assent.
It was unnerving.
The railing was wet from thirty hours wrapped in fog and he went to wipe his hands on his jacket. A foghorn boomed from down below and suddenly he stopped himself.
Rust stains. Fabric wash.
He turned his palms up. With the sun just down, the dusk had rapidly advanced, but there was still enough natural light to make out the faint striations.
For another long moment, he stood without moving. The switch for the light over the balcony was behind him and he turned around and flicked it. The rust wasn’t dark on his hands, but it had come off the grillwork sufficiently to be easily identifiable.
Again he crossed to the railing, but this time squatted so that the top of it was at his eye level. Where he’d stood, the condensation had of course been cleared, but beyond that he thought he could make out where his hands had taken the rust. Swiping the arm of his jacket strongly over the area, the smooth and rugged Gore-Tex caught in a couple of places, and then when he pulled it away, the railing had left a line of rust on it.
But far more important, the metal itself reflected what he’d done. The top thin layer of rust had been wiped away. It was subtle, but unmistakable.
And it led to a similarly unmistakable and startling conclusion. If Bree’s body had been dumped over this railing with sufficient friction to leave rust stains on her clothes, two things should have been immediately apparent to even an inept and overworked crime scene investigator. The first was there would have been a noticeable if not obvious spot on the railing where the rust had been disturbed.
And the second, Hardy thought, would have even been more telling. His own space age jacket had caught a couple of times when he’d swiped at the railing. Bree had been wearing cotton and wool, the fabrics of which would have snagged all along on the rough ironwork of the railing.
His brain was spinning as he stood again and looked down over the lights coming on in the city below. He didn’t have to go back and check any of his folders, the contents of his briefcase. He’d memorized most of that long ago anyway.
One of the most perplexing aspects of the crime scene investigation into Bree’s death had been its inability to produce even a shred of physical evidence to tie any suspect to events in this room, on this balcony. And now Hardy understood why that had been.
Fabric wash.
No trace of fabric on the railing.
David Glenn, the building superintendent, remembered him and said he could come in, but they had to keep it short. Glenn had to keep working. His friends would be showing up any time for cards and Monday Night Football and if the food wasn’t laid out, the shit hit the fan.
So they went to the clean, brightly lit kitchen, where Glenn continued to arrange the cold cuts and cheeses, the breads and pickles and condiments. Hardy, who by now had pretty much given up on the idea that he’d ever eat regularly again, stood by the counter and tried not to notice the food.
“I don’t know exactly,” Glenn was saying. Hardy had asked him how many people resided in the building, if Glenn was familiar with all of them. “There’s only a couple of places—the Beaumonts and then the Mahmoutis on four—that have kids. Then mostly couples, three or four singles. Say forty, give or take, altogether.”
“Full-time tenants?”
“Well.” Glenn studied an olive and popped it into his mouth. “Owners. I told you before. Some of these people I never see.”
“Never?”
Glenn considered. “Almost, some of them. I could pass them on the street.”
“How can that be?”
“Easy, really. The place is designed for privacy. You got your parking space under the building. You take the elevator to your room. Some units, nobody’s ever home. You ask me, nobody lives there, but we get the checks. Couple of them are companies. You know, hold the places for their executives when they’re in town.” He must have seen Hardy eyeing the food. “Hey, you hungry? You want a bite?”
“That’s okay, thanks. Do you know who the companies are offhand?”
“Sure. There’s just two of ’em. Standard Warehousing— I think they’re out of Phoenix. And some Russians. Diamond merchants, they say. Talk about never here.”
“So, other than those, how many units don’t have regular tenants?”
He chewed another olive. “It’s not something I give much thought to. Maybe two, I’d say, maybe three.”
“Is one of them nine-oh-two?”
He stopped chewing, stopped fussing with the food and gave Hardy his full attention. “Is this still about Bree?”
Hardy nodded. “Would nine-oh-two have a balcony under hers?”
A slow nod. “Yeah. All the twos are the back units. Rita Browning.”
“And who is she? Do you know her?”
“Not from Eve.” He shook his head. “She’s one of ’em.”
The last person Hardy wanted to see was Abe Glitsky.
And now, carrying a brown paper bag, here he was, being shown into the Solarium by one of Freeman’s young associates. Aside from Hardy and Freeman, two other associates labored at the table drawing up subpoenas for the hearing in Braun’s courtroom the next morning.
Freeman whistled happily, tonelessly, annoyingly, but none of the worker bees joined in. This was not volunteerovertime. Freeman had knocked on office doors, interrupting, recruiting. And they’d barely begun—after the subpoenas were prepared, they were going to serve them well into the night.
“We need to talk,” the lieutenant said.
Hardy gestured apologetically to the people working for him. “Sorry,” he said. “Five minutes.”
Glitsky wasn’t so sure. He faced down the impatient stares and responded calmly. “Maybe a little more.”
The frustrated comments of the young associates were not quite inaudible as they’d trudged up the stairs. Hardy closed his office door behind them, turned on the lights.
Glitsky wasted no time. “We’re being set up.”
As he explained it, Hardy went over and sat down heavily on the couch. His papers and research materials were still spread all over the coffee table in front of him, but they seemed somehow unimportant now—old news, irrelevant.
Kind of like himself.
“From what I can gather,” Glitsky concluded, “the DA’s new theory is that we’re running a cover-up, protecting Ron Beaumont. You’re his attorney. I’m your friend. We’re all going to make a lot of money on Bree’s insurance.”
“That’ll be fun,” Hardy said grimly, “when that happens.”
“I think so, too.” Glitsky wasn’t smiling either. “I hear you’re pretty strapped for cash. I wouldn’t even put it past you to burn down your house. How about that?”
“Just as a stopgap measure before I collect on Bree.” It was a small relief to understand the grilling he’d taken with the fire inspectors that afternoon. Somebody had pointed in his direction as the arsonist, and now he knew who it was. “This boy Scott Randall is a menace, Abe. You put him with Pratt and they start doing the tango together, watch out.”
“I’m watching. But they do have me thinking I’ve got to release the information about Griffin and Canetta being tied to Bree Beaumont.”
“Why is that?”
“To prove that—”
“You’re trying to find who killed them! What do they have on you? What
could
they have on you?”
could
they have on you?”
“I haven’t arrested Beaumont.”
“You know where he is?”
“No.”
Hardy almost laughed. “Well, there you go. That’s a pretty good reason.”
“Yeah, but they’re getting me on appearance. They cast Ron as the obvious suspect and I’m not looking for him. I’m covering for him.”
“You’re looking at the facts instead. How about that? That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
“I know. I know.” Glitsky heaved a great sigh. “You’re right.”
“Not often enough,” Hardy said, “but every once in a while and this is one of those times.” Although this was pure bravado.
In fact, the situation was worse than Glitsky suspected. Would anyone—Randall or Pratt or the internal affairs people—believe that Hardy had known of Ron Beaumont’s whereabouts and hadn’t told his friend the lieutenant? It was unlikely.
Further, if Hardy did tell Glitsky where Ron was now—and he had no intention on that score—what was his friend supposed to do? Become an accessory to the federal crime of kidnapping? Place Hardy under arrest? Or—even if Hardy could somehow finesse the fact of Cassandra—was Glitsky supposed to put Ron into the system, the very result Hardy had struggled to avoid at such great cost?
He couldn’t tell him. There was no way.
But by not telling him, he was leaving Glitsky vulnerable to the charges that Randall and Pratt were asserting against him, and that could cost him his job, his credibility, his honor.
“What?” Glitsky asked.
“Nothing. I don’t know. Maybe an idea.” Hardy pretended to search through the pages laid out on the table in front of him. “Here,” he said, “right here. Bree’s funeral.”
“What about it?”
Smoothly deceptive, hating himself for what he had to do, he began to walk Glitsky through it. He said—it had just occurred to him—that maybe Ron had an alibi for the time of Griffin’s death after all. Maybe the priest at—what church was it now? St. Catherine’s?—maybe he’d been with Ron for most of the day, or at least some reasonable portion of it, the important times, taking care of the myriad details.
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