The Hearing (23 page)

She fired it back at him. “He
was
sorry. He just . . . he was . . .”

“And so, because he was sorry, you let him come back and stay with you again, right?”

“What was I supposed to do, Mr. Hardy? I’m his mother. Let him sleep on the streets?”

“Other parents have,” he said simply. “It’s been known to happen.”

“Well, I couldn’t. He was trying.” She took a deep breath. “He was trying.” The staggered breaths kept coming as though she’d been running.

He wanted to ask if she thought Cole had been trying Monday morning when he stole the other bum’s whiskey and went off wandering downtown, trying to find his “g.” But that would just be more talking, more arguing. He had a different idea, one that he suddenly knew would be far more effective.

His discovery documents were on the desk at his elbow, and he lifted a labeled manila folder, extracting from it what he needed—one of the coroner’s close-ups of Elaine Wager’s ear. He crossed back to Jody and laid the perfectly focused, full-color eight-by-ten on the table in front of her. “Look at her ear, Mrs. Burgess,” he ordered harshly. “Where Cole ripped her earring out. He also broke her finger getting her ring off, Mrs. Burgess. Was he trying then? Was that trying? Was that your good boy?”

“You’re horrible!” she screamed. “He didn’t—”

“Yes he did, Mrs. Burgess!” he snapped back, his own voice raised. “He sure as hell did.” Hardy turned abruptly, calming himself, and when he felt he could speak, he did. “It’s horrible, all right,” he said softly, “but it’s not me.”

He was breathing hard himself now, half expecting that the next sound he heard would be the door opening and closing behind him. Instead, he heard nothing, and eventually he turned.

She was doubled over, her whole body shaking. He came around the table and sat closely next to her. He put an arm around her shoulder.

It didn’t seem to help.

Afterwards, the office seemed a little constricted, and they went downstairs to the building’s unique conference room. The residents had nicknamed it the Solarium because when there was afternoon sun, which happened frequently, though not today, this room miraculously caught some of it. Enormous potted plants thrived under its greenhouse windows and glass roof. It opened onto a small enclosed garden that in the summer bloomed with impatiens and pansies, vinca and lobelia, and that today featured dirt, a bench and a hundred square feet of brown lawn.

Hardy brought his discovery documents down with them. Jody had recovered somewhat after first breaking down completely. She’d wanted to see all of the photos, then to scan the police reports, so Hardy put his folders in front of her and sat on her right.

In the garden area outside, he watched some sparrows flit about, picking at the lawn.

After about ten minutes, she closed the last folder. Hardy waited another moment or two, then spoke conversationally. “That’s the person Torrey wants the jury to see. If he succeeds, Cole is in trouble. I need you to understand that.”

“These pictures, what these policemen wrote. It looks like . . .” She swallowed her own words, couldn’t continue.

“Yes, it does. And even if we argue that he just came upon her after she was dead, the theft of the jewelry doesn’t exactly cast him in the most sympathetic light.”

“And you’re pretty sure he took the jewelry? That he did that?”

He was loath to punish Jody anymore, but this he couldn’t deny. “All of it was on his person when they brought him in. The best you could say is that he knew she was already dead while he was robbing her. He wasn’t hurting her.”

She dabbed at her eyes. “That’s not much of a best.”

“No, it’s not.” Whether he’d been excessively cruel or not, Hardy now at least had her where she might be receptive to what he had to say. “This is why I’m talking about a guilty plea. Once we get to trial, if we do, this case will be hard to win on its merits in front of a jury. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She nodded miserably.

“That’s why I thought it would be worthwhile to explore some legal solutions short of trial.”

“Where you admit he did it?”

“Where he pleads guilty, yes, which is not exactly the same thing.”

“In return for what?”

“I would hope for no death penalty, to begin with. Then a possible parole someday.”

“Oh God, prison.” She looked at him sharply. “What do you mean, you hope?”

“I mean it wouldn’t stun me to have Torrey turn us down.” He explained that the D.A.’s office was already taking a lot of flak for pleading out important cases. Sharron Pratt had already handpicked this one, hitching her political fortunes to it. Getting her to agree to a plea wasn’t going to be a slam dunk by any means. And the bad news wasn’t over yet. “Even if we go to trial and convince a jury that the murder was a lesser offense, which is about the best we can expect, we’re going to wind up about where we are today—in jail, going to prison for a very long time.”

Jody’s face told Hardy that this was the first day of her season in hell. Her eyes were shot with red, heavy lidded and swollen. Her skin had taken on a mottled look. She barely dared phrase the question. “But what if they do find him not guilty? What if you convince them?”

“Then he goes free.” He reached over and touched her hand. “But Jody, so we have no misunderstanding, I have to tell you I’m not inclined to try to do that.”

Earlier in the afternoon, she might have regarded that announcement with horror. Now she closed her eyes for a moment, took in a deep breath, gathering her strength. “Why not?”

“Because here’s that story: Cole, a heroin addict, is walking around drunk and maybe stoned early on a Monday morning. He’s carrying a gun . . .”

“But he isn’t. He said that wasn’t true.”

Hardy acknowledged that, but so what? “The jury will have heard he was carrying the gun. He’s looking for someone to rob so that he’ll have money for his drug habit, and he happens upon Elaine Wager. When the police arrive like two minutes later, Elaine is dead and Cole is stripping her body of jewelry. He runs. He’s fired the gun. A few hours later, he confesses to killing her.”

Hardy softened his voice nearly to a whisper. “The jury is going to hear all that, Jody. There is physical evidence to back it all up. I’m not even saying here that I think he did it. This isn’t me. This is the jury. If I go in front of them and just say ‘No, all of that’s true except it wasn’t Cole who killed her,’ you know what’s going to happen? They’ll convict him of everything. And then when we argue that they should spare his life, our credibility will be shot.”

She looked at him, knowing he was right.

He had to go on. “I can do that if that’s what we all decide. We can try to get Cole straight and put him on the stand all dressed and cleaned up and he can deny it, deny Cullen gave him the gun, tell the whole truth. But if I let him do that, I’m not giving him his best defense.”

“Even if it’s true? That he didn’t kill her?”

“Yes, even if he didn’t kill her. Even if he was just the unluckiest man alive on Monday morning. He has no alibi. There’s precious little, if any, evidence in his favor.” Hardy knew it sounded hopeless. What was worse, the more he talked about it, the more he was coming to believe that it was hopeless. He tried to explain it a last time. “Jody, I want to tell the truth to the jury, and I believe the truth is that whether or not Cole killed Elaine, he wasn’t in his right mind as the law defines the term. He was unconscious. He shouldn’t be executed.”

“And that’s what I should be praying for? That my son won’t be executed?”

Hardy nodded somberly. He looked out at the sparrows again, still pecking for crumbs on the dead winter lawn. “It might be a good place to start.”

G
ene Visser was whistling the children’s song “It’s a Small World” through a toothpick as he exited the elevator into the basement of the Hall of Justice. He was accompanied by his friend and employer Dash Logan and a sergeant of narcotics named Bills Keene, whose father had been a fanatic follower of football from Buffalo. As a child, Bills had been a tough enough kid to grow into the name. He still rooted for Buffalo’s team, which last night had killed the 49ers on
Monday Night Football
.

“I’m telling you, Dash, it was the best night of my life. Here I am, giving ten points, and I had half the department lining up to give me their money.”

Visser stopped whistling. “You were giving ten on the Bills? Next time, call me.”

Keene looked over happily. “I’ll put you on the list, or you can direct-deposit into my account, either way.”

“So how’d you make out?” Dash asked.

They were moving into the reception area just off the records room/evidence locker. The time was a little after three o’clock in the afternoon, and they were the only people downstairs except for the officers assigned to evidence security.

“Eight hundred forty dollars.”

Logan whistled, impressed. “I hope you’re declaring it.”

“Every penny.” Keene was grinning broadly, having a fine old time on an otherwise slow workday. The cop behind the window came up and greeted them. “Including the twenty of Officer McDougal here. Hey, Gary. How ’bout them Bills, huh?”

McDougal had his wallet out and handed Keene a twenty over the sign-in counter. “Want to go double or nothing next week?”

“We’re talking my own Buffalo Bills, right?”

McDougal was appalled. “Get real. We’re talking the Niners. Who cares about the Bills?”

Logan was enjoying the exchange as well. He appeared to have a bit of a runny nose and from time to time would sniff delicately. “Am I mistaken,” Logan asked, “or is gambling still frowned upon in this state?”

“Absolutely,” McDougal replied with a smile.

“It’s a scourge,” Keene added. “But you know, the mafia.”

Everybody enjoyed the moment of manly camaraderie. “So what brings you gentlemen down here today?”

Down to business, Logan gave a small sigh and put his briefcase up on the counter. “I’m going to trial on
People v. Lawson
next Monday.” He gave McDougal the case number. “It’s Inspector Keene’s case here. I thought I ought to look at what the D.A. had actually collected before I tried to save my client’s poor ass.”

McDougal shook his head in mock disbelief. “I don’t know how you do it.”

Logan looked at him questioningly. “What?”

“Keep your clients if you don’t even look at the evidence until a week before trial. Don’t they get a little pissed off?”

A blustery laugh, followed by a sniffle. “What? I tell them? Come on, get a life.” But then he backpedaled a bit. “I generally know what’s supposed to be there. It usually is. If it isn’t, I make a motion to dismiss.” He shrugged. “It’s worked out.”

Visser added his two cents. “His real talent is making it look like he’s not working. The man works all the time.”

Logan made a gracious gesture toward his private eye. “An unsolicited testimonial from an unbiased source. Thank you, Eugene.” Sniff.

He turned to Keene. “So, Sergeant, shall we go?”

McDougal buzzed the door for them, and Logan and Keene went inside to sign the book. Visser, at the reception window, leaned in and asked how long they would be.

Logan shrugged, looked a question at Keene, who did the same. “I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty? Hey, Gary, you mind letting Gene in, sit his ample posterior on a chair? We might be a minute.”

McDougal frowned at the request. He wasn’t supposed to let in anyone who wasn’t accompanied by a police officer, and they had to sign in to a specific case. But he wasn’t supposed to gamble either, especially here on police premises. And these were pretty good guys—he knew them all. Visser had even been a homicide cop when McDougal had first come up. There was a chair he could sit in right next to his own—it wasn’t as though Visser was here in the evidence lockup to rip something off. He’d never be out of McDougal’s sight. He spoke up to Keene. “You want to sign him in on your ticket?”

From out at the window, Visser said it wasn’t any big deal, he could stand.

But Keene said sure, buzz him on in.

“So what’d you guys do to pull this assignment?”

Visser was seated next to Gary McDougal in the sign-in area, making conversation with him and another young cop—the name tag read “Bellew”—from the gun room next door. He knew that being stuck down here in the basement as records and evidence room custodian was not exactly a sought-after position among the uniforms. It wasn’t quite an official, on-the-books reprimand, but neither did anybody ever mistake it for a reward.

McDougal made a face, shook his head in disgust. “We ate a couple of doughnuts we didn’t pay for.” The men all exchanged glances. “I know,” McDougal continued. “You don’t have to say it.”

But Bellew felt like he did. “It was some bullshit OMC sting to fight police corruption in the big city.” The OMC was the Office of Management and Control—formerly called Internal Affairs, the department that policed the police.

“You being an ex-cop,” McDougal said, “you’ll be amazed to hear that sometimes it’s hard for us street guys to pay for coffee, snacks, like that. Seems like people we’re out guarding their stores, they feel grateful sometimes. They make us a sandwich, pour us a cup, forget to ring it up.”

“I’m shocked to hear it,” Visser said. “That’s almost as bad as gambling.”

The officers both chuckled. From over by the entrance to the gun room, Bellew took it up. “Yeah. So anyway, OMC gets a bug up their ass that guys are abusing their public trust. Taking a goddamn sandwich. So they put a couple of their guys behind counters and one son of a bitch gives us both doughnuts . . .”

McDougal: “Which—get this—I offer to pay for. And he says, ‘No, that’s okay, don’t worry about it.’ ”

“And they bust you guys for that?”

Bellew answered. “They hit maybe twenty of us in one day, said we ought to take it as a wake-up call. Yada yada.”

“But they sent you down here?”

“Six weeks, no overtime.”

Visser took in the immediate surroundings—institutional clutter ruled here in the sign-in area. The walls were lined with green metal shelves to the ceiling. Stained and rusted metal tables sagged with the weight of cardboard boxes filled with junk that had lost its case number—confiscated cell phones, batteries, radios, bicycle tires, tools. From his time in the police department, he knew that the rest of the place was an enormous cavern, nearly a city block on a side, a home to the records and evidence in every crime committed in the city and county over the past ten years.

There were miles of case files. There was a freezer for blood, soiled clothes, the occasional body part. There was an entire room for bicycles, another for computers. A locked walk-in safe for narcotics. And the gun room, adjoining the sign-in.

“And how much time have you already put in?” he asked.

“Four weeks. Two to go, but who’s counting?”

McDougal stood as a homicide inspector—Marcel Lanier—appeared at the window with a yellow folder bulging with stuff. When the two men had been talking a minute, Visser leaned over the table and interrupted.

“Marcel, how you doin’?” Lanier stopped his paperwork, nodded with a question in his face, and Visser answered it. “I’m just waiting for Dash Logan, doing some baby-sitting. How’s the murder biz?”

“A little shaky at the moment. Glitsky had a heart attack. You hear that?”

Visser chatted about that for another minute or so, establishing still further to McDougal and Bellew that he was really in the club—buds with Keene, friendly with Lanier in homicide, familiar with Glitsky, a sympathetic guy about their beef with the OMC.

At the counter, they went back to logging in Lanier’s evidence. Visser, already standing, turned to Bellew. “That box full of pieces still here?” he asked.

“It never goes away,” Bellew answered.

“You mind if I look at it?” He turned back for a minute. “Gary?” He pointed. “Guns? Okay?”

McDougal waved him in. “Sure.”

Nonissue.

Like the sign-in area, the gun room was floor-to-ceiling shelves and files, packed with yellow storage envelopes identified by case numbers in black permanent marker, and each of which held a gun. Four or five hundred file drawers, with a minimum of, say, forty handguns in each one. Several of the file drawers gaped open, possibly—Visser thought—because they were too stuffed with hardware to allow closing.

On the wall behind Bellew’s station, rifles and assault weapons threatened to flow over onto the floor. Another large box of rifles sat open on Bellew’s table. Below the table, a wooden crate was open on the floor, half filled with assorted confiscated handguns—unloaded, of course, but fully operational, unassigned to any specific case. The police found them in the streets, in hedges, garbage cans, Dumpsters and dope houses where all the occupants had fled out the back. They were destined to become manhole covers, and good riddance.

The “piece box” had been in the same place under the table here in the evidence lockup—albeit with a continuously changing assortment of guns—at least since Visser had started with the force twenty-some years before. And probably for a long time before that. When a gun came in, they put the serial number into “the book,” a set of records going back almost seventy-five years. And on the last day of the month, every gun was logged into the computer, dumped into a crusher and destroyed.

Now, on February 9th, Visser estimated that the crate held about forty handguns—everything from little .22 or .25 caliber derringers to Uzi-style repeating pistols, from tape-handled Saturday night specials to shining new Glock .38s. Visser knew that by the end of this month, every month, the weapons would be spilling over the top of the crate, clattering onto the tiles. Guns guns guns.

Bellew was delighted with the company—anything to break up his enforced boredom. He and Visser were a couple of kids in a candy store. Picking up one piece, then another, clicking off a bunch of nonrounds, checking actions, dropping the cylinders out of the revolvers, the clips from the automatics. Telling the occasional story behind one of them.

Time was flying they were having so much fun. Then, suddenly, McDougal was at the table with them, delivering the message that Logan and Keene were signing out.

“Eugene!” Logan’s voice, calling in. “Let’s roll it out of here.” McDougal, next to Visser, picked up a random revolver from the table, spun the cylinder, pointed it at the “Safety First” poster on the wall and pulled the trigger, smiling as it clicked.

“Fun stuff, isn’t it?” he said.

“I almost feel bad about it.” Visser was fastening the seat belt in Logan’s Z3. “I keep telling myself it just can’t be this easy every time.”

The lawyer looked over at him. “Hey, Eugene, please. The cops let you go. Remember that? You weren’t good enough for them.”

“I know, but still. Metal detectors at the doors to the Hall so you can’t get a gun in, except you can stroll right out, armed to the teeth. I mean, who’s thinking here?”

Dash Logan nearly fishtailed getting into traffic out of the parking lot. It wasn’t convertible weather by a long shot, and he had the top on. His nasal attack appeared to have kicked in again, and he was in high spirits. “Here’s a little well-kept secret, Eugene. You can stroll right in, too.”

“How do you do that?”

No signal, and Dash changed lanes, accelerating to fifty. He passed two cars, ran a red light, swung back into his original lane. He pinched his nose with his thumb and forefinger, sniffed back. “How do you think all those guns in the lockup get inside the Hall?”

“They’re evidence. I’ve brought a bunch in myself in my time.”

“Right. And what defines evidence?” Dash let him work it out.

It didn’t take him long. “An evidence tag.”

“Correct. A little piece of paper that says evidence on it. You want to bring a bazooka inside the Hall, you put a tag on it, walk right around the metal detector, tell the guard to have a nice day. If we weren’t the good guys, I’d say it really wasn’t fair. Whoa!” Suddenly, he braked hard and pulled into a spot at the curb. “Jupiter already.” He flashed a grin at his passenger. “No wonder they call me Dash.”