'That's why he's famous – he's that way.' He looked at Glitsky. 'Freeman.'
'What way?' Glitsky asked.
'What way?' Hardy repeated mildly to Terrell. 'You can speak freely to Inspector Glitsky.'
'I got an idea bagged that might or might not be evidence and the guy goes ballistic on me. I tell him he can use it or not. Hey, I had a theory that might have worked – so? It didn't, big deal.'
Lou's was getting crowded, louder. Hardy elbowed his way to the bar and bought another round. When he returned, Terrell was in the middle of something that sounded familiar.
'… the Crane thing was at least worth looking into, but it turned out to be nothing, too.'
'What did?' Hardy slid in, passed the round – two more bottles for Terrell, another iced tea for Glitsky.
'I was just telling Glitsky about that other thing, the guy in LA you called from the Witt house.'
'Crane. The guy who was murdered.'
'Yeah, Crane. Just talking about how theories sometimes pay off, sometimes not.'
'Most times not.' No argument, just stating a fact, Abe was already chewing the ice in his fresh drink.
It drove Hardy crazy, but he preferred not to change the subject if Terrell had discovered a link with Simpson Crane and was going to talk about it. But he couldn't resist the urge to get in a dig. 'Why'd you follow that up? You've already got yourself a suspect.'
Terrell didn't take any offense. Instead, he smiled disarmingly. 'Hey, I love my work. You called it – it was one of those coincidences. You check it out, what do you lose? You can't tie up a murder too tight, am I right or not?'
On this everyone was in accord. Hardy sipped his beer, taking his time, not wanting to betray any particular interest. 'So what'd you find?'
'Pretty much what you told me. No connection to Witt.'
'Well, there must have been some – the number was stuck on his desk.'
'I mean, sure, yeah, that. But I'm talking the actual hit, they know who did it, or think they do.'
'So who?'
'Some local muscle down in LA.' Terrell was into his story, a bottle of beer in each hand, from which he drank alternately and steadily. 'This guy Crane was the premier union buster of the nineties – cleared like a half a mil a year making sure all the little people kept getting fucked. They try to organize, he gets 'em fired, figures out a way to make it stick. Time to renegotiate, he's got everybody scared they're going to lose their jobs, so they cave. They say the President wanted him for Secretary of Labor but couldn't pay him enough.'
'He work for San Francisco?' Glitsky asked, joking. 'I think they must be using somebody like him.'
Terrell shook his head. 'Well, nobody's using him, that's for sure.'
'What happened?'
'Well, he already killed a couple of unions – meat packers, janitors, like that – small time stuff, and then he thought he'd take on the machinists.'
'And somebody important didn't like it.'
'That's the theory.' Terrell held up his empty beer bottles. 'Are these things twelve ounces?' He started to get up. 'Anyway, they did it right – hired some pro, no paper trail, no indictment. My round this time.'
He was on his way to the bar.
'No more for me,' Glitsky called after him. He was still chewing his ice. 'You're a sly dog. He's following your leads and doesn't even know it.'
Hardy kept a straight face. 'You heard him – he loves his work.' He brought his beer up. 'It is interesting, though, don't you think? Two murders and two hit men?'
Glitsky was shaking his head. 'I count three murders and one hit man – Larry Witt, their kid, this guy Crane.'
'Actually, you want to get technical, there were four murders – Crane's wife.'
This didn't slow Abe down very much. 'You have anything connecting any hit man to Larry Witt?'
No answer.
Glitsky got out of his booth, slapped Hardy lightly on the cheek, told him to have a good weekend.
20
The Master Calendar for Superior Court was called on Monday mornings at 9:30. It was July 19 and Jennifer's name appeared first on the computer printout tacked up beside the double doors in the hallway outside Department 22.
Since her extradition from Costa Rica and subsequent return to San Francisco had been reported in the Chronicle and on television, the media was on hand when Freeman and Hardy entered the courtroom a little after nine.
Hardy knew that David Freeman had no love for most reporters but was careful not to let them see it – they could be helpful in a trial with political overtones. Candidate Dean Powell wasn't going to let a photo opportunity pass without getting whatever possible mileage out of it, so the two attorneys – one on either side of the courtroom – were now chatting amiably with reporters.
Powell was coming across as considerably more sincere than he had four months ago – perhaps he'd gotten some coaching. The hand gestures didn't seem as rehearsed. He moved a step closer to his own personal knot of reporters. 'Look,' he lowered his voice, speaking from the heart, 'I'm in favor of the death penalty. And we've got special circumstances here that, if proven, warrant the death penalty – hell, that cry out for it. Show me a little remorse, an admission of guilt, even a cry for mercy, the District Attorney can be responsive to that. Defendants aren't numbers to me – they're people, living and breathing human beings. This trial isn't part of my campaign to Get Tough, California.' He leaned a leg casually over the corner of the table on the prosecution side of the courtroom. 'This is a gamble by the defendant – she thought she could commit murder for money and get away with it. She was wrong. Terribly wrong. I am not bloodthirsty, but if she is found guilty, we're going to ask for the extreme penalty. That's justice, and she'll have brought it on herself.'
Freeman had his own group. 'This is, unfortunately, all too typical of the ways things get done. The very fact that all you folks are here shows how out of line it is already. Nobody's talking about the weight of evidence, which is light – fatally light. It never would have gotten this far except it's likely to keep some names in the newspaper more than they would be otherwise. I doubt it will even get to trial after I file my motion to dismiss.'
'You don't think it'll get to trial?' This was from a woman with a microphone.
Freeman shook his head. 'I doubt it.'
Another hand, another microphone. 'But the grand jury indicted her.'
Freeman smiled. 'The grand jury tends to indict whomever the District Attorney asks it to.'
'But she escaped from jail, didn't she? She ran away?'
'She's resourceful and she's innocent, and she doesn't trust a system that's already gotten it this wrong. I think in her place I would've broken out, too, if I could have figured out how to do it.'
Powell was standing now, a hand in a pocket, smiling his smile. Freeman, serious and indignant at the system's injustice, was warming up for when the judge came in. Everybody had an agenda.
Hardy walked back up the middle aisle and out into the hallway. They still had twenty minutes.
Looking through some papers, his briefcase beside him, Ken Lightner was sitting on the wooden bench in the hall across from Department 22. Hardy sat next to him. 'I want to apologize to you. It seems you were right.'
Lightner put the papers down. 'About what? Not that I wouldn't take just about anything right now.'
'About Jennifer's mother, her father beating her.'
The psychiatrist nodded, shuffling his papers. This, obviously, was old news to him.
'You're disappointed?'
'I thought you might have found something a little closer to home, something with Jennifer herself.'
Hardy shook his head. 'Jennifer isn't giving anything away. Especially after this escape fiasco. Freeman's
