family dog. I want to know what happens, I do.'
Shel was continuing. 'Sounds like a case for Solomon, doesn't it, and it's developing right now down in Daly City. That's up next. Don't go away.'
Hardy was up, also talking to the tube, turning it off. 'Sorry, Shel, got to go.'
Moses jumped up. 'Come on, Diz. I'm dying to know about the sisters and their dog.'
Susan hit him on the leg. 'Pervert.'
'How can you do that? Turn of Shel?'
Hardy was moving back to his chair. 'Years of training and therapy have helped me here. Why do I get the feeling that Jennifer's trial is going to be getting nasty?'
'It's that amazing sixth sense you have.' Frannie rubbed a hand over his arm. 'It must have been an awful slow news day.'
Susan was smiling and relaxed, leaning against Moses on the couch. 'He's your partner, Dismas?'
'Cute, isn't he?'
Moses, cut adrift, moaned that he wanted to know more about the girls and their dog.
'They ate it,' Frannie said.
Susan nodded. 'Cut it up into little pieces. Fried the ears and served them with Roquefort dressing.'
Hardy stood up. 'I'd like to go on the record here by saying how nice it is to be among people who are so in tune with the big issues. I'm going to get dessert.'
Because of the afternoon nap he'd taken, he wasn't tired. Moses and Susan went home at a little after ten, and Frannie, who would have Vincent's first feeding at one, said she thought she would turn in.
Hardy added a log to the fire in the front room and sat in his chair with a copy of John McPhee's Oranges. He'd barely begun when the telephone rang. He grabbed it halfway through the first ring.
It was Glitsky saying his man Freeman was a star. 'Trial by television. It's what makes this country great.'
'That and concentrated orange juice.' Hardy explained the McPhee connection, knowing that Glitsky, like himself, had a weakness for the obscure fact. 'But I sense you didn't call to talk about citrus.'
'Normally I would,' Abe said, 'except I thought you'd want to be the first to know about something else.'
Hardy silently counted to five. A log popped in the fire. 'I love this game,' he said.
'I called the Detail on an unrelated matter about ten minutes ago. They were interviewing a guy down there named Marko something. Ring a bell?'
'No. Should it?'
'I don't know. I thought you might have run across it in your travels. He's saying he killed Larry Witt.'
Marko Mellon had not begun watching the news report on Jennifer Witt during the Freeman section, as Hardy and company had. He had watched from the start, when they showed her picture – the one the stations and newspapers had used before she had been charged with the murders – smiling, vivacious.
Marko, a twenty-five-year-old Syrian exchange student at San Francisco State who had been following the trial in a fairly dedicated fashion up to this point, was familiar with, Hardy thought, a surprising amount of facts about the case, so much so that it took police inspectors – one of whom was Walter Terrell – nearly five hours to determine he could not possibly have killed Larry Witt.
His motive for killing Larry, he said, was that he loved Jennifer. As it turned out, his motive for the confession was that he had decided he loved Jennifer from her picture. It was a spiritual connection he was sure they had, and if he confessed she would of course want to meet him, after which they would fall in love, get married, have more babies to make up for Matt. It was a no-lose plan, because eventually they would find out he, Marko, hadn't really done it, and then he'd be free and they could live happily ever after together.
'I don't think he thought the whole thing through.' Hardy was talking to Freeman. The storm had passed and there were pink clouds in an early morning gray sky over the Oakland Hills across the Bay. They were by the door to Hardy's car, standing in a deserted Bryant Street outside the Hall of Justice after the decision had been reached that they weren't going to be charging Marko with Larry Witt's murder.
'It staggers me that it took them five hours to come to it,' Freeman said. 'The boy's got the IQ of a turnip. Of course, then again, some of the inspectors…'
'He did know a lot of details, David. They had to let him cross himself up.'
'Rats in mazes know details. That doesn't make them smart. They should have just asked him when his visa runs out.'
'Why would they ask them that?'
'You check. Dollars to donuts his visa runs out in the next month or so. He figured he'd get arrested, get to stay longer over here.'
'In jail? On a murder charge?'
Freeman shrugged. 'You ever been to Syria, Diz?'
Hardy let it go. Freeman might be right. 'I saw you tonight on the tube, by the way. I don't think Dean's going to be too pleased.'
Freeman waved it off. 'It's good press. I'm doing him a favor.'
There was a silence between them, a residual tension that banter wasn't going to camouflage.
Hardy pulled open the door to his car and, in the predawn light, asked if he could drop Freeman at his apartment. He'd taken a cab down. The old attorney said no, he'd walk.
'This time of day through this neighborhood? Come on, David, get in.'
Freeman slammed his hand on the roof of the car. 'Take off, Diz, I'll see you tomorrow.'
'David…'
Freeman spread his hands theatrically. 'We've been working together long enough, you ought to know by now. I'm bullet-proof.'
At sunrise Hardy was still in his car, waiting on Olympia Way as though he were at a stakeout. If the jogger came by again he was going to get a few words with her if he had to sprint alongside her for six blocks breathing Mace.
She did not appear.
34
Freeman was wrong. Powell did not take it as a favor.
They were in Judge Villars' chambers again. It was 9:40 on Monday morning and the jury was in the courtroom, waiting. Adrienne, the court reporter, was perched with her portable equipment next to one of the easy chairs, but she was the only one sitting. Her presence was necessary, as no meeting was ever off the record.
Freeman, Hardy, Powell, his young assistant, Justin Morehouse, and Villars were taking up most of the rest of the space in the room. Or maybe it just felt that way. Everyone stood in a knot, too close, an invisible bubble surrounding them, the pressure building within it.
'I've never been more serious, Your Honor.' Freeman looked especially wan in a ten-year-old brown suit. 'I've given this a lot of thought over the weekend, since your generous granting of my 1118-'
'There was nothing generous about that. Don't put a personal spin on this…'
'The fact remains. I'm convinced this would not be a capital trial if Dean here weren't running for AG.'
