Authors: John Lescroart
Hardy nodded.
“So study the report between now and then and bring it back with you.”
Hardy took the folder.
“But as you’re going through it, checking out Mr. Cruz, say two words to yourself every couple minutes, would you?”
“What’re those, Abe?”
“Alphonse Page.”
22
MATTHEW R. BRODY, III, was the managing partner of Brody, Finkel, Wayne & Dodd. The firm had twenty-eight associates and the entire fourteenth floor of Embarcadero I.
Brody, forty-one, stood six feet four and had lately begun using Grecian Formula on his thick head of (now) black hair. He wore a charcoal pin-striped three-piece suit, the coat of which now hung on the gilt rack inside the door to his office.
His face still looked as young as he wished his hair did, with a wide but shallow forehead, a patrician nose, a strong chin. The only moderately distinctive thing about his looks, and it wasn’t much, was his upper lip, which was too long by a centimeter. He would have worn a mustache—did, in fact, while he was in school—but his wife had told him it made him look foreign, so he’d cut it.
(It was one thing to shoot hoops with blacks and have a beaner roommate, she’d told him after he’d passed the bar, when she’d decided to marry him, but another altogether to look like a successful attorney.)
Brody didn’t build the firm to its present status by taking on poorer Latino clients such as those litigating against
La Hora
for distribution hassles. But neither did he do it by being unfriendly or turning down clients.
In the
La Hora
matter, he had gone to bat for Jaime Rodriguez because he was the cousin of his college roommate Julio Suarez, who, in turn, just happened to run the most successful construction company in Alameda, which was currently developing a three-and-a-half-acre waterfront mall about two miles from the naval station. Coincidentally, Brody was handling the paper on that development.
Rodriguez had been distributing
La Hora
in Lafayette and part of Richmond. After meeting with Brody, he had talked all of his fellow distributors, except the main guy in San Francisco, into the co-op lawsuit.
After he’d studied the facts of the case, Brody got into it a little. It wasn’t often he ran across a real human issue. This wasn’t wills or codicils or a contract featuring an endless series of “WHEREAS” followed by a “NOW THEREFORE.”
Of course, there wasn’t much money in it, but it wasn’t strictly pro bono either. Hell, someone had to represent these folks. He felt good about it.
From his desk in his corner office he could see the clock on the Ferry Building. It was eleven-thirty. He was prepared for the meeting. He was always prepared, he knew, but when Judge Andy Fowler sent someone his way it was doubly important to have done his homework.
Donna buzzed him and told him Mr. Hardy was here. He had, of course, checked back with Andy about Hardy. Used to be the son-in-law. Brody tried to recall if he’d ever met Jane’s first husband, but that had been before he was successful enough to have joined Olympic and gotten to know the judge. Still, he was ready to recognize him if he looked at all familiar.
He didn’t. The man was a little too casually dressed for Brody’s taste. Andy had said Hardy was an attorney, and there were rules of dress within the fraternity. But then, Hardy didn’t practice law anymore, so maybe something else was going on.
He declined coffee, tea, anything, which was good. Brody had said he’d give him an hour, but hoped it wouldn’t take that long. Interesting cases were one thing, but let’s not forget time was money. Hardy did thank him immediately for his time. Maybe he was still in the club.
Brody shrugged and smiled. “When His Honor beckons . . . How can I help you?”
“I’d like to find out, if I may, if this man Cruz might have had a motive to murder one of Sam Polk’s employees.”
Brody sat up straight, then fished for a cigar in the humidor on the desk. He didn’t like being surprised when he ought to know what was happening. Lighting the cigar gave him a moment. He took a stab in the dark.
“Polk, the San Francisco distributor?”
“That’s him.”
Brody inhaled the cigar. He probably hadn’t heard the name in six months, but he hadn’t taken memory training for nothing.
“There’s been a murder in this case?”
Hardy shook his head. “We don’t know for sure. There’s two dead people as of now, with an angle to Polk. There may be some connection to Cruz.”
“Two?”
Hardy explained.
“You know, Mr. Hardy, Polk is not one of my clients.”
Hardy obviously didn’t know it. “I thought you were handling it.”
“For everybody but Polk. He was the only one isn’t Mex . . . Latino, among the distributors, but he was also the first and the biggest. He wasn’t interested in the suit.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t even meet with me to discuss it, although my other clients tried to bring some, uh, leverage to bear.”
“How was that?”
Brody held up a hand. “Nothing illegal, I don’t mean that. No threats or anything. Just some business incentives.”
But Hardy pressed a little. “And when he didn’t come on, did it really hurt your case? What I’m wondering is, could someone have tried to scare Polk by hurting his people? Then maybe there was an accident?”
Brody acted legitimately shocked. “Oh God, no. No chance. All this went down months ago. At that time I would have given a very qualified maybe to that theory—very; now, it’s not even possible. You must be out of litigation awhile. Anything in recent history couldn’t be relevant.” Hardy said okay, and Brody continued. “I don’t understand it really. It, the lawsuit I mean, was to Polk’s advantage.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to pay the legal fees.”
Brody shook his head. “Minimal. In my opinion, I think he just stopped caring about his business. He’s an older fellow, probably rolling in money, maybe just figured it was as good a time as any to hang ’em up. His daughter was
killed,
you say?”
“Yesterday.”
“And the other one, his manager?”
“We don’t know he was killed. In some ways it looked like a suicide, maybe was made to look like a suicide. The police leaned that way until Linda was killed. But now they’ve got a suspect for Linda and they’re willing to consider they’re related.”
“Just too much coincidence to buy, right?”
Hardy thought that was it.
“And you think Mr. Cruz might have had a motive . . . ?”
Hardy walked over to the globe and gave it a spin. He appeared to be thinking hard. “All I know, or think I know, is that Cruz lied to me twice while I was interrogating him. I’d like to think he did that for a reason.”
“Why did he let you talk to him? He’s stonewalling us.”
“Eddie’s body was found on his lot. We had a lying contest—I told him I was a cop.”
“I hope you didn’t tell Andy that.”
“No, I don’t think the judge would approve. Anyway, I got to see him and he lied to me about having known Eddie. I also think he was there at or near the time Eddie was killed.”
Brody whistled, sitting in one of the comfortable chairs in front of his desk. “If you can prove that, you’ve got something.”
Hardy took the other chair, saying, “I know. But if my uncle had tits he’d be my aunt.”
Brody drew on his cigar, shaking his head. “The case really pisses me off, you want to know the truth,” he said. “Here’s this guy, Cruz, needs more money like a toad needs warts, and ruins his relationships with people he’s worked with for years. Friends, even.”
“Socially?”
“Not really. He’s got no personal social life, though he’s big in, as they say, the community.”
“Well, that’s a contradiction, isn’t it?”
“Not really. The community is his ad base.”
“So why’d he do it? Cut these guys off, I mean. Wouldn’t that hurt him the same way?”
“I don’t think so. It’s nine guys spread out all over the Bay area. And it’s not the kind of news the TV or the
Chronicle
’s likely to jump on.”
“What is?” Hardy asked.
“Well, if
El Dia
prints it, it’s publicity bullshit and sure as hell
La Hora
isn’t going to run the story.”
“So what are you building your case on?”
Brody crossed a long leg. “Oral contract. Past performance.” He rolled his cigar slowly in his right hand. “Actually, we’re almost to the point of going for a settlement and calling it a moral victory, though don’t quote me on that.”
“Who’s ‘we,’ your clients?”
“We is the firm.”
Hardy followed that. The case was nearly lost. Brody had said almost, and Hardy had known lawyers like Brody who didn’t use the language carelessly. He mentioned it to him.
“We got a private eye looking for dirt on Cruz, but I’m skeptical of finding anything.”
“Why would that even matter?”
Brody shrugged. “As I say, I think it’s a waste of effort, but my clients felt if we got to the last resort, and we’re there now, we might try some form of
legal
blackmail.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. It’s what we’re looking for. Something to harm his image with the community, make him lose the ad support if it comes out. Then my clients remain discreet in return for a return to their original distribution contract.” Brody stood up, looked at his watch. “Long-shot city,” he said.
Hardy got up too. The interview was over. “You have any leads on that? He beat up his dog, or what?”
“No. We’re dealing with the macho thing. There’s some rumor he might be gay.”
Hardy had to laugh. “I can’t believe it. Here in San Francisco?”
“I know. But it’s no joke among the Latinos, let me tell you. It’s another bit of news that doesn’t make the papers, but any Saturday you want you go down to Mission Park on Dolores and you can check out the Mexican gangs beating the shit out of anybody who swishes even a little.”
“So if Cruz is gay?”
Brody made a face. “It might be some leverage, that’s all. It’s probably nothing.”
Hardy thought of something. “What if Cochran had found out Cruz was gay, say, and tried to use it himself? Get back Cruz’s
La Hora
distribution business for Polk that way? Or, maybe, keep the cash for himself ?”
“That’s a lot of ifs, but given all of them, I’d say you might have a motive there.”
Hardy thanked him, they shook hands, and again Brody was alone in his office. The clock on the Ferry Building said it was just past noon. The fog had completely burned off, and the flags along the Embarcadero were flying in what looked to be a light breeze. He loosened his tie, sighed, and returned to his desk, punching impatiently at his intercom.
Here was Hardy, thinking Eddie Cochran had been the nicest guy in the world. One of the bona fide good ones. He’d known him pretty well, and had bought his act completely—but it couldn’t have been an act, this is Eddie we’re talking about. Hell, he was married to Frannie, and she was the sister of Hardy’s own best friend. Didn’t he
have
to be a wonderful person?
And besides, Hardy thought as he picked at his dim sum (waiting for one-thirty, when Polk would talk to Glitsky), they weren’t even suspecting Cruz. Alphonse Page was the suspect.
Okay, say Eddie had known Cruz was gay, and had known all about Polk and his drug deal. Now, how about he puts the squeeze on Cruz, or wants a cut from Polk, or both?
No. That wasn’t Eddie.
Was it?
23
GLITSKY PRIDED HIMSELF not on being smart, but thorough. Though he didn’t even remotely think that Sam Polk had killed his own daughter, he had gone ahead and run a little background on the man—you never knew what might turn up.
Hardy’s tip or hunch or whatever it was about a drug connection looked like a winner—the cocaine on the desk hadn’t been blown there on a passing wind—so he had ordered a guy to check out his recent banking activity. There, aside from an amateurish run to different bank branches, he had found enough to warrant calling up the DEA. He didn’t really care about the drug deal—what he wanted was leverage on Polk during the interview.
He had seemed legitimately strung out yesterday at finding his daughter’s throat cut, and Glitsky didn’t think it would be too difficult to get him to start talking about some possible connection between Linda’s death and Ed Cochran’s especially if he thought he—Polk—would be named some sort of accessory to his own daughter’s murder.
What would be ideal, and what Glitsky fervently hoped for, was that Cochran’s death would turn out a clear homicide and get in his own backyard. Glitsky’s thing was homicides. He was getting a lot closer to certainty that somebody had killed Ed, and with Alphonse looking like a lock for Linda’s murder, he seemed a reasonable suspect for having done Ed . . . well, at the least a good guy to start with. Of course, a few hairs in a car seat, by themselves, weren’t going to convince any jury, but Alphonse had proved himself well beyond careless with Linda. Glitsky figured that if he’d killed Ed he’d left some indication of it. And if that were true, Glitsky would find it.
It was a nice stroke of luck—hitting on Polk’s account. That money was somewhere out there, and that always shook things up, which was good.
He popped the last bite of his bagel and followed it with a mouthful of cold coffee. Dick Willis, the DEA guy, would be up in another minute, and Hardy any old time. He wiped at the desk with a paper napkin, caught some crumbs in the palm of his hand and dumped them in the wastebasket by his right knee.
This was the part he really liked. The case should break within the hour. It was all but broken now. With the new leverage, Polk should crack in about five minutes. Tell him the DA might cut him a deal on the Cochran thing, then sit back and let the tape recorder get it all.
He allowed a smile.
It was almost too easy, but he’d take it.
Hardy was whittling a Popsicle stick into a totem pole. He’d already done the eagle at the top, then a kind of half-assed bear’s head (which could as easily have been a wolf—he should have done it in profile), and was about to start on a duck as a goof when Glitsky came back to his cubicle.
Hardy looked up. He didn’t have to ask, but he did. “Not there, huh?”
It was two-fifteen. They’d waited until nearly two o’clock, at which time Glitsky had called down to Burlingame to ask if they’d send a squad car to Polk’s house and see if something was wrong.
Willis from the Drug Enforcement Agency had gone, saying he’d be available whenever Polk did show up, but he wasn’t about to waste any more of an afternoon for a lousy one-yard deal.
Glitsky figured Polk might have been detained at the morgue, or making arrangements to get Linda’s body to a funeral home, and he’d gone out to make a few calls, then check to see if he’d just gotten directed to the wrong room or something at the Hall.
Hardy stayed in Abe’s cubicle, whittling. His new doubts about Eddie’s character were still eating at him. It was great that Glitsky had established a link to drug money and to Alphonse, although that didn’t necessarily mean Alphonse had killed Eddie.
“You think he ran? Polk?” Glitsky suddenly asked.
“I’m out of practice,” Hardy said. “That never occurred to me. Why would he run?”
“As in take the money and . . .”
Hardy shook his head and closed his knife. The totem pole got flicked into the wastebasket without a glance. “I don’t think he took the money. Alphonse took the money.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what I’ve been thinking, but where is the guy?”
“Traffic, Abe. Shopping. In the bathroom.”
Glitsky straightened the line of something on his desk. “Okay. But I hate getting this close and not nailing it. He might have run, anyway.”
Hardy decided to let him spew. He might have done anything. But how could he know the police had discovered the money thing? Improbable. No, he would try to bluff things out when they started asking about money. But he’d show. If he didn’t, he’d be running up a flag.
When Abe had wound down, Hardy said: “The report says the call on Cochran came in at eleven-fourteen p.m. You tape it?”
“Of course. It was a nine-eleven.”
“You mind if I give it a listen?”
“No. Help yourself. You gonna recognize the voice?”
Hardy hadn’t thought of that before, and wouldn’t that be a nice surprise? “The call came from a booth at the corner of Arguello and Geary,” he said.
“If you say so,” Glitsky said, “but what difference does it make? Polk gets here and starts talking, ten minutes later we know everything we need to know.”
“About Linda, maybe.”
“Also, maybe, about Ed.”
“It’s the maybes that get to me. Maybe we get lucky, and Polk finks on Alphonse, who maybe killed Eddie in a wild drug-induced spree of passion and mayhem. Then maybe we got a homicide, where the insurance pays on Eddie.”
“You want to make book,” Glitsky said, “Ed’s a homicide.”
“Make it official, my job’s done and I’ll go home and be out of your hair.”
At Glitsky’s baleful stare, Hardy smiled. “I figure until it’s official,” he said, “I can play with it.”
Hardy walked to what passed for a map of the City and County of San Francisco on the wall of Glitsky’s cubicle. The map had been stabbed to death by pins long ago, but the occasional street name wasn’t completely obliterated. “Arguello and Geary is here,” Hardy said, pointing roughly to the middle of the map.
“Goddamn. When did they move it?” Glitsky said.
Hardy punched his finger into the lower right quadrant of the map. “Here’s Cruz’s building.”
“Yep, just about there.”
“Can’t exactly throw a hat over ’em, can you?”
“So?”
Hardy looked out the window. “Just something else to think about.”
The phone rang and Glitsky snatched it up before the ringing stopped. He said “Yeah” a few times. Hardy turned around and started hoping this wasn’t about Polk, because if it was it was bad news.
The scar through Glitsky’s lips turned white with the pressure he was putting on it. He mentioned a few things about jurisdiction, if he could send some men down, like that. Then he hung up, a study in frustration.
“Say it ain’t Polk,” Hardy said.
Glitsky sat at his desk, picked up a pencil and broke it. After he put the two halves in his hands and broke them again, he frowned up at Hardy. “They just found him dead in his fucking hot tub.”
Glitsky, almost to himself, clucked grimly. “Timing. I gotta work on my timing,” he said. Then, “I was thinking about putting a tail on him overnight. I’m slowing down, Diz.”
Hardy sat. “Well, at least if we can put Alphonse there . . .”
Glitsky shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
“Sure, it makes sense. Look. Alphonse knows Polk can identify him—”
Glitsky held up a hand. “Spare me, Diz. I know the facts and you don’t.”
“Which are?”
“No sign of struggle. Polk wasn’t offed.”
Hardy just cocked his head.
“We get one of these every few months. You drink too much and sit in a hot tub, you get poached.”
“Get out of here!”
Glitsky looked at the bits of pencil in his hand. He sighed wearily. “You get out of here, Diz, I got work to do.”
He hadn’t even gotten to talk about the Cruz angle, if it was an angle. He almost stopped on his way out of the office, but then figured Abe would only cut him off, and Abe was probably right. It wouldn’t do to forget that Abe had a bona fide murder and suspect in this affair, and anything else Hardy might find might be interesting and all that but wouldn’t have shit-all to do with Glitsky’s investigation.
So the afternoon gaped open before him. He stopped by the audio lab with the requisition slip Glitsky had signed and got the lady there to give him a copy of the 911 tape. He’d listen to it at home.
While waiting for it to be copied he glanced through the
Chronicle.
There was a story about Linda’s murder (no mention of any connection to Eddie), along with the picture of Alphonse. Hardy read it over and learned nothing new.
Tape in pocket, he stopped at the concession stand for a candy bar, then walked across the tiles in front of the wall with the names of policemen killed in the line of duty. Sixteen this year so far.
Andy Fowler was presiding in Courtroom B. When Hardy entered, the judge had his glasses on and appeared to be reading something at the bench. The prosecuting attorney, whom Hardy didn’t know, was whispering to someone by his side. The defense attorney was on her feet, pointing out something that the judge should note on whatever he was reading. Hardy walked up and sat in the second row on the aisle.
The judge finished reading, raised his eyes to the gallery, looked from one attorney to another and called a recess. He spoke to the bailiff on his way to chambers, and the man walked across to Hardy and said His Honor would see him.
When he got into the book-lined chambers, Hardy closed the door behind him. “That’s what I call service,” he said.
Andy shrugged out of his robes and motioned to the wing chairs in front of his desk, a little tray table between them. “So you seeing Jane again?” he asked.
“I hate it the way you fiddle-faddle around.” Hardy let Andy pour some coffee. “We’re trying, to see each other I mean.”
“You got plans?”
“Well, if it works out I’ll probably try to see her again.”
“About that far, huh?”
“That’s a hell of a lot farther than it’s been.”
Andy put a hand on Hardy’s knee. “No push from here, I mean it. I’m just interested.” He sat back.
“What I came by for,” Hardy said, “I met your friend Brody this morning. I just wanted to say thanks.”
“Was he any help?”
Hardy outlined it for him. Cruz, Ed, Linda, Alphonse, and now the latest with Polk. Andy sat back, interested, listening, sipping occasionally at his coffee.
“But you have a thread through this Polk structure.”
Hardy nodded. “Oh yeah, everybody—all the dead people anyway—they’re all connected to Polk one way or the other.”
“So what’s your problem? You got a suspect, you got motive, you got opportunity.”
“True, but I’ve got one apparent suicide by gunshot, one murder by knife, and one accidental death. I’m not sure I see the same guiding hand over it all.”
“This guy Alphonse, isn’t he pretty likely?”
“He’s pretty likely, I guess, given everything. I mean, a lot seems to have gone on in his neighborhood.” Hardy leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I guess what bothers me is Cruz. If he’s no part of this at all. You know, there’s a whole other scenario here between Eddie and Cruz, and I mean it leaves Polk out entirely, and the damn thing is, it works.”
“You want it all tied up neat, huh?” The judge chuckled. “You’re in the wrong business, Diz.”
“Okay, I acknowledge that.”
The two men laughed. It was an old joke from when Jane had been thinking about going to EST. Hardy and Andy had acknowledged her into submission and she’d eventually given up the idea.
“You really think Ed was blackmailing Cruz?”
“That’s what doesn’t work. No way was he that kind of guy.”
“Then why do you think it?”
“ ’Cause he could’ve been, I guess. It would have given Cruz a reason to lie to me.”
The judge stood up. “You gotta cut the deadwood, Diz.” He held up a hand. “I’m not saying it couldn’t have happened. Do you know where Cruz was that night? Didn’t you tell me the report says he was home by nine? That should finish it right there. Look, you just told me that if it comes out he’s gay, it’s bad news for him. So suppose he had a date. He’d cover that, wouldn’t he? He’d lie to cover it, sure he would, and that’s got nothing to do with Ed.”
Hardy hung on that for a beat. “You’re right, I guess.”
“Damn straight. You want my opinion, see where Alphonse leads. At least you’ve got a good idea he’s murdered someone. That makes him a killer. Whether it’s a knife or a gun might not matter. Some of these guys get creative. Anyway, I’d check him out first. All this other stuff ”—he shrugged—“more than likely it’s deadwood, and if it is you gotta cut it.”
“Well, I guess that’s why I came to talk to you. I just couldn’t see it.”
“You ever work on a case didn’t have half a dozen plausible wrong turns?”
Hardy stood up.
“Goes against the grain just to follow the little arrows, doesn’t it?”
“A little. That’s probably it.”
The judge looked at his watch, seemed to decide something. “You know, I’m not saying just drop it to make your life easy. If it’s bothering you, find out what he was doing. But it’s probably a wild hair.”
Hardy smiled. “Probably,” he admitted.