Dismas Hardy: Nothing But The Truth Part 16

'It's a really big number, a billion,' Hardy said.

'Can that be right?' Carrie asked.

Hardy nodded. 'It's right. But my point is, it might be why people seem to have a hard time thinking three billion isn't a lot of money. Why Bree might have been killed for it.'

'She was one person, Mr Hardy,' Pierce said.

'So was. .h.i.tler. If he'd been killed, it might have avoided World War Two.' He shrugged. 'Look, I'm not saying I don't believe you. I'm trying to get a handle on what I keep hearing on the radio, that the oil companies had a motive to kill her.'

Pierce remained unruffled, as though he'd heard it all before, which he probably had. 'You're welcome to look, Mr Hardy, but it will waste a lot of your time.' He sipped coffee. Hardy had the impression he was stalling for a moment. Then he seemed to reach some decision, and sighed. 'You know the source of all this radio nonsense, don't you?'

'No. I thought it was kind of a groundswell...'

Pierce was shaking his head. 'Not at all. It's a well-funded group of eco-terrorists. Don't laugh, that's what they call themselves. Eco-terrorists.'

'And?'

'And they all seem to be working to get Damon Kerry elected since he's the standard bearer against MTBE.'

'All right.' Hardy didn't see where this was going.

'Well, at the time she left us, Bree was very much under the spell of Damon Kerry, too. Perhaps more, although I shouldn't say that after all I've had to endure on that score.' He glanced at his wife, whose lovely face again betrayed her distaste at this subject.

Pierce turned back to Hardy. 'What I'm saying is that at least these are the kind of people who admit to resorting to violence, or the need for it. Maybe somehow Bree crossed them, joined the camp and was going to renege, something like that.'

'You're not saying Kerry-'

'No no no, not personally. But somebody behind him. Possibly. Really I don't know. I don't like to point a finger at anybody, but...' He trailed off.

Hardy remembered Canetta's comments about Al Valens, who had also left a message for Ron Beaumont. A question presented itself. 'You said this group - these terrorists - are well-funded. Where do they get their money?'

Carrie nearly blurted it out. 'That's easy. SKO.'

Pierce snapped at her. 'We don't know that, not for sure.'

'Of course we do.'

Husband and wife glared at each other.

'Who?' Hardy asked.

Making a show of reluctance, Pierce let out a long breath. 'Spader Krutch Ohio.'

'The farming conglomerate?' Hardy asked.

Pierce nodded. 'Corn. Ethanol, the other additive. It's a huge company, as you say, heavily subsidized by the government. They've got a stake in seeing MTBE outlawed.'

'So they could make the three billion dollars?' Hardy asked.

Carrie's color was up. 'They would kill for it.'

Pierce shook his head from side to side. 'I doubt that. But there is, I believe, very little doubt that they are the source of these funds.'

Hardy digested this information for a moment. 'Have you told the police about this?'

'What exactly is there to tell?' Pierce stood up. He'd given Hardy several minutes - nearly a halftime's worth - and now the interview was over. 'They asked me about my suspicions. I told them I'd heard about these economic motives and frankly, gave them short shrift. Poor Bree wasn't a.s.sa.s.sinated, she was murdered.'

Hardy realized that this, from an oil company's senior vice president, was self-serving. But that didn't mean it wasn't true. Still, he thought, three billion dollars.

They had all begun moving back toward the front door. Carrie laid a hand on his arm, guiding him through the dimness. 'If there is anything more you need,' she said. 'Jim and I want to help, but we don't really know anything more than we've told you.'

They'd arrived in the foyer and Pierce went for the door. 'Now that we've opened this can of worms, Mr Hardy, if you're convinced it isn't Beaumont, you might look into Kerry's campaign after all. The funding, maybe the eco-terrorist thing. There could be something there.' He sounded skeptical, though.

Hardy stopped, blinking in the sudden sunlight let in by the open door. It was the second time that Pierce had inadvertently alluded to Ron's involvement in the murder. 'But personally, you still think it's Beaumont, don't you?'

A temporizing smile. 'I believe these things tend to be personal, let's say that. If Bree had just started an affair with one of Kerry's people and Ron found out...' He trailed off. 'Well, that's motive, anyway.'

Hardy wanted to say, 'So's three billion dollars,' but instead he merely thanked the couple for their time, handed them his card, and turned back for the long walk to his parking s.p.a.ce.

16.

Sergeant Canetta's sandwich from Molinari's had given Hardy the idea. For all his peregrinations of the morning, there hadn't been a minute when Frannie wasn't somewhere in his consciousness. Now, heading downtown for another visit to the jail, it occurred to him that perhaps every instant she spent locked up didn't have to be h.e.l.l.

Since it often worked for him, he reasoned that some good food might improve things temporarily for Frannie to the point where it was only as bad as purgatory - same conditions as h.e.l.l, but you really knew it would end someday.

So he stopped and bought a spread of delectables from David's Delicatessen - lox, bagels, cream cheese, chopped chicken liver, pastrami, onion rolls, pickles, even three bottles of creme soda, which was her favorite drink in the world that wasn't made from grapes.

Only to be harshly rebuffed when he arrived at the jail. Was he crazy? The desk sergeant wanted to know. Didn't Hardy know better by now? Visitors weren't allowed to bring anything for the inmates into the jail - any piece of cake might have a razor blade or weapon in it, any drink some dissolved drugs.

So reluctantly, Hardy left the bag at the desk. The best of intentions...

One step into the room, Frannie turned from the guard and saw him sitting at the table, smiling at her. He spread out his arms. 'Sorry it's just me,' he said. 'I bought all your favorite food in the whole world, I really did, but they wouldn't let me bring any of it inside.' With a helpless expression he repeated that he was sorry.

She dissolved into tears. Just standing there in her orange jumpsuit, hands at her sides, looking at him and crying.

Nat Glitsky didn't like being interrupted when he was at temple.

Lots of times when he'd been younger, he'd been less than diligent at keeping the Sabbath, but now in his eighth decade he'd come to believe that the Ten Commandments had gotten everything exactly right if you wanted to have a world full of healthy and productive people. People should pay attention to the wisdom in all ten of them, he believed. They really should. Keeping the Sabbath, taking a day off, kept you sane.

But nowadays even religious people mostly only acknowledged nine. Keeping holy the Lord's day was not only forgotten, it had been completely subverted, even reversed. Woe betide the lazy b.u.m who took a whole day off every single week to reflect and try to gain some perspective on his life and work and the world around him. There wasn't time for that. There was only work. It was wrong.

Nat's working days were over, and all he wished now was that he'd kept the Sabbath sacred more often back when he'd get overwhelmed with childraising or working or the pressures of his marriage. It might not have changed his life much, but at least it would have planted the seed in his son Abraham, who was always crushed under his workload, and who now was sitting - fidgeting really - next to him.

And that was what adhering to the commandments was all about, too. It was generational. It fostered the long view that human nature never changed. Only individual humans did. But not so often as you'd think.

Nat finished his prayer and hit his son on the thigh. OK, they could get up and go outside now.

On the steps of the synagogue, they both stopped, squinting into the bright sunlight. 'I love the boy, Abraham, you know that. It's nothing to do with that. It's you.'

Abe drew in a deep breath. 'What's me? I didn't plan this, you know, having to go downtown on Rita's day off. They need me down there.'

Nat rolled his eyes, dismissing that excuse. 'They always need you down there. Your son needs you out here. Suppose I just say no, I've got to go back to temple - then what?'

'I don't know. I guess I go get Orel and bring him down with me.'

'Among the criminals? There's a fine solution. Better I should take him back here.'

'Except he's got his soccer practice.'

'Oh yes, right. Much more important than temple on the Sabbath.'

'Well, he's there, Dad, and I told him you'd be picking him up. If you're not, fine, but I've got to know right now - all right?'

Suddenly, the serenity of the temple vanished, and a rare flash of anger took its place. Nat's voice took on a hard edge. 'Everything's now with you, Abraham. You want to ask yourself why that is, maybe?'

Abe raised his own voice. 'No. I don't need to ask myself that, Dad. You want to know why? It's because everything is a crisis. Everything has to be done five minutes ago, and so Sat.u.r.day rolls around and all the stuff that needed to be done on Friday...' Abe reined in his own escalating temper. 'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't know. I don't mean to yell at you.'

Nat reached up and put a hand on his son's shoulder. Abe had his mother Emma's height and, of course, her color. He towered over his Jewish old man, who now shrugged. 'I been yelled at before, Abraham. It's not the yelling I'm worried about. It's your boy. It's time pa.s.sing and then it's gone and you never saw it.'

Glitsky had told his father he'd be getting home in time for dinner with him and Orel.

Nevertheless, the discussion nagged at him as he drove down to the Hall of Justice. It was still on his mind when he walked through the doorway into the long hall that led to the DA's office, airport for Flying a.s.sholes Airways.

What did they really need him for now anyway? On Sat.u.r.day afternoon?

The politicos thought they could just snap a finger and he'd have to come a-runnin'. And he was proving that they were right, because here he was. He should have just said no, he had other plans, he couldn't come down and discuss Ron Beaumont. But it was too late now.

Scott Randall was in Sharron Pratt's office with her lords.h.i.+p, the DA's investigator Peter Struler, Chief of Police Dan Rigby and Abe's predecessor as head of homicide, Captain Frank Batiste, who was now an a.s.sistant chief. And my, weren't things heating up? Four of the five of them - everyone but Batiste - were already in a friendly discussion about something that abruptly halted as Glitsky's shadow crossed the room's lintel.

'Ah, Lieutenant Glitsky.' Pratt was sitting on her desk and actually clapped her hands as though in delighted surprise that Abe had dropped in.

Batiste, Glitsky noticed, had found a convenient neutral corner and was memorizing the stains on the ceiling tiles. He was a good guy and his body language was telling Abe a lot. This wasn't his party, which meant that he'd been called down by the chief to neutralize Abe and make sure that homicide accepted the message, whatever it was.

Rigby and Randall sat on either end of the low couch looking at some papers spread on the table in front of them.

'Ah, Ms Pratt.' Unable to stop himself, Glitsky silently brought his own hands together. Sometimes imitation wasn't the sincerest form of flattery. Sometimes it meant that you saw through pretense and were telling the pretender that she was full of s.h.i.+t.

He stopped in the doorway and went into his best at ease. He nodded at the men, but no smile. 'Hey, guys.'

There was an awkward moment during which some glances were exchanged, Rigby evidently waiting for a signal that it was time to begin. He cleared his throat. 'About this Beaumont thing, Abe. And now the newspaper stories about this woman in jail.'

Glitsky nodded. 'Frannie. Her name's Frannie Hardy.'

'Yes, of course it is. Frannie.' The chief looked over at Pratt, got some secret message, cleared his throat, and spoke again. 'We've just about decided to put out an all points on Ron, the husband, and we wanted to run it by you first, to get your input.'

'We wanted to be sure we kept you in the loop, Abe,' Pratt added.

Glitsky did a quick take at Batiste and the two conducted a millisecond's worth of non-verbal communication of their own. Then the lieutenant folded his arms and leaned his bulk against the door jamb. 'I really appreciate your concern, Sharron, thank you. And this all points bulletin? It would be in light of new evidence that Investigator Struler's come up with - would that be it?'

Scott Randall spoke up. 'We want him for questioning, that's all. We want to talk to him.'

'You don't need me to talk to him.' Glitsky couldn't have been more laid back. 'You don't need me for an APB. But I'm curious about what you plan to do if you find him after this all points manhunt.' He looked at Struler, then Randall. Across the room, Batiste brought a hand up to his mouth and pulled on it to keep the corners down.

'What do you mean?' Struler asked. 'We bring him in and-'

'You arrest him, you mean?'

Cornered, Struler looked to Randall, then Pratt. He nodded. 'Sure.'

'With no evidence? No chance to even get past a prelim and go to trial, much less win? You want a lawsuit for false arrest, or what?'

Chief Rigby cleared his throat again, getting into the middle of it. 'Come on, Abe, it's not like there's no evidence.'

Glitsky turned to him. 'It isn't? I haven't seen any if there is.'

'The man's disappeared,' Randall said.

Glitsky shrugged. 'So? What's new?'

'The murder was at his house,' Pratt added. 'There's no sign of anyone else. She may have been having an affair and told him she was leaving. Process of elimination leaves Ron.'

Glitsky withered her with a look of disbelief and wondered, not for the first time, if the City and County's top attorney had pa.s.sed the bar or ever won a case in court. It didn't seem possible. 'You want to take that to a jury and get beyond reasonable doubt, Sharron, you've got my sympathy.'

Rigby, a political animal himself, tried to smooth the waters. 'The point is, Abe, that in the real world we've got to move along on this.'

But Pratt couldn't keep herself out of it. 'I've had calls from a lot of citizens plus we're getting some very bad response to this woman being in jail.' Pratt had made something of a career out of ignoring the rules of law. Now she seemed to be having a hard time reconciling herself to the fact that her political problems weren't going to go away even if she broke more of them. 'I got a call from the mayor this morning, do you realize that?'

Again, Glitsky shrugged. 'Talk to Judge Braun about that.'

'The mayor has talked to her.'

'And?' Although they wouldn't be here if Glitsky didn't know the answer. Braun wasn't budging.

Randall b.u.t.ted in with the crux of his theory. 'If we get Beaumont in custody, Abe,' he said, 'we can s.h.i.+ft public opinion away from Frannie and on to Ron. He'll be the bad guy for putting her in this position.'

Now Glitsky had it all on the table. These people were really from Mars. 'If memory serves,' he said, 'it was you who put her in this position, wasn't it, Scott?'

But the young attorney waved that off. 'I was perfectly justified and Judge Braun was also well within her rights. It's just that we're starting to get a lot of political flack-'

'And want to sacrifice Ron Beaumont. Same as yesterday.' Glitsky's eyes raked the room. 'This is not how it works, guys.' A shake of his head. He turned to Rigby and asked the direct question. 'Chief, what do you want me to do?'