Dismas Hardy: Nothing But The Truth Part 40

'I've never heard of him.'

'He was the victim of the Clean Earth Alliance attack on the Pulgas Water Temple the other day.'

'That again.' This time he allowed a tone of suppressed anger. He rolled his eyes.

'Again?' Glitsky asked.

Thorne ignored the question. 'And you think I had something to do with that? On what grounds?'

'Justifiable grounds, Mr Thorne,' Glitsky replied. 'A judge signed the warrant. That's all you need to know. Now I'm not letting you into this apartment until we're finished here. As a courtesy, we'll bring a chair over and I'll let you remain in that alcove. With your lawyer when he shows up. But n.o.body's touching anything here until we're done. Do you understand?'

The men were standing two feet apart. Thorne huffed, replying. 'Perfectly.'

Glitsky crossed the room, said a few words to Batavia, and went back to the desk. The cable car went by again as Batavia brought two chairs from around the kitchen table through the living room and into the alcove. Then he lifted Thorne's overcoat from its peg, as Glitsky had instructed him.

'Hey! What do you think... ?' For the first time, Thorne's voice rose.

Glitsky was up as if shot out of his chair, his own voice harsh with authority. 'You stay right where you are. Jorge, make sure he does. While you're at it, have him give you his wallet and check his identification.'

'I won't...'

'You d.a.m.n well will,' Batavia said.

Glitsky took the overcoat from his sergeant and now held it up to his face. He'd smelled a strong odor as Thorne had removed the coat and hung it up. It hadn't been there when Glitsky and Jorge had entered the apartment and then, suddenly, with Thorne's arrival, there it was - gasoline.

Reaching into the pockets one by one, his hand closed around what felt like some kind of charm. Extracting it carefully, he instantly placed the piece. It was at least an exact replica, but Glitsky would bet it was an original, of one of the hand-blown Venetian gla.s.s elephants that he'd last seen dancing across the mantel over Hardy's living-room fireplace.

Sergeant Coleman was having trouble getting through to Jim Pierce, whose patience had all but run out. Coleman's had as well. He'd been kept waiting for nearly a half hour, and now, as he'd finally been admitted into the vice president's office, had been told by Pierce's secretary that the next meeting started in ten minutes.

Pierce was behind his desk. Distracted. No hand shake. Papers to be signed, decisions to make. He looked up at Coleman. The inspector, he said, could talk but he'd better talk fast. These continual interruptions were far beyond reasonable, getting near to the point of official hara.s.sment. If they continued, there were likely to be consequences.

The power play had its effect on the young inspector. The corner office was vast, ornate, intimidating. Windows and views, high enough to be over the fog. Coleman squirmed in the ultra-modern wooden chair - really more a stool with sides than anything a body would choose to sit in or on.

It crossed Coleman's mind that this might, in fact, be a special chair positioned in front of Pierce's desk for unwelcome visitors, to keep them from getting too comfortable. To make sure they wanted to leave soon.

Homicide inspectors are not a particularly reverent bunch. Most of them had seen everything at least twice, and Coleman was no exception. But sitting in Pierce's office, he found it next to impossible to imagine that the man who presided here would ever need to have recourse to murder. Coleman didn't really believe it, but he did at least want to nail down the facts, if for no other reason than that he wouldn't have to be in this position again.

'I realize you have cooperated up to now, sir, and we're grateful for that cooperation...'

'Well, this is a fine way to show it. What more could you possibly have to ask me that you haven't asked already?'

'We tried to reach you yesterday, sir, about Sat.u.r.day night.'

'I know.' He reached for a fountain pen, signed something, put the pen back, blew on the signature, and moved the paper to one side. Then, immediately, he started reading the next one. He didn't look up. 'My wife told me you had come by. Again. About a police officer this time?'

'Sergeant Canetta, yes sir.'

'I do know that name. Where do I know...?'

'He had worked security for Caloco at several events.'

Finally, Pierce stopped fidgeting. 'That's it. He was the man who was killed?'

'Yes, sir.'

This seemed to affect Pierce somewhat. He sighed deeply and his mouth grew compressed, his brow furrowed. 'I'm sorry, inspector. I'm sorry for my rudeness earlier. I'm under some pressure here but that's every day and it's no excuse. I can understand how you feel when your colleagues are...' He straightened in his chair. 'All right. Go on. What do you need to know?'

'I'd like to know where you were on Sat.u.r.day night.'

In spite of the apology, impatience thrummed under the surface. 'May I ask why that would be important? What did my wife tell you?'

Coleman said nothing.

And Pierce got the message, although it didn't make him any happier. He sighed again. 'I was home until early morning, perhaps dawn. Then I went down to my boat in the Marina.'

'But you were home during the night?'

'I just said that, yes.'

'Alone?'

Pierce nodded. 'Is that so strange, sergeant? My wife had gone out to a party that I didn't want to attend.'

'Did your wife see you when she got home?'

A short laugh. 'What did she tell you?' Then, ruefully. 'I doubt it. I spent the night in my study.' He met Pierce's eyes. 'We fought about the party, that I wasn't going. When it was over, I heard her come home, but wanted to see if she'd come to me and apologize. When she didn't... well, I got my back up.'

'So you slept in your study?'

'Not much. I was pretty mad and couldn't sleep most of the night. I watched some television.'

'Do you remember what?'

'I don't know, really. Some pay-per-view sports I guess. Mindless junk. Whatever was on. I dozed on and off.'

'Do you know offhand the company that provides your television service?' Coleman asked.

'No,' Pierce said. 'No idea, sorry. Do you know yours?'

'Do you mind if I check?'

'I don't know, I...' But then Pierce brightened slightly, although the smile didn't exactly light up the room. 'Oh, I see. Sure, of course. Whatever you need to do.'

Coleman, with relief, pushed himself out of the chair from h.e.l.l. 'Thank you for your time, sir. I hope we won't have to bother you again.'

Pierce sat still for a long beat, then shook his head in disbelief. 'Before you go, inspector, maybe you can answer me one question?'

'If I can.'

'All right. Is there any reason on G.o.d's earth why I might have wanted to kill Sergeant Canetta? Since that's what I presume this has been all about. He did some security work for Caloco, OK. Where? What type of security work? And then what? I didn't even know the man. I doubt if I could pick him out of a crowd.' He paused and spread his hands, appealing to reason. 'I just don't understand. Is he related to me in some other way?'

Coleman heard him out. He really couldn't blame him for being angry and frustrated, but he wasn't going to give away anything that his boss had told him to withhold. 'It's a routine investigation,' he said. 'That's all it is. Thanks for your time.'

'That is a coincidence,' Baxter Thorne was telling Glitsky, 'but these little elephants are widely available. You can buy one at any quality gift store. It's my lucky charm. I've carried it with me for years.'

Another question, another simple answer. 'As I have already told you, Dismas Hardy was, I believe, the name of the gentleman who came by my office this morning and made some threatening remarks.' Glitsky still hadn't let Thorne enter the apartment proper. He sat on one of the chairs in the alcove and the lieutenant hovered above him. 'Beyond that, I can't say I know anything about him.'

Thorne was completely unruffled, going on again, answering Glitsky's next question in his maddeningly even voice. He even produced a reasonable facsimile of a heartfelt chuckle. 'I filled my tank, lieutenant, then I'm afraid I committed the cardinal sin of topping off. It got on my coat.'

Glitsky was coming around to a profound appreciation of just how slick this b.a.s.t.a.r.d might be when the telephone rang behind him. Batavia picked it up, listened for a moment, then held it out to Glitsky. 'It's for you. Vince.'

Glitsky told Thorne to stay where he was and crossed to the desk.

'Pierce is clean at last,' Coleman began and went on to explain what he'd learned at Caloco. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. 'Can you still hear me?'

'Barely.'

'That'll have to be good enough. We got people here.'

'OK.'

'OK, so I'm writing up this Pierce thing at my desk and guess who drops by? He just left like five ago. Ranzetti.'

Glitsky frowned. Jerry Ranzetti was with the office of management and control, a department which used to go by the name of internal affairs. If Ranzetti had come to homicide, he was on the scent of a bad cop, and this wasn't good news for Glitsky. The homicide unit was small - thirteen men and one woman - and Abe felt he could personally vouch for the integrity of each one of them. 'I gather it wasn't a social call.'

'Well, he pretends. I pretend back. Then he says, oh yeah, maybe there is something, maybe I heard something about it, maybe I could tell him something.'

'Maybe,' Glitsky said. 'About who?'

Coleman paused and the voice when it picked up again was nearly inaudible. 'That's why I called, Abe. The guy he's sniffing around? It was you.'

35.

'When did you know?' Ron asked.

'I had a pretty good idea by the time I saw your bedrooms, but I really didn't put it all together until I realized you must be having a s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p with Marie. Bree's having an affair. You're having an affair. But somehow you were a happy couple, comfortable together? Contented? It didn't make sense. The only thing I don't understand is why you went to all the trouble? Why couldn't she just have remained Aunt Bree?'

'At the time, that option just seemed to leave us with a lot more to explain to everybody we met. n.o.body questions a man and his children and his new wife. But a man, his sister, and the man's kids? That's different - it's a weird set-up, with a way better chance of striking somebody as funny, and we couldn't have that. You've got to understand - I'm wanted for kidnapping, maybe child p.o.r.nography. This is serious s.h.i.+t. They are on me. We had to look exactly like a normal couple. Not mostly, exactly. And for a long time, we did.'

'Except for the affairs.'

Ron shook his head. 'OK, we had to keep the affairs secret. But since that's generally the nature of affairs with people who are really married, it's worked out all right.'

'So you and Marie. How long has that been going on?'

'A couple of years.'

'And she's OK with that? She didn't push you to get married?'

He sat back on the couch, crossing one leg over the other. 'No. To get divorced from Bree - we've had a few discussions about that, let me tell you. But that was before Bree died. Since then, I think she's waiting for an appropriate time to pa.s.s. My mourning period,' he added uncomfortably. 'So marriage hasn't come up yet.'

'Are you telling me she didn't know about Bree?'

'She still doesn't. n.o.body does.'

Hardy sat back himself, giving that a minute to sink in. 'The kids?'

Ron Beaumont shook his head no. 'They were two and three when we moved out here. Maybe they'd heard of Bree as their aunt but they didn't remember. So after awhile, she was just Bree, their step-mom. A far better life than what they were used to.'

'So what about Dawn?'

This brought Ron's defenses up. Suddenly, he was all the way forward on the couch, by his body language ready to spring at this threat to his children, even if it was at a man with a gun. 'What about her?'

'That's my question.'

He stayed forward, tensed, his hands clenched in front of him. Hardy waited him out. Gradually, the words started to come. 'I had never met anyone like her, even remotely like her. I was a junior at Wisconsin. I met her in the library of all places - she was working on her master's thesis. Sociology.'

'So she was an academic, too?'

Ron laughed. 'No. Although she was smart, I suppose. No, I know. Very smart. Too smart.'

'What does that mean?'

He drew in a breath and blew it out heavily. 'She didn't feel anything, or - no, that's not precisely it - more like she decided what feelings were rationally defensible and the others she just didn't acknowledge. She wasn't going to live a p.a.w.n to her weaker emotions.'

'Which ones were those?'

'Oh, you know. The conventional ones that hold us all back, but especially women. At least according to Dawn. Love, need, compa.s.sion. Anything that stood in the way of her getting what she wanted.'

'Which was?'

A shrug. 'Pretty simple really. The usual. Money, power, excitement.'

Hardy almost laughed at the absurdity he was hearing. 'And she was getting all this as a sociology major?'

Ron shook his head. 'No. She started as a topless dancer. By the time I met her,' he paused, 'she called herself an actress.' He sighed. 'When I think back on it, what drew me to her was this sense of... I guess I'd have to call it danger.' He fell silent again.

'Go on,' Hardy prompted him. 'Do you mean physical danger?'

Another empty laugh. 'Yeah, I suppose, even that. Or at least it seemed that way to a sheltered kid from suburban Illinois. She was four years older than me and really nothing was off-limits physically.