Dismas Hardy: Nothing But The Truth Part 47

39.

But Hardy found himself in an unexpected bind, convinced the judge and coerced the DA into pus.h.i.+ng ahead smartly with his unconventional game plan, now be looked out into the gallery and realized that he had to stall. He had been planning to start with the testimony of Jim Pierce and had a.s.sumed that, like the other witnesses he'd served who were now sitting in the gallery, Pierce would show up on time.

While he'd argued with Pratt and Randall during sidebar, he'd expected to turn around when he was finished and see Pierce seated in the gallery. But now it was time to begin and Pierce hadn't yet arrived.

Having gotten to here, he couldn't very well ask Judge Braun for short continuance or even so much as a recess. He was going to have to juggle while doing a tap dance, and could only hope he could keep the b.a.l.l.s in the air until it was time for the main event.

'My name is Abraham Glitsky. I hold the rank of Lieutenant in the San Francisco police department, and currently 1 am the head of the homicide unit.'

'And how long have you held that position?'

'Five years.'

'And before that?'

'Your honor.' Scott Randall was on his feet. 'We all know Lieutenant Glitsky.'

'Is that an objection, counsellor?' Objections, like so much else in a court of law, were part of the orchestrated ballet of justice, and had to be based on deviations from the evidence code. Telling the court that everyone knew Abe Glitsky didn't fall anywhere near that category. But, more, Braun's response reaffirmed Hardy's belief that Scott Randall no longer had any kind of friend on the bench. 'But Mr Hardy,' she added, 'let's move it along.'

'I'm trying to make the court aware of Lieutenant Glitsky's credentials, your honor.'

'All right, but briefly, please.'

It took less than two minutes. Five years lieutenant of homicide, twelve years a homicide inspector, steady rise through the ranks from street cop, through vice, robbery, white collar. Four departmental citations, one medal for valor.

People could always turn bad, of course, but Hardy wanted to show Braun that if someone predicted the next one to do so would be Glitsky, it would be a pretty wild - and bad - guess.

Braun had told him to keep it brief, and that was his intention with Glitsky - put him on the stand, establish him as a good and honest cop, and then see if Randall rose to the bait and tried to take him apart, discrediting himself in the process. 'That's all for this witness,' he said. 'Cross?'

The young prosecutor couldn't wait. 'Yes, I'd say so.' Randall strode up to the witness box and positioned himself squarely in front of Glitsky. 'In your position as head of homicide, lieutenant, were you originally involved with the investigation into the murder of Bree Beaumont?'

'Not in a hands-on way. Only in an administrative capacity.'

Comfortable after years of practice in the witness seat, Glitsky quickly took the opening Randall had provided and outlined his job description - he had a staff of inspectors who reported to him and who worked in coordination with a crime scene investigations unit, forensic specialists, lab technicians, and the city and country coroner to gather and collate evidence on homicides in this jurisdiction.

None of this had anything to do with Ron or Bree Beaumont, and Hardy could never have introduced a word of it during his direct question Glitsky. But he'd counted on the fact that Randall had an ax to grind. The young prosecutor wanted to prove to Braun that his unorthodox and even extra-legal tactics had been justified all along because the head of homicide was corrupt. Hardy could have objected all day and been sustained, but he was happy to let Randall hang himself.

'And when your staff a.s.sembles this evidence, lieutenant, and determines that there has in fact been a crime and they've identified a suspect, what do they do next?'

'We go to the DA, who decides if they want to charge the individual, and what the exact charge will be. First-degree murder, manslaughter, that kind of thing.'

'And how long does it take, roughly, from the commission of a homicide until you make this submission to the DA?'

'It varies widely. A couple of days to a couple of years.'

'OK.' Randall was covering ground familiar to every professional in the courtroom, but obviously he felt he was making his case to Braun. Now he became specific. 'In the case of Bree Beaumont, it's been over a month. Can you tell the court why that is?'

'The original inspector a.s.signed to the case, Carl Griffin, was shot to death five days after Bree was killed. That slowed things down somewhat.'

A ripple of nervous laughter spread through the courtroom. Randall seemed oblivious to it and Braun let it pa.s.s.

'And at that point, did you get personally involved in the investigation?'

'No, I did not.'

'Did you interrogate witnesses?'

'No.'

'Did you have occasion to talk to the victim's husband, Ron Beaumont?'

'No.'

'But isn't it a fact, lieutenant, that this morning you escorted Mr Beaumont and Mr Hardy to this courtroom?'

'Yes, that's true.'

'But you say you had never before met or talked to Mr Beaumont?'

'No.'

'I remind you, lieutenant, you are under oath.'

A small lifting of the mouth. 'I understand that. The answer's still no.'

The questions went on rapidly, without interruption, as Randall walked Glitsky through the steps of his eventual personal involvement in the case. The proximity of Griffin's murder scene to the residences of Bree and the other suspects, and finally to Canetta and the ballistics test proving that both men had been shot with the same gun.

Hardy picked up no sense of impatience from the judge. Finally, Randall got to where he'd been heading all along. 'Now, lieutenant, after you had determined that Sergeants Griffin and Canetta had been killed with the same gun, did you immediately turn this information over to the district attorney?'

'No, I did not.'

'Can you tell the court why that was?'

Glitsky turned up to face Marian Braun. 'It is standard procedure to withhold information from the media so that potential suspects will not be privy to incriminating evidence we might have against them. That way, if they tell us something that hasn't been released... I think this is probably pretty obvious, isn't it?'

'But this wasn't the media, lieutenant. This was the district attorney's office, with which you are supposed to cooperate. Why didn't you tell them?'

'Two reasons. One, we've had a lot of trouble with leaks.' Everyone in the building knew this was a constant problem, although every department accused every other one of being the source of them. 'Second, a little more prosaically, I wasn't sure of any of this until last night. If I didn't have this hearing this morning, I might have brought the information to the DA already.'

Hardy couldn't believe that Randall still thought he was scoring points. But evidently he did, and now moved on to another area where Glitsky had allegedly failed in his duties. 'Lieutenant, do you know a Sergeant Timms?'

'Yes. He's a crime scene specialist.'

'Did he work with you on the cars of Sergeants Griffin and Canetta?'

'Yes.'

'And did you tell him about your suspicions that the two deaths of these policemen might have been related?'

'Of course. I'm the one who asked him to check ballistics on the slugs.'

'And did you tell him not to mention this suspected connection to anyone?'

'Yes.'

'Why was that?'

'It was premature. I didn't know if it was true. You have one person killing two policemen, it stirs up the force. I thought maybe we could avoid that if it turned out not to be true.'

Randall threw his hands up theatrically. 'But it did turn out to be true? Isn't that the case?'

'Yes it did.'

'And both men were investigating the death of Bree Beaumont?'

'Yes.'

Hardy was just thinking it was going to be too easy when Randall finally hit a nerve. 'Lieutenant, did Sergeant Canetta work in the homicide detail? Was he a homicide inspector?'

Glitsky threw a neutral look at the defense table, and returned to the prosecutor. 'No. He worked out of Central Station.'

'Central Station? Perhaps you can tell the court how he came to be working on a murder case?'

'He was connected to the case through one of the witnesses we'd interviewed.'

'Who was that?'

'Jim Pierce, a vice president for Caloco oil. Mr Pierce used to be Bree Beaumont's employer, and he'd also employed Sergeant Canetta for security at some conventions and so on.'

'And so on,' Randall aped. 'Isn't it true that Canetta was in fact working for Mr Hardy?'

'In what sense?'

'I mean the sense of working, he was his employer...'

'On his payroll? Not to my knowledge. No. Ask Mr Hardy.'

Randall had made the cardinal mistake, asking a question in court for which he didn't already know the answer. It left him speechless for a beat.

And into the silence, Marian Braun finally spoke up. 'Where are you going with all this, Mr Randall? Do you have any proof that Mr Hardy had hired Sergeant Canetta?'

'No, your honor, not yet.'

'Then find another line of questioning, establish this one's relevance, or sit down. This courtroom is not the old fis.h.i.+n' hole.'

It was a little after ten thirty and Braun called for a ten-minute recess. Jim Pierce had not yet arrived, but the way this free-form hearing was developing, Hardy thought that even without the oil company executive's testimony, there was still some chance that he could succeed in freeing Frannie and keeping Ron and his children out of the system. Randall's arrogance had played beautifully into his hands, and now Hardy believed that the judge was primed for his next revelation, which should erode the DA's credibility to the point of extinction.

As soon as Braun was out of the courtroom, the familiar bedlam began again.

At this point, all Hardy wanted was a few minutes to talk to his wife, and to get Glitsky to one side, but neither of those seemed likely.

The minute Glitsky left the stand, he paused at Hardy's desk, opined that he'd rarely had a better time in the witness box, then said the vibrating buzzer had been going off on his belt for the past hour. He'd better go make a few callbacks. He pa.s.sed through the bar rail, back up the center aisle and out the back doors of the courtroom.

Meanwhile, Al Valens, apoplectic, was making a racket, demanding that the bailiff let him back to see the judge. All right, he and Damon Kerry - good citizens, respecting their subpoenas - had shown up after voting, but the candidate couldn't be expected to sit here all day. He had meetings, press conferences, fundraising... there were reporters out in the hallway already writing stories about his appearance here in a courtroom involved in a murder case.

Baxter Thorne sat in the pew under where he had been standing when they had come in. He was talking to a well-dressed young couple, evidently giving them instructions of some kind, and Hardy was glad that the dapper slimebag chose to remain near the back of the room. If he got too close to the man who he believed had set fire to his house, he thought there was still a reasonable chance that he might a.s.sault him, and that wouldn't further his case with Braun.

A wronged Ron Beaumont wanted to know what Hardy was doing. What was all this witness stuff? How long was this going to take? He'd thought that Hardy's idea was to argue for Frannie's release, and Ron would be there to make sure she no longer was bound by her promise to him. Then somehow he was going to get him out of here before Randall or Pratt could stop him. But he'd noticed the guards at the doors and now he'd seen Pratt talking to another one, who had come down to the end of his pew. What was he supposed to do now?

Hardy calmed him as best he could, explaining that he was laying groundwork for the judge. Glitsky's testimony of course didn't legally prove that a bullet from the same gun had killed both Griffin and Canetta. This proceeding wasn't about proof anymore, although Hardy still hoped that that might come later. It was about the DA's judgment and tactics and Braun's faith in them or lack thereof.

'That's the only thing that's going to get you out of this courtroom a free man, Ron. If Braun decides that Randall needs a stronger case to even consider you as a suspect. And now at least I've got her listening.'

Ron still didn't like it, but Hardy had never promised him that he would.

David Freeman kept Frannie chatting at the defense table. They didn't want her interacting with Ron Beaumont in any way, and it was Freeman's role to keep her entertained. By the time Braun re-entered the courtroom, he had her laughing quietly at one of his stories. During the recess, Hardy had barely had time to get a word in, but as they rose for the judge's entrance, he took her hand and squeezed it. She looked up at him and nodded. Confident in him, committed.

Hardy felt he had to establish a few more facts, and introduced into evidence the autopsy and coroner's reports on the two policemen. Pratt and Randall had no objections to Dr Strout's findings as to the causes and times of the deaths.

Hardy put it orally into the record. 'According to the coroner's report, your honor, Sergeant Griffin was shot between ten thirty and about noon on Monday, 5 October. Ms Pratt and Mr Randall both accept this timeframe. For the court's information, this was the same day of Bree Beaumont's funeral and burial.'

'All right, Mr Hardy. Proceed.'

'I'd like to call Father Martin Bernardin.'

The priest was in his ca.s.sock and collar. He came through the gallery and up to the stand. Somewhere between forty and fifty years old, Bernardin was a trim, gray man with an ascetic's face. After the clerk had administered the oath, Hardy spent a minute identifying him as the pastor of St Catherine's parish, the church where Bree had been buried. Then. 'Father Bernardin, do you know Ron Beaumont?'

'Yes, I do.'

'And do you recognize him here in this courtroom?'

'Yes.' He pointed. 'He's the gentleman in the green suit in the first row over there.'

Several members of the gallery strained to look at this key player in all these events. There was a low buzz of comment, but Braun rapped her gavel lightly and put an end to that.

'Now, Father Bernardin. On October fifth, the day of Bree Beaumont's funeral, did you have occasion to spend any time with Mr Beaumont?'

'Yes, sir. I spent most of the whole day with him.'

This brought the gallery to life again, but this time Braun let the noise die of its own accord.

Bernardin had already said it, but Hardy walked the priest through the day - the breakfast, ma.s.s, burial, lunch at the Cliff House. 'In other words, Father,' he concluded, 'it is your sworn testimony that you were continually in the presence of Mr Beaumont from before seven in the morning until at least two thirty in the afternoon on October fifth of this year?'

'That's correct.'