Dismas Hardy: Nothing But The Truth Part 9

Hardy knew all this, although it wasn't any solace. 'Look, Abe, maybe I can still get Braun-'

' "Maybe" is the key word here. Look, Diz, I've pleaded with Pratt, I've tried to bully Randall, I've been over to see Frannie twice and make sure they're taking care of her, which it seems like they are. I don't like this any more than you do.'

'I know, Abe. I'm not saying you're not-'

'But anything to do with Ron Beaumont isn't the issue for the next three days. Your immediate problem is with Braun.'

'But if you found Ron, put out a warrant, got other agencies looking...'

'Then what? That's going to happen when the grand jury reconvenes on Tuesday anyway. They're going to indict him unless my guys find somebody else and then the whole world will be looking for him. So they'll probably find him. But even then, if he's a killer he's not going to say anything. Then what's Frannie going to do?'

'I don't know, Abe, I just don't know.'

'Lord.' The cop voice softened. Abe clearly felt for him, was even trying to help on several fronts, but there just wasn't anything he could do. 'What do you think, Diz? She give you a hint what this is this all about? You got any ideas at all?'

He had to force the words. 'Not a clue, Abe,' he lied. 'Not a d.a.m.n clue.'

Fifteen minutes after the news ended, he had his coat on and was walking out the door when the telephone rang again. He was sure it was the beginning of the onslaught of the reporters, and was going to let his answering machine get it while he drove downtown. But then he remembered that it might be Erin or the kids, so he decided to monitor the call and stood listening at the hallway extension.

'h.e.l.lo?' An unfamiliar voice, probably a reporter, and one who was good enough to have scored Hardy's unlisted number. He sounded obviously disappointed that it hadn't connected with his interview. Well, Hardy didn't want to talk to reporters. He got to the front door, on his way out. The voice continued. 'I'm trying to reach Dismas Hardy. My name is Ron Beaumont and I just saw the news report on-'

Hardy grabbed at the phone and said h.e.l.lo.

'Mr Hardy, how are you?'

'Well, not so good, to tell you the truth. You know they've got Frannie in jail?'

'That's why I called you. It was on the news and I thought I might be able to help.'

'You could. Where are you now?'

A pause. 'Uh, I'd rather not say. Not too far away. I thought it would be smarter to get away before the police decided I was their suspect.'

'The police haven't decided that. It's the DA.'

A dry laugh. 'Same thing to me. I can't afford to get in their sights. Did your wife tell you about... about the situation here? With me?'

'Yeah. We talked.' Hardy knew he sounded furious, impatient. He was. He didn't feel compelled to dissemble for poor Ron the prime mover. 'The thing is, Frannie's in a pretty d.a.m.n bleak way right now. She's already done a night in the can.'

'I know. I feel terrible about that. That's why I'm calling, to find out if there's anything I can do.'

'You want my recommendation?'

'Yes.'

Hardy gave it to him straight. 'You come see me now, give me a note to take to Frannie at the jail and tell her she's got your permission to talk to the grand jury. She takes this word-of-honor stuff pretty seriously.'

'Obviously you do, too.'

Hardy didn't answer that. He wasn't sure how far his n.o.bility would go if Frannie stayed locked up much longer. But for the moment, let Ron think whatever would help Frannie. 'The point is, she needs to tell the grand jury. Or you do.'

A long silence. Then, 'You must know I can't do that.'

'Sure you can. You give Frannie permission to talk, then go back to wherever you are now. You said you're still local. You can just-'

'I didn't say that.'

Hardy wasn't going to get into semantics with him. He'd said he wasn't far away, and that was good enough for now. 'OK, you're not local. But wherever you are, you want to help Frannie, right? Isn't that why you called here?'

'But I can't-'

'Look, you can. I'm a lawyer. I can broker this thing through the courts-'

'No, you don't understand, that's not happening. Last time I tried to play by the rules and do things through the courts. I had a good lawyer, then, too. You know what happened? The courts gave my kids to their mother. You hear what I'm saying? The rules don't give the kids to the father. I can't have that again. I can't take the risk.'

'There doesn't have to be a risk. It doesn't have to come up at all. All they care about is if you killed your wife. If you didn't, you go back to your normal life.'

'No, I don't think so. That's what I'd like, but I don't see normal life in this picture anymore.'

Hardy took a beat, lowered his voice. He was sweating in the cool house, his hands white around the receiver. He let out a breath, spoke softly. 'Then I really don't understand why you called. I don't know what else you can do to help Frannie.'

After another pause, Ron Beaumont finally said, 'I'll try to think of something. I'm sorry.'

'No, wait! Maybe we-' The line went dead.

'He wouldn't even write you a d.a.m.n note, Frannie. How about that?'

His wife didn't let it faze her. 'I know he wants to help.'

'Oh yes,' Hardy dripped with sarcasm. 'He's all for helping. He just doesn't want to do anything.'

Arms crossed, her body language swearing at him, she spoke through tight lips. 'What could he do? What can he do that wouldn't threaten his kids?'

'How does it threaten his kids to let you talk? He stays hiding. Besides, tell me why they're not threatened right now.'

'You've said it yourself. Because he's not a suspect. Even Abe said it on TV. The police aren't looking for him.'

That had been, Hardy had to admit, one of very few sweet moments in an otherwise disastrous day. Glitsky would undoubtedly wind up paying h.e.l.l for saying that there wasn't any evidence to arrest Ron Beaumont for murder. The DA would complain to the chief. They'd foot drag even more than they already did on his cases. Even so, to Glitsky it was probably worth it.

But that wasn't why Hardy was here. 'How about our children? Don't you see that they're a little threatened here? How can you not see that?'

'Don't you dare patronize me,' she snapped. 'Of course I see that. Don't you think this is...' Her eyes flashed with fire and tears of rage. 'This is impossible! Don't you think I see that, I feel that?' She whirled in the small s.p.a.ce behind the table in the attorneys' visiting room. Nowhere to run. 'But what do you want me to do?'

'That's an easy one. I want you to give him up.'

'And his kids?'

'It's either his or ours, Frannie. Doesn't seem like that tough a call to me.'

'Just give him up?'

He thought that maybe, at last, she'd heard him. With an effort, he reined in his temper. 'He's gone anyway, Frannie. He's on the run. It's going to look like he killed Bree as soon as that gets out. Then he's really in the news and the whole story - kids and all - comes out anyway. Then what's all this been for?'

Her face remained set. 'It's not there yet.'

'What isn't where?'

'n.o.body's going to look into Ron's life. Not unless he gets charged. Ron isn't anybody's focus.'

'Yes he is,' Hardy said. 'He's mine. He's Scott Randall's.'

'Oh, that's real nice. That's swell, Dismas.' Frannie spit the words out at him. 'Side yourself with my pal Scott Randall.'

'I'm not siding with Scott Randall. Jesus Christ. I'm trying to get you out of here! I'm trying to put our family together again and all I get from you is poor Ron f.u.c.king Beaumont. Because I'll tell you something, Frannie. He and his kids, they're gone.'

She looked up at him defiantly. 'You always think you know everything. You've got everything figured out. Well, I'll tell you something. No they're not gone. He called you an hour ago. He doesn't want to run. He wants to go back to his normal life. Don't you see that?'

Deflated, Hardy rested a haunch on the corner of the table. 'Don't you see that that's not going to happen?' he asked wearily. 'It's not going to happen no matter what.'

'It will if they find who killed Bree.'

Hardy shook his head. 'Not true, Frannie. That's just not true.' He forced a persuasive tone. 'Listen, on Tuesday, the grand jury is going to reconvene and by then Scott Randall - even without Glitsky's help - is going to discover that Ron has cut out. That's going to be enough to get him indicted. After that he's high profile. Then it all comes out.'

'OK, that's Tuesday,' she said. 'If somebody, maybe Abe, can find Bree's killer before that, some real evidence-'

'Unlikely.'

'Why?'

'Because it's already been three weeks. The case is dead. You're talking three days? It's not going to happen.'

'What if Ron helps? What if he tells everybody what he knows about Bree?'

'Tells who? Like Abe?'

But, infuriatingly, she shook her head. 'He can't get involved with the police.'

'Oh, that's right. I almost forgot. And while we're at it, are you saying he didn't tell the police all he knew when they asked last time?'

'No, I'm not saying that. And you don't have to be such a bully. He answered their questions-'

'But just sort of forgot to volunteer anything interesting he might have known about his own wife's murder? Give me a break, Frannie. This is ridiculous.'

She slammed her fist on the table pathetically. 'It's not ridiculous. Don't you see the tragedy of all this? Don't you care about anybody else? Don't you have any feelings anymore?'

'Oh, please...' He was up now, spun around on her. 'I've got more feelings than you can imagine right at this moment. I feel like killing the son of a b.i.t.c.h, for example. I feel like what's going to happen to our kids without their mother, what's going on with our marriage for that matter.'

He glared at her, but she said nothing. No denial, just a cold stare back at him.

's.h.i.+t,' he said, and walked as far away as he could, up against the gla.s.s block wall, and stood there.

Her chair sc.r.a.ped. A second later he felt her behind him, although their bodies didn't touch. 'Help him,' she whispered. He couldn't think of a thing to say and she spoke into the vacuum. 'You've told me I'm in here for another three days anyway, no matter what, isn't that right? That's got nothing to do with the secret.'

Glitsky's distinction, but what was Frannie's point? 'So?'

'So if you're right, they won't indict Ron until Tuesday. Which means that the kids - that whole thing - it won't have to come out until after that, and never if he doesn't get indicted. That means you have three days.'

He turned. 'I have three days.'

'Yes.'

'For what?'

'To save some lives, Dismas.' 'And how do I do that?'

'You find Bree's killer.'

He hung his head. His wife had no idea what she was talking about. 'Oh, OK. I'll just run out and do that. Why didn't I think of that before? It's so simple.' He turned. 'Any bright idea of where I might begin?'

'With Ron,' she said. 'I told you he wants to help.'

'Well,' Hardy responded. 'Old Ron didn't get around to telling me where I could find him. Maybe next time he calls-'

'I might know,' she said.

There was a hole in the floor, a so-called 'Turkish toilet,' against the back wall, a block of concrete with a mattress on it, and on the mattress a sheet and two gray woolen blankets. There was no sink. The walls were padded because the administrative segregation unit was where they put the bona-fide crazies before they got medicated.

The door closed behind her - she hardly realized and certainly wasn't grateful that it wasn't bars but a true door with a peephole and a place to slide food in on the bottom.

She stood, numb and mute, without moving for a minute or more.

At some level, she was aware of the cold coming up through the paper slippers she wore. Everything was cold.

Overhead, there was a light, recessed behind wired gla.s.s. The light would go off sometime soon and plunge the cell into darkness.

There was no control anywhere.

She alternated between not letting herself feel anything, or reacting to everything. Last night, when the light had gone off, she'd cried for nearly an hour. Tonight, the darkness itself would no longer matter. She could tell that already.

She was trying to feel her children, to imagine them with Erin, at least warm and safe. But the connection was gone for now. In its place was only the physical stuff here - the bed and the padded walls and the smell of disinfectant.

Maybe, she told herself, her emotions had played themselves out. But an aura of panic seemed to s.h.i.+mmer around that thought, as if maybe her emotions had been cauterized so deeply that now they had been completely burned away, and she'd never let herself feel anything again, not at a certain level anyway.

And then her husband. Every time he came, all she felt she could do was fight and argue and explain. When all she wanted was the understanding they used to...

But she wouldn't be weak. Weakness would leave her helpless, unable to make decisions for the kids if it came to that.

What was it going to come to?