Dead Irish

Chapter Twenty-seven

THE MORNING sun cast long shadows over the Cruz parking lot. It was barely seven A.M., and Hardy had been there for over an hour, taking the chance that Cruz had told the truth about one thing-working bosses’ hours.

He’d slept at Jane’s, gotten up early and decided to find out about Arturo Cruz once and for all. He wrote Jane a note, then drove across the wakening city to China Basin, where the whole thing had begun.

And it was, he thought, a whole thing, a whole new thing. Jane was right. It could be a pattern emerging. Two weeks before, he was a bartender, he wasn’t in love (either the feeling or the attitude), he hadn’t talked to Abe Glitsky in almost a year, or walked sharks or cared about some stupid idea of Pico’s to get them into the Steinhart.

He wasn’t sure what was going on, exactly. But having an hour alone to think about it, on a morning they were probably shooting postcards all over the Bay, made it all very real and a little scary.

It was just a favor for Moses and Frannie, he had told himself at first, but that wasn’t washing very well anymore. It had gotten inside him, this feeling that he might be doing something worthwhile. It reminded him of why he’d decided to join the police force and then go to law school what seemed about four lifetimes ago.

And it wasn’t that he wasn’t proud of tending bar. It took a certain kind of person to be good, he knew, and there was a simple and profound art to the pouring itself, especially of something like a draft Guinness. Also, there were principles, like you didn’t put a call liquor with a sweet mix-a Jack Daniel’s and Coke, a Tanqueray and tonic. No, you explained to your patron that the finest palate in the world could not tell the difference between a $2.50 call liquor and a ninety-cent well drink when it was mixed with some sugary bubbly stuff. Then you let them see for themselves. You even gave them that drink on the house. And then if they still wanted their Remy Martin VSOP Presbyterian, you directed them to another establishment. Hardy wouldn’t pour that shit, and McGuire supported him. Hell, McGuire had trained him.

But-no doubt of it-something else had been going on since he had started digging into Eddie Cochran’s death. As Jane had pointed out, he thought about the consequences of things, and he had a hard time just now envisioning going back behind the bar rail full-time. Or even part-time. Maybe he was getting a little old to be a bartender. He didn’t think he had wasted his life or anything like that, or wish he’d done things differently for the past few years-doing them had gotten him to here.

What really knocked him out-the surprise of it as much as anything-was that here, right now, felt so good. He wasn’t worried about being hurt, or failing, or anything. He wasn’t worried about his potential. He was having fun, getting to know who he was, not who he’d assumed he had become. It was interesting. In fact, he thought, it was a gas.

The Jaguar turned into Berry Street, and Hardy, parked opposite the Cruz building, not in its parking lot, got out of his car and started walking across the street. The Jag pulled into the empty lot, and by the time Arturo Cruz, alone, had opened the door and stepped out, Hardy was standing in front of him. “Mr. Cruz,” he said, “I’ve got a problem.”

“Mr. Cruz, I’ve got a problem.”

The questions weren’t going to go away. He knew that now.

You couldn’t build a whole fabric of lies, he thought, and have it all hang neatly together. And the weight of all of them was still affecting him and Jeffrey.

Especially after the story on Linda Polk had broken yesterday. Of course, they’d run it in La Hora. Thank God he’d been with Jeffrey the whole day Sunday, that the police had another suspect. Otherwise, Jeffrey might have thought he’d killed Linda too.

And now here was the man again. He might as well come clean right now, he thought, get it off his chest.

He couldn’t see Hardy’s face, though he had recognized him as he was driving up. He was forced, looking into the bright, low, morning sun, to squint, then try to shade his eyes. The man was a fighter plane coming out of the sun.

He turned back to the car. There, that was better. He could see fine. He reached inside for his briefcase, then straightened up. “Come inside,” he said, and started walking toward the building. Hardy fell in beside him. “I was going to call you,” he found himself saying. As he did every morning, he unlocked the huge glass double doors.

“What about?”

Cruz pushed the door and held it open. “Linda Polk was killed Sunday?”

“Right.”

“And Sam died when, yesterday? I heard about it yesterday, anyway.”

“Sunday night, we think.”

They were at the elevator, inside it. The doors closed shut quietly. The man, hands folded behind his back, didn’t say another word. Was he humming? The doors opened on the secretary’s station of the penthouse.

“Being in the news business, I tend to hear about things.”

Why wasn’t Hardy saying anything? Well, try again, at least now in his office, on his own turf. He sat behind his desk. “So what’s your problem? You said you had a problem,” Cruz said.

“Why were you going to call about Sam and Linda?”

“That’s your problem?”

Hardy shook his head patiently. He was sitting, very relaxed, in one of the deep white leather half-banquettes in front of his desk. “No,” he said, “you brought that up. I thought I’d pursue it a little.”

“Well, I mean, since Linda and Sam and, uh, that other fellow, the one who died here…”

“Cochran. Ed Cochran.”

“Yeah, since they all worked for the same company. That’s a pretty large coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well, I mean…” What did he mean? He hadn’t been planning to call Hardy. He didn’t know why he’d said that-nerves, maybe. But Hardy-he could tell-wasn’t going to let it go.

“What do you mean?” The persistent bastard.

“I mean there must be some connection, wouldn’t you think? Between them.”

I ought to shut up right now, he thought. Say good-bye to him and call my lawyer.

“It’s funny you should mention that,” Hardy said. “It kind of brings it back to my problem. See”-he crossed his legs elaborately, ankle on knee-“the only thing I can see that ties them all together is the Cruz Publishing Company, La Hora, you. And the other thing is, what brought me here in the first place after I thought about it enough, is you lied to me at least twice when we had our first interview.” He paused, letting it sink in. “At least twice.”

Cruz started to turn on The Glare, the one that worked with his employees, even sometimes with Jeffrey, but Hardy held up a hand, said, “No,” meaning, that isn’t going to work, and then folded up the hand, leaving one finger out. “One, you said you didn’t know Ed. His wife says he saw you the week before he died, and had another appointment scheduled right around that night. Maybe exactly that night. The one he died, I mean.”

Cruz was glad he was sitting down. He could feel a sponginess in his legs and knew they wouldn’t have held him if he was standing. He would have had to slump against something.

“And two,” Hardy continued, sticking up a second finger, “you described to me how bad it all looked, with the blood and all. Now my question, my problem” (the bastard was really enjoying himself) “is how you could know what it looked like if you went home at eight-thirty or nine when the lot was empty?”

He tried to swallow, then cleared his throat. No good. Wheeling around in his chair, moving slowly, carefully, he took one of the cut-crystal wineglasses from its tray on the bookshelf behind his desk and pushed the water button on his small refrigerator. God, the water was delicious. He spun back around. “I didn’t kill him.”

“There, now, that’s direct.”

Hardy stood up. Cruz didn’t like looking up at him-it threw off any sense of balance between them-but he still felt too weak in the legs to risk rising himself. “You mind if I get a glass?”

Then Hardy had the water and was sitting back down on the edge of the chair, elbows on his knees, holding the glass in both of his hands in front of him.

“What about the black guy, the suspect? We ran his picture in La Hora.”

Hardy nodded. “He’s a suspect.”

“And so am I?”

“Let’s just say my curiosity gets aroused when I get lied to.” Eye to eye. In no hurry whatsoever. “Pretty natural reaction, don’t you think?”

Cruz gulped down the last of his water. “Maybe I should call my lawyer.”

Hardy sat back in the chair. “You’re certainly welcome to. But I’m not here with a warrant. I came to talk.”

“I really didn’t kill him.”

“But you saw him?”

He closed his eyelids, and the sight flashed up behind them again-turning into the dark lot, headlights finding the body. Keeping the beam on it as he drove up, he’d gotten out of the car and stood staring for who knew how long, not recognizing Ed Cochran-there wasn’t much to recognize-but knowing who it had been in any case. “I should’ve called.” He went to drink more water, raising the glass to his lips, but it was empty.

“When was that?”

“When I saw him.”

“That night?”

He found himself sighing, feeling the release, wanting to keep talking now that it had started, with nothing to hide. “I had an appointment with him at nine-thirty. I stayed working until maybe eight, eight-thirty, got hungry and went out to dinner.”

“Where?” Hardy asked.

He didn’t have to think about it. Every minute of that night had been looping in his mind for over a week. “Place called The Rose up on Fourth.”

Hardy nodded. “I know it. Anybody see you there? Could swear to it?”

Of course. Wendell could swear to it. They had flirted a little, discreetly. “I think the waiter I had might remember.”

“What’d you have to eat?”

Again, no need to think. “Calves liver, pasta, some blush Zinfandel.”

“Then what?”

“Then I came back here. There was a car-I assumed it was Ed’s-in the middle of the lot.”

“But you didn’t have your meeting?”

“He was already dead.”

“Just like the police found him?”

“Yes, I assume so.”

Now that he’d said it, he started shaking again. He didn’t trust his hands to reach for his water glass to refill it. He put them on his lap, out of sight under the desk. Hardy leaned back in his chair now, frowning.

“What was the meeting supposed to have been about?”

Did he really want to hear about it? All of it? Cruz realized it might not seem, on the surface, to have made a lot of sense, but if he could just make Hardy understand the issue with Jeffrey- how Jeffrey had started to take Ed’s side-then it would be all right. Anything was better than trying to keep all those lies in his mind.

He hadn’t realized at first how bad it would be, having Jeffrey not believe him, even think he was capable of murdering somebody. But now, once he came forward, the police would find no evidence. They could have an investigation and find him innocent, and that would end all this horrible distrust between himself and Jeffrey.

But when he had finished, Hardy was still frowning. “So how come you couldn’t tell us this last week?”

He saw that his hands were back up on the desk, folded tightly together. He spread them, palms up. “I was afraid. I just… I know there’s no excuse. I don’t know.” He tried to smile, man to man. “It was a lapse, that’s all. I was nervous.”

Hardy stretched, looked at his watch and slowly pushed himself up from the chair. “Can I use your phone?” he asked.

Though it was still probably too early for Abe to be in the office, Hardy felt he ought to get the police involved right now. This warranted bringing in the troops. They might or might not corroborate Cruz’s story, but he had admitted being in the lot that night at the relevant time. That would be enough to get something official going. Then, whether he’d killed Ed would either come out or it wouldn’t. Either way, it was now a police matter.

Hardy left a message for Abe and told Cruz that another officer would be coming by later in the day. He was, of course, welcome to have an attorney present at that time.

Though Hardy knew it was patently ridiculous-that no real cop would simply walk out on a murder suspect leaving the later interrogation to another officer-he couldn’t think of a better way to continue with Cruz. He’d done what he’d set out to do, which was prove he’d lied. Finding out why was out of his province. If Cruz tried to run he’d only get in deeper, and the publisher was, after all, an established, wealthy and even well-known citizen. Hardy didn’t think he would run.

At home, Hardy heard Abe’s message of the night before about Alphonse and felt satisfaction. Between Alphonse and Cruz there seemed no doubt they had the man who’d killed Eddie. At the very least they would have enough, once and for all, to call it a homicide.

Of course, he’d wait for the official word before passing it along to Moses and Frannie or the Cochrans. And though it wasn’t going to help anybody’s immediate pain much to know that Eddie Cochran hadn’t killed himself, it would eventually be a consolation. The rejection factor would be gone. His death-the death itself-was a tragedy, sure, but the wound could heal over now. The quarter of a million dollars for Frannie wouldn’t hurt, either.