The First Law

16

Rebecca sat down to the plate of scrambled eggs her father had cooked for her. This morning, he'd cooked them for Frannie and Vincent as well, but neither of them typically appeared at the breakfast table until ten minutes after the Beck. By this time, whatever hot meal Hardy had prepared would have cooled-to him, cold scrambled eggs were an affront to nature-although his wife and son didn't seem to notice, much less mind.

His daughter took a first bite, said, "Yum!" then looked around. She didn't miss much and wasn't easy to fool. "Where's the paper?" she asked her father.

He casually sipped his coffee. "I don't know."

She put down her fork. "What's in it?"

"What do you mean? What's in what?"

"The paper."

"I just said I didn't know where it was."

She gave a threatrical sigh. "As if."

"As if," he repeated, striving to match the teenage inflection.

She ignored that. "As if you didn't go out to the porch and get it like you do every single morning. Is it one of your clients?"

It was his turn to sigh. He and Frannie had discussed it, along with the spin they would put on the smashed car window, and had decided it would be better for the kids if Hardy could get a few facts about the crimes for which John Holiday was likely to be arrested before he tried to explain it to them. Holiday wasn't exactly Uncle John yet, as Uncle Abe was, but he'd been by the house a few times in the past year, almost immediately endearing himself to both children, although for different reasons. He treated Rebecca in a sincere and courtly manner that flattered her vanity; Vincent he treated like a grown man, no kid stuff. He played catch with him, arm wrestled, had taken both Hardy men to 49er and Giants games.

As the kids had gotten older, they had both become, as Hardy was, addicts of the morning Chronicle. Rebecca, particularly, loved the back page of the Scene section-the columnists and the In Crowd. Vincent, emulating his dad, would peruse Jeff Elliot's "CityTalk" column every day, but his favorite was Thursdays, when McHugh and Stienstra did their respective great stuff on the Outdoors page. Hardy and Frannie had promoted this interest from its first flowering over the comics-it was important to keep up on the news, on what people thought, what was happening in the world. Life wasn't lived in a vacuum.

But there could also be the occasional drawback, as for example when your client and friend happened to be the main suspect in four murders, two of them incredibly grotesque.

"Who is it?" Rebecca asked.

Hardy threw a glance at the ceiling, then looked straight at her. "John Holiday."

"No way!"

"I'm afraid so."

"Not John. There's no way, Dad. What are they saying he did?"

She was going to find out anyway. Still, he hesitated, then decided it would be impossible to soften it. "They're saying he killed some people."

"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. John wouldn't ever kill anybody. He couldn't!"

"I don't think so either."

"And what you do mean, some?"

"Four."

"Four? Dad, come on."

"It's not me, Beck. I don't think he killed anybody, either. But they found some evidence in his house…" He stopped, reached out, and put a hand over hers. "Look. Beck. I'm going to talk to him today; then I'll have a better idea where we stand. But I didn't want you guys to see the paper this morning, okay? Two of the-"

But her temper was up, and she cut him off. "What are they saying he did?"

"Well, that's just it. You don't want to know. Not right now."

"Yes I do!" Suddenly, she pushed back from the table. Her chair fell over and she was on her feet. "He's my friend, too. You can't censor us like that."

Hardy knew he sounded like a pathetic adult. Still, he couldn't stop himself. "It's not censoring, it's…"

"It is, too. Where is it? I want to see."

"Beck…" He was up, too. "Please don't…"

But she ran by him, through the kitchen and out to the little anteroom in the back where they stored their recyclables. By the time he got to her, she'd already dug it out from where he'd buried it. She was emitting little whimpering noises, as an injured puppy might. Finally, she turned to him with her hand over her mouth, her eyes overflowing. "Oh God!" she said. "Oh God!"

Then Vincent was standing behind them. "What? What's going on?"

Most of an hour got killed while Hardy dropped his rental and picked up his own car with its new windshield. Again he stopped at the hospital. Again David had not improved.

When he finally arrived at S utter Street, it was close to nine o'clock, normally a bustling hour, but the office had an extremely subdued feel. The reception desk, Phyllis's domain, sat empty. As he stood there, one of the phones started ringing. He just let it go.

The lights in the lobby had yet to be turned on. The door to the office at the far end of the lobby that housed Norma, the office manager, was closed and through the blinds he could see Phyllis in there. She seemed to be wiping at her eyes. The Solarium was empty. No secretaries were gossiping by the coffee machine/Xerox area. Hardy took a few steps so he could see down the hallway, and was relieved to see people-secretaries and paralegals-at their desks, but most of the doors to the associates' cubicles seemed to be closed. People were hunkering down, lying low.

One of the doors was open in the long hallway on the main floor, and he walked down to it and looked inside. Amy Wu was at her desk, scribbling furiously on a yellow legal pad. Hardy knocked on the door and she looked up, smiling feebly out of politeness. "Hi. How's David?"

"The same, I'm sorry to report. It's pretty quiet out here."

"Is it? I haven't noticed. Jon-my paralegal?-he called in sick so I've been running pages to word processing all morning. I've got this memo that needs to be filed today, so-" Suddenly she stopped, put her pencil all the way down. "I'm sorry. Who cares, right? How are you doing? What happened to your hand?"

He held it up. "Stupid accident. Me, I'm trying to get motivated to go upstairs and face some work."

"Join the club. I think I'm the only one down here who's been able to get going on anything, and that's only because I'd fire myself if I was late on this filing after all the work I've already done." She motioned with her head. "Everybody else… well, you noticed."

He nodded. "I can't blame anybody. I feel the same way." He paused, took a breath, came out with it. "But I wonder if I could ask you a favor."

"Then you'll owe me one, but sure. What is it?"

"Could you could keep an eye out down here, give me a call when people start coming out their door, getting back to work?" At her questioning look, he added, "I was hoping I could tap some of the talent down here. I need some people in a hurry if we want to keep up with depositions on Panos. We're talking megahours."

Something was going on in Wu's brain. Her eyes narrowed; then she nodded. "Sure. First sign of life, I'll buzz you."

"Thanks. In fact, after you're done with your memo, maybe…"

But she was shaking her head no. "I can't, Diz. I'm overwhelmed, especially if David's out for a while. I've got to call Jon at home though. It just occurred to me, if he's not really sick, if he just decided this was a sinking ship…" She stopped and sighed heavily. "If he dies, then what? Is all this keeping up with his work just me being stupid?"

"He's still got clients, Amy. They're still going to need good lawyers. That's what David's been training you for, isn't it? It's why I need a few bodies around here. David or no David, Panos is going to be huge."

"So you're really going ahead on that?"

"I really am." He narrowed his eyes. "Of course I am. Why would you even ask that?"

"No reason, really." But after wrestling with herself for a minute, she came out with it. "I've just heard some rumors around here that that's why David got beat up, that it had to do with Panos, with scaring him off. Evidently, David himself mentioned something about it to Graham, talking about his bullet-proof self of course. Now, with this-everybody's heard it by now-so even if you're assigning billable hours, people might be a little reluctant, especially with you not really in the firm."

This was the first time Hardy had run up against this question. He'd always considered his irregular status vis-a-vis Freeman amp; Associates an unalloyed good thing. He was merely the upstairs tenant and friend of the firm's owner, and as such was neither fish nor fowl-not associate, not partner, not even Of Counsel, and a bit of a loose cannon at that. He loved the freedom of it, the independence. When David threw him work, he was often happy to take it.

But now he wondered if he could successfully assign it back to the formal associates, who in David's long-term absence (to say nothing of his death) might be out pounding the pavement for work before too long.

Among the associates, Hardy thought he could count on Graham Russo, who had once been his client and with whom he still had a good personal relationship. And maybe, in a week or more-after she worked down her current load-he might be able to use Amy. But other help from among David's legions was problematic at best. And if David died, the ancillary support-Norma and Phyllis and the secretaries and paralegals who worked with the other associates-would all dry up overnight. With his limited resources, Hardy wouldn't stand a chance.

He could promise all the billable hours in the world, but none of the associates would be laboring under any illusion. Since it was a contingency lawsuit, if they didn't win, those hours would be written off. And what could he pay them in the meanwhile? Hardy couldn't float an island of suits, betting on the come, the way Freeman could.

The Panos lawsuit would be over before it began.

It was a morning of first revelations. Aside from his realization about the tenuousness of his position among the associates, for the first time it struck him how effective the violence against Freeman had been. Was. Especially if he didn't survive. Far from being the blunt instrument it had first appeared to be, the mugging was effectively a scalpel that separated him both from the lawsuit and the other associates.

For the sad truth was that Hardy alone had no power in the Panos matter. The plaintiffs were all the clients of David Freeman, not Dismas Hardy. Some he hadn't even met. Hardy wasn't any kind of real player, any kind of significant danger or threat to Panos, but merely a fly to be flicked away without a second thought. The realization washed over him like an acid bath. He must have shown it.

"Diz? Are you all right?"

He flashed a false grin. "Fine," he said. "I'm fine. I'm just thinking about how to do all I've got today. If Norma comes out of her office, would you ask her to please give me a call?"

Hardy's office was one flight up from the lobby, the only occupied room on the third floor. He took the stairs two at a time. His office door was closed, but a light shone under it from within. He stopped short of the opening, heard a quiet and dull but unmistakable thud, then after a moment, another one-someone was pounding something against his wall while he waited for Hardy to arrive. Putting down his briefcase, he stealthily tried the knob, which didn't give at all. He'd had enough experience with muggings and surprise mischief over the past couple of days that he wasn't anxious to get any more, and he turned back to the stairway.

The police could be here in ten minutes and whoever had broken into his office could explain it all to them.

Halfway down the stairs, a voice stopped him. "Diz?" Holiday stood at the top of the stairs, grinning down at him, holding three darts up. "I thought I heard somebody pounding on up the stairs, but I wanted to finish my round. Where are you going?"

Hardy climbed back up the seven steps he'd just descended. "I was just going to call the police, John. That would have been a good time." He reached the landing again and led the way inside, then closed the door behind Holiday. "How did you get in here? Wasn't the door locked? It was. And what were you doing?"

"Just shooting some darts. There was a bunch of keys down at the reception desk, and nobody was there. I thought you'd be up here in your office, to tell you the truth. Then when you weren't, I figured I'd just let myself in. I put the keys back."

"Good for you."

"This place is a ghost town today. Where is everybody?"

"It's a legal holiday." Hardy said it without a trace of irony.

"Hm-m. Well. But you're here, I notice, although you are a little late, aren't you?"

Hardy wasn't even slightly in the mood to explain his various delays of the morning, especially since the beginning of it all had been the breakdown of his children over the very client he now faced. "We had an appointment," Hardy said by way of explanation, "except if you remember, you were supposed to call me. Do you remember that? Wasn't that what we decided?"

Holiday shrugged and walked back over to the dart line. "Either way, we're talking."

Hardy got around his desk and put his briefcase on the top of it. "That's true, John, but I'm your attorney and I happen to know that there's a warrant out for your arrest, so all I can do now, as I thought I explained rather clearly last night, is help you turn yourself in." Hardy's voice took on an edge. "How about putting those things down a minute and talking to me?"

Immediately, Holiday whirled, all contrition. He placed his two remaining darts on Hardy's desk and spread his hands apologetically. "I thought we were talking. What happened to your hand?"

Hardy glanced down at his Band-Aid splint. He was going to have to invent a witty response pretty soon, but he didn't have the energy for it right now. "I whacked it against something." He sat down behind his desk. "Look, I'm sorry, John, but I'm a little stressed. But I suppose you are, too."

"Naw. It's just another arrest warrant." Holiday went over to the couch, plopped himself down on it. "So what do you think? What's the plan?"

"I wish I had one. I'm assuming you're not inclined to give yourself up."

"Good guess."

"Well, as your attorney, that's all I'm allowed to suggest."

"How about not as my attorney? I haven't paid you anything, have I? Can't we just be friends?"

Hardy's mouth turned up an inch. "Can't we all just get along?"

"Exactly, and apparently not too well. But you and me, we could."

"But even as just your friend, I'm still harboring you, and you're a fugitive."

Holiday shrugged. "Tell them I held you hostage or something."

"Though it might not be a bad idea, you know. Turning yourself in."

Holiday's eyes went wide. "You're out of your mind, Diz. I wouldn't last fifteen minutes in jail."

"Why not? You've been there before. It wouldn't be any worse than last time."

"Yeah, except this time someone would kill me."

"Why would they do that?"

"Because that's what these guys are doing, Diz. Think about it. I'm the only one left and the case is closed. As soon as I'm dead, it's a tight little package. Nobody goes looking for who really did it."

"And who are these people?" A grin flickered around Hardy's mouth. "You're saying they're cops? They can get you in jail?"

"They planted stuff in my apartment."

"The cops did? Why?"

"I don't know why, but it's not as far-fetched as you think. It happens."

"I'm sure it does, John, I'm sure it does." Hardy scratched at the top of his desk blotter. "Look, humor me a minute. If you've got solid alibis for all the murders, we could press for a quick prelim and have you out of there and cleared of all this in a week or two at the most."

"Not if I'm dead first."

"That's not going to happen. Not in jail. Do you know where you were when any of these last three men got killed?"

"Sure. Two of them, Randy and Clint, I'm positive. I was at work. In fact, you know, a cop came by the Ark the other day, before I even knew about Randy and Clint, and asked me if I'd been tending bar there the night before."

"What do you mean, a cop? A real cop? SFPD?"

"I thought so. The badge looked right. Some Chinese guy. He wasn't with Panos, I'll tell you that."

"And he asked you what?"

"Just if I'd been working at midnight the night before and could I prove it? I told him yeah and it seemed to satisfy him. That's why I'm blown away they got a warrant for me. I mean, they know I didn't kill Clint and Randy. I don't get it."

"So what about Creed?"

"Same thing. It was a work night, though there weren't as many customers, but somebody would remember. So maybe they think I wasn't the actual shooter with Creed anyway. I was just in cahoots with Clint and Randy." Holiday had gone into a full recline on the sofa, his hands crossed behind his head.

Hardy sat for a long moment, picking at the Band-Aid. "You mind telling me again where you were the night Silverman got it? Last time we talked about it, not to put too fine a point on it, your alibi sucked."

Holiday got himself up to sitting again. He ran a hand through his hair, tugged at the side of his mustache. When he spoke, he wore a sheepish expression. "If you want to know the truth, my girlfriend and I had a fight and I went out and picked up somebody else, who I couldn't find again to save my life."

"That's what it might be, John. To save your life."

He shook his head.

"Did you go to her house?" Hardy asked.

"Yeah. Well, apartment, I think."

"So where was it?"

"She drove," Holiday said. "I dozed. I don't know."

"What about in the morning?"

Holiday made a face. "There wasn't any morning. I left right after

… anyway, I think I wandered around a bit."

"Drunk?"

"Possibly. Likely."

Hardy frowned. "Which means you really have no alibi at all for Silverman, is that right?" He didn't wait for an answer. "So where did you call from yesterday?"

"My girlfriend's."

A beat. "Another one?"

"The real one."

"The one you broke up with on Thursday?"

"Yeah. Her name's Michelle. I'm staying at her place."

"I'm happy for you. That's so special. So the story about the important man's wife…"

"I made it up."

"Great!" Hardy said. "Swell. Let me ask you this. The paper said you lost a lot of money at Silverman's game the night before he died. Is that true?"

"Okay, but I didn't go to steal it back. I didn't, Diz. I swear to you."

"You swear to me. That helps. You swore to me about your alibi." Hardy shook his head angrily. "It might have been nice to know some of this a week ago." Collecting himself, he drew in a long, slow breath and let it out heavily. "Okay, John, suddenly my idea that you turn yourself in because you couldn't have committed any of the murders isn't so doable. Any one of them is good enough." He looked straight at him. "How am I supposed to believe you didn't do this after all? You got any suggestions?"

"I'm telling you. You know me, Diz."

"Right. But these lies, John. I can't think of a reason you'd lie to a friend if you weren't trying to hide something."

"I felt bad about the way things had gone with Michelle. I didn't want to bring her into it. That's the truth. I swear to God."

Hardy was still working on his response to that when on his desk, the telephone rang, his direct line. He reached for it. "Dismas Hardy." Listening for a moment, he sat up straighter, uttered a syllable or two, listened some more. He put a ringer to his lips and pointed at Holiday. He talked into the receiver. "Sure, I read all about it this morning. I wondered whether-"

As he spoke, he reached out and pushed down on the button, breaking the connection in his midsentence. "That was a homicide inspector named Russell," he said, "asking if I'd seen you recently. Somebody must have told him that I represented you last time and he thought you might have looked me up again."

"That was probably me. He and his partner came by the bar."

"And you gave them my name?"

"Yeah."

"Terrific, John. Just great. You're batting about a thousand here with bad moves."

"I know, Diz. I know. I'm sorry. Did he say where he was?"

"He didn't get a chance. We can hope it was the Hall. But I think you'd be smart to get out of here right now. I don't want to know where you are when they ask me, which they will. I'd be surprised if they think you're here now, but to be safe go down through the garage and out the back. Now go! Call me in an hour. We'll think of something. I'll be here. Go! Go!"

When the phone rang a minute later, Hardy picked it up again. "Inspector Russell? Sorry about that. We're having the devil of a time with the phones lately here. I don't know what it is, except aggravating. You, too, huh? I think it's everybody. But you were asking about John Holiday? I'm afraid I don't know where he is. He's no longer my client."

Russell said he'd talked to Holiday just two days before and he'd mentioned Hardy by name as his attorney. Said they were close friends. Saw each other all the time.

"I hate to say this, Inspector," Hardy said. "But the man's been known to lie. Sure. Anytime. Good luck."

The lab tests from the Terry/Wills crime scene indicated that the stuff on the shoe in Terry's closet closely matched the gunk Thieu had collected at the Creed scene the day before-brake fluid, animal fats, peanuts and pepper flakes, no doubt from Kung Pao chicken.

Thieu was at his desk comparing the written transcription of a taped recording of one of his witness's interviews to the tape itself. While Russell was on the phone with Holiday's lawyer, trying to track the suspect down, Cuneo read over the lab report on the shoe and decided to thank the veteran inspector and to share the good news with him. "Pretty cool, huh?"

Thieu put the report down. "That's enough matches for me. It's the same stuff, all right. Nice work. And I see you found more evidence at Holiday's place."

"It's been a lucky couple of days," Cuneo said.

"If you believe in luck."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing, really. It's just so rare when things fall together so well."

"I said the same thing to Gerson, but what am I supposed to do, look a gift horse in the mouth? This is about as solid as it gets."

Thieu made no comment to that. He had put down the transcript and his pencil. Now he took off his earphones and hooked them around his neck. He looked piercingly at Cuneo. "After I left the Terry/Wills scene yesterday, did you find anything that put Holiday there?"

"Not directly, no. But later in the day we did find money and jewelry from Silverman's at his place."

Thieu acknowledged that with a nod. "I heard about that. But no bloody clothes or shoes? Anything tying him directly to Terry and Wills? There was an awful lot of blood."

"He hadn't been back there, where he lived. There were three or four days' worth of newspapers down on his stoop."

"Ah, that would explain it then."

"Maybe he slept in his bar, I don't know. Or he's shacked up with somebody." Cuneo had pulled a chair around and was straddling it backward. He started tapping a beat with his fingers. "But that's a good call. We'll check the dumpsters and alleys between the Ark and Terry's."

"You can't ever have too much, I don't believe." Thieu leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his middle. Then he smiled politely and, wishing Cuneo luck again, said he had to get back to his editing.