‘How many times, roughly, have you been camping in, say, the past year?’
‘Just the once, I’m sure of that.’
‘How about in the past couple of years?’
‘No.’
‘No what?’
‘No, I’ve only gone that once in the last few years. I’m a pretty busy man. Or have been…’
‘And yet last June, out of the blue, you suddenly decided to take a weekend off and go backpacking in the high Sierras?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Would you mind telling us where you ate on Friday night? Friday night was the night you left town, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. It was one of those spots up Highway Fifty above Placerville. I don’t remember the exact name.’
‘Do you recall what town it was near?’
Fowler shook his head. ‘No, I’m really not too familiar with the area.’
‘Do you remember what you ate?’
His frown grew pronounced. ‘I believe I ate a steak.’ He tried some levity. ‘But since I’m under oath I won’t swear to it.’
She kept at it. Was it dark when he had finished dinner? Where had he spent the night exactly? When did he hit the trailhead? What was his destination? How had he found it? What did he bring with him to eat on Saturday night?
It was getting to him. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I didn’t give a great deal of thought to that weekend until after I was charged with this crime. It was simply a weekend away, not one to remember.’
‘Yes,’ Pullios said, turning to the jury, ‘we can see that.’
She moved along, as Hardy feared she would, to the stipulation about Fowler knowing not only that the gun was on the boat but exactly where it had been kept.
‘And this was after you had broken up, you found this out?’
‘Yes.’
‘When May Shinn wasn’t talking to you to the extent that you had to hire a private investigator to find out why she wouldn’t see you?’
‘Well, she talked to me that once.’
‘Why did she do that?’
‘I don’t really know. I called and she happened to answer the phone. Usually it was set to her machine. But she picked up, so we talked.’
‘And just casually talking, she happened to mention that her Beretta was in the desk at the side of Owen Nash’s bed on board the Eloise?’
‘No, it wasn’t quite like that.’
‘Would you tell us, please, what it was quite like?’
Hardy looked at the clock. She had at least another hour today and she was, to his regret, hammering at the evidence they did have, avoiding for the moment the entire consciousness-of-guilt issue, although he knew that too would come. Also, and perhaps worse, Andy seemed to be losing it a little, beginning to come across peevish.
‘Let’s talk about Mr Turkel again. You’ve testified that you were curious about why Ms Shinn was breaking up with you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And so you hired Mr Turkel?’
Short questions, little tugs on the trousers. But they were doing the job.
Fowler nodded wearily. ‘Yes, I hired Mr Turkel.’
‘How much did he charge you?’
‘I think it was about a hundred and thirty-five dollars a day, plus expenses.“
Pullios brought in the jury again. ‘One hundred thirty-five dollars a day. And did you pay for his plane fare out here?’
‘Yes.’
‘And back?’
She brought out that he had spent over $1,500 to obtain detailed information on Owen Nash and May Shinn. ‘And now, having spent all this money, what did you intend to do with this information?’
‘Why, nothing. I just wanted to know, as I’ve explained.’
‘You paid fifteen hundred dollars to find out something about which you intended to do nothing?’
That’s right.‘
Hardy was nervous. Confidence eroding, his client, now into his third hour on the stand, eyes shifting from Pullios to Hardy to the judge, was coming across, body language and all, like a pathological liar.
Pullios saw that, of course, and it led her naturally into all the real lies – to his friends, associates, to anyone who would listen.
And then, finally, the litany of his admitted transgressions designed to show Andy’s consciousness-of-guilt. How long have you been on the bench? Did you swear a sacred oath never to subvert the judicial process? Have you ever previously recused yourself from a case? Oh? Several times? Were the grounds as strong as they were here? Had he ever even heard of another judge putting up bail for a defendant? On and on and on.
Hardy took a page of notes, then gave up on it. Pullios wasn’t twisting the facts – she was using them very effectively to create a character and a circumstance that made murder not only seem consistent but inevitable.
At a quarter to five she finished at last and turned Fowler back to Hardy for redirect. He only had one area to which he wanted to return, where he thought he might be able to repair some of the damage.
‘Mr Fowler, was your conduct regarding the May Shinn matter investigated by the Ethics Committee of the Bar Association of California?’
‘Objection.’ Pullios was sounding a little weary. Chomorro knew the end was in sight and cut Hardy a little slack. ‘Overruled.’
Hardy repeated the question and Fowler, on the stand, nodded. ‘Yes, it was.’
‘And you were, in fact, disbarred for what Ms Pullios has been calling your egregious misconduct?’
Hardy knew that Andy had been reprimanded, but not otherwise disciplined on the Shinn trial issue. And even after Andy was indicted for murder, the Bar Association wasn’t going to disbar – or do anything – to a fellow attorney until he had been convicted. ‘No, I was not.’
‘Are you, in fact, as we sit here now, a member in good standing of the state bar?’
‘I am.’
‘All right, thank you.’
63
Fowler had wanted to talk. Jane wanted to argue. Fran-nie, he was sure, wanted him to come home. Jeff Elliot had arrived in the gallery and wanted an interview.
But Celine had been leaving the courtroom and there wasn’t time for any of that. He had stuffed his papers into his briefcase earlier and now, making excuses, pushed his way through the gallery and out into the hallway. She was fifty feet ahead of him as she left the building through the back door by the morgue.
A cold night had fallen. The air still felt damp from the storm, although it had stopped raining. Hardy jogged to keep close. He too was parked in the back lot and got to his car about when Celine reached hers. He left the lot three cars behind her and followed her uptown across Market to Van Ness, then north to Lombard, always keeping at least one vehicle between them. He had to run only two red lights.
On Lombard, as she turned west, he ventured closer in the lane next to her. She drove a little over the speed limit but not recklessly. For a moment as they approached the Golden Gate Bridge turnoff, he felt a moment of panic -he was wrong and she was going to Sausalito or somewhere, maybe to visit Ken Farris.
But she took the turnoff, avoiding the bridge, and swung out through the swaying eucalyptus of the Presidio. He had never been to her house. He didn’t know where she lived. But he was certain she was going home.
He might have guessed. Her house was less than three blocks from her late father’s palace in the Seacliff section, really not so far from his own house in distance, although light years away in other respects. Celine’s place, however, was not a palace – it didn’t appear much bigger than Hardy’s.
She turned into the driveway and he pulled up to the curb across the street and killed his lights.
This, he knew, was a long shot, but it had come to him last night as the only possibility left to break the evidence deadlock. If Celine still had her key to the Eloise, it would be over. It was the only explanation of the missing gun, how it had come back into the drawer after he had seen it empty on Wednesday night. What he had to do was get it, find it on her, in her possession.
Ring the bell, knock her down, tie her up and search the house – but he couldn’t do that. He had to wait. She could be flushing it down the toilet, throwing it into the garbage. But he didn’t think she’d do anything like that. She’d want it out of the house, away from the area entirely. If she had it, her nature would make her get rid of it dramatically. He hoped. So he waited.