Strout straightened up in his chair, laced his fingers and stuck his arms out until his knuckles cracked. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘this doesn’t move me any further along in the line of identification. We could run a DNA scan, but without a sample of what we know to be Mr Nash’s tissue, it wouldn’t prove anything.’
Everyone sat in silence, all but Strout back in their seats. Farris still sat forward, eyes turned inward, trying to come up with something to settle the question. There was a knock on the door, and Sixto poked his head in. ‘There’s a Celine Nash out here to see Mr Farris.’
The woman’s startling blue eyes were red and puffed, dark circles under them as if she hadn’t slept in several days. Her mascara had run over too much makeup. In a black suit, black nylons, black gloves – even black onyx earrings – she was elegantly turned out, but she’d run her hands through her ash-colored hair too often, and it straggled in uneven shanks to her shoulders.
She came forward and hugged Farris, choking back a sob, and he held her for half a minute, patting her back. ‘It’s okay, honey, it’s okay. We still don’t know.’
She pulled back slightly, took Farris’s pocket handkerchief out and dabbed at her eyes. She briefly held herself to him again. Hardy saw her close her eyes as though gathering her strength. Then she turned to the other men. ‘Is one of you the coroner?’
Strout stepped forward. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘I’m sorry, but I thought Ken said…’ She looked around as though lost. ‘I mean, when I heard coroner, I just assumed…’
‘No, ma’am, we just don’t know yet. You might see if you recognize this.’ Strout proffered the small ring box.
Celine stared at the ring for a moment. ‘What is this?’
‘It was on the hand,’ Strout said.
She took it from the box, looking at him quizzically. ‘But Daddy didn’t wear this ring. Ken, Daddy only wore Mom’s ring, didn’t he?’
‘I already told them that.’
The handkerchief went back to her eyes. She held it there a minute, applying some pressure. ‘Are you all right?’ Hardy asked. He moved forward.
Celine had gone a little pale. She gave Hardy a half-smile, but her eyes went back to Strout. ‘Well, then, this couldn’t be my father.’
Glitsky, in his softest voice, asked her when the last time was she had seen her father. Her eyes narrowed for an instant, and Hardy thought he saw a flash of resistance, perhaps even fear. ‘Why? I’m sorry, but who are you?’
Farris broke in and introduced everyone, after which Glitsky explained, ‘He may have gotten the ring after you’d seen him.’
She nodded, accepting that. ‘I don’t remember exactly. Two weeks ago, maybe. But he didn’t have this ring on then – he wouldn’t have worn it anyway. This just isn’t him.’
Farris, up beside her, looked at it again and shrugged. ‘He wasn’t much of a jewelry person.’
‘All right,’ Strout said. ‘It was worth a try. Thank y’all for your time.’
After he’d escorted them to the door, Strout shambled back, hands in his pockets, to Hardy and Glitsky. ‘It might be Owen Nash,’ he said simply. ‘Off the record, of course, but it might be. I’ll keep y’all informed.’
9
The garage had Glitsky’s car repaired and ready to go for him, so Hardy found himself walking alone through the parking lot at 5:45, ready to head for the Little Shamrock, where he was meeting Frannie. The fog, which had clung to downtown all day, had lifted, or moved west with the breeze off the Bay; the sky overhead was a cloudless evening blue.
Most of the staff at the Hall of Justice had gotten off at five, and the lot was about half empty. Two rows down from where Hardy was parked, Ken Farris sat in the driver’s seat of a Chrysler LeBaron convertible with its top down. Hardy slowed down and finally stopped.
Farris was staring into the distance, arms crossed over his chest, unmoving. He might have been a statue. He’d left Strout’s office with Celine Nash nearly forty-five minutes ago, and he was still in the parking lot? Maybe she had stayed and they had talked awhile. Still, Hardy found it odd. The man wasn’t even blinking. Maybe he was sitting up, dead.
Hardy crossed a couple of rows of parking places. He got to within ten feet of the LeBaron before Farris moved. It was a slight shift, but Hardy knew he was in view now.
‘I saw you sitting here so still,’ he said. ‘I wondered if you were all right.’
The mask gave way to a self-deprecating smile. ‘Relative term, “all right”. I guess I’m all right.’
Hardy gave him half a wave and had started to walk away, when Farris called his name. He came back to the car. ‘You know, Celine mentioned something. I don’t know. It might be relevant.’
Hardy cocked his head. ‘You wouldn’t be a lawyer, would you, Mr Farris?’
A flash of teeth. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Well, defining “all right” as a relative term. Something you might know as relevant. Those are lawyer words.’
Farris stuck out a hand. ‘Good hunch. Call me Ken, would you. Stanford, ’55. But I never practiced, other than being counsel for Owen.‘
‘Full-time job?’
‘And then some. Now I’m COO of Owen Industries. Owen’s CEO. Electronics, components, looking into HDTV.’
‘I don’t know what that is, HDTV.’
‘High-definition television. More dots on the screen. Better picture. The Japanese are miles ahead of us on it, but Owen liked it, so we’re moving ahead.’
‘So what’s your maybe-relevant information?’
‘Celine just mentioned it to me. Owen had told her he was going out on the Eloise...’
‘The Eloise?’
‘Owen’s sailboat. He was supposedly going out Saturday with May Shintaka – May Shinn she calls herself.’
‘His girlfriend?’
Farris made a face. ‘Something like that. More a mistress, I guess you’d say.’
‘He kept her, you mean? People really do that?’
Farris laughed without much humor. ‘Owen figured you paid for your women one way or the other. “Cost of doin’ bizness, Wheel” – he called me Wheel, like Ferris Wheel, spelled wrong of course – “cost of gettin‘ laid, same goddamn thing. Might as well pay for it up front. No bullshit.” ’
‘It’s an approach, I guess,’ Hardy said.
‘Mr Hardy…’
‘Dismas.’ Then, at the squinted question. ‘Dismas, the good thief on Calvary.’
‘Okay, Dismas. It’s not my approach, I’ve been married to my Betty twenty-five years. But Owen isn’t like me or anybody else I know. He loved Eloise, his wife, and after she died he knew he wasn’t going to love anybody else, so he wasn’t looking for love and wasn’t going to kid around about it. It might sound cold, but it was pretty honest.’
‘So this May Shinn…?’
‘He’s been pretty steady with her since January, February, around in there.’
‘Did she go out on Owen’s boat Saturday?’
‘Celine says he was planning on it. That’s all I know.’
‘If he did, our probabilities increase,’ Hardy said.
‘Why do you say that?… Oh, I see.’
‘Do you have a way to reach her, May Shinn? Find out right now.’
The shadows had lengthened, the breeze had died. Farris dug into his wallet and pulled out a square of white paper. ‘Emergency numbers. I don’t know why I never thought of May.’
Hardy walked back beside him as Farris punched numbers into his car phone. He squinted at the paper. Next to Shinn’s name, he had just enough light and distance to make out the numbers, just enough time to memorize them.
He thought he’d also have enough time to swing by the Marina on his way out to the Avenues. It wasn’t far out of the way. And if he could prove Owen had been on the ocean on Saturday, the day before a hand that might be his turned up inside a shark at the Steinhart, he thought he’d be on his way to having a case.
May Shintaka hadn’t been home – or she hadn’t answered her telephone. Ken Farris had gotten an answering machine and asked her to call him as soon as she could.