Pullios paused and walked stone-faced back toward Hardy, to where he sat at the table. She picked up a glass of water, took a small sip. Her eyes were bright – she was flying. Immediately she was back to business. Hardy couldn’t help but admire the show.
‘So in a sense,’ she said, ‘the indictment the people seek today is simply an administrative strategem to move the trial for this crime to Superior Court, where it can be heard in a timely fashion. But in a greater sense, an indictment before this body will reinforce the state’s contention that, based on real and true evidence, there is indeed just cause for issuance of a warrant for the arrest of May Shintaka and a compelling need for a fair and speedy trial in pursuance of the interests of the people of this state.’
Hardy thought it was getting a little thick, but he also realized that Elizabeth Pullios, looking like she did and fired up as she was, could probably read the telephone book to these people and keep their attention. She went on to describe the witnesses she would calclass="underline" Glitsky, Strout, the cab driver, the ballistics expert, the two guards from the Marina, a handwriting analyst. Then she got to Celine Nash. Hardy remembered the other giant lapse in evidentiary rules before the grand jury – hearsay was technically inadmissible, but there was no judge or defense lawyer there to keep it out.
How could Celine not have mentioned to him yesterday that she was testifying today? Well, they hadn’t had much time to get to it before she went off on him. It could have been that the initial reason she called him was nerves over this appearance today, testifying against Shinn. She’d even said something about it.
Hardy found himself unhappy in a hurry, wishing he’d reviewed the witness list before they’d come down here -he still did have a lot to learn. Pullios had been doing her homework while Hardy pursued his own agenda. They were going to nail May Shinn six ways from Sunday.
Then, at lunch, Pullios told him she wanted him to take Celine Nash.
‘No way, Elizabeth. She’s mad at me.’ He explained and she thought it over for a moment, then overruled him. ‘No, you’re better. Just get her confidence back.’
‘You’ve already got her confidence.’
‘No, I don’t. I’ve never met her personally, but Sergeant Glitsky tells me she’s stunning.’
‘I guess.’
Pullios shook her head. ‘Then it’s not a good match. The jurors will see something between us. It might even be there.’
‘What’s to see? What are they looking for?’
‘This will maybe sound arrogant, but it’s true that people don’t identify with two attractive women on the same side. Right now I’ve got the jury on my side – our side. If Celine comes in, human nature is going to tell the jurors that we – she and I – are natural enemies. Somebody’s credibility is going to suffer. Whoever’s, it’s bad for our side. If you question her there’s no conflict. It’s only natural she’d want to cooperate, especially looking all spiffy like you do today.’
Hardy shrugged.
Pullios put her straw in her mouth and sucked up some iced tea. ‘You’d better believe those jurors are a fairly good representation of the average man, or average woman. I couldn’t care less if I sound enlightened or liberated or anything else. I’m playing to win, and I’m telling you that if I depose Celine Nash it’s a weak move. We can probably afford a weak move, okay, but it’s a bad tactic. You don’t give anything away. Even to grand juries. You still take your best chance every time. And you’re our best chance with Celine.’
She whispered she was sorry – more mouthed it – as soon as she sat down. She was elegant in cool blue. She’d put on extra eyeshadow, and Hardy wondered if she’d slept last night. Or cried.
It wasn’t supposed to be lengthy. All he was supposed to do was nail down what Owen had said to her about going out with May on the day he was killed.
It had been the Tuesday before – the sixteenth, in the morning. She had called him at his office. Celine had intended to go away the upcoming weekend and wanted to make sure her father hadn’t made plans that included her.
‘Don’t you think thirty-nine’s a little old to be at his beck and call?’
‘I wasn’t at his beck and call. My father didn’t control me!’
He put that out of his mind. That was last night. This was today. He had a limited role and he’d better keep to it. ‘And Ms Nash, tell us what your father said regarding the day in question, June twentieth.’
She kept trying to catch his eye, give him a look that promised forgiveness, but he kept himself focused on individual jurors. He would look at her as she answered questions.
‘He said he was planning on going over to the Farralons on Saturday with his girlfriend, with May.’
‘Had he told you of such plans in the past?’
‘Yes, all the time.’
‘And in your experience, did your father tend to follow through on these types of things?’
This was shooting fish in a barrel. He kept expecting to hear somebody object to the nature and thrust of his questions, but since there was neither a defense attorney nor a judge in the room he could ask what he liked.
‘Always. If Daddy said he was going to do something he did it.’
‘All right, but just for the sake of argument, what if, for example, Ms Shinn had gotten sick Saturday morning?’
‘Daddy would have done something else. He wouldn’t have wasted a day. He wouldn’t have done that.’
‘He wouldn’t have gone out alone, perhaps, since he’d already made those plans?’
Celine gave it a moment, chewing on her thumbnail. ‘No, I don’t think so. He wasn’t a solitary man. Besides, we know he didn’t go out alone, don’t we?’
‘You’re right, Ms Nash, we do. Indeed we do.’
It took until three-thirty, but they got the indictment.
There was no immediate flurry of activity. The bail was still in effect. There would be no immediate arrest of May Shinn, but the fur would really begin to fly when David Freeman got the news, which would be very soon.
Meanwhile, Hardy packed his briefcase, hoping that Celine Nash had decided not to wait around until the jury adjourned.
Celine fell in beside him just outside the door.
‘I am sorry,’ she said. She linked an arm through his and he felt the heat of her body where they came together.
‘It’s okay, people get upset. It happens.’
‘I don’t know what happened. I didn’t mean for anything like that to happen.’
‘It’s all right, forget it. We’ll just move ahead on the trial. It ought to go pretty quickly now.’
He had stopped walking, waiting by the elevators. She was standing too close and his heart was beating enough that he felt it. ‘What do you want me to do, Celine?’
‘I just don’t want you to be mad at me.’
‘I’m not mad at you. I was out of line, it wasn’t exactly professional.’
‘I don’t care about professional.’
‘That’s our relationship,’ he said, clearly as he could say it. Then, ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does, it does matter. Do you know what it is to be completely alone?’
Not a professional question.
The elevators opened, jammed as usual. Hardy got in, Celine cramming next to him, thigh to thigh, arm in his. He smelled the powder she used, the same powder she’d left on him as she’d greeted him with a kiss at Hardbodies! last night – that he’d scrubbed off in the Shamrock before Frannie had come in for date night. He didn’t press the button for his floor and they rode it all the way down to the street level in silence, everyone else chattering away.