‘So is he – Fowler – seeing Shinn again?’
‘No sign of it, and believe me, people are looking. She seems to be lying low, trying to collect her money, suing me and the City and County. Freeman’s bill must be approaching the national debt.’
Those had been Glitsky’s facts.
To satisfy his own curiosity, Hardy had done some checking himself. He had the telephone records. Andy Fowler might have convinced himself that before Owen Nash came along he had May Shinn all to himself, but her telephone records included three other numbers, called with about the same regularity as those to Andy Fowler.
Hardy tried all three numbers. One was to a switchboard of the main office of the Timberline Group, a timber-lobby consulting firm with an address on Bay Street. Hardy thought it unlikely that May Shinn was doing a lot of lumber work.
When a woman answered at the second number, Hardy, feeling a little foolish, pretended to be taking a demographic survey for the Neilson ratings. The woman said that she and her husband, who worked out of the house (he was in software), were both in their mid-fifties. She didn’t want to be too specific, but their income was in the low six figures. He let it go.
The third number was to the private office of an affable millionaire in the garment district.
So…
It seemed May had three other clients before Owen Nash came along. Four including Andy Fowler. And, from the phone record, she’d dropped them all around the beginning of February. Did Nash pay her more, or had she, as she contended, truly fallen in love with Nash?
Of course, he knew nothing that tied any of these men to Owen Nash. Not yet. Hardy spent a day wondering if he should mention them to Glitsky, then decided against it. He had promised Andy he wouldn’t bring up the phone records if he didn’t have to. The originals were there in the file downtown if anybody wanted to look at them.
It wasn’t Hardy’s job anymore, but it didn’t take immense reserves of gray matter to realize this discovery would open things up again. If the motive they had all ascribed to Fowler, killing a rival, applied, then it applied as well to May’s other three clients/lovers. But then, the D.A.‘s office wasn’t arrayed in a vendetta against any of these guys, as it was against Fowler.
Still, Andy must have made a mistake. Some evidence must have turned up, but where did they get it? Hardy was sure Glitsky would have called him with anything at all, so it hadn’t been him. And if Glitsky didn’t have it, who did? He was the investigating officer. It didn’t make sense.
Hardy hadn’t set foot in the Hall of Justice since the day after he was fired, when he went in to pick up his personal effects, his dart board, the paperweight.
Now, coming up the front steps with Jane, he found it hard to believe that he’d been talked into returning. The false accusations, the unnamed informer, the politics of the lifers – the gut reaction still kicked in.
He and Jane rode in the crowded elevator up to Booking. He didn’t have much of an idea what he was going to do. It was late in the afternoon, and he thought at least he’d get the lay of the land. At the desk, the sergeant looked up and nodded.
‘Hey, Hardy, taking the day off?’
It took him a minute – Hardy was in casual clothes. The sergeant thought he was still working there.
‘Where you been, on vacation or something?’
‘Or something. Listen, you got Andy Fowler processed yet?’
‘Yeah, I think so, I’ll check. Can you believe that? The judge?’ He got up from his chair and disappeared for two minutes, during which Hardy devoutly hoped no one would recognize him. When he came out again he pointed to his right and told Hardy he could go on in, they’d be bringing the judge down.
He and Jane were admitted, then ushered into Interview Room A, the same room where he had first seen May Shinn.
Jane sat comfortably. ‘How’d we get in here?’
‘I think under false pretenses. Now listen, when your father gets in here, be cool in front of the guard. Don’t jump up and yell or anything. Since they think I’m working here, let’s let them think you’re my assistant, okay?’
But it wasn’t so easy. Her father just didn’t look the same in a yellow jumpsuit. Four hours before, in his pinstripes, Andy’s handcuffs had been the ultimate indignity. Now Jane realized she hadn’t known the half of it.
The judge played the game, entered cooperatively, nodded at both of them and sat down across the table. Hardy thanked the guard and told him to wait outside. As soon as the door closed, her father said, ‘Good. How did this happen?’
Dismas inclined his head a fraction, his hand to his mouth. ‘I cheated. How are you doing, Andy?’
‘Badly. How about you?’
‘All right.’
The two men tried not to look at each other. Jane wasn’t going to let this go bad. Or worse. ‘Dismas didn’t leak your story, Daddy. About you and… May.’
Her father didn’t look beaten. In fact, he looked ready to fight. ‘You didn’t?’ Directly at Dismas.
‘I said I wouldn’t, I didn’t.’ He shrugged. ‘I figured you had other things on your mind. So did I. I got fired over it, for example.’
‘I heard about that.’ More waiting. Jane realized she was squeezing her fingernails into her palms. She didn’t understand this silence – the two men who’d been closest to her jockeying for something.
‘I guess I just got a little tired explaining how I didn’t do whatever it was somebody thought I did. It gets old.’
‘I’d imagine it would.’ Her father was inside himself, settling something. ‘Sorry, Diz, I just assumed…’
Jane’s ex-husband had his hands folded on the table. He opened them. ‘I lived through it. What are you doing here?’
‘Somebody thinks I killed Owen Nash.’
‘I know that. But who’s representing you? You ought to be out of here already.’
A tight smile. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? One of Locke’s little object lessons. No bail until the arraignment.’ He paused. ‘At least.’
‘That Locke, he’s a swell guy.’
Fowler kept on. ‘I called David Freeman. He thought it might not be wise for him to represent me because of May. He intimated he’d put out the word. Meanwhile, it appears that I’m to stay locked up.’ Another tight smile. ‘Lousy pun.’
‘Daddy, they can’t do that.’
‘They can, honey. How many times have I had a defense lawyer tell me his client had to get out of jail, wouldn’t survive one night there, it was life and death. And I told them it would have to wait until the morning. Judicial process…’
‘We can’t let this happen, you can’t stay here. Dismas can do something.’
Hardy nodded. ‘I could try, Andy.’
‘Why would you want to do that? What would you try?’
‘I don’t know, I got me and Jane in here to see you, didn’t I? I could try walking you downstairs and out the door.’
Her father pulled at the jumpsuit. ‘Don’t you think the outfit’s a little conspicuous?’
‘Goddamn it,’ Jane said. ‘Will you two cut it out.’
‘You’re right, I’ll have to think of something else.’
The judge got serious. ‘You’d really do something? Why?’
Hardy shrugged. ‘At least until one of Freeman’s wonders shows up. At least you’d be represented. I could pass it off after you decided who you wanted.’ Hardy straightened in his chair. ‘Not to mention, I wouldn’t mind getting in the face of a few of these people here -they seem to have pissed me off.’
‘Can you get him out tonight, Dismas? On bail or something?’ Jane looked at her father. ‘You cannot stay here overnight.’
Fowler reached out and patted her hand. ‘It’s all right, honey. I spent a night in jail once before – voluntarily, I admit – and it wasn’t so bad. I wanted to see what we were putting people through. I’ll survive, I promise you. Besides, I might as well get used to it. It could be longer than that if bail is denied.’