Hardy thought he just might beat Pullios. He’d gotten under her skin somehow – there was no other explanation for her challenge today. He could hammer there, let more of her anger, or whatever it was, come out, let the jury see it. Make them see it. And if she lost her cool, what about her arguments?
He could beat her.
He was smiling to himself, and it hurt. But so what? What else was new? You pushed through the pain and you got healed. That’s how it worked.
Fowler sat across the table from him in Visitor’s Room A. ‘I’ve more or less reached the conclusion you’re my best shot, Diz.’
‘When did you decide that?’
‘I think when I saw that line of vultures sitting in the jury box. I’ve seen ’em all work, Diz, and none of them approach David Freeman.‘
‘Neither do I. I couldn’t even get you bail, remember.’
Fowler tried to smile. ‘I don’t think Abe Lincoln could have gotten me bail. But you handled Pullios just fine. Plus you got in here last night, and with Jane. That was impressive.’
‘That was luck.’
‘Better lucky than smart. Besides, people make their own luck.’
Hardy touched his bandage gingerly. ‘Lucky people do tend to say that, don’t they? I don’t believe it.’
‘You think I’m lucky?’
‘I’d say you’ve had a good run.’
The face clouded. ‘I’m sixty-two, my reputation is shattered, the woman I love won’t see me -’
‘Let’s talk about the woman you love.’
‘Does that mean you’re with me?’
Hardy shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Andy. I don’t know what they’ve got. I don’t know how Braun’s going to rule on my involvement.’
Fowler waved that off. ‘File a brief before you even see what Pullios has. Your oral argument was persuasive as it was. I am entitled to the counsel I want and regardless of what Locke may say, I don’t see a conflict. I don’t think Braun will either. You weren’t state’s counsel for May, right?’
Every time that came up, Hardy liked it better. ‘Absolutely not.’
Then forget that. Write your brief. Let’s talk defense.‘
But before they did, Andy wanted to talk money, an issue Hardy, most unlawyerlike, had never once considered. After chiding him for that, Andy offered a $25,000 retainer against a $150-an-hour billing rate for preparation, and $1,500 a day for trial, which, he explained, would represent a cut in the hourly rate, since ten hours on a trial day would be a rock-bottom minimum.
Hardy listened to the figures. He supposed he would get used to them, and when Andy had finished, said they sounded all right to him. So much for being unemployable, he thought, feeling better.
Andy hadn’t seen any of the file they’d gathered on him and didn’t know who’d put it together. He assumed they’d gone over his life with a fine-tooth comb, but he had little or no idea about what exactly they might have found to tie him to Owen Nash. He had never met the man, he said.
Hardy, in fact, wasn’t sure of that. What he was sure of was that if Andy Fowler felt about May the way his actions – never mind his words – indicated, he had a solid motive for killing Owen Nash. Still, there were facts to establish and he might as well start here.
‘And I take it, then, you’ve never been on the Eloise?’
‘That’s the same thing as asking if I killed him, isn’t it?’
Hardy said that maybe it was. He waited.
‘What’s the point of talking about that, Diz? We’ve pleaded not guilty. Every defendant in the world tells his lawyer he didn’t do it, but let’s not muddy the waters, okay? The issue is whether they’ve got evidence tying me to that boat. I say they can’t have. There isn’t any.’
‘How about my peace of mind, Andy? How about if it’s important to me that my cause is just?’ Hardy grinned, realizing he sounded pompous, but it was important to him.
‘Your cause, Counselor, is getting me off.’
‘So humor me,’ Hardy said. ‘Tell me one time. Did you kill Owen Nash or not?’
Fowler shook his head. ‘Not,’ he said.
‘Hardy on defense,’ Glitsky said. ‘How can you do that?’
‘Pullios says I can’t.’
They were at Lou’s, where the lunch special was hot-and-sour lamb riblets with couscous. Hardy was filling in Abe on the Pullios theory of his conflict of interest.
‘She may be right, Diz, although she is not my favorite person this week.’
Abe understood that whatever investigation had taken place, it had been behind his back. Simple courtesy would have dictated that he be kept informed of any developments. But Pullios had gone around him, and Glitsky was angry. He crunched the end of a rib bone and chewed pensively. ‘You think maybe he did it?’
Hardy sipped some water. He’d stopped eating because eating hurt. ‘I’d like to see what they’ve got.’
‘He didn’t deny it?’
Hardy wagged a hand back and forth. ‘Oh, he denied it. Sort of.’
‘Sort of? Do me a favor,’ Abe said, ‘if you find out he did it, don’t get him off.’
Hardy moved his hot-and-sour around. It was also greasy and congealed. ‘You know why dogs lick their balls, Abe?’
‘Why?’
‘Because they can.’
Abe shook his head. ‘You want to identify with the dogs, you go right ahead.’
‘I’m just saying it’s the professional approach.’ Hardy tried to shrug, but again, it hurt. ‘For your own peace of mind, and mine, I won’t stay with it if the file convicts him. Which is what worries me. They must have something. This isn’t just an administrative vendetta – they’re trying Andy Fowler for murder and he says he never met the man, never went near the boat, hadn’t seen May in four or five months.’
Glitsky sucked a lamb bone. ‘That’s about what I found. But obviously, somebody found something else.’
Hardy put his hands to his face, moved them to the sides, rubbed at his temples. He knew that if Andy Fowler had told him he’d killed Owen Nash, he couldn’t have let himself take the case, even to beat Pullios and Locke, even if the investigation hadn’t been strictly kosher.
But, as Glitsky said, they must have found something important that pointed to Andy’s guilt.
Which didn’t mean he was guilty. He said he wasn’t. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t. Okay, Hardy, that’s why there are trials, and juries.
He’d gone from Lou’s back to his car, then decided that, headache or no he had more business downtown. He got to the Chronicle building at about one and stretched out on a cracked black leather couch beside Jeff Elliot’s desk, where he was left alone for almost two hours. Elliot shook him awake.
‘What happened to you?’ he asked.
‘You owe me,’ Hardy said. He described to Jeff how he had come to lose his job, the misunderstanding with Judge Fowler and Jane, every other real and imagined consequence he could invent relating to Jeffs story on May Shinn’s bail, leading up to last night’s drunk and the beating he took.
Basically, Hardy conveyed to Jeff that his article had ruined everything in his life for the last three or four months.
‘Okay,’ Elliot said, ‘so I owe you. I’m sorry about your problems, but the article never mentioned your name.’
That wasn’t worth a rebuttal. Hardy turned straightforward. ‘I may need some investigative help down the line.’
Jeff leaned over his desk, talking softly. ‘I work here. I can’t do anything like that.’
‘If I can leak to you, why can’t you leak to me? Plus, what you find for me, you’ve got the stories. There’s something here. Maybe I can point you at something you might miss, help out both of us.’
‘I’d have to protect my sources,’ Jeff said.
‘Naturally.’
Jeff was mulling it over but Hardy could tell he had him. It was, he thought, a nice turnaround – usually the Deep Throat went to the reporter. Now he would – if he needed it – have himself a personal investigator with the ideal cover. He loved the idea of Pullios leaking to Jeff, who would in turn keep him on the inside track.