By two, after five increasingly firm visits from the adults, the kids stopped making noise. Hardy, on the couch in the living room, heard the clock chime the hour at least twice after that.
Now he rubbed at his eyes, trying to get the salt out of them. The sugar didn’t improve the java and he set the mug down and massaged his right temple, which throbbed dully.
It was election day. The articles contained few surprises. The MTBE poisoning and resultant scare – as well as his opponent’s lame-brained response to it – had given Damon Kerry a last-minute three-point boost in the polls and he was now truly the front-runner by a nose. The Chronicle recommended him.
Hardy was gratified to see that Baxter Thorne’s libel threats didn’t appear to hold much water with Jeff Elliot. The reporter’s ‘Citytalk’ column didn’t directly accuse Thorne of anything, but did manage to present a litany of facts in a way that led to some unflattering conclusions. The column promised an ongoing investigation.
Suddenly Vincent materialized at his elbow. His pajamas were a replica of Mark McGwire’s Cardinals uniform. His step-cut hair was a shade darker than his sister’s, but still in the general category of strawberry blond. His ears stuck out and the face, except for Frannie’s nose, was Hardy’s exactly. ‘Do you have a headache? You’re rubbing your head.’
Hardy drew him close, mussed the hair. ‘Hey, guy. What are you doing up so early?’
‘It’s not early.’
‘Well, it’s not late, and you didn’t get to sleep till almost two o’clock.’
‘That wasn’t me,’ Vincent said. ‘That was the girls. I went right to sleep after just a little whispering. Dad?’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got a question.’
Hardy longed for the day when Vincent would simply ask a question without announcing his intention to ask one, but he could only sigh now. ‘Shoot,’ he said.
‘How come Max wasn’t invited, too? How come it’s always the Beck who gets her friends over and I get stuck with all the girls and then they don’t want to play with me?’
‘That was one question?’ But Hardy pushed his chair back and pulled Vincent on to his lap. The sleepy boysmell still clung to his son and Hardy held him close for as long as he thought he could get away with it, maybe two seconds. ‘I’ve been missing you, you know that?’
‘I miss you, too,’ Vincent said perfunctorily. ‘But you’re real busy lately,’ he added, parroting the excuse Frannie had no doubt always supplied. ‘We know that. But Mom, I really miss her. And you said she’s coming back today. It’s today, right?’
Hardy tried to ignore the stab that his son’s answer had given him. ‘That’s the plan,’ he said. Then slipped and added, ‘I hope so.’
Vincent’s face immediately clouded. ‘But she might not? I thought you said it was today.’
‘It is today. Don’t worry.’
‘Then why’d you say you hoped so?’
‘Shh. Let’s not wake up anybody else, OK.’
‘But why’d you say that?’
‘I don’t know, Vin. I guess because I want it so bad, just like you do. It was just a figure of speech. She’ll be home today.’ He almost promised, but thought better of it. A promise, especially to his child, was sacred.
The boy’s eyes brightened. ‘Home? You mean like our real home? How can we do that if it was all burned up?’
Hardy rubbed his son’s back and shook his head, framing his reply carefully. ‘Home isn’t just a house, Vin. It’s where we’re all together.’
‘But so where are we going to live then?’
‘I don’t know for sure, bud. We’ll find a place soon while we get our house fixed up again, and we can stay here with Grandma and Papa Ed in the meantime. You don’t have to worry about that, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘Promise?’
Vincent shrugged. ‘Sure.’ If Dad said he didn’t have to worry, that was the end of it. It was going to be all right.
Please God, Hardy prayed, don’t let his trust in me be misplaced.
‘So why couldn’t Max come?’ Vincent was back on his original track.
‘You want to know the real reason? He didn’t sleep enough the night before, so his dad thought it wouldn’t be a good idea.’
Vincent considered this for a moment. ‘His dad’s nice,’ he said simply.
Hardy could only nod dumbly. Just what he needed – another unsolicited testimonial on Ron Beaumont from his innocent, good-hearted son. ‘That’s what I hear,’ he said. ‘How do you know him?’
‘School. He helps in class, sometimes with yard duty. He’s nice,’ he repeated. ‘Is your head hurting?’
‘It must be,’ Hardy said. ‘I keep rubbing it, don’t I?’
Hardy had gotten into the habit of leaving the house before the crazy rush of getting the kids ready for school kicked in. He’d given the alternative a try for several years, but the routine made him nuts. He’d get cranky and take that with him to work. It affected his performance, his job. And without that, where would they be?
For the last couple of years he’d wake up early, have his coffee and read the paper. He’d go in and kiss Frannie awake. Sometimes they’d talk – logistics. Then he’d shake the kids and be out the door.
So he’d missed the rite of passage, but sometime in the past few months, Vincent had learned how to make breakfast. French toast, pancakes – ‘Just the mix, though. I don’t do it from scratch’ – scrambled eggs, oatmeal. ‘You just tell me what and I’ll do it.’
‘You don’t need any help?’
The look. ‘Da-ad.’
He watched his boy adjust the flame under the pan, throw in some butter, expertly crack five eggs into a bowl and whip them up. Hardy tried to remember when he’d begun making his own breakfasts – he must have been about Vincent’s age, but somehow he’d never assumed his younger child could be that competent. Not yet. Not for a long time. He was still a baby.
Vincent lowered the heat a fraction. ‘I like them a little runny, but I can take mine off first if you want them cooked dry. That’s how Mom and the Beck like ’em. Dry. But you know that. Mom says you always used to cook breakfast, so you’d know, wouldn’t you?‘
‘Yeah,’ Hardy said hoarsely. ‘Sure.’
At the stove, Vincent turned at the tone. ‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘You OK, Dad?’
As the house started to wake up, Vincent went back to torment the girls and Hardy took his briefcase back to the dining room, where he could spread out a bit. He heard Erin in the kitchen, but she didn’t come around the corner to wish him a good morning.
The photos were not so daunting this morning – the items from Griffin’s back seat in sharp color focus – a Juicy Fruit gum wrapper. Two bullets. A ziploc bag, snack size, crumbs inside. Parking stub, Downtown Center Garage, dated 7/22/95 – three years ago! Assorted coins worth one dollar thirty-two. An Almond Joy, which Hardy bet would be pretty stale by now.
He forced himself to continue, but was getting convinced that there wasn’t going to be anything here. It was a garbage can. He flipped the photos and the rest weren’t any better – more stuff from the body of the car proper. Gilt paper with traces of chocolate – more candy. Several plastic lids from the tops of coffee cups and soft drinks. Sunflower-seed shells.
Glitsky had also thoughtfully provided a copy of the autopsy report on Griffin, as well as a final inventory of the personal belongings he carried on his body – a ring of keys, a Swiss Army knife, a half pack of Life Savers, two ballpoint pens, an empty ziploc bag.
It all looked like nothing to Hardy. Beyond that, he was reasonably confident that the lab had analysed every item listed here for fingerprints, oils, fluids, and whatever other tests they ran to find or eliminate suspects.
The following pages contained the same relative information from Phil Canetta and his vehicle and, aside from demonstrating that he was far more personally fastidious than Carl Griffin had been, provided nothing that Hardy could use.