The Hearing

Cole's eyes narrowed. Any hint of his methadone lethargy had vanished. He slumped back in the chair, his arms crossed. Pissed, dissed, and dismissed.

Hardy ignored it all. He picked up in a relaxed voice. 'Our first line of defense is unconsciousness. The facts here are going to make it very difficult, if not impossible, to even get to reasonable doubt about whether you did it.'

'I-'

Hardy held up a palm. 'Not interested. Of course we argue that you didn't do it. But what's really going to matter is if we can prove that even if you did, you were so drunk that you couldn't have realized what you were doing. With six or eight drinks in you, you're legally drunk. With twenty and in withdrawal, you're comatose.'

'What about the gun, though?'

'I was going to ask you the same thing.'

'I didn't get any gun from Cullen. He's lying.'

'Why would he lie? I thought he was your friend?'

'Yeah, right.' A shrug. 'He's out on three separate probations for selling rock. He's got three or four strike convictions – robberies. They pull him in another time, he figures this time they've got to keep him. So he makes this up and they trade. Hey. You know this stuff happens all the time. And in this case, somebody wants to see me fall more than him, so they go for the trade.'

'Who would want that? And why?'

'I don't know. Somebody with the DA. Some cop. Maybe your friend Glitsky. I don't know.'

Hardy felt his blood heating up again, but tried to ignore it. 'You know anybody either place? Have you had any run-ins I ought to know about? Screwed around with some cop's daughter, anything like that?'

'No.' He shook his head, then decided the denial wasn't strong enough. 'Hey, I swear to God, no. Nothing like that.'

Hardy was fairly sure that he was telling the truth. And the fact was, Cole didn't need to have a personal enemy in the DA's office. There might be nothing personal in it – Pratt had to win this case, that was all. To fill a hole in the prosecution's theory of the crime, a witness needed to appear to account for Cole's possession of the murder weapon.

And lo, it had come to pass.

Hardy knew he needed to have a few words with Cullen Leon Alsop, get a better feel for that situation before too long. But first he needed Cole to understand his strategy, to be on board with it. 'So Plan A is unconsciousness. You don't remember.'

'But I do remember.' He pushed ahead over Hardy's warning expression. 'Seeing the gun. I don't know why it's just that, like a snapshot. I didn't have the gun. It was in the gutter, next to her. She was already down, I swear.'

Hardy was almost tempted to believe him.

'I swear,' Cole repeated.

'All right, Cole, you swear. But moving along, I'd also like to address the point that if you didn't kill Elaine, someone else did.' Hardy didn't really think so, but mentioning it to Cole would serve as a pop-quiz for his credibility. As he sat across the table from him now, he would have given about eighty per cent odds that in the next few days his client would develop another 'snapshot' of Monday night. And this one would feature the proverbial one-armed man.

'I'm surprised Jeff would even talk to you about me.' Hardy had told him about his visit to the Chronicle that morning.

'Why's that?'

'I haven't exactly been like the perfect relative to those guys.'

'So I hear.'

'So… why?'

Hardy started gathering his documents, his legal pad, his pens. He stood up and had an acute flashback of Cole's mother in his office yesterday, the later years of her life now reduced to pain and guilt because of Cole. Even if he hadn't killed Elaine. Hardy looked across the table at him. 'Maybe with Jeff it's like your friend Cullen, Cole. Something else is going on. You're in it, but you're not it. You know what I'm saying? There's a whole universe out there, and guess what?'

'What?'

'It doesn't all revolve around you.'

22

I think I was a little hard on him.' Hardy clinked his martini glass against David Freeman's.

In theory, he'd given up martinis at lunch about ten years before, but he always made an exception at Sam's. He'd walk through the door, there would be the old, tiny dark-wood bar, the male waiters in tuxedos, the buzz of busy people fortifying themselves with honest food for a productive afternoon. And suddenly the thought of not having one martini would always seem to be an unnecessary denial of one of his life's great pleasures.

Hardy hadn't missed a day of work because of alcohol in half a dozen years, and a martini wasn't going to slow him down this afternoon. So he ordered – Bombay Sapphire gin, up, very dry, one olive, and ice cold in a chilled glass.

Freeman didn't agonize half as much as Hardy. Hell, he didn't agonize at all. He was standing, waiting at the bar when Hardy entered. Nodding in approval at the order, he said he'd have the same, and raised his glass when Hardy raised his own. 'I'm sure he had it coming.'

Hardy broke a cragged grin. 'So here's to tough love, huh?'

'Or failing that, just plain tough.'

Both men sipped appreciatively. A waiter informed them that their booth was ready. He would carry their drinks for them.

Sam's was already a popular San Francisco lunch spot by the turn of the twentieth century, and though it had changed some, it still retained a bit of the feel of a private men's club, with a public dining area in the main room. A side room provided more privacy, with booths along both walls that could be closed off by curtains, and it was to one of these that the men repaired.

McNeil hadn't arrived yet. It was possible that he might not show up at all, although Hardy had kept his invitation vague enough to whet his client's curiosity – had Manny Gait agreed to a settlement already? McNeil had been so anxious for it that he'd called a post-dawn meeting yesterday. He would want to know right away, but he might also wonder why Hardy couldn't just leave a message. He would make the meeting if he could.

But in the meantime, there was plenty to talk about, and Hardy tried to keep the excitement out of his voice as he filled Freeman in on the unexpected appearance of Dash Logan again, this time in his murder case.

The old man, pensive, twirled the stem of his glass. 'Russian insurance fraud?' He was frowning. 'Sounds like the kind of work he'd like.'

'The guy is everywhere. I find it pretty intriguing.'

'Depressing is more like it.'

'Maybe more than that.' Hardy sipped gin, put his glass down. 'I can't shake the feeling he's going to show up around Cole Burgess.'

Freeman was shaking his head from side to side. 'I doubt it.'

'I'll give you a scenario. Logan wasn't being cooperative – the judge told me this – when Elaine came to do her special master work. Dash wouldn't show her where the files she needed were. If she wanted to pull them, she'd have to find them first.'

'Have I already called him an asshole?' Freeman muttered.

Hardy nodded. 'Several times. So Elaine just turned herself loose in his office, going through everything. And she found something she wasn't supposed to see.'

Freeman almost choked on his drink. 'You're saying you think Logan killed Elaine because of that?'

'Or one of the Russians. Or another of his clients.'

'You've been watching too many movies.'

'All I'm saying is we can make the argument and drag our friend Dash through the mud pretty good, and I know that would make some people at this table very happy.' He shrugged. 'At least it's somebody to point at, David. Something the jury might want to think about.'