David Freeman, brown bag in hand, knocked at the Solarium lintel, walked right in, and began unpacking. He pulled out a couple of wrapped sandwiches, a large bottle of Pellegrino water, little plastic glasses, and a jar of marinated artichoke hearts. ‘I took the liberty,’ he said, unwrapping the white butcher paper. ‘Mortadella, sourdough, provolone. Brain food.’
Hardy pushed his journal to the side. ‘I thought that was fish.’
‘Fish too,’ Freeman said. He had finished unwrapping the sandwich, spreading the paper out under it, making it neat. Pushing it over in front of Hardy, he poured some Pellegrino into one of the glasses and placed it in front of him too. This kind of solicitude from Freeman was unusual, and Hardy glanced over at him. ‘What?’ he said.
‘What what?’
‘Don’t give me that, David.’
Freeman left his own sandwich unmolested, still wrapped in front of him. He sat back. ‘They cut a deal with the judge’s wife. Pratt accepted a plea.’
Hardy threw a disbelieving glance at the old man. ‘What do you mean, she accepted a plea? What plea?’
‘Manslaughter on Sal Russo, three years. Assault with a deadly weapon on you, three years concurrent, no additional time for the gun.’
For a second the room tried to come up at Hardy.
‘Diz?’
‘Assault with a deadly weapon? It was attempted murder, David, she tried to kill me. She did kill Sal Russo. And what do you mean no additional time for the gun?’
Freeman let out a long breath, cracked a knuckle. ‘It seems Mrs Giotti’s been under a lot of stress lately, imagining that Russo was a threat to her husband’s career and that you somehow were part of this giant conspiracy.’
‘Imagining? She told me her husband and Russo had started a fire that killed a fireman. She told me she’d killed Russo to shut him up. She told me she was going to kill me so I couldn’t talk about it.’
Nodding, Freeman went along with him. ‘Yes, indeed, my son. Quite mad, wasn’t she, imagining all these terrible things about her husband and some fire?’
‘But Giotti-’ Hardy stopped himself. He couldn’t say, and that realization choked him.
‘What? The judge denies everything and her doctors confirm that she’s imagining it, so we all know it never happened. Except, of course, for some nasty-minded columnists.’ Freeman eyed Hardy shrewdly. ‘Unless someone knew something admissible that could actually pin the arson on Giotti. You wouldn’t know anybody like that, would you, Diz?’
‘No.’
‘I thought not. If you did, I’m sure at the very least you’d want to tell your old pal David?’
But Hardy knew he could never tell Freeman or anybody else what Giotti had told him under the seal of the attorney-client privilege. It had been the worst five dollars he’d ever earned. ‘I don’t know anything, David.’
The old man nodded. ‘I believe you. But you know, with Pratt not exactly being in love with you to begin with, the fact that you couldn’t provide any more information on Giotti didn’t make her want to throw the book at his wife. After all, the judge still has some influence. You cross him at your peril. Pratt knows that. You’re lucky she didn’t charge you for trying to kill her.’
‘Maybe the fact that it was her gun, that she brought…’ Hardy made a face. ‘Never mind that. What about Powell? Won’t he do anything?’
Freeman shrugged. ‘Why would he? And anyway he can’t. Double jeopardy’s still a no-no. Both crimes – you and Sal – they both happened in Pratt’s jurisdiction and she’s charged and prosecuted them. End of story.’
Fingertips to his temples, Hardy was trying to make his headache go away. ‘So what’s she going to serve, Giotti’s wife?’
Freeman shook his head in commiseration. ‘You haven’t heard the best part. The judge has just stayed her delivery to the prison system, postponed it.’
‘I know what stayed means. But how, for how long?’
‘Indefinitely. She’s going to do her time in the county jail, close to home.’
Hardy finally exploded. ‘Jesus Christ, David! This wasn’t some shoplifting spree! No judge could do that!’
‘Well, this one must know Giotti, and he just did, and since Pratt thinks it’s a swell idea, no one’s going to object.’
‘Well, I damn well object.’
‘But you, my son, are the proverbial person that nobody asked. I hate to mention it, Diz, but you’ve made a few enemies. You’re not even the player to be named later.’
Hardy took it stoically. It wasn’t too great a shock. But he was curious about Pat Giotti’s sentence. ‘So how much time you really think she’ll do?’
‘A couple of years plus or minus…’ Freeman trailed off. ‘She’s going to be a model prisoner, get an early release.’
‘So what about all this?’ Hardy vaguely indicated himself. ‘What did I do this for?’
Freeman took a huge bite of his sandwich and chewed awhile thoughtfully. He drank some Pellegrino water. ‘You won your case. Your client’s free. You got yourself a passel of new work.’
This wasn’t much satisfaction. Hardy had to ask. ‘So I’m shot twice and almost killed and the person who did this gets a few months in the country club? That’s it? What happened to justice here?’
Freeman nodded, took another sip of water, shrugged. ‘Justice? I think it went on vacation.’
Stagnola’s was packed with the Thursday lunch crowd.
October was high season for tourists in San Francisco and Fisherman’s Wharf swarmed with them, getting off the ferries, walking up from Pier 39, down from Ghirardelli Square.
Mario Giotti had been overwhelmed with his wife’s legal troubles over the past weeks. It had shocked and dismayed him to learn that she had killed Sal, but certainly once it became clear that she had, the next order of business was damage control. Which, given his influence and connections, hadn’t proved too difficult.
The community, his brethren, had closed ranks around him, as he knew they would. Pat – and thank God she was still alive – had even come to agree with his decision about their story. She’d been under too much stress with the accusations Sal had been making against her husband and had cracked under the pressure.
There had been a fire at the Grotto, certainly, but nothing like a cover-up, nothing that could come back to haunt the judge and mar his reputation. In fact, if anything, the judge’s anonymous contributions over the years to the family of Randall Palmieri were signs of his generosity and beneficence.
Throughout his attorneys’ negotiations with Sharron Pratt, Giotti had feared that Dismas Hardy would step up and ruin everything, but evidently he’d put the fear of God into the man. Should he take it upon himself to abuse the attorney-client privilege, the state bar would rise in righteous indignation and lift his license to practice law. Giotti never considered that Hardy was simply a man of honor – that he had entered into a contract and would keep his word.
Giotti did wonder if Hardy had leaked something of their privileged discussion to the columnist Jeff Elliot, but he had no way to prove it, and no way to accuse Hardy of anything without implicating himself. Elliot had come pretty close to what had happened, but hadn’t gotten it exactly right, and that in turn made Giotti think that Hardy had kept it close to the vest after all.
The reporter had dug and gotten lucky, but didn’t have all the pieces. So the rumors had flown for a few days, but they died down. He hadn’t even deigned to issue any kind of formal denial.
Everything was going to work out fine. This was his city; he belonged here. People loved him and always would.
And now here was his old friend Mauritio at the front door, greeting patrons as they filed in. Because of all the troubles, then having to decide some cases on the circuit in Idaho and then Hawaii, Giotti hadn’t been to his old psychic home, back to his roots, in nearly a month.