36
DISMAS HARDY SWUNG by Glitsky’s on the way to work. Catching Abe in an apron over his nice slacks and shirt, Hardy followed him around to the kitchen and said, “I know people who would pay good money to see you this way. It’s fetching.”
“I’m making spaghetti sauce. You wear an apron or you get all splattered with tomato. Speaking of which, you want to stand back. Garlic pops, too.” Glitsky stirred at the stove.
“Smells like fish,” Hardy said.
“Anchovies. Secret ingredient. Garlic, onions, a can of anchovies with its oil. Can’t miss.”
“A whole can?”
“Sometimes two. You can’t use too much. It disappears when you cook it.”
“Where to?”
“Where to what?”
“Where to does it disappear?”
“I don’t know. It just goes away. Take a look. No sign of it already.”
Hardy leaned over and looked into the pot. “Wow,” he said. “Magic.”
Glitsky agreed. “It is. Even more magical is that there’s no fish taste in the sauce.”
“How does that work?”
“No one knows. It just turns into something else.”
“Transmogrifies,” Hardy said.
“That’s what I meant to say, transmogrifies. Transmogrifying anchovies. Dave Barry would say that’s a good name for a rock band.”
Hardy shook his head. “Too many syllables. I don’t think there’s ever been an eight-syllable band name. Although come to think of it, the Fabulous Thunderbirds has seven.”
“I never heard of them.”
“They were real. Maybe still are. I don’t know. The Trailer Park Troubadours. Nope, that’s still seven.”
“Are they real, too?”
“Absolutely.”
“How come I never heard of them, either?”
“Because unlike your best friend, you don’t have your finger on the pulse of musical culture. Hey, how about Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Reeves and Taylor?” Hardy counted on his fingers. “That’s ten syllables!”
“Hallelujah!” Glitsky said with modulated enthusiasm. “A new record.” He finished cutting up an onion and scooped it up and into the pot, gave everything another stir. “Except who are Reeves and Taylor?”
“They were in the band. Second album.”
“How do you know this stuff?”
“I remember everything,” Hardy said. “It’s a curse. Like too good a sense of smell, which Frannie has. She can smell a dead mouse behind the trash compactor from fifty feet. Anchovies even if they’ve transmogrified. Also if I’ve had onions for lunch.”
“Curses abound,” Glitsky said. “Maybe we should talk about the curse of not killing your wife and people thinking you did.”
“We will, but finish your sauce first. Do you have anything in this kitchen as retro as coffee and something to brew it in?”
? ? ?
HARDY SIPPED AND put the cup down on the coffee table. He had his yellow legal pad on his lap. “What I’ve been trying to get some traction on is this whole question of evidence. I know the grand jury can and often does indict a ham sandwich, but the evidence is so light here that I can barely see where they’re coming from.”
“They’re coming from motive.”
“Motive is good,” Hardy said. “But it’s not evidence.”
Glitsky persisted. “True, but there’s a lot of motive. A surfeit, as you might say.”
“Even a surfeit should not suffice. And that,” Hardy went on, “is why I want to talk to you about the things we do have that we can talk about.”
“Like what?”
“Like, for example, the murder weapon.”
“We don’t have the murder weapon.”
“Okay, but what do we know about it?”
“Caliber. Thirty-eight.”
“Anything else?”
Glitsky considered a moment. “Revolver.”
“Does that do anything for you?”
“Not much. Though it can’t be the same as Hal’s duty weapon, which is a forty automatic. And there’s no record he’s ever had another gun.”
Both men knew that although California law required everyone purchasing a gun to fill out paperwork regardless of whether it was bought from a dealer or a private party, that hadn’t always been the case. There were thousands of handguns for which there was a record of the first purchaser from a dealer, but the weapon had changed hands between private individuals up to a dozen times since the original purchase and was, in effect, untraceable.
“So the theory,” Hardy said, “must be that he got the murder weapon a long time ago from a private party or he bought it on the street.”
“So what?”
Hardy shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know, goddammit.” He reached for his coffee.
“Strout says the shooter might have been shorter than Mr. Chase.”
Hardy swallowed. “What?”
“With all the caveats you’d expect. But I think he really believes it.”
Hardy chewed on that. “Maybe I can build a whole defense on negative evidence,” he said. “Hal was too tall. Missing Persons didn’t check him for GSR.” Gunshot residue. “Granted, they wouldn’t have had any reason at the time, but the fact is, they didn’t. And if Hal made up his alibi, wouldn’t he have come up with a stronger one? Plus, why would he admit to his affair with Patti? Could he have been so stupid as to buy all this life insurance and think he could get away with murder?” He looked across at Glitsky. “Anything on Katie’s affair?”
“Nothing. She was nothing if not discreet.” Glitsky ran down the lack of results from yesterday’s search. “If anything,” he concluded, “from the phone records, anyway, I came away feeling they were connected at the hip—Hal and Katie. They were talking seven, eight, ten times a day after their daughter was born. A couple of first-time parents working it out together.”
Hardy cogitated, hand to his chin. “Okay,” he said. “Back to evidence. You find anything reasonable on anybody else? How about Patti?”
Glitsky shrugged. “Possible motive, of course, but here we go again. On the other hand, she probably knew pretty close to exactly what time Hal was leaving for the airport. She walks in and startles Katie, who cuts herself. Or maybe, even though she’s looking at a gun, there’s a tussle, and Katie gets nicked with her knife. Doesn’t matter. Patti walks her outside—”
“And two blocks uphill in the dark?”
“Puts her in her trunk,” Glitsky said, “at gunpoint. Drives her to the spot.”
Hardy’s eyes lit up briefly. “There you go. What kind of car does she have? Could you finagle a way to have her open her trunk? Katie’s hand might still have been bleeding.”
“I could try. But if you want to talk long shots . . .”
“That’s where we’re at, Abe. At this point, I’d take anything. How tall is Patti?”
Glitsky shrugged. “Normal, I’d say. Five-five, five-six. You see her and you’re not thinking how tall she is.”
“I barely got a look at the funeral,” Hardy said. “I need to spend more time with this woman.”
“Careful what you wish for,” Glitsky replied. “She is some kind of distracting, let me tell you. The other problem, from our perspective, is that she’s about it as far as active alternative suspects are concerned. And if she actually did do it all by herself, we’re looking at close to the perfect crime. Plus . . .”
“What?”
“I hate to say it, but she’s got to know that if she kills Katie to get Hal all to herself, there’s the little flaw that in all probability, Hal’s going to be the prime suspect and find himself where he is now, in jail, going to trial. And maybe never getting out. So what’s that get her?”
“Maybe she thought he’d have an alibi, or that his alibi would hold up.”
“Wouldn’t you think, if she was contemplating murder, she would have made sure? This is also the reason I don’t believe they were in it together. They would have at the very least alibied each other, don’t you think?”
“Unless it was just her and she wasn’t doing it to get him back as her lover, but to punish him for dumping her.” Hardy tipped up his coffee cup. “As always, we’re back to no evidence.”
“That ought to be good news for your client.”
“That’s the theory. Strangely enough, it doesn’t feel like that.”