Hardy woke up sweating, gasping for air, the green room closing in around him as the almond-scented, corrosive gas burned its way down his windpipe, into his lungs, exploding them inward, leaving him in mute agony – in his dream, the scream woke him. In life, in this style of death, the scream would be silent, choked off the instant it was born.
It was all right. He was in his bedroom, Frannie curled in sleep next to him. The clock next to the bed said it was a little after three o'clock – he'd been asleep almost two hours.
He got up and went naked into the bathroom to throw water on his face. He'd been sweating – his hair was stuck to the side of his head. Gulping water and aspirin, he pulled at the skin around his eyes – the blackened circles under them didn't smudge away.
At the front of his house, still undressed, he sat in his armchair. It was cold, colder than it ever got. After a couple of minutes he heard footsteps and Frannie was next to him.
"Bad dream?" She sat on his lap, her arms around his neck. "You're all clammy," she said.
He couldn't talk. Her hands moved over his head, smoothing his hair. He had his arms around her and held her tight against him.
"I'm going to get a blanket."
When she got back he was shivering. He couldn't stop. She put the blanket over him, then went to get another comforter. When she returned he was out again, breathing heavily. She tucked the extra blanket around him, rubbed a hand across his damp and burning forehead and lay down in the windowseat under an afghan, her head on a sitting pillow near her husband's knees.
He woke up again. It seemed to be a long time before dawn.
Still in the chair, he listened in the darkness, trying to hear something beyond the sounds of his quiet house – Frannie breathing on the windowseat beside him, the aquarium gurgling away in the back, in their bedroom.
Something – he thought it might have been a noise – had gotten into his consciousness.
A chill shook him, bringing with it a sudden jolt of fear. If he was on to what he thought he was, suppose there was someone trying to make it impossible for him to tell what he might know?
He didn't remember getting into bed. He didn't remember getting to this chair, or why Frannie was here. Throwing off the blanket, he realized he must have come in, taken off his shoes and collapsed.
His guns!
His guns from his cop days were locked in his safe. When Rebecca had moved into what had been his office he had moved the safe out behind the kitchen, on the top shelf over his workbench. Now, woozy and stumbling, he forced himself up, back through the house, turning on lights as he went.
The safe was untouched.
He opened it. The guns were still there. He really was losing it. No one was coming for him. Not here. Not at his home.
And then it occurred to him that maybe Larry Witt had thought the same thing. And so had Simpson Crane. And both had been shot with their own weapons in their own houses Ridiculous.
The. 380 in his hand, shivering, he decided he'd finish making sure. There wasn't much of the house left to check. Vincent's room, Rebecca's, his own bedroom. He passed back through the kitchen, dining room, living room, back up the long hallway, turning lights off behind him. Nothing. He was crazy.
He looked at the loaded gun in his hand, knowing that this was how domestic accidents occurred. A half-dark house, a wife or child walking in unexpectedly while the husband holds a loaded weapon, thining he's heard somebody break in, that somebody might have a reason to.
He went back to the work room. As he was putting the damn thing back in the safe, it came to him suddenly. His legs went mushy on him. No, it was too grotesque to consider. He had to sit.
Larry had finally hit Matt. And more than once. Maybe Matt had come in during the fight and taken sides with his mother, pulling at his dad to leave his mom alone, and Larry had lost it entirely with the boy, smashing the gun he was holding into the side of his face. And then realizing what he'd done, that this couldn't be covered up or undone. The boy, maybe with a broken jaw, a living indictment of what Larry had become, of who he really was. His career would be over, his carefully ordered, totally controlled life… And in a beat, as Matt lay on the floor by the bathroom and Jennifer begged him to stop, the only solution had come to him. Destroy the evidence of what he'd done. A bullet would erase any sign that he'd ever hit his son. They could never say that.
And then there would be nothing left, no point in continuing your life, so you turn the gun on yourself.
But before he does, he turns to Jennifer and says, "This is all your fault." And, being who she is, she at that moment, and beyond, believes him.
Hardy, on the floor in the workroom, followed it through to the end. But of course it couldn't have happened that way. The gun being gone eliminated that possibility.
Except if Jennifer, blaming herself as she always did for the fight and everything it precipitated, removed the gun herself, took it to the dumpster? That way it wouldn't be Larry's fault. The precious reputation of Dr. Larry Witt would be saved. And she – Jennifer – she'd get what she deserved for having started it, for being who she was.
It was too twisted. It couldn't have been that.
And yet some of it did fit – Jennifer's unyielding denial that she had killed her son and husband. And, more chillingly, he thought, it fit her profile – self-hatred, guilt, the need to be punished. Because, in fact, her immediate feeling when it was done was her guilty joy that Larry was dead. She'd hated him, hated everything he'd done. Though she almost couldn't physically bear the loss of Matt, it didn't – in that first instant flush – diminish her overriding happiness that Larry was gone. That she was free of him at last.
And if she could feel that way right after losing her son, then she had to feel she truly was without a sould and deserved whatever punishment society gave her. In fact, she would help it. She had helped it. She was doing this to herself.
Hardy leaned back against the wall, feverish. This wasn't what happened. It couldn't have been what happened. He had other ideas he had to explore and they made a lot more sense. He was delirious.
"You can't do it today."
Hardy's fever had leveled at 101, which was also the age he felt. He was on his third cup of black coffee, having forced himself to down some hash, toast and orange juice. "The appointment's at nine. I've got to go. I've only got three days."
Three days until Villars, the thirteenth juror, gave the final ruling on the verdict – Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.. Hardy had his automatic motion to set aside the verdict due at that time and, in spite of everything, thought he still at least had a chance to reduce the sentence to life in prison. If oly he could find something to bring Villars to it, something she could find admissible.
After the verdict he had spent half the night with Jennifer talking about options. He held back his trump – on his own he had decided that he would at least lay out the battered-woman issue to Villars if it was the only thing that could mitigate death. But in the meanwhile, he had filled Jennifer in on the YBMG situation and she had authorized him to go wherever he had to and do whatever was needed to get any proof he could. At least she now wanted to live.
His first step – at eight on a Friday night – had been calling the chairman of YBMG. Dr. Clarence Stone lived in San Francisco, and, persuaded by Hardy's urgency, had cleared an hour in his home on a Saturday morning for him. So flu or no, Hardy had to go.
Rebecca and Vincent were playing with Leggo's in the nursery. Frannie said, "Look, you're sick. You've been working around the clock. You haven't been home in a month. You've got to take care of yourself."
He tried to smile through the haze. "That's my plan. I will. Soon. Promise."
Vincent let out a wail and Frannie rushed to the back of the house. Hardy slowly got up and, more slowly, grabbing handholds as he passed them so he wouldn't fall down, made his way to the nursery door. Vincent had caught his finger in one of the joints of the stroller and Rebecca had sent up a sympathetic wail. Turning his head away from her, he picked her up and bounced her in his arms.
In a minute or so, the kids in their arms, they bundled back to the kitchen. Frannie, holding Vincent, was getting a piece of ice cream from the freezer to put on the pinch. "Can't you just appeal like everyone else?" she said.
"Peel what?" Rebecca asked. "Banana peel?"
Vincent looked over Frannie's shoulder for the banana peel, repeating it. They started to chant. "Banana peel, banana peel." It continued, getting louder. His kids were some comedians. It was great that they loved each other, had the same sense of humor. This banana peel game was funny funny funny, a real laugh riot.
Hardy thought his head was going to levitate without him attached. Now, of course, the kids wanted bananas and, predictably, they were out of bananas.
"You feel good enough to go out, why don't you take them to the store and buy some?" He knew she was justified to some degree in feeling this way, but that didn't make him appreciate her at the moment. "Both of them," she continued. "Mommy needs a break."
Clarence Stone live in a mansion in the Seacliff area, geographically less than a mile from Hardy's house and psychologically in another galaxy. The short walk from the head of the circular drive to the front door wiped Hardy out. He took nearly a minute getting his breath before he rang the doorbell.
A bona fide butler admitted him and they walked a long hallway, their footfalls swallowed by the thick Oriental runner. The butler ushered him into a library/office, where a white-haired man with a clipped mustache sat at a desk that rivaled the one in Freeman's office for expanse. He wore a maroon silk robe and was writing with a fountain pen. When Hardy was introduced he finished writing, put down the pen, stood – he was wearing black slacks under the robe – came around the desk and offered his hand.
"You don't look good, son."
Hardy didn't doubt it – he also didn't feel good. He'd had chills driving over. The thick fog seemed to insulate against any warmth or even light. The heater in the car had been turned up high, blasting him, but it hadn't helped.
"Touch of the flu," Hardy said. "That's all."
Stone the doctor told his butler to bring in some tea with lots of lemon and honey. He had Hardy sit down on a club chair and remove his coat. He asked his permission to look him over. No charge.
"You getting much sleep? You ought to stay in bed with this, you know?"
Through his chattering teeth, Hardy laughed weakly. "I got my eight hours this week. I'm fine."
Stone had an old-fashioned black doctor's satchel and he set it on the floor now, taking out some instruments. He listened to Hardy's chest, stuck an instant-read thermometer into his ear, looked in his ears and at his throat. "Yep, you've got the flu."
The tea arrived and Stone prepared a couple of glasses. "This must be important," he said. "You really shouldn't be out walking around."
"It is important," Hardy said. He had his coat back on and pulled it close around him.
Stone sat kitty-corner to him, turned in. "Last night you said it concerned YBMG?"
Assuming Stone was familiar with the background, Hardy gave him the short version, concluding with Larry Witt's concern over the timing and tone of the offering circular.
When he had finished, Stone did not answer immediately. "You know many doctors, Mr. Hardy?"
Hardy nodded. "Some."
"You know how many people try to sell them things?" He held up his hand. "No, I'll tell you. Not a day goes by that the average successful doctor doesn't get ten stock brochures, two or three credit-card applications, offers of lines-of-credit, you name it. Even if you go to the trouble of trying to get the post office to eliminate all this solicitation mail, you're inundated. Believe me, I've tried. It's out of our control."
"All right."
"All right. But you seem to think a flashy presentation, high-profile sales pitch is going to matter. It is not. We get them every day. In fact, the Board specifically decided to issue a low-key circular rather than a sensational one. We didn't want to raise hopes in the Group's future success after it went for-profit. It was entirely within the realm of the possible that we could have gone under altogether. No one – certainly no one on the Board – anticipated PacRim's interest, or the windfall."
"What about the short turnaround time you gave everyone?"
"It wasn't that short." Stone sat back, apparently relaxed, and crossed his legs. "Doctors tend to be fairly literate people, Mr. Hardy. They can read. But like everybody else, often they don't act until they have to. So you give people a deadline, it moves things along. Besides, remember that this was a twenty-dollar investment at most. Twenty dollars. Not the kind of decision you'd have to discuss with your wife or lawyer. It was straightforward and everybody had an opportunity."
"But not everybody bought."
Stone shrugged, nodded. "If you see a conspiracy in that, I'm afraid we have to part company there."
It would have been easier if Stone had shown the slightest sign of defensiveness, but he was sitting so comfortably, speaking so moderately, and, worst of all, making such perfect sense.
Hardy leaned forward. "Ali Singh said only thirty doctors bought."
Stone agreed. "Perhaps forty. I'm not exactly sure. Certainly less than wish they had now." He spread his arms, palms up, apologetic. "But that's the nature of these things. Who doesn't wish they'd bought Apple when it opened, or even McDonald's?"
"But Dr. Witt complained even before the windfall."
"Do you know that he complained? Who did he complain to? Maybe he just wanted to ask for an extension. Maybe he had a quick question. Maybe anything. I didn't know Dr. Witt personally, so I have no idea."
This interview was taking on a sense of deja vu – Villars had had the same objections. Hardy just didn't know. He was surmising and hoping but he didn't have a fact. Another wave of nausea hit him and he leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes.
"Mr. Hardy?"
"I'd better be going," he said. "Thank you. You've been very helpful."
Taking Hardy's arm, Stone walked with him across the room, through the door to the hallway. "You know," Hardy said, "I've got one more question if you don't mind… What happened to the shares no one bought?"
This was just another administrative detail, and Stone was forthcoming about it. "Some of them are in an escrow account, part of the Group's assets. Others we gave as bonuses. Some we traded for services."
"Such as legal fees?"
Stone smiled. "As a matter of fact, yes. Mr. Bachman pulled quite a coup on that. And we thought we were getting a very good deal, an incredible deal, in fact."
They had come to the door. Stone was still enjoying Bachman's cleverness. "Crane normally hits us for two-fifty and hour, and Bachman suggested he handle the paperwork on the turnaround for fifty thousand shares. We figured it would be a hundred hours of legal work and the shares were worth twenty-five hundred dollars – at the time. It was a steal. So the Board took it. And actually it turned out to be more like three hundred hours, so we thought we'd done very well indeed."
"Fifty thousand shares?"
"At a nickel a share, remember. It was peanuts. Of course, now…"
Hardy waited.
"Well, we all made out well, I shouldn't begrudge Mr. Bachman. He put in a lot of work and he's made us all much wealthier. Is that a sin?"
"How much did he wind up getting?"
Stone pursed his lips, smiled. "I suppose that's in the public record. I can tell you – a little over seven million dollars."
Hardy repeated the number. Slowly. Out loud.
Stone agreed it was a great deal. "Now you'd better get home and get in bed. Take aspirin every four hours."
"Drink lots of liquids," Hardy said.
The doctor smiled. "Right. Then send me fifty dollars." The smile broke into a wide grin. "Sorry, forget the fifty dollars. Force of habit."
But he didn't go home.
David Freeman was up and about, conducting a classical concert – Hardy wasn't familiar with the piece – in his living room. Hardy threw his briefcase on the floor and sank heavily onto Freeman's couch, pulled a couple of stuffed pillows over him for warmth, and watched Freeman – baton in hand – direct his symphony.
He dozed.
When he woke up the fog still clung to the windows. Freeman had thrown a blanket over him. It was quiet and the older man was working over his kitchen table, reading a file, taking notes.
"What time is it?" Hardy's bones were too heavy to lift his wrist.
Freeman looked up. "After two. I usually get sick after a trial, too."
"I can't be sick." Hardy tried to straighten up. He wasn't entirely successful. "Why did I come here?" he asked, half to himself.
"Why are you here? What is life? The great questions. That's why I like you. You feel like lunch? I'm starving."
"I don't think I can eat."
"Okay." Freeman, however, went to the refrigerator and started rummaging around.
"I remember." This time Hardy got himself pulled up. He wrapped the blanket around him. "Jody Bachman made seven million dollars."
The sound of rummaging stopped.
"Fifty thousand shares," Hardy said.
Freeman's head appeared above the refrigerator door. "Which was it?" he asked.
"It was both."
"You mean he got seven million dollars plus fifty thousand shares of stock?" He shook his head. "We're in the wrong business."
"No, he got fifty thousand shares of stock, which turned out to be worth seven million dollars."
Abandoning his foraging efforts, Freeman crossed the small living room and sat at the end of the couch. His face was suddenly troubled. He scratched at his stubble. "He took stock as payment? Is he the managing partner down there?"
"Yes, he took stock. No, he's not the managing partner. Why?"
Freeman sat back. "What were the shares worth?"
"A nickel each," Hardy said. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking maybe you found something."
"I thought that, too." Hardy knew exactly what he thought but he wanted corroboration. He'd flown off too many times without getting his facts nailed down. It wasn't going to happen again. "I'm not sure I know what it is, though," he waited.
The thought, the argument, seemed to be blossoming in Freeman's head. He stood up and went to the window, studied the fog. Hardy rode out another bout of the shakes, then realized he'd broken a sweat. He threw off the blanket but then the chills started again.
Turning around, Freeman's face showed distaste. "You look like hell." That said, he moved right on, coming back to the couch, sitting close to Hardy, and explained his reasoning.
Large corporate firms like Crane amp; Crane did not usually allow associates and junior partners to trade essentially worthless stocks for eminently liquid billable hours. Jody Bachman, young and ambitious, had somehow put together a deal with PacRim, or knew PacRim might be a viable marriage with YBMG. Freeman said he wasn't sure of the details – who could be? – but Bachman then sold his contingency stock idea to the Group.
All of which might have been fine except for Simpson Crane, the managing partner of Crane amp; Crane. Bachman was putting in hundreds of hours of billable time and not bringing in a dime for his efforts. His utilization stunk. Simpson might have called him on it, or Bachman might have gone to Simpson and asked permission for the contingency. But if Simpson made a habit of accepting stock with a maximum face value of twenty-five hundred dollars in lieu of a guaranteed fee of seventy-five thousand dollars in cash, he wouldn't have a law firm for long.
He would have said no. And that would have ruined Jody's plans – both for his advancement in the firm and for his own fortune. It might have even jeopardized his engagement to his millionaire socialite girlfriend Margaret Morency.
If Simpson Crane were the only thing standing in the way between Bachman and everything he'd worked for and wanted in his professional and personal life, and if Simpson had threatened to pull the rug, might that be worth killing for? Simpson might even have threatened to fire him outright. Freeman certainly would have.
"So. There it is," Freeman concluded. "How do you like it?"
Hardy's eyes were burning now and his mouth was parched, but he had been paying attention throughout the recital. It was close enough to the scenario he had imagined. Now all he had to do was prove it.
"I give it a nine," he said. "My girlfriend can dance to it."
Freeman looked at him as though he were a Martian. Hardy was getting delirious and Freeman told him he'd call a cab to take him home. He left him sitting on the couch and went to the kitchen to make the call.
In spite of everyone's well-meaning advice, there were no odds in going home. He didn't have time to go home. He was seeing Villars on Tuesday morning and if this didn't work out, he had to spend Monday getting his last-ditch motion prepared.
But this was his best chance. This might work.
He called Frannie from the San Francisco airport and endured the expected anger. She had every right to be angry. He hadn't been much of a father or husband in the past months. But he was going to make it up to her, to the kids. This trial had taught him something. A lot. It was an insane life and he had fallen into it. But he was going to get out. Do something else, or do this some other way. As soon as this was done.
First, though, he was going to finish this.
When she cooled off she'd understand. She wouldn't, in fact, expect any less – she was the one, after all, who had insisted he do all he could to find the truth behind Larry Witt's murder. And Matt's. For Jennifer's sake. And now, sick or not, unless he died trying, that's just what he was going to do.