'So what was your a.s.signment? Did you guard individual people?'

'No, nothing like that.' Canetta obviously didn't like the work. 'Stand at the doors, take your hardware, be a presence. You know, these guys, they like to make a show. How important they all are.'

'But even at these meetings, Bree was somebody?'

He nodded somberly. 'Oh yeah. She stood out. I mean, first was the looks thing, especially in this bunch of geeks and wonks. But then she'd always give some talk and bring down the house. She had this... sincere quality, a lot of... pa.s.sion, I guess.' Canetta was stumbling over himself, trying to make Hardy see. 'Like she really believed in things. I mean, she got to people - you know what I'm saying.'

At least, Hardy was thinking, she got to Canetta. But now the cop, his eyes far away again, seemed to be considering something. He was half-swallowing, and his next words nearly decked Hardy. 'Couple of other times, you know, I talked to her.'

He kept his voice neutral, but it was an effort. 'You mean personally?'

Canetta still wasn't completely committed to revealing this, but after a beat he nodded. 'Coincidences, really, the way it started. I was doing traffic duty a day or two after one of these shows.' A pause, deciding to keep talking. 'I don't know, three, four months ago. It's early evening, I pull her over for speeding about a block from her place. It's obvious she's had a couple.'

'She was drunk?'

'Maybe.' A quick exhale, letting some of the tension go. Hardy suddenly understanding a little about why Canetta didn't want to talk to him at the station house. He was already involved here. 'I'm alone in the cruiser. I recognize her of course. I don't cite her. She's not like out of her mind, blowing maybe a one is my guess. Long story short, she gets in and I drive her home.'

She got in his cruiser? Hardy wanted to ask if anything else had gone on. In his line of work, it wasn't uncommon to hear about some cop pulling over a pretty woman because the tread on her back tires was worn down, so he could meet her, be charming and find out if she was available.

Much more seriously, if less common, was that it wasn't unknown for a cop to get a woman's address off her driver's license and start stalking. Hardy was sure it was because he'd established his credentials as an ex-cop, a member of the club, that Canerta was telling him that he'd broken every rule in the book with Bree.

Still, it was unsettling.

And it wasn't over. 'So anyway, little while later, I'm pa.s.sing the building and she's standing out on the sidewalk. I stop and ask her does she need a lift someplace, but no, she's waiting for somebody to come pick her up. We talk a minute.'

'What about?'

A shrug. 'She just thanked me for not writing her up. Said she didn't usually drink too much. She'd just been under a lot of pressure recently. Job stuff. I tell her I heard her talk a couple of times. It seems to me she's doing some real good with her work, making a real difference. But she shakes her head. 'It's all a mess,' she says, then like stops, not wanting to say anything else. Says she's sorry. I ask her for what, and she says like everything.'

A silence.

'Did you tell any of this to Griffin?'

'Who?'

'Carl Griffin, the inspector who got the case.'

A sideways glance. 'He didn't ask me. I'm just a station cop - what could I know?' The sergeant had gotten himself hunched over, elbows on knees, during the telling. Now, suddenly, he sat back up as though surprised at where they were. He remembered his sandwich and took a bite, his jaw working furiously.

Hardy killed a minute with his water. 'You married, Phil?'

'Eleven years,' he said evenly. 'We got a son just turned twelve. Sometimes you think if things were different, if you could have a choice...'

Hardy clearly heard what he didn't say - you meet someone like Bree and you wish you wish you wish, but the option isn't there anymore.

'But you'd meet with her, with Bree?'

'Nothing that arranged. I'd pa.s.s by the same time of day and she got so she'd be there sometimes. We'd say hi, how's it goin', like that. Tell the truth, the feeling I got was she wanted to be rea.s.sured that I was there, like her protector.' He took in a ton of air and let it out slowly. 'And then she gets killed on my watch.'

15.

Jim Pierce lived in a three-story Italianate structure set behind a wraparound high, white stucco wall. The property was in what realtors would call a serious neighborhood, on North Point, a block from the Palace of Fine Arts. On this lovely Sat.u.r.day in the early afternoon, the tourists and even what appeared to be some locals were out in droves, enjoying the Marina district, escorting hordes of children through the Exploratorium, eating gourmet picnic items and feeding the ducks in the lake with the leftovers.

All of which Hardy got to see in his seven-block walk back to North Point from the parking s.p.a.ce he finally located after circling the lake four times. As he went, Hardy found himself considering the possibility that the ducks were inadvertently being fed bits of duck from Chinatown - the odd smear of duck pate, maybe some seared duck cracklings, or breast slices from someone's salad - and that this cannibalistic feeding would someday give rise to the dreaded Mad Duck Disease, which wouldn't be discovered yet for another twenty years, by which time it would be too late. Today's trendy duck eaters would be dropping like flies.

He'd let his mind wander as a defense to the sense of intimidation he'd felt when he'd first identified the house from the address Canetta had provided. But now he was here, before the imposing, black, solid metal gate, and there was nothing to do but push the burton. A pleasant, contralto, cultured female voice answered. 'Yes. Who is it?'

Hardy told her. Said he was afraid it was about Bree Beaumont again. He was sorry. Keeping his role vague, since he really didn't have one.

She hesitated, then asked him to please wait. For a moment, he thought he might have gotten lucky, and he put his hand on the k.n.o.b, waiting for the click as it unlocked. Instead, an impatient male voice rasped through the speaker. 'Who the h.e.l.l is this? I've already talked to you people half-a-dozen times. I've talked to the grand jury. When are you going to let me have a little peace? I swear to G.o.d, I'm trying to cooperate, but I'm tempted to ask for a warrant this time. This is getting a little ridiculous.'

But the gate clicked, and Hardy pushed it open.

For all the imposing nature of his house, and even with the impatient tone in his voice, Jim Pierce came across as a nice guy. He opened the front door before Hardy was halfway up the walk. 'Do they change investigators downtown every five minutes nowadays? No wonder you people aren't getting anywhere.' Hardy squinted in the bright sunlight. Pierce wore a white polo shirt with a colorful logo over the left breast, a pair of well-worn but pressed khakis, ta.s.sled loafers with no socks. 'I'm just watching the game. Notre Dame, USC? The Irish are eating them for lunch. You like football?'

'I used to like Notre Dame back when Pa.r.s.egian coached,' Hardy said. He was on the porch stairs and Pierce was already a step into the dark interior of the house. 'You ought to know I'm not with the police.'

Pierce stopped and turned back. 'I thought Carrie said it was about Bree... oh, never mind.' It was his turn to squint. Hardy stayed outside, framed in the doorway. 'So what can I do for you? What's this about?'

Hardy introduced himself as a lawyer doing some work for Bree's husband, Ron. 'You called him last week.'

A flash of surprise. 'I did?'

'Yes, sir, I believe so.'

The expression held as - apparently - he tried to remember. 'All right, then, I must have. Did I say what it was about?'

'You asked him to call you back. Something about Bree's effects. Did you ever hear back from him?'

Pierce didn't have to think about it. 'No.'

'Can I ask you what you wanted?'

The nice-guy image was fading slightly. Pierce was getting tired of fielding questions about Bree. 'One of my duties involves community relations,' he said. 'I think she took a lot of boilerplate with her when she left - form letters, standard language PR materials, disks. It would be helpful to have it back.'

'So why didn't you ask her for it when she was alive?'

'I did. She wasn't very well disposed toward the company after she left. I thought Ron might be a little more... malleable.' By degrees, Pierce had moved back to the doorway, and now stood perhaps two feet from Hardy, his hand back on the door, by all signs ready to say goodbye.

But something stopped him. 'Now how about if I ask you one?'

'Sure.'

'As a lawyer, what are you doing for Ron? The police don't have suspicions of him, do they?'

'They're eliminating suspects right now and he's one of them. Maybe I can find something to get them off him.'

'So you don't think he killed Bree?'

Something in his tone set off bells. Hardy c.o.c.ked his head. 'You do?'

'No. I didn't say that.'

'That's funny. That's what it sounded like.'

'No.' He sighed again, this time the weariness unmistakable. 'Lord, where will this end? I don't know who killed Bree. I'm still having a hard time believing anyone could kill her, that someone purposely ended her life.'

Hardy suddenly noticed the pallor under Pierce's ruddy cheeks - lack of sleep, time spent indoors. The darkened house. He put it together that, like Canetta, Pierce was in a kind of mourning. Another guy laid out by Bree's death.

The woman certainly had cut a swath.

'If you had to guess, Mr Pierce, why was she killed?'

A blank look, his mind no longer on Hardy. 'I don't know.'

'I realize that you can't talk about what you told the grand jury...'

Suddenly Pierce seemed to realize they were still in the doorway. 'I'm sorry. Where are my manners, keeping you standing out here? Come on in.'

Hardy stood a minute inside, his eyes adjusting. Now that he'd asked him in, Pierce seemed uncertain what to do next. He motioned to a large bowl on a table next to the door. 'Help yourself to some candy, if you'd like. Almond Roca. The best.'

Hardy thanked him and took a couple, unpeeling the gold wrapper on one of them as Pierce led him back through the foyer. It wasn't just the Almond Roca - 'the best' seemed to be the underlying theme of the place. Formal living areas, one-of-a-kind furniture, ten-foot ceilings. They bypa.s.sed the winding staircase. The television droned in a small room and Pierce poked his head in. 'Halftime,' he said, and kept walking.

The last door on the right opened into a modern kitchen, where a woman sat at the island counter. Facing away from them, reading a magazine, she half turned as they entered.

'Excuse us, Carrie. Mr Hardy, my wife.' Then, explaining. 'He's not with the police after all. Mr Beaumont's attorney.'

She got off her stool and stood, extending a cool, firm hand. A nod of the regal head, holding on to Hardy's hand an instant longer than was customary. Mrs Pierce was no child, no recent trophy wife - she appeared to be just to either side of forty - but Hardy decided immediately that she was not just very attractive, but almost disturbingly beautiful. Widely set, startling blue eyes dominated the face of a northern Italian G.o.ddess. He estimated she was wearing two thousand dollars' worth of tailored casual wear that emphasized the slim waist. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe style that highlighted the sculpted bones of her face. Simple designer gold earrings dangled from what seemed to be designer earlobes and a wide gold necklace graced a flawless expanse of finely pored, honey-toned skin over the rise of a deep and dangerous cleavage. 'Have they charged Mr Beaumont?' she asked in her cultured voice, a pretty frown clouding her perfect brow.

'Not yet.' Hardy hoped he wasn't stammering. 'I'm trying to keep that from happening. I was just asking your husband why he thought Bree Beaumont was killed.'

'Or why he's a suspect?' Carrie Pierce said it matter-of-factly. 'He was Bree's mentor from the beginning, that's why. They worked closely together and of course people talked. People tend to be jealous, not to believe that men and women who work together can be friends without...' A brief look of distaste. 'I mean, the world doesn't really turn around s.e.x, after all.'

Hardy thought it was good coloration for Carrie Pierce to believe that. He doubted that any man had ever looked at her and not thought about s.e.x. But if she wanted to retain a sense of her value as a person outside of that context, she'd better believe that there was more.

'The point is,' Pierce said, 'that evidently someone - one of my colleagues perhaps - had told the police that I'd been furious at Bree for leaving Caloco, especially so abruptly.'

'And were you?'

Pierce looked at his wife, then nodded. 'Pretty mad, yes. Betrayed, hurt, all of it. But that was personal.'

'But her leaving? Changing sides in these gas additive wars I keep hearing about. That was business.'

Pierce wore a look of amused toleration. 'And you think that the big bad oil companies got together and, because she'd had a philosophical change of heart, we decided to kill her?'

Hardy had to smile himself. 'Actually, hearing it out loud it doesn't sound too plausible.'

'It's completely absurd,' Carrie said. 'Regardless of what you may hear on the radio, murder isn't really one of Caloco's business tools. Or any of the seven sisters.'

'Seven sisters?'

Pierce explained. 'That's what they call us, the spin-offs of Standard Oil after ant.i.trust broke up the mother company. But none of the sisters would have any reason to kill Bree or anybody else. Frankly we don't need to.'

Hardy said it mildly. 'Even for three billion dollars?'

Pierce had on his tolerant face, the one Hardy supposed he used for the public. 'And what is that figure, three billion dollars? Where does that come from?'

'That's the number I've been hearing. Isn't that the yearly income from this gas additive everyone's fighting about?'

'MTBE?'

'That's the one.'

Pierce nodded. 'That sounds about right. Three billion.' He pulled out a stool, sat on it and indicated Hardy take one, too. Which he did. Carrie excused herself and moved over to the main counter to pour more coffee.

Hardy tried not to follow her movements, but it was not easy. He tore his eyes away, back to Pierce. 'So my point is that that's a lot of money. And if Bree led the charge against this stuff...'

But Pierce was shaking his head. 'No.' He lifted his hand, ticking off the points on his fingers. 'First, Bree didn't have anything like that kind of power. She wrote our drafts, she was a great and persuasive spokesperson, but Jesus Christ himself could come down and say MTBE was the devil and it wouldn't just go away. The stuff has cleaned up the air unbelievably. It works, Mr Hardy. The EPA loves it. h.e.l.l, it mandates it - that's a long way from being outlawed. It's not going away because one woman says it might have side effects, which, PS, is nowhere near proved. Second, and this is always a tough one to sell, but three billion really isn't all that much money.'

Hardy had to reply. 'Three billion! We're talking three billion dollars.'

Pierce nodded. 'It's all relative. It's mixed into gas at eleven per cent. And basically the stuff's only used in California, and only for half the year at that. So you do the math. Three billion represents about ten per cent of half of California's gasoline bill. It's a drop in the bucket.'

'You're telling me you wouldn't miss three billion dollars?'

'Somebody in some department might notice, but long-term? That's exactly what I'm saying. It's nothing.'

Carrie came back over with an urn of coffee, china cups and saucers, sugar, and cream on a silver platter. 'It's the hardest part of Jim's job, Mr Hardy. Making people see that this isn't all about money. They think because we make a profit that we must be evil. But Jim hired Bree to do good, to find out how to make a better product, better for the world. No one seems to understand that. And that cost billions, too, to re-tool the refineries-'

Pierce reached over and patted her hand. 'What Carrie's saying is that it's a complicated issue. It's true that we've spent billions developing MTBE and for a while everyone was thrilled with it. It seemed to be doing the job. Now some questions have come up and we're looking into them. But the point is that we're committed to clean fuels and if it turns out that we have to develop some new refining tool, we'll do that, even if it costs billions, which it will because everything costs billions. That's the price of admission in this league.'

He took a sip of his coffee. 'But the other point, Mr Hardy, is that Bree getting a case of the doubts is no reason on G.o.d's earth for any oil company to do anything, much less have her killed. And that's essentially what I told the police.'

Hardy picked up his own cup and took a drink. Most of what Pierce said made logical sense if he accepted the premise that three billion dollars wasn't a lot of money, but that remained a bit of a leap. 'I once figured out how long it would take to count to a billion,' he said. 'If you did nothing else. One number every half second, twelve hours a day. You want to guess?'

Pierce shrugged. 'I don't have any idea. A week?'

Hardy shook his head. 'Thirty-two years, give or take a few months.'

Pierce chuckled. 'Get out of here.'