Ch.o.m.orro looked like he wanted to ask some more questions, but he'd heard the magic word - grand jury - and knew n.o.body was allowed to discuss anything about its proceedings. They'd already told him the charge was contempt, though - he might pursue that. 'Who issued the citation?' he asked warily.

'Marian Braun,' Glitsky said.

Making a face and no promises, Ch.o.m.orro got a few more details, then finally said he'd put in a call to Braun and get some answers if he could. But he told them they shouldn't expect much - any communication about grand jury proceedings was prohibited. If they wanted to wait...

Glitsky stayed with the judge, but Hardy decided he had to see Frannie.

He'd been to the jail dozens of times and knew the routine, so within minutes he was in the attorneys' visiting room, waiting for his wife.

He hadn't really prepared himself. With other clients, he made it a point to pre-visualize their entrance into this room. It was often the first time he would see them in the jail's orange jumpsuit, and the reality of someone he'd known in civilian life dressed for the slammer was always something of a shock.

In this case, the first sight was more in the order of a physical a.s.sault. Frannie, always pet.i.te, looked positively gaunt. In the room's inst.i.tutional glare, his wife's cheeks were ghostly - the washed-out, faded yellow-gray of ancient paste. Her beautiful red hair had already lost its l.u.s.ter and now hung flat and drab.

A glance reconnected them and they crossed to each other, nearly falling into an embrace. Frannie clung to him, her face buried in her chest, repeating, 'Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d,' over and over.

He held her.

Finally, their hands enfolded on the table, they began to get to it, Frannie trying to explain away the subpoena, and the fact that she hadn't told him about it. 'I didn't think it was anything, that's why.'

Hardy shook his head. This wasn't tracking right. 'No,' he said, 'you thought it was something, Frannie. If you thought it was nothing, you would have told me about it. You would have said, "I got this subpoena today to go testify in front of the grand jury. I wonder what it's all about." Instead, you kept it to yourself.' She was silent, biting at her lower lip. After a minute, Hardy prompted her. 'Frannie?'

'All right,' she admitted.

'All right, what?'

Pulling her hands away from his, she crossed her arms over her chest. 'Now you're cross-examining me. I think I've had enough of that for today.'

Hardy kept his voice in tight control. 'I'm not doing that.' He brought it down to a whisper. 'I don't know why you're here. I'm confused. I don't know what's going on. You want to help me out with this? I'm on your side.'

Closing her eyes, she let out a breath. 'OK,' she said. She reached again for his hand. 'I know I should have told you. I mean, I know that now. It's just we've had such different lives lately. I didn't want you to misunderstand, I guess - to have to deal with it at all.'

'Deal with what?'

She met his eyes, taking a long moment before answering. 'Ron.'

'Ron,' Hardy repeated, his voice hardening in spite of himself. 'I don't believe we know a Ron.'

'Ron Beaumont,' she said. 'Max and Ca.s.sandra's dad.'

Hardy knew the children a bit from their visits with his kids, from sleepovers. The older one, Ca.s.sandra, had become one of Rebecca's good friends, maybe even her best friend, although he wasn't sure of that. Hardy had some vague sense, a dim memory, of a charming, vivacious child, although the 'kid thing,' as he called it, had been pushed off - banished from? - the front burner of his life. But he had never met the father. 'Max and Ca.s.sandra's dad,' he repeated, his voice flat. 'Ron.'

Frannie looked at him and he saw desperation, even despair, in her expression. And, behind that, maybe a disturbing hint of defiance. 'He's a friend of mine. Like you with the women in your life.'

This was a sore point. Hardy often went to lunch, or sometimes even dinner, with other women, colleagues who he worked with, got along with. Even his ex-wife Jane, too, once in a while. He and Frannie finally had to put a moratorium on questions about who they all were, the various personal and professional relationships. They were all just friends. They'd leave it at that.

But on the other foot, Hardy discovered, the shoe cramped him up.

He suddenly had to get away from what he thought he might be hearing. Walking across the room to its doorway, he stood looking out through the wired gla.s.s opening into the hallway of the jail. Finally, he turned. 'OK, we'll leave it where you want. But I've got to remind you that you brought all this up. I never heard of Ron Beaumont until two minutes ago and you're in jail because of some subpoena involving you and him. I don't think a little curiosity is out of the question.'

'His wife was murdered. He's a suspect.'

By the door, Hardy stood stock still. 'And the grand jury decided it had to talk to you about him?'

She shrugged. 'I was with him - drinking coffee,' she added quickly, 'on the morning she died. In public.'

He waited.

'So they wanted to see if my alibi matched his.'

Hardy was still trying to figure out the logistics. 'Did you ever talk to the police about this, before today?'

'No.'

This wasn't making sense. If Frannie was the alibi of one of the main suspects in a murder case, the police would have interrogated her as a matter of course, if for no other reason than to have her words on the record. He'd have to remember to ask Abe why they hadn't, if Abe knew. And if it were true.

But first, he was here. 'OK, so you got the subpoena you didn't tell me about...'

'I thought it would be a quick hour in the middle of the morning, Dismas. There was no need to bother you with it.'

Hardy didn't want to start down that road again. There were lots of facts he wanted to know. When they got home and out of this environment, things would seem different. They'd be able to talk until they got somewhere. Here in the jail, time pressed on them. 'All right, so I a.s.sume you verified Ron's alibi.'

'I did.'

'And after that?'

'Well, this lawyer, the prosecutor - do you know a Scott Randall?'

Hardy shook his head. 'I've heard the name. He's the guy who put you here?'

She nodded. 'He asked if Ron had told me about any problems between him and his wife that might have something to do with what happened to her.'

'Why would he have told you that? Why did this Scott Randall think to ask that?'

'I don't know, but he did.'

Their eyes met across the room again, and this time Hardy left the doorway and came back to the table, sitting on a corner of it. 'So what did you say?'

'I said he had.' She shrugged. 'So Mr Randall asked me what it was, to tell the grand jury what Ron had told me.'

'And?'

'And I couldn't do that.'

'Why not?'

'Because I'd promised Ron I wouldn't.'

'OK, so what was it, this big secret?'

She looked up at him imploringly. 'Dismas, come on.'

At this moment, before Hardy could respond, there was a knock at the door and the guard admitted Abe Glitsky, who was a study in controlled rage of his own. Stealing a quick look at Frannie, his eyes narrowed for a millisecond and the scar between his lips went white. Then he focused on Hardy. 'It's not happening,' he said. 'Braun's not budging.'

Instinctively, forgetting their disagreements, Hardy reached a hand out on the table and Frannie took it. He looked down at her and her eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g. He didn't blame her.

'I can't stay here, Dismas. Abe?'

Miserable, the two men looked at each other. They didn't have to say anything. Jail was a reality in both of their lives. When a judge ordered it, people wound up staying all the time. Finally, Hardy let out a breath. 'So what's left, Abe? What are our options?'

The lieutenant was shaking his head. 'I don't know. I could talk to the desk - maybe get her in Adseg.'

'What's that?' Frannie asked. 'I'm right here, guys. Don't third person me.'

'Administrative segregation,' Glitsky explained to her. 'Basically it's isolation, a nicer cell. Keep you away from the general population, which you want - trust me on this.'

'This can't be happening,' Hardy said.

'Evidently,' Abe went on, looking at Frannie, 'you broke the first rule of the courtroom - you don't insult the judge.'

'She's a pompous a.s.s,' Frannie retorted. 'She insulted me first.'

'She's allowed to insult you. It's in her job description. What did you say to her?'

'I told her I held her in contempt, that this whole thing was contemptible...'

Hardy was shaking his head, believing it all now. When Frannie got her dander up, watch out.

'It got her four days,' Glitsky said.

'Four days?' Hardy gathered himself for a beat. 'This isn't about some secret?'

'What secret? Not that I heard from Ch.o.m.orro. It's about Braun.' Glitsky changed to a hopeful tone. 'Maybe she'll talk to you tomorrow, Diz.'

'No maybe about it,' Hardy said. 'I'll tackle her in the hallway if I have to.'

Frannie reached across the table. 'Dismas, you can't let them keep me here. The kids need me. This is some horrible mistake. It just started with this stupid promise. That's all they wanted.'

'So what is it? Tell me - I promise, I won't tell anybody. You can hire me as your attorney and it'll be privileged. n.o.body will ever know and maybe we can use it as a chip. I'll go wake up the judge at her house, explain the situation...'

Glitsky b.u.t.ted in. 'I wouldn't do that. What secret?'

Frannie ignored Abe. 'They could just ask Ron. You, Dismas, could ask Ron. Go to his house and wake him up. Call him from here even. If he knew I was in jail, he'd tell them what they want to know. He wouldn't let this happen to me.'

'What is this secret?' Glitsky asked again.

Frannie finally raised her voice. 'The secret isn't the issue!' Her eyes pleaded with her husband, trying to tell him something, but what it was remained shrouded in mystery.

Then she shifted her glance quickly to Abe. 'I promised Ron. I gave him my word. It's his secret. Dismas, maybe if you could call him or go to his apartment and tell him what's going on... I'm sure he'll tell you. Then you come back and get me out of here.'

5.

Abe was sifting through an armful of files he'd brought in from one of the desks in the homicide detail. He found the file he wanted and pitched it across his desk to Hardy. 'As you recall from your days as a prosecutor, the address is there on the top right. Broadway.'

Hardy glanced down, then looked up. 'No phone number? A phone number would be nice.'

'A lot would be nice in that file, Diz. There's next to nothing there.' He sighed. 'My first inspector got himself killed about a week into the case. You might remember him - Carl Griffin?'

Hardy nodded. 'Yeah. He got killed how?' He didn't want to talk about any dead policemen, especially to his best friend the live one, but this might bear on Frannie and he had to know.

'Some witness meeting went bad, we think.'

Sergeant Inspector Carl Griffin didn 't know it, but when he got up from his desk in the homicide detail on the fourth floor of San Francisco's Hall of Justice on Monday morning, 5 October, it was for the last time.

He was the lone inspector working the murder of Bree Beaumont, a 36-year-old environmental and, recently, political consultant. He'd been on the case for six days. Griffin had been a homicide inspector for fourteen years and knew the hard truths by now - if you didn't have a murderer in your sights within four days of the crime, it was likely you never would.

Carl was a plodder with a D in personality. Everybody in homicide, including his lieutenant, Abe Glitsky, considered him the dullest tack in the unit. Loyal and hardworking, true, but also slow, culturally ignorant and hygienically suspect.

Still, on occasion Carl did have his successes. He would often go a week, sometimes ten days, conducting interviews with witnesses and their acquaintances, gathering materials to be fingerprinted and other physical evidence, throwing everything into unlabeled freezer bags in the trunk of his city-issued car. When he was ready, he'd gather all his junk into some semblance of coherence, and sometimes wind up with a convictable suspect.

Not that he often got a.s.signed to cases that needed brains to solve. In San Francisco, nine out of ten homicides were open books. A woman kills a man who's beating her. A jealous guy kills a wandering girlfriend. Dope deals go bad. Gang bangs. Drunken mistakes.

Low-lifes purifying the gene pool.

In these cases, homicide inspectors collected the evidence that a jury would need to convict the completely obvious suspect and their job was done. Carl was useful here, connecting the dots.

Once in a while, since homicides came in over the transom and got a.s.signed to whoever was on call, Griffin would draw a case that had to be worked. This hadn't happened in over two years when the call came in about a politically connected white woman on Broadway, so Glitsky really had no choice. It wasn't apparent at the outset that the case was high profile and if the lieutenant had suspected that it would go ballistic, he would have a.s.signed other inspectors and Carl's feelings be d.a.m.ned.

But as it was, Griffin got the Beaumont case, and he was in his sixth day, and he hadn't made an arrest.

After receiving her doctorate from UC Berkeley in the early eighties, Bree had run that inst.i.tution's environmental toxicology lab for a couple of years before leaving academia to consult for the Western States Petroleum a.s.sociation, and later to work for Caloco Oil.

Only a few months before her death, though, she'd abandoned the oil company and changed sides in the volatile wars over the multi-billion-dollar gasoline additive industry. Going public with her opposition to what she had come to believe were cancer-causing additives in California gasoline, Bree had aligned herself with the state a.s.semblyman from San Francisco, Damon Kerry, now running for governor.

The central plank of Kerry's platform played on the public's fears that these petroleum-based gasoline additives, particularly a substance called MTBE - methyl tertiary butyl ether - was seeping into California's groundwater in alarming amounts. It was dangerous and had to be outlawed, but the government wouldn 't move on it.

When Bree, the oil industry's very photogenic baby, had agreed to join his campaign, it had given Kerry a terrific boost. And now, after her death, radio talk shows hummed with theories that the oil companies had killed Bree Beaumont, either in revenge for her defection or to keep her from giving Kerry more and better ammunition to use against them.

With the election four weeks from tomorrow, Kerry trailed his opponent by half-a-dozen points. Bree's death had become big news. And every time someone mentioned her name, Damon Kerry came up as well.

But Carl Griffin wasn't troubled. He had a plate full of active homicides and knew the suspects in three of them. He was simply a.s.sembling the packages.