‘That would be Glitsky?’

‘Yeah. You know him?’

‘Jesus,’ Hardy said.

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing. Just a little late-night humor. Yeah, I know Glitsky. You could say that.’

‘I think he’d fire me. No, I think he’d shoot me.’

‘I think you’re right.’

‘So can we do that, me and you? Keep it between us. And Graham, of course.’

‘Could I have a free investigator working with me to help my client? Could I do that? Call me crazy, but I think so.’

Sarah hung up the telephone in her kitchen and sat at the table with her hands shaking. She’d done it, joined the enemy.

She’d told Hardy she was betting on Graham being innocent, but that was putting it mildly. In reality she was risking everything on it. Her credibility, her career.

Over the past few days she’d tried to take the long view of the developing situation between Graham and herself. If she were a man…

This always stopped her, for of course she wasn’t.

But if she were, she might be able to get away with having a relationship with one of her suspects. If she were a male cop, the old boy network would close in around her and though she might take a lot of grief about it, it would never become a public issue. Sarah had known three men on the force in her career who had ‘dated’ their suspects. If memory served, one of those had even been a murder rap. One of these liaisons – not the murder – got to marriage.

But if it came out about Graham and her, she had no illusions. She was going to be finished. Even if the Police Officers Association went to bat for her, Glitsky would see that she was reassigned out of homicide.

She hoped that by calling Hardy she was doing the right thing. Although she was no longer sure what the right thing was anymore.

Now wide awake, Hardy sat at his own kitchen table.

It had been an amazing day, Graham’s hidden allies appearing with no warning. The parents wanting to help pay for his defense, Sarah Evans volunteering to help with his investigation.

Sarah’s suggestion that someone else altogether might be involved widened the scope of things dramatically. It also provided him with a tactic that always played well for a jury: the so-called ‘SODDIT’ defense, an acronym for Some Other Dude Did It. Sarah wouldn’t even have to find another suspect. If Hardy could point clearly enough to where there might be one, he might be able to churn up enough doubt to get to reasonable.

But the thought that really refused to leave his mind was David Freeman’s magic trick with the newspaper of the other day – context, context, context.

Today’s discovery documents included a listing of all tagged physical evidence so far in the case. Hardy would have lots of time in the coming months to go to the evidence locker and physically examine every item on the list, but the list itself had provided at least one important, or potentially important, bit of context.

He had already known that the $50,000 Sal had kept in his safe, the money in Graham’s safety deposit box, had been bank-wrapped seventeen years before. What he hadn’t really considered until now was the fact that he had an exact date: April 2, 1980.

Fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money now, and seventeen years ago it had been a fortune. Where had it come from? Had there been a bank robbery? A kidnapping? Something that might have been in the newspapers?

He didn’t know, but the Chronicle’s archives would be open tomorrow, and he was going to find out.

23

He started six months before the date the bills had been wrapped, skimming the headlines. He didn’t have to go very far. When he came to the first week of November, 1979, he figured he’d gotten what he’d come for, and stopped right there, nearly running out of the archives in his hurry to get to a telephone. ‘Judge Giotti, please. Dismas Hardy. Please tell him it relates to Graham Russo.’

‘This is Mario Giotti.’ Hardy had never expected the judge to pick right up. You didn’t just call a federal judge and have him come to the phone. But that’s what Giotti had done. Maybe he had some personal interest.

Hardy introduced himself. ‘I’m representing Graham Russo. I’ve got a few questions, if you could spare some time.’

‘Of course. Sal was one of my oldest friends. I assume you want to talk about the condition of the scene when I found the body. I can assure you I didn’t touch anything.’

Hardy knew there wasn’t going to be any way to finesse it. ‘Well, Your Honor, in fact what I’m curious about is the fire at your father’s restaurant, the Grotto.’

For a long moment there was no answer. Then, ‘You said this relates to Graham Russo?’

‘I don’t know if it does.’

‘I can’t imagine how it would. That was years ago.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Hardy waited and the judge didn’t let him down. ‘If you’re free for a while, why don’t you swing by here? I’m not due back in court until one-thirty.’

Even after the long walk through the seven rooms that comprised the judge’s law offices – half a city block long – Hardy wasn’t prepared for the majesty of the judge’s private chambers. He was used to the Hall of Justice, where the rooms were to human scale. Here at the federal courthouse, deities reigned. Giotti’s room measured about forty by fifty. The ceilings began halfway to the sky. There was an enormous fireplace, incongruously appointed with an artificial heating unit. With carved wood, exposed beams, inlaid marble, an entire wall of books, and three separate seating areas, the room underscored the power of the position: a federal judgeship was the job God wanted. Certainly His own celestial throne-room couldn’t have been much more imposing.

As Hardy entered, Giotti had gotten up from his beautiful Shaker-style desk and was moving forward with an outstretched hand. ‘Mr Hardy? Nice to meet you. Did my secretary get the name right? The good thief?’

‘Dismas, that’s right.’

‘Also the patron saint of murderers, if I’m not mistaken?’ Hardy nodded. ‘You’re not, although Graham Russo’s not been convicted.’

‘No, of course not. I didn’t mean to imply that.’ ‘And, perhaps more to the point, I’m no saint.’

A wider smile. ‘Then we ought to get along just fine. I’m not much of a saint either. Cup of coffee? Would you like to sit down?’

Hardy said that coffee would be fine and chose the seating arrangement closest to the fireplace, with its space heater turned up. ‘I know,’ Giotti said, ‘these enormous rooms. You can’t heat them. With all these fireplaces – all of us judges have them, you know – and in this entire building only one of them is functional.’

‘How did you decide among you who got it?’

‘The same way we decide anything. Seniority.’

Hardy clucked. ‘And we’re always hearing how federal judges get anything they want.’

‘We get eighteen percent more than average mortals, but that’s the limit.’

‘Another illusion shattered.’

‘May it rest in peace,’ Giotti intoned as the door opened and the secretary brought in a coffee service. After she’d gone, the judge sipped and sat back, balancing his cup and saucer on his knee. After making sure Hardy was comfortable, he moved along.

‘You want to know about the fire at the Grotto? I’d be curious to know how it even came up.’

Hardy explained the admittedly tenuous connection. Out loud, it sounded lame.

‘You’re saying Sal had a great deal of cash…’

‘Fifty thousand dollars,’ Hardy said.

Giotti waved that off; the exact figure didn’t matter to him. ‘All of it bank-wrapped and dated, so you went through the Chronicle’s archives and ran across the Grotto fire five months before that date?’

‘Yes, Your Honor, that’s what I did.’

‘And you surmise that there’s a connection of some kind between these two elements?’