‘That son of a bitch,’ Pratt exclaimed.

‘Exactly.’ Randall’s Martini arrived and he lifted the olive out of it and chewed contentedly. ‘Every part of this fits, Sharron. And meanwhile, Beaumont’s killed two other people, both cops who were getting the picture.’

Pratt liked the scenario, but she had to raise an objection. ‘Except if Canetta was working with Hardy…’

But Scott had an answer for that, too. ‘Canetta was supposed to be digging up dirt on Kerry and Pierce, the Caloco guy. Classic muddy-the-waters lawyer shit, pardon the French. Some other dude did it. Then Canetta ran across something, got wise, and tried to cut himself in.’

‘And Ron had to kill him, too.’ Struler sipped his beer.

‘And, last but not least,’ Randall said, ‘then Glitsky lays down orders that nobody talks about Canetta or Griffin or anything else. He’s, quote, pursuing his own investigation and PS, Ron Beaumont seems to have dropped off his radar.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Pratt enthused, ‘if this is true…’

‘It’s the case of the decade,’ Randall concluded.

‘It’s true,’ Struler repeated. ‘It all fits.’

A silence descended briefly while the waiter brought their salads. Pratt played with hers for a moment, then put her fork down. ‘OK, another objection. If this was so well planned, why did this Hardy woman let herself get thrown in jail?’

‘Anytime you want,’ Struler answered, ‘I’d do four days for a million dollars.’

But Randall answered seriously. ‘That was just a dumb mistake like criminals make every day. She was nervous, and got pissy with Braun.’

That wasn’t good enough for Pratt. ‘But what about this secret she couldn’t tell?’

‘There’s no secret,’ Randall said matter-of-factly. ‘She got over-confident and was extemporizing. She got too cute and talked herself into a corner, saying she knew Ron and Bree had problems, but didn’t know what they were. It seemed an innocent enough question at the time. She didn’t see where I wanted to go with it, and when she found out, it was too late.’

‘So she…’

‘My prediction is she’ll back off on the secret tomorrow. Or make one up.’

Struler: ‘She does that, it locks up this theory.’

Randall chewed happily. ‘That’s my plan,’ he said.

‘And meanwhile, the man Glitsky’s protecting has become a multiple cop-killer.’ Pratt was firm. ‘Gentlemen,’ she said, ‘we’ve got to take these people down.’

From a freezing phone booth on Grant, checking back at his office for messages, Hardy learned that the fire department’s arson team had called and more or less urgently wanted to chat with him. So had three of his clients.

Finally, he was surprised at the relief that washed over him when he heard that David Freeman had, at last, come in. Back on foot, from Chinatown he made it to Sutler Street, the Freeman Building where he worked, in under ten minutes.

His old, crusty – and still apparently bullet-proof- landlord was scribbling intently on a yellow legal pad at his desk when Hardy opened his door.

‘I need a moment of your valuable time,’ he said. He had scandalized Phyllis by overriding her ‘He doesn’t want to be disturbed,’ by saying, ‘Oh, OK. I’ll leave him alone then.’

He never glanced back, walking directly past her station, over to Freeman’s closed door, knocking, and pushing it open.

The old man’s eyes betrayed him. He wasn’t really as annoyed as he sounded, although he did pull an hourly billing form over, make a note on it, and growl. ‘Valuable doesn’t begin to describe it. And I am on billable time here, Diz. You want input right now, it’s going to cost you.’

‘Everything does, sooner or later.’ Hardy closed the door. Freeman’s hair was doing its Einstein impression and the rest of him was decked in his usual sartorial splendor – dead cigar in his mouth, tie askew, wrinkled shirt unbuttoned, the coat of his shiny brown suit draped over his shoulders. ‘Phil Canetta’s been killed,’ Hardy said soberly. ‘You hear about that?’

The old man put his pencil down. ‘I saw something in the paper this morning…’

Hardy was a couple of steps into the large corner office when the door opened again behind him – Phyllis. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Freeman. I told Mr Hardy you didn’t want to be… he brushed right past me and…’

Freeman held up a hand. ‘It’s OK, dear. Emergency.’

She spent another instant perfecting her expression of displeasure, though Hardy didn’t think it needed much work at all. Then she made an appropriate noise of pique and backed back out.

‘Dear?’ Hardy said. ‘You call her dear?’

‘She is a dear,’ Freeman said. ‘Controls the riff-raff element. I couldn’t survive without her.’

Hardy shook his head. ‘You’ve got to get out more.’ He’d made it to Freeman’s desk, pulled around a chair, plopped his briefcase, and opened it. He picked up as though they’d been talking all morning. ‘You were right about Griffin. That we ought to start with him.’

‘I thought we were on Canetta.’

‘Both.’

Freeman’s eyebrows went up, another question, and Hardy sat down, telling him about the ballistics confirmation – both men shot with the same gun, the rest of what he knew. ‘It looks like it wasn’t more than a couple of hours after he left here,’ he concluded.

‘Where was he?’

‘Just inside the Presidio.’

‘I didn’t read anything in the article about Griffin. Or Bree Beaumont either.’

‘Glitsky wants it quiet for now. Damon Kerry is definitely involved, so there are, as they say, political ramifications.’ Freeman didn’t respond in any way, so Hardy went on, reciting the facts as he knew them.

By the time he finished, Freeman was sitting back in his chair, his hands linked over his comfortable middle, his neck rucked down into his ratty tie, his eyes closed. His chest rose and fell a couple of times. Slowly, he raised his head, and squinted across the desk. ‘So where are you now?’

Hardy reached forward and lifted the stapled and marked-up copy of Griffin’s notes from his briefcase. ‘Griffin found something. I’m convinced it’s right here.’ He passed the pages over the desk. ‘The yellow highlights.’

The bassett eyes came up, baleful humor. ‘I guessed that.’ After a moment’s perusal, he flipped back a few pages, nodded, came back to where he was, and looked up again. ‘So Griffin eliminated Ron?’

Hardy leaned forward himself. ‘Where do you see that?’

Patiently, Freeman went over it. ‘This first entry. R. at eight oh five, NCD, with the exclamation marks. “R” has got to be Ron, don’t you think? Eight oh five is when he left for school with the kids, too early to have done it. NCD is “no can do.” You got all this already, right?’

‘Sure,’ Hardy said, feeling like a fool. NCD, he thought. No can do. Just like WCB meant ‘will call back.’ But he’d never before run across the former. ‘Sure,’ he repeated. ‘Ron was out.’

‘OK.’ Freeman nodded. ‘I suppose the timing was right for him. Now what’s this “Herit.”?’

‘I just came from there. It’s the cleaning service that did Bree’s place.’ He leaned across the desk. ‘Tuesday and Thursday as it indicates. They do Bree’s on Thursday, so it was after the crime scene had two days there. By the way, it’s not there, but Griffin found a watch at the scene and tagged it into evidence.’

‘When?’

‘On Thursday. Heritage found it and gave it to Griffin.’

‘And crime scene didn’t on Tuesday?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hardy said. ‘I guess not. Glitsky would say they’re overworked and underpaid. It’s gone now in any event.’

Freeman was nodding distractedly, his eyes never leaving the page. ‘Never mind, never mind. Here it is again. This fabric wash. “R. stains.” Did Ron…? What was this? Semen?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think she and Ron were sleeping together.’

Now, Freeman did look up.

‘They had separate bedrooms,’ Hardy went on. ‘Definitely Bree, and maybe Ron, too, were involved with other people. Sexually.’