Hardy 04 - 13th Juror, The by John Lescroart

Author:John Lescroart
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-06-07T03:00:00+00:00

31

No one seemed to know where the storm came from, but rain slashed almost horizontally in gusts around Bryant Street, the temperature was in the low fifties and the gray paint on the Hall of Justice seemed a bruised and burnished blue as Hardy ran, raincoat flapping, from his parking space to the courthouse steps.

It was 12:42 when he entered the building. He knew they would be at recess, which was how he had planned it. He wasn't going directly to Villars' department anyway.

Freeman and Jennifer were having lunch in an abandoned office back behind the courtrooms.

Hardy nodded at the bailiff standing watch outside the door, then waited, getting his breathing under control from the run through the rain. He watched them through the wire-lined glass window in the door, talking, chatting really, at opposite sides of a pocked old green metal desk. He pushed open the door.

Freeman, his mouth full, raised a hand. "Greetings. We're killing 'em, Diz. Their feet are up, I swear to God."

Jennifer was pushing some three-bean salad around her white Styrofoam tray with a white plastic fork. He was struck again by the figure she cut — demure yet sophisticated, innocent and unattainable. It was as if she were Freeman's creation now — clay-molded by an artist.

Hardy had unbuttoned his dripping trenchcoat and now pulled a chair around backward and dropped himself over it. A gust delivered a fresh torrent of rain, slapping at the window in front of them hard enough to make everybody stop and look.

"More good news. The drought's over again." Freeman shoveled some tubular pasta in a glutinous red sauce. He mopped his mouth with an already spotted napkin. "Hey, Diz, listen up. I'm kicking some serious tail in there. I'm thinking about what I'm going to say in there." He pointed back behind him to the courtroom. "That's where I live, you hear me? You want some advice? No? I don't care, I'll give it to you anyway. You want to give good trial, that's where you'll live, too." More milk, another swipe of napkin. "It doesn't get in there, Diz, it doesn't count. And that's the truth. The truth is also we're winning right now."

A long moment went by while everyone looked at one another. More rain got flung against the window. Over downtown, lightning arced into a rod on a hotel rooftop, and seconds later the crash of thunder rolled through the room.

Jennifer, kitty-corner to him, put her manicured hand over his. One part of him registered that it was cool and dry, so he thought it was odd that it seemed to burn where she touched him.

"Jennifer never admitted to Harlan Poole that Ned was beating her. In fact, she always denied it. His opinion that she was being battered is totally speculative," Freeman said. "He can say he and Jennifer were having an affair. He can say he had atropine in his office. Period. I filed an early 1118 yestereday after we crucified Strout. And Poole is turning into a bigger disaster than Strout.

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