On Saturday, July 10, Hardy was bouncing six-month-old Vincent on his knee, singing to him at near the top of his lungs. He was forty feet above the ground, perched on the three-foot parapet that surrounded the roof of Moses McGuire's apartment house.
Moses was taking it easy lately. When he finally gave up on the idea that Hardy was going to get tired of the law and come back to bartending at the Shamrock he hired a new guy, Alan Blanchard, to take over Hardy's old shifts, and this gave him lots of time to pursue his other interests, which for several months now could be summarized by two words: Susan Weiss.
It was early afternoon, the sun shone in a blue sky, there was a slight warm breeze from the east, and Susan was sitting next to Hardy on the parapet. She was an intense dark-haired cellist with the San Francisco Symphony. She wore her hair pulled back in a ponytail and looked about Frannie's age, although she was eight years older. She wore a tank top, shorts and sandals.
Moses was with his sister at the Weber turning ribs. Hardy passed his boy to Susan, who started cooing into his face. Frannie took it all in. Her glance finally came to rest on Susan. "Don't let her hold too many babies. That's how it starts."
Moses tugged at his bottle of Sam Adams. "How she looks is how it starts," he said, "then the other things happen."
"Well, the other things can produce babies. I have it on good authority."
Uncharacteristically, Moses took a moment to answer. "I tell you, Fran, she makes me think about it."
This didn't make Frannie unhappy – she liked Susan and had to admit she was lovely, although Moses was in his mid-forties. But she had to know. "Are you serious?"
Moses trotted out his usual bartender answer: "No, I'm Alpha Centauri – Sirius is the Dog Star."
Frannie basted his arm with some barbecue sauce, then looked gravely at her big brother. "This isn't an engagement party, is it?"
"It's not even a party." Moses was licking the sauce off. "It's just a lunch."
Hardy and Susan stood. Susan was holding Vincent to her, rocking him as she walked. Frannie heard her humming tonelessly. "I warned you," she said quietly to Moses.
"Of what?" Hardy had his arm around his wife.
"You weren't even supposed to hear that. I wasn't even talking to you."
Hardy kissed her ear. "Well, which was it?"
Moses butted in. "She thinks Susan's going to want a baby of her own just because she's holding one."
Susan nodded. "She may be right." She held Vincent away from her, making a face at him that he rewarded with a beaming grin. "Oh, God, someone like this little guy." She put her shoulder against Moses, leaning into him. "Isn't he cute?"
Baleful, McGuire put his arm around her. He appeared to be studying the baby. He shook his head. "No, he looks like Hardy. Now Rebecca, my niece, she's cute. She resembles my sister, who in turn looks like me."
During this witty exchange, Hardy stood up to take the opportunity to kiss his wife, but Moses stopped him. "Uh, uh. No tongues."
"What do you mean, no tongues? Daddy and Mommy have tongues." It was Rebecca, over to join the party. She looked up at the adults, worried about where their tongues had gone.
"Uncle Moses is being silly," Hardy said. "Bad. Bad. Bad Uncle Moses."
McGuire squatted down. "In most societies, Beck, the uncle is revered above all other relatives. The psychic damage your father is trying to do to you by this display is incalculable should you take any of his nonsense to heart." He smiled sweetly at her, gave her a kiss.
"I still think this guy's cute," Susan said. "Do you mind if I hold him a little longer?"
Frannie gave her brother a knowing look, said it was okay with her, as long as she wanted.
There was a little beeping sound.
"What's that?" Moses asked. "Don't tell me an actual relative of mine has a beeper?"
Hardy already had it out. "Another family secret bites the dust. Besides, stop calling me a relative. Frannie's your relative." He was squinting at the number.
"Just let it go," Frannie said. "Call them Monday. We're having a party."
"This isn't a party," Moses repeated. "It's a lunch."
"Dismas, just let it go…"
"Take me a minute." He was moving to the door on the roof. "I just have to see what it's about."
"Good-bye," Frannie said.
"I'll be right back. Promise."
Hardy got there first, as he had the time before. Unlike the time before though, Freeman was on his way over. It was still light out, hot and now strangely still on the women's side of the jail. Saturday, late afternoon.
He was struggling to hold his temper. They had frisked him at the door. Normally, to get in the jail, he showed his bar card and the guard, whom he'd seen many times, would buzz him in. This afternoon, though, to see Jennifer, he'd gotten patted down and now they were making him wait in the hot and airless room.
Two female guards walked with her this time, and she wore a red, not a yellow jumpsuit. She also had leg chains and handcuffs attached to a metal band around her waist. Her hair had been cut, hacked off unevenly so that an inch or two remained all around.
Her face was blotched, her lips cracked, both eyes with purplish bruises.
Hardy – jeans and a T-shirt – stood up, and she nearly fell against him, reaching up until her hands were stopped by the chains. She was sobbing.
"What the hell…! Hardy began.
One of the guards peeled her off him and got her seated in the chair. "Cut the act, sweetie."
"You get your hands off my client." The guard glared. The second one had her nightstick out. "Both of you can back off. Now!"
These women weren't going to be intimidated by a lawyer in blue jeans. But it also availed them nothing to harass Jennifer in his presence, so – grudgingly – they withdrew.
When the door had closed, Hardy leaned forward. "They didn't do this, did they?"
She shook her head no.
"Then who…"
"Down there," she mumbled, her head down. This wasn't the cowed look she'd shown earlier, Hardy thought, but real fear. Something had obviously happened to her.
Glitsky's call had filled him in on some of it – Terrell flying down to Costa Rica and handling the details of her extradition. They were coming in to SFO. Hardy and Freeman might want to be at the jail pretty soon after that.
"What happened?"
Slowly she raised her head. Unlike many of the inmates here, her eyes were not empty. They were full of pain. Again, she shook her head from side to side, tears streaming over her cheeks. "Everything," she said. "They did everything."
He got back to their dark house in the Avenues at 11:45 p.m.. He stopped in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The tropical fish tank gurgled from his bedroom. He sat at the kitchen table, sipping his beer.
"It was an engagement party." Still dressed in her sundress, hair tousled from sleep, Frannie leaned against the doorpost. "It wasn't just a lunch. Of course, you missed it, so it doesn't matter."
"Frannie, don't-"
"No, of course not. Don't bother Dismas. His work is more important than any old family stuff."
"I didn't say that. I don't think that."
"Sure you don't."
He drank some more beer. "You want me to sit down and talk about it? Or you just want to bitch at me?"
"I think just bitch at you."
He steadied the beer on the table, looked across at her. Life wasn't as simple as Frannie sometimes wanted to think. She tended to lose sight that there were some things going on in the world beyond tow little kids and Moses' love life. "You're losing perspective," he told her.
"I'm losing perspective. That's good. That's really good."
"Thank you," he said. "But you know, this isn't really a good time for me. I don't feel like getting bitched at. I'm out trying to make a living so you can stay here and have the life of Reilly and I'm sorry as hell that sometimes I've got to do things that aren't on anybody's schedule. Things happen, shit happens, Frannie, and I'm supposed to deal with it."
"Oh, poor thing."
He stared at her. This had just escalated into a stupid fight. Retreat. He picked up his beer, took a slow sip, then stood and walked back down the long hallway to the living room.
She didn't follow him. Fine. He grabbed one of the throw pillows and tucked it under his head on the couch, where he would spend the night.