Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
PART TWO
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
PART THREE
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
PART FOUR
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
PART FIVE
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Teaser chapter
“FAST-PACED . . . sustains interest to the very end.”
—The Wall Street Journal
Dismas Hardy returns in “a riveting legal thriller” (Greensboro News-Record [NC]) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Second Chair and The Motive. . . .
Jennifer Witt tried to make everything perfect for her doctor husband. Her appearance. The house. Everything down to the place settings on the table. But perfect never seemed to be good enough. . . .
Now Dr. Larry Witt has been shot dead—along with the couple’s seven-year-old son. Jennifer says she wasn’t home, that she didn’t do it—but even the members of her own defense team don’t believe her—except one: Dismas Hardy.
Hardy’s faith alone will not be enough to save her. But as evidence mounts against Jennifer Witt, and the death penalty becomes all but certain, he is determined to take one terrifying risk to keep her alive. . . .
“POWERFUL . . . COMPELLING.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“A RIVETING PLOT that fans of Scott Turow and John Grisham will love.”
—Library Journal
“TAUT . . . an intricate story and satisfying courtroom scenes.”
—Publishers Weekly
“TERRIFIC.”
—Jonathan Kellerman
Praise for the Novels
of John Lescroart
The Second Chair
“[A] spellbinder.”
—Library Journal
“Lescroart plays out clues with the patience and cunning of a master fly fisherman.”
—The Orlando Sentinel
“Entertaining.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Under Lescroart’s assured hand, this perfectly paced tale of legal procedure and big-city politics keeps us turning pages, even when it’s time to turn in at night.”
—Booklist
The First Law
“With his latest, Lescroart again lands in the top tier of crime fiction.”
—Publishers Weekly
The Oath
A People Page-Turner
“TERRIFIC.”
—People
The Hearing
“A SPINE-TINGLING LEGAL THRILLER.”
—Larry King, USA Today
“EXCELLENT STUFF.”
—San Jose Mercury News
Nothing but the Truth
“RIVETING.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A rousing courtroom showdown.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The Mercy Rule
“WELL-WRITTEN, WELL-PLOTTED, WELL-DONE.”
—Nelson DeMille
Guilt
“BEGIN GUILT OVER A WEEKEND. . . . If you start during the workweek, you will be up very, very late, and your pleasure will be tainted with, well, guilt.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“A well-paced legal thriller . . . one of the best in this flourishing genre to come along in a while.”
—The Washington Post Book World
A Certain Justice
“A West Coast take on The Bonfire of the Vanities . . . richly satisfying.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A gifted writer with a distinctive voice. I read him with great pleasure.”
—Richard North Patterson
Hard Evidence
“ENGROSSING . . . compulsively readable, a dense and involving saga of big-city crime and punishment.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
Dead Irish
“UNUSUAL AND POWERFUL.”
—Booklist
“The killer proves to be as fascinating a personality as Hardy himself.”
—Publishers Weekly
“With John Lescroart’s polished writing, Dead Irish becomes more than a mystery novel with a bartender as detective. With razored precision, characters stand out, flawed and human. . . . Chilling in its intensity, this is an ingenious tale of many different kinds of people.”
—Pasadena Star-News
ALSO BY JOHN LESCROART
Betrayal
The Suspect
The Hunt Club
The Motive
The Second Chair
The First Law
The Oath
The Hearing
Nothing but the Truth
The Mercy Rule
Guilt
A Certain Justice
Hard Evidence
The Vig
Dead Irish
Rasputin’s Revenge
Son of Holmes
Sunburn
SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,
Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Published by arrangement with the author. Previously published in Donald I. Fine, Dell, and Island editions.
First Signet Printing, August 2005
ISBN : 978-1-101-53194-5
Copyright © John Lescroart, 1994 Excerpt from Betrayal copyright © The Lescroart Corporation, 2008 All rights reserved
“The Unicorn Song” on page 253, words and music by Shel Silverstein, copyright © Hollis Music, Inc., New York, New York, 1962, 1968.
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
http://us.penguingroup.com
To my brothers,
Michael and Emmett
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people have contributed their support and knowledge to this book. First among them is my wife—the rock of my life—Lisa Sawyer. Once again, Al Giannini has been a true friend and guide. Also in the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, my gratitude to Laura Meyer, Mercedes Moreno, Candace Heisler and Diane Knoles, whose comments on battered women were insightful and ultimately inspiring.
I’d also like to thank San Francisco Coroner Dr. Boyd Stephens; bailiff Bruce McMurtry; Jim Costello; Frank at Zuka’s, the real Lou the Greek’s; Mike Hamilburg and Joanie Socola; Maureena Moore with Federal Express; Kelly Talbot; Steve Martini; Dick Herman; Kathryn and Mark Detzer; Peter Diedrich; Peter Bransten; my piscatorial pal Jackie Cantor for her unfailing sense of humor and support in all areas; and Arthur Ginsburg.
My editor (and publisher), Don Fine, has done a yeoman’s job nipping, tucking and tightening the sprawling manuscript into its final form, and I am extremely grateful for his unflagging efforts and support.
Finally, to some regular dinner partners—you know who you are—who have seriously lightened the load, and oh yes, to Don Matheson. Thanks.
We would give her more consideration, when we judge a woman, if we knew how difficult it is to be a woman.
—P. GERALDY
The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
PART ONE
Jennifer Witt rechecked the table. It looked perfect, but when you never knew what perfect was, it was hard to be sure. There were two new red candles—Larry had a problem with half-burnt candles, with guttered wicks—in gleaming silver candlesticks.
She had considered having one red candle and one green candle since it was getting to be Christmastime. But Larry didn’t like a jumble of colors. The living room was done all in champagne—which wasn’t the easiest to keep clean, especially with a seven-year-old—but she wasn’t going to change it. She remembered when she’d bought the Van Gogh print (A PRINT, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! YOU’D HANG A PRINT IN MY LIVING ROOM?) and the colors had really bothered Larry.
He liked things ordered, exact. He was a doctor. Lives depended on his judgment. He couldn’t get clouded up with junk in his own home, he told her.
So she went with the red candles.
And the china. He liked the china, but then he’d get upset that things were so formal in their own home. Couldn’t she just relax and serve them something plain on the white Pottery Barn stuff? Maybe just hot dogs and beans? They didn’t have to eat gourmet every night. She tried hard to please, but with Larry, you never knew.
One time he wasn’t in the mood for hot dogs and beans, he’d had an especially hard day, he said, and felt like some adult food. And Matt had had a bad day at school and was whining, and one of the plates had a chip in the side.
She shook her head to clear the memory.
Tonight she was making up with him, or trying to, so she decided to go with the china. She could feel his dissatisfaction . . . it got worse every time before he blew up . . . and she was trying to keep the explosion off for a few more days if she could.
So she’d fixed his favorite—the special veal kidney chops that you had to go get at Little City Meats in North Beach. And the December asparagus from Petrini’s at $4.99 a pound. And she’d gotten Matt down early to bed.
She looked at herself in the mirror, thinking it odd that so many men thought she was attractive. Her nose had a hook halfway down the ridge. Her skin, to her, looked almost translucent, almost like a death mask. You could see all the bone structure, and she was too thin. And her eyes, too light a blue for her olive skin. Deep-set, somehow foreign-looking, as though her ancestors had come from Sicily or Naples instead of Milano, as they had.
She leaned over and looked more closely. There was still a broken vein, but the eye shadow masked the last of the yellowish bruise. As she waited for him to come home, checking and rechecking, she had been curling her lower lip into her teeth again. Thank God she’d noticed the speck of coral lipstick on her tooth, the slight smear that had run beyond the edge of her liner.
Quickly, listening for the front door, she stepped out of her shoes and tiptoed over the hardwood floor—trying not to wake Matt—to the bathroom, where the light was better. Taking some Kleenex, she pressed her lips with it and reapplied the pencil, then the gloss. Larry liked the glossy wet look. Not too much, though. Too much looked cheap, like you were asking for it, he said.
She walked back to the front of the house. When she got to the champagne rug, she slipped her pumps back on.
Olympia Way, up by the Sutro Tower, was quiet. It was the shortest day of the year, the first day of winter, and the streetlights had been on since she had gotten back from shopping at 5:00 P.M. She checked her watch. It was 7:15.
Dinner would be ready at exactly 7:20, which was when they always ate. Larry arrived from the clinic between 6:50 and 7:05 every day. Well, almost every day. When he got home he liked his two ounces of Scotch, Laphraoig, with one ice cube, while she finished putting dinner on the table.
7:18.
She wondered if she should turn off the oven. Would he still want his drink first? If so, what about the dinner? She could put it out on the table, but then it might be cold before he got around to it. Larry really hated it when his meal was cold.
Worse, he might think she was trying to hurry him. What he didn’t need after a long day seeing patients was somebody in his home telling him to hurry up.
The asparagus was the problem.
What if Larry walked in the door in exactly one minute and wanted to go right to the table and the asparagus wasn’t ready? It had to cook in the steamer for ninety seconds—if there was one thing Larry really couldn’t abide it was soggy, limp asparagus. Maybe, if he came in and sat right down she could dawdle over serving the rest of the meal and the asparagus would be perfect just at the right time. That’s what she’d do.
It was a little risky but better than putting it on now, thinking he’d get home on time and want to sit down right away, and then having him be late and the asparagus be overcooked.
No sign of his Lexus coming up the street. No one was coming up the street. Where was he? Damn, she was biting her lower lip again.
7:20. She turned the heat off under the rice. At least that would be all right for a while if she kept it covered—eac
h grain separate just the way Larry liked it.
She made sure the water was right at the boil and that there was enough in the steamer. Everything depended on the asparagus being ready to go as soon as Larry walked in the door. As soon as she heard him, even. If the water wasn’t boiling, or if it ran out underneath, that would ruin everything.
By 8:15 she had taken the chops out of the oven, refilled the water in the steamer three times and added butter to the rice to keep it from sticking, but there wasn’t any hope now. At 7:35, she had poured Larry’s Scotch and added the ice cube, now melted long ago. At the hour she poured the diluted drink into the sink.
She heard the footsteps on the walk outside. God, she hoped he’d found a parking place nearby. Sometimes if you got home late there wasn’t anywhere to park within blocks, and that always put him in a real bad mood.