Chapter Four—A Dead Lydia

"I took a class on it," Mark said archly, poking at the remains of his lunch, "that's not how a trial's supposed to start."

"Yeah, well, would you have rather had it go like Weed Randall's?"

Mark paled slightly and muttered, "It's not funny."

"Well, I'm just sayin' I would've thought you'd be happy, me trying to get things a little more organized before we get underway."

"You're investigating—that's what it is. Admit it."

Hardcastle put his napkin down and looked at his watch. "You can drop me off at the station and then head over to Bauchet Street; they should have him checked back in by then."

"You believe all that stuff he was handing out this morning?"

"I believe Loki hasn't been in communication with any members of the Red Fist, including Pete Solanger, since he was arrested up in Oregon. I believe his actions since that arrest suggest he wants no part of that organization, even if those actions detract from his defense. I think all that bears some looking at."

"Okay, I'll go take some notes," Mark put his own napkin on the table. "But what are you and Frank going to be up to?"

"Research."

00000

Mark made his way into the labyrinth of Men's Central with no small reluctance. It was one of his least favorite places, fraught with unpleasant associations and memories. Just walking through the main doors tightened the muscles at the base of his neck and sent his eyes darting suspiciously. He wasn't sure if Hardcastle would have understood.

On this occasion, though, there was the novelty of being sent on a solo errand, with phone calls having apparently preceded him. A Superior Court Justice's clerk, on official business of the court—it had a nice ring to it that made up in a small way for the smells and sounds of the jail.

In his official status he apparently rated an interview room and the prompt retrieval of the high-profile defendant. Loki was back in shackles, even for this quick transport inside the building. Mark didn't try to pull a Hardcastle; he let them be.

Loki sat, glumly accepting of the indignity. He didn't seem particularly receptive to further interviewing and Mark didn't have a clear notion of where to start. He finally settled for the commonplace: things that could be verified elsewhere, to some degree, as a means of gauging Loki's attitude and degree of cooperation. There might even have been an element of personal curiosity when he asked, "How'd you do it?"

"Do what?" Loki's expression remained flat.

"Get away. Hide out all those years."

"Oh . . ." the man frowned, as though it was all lost in the misty past. He finally shrugged and said, "I suppose it doesn't matter now." He cocked one eyebrow, considering the younger man across the table. "Those were strange times. There really was a counter culture. Nobody knew who I was and everybody knew. It was weird. I got to a commune, up north . . . I don't think I should tell you who helped me."

It was Mark's turn to shrug.

"I stayed there a while. At first every time I'd hear a car go by out on the road my heart would speed up, you know?"

Mark nodded.

"But eventually I stopped being terrified. I settled down. It was dull. I wasn't cut out for farming, and smoking pot made me wheeze . . . I missed the university." He smiled ruefully. "And, anyway, the folks there were of two minds about me. I guess you could say I was on trial up there, too, and the jury was divided. Eventually it just seemed better to move on. One of the commune leaders—I won't tell you his name—he'd given a lot of advice to draft dodgers. He told me to head into Eugene, do some research in the old papers, find a kid, someone who had died young, and get a copy of the birth certificate."

Mark nodded again; he'd heard stuff like this in prison. "You had to build a new identity from scratch."

"Exactly. So that's what I did. Went through a year's worth of papers from around the same time I'd been born. Found a child—Timothy Pickens—seemed like a common name. I got the certificate, got some other ID using that, even had some school papers forged for a Catholic grade school that had since closed. I became Tim Pickens. Worked odd jobs, made enough to get along. But it was tough, see? Arthur would creep back out at the oddest times, make an observation, get some weird looks from the guys on the loading dock."

"You had to watch yourself."

"Yeah. I needed a better cover. I went for a G.E.D. and then applied to a community college—got the associate's degree in library science. That part was all real. I went to a small town up there, got an entry-level position in a town library.

"I thought I'd be okay. I kept my distance; that's just how Tim was." He smiled sadly. "Tim the librarian."

"How'd you finally slip up?"

"Oh, well, a fluke, really. I was at the desk, a woman came up. She was new in town and wanted to apply for a card. She was about my age but had a cane and walked with a limp. I handed her the form. She kept looking at me oddly, but by then most of the paranoia was gone. I was pretty calm. She started filling out the paper, but her eyes kept coming back to me, to my name tag, really. I looked down and saw what she'd written on the application: Eleanor Pickens."

"She—"

"Was Tim's sister. He'd died in a car crash, his mother along with him. Eleanor had survived. I knew I'd been taking a chance, but what were the odds?" He shook his head. "Like a Greek tragedy, me meeting up with her. She'd noticed it right off. She even mentioned that she'd had a brother by the same name. She wondered out loud if we were related."

"So she suspected something was wrong?"

"No, not right away or, well, maybe . . . but she didn't say anything. I thought I'd stayed pretty cool, but once I'd gotten out of there, I was in a blind panic. It was a small town and I didn't really have any friends. When you're in hiding you can't afford friends. Anyway, I didn't know who she was talking to, what she might have said."

He looked up sharply. "I don't suppose a guy like you would understand any of this."

Mark twitched in momentary startlement at the harshness of the comment. He'd actually been lost in the consideration of how close he'd come, once or twice, to going on the run.

"No," he said, a peaceable law clerk who'd never had any such moments of moral ambivalence, "it's all pretty strange."

"Yeah," Loki sighed. "And it was stupid of me, really, if I hadn't gotten so damn twitchy, probably nothing would have happened. But there was no way to avoid the woman . . . such a small town, and eventually she must've gotten suspicious. She asked around—must've realized that nobody knew anything about me, really, and she finally talked to the sheriff."

"They can't arrest you for being an outsider," Mark observed quietly.

"Nah, but if they're bored enough they can come up with some pretext for running you in. Failure to stop for a school bus in my case, and a busted tail light—which one of the neighbor kids must've done. I got finger-printed, and that was that."

Good police work, Mark thought, but kept that to himself.

"Bad luck," he said.

"Karmic destiny, if you ask me," Loki said wryly. "I stole that kid's identity. That was the worst thing I've ever done. You know I visited his grave once, up by Eugene, back at the beginning. I tried to make it right with him. I guess Timothy wasn't buying—siccing his sister on me like that."

"Small world," Mark said.

"Dangerous world," Loki replied intensely. "So," he added, after a moment, "now you know how I screwed up. What else does Judge Hardcastle want from me? I'm not going to name any names from when I was on the lam."

"Nah," Mark shook his head. "what he's interested in is your old cadre—The Red Fist."

"I can't help you there. I haven't talked to any of them since the day I went on the run. Not then, and not since they've been out. I thought about it a few times . . . Evie . . . but, no—no contact."

"How well did you know Solanger?"

"Not well. We didn't like each other."

"And Eve Ostermann?"

"I thought I knew her."

"Any idea where she might have gone after her parole was up?"

"Her dad was dead. Her mom lived down in Palos Verde. Evie wasn't exactly a member of the proletariat."

"Her mother died while she was in prison."

"Oh." Loki frowned. "Bad. They were pretty close, I think." He sighed again. "No brothers or sisters that she ever mentioned. If her mom passed, then Evie might be set up . . . the inheritance."

"And you don't know anything about Solanger."

The man was still frowning. "An only child, too, I'm pretty sure. He grew up in Bakersfield, I think he said. I don't think he would have left LA. He said he hated small towns. Now he was a prole—dad was a truck driver. Pete was a scholarship kid. Hated all the rich frat boys. Didn't like what he called 'book-smart' people very much, either. He was good at rousing the rabble, though." He squinted for a moment and asked, "Is any of this helping?"

Mark looked down at his sparse scribbling of notes. "Names?" he asked. "Addresses?"

Loki shrugged. "It's been a long time . . . this is all pretty hopeless, huh?" His tone of resignation conveyed his own opinion on the matter.

Mark leaned back, studying him. "It's never hopeless until everyone's given up. If you really think you ought to do a dime for stealing that kid's name, then I suppose things are pretty grim, but that still won't keep Hardcastle from poking his nose into it."

"I kinda wish I'd stuck around for the trial," Loki said ruefully. "Mighta been interesting."

Mark smiled, got up from his seat, and tapped the door. He watched Loki erase all emotion from his face, already an experienced denizen of the system from his previous stay in jail. A guard appeared to escort the man out and, as always in this situation, Mark felt a strange momentary disconnect, as though he weren't free to turn the other way down the hall and depart. He wondered how many more times it would be—how many errands he'd have to run to this place, before his heart would stop beating faster at the sound of the guard's footsteps in the hall.

00000

Frank Harper didn't seem to mind having Hardcastle underfoot in his office. He apparently shared Mark's grim view of the risks the judge was running and an afternoon spent at a police station was one less during which he could be assassinated. Unfortunately, the pickings were thin in the computer files on the other Red Fist defendants—no current addresses, and only hints as to where they'd departed to once they'd finished their commitment to the system.

The judge had mined what he could from the system, and was deep in discussion with Frank on what means they might use to expand on what they had, when Mark strolled in.

Hardcastle glanced down at his watch, realizing they'd been at longer than he'd thought. "How's traffic?"

Mark shrugged and grabbed a chair. "Nothing suspicious. It's kinda hard to tell in LA where normal leaves off and the conspiracy starts."

Harper was nodding to that. The judge frowned. "You get anything good?"

"Probably not what you wanted." Mark pulled the notebook out of his jacket pocket and flipped it open. "Eve Ostermann was the sole beneficiary of the estate of Rose, her mother, about ten years ago. There was property, which was sold. The house by itself brought in a little over a million dollars. Jake Solanger, Pete's dad, quit the long-haul trucking trade a few years back—health problems. He collects his pension at a retirement home in Alhambra."

Mark flipped the notebook closed. "That's it," he said abruptly. "Loki didn't even know Rose and Jake's first names. I stopped by the Hall of Records on my way over."

Hardcastle cast a glance at Frank, along with a tight smile of satisfaction. "They didn't teach him that in law school."

Frank, on the verge of a reply, was diverted when his phone rang. He'd barely said hello before the expression on his face focused the other two men's attention. From his end the conversation was terse and brief and ended with "We'll be there."

"What?" Hardcastle asked almost before the receiver was back in the cradle.

"Your place. A fire and . . . some other damage."

00000

Mark led the way on the drive north, quietly cussing what appeared to be normal rush-hour traffic. Hardcastle kept quiet most of the trip. Frank, behind them in his sedan, hadn't been able to provide many specifics, but as they pulled into the drive, the judge was relieved to see the main house still standing, looking reasonably unscathed.

The sole black and white that had been parked in the drive that morning had been augmented by an investigator's car from the fire marshal and the engine company's rig, now packing up its hoses and preparing to depart. The cop was the first one over to them, looking apologetic and mostly addressing Frank.

"I smelled smoke and it seemed to be coming from over by the front of the property. The wind was blowing from that direction. It fit the M.O. of the other incident. I radioed it in and headed over there to see what was up."

He paused, looking worried about the reception his story might receive, but both Frank and the judge were listening without apparent emotion. Only Mark seemed edgy, stepping away from the others and raking his gaze over the houses and grounds.

The officer ducked his chin and then lifted his head again, forging on. "I couldn't see how bad it was--lots of smoke. The arson guys are still looking at it, but they think it was accelerants and shredded rubber—some bushes caught, but not all that much damage to the trees."

"And the rest?" Frank asked grimly.

The officer shifted from foot to foot briefly and then stepped back, gesturing the others toward the north side of the house. The hedge was still standing intact, shielding that part of the yard from view, but as they approached it, Mark could see the first signs of vandalism.

"An axe, Something heavy and sharp," the officer said, still with the detached tone of someone filing a report. Harper sucked an audible breath in through his teeth.

Mark took two steps forward and started to reach down for one of the half-uprooted, shattered rose plants.

"Crime scene," Hardcastle touched his sleeve, halting him, "might be shoeprints."

Mark froze, then nodded, backing off slightly while still taking in the extent of the damage.

"Just roses," the judge pointed out.

"But some of them were—"

"Roses, that's all." Hardcastle turned away. The splatter of red paint on the back wall of the house still glistened in spots, though the thinner parts were already drying. There's been no attempt to shape the message into words. Everything but destructive intent was left to the imagination. "It could have been worse. No one was hurt."

"The Lydia," Mark said. He'd wandered along the perimeter of the decimated rose garden, toward the low section in the back where the plant in question lay trodden into the dirt.

Hardcastle wasn't trying to warn him away from the mangled evidence anymore. "We'll get another," he said firmly, "but not until this is over," he added with even grimmer resolution.

Mark looked up, discontented, but then turned abruptly on his heel and returned to the group.

"I'll have the guys come out," Frank said. He was looking up at the sun, only a couple hours from setting. "Probably tomorrow before we can get much from it."

Hardcastle nodded and took the lead heading toward the kitchen steps. The officer peeled off, seeming eager to return to his guard duty. Mark lingered for a moment, studying the damage one last time. He finally shook his head, lips thin and tight as he followed the other two inside.

They retreated to the den, with Frank laying claim to the phone for a series of short calls. Hardcastle had taken a seat and looked as though he were meditating on a deep problem. Mark was still on his feet, staring out the side window into the lengthening shadows on the lawn.

Frank had barely hung up before the judge grunted and said, "The fire, the paint, all those bushes done before the extra cops got here—we're talking at least four people, maybe more—"

"This is nuts," Mark interjected, turning away from the view. "They know who you are, where you live. We're still trying to guess how many of them there are—and you haven't even gotten to the opening arguments of the trial." He shook his head.

"I'm asking for an extra man out here," Frank said. "Unless maybe you'd consider relocating to someplace where it'd be a little easier to protect you."

Hardcastle said nothing, but his look of resolve was unmistakable.

Mark sighed. "'Course he won't. This is the Alamo, Frank. Reasonable compromise is not in the dictionary here."

"The guy in the nursing home," the judge started in, as if all other matters were closed to discussion, "Solanger's dad. That's where we need to start."

"I'll send a detective over there." Frank started to reach for the phone.

"No," Hardcastle said hastily. "Not a cop. He's not a suspect, dammit. I'd like to keep it friendly . . . so far nobody's gotten hurt, but it's only a matter of time—"

Mark's grunt of exasperation went uncommented on, except for a sharp glance from the judge.

"He's a dad," Hardcastle said with an air of calm reason. "If I can get him to see how dangerous this could become."

"Two fires, destruction to property . . . whoever's responsible isn't going to get off with a slap on the wrist," Frank pointed out.

"Just give me a chance."

00000

Frank departed, off to organize the official part of the investigation. The other two men remained in the den, though farther apart than might be thought possible in a room of that size. Mark still hadn't sat down. Hardcastle moved to the chair behind his desk, pulling the phone directory out of one of the drawers.

Mark listened to him make the call, verifying Jake Solanger's whereabouts but going no further than that.

"I figured an unannounced visit might be the best," the judge said after he hung up. "And I think the sooner the better."

"Finally something we can agree on," Mark said, pushing away from the wall he'd been leaning against and checking his watch. "We can pick up some burgers on the way over there."

"You feel safe riding around with the People's Enemy Number One?" Hardcastle jibed as he got to his feet.

The look he got from Mark was both immediate and sternly disapproving, but the words that followed were unexpectedly calm, almost reserved.

"I can't reason with you. I know that. But the least you ought to do for me is to take this seriously."

If Hardcastle had another wisecrack ready, he swallowed it whole. Instead, his expression went sober and his tone equally so. "Maybe I should've said it; I was thinking it this morning when I walked into that courtroom." He hesitated, as though the next part might be awkward for both of them, and then spoke flatly. "I was glad you were there . . . not that I thought anything was gonna happen, but— just in case."

Mark cocked his head, then shook it slightly. "Come on," he said, "let's go talk to the man."