McGuire scanned the length of the bar and around the corners of the room, none of which were very far away. The Shamrock was a small, neighborhood place that had been in its same location at Lincoln and Ninth Avenue since 1893. The grandfather clock against the wall behind Hardy had stopped during the Great Earthquake of 1906 and nobody'd set it running again since. The pretty girl had gone back to her friends by the dartboards, and all of the other twenty patrons seemed comfortably settled at the bar or on the couches in back. "That's all right," McGuire said. "The crowd's pretty much under control."
On the drive up from Redwood City, after he'd wrestled with some of the problems raised by the
"Piece of cake," McGuire said. "It was his job."
Hardy drank off some of the rose-scented gin-he'd come to love this stuff. "Just like that, his job?"
"Sure. He's a SEAL, right? He's a trained assassin. You remember the SEALs in 'Nam. Shit. Killers. And now he's working for this security company in Iraq?"
"Allstrong."
"Right, Allstrong."
"But he was a recruiter over here, Mose, hiring people. No way was he doing wet work."
"Right. I'm sure. With his background? No way he wasn't, if it was needed."
"And why would it have been needed with the Khalils?"
"I don't know. Not enough information. But they were Iraqi,
"Yep."
"Well, then, you check it out, I bet you find they have family or something over there and they were somehow getting in the way of Allstrong's business."
"So they kill the father over here?"
McGuire nodded. "Sending a message."
"Pretty long distance, wouldn't you say?"
"The father was probably running the business from over here. Cut off the head, the body dies. This isn't brain surgery, Diz. All this didn't come out at the trial?"
"None of it did."
"Why not?"
"Well, the easy answer is that everybody on the prosecution team thought my guy had been the killer, and the motive was mostly personal, about him and Nolan."
"But you think it was Nolan?"
"I'm beginning to."
"And you're thinking, then, that this stuff about him ought to have been in the trial?"
"Precisely."
"Hmm. Let me think about it." He walked down the bar and saw to a couple of drink orders. Shooting himself a club soda from the gun, he came back down to Hardy. "Okay," he said, "I've got it all figured out."
"Hit me."
"Nolan killed these Khalil people, and then their family killed him in retaliation."
"How'd they know he did it?"
"They put it together that it was Allstrong because of what was going on in Iraq, whatever that was. Once they knew that, they found out Nolan was Allstrong's man over here. Even if he wasn't the actual killer, they were striking back and getting revenge."
"How'd they know where he lived?"
"Diz, please. It's cake to find people nowadays. You got a computer? They probably knew where he'd be living before he moved in. Come on, this doesn't sing for you?"
"No, it does, that's the problem."
"Why's it a problem?"
"Because if it happened the way you say, my client's innocent."
"And this is bad news because…"
"Because he's about three years into life in prison right now."
Moses tipped up his club soda. "Could be worse."
"True," Hardy said, "but it also could damn sure be better."
"BUT WHY didn't the prosecution look into that?" Frannie asked between bites of her calamari. "I mean, I can see them finally deciding it was probably your guy Evan, but you'd think they'd at least question some of the victims' family, too, wouldn't they? If only to find out some background on them."
"More than background, Frannie. These were two murders. Just thinking it was Evan shouldn't have been nearly enough. They would have wanted to prove it and maybe send him to death row."
They were at Pane E Vino, back on Union Street not far from Washburn's office, and here it had finally chilled down enough to make them decide to eat inside. They were up right in the window. Dusk hadn't yet progressed into dark. Frannie's shoulder-length red hair brought out the contrasting green in her eyes, which were the same color as the silken blouse she wore-a visual that, even after all of their time together, still captivated Hardy.
Dipping some of the fresh warm bread into the restaurant's little dish of olive oil, Hardy pinched some salt from the open bowl and sprinkled it over his upcoming bite. "But just because we have no record that anybody from the FBI talked to them doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Washburn and I have developed a theory about that."
