The Hearing by John Lescroart

else?” she asked.
    Hardy paused, then feigned ignorance. “What else what?”
    “Good try,” she said. “But not flying. Something else—not the Beck—has been bothering you since you got home last night.”
    Hardy glanced across at his wife. She brushed a stray strand of gleaming red hair from her lovely forehead, offered him a sympathetic look.
    “You’re good,” he said.
    She shrugged. “Part of the job description. So what is it?”
    He sighed a last time and gave in. “Abe.”
     
    “That doesn’t sound like him at all,” Frannie said after she’d heard the story. “Do you think it’s possible he had a crush on Elaine?”
    The question was unexpected and Hardy considered it carefully, then shook his head no. “She was engaged. Besides, Abe isn’t what I’d call the crush type.”
    “He had a crush on Flo for almost twenty years.”
    “That wasn’t a crush, Frannie. They were married.”
    She gave him a pretty pout. “And the two are mutually exclusive?”
    He took her hand, kissed it, shook his head. “What I mean is I can’t see him carrying some kind of torch. He’d come out with it . . .”
    Frannie broke a half smile. “Abe? We’re talking the effervescent and loquacious Lieutenant Glitsky? You want my opinion?”
    “At every turn.”
    “I think if he was attracted to somebody who was somehow off limits—like engaged—wild horses couldn’t drag it out of him.”
    Hardy sat up straight. “You don’t think he would even mention it to the involved party?”
    “No. Especially not her. Not unless she gave him some signal that she might be interested. Why do you think Abe hasn’t had a date in three years?”
    “Women hate and fear him?”
    “Dismas.”
    “He’s a hideous gargoyle?”
    It was no secret that Frannie considered Abe one of the more attractive men on the planet. “I don’t think that’s it either.”
    “How about if he hasn’t liked anybody enough?”
    “Maybe, but not mostly, I don’t think.” She came forward on the couch. “He hasn’t asked anybody out—I’d bet you anything—because he doesn’t want to reveal anything going on inside him. It’s his protection since Flo.”
    Hardy knew that his wife was mostly right on this. Since Flo had died, he’d spent hours with Glitsky, both socially and professionally, and knew that his friend wasn’t exactly the poster boy for celebrating the inner child. The walls were high and thick. But Frannie hadn’t gotten it all, and Hardy’s expression grew serious. “I think he’s scared, all right, but not about having somebody see who he is. I think he’s afraid that if he starts with somebody he might get to care about her. That might turn into caring a lot. And then he might lose it all again.”
    Frannie put her hand back over his. “That was your demon, Dismas,” she said softly, “maybe it’s not Abe’s.”
    Hardy’s first son, Michael, had died in infancy. The event had plunged him into divorce with his first wife, Jane, and then a decade of lethargy in a haze induced by Guinness stout, during which he eked out an empty existence on his bartender wages at the Little Shamrock. His passion for his work and for justice—for sunsets and food and sexual love, too—had dried up. And then, somehow—the precise mechanism of it was still a mystery to him—Frannie had gotten through to him, and he’d begun to feel again, to be able to handle feeling.
    Now he tightened down his mouth, looked over at her. “Maybe that’s why I recognize it, though. With Abe. How did we get on this anyway?” he asked.
    “Abe dating. His possible crush on Elaine.”
    Hardy gave it another minute. “Whatever it was, it was serious. He wanted the kid to suffer. It was personal.”
    “So what are you going to do now?”
    “About Abe?”
    “I don’t suppose you’ll have to do anything about Abe. He’s got a way of taking care of himself. I was thinking about the boy. What’s left for you to do? Are you in