Nothing but the Truth (1999)

John Lescroart's Dismas Hardy novel, first published by Delacorte Press in 1999, opens with Hardy's wife, Frannie, jailed for contempt after refusing to tell a San Francisco grand jury what her friend Ron Beaumont confided about the murder of his sister, Bree, an environmental consultant who had left Caloco Oil to work for the gubernatorial candidate Damon Kerry. Hardy's suspects include Kerry's own people and Jim Pierce, the Caloco executive who had been Bree's mentor. (Open Library)

Watches

Movado Museum: Hardy finds a sheet torn from the notebook of Carl Griffin, the murdered inspector first assigned to the case: a receipt from Heritage Cleaners for one gold and platinum Movado men's watch, with its serial number, taken as evidence. Movado's operator can tell him only that it was sold in San Francisco within five years, and he asks Ron Beaumont whether he has ever owned one, describing it as the museum timepiece with the little dot at twelve o'clock. In court Hardy shows that the cleaners found it in apartment nine-oh-two of Bree's building, torn off in the struggle in which she died, and that Pierce is wearing it. The text describes the Museum dial; no reference is named.

Source text: By the way, do you now or have you ever owned a Movado watch? You know, the museum timepiece, little dot at twelve o’clock? (John Lescroart, Nothing but the Truth, scan cataloged as Signet, 2001, p. 362, Hardy questioning Ron Beaumont; Inspector Griffin's evidence note for "One Gold and Platinum Movado Men's watch" is on p. 327, the serial-number call on p. 339, and Hardy tells the court "Mr. Pierce is wearing it right now" on p. 428; Internet Archive scan OCR)