Hardy 11 - Suspect, The

by John Lescroart

  "He's been busy," Gina said.

  Hunt agreed. "He thinks he's got a big, live one. They don't come around every day."

  "So what'd the officer say? He remembered him?"

  "Oh, yeah. No problem with that. He recognized the name. He's a fan too. Of Stuart’s writing. Which is why he didn't arrest him."

  "Oh, Lord." Gina shook her head in disbelief. "What was he going to arrest him for?"

  "He told Juhle he would have thought of something. Disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, threatening a police officer ..."

  "He threatened him?"

  "He swore at him. Close enough for most cops. But here's the bad part."

  "That wasn't it?"

  "Well, you decide. After the guy, the officer, recognized who Stuart was, he calmed down a little and told him about the awful fight he'd just had with his wife. That she'd told him she wanted to leave him. He told the guy he was heading up to the mountains because if he would have stayed down with her, he would have killed her."

  "Those words?" Gina asked.

  "According to Dev, pretty much verbatim," Hunt said.

  Hardy broke in again. "And this guy Stuart, your client, Gina, he's coming up here when?"

  Gina looked at her watch. "About an hour. Juhle's coming around at ten."

  "Did Inspector Juhle mention anything about handcuffs?" Hardy asked.

  "Last night he said he hadn't applied for a warrant." Gina's face was pure disgust. "Devin say anything about an arrest to you, Wyatt?"

  "No. He wants more evidence. Apparently there are other issues?" A question.

  "Oh, nothing important," Gina said with heavy sarcasm. "Only a three-million-dollar insurance policy, several more millions that he's going to get control over, to say nothing of a possible love affair with his dead wife's sister."

  "You're kidding about that last one, right?" Hunt said.

  She leveled her gaze at him. "Well, he denied it. And judging from what I've just learned since I got here this morning, that means it must be true."

  When Phyllis buzzed into Gina’s office and said that her client was out in the lobby, Gina said she'd be right out, but she didn't move right away. For the past quarter of an hour, ever since she'd come down from Hardy's office, she'd been sitting as far down as she could get in her deepest stuffed chair. Like Wes Farrell upstairs, she had no formal desk in her corner office. So she sat with her hands clasped tightly in front of her, trying to come to grips with the veritable tsunami of rage that had unexpectedly enveloped her in the wake of Wyatt Hunt's disclosures about her client and his rapidly deteriorating story.

  She looked down at her hands. All of her knuckles were white, her joints stiff as she separated her hands and forced her fingers open. She brought her hands up to her face, pulled down on her cheeks. Finally, taking a deep breath, she whispered, "All right," and pushed herself up from her chair.

  Oddly aware of her own crisp and echoing footfalls as she walked down the long hallway to the receptionist's station, Gina got to the lobby and pasted the semblance of a smile onto her face as she approached Stuart with her hand outstretched. "Good morning," she chirruped, falsely bright. "And right on time."

  "Aiming to please," he said in his aw-shucks delivery, though it seemed to cost him. Stuart had shaved, combed his hair and put on nicer clothes—slacks and a pullover—but he looked, if anything, more ravaged than he had the day before, bleary-eyed and sallow complected. "The police show up yet?"

  "Not for a while. If you want to follow me back this way . . ."

  She wanted to avoid idle chitchat, so she turned and started walking. They reached her office and she preceded him through the door and crossed over to the ergonomic chair by the library table on which she kept her computer. Sitting down, she whirled around to face him. He was standing a couple of steps inside the room, hands in his pockets, reminding her of nothing so much as a dog waiting to be told what to do. She obliged him. "You want to get the door?"

  That done, he turned back to the room. "Anywhere?" he asked.

  She waved her hand. "Wherever. It doesn't matter."

  He chose the couch, perhaps because it was facing her. Sitting back, ankle on opposite knee, he stretched his left arm out along the cushions and leaned back. "So," he said.

  "So." Gina wasn't tempted to give him any help, but she waited for a long beat and when nothing came from him, she relented. Whatever he had actually done—and she was furious with him over what that might have been—he was the man she'd been reading last night, who had stirred something in her soul. "You tired?" she asked. "You look tired."

  His shoulders heaved as though the question were funny. But there was no humor in the eyes. "I take a week off and sleep around the clock, I might get back to tired. But that's not looking too likely, is it? Not with Inspector Juhle on his way down here."

  "Not very, no. You want some coffee?"

  He shook his head. "I'm already three cups down. Any more and I'd float away. Anyway, it's nothing coffee would help."

  Thinking that this might be an opening of some kind, maybe even a confession, Gina said, "So what is it?"

  He exhaled heavily and shook his head, the picture of frustration. "Kym," he said. "My daughter. Our daughter." He met Gina's gaze. "You have kids?"

  No.

  "Don't, then."

  Gina gave a mirthless chuckle. "It's a little late. In any event, they're not on the agenda; I wouldn't worry. She's taking this pretty hard, is she?"

  Stuart pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know what to do with her. I don't know what to do." Looking up, he said, "It's knocked her off the rails." Another sigh. "She and Caryn had some issues they hadn't worked out, and now of course they never will. When she left for college it wasn't very pretty between them. That's not making it any easier on her now."

  "No, I don't suppose it is. Where is she now?"

  "I left her back at the hotel. She cried all night and finally crashed sometime around six this morning, so I thought I'd just let her sleep. She ought to be all right for a few hours anyway." He hesitated. "Debra came by early, just in case, and said she'd stay until Kym woke up and be there for her. But this is killing Kym. I don't know what she's going to do. I don't know what I'm going to do with her."

  Gina decided to douse him with a little reality. "Stuart," she said. "Did you tell her that you're under suspicion here?"

  He couldn't have looked more startled if she'd slapped him, though he recovered quickly. "After you called me last night, I told her I was meeting you to talk with the cops today. So she knows as far as it goes. Which isn't very far. Today ought to be the end of it, right?"

  Gina was tempted to ask him if he was joking with her, but she kept it straight. "Frankly, no, Stuart. I don't think today's going to be the end of it. There have been a few developments."

  10

  "Bethany said she saw me? How could she have seen me?"

  "She said she saw your car."

  "She saw me pull into my garage?"

  "Yes. Then leave a couple of hours later."

  "So she saw Caryn's killer come and then go."

  "That would be Inspector Juhle's assumption, I believe. And he came in your car."

  "No he didn't. Not possible."

  Deep inside, Gina was somewhat heartened by the unequivocal denial. Either Stuart was an extraordinarily good liar, or he was telling the truth. "Okay, leaving the car for a minute, let's talk about you and your wife not fighting, specifically about you never having hit her."

  "Okay." Forward now on the couch, Stuart's blood was up. "What about 'never' don't you get?"

  "I guess the part about the domestic disturbance call to the police last summer."

  Stuart grimaced. "They found that already?"

  "That's one question. A better one is, what about it? And as for them finding out about it already, I told you yesterday that they're going to find out everything about you, every little thing you've ever done, and they're going to drag it in fr
ont of the whole world, so it's way to your advantage to come out with it right up front—anything that's going to look bad when they bring it up later. Like, for example, hitting your wife."

  The little tirade found its mark. Stuart shifted defensively back on the couch—legs crossed, arm out along the cushions, stalling for time while he decided what he was going to say. When he made the decision, he kept it simple. "I never hit her."

  "She hit you?"

  No.

  "But the cops came?"

  "My busybody neighbor called them." A pause. "There might have been some noise. I did tell you we'd had some arguments."

  "So you had this one time last summer when the police came?"

  "And left. They just wanted to make sure nobody was hurt." He shrugged. "Nobody was. They went away. End of story."

  Gina stared at him, her face set. "Okay. And that's it?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, is there anything else you think might be relevant to Inspector Juhle's ongoing investigation of you, Stuart, that your lawyer, if she wanted to protect you, might need to know?" Gina's tone had by degrees become more confrontational. Now she glared expectantly across the room and watched her client pretend to think until she could stand it no more. "You need a hint?" she snapped. "I could give you a hint."

  He sat there, frowning. "Let me ask you something. Why are you being so hostile all of a sudden?" he asked. "What's that about?"

  Gina couldn't come up with an answer right away. She sat back in her chair, gathering herself for a moment, before she finally said, "I read one of your books last night."

  "The whole thing?"

  "In one sitting, yes. Healed by Water. I liked it a lot."

  Stuart's mouth turned up at the corners. "I didn't realize you knew that I wrote books."

  "I'm your lawyer," Gina said. "I know everything. Get used to it."

  "And that's what's bothering you? That you liked my book?"

  "Not exactly," she said evenly, "but since you asked, I'm mad if your beautiful book conned me and you're really guilty. I feel personally abused when I find out an eyewitness saw your car coming and going just about when Caryn was killed. I can't figure out why you've got all these anger issues when you write about such spiritual, holistic stuff. I'm really pissed off if you're in fact sleeping with your wife's sister. I'm furious if you're as good a liar as you are a writer. I'm confused about your lack of reaction to your wife's death. I'm baffled and confused by cops coming to break up fights at your house when you say you've never hit your wife. Is that enough?"

  "I can explain—"

  "Not just yet, please." Her jaw jutted. "So yes, I think we can say that something is bothering me, that I'm a little bit hostile. And while I'm on it, I'm not in the habit of letting myself get fooled by men. I had a damn fine man for a good while there and I got used to it. So I'm afraid my guard might be down, and that makes me mad too. How's all that?"

  "I didn't kill Caryn."

  "Right. Okay, you've said that. Thank you."

  "You don't believe me?"

  She shrugged. Suddenly, and very much to her own surprise, she slammed her palm flat down on her computer table—a shockingly loud report, almost like a pistol shot in the closed-up room. "Jesus fucking Christ, Stuart! Do you think this is some kind of game, or what? Do you have any idea of how much trouble you're in right now? You don't think it matters, somehow that I don't need to know, that you got yourself arrested for domestic violence five years ago? Or that you threatened a Highway Patrol officer last Friday night just before you told him you were getting out of the house so you wouldn't kill your wife? What are you thinking? This is serious shit, and you are hip deep in it."

  "But how did they . . . ?"

  Finally, the last of her reserve broke and she was on her feet. She'd made no plan for it—it wasn't part of her usual repertoire or strategy— but she was yelling at him. "Goddammit, Stuart! It never happened is not the same thing as they won't find out. Because they always find out! What have I been telling you? It all comes out! Always! That's the way it works." Hovering over him, she straightened, then whirled and crossed over to one of the windows. She parted the blinds, though she wasn't really looking out at anything.

  Gina had to get her anger under control. Letting out a breath slowly, she closed her eyes, concentrated on the beat of her heart. When she looked over at him again, Stuart was forward on the couch, his elbows on his knees, looking at her as though he were pleading for something—and maybe he was.

  She summoned what calm she could and turned to face him. "I'm sorry I raised my voice. That was unprofessional. I apologize."

  He made some conciliatory gesture. "It's all right. People get mad."

  She nodded. "Yes," she said. "They do." Gina crossed all the way back to where he sat and lowered herself onto the opposite end of the couch. She glanced at her watch, then over to him. When she spoke, all the fight was out of her voice. "All right, Stuart," she said. "Inspector Juhle's going to be here in no time. Do you want to tell me about the first domestic disturbance call? The one five years ago."

  He was facing her, face drawn and pale, the fatigue around his eyes almost painful to see. "It was just another fight. The first bad one, really." He lowered his voice, ducked his head away from the admission. "I guess some dishes got thrown. One of them cut her a little. She was bleeding when the cops came."

  "That's your version. So what's the police report going to say, Stuart? What's the version the cops got?"

  He inclined his head an inch. "I don't know. I never saw any report. I'm not sure what Caryn told them."

  "But they took you downtown?"

  "Yeah. Then Caryn came down and eventually they let me go back home with her. I took some anger management classes. The problem went away."

  "Until last summer?"

  Perhaps embarrassed, he looked down, shrugged. "I never did hit her. Not last summer, not before. Never."

  "Okay." Gina was fairly sure that the distinction between Stuart hitting his wife and throwing a plate at her would not make much of a difference to a jury, if it came to him being in front of one, but if the exact type of domestic violence he'd committed mattered to Stuart, she'd let him live with his own conscience. For the time being, at least. "So what about this Highway Patrol guy?" she asked. "Did you threaten him?"

  "No. I was pissed off, getting pulled over." A self-deprecating half-smile. "That anger thing again, I know. Every other driver on the road was speeding, and he pulls up behind me. So I mentioned that minor point when he got to the window. Probably I could have phrased it better, okay, but I didn't threaten him. I gave the guy my autograph at the end, so how bad could it have been?" He leaned in toward her. "Gina, listen, I've got a temper, okay. I work on it. Living with my two girls could try the patience of a saint, but the way I deal with it is to get away when I can. I'm not a violent guy, and I didn't kill Caryn, and that's God's truth. It'd do wonders for my peace of mind if I thought my own attorney believed me at least."

  She just stared at him, unable and in any event unwilling to give him even a small part of what he wanted from her. The truth was that Stuart's peace of mind was about the last thing she cared about at this moment. There were much more pressing issues than her client's tender feelings, and they were rushing at her from all directions.

  Finally, she checked her watch, crossed her legs, and sat back.

  "We've got forty more minutes, Stuart, before Juhle gets here. We've got a lot of ground to cover, and we'd better get to it. You ready to tell me something I don't already know?"

  After the interview, when Juhle and Stuart had both gone, Gina thought the knock on her door was probably Stuart coming back to fire her, or more specifically, to rescind her hiring. She wouldn't blame him if he didn't want to work with her after her attitude today. Although he would need some lawyer, that was for sure. The interview they'd just had with Juhle should have removed any of Stuart's doubts that his wife had been murdered and that
he was the prime suspect.

  Or maybe in the ten minutes since he'd left Gina's office, he'd had a chance to think about it and decided he didn't want to fork over her retainer of sixty-five thousand dollars in cash. This was a serious hunk of change. Other lawyers were both cheaper and less hostile, and maybe he'd decided to hire one of them. She almost hoped that he had.

  She walked to the door and opened it, her game face on. Her two partners were standing in the hallway. Dismas Hardy said, "No arrest?"

  Gina nodded. "No arrest."

  Hardy broke a grin and half-turned to Farrell, his hand out. "Ten bucks," he said.

  "I can't understand it," Gina said. They had all come into her office. Hardy and Farrell were on the couch where Stuart had been sitting, Gina in her deep chair. "If I were Juhle, I'd have arrested him. He can't need much more."

  "No," Hardy agreed, "but it's cleaner if he gets an indictment first. And let's remember that next Tuesday is grand jury day. My guess is he's taking what he got here downtown and sharing it with the DA even as we speak. See if the grand jury is going to think it's enough. But he might even take another week or two eliminating other suspects. Case with this profile, he's going to want to get it right before it cranks up."

  Farrell had slumped to nearly horizontal and had his feet up on the coffee table. Underneath he was certainly sporting one of his trademark T-shirts, but to the casual eye he was dressed like a working attorney—charcoal suit and maroon tie. "But whenever the arrest goes down, Stuart is signed on with us?"

  "I gave him the papers to take home and look over," Gina said. "I absolutely low-balled him at sixty-five, and still I think even that money struck him as large. If I had to bet, I'd say he's in, but after Juhle finished, we didn't talk too much more. Stuart wanted to get back to his daughter, who is evidently pretty destroyed by all this."

  "As who wouldn't be?" Hardy said.

  Gina shrugged. "Well, apparently, Stuart himself." She glanced at Farrell. "I've seen people more torn up over the death of their dogs."