Hardy 11 - Suspect, The

by John Lescroart

  Hunt decided to take a risk. "Michael Pinkert?"

  The name stopped him, wiped the joviality from McAfee's face. "Yes, he'd be one of them. Have you been talking to him?"

  "Not yet."

  "But obviously you know that he'd been in some negotiations with Caryn."

  "And with you, right? You want to talk about it?"

  Clearly, McAfee didn't. He looked back over his shoulder quickly as though considering whether he should take his inquisitor on the next leg of the clinic tour, but finally flashed another false smile and leaned back against the wall. "You have to understand that Caryn and I, we went back as far as our residencies together. She was an incredible woman—smart, driven, a workaholic really, like me. With so much going on in her brain all the time. It was—she was—a joy to be around. Not that everybody saw that part of her, of course. She could be very . . . abrupt, I suppose. And short-tempered. Impatient with stupidity, that was all."

  "She wouldn't have liked me," Hunt said, trying to keep his witness at least marginally on his side for as much time as he could, which he was afraid wouldn't be much longer.

  "I think you're being modest, Inspector," McAfee said. "In any event, what I'm getting at is that she and I were an immensely compatible team from very early on. We shared the same work ethic, the same approach to our practices. Dr. Pinkert has a different philosophy than either Caryn or me. I didn't see him working well with us."

  "Don't take offense at this, Doctor, but were you and Caryn intimate?"

  McAfee let out a breath, and with it went some of the confidence in his posture. "I should have expected it would come to this," he said mostly to himself. Then he nodded. "For about a two-week interval about twenty years ago. No, more like eighteen. Soon after Kymberly—her daughter—was born. She and Stuart were having troubles. The girl was evidently . . ." He shook his head. "Anyway, she decided she wasn't going to leave him or end the marriage back then—I don't know why—but she and I... we both realized it was a mistake." Meeting Hunt's eye, he said, "I know this looks bad, but we haven't been together since then, and that's the truth. We were friends and business partners, that's all."

  "And suddenly she was betraying you by asking Pinkert to join you both on this clinic?"

  "Well, not betraying me. That's a bit strong. We disagreed about it, sure, but... I didn't kill her, Inspector. I wasn't her lover anymore."

  "You're saying she had one?"

  "I can't say for sure."

  "But still, you think it's true?"

  McAfee wrestled with the question for a moment.

  "The reason it's important," Hunt said, "is if she was having an affair, her lover might have been her killer. I'm not looking for a name, Doctor. Just a yes or a no."

  Finally, McAfee nodded. "All right, then, I'd say yes. Although who it is, or was, I don't have any idea. But I think so."

  "Why? Anything specific?"

  "Nothing I could put my finger on. But as I told you, I knew her very well and for a very long time. You pick up on changes. Sometime last summer, she changed."

  "In what way?"

  "Well, over the past couple of years, she'd become grim. It was all money and business, or responsibilities with her family, and she did it all with a kind of lockjawed determination. She wasn't going to let it beat her that things were hard, that life was work and nothing else." He shrugged, took a beat. "Then her daughter—have you met Kymberly?"

  Though he hadn't, Hunt nodded.

  "Well, on top of everything else, Caryn was going through a particularly difficult time right around Kym's graduation. Very difficult. I'd hold her hand—not literally—but I'd listen to her complaints. She was at the end. Evidently Kym had a new boyfriend she'd started sleeping with and she was staying out all night and doing drugs and stealing things and for a while there, Caryn seemed to lose the ability to cope with it all. She felt it wasn't ever going to end, that her home life with Stuart and Kym was this chain around her neck that was choking her, and she'd never get it off."

  "So what happened?"

  "So one day, suddenly, she came in here and she was ... I don't know how to describe it other than radiantly happy. Really like her old self. The change was so dramatic, I had to ask her what had happened."

  "And what did she say?"

  "She said she'd just realized how beautiful she was. I told her that of course she was, and she just smiled at me and said I had no idea. That was all. Except that after that she started to take more care with her looks—not that she needed to, but ... I don't know how to put it, exactly. She looked more obviously attractive—bought some new clothes, wore her makeup differently, smiled more. She had more energy for her work. She was just different."

  "And not because anything changed at home?"

  "No. I'm sure of that. Rather the opposite, in fact. I remember she found out Kym had pierced herself in a very private area around this time, and rather than agonizing over it as she would have a few months before, she was almost breezy. She said, 'I've just got to give her a home until she goes off to college. I owe her that much. Then I'm free.' And never a word about Stuart. It was like he simply ceased to exist."

  Hunt pulled out the small tape recorder he kept in the pocket of his sports coat. "I'm not so hot at taking notes," he said, echoing the disengenuous and universal theme. "You mind if I record what we say? I want to make sure I get it exactly right."

  "No. Go ahead."

  Satisfied, Hunt looked up. "Let's cut to the chase, Doctor. Do you think it was Pinkert?"

  Again, the unexpected guffaw; again, cut off quickly. "I suppose I just inadvertently gave my answer away." In all seriousness, he continued. "I'd be surprised if it was Mike."

  "Why?"

  "First, you've got to know him. He needs to lose fifty pounds. Caryn hates extra weight on people. The other reason might be me. When Caryn and I had our thing, one of her big worries was that word would get out around the hospital. She told me that if she was going to do that again, it wasn't going to be with anybody she worked with. She didn't want gossip. She didn't want to hurt her husband.

  She just needed to do what she had do to. Maybe that's a small thing, and maybe she changed her mind, but I think she stuck with it."

  "You think she had other affairs?"

  "Well, at least two. Which eliminates any moral objection to the idea, doesn't it? So it would have been a matter of convenience. I'd say probably." As though just remembering, McAfee snapped his fingers. "Are you really interested in seeing the rest of this place?"

  "Sure." Hunt followed McAfee through a door into a long hallway. Since McAfee had never asked him to turn it off, he checked to make sure his tape recorder was still working. It was.

  As they took the tour, it was evident that construction was well along. The internal walls separated administrative and medical offices from waiting areas and from operating theaters. The rugs weren't down yet, but the lighting was installed, the place about half painted, most of the equipment and furnishings still to come. But to Hunt it felt like a mostly unfurnished medical complex, not a warehouse anymore. When they got down to the far end, Hunt said, "Looks pretty close to done. When are you opening?"

  McAfee crossed his arms over his chest, proud of what he'd wrought. "I'm shooting for the first of the year, give or take a couple of weeks. I start hiring staff in the next week or two."

  "So everything's a go?"

  "Pretty much. There's always last-minute problems, and I'm sure there will be on this, but all in all I'm fairly confident."

  Hunt decided to take the gloves off. "Pretty big change in a week, isn't it?"

  McAfee's face went slack, then reddened. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Well, I mean, obviously, last week you were fighting Caryn over a partner you didn't want in the business. But you needed his money to keep construction going. Now both those problems are gone. Also gone is an original headstrong partner who was giving you nothing but headaches. How much life insurance did you
and Caryn take out on one another?"

  "I don't have to answer that. And I resent the hell out of the implication. I loved Caryn."

  "How much insurance?" Hunt repeated. "It's in the public record. If you make me look for it, I might get cranky. How much?"

  "Two and a half million."

  "Each?"

  "Each."

  "And when's the last time you saw Caryn?"

  "Friday, here. No, Saturday morning. I ran into her at the hospital where we both had patients. We barely spoke."

  "Because of the tension between both of you and Pinkert?"

  "No. Because we were busy looking at patients. I just told you that."

  "Yes, you did. But it seems to me that if you're having all of these issues, you might have talked about them a little."

  "We'd just done that the day before. She finished before me at the hospital on Saturday and left. Maybe to go see her lover. I don't know. But we didn't talk."

  "All right. What about Sunday?"

  "No, I didn't see her on Sunday."

  "What did you do Sunday night?"

  "I already told your partner . . ."

  "That you were asleep. I'm talking earlier. Dinnertime. Where did you have dinner?"

  "I don't know. I'd have to think."

  "Go ahead. Take your time."

  Hunt pulled out his notebook again. Ostentatiously flipped pages, grabbed his pen. "Sunday," he said curtly, "three days ago."

  McAfee rubbed his hands together. He forced a painful smile. "I'm just not remembering. I'm drawing a complete blank. Sunday, Sunday..."

  "Sunday," Hunt said. "You were in bed by eleven. Maybe your wife would remember."

  He shook his head. "We're divorced. I'm living by myself out on Fillmore. I'm really drawing a blank here, though. Just a second. Do you mind if I make a phone call?"

  "Not at all."

  McAfee pulled his cell phone from his belt and said "Office" into it. A few seconds later, he started talking. "Marcia, hey, it's me. What's my calendar got me doing on Sunday, last Sunday? Sure, I'll wait a minute." That nervous come-and-go smile. Then, "Nothing? No, I'm sure I did something. I just can't . . . okay. Okay. Thanks then. Bye."

  Clicking off, he shrugged dramatically. "I guess I'm going to have to think about it. Whatever it was, it wasn't too memorable."

  "Doctor, didn't Inspector Juhle ask you about this?"

  "Sure. I told him I had surgery scheduled Monday morning, so I'm sure I was in bed."

  "He didn't ask about before you went to bed? What kind of car do you drive?"

  "A Toyota Highlander."

  "That's an SUV, right?"

  "Yes."

  "What color?"

  "Black. Oh wait, Sunday, there it is! I had the kids."

  "You had the kids."

  "My three kids. I'm remembering now. We went over to Tilden and swam in the lake, had a picnic. We bought a lunch at that deli in Montclair." McAfee wiped at the sheen that had developed on his forehead. "Yeah. Then we all went to Spenger's—you know, in Berkeley?—for dinner, and then I dropped them back with Jenny, their mom, it must have been about eight. Eight thirty. Just dark, anyway. God, how did I not remember that?"

  "I don't know," Hunt said. "So you left the kids at eight thirty. And then what?"

  "Then I went home. It had been a long day—you know, three young kids. And I watched a little TV, then went to bed. Probably around ten. Just what I told Inspector Juhle."

  "Alone?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "Okay, Doctor, thanks a lot. You've been very helpful." And Hunt folded up his notepad, put it again in his back pocket and started up the long hallway on his way out.

  21

  Gina had started out typing on the computer in her office, thinking to take her client's writing advice and get in one page for the day and to have fun with it. It seemed as though she'd been writing for about fifteen minutes when the phone rang.

  When she glanced down at the bottom of her screen and saw that she'd been lost in the work for almost two hours and had written five pages, she was so shocked that she didn't hear the next couple of telephone rings and finally had to grab hurriedly at the receiver, hoping she hadn't missed the call.

  "This is Gina Roake."

  "Ms. Roake. Inspector Juhle." Gina noted with a tingling sense of alarm that she'd ceased being Gina and Juhle was no longer Devin. Something about their relationship had shifted. "I wonder if you're with your client right now?"

  "No. I'm at my office."

  "Yes, ma'am. That's where I called you. And Mr. Gorman isn't with you?"

  "No."

  "Do you know where he is?"

  "To my knowledge, he's still at his house. That's where I left him right after we were all there together this morning. What do you want to see him about?"

  "I've got a warrant for his arrest."

  Gina felt her head go light; something went out of her shoulders. "That's not possible. Since we saw him this morning?"

  "That's right."

  "What's changed, Inspector? This doesn't make any sense."

  "It makes sense to Gerry Abrams, and that's good enough for me." Juhle didn't have to explain anything to her at this point—they had their warrant. But he couldn't help gloating a little. "Did you know that your client and his wife's sister went up to the mountains together alone for a week?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "So now we've got the bad timing on the drive down from his cabin, the money, and another woman in the picture. I also just heard from Mrs. Robley, Bethany's mother. Did you know about your client threatening her if she didn't change her testimony?"

  "I have no idea what you're talking about. Stuart didn't do that. He'd never do that."

  "Well, Bethany says he did. His daughter delivered the message. It took Bethany a few sleepless nights to help her decide she had to tell her mother. Abrams says we've got enough. He wants him in custody, and I don't blame him."

  "But . . . this is crazy, Inspector. I know Stuart didn't threaten anybody, much less a young girl. And he told me all about Debra. They weren't up there a week. It was five days. And they didn't . . . oh, never mind about that." Gina realized how ridiculous she sounded making excuses. "You're bringing him downtown?"

  "As soon as I find him. You're sure you haven't heard from him?"

  "Of course I'm sure."

  "Because there's another thing you might want to consider."

  "It won't change the fact that I haven't heard from him, but what's that?"

  "When nobody answered the door at his house, I let myself in and found half a box of nine-millimeter ammunition out on his computer table. His dresser drawers were mostly cleaned out, and so was the bathroom cabinet. As soon as we're off the phone here, I'm going out with an APB that your client's on the run and should be considered armed and dangerous."

  "Well, before you do that," Gina said, "have you tried his daughter? She's staying with Caryn's sister. Maybe he went over there to see them."

  "Do you know where that is?"

  "No. I'm sorry."

  "No number?"

  Gina had his home telephone number, and she'd reached him at the Travelodge yesterday, but—another failure—she hadn't bothered to get his cell number. She was badly out of practice, and her client was likely to suffer because of it. "The sister may be listed," she said. "The last name is Dryden."

  "I'll look into that," Juhle said.

  Another thought struck her, and Gina asked, "What about the reporters who were camped at his house? Didn't any of them see him leave?"

  "There's a way out through the garage. A gate in the fence opens onto a walkway between a couple of houses out of the backyard."

  "He was just avoiding the reporters," she said. "He'll be with his daughter, I'm sure."

  "Well, I'll tell you what," Juhle said. His patience, thin to begin with, was clearly just about worn through. "Why don't we both keep looking? But if I don't hear from you or him by, say, five o'clock, I'm putti
ng out the bulletin."

  "That's only an hour from now, Inspector."

  "That's right," Juhle said. "So we'd better get looking, shouldn't we?"

  * * * * *

  "Jedd, this is Gina. I'm sorry to bother you at your office, but I'm in kind of emergency mode here. Have you heard from Stuart lately?"

  "You can bother me anytime you want, Gina. Would lunchtime today count as lately?"

  "You saw him at lunchtime? Where?"

  "Over here in North Beach."

  "Do you know where he is now?"

  "No. But he said he was going down to Palo Alto to talk to some of Caryn's investment people. I assume that's where he went. What's the emergency? About him?"

  "Only that they've issued a warrant for his arrest, and now they think he's on the run, armed and dangerous."

  "Armed and dangerous? Stuart?"

  "Evidently he left some ammunition out at his house and Juhle found it."

  "Stuart owns a gun? He had a gun when he was with me?"

  "I don't know about that. It sounds like it, though. I just wondered if you had a way to get ahold of him. He needs to know what's happened, and especially that he's wanted."

  "He thought it might get to that, even without good evidence. That's why he took off."

  "He told you that?"

  "Word for word. He said he wasn't going to jail. The cops weren't looking for who might have really killed Caryn, so he was going to on his own. For the record, I told him to let you and your investigators do that, but he wasn't much convinced."

  "Jedd, he's got to come in. He could get himself shot. I've got to talk to him. Do you have any way to reach him?"

  "I've got his cell number, and you're welcome to it, but from what he was telling me today, you're not going to have an easy time talking him into coming in, especially if that means he's spending any time in jail. He was pretty firm on that."

  "Jedd, they've got the warrant. He's going to jail."

  "Not if they can't find him."

  "Jesus, Jedd. On top of everything else, he doesn't want to be in the middle of a manhunt. Things are bad enough as it is."