I am connected to the earth and always, immediately, to the present. I am an animal, both prey and predator, keenly tuned. I have no one to convince. There are no complaints. The interruptions are natural.
The fish leaps high in a flash of color, splashes back into its pool, begins a run that strips line and bends the rod. My concentration is absolute. The least slack in the line and the trout will throw the tiny barbless hook, and I will have lost my breakfast. Because make no mistake, if I manage to land it, I will eat this fish.
My appetites, out here, are simple and attainable. I don’t need a raise, new clothes, gifts. Money can have no possible meaning. My music is in the stream, in the breeze, the crackle of a fire, the beat of my heart. I am empty of worry. And in this natural state, ironically enough, I get the closest to a feeling of identity with my fellow man.
This is the essence, and I am part of it.
In her reading chair by the front window, Gina put down the copy of Stuart Gorman’s Healed by Water that she’d picked up at Book Passage after her dinner alone at the Ferry Building. To her surprise, she liked the book a lot. Stuart had absolutely nailed Gina’s own feelings about the outdoors and the wilderness—that these things had been her salvation.
Solitude without loneliness. That was exactly what she felt when she went up to the mountains.
Her eyes covered the familiar terrain of her living room. Just after David had died, it had felt as though he had somehow imprinted himself on every object here—the books, his chair of course, the bar and its glassware, the loveseat—and his connection to these things had made her loneliness almost unbearable.
Up in the wilderness, there was nothing reaching out to snag her emotions and remind her of what was gone. Time she spent away from all of this, this stuff, lessened its painful hold upon her, until finally she realized that its ability to cause her anguish was all but gone.
She’d needed the wilderness to get to that point. She’d needed the long hiking days and the deep, empty nights for their solitude that seemed to lift the burden of the loneliness that adhered to all these familiar things in the city.
Getting up and walking over to the kitchen, she pulled a card from her purse and picked up the telephone, hoping perhaps to talk to Stuart about how he’d come to understand all of that. What had happened to him that had driven him outdoors? How, she wondered, had they sat together for most of the afternoon and had none of this even remotely come up?
But halfway through the phone number, she stopped and hung the phone back up. She recalled that he was going to be with his daughter tonight, trying to make sense of what had befallen them. Calling him now would be an imposition.
Back in the living room, settling back in her chair, she pulled the book over to her, opening it again to her place. And then the telephone rang.
“Gina Roake, please.”
“This is Gina.”
“Devin Juhle. I hope you don’t mind my calling you at home.”
“I wouldn’t have given you the number if I did. But you’re working some long hours, Inspector. I’m gathering you got my message about Stuart Gorman.”
“I did.” He hesitated. “That was a pretty quick hookup, getting him on board as your client. I mean, after our lunch today.”
This was gratuitous and Gina supposed she should have expected it. In any event, she wasn’t going to dignify the unspoken accusation that she’d called Stuart as a result of what Juhle had told her at Lou the Greek’s. She hadn’t called him at all, but she’d let Juhle think what he wanted, since that’s what he was going to do in any case. “Yes,” she said. “The stars lined up just right on that one. I assume you’re calling to set up an appointment?”
“I’m going to want to talk to him, yes. Sooner rather than later.”
“Do you consider him a suspect?”
“A person of interest at this time.”
“You know about his alibi?”
“I know what he’s said, yes.”
“And you don’t believe him?”
“I’d like to go over some details he’s mentioned, that’s all.”
“Well, of course, he’s still upset. If you tell me what you need to know, I’d be happy to get the information for you.”
“I think I’d rather get it from him directly.”
“You don’t want to give me a little hint about what this is about?”
“Just making sure I get the story straight. Plug up any holes.”
This sounded ominous to Gina. Until this moment, she had been unaware that there was enough of a case for there to be any holes.
Gina knew how dangerous it was to have Stuart talk to the police again. If he said the wrong thing, or maybe even the right thing in the wrong way, she could watch him walk out of her office in handcuffs. She knew that many of her colleagues would be appalled by the idea that she’d let her client talk to the cops. But she still hoped she could deflect this investigation, maybe even avoid an arrest altogether, if they continued to cooperate. Juhle already had the most damaging parts on tape, and she’d be sitting right there if things got ugly. It was a calculated risk and she figured that she had to try. “I could call him and set something up for tomorrow at my office. Say ten o’clock, if you don’t hear back from me.”
“I was thinking you both might want to come down to the Hall and talk there.”
Now Gina’s alarm bells started to go off. The Hall of Justice meant a cold and threatening interrogation room off the homicide detail with both audio-and videotape running. But again, protocol and strategy demanded that she remain cool. “I think we’d all be more comfortable in my office, Inspector,” she said. “Of course, you’d be welcome to record the interview. Or even videotape it, provided I get a copy immediately. You’re not planning to arrest Mr. Gorman, I hope?”
“I haven’t applied for a warrant, no.”
“You and I both know you don’t need a warrant to arrest him. My question is, are you planning to do that or not?”
“I’m trying to keep my options open. I’ve got to talk to your client, and I want it all by the book and on the record, which means you’re there with us. Ten o’clock will be fine. At your place. If I don’t hear back from you.”
“All right. I’ll see you there.”
NINE
WITH A PORCELAIN SAUCER RESTING ON the arm of his chair in Dismas Hardy’s office, Wyatt Hunt sat back comfortably and sipped from his cup of freshly brewed coffee. It was Tuesday morning, about a half hour before the offices officially opened. In spite of that, in the space behind them a dozen or more employees had already started their workday. Hardy’s office door was still open, and outside from the lobby came the sounds of phones ringing, Xerox machines humming, random bits of conversation.
They were waiting for Gina. Across from Hunt by the well-equipped coffee counter, Hardy finished pouring his own cup and turned around. “So when you talked to Juhle, you didn’t let on you were working for us?”
“I don’t believe it came up, specifically.” Hunt sipped again, broke a grin. “Besides, I thought it might make for a stilted conversation. He asked if I’d seen Gina, and I told him not since lunch, which was technically true. It’s not my fault he didn’t ask if I’d talked to her. And he seemed to be in the mood—he’d been on Gorman all day and had nobody to talk to about it. This will shock you, but it seems his wife sometimes gets a little tired of cop talk at home.”
“How could that possibly be?”
“I know,” Hunt said. “Weird, but there you go. Anyway, he really wanted to tell somebody about everything he’d found out, and I happened to call.”
“Lucky break for the good guys.”
“That’s what I thought. Maybe not so lucky for the client, though, unless you consider an eyewitness lucky.”
“Sometimes it can be.”
“I’m pretty sure this isn’t one of those times, Diz.” Hunt glanced toward the door. “Ah, the woman of the hour.”
Gina stopped in th
e doorway. “Sorry I’m late, guys. Working the bugs out of what may be the new work schedule.”
Hardy checked his watch. “I’ve got eight o’clock straight up, so you’re on the dot. You want coffee?”
“As the predator wants the night.”
Hardy gave her a look and said, “That’d be black, no sugar?”
“Sorry,” Gina said. “I’ve been reading my client. The style rubs off. Sugar, please.”
“How do you like him?” Hunt asked. “As a writer, I mean.”
“He’s okay. He says some good stuff. Kept me up till midnight last night.”
“So I could’ve called you,” Hunt said, “after my talk with Juhle.”
Hardy handed her a cup and she turned to Wyatt. “So you got to him? What did he have to say?”
“I was just starting to tell Diz. He thinks he’s got a case.”
“With Stuart? How’s he getting around the alibi?”
Hardy had crossed the room and propped himself against his cherry desk. Now he put in his two cents’ worth. “Wyatt was just telling me about an eyewitness.”
Gina slumped into a chair. “To what? The killing? He couldn’t have killed her. He wasn’t there.”
“Well,” Hunt said, “that may be a question.” He placed his cup in his saucer and came forward on his chair. “Seems a neighborhood girl—lives right across the street, friends with his daughter—she saw him pull into his garage Sunday night. Then leave a couple of hours later.”
“She saw him?”
“That’s what Juhle says. His car.”
“Which was it? Him or his car?”
Hunt looked the question over to Hardy, who said, “Who else would have been in his car, Gina?”
Hunt picked it up. “His story doesn’t have anybody else driving his car, does it?”
Gina sat back in her chair. “Shit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hunt said. “And that’s not including a few other things Devin kind of wanted to brag about.”
“I’m listening,” Gina said.
“Two domestic disturbance calls.”
“Two?”
Hunt nodded. “One this summer, and when Juhle ran it down on the computer, he got another hit about five years ago. Your new client got himself arrested on that second one.”
“He told me they’d never had a physical fight. I asked him specifically.”
At his desk, Hardy frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe he forgot.”
“Did he also forget to mention the ticket he got last Friday night?”
Gina was sitting all the way back now, legs crossed. “Friday night?” she asked.
Another nod from Hunt. “Driving up to Echo Lake. Got pulled over by the Highway Patrol. Juhle found the officer and talked to him.”
“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.”
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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.”
TEN
The Suspect Page 9