The Suspect

by John Lescroart

  Not that any of this would necessarily be admissible or deemed relevant at the hearing or trial. But for a million understandable reasons it all played hell with Stuart’s confidence in his attorney. Also with Kym’s and Debra’s. After living with his confusion and doubts and anger for nearly two weeks, when he came in to see Gina in the attorney’s visiting room at the jail, Stuart had finally made the decision to put it to her directly: Why shouldn’t he let her go and get himself another attorney with more experience? Didn’t she think it might be better for his chances if she simply withdrew?

  So now, having just been chewed up and spit out by her friend the district attorney, Gina found herself fighting for the job she now wanted more than anything else in her career, more than anything in her life, in fact, since she’d prayed for David Freeman not to die.

  Stuart’s question itself didn’t surprise her; she had expected something like it or stronger, an actual dismissal, for some days now. But if he was going to give her a chance to talk herself back into his trust, and the question implied that he hadn’t made up his mind definitely to fire her, she was going to take it.

  “First,” she began, “I admit I screwed up the arrest itself. How it went down was my fault. I should have taken the gun from you, and I should have made the call to Juhle from my office. All of that is true, and I’m sorry.”

  Stuart sat a few feet down from her on a plain wooden chair, limp as a puppet with cut strings, looking lost in his bright-orange jumpsuit. He had already lost some weight in jail. The deeply tanned skin showed a distinct pallor under the hollowed-out cheeks. “I hired a supposedly experienced criminal attorney who was comfortable enough charging me sixty-five thousand dollars to take the case,” he said.

  “That’s true. But it’s also true I told you that I’d been out of practice for a while and that sixty-five is a discounted rate for this kind of case. And by the way, how much of that have you paid me up to now?”

  The answer, which they both knew, of course, was—none of it.

  “And yet I’m still here, aren’t I? Every day.” She held up a hand. The point spoke for itself: She was committed to him and to this case. “All I’m trying to say is that a murder case is the major leagues, and once in a while they throw at your head. I didn’t expect Juhle to do that, but he did. He won’t catch me off guard again.”

  Gina hated making excuses for herself; she was, in fact, fairly intolerant of them in others as well. David’s motto, borrowed from Churchill she believed, and which she’d long ago adopted, had been “Never complain, never explain.” And it had served her well too. Yet here she was, begging this man she hadn’t known a few weeks ago to understand her and to forgive her for what she’d done.

  So she was forcing the words out, but her body language betrayed no weakness. She sat at the room’s one long table, an elbow resting on it, her legs crossed in a relaxed posture. Her confession concerned her technical failure, but there was very little mea culpa. “So we took a hit, Stuart. My fault more than yours, but there it is. But I didn’t screw this up all by myself. I didn’t let Kymberly talk to Bethany, and if you had bothered to tell me that you were going to let her, I would have pointed out what a truly terrible idea that was. I didn’t run from the police. And as for the gun, you seem to forget the reason they found it on you is that you refused to give it to me.”

  “All right, fine,” Stuart said. “I’ll accept all that. But why should I have to keep paying the price for it now?”

  “Well, the easy answer is you don’t have to, Stuart. You say the word, and I’m gone and that’s the end of it.” Her bulldog expression dared him to call her on it if that was his decision. She wasn’t going to show any sign of wanting or needing this job. She could take whatever he could dish out. But when his eyes fell away from her gaze, it seemed to her to be a small retreat. She still had some control over her fate here; for some reason, perhaps only inertia, maybe a fear of the devil he didn’t know, he was reluctant to pull the trigger and tell her he was going to go with another lawyer.

  “The thing is, Stuart,” she said, “I don’t know if you can tell or if you care, but I’m pretty angry right now. At Juhle mostly, but also at Gerry Abrams and even Clarence Jackman. They didn’t have to play your arrest the way they did. I was being cooperative. We were coming in the next morning, and they knew it. So it was all macho bullshit.”

  “Pretty effective macho bullshit, though.”

  “Sure. Sometimes it is. But now I know where they’re coming from. I know how they intend to play it. I’ve been doing this—defending people in Superior Court—for twenty-some years. I’m on great terms with the judges and bailiffs and clerks, and don’t let yourself believe that doesn’t matter. We get into court and Mr. Abrams and Inspector Juhle will, I hope, suddenly discover that I’m a bit of an old pro myself. And now I’m an old pro with a grudge and a score to settle, and I don’t intend to make it pretty.” She paused. “If you’d like me to stay on.”

  “Given that, are you sure you’d want to?”

  “Yes, of course. I thought I’d made that clear. But while we’re talking and before you make up your mind for good, there’s one other thing we’ve got to get straight.”

  Stuart sighed and scratched at the stubble on his neck. “What’s that?”

  “Well, with all respect,” she mustered her calmest voice, “I understand how you feel about the arrest and then me telling Juhle you weren’t and never had been armed. That was a mistake too. If I hadn’t told him you’d never taken the gun, okay, we’re arguably in a much better position right now. So that’s strike two on me.

  “But the problems haven’t been all on me. I didn’t take the gun in the first place. You took the gun, and that’s why you had it with you. That’s not anything to do with me. If you remember, I wanted to take it home with me that night, get it out of your hands. I pleaded with you to let me have it. That was my advice. But you overruled me.”

  “I thought I might need it.”

  “Right. That’s what you said. Your ecoterrorist friend might have followed you somehow. But the point is: why you’re in all this trouble right now, it isn’t all me. It isn’t even mostly me. I wish it were. But I need you to see that so much of this is what you did. Talking to Juhle that first day. Deciding to take your gun with you. Sneaking out through your back door. Stealing license plates. Using a phony name. Asking Kymberly to talk to Bethany…”

  “She did that on her own.”

  “Maybe. But that’s not what Bethany said she told her.”

  “She got it wrong, then.” Stuart put both of his hands up to his forehead. “God, God, God.” He looked across about four feet of space to where Gina sat. “So remind me. What are we arguing about?”

  “About whether I keep my job or not. You’ve lost a lot of confidence in me, and I understand that. I wouldn’t blame you, Stuart. But I’d like you to be sure that it’s me, after all. Not just these shitty circumstances. And don’t get me wrong, they’re plenty shitty. I didn’t predict any of this happening, and maybe I should have.”

  He nodded, then grew quiet for nearly a full minute, until he finally took a deep breath. “Help me out here, Gina. Kym’s all over letting you go. So’s Debra.”

  Gina shrugged. “It’s not their call, Stuart.”

  “But then who do I go with? Jedd Conley? I don’t know any other lawyers.”

  “I do,” Gina said. “I could recommend any number of them. Though probably not Jedd,” she added with a trace of humor. Then, in all seriousness, “Either one of my partners would take you on, and they’re both excellent.”

  “But,” he said. “I hear a ‘but.’”

  “No you don’t. They’re good guys and good lawyers with lots of experience. And they almost certainly wouldn’t suffer from the incredible handicap of believing you’re innocent. Wes—one of my partners—even told me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t start believing he’s innocent. He’ll just break your heart.’”

  “So
unds like a sweetheart.”

  “He is.” She met his eyes. “He’s just another pro who’s seen it all before. He often says he doesn’t believe anybody except his dog. He loves his dog, though.”

  Stuart cocked his head. “What about your David?”

  The question quickened her somehow. “What about him?”

  “I mean, with his clients. Didn’t he ever believe they were innocent?”

  She took a moment before shaking her head. “His rule was he’d never ask and never let them tell him. It was one of the first things he always told his clients. ‘I don’t want to know. All I want to know is what evidence they’ve got and if I can make the jury doubt some or most of it. That’s the job. Whether you did it or not doesn’t matter to me.’”

  “He didn’t really feel that?”

  “Oh, yes he did. Really for truly. With his whole heart.”

  “And what about you?”

  “Well”—she felt herself break a rueful smile, and it surprised her—“you’re watching me break new ground. If I had come to this from a different angle, I don’t know what I’d be thinking. Probably that, like everybody else, you don’t get all the way to arrested if you’re not guilty. As I say, that’s the professional approach.”

  “This time I really do hear a ‘but.’”

  “Yep,” she said. “You do.” She raised her eyes and stared him full in the face. “But in this case, I don’t believe you killed Caryn.” Lowering her voice, she went on. “Wes may be right, I’ll get my heart broken over it, but I don’t think so.”

  “I won’t break your heart,” Stuart said.

  “See? There I go believing you again.” She met his eyes, all business. “But look, this is full-disclosure time. You know this is still my first murder case. You know that so far, to say it hasn’t gone well is an understatement. There’s some chance that even though I’m watching a lot more closely, and I’m a lot more pissed off, I might get sandbagged again. You might be better served with one of my partners or any number of other pretty good lawyers in town.”

  “Guys who’ll believe I did it.”

  “Probably. But most wouldn’t care to know, one way or another.”

  Stuart met her eyes again, but briefly, then abruptly he got up and walked over to the glass block wall that ran along one side of the room. He stood there for a few seconds before nodding to himself and turning around. “I didn’t kill Caryn, Gina. I didn’t love her anymore, but I didn’t kill her.”

  “I know that. I believe that.”

  He closed his eyes for a second with obvious relief, then opened them and met her gaze straight on. “I think that’s the most important thing.”

  “I think so too,” Gina said, “though we’re in the minority.”

  “I’m comfortable in the minority,” Stuart said. “That’s where I spend most of my time, anyway.” Crossing back over to his chair, he pulled it around, up closer to Gina, and straddled it backward. “So this hearing tomorrow?” he said. “How bad is it going to be?”

  The conference room at Freeman, Farrell, Hardy & Roake was a large oval with floor-to-ceiling windows and a set of glass double-doors looking out on a small, grassy roof garden and similar large windows facing the main lobby. The idea had looked terrific in the architectural plans, and even when the remodel had been completed. But in practice it soon became obvious that the place was a fishbowl. Everybody walking by could clearly see who was inside and often exactly what was going on in there around the huge circular table. In the land of attorney-client privilege and secret negotiations, this did not turn out to be a plus for the business.

  To rectify the situation, David Freeman had ordered several large potted trees to be delivered—dieffenbachia, palms, some citrus—to partially block the view, or at least mitigate the lack of privacy. Over the years, more greenery had been added—giant ferns, rubber trees, a California redwood that now scraped the thirty-foot ceiling. Bringing potted flora to the office became an unspoken trophy moment for Freeman and his associates after a win in a big case, and the room came to be known as the Solarium.

  And here, today, technically a few minutes after the close of business, Gina had her discovery folders and yellow legal pads spread out on the table in front of her. She turned at the knock on the side panel of the door.

  “Hey, Wes. Come on in.”

  “Don’t let me bother you,” he said. “Gert and I are just passing through.”

  She nodded absently as her partner—his T-shirt today read TAKE THE MESSAGE ON YOUR BUMPER—AND STICK IT!—led his Labrador back behind Gina, through the room and out onto the grassy lawn where they’d put in the memorial bench for David. In another minute, the outside door opened again and they were back inside. “Poor girl,” Wes said, “I thought she was going to die if she didn’t get outside to pee. But there’s no way I bring her down here before Phyllis leaves. I don’t see her as a dog person, do you?”

  Gina straightened up in her chair. Her shoulders rose and fell. “Wes…” She motioned to the many piles of paper surrounding her.

  “You’re busy, I’m sorry.”

  “The hearing’s tomorrow.”

  “Gorman?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Is it as bad as the papers make it look?”

  “Close, but Wes—”

  He held up a hand. “Got it. You’re working. I’m out of here. Come on, Gert. Gina still likes you. I’m sure she notices that you’re not even on a leash. She’s just busy.”

  Gina looked over, shaking her head wearily, but unable to suppress a small smile. “Sorry, Gert,” she said. “Good dog. Very impressive.”

  “What’s impressive?” Dismas Hardy suddenly appeared behind Wes and Gert.

  Gina finally put her pen down, pushed her legal pad a few inches away. “What’s impressive is how anybody gets any work done around here.” She turned to face her two partners. “Guys. Hearing tomorrow. I’m a little overwhelmed.”

  “Gorman,” Farrell said to Hardy.

  “I guessed,” Hardy said, then turned to Gina. “He pay you yet?” Since he’d become managing partner of the firm, he kept a pretty firm eye on the bottom line.

  “He’s had a little trouble getting to the bank,” Gina said. “In fact, he’s had a pretty tough couple of weeks in general. Maybe you’ve read something about it in the papers.”

  Hardy broke a grin. “That would be no, then?” A little more serious now. “So bring him a blank check in jail.”

  “I’m not worried about getting paid, Diz. He’s good for it.”

  “Not if he did it,” Farrell said. “Gert, sit! Anyway, Gina, you kill your wife, you don’t get to collect the insurance on her. It’s one of those dumb rules.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t kill his wife, so it won’t be a problem.”

  “Uh-oh,” Farrell said.

  Gina sat back in her chair. “Just because you believed a guilty client who lied to you, Wes. That doesn’t make it a general rule of the universe. Innocent people get arrested and go to trial and get acquitted.”

  “Right,” Farrell said. “All the time. When was the last one exactly, though? I forget. Was that Scott Peterson? Oh no, that’s right. He was guilty.”

  “I believe Mr. Hardy here has seen a few innocent clients, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Well, he got some of them off, anyway.”

  “Hey!” Hardy struck as quick as a snake, punching Farrell’s shoulder. “They were innocent, that’s why.”

  “See”—Farrell, rubbing his new bruise, turned to Gina—“it’s sad. He still believes it.”

  “It’s easy to believe things if they’re true,” Hardy shot back.

  “I’m just saying, Gina, don’t get your hopes up.”

  “No, you wouldn’t want to do that. You wouldn’t want to believe anything good was ever going to happen.”

  “Okay, then,” Wes said, “as long as that concept is clear.” He looked down at his dog. “C’mon, Gert, she’s going to
be all right. It’s time for us to go home.”

  Dismas Hardy stood in the doorway for another moment and made sure that Wes and his dog had gone up the stairs, then he stepped inside the Solarium and closed the door behind him. “So how’s it looking?”

  “Bad enough.” Gina flashed him a weary, hopeful, evanescent smile. “Then this new discovery I got an hour ago.” Discovery was, of course, supposed to be all of the evidence that the prosecution had collected in a case—police reports, witness testimony, forensic and medical records, photographs, everything. Gina had gotten the first box of these records from Gerry Abrams’ office within two days of Stuart’s arrest. The rest of it—further transcripts with witnesses, more police write-ups, whatever came in—tended to arrive in dribs and drabs. “If I didn’t keep getting ugly surprises, I’d be happier.”

  Hardy pulled up a chair next to her. “Like what?”

  She grabbed at a manila folder and passed it across to him. As he turned over the photographs contained in it, she explained their significance. “Juhle went up to Stuart’s mountain retreat at Echo Lake with a warrant last week. He thought he might find some evidence of deliberation or premeditation. I’m thinking he hit the mother lode.”

  Hardy turned the picture over. “What happened here? It looks a hurricane hit the place.”

  “Either that or some guy named Stuart.”

  “You didn’t know about this? He never mentioned it?”

  “It’s never come up.”

  Hardy was flipping through the folder, his second time through. “This is the wife, I presume.” He held up a close-up of a smiling woman in a frame behind a web of shattered glass. Another picture showed a table and chairs knocked over or lifted up on their sides, lying in a scattering of broken plates, bowls and other glassware; in another, the mattress was halfway off the bed, its stuffing coming out. “Well,” Hardy held up the bed picture, “at least now you know why he couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable with the bed like this either.” Then, seriously, he asked, “Have you talked to him about this yet?”