John Lescroart - The Suspect

"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."

"Hey!" Farrell jumped. "Bart wasn't a dog. He was a person."

Gina gave him a tolerant smile. "My point exactly."

"How old is she?" Hardy asked. "The daughter?"

"Eighteen. Just started college up in Oregon. Was fighting with her mother when she left and hadn't patched it up."

"There's thirty happy years of therapy," Farrell said, "and that's if her dad didn't do it." This time he threw a quick glance at Gina. "And that's if her dad didn't do it," he repeated.