John Lescroart - The Suspect

Gina returned his look with one of her own.

"I think, in his own subtle way," Hardy put in, "Wes is asking how you're feeling about your client's chances."

"Not exactly, Diz." Farrell pulled himself up to something resembling a normal posture, turned slightly to face Gina head-on. "I'm asking if your gut is telling you he's guilty or not."

Gina's face grew pensive. "My brain, the jury's still way out. It's too early."

Farrell pressed. "I didn't say brain."

"No, I know." She paused for a moment, took a small breath. "I guess at this point my gut wants to believe he didn't do it." Farrell looked over to Hardy. "Told you."

"And," Gina went on, "now you're going to tell me how stupid and dangerous that is. Which I'm aware of. So." She addressed both of her partners. "What am I supposed to do, then? Not defend him?"

"No," Wes said. "Not believe him."

"I don't believe him or not believe him, Wes. I said that in my brain, the jury is still out. It's just the old sentimental slob in me wants to believe that sometimes men who are accused of killing their wives didn't do it. And especially men who write beautiful books about the wilderness and other issues close to my own heart."

Wes, whose own early legal career had been transformed by an extremely high-profile case where he'd won an acquittal for a friend and colleague whose protestations of innocence he'd believed and who'd turned out to be guilty, shook his head sadly. "Some people think the Marquis de Sade wrote beautiful books too," he said.

Hardy reached out and put a quick restraining hand on Farrell's knee. "She gets it, Wes. Really." Then, to Gina, "He doesn't want anybody to have to go through what he did. He's just trying to be protective."

Physically, Gina Roake was probably the strongest woman she knew. Three years before, she had shot and killed a man in a gun-fight. Now her stare had hardened. "I don't need to be protected," she said. "You both should know that by now."

"That's not the kind of protection I'm talking about," Farrell said. "I'm just telling you that if this goes to a full murder one trial, it's going to be your life for the next year or more. You're going to start to care about this guy, whether or not he's guilty, and I'm just giving you some friendly advice, based on my own experience, that you might feel better when it's over if you decide right at the beginning that he did it and work on that assumption."

"I've never defended an innocent client in my life, Wes. I'm down with the drill."

"Good." Farrell got himself upright. "Then there's nothing to worry about, and Diz and I are off to a gala luncheon at Lou's. Would you care to join us?"

Gina shook her head. "I just ate there yesterday. Once a week is my limit."

"What are you doing?"

"When?"

"Right now."

"Nothing. I just woke up from a nap. Did you hear again from Juhle?"

"Not yet, which we can take as a good sign."

"Actually, I was just looking at an old AARP magazine somebody left here in the room, taking a quiz on how much I know about Michael Douglas."

"How're you doing on it?"

"Not too good. He's not married to Annette Bening?" "Nope. That's Warren Beatty. Michael Douglas is Catherine Zeta-Jones."

"Get out of here. He doesn't look anything like her."

"His wife, Stuart. His wife is Catherine Zeta-Jones."

"I knew what you were saying. But then who's his famous father?"

"Here's a hint. Same last name."

"I don't know. John? Peter? Toby? Ryan?" "The famous Toby Douglas?" "Stephen? Isn't there a Stephen Douglas?" "He debated Lincoln, so that's not it. How about Kirk?" "Kirk Douglas! He's not old enough to be Michael's father, is he?" "Must be, since he is. Or was. Any more Michael Douglas questions you didn't get?"

"Co-star in his first hit movie. I don't even know the movie."

"Romancing the Stone. Kathleen Turner was the co-star."

"Man. Do you know this much about the law?"

"At least. Possibly more. Some of it in Latin, even."

"Okay, then. I'm starting to feel better about you being my lawyer."

"Thanks so much," Gina said. "Is Kym with you?"

"No."

"Okay. What about Debra?" "What about her?"

"I asked first."

"She went home after lunch when I said I needed to get some sleep."

"You get enough?"

"Couple of hours, at least so I'll make it through till tonight." "So, you want to go out?" "What do you mean?"

"I mean leave your room, get some air, take a walk? I could be there in fifteen minutes." "And do what?"

"Talk."

"About what? More of all this?"

"Basically. You. Caryn. Stuff."

"Haven't we done enough of that today already?"

"Frankly, not even close."

"I'd want to be back here for when Kym gets back."

"That ought to be possible. You know, for a guy who's doing nothing anyway, you're making this decision harder than it has to be. I'm talking a walk, a chat, we go wild, maybe a latte. Low risk."

"You can be here in fifteen minutes?"

"Or less."

"All right. I'll be ready."

The two girls used to do a lot of things together, but they'd drifted apart in the past couple of years. Bethany, a highly strung over-achiever, found that she didn't have the energy after her homework and other activities to keep up with Kymberly and her extreme mood swings. When Kymberly was down in the dumps, she was a total drag, often even talking about suicide, and then nodding off if they were trying to do quieter things together, such as studying or baking cookies, or just hanging out. On the other hand, when she was happy, she was recklessly crazy, invincible and immortal, and this was even harder to take-stealing things, making out with guys she didn't even know, doing drugs.

It got so that the only times they could get along easily was when they both were on a hill, skiing or boarding, and even then it was usually Stuart's presence with them that had made them comfortable. He was daredevil enough for his daughter, and controlled enough for Bethany. When the three of them were together, there was lots of action but he'd draw the line when Kymberly wanted them all to, say, ski off a cliff. But by now even those good times were a couple of years in the past, so Bethany was a bit surprised when Kymberly found her on campus at Galileo High School during lunchtime, just walked up to her as she was talking to some of her friends.

"Hey, can we talk a minute?"

"Oh God, Kymberly. Sure. I… I'm so sorry about your mom."

"Yeah." She was more nicely dressed than Bethany had seen her in a long time, although the expression on her face was strangely vacant. But then, Bethany reminded herself, she'd just lost her mother.

The two of them moved away from the other kids over to a corner of the courtyard. After they sat down on one of the benches against the building, neither of them talked immediately. Then finally Bethany said, "Are you okay?"

"Not really. It's not how I thought it would be. I didn't think it would bother me so much with Mom, you know. I mean…" Kym-berly sighed heavily. "You know."

Bethany nodded. "I don't want to find out."

"You're right, you don't." Kymberly turned her head to look at her friend. There was a lot of unmistakable anger in her face now. "And now my dad's in trouble, mostly because of you."

"Me? What about me?"

"You telling the police you saw him show up at the house."

"Yeah, but I did."

"Okay, but he says he didn't do that." She stared long and hard into her friend's face. "Don't you get it, Bethany? If he did, that makes him look like he killed Mom."

"The cop I talked to said they didn't have any suspects yet."

"Yeah, well they got one now."

Bethany sat still for a long moment. "I didn't mean that. I mean, for that to happen."