John Lescroart - The Suspect

Now, pole-axed from the rigors of the day, she lay flat on her

back, awake but nearly unconscious, her chest slowly rising and falling, the tepid washcloth folded over her eyes.

The afternoon session had been grueling and frustrating, which she would have gladly endured had it been effective as well. But it had not been; it had been a disaster.

She'd known that she had to try to get PII somehow into the record, and she'd called Fred Furth, thinking to have him elucidate Caryn's connection with the company, her concerns over the clinical trials data, her professional relationship not only with Furth himself, but with Bill Blair and Kelley Rusnak. Abrams, his objections perhaps numbering close to fifty, had been a bulldog. In the end, having never established a rhythm or even the tiniest objective relevancy to whatever had happened to Caryn, she'd had to excuse Furth without her theory gaining much traction.

So her assault on Robert McAfee, trying to establish him as another legitimate suspect, had begun with her on the defensive. The court had just formally warned her not to waste its time. And as she began her direct, she couldn't completely escape the conclusion that this was exactly what she was doing. True, McAfee appeared to have had a strong motive to have killed Caryn. True, they'd been lovers once and might have been again. Yes, he stood to gain financially and professionally from her death. Finally, his alibi for the night of the event had just gone south.

But the plain fact remained that there was no hint of McAfee's involvement on any level with PII, or with Kelley Rusnak. And without that, Gina knew in her heart that in her exhaustive attempt to implicate the doctor, she was really just whistling Dixie. The theory was probably arguable, but at best it was no less a sham than Abrams' attempt to portray Stuart's drive down the Peninsula as a flight from justice that screamed consciousness of guilt. The underlying cynicism of it had worn her down as she went on, until at last she couldn't even take pleasure in shattering McAfee's alibi, which didn't stop her from doing it.

So she'd spent almost the entire afternoon smearing the name and reputation of a probably pretty decent guy, whose only mistake had been forgetting that he'd gone out one night after a day with his kids to buy some Ovaltine so he could get some sleep. Gina no longer thought it was reasonable that Bob McAfee had killed Caryn. She didn't even believe that implicating him would do any good for her client. Not as far as Toynbee was concerned. The fact that there might be another plausible suspect in no way removed Stuart from suspicion; Gina wasn't proposing that McAfee had been driving Stuart's car, was she? But she'd gone ahead anyway. Building nothing, but hammering nails all day just the same.

The thought of it, of the damage she'd done to the doctor's good name, made her sick.

She put her hands up to the washcloth and pressed the now-cool cloth down on her eyes.

"I thought we were going to stop meeting like this," Gina said.

Wyatt Hunt stood in her doorway. "I know," he said. "We were. It just got too hard." The rain had stopped. He stepped out of the wet cloud that hovered at street level into Gina's apartment again. "Miracles do happen," he said, "I don't care what they say."

"What's the miracle?"

"I figured I'd get it over with, so I called Devin after work and mentioned your idea that he could still do some good around this case. He wasn't exactly enthusiastic, but luckily I happened to mention that he could even become an actual hero if he wasn't careful. I happen to know," Hunt said modestly with a self-deprecating smile, "that the guy's got a bit of a hero complex and that this was the magic word. Anyway, he had me make a call to Kymberly's number and since there was a subpoena out on her anyway, there wasn't even a conflict with him using his magic GPS positioning and calling out some troops to run her down."

"Where was she?"

"Down by the Maritime Museum, living out of some van with her boyfriend."

"You talked to her." Not a question.

He nodded. "Just came from there. Although, again, I know this is starting to sound familiar and I apologize in advance, but you might not be happy with what I found out."

"Tell me."

"Yosemite."

"What about it?"

"That's where they went when the weather turned last week. Last Thursday. They stayed through Sunday." He spread his hands, empty. "Which means she didn't give any pills to Kelley Rusnak on Friday night. And, if you need more…"

"Sure, kick a girl when she's down."

"Her dad might have mentioned Kelley's name to her, but I don't think it stuck. When I mentioned her as her mom's lab partner, she was all like, 'Who?' She could have been faking it, I suppose, but if she was, she's way, way better than I'd give her credit for."

Gina found herself sagging against the wall.

"Hey, are you okay?"

She tried a brave smile. "Just tired." She looked up at him. "I can't believe my man is going down around this. It's just so wrong." "You'll get another chance."

Her eyes found a faint flash. "I don't want another chance. I want to get him off this time around while I still can. There's something we're missing. I know there is. It's right here and I can't put my damn finger on it."

"Well, I hope it goes without saying, but if whatever it is comes to you, I'm here twenty-four seven."

A genuine smile now. "You're a good guy, Wyatt. And you do good work. I'll keep you in mind."

"Anytime," he said. "And Gina?"

"Yeah."

"Don't kill yourself over this. He's going to need you for the trial."

"You're right," she said. "You're right." She straightened up. "You have a good night, Wyatt." "You too."

But she wasn't having a good night.

Now it was 8:43. Someone had twisted a heavy wire braid around her head and tightened it down as though it were a tourniquet. That same someone had thrown fine-grained sand into her eyes. She'd long ago emptied and spread out on the coffee table the entire contents of her litigator's briefcase. She'd already gone through almost every page of it-certainly anything that had meaning-at least twice.

Now she decided that even the marginally related stuff rated intense perusal, and she was going through it all yet again. In her desperation, she studied the ARCO receipt for what seemed an eternity, hoping to find something in it that could help her case. Maybe she should call the station and ask the clerk to check and see if perhaps the clock in their printer was off by an hour or so. She hadn't ever gone out and personally verified the timing-that could have been the detail she'd missed.

But even as she made a note to have Wyatt Hunt check this out, she knew it wasn't.

Here again was the transcription of Stuart's first interview with Juhle. All the foolish admissions that delineated his motives, the evident lack of grief, the objection to the autopsy, his suggestion about the Vicodin and the alcohol and the hot tub temperature. All of it understandable, all of it ill-advised. She finished those pages and randomly picked up the next item in the pile, the picture of Stuart and Jedd Conley and their other buddy on their fishing trip to the Bitter-roots. Turned it over, studied the writing on the back, the date.

Nothing.

Who was that third guy anyway? Another detail she didn't know. Another fact she'd neglected, another note for Hunt. And what had happened to Thou Shalt Not Kill in the time Stuart had been in jail?

He might have tried to contact Stuart again on his computer back at his home. He might even have confessed to killing Caryn, and no one would know. Certainly she didn't know, because she hadn't thought to look.

Sick with herself and her incompetence, she sat back on her couch and looked first to her bar-an Oban or four would be nice right now-then to her telephone. She felt she desperately needed to talk to somebody. She checked the time. It wasn't too late. She could perhaps call Hardy or Farrell and just vent, or talk strategy. They were both guys who had been in similar situations to hers before. One of them could help talk her through the despair.