Hardy: The Suspect Part 8

"All right, then. Thank you both for your time."

8.

Stuart was standing by the couch, stretching. He and Gina had been going over issues for the past couple of hours when suddenly he'd become aware of the time and jumped up. "Well," he was saying, "whether or not we hit most of it, I've got to get going if I want to be on time for Kym, and I do. If Juhle calls you, maybe you can just set up a time we can all talk. But not tonight, okay, please. My girl's going to need me. That's the most important thing right now."

"Sure. Of course." Gina had pulled her heavy satchel over in front of her and dropped her well-used legal pad into one of its sections. "We'll just stay in wait-and-see mode until we hear from Juhle. If he calls me tonight, I'll tell him you need time with your daughter and ask if we can set up a time tomorrow or the next day."

"You think he will? Call you tonight?"

"Maybe not, unless there's been some break in the case we don't know about. Either way, I'll try to check in with him again, get some sense of things." She looked up at him. "Are you sure you're all right?"

He shook his head, weariness now all over him. "Just thinking about Kym." Staring into empty s.p.a.ce across the room, he blinked rapidly a few times. "And Caryn. She's really gone, isn't she?"

"I'm afraid so."

Squeezing at his temples, he sighed deeply, then looked across at her. "Jesus, what a waste. What an unbelievable, colossal f.u.c.king waste."

The Travelodge was barely a mile from Gina's condominium. Most of it was uphill, true, but to Gina's mind, that just made it a better exercise opportunity. So after she told Stuart that he should go on ahead, that she'd let herself out and get the door, she waited until he'd gone, then took off her black pumps, dropped them into the satchel and replaced them with the pair of tennis shoes that she always carried in her bag.

Outside, the evening was still warm, although the ocean breeze had increased enough to stir up the occasional wisp of dust or debris in the gutters. Gina walked with an athletic ease, her satchel converted to a backpack. Ahead of her, across Van Ness Avenue, the street began its steep climb that summitted at the oft-photographed view of Lombard as the "crookedest street in the world."

When she got to the top, Gina was breathing hard. Good. That's what exercise was-breathing hard. She stopped a minute to take in the view. In front of her, down in the valley, North Beach, the towers of Sts. Peter and Paul Church, and a slice of Fisherman's Wharf, with Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower beyond them. Behind her, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Presidio, and from this height the glint of the sun off the Pacific Ocean on the horizon as well.

She was aware of course that on a lot of days and nights-maybe even most of them-the fog could be so thick here that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, but when the place conspired with the weather at a moment like this, Gina thought a person could live here for a hundred years and still not grow tired of it.

By the time she got home, down and up another hill and fifteen minutes later, she was ready for a shower. And when that was done, she put on some jeans and a pullover and went into her living room. Like the rest of the condo it was only as big as it needed to be, but very well appointed in an eclectic, comfortable style. A couch with a matching loveseat diagonally faced the brick fireplace with a Navajo rug in front of it. A pair of reading chairs-she had bought the second for David-bracketed the large front window. Built-in bookshelves rose to greet a ten-foot ceiling on both sides of the fireplace.

Now she went to the well-stocked, mirror-backed wet bar in the back corner of the room and took a very small, four-ounce plain leaded crystal gla.s.s off the shelf. David had given her a set of four of these, and she loved the feel and the look of them. Pouring an inch of Oban neat, she crossed to her reading chair, where she set the drink on the Chinese lacquered side table and picked up the notes she took when she'd talked to Stuart.

Caryn Dryden, it turned out, had lived a very full and complicated life, replete with personal and medical interactions, investment schemes, research opportunities and business connections. Stuart didn't know the details of most of it, but he'd done the best he could filling Gina in after she'd finally convinced him that if someone had in fact killed his wife, it probably hadn't been random.

Apparently, there were two unrelated areas of activity that had consumed his wife's time and energy in recent months.

The first was that she had been within a couple of months of opening a new, independent practice with a fellow orthopedic surgeon, Robert McAfee. The plans had been in the works for the better part of two years, but Stuart had picked up that something had changed in the past couple of months-he thought she might have been trying to bring in a third partner. She'd complained that she was short of cash, and evidently this third guy could bridge or mitigate the shortfall. But McAfee hadn't been happy. Wasn't happy. He'd been calling her day and night for the past month, threatening to pull out of the deal, but was already so financially committed that that would have been suicide.

Gina sipped her Oban and went on to read over her notes on Stuart's comments when she'd asked him why or how Caryn had run short of money. How did that happen if she was the money wizard who brought in the big bucks?

It was because, Stuart said, she was planning on making even more of the big bucks. Huge bucks. f.u.c.k-you money, she had called it. Caryn had been involved for several years in the development and then the clinical trials for a new replacement hip, the Dryden Socket, which degraded at a much slower rate than the current state-of-the-art hip. The device was evidently very close to full FDA approval and, when approved, it promised to make gazillionaires out of all of its early investors. Of whom Caryn had not only been one, but the inventor as well. Apparently, this investment, too, had run into some kind of last-minute financial difficulties. The investment group's banker had come back to the original investors and offered something called mezzanine loans to hold the company over until government approval.

Stuart didn't know what mezzanine loans were, but Gina did. Very high risk and very short term, they were a common feature of a lot of deals that were close to viable but needed additional capital while the business geared up to profitability. Caryn had plunked more than two million dollars in cash into a mezzanine loan for the Dryden Socket within the past six months. Thereby leaving herself short on her new practice offices when there were the inevitable and unavoidable delays in construction and start-up.

Now, Stuart had said, with Caryn's death, McAfee's a.s.s was saved, since Caryn had been well insured on the project. But the Dryden Socket was apparently still having some problems-serious enough that Caryn had called Jedd Conley's office to look into them. Although what Jedd had had to do with it was a mystery to Stuart.

Outside it had come to dusk. Gina finished her reading and her drink at the same time and sat back in her chair to consider what she thought she now knew. Listening to Stuart's recounting of the labyrinthine convolutions of Caryn's business life, she had by now concluded that murder, and neither accident nor suicide, was going to be a good bet in this case. Add to that Devin Juhle's comment at lunch that Caryn probably wouldn't be naked in a hot tub, thinking her husband was gone for the weekend, having a gla.s.s of wine with somebody she didn't know, and the bet became a near certainty.

And-the thought brought Gina up in her chair-if Caryn had told Stuart she wanted a divorce on Friday, would she have been naked in the hot tub with him?

Or maybe she'd just been alone relaxing and he'd unexpectedly come home.

But he hadn't gotten home until this morning. He had that gas station receipt to prove it. And having talked to Stuart all afternoon, Gina didn't think that he had paid someone else to kill his wife. All of which didn't mean he still couldn't be the target of a major investigation. But at least it did not appear that her client was guilty. At this early stage, that was about the best she could hope for.

Feeling good about the way things were going, she decided what the h.e.l.l, she'd pour herself another small drink. Live a little.

She was back in the game with that rara avis, the innocent client.

This was going to be fun.

Here is the fundamental irony of the wilderness experience: Its princ.i.p.al lesson is that we are not alone.

I am standing in the middle of a stream at the hour when the sun begins to clear the ridge out to the east. The shadow of the mountain recedes and reveals a world of vibrant color- beyond gray of rock and indigo sky, suddenly the field explodes into wildflowers-yellows and greens, reds and pinks and blues and whites. A movement out of the corner of my eye turns out to be a buff coyote stalking prey. Downstream, a deer stops for a drink. A jackrabbit breaks from its cover. Overhead, a hawk circles in a rising thermal. On the water, the hatch begins and the air above the stream fills with clouds of mayfly, or caddis, or mosquito.

I cast and a trout strikes.

There are no other humans in sight. From the direct evidence of my senses, there may be none on the planet. And yet my state of being is suffused with a sense of belonging in this place, at this time. I am in the midst of the dream of the Buddhist who, requesting a hamburger, says: "Make me one with everything."

One with everything.

It is singular that this experience of a healing solitude without any sense of loneliness occurs, for me, only in the wilderness. Perhaps it is because there are so few of the expectations of others to accommodate. Here I am responsible only to myself, only for my survival. A day or two out of the blandishments and distractions of daily life-away from the traffic and the small talk and the advertis.e.m.e.nts, away from the constant a.s.sault of vulgar and voracious media of all kinds-and I become increasingly aware of a deep sensory awareness that roots me to the here and now in a profound and fundamental way.

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 bar bless hook, and I will have lost my breakfast. Because make no mistake, if I manage to land it, I will eat this fish.

My appet.i.tes, 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 ident.i.ty 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 Pa.s.sage 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 gla.s.sware, 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 a.s.sume 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."

9.

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 s.p.a.ce 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 n.o.body 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 the 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."