Hardy: The Suspect Part 19

"Shook him, did he?"

Juhle nodded. "Maybe a bit more than that. Although he's on his way to convincing Christina that it wasn't his fault, at least enough that she won't testify to it. He didn't really shake him. He just picked the kid up, trying to quiet it down, and then he just stopped breathing. Maybe because his skull got cracked. Somehow. Falling off his bed, maybe."

Abrams closed the gap between himself and Juhle's desk and plunked himself on a corner of it. "Tell her if it wasn't him, the only person that leaves is her. That ought to bring her right around."

Drawing a deep breath, fully disgusted, Juhle let out a string of matter-of-fact profanity. "I want to just shoot him right now," he concluded. "I swear to G.o.d, I do."

Abrams nodded. "I couldn't agree more, Dev. Really. The saddest thing about life here in San Francisco is there's no chance getting a death penalty. Maybe you could arrest him and accidentally slam into a telephone pole while you're driving him downtown. Guys like Fidel, I bet they're too macho to use their seat belts. You're going fast enough, he's toast."

Juhle perked up, straightened in his chair. "You know what, Ger? That's not a bad idea. Cost of a car against a murder trial, the city wins big time. I could get a medal." Juhle took a breath, seemed to shake the evil thoughts off his body, changed the subject. "So what were you thinking about Gorman? I thought yesterday we didn't have any evidence? You get something I don't know about?"

"No. But I watched the news last night."

"The fox?"

"His wife's sister. You saw her, then?"

"She was hard to miss. Va-voom, huh?"

"At least. But you put her in the mix, suddenly we might be at a tipping point."

"Is she in the mix? Were they together?"

Abrams fairly beamed. "Why I love television. Noon news, just breaking. Her ex-husband says they went up to his cabin-that cabin again-for nearly a week. Alone together."

Juhle whistled, impressed. "But wait," he said. "There's been another development beyond that, not saying it's going to un-tip you, but you need to hear about it."

"What's that?" Abrams listened while Juhle explained about the TSNK e-mails. When the story was over, he said, "He's going proactive, that's all. Trying to give us something else, get us off him."

"That's how I read it too," Juhle said, "but it was a pretty good press. His lawyer and her investigator."

"Who's the lawyer?"

"Gina Roake."

Abrams brightened. "Roake. I don't recall her ever doing a homicide before. I should ask around. If she hasn't, it's something else to consider. The call on whether or not to bring him in is close enough. If he's got a first-timer defending him, odds on us go up. Maybe only slightly, but with everything else that might be enough."

"So what were you thinking about that brought you down here?"

"What we actually had." Suddenly the a.s.sistant district attorney was on his feet, pacing between Juhle's desk and the lockers. "Look, we've been going on about the lack of physical evidence, and there's no doubt that's a problem. The question is whether it's insurmountable. With this woman, finally-the sister-in-law-I'm starting to believe maybe it isn't."

"I'm listening."

"Okay, you're a jury. You hear about Gorman leaving the lakes at two o'clock in the morning. Squirrelly right off the bat, no? He takes way too long to show up at Rancho Cordova. And by the way, I did check and there were no traffic problems. Any way you cut it, there's lost time in there. It makes more sense that he drove up from the city after the murder. Then he's got a neighbor-and not just any neighbor, someone who's going to be a hostile witness for us and his daughter's friend-who puts him and his car at the house. He's doing CPR on a corpse in full rigor when the first squad arrives. Then there's the money. And finally, now, the other woman. This thing sings like Pavarotti."

"You're preaching to the choir, Gerry. But you're the DA. You've got to make the call."

Abrams' eyes flicked at the ceiling, came back to Juhle. "We don't do something, he's gonna walk. Are you expecting more from the morgue or the lab?"

"Nope. We could always get surprised, but. . ."

Abrams crossed back to the lockers one more time, his finger tattooing the echoing metal, trying to make up his mind.

Just at that moment, the telephone on the desk rang. Juhle held a finger up to Abrams and picked it up. "Juhle, Homicide." He all but came to attention in his chair, straightening up, grabbing for his pen. "Yes, Mrs. Robley," he said, "go ahead. I'm listening." And as he listened, his face clouded over until it was set in darkness. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "Should I talk to her? No. Sure. I understand." After another minute of monosyllables, Juhle hung up and looked over at Gerry Abrams. "Bethany Robley's mother," he said. "The son of a b.i.t.c.h sent his own daughter to threaten Bethany to change her testimony."

This wasn't good news for the witness by any means, but it brought a cold smile to Abrams' face. "We've just tipped, Dev. Go talk to her on tape. Nail it down. Then let's go find us a judge, get the sucker in jail while we've still got the chance."

Robert McAfee greeted Wyatt Hunt in the doorway of the newly built warehouse-like structure on Geary at the eastern edge of j.a.pantown. The site of the city's soon-to-be-completed Total Joint Clinic was not in a low-rent neighborhood by any stretch, and its now-sole princ.i.p.al betrayed a distinct pride of ownership as he shook Hunt's hand.

McAfee, dressed more like a construction worker than a doctor, in heavy work boots, tan denim pants and a black and gold Giants windbreaker, looked young and fit enough to play with the big club. He had all of his hair, and none of it was gray above a subtle widow's peak that bisected an unlined forehead. With his piercing gray eyes, strong nose, good teeth and day-and-a-half stubble, he was as handsome as a movie star. He also accepted without question, and without looking at the proffered business card, Hunt's description of himself as a defense investigator looking into the death of Caryn Dryden, offering only, "But I already talked to one of your partners, whose name escapes me, I'm sorry."

"Devin Juhle?" Hunt volunteered, willing to take advantage of McAfee's lack of distinction between police and defense investigators. Hunt had done what the Penal Code required-identified himself and given the witness a business card. What the witness chose to believe after that was not Hunt's problem.

"That was it. Juhle. I told him I was asleep on Sunday night, which I was. Though of course I was devastated to hear about Caryn. I still am. But I don't know what else you need to know from me. I hadn't seen her since last Thursday. Surely I'm not a suspect, am I?"

Hunt loved it when he was mistakenly taken for a policeman. He answered with an open, guileless look. "Until somebody's arrested, the field's technically open, but you were home in bed when the murder occurred." He phrased it as fact, although he knew from Gina that McAfee was Stuart's pick as most likely suspect which, if true, meant the alibi was bogus.

"That's right."

"So my real interest is that as Caryn's business partner, you might know something about her and either not know that you know it or not realize its importance."

"Okay, that's possible." McAfee's smile came and went haphazardly. Hunt's presence and questions clearly were rattling him. "But I thought you'd more or less settled on Stuart?"

"He's in the mix, Doctor, but as I said there's been no arrest yet. The media's made up its mind, if it has one, but there are some questions."

Hunt's intention wasn't to let his cop impersonation intimidate the witness; he wanted to get him relaxed and talking. He looked over McAfee's shoulder to where construction sounds could be heard and put some enthusiasm into his tone. "I love these infill projects. I live in a converted warehouse myself down on Brannan. How close are you to being finished here?"

"Well, now, with Caryn gone, that's all a bit up in the air. If you'd like a quick tour while we talk, I'd be happy to show you around a little."

"That'd be great. I'd like that. Thanks."

McAfee's relief at leaving the immediate subject of Caryn's death was palpable. He turned to indicate the reception area. "Well, where we are here, this is pretty much finished." He led Hunt behind the counter, showing off the stations, the computer outlets, the phone bank.

"How many patients were you planning on handling?"

"We hoped to get up to eight a day."

"Eight a day? That many people need new hips?"

"And shoulders, and knees. And yes, even hips alone, eight a day, at least."

"You and Caryn were going to do four operations each, every day?"

Perhaps this struck McAfee as funny. Perhaps he was still nervous. At any rate, he had a loud, uninhibited laugh, though he cut it off after the first couple of notes. "I'm sorry," he said, "but no. We hoped to be able to bring in a.s.sociates, fellow orthopedic specialists, and have them on staff here within a year or two. Any one doctor shouldn't do more than one total joint surgery in any given day. Although there are some who try."

Hunt decided to take a risk. "Michael Pinkert?"

The name stopped him, wiped the joviality from McAfee's face. "Yes, he'd be one of them. Have you been talking to him?"

"Not yet."

"But obviously you know that he'd been in some negotiations with Caryn."

"And with you, right? You want to talk about it?"

Clearly, McAfee didn't. He looked back over his shoulder quickly as though considering whether he should take his inquisitor on the next leg of the clinic tour, but finally flashed another false smile and leaned back against the wall. "You have to understand that Caryn and I, we went back as far as our residencies together. She was an incredible woman-smart, driven, a workaholic really, like me. With so much going on in her brain all the time. It was-she was-a joy to be around. Not that everybody saw that part of her, of course. She could be very . . . abrupt, I suppose. And short-tempered. Impatient with stupidity, that was all."

"She wouldn't have liked me," Hunt said, trying to keep his witness at least marginally on his side for as much time as he could, which he was afraid wouldn't be much longer.

"I think you're being modest, Inspector," McAfee said. "In any event, what I'm getting at is that she and I were an immensely compatible team from very early on. We shared the same work ethic, the same approach to our practices. Dr. Pinkert has a different philosophy than either Caryn or me. I didn't see him working well with us."

"Don't take offense at this, Doctor, but were you and Caryn intimate?"

McAfee let out a breath, and with it went some of the confidence in his posture. "I should have expected it would come to this," he said mostly to himself. Then he nodded. "For about a two-week interval about twenty years ago. No, more like eighteen. Soon after Kymberly-her daughter-was born. She and Stuart were having troubles. The girl was evidently . . ." He shook his head. "Anyway, she decided she wasn't going to leave him or end the marriage back then-I don't know why-but she and I... we both realized it was a mistake." Meeting Hunt's eye, he said, "I know this looks bad, but we haven't been together since then, and that's the truth. We were friends and business partners, that's all."

"And suddenly she was betraying you by asking Pinkert to join you both on this clinic?"

"Well, not betraying me. That's a bit strong. We disagreed about it, sure, but... I didn't kill her, Inspector. I wasn't her lover anymore."

"You're saying she had one?"

"I can't say for sure."

"But still, you think it's true?"

McAfee wrestled with the question for a moment.

"The reason it's important," Hunt said, "is if she was having an affair, her lover might have been her killer. I'm not looking for a name, Doctor. Just a yes or a no."

Finally, McAfee nodded. "All right, then, I'd say yes. Although who it is, or was, I don't have any idea. But I think so."

"Why? Anything specific?"

"Nothing I could put my finger on. But as I told you, I knew her very well and for a very long time. You pick up on changes. Sometime last summer, she changed."

"In what way?"

"Well, over the past couple of years, she'd become grim. It was all money and business, or responsibilities with her family, and she did it all with a kind of lockjawed determination. She wasn't going to let it beat her that things were hard, that life was work and nothing else." He shrugged, took a beat. "Then her daughter-have you met Kymberly?"

Though he hadn't, Hunt nodded.

"Well, on top of everything else, Caryn was going through a particularly difficult time right around Kym's graduation. Very difficult. I'd hold her hand-not literally-but I'd listen to her complaints. She was at the end. Evidently Kym had a new boyfriend she'd started sleeping with and she was staying out all night and doing drugs and stealing things and for a while there, Caryn seemed to lose the ability to cope with it all. She felt it wasn't ever going to end, that her home life with Stuart and Kym was this chain around her neck that was choking her, and she'd never get it off."

"So what happened?"

"So one day, suddenly, she came in here and she was ... I don't know how to describe it other than radiantly happy. Really like her old self. The change was so dramatic, I had to ask her what had happened."

"And what did she say?"

"She said she'd just realized how beautiful she was. I told her that of course she was, and she just smiled at me and said I had no idea. That was all. Except that after that she started to take more care with her looks-not that she needed to, but ... I don't know how to put it, exactly. She looked more obviously attractive-bought some new clothes, wore her makeup differently, smiled more. She had more energy for her work. She was just different."

"And not because anything changed at home?"

"No. I'm sure of that. Rather the opposite, in fact. I remember she found out Kym had pierced herself in a very private area around this time, and rather than agonizing over it as she would have a few months before, she was almost breezy. She said, 'I've just got to give her a home until she goes off to college. I owe her that much. Then I'm free.' And never a word about Stuart. It was like he simply ceased to exist."

Hunt pulled out the small tape recorder he kept in the pocket of his sports coat. "I'm not so hot at taking notes," he said, echoing the disengenuous and universal theme. "You mind if I record what we say? I want to make sure I get it exactly right."

"No. Go ahead."

Satisfied, Hunt looked up. "Let's cut to the chase, Doctor. Do you think it was Pinkert?"

Again, the unexpected guffaw; again, cut off quickly. "I suppose I just inadvertently gave my answer away." In all seriousness, he continued. "I'd be surprised if it was Mike."

"Why?"

"First, you've got to know him. He needs to lose fifty pounds. Caryn hates extra weight on people. The other reason might be me. When Caryn and I had our thing, one of her big worries was that word would get out around the hospital. She told me that if she was going to do that again, it wasn't going to be with anybody she worked with. She didn't want gossip. She didn't want to hurt her husband.

She just needed to do what she had do to. Maybe that's a small thing, and maybe she changed her mind, but I think she stuck with it."

"You think she had other affairs?"

"Well, at least two. Which eliminates any moral objection to the idea, doesn't it? So it would have been a matter of convenience. I'd say probably." As though just remembering, McAfee snapped his fingers. "Are you really interested in seeing the rest of this place?"

"Sure." Hunt followed McAfee through a door into a long hallway. Since McAfee had never asked him to turn it off, he checked to make sure his tape recorder was still working. It was.

As they took the tour, it was evident that construction was well along. The internal walls separated administrative and medical offices from waiting areas and from operating theaters. The rugs weren't down yet, but the lighting was installed, the place about half painted, most of the equipment and furnishings still to come. But to Hunt it felt like a mostly unfurnished medical complex, not a warehouse anymore. When they got down to the far end, Hunt said, "Looks pretty close to done. When are you opening?"

McAfee crossed his arms over his chest, proud of what he'd wrought. "I'm shooting for the first of the year, give or take a couple of weeks. I start hiring staff in the next week or two."

"So everything's a go?"

"Pretty much. There's always last-minute problems, and I'm sure there will be on this, but all in all I'm fairly confident."

Hunt decided to take the gloves off. "Pretty big change in a week, isn't it?"

McAfee's face went slack, then reddened. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, I mean, obviously, last week you were fighting Caryn over a partner you didn't want in the business. But you needed his money to keep construction going. Now both those problems are gone. Also gone is an original headstrong partner who was giving you nothing but headaches. How much life insurance did you and Caryn take out on one another?"

"I don't have to answer that. And I resent the h.e.l.l out of the implication. I loved Caryn."

"How much insurance?" Hunt repeated. "It's in the public record. If you make me look for it, I might get cranky. How much?"

"Two and a half million."

"Each?"

"Each."