And especially after the hardball she'd been playing with him on the interview and everything else, he wasn't in the mood to be doing her any favors anyway. And if Gina thought that Juhle could know the whereabouts of an armed suspect who was the object of a murder warrant and knowingly let that person remain at large for even one extra minute, she had another think coming.
So no sooner had Juhle gotten off the phone with Gina than he told his wife that he'd be out late, and put some wheels in motion. The cell tower site gave him a confined area to search. All the district cars started checking out parking lots for vehicle license numbers-by now, the plates Stuart had stolen had been reported. The result was that at 11:21 p.m. Juhle flashed his badge at the night clerk at the Hollywood Motel, showed the man a recent picture of his suspect, and was told that the man he sought had checked in this afternoon under the alias of Stuart Ghoti. The clerk specifically remembered because he paid cash, which he did not see too often. He was in Room 29, around the corner and about halfway down the block.
Now, just after 11:30, Juhle had the street blocked off in both directions by the San Mateo County presence, and had his own San Francisco team of two officers out of their car, accompanying him to the motel room door. All of the men had their holsters unbuttoned, ready for action.
Stopping at the door, Juhle listened for a minute and heard the low hum of a television that also cast its flickering glow on the window blinds. He figured he had enough adrenaline flowing now to pull a locomotive uphill, and tried to gather himself to get control over his emotions and excitement, but it was a losing battle. For one last time, he considered other options, such as having one of his backup people call the room. Or even simply knocking on the door and announcing himself. But he'd already rejected those options- Stuart Gorman might try to flee through them all in one of those situations; he might learn that he was surrounded and, panic-stricken, commit suicide with the gun that Juhle believed in his heart that he still and had always had with him.
No, the thing to do was what he'd decided to do. A no-warning storming of the room. None of this bullhorn, come-out-with-your-hands-up bullshit. They had the "door opener," a massive, cylindrical metal weight on chains. One swing at the flimsy motel door would be all it took. Looking side to side at his two acolytes, he nodded.
The wood shattered as if it were balsa, the door flew backward, and Juhle followed it in, hitting the light switch just inside.
Stuart, a deer in headlights, leaning back on pillows set up against the headboard, took in the situation in a heartbeat, then threw a lightning glance at the pistol that was still out next to him on the bed table.
"Don't even think about it!" Juhle yelled. "Put your hands over your head! Now!" Juhle was crab-walking straight toward him, his gun centered right between Stuart's eyes to make sure he had his complete attention. Three steps later, Juhle had Stuart's gun in his left hand, his own in his right. His backup team was already all the way across the room, on the far side of the bed, their own weapons out, leveled at the suspect.
For a long moment, time froze. No one moved. The television nearly masked the sound of the men's heavy breathing.
Finally, Stuart said, "You're making a mistake."
"I don't think so," Juhle said. Then added, "Being a smart guy, you probably already figured this out. But you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…"
Twenty-three
At 9:00 a.m. sharp on Wednesday, September 28, nine business days after Stuart Gorman was arrested on a charge of first-degree murder, with a cheerful "Good morning," his attorney walked into the reception area outside the office of San Francisco District Attorney Clarence Jackman. Gina, in high dudgeon at what she took to be Juhle's lies and even betrayal, had scheduled this appointment on the morning after Stuart's arrest. His preliminary hearing was scheduled for the next day in Judge Cecil Toynbee's courtroom, Department 12.
Jackman's secretary was a large, handsome, light-mocha-skinned woman in her early forties named Treya Glitsky, whom Gina knew very well, both professionally and socially. Treya's husband, Abe, was deputy chief of inspectors in the Police Department and also the best friend of Gina's law partner, Dismas Hardy, so it was a tight circle.
"And a good morning to you too." Treya looked over from her computer and broke a welcoming smile, getting up out of her chair and coming around her desk to hug her visitor. "Clarence is expecting
you," she said, then added more quietly, "but I wanted to warn you that he had Gerry Abrams in here yesterday afternoon for a good while."
"To brief him?"
"I'd assume. Or just bring him up to speed. This thing's gotten big in a hurry, hasn't it?"
"It's crazy," Gina said. "You get a little celebrity buzz, you'd think the world revolves around it. But it's also, between you and me, the reason Clarence has to step in and call this thing off. It's going to be an embarrassment to him."
"Well," Treya said, "Gerry's been beating his own drum pretty hard too."
"Don't I know it."
Indeed, it would have been hard for anyone to miss. Since the arrest, the media had been having a field day with the story of the new-age outdoor writer and his brilliant doctor wife. And Gina had no doubt about the source of the dozens of leaks that fueled the nearly endless recaps and updates. Over the past two weeks, Gerry Abrams had become almost a household name in San Francisco, as had Stuart Gorman. And of course, this had increased Gina's profile as well, even if her mantra throughout it all had been that she had no comment except to say that her client was innocent, and would be acquitted if there was a trial.
But still, she had to admit that the constant barrage of media analysis was taking its toll on her confidence. While it remained true that the physical evidence pointing to Stuart's guilt was, in her opinion, light to nonexistent, nevertheless she found herself on several occasions over the last couple of weeks blindsided by one or another reporter's fresh recapitulation of all the circumstantial evidence. And-she had no need to remind herself because it remained a truism throughout her entire career-circumstantial evidence was sufficient to convict.
Gina had used her own spies in the Hall in the past couple of weeks to find out when Abrams was scheduled to appear in court, and she'd come down and sat in the gallery during two of his hearings. He had, to her mind, a scary amount of charisma and a persuasive style that, for all of its homespun sincerity, could not disguise the obvious intellect. She knew that a prosecutor such as Gerry Abrams could present his circumstantial case with such a strong narrative that it could quite literally trump a complete lack of physical evidence.
In fact, the pervasive onslaught had actually brought her back to some significant doubt about Stuart's factual guilt or innocence. By the time she'd come to the motel in San Mateo and talked him into turning himself in, she'd come to have faith in her client's story. All of his explanations and actions, even including going out to interview Caryn's business colleagues, had seemed convincing to her. But in the relentless prose of the print media and the endless analysis of the radio and TV pundits, the consistency of Stuart's guilty scenario was viscerally so powerful that it had literally, several times, made her sick.
And now on Stuart's behalf she was about to take another huge professional and personal risk. She hadn't been lying or making any kind of false threat to Devin Juhle when she'd referred to the DA as her close, personal friend. In fact, she'd been a member of Jackman's informal "kitchen cabinet," meeting regularly on Tuesdays for lunch at Lou the Greek's, for most of his administration. She considered him a fair, just, good man, and one with whom she shared a real friendship. The fact that he had apparently gone along with this prosecution, even to this point, filled her with a deep sense of foreboding. If he had serious misgivings about this case, he was keeping them private. But she knew that this wasn't Jackman's style. If he didn't believe in the case, he would have counseled-or ordered- Abrams to abandon it.