Hardy 11 - Suspect, The Read Online Free Page A

must have thought she'd only recently gone under?"
    "I don't know about that. We took a pulse and called him off."
    "And what'd he do?"
    "He just stopped, no fight in him. Breathing hard, you know. Then he stood up and tried to cover her up with that towel over there."
    "What do you mean, 'tried'?"
    "Well, it was too small for all of her. And, you can see, she's a little bent up. He started low, then moved it up, then over her face, then back down. It was kind of pathetic, tell the truth. Then finally Jerry here walked him off and sat him down inside."
     
     
    Sitting on the counter, still on the telephone, Stuart Gorman was crying silently, making no attempt to stem the flow of tears. His shoulders were hunched, one arm tucked under the other one. He barely whispered, saying, "I know" and "Yeah, baby, I don't know," and Juhle could watch no more. Instead he went back outside to the deck and stood in silence as they bagged the body and began to lift it and load it onto the gurney.
    Juhle didn't want to watch that, either. Reflecting that there weren't that many fun things to do at homicide scenes, he went back to the kitchen. He pulled around a chair and sat on it.
    The phone conversation continued a few more minutes before Gorman said, "Do you need me to come up there? You're not. Where are you? You've only been up there two weeks and . . . ? Okay, okay, you're right, it doesn't matter. Call me when you get close, and I'll come get you."
    He clicked the phone off and, as though it were a high explosive, placed it next to him on the counter. He closed his eyes and, for a long moment, didn't move.
    Finally, Juhle spoke. "She going to be all right?"
    Gorman tried and largely failed to arrange his face into a controlled expression. "I don't know," he said. "I don't have any idea." He exhaled heavily. "I don't believe this. This can't be happening."
    Juhle resisted his urge to leave the man to his miseries. If he had in fact killed his wife—and his obvious pain and possible remorse now did not in the slightest degree rule out that possibility—then this was the time to exploit his vulnerability. Juhle needed to get him talking again, so he asked, "What school does she go to?"
    "Reed. My alma mater. Although it turns out she's down in Santa Cruz now. Don't ask me why. But she's enrolled at Reed." He paused. "She's smart and weird, like her dad, and the place worked pretty well for me."
    "How were you weird?"
    A dry chuckle caught in Gorman's throat. "How was I not weird? I just never fit in as a kid. I was big, gangly, ugly." He pointed to the birthmark on his face. "This thing. I liked solitude. I wanted to write. That by itself is weird enough. When I think about it, that was probably half the problem with me and Caryn. She wanted someone normal, and I wasn't him."
    "Normal in what way?"
    "Motivated by money, for example. Guys my age, we're supposed to be driven by money. It's how we gauge our success in the world, right?" He shrugged. "I don't really think too much about money and never have."
    "And this bothered your wife?"
    Gorman smiled, but there wasn't any humor in it. "Are you kidding me? What greater failing can a man have than not to be the primary wage earner in his family?"
    "You weren't that?"
    Another shrug. "I make more than decent enough money, I think. Eighty or a hundred grand a year, give or take. I'm a writer, so there's good years and bad years. But eighty grand to me is a fortune. It's not like I don't publish, like I'm not putting out good work. It just doesn't pay enough to suit Caryn."
    "She wanted you to make more?"
    He shook his head impatiently. "It wasn't so much that. With her income, we certainly didn't need any more money. She made enough for most third-world countries."
    Juhle cast a quick glance around—the eight-burner stove, the Sub-Zero refrigerators, the shining copper pots and pans, all the gadgets on display on the counters, the other creature comforts he'd noticed everywhere. To say