Part 35 (1/2)
”And you intend to prove this,” Turner said, ”to Juhle's satisfaction? Right here, right now. How do you intend to do that?”
”By comparing the stories you've told and seeing where they don't agree. But also, a little bit,” Hunt replied, ”by the process of elimination. You, for example, Mr. Turner. Mr. Mugisa drove you home right after the COO meeting on the night Nancy Neshek was killed. You've got your son and your wife and the other kids who were there building their homecoming float who will swear that you were with them until you went to bed. No one's suggested that you've done anything different, and you can prove that. So you didn't kill Ms. Neshek, and therefore you didn't kill Dominic.”
Turner sat back, shaking his head in derision. ”Well, of course I didn't. The idea's ridiculous.”
”The whole concept is ridiculous,” Jaime Sanchez said. ”Lola and I went to dinner after that meeting, and then home together.”
”Where did you go to dinner?” Hunt asked.
”The Hayes Valley Grill. We walked there from City Hall. They know us there. I'm sure I'll even have a credit card receipt.”
”And after that?”
”Jesus Christ!” Turner raised his hands as if in exhortation. ”Inspector Juhle, is this the kind of questioning that Mr. Hunt thinks is going to get us anywhere? Do you have any reason to believe that Jimi and Lola Sanchez are any kind of even potential suspects in either of these murders?”
Juhle said, ”No, sir. No, I don't.” He turned to Hunt. ”If this is your idea of breaking the case, Wyatt, maybe you should send these good people home and let me go about doing my job, which is arresting my suspect.”
Hunt kept his cool. ”Mr. Sanchez,” he said, ”my apologies to you and your wife. I was using you as an example of Mr. Turner's point about the process of elimination, which I think we can all agree is not too satisfying. Far better is the question of the information we've received, and where what one person told us is contradicted by somebody else.” Now Hunt turned in his chair. ”For example, Mrs. Como. You told me that your husband was in love with Ms. Thorpe and that-”
Ellen cut him off and snapped back at him. ”He was. He told me. There wasn't any doubt about that.”
”No, not about that bare fact. Your husband was in love with her, okay. But Alicia swears that they didn't have a physical relations.h.i.+p.”
”Well, she's lying. What do you expect?”
”I'm not lying,” Alicia said, as Roake put a restraining hand on her arm.
Hunt turned to Ellen and went on. ”How do you know Alicia's lying?”
”Because they were caught in the office.”
”Making love, you mean?”
”f.u.c.king, is what I mean. f.u.c.king is what they were doing, not making love. Don't try to dignify it.”
”And where were they doing this?”
”What? What do you mean?”
”I mean, physically, where were they having s.e.x in the office when they were caught?”
”I don't know. How would I know?”
”So how did you know about it in the first place?”
”Well.” Her brow clouded, then cleared. ”Lorraine told me. I think I even told you that, didn't I, Mr. Hunt?”
”Yes, you did. So, Ms. Hess.” He came around to face her. ”Let me ask you. Where in the office did you discover Mr. Como and Alicia having s.e.x?”
Hess had straightened in her seat, her hands on her lap. ”I don't know.” She shook her head. ”I wasn't the one who saw them. It was one of my people, one of the young women.”
”Do you remember who, exactly?”
”No. It seemed like everybody knew kind of all at once. You know how offices are.”
”So you, Ms. Hess, didn't really know for sure firsthand about this physical side to Alicia's and Dominic's relations.h.i.+p?”
”No. Not firsthand, no.”
”And yet you gave this information to Mrs. Como?”
”I thought she needed to know.”
Ellen Como spoke up again. ”I did need to know, G.o.d d.a.m.n it.”
”Yes, well, and Ms. Hess made sure that you did, didn't she?”
”She's a friend. Of course she did.”
”Of course.” Hunt took a breath, s.h.i.+fted again in his chair. ”Mr. Carter, as Dominic's driver, you must have been privy to many of his private thoughts and even secrets, isn't that true?”
”I like to think so.”
”Did you ever have occasion to hear him talk about Alicia Thorpe?”
”Yes, frequently, since she started driving him mornings.”
”Was he in love with her?”
”Yes. At least, that's what he told me.”
”And did he also tell you any details about his love life, if any, with her?”
Carter came out with a dry chuckle. ”Only the fact that he didn't have any love life with her.”
”That's not true!” Mrs. Como exclaimed. ”I know he-”
”No, ma'am. It is true as I know it.” Warming to his topic, Carter brought in the rest of the circle. ”He laughed about it, how he had this pure love that neither of them were going to do anything about. They talked about it. How seeing her every day, not being able to touch her, knowing he was never going to be able to touch her, it was just breaking his heart.”
Again, Ellen Como couldn't take it. ”Bulls.h.i.+t, Al!” she said. ”That's just bulls.h.i.+t.”
”No, ma'am. That's what he told me.”
”Okay, Al,” Hunt said. ”Let me ask you this. In your eight years driving Dominic, did you ever know him to see other women?”
At this, Carter hesitated, looking first at Ellen Como, then over to Lorraine Hess. ”Yes,” he said. ”Many times.”