Hardy 11 - Suspect, The by John Lescroart Page B

talking to her, and she told me that you were one of the people with her standing on the corner this morning when I pulled up. Do you remember that?" Sure.
    "Well, she—Mrs. Sutcliff, I mean—she told me that you said you saw Mr. Gorman get home last night. Is that true?"
    "Yes."
    "Do you happen to remember roughly what time that was?"
    "Actually, I remember exactly. He got home at eleven thirty. That's my lights-out time on a school night, and I was just finishing at my desk when I saw him turn into the driveway."
    "And where's your desk?"
    "Just under the window there that looks down on the street."
    Juhle paused to consider his next question. "And you're sure it was Mr. Gorman? Did you see him get out of the car?"
    "No. But it must have been him. He opened the garage automatically and went inside. Then closed it behind him. So I never saw him. But it was his car."
    "You know his car on sight?"
    Her lip curled downward, the question apparently striking her as insulting. "Sure. I've gone skiing in it with Kym maybe ten times. So yes, I know the car."
    "I didn't mean any offense," Juhle said. "I guess I'm just asking how sure you are."
    "What? That it was Stuart? I don't know. I told you I didn't see him. But if he was driving his car, it was him. Because that was his car."
    "And how did you know that?"
    "I don't know. I just knew."
    Mrs. Robley decided to put in her two cents. "She knows what she knows, Inspector. She's not lying to you."
    "Of course not. There's no question of that." Juhle spoke matter-of-factly to Bethany. "I'm sorry if I sound critical. That's not my intention. I'm just trying to make sure of what you're saying. So now, getting back to Stuart, you watched him pull his car into his garage across the street and then close the garage door behind him?"
    "No." Again, the question seemed to frustrate her. "Look, I'm sure. No. I just saw him pull up and I'm like, 'Oh, Stuart's getting home,' and then went over and got in bed. I didn't think anything about it, except that I noticed it. The end. And I didn't sit at the window and watch until he closed the garage door behind him. Why would I do that? It wasn't all that interesting, dull though the rest of my life might be."
    Juhle hesitated, a fragment of a barely remembered something nagging at him. "But I believe you said . . . can you give me just a second?"
    "Sure. More, if you need."
    He thanked her, then walked a few steps down to the sidewalk and rewound the tape recorder. In a minute, he was back up at the door with Bethany. "Here," he said, "listen to this."
    When he pushed the recorder’s play button, they heard her voice saying, "No. He opened the garage automatically and went inside. Then closed it behind him. So I never saw him. But it was his car."
    "See?" he said. "You hear it?"
    "What?"
    "You say, 'Then closed it behind him.' Which you just said you didn't see him do."
    "I didn't. See him close it, I mean."
    "Well, which is it?"
    "It was closed."
    "Okay." Juhle rubbed away the crease in his forehead. He killed another few seconds fast-forwarding his tape recorder to the end again, and turned it back to record. Then he said, "Excuse me, Bethany, for being so dumb. But then how did you know it was closed behind him if you didn't see him close it?"
    For a brief moment, the question seemed to stump her. Her normally grave expression turned to a look of near-despair before she suddenly broke into a surprisingly quite lovely smile. "Because I saw him open it later," she said. "So it had to be closed."
    "You saw him open it? When was this?"
    "Twelve forty-five. Pretty much exactly again." She brought her shoulders up in a shrug. "I had insomnia. I always have insomnia. I hate it. But then I had to get up and go to the bathroom and I noticed it had been an hour and fifteen minutes already that I'd been awake, which made me start freaking out about how tired I'd be for school today." She let out a heavy sigh. "And which I am. Was. God."
    "So what happened?