He got lucky on his first try. Juhle was sitting in a breakfast nook, talking to Stuart's next-door neighbor, Leesa Moore. Their conversation was competing with the low drone of a television set that sat on the kitchen counter next to the microwave, tuned to some talk show with a male host. Juhle had no idea who the host was or why anyone would want to listen to him talk to his similarly unfamiliar female guest about the details of the two months she'd apparently spent, from what Juhle could gather by half-listening, confined in a basement as a sex slave for three teenage boys in upstate New York.
Leesa Moore was a well-preserved sixty-three-year-old who had lived in this house for twenty-six years, the last five of them alone after her husband had died. She was a retired schoolteacher who volunteered five mornings a week at a library branch in the Marina.
"Especially this past summer," she was saying, "it seemed the fighting was just about constant."
"Between Stuart and Caryn?"
"Oh, yes."
"Did you hear anything like a threat?" "Like what, exactly?"
"Like, 'I'm going to kill you.' Anything like that?"
"Well, no. Not specifically that. But swearing, a lot of swearing. It surprised me, coming from a doctor like she was. And such a respected writer. You'd think he'd have a better vocabulary. But it was a lot of 'F-this,' and 'F-that," and 'F-you.' I'm sure you can imagine."
"Yes, ma'am." Juhle had used a few F-thises in his life and thought there were worse crimes, but he had his witness talking and wanted to keep her in the mood. "Do you know if the argument had ever led to anything else?"
"Not to my knowledge." Eyes on her television, suddenly Leesa Moore came alive. "Oh my God," she said. "I don't believe it. Do you mind, Inspector, for a minute?" She pointed over to the TV, then reached and turned up the volume. "Look at this. They've got the boys on the show too."
And it was true. The host was explaining that they'd all been released from jail by now and were in their twenties. The poor woman, to whom this turn of events was evidently a surprise, was stuck to her chair, mouth agape, between tears and hysteria. The television audience was going wild.
"That's got to be staged," Juhle said.
"No, no. He does this kind of thing all the time. It's a great show."
Juhle and his witness followed the action together on the screen. After the woman had finally left her chair, got her language beeped as she swore at the host, and ran off the stage in tears, Leesa Moore turned the volume down again to a conversational level and brought her attention back to the inspector. "I'm sorry. Where were we?"
"We were talking about if Stuart and Caryn's yelling at one another had ever led to anything else. Something physical, I mean. And you said you didn't know about it if it had."
"That's right." She squinted in concentration, finally reaching over again and turning the TV sound off entirely. "Except, oh wait, maybe there was one time in the middle of last summer. I don't know if it was because they'd had a fight or something, but I got home from work and there was a police car parked in front of the house."
"Stuart and Caryn's house? Next door?"
"Yes. I stopped and stood by it for a minute, wondering if I should knock and see what had happened and if there was anything I could do to help. But in the end I just came home. When I looked out later-not too much later-it was gone."
"You're sure it had come to their house?"
"Well, no, I wasn't at first, although it was parked right in front of their place. But after it was gone, I called over there and asked Stuart if everything was all right, that I'd seen the police car and all. And he said everything was fine. That it had just been a misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding?"
"That's what he said."
"About what? Did you ask him?"
"No. He didn't seem anxious to talk very much about it."
"Did you ever notice any kind of marks on Caryn? A black eye? Anything like that?"
She shook her head. "But I didn't see as much of her anyway."
"So you never found out why the police car was there?"
"Well, not from them." The answer seemed to embarrass her. She went on. "Have you talked to the Sutcliffs yet? The neighbors on the other side?"
"Not yet."
"Well, Harriet-Mrs. Sutcliff-she was the one who had called the police. She thought somebody was going to get killed over there."
Q: Three, two, one. Case number 07-232918. This is Inspector Devin Juhle, badge 1667. The time is quarter after fifteen hundred hours on Monday, September 12th. I am at a residence at 1322 Greenwich Street and speaking with a sixty-four-year-old Caucasian woman who identifies herself as Harriet Sutcliff, the owner of the residence. Mrs. Sutcliff, I appreciate your agreeing to talk with me. How long have you been neighbors with Stuart and Caryn Gorman?
A: Since they moved in here. That was, I guess, fifteen or so years ago.
Q: Did you find them to be good neighbors?
A: Yes. At first. We liked them very much. Especially Art-my husband?-when he found out that Stuart wrote those flyfishing books. Art's a fisherman himself. So it was really exciting for him getting to know a celebrity like that. But the last couple of years, we haven't seen too much of them.
Q: And why is that?
A: It just seemed that they changed. First they seemed to stop doing social things together. And certainly with us. Stuart would still come by sometimes and talk to Art, but we almost never saw them together anymore. And then, by the summer, they seemed to just be fighting all the time.
Q: You heard them fighting?
A: Yes.
Q: Just words, or more than that? A: More, I'd say. Q: Like what?
A: Well, I definitely heard some things breaking over there. As though they were thrown. It was hard not to hear when that happened. And then one day last summer, I didn't want to but I felt I had to call the police. I thought somebody was going to get hurt.
Q: And so you did, in fact, call the police?
A: Yes. And a car came. It stayed a short while, but I don't think anything ever came of that. And since then I haven't talked to either Stuart or Caryn very much. I think they must have figured out that I'd been the one that called and they were mad at me.
Q: Did there continue to be fights after that one?
A: A couple, I think. But none so bad.
Q: Did you hear anything like a fight last night over there?
A: No. We-Art and I-we went to a movie and got back about ten thirty, and it was all quiet over there. Dark. And we were asleep by the time Stuart got home.
Q: By the time Stuart got home?
A: Right.
Q: And what time was that?
A: I don't know exactly. I gather pretty late.
Q: You mean this morning?
A: No, I don't think so. I believe he got home last night.
Q: Why do you believe that? If you were asleep and didn't hear him?
A: Well, I didn't see it myself, but because that's what Bethany said. There was a bunch of us from the block that gathered at the corner this morning. We didn't know what else to do, so we were all standing there waiting for someone to tell us what had happened, although we knew it was probably bad, with all the police and everything.
Q: I'm sorry, Mrs. Sutcliff. Can we go back to Bethany for a minute. Bethany is who?
A: Bethany Robley. She lives across the street, that stucco place right there two houses up. She and Kymberly know each other.
Q: And Bethany told you that Stuart came home last night?
A: That's what she said. She said it was around eleven thirty.
Q: Why did she think that?
A: I got the impression that she saw him. Her bedroom's right in that upstairs front window. You can see it from here, see? I can't believe he actually killed her, though I guess somebody must have. He really seems like such a nice man.