The Hunt Club (32 page)

“What?”

An embarrassed chuckle. “Well, it was a joke Andrea and I had with one another. Whenever she called on union business, she'd start by saying, ‘Start your engines, Mike.'”

“Start your engines?”

“It meant we were on billable time from the git-go. This call, though, my secretary told me it was Andrea on the line, I picked up and said, ‘I'm revving 'em up,' and she said, ‘Not this time I'm afraid.' So it wasn't the union. Is this what you wanted?”

“I'm not sure. It certainly doesn't hurt.”

“Good.” Then, “Mr. Hunt?”

“Yes?”

Eubanks hesitated. “Do you think there's any chance she's still alive?”

“No one's found her body yet.” Hunt's next words came out before he'd thought about them. “Until it turns up, I'm going to choose to keep hoping.”

“That's good to hear, especially since the rest of the goddamn world's already got her in the grave. I hope I was some help.”

He was going to make
a few calls right away, but it was closing in on five o'clock and there might be something on TV that he'd want to see first.

Hunt had bought his television so he could watch sports and the very occasional rented movie. He hadn't tuned in to a single regular network or even cable show in years. People he knew sometimes used to talk about
Seinfeld
or
Friends
and lately now
The Sopranos
or
Deadwood
or those reality-show stupidities. He didn't get it—maybe it was a habit he'd just never developed. Even if he had the downtime, which was rare enough, he would always prefer to do something active, keep the body or the brain engaged.

But now he had his set turned on to the news. For a new all-time low in tastelessness, he gave big points to the first channel that came on, with its picture of a smiling Andrea Parisi in the corner of the screen, the caption “Andrea Watch,” and a continually scrolling digital display under it counting the hours, minutes, and even seconds that she had been missing. 50:06:47.

Counting from the phone call to her cell phone, three o'clock Wednesday.

Changing the station, he caught a moment of anchor gravitas: “…who refused to be identified confirmed a few minutes ago that Andrea Parisi is now being considered a possible suicide and is, quote, not an impossible suspect, unquote, in the shooting deaths last Monday of Federal Judge George Palmer and his alleged mistress Staci Rosalier. San Francisco police would neither confirm nor deny this characterization, but…”

Enough already.

Hunt flipped to Trial TV. Rich Tombo was doing his part of the Donolan wrap-up out in front of the Hall of Justice, just around the corner. It seemed as though it had been forever since this morning in the street outside the Piersall offices when Spencer Fairchild had accused Hunt of colluding with Andrea in concocting this elaborate publicity stunt. When Tombo finished with his analysis of the prosecution's day in court, he staggered even the cynical Hunt by starting to introduce the new woman who would be taking over for the departed Andrea Parisi and providing insight into the defense…

Hunt couldn't even look to find out who it was.

Back on network TV, the next station he tuned to had moved along to the inability of authorities to identify any Rosalier next of kin. They had been supplied with a copy of the out-of-focus photograph of Staci's brother, and now the boy smiled out at Hunt while the female anchor's voice urged anyone who recognized this boy to either call the police or the number at the bottom of the screen.

But suddenly Hunt didn't see the kid's face anymore.

He saw the shape and color of what he was standing in front of. It, too, was out of focus, in the background, but once seen, unmistakable. In a second or two, he was back at his computer. Mickey's pictures of the Manion castle. The terra-cotta tower, the bougainvillea. He checked the other shots of the house from different angles, even finding the place where he supposed Todd Manion must have been standing when the picture from Staci's condo had been taken.

Back to Mickey's shot of Carol Manion and her son, coming down to the limo. And something else, at the edge of that shot.

He went back through the pictures again. One straight on of the front elevation, then one of the tower on the right, the triple garages and wide driveway to the left of the entrance portico. Hunt stopped on this one, leaned in to the terminal, although he saw it clearly enough—on the driveway, gleaming in yesterday's bright sunlight, a black BMW Z4 convertible.

Hunt knew Juhle
was off coaching Little League, and so called his cell phone, where he got voice mail: “Dev. The picture of Staci Rosalier's brother was taken in front of Carol Manion's house out in Seacliff. I don't know what this means exactly, but it's provocative as all hell to me. You might also want to see if there's a record of any phone calls between Palmer and Manion, office to office, home to home, anything. In any event, call me as soon as you get this. Go Hornets.”

He next considered calling the Manion home, even going so far as to pick up the phone, but he stopped himself. What was he going to say? This was after all a family of extreme wealth and prominence with an exquisite sensitivity to privacy. They had a full-time publicist whose job it was to keep their name out of the newspapers except in preapproved fashion in the society or business pages. You didn't just call them up out of the blue on a Friday night, tell them you're a private investigator, and ask them questions about their son, their relationship—if any—with a murdered federal judge, his mistress, and a missing lawyer. As a homicide inspector, Juhle could perhaps make that kind of a call, but even he would be hamstrung again by their constant limitation in this entire affair: a lack of physical evidence of any kind. What was he going to hang his questions on?

And what did Hunt have, exactly? A completely legitimate phone call about an already scheduled appointment from a wealthy woman to her prospective attorney. A picture of a young boy probably taken in front of Carol Manion's house. A black convertible.

Yahoo.

Six hours ago, Hunt felt he'd had more on Arthur Mowery and Jim Pine and even Gary Piersall, and the pursuit of those chimeras had wasted a lot of his time and gotten him precisely nowhere. He needed something real, something tangible and compelling that would at least supply Juhle with a wedge he could use to open some kind of an interrogation.

Since he was already at his computer, he got on the Net and Googled the enormous Manion hit list again, trying different combinations to narrow the field somewhat. When he combined Federal Judge George Palmer and Ward and Carol Manion, he found that the families must have known each other at least socially since they had attended a slew of the same fund-raising events in the city. He tried Staci Rosalier with Manion—zip—then with Todd Manion alone and got no hits with both, although Todd had nearly a thousand of his own, all but four of them mentioning one or both of this parents. The four independent listings were evidently captions from pictures of him without his parents that had appeared on one society page or another.

After fifteen minutes and no new leads, Hunt gave up the computer search. Something might be there among all the information on the Manions, but unless he had a more exact idea of what he was looking for—and he didn't—finding it would take forever. Like Mickey with his pictures of the Manions' home, he had to come at it from a different angle.

Before he left his place,
Hunt changed again, out of his sweats into slacks, street shoes, a heavy black sweater.

A half dozen cars clogged the small circular driveway and the immediate curb space around Judge Palmer's home on Clay Street. He parked seven or eight houses away, got out of the Cooper, and walked along the fog-draped sidewalk, still unsure of exactly what he was going to do. All he knew was that he had to act, to do something, look under rocks, talk to someone, get out of his place and away from the temptation of doing legwork on his computer. If nothing else, now at least he had a focus, a general thrust to what he wanted to discover.

If the Manions had known Judge Palmer from their mutual charity events well enough to feel that they should attend his funeral, then the judge's wife might be a source of information, of facts, maybe even of evidence. Jeannette had buried her husband this afternoon. As Hunt had hoped and surmised might happen, people had come from the cemetery and gathered afterward at her home. It was as good an opportunity as he was going to get.

Hunt skirted the garden inside the low wall, cast an appreciative glance at the gently trickling fountain, mounted the steps, and rang the doorbell. Inside they obviously weren't doing the hokeypokey, but judging from the buzz and volume of the conversation he heard, the crowd was at least trying to enjoy itself.

A woman about Hunt's age opened the door, gave him a somewhat wary half smile as if she might have recognized him. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so. I was wondering if I might get a few words with Jeannette Palmer.”

Immediately any trace of the smile vanished. “Are you a reporter?”

“No.” Hunt reached for his identification. “I'm a private investigator…”

“I'm sorry,” the woman said, “but this really isn't a good time, as you must know. My father's funeral was this morning, and my mother's really in no condition to talk to anybody right now. So if you'd like to call and make an appointment…” She backed up a step and started to close the door.

Hunt reacted without thought, put his hand out, his foot over the sill.

The woman looked down at the floor, at his arm holding back the door. “I'm closing the door now. I advise you to back off.”

“Please.” Hunt stayed where he was. “I'm not here to make trouble, I promise. But I've got an urgent situation that may literally be a matter of life and death.”

She shook her head. “Don't you see? You've already made trouble. This is trouble, right now.”

From behind her, Hunt heard a deep male voice. “Is everything okay here, Kathy?”

She turned back to the voice, opened the door another few inches. “This gentleman here says he's a private investigator and has to talk to Mom.”

“What about?”

“I don't know. I told him it wasn't a good time, but he wouldn't go. He's blocking the door right now. He says it's a matter of life and death.”

“Yeah? Let's see about that.” Suddenly, the door was pulled open from the inside. Hunt faced a scowling fullback in a dark suit with an amber drink in his hand. “Get the foot out of the house, pal. Right now. Then you've got ten seconds to tell me what's so important.”

“I'm trying to locate Andrea Parisi.”

“So are the police.”

“Different reasons.”

“Yeah? Well, last I heard, they're saying she killed my dad. So I'll go with theirs.”

“They're wrong. She didn't. She herself may have been killed.”

“By who?”

“The same person who killed your father.” Hunt lowered his voice, though not his intensity. “I've got a lead in that case. I need to follow it. Do you want to catch up with whoever killed your father or not?”

Hunt could see he'd scored. The big man rocked back. He released a deep, shuddering breath. Setting his drink down by the door, he told his sister he'd only be a second, then stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him. “I'm Dave Palmer. What do you know?”

“I'm trying to get some information on the Manions. They were at your father's funeral this morning. I believe your father or mother must have known them.”

“The Manions?” Hunt could see that the name came from about as far out in left field as it was possible to get. “You're talking the Manion Cellar Manions?”

“That's right.” If Hunt wanted to keep Dave listening, he knew he had to talk fast. He stretched the truth of what he knew. “Staci Rosalier had a framed picture of the Manions' eight-year-old son in her condo. Todd. They've been showing it on TV tonight, and it'll be in the paper tomorrow. Staci told her friends that he was her brother.”

Clearly, Staci Rosalier was a distasteful subject in this environment, but this was an unexpected development that overcame his qualms. “She was lying.”

“That's possible, I suppose. But why would she do that?”

“I don't know. Maybe she was a liar as well as a whore. She wanted people, maybe even my dad, to believe she came from money? She had powerful connections? I don't know.”

“She wasn't trying to impress my witness. Not like that, anyway.”

But Dave still resisted the very idea. “So if she's Todd's sister, she was a Manion, too? I don't think so.”

“I'm not sure about that either, to tell you the truth, the exact relationship. Maybe he was her stepbrother, or half brother. That's why I need to talk to someone who's maybe known them for a while. The Manions. Were they friends with your parents?”

“As you say, they knew each other. I don't know how close they were.”

“It would help if I could find out.”

He continued to wrestle with it. “Mom's not going to want to talk about Staci Rosalier. I guarantee you. She's not going to want to talk about any of this.”

“I'll leave her out of it if I can. What I really want to know about is Todd.”

“What's he been on TV for?”

“The police are trying to find Staci's next of kin.”

“So, then, this is all out now, or will be soon enough. With the Manions.”

“Maybe not,” Hunt said. “It's not a great picture. And it might be a couple of years old.”

Dave grabbed at another excuse to deny, his anger simmering at the surface, ready to boil over. “So you're saying the picture might not even be Todd?”

“No.
I'm
sure it's him.”

“So the cops will have an ID by tomorrow the latest, right?”

“Possibly.”

“And then they can go talk to the Manions and get anything they want and leave my mother out it.”

“Yeah. They could. If the ID's convincing enough. But by then if the Manions have anything to hide, they'll have been warned. They could just deny that it's a picture of Todd. And if they need a better story, they'll have more time to come up with one. It might have gotten to there already.”

“But you're talking the famous Manions. What could they possibly have to hide?”

“If there's any relationship at all between Staci Rosalier and themselves, it's got to be part of the investigation into your father's death. Don't you see that? And right now, it isn't. They are no part of it at all. All we have had so far is Carol Manion's appointment with Andrea Parisi—”

“Wait a minute. What?”

Hunt realized that in his haste, he'd left out a crucial link. Now he forged it in place. “So if there is a relationship—any relationship at all—between themselves and Staci, they've consciously kept that hidden so far. Don't you think they'd have to understand how important it is? Don't you find that pretty persuasive?” Hunt knew that it was, knew that he'd made all the pitch he could. He just didn't know if it would be enough. “Please,” he said. “This is critically important. I'll leave Staci out of it entirely. I won't take five minutes of your mother's time.”

The gatekeeper wrestled with himself. It wasn't yet dark, but a car with its lights on crawled by on the street out front. The fountain trickled into the pond. Inside the house, behind the closed door, a crest of women's laughter broke over the steady sea of conversation.

“Maybe. I'll ask,” said the judge's son.

Nobody was going to leave
Hunt alone with Jeannette Palmer.

She was flanked on the couch in the living room by her sister, Vanessa, and the daughter, Kathy, who had originally answered the door. The rest of what appeared to be perhaps twenty or so relatives and apparently a coterie of close friends congregated both here and in the kitchen and dining areas, but Hunt's first question to Mrs. Palmer killed the ambient noise in a rolling blackout throughout the house as though someone had thrown a switch.

“Carol Manion? Of course,” Jeannette said. “We've known Ward and Carol for at least fifteen years. They were at the funeral this morning.”

“Yes, I know.” Hunt had pulled over and sat on an ottoman in front of the coffee table. “I was there, too, Mrs. Palmer. But I didn't notice that they had their son with them.”

“Todd, you mean. No, that's right. I imagine he was in school. Funerals are no place for children, anyway.”

“He's about eight now, isn't he?”

She paused, considered a moment. “Yes, I think so.”

“So he's adopted?”

The question didn't slow her down at all. “Yes. He couldn't very well not be, could he? I think Carol's a year or two older than I am, and I'm sixty-two.”

“Mrs. Palmer,” Hunt said, “when the Manions adopted Todd, when they first brought him home, do you remember anybody remarking on the fact, the strangeness of it. I mean, Carol was fifty-six or fifty-seven, she already had a sixteen-year-old son. Cameron, right?”

“Yes. Cameron.”

“So what on earth did she want with a new baby? She did bring Todd home as a newborn, right?”

“Oh, yes, very much so.”

Hunt came forward expectantly. “Mrs. Palmer, did you think then or do you know now if Todd was actually Cameron's baby?”