The Hunt Club (36 page)

“And you've got to be on top of it.”

Another nod. “At the very least, I've got to see if I can make my suspect talk to me again before she gets lawyered up.”

“It's a she again?”

“Oh, yeah. A definite she.” He nodded. “Carol Manion.”

Connie almost laughed. “No. Really.”

“I'm not kidding.” He rubbed his hand over her leg. “But I've been trying to tell myself to go slow, make sure I do everything by the book. If I screw this up—”

“How are you going to do that? Have you screwed up anything yet?”

“No. But I don't have much to show, either.”

“But now you might?”

“Now I think I do.”

“So what's the problem? Go get her.”

“Just like that?”

“That's what you do, Dev. You play by the rules, okay.

You don't cheat. But you get it done, don't you? You always get it done.”

“So far. I've been lucky.”

“Not just lucky. Good. Careful. By the book. But you don't have to do the book slow. That's never been your style. Slow would have gotten you dead last year, instead of being a hero.” But she saw something in his face. “Hey, you, look at me. Don't you
dare
let those small and ugly people get inside of you, you hear me? You know what you did, what you had to do. You didn't second-guess yourself. You acted bravely and wisely and saved a lot of lives in the process.”

“And lost one.”

“No. Shane wasn't anything to do with you. He was gone before either of you moved. We've been over this, babe.”

“I know.” A silence settled. “I'm talking about the Manions, you know. If it's her and if it gets political again and I get squeezed—”

“If, if, if…we don't do
if
. Remember? If she's killed somebody, bring her down.”

“Maybe three people.”

“And you want my opinion should you go downtown?”

“I think I just got it.”

She broke a smile, came forward with a kiss. “Don't walk,” she said. “Run.”

Mickey slept well
and, undisturbed throughout the night, woke up a bit later than he'd imagined he would, as the last bit of ground fog was dissipating. He threw his sleeping bag back into the trunk and crossed half the valley again over to St. Helena, where some small counter-style restaurants had already opened for breakfast. After cleaning up a little in the restroom, he went and sat alone at one of the six tables, each one dressed with a perfect orchid and a starched white cloth. He ordered his Peet's French Roast coffee, a Roblochon-and-chive omelette of Kelly Ranch organic eggs, with a side of Yukon Gold hash brown potatoes, house-made ancho-chili ketchup, and an Acme Bakery brioche. His waitress, Julia, was about twenty-eight years old, and when he first saw her, Mickey tried to remember when he might have heard about Julia Roberts going into waitress work, but the moment seemed to elude him.

She was nice, too.

After she'd refilled his coffee cup three times, he refused the fourth and leaned back in contentment, asking for the check.

“You're sure? Nothing else?”

“Well, there is one thing, if you don't mind.”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Maybe you can tell me why I live in San Francisco and not here.”

“Oh, I love it down there.”

“I do, too, but I love it here more.”

“I know.” She seemed to be floating in some ethereal place, completely unconcerned and unaware of the passage of time. Suddenly, but in no hurry, she looked all around her, taking in her elegant surroundings. “This place really is like nowhere else.”

“Especially today.”

She flashed a wicked smile. “Don't tell me you're going to the auction.”

“Okay. I won't tell you that.”

“But you are?”

“Actually, sadly, no.”

“Well, that is sad, but if you were, I was going to hate you for a minute there.”

“And now you don't have to. Do you work here all day?”

“Is that a line?”

“It could be. It might not be. If it was a line, would it offend you?”

“No.”

“Okay, then, let's call it a line.”

“That's sweet, but I've got a boyfriend.” Her smile touched his heart as she told him she'd be right back with his check. He watched her with terrible longing as she waited on the other tables, as nice and efficient with each of them as she'd been with him. Maybe she was a robot, a Stepford wife in the making. But damn…

When she came back to him, she leaned over and confided in him as though they were old friends. “Don't look now,” she said with quiet excitement, “but the older couple and the boy at the front table? They are going to the auction.”

“Who are they?”

“The Manions. Mega high rollers. Manion Cellars?”

Mickey threw a quick glance toward them. “Out eating breakfast just like normal folks?”

“Actually, they come in here a lot.”

“You think they're taking the kid to the auction?”

“Maybe not. But if they do, I doubt they'll let him bid.”

But the Manions had paid their bill, and now they were getting up. Mickey, fighting sticker shock at the twenty-eight-dollar breakfast tab, decided he could make back some of it by going on the clock for Hunt. He left two twenties for Julia under his plate—might as well leave her with a good memory of him. At least he wasn't cheap.

He walked out onto the street, which now at a little after nine was beginning to come alive, although there was no sign of the Manions.

Which, he thought, was impossible. They'd only left the restaurant thirty or forty seconds before he had followed them out, and he'd seen them start off to the right. He didn't think they could have even made it to the nearest corner. They must have entered one of the adjacent shops, so he started strolling, window-shopping. Four doors up, an old-fashioned barber's pole slowed him down, then drew him inside.

“I just thought
you'd want to know.” Mickey was back in his car in St. Helena, fresh from his own haircut.

“I do want to know,” Hunt said. He hadn't gotten out of the holding cell until three thirty in the morning, Shiu and Poggio making his life unpleasant just because it was so darn much fun. They'd protected the lives of the good citizens of San Francisco by verifying Hunt's permit to carry a concealed weapon, by making sure that his PI license was valid, then graciously informing him that they were letting him off with a warning for carrying the wrong weapon on his permit. He felt that Shiu honestly expected him to say thank you.

Now at least he understood why Juhle hated him.

By the time he'd retrieved his car and gotten back home, it was close to five o'clock, and he'd crashed in his clothes for about four hours, until Mickey's call woke him up. “But,” Hunt said, “I thought you weren't going up there.”

“Yeah. I changed my mind.” Mickey waxed poetic for a moment or two about the day's probable delights, including the breakfast he'd just eaten, which would have been worth its exorbitant price tag even if Julia Roberts hadn't been his waitress.

“Did you ask her out?”

“No. She's got a boyfriend.”

“And also twins, from what I hear.”

“What? My waitress?”

“No. The real Julia, you fool. You want to tell me about the Manions?”

“Well, first off, the kid did not want the haircut, and I can't say I blame him. But the mom had made up her mind. By the way, is she really the mom? I have to say, grandmother is more what she looks like.”

“Well, she might be the grandmother, but she's also the mom.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. It's complicated. So, the haircut Todd didn't want? What about it?”

“They buzzed him clean. He was pissed. I would have been pissed, too. But she was, like, extremely uptight about it. It was going to happen.”

“She needed to change his appearance. Today.”

“Why?”

“So he wouldn't look like that picture you saw yesterday with me and Juhle. The kid.”

“That was him?”

“That was him. So where are they now?”

“I don't know. I assume back home or off to the auction.”

Hunt's voice reflected his disappointment. “You're not still with them?”

“That would have been a little obvious, don't you think? No. Since I was there, I stayed and got my own haircut. Just a trim, thanks.”

“Mick.”

“You want me to catch up with them again.” Not a question.

“If you could.”

“Are you coming up?”

“What do you think?”

From Hunt's descriptions,
Juhle thought he'd have better luck with Caitlin Rosalier than with any of the other principals. Besides that, she lived in Boston, where it wasn't so early in the morning. The gods smiled, and she was home and seemed eager to talk with him.

The phone call she'd had last night had really bothered her and kept her awake most of the time since then. Yes, she would be fine with Juhle faxing her an autopsy photograph. “It's not too gross, is it?” She'd been really close to Staci once and now seemed to need some sense of closure if, in fact, her friend had been the victim. There was a copy shop on the corner, and she could go there and call Juhle back with the fax number, and he'd told her he would wait for her call.

Before it came, though, Juhle's partner got back to him with the news that he wasn't coming in on this weekend morning. Maybe Juhle didn't realize it, but some cops couldn't live on their meager city incomes and had to supplement their earnings with part-time work such as Shiu's shifts at the Manions. Juhle would stay in touch and keep him informed, though. Right? Thank you very much. He could probably arrange to be in by early afternoon if it was a real emergency, but he didn't even want to commit to that until Juhle had something truly substantive and, in Shiu's words, “Remember, based on evidence, Dev.”

Juhle hung up, said, “Asshole,” and stared out through the fog at the freeway from his desk in the otherwise empty homicide detail.

For most of the next twenty minutes, he studied the forensics folder, laboring over the affidavit he would attach to the warrant he hoped to get on the Manions' two homes and their cars. At these locales, he would specifically be looking for the murder weapon or clothes that might be contaminated with blood or gunshot residue. From the cars, he hoped to get a hair or even a blood sample that would match Andrea Parisi's.

The evidence would not be as compelling since fingerprints lasted a long time, and perhaps Mrs. Manion had been to Palmer's home socially, but if he could get them, he'd like to find fingerprints indicating that Mrs. Manion had been in Judge Palmer's office. The rug in the judge's office, too, had yielded several different hair samples, and though any DNA or other sophisticated tests on these would be slow coming in, if they came up positive, they would help.

The telephone rang and he snatched at it. Caitlin, at last, with the fax number at her copy shop. He wrote it down, thanked her, told her to stay on the line if she could. He grabbed the best autopsy face photo of Staci Rosalier from the file and fed it into the detail's fax machine. By the time he was back at his desk, she was crying and he had his identification.

Still working on
the affidavit for his warrant, Juhle looked up and broke a smile. “Look what the cat dragged in. Don't blame me for anything about last night. I told you to go home.”

Hunt wasn't in much of a smiling mood himself. “Did you put them on me?”

“Give me a break, Wyatt. You did that to yourself. I even warned you. You find out anything for all your troubles?”

“Yeah. You're working with sociopaths.”

“Hey, that's on the application. Get over it.”

Hunt really hadn't come in to berate Juhle, and now he let it go, pointing at the folder. “They're up in Napa,” he said.

“I know.”

“How do you know that?”

“It was in the paper. Plus, you'll be pleased to hear that we've got four reasonably rock-solid IDs on Staci's picture. He's Todd Manion.”

“He also got his hair cut this morning. Buzzed.”

“Interesting. A little too late, as it turns out, but interesting.” Juhle's head jerked up. “But wait a minute. How did you find that out?”

“Mickey's up there.”

Juhle sat back, massaged his shoulder, apparently in real pain. When he spoke, he had his official voice on. “You've got to get out of this, Wyatt. I mean it. All the way out. And keep your guys out, too.”

“Hold it. Let me frame an appropriate response.” It took him about a second. “No, I don't think so.”

“You obstruct this investigation at this point—”

“Hey!” Hunt pointed down at Juhle's face. “I'm the only reason you've got an investigation at this point.”

Juhle remained calm. “Wyatt. It's moved beyond you. Caitlin Rosalier ID'd Staci about a half hour ago.”

“I knew that
twelve
hours ago.”

Juhle shook his head. “You didn't know it. You thought it. I proved it.”

“And lost half a day while you were at it. And stopped me in my tracks in the process.”

“That's because it
is
a process, my friend. Due process. Ring a bell? Sometimes it takes time to get it right.”

“Sometimes you don't have the luxury of time. How about that?”

“This isn't one of those times.”

“Except if it is, Dev. Except if it is.”

Hunt's words brought Juhle up short. The fire went out of his voice. “You still think you're going to find Parisi alive, don't you?”

“Let's put it this way. I'm looking for Andrea. You're looking for a murderer. We can pretend there's no inherent conflict.”

“Inherently, maybe not. But we'll be dancing close enough to one another we've got a pretty good chance we're going to trip each other up. And I need you to stay out of my way, Wyatt. I'm looking for a righteous arrest here before too long, and that whole process—
process
again—really is an orchestrated ballet. You've got to get it right or nobody applauds.”

“I like to think I'm sensitive to that, Dev. But your arrest really is not my issue.”

“You'll pardon me, though, if it's mine, huh?” But Juhle wasn't unaware of all of Hunt's contributions to his investigation so far. He'd basically built the case that Juhle was now trying to verify. And without any useful contributions from his true partner in homicide, Juhle was inclined to take whatever help he could get, so long as it didn't compromise his own endgame. He sat back in his chair, looked up at his friend. “So what are you here for?”

“I wanted to tell you about Napa and the haircut, make sure you were up to speed. I figure you're moving on your due process down here, am I right? Pulling warrants, whatever else you do. Get a team inside Manion's house and look around.”

“A little of that, hopefully, yeah. So meanwhile, what are you doing?”

“Meanwhile, I think I'm in Napa.”

“Doing what?”

“Shaking the sugar tree, seeing what falls out.”

Juhle dropped his head for a minute, then looked back up and spoke in a reasonable tone. “If I asked you please not to talk to Carol Manion, could you restrain yourself? If you get her spooked and lawyered up by the time I talk to her, which I will soon, I'll have you tortured and then killed, and I mean it.”

“I wasn't planning on talking to her, Dev. Even if she told me the truth, which she wouldn't, she couldn't tell me anything I don't already know.”

“Except maybe where she dumped Parisi.”

“That won't come out in an interview, Dev. She's not giving anything up voluntarily after all this.”

“So how does it come out?”

“I'm working on that,” Hunt said. “I find out, I'll let you know.”

Still long before noon,
and Juhle had his paperwork together as he stood in front of Judge Oscar Thomasino, on magistrate duty as he had been all week and obviously not particularly thrilled to be hassled at his home on a Saturday morning. Now the judge, in his street clothes, sat behind his desk in his office, the novel he'd been reading facedown on the blotter in front of him. “Refresh my memory, inspector,” he was saying, “but wasn't it very recently that you and your partner came to me for a similar search warrant?”

“Yes, Your Honor. A couple of days ago.”

“But it wasn't this same case, was it?”

“Yes, it was.”

Thomasino's kindly face clouded under his wispy white hair. He removed his Ben Franklin eyeglasses and absentmindedly began to wipe them with a cloth he'd pulled from his desk drawer. “What were the results of that earlier search if I may ask?”

“We found some .22 caliber weapons in the woman's house, Your Honor, which we ran ballistics tests on. And some clothes, which we tested for GSR.”

“And the results of those tests?”

“Negative.”

“I see.” Thomasino looked through his glasses, blew on them, then continued buffing the lenses. “And I presume you will be looking for positive tests this time on the same types of items—a gun, and clothes, and so on—if I sign this warrant?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Thomasino put his glasses back on, threw Juhle a curveball. “Where is your partner today, inspector?”

“At his part-time job. He moonlights doing private security.”

“Ah.” The information gave the judge pause. “But you've been working this case together up until this time? You and Inspector…”

“Shiu.”

“Yes, Shiu.” He came forward a bit, elbows on his desk. “What I'm getting at, Inspector Juhle, is whether—this is just a question, so please don't take offense—whether your appearance here before me, without your partner, might indicate some lack of accord between you and Shiu about whether this warrant is supported by the evidence.”

“No, Your Honor. I don't believe there's any lack of accord. Inspector Shiu feels he needs to augment his salary…”

Thomasino held up a hand. “Many of us do, Inspector, many of us do. And yet I'm fairly certain that most of your fellow homicide inspectors, if they happened to be working the extremely high-profile case of a murdered federal judge, might find it incumbent upon themselves to, say, cut their extraneous work a little short or even cancel it altogether if critical evidence suddenly came to light on a Saturday morning. Don't you think that might be the norm?”

“I do, Your Honor.”

“Let me take it a little further, if you don't mind. Do you think your own partner, Inspector Shiu, would voluntarily miss the opportunity to take a more active role in what would no doubt be the most important, the most
significant
arrest in his entire career if he believed that you were close to a breakthrough in that case?”

“Normally, yes, he might, Your Honor. He would, I'm sure. But in this case…”

“Go on.”

“Well, Inspector Shiu moonlights for the Manions. He's been with them for several years that I know of. I have often thought that it's not impossible he rose up as quickly as he did through the department and made it to homicide because of, shall I say, political influence.”

“Friends of the Manions?”

“Just a pet theory,” Juhle said.

“Not a nice one.”

“No, Your Honor. But we were being frank.”

“So you think he sees this warrant as some kind of conflict of interest?”

“I wouldn't go that far. Let's just say, he might feel uncomfortable having to explain to the Manions why he was part of having it served on them.”

“And you think by the same token that he might be choosing to distance himself from an endeavor that he finds ill-conceived and which he also perceives might infuriate influential and powerful people without guaranteeing any success in the case. Inspector, people in your trade might call that a clue.”

Juhle remained silent.

Thomasino nodded and sighed, an aggrieved expression flitting across his features. “Inspector,” he said, “since we're being frank and off the record here, let me ask you something else, just between us. Do you feel that besides its natural importance, that there are people at the Hall and in the city at large who view this case as a kind of a test for you personally?”

The import of the question rocked Juhle, but he stood his ground. “Yes, Your Honor, I think I do. But I'm trying not to let that affect my handling of it.” He pressed on in the face of Thomasino's skeptical look. “In the past few hours, Your Honor,” he said, “I've learned irrefutably that Carol Manion's adopted child was the natural son of Staci Rosalier, the woman killed with Judge Palmer. Mrs. Manion has gone to great lengths over the past eight years to keep these facts hidden. To the extent that when I went to talk to her about this case just last week, she neglected to mention anything about it.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

“No, Your Honor, but…”

“But you think she should have volunteered the information?”

“To me it's unimaginable that she didn't, Your Honor. Unimaginable. If only to say, ‘I know this is an incredible coincidence, but I think you should know about it.' She couldn't have been unaware of it.”

Thomasino considered, fingers templed at his lips. He looked down at the notes he'd scribbled while Juhle had been laying out the whole rather complex scenario. “I may have gotten some details wrong, inspector, and if so correct me. But as I understand it from the way you've outlined it to me here, Mrs. Manion adopted a baby from a Staci Keilly, isn't that so? And if so, why would the name Staci Rosalier prompt her to mention her child to you? If you, in fact, even had
that
name on Tuesday afternoon when you spoke to her.”