Treasure Hunt (37 page)

 

 

It took him more like fifteen minutes, and when he got his breathing and the pain back under control, he was still at a complete loss as to how he was supposed to proceed. Al Carter, having made sure he was basically all right, and with nothing else to tell him, left Mickey and went back to his supervision of the pledge-card mailing.

When his head had sufficiently cleared, Mickey’s first inclination was to call Alicia and simply ask her.

But he found that he couldn’t do it. Some psychic barrier had arisen. He didn’t know what it meant yet, but for the first time now the weight of all the evidence against this woman he had believed and cared for had tipped the scales out of her favor. He didn’t immediately leap to the conclusion that something bad or, God forbid, tragic, had happened to Jim, or even that, if something had, Alicia had played a role in it. But the possibility loomed large and ate at his guts. Along with the stark reality that so far as he now knew, Alicia had been the last person to have been with Jim, who’d known where he was. And with all of that, suddenly—very suddenly—he found himself reluctant to give her any more benefit of his doubt. And that, more than anything, shook him to his depths. He found himself unwittingly back in Hunt’s camp, reinterpreting not only Alicia’s confession, but nearly everything she’d told him about herself and about her relationship with Dominic Como.

Doubting.

Was she truly the kind of person Mickey had heard about but never met, a bona fide psychopath—nerveless, emotionless, a consummate actor, absolutely capable of cold-blooded murder whenever it suited her convenience?

Doubting and doubting.

In the cascading maelstrom of his thoughts, his next idea was to call Tamara and Hunt and tell them the basic facts, even to warn them about his suspicions, such as they were. Although he realized that the warning would be something Hunt wouldn’t need. He was already on his guard. Still, this new information was too important to ignore.

How could Alicia have been with him all that time last night and never mentioned the fact that she’d driven Jim back from the memorial? Granted, they were engrossed in his strategy for her safety. Mickey himself had never been out of pain. They hadn’t exactly been chatting aimlessly about life and its vicissitudes, but he’d have thought that the bare fact of Jim’s transportation would have come up, at least tangentially, casually. “Oh, by the way, I saw your grandfather today and . . .” But there had been nothing.

Gradually, the pain subsided and his head cleared. He told himself—a thin whisper in the howling storm of his cogitations—that this latest information about Alicia need not have any sinister element. It was entirely within the realm of possibility that she’d dropped Jim off at the apartment, or even—more likely—at the Shamrock or another of the neighborhood bars. Once there, as he’d done quite recently, he’d gotten himself loaded and pitied by a barman or, amazingly enough, some lonely woman. And that he was even now, as Mickey fretted, sleeping it all off.

Meanwhile, Mickey was here to do a job. In the time it took him to talk to Lorraine Hess about her Monday-night activities, Jim could be back home and the fact that Alicia had driven him yesterday would simply be a favor she’d done. The new information had taken him by surprise, that was all. He’d take a figurative deep breath, not do anything out of panic.

So he stood and walked across the lobby and knocked on Hess’s door and a woman’s voice told him to come in.

She clearly couldn’t place him immediately, so he said his name again and the light came on. Looking fatigued and haggard, Hess nevertheless put her empathy for Mickey on her sleeve—the cast, the black eye. She stood up, matronlike, clucking and asking questions about his injuries, coming partway around her desk to make sure he got settled into his chair, asking if he’d like anything to drink or eat—they might have doughnuts left over in the lounge.

Mickey, somewhat to his own surprise, since he normally didn’t eat two doughnuts in a year, told her he wouldn’t mind some coffee, black, and maybe a doughnut, and she placed the order to someone over her intercom.

In a moment, someone knocked on the door and it opened to one of the Battalion members—a young teenage girl—bringing in coffee in a paper cup and a couple of round, sugared mounds of doughnut on a paper plate. Looking for permission from Hess, and getting a nod, she placed the items on the front edge of the desk, then actually curtsied and left, closing the door behind her. Mickey pulled his chair up to be within reach and took a bite of the pastry. “Oh, my God,” he said, “custard-filled. I’m in heaven.”

His enthusiasm brought a small smile to Hess’s face. “They’re my favorite too.”

Mickey washed down his bite of heaven with a sip of coffee, then held the paper plate out to her. “Have the other one.”

She shook her head no. “Can’t. I’ve already had two this morning, which is one over my limit, and should be two over it.” A beat. “So you should be in the hospital, but you’ve got too much work to do. And you’re here. So your work has to do with me?”

“Actually, with all the people who were at the Communities of Opportunity meeting at City Hall a couple of nights ago. Just basic legwork to eliminate people, really. How many of you were there, by the way?”

Her face became contemplative. “All told, let’s see, maybe twenty. Do you want just the professionals, or everybody? Some of us had staff with us.”

“I think just the professionals, unless you think one of the staff might have had issues with Nancy Neshek.”

“Oh, of course,” she said. She sat straighter abruptly, suddenly struggling against a wave of emotion. “This is about her, isn’t it? Was that the night she was killed?”

“Yes.”

“So after the meeting?”

“That’s right. We’re going on that assumption, although it could have been the next morning. She was down close to room temperature when she was discovered, so it had to be fifteen, maybe twenty hours, before ...”

But Hess was holding her one hand, putting the other over her mouth. “Please,” she said. “I don’t mean to be squeamish, but . . .” She exhaled heavily, closed her eyes, came back to him. “These details. I go a bit light- headed when I think about the reality of them. Of Nancy. I mean, the person who was Nancy. To think of her as lying there at room temperature.” She shook her head from side to side. “I’m sorry.”

Mickey waved it off. “It’s all right. I shouldn’t have been so descriptive. But the point is we’re trying to eliminate individuals who the police won’t have to interrogate at all, and the best way to do that is establish who had alibis and who didn’t.”

“Alibis for what? The night Nancy was killed?”

“Right. As I say, in most cases, just a formality.”

The confusion on Hess’s face gave way to a frown. “But at the service yesterday, your Mr. Hunt said they were assuming that the same person killed Dominic and Nancy.”

“That’s right.”

“But that means . . . you think . . . I mean, on any level, do you think I might have done these things? That there’s even the remotest possibility?”

“No, ma’am. It only means that if you can account for your time when either one of the murders was committed, you’re automatically and completely eliminated, probably from both of them. Have the police asked you about the night of Dominic’s death yet?”

A hand pressing into the scalp at her hairline, she was still shaking her head slowly back and forth. She seemed about to break into tears. “I can’t believe this.” Taking a breath, getting herself together, she finally looked across her desk at Mickey. “I don’t know about the individual days, one by one. But I have a twelve- year-old boy, Gary. He’s a special needs child. He’s just started seventh grade and he’s not having an easy time of it. With his medical bills and the economy being what it is, I had to let go one of his tutors, so we’ve been doing homework together every school night for at least the past three weeks. A lot of homework. Every single school night, Sunday through Thursday, and even a little bit on the weekends. I’ve also had to cut his caregiver back to half-time. But I’m sorry. This isn’t about me. You can ask Gary if you need to. He’ll remember. I know he’ll remember. It’s been grueling. He won’t need any reminding.”

“So you went to this meeting on Monday night?”

“I did. But it was over at eight or so, and I was home by eight-thirty. Not much later, I’m sure. Where does Nancy live? Do you know?”

“Not exactly,” Mickey said. “Somewhere out in Seacliff.”

Hess spread her hands, palms out. “I live on lower Telegraph Hill. I would have had to drive pretty fast.”

“Well, there you go. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She put both hands over her mouth for a moment, then lowered them so she could speak. “It’s just that I’m so lost over this. Over everything that’s happened. It just doesn’t seem possible.”

“I know,” Mickey said. “It’s hard.” He placed his coffee cup back on the desk. “While I’m here, could I trouble you to write me down a list of everybody you remember at that Monday meeting? It looks like I’m going to have a long day.”

She sighed. “All right. I’ll try to do that. But I can’t really believe it was anybody who was there. I mean, everybody loved Nancy.”

“I’m sure they did,” Mickey said. “I’m sure they did.”

 

 

Armed with his list of names, many with phone numbers, of those who’d been at the meeting, Mickey sat with Hess’s permission in one of the free cubicles in the large open staff room at the Ortega campus. Making conversation while she’d drawn up the list, he’d let drop that he didn’t have a telephone, and she’d offered him the use of theirs. Save him a lot of driving. Beyond the five he’d heard of—Turner, Hess, Neshek, and the two Sanchezes—there were seven other nonprofit professional executives.

His first call wasn’t to any of these people, though, but back to his own apartment, where he listened to the answering machine. Next he called the office and got his sister on the first ring. “Any word on Jim?” he asked.

“Still nothing.”

“Maybe I should drop by the apartment.”

“He’d pick up the phone, I think, if he were there. And I’ve called about ten times already.”

“Yeah. I just did too.”

“I’m really worried here, Mick.”

“I know. Me too.” He took a beat. “Is Wyatt still there? You think he’ll talk to me if I told you it might be important?”

“He’ll talk to you, Mick. You got something important?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. You tell me.”

He told her.

 

 

 

 

Hunt listened on the telephone as Mickey
gave him the play- by-play on his interview with Lorraine Hess, such as it was. Down to the cute Battalion-member who delivered the custard-filled doughnuts, through her essentially rock-solid alibis and her son Gary’s homework load. By the time Mickey relayed Hess’s degree of her upset about being considered any kind of a suspect, her question about where Neshek had lived, and her joking comment about how fast she had to drive from there to Telegraph Hill after the Monday-night meeting, Hunt knew that Mickey was stalling and interrupted. “Not that all this isn’t fascinating, Mick, but Tam said you had something important.”

Mickey had already practiced the casual tone he wanted to use when he’d told Tamara, and now he said, “Well, I don’t really know how important it is, but I ran into Al Carter down here and asked him if he’d seen Jim at the memorial yesterday, and he told me he had. When he took Alicia outside after Mrs. Como—”

“I know all about this,” Hunt said.

“Well, maybe not.” He hesitated. “Carter told me that Alicia offered to drive Jim back home to our place.”

After some seconds of silence, Mickey said, “Wyatt? You still there?”

“You’re saying that your Alicia drove Jim home?”

“She offered to anyway. I don’t know if she actually did.”

“Have you asked her about this?”

“Then I’d know, wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t be a wiseass. Have you talked to her or not?”

“No.”

Hunt let out a breath. “You’re sure?”

Mickey didn’t respond.

More silence.

“Wyatt?”

“I’m thinking. You haven’t talked to her about anything since we left her this morning, including this?”

“I just said I didn’t.”

“I know you did. I didn’t want there to be a misunderstanding between us again.”

“Again?”

“You know. Like the last time I told you I didn’t think you should be hanging out too much with her, just to be on the safe side since she was a potential murder suspect, and the next thing you’d moved with her into my place. That kind of misunderstanding.”

“I haven’t talked to her. I called you.”

“Yes, you did. Good move. Do you think you’ll be able to keep yourself from talking to her until I get a chance to?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want.”

“So when are you going to do that?”

“Pretty damn soon.”

“Okay.”

“Mick?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me the truth. I know you want to believe her. And loyalty’s a wonderful thing as far as it goes. But is this doing anything to your worldview?”

It took Mickey some moments to answer. “It’s trying to.”

Hunt paused, too, and let out a sigh. “If it does, just let it happen. Don’t fight it the way your sister did with Craig. Put it someplace you can deal with now, then bring it into the open and sort it all out later. All right? That’s my advice. We may have to do something about her sooner than the next three days. And I may need you with me for that. If it comes to it. You hear what I’m saying?”

“I think so.”

“I want you to more than think it. This is not me making stuff up. This is not anybody wanting to believe something that didn’t happen. Did she tell you about the scarf Juhle found? Her scarf?”