Treasure Hunt wh-2

by John Lescroart

  And Hunt, at this very moment, was in all probability with these people and didn’t have that one rather critical bit of information. But then, getting to his car, Mickey realized that if Hunt spoke to even one of these people, he’d find out about the Monday-night meeting right away anyway.

  Still, Mickey liked being the bearer of good news, especially when he thought it was good stuff and he’d discovered it himself. So he placed another call to the office to brag a bit to Tamara, but she didn’t pick up there either. And what was that about? he wondered.

  For just a brief moment, he found that his stomach had gone a little hollow. Where was his sister? Had he and Hunt been too cavalier about bringing her back to work, in assuming that’s what she wanted, in giving her more responsibility? Or might Mickey hope against hope that she had actually, of her own volition, gone out for something to eat? It was, after all, lunchtime.

  His phone still in his hand, without much forethought, he went to his favorites list and hit Jim’s number, heard it ring four times, got his answering machine. “Give me a fucking break,” he said aloud, and leaving no message, he threw his phone onto the seat next to him.

  He knew who he wanted to call next. But really, what was he going to say to Alicia except that he had just loved her company the night before and wanted to see her again? Wanted to see her all the time, in fact. What she had called her nerd moment from the night before had struck Mickey as incredibly poignant, echoing as it did his own feelings. It had humanized her to an extent that had taken him by surprise. He really didn’t need anything to help make her more compelling, but there it had been, unpracticed and sincere, a glimpse of the person under the package.

  Beautiful there as well.

  Still, he would have to wait. She was mourning Dominic Como. In fact, now that he thought of it, she was almost certainly at the memorial herself.

  This was just swell, he was thinking. Here he was, all dressed up and no place to go. In the future, he would really have to try to remember to get more and/or clearer assignments from Hunt before he left the office for the day, which now stretched long and empty before him.

  He turned the key in the ignition, the car started right up, and he pulled out of his space. When he got to Potrero, the traffic was heavy and unbroken going south to his left, but there was an opening turning right if he moved quickly, and so he jammed down on the accelerator.

  That was the extent of the thought he gave to turning back uptown. It could have easily gone either way, since he didn’t have a destination in mind.

  Such a small, random decision. Such huge consequences.

  The windows that overlooked the booth tables at Lou the Greek’s were set high in the west-facing wall, their bases perhaps six feet from the floor. This unusual design feature wasn’t due to some architect’s skewed or artistic vision; from outside the building, all six of the windows sat level to the asphalt that paved a debris- and Dumpster-strewn alley. Lou’s had been built about halfway underground. Patrons entering the building’s front double doors could either go up the stairs to the first floor-Acme Bail Bonds, Florence Ward/Notary Public, and Presto Dispatch (a document delivery service)-or down eight ammonia- or possibly urine-tinged steps, through a red- leather one-sided swinging door, and into the bustling netherworld of Lou’s-“Open Six to Two Seven Days a Week/Full Bar/Daily Special.”

  When you walk in, the bar is to your right. If it’s lunchtime, the bar is jammed, with all the stools taken, and behind them a couple of rows of standing room. If it’s your first time here, you notice the high windows, under them the six old-fashioned four-person wooden booths, the low-slung acoustic tile ceiling, the faint odor of cooking oil, soy sauce, maybe spilled beer. The place squeezes twenty four-tops onto the floor, and six two-tops around the walls, and every weekday it serves over two hundred lunches, all the more remarkable because its menu every day, save the occasional bonanza of fortune cookies, is comprised of only one dish: the Special.

  Lou the Greek’s wife, Chiu, was Chinese, and for twenty-five or more years, she’d been honoring her and her husband’s union by creating a new dish nearly every single day, always based on their two nationalities. Today’s Special, for example, General Lou’s Pork, was at once typical and unique: pita bread pockets stuffed with bright red Chinese barbecued pork, scallions, garlic, hoisin sauce, yogurt, and hot pepper flakes. A lot of hot pepper flakes.

  Juhle and Russo sat sucking their iced teas through straws across from each other in one of the booths.

  Russo set her glass down, swallowed, and blew in and out noisily a couple of times. “Holy shit,” she said. “Lou calls this ‘some spicy’? I’d like to see a lot spicy if this is some. This stuff is fire.”

  Juhle slid over the little jar of pure hot pepper seeds in oil. “You want to get serious, add some of this. Then it gets spicy.”

  “I pass.” Russo sipped again, rubbed at her lips. “I mean it. Holy shit.”

  “You already said that.”

  “It’s a two ‘holy-shit’ pita pocket.”

  Juhle took another bite, chewed contentedly, switched to another subject without preamble. “So how can it hurt? We’re just talking to her.”

  “We don’t know it’s her scarf, Devin.”

  Juhle shrugged, sipped some tea, shrugged again. “We ask her. We show her that lovely color photograph you took and ask the lovely Ms. Thorpe if she’s ever seen this thing before. She says no, we keep looking, maybe ask some other people if they ever saw her wearing it, or somebody else wearing it. On the other hand, she says yes, we’re getting close.”

  “I’m not even so sure of that.”

  “No? Why not, pray?”

  “Because even if it’s hers, we don’t know if it’s his semen.”

  “Granted. But we will know in a couple of days. And?”

  “And you just seem to want to be building this case on one flimsy lead after another. You really don’t see this?”

  “I see what you’re saying, sure. First we get the tire iron. We know it’s Como’s hair on it, but we don’t know it’s from Como’s limo, although the tire iron from the limo is missing. Right? Right. There are a lot of tire irons in the world. Close, but not proof positive. So then we search the limo and guess what? We find the scarf. And sure, it might not be the Thorpe girl’s scarf, and it might not be Como’s masculine essence on it, either, but-”

  “Jesus, Dev, you think you could just say ‘semen’?”

  “I doubt it. I don’t even say ‘semen’ when I’m talking to Connie.”

  “So what do you… no, never mind. Forget I asked. Go on.”

  “So I agree with you, is what I’m saying, in theory. We’ve got all these things we don’t know for sure. Could be but might not be. The tire iron, the limo, the scarf that might not be hers, the semen-see, I can do it-that might not be his. But let’s say-let’s just say-that the elements of the trail I see here all turn out to go in our direction. I mean, it turns out the tire iron came from his limo. It’s her scarf and his semen. Then, in that case, she’s definitely lied to us, which tells us something new, doesn’t it? Now, add to that that she had daily access to the limo, that he fired her that day-”

  “We don’t know that. Only maybe that he said he was going to.”

  “So we ask her that too. She tells us yes, she’s got a motive. And all this is not even talking about Monday night, where she slept in her car out by the beach a couple of blocks below where Nancy Neshek breathed her last.” Juhle took the last loud slurp from his iced tea, held up a hand until he’d swallowed it. “I’m not saying we’re ready for an arrest here, Sarah. But come on. Put a little press on her, get another statement, see if she answers the same as last time. What have we got to lose?”

  When the service was over, Al Carter hung back over in the corner of the downstairs lobby of the War Memorial building while Hunt corralled Turner, the Sanchezes, and Lorraine Hess into a circle off to the side at the bottom of the steps. Carter listened in while
Hunt pinned down each of them in turn about their whereabouts the night of Neshek’s death. It seemed to take some of the wind out of Hunt when he learned that they’d all been at a meeting with one another on the Monday night when Neshek had been killed. But then when he learned that Nancy Neshek had been there with them all, too, he picked up again. So, Hunt asked, what time did the Communities of Opportunity meeting break up? Where had every one of them gone afterward?

  This last question got Turner hot enough that nobody wound up having to answer. Maybe, Turner had exploded, Hunt didn’t realize that he was talking to the leadership of the philanthropic community in San Francisco. None of Len Turner’s associates were suspects in either one of these murders. In fact, Turner himself had hired Hunt and these people had contributed to the reward. Weren’t those the facts?

  Hunt had had to admit that they were.

  And then Turner went on the offensive. Carter had heard him do it before. He reminded Hunt that all of these executives had places to go and important things to do, and maybe Hunt could better spend his time following the leads he had already developed through the process they were paying him for rather than harassing them in this ridiculous manner, thank you.

  After the executive group broke up, Hunt had waited until they’d all left the building, then he’d sat down on the steps and had a brief talk on his cell phone. By the time he closed the phone and slid it into its holster on his belt, Carter was standing in front of him, arms crossed over his chest, leaning back against the wall.

  “That Len Turner, he’s a force of nature, isn’t he?”

  Hunt stood up, nodded in acknowledgment through a frustrated grin. “Al Carter, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. I had a talk with one of your people the other day out at Sunset. Mickey?”

  “Mickey it is.”

  “And his grandfather is Jim Parr?”

  “That’s him. Do you know Jim?”

  “I do. He was my predecessor and taught me some of the driving ropes. It’s not all about steering and brakes and acceleration, you know. There’s a significant political component as well.”

  “I’d imagine so. In any event, Mickey mentioned that he might be trying to see you again today, as a matter of fact.”

  Al Carter’s wide, intelligent face closed down slightly. “He didn’t make an appointment.”

  “No. I think he just planned to go out there and hoped he’d run into you.”

  “Did he mention what he wanted to discuss? Maybe you and I can take care of it here, whatever it might be. Although I must tell you, my ignorance about Mr. Como’s movements that last night is near total. I dropped him off near his home, as I told your Mickey and the police, and had the limo back in the school lot by six-thirty. Then I went home myself. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “The police impounded the limo last night. Do you have any idea why?”

  “I presume they wanted to search it more thoroughly.”

  “For what?”

  “For whatever they find. You know they think they have the murder weapon?”

  This brought a little snort. “Yes. Lorraine Hess told me. The tire iron.”

  “Not necessarily the tire iron from the limo, but a tire iron certainly.”

  “And are they sure?”

  “Reasonably, yes. Unless there’s some way Dominic Como’s hair ended up on another tire iron that found its way into the Palace’s lagoon.”

  “Yes.” Carter’s smile did not reach to his eyes. “That would be an impressive long shot. So, presumably I had access to the tire iron more than most. Am I then a suspect?”

  “I haven’t heard that from the police. I don’t believe they have a suspect yet.”

  “Ah, I was forgetting. We don’t have suspects anymore, do we? Only persons of interest. The vocabulary change affords me little comfort.” Carter’s lips pursed out, and then in. His facial muscles moved in a way that suggested he was trying to smile, but this time, his lips could not hold the expression. “Let me ask you this, then, Mr. Hunt. Among the potential suspects-people with access to the limo and the tire iron and so on-are there any other black men with prison time in their background?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Can you appreciate why this might be a matter of some concern to me? Of more than average concern?”

  “Obviously. Don’t take this wrong, but might someone come to the conclusion that you had some kind of a motive?”

  Carter’s eyes closed down almost to slits before he opened them again as the broad expressive face fell into relaxation. “I’ve had the job eight years. I’m an ex-convict. All the demographics predict that I shouldn’t have a steady job, much less an education, and yet I do. All compliments of Dominic, a generous and powerful man.”

  “But there was a price,” Hunt said.

  “If he wanted to go, if he needed to go, doesn’t matter where it was, what time it was, how long you had to wait for him, whatever he was doing, you either took him and took it or he’d find someone else who would. This was unstated and intuitively understood. And an absolute job requirement.”

  “So you were essentially on call all the time? Even with the other drivers he used?”

  This brought a mirthless laugh. “Again, I don’t mean any kind of slur. Dominic was a great man. It was a privilege to work for him. But for the interns, the younger people without criminal records, the girls… there wasn’t much in the line of actual driving, except to our work sites. Certainly they did not drive him to open- ended events, nighttime meetings with partners and constituents, other things…”

  “Women?”

  Carter’s smile and gesture were ambiguous. “In any event,” he said, “with the other drivers, the relationship was symbiotic. Dominic got good, presentable, inexpensive help, and then he placed that help with other people in the city who could help him. You want tickets to the Giants? The Warriors? The Niners? You want a parking ticket fixed? Or, more likely, a drug bust. You’d like the ear of your supervisor on a development issue?”

  “But that wasn’t you? You weren’t in line for one of those jobs?”

  “No. I was a lifer. I am a lifer. Except now, with him gone…” He spread his hands.

  “And you’re concerned that someone might take that as a motive? That you wanted out?”

  “Perhaps unwisely, I mentioned it to a few people. And I don’t really know if I did want that. What else would I do? What am I going to do now? But did I sometimes feel trapped? Yes. Might Dominic have heard about it and fired me? Perhaps. He didn’t tolerate disloyalty, even the hint of it. He might even have fired me on Tuesday.”

  Hunt nodded. “Well, as motives go, I’d call that pretty weak. Even if anyone could prove it.”

  “I agree. But my so-called alibis for both nights are also flimsy. I live alone and I was at home alone both nights. So, combined with my record, my race, the motive, the lack of alibi, and the fact that except for his killer, I was the last person to see him, the police-”

  “I see what you’re saying.”

  “Well, no, I’m not sure that you do, since I haven’t said it yet.”

  Hunt waited.

  “I’ve wanted to stay out of all of this to the extent that I could. Reward or no reward, I know how the police often go about their work. And I’m afraid-you see, it’s already happened to me once before-I’m afraid that they might find in me a path of least resistance. That’s the only reason I’ve decided to talk to you.”

  “You know something.”

  “Yes. And I only mention it with great reluctance because of everything I’ve told you about here today. I wanted you to understand me. If they don’t have someone else, there’s a likelihood they’re going to come knocking at my door.” He took a breath and held it, his lips again pursed and tight. “He fired Alicia Thorpe that morning.”

  21

  “Yeah, we’re sitting outside her place right now, hoping to talk to her,” Juhle said. “Got any i
dea where she might be?”

  Hunt was in his car talking on his cell phone, which miraculously had a strong signal two floors down in the City Hall lot. After finishing up with Al Carter, he’d half jogged through the thickening drizzle, gotten to his car, and punched in Juhle’s number. “Sorry. I know where she was an hour ago, and that was here. But Ellen Como had her kicked out.”

  “She could do that?”

  “It was her party, Devin. She could do anything she wanted. It wasn’t very pretty.” He paused. “So what did you get?”

  Juhle ran down the latest link in the chain that was apparently beginning to close around Alicia Thorpe. “At least,” Juhle concluded, “if it’s her scarf…”

  “Why do you think it’s hers?”

  “She’s the only female driver. The scarf’s in the limo. Hello? Anyway, at least it gives us something to ask her about. Not to mention Carter corroborating Ellen’s story that Dominic fired her. You believe him?”

  “Yep.”

  “On the very day? We got that right?”

  “Tuesday morning.”

  “Did Carter change his story, then, about who Como was going to see?”

  “No. He didn’t know that. Dominic said he was meeting an old friend and didn’t go into it. In truth, it might not have been Alicia. But Carter thought it might have been. So how long before you find out about the semen? If it was Como’s.”

  “As opposed to whose?”