Treasure Hunt wh-2

by John Lescroart

  “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.

  30

  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?”

  “Yeah. In the limo. That’s when she decided to get out of her house. She thought they might come back for her. But she’d lost that scarf a couple of weeks before.”

  “That’s what she told Devin too.”

  “You don’t believe that either?”

  “Some things are harder to believe than others.”

  “What makes that one hard?”

  “Well, mainly because she left out one little teeny tiny part. You know she’s always said she didn’t have an intimate relationship with Como?”

  “I do believe that. She didn’t. I’m sure she didn’t.”

  “So she says. Just like she said he didn’t fire her that morning, huh? And she wasn’t intimate with anybody else out there at Sunset, either, was she?”

  “There’s no sign of that, Wyatt. Like who?”

  “Like anybody. But in fact I’m guessing Como, and so is Devin.”

  “And what’s that got to do with her scarf?”

  “This is another thing you’re not going to want to tell her, and another reason you shouldn’t talk to her at all. We’re clear there, right?”

  “Right. We’ve already done that. I won’t talk to her at least until you do. Promise. But what?”

  “ ‘What’ is that somebody came on that scarf, Mickey. That’s what.”

  When Hunt hung up, he raised his head.

  Tamara was standing in his open doorway. “Just because Alicia dropped Jim off, that doesn’t mean-” she began.

  “Don’t start. I don’t know what it means or doesn’t mean. But if on top of everything else, we’re looking for Jim, too, I’m going to ask her what she knows, if only to get some kind of a timeline on him. In fact”-he checked his watch, started to push away from his desk-“enough of this. I’m going over there right now. At least find out where we stand.”

  “I need to go with you.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not going to let you do that, Tam.”

  “If you’re really worried about her that way, Wyatt, you should just call her.”

  “If I do that and spook her, which any of my questions just might do, she runs again and we’re lost, aren’t we?”

  “I still really don’t think she’s going to do that. I don’t think any of that’s going to happen.”

  “Good for you. But it’s my call, okay? I don’t like even the remote chance of something happening to you, not now that I’ve just got you back.” He patted her on the arm and gave her a quick buss on the cheek. “You just hold down the fort, okay? I predict the Willard White gang is going to be calling in all day needing your guidance. Meanwhile, I’ll call you the minute I know something.”

  She sighed. “All right. Oh, and, Wyatt?” she said. “Also Jim. Don’t forget about him.”

  “No chance, Tam.” He was putting on his coat. “He’s at the top of my list.”

  “That was that same detective with the Hunt Club,” Lola Sanchez told her husband after she’d shut the door to his private office at the Mission Street Coalition. “He wanted to know what we did after the COO meeting. And then he asked about last Tuesday, a week ago, the night Dominic
was killed. He didn’t say so, but I’m sure he’ll be calling you, maybe next.”

  Lola, tightly wound even when she was at her most relaxed, was in nowhere near any kind of a calm state at the moment. The color was high in her strong, attractive Aztec face; her black hair, normally swept back and up, had come out where she’d pulled at it during her call with Mickey.

  Jaime was up and around his desk before she’d even finished. He got her down on the couch against the side wall and sat next to her, holding both her hands in both of his. “You don’t need to worry, love. Len will not let anything happen to us. We have an understanding.”

  “Yes, but we’ve had understandings with him before. He really looks out for no one but himself. You know this. We know it. We’ve seen it.”

  Jaime, poker-faced, squeezed his wife’s hands. Without question, Lola was right, and Len Turner’s character worried him deeply, but the ugly truth was that if you wanted to be in the game in San Francisco, Turner was your go-to guy. He controlled much of the money and enforced most of its distribution.

  But of more immediate concern was his wife’s propensity to panic. Jaime himself didn’t necessarily believe that because a private investigator wanted to know what they’d been doing on the nights of the two murders, he had any actual suspicions. And beyond that, a private investigator was not local or federal law enforcement. No one had any real reason to be looking at anything he or his wife had done, but Lola’s temperament was always a consideration.

  According to plan, she was going to be running Mission here in a few more weeks or months, and by the time that happened-if it was going to happen-she was going to have to learn to carry the weight of that responsibility without letting it crush her. Sometimes in this business, Jaime knew, you had to play fast and loose with some of the rules. You had to work with the Len Turners and even the Dominic Comos of the world, difficult though they could be. This was the big leagues, and coolness in the face of challenge and adversity was one of the hallmarks of leadership. And success.

  He leaned in and gave her a light kiss. “Just forget about Len Turner,” he said. “The main thing is that you and I don’t contradict anything that either of us says. We have a consistent story and no one will even think to question it. So what did you tell this person you’d exactly done Monday after the meeting? So that I can say the same thing. I do hope and trust that, whatever it was, you said you were with me the whole time.?Si?”

  31

  The rain had stopped.

  As Hunt drove back to his place, he caught sight of a line of blue in the sky to the west. Normally, the coming improvement in the weather would have elevated his mood. But today it could have suddenly turned balmy, bright, and warm and he might not have noticed at all. Instead, as he drove with his jaw clamped shut, he couldn’t help but be aware of the dampness of his palms, a dry mouth, the pinch of the gun he still had tucked into his belt at the small of his back.

  At some point, he reached behind him, got ahold of the gun, and laid it on the passenger seat beside him.

  By the time he pressed the button to open his garage, he was breathing deeply through his nose, all of his senses on full alert, his world closed down in an immediacy to the here and now that would have surprised and possibly embarrassed him if he’d been aware of it. Which he was not.

  Even before he actually entered, just as he was turning off Brannan, he saw that Alicia’s car was still parked up against the right wall of the building, where it had been when he’d come in this morning. He sucked in a lungful of air and let it out in relief.

  Again, his eyes scanned the space in front of him. Seeing no movement, or even a shadow that he could not account for, he shut off the car’s engine, at the same time pressing the button on his visor to lower the garage door again. He opened the door to the Cooper and listened for a moment. Nothing. The screen savers on his three computers, all beach and ocean scenes, glowed over across his basketball court. Grabbing the gun, he stepped out of the car and closed the door behind him. Taking off the safety, he started walking to the house, his gun hand in his jacket pocket.

  It occurred to him, now much too late, that maybe he should have called to see if Devin and Sarah were nearby at the Hall of Justice, and could come by-it was only a few blocks-to accompany him when he went in. Gone from his mind was the slightest thought of providing her sanctuary from the police any longer.

  But he’d already announced his presence by opening his garage. There was nothing for him to do now but press ahead. When he got to the door that led to the part of the warehouse he lived in, he knocked, and almost at the same instant, the door flew open in front of him.

  “Oh, God.” Alicia’s hand at her mouth, her eyes wide. “Thank God it’s you,” she said. “I heard the garage and was just standing here inside, afraid to move. Scared to death, really.”

  Hunt released the tightness of his grip on the gun in his pocket. “You and me both,” he said.

  “I can understand me being frightened,” she said. “But what are you afraid of?”

  “Lots of things. But right up there at the top is coming into my home when I know it’s not empty.”

  “Yeah. That could be creepy. I could see that.”

  “I’m sure you could. But in this case it’s not hypothetical.”

  When Hunt’s meaning hit her, her face clouded over. “You’re not saying you’re really afraid of me, are you?”

  “I don’t know if afraid is exactly the right word. For the time being, let’s go with cautious.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense.”

  “By the same token, it’s not something that you’re going to talk me out of.”

  “You can’t think I killed Dominic.”

  “I can’t? Why not?”

  “Just because… because you can’t. I didn’t.”

  “That’s what Mickey says too.”

  “Well, Mickey’s right. You ought to believe him, if not me.”

  “It’s not a question of believing.”

  “It’s not? What is it, then?”

  “It’s opportunity, motive, access to the murder weapon, or weapons.”

  A brittle, small laugh escaped into the space between them. “Oh, so I’m a suspect in two murders now? Dominic and Nancy, I suppose.”

  “While we’re at it,” Hunt said, “maybe three.”

  “Sure, why not?” she snapped out, then shook her head in a very convincing show of disgust. “Please.”

  But Hunt wasn’t in any kind of conciliatory mood. “You want to step back and let me in? Then we can continue this discussion.”

  She backed away from the door, pulling it along with her. Hunt stepped over the threshold, threw a quick glance first over her shoulder down the hallway to the right, then over to his left. “Okay,” he said, reaching for the doorknob and closing it behind them.

  “Who’s the third murder victim?” she asked.

  “We’ll get to that,” Hunt said. “Meanwhile, what I’d like you to do is go down to the TV room and sit there for a minute and wait for me. I’ll be right with you.”

  “Has someone else been killed?” she asked. “If somebody was killed last night, I was with Mickey the whole time. I couldn’t have killed anybody.”

  “Maybe not,” Hunt said. He pointed. “TV room. Please.”

  She crossed her arms and stared at his face with ill-disguised hostility for a couple of seconds, then let out a frustrated and angry guttural sound and turned back down the hallway, disappearing where Hunt had asked her to go.

  As soon as she’d gone, Hunt went to his bedroom, where, with a mixture of chagrin and relief, he saw that his rug had apparently not been disturbed. Nevertheless, he crossed to the corner of it, pulled it up, and lifted out the board that covered his safe. He twirled the combination wheel, which turned easily, signifying that it was locked. But, wanting to be sure, he dialed the combination and opened it again, saw his second gun where he’d left it earlier, and then closed and made sure he
’d locked it up one more time before he stood and reversed his actions with the board and the rug.

  As soon as he appeared in the doorway to the television room, she looked up. Scrunched over as though she had a stomachache, her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped in front of her, she appeared suddenly small, waiflike. And all the more beautiful for her apparent vulnerability-her doe eyes threatening to overflow, the color high on her cheeks.

  For a moment, even in his highly skeptical, antagonistic state, Hunt felt something akin to awe at the power she could wield over men, if only she knew.

  But of course she knew, he thought. How could she not know?

  “Has someone else died?” she asked. “Please tell me no one else has died.”

  Taking her very seriously indeed, wishing to minimize the chance that she would try to play him by mere proximity, Hunt sat in the chair farthest from her across the room. “Al Carter says that you offered to take Jim Parr home from the memorial yesterday,” he said. “Is that true?”

  She dropped her head as though someone had cut the tendons in her neck. When she looked back up, the tears had broken from her eyes. “Is Jim all right?”

  “No one knows,” Hunt said. “He never made it home.”

  She closed her eyes, shook her head back and forth a couple of times. “I didn’t take him home,” she said. “He didn’t want to go home. He wanted to go out to Ortega. That’s where I dropped him off.”

  This news, whether or not it was true, sent a jolt of electricity up Hunt’s back. “What time was this?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure exactly. One, one-fifteen, somewhere in there.”

  “What did he say he wanted to do there? At Ortega?”

  “He didn’t say specifically. He just wanted to walk around and talk to people. He still knew a lot of people out there. One of them might have heard something or seen something, or just knew something, that might help Mickey. And you. He really wanted to help get the guy who’d killed Dominic if he could, and he thought there might be some chance up there. But when we got there, the place was all closed up-we realized for the memorial, of course. The staff was downtown.”