"Not that we've heard," Fairchild said. "As to all the cameras, it's another development in Donolan. We get a different shot than down at the Hall of Justice. Breaks up the monotony."
Hunt swiveled his head, took in all the activity. "Help me out here, Spencer. What's Donolan got to do with Andrea at this point?"
Fairchild clearly wondered if Hunt was putting him on. "Andrea is Donolan. The beautiful commentator goes missing in the middle of the trial? You couldn't have scripted it any better. And now suddenly because she's gone, Judge Palmer is Donolan, too. As we speak, Wyatt, this is turning into the hottest story in the country. I've got to hand it to Andrea. Even if she didn't plan all of this "
"What are you talking about?" Hunt was surprised to hear the anger in his voice. "She didn't nobody planned anything here."
Fairchild's condescension fairly dripped. "I know that's your story. Farrell told me the same thing last night. But I find it interesting to learn that you were both the last person to see Andrea on Wednesday and then the very same person to find her car. What made you think, out of the whole city to choose from, to look here? I wonder if it could have been because you drove down behind her, then drove her away to wherever she's hiding out now."
Suddenly Tombo stepped in. "Hey, Spence, easy "
But the producer didn't back off. "Hey, yourself, Rich. It wouldn't be the first time Andrea's hooked up with some guy to boost the old career another notch. First me, now maybe Wyatt here they're fooling everybody, the two of them, thinking this is just a hell of a lot of fun." He turned. "What do you say about that, Hunt? True? False? Any comment at all?"
"Yeah," Hunt said, "here's a comment. You're pathetic." Every impulse in his body wanted to take a swing at Fairchild and deck him, but he forced himself to turn away.
Fairchild walked several steps after him. "When you see her, tell her she's played this out too far already. There's no getting back from where she's gone! She'll never work in television again!"
* * *
Nearly blind with anger, Hunt willed himself through the lobby doors and across to the elevators. The elevator doors would open in a couple of seconds on the fourteenth floor, and he still had very little conscious idea of exactly what had brought him up here. It was more than the need to escape from Fairchild's insane accusationshe'd been on his way over here before he'd ever seen the video cams outside. He'd been wrestling with the logic of what he thought he knew about Andrea and what he could accept, what he felt. For if she were dead, as they all now feared, Hunt still in some obscure way felt a degree of responsibility.
Not for her death itself, of course, but for the last hours of her life, when he'd voluntarily taken on the role of her protector. And lover. With a stab of guilt, for the first time, he realized that he perhaps unknowingly had, in fact, taken advantage of her fragile state, her vulnerability. He hadn't seen it like that at the time. But he didn't want to fool himselfthat might have been the true dynamic after all. The thought curdled his stomach.
And then, after he'd left her, someone had abducted her and done her grievous harm.
He did not believe, as Juhle did, that she had killed Palmer and Rosalier and then taken her own life.
He did not believe, as Fairchild did, that she'd plotted her own disappearance as some sort of publicity/celebrity-making stunt.
Hunt believed that he knew what had happened with a certainty that was startling. And that certitudein its first flowering now after everyone's hope but his for Andrea's life had flown awaywas rearranging his interior landscape back into something that he thought he had long abandoned and that he now recognized as both terrifying and familiar.
The anger that had nearly literally blinded him downstairs wasn't occasioned by the ravings of a prancing jackass like Spencer Fairchild. But those irrational stupidities had shattered somewhere within him the last resistance to the deep and abiding rage that he'd come to believe in the past four or five years he'd finally tamed.
A rage that had ruled his days from his sense of abandonment through his succession of foster homes until he'd finally moved in with the Hunts. A rage that had fueled his CID work in Iraq, then delivered him to his work rescuing children, finally blossoming into a general rage at the world he'd been left in when Sophie and their unborn baby had been taken from him. A wide-ranging rage at bureaucracy, at venality, at the incompetence and outright villainy of men like Wilson Mayhew. A rage, finally, that had almost undone him with its power and intensity. Day to day, night to night, unyielding and terrible rage. For the world seemed to promise so much. And that promise so often was a lie.
And then, after he'd established his business and worked as a private investigator for a while, the rage had gradually started to subside. His work was a job now, not a vocation. Wyatt Hunt read, he did his sports, he played his music, he satisfied his clients. He would not feed his rage any longer with his overwhelming desire to excel, to make right, to care, to love. The inevitable failuresand he'd come to believe that at least partial failure was always foreordainedhad taken too great a toll on him. He didn't choose to live at that level anymore, and he'd been content. Marginalized, perhaps, never too deeply involved. But content.
And now suddenly, a toggle switch thrown, that inner contentment was over. And this was why he had felt so disoriented at Farrell's, so distracted on the walk over here, so unable to connect with what should have been sorrow at the idea of Andrea's death. He was not really sad, not unfocused, not lost. With a kind of terrible joy, he realized that what he felt now was purethe rage for justice that had nearly consumed him before but that had also given his life ballast, moments of real connection and meaning.
If someone had killed Andrea Parisi, had rent the fabric of his world so thoroughly, he was going to bring whoever it was to justice. Nothing else mattered. He would take whatever help he could get, but if he had to do it all alone, then he would.
The elevator door opened, and he strode out to the first desk to his left, where a young woman stopped her typing to look up at him. "Can I help you?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "I need to talk to Carla Shapiro."
* * *
Juhle said, "No. No evidence."
He was in Lanier's office, sitting awkwardly forward because of his sling. Shiu stood one step inside the closed door, at rigid attention. It was a small room with a big desk in it. There were three windows, two in the wall behind Juhle and one in the wall behind Shiu. None of them opened to the morning's sunshine in the real world. None of them opened at all, in fact. Just beyond Shiu's window, about a million miles away, Juhle could see four of his fellow homicide inspectors shooting the breeze and laughing about something.
When Juhle brought his gaze back inside, Lanier wasn't laughing. "No evidence at all?"
Juhle looked over at Shiuno help. "Maybe if we can get Mrs. Levinthe Palmers' neighbordown to see Parisi's car, she might give us a positive make."
Lanier grunted, leaned back in his chair, and pushed himself away from the desk until he got to his back wall, where he stopped. "Maybe she might, huh?"
Juhle shrugged. "What we've got, Marcel, are connections. Six or seven of them, which taken together are pretty damn compelling if you ask me and Shiu, and you did."
"We don't have any other suspects, sir," Shiu said.
"Here's a tip, my son," Lanier said. "That's probably the kind of thing you don't want to mention out loud to somebody who does your performance reviews." He turned to Juhle. "But Parisi?"
Juhle shrugged again. "I didn't just make it up, Marcel. I think she did it, tried to bluff it out, made it a day or two until guilt or remorse or whatever the hell else you feel made her kill herself."
"I don't feel anything," Lanier said.
"I know, me neither. Feelings, I mean. I don't feel any feelings. I do feel my shoulder."
"He won't take ibuprofen," Shiu said.
"I did for the first ten days. Not only didn't it work, it hurt my stomach."
"I'll tell you what hurts my stomach," Lanier said. "My stomach hurts when I start thinking about going out in front of our ravenous media representatives with the announcement that the case on Federal Judge George Palmerdid I say federal judge?only the fourth federal judge to be killed in the entire history of the United States"
"Is that true?" Shiu asked. "Only the fourth one? Wow."
Lanier risked a quick, conspiratorial I-know-why-you-hate-this-guy glance at Juhle. "Right. So I tell the jackals we've solved this case, locked it up tight in only three days. The murderer's Andrea Parisi. But you'll just have to take our word for it because we don't have any evidence. What do you think, Dev? You think they'll go for it?"
Juhle sulked. Lanier was right, and Juhle was dead beat after the last couple of sleepless nights. "What do you want us to do, Marcel? I could drive out to Andrea's house, find some hair in the sink or something, drop it off over at the judge's "
"We can't do" Shiu began.
Wincing, Juhle held up a hand. "Kidding, Shiu. Back off."
"But all kidding aside," Lanier said, "we've already got some issueswell, especially you, Dev, are not going to get any slack here. Whatever you get has got to be rock solid."
Juhle's eyes turned dark. "What the fuck does that mean?" He shot an I-dare-you look at his partner.
Lanier pushed off from the back wall and wheeled his chair forward, up to the desk, and put his arms on his blotter. "That means that there are some people in positions of authority who were not completely convinced by your exoneration on the OI." The officer-involved shooting that had cost Juhle three months of administration leave but had finally resulted in his merit citation.
"Well, how can I put this? Fuck them."
Shiu straightened up more, tightened down his jaw. Even Lanier seemed to wince. Profanity was tolerated in the field, but Deputy Chief of Inspectors Abe Glitsky frowned on it in the various units under his command.
Immune to this sensitivity, Juhle didn't slow down. "I mean it, Marcel. Who are they? No, I know who they are. Maybe I should "
"Maybe not, Dev. Maybe nothing, okay? We both know who they are, and they're wrong, and you're up for cop of the year, okay? You want my opinion, I hope you get it. And you might as long as you don't say 'fuck' too often around Glitsky. But my point is that these couple of supervisors have the ear of the mayor and the chief. And not only is this the biggest case in the world, but we've finessed the FBI to keep the hell away from it because it's not political. So it's all yours, both of you guys, and welcome to it. But don't come to me without any evidence, please. If Parisi did it, show me something that'll prove it. Or at least find something that eliminates everybody else?"
"You want us to prove a negative?" Juhle asked. "That can get tricky."
"Don't get smart, Dev. You know what I want. I want more. If it's on Parisi, fine. But we don't even have next of kin on one of the victims if I'm not mistaken. To the critical soul, this might bespeak a lack of vigor in the investigation. Am I making myself clear?" His eyes went to Shiu. "You really don't have any other suspects?"
"I don't know who they'd be at this point, sir."
"You don't. Not with all these union hassles? Nobody the judge had ever ruled against? Maybe the girlfriend had another boyfriend? Don't I remember the wife has a sister? What was she doing Monday night? I don't know squat about this case, and I can think of half a dozen questions you haven't even asked yet."
"I have asked them, Marcel," Juhle said. "I've asked every goddamn question you just gave us, and the other half dozen you didn't mention on top of those. And for the record, we went down to the judge's chambers first thing and spent a fascinating few hours talking to his staff, and found out that he's got lots of cases with people who are mad at him. Not just the CCPOA. And believe me, they're all rattling around in my brain every single second. And sure, I might be wrong, but it's good police work to follow the clearest trail." He paused to grab a breath.
Shiu stepped into the breach. "And that, with respect, sir," he said, "looks like Parisi."
Lanier held up a hand. "I've heard. I get your message. But traditionally we like those little links in what we call the chain of evidence that maybe"
Juhle had heard enough. He was already on his feet, interrupting. "You want us to shake some more trees, Marcel, sure, we'll do it. But there's no more evidence in those directions than there is with Parisi. It's going to look like what we're really doing is covering our ass."
Lanier blew his frustration out at them. "There are worse ideas," he said. He gestured toward his closed office door. "Keep me up on developments. My door's always open."
23 /
Betsy Sobo's oversize tortoiseshell glasses didn't fool Hunt. With the dorky specs, the tousled dirty-blond hair, only the barest touch of makeup around the eyes, and no lipstick, the young associate in the family-law division of Piersall obviously tried to pass herself off in her professional life as plain, even bookish. Today, she was even dressed in the Catholic school uniform of a plaid skirt and white blouse, black leggings, no-nonsense black shoes. It was a nice try, but Hunt thought she could be in sackcloth and ashes and draw admiring stares.
She'd stood up to meet him and shake his hand, then had gone back behind her desk. Hunt sat across from her on a folding chair, which was about all that fit in her office after she'd squeezed in her bookcase and files. She had six feet of window behind her, a nice view over downtown to the east. Hunt asked her permission to record their conversation, and she said yes.
"I talked to someone last night about this," she was saying. "A woman. Another attorney."
"Amy Wu?"
"I think that was it. I don't think I helped her much. I told her I didn't know what Andrea wanted to talk to me about."
"But she called you herself to set up this appointment? I just talked to her secretary, and she said it wasn't her."
"Yes. She called me herself."
"To ask if you could give her a half hour or so of your time?"
"Right. But that's about all. I said sure."
Hunt leaned forward. "According to Carla, she called you just after she'd seen Judge Palmer for lunch, isn't that right? So my thought is that maybe she dropped a hint of something we haven't heard about yet."
"I don't know what that would be. And wouldn't she have mentioned whatever that was to GaryMr. Piersallat their meeting?"
"She might have," Hunt said, "but I don't think she did. I think what she wanted to talk to you about was different. I talked to Mr. Piersall last night, and apparently the big topic between him and Andrea was this order the judge was threatening to sign. He and Andrea didn't talk at all about union benefits."
"But I'm not even sure that's what she wanted to talk to me about. I just assumed."
"Is there anything specific she might have said that made you assume that?"
"I don't know what it could have been." Taking a breath, Sobo put her elbow on the desk and rested her forehead on the fingers of her left hand. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. "Okay. She said that Mike Eubankshe's the partner for our unithe told her to call me. And if Mike told her, it would have been benefits."
"There you go," Hunt said.
"Then she said, 'This person I met at lunch.' And then she stopped and said she only had a minute but there were some pretty big players involved and she didn't want to start anything unless she was solid on the law."
Hunt didn't move for a long moment. "And that would have been family law, right? She said somebody she met at lunch. Those words?"
"I think so. Yes. Pretty close."
"As in met for the first time? Rather than just met for lunch."
"Maybe. I'd say so, yes."
"So not the judge." Not a question, either. "Let me ask you this: With all the union work this firm does, have you ever worked on benefits issues before?"
"Me, personally? Not usually. I'm mostly into the custody battles and restraining orders, stuff like that. T
here's just a ton of divorces with these poor guards' families. You wouldn't believe."
"So what did you think this was? That Andrea wanted?"
Sobo considered for a minute. "Maybe some kind of divorce coverage into the members' package, attorneys fees or counseling, so it doesn't come out of pocket for these guys and their families. We make the case that it's the stress of the work that's a proximate cause of the marital breakups." She shrugged. "We've prevailed on this kind of thing a few other timesthe stress in the job is a killer. I mean almost literally."
"I'm sure it is," Hunt said. "So the pretty big players Andrea was talking about?"
The Hunt Club Page 25
