The Hunt Club

by John Lescroart

  "Hey. Isn't it Saturday?"

  "Yep. Sorry to get you up. I want to ask you something."

  She shifted, pulled herself up onto the pillows. "You're going in to work?"

  "That's what I wanted to ask you about." He came over and sat on the edge of the bed. "Wyatt's latest theory on Palmer and Parisi looks like it just got some corroboration. We've had four calls identifying Rosalier's kid or brother or whatever he is. The picture? Any normal day, I go in and talk to some of the callers, see how sure they are, how reliable. Then I pull a warrant if I can tell a good enough story to a judge."

  "Which you can."

  He shrugged at the compliment, rested his hand on her thigh. "Here's the thing, though. Last night, this was just Wyatt with an idea. Today, if these witnesses are legitimate, there's some chance things will unravel fast."

  "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?"

  31 /

  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."