The Hunter

by John Lescroart

  “What was her fault?”

  “The abuse. The sexual activity. The group sex. It was with her pastor. It started when she was eleven and she wasn’t the only child involved.” Bernard went back to the wine, his eyes glassy with emotion. “I’m breaking the seal of the confessional to tell you this, Wyatt. I’ve never done that before in my life and I may go to hell for it, but if it helps you, I don’t see how it can hurt her now. You think her pastor was Jim Jones?”

  Hunt nodded. “I don’t think it’s impossible. Did she ever mention a name?”

  “No. Not that I recall. It was just always ‘him.’ But if it was Jones, Wyatt, what does that get you?”

  “I’m not sure, Father. Maybe it just gets me someplace else to look. Someplace there might be an answer. Jones has a history. If somewhere it intersects with my mother’s, that’s a new truth I can work with. And I’ve got to believe that one of these truths is going to lead me to who killed her. And maybe killed Ivan Orloff, too.”

  HUNT LEFT STAR OF THE SEA and made two phone calls from his car.

  The first was to Tamara, who did not pick up. He left a message saying he hoped to see her when he got through with his errands tonight, whatever they might turn out to be. Would she call him back when she got the message, no matter the time?

  The second call, he wasn’t wild about the news from Juhle concerning Lionel Spencer. Hunt had trouble believing that the man who’d been married to Evie—in some ways the linchpin of this whole affair—was apparently a nebbish and reclusive guy who had no idea why Orloff had called him. Besides having never heard of Kevin or Margie Carson, he had offered no insight to Juhle or Russo about the People’s Temple or Jim Jones or his wife or his own children, other than a corroboration of the bare facts.

  Hunt also had a hard time believing that the cops had been so easy on him, given that he was clearly the last person to see Ivan alive, had in fact just eaten dinner with him! According to Juhle, he and Sarah hadn’t even mentioned the names of any of the arresting or contributing officers or the lawyers involved in the trial. Spencer hadn’t volunteered or expressed any knowledge or interest in Kevin Carson’s trial. Essentially, Juhle and Russo had verified that Orloff had phoned, then eaten with Spencer, but hadn’t pursued that any further, in spite of the fact that Orloff had met his death within minutes of Spencer leaving him.

  Hunt wasn’t willing to call that another coincidence. He needed better answers. His instincts told him that someone as closely connected to these dramatic events as Spencer had been must know more.

  Although he had all but sworn to Devin that he would leave him and Russo to the police aspect of the investigation, that was before he’d learned that interviewing Spencer had been such a washout. Now, with a fire in his belly from the seal-of-confession revelation of Father Bernard—Hunt knew he was going to have to fly to Indiana—he didn’t want to leave the city without leaning on Lionel Spencer for a few of the hard answers.

  So at about 9:15, he pulled up and parked his Cooper on Larkin and walked up to the sidewalk gate at Spencer’s address. He had Spencer’s home number in his cell phone and could have called first, but he thought an unannounced and unexpected visit might be more productive. Pushing the button in the face of the rock wall, he waited for a click at the gate for most of a minute, then pressed the button again. When there was no answer a second time, he checked both ways to verify that he was alone on the street and vaulted over the fence into the stand of cypress.

  Above him, lights shone through some of the front windows, and he waited another minute or so, hoping to see some sign of movement, some shadow crossing in front of a source of light. Stepping back onto the path, he made it up to the front door, where there was another button and another doorbell.

  The gong was audible outside where he stood. It echoed through the house as Hunt waited for the sound of approaching footsteps. In growing frustration, he knocked at the door. “Mr. Spencer!”

  Hunt got out his cell phone, punched in Spencer’s number, heard the ringing inside the house—one, two, three, four times—then the answering machine. He hung up without leaving a message.

  Nobody home.

  But all the lights were on.

  And Juhle had told him that Lionel Spencer was a homebody who rarely went out. So where was he?

  FOUR HOUSES DOWN THE BLOCK from Spencer’s gate, Hunt was sitting in his car where he’d parked earlier. He thought that the guy had probably just gone out for dinner—there was nothing if not a plethora of good restaurants within walking distance. And many people left lights on in their homes, either because they forgot to turn them off or so there’d be light on when they got back.

  So he spent the time while he waited for his quarry to return flitting back and forth between his continuing guilt-ridden reaction to Ivan’s death, what was going on with him and Tamara and how that was going to play out, and the line of questioning he’d try to follow when Spencer returned.

  Lionel might have been a space case, Hunt thought, but had he really ignored the trial of the murder of his wife’s best friend? Did that make any sense at all? And even if he hadn’t paid attention, wouldn’t it have been a big deal to Evie?

  No, of course he’d followed the trial. How could Juhle and Russo not have pushed him harder on that, if they’d pushed him at all? The more Hunt thought about it, the more positive he was that Spencer would have to know the names of the participants and many other details of the trial itself. He’d know, if not witnesses, then other friends of Evie—and by extension of Kevin and Margie—and be able to supply some contact information on many of them, who in turn might have been aware of other conflicts, other stories, other motives.

  Also, Spencer was a man who’d lost his entire family to Jonestown, who’d told Juhle that his wife had ruined his life. The fact that he hadn’t gone down there with them did not absolve him from all knowledge of those events. He undoubtedly knew all about Evie’s conversion, of her metamorphosis from acid-popping Jesus freak to People’s Temple cultist. Had Hunt’s mother been around for that? Had she been part of it? Had Jim Jones contributed to the friction between Kevin and Margie?

  Hunt knew from his continuing education on Google that Jones had not moved to San Francisco until 1972, two years after Margie’s death. So how could there be any connection between them? But on the other hand, if he’d been her abuser when she’d been a child, she might have been aware of what he’d been doing all along.

  Tamara didn’t call him back until 10:45. “I was about to give up on you,” he said.

  “You said to call whenever. Where are you?”

  “I’m in hour two of an unplanned stakeout of Lionel Spencer’s house, waiting for him to get back home so I can ask him some questions.”

  “I thought Devin already did that.”

  “He did. He just didn’t ask all the right ones. Where have you been?”

  Tamara’s sigh came over the line. “Mickey made a lasagna for Ivan’s parents. We took it over there. Then stayed on and I drank some vodka. It was pretty horrible. Not the vodka.”

  “I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind, either. I feel like I sent him to it.”

  “Wyatt. Come on. We don’t even know he was on the job.”

  “No. I do know that. He discovered something. And Spencer stopped him.”

  “How? He stole a cab?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or even ‘if,’ really.”

  “No. I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t whip myself over it, though.”

  After a moment, Tamara said, “How late are you going to be out there?”

  “That depends on when Spencer gets back. I thought I’d wait for that.”

  “I was thinking of coming over to your place, but Ivan’s thing kept on going. So maybe I should just sleep.”

  “That’s all right. We’ll get some time someday. Promise.”

  “We’re still good? I’m sorry about this. I didn’t plan . . .”

/>   “Tam. I didn’t plan this, either. We’re good.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right. Tomorrow, then?”

  “Bright and early. Get some sleep.”

  * * *

  HUNT HAD LOTS OF TIME TO THINK, and the more he thought, the more he became convinced that Ivan had discovered something about Spencer that became the reason he was killed. Either Spencer had set up the last-minute dinner appointment with Ivan and gone down there to shoot him himself, or he had contacted someone else who had taken care of the wet work. And on that short a notice, it would by necessity have been someone that Spencer knew well.

  How could Juhle and Russo not have recognized all this and pushed harder when they had him talking to them? Did Spencer own a gun? How did he earn his apparently significant sums of money? How could he not have known his wife’s best friend? Did he have an explanation for that?

  Ivan had been working on Hunt’s mother’s case.

  And so the responsibility for Ivan’s death lay squarely on Wyatt’s shoulders. He couldn’t deny it. He had sent his people out to gather information, and one of them had been killed. Ivan had gotten killed because he’d gotten close. Hunt couldn’t prove it yet, but he believed it absolutely.

  He had to get his people off the case, and immediately. He couldn’t subject them to the risk. This was now a police matter in the present tense. Wyatt himself would talk to Juhle and Russo and keep them in the loop of his own investigation, which would be continuing, and his discoveries, if any.

  And here was one more chilling certainty. Leaving out Ivan’s murder, this was more or less the result that his phantom texter had engineered from the beginning. Whoever it was had wanted to stay out of the picture and at the same time to help Wyatt build a criminal case against his mother’s killer, who now had been prompted to act to protect himself. And no doubt would do so again.

  Hunt had a couple of guns in an underground floor safe in his house. He normally had no use for a weapon, and in fact did not have a CCW—Carry a Concealed Weapon—permit. Now, sitting in his darkened car on this empty street well after midnight, he suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and wished he’d thought to bring his gun along with him tonight.

  He realized with a shock of adrenaline that he was a fool to be going around unarmed. He would have to be better prepared, more on his guard, until this was settled.

  In his rearview mirror, a lone figure—a tall man in a trench coat, hands in his pockets—appeared, walking up the street. Coming abreast of Hunt’s car, he slowed and then stopped at the passenger window, then—his curiosity either satisfied or piqued—he simply walked on. Hunt’s heart, a piston in his chest, gradually found its normal rhythm again as Wyatt watched the man continue up to Spencer’s gate and right past it to the corner, then around and out of sight.

  Behind him, the street had reverted to its regular emptiness. Regaining his composure, Wyatt checked the time on his cell phone: 1:14.

  Lionel Spencer wasn’t coming home. His lights were still on. Hunt considered calling Juhle, but then thought better of it. He had nothing to give him but theories and paranoia. Instead, he hit the ignition, turned on his lights, put the Cooper in gear, and started rolling, calling it a night.

  18

  HUNT’S HOME WAS ONLY A FEW BLOCKS from the Hall of Justice and he walked over, showing up on the fourth floor with three hot froufrou coffee drinks from the lobby as a peace offering since he knew he was about to commence being at least a pain in the ass, and maybe more, to both inspectors. Russo sat on a chair she pulled over to the back side of Juhle’s desk, and when Hunt got to them, she stood up and let him take the seat.

  They greeted him neutrally—he was, after all, a civilian crashing the homicide detail—and weren’t exactly effusive in their thanks for the coffee. If the drinks he’d brought had been tea-based, they could have read the leaves and predicted a few true things. Even with only the coffee, they guessed pretty close.

  Juhle removed the lid on his cup, slurped the scalding liquid, and said, “Why do I get the feeling here, about ten minutes into the workday, that your earlier and admirable decision to let us handle this case and to keep yourself out of it has hit a snag?”

  “I’ve got an easy one for you, Dev. Didn’t you tell me that Lionel Spencer wasn’t planning on going out last night?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Well, guess what.”

  Before Juhle could answer, Sarah Russo spoke up, her morning voice raspy and her tone impatient. “Reading between the lines here, Wyatt, you’re telling us you went and saw Mr. Spencer?”

  “That’s half right. I went there. I didn’t see him.”

  “All right. Even that.” She fixed him with a level gaze. “I have to tell you you’re completely out of line. You can’t interfere with our investigation, period. It’s obstruction, however you want to spin it, and if you keep it up, I’m not being dramatic, it might cost you your license. Am I making myself clear enough here? You…​can…​not…​do…​this.” She pushed her cup toward him. “And I don’t think I want your damn coffee, either.”

  “Yeah, you do.” Hunt pushed it back toward her. “Half the reason I’m here is to tell you that I really am out of it.”

  “That’d be the good half,” Juhle said. “What’s the other half?”

  Hunt reached into his jacket and pulled out a vertically folded piece of paper from his inside pocket. “About a million questions I thought up last night while I was waiting for Mr. Spencer to come home from wherever he was.”

  Russo grabbed the paper and scanned it in about two seconds, a red blotch coming up her throat and into her face. “Oh, okay, thanks a lot. No, really.” She slammed it down on the desk and threw a hot glare at Juhle. “Jesus Christ! Do you believe this?” With a dismissive glance at Hunt, she told her partner, “I’ll be over at my desk.” Turning without looking back, she walked off halfway across the large, open room.

  “She’s upset,” Hunt said, “and she forgot her coffee.”

  “That’s some keen observation.” Juhle shook his head in disgust. “What did you think? Are you trying to be insulting or you just didn’t take your don’t-be-stupid pills?”

  “He’s in this,” Hunt said. “Spencer.”

  “Great. This just in. You’re not.”

  “I know. I know. I’m not.” He pointed to his paper again. “But those are things you’re going to want to ask him about, I promise.”

  “What? You didn’t think we’d get to them?”

  “No. I thought you would, of course. Of course, Dev. I didn’t think a cheat sheet would hurt, that’s all. I’ve been working on this a while, too, you know. He stonewalled you yesterday. You’ve got to hit him harder.”

  “Yeah, well. As Sarah says, thanks. We’ll get to it.”

  “Meanwhile, I’m calling off my people. Nobody else looks into it.”

  “Nobody else implies somebody, though, huh? And that would be you?”

  Hunt shook his head no. “I’m leaving town.”

  “That’s a good idea. Keep Sarah from arresting you. Where are you going?”

  “Indianapolis.”

  “Of course you are. What’s in Indianapolis?”

  “Jim Jones.”

  Juhle sat back in his chair, incredulous. “That’s your idea of not being in this?”

  “I’m still looking for my mother’s killer. I’m not out of that.”

  “What if the same person is Orloff’s killer?”

  Hunt shrugged. “If I find anything that points in that direction, I’ll bring it to you and Sarah first. There doesn’t have to be any conflict.”

  “There’d better not be, Wyatt. If there even starts to be, you’ve got to back out. Sarah’s not kidding about losing your license over it, if not worse, and that is no joke.”

  “All right. I hear you.” Hunt reached out at last for his own cup and lifted the lid on it. “But the fact remains
, Spencer didn’t answer at his house last night. Doorbell, phone, you name it. I waited around until after one and he never got home. The place was all lit up like a carnival.”

  “So he went out, big deal.”

  “Or didn’t.”

  “What do you…?” Juhle had to stifle a laugh. “That imagination of yours just doesn’t let up, does it? You think he’s there and unable to answer the door or the phone? Unconscious? Dead?”

  “Those are possibilities.”

  “Well, we’ll be sure to jump right on them.” Juhle lowered his voice and came forward in his chair. “Let me ask you a question. You promise to tell me the truth?”

  “If I can.”

  “There’s a heartening response.”

  “It’s what it is,” Hunt said. “What’s the question?”

  “Did you let yourself in and find something?”

  It was Hunt’s turn to hold back his laughter. “I would have,” he said, “but I thought you guys would be mad at me. So my final answer, and it’s the truth, is no.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I said ‘final answer,’ Regis. I don’t know what’s in the house. But I think maybe you should check it out.”

  “And as I told you, we probably will as soon as we can get around to it.” He tapped a pen on his desk a few times. “Just to let you know so you can rest easy, of course we think that Mr. Spencer is a person of interest. But we don’t typically want to talk too much to people like him until we’ve got something to talk about. So we’re having his phone records checked, see if he called anybody from Original Joe’s. And lest you think that we are uninterested in Mr. Spencer’s alibi, we have already verified that he left the restaurant alone about ten minutes before the shooting. We are trying our best to locate the cab and any other evidence that might present itself. Now, all this said, the possibility exists that Ivan was targeted for something unrelated to Mr. Spencer, or to your mother’s case. And we like to have an idea one way or the other before we start interrogating people so we don’t get accused of harassment. Or stupidity.”