There were a few dates, running from about six months ago to the last one two weeks ago today. Next to those dates were numbers and letters: 24-O. 38-S. 60-P.
I stared at the data for a long time and then asked Portia to show me the politician’s file.
Another click and the file opened above the other one.
The name Davis Hunter was highlighted at the top. Marsh had told me who the mystery pol was, but seeing it there in black and white still had its effect.
There was a little uptick in my heart’s clicker rate.
Davis Hunter was the President of the San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors.
The writing beneath his name was a little easier to figure out.
Unfortunately.
Twenty-Three
Davis Hunter lived in an apartment on Nob Hill most of the week but appeared to often spend his weekends at a getaway in Sausalito, near the northern edge of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s another enclave of the monied atop a steep wooded hillside, overlooking the lively town and harbor, home to several houseboat communities. I knew a few of the guys who lived on the water and, once in a blue moon, attended parties there.
People who live on boats are as different as day and night, but they usually have a few things in common. One is a hatred of routines. And lawn. And staying put in one place, although many of them hardly ever move their boats. The possibility of movement is enough. Another is a wariness, a subtle suspicion of land lubbers. The feeling is probably mutual.
I knew no one living on the tony hill above, other than Davis Hunter, and I knew him by name and reputation only.
I took San Carlos Avenue and wound my way up the lush hillside, doubling back several times onto Spencer Avenue, until I passed Cloud View Park and Cloud View Road and arrived at Hunter’s estate on, naturally, Cloud View Circle.
I don’t use the word estate lightly. The thing sprawled like a wooly mammoth. Not to say it was covered in fur, but you somehow felt slightly diminished before its awesomeness. The edifice, a series of interwoven rectangular boxes constructed of stone and slate and marble, was set amidst a palette of soaring oaks, pines, and maples. Carefully tended bushes and giant plants guarded the entrance, all framed by a circular driveway.
I pulled up in front and sat on my bike for a few moments, taking in the breadth and width of the beast, breathing in the scents—the turpentine smell of the pines, a sweet floral orangey blush from nearby flowers, the slightest tang of sea salt in the breeze. While my nose was being tickled thusly, I considered my approach.
Davis Hunter owned a law firm whose offices took up two floors of a large building in the Embarcadero in San Francisco. He also developed real estate as a lucrative hobby. He had friends in high places and, no doubt, in low ones.
Johnnie’s file on him revealed enough to more than limn the surface of their relationship, and a blush of the shady depths beneath.
I strolled to the massive teak front door and tapped a golden-hued knocker three times, stepped back, turned around, and waited.
A woman’s laugh rang out from somewhere in the back of the house and then a shriek and the sound of splashing water.
I found a little doorbell ringer and leaned into it for a few seconds.
More laughter. More splashing.
It sounded like it was all happening in the backyard. I’d forgotten my swimsuit, but still, I didn’t want to miss out on all the fun. I found a stone path on the side of the house and followed it through a narrow tunnel of trees and plants that brushed my body as I passed. The path ended at a white gate. I reached over the top and flipped the latch, which led me to be standing at the edge of a vast lawn fronted by an infinity pool and a stunning view looking out over Richardson Bay, the opposite peninsula containing Belvedere and Tiburon and Angel Island to the West.
A young, and quite naked, young woman with large breasts sat on the side of the pool with her feet dangling in the water. Davis Hunter snuggled next to her, fondling the breast closest to him and nuzzling the soft, white flesh at the nape of her neck.
I was about thirty yards from them, and at first, they didn’t notice me. I couldn’t blame them, caught up in what they were caught up in.
I cleared my throat and said, “Davis Hunter.”
They both looked my way at the same time.
I waved in a friendly manner.
The woman said, “Shit,” and dived into the pool.
Hunter stared at me for a few seconds, evidently debating whether or not I was a direct physical threat to him.
I held up my hands in what I thought was a peaceful gesture and didn’t wait for him to formulate a question. “My name is Max Plank, and I need to talk with you. I’m sorry for showing up without an appointment, but it’s very important and couldn’t wait.”
“Are you with the police? Do you have a warrant?”
Mmmm. Interesting questions. I shook my head in the negative.
“Then you’re trespassing. You have no right to be here and—”
“I just need a few minutes of your time. After hearing me out, I’m sure you’ll understand.”
I had been walking slowly toward them and was no more than fifteen yards from the pool. Suntan lotion, chlorine, and sex sweat wafted in unequal proportions.
Hunter eyed me warily, sizing me up.
“Is this a legal problem? If so, please call my office during business hours, and I’m sure we’d be happy to...”
I shook my head causing his words to trail off. “It’s a personal matter—”
“This is ridiculous. I won’t allow—”
“I think you’ll want to hear me out. It relates to you personally, Davis.”
The woman’s face bobbed near Hunter’s feet in the water. She held onto the side of the pool with one hand while the other arm was wrapped around her chest. I wasn’t peeking, but she wasn’t buying it. “Davis,” she said, her eyes big and fearful.
“Shhhh,” he whispered to her, patting her on the head, and gave me a look that told me he was indisposed to grant my request.
“I know a reporter at the Chronicle. Maybe I’ll take him to lunch. Or talk to Poe about you,” I said with a shrug.
He stared at me with a look of consternation on his face for several long moments before I saw his expression break.
Davis Hunter was in his fifties, in good shape, with short gray hair, cunning blue eyes, thin lips, a tiny nose, and big ears. He wasn’t a handsome man, but he was neat and trim and vigorous looking.
We sat at the edge of his property in two blue Adirondack chairs looking out at the calm bay waters.
Katie, the young naked female, had been directed indoors by Hunter. I turned my back as she exited the pool, grabbed a towel, and pitter-pattered away.
“You embarrassed her,” Davis said.
“She has nothing to be embarrassed about.”
He frowned. “Are you a private investigator of some sort?
“Of some sort.”
He gave me a funny look. I get that a lot.
“So what’s this all about? I’m a busy man and—”
“I don’t blame you. If I had Katie waiting, I’d be just as impatient.”
He winced and looked at me like I was an alien from the Planet Asshole. “What’d you say your name was?”
“Plank. Max.”
“Get on with it, Plank.”
“I want to talk to you about your relationship with Johnnie Damon.”
His glance flickered away. After a long pause, he stood up. He fixed me with a look that could kill and said, “Show yourself out.”
“After you answer my questions.”
“The police are right at the bottom of the hill. A phone call away.”
“Comforting to know.”
He spun on his heel and marched toward the house.
I called out to him. “Hear you don’t mind the occasional golden shower, Hunter. And that’s not the half of it, is it?”
That pulled him up short.
He didn’t say a word, just turned and trudged back on over, settling himself slowly back down into that lovely chair right beside me.
Nothing like sharing intimacies to bring two men closer together.
After a good long while, he muttered, “What is it that you want?”
“I want to know what your relationship was, and is, with Johnnie.”
“Does she have me on tape? Video?” He was looking out over the pool and the Bay, maybe searching for answers to the mystery of life out there, or more directly, wondering how much trouble or money his personal peccadillos were going to cost him.
I wasn’t going to ease his mind. At least not until I got what I needed, and maybe not even then. Guys like Hunter bugged me. He was obviously an entitled son of a bitch. Maybe I was just jealous because I didn’t have Katie drooling all over me.
“When was the last time you communicated with Johnnie?” I paused, following his eyes out to the great unknown beyond, and added, “And I need the truth. Don’t try and lie to me because I’ve already talked to lots of people about her, including Poe, and I’ll be able to tell if you’re fibbing. If you start with that, then even a simpleton like me won’t have too much trouble uploading some interesting media to the Internet.”
Bullshit, yes. But what the hell. Remember what I said about those little white lies? Morally defensible and all.
He drew in the proverbial long breath followed by a truly exasperated sigh. Time passed. Finally, he managed, “I haven’t spoken to her in more than two weeks.”
“Can you give me an exact day or night?”
He crooked his mouth. “I think it was the tenth. A Wednesday night.”
That meant he’d been thinking about that evening quite a bit. It was two days before Johnnie’s disappearance. “Where’d you meet?”
He shuffled in his seat, rotated his head around on his shoulders, closed his eyes, tapped the chair with his fingers, turned, and gave me a look that managed to convey both bitterness and anger. “Can we cut to the chase here?”
“Nothing I’d like more. Let’s do. Did you kill her?”
Another attention getter. His eyes widened. His hair stood on end. Okay, maybe I just imagined that part.
“Do you know who I am? You can’t go around accusing a man like me of murder. Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Max Plank. That’s my name and I’m sticking to it.
“You’re married aren’t you, Hunter?”
She was a socialite. She had more money than he did, and her contacts smoothed his way in business and politics. Her clan was one of the most hallowed of San Francisco’s old families, dating back to the gold rush days. Her great, great grandfather had made his money bilking the hopeful fools panning for gold way back when. After that, they’d continued in the hospitality business and owned more than their fair share of the city’s fine hotels and restaurants.
I had no idea how he could be so brazen with a girl like Katie here. Maybe his wife was too busy attending balls and ribbon cutting ceremonies to notice. Or maybe she was happy to have other women deal with his carnal desires. Maybe she had her own stream of young lovers.
The rich are not like you and me.
Well, I shouldn’t speak for you.
“My marriage is none of your damn business.”
“No, it isn’t, you’re right. But let’s not kid anybody. Your bride might not care what the hell you’re doing with Johnnie or the lovely Katie here...” I waved my hand in the general direction of the door in which she’d disappeared. At the same time—I’m ashamed to admit—briefly conjuring her comeliness.
“But the local reporters and pundits would be all too happy to make merry with mischief over these goings-on involving one of San Francisco’s most storied families.”
Daggers. Bullets. Flamethrowers.
Take your pick. Davis Hunter’s eyes were shooting one or all of the above at yours truly.
After he finished giving me the evil eye, he looked away and opened up. “Look, sure. Johnnie and I were having an affair. I knew she was trouble, but...jeez, so seldom does one meet a woman so...skilled as her.” He blushed. I was surprised to see it from such a worldly man. “I got a little carried away. I think I know what crack addicts must feel like. I couldn’t get enough of her. And, believe it or not, Plank, I love her. Never felt anything like that before in my life.”
I didn’t say anything. True love can be hard to explain. I guess everybody has their version of it. I just don’t think mine would include fucking someone like Kate within days of losing your one true love.
“I knew she needed help, too. She was involved with some bad people. I got an inkling of some of the shady activities she was involved with. She was dealing with street thugs. And Poe. I thought maybe I could help her out a little. I gave her some money. She had to hustle to support herself and that poor little girl. I tried to guide her along with the benefit of my advice.”
I had a feeling that Johnnie had gotten far too much self-interested advice from too many powerful men.
“How’d you find out that she was missing?”
He closed his eyes. “It was crazy. We were supposed to meet. She’d never missed an appointment with me. She wasn’t answering her phone. I was worried. So I called the landlord. A woman answered. Kind of a space cadet. I didn’t say who I was. It was a little sketchy, but she told me that Johnnie had disappeared and mentioned the little girl was all alone.” He shook his head from side to side.
So Maggie was still holding out on me. She was a space cadet. Perhaps her memory was foggy from all the drugs she’d obviously ingested.
“I went a little nuts, I guess. I spent some time outside her apartment, just watching. I never tried to go in. I didn’t know what to do.” He gave me a searching look. “I sure hope you can find her.”
“How did you meet her?”
He looked out over the lawn, tapped his fingers against the chair and said, “A party out at Poe’s casino a few months back. It was casual at first, we had some things in common. She loved art, and my wife’s got a pretty extensive collection of moderns. She asked if there was any way she could see it.”
It was an upscale variation on the hackneyed pickup line—Young lady, would you like to come up to my garret and have a gander at my etchings?
“Did you think of contacting Poe to see if he could help?”
“Thought about it. Thought better of it.”
“So you confined your search for the woman you love to staring at her empty apartment?”
He gave me a foul look and said, “You don’t understand.”
“I’m just surprised, from what you tell me about the way you felt about her, and with your access to powerful people and resources, that you didn’t try a little harder.”
“Power, like all good things, comes with strings and limitations. But I’ll have you know that I did get in touch with contacts at the SFPD, and they’ve been looking for her.”
“Who in the department?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“I assume that, no matter what they find, they’ll keep your name out of the paper.”
“Of course. But I don’t see that that matters.”
Looked at in a less than flattering light, his reaching out to the police could be seen as self-serving. If a crime was involved, it was likely that the link from Johnnie to Hunter would be revealed. By contacting the cops, he was trying to eliminat
e the risk of them looking at him as a jilted lover and, therefore, a possible suspect. Might work, but probably not.
I handed him my card. “I want you to call me immediately if your contacts in the department give you any information. Anything at all. I mean it, Hunter.”
He had a pained expression on his face but nodded his assent. “What about...the evidence...the video or whatever. Are you...?”
“You love her, but you think she taped your get togethers? You think she was going to blackmail you?”
His brow furrowed. “You said that...”
“You suggested it first. I was following your lead.”
“So there aren’t any tapes?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What are you saying?”
“Not a damn thing. Have you told me everything you know about her disappearance? Is there anything you can think of that might help? Anything she said about the trouble she was in or somebody threatening her?”
“No. No. Nothing like that. I would have helped her if I thought she was in any kind of real danger.”
I studied him for a moment. Maybe he would have done so. As long as it presented no danger to himself or his cushy life. Otherwise, he might just allow the nexus of his love addiction, with some regret, sure, to just fade away.
I told him that I might be back if I didn’t hear from him.
“No. Don’t come back here.”
He offered his personal cell phone number, and I added it to my phone. I could wow my friends. The President of the Board of Supervisors and me, chummy as can be.
“I’ll let you get back to it then,” I said and headed back out the same way I came. As I crossed the lawn to the side of the house, I glanced back and caught Katie standing behind the glass patio doors in her teensy bikini staring at me with a disapproving expression on her face.
Before leaving Sausalito, I stopped in at Fred’s coffee shop, a local institution, the bright yellow awning heralding its inception in 1966. It had been too long since I’d sampled their great French toast. My taste buds were talking, ignoring the long-term health of my vital organs.
Stray Cat Blues Page 14