Treasure Hunt wh-2

by John Lescroart

  The inspectors watched and waited while the technician pulled one of her standard tools-a Wood’s lamp-out of her kit and shone it on the scarf. Under its ultraviolet light, a smear of characteristic stains appeared as fluorescent.

  She made a face and held it out at arm’s length.

  “Semen,” she said.

  19

  Jim Parr got outside, then, noting the weather, immediately went back in and up the stairs to his place to get his heavy peacoat. And so by less than a minute he missed his first chance to catch the N-Judah bus to downtown. As he rounded the corner to the bus stop, he saw it pulling away and took the opportunity to dust off several of his favorite underutilized profanities.

  The next bus put him in the thick of the last- minute crowd rushing into the War Memorial building. He was standing in the middle of the crush of humanity at the bottom of the stairs when word traveled down that the Green Room had reached its capacity and that no one else could be admitted. Over the next twenty minutes, those members of the crowd who chose to remain, including Parr, managed to push themselves upstairs, where they got backed into the hallway that led to the doors inside of which the memorial was to take place.

  Jostled back and across the entire hallway and now near the entrance to the elevator, Parr had just about decided to call it a day when he saw his old acquaintance and successor Al Carter approaching him, shouldering his way through the mass of people gathered between his spot and the Green Room’s door, his arm protectively around a tearful and perhaps frightened Alicia Thorpe.

  “Al!” he called out. “Alicia!”

  Carter raised a finger in acknowledgment.

  On an impulse, Parr pressed the button for the elevator. When it opened, he stepped back into it and held the door open as a few of the overload of mourners filed in before Carter and Alicia finally made it too.

  “Going down?”

  “Anywhere,” Carter replied, his arm still around Alicia’s shoulder wrap.

  Though she was clearly shaken, Alicia’s hooded expression barely allowed her to nod at Parr before she leaned her head against Carter’s chest. The doors closed in front of them and the elevator began its descent.

  On the ground floor, Carter stayed around long enough to exchange a few pleasantries with Parr. Then he turned to Alicia. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’d like to kill Ellen,” she said, “but otherwise…”

  “You got a way home?” Carter asked.

  “I’m good,” she said. “I drove myself down.”

  Parr cleared his throat. “You wouldn’t by any chance be going back my way, would you? Save me another Muni adventure.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Done.”

  Carter had made sure the guard at the door he’d exited upstairs knew he’d be coming back in. He was certain that he’d be readmitted, so he could afford these moments of pleasantries with Jim and Alicia, but clearly he wanted to get back up. After a few last encouraging words to Alicia, Carter left them both in the lobby and disappeared again into the elevator.

  When he was gone, Alicia turned to Parr. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Now they were speed-walking together on Van Ness into the teeth of the misty north wind. Alicia had parked a few blocks away and the walk to her car wasn’t much conducive to conversation.

  Once they were both in her car, the doors slammed shut and quickly locked behind them, they sat for another moment in silence, breathing heavily. Alicia fumbled in her purse, found her keys, turned the ignition on, and blasted the heater and then the fan all the way up.

  Parr still wore his heavy coat over his dress suit and it had cut the wind and cold to some extent. But Alicia-in her flimsy dress and woolen shawl-hugged herself with her hands up and down on opposite arms and took deep breaths and long exhales until she had gotten herself back to some sort of comfort.

  Eventually, she reached out and put her hands on the steering wheel, then gave Parr an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get so cold.”

  “I’ll forgive you this time. Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Just cold.”

  “Maybe not just that, huh? What happened back there?”

  For an answer, she just shook her head. Her hands gripped the steering wheel at ten and two, her knuckles white. She turned away from Parr to study a green light’s worth of traffic as it passed outside her window. Slamming the car into gear, she released the parking brake, turned the wheel, again checked the traffic.

  Then, abruptly, another shudder of cold or something else went through her, and she shifted back into neutral and set the parking brake. She stared into some middle space somewhere out in front of her. “Fucking Ellen Como,” she said.

  “What about her?”

  “She saw me and went ballistic and kicked me out of there. She thinks I had a thing with Dominic.” She paused. “Which I did not. Thanks for not asking.”

  Parr shrugged. “None of my business.”

  “I’m not that kind of person, not with married men anyway. I just don’t get involved that way anymore. It’s nothing but trouble, you know?”

  Parr chortled. “Full disclosure. It’s not a big problem in my life.” “And Dominic wouldn’t have been any part of that anyway, no matter what. That wasn’t who he was either. You knew that, too, didn’t you?”

  Parr stopped looking at her. He folded his arms over his chest.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  He hesitated. “People can change,” he said. “I believe that. I did.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that the Dominic I knew maybe wasn’t the Dominic you knew.”

  She brought her hands down off the steering wheel, onto her lap. “You’re saying he used to play around.” Her startling green eyes took on a glassy brightness, as if tears were starting to form in them. She turned to face him. “Regularly? Often?”

  Parr shrugged.

  “And if that’s true, you don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Listen to me, darling. You tell me to my face that you walk on burning coals, I’m going to believe you. I’m just saying that for Dominic, the Dominic I knew, it might have been a little out of character if he didn’t even try.”

  She took a long beat and waited. “Did Mickey know that Dominic too?”

  “Mickey? I don’t know where Mickey-”

  She shook her head in impatience. “Come on, Jim. What I’m asking is if Mickey is assuming that I slept with Dominic too? The way everybody else is?”

  “Well, first, not everybody else is.”

  “That’s not an answer!” Her voice taking on a panicky tone. “Did you tell him that you thought I probably was?”

  “Easy, hon, easy. Mickey and I never talked about it. Not at all. I had my business with Dominic and Mickey has his life. He never asked about my opinion on any of this we’re talking about, and I wouldn’t have told him anything because I didn’t know anything. Now I do, but only because you’ve told me. And it’s still none of my business. Or his.”

  “No. I think it is his.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s just that Mickey’s investigating who killed Dominic. And I already told him what I told you, that Dominic and I were close but not that close, and if he thought that wasn’t true, then not only would I be a liar, but I’d have a motive, you see?”

  Parr reached over and patted her on the hand. “You’re overthinking this, darling. Mick’s not that complicated. You want an old man’s opinion, I’d say that he’s thinking about you and him, not about you and Dominic. And I couldn’t exactly say I’d blame him.”

  She all but blushed. “You’re sweet, Jim. That’s a sweet thing to say.”

  “I’m a sweet old fart all right. But the point is Mick’s on your side. We all are.”

  She let out a deep sigh. “I can’t tell you what a relief that is, Jim. Especially after wh
at Ellen… what she did in there. I can’t have Mickey thinking I did this too. I didn’t. I really didn’t. You’ll tell him that, won’t you? And he’s got to believe me and you, too, then, right? To stand between me and the police. You see that, don’t you?”

  “ ’Course I do, darling. Even a blind man could see it.”

  “Well, all right then.” Taking another breath, she picked up Parr’s hand and kissed it. “Now let’s get you home,” she said.

  She pulled out into the traffic lane, got up a couple of blocks to California Street, and hung a left, heading west.

  “You know, if you don’t mind,” Parr said after a moment, “it’s out of the way, but maybe you could drop me out at Sutter.”

  “What for?”

  “I thought I’d talk to some people, see who’s hanging around, who knows what.”

  “Mickey said he was going to be out there talking to Al Carter.”

  Parr scratched at his cheek. “That’s Mickey and Al, and Al’s back there at the memorial. So I don’t think I’ll be in anybody’s way, not for a little while, at least.”

  “So what are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know exactly, except I’ll know it if I see it or hear it. Somebody always knows something, you know, even if they don’t know what it is. And what else am I doing with my time anyway? That is, if you don’t mind the drive.”

  “The drive’s nothing. Driving’s what I do. I’ll be happy to take you out there.”

  “Even you,” he said after a bit.

  She shot a glance over to him. “Even me what?”

  “You drove Dominic that Tuesday morning, didn’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “How long? Four hours? Five?”

  “Something like that. Why?”

  “You think hard enough, I bet you can remember something he said that would give you an idea about who he was meeting that night. ’Specially if you two were close, like you say. You talk about anything important with Dominic that morning? Anything unusual?”

  Her hands were again tight on the wheel, her eyes straight ahead, her brow creased in concentration or worry. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t think so. Nothing I can remember, anyway.”

  Linda Colores, heretofore the Hang-up Lady, tried to make herself comfortable on the one wooden chair that Tamara had set up across from her reception station in the outer office. But it didn’t seem to be working.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Ms. Colores, perhaps twenty-two years old, was a thin and stylishly dressed woman. She flashed a quick and apologetic smile, then raised a hand to her right temple. “I’m sorry. My head…”

  Tamara had already opened her desk drawer. “I’ve got some ibuprofen, if…”

  But Ms. Colores waved that off. “No. I’m sorry, but I know what it is. Food.”

  “Did you eat something that disagreed with you?”

  “No. Not food that way. I shouldn’t say food. I should say no food.” She stole a quick glance at her watch. “Is that the real time, eleven-fifteen?”

  Tamara checked her own watch, then the corner of her computer, saw that it was, and nodded. “Eleven-fifteen,” she said.

  Ms. Colores swallowed. “I’m so stupid. I’m out of bed at seven, I run five miles, I get ready for my appointment with you before I have to go and work all day, and I just forget one little thing. Actually, two. The first one is that I’m hypoglycemic. I don’t eat, my head explodes, and other things. The second thing I then forget is to actually put some food in my mouth.”

  Tamara eyed her with some suspicion. “Are you sure you didn’t talk to my boss or my brother? No, I’m kidding. But both of them are always on me to eat, eat, eat.” She paused for a second. “Maybe we should go out and have a little bite. Would you like to do that?”

  “I think I have to. I’m sorry.”

  Tamara pushed her chair back and stood up. “No more apologizing, okay? We go get something to eat, we talk about what you heard the other night. Good?”

  “Yes, good,” Ms. Colores said. “Thank you.”

  Fortuitously, Hunt’s office was close to Belden Alley, just a block away. Mickey often said that Belden Alley alone, one short block in length, if it were the only street in the city, might make San Francisco qualify as a better-than-average-destination restaurant town, and then he’d list its restaurants like a carnival barker: “Brindisi Cucina di Mare, Voda, Taverna, B44, Plouf, Cafe Tiramisu, Cafe Bastille, and Sam’s Grill.”

  Partially guided by expense, although none of the places would bust even Tamara’s budget, she convinced Linda that Brindisi was what they wanted. Fifteen minutes later, during which they made small talk mostly about food and their brothers (Linda had two, both older), the waiter delivered Tamara’s rigatoni with lamb ragout and artichokes, and Linda’s grilled salmon sandwich on ciabatti with lobster mayonnaise, salad, and fries.

  “So,” Tamara began, a few bites into her lunch, “what happened that Tuesday night?”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Linda said, then paused for a moment. “I feel really bad that I didn’t do more, I mean when it happened. But then, I know it sounds bad to say I didn’t want to get involved, but at the time it just seemed like a fight, and all I wanted to do was get away from it. And then at the store, they were talking about how they found the body right near where I’d been. And then at first I wasn’t even sure it was Tuesday. I mean, I really didn’t think about it at all as maybe connected to Mr. Como’s murder until I heard about the reward-I know that sounds a little crass…”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “Still. I just thought about what if it might have actually been important. You know?”

  “It’s fine, Linda. That’s why they put out a reward. Get people thinking about things that otherwise they might not really have registered. But now you’re pretty sure it was Tuesday?”

  “No. I’m completely sure.” She dabbed a napkin at her mouth. “I have this little calendar book-I know this is pretty Type-A, but welcome to Linda Land, as my brothers say. Anyway, I kind of use it as a shorthand diary for everything I do every day-how much I ran, hours I worked, where I ate, who I went out with, movies, books. It’s probably a disease, and I’ve definitely got it.” She shrugged. “In any event, I checked back and realized it had been payday and Cheryl-she’s my friend from work-and I decided to go wait at the A16 bar and have dinner there. Which, of course, took about three hours.”

  “For dinner?”

  “Well, one and a half for the wait-totally worth it, by the way-then about the same for dinner. But the point is that I probably got out around ten, ten- fifteen, said good- bye to Cheryl, and then-remember, it was that warm week?-I was stuffed so I decided it was so nice out I’d walk some of the food off, so I headed down to the Palace of Fine Arts, which I love at night.”

  “Go on.”

  “So then I’m down by the lagoon, just really strolling, enjoying the night, and I get down to the parking lot by the Exploratorium and I hear these voices, a man and a woman, so I stop. It’s not like I was trying to eavesdrop. Just ahead of me the trail turned and they must have been around the bend.”

  “You didn’t see them?’

  “No. Even if I had, it would probably have been too dark to recognize them. But anyway, it was obviously a fight, I mean just from the sound, but then I’m standing there and the woman goes, ‘God damn you!’ and I hear this, like, slap. And then she’s all ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that.’ ”

  Clearly getting caught up in the emotion of her retelling, Linda Colores blew at a few of her hairs that had fallen in front of her face, then brushed them from her forehead. “So now I’m thinking,” she continued, “I’ve got to get out of here, but it’s like my feet are stuck to the ground. I’m just rooted there, afraid I’m going to make some noise if I move. I mean, I really don’t want to be there, but.. .” Another shrug, followed by another sigh.

  “So she hit him
?”

  Now Linda nodded. “And then there’s this silence, and finally I hear him plain as day. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘I’m sorry, but it’s over. I can’t do anything about it.’

  “And she goes, ‘You can. You can if you still love me.’

  “And he goes, ‘Aren’t you listening to me? That’s the problem. I don’t love you anymore.’

  “And then I hear her say, ‘No, no, no, that can’t be,’ and then there’s this kind of sickening sound, like a… I don’t really know what it was like exactly. I mean, she kind of groaned with exertion or something and then there was this, this kind of dull sound-I even thought at the time it could have been somebody getting hit with something. I know I should have maybe gone and looked then. I mean, it sounded bad enough, but by then I was scared. I mean really scared. And then suddenly I start to actually feel sick and light-headed myself and I turn back and start walking away as fast and as quietly as I can. I really should have done something about it then, I think. I mean, called the police or told somebody. But when there was nothing about it on the news, not until Friday when they found the body, and even then I didn’t immediately put it together. Although I guess I should have, shouldn’t I?”

  “You’re here now,” Tamara told her, “when a lot of other people wouldn’t be. So I wouldn’t beat myself up over it too much.”

  “I don’t like to think I’m such a coward,” Linda said, “or that I only came forward now because of the reward.”

  “I don’t think that,” Tamara said, “and I’m the only one listening.”

  20

  Being thorough, Mickey stayed on at the Sanctuary House offices and spoke for a time with each one of the five other women who worked there to see if any of them had seen or heard anything from Nancy Neshek on the Monday afternoon of the reward announcement that might bear on the question she had meant to put to the Hunt Club. None of them was particularly helpful; all were shaken and tearful.

  It was after noon when Mickey finally finished and left the admin office. From the hospital lobby, he called Hunt on his cell phone and left a message, thinking, What’s the goddamn point of having a cell phone if you don’t take it with you or keep it turned on? Hunt was supposed to be at the Como memorial. So was nearly the entire cast of characters from which he needed to find alibis for the past Monday night. So it was doubly frustrating that Mickey had just learned that the Communities of Opportunity people had held a meeting on that night. Presumably-in fact, almost certainly-Nancy Neshek had been there along with many others of the nonprofit executive directors, associates, and certainly even Len Turner.