Now I was undressed, ready for bed. My clothes spun, thumping in the dryer. The counters and floors were clean enough to eat off. The dishwasher was silent. My bedroom, like the living room, featured windows high in the wall facing Brannan Street, and because of the streetlights outside, my quarters were almost never entirely dark. With all of my own lights off, as they were now, the rooms and the warehouse in general retained about the brightness of moon glow.
The telephone rang and I picked it up. "French Laundry," I said.
"If this is really the French Laundry," a female voice said, "I'd like to make a reservation."
"I'm sorry. We don't do reservations."
"I thought if you called precisely two months to the day before you wanted to eat, exactly at nine A.M., you could get one."
"That's only if there's a free table and if the phone's not busy, which it always is."
"But not now."
"No, but it's not nine A.M. So I'm sorry."
"Is there any way I could get a reservation now?"
"Are the first three letters of your last name m-r-l?"
"Those aren't the first three letters of anybody's last name. Besides, my last name has only two letters."
"Then I'm sorry, we can't fit you in."
"You don't take people with two-letter last names?"
"Only very rarely." But we'd played that out as far as it would go. I asked Wu if she were looking for a partner to drink with tonight.
"Afraid not. I'm working."
"Still?" I looked at my watch. "At ten thirty?"
"Billable hours wait for no one, Wyatt. They're here, I jump on 'em." She paused for a beat. "You want to guess whose name just came across my desk?"
"Winston Churchill."
"Good guess but wrong. Wilson Mayhew. Ring a bell?"
"Vaguely."
"Have you heard anything about him recently?"
I wasn't entirely able to hide the jolt of excitement. "What do you know, Wu? Tell me it's bad news. He's not dead, is he? That would be too fair."
"No, he's not dead. But apparently he is hurt. Or at least he says he's hurt."
"What kind of hurt?"
"Terrible, fully debilitating, work-induced, stress-related back pain."
"Wow. Those are a lot of adjectives."
"Yes, they are."
"So what do they all mean? That somehow it's not physical?"
"No. The pain is real pain if, in fact, he feels it. But the exact physical diagnosis can be difficult."
"So how did you find out about Mayhew? Is he your client somehow?"
"No. But one of our biggest single clients is the California Medical Insurance agency, which handles workers' comp benefits for state workers. But we also have a section that specializes generally in exposing medical fraud."
"Okay."
"Okay. Well. Have you ever heard of Chief's Disease?"
"No. Does Mayhew have it?"
The question slowed her down. "Actually, that may not be a bad call. Do you know what it is?"
I had never heard of it and she filled me in. Evidently each one of the previous six directors of the California Highway Patrol had filed workers' comp claims for disability in the final months of their respective terms in office, and every one of them was now drawing over one hundred thousand dollars a year in disability payments on top of their regular pension from their retirements. One of the ex-chiefs, she went on, whose inability to continue working at the Highway Patrol had been caused by a diagnosis of stress-induced hypertension, had taken over as the director of security at the San Francisco International Airport, a post that paid over one hundred fifty thousand dollars per year. Between his full pension from the Highway Patrol, the disability, and the new job, this hardworking law-enforcement officer was making nearly four hundred thousand dollars, much of it tax-free, all from taxpayer funds.
"That's a good job," I said.
"It's a great job," she replied. "And we've been hired to see that he gets a chance to lose it or at least the disability-pay part of it."
"And how do you find that out?"
"Mostly legal stuff. We depose witnesses who work or worked with the guy, subpoena medical records, demand reexamination with our own doctors, check his medications, like that. But we also use private investigators to follow these people around, see for example if they forget to wear their neck brace when they go waterskiing and think nobody's looking. Or, in the case of our airport security director, if he still pursues the low-stress sport of bungee jumping with his son."
"You're kidding."
"We haven't caught him red-handed yet, but we've got hearsay witnesses. We'll find out one way or the other. But the pointthe reason I called youisn't Mr. Airport Security. It's Wilson Mayhew."
"You're reviewing his claim."
"No flies on you," she said. "We got the latest batch of paperwork from CalMed this afternoon, and I was doing my pro forma review of red-flagged claims, and I recognized Mayhew's name from our many fascinating talks."
"As well you should, Ames. So what happened? Wilson got flagged?"
"Yes, he did. But don't get your hopes up too far about that, Wyatt. It's automatic for all permanent, full-disability claims. Beyond that, it's any claim over a hundred grand a year. Then also Mayhew's claiming stress-related, nonspecific injuryback pain is the classicwhere there's no immediate and apparent physical cause. He didn't fall down an elevator shaft and break his back, for example. He doesn't have a herniated disk or anything else we can see in the X-rays or pick up on the MRI. Evidently, he was helping one of his employees lift something at work, and he felt a bad tweak and went down. The next morning, he couldn't get out of bed, although apparently he's semi-ambulatory now." She took a breath. "So he gets flagged on all counts."
"He's lying."
"He may be. Although I have seen claims like his that turned out to be legitimate."
"I know the guy," I said, "and there's no way he helped somebody try to lift anything bigger than a paper clip."
She said, "You want to try to prove that?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, help us determine if his claim is legitimate."
"How would I do that?"
"Any way you could."
A hole opened in the conversation. Finally, I found a voice. "Haven't you got a bunch of private investigators you use for that kind of work?"
"Not a bunch, but some, yes."
"Then I don't get it. Why me?"
"Well, licensed, gun-toting PIs are expensive, at least if they're any good. Usually the firm does a preliminary investigation before we make the determination to bring in one of our PIs. We normally like to think there's some reason to suspect fraud before we send somebody out to make sure. Otherwise, we'd just be fishing on all our claims, and we'd have to go into the investigation business full-time, which we're not prepared to do. We're a law firm."
I sat with that for a moment. "That answers the general question of why, Amy. But not the 'Why me?' part."
"Well, frankly, don't be mad if I'm being presumptuous, but you've mentioned yourself that you were thinking about going back and looking for work. I thought you might be motivated about this, and besides, it might be good for you. Anyway, in the normal course of things, the firm would be spending a good deal of money over the next couple of weeks doing background on Mayhew's condition. We eventually might decide to put a tail on him, which will cost the firm more money, regardless of the outcome. But we may not, either. It depends on the preliminary findings."
"You want me to check."
She paused. "I've got to be clear that I'm not officially speaking for the firm, Wyatt. I'm not hiring you or even offering to hire you. I'm saying that in this case I'd be open to doing things a little bit backwards because it might save the firm considerable funds and man hours. If you told me you'd try to discover positive evidence of fraud in Mr. Mayhew's claim, I could be persuaded to put the preliminary legal steps on hold for a short while."
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"And if I found something conclusive?"
"In that case, we could discuss some kind of reward contingency."
"I'll start tomorrow."
"Wow. Great. Just like that? You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"You won't change your mind?"
"I won't."
"Okay, then." She paused. "You ought to try to be a little more decisive, you know. Nobody likes a waffler."
"I'm working on it. Meanwhile," I said, "tell me what I need to know."
* * *
I graduated from the University of San Francisco in 1989 and both because I craved life experience and because I didn't have any better ideas of what I was going to do for the rest of my life, I joined the army to see the world. Shortly thereafter, I got caught up in Desert Storm and sent to Iraq, which wasn't the part of the world I'd had in mind. As an English major with no job skills except the ability to write in complete sentences with verbs and nouns and other parts of speech in more or less the right order, I got assigned to the criminal investigation division to write up administrative and disciplinary reports.
Boring as the reports were, my experience with the CID was my first adult exposure to humanity's dark side. It's not something the army liked to advertise, but because of the tension, brutality, fatigue, emotion, crowding, and trauma to the human psyche, theaters of war are fertile breeding grounds for serious criminal behaviorpredominantly rape and its variants but also murder and mayhem, theft, and general depravity. This is not breaking news, but it was to me. After a while, I got promoted and started to interview suspects, to go out on investigations. For the first time in my life, work was important and excitinga rush, sometimes with an actual element of danger.
In my years with the CPS, many of the calls to the homes of abused children provided a similar buzz, and I came to realize that in some sense this feeling was my fix. In the five months since I'd been forced to quit, between my revenge fantasies and my anger issues, I'd given a lot of thought to the kind of professional path I eventually wanted to put myself on if I ever got myself out of the personal Dumpster. And one trait stood out. No matter what the eventual new career turned out to be, it wouldn't feature a whole lot of time in an office.
After Amy's call, I'd considered my options and finally pulled out my Canon 35 mm and my telephoto lens. I also owned a Sony video camera, which I dug out of the back of my bedroom closet. Miraculously, since I didn't even remember the last time I'd used either of them, both cameras seemed to have working batteries and film, and I put both of them and the ancillary junk into a backpack by the entrance to the alley in back off the kitchen. Then, turning off the brain, I went to bed.
When I opened my eyes to darkness for the fifth time, I finally gave up trying to sleep. Rain pelted the roof as I pulled on sweats and a windbreaker. By a little before six o'clock, the approaching dawn still not much in evidence, I was thoroughly soaked and making the turn at Cost Plus in Fisherman's Wharf, a mile and a half in eleven minutes. This was slower than I'd been at thirty, but I consoled myself with the news that it was undoubtedly faster than I'd be at forty-five.
Back home, I showered, changed, and decided to emulate Churchill while there was still time by opening a cold split of Veuve Clicquot champagne to have with my scrambled eggs. Coffee is my breakfast drink of choice as a rule, but what's the point of having a rule if you're not going to break it sometimes?
As the first order of business, I thought I'd wake him up for fun. Since I still had his home number from the CPS directory, I called him directly, heard his voice after the second ring, and hung up, smiling. I drove out to the address on Cherry Street that Amy had given me, a one-block dead end that adjoined the south border of the Presidio. It was just past eight o'clock. Parking on the opposite side of the street and a few houses away, I noticed the black Mercedes with the vanity plates that read KIDSTUF, his cute little play on words about the work he did at CPS. So I was at the right place. I checked my cameras one last time, still uncertain about exactly what I was planning to do. Amy had described Mayhew as partially ambulatory, but she'd also told me that he was receiving a full-disability pension. So I more or less expected that ambulatory in his case meant he could get up out of his wheelchair to walk into the bathroom or something like that.
Fifteen minutes into my first stakeout, the rain picked up again, falling in vertical sheets that partially obscured my view of the front door to Mayhew's large, two-story house, which was up twelve steps from the street level. My Lumina's windows, nearly closed against the precipitation, began to fog up. It dawned on me that if my target stayed indoors, confined to his bed or not, it was going to be a slow couple of weeks.
Not my idea of a good time.
Two options presented themselves: Call again, or knock on his door?
At CPS, the direct approach tended to produce the best results. So I waited for a slight break in the downpour, then let myself out of the car and jogged across the street and up the steps. It was still by most civilized standards a bit early for an unannounced visit, but he'd been awake enough to answer the phone an hour before, hadn't he? Compared to my half-contemplated plot to have the man murdered only a few weeks before, this interruption seemed nearly benevolent.
I rang the doorbell, waited, rang again. After another moment, I heard footsteps, and then the door opened. His wife, presumably. A well-preserved fifty, in a green housecoat. At this hour, she did not exude graciousness. "Can I help you?" She was brusque, no-nonsense. "It's rather early to be knocking on doors, don't you think?"
"Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry, but I was hoping to talk to Mr. Mayhew."
"I'm afraid he's not available right now. He's not been well."
"I heard that, but this is very important. I won't take much of his time. I'm one of his former employees with CPS, Wyatt Hunt. I'm sure he'll want to see me."
Her mouth was a tight line. "I'm not so sure of that, but if you'll wait just a minute." She closed the door on me, and I did as she'd instructed. Waited.
More footsteps, heavier this time, and then I was looking at Mayhew. He was dressed for work, without the coat and tie. I doubted that his wife had rousted him from bed in those clothes, especially with the shoes on.
"Wilson." It was the first time I'd called him by his first name.
He hesitated, the unaccustomed informality throwing off his timing. "What are you doing here? What do you want?"
I conjured up a chill smile. "I want my job back, but it's too late for that now, isn't it?"
"That wasn't me, Mr. Hunt. You made that decision yourself."
"What decision was that, Wilson?" I kind of liked pushing the first name. It shifted the dynamic.
"Not to accept the reprimand letter. That was your decision."
"Yes, it was. And you know why I made it?"
"No, I don't. Doing so was foolish, though, your only chance to hold on to your career, and you threw it away."
"Close, but actually a little off. I couldn't accept the reprimand because I didn't do anything wrong. And you knew this and lied about it."
"You're delusional," he said. He stepped back and started to close the door.
Rage had begun to swell like a tide within me as soon as I'd laid eyes on him, and by now I was riding it. The power of my emotions took me somewhat by surprise. Acting without any thought, I jammed my foot up against the door and leaned into it. "You're telling me to my face that you don't remember me stopping by your office to brief you about Nunoz?"
He pushed against the door forcefully, to no avail, and gave up. "It was to your face last time, too, as I recall, at the hearing. It didn't bother me then, either, because it was the truth then, too." He smiled. "In case you're wearing a wire." The face went dark. "Now get your foot away from the door, Mr. Hunt, or I'll be forced to call the police." Then he added, "The last time we had a disagreement that went to a third party for adjudication, you got rather the short end of it, didn't you? Are you sure you want to go through some
thing like that again?"
"No," I said, "you're right." I moved back, left the door free. "It's got to be handled differently this time."
Placid, his head cocked in a show of curiosity, he said, "That sounds rather like a threat."
The Hunt Club Page 4