The Hunt Club

by John Lescroart

  * * *

  Three floors down in the same building, Juhle, Shiu, and Carla Shapiro were in an employee lounge that was larger than the entire homicide detail—six tables with four chairs each, vending machines for coffee, tea, sodas, candy, snacks. The smells of popcorn and stale coffee hung in the air. Andrea's secretary was thin, bespectacled, frizzy-haired, earnest, and sick with worry now about her boss, she told them. Just sick.

  She was talking, all nerves, as they took seats at one of the tables. "She called at about quarter to three and said she was feeling a little better and wanted to come in and catch up on some of her work, but first, she was going to go out and visit a client at her home, then probably be in after I went home, no doubt till pretty late. I didn't have to wait around—she'd leave stuff on my desk for the morning."

  "But she didn't?" Shiu asked.

  "No. She never came in. At least she never signed in downstairs. After hours, we have sign-in here in the building, you know." Then, as though it had just occurred to her, "She'd missed most of yesterday, too, you know? And she never misses work. I mean, never."

  "So what was she doing yesterday?" Juhle asked. "That made her miss."

  "Food poisoning, they said."

  "Who was that?"

  "Her doctor, I think. He called and talked to reception, not to me."

  Shiu had his small notepad out and glanced down at it, then looked up. "But then she was apparently better by about quarter to three?"

  "Yes, I think so."

  "You talked to her personally," Shiu asked, "and she was going first to meet a client at her house. Did she do that a lot? Meet clients at their homes?"

  "I think so, yes. Sometimes. It depended."

  Suddenly Juhle broke in. "Do you know the name Staci Rosalier? Was she one of Andrea's clients?"

  Carla shook her head. "No. That name isn't familiar. I'm sorry."

  "Nothing to be sorry about, ma'am," Shiu said. "Did Andrea tell you who she was going to see?"

  "Yes. Carol Manion. You know the Manions? Except she never got there."

  "How do you know that?" Shiu asked. "Did you call her?"

  In Carla's nervous state, the question appeared to startle her. "Who?"

  "Mrs. Manion."

  A haunted expression of guilt settled in Carla's dark eyes. "Well, no. I mean, there was no reason to last night before I left, and then because she called here instead. I mean, the office. Later last night. There was a message on Andrea's line when I got in this morning."

  "From Mrs. Manion?"

  Head sunk into her shoulders, she nodded. "Wondering if Andrea had forgotten or gotten the wrong day or something. Which of course Andrea would never do."

  "No." Juhle made circles with his index finger on the table. "So she never made it to the Manions? If she was going there at all."

  "I think she was. That's where she told me she was going. Then coming back here."

  "And that," Juhle asked, "is the last you've heard from her?"

  She reached under her glasses and brushed away a tear. "As far as I know," she said, "that's the last anyone's heard from her."

  17 /

  Wes Farrell's work environment didn't bear much resemblance to the other law offices Hunt visited throughout the city. It took up nearly the entire third floor of a stately renovated building in the heart of downtown. A casual visitor who came up via the elevator in the underground parking lot—thereby avoiding the formal reception area and bustling legal offices on the floors below—might reach the conclusion that this was the private residence of an eccentric and spectacularly slovenly person.

  Farrell's mostly unused desk sat over in the corner under one of the windows, which left the rest of the space free to resemble a living room, with an overstuffed couch and matching easy chairs, a couple of floor lamps, a Salvation Army coffee table. A Nerf basketball net graced the wall by the door. Farrell had willy-nilly pinned up some old and unframed advertising prints from the Fillmore era and one poster of Cheryl Tiegs walking out of some water somewhere wearing a see-through bathing suit and a killer smile. The counter and cabinets on the left-hand wall might have been a college student's kitchen, with the sink and coffee machine and mugs out, and binders of stuff, legal pads, and books scattered about everywhere.

  But nobody was enjoying the place at the moment. Farrell, slouched on the couch, his feet up on the table, summed it up for all of them. "I'm getting a bad feeling here."

  Wu slumped in one of the easy chairs, hands folded in her lap. Hunt, who'd charged out of McClelland's a few blocks away after his depos finished up, was standing by the television perched on a low wall unit under the street windows. He reached over and switched the thing off. They'd just finished watching today's Donolan wrap-up on Trial TV, featuring only Richard Tombo, no mention at all of Andrea Parisi. "Amy and I, we're ahead of you on that one, Wes," he said. He turned to Amy. "You talked to Spencer recently?"

  "Forty-five minutes ago," she said. "She hasn't called. He's thinking it's serious."

  "He's right," Hunt said. "So, as far as we know, nobody's talked to her since she left to go to the Manions?"

  "Do we know she even did that?" Farrell asked.

  Hunt nodded. "She took her car. We know that. It was in her garage when I dropped her off at her house, and it wasn't there last night."

  "So where's the car?" Wu asked.

  "No lo se." Hunt blew out in frustration. "And apparently she never made it out to her meeting. Manion called her office and asked where she was—if she'd forgotten the appointment."

  "So she just gets in her car and disappears?" Farrell asked.

  "So far," Hunt said, "that's what we've got. It's not good." He walked over to the seating area, straddled the armrest on the other easy chair. "And while we're at it, here's the other thing I've been wondering about most of the day. She'd just found out she wasn't going to get the anchor gig in New York, right? She was badly hungover. She even thought that slapping Spencer might cost her the regular gig on Trial TV, with ramifications if it got out at Piersall as well."

  "You're saying she might have killed herself?" Wu asked.

  Hunt didn't want to think that but knew that it wasn't impossible. People were complicated, endlessly unknowable. What he had interpreted as a hopeful beginning, she could have seen as another possibly tawdry episode in a life that might have been filled with similar connections. He said, "I've got Tamara calling emergency rooms all around the state because it's the only thing I can think of. But you know her better than I do, Amy. What do you think?"

  "Do I think she might have killed herself? I want to say no, but "

  Hunt's cell phone rang and, holding up a finger to Wu, he got it and moved over to the window for better reception. "Yeah, we just saw it, too," he said. Then, "I know . Uh-huh. Sutter Street, Wes Farrell's place upstairs . Yeah, we're all here now . What about? Okay, just a sec." He turned back to face the room, spoke to Farrell and Wu in a suddenly husky voice. "Devin wants to come up and say hi to all of us. It's about this. We all gonna be here for ten more minutes?" He got nods all around and went back to the phone. "Okay, Dev, we're here. Sure, it's your call."

  When he closed the phone, he remained standing by the window, facing out. His shoulders rose, fell, rose again.

  "Wyatt," Wu said with some concern. "What is it?"

  Finally, he turned around. "It's just that Devin and Shiu are homicide, and they want to come up here and talk about Andrea." He let out a long breath. "Homicide means somebody's dead."

  * * *

  The next few minutes passed in an agonized semi-silence. At one point, Wu said, "If they had anything definite, it would have been on the news. Especially what we just watched. They can't have anything."

  "Unless the police didn't tell them or asked them to sit on it. But let's hope," Farrell said.

  Hunt called Tamara again, found out that Andrea hadn't been admitted to any of the emergency rooms she'd called so far, although she still had another ten or fifteen
to call in the nine-county Bay Area alone, to say nothing of the state at large. It was going to be a while.

  The conference phone buzzed and Farrell picked it up and said, "Good. Send him up."

  The first sight of Juhle's face was reassuring. He looked done in after a long day of work, but it didn't look like he was here to deliver the kind of bad news they'd all been fearing—his eyes, in fact, appeared lit up with a kind of expectation. But the sense of relief hadn't gotten any chance to take hold before Wu asked if they'd heard anything about Andrea.

  "Just tell us she's not dead," Farrell added.

  Juhle shook his head. "Not that I know of. You got any reason to think she's dead?"

  "You do homicides, Dev," Hunt said. "You wanted to talk to us."

  "I did. I do. And it's a homicide, all right, but not hers." He looked into the three concerned faces in front of him. "I just came from talking to Rich Tombo down outside the Hall after his gig. He'd called and left a message that he felt there was something he needed to tell me. Any of you guys hear the rumor that Andrea Parisi had been romantically involved with Judge Palmer?"

  Hunt felt the blood drain out of his face. Because immediately the rumor rang true. How had it not occurred to him? Palmer, of course—the "other guy" Andrea had been seeing for two years before Fairchild, who didn't want a serious relationship, who had dumped her, who worked with the CCPOA. And now, who had been murdered.

  Wes Farrell harrumphed. "It's hearsay, Dev."

  "Well, yes, it is." Juhle wasn't here to fight anybody. "But we're not in trial, and this is the kind of hearsay that makes us feel like it would be a good idea to question the object of it if at all possible."

  "Which, right now, it isn't," Hunt said.

  "So it seems," Juhle said.

  "Wait a minute," Amy said. "You're saying you want to ask Andrea about George Palmer's death?"

  "Right."

  "As a suspect? That's ridiculous."

  Juhle shrugged.

  Farrell was unconvinced. "It's just a rumor."

  "Granted," Juhle said. "But we know about when Palmer started up with Staci Rosalier. The other victim. About six months ago. Right about when Donolan began. Which, according to Tombo, is when the judge broke it off with Andrea."

  Shiu amplified. "Tombo's opinion was that she wasn't over him."

  "Yeah, but Dev," Hunt said, "they broke up six months ago. And then she kills them both last Monday?"

  "I'm sorry," Farrell said. "There's just no way."

  "No? Were you with her, Wes, on Monday night?"

  "No, but "

  Juhle looked from Wu to Hunt. "Either of you? Okay, then. Here's what we know. She did the broadcast with her TV people at four thirty and another one at five, after which her limo dropped her at her firm at five thirty or so. She worked for an hour and a half and signed out of the building at seven-oh-eight."

  "And then what?" Farrell asked.

  A shrug. "Then we don't know. It's why I wanted to talk to all of you. Tombo told me you guys all were out with her the next night, Wyatt's little anniversary soiree, which I now so wish I'd attended. Maybe she mentioned something about what she'd done the night before to one of you."

  "This is insane," Wu said. "I know she saw the judge every week or two with the union stuff they did. In fact, she'd just " Suddenly, Wu stopped.

  Juhle didn't miss the slip. "I'm listening, Amy."

  Wu looked for help from Hunt to Farrell, but neither could offer anything. "Well, she had seen him having lunch that Monday."

  "And how," Shiu asked, "do you know she did that, ma'am?"

  "She told me at Sam's. She couldn't believe it about him having been shot. She'd just seen him at MoMo's the day before."

  Juhle's eyebrows went up. "MoMo's is where Staci Rosalier waited lunch tables."

  "Wait up, Dev," Hunt put in. "So your theory is that six months after Andrea and Palmer broke up, she sees him and his new girlfriend at MoMo's and out of the blue succumbs to this mad fit of jealousy and decides she has to kill them both that night? At his house? Doesn't that seem a little out there?"

  "Absolutely. I don't pretend to have the answers, just questions. The primary one being where is she? But add that to her apparent motive " He shrugged. "I don't know how out there it is anymore."

  * * *

  Hunt was out on Sutter Street alone with Juhle, who'd hung back while Shiu went to get the car. "So you want to know what she was doing Monday night?"

  "Yeah. First, though, same as you, I'd just like to find her." His face set hard, he went on. "And it's funny, we heard from Tombo that your very own self left your cigar place hot on her tail Tuesday night. You catch her?"

  "She was drunk, Dev," Hunt said. "I took her back to my place to dry out. Then brought her back home around noon."

  "That would be yesterday, the last anybody's seen her." Juhle paused. "You fuck her?"

  The question, completely unexpected, left Hunt tongue-tied just long enough.

  So that Juhle said, "Shit. You did."

  "I never said that."

  Juhle had no patience for it. "Yeah, you did. Give me a break. And now you're also the last one we know to have seen her."

  "And now I'm a suspect, too?"

  "It's not as funny as you seem to think. I'm not kidding. It's going to occur to Shiu, too, I guarantee you."

  "And then what? He's going to arrest me?"

  "Don't push it, Wyatt. Don't give him an excuse. He might." After a second, Juhle said, "So Parisi's the one who stood you up last night." It wasn't a question. He had figured it out, and now took a step forward into Hunt's personal space. He lowered his voice to a whisper laced with anger. "Maybe you remember last night when you told me she didn't do much work herself involving the prison guards' union? Except for meeting with my murder victim every week or so? Did you know she was sleeping with him, too?"

  "I didn't know that. I never suspected that."

  "Good for you. But the rest of it, you just didn't think it mattered?"

  Hunt's guts roiled and he felt the flush rise in his face. He'd asked for this. "I know it matters, Dev. What can I say? I should have told you. I fucked up. I'm sorry."

  "Damn straight you fucked up."

  "Right. I know. She was hurting. She was a mess. I guess I was trying to protect her."

  "From me?"

  "From everything. But you, too. Right."

  "You know what? That really pisses me off. If she's innocent, she doesn't need protection from me or anybody else. You get that?"

  "Yeah, but if any of this gets out, it won't matter if she killed those two or not. If she's been having an affair with the judge on her biggest case, she's toast."

  "Not my problem. Not yours, either. I need to find her."

  "So do I."

  "If you do, I need to see her."

  "Dev, I won't hide her from you."

  "No? Let's hope not. But while we're on this, what else haven't you told me?"

  Hunt said nothing.

  "No hurry, Wyatt. I've got all day."

  "You'll find this out, anyway, when you get to looking in her house," Hunt said at last. "She's got a gun collection in her dining room."

  "Swell. Terrific. Fucking peachy."

  "She " He stopped. There was no point in arguing with Juhle about this or trying to explain it away. It was what it was.

  "Anything else," Juhle asked, "that you know about her that might matter?"

  After another minute, Hunt said, "Nothing." Then: "No. Wait." He considered whether it was, in fact, something and at last he spoke. "I don't think she stood me up."

  Juhle moved away a half step, squinted with still-angry eyes. "I'm so happy for you. What the hell does that mean?"

  "She's the one who brought up the idea of us going to dinner. She said she'd call me one way or the other. She doesn't do that if she's planning to light out of town. She would have called. So whatever's up with her, it wasn't her choice. It happened to her."

  "S
o she's a victim? Like every single convict in every jail in the world."

  "I'm not saying she sees herself as a victim, Dev. I'm saying she might be one. That's my truest call."

  The cop backed up another step. "Your truest one? Okay, I'll take it into consideration." Shiu pulled the car up to the curb and gave a polite little honk. Juhle turned, got to the door and opened it, then turned back. "But I'll tell you what, Wyatt. Your truest call meant a hell of a lot more to me yesterday than it does today."