The Hunt Club

by John Lescroart

  Hunt, leaning against Juhle's car, was silent. It was an impressive litany, he had to admit. All of Piersall's theories and concerns about the union and all of the apparent linearity of the crises that had forced the judge to begin drafting his order lacked the immediacy and passion of Juhle's argument. The only reason Hunt couldn't bring himself to accept it was because he didn't want to or couldn't bear to, he wasn't sure which.

  "And you know what I would have done after that?" Juhle stopped in front of him. "I would have tried to tough it out, to go on with my work, my normal life. But the very first night, I get so drunk I pass out. And the next day, I'm so distracted and lost that I leave for an appointment and wind up in my parking lot at work, never having thought about where I was going or what I was doing. And I realize it's hopeless. I'm not going to pull it off. I'm going to get caught, arrested, and tried, and then spend most if not all of the rest of my life in prison—and that's something I know more about than almost anybody who hasn't been inside because I work for the people who guard them."

  "You're thinking she killed herself."

  A brisk nod. "I'm thinking she walked out of here on her own two feet, got herself out to the Golden Gate Bridge by the time it was dark, and then walked halfway across. That or something very much like it is really what I think happened here, Wyatt, and my heart goes out to you if it did. Now, am I going to check the security cameras here in this building in the morning? Will I have a talk with Mr. Pine and follow up with Jeannette Palmer and maybe even take an interest in how Mr. Mowery managed to get himself out of a high-security prison environment and what he might have done or be doing right now in his hours of precious freedom? You bet I am. All of the above.

  "But until I find even a little tiny bit of actual evidence that connects anyone in the union or anywhere else to these murders, I'm going to stick with what makes the most sense, leaving coincidence and luck out of it. And that is Andrea Parisi. And I hope like hell I'll find some evidence that proves either theory. I don't care which. I just want proof." Finally, Juhle tried a smile. "Meanwhile, though, I think I'll get back home and try to squeeze a little sleep into this night while there's still time. And you might want to try the same thing."

  "I'll give it some thought," Hunt said.

  They said their good nights and got into their cars and headed through the lot and up the ramps. At the top, Hunt flashed his brights and honked, then got out of his Cooper and ran up to to Juhle's window. "Let me ask you one last thing."

  "Sure. Why not? You're going to, anyway."

  "I know you've got a warrant in to check Parisi's phone records, and you'll get a look at them soon enough. But I also know you've got somebody in security with SBC and Cingular and every cell phone company in the world who you could call right now. I've seen you do it. What I want shouldn't take five minutes."

  "You're shitting me." Juhle's shoulders heaved in a soundless laugh. He looked at his watch. "One fifteen in the morning?" But, in fact, it wasn't a completely unreasonable request, and he sighed in resignation, set his parking brake, pulled out his phone. "What do you want to know?"

  Hunt had both Andrea's cell and home telephone numbers, and he wanted to check traffic to or from each phone from noon on Wednesday. That's all. As it turned out, Juhle did this kind of thing often enough that he knew the number he needed to call by heart. When he got connected, he explained that the paperwork—the warrant to look at the phone records—had been signed by the judge and was on its way but that they were hot in a murder case. It was life and death, and they needed some information right now.

  It took a bit longer than the five minutes Hunt had predicted. Andrea Parisi hadn't made or received any calls on her home phone after noon on Wednesday. She had received one call on her home phone that day at 2:48 P.M. It had been placed from a pay phone in the lobby of the Saint Francis Hotel, about six blocks from where they were right now, and it had lasted forty-two seconds.

  When he rang off, Juhle didn't seem too impressed with the new information. "It could've been anybody, Wyatt. Hell, forty-two seconds, it could have been a wrong number."

  Hunt mostly agreed with him. It could have been anybody. But Hunt did not think it was from just anybody. Hunt was going to choose to believe that it was from the person who had ultimately met Andrea in the firm's parking garage, after telling her that they'd meet in her office. More than that, of far greater significance in Hunt's mind, the call's existence went a long way toward debunking Juhle's vision of what may have been Andrea's final hours.

  She had not been so distracted and confused that without any thought she'd more or less automatically driven to work, then realized how hopeless her existence had become. No, she had taken a quick business call that had changed her immediate plans. It was a small enough thing, but it meant that Juhle was not right in all respects.

  Logic or no, Juhle might not be right at all. And this in turn meant, logic or no, that Hunt might not be wrong.

  22 /

  After the Army, then CPS, then as a private investigator, Hunt had come to the conclusion that there was a joke about everything. No matter how grotesque, depressing, horrifying, just plain awful, stupid, venal, or tasteless any given situation was, if there was anything that could remotely be construed to have a shred of humor in it—hell, bring it on! Somebody's gonna laugh. Dead babies, mistreated animals, AIDS and all variants on every STD, medical mishaps, sexual dysfunctions, murders and suicides, infidelities, accidental mayhem, severed limbs—you're killing me here.

  And sure enough, Wes Farrell dredged up this morning's gem about that old comedic standby, the U.S. federal judge. They were all just checking in, sitting around his upstairs office before the business day had officially begun downstairs, and Farrell asked conversationally if anybody knew the difference between a federal judge and the Ku Klux Klan. To a roomful of blank, groggy stares, he finally said, "Nobody? Okay. The KKK wears white robes and scares the shit out of black people."

  There were five other people in the room—Hunt, Tamara, Chiurco, Amy Wu, Jason Brandt—and nobody reacted with so much as a smile. It wasn't much of a happy moment, what with Andrea still missing and now, according to Hunt, with Juhle still considering her the most likely suspect in the murders of Palmer and Rosalier. And a probable suicide at that.

  But that didn't stop Brandt from chiming in with his own contribution. "So this psychiatrist shows up at the Pearly Gates, all pissed off because he was young and in perfect health and he shouldn't have died so soon. It wasn't right. Saint Peter says he's sorry, but no real reason, they had to take him a little earlier than they'd originally planned. So the shrink is all, 'You mean you ended my wonderful life on earth early for no reason? Why would you do that? Just because you could?' And Saint Peter looks both ways, leans over and whispers, 'It's God. He thinks he's a federal judge.'"

  Hunt was wide awake in spite of only five hours of sleep. He gave the moment its due, which wasn't much, then threw a glance around the room at his partners and said, "Maybe we could talk about what we all did last night and see if it gets us anywhere."

  But as they started to revisit their individual interviews, it became clear that the earlier desultory banter was covering up a more profound shift in the general mood. Now it was Friday morning, and Andrea had been gone since Wednesday afternoon—one and a half days ago. Forty-two hours. They'd all read the Chronicle story this morning, front page. Now the whole world was looking for Andrea, the photogenic television personality.

  And now the three lawyers had their daily billable work looming ahead of them. Tamara and Chiurco were still obviously ready to take instructions and run with them—whatever Hunt wanted—but Mary Mahoney hadn't gotten them one step closer to Andrea Parisi. And finally, Tamara was the one who said it out loud: "I'm starting to believe she must be dead, Wyatt."

  There were somber nods all around.

  "It may not matter at this stage," Brandt suggested, "but maybe the best thing for us would be to try to contact Missing
Persons again. Tell them everything we know and see where they can take it."

  "They're not going to find her if Juhle can't," Hunt said. "He's got her as his main suspect in these killings. He's got people working on it, believe me."

  Farrell, who'd been sitting forward on the couch, his head down, now lifted it. "This phone call to her cell phone," he said. "That's the last time we know of anybody talking to her?"

  Hunt said it was.

  "So you know for a fact—you found this out last night?—that she hasn't used her cell phone since then?"

  "Right."

  Farrell let out a heavy breath. "Well, it seems to me, then, whether she's on the run or whether she's dead, either one, there's no trail left to follow. None of us found out anything that goes anywhere, did we?"

  Again, a silent, bleak consensus.

  Which Hunt still wasn't ready to accept. "Okay, I'm discouraged myself. But let's talk for a minute about Juhle's idea, that Andrea is either on the run or has killed herself. Anybody here besides me see the tragic flaw in that argument?"

  Wu spoke up. "It assumes that Andrea's a double murderer."

  Hunt turned to her, his face all but lit up. "There it is," he said. "Now I know that you, Wes, and Tamara, and Craig, didn't know her very well. But Amy and Jason did, and I was getting close, and there is just no way I can accept that she killed anybody."

  "Me neither," Brandt said. "Amy and I have both known her since law school, and I agree with you. I can't imagine it."

  "All right," Hunt said. "If we believe that, we can eliminate the fact that she left the parking garage of her own accord. In fact, what happened is she met somebody, probably whoever called her from the Saint Francis, who either talked her into coming away with them or outright snatched her."

  "Somebody she knew," Wu added.

  "Probably. Okay," Hunt said. "So that's where we are. And I still believe that's ahead of the police."

  "Yeah, but Wyatt?" Brandt seemed to have taken some signal from the group, making him its spokesman. Now he cleared his throat. "However it happened, she's been gone two nights now. I'm trying to imagine some scenario where this went down, even exactly as we described it, where she isn't already dead. And I hate to say this, but I can't find one."

  Hunt took in his assembled team, looked around the room from one set of eyes to the next. Wu had tears in hers. Tamara and Craig were holding hands. He saw no sign of any more hope and realized that all of these smart people had reached the same all but inescapable conclusion.

  * * *

  Hunt, Tamara, and Craig said their good-byes to Wu, Brandt, and Farrell at the Freeman Building. Mostly in silence, they walked the few blocks back to The Hunt Club offices and climbed the stairs. Once they were inside, Tamara went around to her desk and sat down, while Hunt crossed to the front window and stared down onto Grant Avenue, and Chiurco went over to start the coffee.

  Putting the phone on speaker, Tamara pushed a button, and they heard that they had seven messages.

  "Seven? A new record," Chiurco said. "Great timing, huh?"

  Scowling, Wyatt turned away from the window and came to hover, arms crossed, over the phone.

  Beep. Yesterday, 6:18 P.M. "Wyatt, Bill Frazier." This was the doctor who wanted background on his mother's new boyfriend. "Just calling to check on progress. You'd mentioned that you might have something by tomorrow, and things are heating up pretty quick with the two lovebirds. I don't want Mom to do something dumb, like elope before I get a chance to stop her. Sorry to push, but if you've got anything, I'd like to hear it sooner than later. Thanks."

  Beep. Yesterday, 7:04 P.M. "Hey, Wyatt, you there? Pick up if you can. Where are you, man? You got your cell turned off? This is Peter Buckner." The lead attorney in the depositions Hunt had attended at the McClelland offices on Wednesday. "All right. We got a problem with Jeremy Harter. He didn't show for his depo this afternoon, and he's not answering ."

  Hunt reached down and punched the button to kill the sound. He turned to Chiurco. "Did you get all your subpoenas served yesterday?"

  "Four of 'em."

  "Man." Hunt shook his head. "When's the court date?"

  "Tuesday." Which meant Craig shouldn't really take any time for other business such as Andrea.

  Swearing, Hunt pushed the button again, heard the end of Peter Buckner's message, then a chirpy voice of someone identifying herself as Melanie was telling him that he'd been preapproved for a platinum

  Tamara hit the skip button. "I've never been glad to get one of those before," she said.

  Beep. 9:19 P.M. "Mr. Hunt. My name is Ephraim Goldman and I'm a senior associate at Mannheim Shelby, referred to you by Geoff Chilcott at "

  Hunt skipped over the rest of that one. "Later," he said.

  They all listened to the next three, Tamara taking notes. Every message was new or continuing business, and none of them had anything to do with Andrea Parisi. Hunt sat himself down on the chair by the door and tried to get his mind to focus. He had a business to run here, he knew, but those demands suddenly didn't seem remotely compelling. He was starting to realize that the business was growing so fast that soon he'd have to bring on some more stringers, of which luckily there was a plethora—off-duty cops and even some of the other PIs were always ready to make some extra spending money. But he didn't have the time right now even to interview, much less hire.

  "Do you know where Mickey is today?" he asked Tamara.

  "I think he was cabbing. He's off his phone, though. I tried this morning."

  "I know. I tried him last night. You think there's any way we could get him to leave it on so we can reach him?"

  Tamara smiled. "I doubt it."

  "Well, if he checks in, tell him to call me. You know what," Hunt said. "It's true. Good help is hard to find."

  "Fortunately," Chiurco said, "you've got us."

  Hunt nodded. "That is fortunate. There's just not enough of you two to go around."

  "So what do you want us to do?" Tamara asked.

  * * *

  With a game plan that was anything but strategic, Hunt found himself approaching the Piersall building he'd left only about eight hours before. All he knew was that, business be damned, his personal priority was Andrea Parisi. He'd told Tamara and Craig that somehow they'd have to handle what they could among all these callers and somehow put off the others. Be self-starters. Manufacture brilliant excuses. Figure it out. That's why he paid them the big bucks. If they lost a client in the process, so be it. He'd take responsibility. And they should also be ready to drop everything in ten seconds if he needed them on Andrea.

  His employees might truly believe she was already dead—and, in fact, he saw that they clearly felt sorry for his inability to accept that truth—but he was not going to presume that she was gone until he was forced to. It was going to take a lot more than everyone else believing it.

  In contrast to last night, Montgomery this morning was clogged. The usual deliveries and normal heavy street traffic crept along around several police cars and the vans representing all of the local and a couple of the national television stations. A crowd of onlookers ebbed and flowed around the broadcasters and their crews.

  Hunt was only somewhat surprised—it wasn't yet nine o'clock—to recognize Spencer Fairchild and Richard Tombo hovering by the Trial TV van, sipping from Styrofoam mugs, and he picked his way through the crowd over to where they stood. When Tombo saw him, he motioned him inside the perimeter of their cameras, lights, and wires.

  "What's all this about?" Hunt asked. "Is there anything new on Andrea?"

  "She hasn't turned up, if that's what you mean," Tombo said. "But suddenly she seems to be in the middle of everything. You heard they found her car in the garage here?"

  "That wasn't any 'they,' Rich. That was me."

  "No joke?"

  "I've got no jokes left in me. I found the car last night."

  Spencer Fairchild, next to them both, didn't miss a beat. "You want to be on television, Wyatt?
"

  Hunt might not have any jokes in him, but he still had half a laugh left, and he used it now. "Like I want a root canal. But what's so important about the car that it's drawn all you flies? Did the crime-scene people come up with something?"