The Hunt Club

by John Lescroart

  "According to Mahoney."

  "How old do you make him?"

  Hunt looked. "From that picture? Good luck. You're the one with kids. Six?"

  "That's about right, I'd guess. And she was twenty-two?"

  "So?"

  "So fourteen years. That's a good stretch between babies, don't you think?"

  Hunt shrugged. "Happens all the time. Plus, that picture might be six, ten, fifteen years old. They could be as close in age as Mickey and Tamara."

  Juhle's face went a little slack. He rolled his hurt shoulder, let out a heavy breath, and suddenly, surprisingly, turned and sat down on the sofa bed. "I'm losing it, Wyatt, I swear to God," he said. "You know that? I'm losing it."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Juhle hung his head, shook it as though it weighed a ton. "This goddamn shooting. The scumbag I shot last year."

  "What about it? You didn't have a choice, Dev. Plus, you saved a bunch of lives."

  "Yeah, but suddenly I'm the tall poppy."

  "What's that mean?"

  "You know, a field of poppies, one of them sticks up too high, that's the one you chop off. Ever since the the incident, everything I do gets second-guessed. Lanier just brought it up again this morning, more or less saying that if it wasn't me on this Palmer case, it'd go a lot easier on him. On everybody. So what do I do? I know I'm under the magnifying glass, right? So that's what I'm thinking about. How things get perceived—if you can believe that bullshit."

  "Don't worry about that. Just do your job."

  "Easy for you to say. I tried to convince Lanier this morning that I'd actually considered other suspects, and I have, but I couldn't get a one of them to gel, except Parisi. I don't seem to be able to get my brain working the way it used to."

  "You followed a lead till it gave out, Dev. That's what you do."

  "No. It's more than that. Like this picture just now." Juhle put on a voice. "Oh, really? It might not have been taken in the recent past. It might, in fact, be ten fucking years old." He looked up at Hunt, shook his head again, continued in his regular voice. "Jesus Christ! Where's my brain?"

  "Your brain's fine, Dev."

  "That's nice to hear, but you're not inside my head with me, Wyatt. Now I'm second-guessing myself. This job's about half instinct, you know, and I'm getting pretty damn close to zero confidence in mine. And that, of course, makes me act that much more certain of everything, even when I'm not or shouldn't be. It's eating me up."

  Hunt walked over and stood by the window for a second, then came back and sat down next to his friend. "If it's any help," he said, "I personally think you're still the same horse's ass you've always been. And the only way you're going to convince other people that you're a good cop is to be one over time. Don't get pushed into having to defend something that might be wrong. The investigation is continuing. You don't know yet and you don't say until you do. Then your mind isn't cluttered with all this confidence crap. You just do what you do."

  "He was coming at me, Wyatt. He'd already killed Shane and opened up once on me. I had no choice at all."

  "I believe you. So does every cop in the city. Including Lanier."

  "I'm still waking up a couple of times a week. See the double barrels coming down. Connie's even trying to talk me into going to see a shrink."

  "It might not kill you."

  "Maybe I should."

  "Couldn't hurt."

  After a small silence, Juhle checked his watch, said, "Funeral," and stood up.

  * * *

  They were driving up Second Street, this time Juhle in the front passenger seat, heading eventually for Fifth and Mission, the Chronicle's offices. Hunt spoke from the backseat. "Hey, Mick, are you all right?"

  "Great. Why?"

  "Because I've driven with you approximately four hundred times, and you've never once before driven close to the speed limit."

  "I never exceed the speed limit," he said. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Inspector Juhle here doesn't do traffic," Hunt said. "He just does homicide."

  But Mickey Dade knew that Hunt was capable of a lie like this one—trying to get him to slam it up to sixty—and Juhle would write him up a ticket while Hunt got a chuckle out of it. So he turned to Juhle, sitting next to him. "Is that true? You don't write tickets? I thought all cops kind of did everything."

  "Are you kidding?" Juhle asked. "Traffic division does traffic. I do murders. You want to know the truth, I get pulled over myself for speeding or running a red or some damn thing about every month or two."

  "They tag you?"

  "No. Of course not. They see the badge, and they either back off or I shoot 'em. But in theory, I'm not on lights and sirens, I'm at the limit or I get tagged. Just like you or any other citizen would."

  "Awesome," Mickey said. "That's really true?"

  "Scout's honor."

  "Cool." And Mickey punched it up to forty-five before the next intersection.

  * * *

  When Mickey pulled the cab up in front of the Chronicle Building, Juhle opened his door. "You don't mind waiting?"

  "No sweat."

  Juhle disappeared into the building, and Mickey looked back over his shoulder. "So how'd you like the pictures? That's an awesome house. Manion's."

  "Oh, yeah, sorry. I should have called you off that. I'll pay you for the time, but as it turned out, Juhle had already gone out and talked to her. Then I got busy and never got the time to call you."

  "No big deal. I shot the house anyway, though, and JPEG'd it off to you, home and work. You should check it out."

  "I will."

  "Someday, I'm a famous chef, I'm going to have a house like that."

  "I hope you do, Mick. I hope you do."

  * * *

  "Goddamn it! God damn it!" Standing on the Geary Street edge of the wide expanse of concrete in front of Saint Mary's Cathedral, Juhle snapped closed his cell phone.

  "Shiu again?" Hunt asked mildly.

  "You know how long it takes to run a ballistics test, soup to nuts? On a bad day, maybe one hour. You know how long Shiu's been waiting for them to start?" Juhle consulted his watch. "It's already been two and a half hours."

  "And you're thinking you should have gone down with him, exerted some authority, as you say, but it's probably just as well you didn't. Since Andrea never shot either of those guns at the judge or anybody else, those tests aren't going to turn out like you want, anyway, and then you'd be really mad. Besides, if you'd have gone down there, you wouldn't have come to Andrea's office, and then where would you be? Still thinking she's your suspect. Now, you're here, with an actual chance to see if not talk to somebody who might have had something to do with the case you're trying to solve."

  The last couple of days, Hunt was almost getting to where he was starting to expect television crews wherever he happened to go. Certainly, all three local channels and a couple of the cable stations were again represented here, although it looked as though Trial TV had for some inexplicable reason decided that they didn't need to carry Palmer's funeral live and direct.

  A fitful sun broke through onto the throng of arriving mourners. Juhle at first hung back on the periphery of the property, getting the lay of the land, but then he nudged Hunt, who buttoned his suit coat against the steady breeze, and the two of them began to stroll down the row of Minicams.

  Hunt pegged the crowd at already between two and three hundred. He recognized quite a number of the city's elite and powerful milling about, possibly waiting to be interviewed themselves—life as one big photo op. They stopped and listened for a minute as the mayor, Kathy West, extolled Judge Palmer's virtues to the blonde from Channel 4. Chief of Police Frank Batiste led a phalanx of his top brass, decked in their dress blues, up into the cathedral's mouth. A woman Juhle knew as another federal judge shared an anecdote with the hunk from Channel 7.

  Many, many civilians, of course, kept arriving in a steady stream as well. Juhle pointed out the judge's wife, J
eannette, and her sister, Vanessa, who was flamboyant even in black. Palmer's secretary and his clerk.

  An elderly couple caught Juhle's attention for a moment. He knew them. It was right there then he snapped his fingers and said, "Carol Manion, and I'm thinking spouse."

  Hunt spotted Dismas Hardy—in black pinstripes looking nothing like his bartender persona—walking with a very pretty redheaded woman and his two partners, Wes Farrell and Gina Roake. Farrell gave him a somber nod.

  Hunt saw Gary Piersall by one of the vans up ahead, standing with his hands in his pockets, the walking dead. After giving Juhle a quiet heads-up, when they got up to him, Hunt touched the attorney's arm lightly. "Mr. Piersall. Good morning."

  "Mr. Hunt. Inspector Juhle, right?" Piersall extended his hand. The men shook. "It's a sad day," Piersall said. "Are you making much progress?"

  "Not enough." Juhle gestured with his head to the interview going on in front of them. "Who's that?" he asked.

  "Jim Pine," Piersall said. "A client of mine. He and the judge were acquainted."

  Hunt threw Piersall a sideways glance to see if he was joking. But no, this was the drill for today. Hunt realized that Piersall wasn't going to be debriefing him on their discoveries in Andrea's office. "He runs the prison guards' union, doesn't he?" Hunt asked, telling Juhle.

  Piersall's eyes flicked between them. "Yes, he does."

  "What's he talking about?" Juhle asked.

  "Apparently, some irresponsible parties have been trying to establish a connection between the judge's death and some recent actions he'd been contemplating with respect to union matters. Mr. Pine is debunking that speculation as ridiculous, which, of course, it is."

  "Really?" Juhle said. "That's your position? Because I must tell you, I've heard a little bit about it myself, and it doesn't sound so far-fetched to me. Especially with the Andrea Parisi situation."

  "Well, inspector, if that's the direction your investigation is leading you, it's a small wonder you've not made much progress. Now if you'll excuse me, it looks as though Mr. Pine is about done, and we've got to be getting inside." Piersall leveled a last glare at Hunt and stepped around him to get next to his client.

  "Let him go," Hunt whispered, moving Juhle along. "It's an act for Pine's benefit. He's got to be the good attorney in public. He told me last night that he was scared to death."

  "Of Pine?"

  "Keep walking. Yes, of Pine."

  The light going on in his head, Juhle stopped in his tracks. "You saw him last night. That's how you found Parisi's car. You were there on something else."

  "I was there on what I found this morning, Dev. I just didn't know it then 'cause I hadn't found it yet."

  "Well, I've got to have a few words with Mr. Pine."

  "And he's going to talk to you?"

  "I'm a cop, Wyatt. It's not like he gets to choose."

  "He'll be lawyered up. He's already lawyered up. It'll just waste your time. You know it as well as I do."

  "You got a better idea?"

  "You know," Hunt said, "I think I do."

  * * *

  They decided to check out the inmate who'd escaped from prison.

  On the plus side, San Quentin occupies a large waterfront site with harbor views. Juhle was telling Hunt that he thought a developer could make a fortune here with a small city of condo complexes and an upscale mall, a marina with bay-front dining. The main buildings currently on the property—enormous, industrial-looking concrete structures in a square around an inner yard—would have to go, of course, and they'd have to think up some way to purge the bad karmic load that had accumulated from the decades that the facility had spent housing, feeding, guarding, and executing its inmates. But once they got that done: "They give it a fancy name. The yuppies would be lined up for a mile to bid on the suckers. Hey, 'Q by the C'—get it? Just the letters?"

  "I get it. You missed your calling, Dev. I'm serious." Hunt driving, they had left the main road a mile before and joined a surprising albeit short line of vehicles that were now pulled up to the guard's station at the gate. Three hundred yards farther, past the cluster of administration buildings, they saw the entrance to the prison proper. Guard station, double fencing, barbed and razor wire. "How does somebody break out of this place?"

  "Good question. That's what we're here to find out."

  Juhle had called the warden's office on the way up to make arrangements for their visit—as a homicide inspector on an active case, especially one of this import, he had theoretical access just about anywhere he wanted to go—and they only spent a minute at the guard's station with their identification and signing in.

  It was by now early afternoon on a Friday, and half of the parking lot off to their left was filled with the cars of other visitors who had come up the road with them—wives, girlfriends, children, lawyers. But Hunt had been directed to his right, to the administration building, and he parked in a visitor's space in front of it. The wind here whipped off the bay, cold and biting as they emerged from the car.

  The warden, Gus Harron, projected a stern bureaucratic competence befitting someone who directed a business whose budget was over one hundred twenty million dollars a year. San Quentin housed over five thousand inmates, almost twice the capacity for which it had been built, and supported fifteen hundred or so combined guards and other staff. Harron wore a gray business suit, white shirt, dark gray tie. He carried a large frame that showed no sign of fat. Rimless eyeglasses seemed to intensify an already imperious countenance, but for all that, he came around his desk and shook hands pleasantly enough, then took a seat on a couch under one of his windows, bidding Juhle and Hunt to take the chairs that faced it.

  "Did I get this right, inspector?" he began. "You're working on the Palmer homicide?"

  "That's right. And Mr. Hunt's a private investigator who's been handling an investigation for one of his clients—a law firm named Piersall-Morton—that seems to have intersected my own at a couple of points." He paused. "Andrea Parisi works for Piersall."

  Harron sat back, one leg crossed over the other, radiating the fact that the connection was intuitively clear. "And somehow both of your investigations are related to San Quentin?"

  Juhle shifted slightly. "We don't know for certain, sir. We're interested in finding out as much as we can about the inmate who escaped out of here last Monday."

  All amiability vanished from the warden's demeanor. "Arthur Mowery. He's the first escapee I've had in six years. You really need to contact the Department of Corrections personnel investigating that case. I can assure you, there'll be an exhaustive investigation and report into what happened."

  "The papers had it that he went out to get a smoke and simply walked away." Juhle was treading lightly. "We were wondering if you had any more details."

  Harron uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. "Look. I really don't want to talk about this. An escape is the worst thing that can happen to the warden of a prison, and now you want me to help you make it worse by connecting it to the murder of a federal judge."

  "We don't know if it's connected," Juhle said. "If you can eliminate the possibility, we'd be grateful."

  A long pause while Harron considered this. "All right," he said at last. "But how is Mowery even theoretically connected to Palmer's murder?"

  "We've seen some articles on the possibility that the union might be using parolees on jobs outside."

  "What kind of jobs?"

  "Muscle. Extortion. Vandalism."

  "Mowery was in for violating his parole," Hunt added. "His first time out, he was actually on the union payroll."

  Harron's eyes were slits. "And what?"

  "And Inspector Juhle here and myself thought it might be worth asking you if you'd heard anything about Mowery getting busted back here for failing to obey orders."

  "What orders?"

  Juhle shrugged. "Hitting Palmer, for example."

  The slab of Harron's face had hardened down to rock. "Bullshit." Abruptly, he stood, walked
over to his office door, opened it, and looked out. Then closed it again and came back to Juhle and Hunt and sat again. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. "It couldn't happen. And even if it did, under your theory, Mowery wouldn't have been reported missing."

  "Except he broke out," Hunt said. "And really went missing."

  Juhle soft-pedaled. "We'd just like to know a few more details about the escape. Maybe there was an unexpected shift change among the guards. The guys who were supposed to protect him didn't get to his new guards in time "