The Hunt Club

by John Lescroart

  "I'm sorry. Who is this again, please?"

  Hunt told her, then waited while she told him she had to get to someplace a little less noisy. Listening to her progress through her home—"Turn that thing down!" "Jason, put that away!" "No more food. I mean it, you!" "Damn damn damn!"—he got a decent sense of the environment from which Staci had fled and never looked back. A door slammed, and she was back with him. "There," she said at last. "I couldn't hear myself think in there. Now, Mr. Hunt, is it? You said you were a private investigator, calling about Staci?"

  "I think so. Although I believe she changed her last name."

  "Is she in trouble again? That girl was made for trouble. But I don't know how I can help you. We haven't seen hide nor hair of her for years now, since a few weeks after she graduated by some miracle. Not that that's not what you expect, of course, you been at this as long as we have. I mean, they have their own lives, and there's certainly no such thing as gratitude for the people who raised you. We've seen that enough, God knows. If she needs money, you best tell her she's barking up the wrong tree. But all right, what's she done now?"

  "Before we get to that, ma'am,"—and the pain that Hunt would much rather avoid bringing to her—"I wonder if you would mind telling me about her baby."

  The hesitation gave the lie away. "She didn't have no baby. Who are you working for?"

  "At this point, I'm working for Staci, ma'am."

  "Then why didn't she tell you about the baby, she wants to talk about it?"

  "I thought you just said that she never had one."

  A silence.

  "She had a boy eight years ago, didn't she? The father was Cameron Manion."

  "I'm not supposed to talk about this."

  "Did the Manions pay you not to talk about it?"

  She didn't respond.

  "Mrs. Keilly?"

  "She never had a baby. I told you."

  "I think you've just told me she did."

  "I don't want to hear any more about this." But she didn't hang up. Hunt waited. Finally, she spoke in a different, smaller voice. "Oh, God, what's happened?"

  "It's not good, ma'am. I think you want to be sitting down." He gave her the news as delicately as he could. Envisioning her as ill-tempered, self-pitying, selfish, and ignorant, he nevertheless felt his heart go out to her when he heard the emptiness in her voice as she exhaled, "Oh."

  When he finished, silence engulfed the line.

  When Mrs. Keilly finally spoke, it was barely a whisper: "That rich old woman thought her boy was so great, so perfect. They were so far above all of us. And that my girl was trash. All of us were trash. She thought Staci got pregnant on purpose to get her hooks into them and their money."

  "So what did they do?"

  "Well, first, of course, they denied Cameron was the father. They said everybody knew that Staci was a slut and was sleeping with every boy in the camp."

  "She was at Cameron's water-ski camp?"

  A brittle laugh. "Are you kidding? We couldn't afford anything like that. She was a lifeguard at Berryessa, that was all. It was her summer job. Maybe we shouldn't have let her go up there alone, but it was supposedly an excellent camp for rich kids, and we trusted her. We didn't think well, it doesn't matter what we thought."

  "So then what?"

  "Well, say this for the boy, he fessed up. Wouldn't hear no talk about Staci being with somebody else. That was his baby, their love child, and he was going to be a man and take care of it, and marry her, too. He loved her. Sixteen years old. The fool."

  "So you—"

  "Hold it. We didn't do anything. Nothing wrong, anyway. If this was their precious boy's child, then the baby was her grandchild ."

  "You mean Carol Manion's?"

  "That's who we're talking about, isn't it? Carol rich bitch fucking Manion. Her son wasn't likely marrying any white trash. And she wasn't allowing no grandson of hers being raised in some trailer park. Oh, and the scandal. Don't forget the scandal. You know they never even came to see us, talk to us? Just sent their doctors and lawyers. Cutting their deal."

  "With who? With Staci?"

  She'd found her voice again, snappish, whining. "Staci didn't get to choose. She was fourteen years old, for God's sake. When she wouldn't sign the papers, we signed them for her. It was our decision and best for the child, for everybody. There wasn't anything wrong with what we did."

  "How much did they pay you?" Hunt asked. To leave your daughter's child with them so they could raise it as their own. And then to move your fourteen-year-old Staci—no doubt without any warning and perhaps with a deception tantamount to kidnapping—to another far-distant part of the state.

  "It wasn't the money," she said.

  But he knew that, of course, that's exactly what it had been.

  29 /

  Case or no case, Juhle had learned the hard way that you didn't take your cell phone to your kid's ball game if you didn't want to be disturbed. And tonight, since he was actually functioning as the Hornets' manager, the rule applied even more strictly. So he was truly unreachable, his pager and cell phone in his glove box.

  Then, after the team's win and pizza with the family, his conscience got the better of him, and he drove them all over to the Malinoffs' place in Saint Francis Wood to visit Doug. He was still in bed, his leg encased to his thigh. Everybody signed the cast—Juhle wrote "Slide, dammit, slide!" and Connie had added under it, "But not on grass where the spikes can catch." And everybody had a chuckle. Then Juhle and Connie each had a couple of beers and hung out in the bedroom with the invalid and his wife, Liz, until the Giants game on the big screen was over while the six kids sat mesmerized by some animated feature film in the playroom.

  Now it was a bit after ten, the kids were down in their own beds at home, and Juhle took off his sling and laid it over the bedpost, rotated his shoulder in a tight circle.

  "Any progress at all?" Connie asked as she came in from the hallway.

  "At least it's not frozen. I think I'm going to stop with the sling. And it's getting so I can pick up small objects in the other hand. It's slow, but every time it gets me down, I think of poor Doug stuck in his bed for the next few weeks with a spiral fracture and, call me cruel, but somehow I feel better."

  "You are cruel."

  "True. But in a friendly, kind of touchy-feely way. Was it just me or did you get the impression Doug was surprised we won tonight with me managing?"

  "Surprised? His worldview went out of whack. Did you see his face when you told him you let the kids do their own batting order? With everybody in a position they'd never played before? I thought he'd have a heart attack."

  "I probably set the team back a couple of years."

  "No doubt about it." Without breaking stride, Connie walked up to him and put a finger on his chest. "I see you looking at your phone, inspector, and I must admonish you—do not turn it on. Don't even pick it up. I'm going to retire to the powder room for a minute and return in a state of natural splendor for which you should prepare yourself. You will need all of your energy, I warn you."

  * * *

  Connie was breathing deeply beside him most of an hour later when he left the bed, grabbed his phone and a robe, and walked out into his living room. Played his messages. Finally called Hunt. "You awake?"

  "Full-time," Hunt said. "Where are you? You got my messages?"

  "Home, and I just listened to them. You've been busy."

  Hunt outlined it all briefly again, Juhle taking down names, approximate dates, telephone numbers.

  "So it's all about this kid?" Juhle asked when he'd finished.

  "Right. Carol Manion's been raising Todd as her own son since he was born, as Cameron's little brother, when he really is his natural son. It looks like the adoption wasn't even legal. They just paid off Staci's parents to get her out of the picture right after the birth."

  "They admitted that?"

  "As much as, Dev. But Staci doesn't learn to live with it. When she's eighteen, after high school, s
he moves up here, no doubt to just be close to her kid, and sometime after that finds Todd and from a distance takes the picture that everybody's seen now. After that, I don't know what happened exactly. Maybe she saw the good life this kid had, way better than anything she could offer him. Plus, she's still only a teenager. She's got to be intimidated by the Manions. But at least she's physically close to her son now. And Todd's got a mother who loves him, who he believes is his mother. Add to that, that Todd doesn't know Staci at all, never had. And he was, in fact, living with his natural father. Maybe she came to terms with all of it."

  "Until Cameron died?"

  "Right. I think that's what happened. Cameron died, Todd's real father. After that, somehow it wasn't the same. It didn't feel the same to Staci, Todd being raised by his grandmother alone. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right. Besides, by now—we're only talking last summer—Staci's life has changed pretty dramatically. She's not only four years older and a real adult, she's got a good job, she's living in this very nice condo. On top of that, she's intimate with Palmer, who not only has huge power, but who, it turns out, also knows the Manions. She's got leverage and even legal standing now. She can fight to get her baby back."

  Juhle, going along with it. "So the judge gets her set up with Parisi."

  "Not yet, I don't think," Hunt said. "He gives Andrea's card to Staci, okay, but before they get involved with a bunch of lawyers and it gets ugly, Palmer's the big negotiator with the ego to go with it, right? He can call Carol Manion, and everybody can talk it all out like civilized people. Plus, this makes him even more of a hero to Staci."

  "So he invites her over to his place Monday night?"

  "That's how I see it. It starts out a nice call from Palmer to Carol Manion, old friend to old friend. Come on over, and we'll talk about the situation, reach some amicable settlement. The judge mentions that he's extremely sensitive to Carol's privacy issues and so far has made sure that neither he nor Staci has mentioned a word about this to a soul in the world. All Staci wants is some time, some regular visitation with her baby."

  "But "

  "Exactly. But Carol doesn't want an amicable settlement, she won't hear of any visitation. She's already lost Cameron within the last year. There is no way she's going to let this trailer-trash slut have anything to do with Todd, now her only son, and with the life she's given him. So when she comes over to the judge's on Monday night, she comes armed. She's ready to have the whole issue die right there with the judge and Staci."

  "So where's Parisi come in?"

  "I've given that some thought and think this works. Listen. We know that Carol didn't walk in firing. The judge was at his desk, right? With Staci over next to him. So they talked at least for a minute or two, maybe a lot longer. I figure Palmer told Carol that either he or Staci had talked to Andrea already, that she was going to be handling the visitation details, the documentation, something like that. So she called Andrea either that night or the next day and set up the Wednesday appointment."

  "Uh-oh."

  "What?"

  "You were going fine up till then. Why would she have waited until Wednesday?"

  "Maybe that was the first appointment Andrea had."

  "But if we'd have identified Rosalier before then, Parisi would have seen the connection and come to the police."

  "Maybe, but probably not. I don't think it necessarily means she would have said anything to anybody. She's a lawyer. Manion could have called, promised her a retainer to get them into an attorney-client relationship, then confessed the whole damn thing to her on Monday night, and she couldn't have breathed a word of it. Wouldn't have. Andrea could have met her thinking she was going to be doing her defense." After a minute of silence, Hunt said, "Dev?"

  "Yeah, I'm here."

  "I like it."

  "Me, too."

  "But we've still got no evidence."

  "Right."

  "Or sign of Andrea."

  "Hey, Wyatt," Juhle said gently. "We may never get that. You understand?"

  "I know. I'm not counting on it. The Manions aren't home, by the way."

  "Did you go by there tonight?"

  "Yeah."

  "What for?"

  "Maybe have a discussion with them."

  Juhle took a breath. "I think we're getting into the realm of police work here, Wyatt. Maybe you've gotten us so close, I can start doing my job. You don't want to muddy those waters."

  "Oh, okay."

  "Where are you now?"

  Hunt didn't answer right away. "Parked out in front of their place."

  "Wyatt."

  "I'm cool, Dev. Don't worry. I'm not going to do anything stupid."

  "You're already doing something stupid. If Carol killed Andrea, it's a police matter."

  "Of course. What else would it be?"

  "It would be something you wanted to get out of Carol Manion on your own. Maybe some inkling that you'll be able to find Andrea?"

  "No."

  "What, then? Andrea's dead, Wyatt. Really. I'm sorry, but that's what it is. And I'd prefer it if you didn't even talk to any of the Manions, even if you get the chance. I mean it."

  "Well, as I said, they're not home."

  "Neither are you, and you should be."

  "I will be soon."

  "When, though, exactly?"

  "When I'm done here."

  * * *

  When he hung up with Juhle, Hunt called Mickey Dade and tried to interest him in driving up to Napa, where he could find Manion Cellars, see if the proprietors were at their home up in wine country. Mickey showed little interest in this particular field trip. He'd already lost some taxi income running around for Hunt last night and earlier today. And now Friday was his busiest night with the cab, and he needed to make all the money he could if he wanted to get into his cooking class next week. Besides, Mickey told Hunt that he'd already been up in the area plenty of times and knew where Manion Cellars was. It wasn't like they were trying to hide the place, he said, since they'd gone to the trouble of building and staffing the visitors' tasting room and all. "If you can't find 'em, Wyatt, I'd consider a career change," he said. "I hear plumbing's got a lot going for it."

  Hunt had gone up to the enormous Manion house when he'd first arrived and rang the doorbell, listened to its chimes peal and fade into the unseen vastness of the interior. For a while afterward, he'd sat in his car, hamstrung by ambivalence. He didn't know where the Manions were or if they were coming home here. And he wasn't really a hundred percent certain what he planned to do if they showed up and he got to talk with them.

  But Hunt had come here on instinct, and now instinct stirred him again. He got out of his car and stood a moment, staring through the fog at the dark facade of the Manions' home. He crossed the street and started up the walkway to the front door but hadn't gone more than a third of the way when he heard the sounds of car doors opening and closing behind him. He turned, squinted against the sudden glare of a flashlight. Two men were advancing toward him.

  "Hold it right there! San Francisco Police! Put your hands over your head!"

  Instead, thinking it was either Juhle or some friends that he'd talked into hassling him for fun, Hunt spread his hands and started to take a step back toward them. "What are you ?"

  "I said over your head!"

  "He's reaching !"

  Now suddenly in a rush they came at him, one of the guys hitting him high and hard, manhandling him backward, stunning him before he could even react.

  "Jesus! Hey! What the !"

  Then they were both on him, complete professionals who knew how to take a man down in a hurry and had obviously done it many times before. One of them, getting Hunt's hands behind him as they rolled him over into the wet grass; the other, with a knee in his kidneys, one hand squeezing on the back of his neck while the other hand patted him down, found the gun tucked into his belt, freed it from its holster.

  "Well, well, well," he heard. He looked up into Shiu's slightly puzzled features.
Hunt's arms got jerked back nearly out of their sockets, and as the handcuffs snicked on one wrist, then the other, Shiu bound him from behind.

  Hunt still had a knee on his spine, a hand at the back of his neck. Still struggling, he managed a few words. "Shiu, it's me, Wyatt Hunt. Knock it off. You're making a mistake!"

  "You made the mistake," the other voice said, "when you didn't put your hands up."