To Catch the Moon

by Dempsey, Diana

  It was sunny, unlike the prior afternoon, but hardly warm. Salinas was twenty miles inland and got a lot less fog. On a day like this, though, Milo still needed his overcoat.

  “Milo Pappas?” A thirty-something guy in a tie and trench coat held out his hand. He had to be TV. He was too well dressed to be print. “Jerry Rosenblum, Channel 8.” The local WBS affiliate.

  “Good to meet you, Jerry.” Milo took his hand. “You guys are being terrific hosts, as always. We really appreciate it.”

  Network people always felt compelled to be nice to the local affiliate folks, who often were tremendously helpful when a net crew blew into town. They provided local knowledge, editing bays at the station, and in this case an ENG truck. The locals usually felt both one up and one down to the network. They knew the terrain backward and forward but aired their reports only in that market, whereas the net reported to the nation.

  Rosenblum nodded. “It’s our pleasure. You might not have to be around for long, though.”

  Milo’s ears perked up. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well”—the reporter looked pleased to know something Milo Pappas didn’t—“once the D.A. names the suspect today and we get past the funeral, there won’t be much to cover till the trial.”

  “So Penrose will name the suspect today?”

  “So I hear.”

  “And it’ll be Treebeard?”

  Rosenblum nodded. No news flash there. The only surprise was that it had taken this long to become official.

  Milo was pleased. Maybe the gods would grant him his wish to get off the Monterey Peninsula sooner rather than later. He truly didn’t want to see Joan. It hadn’t been too difficult to resist her out-of-it invitation from the prior afternoon, though he couldn’t quite forget it, either. It lingered at the edge of his brain like the proverbial apple dangling from Eden’s tree.

  It still embarrassed him how snookered he’d been by Joan back when they’d dated. Of course, he’d been a lot younger then, and though he wasn’t exactly wise now he was no longer quite so impressionable.

  It wasn’t as if she were exceptionally beautiful or fascinating. Sure, she was good-looking, but in the way women with money were good-looking. They were so pampered, so cared for, so thin and well dressed. They did the most that could possibly be done with what they were given and ended up looking pretty damn good.

  No, the bottom line was that it was a damn sexy thing dating American royalty. Certainly his own background, as the son of a diplomat, imbued him with a certain glamour. But dating Joan was a stamp of approval from the highest of the high, from a Rockefeller or a Bush or a Kennedy: a family with money, fame, power. His acceptance into their magic circle boosted him in the network-news world as well.

  Once he’d been dumped, though, he’d realized that Joan had little going for her but money and fame and power, none of which she’d earned and all of which she lorded over him and everybody else who came into her orbit. There was little of substance in the woman herself. At long last he figured out that he had confused where she came from with what she was. It was a mistake he vowed he wouldn’t repeat.

  Milo was jolted back to the present by a commotion among the reporters. Finally. A tall, graying man Milo took to be the D.A. emerged from between the tall striated columns that adorned the main Alisal Street side of the courthouse, then moved swiftly down the few wide steps to the forest of microphone stands the TV crews had long since set up.

  Milo assessed Kip Penrose. He had the look of an aging Ivy League oarsman, together with the swagger even smalltime elected officials assumed. Milo couldn’t help but notice that his coterie included a stunningly attractive brunette. He nudged Rosenblum’s elbow. “Who’s that?”

  He didn’t need to provide greater clarification for his fellow reporter to know exactly who he meant. “Alicia Maldonado. Really has her shit in gear.”

  “You don’t say.” Milo watched as she halted just behind Penrose’s right shoulder, her lovely face impassive.

  “She won this wild murder case a few years back.” Rosenblum lowered his voice confidentially. “Guy’s wife dies hanging on a clothesline and it gets ruled a suicide. But something makes Maldonado think the husband did it. First trial she gets a hung jury. But the second one she brings in this hotshot medical expert and nails him.” Rosenblum looked impressed. “It was a huge story out here. The guy confessed later from prison, in his own suicide note.”

  Rosenblum gave him a look like Hot shit, huh? then moved off to join his cameraman. Milo positioned himself beside Mac, watching the prosecutor called Alicia Maldonado.

  She was gorgeous, in a Mediterranean way he didn’t usually go for. His standard female of choice was blond and rail-thin, more ethereal than earthy. But this woman had something Sophia Loren-esque about her, a hot-blooded, pent-up quality. What with the long dark hair, sultry eyes, and full lips, she was a fantasy made flesh. Milo had a devil of a time not staring.

  Penrose began to speak. “I am Kip Penrose,” he declared, then spelled out his name, a savvy aside for the benefit of the reporters. Penrose had done this before, apparently. “I am the district attorney here in Monterey County. To my right is Deputy District Attorney Alicia Maldonado, to my left Department of Justice criminalist Andrew Shikegawa, and to Andy’s left our pathologist, Dr. Ben Niebaum. I will give a brief statement, then be available, as will my colleagues, for your questions.”

  Penrose read a statement that said what they’d all expected to hear, since they’d all seen the arrow, or the video of the arrow, on Saturday night: that based on the physical evidence, a warrant had been issued for the arrest of John David Stennis, who called himself Treebeard, for the murder of Daniel Gaines, blah blah blah. Then it got more interesting.

  “ ‘Late yesterday afternoon,’” Penrose read, “ ‘a nationwide APB was issued for Treebeard. Law enforcement officials have not yet located him so have been unable to serve the warrant.’” He paused and looked directly into one of the TV camera lenses, unfortunately not Mac’s. “We ask the public to contact local law enforcement if they see anyone fitting Treebeard’s description. And we warn the public that he is considered armed and dangerous.”

  Milo chuckled softly. Evidently Kip Penrose thought those arrows might go shooting off in any direction at any time.

  “Questions?” Penrose invited, and the shouting began.

  “What physical evidence do you have that links Treebeard to the murder?”

  “Do you believe Treebeard is still in California?”

  “What motive would Treebeard have for killing Daniel Gaines?”

  It went on for a while, and there was only one notable thing about it, in Milo’s opinion. More than once, Penrose did a subtle check with Alicia Maldonado before he answered a question. She would give a barely perceptible nod or shake of the head, and he would proceed accordingly. Once she even corrected him, on a bit of minutiae regarding special circumstances, or death penalty, cases, of which this was one.

  Milo hadn’t yet asked a question, but after all the back-and-forth between the D.A. and his deputy, one occurred to him. He raised his index finger and Penrose looked in his direction.

  “Milo Pappas,” he said by way of standard ID, “WBS News.” He consulted his spiral-bound reporter’s notebook, then again raised his eyes, his deliberate pause drawing everyone’s attention. “Should this case come to trial,” he asked, “who will be the prosecuting attorney?”

  He saw a glimmer of amusement flicker in Alicia Maldonado’s lovely dark eyes, and a shadow cross the patrician features of District Attorney Kip Penrose.

  “I will, Mr. Pappas,” the D.A. declared with some heat, but Milo couldn’t care less about the answer. He might have asked several follow-up questions, plumbing the same obviously rich vein, but he didn’t. No point getting the lead prosecuting attorney on the story he was covering all riled up.

  Besides, Milo’s instincts told him he’d already gotten what he wanted. He’d made progress toward wi
nning himself an intelligent, not to mention highly attractive, inside source.

  *

  He’s a slick one, Alicia thought. No man with those looks could be anything but.

  She’d known who he was, of course, before he’d said a word. She wasn’t a big TV watcher but hadn’t been living under a rock, either. He certainly hadn’t needed to say his name before he asked his question. It was kind of like Brian Williams introducing himself, or Robin Roberts. But it was endearing, too, Milo Pappas acting like Joe Reporter.

  Penrose was driving her nuts, so it was highly satisfying to see somebody else get a rise out of him. Not only had he made her postpone her trial, he’d also insisted she accompany him that night to update Joan Gaines on the case.

  As if she could care less whether Joan Gaines was “apprised,” as Kip put it. Let him do the fifty miles round-trip to Pebble Beach. It was his campaign her family was funding.

  Then she thought better of letting Kip have a clear field where the widow Gaines was concerned. It might be valuable to get another close-up look at her, see if she’d started showing any regret that her husband had gotten skewered by an arrow.

  A few interminable minutes later, Penrose ended the press conference. He always let them go on forever, seeming to think that would get him more face time on the evening news. “We’ll hold a follow-up press conference when events warrant,” he was saying now. Right, like when he broke a nail. “Thank you all for coming.”

  Alicia was up the stairs and almost at the courthouse door when she felt a tap on her left arm. She stopped and couldn’t believe who had waylaid her.

  “Milo Pappas.” He held out his hand and smiled. No wonder mythology came out of Greece. Apparently gods were born there.

  “Alicia Maldonado.” She took his hand. His fingers were warm and his grasp just firm enough. She made herself let go.

  “Seems to me you’re the real expert in this case,” he said. “I noticed that the D.A. kept looking to you for guidance.”

  “He values my judgment,” she lied.

  “Apparently he’s not the only one. I’m told people around here hold you in high regard.”

  What a flatterer this guy was. She arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been around here long enough to pick that up?”

  He chuckled, then met her eyes and held them. It struck her that he’d be a hard man to fool, which made her both wary and admiring at the same time.

  “Do you have time for a coffee?” he asked. “Or perhaps a drink later?” And then he smiled again.

  Hot damn. Professional ethics required that she keep reporters covering the Gaines case at a distance. She knew that and so did he. Milo Pappas was making one bold proposition by requesting private schmooze time.

  Of course, he also knew that most red-blooded American women would mow down their ethics with an automatic weapon to get a one-on-one with him. But clearly that was no problem. This was not a man who had any compunction about using his charm to get what he wanted—in this case, inside information.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “If you had more questions about the case, why didn’t you ask them at the press conference?”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “Because at the press conference Kip Penrose was doing all the talking. I wanted to get my answers from you.”

  “You could call the D.A. office’s press person. She’d be able to answer all your questions.”

  “I’m sure she could.” He smiled again. “But she’s still not you.”

  Smooth talker. Alicia eyed this Milo Pappas, with his perfectly symmetrical features, curly dark hair, and bedroom eyes. Of course, she could play it safe, like she always did. She could keep her late-night date with her faithful but boring doctor boyfriend, who in the past few minutes had flown out of her mind so completely it was as if he’d been carried off by a tornado. Or she could entertain herself by getting together with this drop-dead-gorgeous network news star who would pass through her life but once. And throw a kink in his plans by staying tight-lipped about the case.

  “Mr. … Pappas, is it?”

  He smiled again. This time at her. That old hard-to-fool thing again. Damn.

  She kept her voice cool. “I’m in trial at the moment.” It was only a white lie: she would be if Penrose hadn’t made her postpone. “So I can’t take time for a coffee. But if you’d care to meet for a drink later I could probably swing that.”

  He smiled. Something in his grin told her she wasn’t coming off quite as offhand as she might hope. “Terrific,” he said. “Where’s convenient for you?”

  She thought fast. Her meeting with Penrose and Joan Gaines would be in Pebble Beach and would probably be over around eight o’clock. “How about eight-thirty at the bar at the Mission Ranch in Carmel? Do you know where that is?”

  “I’ll find it.”

  She nodded and walked away. She could feel his eyes on her back as she walked toward the courthouse doors. Right before she disappeared through them, he spoke again.

  “I’m looking forward to it,” he called.

  She hated her immediate gut reaction. Which was that she wasn’t only looking forward to it. She could hardly wait.

  Chapter 5

  By ten o’clock Monday morning, a hired limousine was speeding Joan north through Silicon Valley on Highway 101. Pebble Beach was an hour behind her; San Francisco lay another hour of four-lane freeway ahead. She rode in the rear nursing a fizzy water with lime, on her lap a forgotten yellow legal pad.

  This was a must-do trip. She absolutely had to have a new suit for Daniel’s funeral: she certainly couldn’t wear the same one she’d worn to her father’s service. That had been televised, too. Serious shopping meant San Francisco, yet she knew a buying spree two days after her husband had been murdered could be badly misconstrued.

  She sipped and recrossed her legs, impressed with her own problem solving. She’d simply made this a stealth mission. Even though she wouldn’t be staying overnight, she’d booked a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, and arranged for Neiman Marcus to assemble some selections and bring them over. Joan would be closeted in the suite, so no one would be the wiser. And while she was at it, she’d have her hair and nails done, too.

  Joan stared out the limo’s tinted windows as it rocketed past 101’s University Avenue exit, which led to Palo Alto and Stanford, an off-ramp she knew well from her undergraduate and business-school years. Noise-abatement walls along this stretch of freeway prevented any view, though the adjacent commercial strip was hardly scenic. The campus was a few miles west, red tile-roofed mission-style buildings grouped in quadrangles, set among sweeping lawns and groves of eucalyptus.

  Even now, it angered her to think of those years. So what if she hadn’t actually graduated from business school? Her parents made so much of that. She’d gotten most of the way through, hadn’t she? She still couldn’t believe her father had made a huge donation to the university right before she applied, as if she wouldn’t get in otherwise. She remembered walking through the Quad, looking up at the Venetian mosaic on Memorial Church and imagining a time when people would no longer think of her as Web Hudson’s daughter but as Joan Hudson in her own right. But all she’d done since was become Daniel Gaines’ wife.

  God, she’d been such an idiot to be so easily taken in by Daniel! Handsome, charismatic Daniel Gaines, who went from star quarterback at U Penn to megasuccessful Manhattan financier.

  It embarrassed her to remember how she’d been bowled over. She accepted Daniel’s very first proposal. And though she secretly found it easy to say good-bye to her investment-banking job, she hadn’t liked leaving Manhattan. But Daniel said Headwaters was such an opportunity, and wouldn’t it be wonderful to be close to her parents, and she’d bought into every last word. She imagined children, at least three in rapid succession, a big, boisterous family, the polar opposite of her own.

  Tears stung her eyes. If only Daniel had been different. If only he’d been the man he seemed to be, instead of the egocentric, usin
g bastard he was. Now she was forced to pretend to grieve a husband she could barely make herself miss.

  Joan made herself calm down and focus on the yellow legal pad on her lap. On it she’d jotted notes for a statement to the press, her top to-do item for the day. She would order Daniel’s campaign to release it the following morning and was sure it would dominate the Christmas Eve news shows. She would then get another round of coverage with Daniel’s funeral on Friday. She wanted to create an impression of dignified sorrow, like a modern-day Jackie Kennedy. Joan believed that appearance would serve her well down the road.

  Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Christmas Eve. At this hour of profound grief for my family, and for the family of my beloved husband, I wish to offer my sincerest gratitude to those many Americans who have offered their prayers and sympathy.

  She bit her lip. For this next section, she’d have to lay it on thick if it killed her. She thought for a minute, then resumed writing.

  My husband was a man of extraordinary judgment, intelligence, and commitment. I am sure that had he lived to continue my father’s tradition of selfless political service, not only California, but all America, would have benefited from his efforts. A brilliant light has been cruelly dimmed, and I shall never rest until I understand why. To that end, I am offering a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of the man who calls himself Treebeard, whom law-enforcement authorities have charged with my husband’s brutal murder.

  She reread it and smiled. Very good! Now all she needed was a closing line, preferably something upbeat. Ronald Reagan proved that voters liked a positive note even on the saddest occasion. Minutes later, she again put pen to paper.

  I am reminded in this Christmas season that hope shines like a star in the night sky, even in our darkest hour. I seek that light for my family and for all Californians as we cope with this loss and move forward into the promise of the new year.