The Hunter

by John Lescroart

  So they had all this evidence against what other evidence?

  A text message, which could have been sent by anyone in the universe, to Wyatt Hunt, saying that it wasn’t Lionel. Using his first name only.

  And what did that mean?

  Maybe nothing.

  And yet . . .

  Juhle rinsed his plate and utensils and loaded them into the dishwasher. His house had a finished basement with a dilapidated old couch and a Ping-Pong table and television set, and he went down there and stretched out, hands behind his head. He gave it another fifteen minutes and then he picked up the phone and put in a call to his partner.

  “Yo, Sarah. Devin. You got a minute?”

  “Well, we just got the kids down, and Graham and I, we’re in the middle of a video. How important is it?”

  “You tell me. It’s about Lionel.”

  “Something new?”

  He gave it to her.

  On the other end of the line, she remained silent for a few seconds before she swore and told him to hang on. He heard her telling her husband the bad news and then she was back with him. “That’s all it said? ‘It isn’t Lionel’?”

  “That’s the whole message.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “That’s what I called you for, figuring you’d have an idea, since I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I don’t.”

  “Well, if it’s not Lionel and we really want to play this game, which I don’t, it had to be somebody he contacted after he heard from Orloff and . . .” She stopped. “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “Just no. Period. I don’t know who this person is who’s tormenting your pal Wyatt or what he or she knows. But I know what we know, Devin, and why we know it. You give up?”

  “Hit me.”

  “Can you say eyewitness?”

  As soon as he heard the word, a kind of peace settled over Juhle’s heart. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t even put Chewey’s testimony describing the shooter into the mix he’d been considering. Maybe because Chewey was a drug-befuddled thief and a total lowlife. But those character traits did not necessarily negate the truth of his testimony. Much less his later positive identification of Lionel Spencer from the six-pack of photographs (five other guys and Lionel) they’d shown him from the autopsy pictures. He had no reason to lie to them, and the fact that his description of the old guy with white hair in the Yellow Cab came before the discovery of Lionel’s death dovetailed nicely into what could only be called an airtight case.

  “You’re right,” Juhle said. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. I was in the ER all day today with Alexa. I think the experience must have infected my brain.”

  Sarah’s voice changed from cop to mom in an instant. “Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine. In a soft cast for a few weeks, that’s all. Soccer.”

  “I know it well,” Sarah said. “So anyway, listen, don’t lose any sleep over this texting business. Somebody’s screwing around with your friend. Chewey, scumbag though he is, saw Lionel pull the trigger, Dev. Firsthand and up close. Keep that in the front of your mind. I’d have to call that definitive, huh? Wouldn’t you?”

  “I would.”

  “There you go, then. Anything else?”

  “That pretty well does it. Tell Graham sorry about interrupting the video.”

  “He’ll get over it,” she said. “See you Monday.”

  25

  ON SUNDAY MORNING AT 8:45, Wyatt Hunt sat on a low couch in the lobby of the Indianapolis Airport Marriott, drinking black coffee from a waxed cardboard to-go cup and, just about out of his mind with anticipation, watching the street outside for the appearance of a FedEx truck.

  The sweet roll he’d wolfed down sat like a ball of lead in his stomach, and the coffee might as well have been carbolic acid, but he needed it. It was now about thirty-one hours since he’d actually slept. The last time had been the three hours of exhausted collapse back in Minneapolis. After the excitement and adrenaline of the discovery of his father’s possible place of residence had worn off, he’d come back here to the hotel early to catch up on his rest if he could. The next day, he knew, was going to be a long one, and he wanted to be fresh and ready.

  But in the end, last night had been a replay of earlier in the afternoon, except much, much longer. And the insomnia wasn’t the result of spinning about anything specific; a good portion of the time he simply lay motionless on the bed, a dull pressure on the back of his eyes, unable to turn off the keening anxiety that seemed to course through him as though it were its own bodily system, an alternative to blood, lymph, nerve. Around midnight, he’d dumped the two airplane bottles of vodka from the honor bar onto some ice and drank it off; an hour later he put away two more of gin.

  Neither had any effect.

  But explicit, albeit irrational, worries plagued him, too. After he’d hung up with Tamara, it occurred to him that he wasn’t one hundred percent sure that FedEx even delivered early on Sunday mornings. If they didn’t, of course the ultrareliable and efficient Tamara would call with the news, wouldn’t she? And if FedEx wouldn’t work, then she’d find another way to get it done—UPS, maybe, or one of the others. There must be a dozen of them.

  And what if his father was dead? What if he couldn’t find him anyway, even if he were alive? What if Kevin wouldn’t talk to him? What if he rejected him outright again? What if he didn’t get to him in time? (In time for what?) What if Wyatt never discovered the identity of his texter? What if there were other murders he hadn’t stumbled upon yet? What if Ivan hadn’t called Lionel Spencer? What if Wyatt got his information and made his case but Juhle wouldn’t pursue it? What if?

  What if?

  What if…?

  When he saw light begin to appear as a thin line under the blackout curtains in his room—the onset of dawn, a few hours ago—he’d thrown off his covers, stuffed his toiletries into his suitcase, and come downstairs to the buffet breakfast, where he’d read the Sunday Star from cover to cover and then had come over to this lobby couch to begin his vigil.

  Now there was nothing to do but wait for his passport to arrive.

  A taxi pulled into the lot and circled around, stopping at the entryway. Hunt barely gave it a glance—it wasn’t the FedEx truck, after all—and then tipped back his cup, draining it. He stood up and walked over toward the reception desk to drop the cup in the trash container. When he turned around and caught sight of the cab again, the driver was going back to open the trunk as a woman emerged from the backseat.

  TAMARA FINISHED PAYING THE CABBIE, pulled up the handle on her suitcase, and turned around, and there, an astonished though unmistakably pleased look on his face, stood Wyatt just outside the lobby door. One glance told her that her instincts had been right. She was needed here. Positively haggard, with a couple of days’ growth of beard and deep purplish bags under his eyes, Wyatt, his hair tufted and unruly, looked like a homeless man.

  Letting go of her suitcase, she hesitantly raised a hand. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself.”

  “I decided I had to come.”

  “I see that.”

  “I brought your passport. Mine, too.”

  A half smile. “Didn’t trust FedEx, huh?”

  “They don’t deliver on Sunday, and neither does anybody else.” She paused, then met his gaze. “I have to be with you.”

  “I can’t believe I’m standing here looking at you,” he said, letting out a deep sigh of pure relief. “I am so glad you’re here.” He took a step toward her and she came forward and walked into his embrace.

  ON THE FLIGHT TO EL PASO, Hunt sat by the window and finally fell into a turbulent sleep, his head on Tamara’s shoulder. She held his hand the whole way and tightened her grip when he twitched or moaned or—twice—cried out “No!” After which he would settle back against her and revert to what seemed to her to be a state of near catatonia.

  HE SAID HE WASN’T HUNGRY, but she ordered
and got him to eat a large burrito and drink a lemonade at the El Paso airport.

  After that lunch, Wyatt excused himself for a pit stop, and when he returned, he was actually smiling as he slid in next to her. “I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in there,” he said. “I look like I got whupped with an ugly stick.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. A few days of ugly never hurt anybody. It might even strengthen the spirit.”

  “How would you know? You’re never ugly.”

  She gave him a testy look. “As compliments go, ‘You’re never ugly’ is quite a ways down the list.”

  He reached over and took her hand. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “Shut up.” Flashing her own dazzling smile. “I know.” She leaned over. “Kiss me, ugly man.”

  He did.

  WYATT WAS ASLEEP AGAIN—in a less frenetic state—before they reached cruising altitude on the Oaxaca leg of the flight.

  Tamara finished her Stieg Larsson and then pulled out of Wyatt’s suitcase some of the pages he’d printed about their destination. Apparently, Kevin Carson had settled in the small village of Teotitlán del Valle, about fifteen miles south of Oaxaca. Tamara had both the LexisNexis printout—an extremely abbreviated entry listing only the subject’s name, birth date by month, and last known address—and the results of another search on the regular Web, which listed a Kevin Carson and his address—matching the LexisNexis address and, to Tamara, giving further credence to the idea that Wyatt’s father was still alive—in the Directory of Weavers of Teotitlán, the American surname Carson standing out in high relief among the Bautistas, Lazaros, Mendosas. Reading on, she learned that the town was famous for its woven wool rugs, or laadi in the local language of Zapotec, which was still in common usage in the area.

  WYATT WOKE UP for the last couple of hours of the flight and gave Tamara a more or less complete update on everything he’d discovered over the past couple of days. He was telling her that he had no doubt that the latest unexpected text was legitimate, and that they would get to the truth at the bottom of this investigation within the next day or so, after they’d spoken with Wyatt’s father.

  “And how do you feel about that?” Tamara asked. “Your father? If it is your father.”

  “It is. I know it is.” He threw her a sidelong glance. “And I don’t know how I feel, or more than that, how my body will react. It’s like it’s out of my control completely; it just takes over, like a virus. You don’t mind talking about this?”

  She squeezed his hand. “I think I brought it up, remember?”

  He nodded, acknowledging that truth. “Okay. So the truth is I don’t know. I thought I was prepared to meet my grandmother in person the other day. And when I did, everything went fine talking to her. I mean, emotional, but really okay. Then I got back to the hotel, and the whole reality of it just laid me out. I don’t think I’d have gotten any sleep yet if you hadn’t shown up. For which thank God.” He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “And thank you, if I haven’t told you yet.”

  “Once more, then you’ve got to stop.”

  “But even now, just talking about seeing my father . . .”

  “We can stop.”

  “I don’t want to stop. But when I think about the fact that he’s down here, that he might have been down here my whole life…​one part of me wants to know how he could have done it, left his only child…​and then last night lying awake thinking about it over and over, I couldn’t get beyond this…​this rage, this kind of curdling rage.”

  “At what you didn’t have? But as it turned out, you had everything with the Hunts, didn’t you?”

  “I did. I know. I know. As I said, it’s not rational. It’s silly.”

  “No, it’s not silly. It’s real enough.”

  “No. It’s stupid. I’ve just got to suck it up.”

  Tamara allowed herself a slight chuckle. “Oh yes. That’s been working very well, hasn’t it? Deny it, and it ceases to exist, right? Except it does exist, Wyatt. It doesn’t go away, the hurt of it all. It just goes underground. The only way to beat it is to face it head-on, let it in, accept it.”

  “The pain, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t even want to care about all this personal stuff, Tam. It happened a million years ago and I dealt with it then. And as you say, I was way better off being raised by the Hunts. I don’t know why it’s having all this effect on me.”

  She turned to him and spoke softly. “It’s having this effect on you, Wyatt, because somebody killed your mother. That’s kind of a big thing, maybe the biggest thing that can happen to anyone. Somebody stole your security and your childhood. You have to acknowledge that. Somebody made you give up believing in commitment, so you’ve always got one foot out the door so you can leave before they do and then you won’t have to feel that pain again. But actually you’re allowed to feel pain and rage and abandoned about all this. In fact, you’ve got to let yourself feel those things if you ever want to get it all out and be whole again.”

  “Maybe I don’t want that, then,” Hunt said.

  “Yes, you do,” she said. “You really do.”

  IT WAS A LONG FLIGHT, and picking up their rental car at the airport, they didn’t get to the Holiday Inn Express in Oaxaca until nearly midnight.

  Hunt unlocked the door to their room and then closed it behind them, and when he turned around, Tamara was standing right there facing him. She stepped forward and put her arms around his neck while he brought his arms up around her and they stood pressed together for a long moment until Tamara pulled back and kissed him. Getting over to the bed, she sat on it and kicked off her shoes, then looking up at him said, “How about if we just go right to bed and get it over with.”

  “I love a woman who speaks her mind.” Arms crossed, Wyatt leaned against the wall. “Except what about if I don’t think of it as something to be gotten over with?”

  “The first time, I mean. And it is.”

  “Even the first time. I thought maybe you’d like it if I took a shower first, got a little cleaned up.”

  “I don’t care about that,” she said. “I love how you look. I love how you smell. We’ve put this off long enough.” Abruptly, she stood up and lifted her sweater over her head and dropped it to the floor. Her black bra connected in front, and without any hesitation she undid the clasp of that, too, and shrugged out of it. “I’m getting way ahead of you,” she said.

  Wyatt, unable to take his eyes off her, was reaching for the top button on his shirt. “Not for long.”

  “SEE?” She lay on her side pressed up next to him, her head nestled into his shoulder. The bedsheet partially covered her torso. Her palm rested on his chest. “The first time.”

  “I think, technically,” Hunt said, “that would be the first two times. Not to get picky. You’re right, though, I’m glad we got that out of the way. It was starting to be a distraction.”

  “I think I’m still a little distracted.”

  “Me, too. You might pull that sheet up a little.”

  “Is that what’s distracting you?”

  “Maybe a little bit.”

  “Well, then, I think I’ll leave it. Distraction’s not always a bad thing.”

  “No. Not always.” Hunt ran his hand down her side from her shoulder to her waist, then turned his head and kissed her on the forehead, the side of her cheek.

  She nuzzled up against his neck. “That felt like a good-night kiss. Are you thinking about going to sleep?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  “You’re still going to be here in the morning, right?”

  “Lots of mornings,” he said.

  “All right. I can live with that.” She reached down and pulled their blanket up around them. “You know,” she whispered through a fog of half sleep, “for an old guy, you’re holding up pretty good.”

  A small laugh gurgled in his thr
oat. “Thank you,” he said. “And while we’re complimenting each other, have I already mentioned that you’re never ugly?”

  “Twice now.”

  He kissed her lightly. “Still true.”

  “Okay.” She turned to lie with her back against him. “Truce again?”

  “Truce.”

  “Keep holding me.”

  “I will.”

  “Wyatt?”

  “Umm?”

  “I’m so glad I’m here.”

  “Me, too, Tam,” he whispered. “Me, too.”

  26

  ALL HUNT’S PREVIOUS TIME in Mexico had been spent in Baja California, and most of that on the Pacific side in the very north near Rosarito Beach, where he’d done a lot of surfing and where, to arrive, one had to navigate the lawless, poverty-stricken, godforsaken border town of Tijuana, and then forty kilometers of wasteland—abandoned, graffiti-scarred, unfinished buildings and other structures, questionable roadways, an arid and inhospitable landscape. And so while he intellectually knew that all the country could not be like this one small corner, nevertheless he was surprised when they left Oaxaca on a modern highway and headed south through some truly beautiful foothills, semiarid but well farmed and with a lot of greenery everywhere, especially on the slopes of the steeply pitched mountains that surrounded them.