Treasure Hunt

by John Lescroart

  Parr chuckled. “Which is the way he likes it. He’s a lawyer, pretty much at the top of the charity food chain. He represents most of the big ones and also runs the mayor’s community outreach program. Back in the day, he was Dominic’s right hand, and if anything, he’s got even more influence now. You want something to happen around a reward, he’s the guy you want to talk to.”

  “Len Turner, got it,” Hunt said.

  “And then you go get that bastard who killed Dominic.”

  Hunt threw a look across at Mickey, then over to Parr. “That’s not exactly it, Jim. The main job would be fielding the calls. We wouldn’t really be investigating on our own.”

  Parr leveled his gaze. “Well, you damn well should.” He swallowed against some strong emotion, then looked again around the table. “It’s just that Dominic saved this family. He didn’t have to give me my job. Nobody else would have, not with my history. I mean, here I am, two strikes down . . . hell, we all know.

  “But he believed I could straighten up and do the job every day. And because of that, I got to build a good life finally and let you kids have yours. And then somebody goes and kills him. That’s just not right. It’s not right.” His watery eyes shone. “They got to be caught. That’s all I’m saying, that it’s personal. And if you’re going to be in this thing, you might want to keep that in mind as you go about your business.”

  “Jim’s right,” Tamara said. “We get close, we ought to go after him.”

  “We?” Hunt said.

  Tamara nodded. “And that’s the other thing, while we’re on this.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Well, I don’t know if you want to hear this after I’ve been such a flake for so long, but if you’re out following up leads, Wyatt, and Mickey’s out hunting up these people who are going to kick in more reward money, who’s going to be answering the phones and keeping the office going?”

  A silence hung for a long moment around the table between them.

  Until Mickey said, “I guess, Sis, that would be you.”

  “Which would be special,” Hunt said, “if there actually was a reward and someone was paying us to administer it. Notice the judicious use of the word if.”

  Len Turner was listed in Mickey’s telephone book under “San Francisco, City of” as the director of the Communities of Opportunity. At nine-fifteen P.M. on this Saturday night, after they’d come down from the roof, Hunt called Turner’s number on Mickey’s phone. He intended to leave a message that he’d like to make an appointment to meet with Mr. Turner early next week. He was somewhat surprised when Mr. Turner answered the phone himself; and dumbfounded when, after Hunt mentioned Dominic Como and his reward scenario, the man suggested that if Hunt were free, he might consider coming by to discuss the idea more fully right now.

  Twenty minutes later, the night guard at the semidarkened City Hall let Hunt in, then directed him up the grand stairway where he’d find Mr. Turner’s office to the right on the second floor, Room 211. This turned out to actually be a suite of rooms, the first of which was furnished as a bare-bones, windowless conference area with a large blond wooden table and sixteen chairs. A back door out of this room led to a hallway with a couple more side rooms, at the end of which was a heavy paneled dark wood door with a frosted glass window, and a light on behind it.

  Hearing what sounded like a telephone conversation in progress, Hunt hesitated for a moment, then knocked and heard a cultivated voice tell him to come in.

  Len Turner sat behind a busy but apparently well-ordered, old-fashioned carved-front desk. He held up a finger, indicating he was just finishing his phone call, and Hunt waited on the square maroon Persian rug that he estimated at about twelve feet on a side. The right wall was book-filled from the floor to the ten-foot ceiling. Behind Turner, a couple of large windows afforded a postcard view of the Opera House and the War Memorial. Along the left wall, decorated with dozens of framed photographs of the great and nongreat posing with Leonard Turner, a couple of low filing cabinets made the room’s only concession to bureaucracy. By a low table with four upholstered chairs, there was also a half-size brushed-steel refrigerator and a table with an espresso machine, cups, glasses, and a selection of high-end spirits.

  Turner, here in his office at nearly ten o’clock on a Saturday night, wore a light blue shirt and golden tie. His salt-and-pepper hair complemented a frankly handsome face of regular features, a strong jaw, an aristocratic nose. His voice, speaking on the phone, was businesslike and yet somehow soothing as he wound up the conversation. Now hanging up, he raised the wattage of his smile as he stood and came around the desk, extending his hand. “Mr. Hunt. Sorry to keep you waiting. Len Turner. Can I interest you in a good cup of espresso? I’m having some. Or water? Tea? A soft drink? Something stronger?”

  “Espresso would be good,” Hunt said. “I was a little surprised to find you still working at this time of night.”

  Turner nodded with a self-deprecating air. “A man who loves what he does never works a day in his life.”

  “That’s a good way to look at it,” Hunt said.

  “Have a seat,” Turner said, “and let me get this coffee going.” He put two demitasse cups under a double-spigot on the high-tech machine and pressed a button. In thirty seconds, he placed one of the cups in front of Hunt and took a seat with the other one across the table from him. “Now,” he said, holding his cup up in a toasting fashion, his face suddenly sober. “To Dominic.”

  Hunt raised his own cup, nodded, and sipped.

  “A terrible thing,” Turner said. “Terrible.”

  “Did you know him well?”

  “He was my closest friend.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Turner lifted his shoulders. “So when you mentioned what you wanted to talk about, naturally I thought it would be worthwhile to meet with you as soon as possible. I’ve been racking my brain to come up with some way to try to not only honor Dominic’s legacy and memory, but actually to help bring some closure to this horrible situation. When you mentioned a reward, it struck me as a singularly right gesture.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. We thought it might be helpful to get more of the community involved if we could.”

  “Of course. That may be the only way out of this, from what I’ve gathered from the police. If somebody saw or heard something. It’s a sad but unfortunately true fact that some people just don’t trust the police.”

  Hunt nodded. “I’ve run into that.”

  “So you know.”

  “You’ve talked to them, then? The cops?”

  “Just trying to gather some sense of what happened, which no one seems to have much of an idea of. Knowing Dominic as I did, I have to think it must have been some random mugging or robbery attempt or something. No one who knew him could have harmed a hair on his head.” He sat back. “But regardless, finding the perpetrator has got to get some real priority now in the short term. More than it seems the police are giving it.”

  Hunt replied with some care. “I don’t think it’s that they’re not giving it a high priority so much as that it takes them time to generate and follow up any leads. And that’s where we thought we might be able to help.”

  “That’s exactly what I was hoping too. Because the longer this whole thing festers, the more it can infect the entire community.” He paused. “I’m talking about the nonprofit community here.”

  Hunt put down his cup.

  Turner went on. “A man with Dominic’s profile, there are going to be the inevitable rumors about what really happened, and why, and who’s covering what up. And I think it’s critical that these rumors don’t gain currency, and that the wild speculations of people who may even sincerely be trying to help be somewhat controlled.”

  “That’s how we were thinking to go, sir. If the reward gets large enough and does prompt a lot of calls, a good number of them are probably going to range from unlikely to ridiculous. Our idea is to identify those and save t
he cops time so they can concentrate on the valid leads.”

  “Of course. Sure. Of course. But I’m also talking about—if we’re going to be working together here, you and I—I’m talking about keeping some kind of control over the flow of information that the public gets to see as well.” Perhaps realizing how that sounded, Turner held up a palm. “I’m not saying we hide anything, of course, that’s not what I mean at all. But you have to remember that there are any number of people in this city who see our work as wasteful or nonproductive or even unnecessary, and they’d like nothing more than to have ammunition to tear us down.”

  Hunt sat back. “Are you saying they’ll find this ammunition around Mr. Como?”

  “No. I strongly, strongly doubt that. Dominic devoted his whole life to the cause of easing poverty and helping the downtrodden. But even so, there are people who would smear him. And that’s what I’m hoping you’ll be able to exert some control over. How does that sound to you?”

  Hunt felt that his own control over the precise parameters of his involvement, if any, with this man, had shifted to some degree. He wasn’t at all certain that he could promise Turner what he seemed to be describing, or whether in fact it was even a reasonable approach. He just didn’t know. The man was powerful and persuasive and clearly was going to have his own agenda, but Hunt didn’t think that there would necessarily be a conflict he couldn’t finesse. So after a moment, he nodded. “Doable,” he said. “It sounds doable.”

  Turner clapped his hands. “Good. I really think this is an excellent idea, Mr. Hunt. Excellent. So how, specifically, were you planning to proceed?”

  Over the next couple of minutes, Hunt gave him chapter and verse on Mickey’s idea of contacting many of the city’s nonprofit organizations and soliciting them for inclusion in the reward fund. Turner nodded in agreement throughout, at the end volunteering to help with the solicitations—he knew all these people—in any way he could. In fact, what made the most sense, he told Hunt, was that there be a central command; that Turner himself could act as the escrow holder of the funds, after which he would administer the reward and, in consultation with law enforcement, decide on the reward recipients, if any.

  He would be the liaison between Hunt and the various organizations in Hunt’s efforts to keep the contributors informed. He would also be happy to consult with Hunt when there was a question of whether or not information should come out. “And finally,” he rolled along, “I think we have to talk about your compensation for all of your efforts on this.”

  “I was thinking of me and my two associates billing at our regular hourly rate. I can get you our fee schedule first thing next week.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  “Great, but there is one other small thing. This whole concept really won’t work unless we get a guarantee of a certain flexibility on the part of city government.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, if the police or the district attorney decide to seize any- and everything we may get over the phone by search warrant as it comes in, then we’re not going to get any calls.”

  Turner pondered that for a brief moment. “I could make a couple of calls and be of assistance in that respect. Meanwhile, I could have a contract drawn up in the next couple of days, but if you’d like to get started as soon as you can, we can be old-fashioned gentlemen and seal the deal with a handshake right now. How does that sound?”

  Again, Hunt wasn’t completely sure how it sounded, but what Turner was suggesting was certainly not unethical and it would put Hunt, Mickey, and Tamara to work at full pay immediately. And it wasn’t unusual for a job to morph slightly or even greatly as its execution played out. He was sure he could stay on top of what were clearly Mr. Turner’s priorities.

  So, stifling his minimal scruples, he stood up and reached out his hand across the table. “That sounds like a deal to me,” he said.

  7

  Wyatt Hunt hadn’t been to Devin Juhle’s home out on Taraval Street in a very long time. In the first years after Hunt had opened his office as a private investigator, he had nearly lived with Devin and Connie and their three children—Eric, Brendan, and Alexa. He and Juhle had been baseball teammates in high school, and they had still played games together, often including the children, whenever he came over—Ping-Pong, basketball, foosball, catch.

  That was before California v. Gorman. It was also before the scandal involving Hunt’s former associate that had knocked the bottom out of his business and essentially destroyed his credibility with the Police Department and most of the criminal law community.

  Hunt wasn’t kidding himself—this thing with Juhle wasn’t simply a bridge to mend. It was a chasm to breach.

  Now, at nine-thirty on a Sunday morning that had blown in blustery and cold—the three days of San Francisco’s summer weather having exhausted their allotted run—Hunt parked his Mini Cooper on the street in front of Juhle’s small stand-alone two-story home, made sure he was packing presents for the kids, and sat for a moment gathering the courage to go and face the music, the near-tragic opera, that he’d helped to compose.

  Finally, unable to stall any longer, he opened his car door and walked across the lawn and up the four steps to the front door and rang the bell. The chimes rang within and he heard running footsteps and the door flew open.

  For a horrible second, Hunt thought that Brendan, the middle one, age eleven or so, didn’t even recognize him. He’d grown about four inches and had put on fifteen pounds. But the face suddenly broke a smile as he said, “Uncle Wyatt!” and the boy actually threw his arms around him. Then, calling back into the house, “It’s Uncle Wyatt.”

  More footsteps from down the hallway that led to the kitchen in the back of the house, and here was Connie in green sweats, formidable and attractive as ever, drying her hands on a dish towel, her expression welcoming and warm, with just a trace of concern around the eyes.

  “Well, look at who’s here!”

  He stepped into the house and they hugged, bussed each other on the cheeks. After which Connie held him out at arm’s length. “It’s so good to see you, Wyatt. So good.” And then, her face clouding over, “Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine.” He looked around her and saw Alexa hanging back in the hallway, her body language quizzical and reserved. Hunt gave her a tiny wave and a “Hey, sweetie,” but she only nodded and Hunt realized that it wasn’t only Devin he was going to have to win over again.

  Connie was going on. “Devin’s off with Eric at soccer. Can you believe Sunday morning at seven o’clock? Is that obscene or what? But they ought to be back in a half hour or so, if you’ve got time to hang around for a while. Was he expecting you?”

  “Unlikely. I wasn’t sure I was expecting myself until I woke up.” Hunt took a beat. Then, “You think he’ll talk to me?”

  She made a face and broke a half-smile that told him she wasn’t too certain of that, but the actual words she said were, “Stranger things have happened. Meanwhile, how does a cup of coffee sound?”

  “Like a fanfare of trumpets.”

  Amused, Connie shook her head. “I remember what I’ve missed about you.”

  They were catching each other up on their respective lives over the past months, the talk flowing as it always did with Connie, Hunt halfway through his second cup at the kitchen table, when they heard a noise and Connie said, “That’s the garage door.”

  They fell then into a sudden and tense silence, waiting.

  The garage connected to the kitchen. Eric was the first one through the door. Unlike his younger brother, he was about the same physical size as the last time Hunt had seen him, but his face had broken out with acne and his voice had a different pitch when, tentative yet polite, he nodded and said, “Hi, Uncle Wyatt.”

  “Hey, big guy. Good to see you.”

  “You too.” He advanced and reached out his hand, which Hunt, standing, shook. He chose to take it as a good sign that they still called him “un
cle,” perhaps still considered him Juhle’s brother on some level.

  Devin evidently wasn’t in any hurry to get in the house. He would have known Hunt was inside from the distinctive car parked out front. The connecting door closed shut behind Eric and they heard some sounds from the garage—Devin closing his driver’s side door, throwing the duffel bag where it belonged.

  Hunt found his breath snagged in his throat.

  Juhle opened the door and stood for a second in the doorway, holding it open. Nodding first at his wife, then briefly at Hunt, he turned and closed it with an exaggerated gentleness. Turning back around, he leaned up against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, nodding again, his face a mask. “Hey, Wyatt,” he said with no inflection whatever. “What can I do for you?”

  “I don’t think so,” Juhle said. “That’s police work.”

  The two of them sat at either end of a sagging beige sofa in the downstairs family room, a converted half-basement where Juhle had his Ping-Pong/pool table set up, along with a dartboard and a foosball game area. A television rested on the middle shelf of a built-in bookcase mostly devoted otherwise to sports trophies for the kids, and Connie’s washer and dryer reinforced the place’s basic functional nature. Juhle’s house wasn’t big, and the family and their activities filled it all up, every spare inch.

  “It’s police work,” Hunt countered, “that won’t do any good. You won’t get the calls we’re going to get and if you did, you’ll spend all your time screening out the nuts.”

  Juhle shrugged, shook his head dismissing the idea. “How many good tips you think you’re going to get? Two? Three? Not even that. End of story.”

  “No, it isn’t. Not if we get the reward set up and it gets big, and it will.”

  “What’s big?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a hundred grand, maybe more. Mick’s shooting for the moon, and he’s a charmer.” Hunt came forward on the couch. “So we’re not talking any couple of calls a day here. It’s not impossible the reward might go to half a mil, and if that happens, the flakes come out of the woodwork. You know this and I know it, and you’re going to spend half to all of your time either chewing your cud on nothing or running down ridiculous leads trying to identify one good one.”