Treasure Hunt

by John Lescroart

  Devin Juhle told Hunt he’d be with his partner, Sarah Russo, at the Ferry Building’s MarketBar restaurant at eleven A.M. They’d be willing to review the progress in the Como investigation to bring Hunt up to speed, with the understanding that if Hunt was successful in helping to get a reward established and funded, then when he got anything, he’d reciprocate.

  In the normal course of events, they all would have met at Lou the Greek’s, the city’s legendary bar and eatery across the street from the Hall of Justice. But Juhle’s choice of a lunch venue far removed from the normal haunt of cops and other courthouse denizens drove home to Hunt the fact that he was still very much on probation, or worse, here. Juhle and Russo might cooperate with him and see how things went, but neither of them was ready to be seen with him in public.

  Sarah was married to Graham Russo, a junior partner in the one law firm that was with some regularity still throwing Hunt the occasional bone of work. She was also a ten-year homicide veteran, and the mother of two boys. A freckled and athletic tomboy with Beatle-length dark hair, she looked about fifteen years younger than her actual age, barely old enough to drink. She and her husband and kids had been to a couple of case celebration parties at Hunt’s warehouse/home, and as far as she was concerned, Hunt was okay. She agreed that the reward idea was at best stupid and at worst distracting, but she pointed out that it was no more stupid or distracting than half of the political things that San Francisco’s Police Department had to put up with every day. She was willing to go with the flow.

  Down on the Embarcadero, the morning cloud cover had lifted and mostly dissipated. Now a gauzy sunlight bathed the outdoor tables as Sarah was gearing up on her summation. “So we’ve got nothing on his activities after five forty- five last Tuesday. The wife, Ellen, didn’t even call to say she was worried about him and hadn’t seen him until almost seven o’clock on Wednesday night . . .”

  “Apparently,” Juhle put in, “he frequently stayed out late at some fund-raiser or another, got home after she was asleep, and was up and out the next morning before she got up.”

  “Didn’t sleep in her bed? Or in their bed?” Hunt asked.

  “Evidently not,” Russo said. “Or not that she noticed.”

  “America’s fun couple,” Hunt said. “So where was she Tuesday night, then? The wife?”

  Russo didn’t have to consult her notes. “She walked up to Chestnut and went to a movie, The Reader. It checks. At least, that’s what was playing there that night. Still is, for that matter.”

  “She went alone?”

  She nodded. “That’s what she says. Got home around nine-thirty, read for a while, went to sleep around eleven.”

  The waitress arrived with their food. All of them were having the Cuban pork sandwiches and iced tea and the young woman put the plates down, saying, “And today’s award for most original order goes to . . .”

  Everybody got a little chuckle out of that.

  And then the waitress was gone and Hunt took a bite of his sandwich and said, “But nobody saw him on Wednesday all day, right? He didn’t come into work?”

  “Right,” Juhle said.

  “So it was Tuesday night?”

  “That’s close enough,” Russo said. “ME says he can’t be sure, but it’s not a stretch to say he didn’t come home Tuesday night because he was already dead.”

  “How about his phone?” Hunt asked. “Who’d he talk to?”

  “Lots of people,” Juhle said. “And I mean like forty different numbers in or out the last day. All of whom we’ve called, by the way, and most of whom we’ve reached. But the last completed call in or out was at nine-forty. After that, it all went to voice mail. And the cell site information says he’s where his driver said he left him.”

  Russo held up a much-scribbled-upon computer printout for Hunt’s edification.

  Juhle stopped his chewing. “Police work.”

  “And a darned fine job of it too,” Hunt said. “And what did all these good cell-phone-talking citizens have to say?”

  “Everybody so far,” Russo said, “has had a completely plausible reason to have talked to him, and about half of those are verified by Como’s calendar anyway. No ancient acquaintances that we’ve come across.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t true, what he told his driver.”

  “Maybe that,” Russo conceded. “Or maybe the driver—Al Carter—didn’t tell us the truth about what Como told him.”

  Hunt put his sandwich down, looked across at Russo. “Any sign of that?”

  She shook her head. “Not really, no. Carter got the limo back to Sunset’s headquarters, where they keep it parked, at six-thirty, when it was still light out. Three witnesses there agree with that timetable. And there’s no motive for him anyway. Carter’s loyal as a dog. He’s been driving Como around for something like eight years.”

  “But wait,” Juhle suddenly said. “Let’s back up to the first thing Wyatt asked about that. Maybe what Como told this guy Carter wasn’t true. Maybe he wasn’t meeting an old friend after all.”

  “Devin likes the idea of a woman being involved,” Russo said.

  “Who’s that?” Hunt asked, all innocence.

  “Young girl,” Juhle said. “Really, really beautiful young girl, I think even Sarah will agree. . . .”

  Russo nodded. “Even Sarah admits she’s very pretty.”

  “In fact”—Juhle leaned halfway across the table to Hunt—“she is so incredibly beautiful she’ll make your teeth bleed. Alicia Thorpe. Twenty-five or so, volunteering at Sunset—”

  “—and Como was having an affair with her?”

  “That’s the problem.” Juhle shook his head sadly. “If he was, they both were damned discreet.”

  “And so,” Hunt asked, “how would she be involved then, exactly?”

  Russo let herself chuckle. “Probably not, is your answer. And Devin’s answer after we talked to her. And mine, too, while we’re at it. And Dev so badly wants an excuse to go look at her again. I told him if he kept it up I’d have to tell Connie.”

  “Hell,” Juhle said, “I’ve already told Connie. Now she wants to see her too. I’m thinking of taking Connie out to Morton’s and spending a million dollars just so we can both look at her.”

  “Morton’s?” Hunt asked.

  “She’s the hostess there,” Russo told him.

  Hunt looked over at Juhle. “Is she there Tuesday nights?”

  Juhle pointed back at him. “Not the last one. She could have been anywhere.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  Juhle threw him a withering gaze. “Oh, I must have forgot. What a good idea.” Then, “Of course I asked her, Wyatt. She, like Mrs. Como, was home alone watching television. Except if she really was out with Como.”

  “But alas,” Russo said, “we have nothing like any evidence on her.”

  Hunt’s cell phone went off and he brought it to his ear and had a short conversation. When he closed it, he said, “Well, I’m glad you took this opportunity to get me caught up on all the excellent police work and progress you’ve made so far. That was Tamara from my office and it looks like we’re going to be in business together for a while.”

  Jaime Sanchez came up from the Mission Street Coalition offices to downtown to have lunch with Len Turner at the Olympic Club, a venue in the grand tradition of old San Francisco. The spacious, high-ceilinged dining room conveyed a tone of gentility and leisure. Here all voices were well-modulated, controlled; there was no unseemly hurry or vulgar clothing on display. Almost all of the male diners today—and today, as every day, they were mostly male—wore conservative dark business suits and ties. One could order, of course, nearly anything from the waitstaff, but the buffet was so staggeringly laden with all manner of foodstuffs—from cold cuts to chicken three ways; from smoked salmon to poached and sautéed fish; pastas and potatoes and a carving station with leg of lamb, prime rib, and fresh ham—that most guests availed themselves of that opportunity.

  Sanchez
wore his own personal uniform—unpolished brogues, a pair of well-worn khakis, a blue blazer with some years on it, and a light orange shirt with matching woolen tie. He enjoyed flouting this bastion of privilege with his inadequate attire. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and his relatively short physical stature, along with the general swarthiness of his complexion, didn’t make for much of a presentation, either, at least in this crowd.

  To hell with ’em, he thought. He knew he was here because of what he represented.

  His partner, Len, on the other hand, couldn’t have looked more natural here, and couldn’t have fit in more easily. Sanchez thought that he had probably come here as a child, on his father’s knee. He knew not just the greeter and the waiters by first name but the bussers behind the buffet.

  Well, he told himself, this was why Len was so valuable to have as a partner. The man was not only a skilled negotiator (and lawyer), but he cultivated an ease that inspired confidence, the sense that everything was as it should be, and under control. Even in rarefied settings such as this one, Len was always at home. Tall, aristocratic, fit, and tanned. Could it all be just genes? That, to Sanchez, was a scary thought.

  Now they were returning from the buffet. In contrast to Sanchez’s overheaping plate of fettuccine, green beans, French fries, Caesar salad, and prime rib, Turner’s plate held a small bit of petrale in lemon-caper sauce, a few slices of scalloped potatoes, and three spears of asparagus.

  As they sat down, two of them at their four- person, white-tablecloth table, Sanchez forced a laugh. “I’ve got to learn to control myself around a buffet like that. I see all that incredible food and I swear to you, Len, I want all of it.”

  His elegant colleague offered a small smile. “That’s what it’s there for, Jimi. You want more, when you’re done, go back and get it. Nobody’s going to say a word.” He forked himself a bite of fish, savored it, nodded in mute approval, then directed his attention back across the table. “Thanks for coming up on short notice.”

  “No problem,” Sanchez said. “Always better to talk in person anyway. You said it was urgent.”

  “Well”—Turner waved a hand—“maybe the urgency is relative. But I thought it would be worthwhile if you and I, first, came together on a consistent game plan for this reward idea, which basically I like, and then talked a little about strategy for the succession at Sunset, which is going to be a huge deal.”

  “Don’t I know,” Sanchez said.

  “Yes, I’m sure you do. But first things first, huh?”

  “Always. So what do you have?”

  Turner put his fork down. “Nancy Neshek called me as soon as she’d gotten off the phone with Lorraine. What Nancy understands, and you I’m sure, while perhaps Lorraine doesn’t, is what a great fund-raising opportunity this reward scenario is for all of us.” He lowered his voice and leaned in over the table. “Here’s Dominic Como, fallen hero, champion of the people. Every organization where he’s on the board—that’s yours and Nancy’s and at least three others I could name—we announce we’re ponying up ‘x’ number of dollars for the reward. It’s going to be a city-wide, concerted effort to find his killer, because the police have run out of leads. But, you’re asking, aren’t these charities running on lean budgets anyway? Where’s all that money going to come from?”

  For Sanchez, the picture suddenly snapped into sharp focus. “Our generous contributors.”

  “Right. We make a special, one-time appeal for emergency funds to cover the reward we’re offering. So we commit, let’s say, a couple of hundred grand between us, maybe more—it doesn’t really matter, chump change, whatever it turns out to be. We print up special pledge cards, get ’em out to your mailing lists and into the community, make a pitch on TV. It could easily bring in two, three million, maybe more.”

  The number lit up Sanchez’s eyes. This was the kind of plan that could make the nonprofit world so incredibly lucrative. Turner was proposing that he and Nancy Neshek and a few other executives could invest thirty or forty thousand dollars each on the reward and its attendant publicity, and conceivably bring in a million or more each for their efforts. And that wasn’t even including private foundation and grant money, which—given Dominic Como’s personal connections with these groups—Sanchez thought would flow like water.

  Never mind that none of the charities might ever actually have to pay a cent of that reward, since it was far from a certainty that anyone could provide the information that would lead to an arrest in the Como case. Nevertheless, this one-time, special fund-raising campaign would raise money that no one in the real world would ever audit or follow up on in any way. This was because once they gave, contributors simply tended to assume that the funds would be used either for the express purpose of the campaign, or to buttress another needy area in the charity’s charter.

  “This is one of those ‘opportunity knocks’ moments, Jimi. We’ll want to get this reward up and posted as soon as we can.”

  Sanchez brought a hand up to his mouth, placed two fingers on his lips against the urge to smile. “Of course,” he said. “That goes without saying. I was going to put up twenty-five, same as Sunset.”

  “That sounds about right. Nancy’s in at that level too. And I’m sure I can talk to a couple of other colleagues and get the total up to over a hundred, which is about the minimum we’ll need for credibility. As soon as we get to that number, I thought I’d announce the press conference, put things in motion. Then we can sit back and just watch the money start to pour in.”

  Sanchez went back to the buffet for dessert, and sat down again across from Turner with a wedge of cheesecake and a brownie sitting under a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Both men waited while their coffees were refilled, and then Sanchez waded into the turbulent waters of the succession question at the Sunset Youth Project. “I realize that there’ll be an open evaluation and hiring process, Len, but I don’t think anyone could object to my qualifications. I’ve been running Mission for seven years. I’d be a logical and natural choice.”

  Turner dabbed his lips with his napkin. “Well, that’s what we need to discuss, Jimi. I’m all for supporting you, and for advancing your candidacy with the board, but there are still some unresolved issues that aren’t so obvious.”

  Sanchez clearly hadn’t anticipated this objection from his colleague. His brow went dark. “Like what?”

  “Like, first, Lorraine Hess.”

  “Pah! She’s—”

  But Turner raised a hand, stopping him. “Lorraine Hess is a woman with ten years’ hands-on experience with the nuts-and-bolts stuff, Jim. She knows the place inside out. She’s going to have a good deal of support from the board. And she’s made no secret of the fact that she’s going to want to be in the running and deserves the job. And did I mention she’s a woman? We’ve never had a woman director. That could prove to be more important than everything else put together.” Len offered half a smile. “You’re damn lucky she’s not black.”

  Sanchez was shaking his head. “She’s not executive material, Len. You and I both know it. She’s a worker bee. She’d be best staying where she is. I don’t think she even has a clue what Dominic actually did.”

  This brought a tight smile. “Did anybody?”

  “I like to think I’ve got a pretty good idea of it.”

  While he shoveled a bite of cheesecake and washed it down with some coffee, Turner said, “I’d be interested to hear that. We can look on it as part of your interview process.”

  Sanchez swallowed. “Fair enough,” he said. “But saying what he did first of all entails what he didn’t do, and that is any actual work with Sunset’s organization. He was just totally above it. Which, by the way, is why Lorraine wouldn’t be any good at his job. There wasn’t really anything to Dominic’s job at all, except to do favors and collect money. I think she’s still under the impression that he actually had some function within the organization, when in fact he didn’t.”

  “No. I agree. That wa
s his genius.”

  “Call it that if you want. But if some new hire goes waltzing into there thinking he or she’s going to be doing something, as opposed to simply peddling and trading influence, there’s going to be anguish and gnashing of teeth, believe me.”

  Now Turner leaned in over the table. “Well, frankly, Jimi, that’s exactly the concern that some of us on the board have about your interest in the job. You have actually been in charge of running your programs day-to-day at Mission, keeping track of your people, mandating profit centers. To use your phrase, you’re a bit of a worker bee yourself.”

  Sanchez allowed himself a small nod. “I’ve been biding my time, Len. I’m ready to move up to a new level. I think I’ve paid plenty of dues.”

  “And then who takes over your place at Mission?”

  “It’s good you asked that. You know that my wife has been in the office and on the payroll almost since the beginning. She’d be the natural choice, I’d think, and would serve to demonstrate our commitment to gender equality.”

  Turner sat back with a look of appreciation. “You know, Jimi,” he said, “all this time we’ve worked together and I had no idea you were so ambitious. Those two jobs, yours and Lola’s, they’d bring in what?”

  “Round it off to eight hundred.”

  “Don’t you think that might draw a little scrutiny?”

  Sanchez put down his fork. “I make two hundred now, Len. Lola’s at around one fifty. No one raises their eyebrows. If I move to Sunset and Lola moves up at Mission, no one will even notice. The important thing is that Dominic’s work continues, that our people keep getting elected. And how does that happen? You know how that happens.”

  Turner did know.

  In fact, as counsel to Sunset, Turner had come to understand the power that Dominic Como had held. Not only did he control the purse strings on his $50 million-per-year budget, he directed those funds to where they could wield the most political influence in the city. For the great secret of the nonprofit community, especially in the incredibly corrupt environment that was San Francisco, was its intimate connection to the political, and hence the business, community.