Treasure Hunt

by John Lescroart

  Hunt nodded. “Got to be murder.”

  “They’re always murders, though. All these books.”

  “Right. You know why? Any violent crime that’s not a murder has a living victim. And the victim can tell you what happened. You could write a book, but it would probably be pretty short, and it wouldn’t be much of a mystery.”

  She smiled.

  “Besides, people don’t care so much about bicycle theft, or other lesser crimes. Except maybe rape, now that I think of it. You could probably do a rape case, but you’d have to kill people in it eventually anyway. And if you’re going to be knocking people off, might as well make it a murder case to begin with.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” She put her fork down, reached across the small table, and took his hand. “Have I been monopolizing the conversation?”

  “Very charmingly.”

  “But that means yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. It’s all been interesting.”

  “And yet, in spite of that”—she broke a smile—“you seem slightly distracted.”

  “Maybe a little,” he said.

  “Maybe a little,” she repeated. Then, “What?”

  “Actually, it’s been a hell of a day.”

  “Good? Bad? I was thinking bad, and didn’t want to ask. You’d get to it.”

  “Well, in fact, in a remarkable and unexpected change of pace, it’s been nothing but good. Pretty amazingly good, in fact.” He ran down the events for her, from Tamara’s appearance in the office this morning, to Mickey’s idea and the miraculously ever-growing reward, the reprieve on his business, short-term at least. Ending it with Ellen Como and the tragicomic relief of Virginia, now and forever to be known as the Blimp Lady. The victim’s fall from the sky into the lagoon, “which,” he concluded, “we’ve pretty much discounted as improbable.”

  “Good decision.” Gina shook her head in gentle amusement. “This town.” But after another minute, her expression grew serious. “So in effect you’re investigating this murder?”

  “Not exactly. Passing what we find, if anything, along to Juhle, is all.”

  “He’s talking to you again? I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Me too.”

  “I felt a little guilty, I still feel a little guilty, about driving you guys apart. Does he know you’re still seeing me?”

  “I assume so. He’s a cop. He knows everything. But that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t you and him. It was me and him. Although he’s not too thrilled that people seem to be coming to me now and not him.”

  “Is he offering them money too?”

  “That’s what I told him. It wasn’t much consolation.”

  Gina sipped wine, put her glass down, something obviously still on her mind.

  “I can hear the gears turning from over here,” Hunt said.

  A fragile smile. “I just worry about you getting in the face of these murder suspects. That’s not exactly the same thing as surveillance, or rounding up witnesses, or subpoena service.”

  Hunt downplayed it. “I’m not really getting in anybody’s face, Gina. Just passing along information.”

  “Didn’t you just tell me you went and saw Ellen Como?”

  “Well . . .”

  “And isn’t she a suspect? Isn’t she, in fact, like, the prime suspect even as we speak?”

  Hunt couldn’t reply.

  “All I’m saying,” Roake went on, “is that the thing about people who have actually murdered someone, there’s always some small chance they’ll feel the need to do it again.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “Most victims don’t, babe, that’s kind of the point. Until that last little ‘uh-oh, I should have seen this coming’ moment. After which, ‘Oh, well, too late now.’ ” She picked up a piece of sourdough, looked at it, put it back down. “I don’t mean to sound paranoid, Wyatt, and maybe I wouldn’t if all this wasn’t around Dominic Como, but since it is ...”

  “Since it is, what?”

  Stalling, Gina moved a few more items around—twirled her wineglass, adjusted the placement of her knife. Finally, she raised her eyes. “I really don’t want to slander the dead, especially a dead well-respected and apparently well-loved community leader, but let’s just say you don’t get to be a power broker in this town on Como’s level if you don’t have a whole lot more going on than meets the eye.”

  “Like what, specifically?”

  “I can’t give you specifics. I don’t know any. Which is how he wanted it. All I can tell you is that things just happened because Dominic Como laid his hands upon them. Or didn’t happen if he didn’t. Do you know Len Turner?”

  This got all of Hunt’s attention. “I do. He’s handling the reward. What about him?”

  “He’s handling the reward? That’s perfect. What about him is that, cutting to the chase, he’s ruthless and unethical, as well as all but invisible to the general public. He’s also counsel, or was, to Como and several other of our most successful service- oriented nonprofits. Some have been known to call him consigliere. Want to hear a story?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. Twenty years ago, Len Turner’s a young attorney with Dewey, Cheatham and Howe—not their real name . . .”

  “I got it,” Hunt said.

  “I thought you would. Anyway, Turner’s got a client who owns this tiny little four-acre parcel of land down by China Basin that would be worth about a zillion dollars except for the slight problem that back in World War Two and through the fifties it was a U.S. Navy munitions and fuel storage facility, which means that now it’s essentially a toxic waste dump down to about a hundred feet. But now there’s starting to be talk that the Giants are going to move to China Basin, which, as you’ve noticed, they have, and the whole area’s going to be a redevelopment gold mine. You with me so far?”

  Hunt nodded. “Sí.”

  “Okay, so Turner gets hired to change the zoning and get it approved by the Board of Supervisors. This turns out to be not as difficult as you might think, because Turner’s clients had a lot of money to begin with. So he simply found experts and hired them to write fraudulent environmental impact reports. He then paid off one of the supervisors, Frank Addario, to support it and shepherd it through the board. But, and this is my favorite part, the best move he made was anticipating resistance from the Conservancy Club, which coincidentally had about forty-nine other questionable sites all over the state they were fighting to save. He bribed them—their president, actually—to the tune of a million dollars, to forget this one spot in what was already a severely polluted city environment. So what would it hurt?”

  “So what happened?” Hunt asked.

  “So the zoning got changed and everybody won. Except, of course, the city as soon as a buyer appeared and got about two months into the cleanup and discovered that the land essentially could never be used.”

  “Didn’t they sue?”

  “Sure. And they even won, in the sense that the sale got rescinded. But, and this is the truly great part, Turner and his clients then turned around and sued the city for approving the zoning change in the first place. They hadn’t done their due diligence, et cetera. And finally, the city settled with these cretins to the tune of like ten million dollars.”

  “Can this guy Turner be my lawyer?” Hunt asked.

  Gina gave him a sweet smile. “No, because I’m your lawyer. But you see what I mean? And the story isn’t over yet.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Okay, before the settlement, while all the stink is going on over this deal and the lawsuit, needless to say all the supervisors who voted for the zoning change are taking a lot of heat. At about this time, Como enters the picture. Or this particular picture.”

  Hunt cocked his head. “How do you know all this?”

  Roake hit him with a level gaze. “Mostly David.” This was her former fiancé, David Freeman, who for forty or more years before he died had been one o
f the city’s legal titans. “He was counsel for the Conservancy Club.”

  “Aha. Okay, back to Como.”

  “Como sees an opportunity here, and starts pumping money that certain development interests had been donating to the Sunset Youth Project into the campaigns of the supervisors who are running to unseat the scoundrels who have helped perpetrate this fraud on the city.”

  “That’s got to be illegal.”

  “Oh, it’s illegal, all right. But illegal only matters if someone is going to pursue it criminally. And back then in the DA’s office, perhaps because the DA had a son who was having rehab issues himself, there didn’t seem to be the will.”

  “This is getting good,” Hunt said.

  “I thought you’d enjoy it. And so, to continue, guess what? A majority of new supervisors got elected. And those are the folks who, to avoid the cost and hassle of litigation, for the good of the city and to put this ugliness behind them, approved the settlement. In other words, it all just went away. Oh, and one other thing.”

  “Hit me.”

  “This was also when the city signed over the decrepit and abandoned former Ocean Park Elementary School to the Sunset Youth Project to use as their headquarters.”

  “Wow,” Hunt said. “Nice ending.”

  “You see why I think it might be smart of you to watch out and pay attention around this thing? It might have been Como’s wife, or something else personal, all right. But it might also have been something altogether different. In which case, there are interests you don’t want to get in the way of.”

  “Well”—Hunt went back to his meal—“you made your point. But I still think there’s a big difference between these financial shenanigans and people actually killing other people over them.”

  “You do, huh?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, then, I better not tell you about Addario and Ayers—the supervisor and the Conservancy Club president.”

  “I bet you’re going to, though.”

  She nodded. “Before the settlement got announced, Addario apparently committed suicide, and Ayers was apparently the victim of a hit-and-run.”

  “I notice you said apparently twice in there.”

  “Right.” Solemn, Gina nodded again. “Good word, isn’t it? Apparently is the new allegedly.”

  13

  Tamara opened her eyes before the alarm went off, while it was still dark out, and for a moment could not exactly place herself, although she had slept in the same Murphy bed that she’d been using for the past six months. She turned to look at the digital clock on the windowsill and saw that it was 4:42.

  At 5:01, and wide awake, she tossed the blankets off and sat up. She’d been sleeping in plaid flannel pajamas that had once been Mickey’s, and they swam on her, even with the string on the pants pulled as tight as it would go. Quickly she made the bed, then lifted it, gently folding it up into the wall so it wouldn’t wake anyone.

  After a quick trip to the bathroom, she looked in at where Mickey slept and felt a surge of relief and love when she saw his gangly form splayed out on top of his bed. Closing the door softly, she went into the kitchen, turned on the one light, and set up the Mr. Coffee for eight cups. While the coffee gurgled and dripped, she rummaged in the refrigerator, pulling out a plate covered with strips of leftover lamb, then some polenta, butter, a carton of eggs.

  Five minutes later, she poured her first cup of coffee, added heavy cream and—what the hell—three sugars, then scooped her three-egg concoction onto her plate, smothering it with ketchup.

  The first bite was so delicious that it brought tears to her eyes.

  The Hunt Club’s office was over a Chinese gift shop on Grant Avenue. The door was around the corner on Sacramento and at 8:10, twenty minutes early because they were excited about the possibility of more leads coming in by phone, Mickey and Tamara were just getting to that door when, coming from the other direction, they almost literally ran into the two women who were about to turn into the same doorway. And upon recognition—it was Gina Roake and another, younger attorney from her office, Amy Wu—the exclamations and hugging commenced.

  “We heard from Wyatt you were back!”

  “We’re so glad it’s true!”

  “We’ve missed you so much.”

  “I missed both of you too.”

  Mickey, standing to one side, said, “Me too,” ambiguously, and Wu came over and gave him a conciliatory buss on the cheek and about half a hug. “We would have missed you, too, Mickey,” she said, “except you just wouldn’t go away.”

  Hunt showed up early, too, but it was still after everyone had gone upstairs and gotten the office opened up, the coffeemaker going, the shutters open. The three employees were acutely aware of the number “7” blinking at Tamara’s phone, but waited until Roake and Wu left to go back to their own offices before they encircled the desk while Tamara pressed the playback button.

  “Hi, the Hunt Club. This is Cecil Rand, three eight one, two two eight four. I believe I’ve seen something that might have to do with the Dominic Como murder. I’m not sure if it’s anything and I don’t want to have the police think I’m just trying to waste their time, so maybe you could call me back. Thanks.” He repeated his number, and hung up.

  “Hello.” A tentative woman’s voice. “Is anybody . . . ? Hello? My name is . . . well, never mind. I guess I’ll just call back when you’re there.”

  “Oh, super,” Mick said. “Unless you die in the meantime.”

  Next was another woman, no greeting. “This is Nancy Neshek. I’m the executive director of the Sanctuary House. My name may be familiar because my organization has also put up twenty- five thousand dollars for the reward, so I won’t be calling to claim any part of that, but I did have a question if one of you could please call me back, either at home or my office, sometime tomorrow. It’s somewhat important.” She then left both of her numbers, said thank you and good-bye, and rang off.

  “Hey. I’m Damien Jones, over here at the Mission Street Coalition, and uh . . . well, there’s just some stuff goin’ on here that ain’t right. I mean, they say we getting all this foundation money s’posed to pay for room and board and food and stuff and then they take it out our pay. I don’t know how Como did it over there at his place, you know, Sunset, but if I can get moved over there, I’m applying.”

  Next: “My name is Eric Canard with the San Francisco Palace Duck Coalition and I just wanted to inform you that I’ll be going to the media myself in the next day or two to expose this obviously fraudulent murder you’ve got everybody talking about, and the even more blatant attempt to deflect attention from the situation with the displaced ducks from the Palace Lagoon, which is now, as I’m sure you know, just about completely empty. I don’t know who’s putting up all this supposed reward money, but I think I can prove that there is both no dead man and no money that will actually be paid for any reward. If the Hunt Club is even in fact your real name.”

  After that hang-up, Hunt’s mouth twitched. “Well, Mick, that’s at least one for you.”

  The penultimate message was from a real client, another of Roake’s junior associates calling about scheduling a deposition for the first two days of the following week, and would Wyatt call to verify his availability.

  Finally, the tentative woman again, maddeningly repeating her first message almost verbatim—she’d call back later, when they were there.

  “Leave a message!” Mickey actually yelled at the telephone. “Leave a goddamn message. What’s the matter with you?” He looked at his sister. “What’s the matter with her? She afraid somebody’s going to jump through the phone and bite her?”

  But Tamara could only shrug and turn to her boss. “How do you want to divide these up?” she asked.

  Hunt decided that calls number one and three—Nancy Neshek and Cecil Rand—were worth his time and energy, and that Mickey would take the other ones, leaving Eric Canard to Mickey’s own judgment as an obvious flake and publicity hound, bu
t one who in fact had probably spent a significant amount of time in and around the lagoon and might have seen something, and who would never, ever, under any circumstances, talk to the police.

  For his own part, Hunt first called Nancy Neshek’s home number and left a message. Then, still before nine A.M., he called Sanctuary House, which had apparently not yet opened its main office for the day. Leaving another message there, he next called Cecil Rand, who picked up on the first ring and told Hunt he’d meet him at Johnny Rockets Diner on Chestnut Street in the Marina District. Rand told Hunt he was old and black and run-down-looking; “you’ll think I’m a bum, but I’m not.” And he would be wearing an almost-new Raiders jacket. Hunt said he’d be in his Cooper if Rand was outside waiting.

  Hunt made it down there in about fifteen minutes and saw a man fitting that description standing in the doorway to Johnny Rockets. He was rolling down his window to say hello and ask if he was Cecil Rand when the man pointed at him, said, “Hunt?” and got a nod in return. He jaywalked, stopping the traffic, through the opposite lane, passed in front of the car, over to the passenger door, and got in.

  “Cool car,” he said, fastening his seat belt. “I’ve always wanted to ride in one of these. Bigger than it looks, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I love it,” Hunt said. “Plus, you wouldn’t know to look at it, but it’s a rocket ship. The thing hauls.” He looked across at his passenger, who came exactly as advertised. “So where we going?”

  “Hang a right. The lagoon.”

  Hunt gave him another quick glance. His clothes were worn but clean, and he exuded a kind of raw confidence that made Hunt glad he’d included Cecil as among the legitimate tipsters. And his saying that they ought to go to the lagoon was promising. It was, after all, if not the scene of the crime itself, then, nevertheless, a venue of significant interest.