Treasure Hunt (44 page)

“So what changed?”

“She snagged herself. At Como’s memorial, she pretended she had barely heard of Neshek’s death, but then a few minutes later, before anybody had said anything about it, she asked me if the cops had found anything at Neshek’s house.”

Juhle spoke up. “And she shouldn’t have known that soon that Neshek had been killed in her own home.”

“See? You can figure things out, after all. But I didn’t figure it out. At least not then. I just thought somebody might have included that detail before I went over to talk to them. You know, ‘Did you hear Nancy got killed at her house last night?’ kind of thing. So I didn’t put too much on it. She possibly could have known. So I gave her the benefit.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, so the next day, Mickey’s up at Sunset talking to her about her alibi for Monday night and she tells him she’s got a son she’s helping with homework all night, but then she lets drop that she doesn’t even know where Neshek lived. So I get this little ‘ding ding ding’ in my brain and wonder how likely that is. I mean, she’s worked with Dominic like for a decade and all these execs go to the same functions.” He raised a hand and stopped one of the waiters going by. “You ordering?”

Juhle nodded and told the waiter he was going to walk on the wild side and have the Special and a Diet Coke, and then he came back to Hunt. “So she said she didn’t know where Neshek lived?”

“Right. At the same time, she tells Mickey how she’s hurting for money. Big bills, medical stuff. But somehow before that she had the money for a full-time caregiver and a tutor. Anyway, that sticks with me a little bit. But still, I mean, possible, I suppose. And she’s still got her kid as an alibi. Plus, there’s absolutely no hint of a motive, so I let it pass again. Strike two.”

“All right, the oh two pitch.”

“I’m talking with Alicia Thorpe, trying to bust her story wide open, and she tells me that she’d met Ellen Como at a Sanctuary House benefit at Neshek’s place.”

“Ellen Como? Am I missing something?”

“No, hang on. So Alicia’s talking about this first meeting with Ellen and then she lets slip—I mean, really just an aside, pure luck—that Dominic pulled her away from the Sunset staff to introduce her to Ellen. And she mentions Hess specifically, at Neshek’s house.”

“Better.”

“Getting there. Then it occurs to me that the reason Ellen is sure that Dominic is screwing Alicia is because Hess told her so. She said she caught them in the act a couple of times. Now, there’s no doubt that Dominic was screwing around. How likely is it he’s going to get caught in his office not once, but a few times? So I’m starting to wonder, if Hess isn’t telling Ellen the truth, what’s she got against Alicia? Bringing me, of course, to the oldest motive in the world.”

“You got her.”

“Not yet. I’ve got some thoughts and some definite issues, but nothing solid for Como and no reason in the world for Neshek. So I’m stuck.”

“Until?”

“Until I remember Al Carter, who’s worked there for eight years and presumably knows everything. And he’s uptight because he’s black and he’s got a record and thinks you guys are going to come after him.”

“That’s bogus, Wyatt. We don’t do that. We never even gave him more than a passing look.”

“I’m not the guy you’ve got to convince, Dev. Anyway, whatever, Al wants to help us find whoever did Como if he can, and not just for the reward either. So I have Mickey find him and we have a talk and I ask him, one, if, back in the day, did Lorraine and Como have a thing? And guess what? Not just back in the day, evidently, but back up until a few months after Alicia came on. In other words, until a few weeks ago.”

“And Carter didn’t think to mention that to anybody?”

“He thought Lorraine had no problem with it ending. She was cool. It wasn’t like passion anymore, he didn’t think. She’d gotten old.”

Juhle’s Diet Coke arrived and he took a long drink. “That’s pretty much what she told us, motive wise. And you might like to know that what happened Monday night with Neshek is that she came up to Hess after the COO meeting and actually asked Hess if she should talk to you, Wyatt.”

“Did she say why?”

“She was in Dominic’s office one time and saw a concealed safe full of money. Wouldn’t it be better for COO, she asked Hess, if they came forward with the money the feds claimed was missing? Or would it just tarnish Dominic’s reputation and the work they were trying to do? Hess thought that what Neshek was really saying was that she knew that Hess had taken the money. So she killed her.”

“So that would be the money you found in Hess’s house?”

“Five hundred eighty-seven thousand, six hundred and eighty dollars, but who’s counting? Not, by the way, in small bills.” Juhle drank again. “But I still don’t see you making your call to Hess, even if you had all of that—the contradiction about Neshek’s house, the motive.”

“Right. Still not enough. So I had a hunch. I knew that Jim Parr was on his way to Sunset, but either he never got there, or he got there and ran into somebody he knew who got him away.”

“Hess.”

Hunt nodded. “Hess. So I asked Carter if Hess had come back to Sunset that day after the memorial. He’d definitely been there and he’d know, and he told me she hadn’t. But she’d told Mickey she had.”

“There you go.”

“Well, again, there was a luck element. Mickey found the bar she took him to like a block around the corner from Sunset.”

“Okay, but why kill Parr?” Juhle asked.

“Basically same as Neshek. Jim knew from the old days that she had been doing Como. And he knew about the cash and the safe from his driving days too.”

“But Al Carter knew all of that, too, and she knew it.”

“So why didn’t she kill him too? I don’t know. Lack of opportunity? Or maybe she thought she’d convinced him—in fact I think she had—that she had nothing going with Como anymore. If it’s any consolation, Gina thinks that she would have gotten around to Al next. By this time, she was ready to go off on anybody who got close.”

“Actually, Wyatt, when you look at what she did, why she killed these people, maybe the insanity plea isn’t so far-fetched after all.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, the blunt instrument murders argue that she’s crazy. I mean, women don’t kill people with blunt instruments. They’re too unpredictable. Plus, you’ve got to swing really hard.”

Hunt chewed a moment. “Actually, I’ve thought about that, Dev, and it seems to me it’s more an argument for premeditation than insanity.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Well, I couldn’t figure out, if Hess had a gun, why she’d use a tire iron. I mean, on the face of it, as you say, that’s insane. But it’s not insane if you want to kill Dominic and at the same time make it look like Alicia did it because you hate her for stealing him from you.”

“Tire iron, limo, scarf.”

“Bingo. Alicia’s access to all of them. And by the way, it almost worked.”

“But not quite,” Juhle said.

Hunt let Juhle have his small face-saving moment. “And still, you know,” he added, “it came to getting her down to my place. She might have just blown off everything and waited it out, let you arrest Alicia, maybe get out of Dodge with her boy. It was then or never. I had to move, Dev. Had to.”

“Ever breathe a word of this to my partner, Wyatt, and I’ll deny it to my dying day, but I’m secretly glad as hell that you did.”

Wyatt Hunt heard what appeared to be lighthearted conversation as he mounted the stairs that led up to his office just after his first appointment of the day, which had been over at Gina Roake’s firm.

Now it was close to ten o’clock, and he had no appointments that he knew of scheduled for his office. Opening the outer door, he caught Tamara in midlaugh at something. Across the room from her, two middle-aged African-American men in black suits, white shirts, and black ties filled up the tiny reception area. They both stood when he entered, and now he was shaking both of their hands. “Mr. Carter, how you doin’? Good to see you again, Mr. Rand. Welcome to the Hunt Club, such as it is. What can I do for you gentlemen?”

The visit by these two men was a surprise, and far from an unpleasant one. Hunt had last seen them together during the small but very well-covered ceremony at City Hall where the mayor had presented the reward distribution money—two hundred thousand dollars to Al Carter, and fifty thousand each to Ellen Como, Cecil Rand, and Linda Colores. Though Lorraine Hess was still a long way from actually being convicted, there was no doubt that she had killed Dominic Como, and on this basis, Len Turner decided to release the reward funds before he was technically committed to do so.

It seemed that Al Carter was the spokesman for the two of them, and after a few more pleasantries catching up on life, they sat again on their chairs while Hunt perched himself on the side of Tamara’s desk. But no sooner had he sat than Al Carter half-stood again so that he could get at his wallet, which he extracted and from which he then produced a couple of business cards, which he handed over to Hunt.

Hunt looked down at the beautifully designed card, light blue with a colorful logo of a toucan, and the words “Toucan Limousine Service.”

“We realize that this is short notice, but we were hoping, Cecil and I, that since this is the first formal day of our new business—I don’t know if you’ve heard we’ve gone into partnership with two brand-new Town Cars—maybe we could drive you and your lovely associate here to the place of your choice and take you both to lunch.”

“We go by convoy,” Rand added. “All the way out to the Cliff House you want.”

Hunt half turned back to Tamara. “This is a tough call, but I’m thinking we need to close up for the afternoon, Tam. How’s that sound to you?”

She made a mock pout. “You’re the boss. If we have to.”

Hunt straightened off the desk. “You drive a hard bargain, but you gentlemen have got yourselves a deal. When do we go?”

“Tout de suite,”
Carter said. “As soon as you’re all ready.”

Tamara was on her feet. “I’ll be right back. Just let me go and freshen up.”

As she disappeared back through Hunt’s inner office, Carter said, “There’s one other thing, Mr. Hunt. We’ve discussed this, Cecil and I, and we’d like to offer you free service in town if you need it, whenever we’re not driving paying clients.”

Hunt sat back down on the desk. His first thought being that this was like the old deal he’d had with Mickey when he’d been driving a cab, but better. And his second, that he couldn’t accept it. “Guys,” he said, “that’s extremely generous, but you’ll need your clients.”

“And we’ll get them,” Carter said. “But in the meanwhile, we’re at your service.”

“Would you let me at least pay for gas?”

The two men exchanged a glance and a quick nod. “Gas would not compromise our position too badly,” Carter said. “You can pay for gas.”

“Thank you.” Hunt shook hands with them again. “So what’s with the name?”

Both men smiled and Rand said, “Toucan.”

“Right.” Hunt still not seeing it.

“Mr. Hunt.” And then Carter said slowly, “Two con.”

Mickey had missed six weeks of cooking school because of his broken arm. He’d had the last soft cast finally removed earlier this week and though he was still stiff, he could at least raise it and move things around in the kitchen. And this morning, he was so anxious to get started that he woke himself up at a few minutes after six, had his coffee, and started his cutting—onions, celery, fennel root (why not? he’d thought), green beans, Brussels sprouts, potatoes—a cornucopia of just-purchased fresh produce overflowing the counter on both sides of the sink.

He’d gone down to the Ferry Building last week and ordered a fourteen-pound Diestel family Heirloom turkey that he’d picked up yesterday and soaked in the
Chronicle’
s famous “Best Turkey” brine. Truth be told, there really wasn’t much to cooking a turkey, as long as you didn’t overcook it, and even that was easy to time and guarantee with an instant-read thermometer. To his mind, the trick to the great Thanksgiving dinner was the stuffing, and since everybody had different tastes, he was making several kinds—prune, chestnut, oyster, bread, and sausage, and what he and Tamara had always called “plain old,” with celery, onions, stock, and poultry seasoning.