The Hunt Club

32

In the wide and sun-splashed upstairs corridor of their château in Napa Valley, Carol Manion knocked on the door to her son's bedroom. "Todd."

No answer.

She knocked again. "Todd, please. Your mother wants to talk to you."

"I don't want to talk to her. I'm mad at her."

"Please don't be. I can't stand it when you're mad at me. Your hair will grow back, I promise."

"And meanwhile I look like a geek."

"You don't. You look like what you are, a handsome young man. Would you please open the door?"

"I don't want to."

"But I really need to talk to you."

"What about?"

"Todd. Not through the door, okay? Please. I'm saying please."

"I asked you please not to before you made him cut off my hair. Please, please, please." Punctuating the words by kicking at the door. "It wasn't fair."

"I know it wasn't. I'm sorry. Your father and I just thought it would be a good idea."

"Why?" In three syllables. "It wasn't hurting anything." But the knob turned, and the door came unlatched, although Todd didn't pull it open.

Carol gave it a gentle push.

Todd had crossed to the window seat that overlooked the vineyards, where he'd piled some blankets from his bed and now burrowed into them. Carol walked over and sat so that she felt the contours of his little body up against her. "Thanks for letting me in," she said. "You're a very good boy."

"Doesn't do me any good, though."

Carol Manion sighed. "Aren't you getting a little hot under there?"

The blankets moved as he shook his head no. "What did you need to talk to me about?"

Now was the time. She sighed again. "There's a picture in the paper this morning of a boy who looks like you. In fact, it might even be a picture of you that someone took from a long distance away a couple of years ago."

The head, teary-eyed but now curious, too, peeked out. "Why would somebody do that?"

"I don't know for sure, but in the paper it said that they found the picture in the room of somebody who was killed last week."

"Killed? You mean like really killed in real life? Not like on TV?"

"No. Really killed."

"Cool," Todd said.

"Well, it isn't really, Todd. It's really kind of scary. But, anyway, they thought if somebody could recognize the picture of the boy who looks like you that they might be able to find the relatives of the young woman who got killed. If you were related to her. Do you understand?"

"But I'm not."

"No, you're not. But your father and I don't know who took the picture or why. Or if it even has to do with you. We just want you to be safe."

"And that's why you cut my hair? Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"Because we didn't want to scare you."

"I wouldn't have been scared."

"No. Probably not, I know. But it scares your mother and father to think that somebody who got killed took a picture of you and kept it, and now the killer might know what you looked like. So we thought it would be smart to change that a little, for a while at least. You see? I really want you to understand."

"I think I do."

"Good. Because some people might come by and ask questions. Maybe even policemen. And I don't want you to worry."

"Why would I worry?"

"You shouldn't. That's what I'm saying, that there's nothing to worry about. We're just going to tell everybody it's not you. It might look a little like you, but we don't think it's you."

"In the picture, you mean?"

"Yes. And that way we just stay out of everything altogether. We don't get involved because we don't need to be. This doesn't have to do with us. I want you to understand that."

"But what if it is me? Can I see it? I bet I could tell."

"I bet you could, too. But the picture's not the most important thing, Todd. The most important thing is that we protect you. That you always know that you're safe, no matter what."

"I do know that, Mom."

"Because you are my only son, and I'm never going to let anything happen to you. Ever. Okay? Now how about if you come out from under those blankets and give your old mother a big hug?"

Ward Manion had the face of a Marlboro man gone corporate, and it wore a stern expression as he looked across the front seat at his wife. "I don't think I agree that that's a good idea at all. I wish you wouldn't have talked to the boy without discussing it with me first." Though Jay Leno wouldn't take the stage and the auction itself wouldn't formally begin until six o'clock, the Manions had been invited to an exclusive preview of some of the wine lots that would be up for bid, and they were driving the BMW with the top down on the Silverado Trail.

He glanced over at his wife, whom he thought was still a very handsome woman, albeit unconventionally so, with her strong jaw, deeply set and widely spaced gray eyes. She'd had her face lifted twice for lines and crow's feet, but the cheekbones needed no help and never would. "I agreed with the haircut," Ward said, "because what could it hurt? But I don't understand why you don't want to contact the police yourself. Say that it looks like Todd all right, but you don't know anything more about it, which is true."

"No. That's not true, Ward. Not from their perspective, and you know it. How can I tell them it does look like Todd and not mention that his birth mother's name was Staci?"

"It wasn't Staci Rosalier."

Carol waved that off. "So she changed it. Or maybe the slut had gotten herself married. Two or three times even."

Ward pursed his lips. To Carol, the girl who'd borne their son's, now their own, child, had always been and would always be "the slut." It bothered him, but he didn't suppose he was going to be able to do anything to change it now.

"And then what if it is her?" she asked. "Staci. Todd's birth mother."

He turned to her. "Well? We both agree that it might be. So what?"

"So what is that it then involves us, Ward. You and me and Todd. You know we weren't involved in killing anybody, but they'll just rake up all that history, look into Todd's adoption, everything. I know you remember how awful Staci's people were. I don't want to give them any excuse to get back into our lives."

He seemed vaguely amused at the idea, shaking his head at the absurdity of it.

"It's not funny, Ward. I told you George Palmer called me at home that last day…"

"To ask us to a party, right?"

"Yes, but all they'll know-"

"Who are they now?"

"The police. All they'll know is that he made the call. What if they see it as a connection between us and that slut?"

"What if? What if? But while we're at it, using the slut word will not help you appear disinterested. The woman, after all, is a murder victim. She deserves a little sympathy."

"All right. But the point remains, I did hear from George, and then I did place a call to the Parisi woman. That's a lot of coincidence, a lot of interaction with people who are involved in this."

"Now that you mention it." Ward was still smiling. "If I didn't know better…"

"Don't you dare even tease!"

"Easy, girl," he said. "There's no call for that."

She took a beat, gathering herself. "It's far better if we simply stay out of it completely. If we say that the picture doesn't really look like Todd did at that age, that ends it."

"Carol." His own calm more than matched hers. "You're not exactly some prowling murderer, after all. I think we're both rather above all that, don't you? You're acting paranoid, and that isn't like you at all."

She shook her head. "I think you're underestimating how badly they want to bring us all down. We are rich and, therefore, evil. Just look at what we're doing today."

"And what exactly is that?"

"The auction."

"Giving six figures to charity? I fail to see the evil there."

"Paying criminal prices for wine, Ward. Flaunting it for those who don't have it. Paying seven thousand five hundred dollars just to buy tickets to bid. You don't seem to know how our kind of money affects some people, how we feed their envy."

"No, of course, I understand that. The worst crime a person can commit in some circles is to be successful. But people who think that way are always with us, and they should be none of our concern. They're far beneath us. Even our contempt."

"Until they smell that we've done something wrong, where they can bring us down. Look at Martha Stewart, in jail over a handful of peanuts. Michael Milken. All the CEOs."

"But we haven't done anything like any of them, Carol. I say if we acknowledge that the picture might be Todd, and that Staci might well have been his natural mother, we nip any inquiry in the bud. It's likely one of our acquaintances will have called the police, anyway, one of Todd's teachers, somebody. We're just pointing to ourselves as hiding something if we don't come forth." He put a large, gnarled hand on her thigh. "We don't want to appear to be hiding anything, Carol. We don't want to be hiding anything." He patted her leg. "I say we bring the matter up to one of our security people down in the city, who after all are the police, at our first opportunity. Tell them what we know. Answer their questions if they have any and ask them to be discreet as they've always been. Live with what little fallout there may be."

Carol turned away from him, then faced forward. Her mouth was set, her jaw clenched, the eyes hardened down. She snapped open a pair of sunglasses and put them on, looked at Ward as if she were about to say something, then thought better of it, and lapsed into a brooding silence.

Wine lovers mingled, schmoozed, grazed, and drank on a flawless gem of an afternoon in the elegant expanse of the Meadowood Resort. The croquet lawn/putting-green area was a sea of humanity. Woodsmoke hung in a fragrant cloud amidst the oaks and the pines. Celebrity chefs plied their wares on enormous open grills while equally famous winemakers freely poured their best libations into the Reidel crystal glasses of their colleagues and the other assembled guests-the sports heroes, movie stars, industry captains, and other notables from all over the world who shared both a love of all things grape and extravagant wealth.

The young couple chatting with the Manions were well dressed, articulate, charming, and obviously very much at home in the rarefied Napa culture. Making their acquaintance at one of the white wine tables under the enormous tent that shaded the first fairway at Meadowood, Ward Manion had taken the gentleman under his wing, and the two were now in deep conversation about the stunning recent popularity of Rhône-style varietals in California-syrah, mourvedre, carignane-and what it all meant to the local industry, which was so heavily invested in cabernet, chardonnay, pinot noir, and merlot. "Frankly, if you would have asked me to name the new hot varietal, say ten years ago," the young man named Jason was saying, "I wouldn't have even looked to the Rhône. My bet would have been on sangiovese."

Ward broke a satisfied smile. "Don't sell that idea short," he said. "I took that bet just about at that time." Ward was always happy to talk wine, especially in a setting like this one. "Now I've got nearly seven acres of sangiovese to blend with my cabernet."

"California Super Tuscan," Jason said. "Good way to go."

"It's hardly original," Ward said, "but it beats ripping out my good vines that are finally producing and guessing wrong on granache or some other damn thing."

The men clearly would be able to go on in this fascinating vein for a while, but even here and now on her second glass of chardonnay, Carol Manion seemed to be fighting herself to remain engaged, half-smiling in a vacant way, her mind clearly elsewhere, in a self-contained universe of her own.

At Carol's elbow, her own champagne in hand but untouched, Jason's young woman moved a step nearer to her and spoke in a confidential whisper. "It's really so wonderful to be here. It's our first time, and I must say we feel a bit like crashers, though. We shouldn't really be here at all technically, but we're kind of close to Thomas, and he got us in."

In this context, it went without saying, Thomas could only be Thomas Keller of the French Laundry, überchef of the valley if not, according to many, of the civilized world. "But if you happen to be lucky enough to get offered a couple of tickets on a fabulous day like this one, I say you go, n'est-ce pas?"

"Oui. Sans doute." Carol dredged up a smile that for all of its weariness seemed genuine enough. "I'm sorry. I'm a little distracted. What did you say your name was?"

"Amy."

The well-bred society manners were kicking in, as Amy had hoped and Hunt had assumed they would. Carol Manion, they both knew, spent a good deal of her time at charity events and benefit dinners. Social patter would come to her as easily as breathing, and now the very banality of it all offered an apparent respite from what they believed would be her overriding preoccupation.

"Well, Amy," she said, "it's very nice to meet you, even more so if you won't be in competition with us when the bidding begins."

Amy laughed appreciatively. "I don't think you have to worry about that. We're just regular working stiffs."

"Are you involved in the wine world? Your husband seems quite knowledgeable."

"Jason? Actually, we're not married until September. And it's not just wine, he's knowledgeable about everything. It's kind of a curse."

"I know what you mean. My Ward's a little like that, too. He sees something once, or hears about it, or reads it in a book, it's locked in his mind forever."

"That sounds like Jason, too. But we're not really involved at all in the wine business, except that we like to drink it." Wu shifted her footing, moving them both back, cutting them away from the two men. "In real life," she said, "we're both attorneys."

Carol Manion's mouth barely twitched, and so quickly that Wu would have missed it if she hadn't been watching closely. In an instant, the practiced smile had returned, but in that second or less, the older woman also seemed to lose half a step somehow, and a silence held between them, until Carol finally stammered, "I'm sorry?"

Amy saw no harm in hitting her with it again. "I said we were both attorneys." Chattering on. "We're both so lucky that we work in San Francisco. Jason's with the District Attorney, and I'm about five years now with a really good firm. I love the work, although people say such terrible things about us sometimes. All the lawyer jokes, you know. But I find that my colleagues are generally way much nicer than most people think. In fact," as though she just remembered it, "it's so funny that Jason and I should have run into you of all people here, because I think we have a mutual friend." Wu's face fell, and it wasn't an act. "Or had, I should say, until this week. Andrea Parisi?"

The surface of Carol Manion's glass of wine shimmered as though a tiny temblor was shaking the ground under their feet. "Andrea…yes, the television-anchor person?"

"And one of your own lawyers, wasn't she? If I'm not mistaken. Am I?"

"No, no. Although we never actually met. I just…well, it's such a tragedy, what's happened. I mean, they still haven't found her yet, have they?"

"No. But I don't think anybody's holding out much hope on that account anymore. It's the worst thing. She was such a great person. We were really good friends." Amy was somewhat surprised to feel real tears begin to form in her eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry. I don't want to put a pall on a nice day like this. But you and she…I really was under the impression that you knew her well, too. If she was going out to your house…"

"No! She never did that."

"Well, that's right. I knew that. I talked to her just after you called her from the Saint Francis and suggested you meet at her office. She was worried it might mean that you were getting cold feet."

"About what?"

"Her representing you."

"But she wasn't representing me. She was…" Abruptly, she stopped as another thought struck her. "Did you say she called you?"

"Uh-huh. Just after she talked to you. She and I were supposed to have dinner together out in the Avenues that night, and we decided to move it to downtown since that's where we'd both be working. God, was that just last Wednesday? It seems like forever ago." As though she'd just realized it, Wu said, "But if you've never met her, that means she must have missed her meeting with you, too."

Carol Manion's eyes took on a furtive cast. In a quick pass, they scanned the length and breadth of the tented area, then came back to Wu. "Yes. I mean, no, I never did meet with her. I," she paused, stuttered, "I had to cancel at the last minute."

"That's a shame," Wu said. "I'm sure you would have liked her. I can't believe she's gone. She was just terrific…a terrific person."

"Yes, well…" Unsteadily, Carol Manion moved a few steps forward, toward her husband. "I'm sure I would have. Now if you'll excuse me, I think it's getting to be time for us to start looking at these lots. It was very nice talking with you. Ward."

Brandt and Wu went and made themselves invisible behind the flap of the tent and watched them as they walked off, Carol leaning heavily onto her husband's arm.

"Nice guy," Brandt said. "Ward."

"She's not. She's a killer."

"You think so?"

"I'd bet my life on it, Jason. I thought she was going to pass out when I mentioned Andrea. She didn't deny the call from the Saint Francis, which is huge. I honestly thought she was going to be sick. I know it shook her up."

"That was the goal."

"No, the goal was to get her upset enough to leave early."

"But not too early. Devin's got to have time to get up here."

Wu checked her watch. "He's had two hours already. He'll make it."

"He'd better," Brandt said. "Check it out."

The Manions had stopped in their progress toward their place at the bidding tables, and now Carol had one palm against her husband's chest and the other pressed against her own left breast. Her posture implored. Wearing an unmistakable expression of frustration and anger, Ward looked at the ceiling of the tent for a moment. He took his wife's wineglass and with an exaggerated calm placed it, along with his own, on the nearest table. Then the two of them began walking toward their nearest exit.

"It's happening," Brandt said.

Wu nodded with a grim satisfaction. "Looks like."