Treasure Hunt

33

“Mrs. Como? Hello. This is Wyatt Hunt.”

“What’s happened? Tell me they’ve arrested her.”

“If you mean Alicia, no, ma’am. Not yet.”

Hunt heard her sigh. “I can’t imagine what’s taking them so long when it’s so clear to me.”

“Well, that’s why I’m calling. The inspectors share your frustration. Especially when they think they’ve got almost everything they need to get it sewn up.”

“Then what’s the delay about?”

“That’s the question. I saw them this afternoon and they thought maybe they could move things along a bit more quickly if you and some of the other witnesses would agree to meet with them again in one place and all of you go over the information you’ve given in a little more detail.”

“I don’t know what that would be. I’ve already told you everything I know.”

“I realize that. But as you say, you told me. Which means the police got it secondhand. I might not have asked you all the right questions. Or put together the information from all the other sources.” Hunt paused. “We’re not talking much more than an hour or two.”

“And what other witnesses?”

“Al Carter. Lorraine Hess. Jimi and Lola Sanchez.”

“What about them?”

“Well, they’ve all cooperated with the police to some degree or another.”

“With information against the Thorpe girl, you mean?”

“I can’t absolutely confirm that until the arrest is a done deal, Mrs. Como. The inspectors don’t want to have the news get out before the suspect’s in custody, which I think you’ll agree is understandable.”

“Well, yes. I suppose it is.”

Hunt wasn’t sure that he had her yet and thought he saw a way to sweeten the deal. “There’s also the issue of the reward,” he said.

A silence hung on the line.

“What about the reward?” she asked.

“You’ll remember that in our interview, you said that if the information you provided proved useful to the investigation, you wanted to be sure you were in line to stake a claim to the reward? Well, it turns out it looks like there are going to be multiple claimants. You know Len Turner is administering the distribution?”

“Of course. I gave him my money, too, you might recall.”

“That’s right. Well, Mr. Turner thought, and I agree, that it would be worthwhile if the major potential claimants talked on the record with the inspectors present so there wouldn’t be any dispute later about the relative value of the respective contributions to solving the case. But where I don’t agree with Mr. Turner is that he didn’t seem to think that your information about Ms. Thorpe’s relationship with your husband and her subsequent firing on that last day rose to the level of real evidence.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “What could be more real than that?”

“Of course,” Hunt said. “That’s my feeling too. Which is why I thought you’d want to be down here to defend your position. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but I think you need to be aware that Mr. Carter corroborated the fact that your husband fired Ms. Thorpe on that last day, so he’ll be making a reward claim on much of the same information you gave us first.”

“That’s just not right.”

“No, ma’am, it’s not.”

“So where is this meeting? And what time?”

He told her, and then he hung up and looked around his kitchen table at the group he’d assembled-Alicia, Mickey, Al Carter, and Gina Roake to act as Alicia’s attorney should the need arise. “Well,” he said, “that’s number three. Two to go. Then Devin.”

“Sometimes it worries me, Wyatt,” Roake said, “how easily you manipulate, cheat, and lie.”

The comment was simply meant to break the tension, and to some degree it worked. At least it brought the beginning of a grin to Hunt’s face. “It’s a concern,” he said, “but I try not to let it get me down.”

Hunt said, “Pick up, Devin. It’s important.”

After a few seconds, the inspector’s voice came on. “In the middle of dinner, Wyatt, this better be good.”

“Good enough,” Hunt said. “What if I were to tell you I’ve found Alicia?”

“Have you?”

“I’m asking you. What if?”

“I’d say keep an eye on her until I can get to where she is and put some cuffs on her. Where is she?”

“You’d arrest her? Even without the DNA on the scarf?”

“We got that just before I went home today. It’s Como’s. So we got her.”

“Except, as it turns out, you still don’t know where she is.”

“But you do.”

“I never said that.”

“Don’t get wise, Wyatt. Where is she?”

“I could get her to come here.”

“Again. Where?”

“Here. Home. The warehouse.”

“Okay. So do that.”

“I will try.” Hunt paused. “Provided you promise you won’t arrest her.”

Juhle’s laugh exploded in the phone. “And why, pray, would I agree to that?”

“Because I’m also going to have your murderer.”

“You are, are you? And who’s that?”

“I could tell you, but it wouldn’t do me or Alicia any good.”

“She’s Alicia now, is she?”

“She’s also my client.”

“She’s what?”

“You heard me.”

“When did that happen?”

“That doesn’t matter either. Not to you. What matters is you promise you don’t arrest her.”

“Until when?”

“Until I get you the murderer.”

Another small bark of humor. “Well, I’m going to say ‘hell, no’ to that, Wyatt. I have evidence against Thorpe and if I see her, I’m going to arrest her.”

“Then all bets are off.”

Juhle paused for a long beat. “You’re saying you know who the killer is?”

“I am. I do. And I’m saying if you want to find out, you promise no arrest. End of story.”

“And what if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not wrong.”

“So we take Alicia downtown, then if you prove we’re wrong, we let her go.”

“Nice try, Dev. But what really happens is once you get her booked, it’s almost impossible to arrest anybody else. Why? Because not only have you just given your second suspect a built-in defense-‘Oh, it was Alicia Thorpe last week, Your Honor, but this week it’s really my client X who did it’-but also because a second arrest for the same crime makes you and Sarah both look stupid.”

“No, that wouldn’t-”

“Bullshit. Listen to me. You arrest her now, Alicia’s charged with specials”-multiple murder special circumstances-“and gets no bail. The DA says she can argue some other dude did it at her trial. But meanwhile, once Alicia’s in jail, your real killer is tipped to all the evidence and can make their own story tighter, if in fact they don’t leave town. That’s what really happens, Dev, and you damn well know it. So I can’t tell you who the murderer is. You’ll just say ‘thanks for playing’ and arrest my client. I’ve got to show you. And I can do that. But first I need your word. No arrest. Nonnegotiable.”

A long silence. Then, “Last, best, and only offer, Wyatt. You get your dog and pony show. I’ll come over, but if I do, somebody’s going to jail. I’m thinking it’s Thorpe, but I’ll give you a chance to convince me it’s someone else.” After another short pause, he asked, “Where is she now?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Hunt said. “A secret place. Mickey found her. But the point is I’ve got him bringing her down here.”

“Why would she do that? Come down there?”

“Because Mickey’s convinced her this is the safest place she could be. She believes Mickey.”

“Shit.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You know why? It keeps being appropriate. Shit shit shit. What am I supposed to do about Sarah?”

“I’m not sure she could agree to the conditions.”

“So now I cut my partner out of it. I know you’re not a cop, Wyatt, but that kind of behavior is frowned upon down at the Hall.”

“Yeah, well, I appreciate that. But what’s happening is happening now. This is all the warning I can give you.”

Wyatt heard the soft exhale of resignation and decision. “Okay,” Juhle said. “Twenty minutes, half hour.”

“That ought to work,” Hunt said.

By eight-thirty, Hunt had the place arranged the way he wanted it, with a nice democratic circle of eleven folding chairs set up on his basketball court. In the end, he’d cajoled, connived, or otherwise convinced all of the principals to converge on his warehouse at nine o’clock so that, depending on what Hunt had told them, they could provide more detailed information, or argue for their portion of the reward, or fortify their alibis, or simply get caught up on the progress of the investigation to date.

Or, finally, in the case of Devin Juhle, to arrest the real murderer.

Now Hunt went back into the residential side, to his kitchen where Roake, Carter, Alicia, and Mickey remained seated at the table with a palpable air of tension surrounding them. “Almost time,” Hunt said lightly. His own nerves were stretched to the breaking point, but he couldn’t show that, not now. “Everybody still loose and ready to have some fun?”

In fact, nobody looked that way. They all looked like they’d been talking about deadly serious issues among themselves while he set up his chairs. Roake, the group’s obvious spokesperson, looked around the table, then up at him. “We’ve been thinking it might be better after all if Alicia wasn’t here, Wyatt.”

Hunt drew a short breath. “If she’s not here,” Hunt said in as reasonable a tone as he could dredge up, “she gets herself arrested anyplace they find her outside. Here I’ve got Devin’s word he won’t touch her.”

“And you believe that?” Carter asked.

“Absolutely.”

With a deep frown, Carter shook his head.

“Just imagine, though, Wyatt,” Roake said. “What if he called Russo and told her? She didn’t make you any promise. She comes in with him and he just shrugs and says it’s out of his control.”

“That’s not what’s going to happen.”

“But what if it does, Wyatt? And Alicia goes downtown. As her lawyer, I don’t know if I can in good conscience let her stay here.”

“As her lawyer,” Hunt said, “you’ve got to let her stay here. It’s her best chance to stay out of jail.”

“But, Wyatt,” Mickey put in, “she won’t get arrested if we go hide out again someplace else.”

“Guys, understand. The second she’s not here, she’s back as the prime suspect, and then it’s only a matter of time.” Hunt straightened up to his full height. “We’ve been through this already,” he said. “I appreciate all of your concerns, but Alicia has to be here for this to work. If Juhle gets here and she’s gone, he walks out and the whole exercise becomes futile. The only reason he stays is because if my idea doesn’t work, then and only then he handcuffs Alicia.”

“Swell,” Mickey said.

“But that’s not going to happen,” Hunt said. “If everybody shows up, this is a lock.”

“And if they don’t?” Alicia finally found her voice. “What then?”

“I’ve motivated them all sufficiently,” Hunt said. “They can’t not come.”

“That’s the other thing,” Gina said. “If you’re right, one of these people you’ve invited here tonight has already killed twice. You don’t think there’s an element of risk?”

“There’s an element of risk to crossing the street. I’ve got to believe we’ve got strength in numbers here if any one person starts to get out of hand. And remember, Juhle will be armed. And,” he added, “so will I.”

Roake rolled her eyes. “So you do think something could happen?”

“I know something might happen, Gina. Something unexpected could always happen. But here, tonight, I doubt it’s going to be violence. I’m carrying my gun because I want to make sure it’s as close to foolproof as it can be. Just covering the bases, making sure we’ve got these contingencies thought through.”

“Thinking a plan through doesn’t necessarily prevent it from falling apart.”

“No,” Hunt said, “I know that. Of course not. But this is our best chance to get Alicia out from under this cloud of suspicion and get on with her life. We all agreed on this a couple of hours ago. This is the way it has to go down. And it has to be now. Alicia”-he turned to her-“are you still with us?”

She forced a weak smile. “With everything you’ve said, I don’t see that I have another choice.”

“That’s the right answer,” Hunt said.

The buzzer at the back door sounded, loud as a klaxon in the enclosed space of the kitchen. Everyone at the table reacted with a start-even Hunt had a reflexive jump and then smiled at his nerves. “Here we go,” he said, walking across to check the peephole, and then opening the door to Devin Juhle, all by himself.

Juhle hated this.

He imagined himself in front of the Police Commission, explaining how he had gotten involved in this half-assed operation. And without his partner or any other backup. This was not how it was done, fraught with risk and uncertainty for everyone involved. He wondered, and sincerely doubted, if any other cop he knew would make the kind of promise he’d made to Hunt; if any other homicide inspector, with an imminent arrest of his prime suspect in his pocket, would have postponed the moment and agreed to this amateur-hour charade. His only consolation was that when Hunt’s scenario failed-as it surely would-he would then pick up the Thorpe woman. Of course, the fact that Hunt had invited Roake along would complicate that arrest, but not impossibly so. Still, it galled Juhle that Hunt had never even mentioned Roake’s presence here as Thorpe’s attorney during their phone call. In fact, everything about this felt wrong to him. But, he told himself, that’s what happened when you believed your friends.

And people wondered why cops grew so jaded over time. It was because you were either in the brotherhood or you were not. You played by the rules or you didn’t.

Somehow Hunt had persuaded him that he had no choice. And that, more than anything else, added to his fury and frustration.

Almost as soon as Juhle had arrived, Hunt suggested that they all come out now to the basketball court. Now Roake, Thorpe, Mickey Dade, and Carter sat together in consecutive chairs while Juhle stood behind them, arms crossed and his shoulder holster unbuttoned, where he could keep his eye on them as well as on whoever entered through the Brannan Street door. The lights were up; the temperature fairly cool, in the mid-sixties, the way Hunt liked to keep it.

They weren’t in there and settled for more than three or four minutes when the doorbell for this side of the warehouse rang and Hunt crossed to the door by the garage entrance, opened it up, and said hello to Len Turner and a tall, thin, well-dressed young black man that Juhle guessed must be Keydrion Mugisa.

Inside his jacket, Juhle’s hand went to the butt of his duty weapon.

Hunt hadn’t invited Keydrion to attend this meeting with Turner, so they had to bring another chair over to add to the circle. Turner, after a barely cordial greeting to Hunt, fell into the role of his voluble and friendly self after he recognized Carter and Juhle. Lorraine Hess had met up with Jaime and Lola Sanchez outside on the street and they came in together a few minutes after Turner. The last arrival, and the only one to make any kind of a stink-when she saw that Alicia Thorpe was in attendance-was Ellen Como. But Hunt got her calmed down and seated her next to him on his right. Juhle took the left seat. So around the circle, it went Juhle, Roake, Alicia, Mickey, Al Carter, Lorraine Hess, Jaime and Lola Sanchez, Turner, Keydrion, Ellen Como, and Wyatt Hunt. In the relative chill, all of the latter arrivals kept their coats on.

The low hum of conversation gradually faded to silence and all eyes went to Hunt. “I would thank all of you for coming down here tonight,” he began, “but the truth is that none of you actually did so because I asked you to. In fact, you’re all here for your own very good reasons, and they’re all about your own self-interest. Some of you-Mr. Carter, Mrs. Como, Ms. Hess-want to make your claim to all or a portion of the reward. Some of you-Mr. Turner, Mr. Mugisa, Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez, and again, Mr. Carter, want to make sure that the police understand and believe your alibis for the night of the two murders, and let’s make no mistake, the same person killed Dominic Como and Nancy Neshek.”

“That’s right. And she’s right here,” Ellen Como blurted out. “We all know that.” Looking across to Juhle, she pointed at Alicia. “I don’t know why you’re not arresting her, Inspector, why you haven’t done it already. Can there be any doubt? We all know what she did and why-”

Hunt held out a hand toward her. “Mrs. Como, please.”

“No, she’s right, Hunt,” Jaime Sanchez said. “What the hell?”

Hunt shot his gaze around the circle. “Inspector Juhle is here to make an arrest tonight, all right, but he’s promised it’s not going to be Alicia Thorpe unless we fail to provide him with somebody else.”

“What are you saying?” Turner demanded. “That one of us-?”

“I think you can figure that out for yourself, sir,” Hunt said.

Next to him, Ellen Como stood up. “I didn’t come down here to have to take this kind of abuse. I’m the victim here. My husband was the one who was killed. Doesn’t anybody care about that? I’m not going to be any party to this.” She turned toward the door and pushed her chair out of her way.

“Mrs. Como!” Hunt spoke up. “No one’s accusing you of anything. Sit back down. Please. We need every one of you here if we’re going to get to the truth.”

Straight across from Hunt, Lorraine Hess said, “Are you really saying that one of us killed Dominic? And Nancy too?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hunt said. “One of you.”

“But I was… I was with my son…”

“I didn’t say you, Ms. Hess”-Hunt took in the group-“or all of you. I said one of you.”

“And you intend to prove this,” Turner said, “to Juhle’s satisfaction? Right here, right now. How do you intend to do that?”

“By comparing the stories you’ve told and seeing where they don’t agree. But also, a little bit,” Hunt replied, “by the process of elimination. You, for example, Mr. Turner. Mr. Mugisa drove you home right after the COO meeting on the night Nancy Neshek was killed. You’ve got your son and your wife and the other kids who were there building their homecoming float who will swear that you were with them until you went to bed. No one’s suggested that you’ve done anything different, and you can prove that. So you didn’t kill Ms. Neshek, and therefore you didn’t kill Dominic.”

Turner sat back, shaking his head in derision. “Well, of course I didn’t. The idea’s ridiculous.”

“The whole concept is ridiculous,” Jaime Sanchez said. “Lola and I went to dinner after that meeting, and then home together.”

“Where did you go to dinner?” Hunt asked.

“The Hayes Valley Grill. We walked there from City Hall. They know us there. I’m sure I’ll even have a credit card receipt.”

“And after that?”

“Jesus Christ!” Turner raised his hands as if in exhortation. “Inspector Juhle, is this the kind of questioning that Mr. Hunt thinks is going to get us anywhere? Do you have any reason to believe that Jimi and Lola Sanchez are any kind of even potential suspects in either of these murders?”

Juhle said, “No, sir. No, I don’t.” He turned to Hunt. “If this is your idea of breaking the case, Wyatt, maybe you should send these good people home and let me go about doing my job, which is arresting my suspect.”

Hunt kept his cool. “Mr. Sanchez,” he said, “my apologies to you and your wife. I was using you as an example of Mr. Turner’s point about the process of elimination, which I think we can all agree is not too satisfying. Far better is the question of the information we’ve received, and where what one person told us is contradicted by somebody else.” Now Hunt turned in his chair. “For example, Mrs. Como. You told me that your husband was in love with Ms. Thorpe and that-”

Ellen cut him off and snapped back at him. “He was. He told me. There wasn’t any doubt about that.”

“No, not about that bare fact. Your husband was in love with her, okay. But Alicia swears that they didn’t have a physical relationship.”

“Well, she’s lying. What do you expect?”

“I’m not lying,” Alicia said, as Roake put a restraining hand on her arm.

Hunt turned to Ellen and went on. “How do you know Alicia’s lying?”

“Because they were caught in the office.”

“Making love, you mean?”

“Fucking, is what I mean. Fucking is what they were doing, not making love. Don’t try to dignify it.”

“And where were they doing this?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean, physically, where were they having sex in the office when they were caught?”

“I don’t know. How would I know?”

“So how did you know about it in the first place?”

“Well.” Her brow clouded, then cleared. “Lorraine told me. I think I even told you that, didn’t I, Mr. Hunt?”

“Yes, you did. So, Ms. Hess.” He came around to face her. “Let me ask you. Where in the office did you discover Mr. Como and Alicia having sex?”

Hess had straightened in her seat, her hands on her lap. “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t the one who saw them. It was one of my people, one of the young women.”

“Do you remember who, exactly?”

“No. It seemed like everybody knew kind of all at once. You know how offices are.”

“So you, Ms. Hess, didn’t really know for sure firsthand about this physical side to Alicia’s and Dominic’s relationship?”

“No. Not firsthand, no.”

“And yet you gave this information to Mrs. Como?”

“I thought she needed to know.”

Ellen Como spoke up again. “I did need to know, God damn it.”

“Yes, well, and Ms. Hess made sure that you did, didn’t she?”

“She’s a friend. Of course she did.”

“Of course.” Hunt took a breath, shifted again in his chair. “Mr. Carter, as Dominic’s driver, you must have been privy to many of his private thoughts and even secrets, isn’t that true?”

“I like to think so.”

“Did you ever have occasion to hear him talk about Alicia Thorpe?”

“Yes, frequently, since she started driving him mornings.”

“Was he in love with her?”

“Yes. At least, that’s what he told me.”

“And did he also tell you any details about his love life, if any, with her?”

Carter came out with a dry chuckle. “Only the fact that he didn’t have any love life with her.”

“That’s not true!” Mrs. Como exclaimed. “I know he-”

“No, ma’am. It is true as I know it.” Warming to his topic, Carter brought in the rest of the circle. “He laughed about it, how he had this pure love that neither of them were going to do anything about. They talked about it. How seeing her every day, not being able to touch her, knowing he was never going to be able to touch her, it was just breaking his heart.”

Again, Ellen Como couldn’t take it. “Bullshit, Al!” she said. “That’s just bullshit.”

“No, ma’am. That’s what he told me.”

“Okay, Al,” Hunt said. “Let me ask you this. In your eight years driving Dominic, did you ever know him to see other women?”

At this, Carter hesitated, looking first at Ellen Como, then over to Lorraine Hess. “Yes,” he said. “Many times.”

“Shit! That bastard. That fucking bastard!”

Hunt pressed. “Anybody else at Sunset?”

Another pause, this one lengthy. Finally, Carter looked over to his left again and shrugged. “When I first came on, he and Lorraine were in the middle of a thing.”

Ellen Como exploded, “What? Lorraine.” And stood up.

Hess shot out of her seat, held her arm out as though fending Ellen off. “That’s a lie, Ellen! That’s a damn lie, Al!”

Juhle was on his feet, arms out to either side as though he were a referee at a boxing match. He pointed to Hess. “Sit down!” and over to Como. “You, too, please, ma’am, right now.”

But neither woman sat down. Instead, they stared at each other across the circle. “Lorraine,” Ellen Como asked in a near-whisper, “is this true?” She turned. “Al?”

The driver nodded somberly.

Hess was shaking her head. “No, no, no.” Pointing at Alicia, her voice quivering with rage, Lorraine Hess went on the attack. “She’s the one who was sleeping with him. They were screwing in the car. I know they were. If you look, you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”

“If you mean look in the limo for evidence, Lorraine,” Hunt said, “the police already did that. And they found what you planted there.”

“I didn’t plant anything. What are you talking about?”

Hunt didn’t respond to her, but turned to Carter. “Al, what’s the first thing you do every day at work?”

Carter nodded. “Like I told you today, we clean out that limo for my shift. Polish the car, wash the seats, vacuum the rugs.”

“And that includes under the seats, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And did you do that the day after you dropped off Mr. Como for the last time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And was there a condom in the car, or a scarf?”

“No, sir. Nothing like that.”

“But”-and here Hunt came back to Hess-“in fact, those items are exactly what the police did find. So the reason you were so sure there was evidence in the car, Lorraine, was that you put it there, didn’t you?”

Hess seemed rooted to the floor, unable to reply.

“My only question,” Hunt went on, “is if you stole the scarf intending to kill Dominic, or if you simply found it later and decided to use it to frame Alicia.”

“Lorraine?” Ellen Como asked a last time. “It’s you. Could it really have been you?”

Hunt, standing next to Juhle, took a step in Hess’s direction. “Do you want to tell us about the federal money, too, Lorraine? Dominic’s private safe? He not only broke it off with you, he discovered you’d been taking the money, too, didn’t he? He was going to let you go out at Sunset as well.”

“This is all wrong,” Hess said. “You don’t know this. You can’t prove any of it.”

“I don’t have to prove it, Lorraine. The police will have all the proof they need when they get a search warrant for your bank account, won’t they? When they find all the unexplained cash deposits. And when they talk to all the extra help you hired for your son, they’re going to find you paid with a lot more cash than you can explain, aren’t they? And even if you’ve got more cash stashed in other bank accounts, they’re going to find that, too, aren’t they?”

Lorraine Hess put her hands in the pockets of the ski parka she was wearing, then lifted out her right hand, in which she was holding a revolver. Juhle, caught completely off-guard, went to reach for his shoulder holster.

Hunt motioned for Juhle to stop, then turned and spoke calmly to Hess. “What are you going to do now, Lorraine? Kill us all? And then go on the run? Who’s going to take care of your son? And how long do you think it’s going to take the police to find you?”

Hess stood holding the gun in both of her hands, aiming it squarely at Hunt’s chest. Her eyes flitted over to Ellen Como, to Juhle, to Carter and Alicia, and then back to Hunt. No one seemed to be breathing.

But then at last, something shifted in Hess’s position, and she slowly began to lower the gun, then finally dropped it with a clatter onto the basketball court’s flooring at her feet.

Now staring with a pathetically blotched face at Juhle, she hung her head, wagged it disconsolately from side to side, then looked back at him. “Thank God,” she said. “Thank God. It’s finally over.” She met Juhle’s eyes. “I never meant… but it doesn’t matter what I meant now, does it?”

Hunt had crossed the circle and gotten his hands on the weapon. Now, that threat removed, he looked up at her. “Lorraine,” he said. “Jim Parr. Where’s Jim Parr?”

For an answer, Hess turned vaguely, almost wistfully, to Juhle. “I wonder if you could send somebody to see if my son Gary’s all right? I always worry about those pills I give him when I need him to sleep, that I might have given him too many.”