Treasure Hunt

7

Wyatt Hunt hadn’t been to Devin Juhle’s home out on Taraval Street in a very long time. In the first years after Hunt had opened his office as a private investigator, he had nearly lived with Devin and Connie and their three children-Eric, Brendan, and Alexa. He and Juhle had been baseball teammates in high school, and they had still played games together, often including the children, whenever he came over-Ping-Pong, basketball, foosball, catch.

That was before California v. Gorman. It was also before the scandal involving Hunt’s former associate that had knocked the bottom out of his business and essentially destroyed his credibility with the Police Department and most of the criminal law community.

Hunt wasn’t kidding himself-this thing with Juhle wasn’t simply a bridge to mend. It was a chasm to breach.

Now, at nine-thirty on a Sunday morning that had blown in blustery and cold-the three days of San Francisco’s summer weather having exhausted their allotted run-Hunt parked his Mini Cooper on the street in front of Juhle’s small stand-alone two-story home, made sure he was packing presents for the kids, and sat for a moment gathering the courage to go and face the music, the near-tragic opera, that he’d helped to compose.

Finally, unable to stall any longer, he opened his car door and walked across the lawn and up the four steps to the front door and rang the bell. The chimes rang within and he heard running footsteps and the door flew open.

For a horrible second, Hunt thought that Brendan, the middle one, age eleven or so, didn’t even recognize him. He’d grown about four inches and had put on fifteen pounds. But the face suddenly broke a smile as he said, “Uncle Wyatt!” and the boy actually threw his arms around him. Then, calling back into the house, “It’s Uncle Wyatt.”

More footsteps from down the hallway that led to the kitchen in the back of the house, and here was Connie in green sweats, formidable and attractive as ever, drying her hands on a dish towel, her expression welcoming and warm, with just a trace of concern around the eyes.

“Well, look at who’s here!”

He stepped into the house and they hugged, bussed each other on the cheeks. After which Connie held him out at arm’s length. “It’s so good to see you, Wyatt. So good.” And then, her face clouding over, “Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine.” He looked around her and saw Alexa hanging back in the hallway, her body language quizzical and reserved. Hunt gave her a tiny wave and a “Hey, sweetie,” but she only nodded and Hunt realized that it wasn’t only Devin he was going to have to win over again.

Connie was going on. “Devin’s off with Eric at soccer. Can you believe Sunday morning at seven o’clock? Is that obscene or what? But they ought to be back in a half hour or so, if you’ve got time to hang around for a while. Was he expecting you?”

“Unlikely. I wasn’t sure I was expecting myself until I woke up.” Hunt took a beat. Then, “You think he’ll talk to me?”

She made a face and broke a half-smile that told him she wasn’t too certain of that, but the actual words she said were, “Stranger things have happened. Meanwhile, how does a cup of coffee sound?”

“Like a fanfare of trumpets.”

Amused, Connie shook her head. “I remember what I’ve missed about you.”

They were catching each other up on their respective lives over the past months, the talk flowing as it always did with Connie, Hunt halfway through his second cup at the kitchen table, when they heard a noise and Connie said, “That’s the garage door.”

They fell then into a sudden and tense silence, waiting.

The garage connected to the kitchen. Eric was the first one through the door. Unlike his younger brother, he was about the same physical size as the last time Hunt had seen him, but his face had broken out with acne and his voice had a different pitch when, tentative yet polite, he nodded and said, “Hi, Uncle Wyatt.”

“Hey, big guy. Good to see you.”

“You too.” He advanced and reached out his hand, which Hunt, standing, shook. He chose to take it as a good sign that they still called him “uncle,” perhaps still considered him Juhle’s brother on some level.

Devin evidently wasn’t in any hurry to get in the house. He would have known Hunt was inside from the distinctive car parked out front. The connecting door closed shut behind Eric and they heard some sounds from the garage-Devin closing his driver’s side door, throwing the duffel bag where it belonged.

Hunt found his breath snagged in his throat.

Juhle opened the door and stood for a second in the doorway, holding it open. Nodding first at his wife, then briefly at Hunt, he turned and closed it with an exaggerated gentleness. Turning back around, he leaned up against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, nodding again, his face a mask. “Hey, Wyatt,” he said with no inflection whatever. “What can I do for you?”

“I don’t think so,” Juhle said. “That’s police work.”

The two of them sat at either end of a sagging beige sofa in the downstairs family room, a converted half-basement where Juhle had his Ping-Pong/pool table set up, along with a dartboard and a foosball game area. A television rested on the middle shelf of a built-in bookcase mostly devoted otherwise to sports trophies for the kids, and Connie’s washer and dryer reinforced the place’s basic functional nature. Juhle’s house wasn’t big, and the family and their activities filled it all up, every spare inch.

“It’s police work,” Hunt countered, “that won’t do any good. You won’t get the calls we’re going to get and if you did, you’ll spend all your time screening out the nuts.”

Juhle shrugged, shook his head dismissing the idea. “How many good tips you think you’re going to get? Two? Three? Not even that. End of story.”

“No, it isn’t. Not if we get the reward set up and it gets big, and it will.”

“What’s big?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a hundred grand, maybe more. Mick’s shooting for the moon, and he’s a charmer.” Hunt came forward on the couch. “So we’re not talking any couple of calls a day here. It’s not impossible the reward might go to half a mil, and if that happens, the flakes come out of the woodwork. You know this and I know it, and you’re going to spend half to all of your time either chewing your cud on nothing or running down ridiculous leads trying to identify one good one.”

Another shrug. “That’s what we do, Wyatt. Run down leads. It’s police work.”

Wyatt sat back, let out a breath. “This is getting a little circular, don’t you think? You got any of these leads?”

Juhle paused, then spit out, “We got squat.”

“That was my guess,” Hunt said. “You know, time was this would have been a slam dunk for both of us, Dev. Win-win.”

Juhle glanced down the length of the couch. “Time was a lot of other things too.”

“You want to talk about some of ’em?”

“Talk’s cheap, Wyatt. And bullshit walks.”

“This isn’t bullshit. This is something I can legitimately do to help your investigation. We are going ahead and contacting potential reward sources-”

“And who are these sources?”

“People connected to Como. Who want to see his killer get caught.”

“None of them more than I do.”

“Granted. But we can generate leads you can’t. Calls from folks who would never call the cops. Most of what we get will be crap, sure, but if we even get one good tip you couldn’t get, you’re better off.” Hunt sat back, spoke matter-of-factly. “This is a free gift to you, Dev. Call it an apology if you want. Sometimes the jobs we do, we’re on different sides. It doesn’t have to be personal.”

This brought a cold smile. “And of course it’s going to put money in your pocket for what you just admitted to me was mostly going to be crap. For this I’m supposed to say thank you? You fuck with my career, my livelihood, and my family, and you tell me it’s not personal?”

“It didn’t happen that way, Dev. You could look at it that Gina and I saved you from being the cop who sent the wrong guy to prison. And then, P.S., she hands you the real guy, the actual killer. And you get the credit for that arrest. How’s that hurt your career? You want to tell me that?”

No answer.

“Your feelings?” Hunt went on. “Okay. After what happened on the stand, okay. Sorry. But your career? Your livelihood? Your family? I don’t think so.”

Up one flight on the main floor, the television laid down white noise. Tires squealed and a car’s horn sounded from outside on the street.

Juhle’s jaw was set, the corners of his mouth drawn down. He stared in the direction of the bookcase wall across from him, then pulled himself upright on the couch and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

Hunt lowered his voice. “This is a done deal, Dev. I’m telling you as a courtesy. This is happening. But whatever you think of it, we will help you any way we can.” Without a cease-fire, much less a peace treaty, in hand, Hunt got up. “Tell Connie and the kids it was nice seeing them.”

Now that Hunt was on board with him, Mickey had all the excuse he needed to see Alicia Thorpe again.

They met at Bay Beans West, a coffee shop on Haight Street about midway between their two residences, got their brews, and realized it might be hours before they could find a place to sit inside. So they decided to walk instead, down to Lincoln and then due west into the teeth of the wind, out toward the beach.

For the first couple of blocks, they made small talk about the changing weather, Starbucks versus Bay Beans, how the La Cuisine classes were going for both Mickey and Ian, how everybody their age seemed to be doing one job for money, then all these other things that they seemed to like better for free-Alicia volunteering at the Sunset Youth Project, Mickey and Ian learning to cook.

“So what’s your day job?” Mickey asked her. “When you’re not volunteering?”

“It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“If it’s work that pays you, it’s not embarrassing. As my grandfather used to say, ‘There is no work, if done in the proper spirit, to which honor cannot accrue.’ ”

A small contralto laugh. “That’s good. Does that apply to being the hostess at Morton’s?”

“Every job in the world, according to Jim. But especially hostess at Morton’s,” Mickey said. “Perhaps the most honorable of the service jobs.”

“Well, thank you. I’ll start trying to look at it that way. Instead of as six hours of mind-numbing tedium.”

“There you go.” They walked on in silence for a while, and then Mickey said, “Ian told me about your parents.”

She cast a quick glance over at him. “Yeah.”

“Did he tell you that pretty much the same thing happened to me?”

She stopped and faced him. “Your father shot your mother and then himself?”

“No. But my father disappeared and then my mother overdosed. Same result. No parents.”

She closed her eyes, then shook her head. “I don’t really remember it too much. It was just the way it was. I was only nine.”

“I was seven, but I think it’s the most indelible memory of my life-the shape under the sheet on the gurney, knowing it was Mom, as they wheeled her out.”

“I must have blocked it,” she said.

After a silence that lasted for half a block, Mickey cleared his throat. “So, about Dominic, all these charities he ran…”

“He only ran one. The Sunset Youth Project. And of course all the subordinate groups off that.”

“Okay. So what are those?”

She shrugged. “Let’s see. The art gallery, the two schools, the development company, the theater, the moving company, the Sunset Battalion…”

“Sunset Battalion sounds like a bunch of commandos.”

“No. It’s more like an urban Peace Corps. Mostly older guys, some of the girls, people who’ve been in the program awhile.”

“So what do they do?”

Another shrug. “Pretty much whatever needs to be done. Tutoring, handing out pamphlets, bringing back the strays, working the neighborhoods. They’re kind of the boots-on-the-ground people.”

His understanding limited at best, Mickey nodded.

“Well, then, with this other stuff, what’s the actual Sunset Youth Project do?”

“Sunset itself? It’s the… I don’t know what you’d call it. The umbrella. The administrative side.”

They kept walking, and she must have noticed another question playing around on Mickey’s face, because she said, “What?”

“I’m just trying to get my arms around this whole thing. I mean, if Dominic was only running one program, what’s with the car?”

“Well, the one program has maybe two dozen sites in the city, maybe more. The main office and K through eight down on Ortega, the residential treatment center in Potrero, the outpatient center for adults by City College. Then the high school…” She stopped the litany. “You get the idea. I could get you the whole list if you need it, but the point is that Sunset’s a huge organization. Huge.”

“What’s its budget? Do you know?”

“Total?” She thought a moment. “Fifty million a year, give or take.”

Mickey stopped in his tracks. “No. Really.”

“Really. I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in that neighborhood. It’s in the annual report. You could check.”

“Fifty million dollars?”

“Somewhere in there, I’m pretty sure. With everything, I mean all the programs, Sunset’s probably serving five thousand people a day, all told, citywide. It adds up.”

“I’ll say. So where’s all that money come from?”

“Everywhere, Mickey, are you kidding me? Individual philanthropists, foundations, tuition and other income from the schools, moving company fees and the sale of the redeveloped buildings. I mean, a lot of these things are profit centers in themselves. But also there’s a ton of public health money from the city…”

“This city? I thought we were in a budget crunch.”

She nodded. “Always. But even if they cut way back, the Health Services Department is going to stay the single biggest agency in the city.”

“Is that true? The biggest?”

Alicia shook her head. “I’m sure that’s right. I think they’re in for five million to us, just Sunset. But then there’s also AmeriCorps, which is federal and funds the Battalion, for another several mil. And then there’s all the just day-to-day regular fund-raising.”

“That gets you to fifty million?”

“Pretty close, most years.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s impressive.”

“So, I’ve got to ask this, what was Dominic making running this thing? Does anybody know that?”

“Sure. It’s public record again. You could look it up in twenty minutes.” She broke a small smile. “But you don’t have to because I already know. His salary was six hundred forty-eight thousand dollars.”

“Every year?”

“Last year, anyway. And at least close to that the year before, and before that.” She shrugged. “It’s a major executive job, Mickey. He earned what he made. He deserved it.”

“Still,” Mickey said. “Six hundred and fifty grand. Makes me think I might want to go into charity work myself.”

“I thought you wanted to be a chef.”

“I do. But I’m flexible. For that kind of money I believe I could be tempted.”

“No.” She touched his arm again. “You don’t do it for the money. You do it for the work. It’s great helping people, it really is. Way better than standing in a restaurant saying hello with your smile on all day.

That’s why I got into my own volunteering. Although now with Dominic gone…” She stopped and visibly gathered herself as she threatened to tear up. “Sorry,” she said. “I keep doing this.” But wiping her hands over her eyes, she got herself back under control. “So I guess we’re to that now. My relationship with Dominic.”

“We can be if you’re comfortable with it.”

“I’m fine with it.” The words confident enough that they carried with them almost the hint of a threat. “I’ve done nothing I’m ashamed of.”

“Although the other day you said that maybe you and Mr. Como were too close. What did you mean by that?”

“I meant that there was some chemistry, physical chemistry, that we both acknowledged. But he was a married man and he wasn’t going there. And neither was I. We’d even talked about me quitting so we wouldn’t be around one another so much, but that just seemed like a needless hardship on both of us. And why did we want that? We liked being together. We joked and had little secret things we did that made everything fun. I mean it, in the middle of all this serious stuff he did, every day was fun. He was just a great guy doing great work. And that was the other side of it.”

“Of what?”

“The job. The actual job.”

“What about the job?”

She bit her lower lip. “This is the part where you laugh at me.”

“I don’t think so. Try me.”

As they started walking again, she took a breath of air. “I kind of want to go into politics and change the world. At least try to make it a better place.”

“That’s not a bad thing. The politics, maybe, but not the general idea.”

“No, I know. But here I am with my little degree in political science, and I’m a hostess at Morton’s. You know what I’m saying?”

“Sure. You wanted to do something more important.”

She nodded. “And now you’re thinking, ‘So she gets a job driving a limo?’ ”

“I’m not thinking that. I’m listening.”

“Okay. So the thing about this job with Dominic isn’t so much about driving him around. It’s about moving into another world where there’s power and money and good things can happen.” She was getting into it now and her voice came to life. “You know what happened to the last three of Dominic’s morning drivers? This is in, like, the last two or three years.” She held up one finger. “Jon Royce, now administrative assistant to guess who? Alice Tallent, city supervisor. Two, Terry McGrath, EMT school and fast- tracked to the Fire Department. Three, DeShawn Ellis, scout for the San Francisco Giants who got Dominic and me the best tickets I’ve ever seen last Opening Day.”

“Connections,” Mickey said.

She nodded. “I know it might sound crass and self-serving, and then, of course, it maybe looks like I’m using the relationship with Dominic to get a leg up on a career. But I’d already done a lot of volunteer time at Sunset when Ian was there, just to be near my brother. So it wasn’t like I just glommed on to this opportunity to get ahead. And then this driving job came up, and I was kind of next in line, and I truly didn’t know how I was going to feel about Dominic once I got to know him.”

On the way back, by now chilled to the bone, they found themselves on either end of the back couch at the Little Shamrock, drinking Irish coffees. The place, late on a Sunday afternoon, had only two other customers playing a nearly silent and intense game of darts.

Alicia came back from the bar and put their second round down on the small table in front of them. Sitting back, she crossed one leg over the other and flashed a quick glance in Mickey’s direction. “Here we’ve been doing all this talking,” she said, “and I haven’t really been completely straight with you.”

“About Dominic?”

Shaking her head, she said, “No, not about Dominic. I’ve told you everything about Dominic.” Hesitating, she drew a breath. “You know how I said I must have blocked out everything around what happened with my mom and dad? That’s not really true.”

“I didn’t think it was,” Mickey said. “I don’t think anybody does that, not at nine years old. I was going to let it slide.”

She nodded. “I noticed. And I thank you for that. But maybe I shouldn’t be so defensive about it. Especially with somebody who’s doing all this work for me and who’s been through something so similar.”

“I don’t know how similar it really was, Alicia. Me and Tamara got a home out of it. I gather you and Ian didn’t.”

“No,” she said. “They split us up. Not that they tried to, but Ian was, I guess, kind of gangly and sullen and all bad attitude. So it turned out not too many people were willing to take a chance on him.”

“But they were with you?”

A shrug. “I was quieter, maybe more pliable. Just as angry as Ian was, I think. Maybe I still am, I don’t know. But nobody saw it at first, although none of my homes really stuck either. Anyway, the bottom line is we got separated pretty quick, and he got into most of the drugs in the universe and some pretty bad behavior.”

Mickey remembered. “He told me he spent some time at the work farm.”

“Not really some time,” she said. “Just about all the time from thirteen to eighteen.”

“But you kept up with him?”

“Not so hard, really. His address didn’t change.” She reached for her Irish coffee and took a sip. “Anyway, I guess my point is that I was on my own and wasn’t really too much of an angel myself. I don’t like to think about how I was back then, but I don’t want to pretend to you that I didn’t have any reaction to what my dad did, and that I didn’t act out because of it. Because I did. I was pretty rage-driven.”

“Okay.”

“No, not really okay. I was as bad as Ian was, not with all the drugs, maybe, but getting myself in trouble. And I kind of focused on older men, if you see where I’m going with this.”

“Dominic.”

She nodded. “If the cops look, they’re going to think they see a pattern,” she said. “But I wanted you to know that stopped a long time ago, and it was all long over by the time I started working with Dominic. And it didn’t start up again with him.”

“I believed you the first time,” Mickey said.

“Still,” she said. She reached over and rested her hand for a second or two on his thigh, looked into his eyes. “I wanted you to know.”

Mickey, his leg nearly burning where she’d rested her hand, reached out and grabbed his own Irish coffee, brought it to his mouth. “Well, while we’re on this type of stuff,” he said, “Ian mentioned something else I was a little curious about.”

“What’s that?”

“Jail.” He put his glass down.

“What about jail?” Suddenly her voice became querulous, frightened. In her eyes he picked up a sense of the dark rage she’d alluded to earlier. “I’m not going to jail,” she whispered at him. “You said you were going to keep me out of jail.”

“And that’s still our intention.”

“I didn’t do anything to Dominic. I really didn’t.”

“Easy, Alicia. I didn’t say you did. I said we’d be trying to keep you out of jail. And just to try to prepare you for possible eventualities, maybe keeping you out of jail won’t be possible after all. That’s a major part of the job, but it’s not the only part.”

“No, that won’t work. It’s got to be the major part, Mickey. Don’t you understand? I didn’t do anything.” Again, she emphasized her point by reaching over and putting a hand on his leg. “I can’t go to jail.”

“That’s what Ian said too. He said he thought it would kill you.” He looked over at her as now she pulled her hand away from him, came forward, and hunched over, her hands clasped in her lap. “I was hoping to reassure you that even if it came to that, you could get through it.”

“How can you say that? How can you know? Have you ever been in jail?”

“No, but I know-”

She cut him off, her voice loud, and harsh. “I don’t care what you know! You can’t know until you’ve been there. It’s not what you think, okay? They’ve got complete control over you. I can’t go there again.”

Suddenly the bartender was back with them. “Everything okay here?”

Alicia threw a look at Mickey, then up. “Fine. We’re fine,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Just try to keep it down a little back here, then, huh?”

When he went back to the bar, they sat in silence for a long minute. Finally Mickey said, “Again?”

She was back to being hunched over, her breathing heavy.

“Alicia?”

At last, with a deep sigh, she straightened up. “The cops shouldn’t have it. It shouldn’t be on my record. I wasn’t even eighteen. It’s supposed to be erased. It was just a joyride and a stupid accident.”

“Was anybody hurt?”

“No. Just me, a little. But the car belonged to the house I was staying in, the guy there’s a fucking pervert, and I stole his fucking car, which ended that particular shot at my domestic bliss with stepparents. But the jail part was…” She stopped, looked pleadingly at him. “Nobody knows this except Ian.”

“You don’t have to say,” Mickey said. “I’ve got a good imagination.”

“I thought because there were only women on that side of the jail…”

Mickey moved over next to her, put his arm around her, and brought her in next to him. “Nobody’s going to let you go to jail,” he said. “That’s not going to happen. I promise.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Mickey regretted them. You didn’t promise when you couldn’t absolutely deliver; it was one of the mantras he and Tamara had lived by-a promise is a promise, they used to say.

But this particular horse was already out of the barn, and there was nothing he could do about it now.