John Lescroart - Treasure Hunt

“He’s clean,” Juhle said. Then added, “As an adult. ’Course, he’s only been out off the youth farm for seven months, so he’s barely had time to get his sea legs back. As a kid, though, he was reasonably badass. Went in for manslaughter when he was sixteen, though there was some question about maybe it should have gone down as murder one. The DA almost charged him as an adult, but I hear our friend Mr. Turner applied some influence and suddenly Keydrion needed rehab and consolation.”

“You think Keydrion is somehow involved in all this?” Russo asked.

“Not impossible,” Hunt said. “But I wouldn’t mind knowing for sure.”

“I wouldn’t mind knowing anything for sure,” Juhle said.

Hunt didn’t miss a beat. “Anthony,” he said.

“What’s Anthony?”

“My middle name. Something you can be sure of.”

Juhle just shook his head while Russo gave Hunt a dead eye. “I appreciate that you’re worried about him, Wyatt, but Keydrion’s a low priority for us,” she said. “We’re looking for Alicia Thorpe, and if you want to be any help to us, you’ll be doing that too.”

“You putting out a bulletin?” Hunt asked.

Russo’s head slowly tracked its way back and forth. “Can’t. Not yet. Not officially. Officially, we just want to talk to her again.”

Juhle said, “But first we’ve got to find her.”

Hunt nodded. “All right. I’m with you guys. We’ll see what we can do.”

Hunt sat in his office with his stomach in a knot. After the last half hour, if Juhle and Russo ever found out, even after the fact, that Alicia was or had been at his place, he was dog meat. It was not impossible that he could face charges for obstructing justice or anything else they wanted to throw at him, and earn himself some jail time. And that’s if he was right.

If he was wrong-if the inspectors were right and Alicia was in fact a multiple murderer, as he himself had believed until only a couple of hours ago-it might be much worse than that.

But he hadn’t been able to come clean with them. He couldn’t even include them in his slowly forming plan, because that plan depended on what Mickey discovered-on what he had to discover-and Hunt hadn’t yet heard back from him. From where Hunt sat right now, from what Alicia and then Al Carter had told him, he only had a strong inkling of the truth, not a forged linkage that could withstand any assault.

He had to wait. He could only wait.

And the waiting was doubly excruciating because if Mickey came back with the answer Hunt was hoping for, the result he expected, it was the last thing he actually wanted, because it almost assuredly meant that Jim Parr was dead.

“Come on, Mickey,” he said aloud. “Come on.”

Another cleverly named place on Noriega Avenue, the Noriega Lounge, was the closest bar north of the Ortega campus, only one block away. Unfortunately, it wasn’t on Nineteenth Avenue and couldn’t be seen from that main thoroughfare, and Mickey had decided to be his usual thorough self and start all the way south by San Francisco State University and move north to Golden Gate Park.

He’d already made eight stops by the time he got to the Noriega at four o’clock. Mickey thought that although it was rather generally unsung, the place might in fact be the location of “San Francisco’s Happiest Happy Hour,” which would formally begin in a half hour-two-for-one drinks, nothing over two bucks, and free hors d’oeuvres. A decent mixed crowd was getting itself in the mood to get more in the mood, a loud sound system with a very strong bass boost played disco music, and two silent televisions-one featuring Oprah, and the other ESPN-vied for space and attention over the bar.

Every stool was taken.

Mickey found a spot suitable for standing between two stools and sidled himself up into it. His cast brushed up against his left-hand neighbor, a black-leather-jacketed, bearded biker with chains hanging off his belt loops.

Whirling on his stool, he started with “Hey, watch-” and then caught sight of Mickey’s eye, the cast. “ ’Scuse me,” he said, moving down a few inches and giving Mickey a little more room. “You okay, dude?”

“Hanging in there,” Mickey said. “Car wreck.”

“Fucking blind four-wheelers,” the biker said. “Never watchin’ out for the other guy. Hey, Claudio!” he yelled down the bar. “Set my pal up here.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Ivan. What are you drinking?”

“Mickey. Just a Coke’s fine. I’m working.”

Ivan laughed heartily. “You’re working here? I want your job. I just about live here, man, and nobody’s offering to pay me.” The bartender appeared across the smooth cherry plank. “Claudio,” Ivan said, “this here’s Mickey. He’s working. Give him a Coke.” Then, back to Mickey. “What are you working on?”

“Trying to find somebody,” he said. He pulled out his wallet and flipped to the one picture of Jim that he happened to have. It was eight years old, taken at Tamara’s graduation, all three of them in the photo.

“I’ll take the babe on the right,” Ivan said.

“She’s not missing,” Mickey said. “She’s my sister.”

“All the better. And I mean it,” Ivan persisted. “I’ll meet her anytime.”

“I’ll give her the message,” Mickey said. “But who I’m looking for is the old guy in the middle. Might have stopped by in here for a drink yesterday about this time, maybe a little earlier. Maybe alone. Maybe with somebody.”

Ivan turned on his stool and took the picture out of Mickey’s hand, held it up to catch a little more light from the window behind them. “I can’t really say for sure. He’s a little familiar. But, hey, half of us in here today were here yesterday too.” So he yelled again down the bar.

“Hey, Claudio! Get your ass down here. Check out this picture, in the middle. Isn’t this the guy got all fucked up in here yesterday?”

“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.