John Lescroart - The Hunt Club

So Mickey had made his three hundred and fourteen dollars, plus fifty-one in tips on his regular shift, which ended at two in the morning. Dropping his cab off at the dispatch house, he picked up his own used Camaro, and then, sick of fog and not remotely interested in sleep, he pointed the car north on 101 and took it over the Golden Gate Bridge, by JV's Salon in Mill Valley, then past Vanessa Waverly's home in Novato. Turning east on 37, he averaged eighty-two miles per hour until he got to the Napa/Sonoma turnoff at 121, then jammed it up over the Carneros grade and onto Highway 29 in just a little over twenty minutes. Forty-eight minutes, all told, a new personal best.

Once in the valley, under a clear and cool night sky, he took the Oakville Crossroads over to the Silverado Trail-the other north/south artery in the valley-and turned north. In a few miles, he pulled left off the road into the driveway for Manion Cellars, obvious and visible even in moonlight. In front of him, the château itself looked down from a small promontory. Off to either side, the vineyards traced sinuous lines over an undulating landscape. Slightly to his right and up ahead, the promontory fell off into more vineyards, but above them, he could make out the line of four newly excavated caves back into the limestone rock, the doors that Manion Cellars was using for its logo.

The gate to the estate was closed across the driveway, so Mickey backed out and proceeded north on the Silverado Trail up as far as St. Helena and Howell Mountain Road, where he knew a few good hiding places, and here he parked on the side of a side street under a low canopy of oak. He carried a sleeping bag in his trunk for emergencies such as this, and within five minutes of setting his brake, he was sound asleep on the soft ground next to his car.

At five forty-five,Juhle got the paper from his front porch and brought it back to his kitchen table, where he laid it out next to his coffee. His shoulder had tightened up again overnight, but he'd made the decision to leave the sling at home, and he was going to stick with it. When his administrative miseries had concluded and they'd brought him back to work, Connie had given him as a present a device called, he thought-his French wasn't much-a café filtre that made coffee by filling a cylinder with very fine ground beans and hot water, and then pressing down on a strainer. It had been too painful to use since the burnout game he'd had with Malinoff, but this morning, in his new spirit of healing, as he forced the strainer through the black liquid, he realized that even the broken bones in his catching hand were truly on the mend.

The coffee was far thicker than anything he'd ever made at home, and he had developed a taste for the bitterness, albeit tempered with two teaspoons of sugar. Now he sipped, savored, opened the newspaper, looking for the picture of Staci's brother. Or was he, as Hunt now believed, Staci's son? Or was it a picture of Todd Manion, to whom Juhle had been cursorily introduced when he and Shiu had first interrogated Carol Manion earlier in the week?

Away on the Presidio Little League diamond, and then watching the Giants' game at the Malinoffs' last night, he'd missed the many times the photograph had been televised, and now he wanted to examine it again in light of Hunt's information.

He found the photo effortlessly enough, well positioned on the top of page five, but looking at it, he found himself disappointed and somewhat hard-pressed to place the face before him with that of the boy he'd shaken hands with a few days ago. In the first place, the fuzziness of the original photograph had been magnified by the half-tone reprint. Beyond that, the Todd Manion he'd met for only a few seconds was still clearly older than the smiling boy in this snapshot-indeed, neither he nor Shiu had remarked on any similarity between the two when they'd first come upon the picture in Rosalier's condo.

And, of course, this picture in the paper today was black and white, so even the so-called distinctive background-the terra-cotta tower of the Manion home-left him unconvinced. Studying the face in front of him now, Juhle realized he had little confidence that this would result in any kind of positive identification of Todd Manion from someone who knew him today.

And yet Hunt, starting with this premise, had apparently run a new quarry to ground. He'd unearthed another believable scenario for the deaths of Palmer and Rosalier, maybe even for the missing and presumed dead Andrea Parisi. As Juhle and Shiu had done originally with Jeannette Palmer, and as he and Hunt, working in concert yesterday, had done with Arthur Mowery, Jim Pine, and the CCPOA.

Juhle put his coffee mug down on the table and stared off into nothing. He did not underestimate the importance that this case might have on his career, for good or for ill. If he blew it by a false arrest, a bad arrest, or no arrest-all potential yet distinctly different kinds of failure-he could kiss away his chances to make Police Officer of the Year. And without that, he believed, his citation for heroism would always be tainted, his reputation forever clouded. On the other hand, success in this case would go a long way toward proving that Lanier's confidence in him had not been misplaced, that his reinstatement as an active homicide inspector had been justified.

He wanted it so badly it made his teeth ache. But now Hunt's latest path to his own salvation was starting to look like it meant an investigation into one of the wealthiest, most politically connected, philanthropic families in San Francisco. And why? Because they had adopted a child, perhaps their own grandchild, eight years before.

He recalled Lanier's words to him the last time they'd met in his office. Lanier did not want to hear about any suspects, especially in this case, and especially coming from Juhle, without evidence to back up the accusation. Juhle's gall rose at the memory of what this discussion had been when he'd been arguing that Andrea Parisi had killed the judge and his girlfriend, and then herself-a scenario that was still, from the facts in evidence, plausible.

Last night, both exhausted and exhilarated by the accumulation of facts Hunt was presenting, he had found that this new theory had taken on a lustrous quality. Shenanigans in high places, coverups, conspiracies, class warfare. It had all sounded so sexy, so right.

But here, now, as the first light of day outside revealed the thick, gray blanket that had wrapped itself around the city in its sleep, Juhle sneaked a last peek at the picture of Staci's brother/son. Or was it her nothing? A vision of a child she may or may not have lost.

Juhle realized that he and Shiu would have to make all the calls that Hunt had made last night. And even if everyone repeated their stories faithfully-nowhere near a certainty-he would then have to arrange for Mrs. Keilly to fly up and identify Staci as her daughter.

And only then, perhaps, could he begin to make a case against Carol Manion, if he were still so inclined. If she was already the child's adoptive mother and legal guardian, she wouldn't have needed to protect those rights. But if she'd simply bought the child from Staci's parents and had falsified or forged documents or even had no documents, then Staci might have had every right to reclaim her child. Carol Manion would be nothing more than a kidnapper. Juhle could envision no scenario more likely to provoke a woman of power and influence to do something hasty, not to say deadly.

Could it be that simple, that basic, that much a question of class and greed?

Yes, he decided. It could be.

But in a situation such as this one, every move had to be by the book. The smallest procedural flaw would render all of his efforts useless. Lawyers would be lined up to find ways to toss evidence, dismiss charges, slander the arresting officers.