John Lescroart - The Hunt Club

He would have to take it slow. He had wanted a fast and righteous arrest in this case more than he'd wanted to admit to himself. That desire had impaired his judgment at nearly every turn. He'd been flitting from theory to theory for the better part of this week, and each one had seemed workable until it became time to deliver any kind of proof.

So now here he was, up on Saturday at six o'clock. He'd already had his blast of caffeine, and he wasn't going back to sleep. He sipped more coffee, absently turning the pages of the newspaper. He paused briefly at the sports section, checked the no-surprise weather-morning and evening fog, partly cloudy afternoon, light winds, high of fifty-four in the city-and then his roaming stopped abruptly at the first page of the weekend insert.

And suddenly, he knew why the Manions hadn't been home last night while Hunt had waited outside their house for them. They were at Auction Napa Valley. As a matter of fact, they were profiled inside as one of the probable big bidders, as they'd been in years past. Nice, apparently recent picture of them, too, but alas, without Todd.

Juhle brewed himself another cup of coffee. He moved quietly back into his bedroom for his telephone, then walked back out to the living room window and gazed out into the gray. The paper had told him that Napa was expecting beautiful weather-no, perfect auction weather-today. Sunny, bright, highs in the mid-seventies. California was the land of the microclimate, and although Napa was only sixty miles or so from San Francisco, its weather was dramatically different and almost always better.

Checking his messages, he couldn't help but enjoy the midnight call from Shiu. So, against his advice, Hunt had stayed out in Seacliff after all and had reaped the rewards. It would be a riot, Juhle thought, if they'd actually put him in custody for a while. In the meantime, there was nothing Juhle could do now about his friend. If Hunt was still in jail, oh, well. Not Juhle's problem. Maybe they'd talk again after he'd slept off his long night. In any event, the entire incident could be worth months of abuse, and Juhle was tempted to call early, wake him up if he was home, and start on him right away.

But before he acted on that impulse, he thought he'd check in with the general-information desk to see if, contrary to his expectations, the skeleton staff that worked around the clock had received any calls on Staci's picture.

A surprisingly upbeat, wide-awake female voice greeted him with-if Juhle hadn't known this was impossible-what sounded like actual enthusiasm. "We've gotten seven calls since midnight, sir. And one so far from the paper this morning. Four of the callers identify him as the same person. A Todd Manion."

Juhle wasn't aware that any words escaped him in a whisper. "My God." Then, in his normal voice, "You've got names and addresses on these witnesses?"

"Of course."

"One of them wouldn't be Carol or Ward Manion, by any chance?"

"Just a minute. No. Who are they, the parents? The famous local Manions?"

"They might be."

"Why wouldn't they have called themselves?"

"That question occurred to me. Maybe they never saw the picture." Which Juhle supposed was possible if they'd been up partying in Napa all last night. It would be interesting, he thought, if they did call today when they eventually saw the paper. Or someone who knew them saw it and told them about it.

And more interesting if they did not.

Hanging up, all hesitance about calling due to the early hour banished now, he immediately punched in Shiu's home number and listened to his partner's voice on his answering machine. He should have guessed that he would still be sleeping: Shiu had been hassling his pal Wyatt and hauling down his off-duty money at the Manions until after midnight. He left a message. Wrestling with the decision for about twenty seconds, he then called Shiu's cell number and again got told to leave a message. Next, he paged him and entered his own cell phone number as the callback.

He woke up Connie while he was putting on his clothes. "Hey," he said quietly.

"Hey. Isn't it Saturday?"

"Yep. Sorry to get you up. I want to ask you something."

She shifted, pulled herself up onto the pillows. "You're going in to work?"

"That's what I wanted to ask you about." He came over and sat on the edge of the bed. "Wyatt's latest theory on Palmer and Parisi looks like it just got some corroboration. We've had four calls identifying Rosalier's kid or brother or whatever he is. The picture? Any normal day, I go in and talk to some of the callers, see how sure they are, how reliable. Then I pull a warrant if I can tell a good enough story to a judge."

"Which you can."

He shrugged at the compliment, rested his hand on her thigh. "Here's the thing, though. Last night, this was just Wyatt with an idea. Today, if these witnesses are legitimate, there's some chance things will unravel fast."

"And you've got to be on top of it."

Another nod. "At the very least, I've got to see if I can make my suspect talk to me again before she gets lawyered up."

"It's a she again?"

"Oh, yeah. A definite she." He nodded. "Carol Manion."

Connie almost laughed. "No. Really."

"I'm not kidding." He rubbed his hand over her leg. "But I've been trying to tell myself to go slow, make sure I do everything by the book. If I screw this up-"

"How are you going to do that? Have you screwed up anything yet?"

"No. But I don't have much to show, either."

"But now you might?"

"Now I think I do."

"So what's the problem? Go get her."

"Just like that?"

"That's what you do, Dev. You play by the rules, okay.

You don't cheat. But you get it done, don't you? You always get it done."

"So far. I've been lucky."

"Not just lucky. Good. Careful. By the book. But you don't have to do the book slow. That's never been your style. Slow would have gotten you dead last year, instead of being a hero." But she saw something in his face. "Hey, you, look at me. Don't you dare let those small and ugly people get inside of you, you hear me? You know what you did, what you had to do. You didn't second-guess yourself. You acted bravely and wisely and saved a lot of lives in the process."

"And lost one."

"No. Shane wasn't anything to do with you. He was gone before either of you moved. We've been over this, babe."

"I know." A silence settled. "I'm talking about the Manions, you know. If it's her and if it gets political again and I get squeezed-"

"If, if, if…we don't do if . Remember? If she's killed somebody, bring her down."

"Maybe three people."

"And you want my opinion should you go downtown?"

"I think I just got it."

She broke a smile, came forward with a kiss. "Don't walk," she said. "Run."

Mickey slept welland, undisturbed throughout the night, woke up a bit later than he'd imagined he would, as the last bit of ground fog was dissipating. He threw his sleeping bag back into the trunk and crossed half the valley again over to St. Helena, where some small counter-style restaurants had already opened for breakfast. After cleaning up a little in the restroom, he went and sat alone at one of the six tables, each one dressed with a perfect orchid and a starched white cloth. He ordered his Peet's French Roast coffee, a Roblochon-and-chive omelette of Kelly Ranch organic eggs, with a side of Yukon Gold hash brown potatoes, house-made ancho-chili ketchup, and an Acme Bakery brioche. His waitress, Julia, was about twenty-eight years old, and when he first saw her, Mickey tried to remember when he might have heard about Julia Roberts going into waitress work, but the moment seemed to elude him.

She was nice, too.