John Lescroart - The Hunt Club

The telephone rang and he snatched at it. Caitlin, at last, with the fax number at her copy shop. He wrote it down, thanked her, told her to stay on the line if she could. He grabbed the best autopsy face photo of Staci Rosalier from the file and fed it into the detail's fax machine. By the time he was back at his desk, she was crying and he had his identification.

Still working onthe affidavit for his warrant, Juhle looked up and broke a smile. "Look what the cat dragged in. Don't blame me for anything about last night. I told you to go home."

Hunt wasn't in much of a smiling mood himself. "Did you put them on me?"

"Give me a break, Wyatt. You did that to yourself. I even warned you. You find out anything for all your troubles?"

"Yeah. You're working with sociopaths."

"Hey, that's on the application. Get over it."

Hunt really hadn't come in to berate Juhle, and now he let it go, pointing at the folder. "They're up in Napa," he said.

"I know."

"How do you know that?"

"It was in the paper. Plus, you'll be pleased to hear that we've got four reasonably rock-solid IDs on Staci's picture. He's Todd Manion."

"He also got his hair cut this morning. Buzzed."

"Interesting. A little too late, as it turns out, but interesting." Juhle's head jerked up. "But wait a minute. How did you find that out?"

"Mickey's up there."

Juhle sat back, massaged his shoulder, apparently in real pain. When he spoke, he had his official voice on. "You've got to get out of this, Wyatt. I mean it. All the way out. And keep your guys out, too."

"Hold it. Let me frame an appropriate response." It took him about a second. "No, I don't think so."

"You obstruct this investigation at this point-"

"Hey!" Hunt pointed down at Juhle's face. "I'm the only reason you've got an investigation at this point."

Juhle remained calm. "Wyatt. It's moved beyond you. Caitlin Rosalier ID'd Staci about a half hour ago."

"I knew that twelve hours ago."

Juhle shook his head. "You didn't know it. You thought it. I proved it."

"And lost half a day while you were at it. And stopped me in my tracks in the process."

"That's because it is a process, my friend. Due process. Ring a bell? Sometimes it takes time to get it right."

"Sometimes you don't have the luxury of time. How about that?"

"This isn't one of those times."

"Except if it is, Dev. Except if it is."

Hunt's words brought Juhle up short. The fire went out of his voice. "You still think you're going to find Parisi alive, don't you?"

"Let's put it this way. I'm looking for Andrea. You're looking for a murderer. We can pretend there's no inherent conflict."

"Inherently, maybe not. But we'll be dancing close enough to one another we've got a pretty good chance we're going to trip each other up. And I need you to stay out of my way, Wyatt. I'm looking for a righteous arrest here before too long, and that whole process- process again-really is an orchestrated ballet. You've got to get it right or nobody applauds."

"I like to think I'm sensitive to that, Dev. But your arrest really is not my issue."

"You'll pardon me, though, if it's mine, huh?" But Juhle wasn't unaware of all of Hunt's contributions to his investigation so far. He'd basically built the case that Juhle was now trying to verify. And without any useful contributions from his true partner in homicide, Juhle was inclined to take whatever help he could get, so long as it didn't compromise his own endgame. He sat back in his chair, looked up at his friend. "So what are you here for?"

"I wanted to tell you about Napa and the haircut, make sure you were up to speed. I figure you're moving on your due process down here, am I right? Pulling warrants, whatever else you do. Get a team inside Manion's house and look around."

"A little of that, hopefully, yeah. So meanwhile, what are you doing?"

"Meanwhile, I think I'm in Napa."

"Doing what?"

"Shaking the sugar tree, seeing what falls out."

Juhle dropped his head for a minute, then looked back up and spoke in a reasonable tone. "If I asked you please not to talk to Carol Manion, could you restrain yourself? If you get her spooked and lawyered up by the time I talk to her, which I will soon, I'll have you tortured and then killed, and I mean it."

"I wasn't planning on talking to her, Dev. Even if she told me the truth, which she wouldn't, she couldn't tell me anything I don't already know."

"Except maybe where she dumped Parisi."

"That won't come out in an interview, Dev. She's not giving anything up voluntarily after all this."

"So how does it come out?"

"I'm working on that," Hunt said. "I find out, I'll let you know."

Still long before noon,and Juhle had his paperwork together as he stood in front of Judge Oscar Thomasino, on magistrate duty as he had been all week and obviously not particularly thrilled to be hassled at his home on a Saturday morning. Now the judge, in his street clothes, sat behind his desk in his office, the novel he'd been reading facedown on the blotter in front of him. "Refresh my memory, inspector," he was saying, "but wasn't it very recently that you and your partner came to me for a similar search warrant?"

"Yes, Your Honor. A couple of days ago."

"But it wasn't this same case, was it?"

"Yes, it was."

Thomasino's kindly face clouded under his wispy white hair. He removed his Ben Franklin eyeglasses and absentmindedly began to wipe them with a cloth he'd pulled from his desk drawer. "What were the results of that earlier search if I may ask?"

"We found some.22 caliber weapons in the woman's house, Your Honor, which we ran ballistics tests on. And some clothes, which we tested for GSR."

"And the results of those tests?"

"Negative."

"I see." Thomasino looked through his glasses, blew on them, then continued buffing the lenses. "And I presume you will be looking for positive tests this time on the same types of items-a gun, and clothes, and so on-if I sign this warrant?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

Thomasino put his glasses back on, threw Juhle a curveball. "Where is your partner today, inspector?"

"At his part-time job. He moonlights doing private security."

"Ah." The information gave the judge pause. "But you've been working this case together up until this time? You and Inspector…"

"Shiu."

"Yes, Shiu." He came forward a bit, elbows on his desk. "What I'm getting at, Inspector Juhle, is whether-this is just a question, so please don't take offense-whether your appearance here before me, without your partner, might indicate some lack of accord between you and Shiu about whether this warrant is supported by the evidence."

"No, Your Honor. I don't believe there's any lack of accord. Inspector Shiu feels he needs to augment his salary…"

Thomasino held up a hand. "Many of us do, Inspector, many of us do. And yet I'm fairly certain that most of your fellow homicide inspectors, if they happened to be working the extremely high-profile case of a murdered federal judge, might find it incumbent upon themselves to, say, cut their extraneous work a little short or even cancel it altogether if critical evidence suddenly came to light on a Saturday morning. Don't you think that might be the norm?"

"I do, Your Honor."

"Let me take it a little further, if you don't mind. Do you think your own partner, Inspector Shiu, would voluntarily miss the opportunity to take a more active role in what would no doubt be the most important, the most significant arrest in his entire career if he believed that you were close to a breakthrough in that case?"

"Normally, yes, he might, Your Honor. He would, I'm sure. But in this case…"