To Catch the Moon (8 page)

Once he’d been dumped, though, he’d realized
that Joan had little going for her but money and fame and power,
none of which she’d earned and all of which she lorded over him and
everybody else who came into her orbit. There was little of
substance in the woman herself. At long last he figured out that he
had confused where she came from with what she was. It was a
mistake he vowed he wouldn’t repeat.

Milo was jolted back to the present by a
commotion among the reporters.
Finally
. A tall, graying man
Milo took to be the D.A. emerged from between the tall striated
columns that adorned the main Alisal Street side of the courthouse,
then moved swiftly down the few wide steps to the forest of
microphone stands the TV crews had long since set up.

Milo assessed Kip Penrose. He had the look of
an aging Ivy League oarsman, together with the swagger even
smalltime elected officials assumed. Milo couldn’t help but notice
that his coterie included a stunningly attractive brunette. He
nudged Rosenblum’s elbow. “Who’s that?”

He didn’t need to provide greater
clarification for his fellow reporter to know exactly who he meant.
“Alicia Maldonado. Really has her shit in gear.”

“You don’t say.” Milo watched as she halted
just behind Penrose’s right shoulder, her lovely face
impassive.

“She won this wild murder case a few years
back.” Rosenblum lowered his voice confidentially. “Guy’s wife dies
hanging on a clothesline and it gets ruled a suicide. But something
makes Maldonado think the husband did it. First trial she gets a
hung jury. But the second one she brings in this hotshot medical
expert and nails him.” Rosenblum looked impressed. “It was a huge
story out here. The guy confessed later from prison, in his own
suicide note.”

Rosenblum gave him a look like
Hot shit,
huh?
then moved off to join his cameraman. Milo positioned
himself beside Mac, watching the prosecutor called Alicia
Maldonado.

She was gorgeous, in a Mediterranean way he
didn’t usually go for. His standard female of choice was blond and
rail-thin, more ethereal than earthy. But this woman had something
Sophia Loren-esque about her, a hot-blooded, pent-up quality. What
with the long dark hair, sultry eyes, and full lips, she was a
fantasy made flesh. Milo had a devil of a time not staring.

Penrose began to speak. “I am Kip Penrose,”
he declared, then spelled out his name, a savvy aside for the
benefit of the reporters. Penrose had done this before, apparently.
“I am the district attorney here in Monterey County. To my right is
Deputy District Attorney Alicia Maldonado, to my left Department of
Justice criminalist Andrew Shikegawa, and to Andy’s left our
pathologist, Dr. Ben Niebaum. I will give a brief statement, then
be available, as will my colleagues, for your questions.”

Penrose read a statement that said what
they’d all expected to hear, since they’d all seen the arrow, or
the video of the arrow, on Saturday night: that based on the
physical evidence, a warrant had been issued for the arrest of John
David Stennis, who called himself Treebeard, for the murder of
Daniel Gaines, blah blah blah. Then it got more interesting.

“ ‘Late yesterday afternoon,’” Penrose read,
“ ‘a nationwide APB was issued for Treebeard. Law enforcement
officials have not yet located him so have been unable to serve the
warrant.’” He paused and looked directly into one of the TV camera
lenses, unfortunately not Mac’s. “We ask the public to contact
local law enforcement if they see anyone fitting Treebeard’s
description. And we warn the public that he is considered armed and
dangerous.”

Milo chuckled softly. Evidently Kip Penrose
thought those arrows might go shooting off in any direction at any
time.

“Questions?” Penrose invited, and the
shouting began.

“What physical evidence do you have that
links Treebeard to the murder?”

“Do you believe Treebeard is still in
California?”

“What motive would Treebeard have for killing
Daniel Gaines?”

It went on for a while, and there was only
one notable thing about it, in Milo’s opinion. More than once,
Penrose did a subtle check with Alicia Maldonado before he answered
a question. She would give a barely perceptible nod or shake of the
head, and he would proceed accordingly. Once she even corrected
him, on a bit of minutiae regarding special circumstances, or death
penalty, cases, of which this was one.

Milo hadn’t yet asked a question, but after
all the back-and-forth between the D.A. and his deputy, one
occurred to him. He raised his index finger and Penrose looked in
his direction.

“Milo Pappas,” he said by way of standard ID,
“WBS News.” He consulted his spiral-bound reporter’s notebook, then
again raised his eyes, his deliberate pause drawing everyone’s
attention. “Should this case come to trial,” he asked, “who will be
the prosecuting attorney?”

He saw a glimmer of amusement flicker in
Alicia Maldonado’s lovely dark eyes, and a shadow cross the
patrician features of District Attorney Kip Penrose.

“I will, Mr. Pappas,” the D.A. declared with
some heat, but Milo couldn’t care less about the answer. He might
have asked several follow-up questions, plumbing the same obviously
rich vein, but he didn’t. No point getting the lead prosecuting
attorney on the story he was covering all riled up.

Besides, Milo’s instincts told him he’d
already gotten what he wanted. He’d made progress toward winning
himself an intelligent, not to mention highly attractive, inside
source.

*

He’s a slick one
, Alicia thought.
No man with those looks could be anything but.

She’d known who he was, of course, before
he’d said a word. She wasn’t a big TV watcher but hadn’t been
living under a rock, either. He certainly hadn’t needed to say his
name before he asked his question. It was kind of like Brian
Williams introducing himself, or Robin Roberts. But it was
endearing, too, Milo Pappas acting like Joe Reporter.

Penrose was driving her nuts, so it was
highly satisfying to see somebody else get a rise out of him. Not
only had he made her postpone her trial, he’d also insisted she
accompany him that night to update Joan Gaines on the case.

As if she could care less whether Joan Gaines
was “apprised,” as Kip put it. Let him do the fifty miles
round-trip to Pebble Beach. It was his campaign her family was
funding.

Then she thought better of letting Kip have a
clear field where the widow Gaines was concerned. It might be
valuable to get another close-up look at her, see if she’d started
showing any regret that her husband had gotten skewered by an
arrow.

A few interminable minutes later, Penrose
ended the press conference. He always let them go on forever,
seeming to think that would get him more face time on the evening
news. “We’ll hold a follow-up press conference when events
warrant,” he was saying now. Right, like when he broke a nail.
“Thank you all for coming.”

Alicia was up the stairs and almost at the
courthouse door when she felt a tap on her left arm. She stopped
and couldn’t believe who had waylaid her.

“Milo Pappas.” He held out his hand and
smiled. No wonder mythology came out of Greece. Apparently gods
were born there.

“Alicia Maldonado.” She took his hand. His
fingers were warm and his grasp just firm enough. She made herself
let go.

“Seems to me you’re the real expert in this
case,” he said. “I noticed that the D.A. kept looking to you for
guidance.”

“He values my judgment,” she lied.

“Apparently he’s not the only one. I’m told
people around here hold you in high regard.”

What a flatterer this guy was. She arched an
eyebrow. “You’ve been around here long enough to pick that up?”

He chuckled, then met her eyes and held them.
It struck her that he’d be a hard man to fool, which made her both
wary and admiring at the same time.

“Do you have time for a coffee?” he asked.
“Or perhaps a drink later?” And then he smiled again.

Hot damn
. Professional ethics required
that she keep reporters covering the Gaines case at a distance. She
knew that and so did he. Milo Pappas was making one bold
proposition by requesting private schmooze time.

Of course, he also knew that most red-blooded
American women would mow down their ethics with an automatic weapon
to get a one-on-one with him. But clearly that was no problem. This
was not a man who had any compunction about using his charm to get
what he wanted—in this case, inside information.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “If you
had more questions about the case, why didn’t you ask them at the
press conference?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Because at the press
conference Kip Penrose was doing all the talking. I wanted to get
my answers from you.”

“You could call the D.A. office’s press
person. She’d be able to answer all your questions.”

“I’m sure she could.” He smiled again. “But
she’s still not you.”

Smooth talker
. Alicia eyed this Milo
Pappas, with his perfectly symmetrical features, curly dark hair,
and bedroom eyes. Of course, she could play it safe, like she
always did. She could keep her late-night date with her faithful
but boring doctor boyfriend, who in the past few minutes had flown
out of her mind so completely it was as if he’d been carried off by
a tornado. Or she could entertain herself by getting together with
this drop-dead-gorgeous network news star who would pass through
her life but once. And throw a kink in his plans by staying
tight-lipped about the case.

“Mr. … Pappas, is it?”

He smiled again. This time at her. That old
hard-to-fool thing again.
Damn
.

She kept her voice cool. “I’m in trial at the
moment.” It was only a white lie: she would be if Penrose hadn’t
made her postpone. “So I can’t take time for a coffee. But if you’d
care to meet for a drink later I could probably swing that.”

He smiled. Something in his grin told her she
wasn’t coming off quite as offhand as she might hope. “Terrific,”
he said. “Where’s convenient for you?”

She thought fast. Her meeting with Penrose
and Joan Gaines would be in Pebble Beach and would probably be over
around eight o’clock. “How about eight-thirty at the bar at the
Mission Ranch in Carmel? Do you know where that is?”

“I’ll find it.”

She nodded and walked away. She could feel
his eyes on her back as she walked toward the courthouse doors.
Right before she disappeared through them, he spoke again.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he called.

She hated her immediate gut reaction. Which
was that she wasn’t only looking forward to it. She could hardly
wait.

By ten o’clock Monday morning, a hired
limousine was speeding Joan north through Silicon Valley on Highway
101. Pebble Beach was an hour behind her; San Francisco lay another
hour of four-lane freeway ahead. She rode in the rear nursing a
fizzy water with lime, on her lap a forgotten yellow legal pad.

This was a must-do trip. She absolutely had
to have a new suit for Daniel’s funeral: she certainly couldn’t
wear the same one she’d worn to her father’s service. That had been
televised, too. Serious shopping meant San Francisco, yet she knew
a buying spree two days after her husband had been murdered could
be badly misconstrued.

She sipped and recrossed her legs, impressed
with her own problem solving. She’d simply made this a stealth
mission. Even though she wouldn’t be staying overnight, she’d
booked a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, and arranged for Neiman Marcus
to assemble some selections and bring them over. Joan would be
closeted in the suite, so no one would be the wiser. And while she
was at it, she’d have her hair and nails done, too.

Joan stared out the limo’s tinted windows as
it rocketed past 101’s University Avenue exit, which led to Palo
Alto and Stanford, an off-ramp she knew well from her undergraduate
and business-school years. Noise-abatement walls along this stretch
of freeway prevented any view, though the adjacent commercial strip
was hardly scenic. The campus was a few miles west, red tile-roofed
mission-style buildings grouped in quadrangles, set among sweeping
lawns and groves of eucalyptus.

Even now, it angered her to think of those
years. So what if she hadn’t actually graduated from business
school? Her parents made so much of that. She’d gotten most of the
way through, hadn’t she? She still couldn’t believe her father had
made a huge donation to the university right before she applied, as
if she wouldn’t get in otherwise. She remembered walking through
the Quad, looking up at the Venetian mosaic on Memorial Church and
imagining a time when people would no longer think of her as Web
Hudson’s daughter but as Joan Hudson in her own right. But all
she’d done since was become Daniel Gaines’ wife.

God, she’d been such an idiot to be so easily
taken in by Daniel! Handsome, charismatic Daniel Gaines, who went
from star quarterback at U Penn to megasuccessful Manhattan
financier.

It embarrassed her to remember how she’d been
bowled over. She accepted Daniel’s very first proposal. And though
she secretly found it easy to say good-bye to her
investment-banking job, she hadn’t liked leaving Manhattan. But
Daniel said Headwaters was such an opportunity, and wouldn’t it be
wonderful to be close to her parents, and she’d bought into every
last word. She imagined children, at least three in rapid
succession, a big, boisterous family, the polar opposite of her
own.

Tears stung her eyes. If only Daniel had been
different. If only he’d been the man he seemed to be, instead of
the egocentric, using bastard he was. Now she was forced to pretend
to grieve a husband she could barely make herself miss.