Treasure Hunt (28 page)

“No, ma’am.”

“Well, the way I’d put it is she had me thrown out.”

“Why would she have wanted to do that?” Russo asked.

“Because she’s a crazy woman,” Alicia said. “She thinks I had something going on with Dominic, which I think we’ve been through enough, huh?”

“Were you aware,” Juhle said, “that she demanded that Mr. Como fire you?”

“That wouldn’t surprise me. Nothing she did would surprise me.”

“But Mr. Como didn’t tell you that?”

“What?”

“That his wife wanted him to fire you.”

“No. When?”

“Anytime. It never came up?”

“No. Never.”

Sarah Russo, her hands clasped in front of her on the table, raised her head. “And he didn’t, in fact, fire you?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“That last Tuesday was just another day at the office for you,” Juhle said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying. God knows, I’ve thought about it enough, trying to remember any hint he might have given me while we were on the road about his appointment that night. But it was just a normal day.”

“Tuesday, you mean?”

“Right. That last Tuesday.”

“But you didn’t come into work the next day?” Russo asked.

“Yes, I did. I went home when I saw Dominic wasn’t there.”

“And what about the day after that?”

“What about it?”

“Did you come in then?”

Alicia paused. “No.”

“Why not?”

Alicia hesitated a moment longer. “Well, Dominic wasn’t in, so there wouldn’t have been anything for me to do.”

Russo, on a scent, came forward. “How did you know he wasn’t in?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—it’s a straightforward question—how did you know Dominic wasn’t in?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I must have called.”

“You must have called? Why would you have called? Did you call most mornings to see if he was at work before you came in?”

“No. Sometimes. I must have those days. Or I had heard he was missing. I think that was probably it. His wife by then had said he was missing.” Alicia’s eyes were bright with emotion, and suddenly she found a voice for it. “And while we’re on that, listen,” she said. “I’ve been sitting here letting you guys ask me all these questions, but don’t you think—forget all these innuendoes about me and Dominic—don’t you think it’s just a little suspicious that his wife didn’t even call to report him missing until he was already gone for a whole day? Isn’t that a little hard to explain? Doesn’t that bother you at all? Plus the fact that Mrs. Como is the one who was jealous, regardless of whether I gave her a reason to be or not. And I didn’t. She’s the one who thought Dominic was cheating on her, and if she thought that, she might have wanted to kill him for it. Doesn’t that make more sense than sniffing all around me?”

Juhle raised his eyebrows at his partner. He wasn’t here to tell Alicia everything or anything that they knew, or assumed: that Ellen Como had had no real access to the presumed murder weapon, that they had no indication or information that she’d ever ridden or even been in her husband’s limo, and hence couldn’t have left a possibly incriminating scarf there, that both Ellen and Al Carter, apparently independently, had stated unequivocally that Dominic had in fact fired Alicia on his last morning at work. Ellen’s behavior and unsubstantiated alibi notwithstanding, she was not really their prime suspect. Although of course they had not totally written her off.

But Juhle only said, “We appreciate your perspective, but as we’ve told you, the investigation is ongoing. We’re just trying to gather information.”

“And to that end,” Russo picked up, “I wonder if you could tell us what you did last Monday night.”

If the question was meant to shake her up, it succeeded almost to the point of panic. Alicia’s mouth turned down, her eyebrows came together over her eyes. She looked to Juhle as if verifying that this was what they wanted to know. “Monday night a week ago?” she asked. “The night before Dominic was killed?”

“No,” Russo answered patiently. “This past Monday night, two nights ago.”

“Two nights ago? Why?”

Juhle had his professional face back on. “If you could just answer the question, Alicia.”

The official tone hit its mark and Alicia sat back meekly, holding her hands together in her lap. “Monday night, Monday night. Tuesday I was at a friend’s for dinner, and then Monday . . . oh, I got it. Monday I slept in my car down by the beach. Ocean Beach. I wanted to go surfing Tuesday morning.”

“And you were alone in your car?” Russo asked.

“Yes.”

“And from what time?”

“I don’t know exactly. I had a pizza with my girlfriend Danielle at Giorgio’s. On Clement? I guess I left at around ten.”

“And drove out to the beach?” Russo asked.

“Right.”

“Did you talk to anybody out there?” Juhle asked. “Were they having bonfires that night?”

Alicia shook her head. “I went to sleep in my car. I’ve got a mattress I throw in and a sleeping bag. I wanted to be up early. What happened Monday night?”

Again ignoring Alicia’s question, Russo threw a sharp glance at Juhle, then reached under her jacket and pulled a color photograph out of her breast pocket. She placed it on the table in front of Alicia. “Do you recognize this?” she asked.

Alicia’s eyes lit up briefly, then closed down as she looked at Russo to answer her. “Yes. That’s my scarf. I lost it a couple of weeks ago. Where did you find it?”

 

 

“Her name is Linda Colores.” Tamara had Hunt sit down in the one chair across from her in the reception area as soon as he’d arrived back at the office. “The Hang-Up Lady.”

“I’d forgotten all about her,” Hunt replied. “What’d she have to say?”

“That she was out by the Palace on the night Mr. Como was killed. Like maybe ten or ten-thirty. She was just walking by herself after dinner on the path by the lagoon and two people were having an argument right in front of her.”

“Tell me she saw them.”

“I wish I could, but she didn’t. They were around where the path turns right down there at the end, near where Mickey found the body. But the point is that she heard them, really clearly.”

“Okay.”

“A man and a woman. The man telling the woman he didn’t love her anymore. Then, maybe, the sound of her hitting him. At least this grunt of exertion and then this kind of sickening sound.”

“So what’d she do then? Your witness.”

“She got scared and turned and got out of there as quickly and quietly as she could.”

“While our murderer,” Hunt said, “made sure Como was dead, then got him into the lagoon and tucked him away in the roots.”

“Linda didn’t know anything about that, but I’d say probably.”

“I would too.”

“Anyway,” Tamara said, “I don’t know if that tells us anything we don’t already know, or think we know, but it seemed important to me somehow.”

“It’s damned important,” Hunt said. “If only because that was really the end of it. If that’s when Como was killed.”

“That’s what it sounded like to Linda.”

“And if that’s the case, it’s not part of the money issues, is it? In spite of what Gina would have me believe.”

“And it’s also,” Tamara said, “not a guy.”

“Maybe not. Not unless our woman here hid Como away and then called somebody to finish up.”

“So two of them?”

“Not likely, I admit, but not impossible. Alicia and her brother—”

“No, Wyatt, no.”

“I’m just saying . . .” But then other possibilities sprang into his mind—Ellen Como and Al Carter or Ellen Como and Len Turner; or even Nancy Neshek and an accomplice who’d wound up then killing her. Then back again to Alicia and . . . almost any man who would do anything for her and her favors, which, after only a quick glimpse of her at the memorial service, Hunt figured would include most of the male population of the known world.

 

 

 

 

If Mickey had turned left
, which was south, on Potrero, he would have gotten to Cesar Chavez Boulevard after only a couple of blocks, then immediately taken the on-ramp to 101 North and made it back to the Stockton garage at just about the time he figured Wyatt would be returning from the memorial service. They would have grabbed a bite somewhere, compared notes on their respective morning’s adventures, and developed a plan for the rest of the day, or even week.

But as it happened he turned right, got up to Eighteenth Street, which reminded him of the tasty and tender goat he’d bought the day before at Bi-Rite Market, which happened to find itself on Eighteenth as well. So he turned left on Eighteenth, intending to get provisions for the homestead—whatever looked good, and something would—for the next couple of days. His plan was to keep cooking at home for as long as Tamara kept showing her renewed appetite.

The light was solid green for him to go when he got to Mission and so there wasn’t any reason to slow down. He was thinking about special cuts of pork they might have at Bi-Rite and then after that maybe he’d go to his favorite burrito place only a few blocks over to his right on Mission.

He never even began to see the 2009 Volvo going, according to the accident records that were later filed in the incident, approximately thirty miles per hour. The car ran the red light and broadsided him on his passenger-side door.

The initial impact pushed his car sideways for exactly thirty-six feet until its momentum was stopped by a ten-year-old Chevy Suburban that was parked at a meter on the west-side curb of Mission. This second collision, on Mickey’s side of his car just behind his seat, T- boned his Camaro, smashed his head against the side window, concussed him, broke his left arm and three of his ribs, and rendered him unconscious. His cell phone, which he’d thrown onto the passenger seat a few minutes earlier, and which held all of his contact information, got bounced around like a pinball inside the car and hit something hard enough to smash its screen and break it, making it useless.

The parked Suburban, jumping the curb, killed a homeless John Doe everybody called Frankie who’d been a fixture begging at that intersection for the past seventeen months. The driver of the Volvo, who was wearing her seat belt and whose airbag deployed perfectly according to factory specifications, was a bit banged up but basically uninjured.

 

 

Hunt came out of his own office in the back and hooked a hip over Tamara’s desk. She was working on a scheduling spreadsheet on her computer and kept tapping the keyboard for a second before, still typing, she turned to face him. “Yes?”

“I’ve been wrestling with it for half an hour driving back here and I’ve got to ask you a question.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Almost thirty,” she said, “but most people guess closer to twenty-five.”

In mock chagrin, Hunt hung his head. “When am I going to learn?”

Tamara put on an empathetic face. “One day it’ll just happen. You wait.” She broke a smile. “Okay, what’s the real question?”

“The real question is Mick. How serious is he with this Thorpe woman?”

Tamara sat back. “Alicia, Wyatt. Her name’s Alicia.”

“I know what her name is, Tam. I’m a little worried about both of you using it, being on a first- name basis with her. I don’t want you two getting too close to her.”

“You said that this morning.”

“I meant it then too. And I noticed it kind of pissed off both of you, Mickey maybe a little more. And that was before I talked to Al Carter and heard the latest from Devin. That’s what I’ve been wrestling with. Whether I should even tell you what they said, either of them, either of you.”

“Of course you should tell us. We’ve got to know what we’re dealing with.”

“That’s true, but I don’t want either of you shutting me out because I’m keeping an open mind on all the possible suspects.”

“Are you?”

“As far as I can tell, Tam. You tell me where I’m not.”

She touched his hand. “You don’t have to get mad.”

“You know, I’m afraid I can’t help that. Six months ago, you’ll remember, we had a little problem with—”

“This isn’t like that.”

“It isn’t? Employee of the Hunt Club gets involved with murder suspect who turns out—”

“Craig was never a suspect.”

“No. That’s true. We both know what Craig was, though, don’t we? An actual murderer, too smart to get himself suspected. And he had everybody fooled. Even me.”

Tamara flared. “Even
you
? I like to think that if there’s an
even
there in that equation, it’s
even
me.”

“All right. I’ll give you that. But that’s not the point either. The point is Mickey and whether he’s being blinded to the truth about somebody he obviously cares about. And if he is, what I’m going to do about it.”

“And are you sure you know that truth?”

“No. Not ultimately. But I do know some truths, or probable truths, and I just learned what might be another couple of ’em. You want to hear them?”

Still pushed back away from her desk, Tamara, her mouth a grim line, folded her arms. “Go ahead.”

“All right. Let’s start with her relationship with Como. She admits they were close. In fact, real close. Mrs. Como says it was more than that—Dominic was in love with her. He admitted it. And even if he didn’t, they got themselves caught doing it in the office.”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Mrs. Como says they did. Lorraine Hess says they did. We call this corroboration. Besides which, I don’t think a guy like Dominic Como gets in love with somebody if something physical isn’t going on. You buy that?”

“I’m listening.”

“All right. We know we’ve got a tire iron, probably from the limo, as the murder weapon. We know Alicia could have gotten to that anytime she wanted. Next, we find out from your witness just today—Hang-up Lady—that two people, a man and a woman, are having a violent fight at about the same time and in the same place where Dominic got hit. Good? Good. So then this morning an hour ago I’m talking to Al Carter and I’m not even asking him any questions about Ms. Thorpe and he
volunteers
information that exactly corroborates Mrs. Como’s story that Dominic fired her on that Tuesday, the day he got killed. We didn’t know that this morning when we all were talking. We just had Ellen’s word for it. But now with Carter’s—”