this could be helpful to him.” Seeing the questioning look on Parr’s face, he asked, “What?”
“It just seems a little cart before the horse is all. I mean, if there’s no reward yet, what are you bringing to the party? Wouldn’t your position be a hell of a lot stronger if you had something tangible to offer?”
“That’s a good call,” Mickey conceded. “Wait until we get some of these charities on board, then talk to Juhle.”
“You could do that,” Parr said. “Or just save yourselves a lot of time and go straight to Len Turner.”
Hunt spoke up. “Who’s he?”
“He’s pretty much the Man around nonprofits in the city.”
“In what way?” Hunt asked. “I’ve never heard of him.”
Parr chuckled. “Which is the way he likes it. He’s a lawyer, pretty much at the top of the charity food chain. He represents most of the big ones and also runs the mayor’s community outreach program. Back in the day, he was Dominic’s right hand, and if anything, he’s got even more influence now. You want something to happen around a reward, he’s the guy you want to talk to.”
“Len Turner, got it,” Hunt said.
“And then you go get that bastard who killed Dominic.”
Hunt threw a look across at Mickey, then over to Parr. “That’s not exactly it, Jim. The main job would be fielding the calls. We wouldn’t really be investigating on our own.”
Parr leveled his gaze. “Well, you damn well should.” He swallowed against some strong emotion, then looked again around the table. “It’s just that Dominic saved this family. He didn’t have to give me my job. Nobody else would have, not with my history. I mean, here I am, two strikes down… hell, we all know.
“But he believed I could straighten up and do the job every day. And because of that, I got to build a good life finally and let you kids have yours. And then somebody goes and kills him. That’s just not right. It’s not right.” His watery eyes shone. “They got to be caught. That’s all I’m saying, that it’s personal. And if you’re going to be in this thing, you might want to keep that in mind as you go about your business.”
“Jim’s right,” Tamara said. “We get close, we ought to go after him.”
“We?” Hunt said.
Tamara nodded. “And that’s the other thing, while we’re on this.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well, I don’t know if you want to hear this after I’ve been such a flake for so long, but if you’re out following up leads, Wyatt, and Mickey’s out hunting up these people who are going to kick in more reward money, who’s going to be answering the phones and keeping the office going?”
A silence hung for a long moment around the table between them.
Until Mickey said, “I guess, Sis, that would be you.”
“Which would be special,” Hunt said, “if there actually was a reward and someone was paying us to administer it. Notice the judicious use of the word if.”
Len Turner was listed in Mickey’s telephone book under “San Francisco, City of” as the director of the Communities of Opportunity. At nine-fifteen P.M. on this Saturday night, after they’d come down from the roof, Hunt called Turner’s number on Mickey’s phone. He intended to leave a message that he’d like to make an appointment to meet with Mr. Turner early next week. He was somewhat surprised when Mr. Turner answered the phone himself; and dumbfounded when, after Hunt mentioned Dominic Como and his reward scenario, the man suggested that if Hunt were free, he might consider coming by to discuss the idea more fully right now.
Twenty minutes later, the night guard at the semidarkened City Hall let Hunt in, then directed him up the grand stairway where he’d find Mr. Turner’s office to the right on the second floor, Room 211. This turned out to actually be a suite of rooms, the first of which was furnished as a bare-bones, windowless conference area with a large blond wooden table and sixteen chairs. A back door out of this room led to a hallway with a couple more side rooms, at the end of which was a heavy paneled dark wood door with a frosted glass window, and a light on behind it.
Hearing what sounded like a telephone conversation in progress, Hunt hesitated for a moment, then knocked and heard a cultivated voice tell him to come in.
Len Turner sat behind a busy but apparently well-ordered, old-fashioned carved-front desk. He held up a finger, indicating he was just finishing his phone call, and Hunt waited on the square maroon Persian rug that he estimated at about twelve feet on a side. The right wall was book-filled from the floor to the ten-foot ceiling. Behind Turner, a couple of large windows afforded a postcard view of the Opera House and the War Memorial. Along the left wall, decorated with dozens of framed photographs of the great and nongreat posing with Leonard Turner, a couple of low filing cabinets made the room’s only concession to bureaucracy. By a low table with four upholstered chairs, there was also a half-size brushed-steel refrigerator and a table with an espresso machine, cups, glasses, and a selection of high-end spirits.
Turner, here in his office at nearly ten o’clock on a Saturday night, wore a light blue shirt and golden tie. His salt-and-pepper hair complemented a frankly handsome face of regular features, a strong jaw, an aristocratic nose. His voice, speaking on the phone, was businesslike and yet somehow soothing as he wound up the conversation. Now hanging up, he raised the wattage of his smile as he stood and came around the desk, extending his hand. “Mr. Hunt. Sorry to keep you waiting. Len Turner. Can I interest you in a good cup of espresso? I’m having some. Or water? Tea? A soft drink? Something stronger?”
“Espresso would be good,” Hunt said. “I was a little surprised to find you still working at this time of night.”
Turner nodded with a self-deprecating air. “A man who loves what he does never works a day in his life.”
“That’s a good way to look at it,” Hunt said.
“Have a seat,” Turner said, “and let me get this coffee going.” He put two demitasse cups under a double- spigot on the high-tech machine and pressed a button. In thirty seconds, he placed one of the cups in front of Hunt and took a seat with the other one across the table from him. “Now,” he said, holding his cup up in a toasting fashion, his face suddenly sober. “To Dominic.”
Hunt raised his own cup, nodded, and sipped.
“A terrible thing,” Turner said. “Terrible.”
“Did you know him well?”
“He was my closest friend.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Turner lifted his shoulders. “So when you mentioned what you wanted to talk about, naturally I thought it would be worthwhile to meet with you as soon as possible. I’ve been racking my brain to come up with some way to try to not only honor Dominic’s legacy and memory, but actually to help bring some closure to this horrible situation. When you mentioned a reward, it struck me as a singularly right gesture.”
“I’m glad to hear that. We thought it might be helpful to get more of the community involved if we could.”
“Of course. That may be the only way out of this, from what I’ve gathered from the police. If somebody saw or heard something. It’s a sad but unfortunately true fact that some people just don’t trust the police.”
Hunt nodded. “I’ve run into that.”
“So you know.”
“You’ve talked to them, then? The cops?”
“Just trying to gather some sense of what happened, which no one seems to have much of an idea of. Knowing Dominic as I did, I have to think it must have been some random mugging or robbery attempt or something. No one who knew him could have harmed a hair on his head.” He sat back. “But regardless, finding the perpetrator has got to get some real priority now in the short term. More than it seems the police are giving it.”
Hunt replied with some care. “I don’t think it’s that they’re not giving it a high priority so much as that it takes them time to generate and follow up any leads. And that’s where we thought we might be able to help.”
“That’s exactly what I was hoping too. Because the longer this whole thing festers, the more it can infect the entire community.” He paused. “I’m talking about the nonprofit community here.”
Hunt put down his cup.
