They fell then into a sudden and tense silence, waiting.
The garage connected to the kitchen. Eric was the first one through the door. Unlike his younger brother, he was about the same physical size as the last time Hunt had seen him, but his face had broken out with acne and his voice had a different pitch when, tentative yet polite, he nodded and said, “Hi, Uncle Wyatt.”
“Hey, big guy. Good to see you.”
“You too.” He advanced and reached out his hand, which Hunt, standing, shook. He chose to take it as a good sign that they still called him “uncle,” perhaps still considered him Juhle’s brother on some level.
Devin evidently wasn’t in any hurry to get in the house. He would have known Hunt was inside from the distinctive car parked out front. The connecting door closed shut behind Eric and they heard some sounds from the garage-Devin closing his driver’s side door, throwing the duffel bag where it belonged.
Hunt found his breath snagged in his throat.
Juhle opened the door and stood for a second in the doorway, holding it open. Nodding first at his wife, then briefly at Hunt, he turned and closed it with an exaggerated gentleness. Turning back around, he leaned up against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, nodding again, his face a mask. “Hey, Wyatt,” he said with no inflection whatever. “What can I do for you?”
“I don’t think so,” Juhle said. “That’s police work.”
The two of them sat at either end of a sagging beige sofa in the downstairs family room, a converted half- basement where Juhle had his Ping-Pong/pool table set up, along with a dartboard and a foosball game area. A television rested on the middle shelf of a built-in bookcase mostly devoted otherwise to sports trophies for the kids, and Connie’s washer and dryer reinforced the place’s basic functional nature. Juhle’s house wasn’t big, and the family and their activities filled it all up, every spare inch.
“It’s police work,” Hunt countered, “that won’t do any good. You won’t get the calls we’re going to get and if you did, you’ll spend all your time screening out the nuts.”
Juhle shrugged, shook his head dismissing the idea. “How many good tips you think you’re going to get? Two? Three? Not even that. End of story.”
“No, it isn’t. Not if we get the reward set up and it gets big, and it will.”
“What’s big?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a hundred grand, maybe more. Mick’s shooting for the moon, and he’s a charmer.” Hunt came forward on the couch. “So we’re not talking any couple of calls a day here. It’s not impossible the reward might go to half a mil, and if that happens, the flakes come out of the woodwork. You know this and I know it, and you’re going to spend half to all of your time either chewing your cud on nothing or running down ridiculous leads trying to identify one good one.”
Another shrug. “That’s what we do, Wyatt. Run down leads. It’s police work.”
Wyatt sat back, let out a breath. “This is getting a little circular, don’t you think? You got any of these leads?”
Juhle paused, then spit out, “We got squat.”
“That was my guess,” Hunt said. “You know, time was this would have been a slam dunk for both of us, Dev. Win-win.”
Juhle glanced down the length of the couch. “Time was a lot of other things too.”
“You want to talk about some of ’em?”
“Talk’s cheap, Wyatt. And bullshit walks.”
“This isn’t bullshit. This is something I can legitimately do to help your investigation. We are going ahead and contacting potential reward sources-”
“And who are these sources?”
“People connected to Como. Who want to see his killer get caught.”
“None of them more than I do.”
“Granted. But we can generate leads you can’t. Calls from folks who would never call the cops. Most of what we get will be crap, sure, but if we even get one good tip you couldn’t get, you’re better off.” Hunt sat back, spoke matter-of-factly. “This is a free gift to you, Dev. Call it an apology if you want. Sometimes the jobs we do, we’re on different sides. It doesn’t have to be personal.”
This brought a cold smile. “And of course it’s going to put money in your pocket for what you just admitted to me was mostly going to be crap. For this I’m supposed to say thank you? You fuck with my career, my livelihood, and my family, and you tell me it’s not personal?”
“It didn’t happen that way, Dev. You could look at it that Gina and I saved you from being the cop who sent the wrong guy to prison. And then, P.S., she hands you the real guy, the actual killer. And you get the credit for that arrest. How’s that hurt your career? You want to tell me that?”
No answer.
“Your feelings?” Hunt went on. “Okay. After what happened on the stand, okay. Sorry. But your career? Your livelihood? Your family? I don’t think so.”
Up one flight on the main floor, the television laid down white noise. Tires squealed and a car’s horn sounded from outside on the street.
Juhle’s jaw was set, the corners of his mouth drawn down. He stared in the direction of the bookcase wall across from him, then pulled himself upright on the couch and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.
Hunt lowered his voice. “This is a done deal, Dev. I’m telling you as a courtesy. This is happening. But whatever you think of it, we will help you any way we can.” Without a cease-fire, much less a peace treaty, in hand, Hunt got up. “Tell Connie and the kids it was nice seeing them.”
Now that Hunt was on board with him, Mickey had all the excuse he needed to see Alicia Thorpe again.
They met at Bay Beans West, a coffee shop on Haight Street about midway between their two residences, got their brews, and realized it might be hours before they could find a place to sit inside. So they decided to walk instead, down to Lincoln and then due west into the teeth of the wind, out toward the beach.
For the first couple of blocks, they made small talk about the changing weather, Starbucks versus Bay Beans, how the La Cuisine classes were going for both Mickey and Ian, how everybody their age seemed to be doing one job for money, then all these other things that they seemed to like better for free-Alicia volunteering at the Sunset Youth Project, Mickey and Ian learning to cook.
“So what’s your day job?” Mickey asked her. “When you’re not volunteering?”
“It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“If it’s work that pays you, it’s not embarrassing. As my grandfather used to say, ‘There is no work, if done in the proper spirit, to which honor cannot accrue.’ ”
A small contralto laugh. “That’s good. Does that apply to being the hostess at Morton’s?”
“Every job in the world, according to Jim. But especially hostess at Morton’s,” Mickey said. “Perhaps the most honorable of the service jobs.”
“Well, thank you. I’ll start trying to look at it that way. Instead of as six hours of mind-numbing tedium.”
“There you go.” They walked on in silence for a while, and then Mickey said, “Ian told me about your parents.”
She cast a quick glance over at him. “Yeah.”
“Did he tell you that pretty much the same thing happened to me?”
She stopped and faced him. “Your father shot your mother and then himself?”
“No. But my father disappeared and then my mother overdosed. Same result. No parents.”
She closed her eyes, then shook her head. “I don’t really remember it too much. It was just the way it was. I was only nine.”
“I was seven, but I think it’s the most indelible memory of my life-the shape under the sheet on the gurney, knowing it was Mom, as they wheeled her out.”
“I must have blocked it,” she said.
After a silence that lasted for half a block, Mickey cleared his throat. “So, about Dominic, all these charities he ran…”
“He only ran one. The Sunset Youth Project. And of course all the subordinate groups off that.”
“Okay. So what are those?”
