“Anyway, my dad disappeared for good when I was like two. My mom overdosed when I was seven. Heroin.”
“Heroin,” Thorpe said. “I hate that shit, and you’re talking to one who knows.” He lifted his eyes, his voice suddenly flat. “My dad shot my mother and then killed himself when I was twelve. It wasn’t much fun.”
“No. Doesn’t sound like it.” Mickey took a beat, let out a short breath. “That’s a worse story than mine, or damn close. And I don’t hear them too often. And now we’re both training to be chefs. Somebody should do a study. Orphans and chefs.”
“We want to cook for people ’cause there was nobody to cook for us.”
“Good theory. So you guys didn’t have other family?”
“One aunt in Texas. An uncle in Florida. Neither interested.”
“So how’d you and your sister stay connected?” Mickey asked.
“Alicia, mostly, not giving up. We both bounced around a lot. Foster homes, you know? You too?”
Mickey shook his head. “We didn’t have that. My grandfather-the one who drove for Como-showed up and took us in. Saved us, no doubt. Maybe himself in the bargain.”
“Well, Alicia and me, we got split up and farmed out to different families. I got into some bad behavior mixed with drugs and wound up at the youth work farm till I was seventeen. Alicia, she moved in with three or four different families, but she had some issues of her own-guys, mostly-and none of the family units took. But somehow she kept up on me, where I was, and finally talked me into the Sunset Youth Project.”
Mickey nodded. “One of Como’s charities.”
“Right. Actually, the main one. So, anyway, between that place and Alicia keeping me honest, I eventually straightened out, got back into school, and then even college. A miracle, really.”
“But now you say your sister needs a private eye around Dominic’s death?”
Thorpe nodded. “She volunteered out at Sunset and got pretty close to him in the last few months. The cops came by and talked to her yesterday. She got the impression that she was some kind of a suspect.”
Mickey sat with that for a moment. At last, he picked up his coffee and sipped at it. “How close was pretty close?”
“I don’t know, not for sure.”
“But what would you guess?”
Thorpe made a face, then shrugged. “I’d say it wouldn’t be impossible that they were having an affair, though Alicia’s always said she’d never go out again with a married guy.”
“Again?”
“I told you, guys were always her problem. She’s kind of pretty, and then of course having her father kill himself, she’s got a few issues of abandonment and self-esteem. Wants to prove she’s attractive to men. You’d think after the first fifty, the issue would kind of go away. But in Dominic’s case, I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say. She did tell me, though, that she didn’t kill him.”
“You asked?”
He nodded. “Directly. I wanted to know what we were dealing with.”
“And you believe her?”
“Absolutely. She wouldn’t ever lie to me. I’m sure of that.”
“Okay.”
“Plus, you should see her. When it finally came out he was actually dead and not just missing, after you found him in the lagoon
… I mean, she’s been crying full-time ever since.”
Even with his limited experience of criminal matters, Mickey had learned that crying wasn’t a guarantee of innocence or of much else. Wyatt Hunt had told him that most people who kill someone close to them spend at least some time afterward crying about it for one reason or another-genuine remorse for what they’d done, or self- pity for the predicament in which they’d put themselves. “So what would you want a private investigator to do for you?” Mickey asked.
“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. I only thought of the possibility of it when I saw you on the tube and they said that’s what you were. I know it’s not much of a connection, you and me. But I thought you might be cheaper than a lawyer.”
That drew a quick laugh. “That’s true enough. Most of the time, we work for lawyers. That’s basically the gig. So you’re right, we’d be cheaper. Although we’re probably not going to be what she needs.”
“Well, I thought that at least you weren’t a cop out to get her. I thought maybe you could find out the truth.”
“Often not so easy. But you should know that the cops aren’t going to be out to get her unless there’s some evidence that points to her. And then after that, the truth might not be what you want to hear, in spite of what she’s told you, or didn’t tell you.”
“I realize that. But I feel like I… I mean we talked about it, and both of us feel like we ought to do something. We can’t just sit and let the cops build a case around her. Especially since it was somebody else.”
Mickey’s mouth broke into a smile. “So basically you’d want us to find out who killed him?”
“Or just eliminate Alicia as a suspect.”
“Well, if she’s really a suspect, what you really need is a lawyer.”
“Except that’s a problem too.”
“Why?”
“Money.” Thorpe came forward, elbows on the table. “I mean, we’ve got maybe a thousand or so between us, but that’s at the outside. It would pretty much tap us both out.”
Mickey sat back and turned his cup slowly on the tabletop. “Actually,” he said at last, “if that’s all the money you have, it’s good news in a way.”
“How’s that?”
“You can’t afford even the cheapest lawyer. And no reputable investigator would even start this kind of open-ended job for that kind of money. So you don’t have to lose any of it. And if somebody-lawyer or investigator- offers to take you on with that little as a retainer, you know you’re dealing with a shyster.”
Thorpe’s shoulders fell.
“Another good-news moment,” Mickey continued. “If Alicia does get charged, the court will appoint a lawyer for her for free. You know that, right?”
But Thorpe shook his head. “Her getting charged wouldn’t be good news, no matter what. I spent some time in custody when I was younger. I think real jail might actually kill her. We can’t let it get to that. She didn’t kill Dominic, I promise you.”
Mickey spread his hands in an apologetic gesture. “In that case, I doubt they’ll get anywhere near an arrest. But I don’t-” Suddenly he stopped as the germ of an idea occurred to him.
Dominic Como was a recent, high-profile murder. San Francisco’s large and generous philanthropic community, and in fact many of the charities with which Como had been actively involved, could be expected to have a vested interest in apprehending his killer. But in general, precisely these very people had a deep-seated mistrust, if not actual hatred, of police and law enforcement in general. In this, the most left-wing big city in the country, better the murder of one of their own should go unsolved than that they should cooperate with the Man. Police, and probably the mayor herself, would be seeking a speedy resolution to the Como case, and at least an arrest. But a lot of the people who might know the most would be the least likely to talk to the cops.
What if, Mickey wondered, the Hunt Club could act as the clearinghouse between the people with information, the police who needed the information, and the institutions that had the cash that would be willing to pay for the information? What if he could pitch the idea of a “people’s reward” for information related to Como’s death?
This could in theory serve a host of purposes: It might provide valuable tips for the police; it would involve the wider community in the investigation; it could, of course, most importantly motivate an otherwise reluctant witness to come forward. On a more personal note, the Hunt Club could stay open servicing the reward hotline. If the reward was a significant dollar number, many a lunatic would also be contacting the charities who’d offered the money with spurious and/or just plain stupid or wrong information.
The Hunt Club might be of real value managing the flow of information to the police, forwarding any genuine leads, and gatekeeping against reports from the nutcase front. The process would save the cops perhaps hundreds of man-hours of unnecessary work winnowing out the wheat from the chaff.
