35
Various legal technicalities and the perennially overcrowded San Francisco court docket held up the arraignment of Lorraine Hess, but Hunt was in the Department 11 courtroom that Friday morning and listened to her plead not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to two counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted murder, and assault with a deadly weapon.
Just after she was led back to the holding cells, Hunt walked across the lobby of the Hall of Justice. Outside, he stood on the steps in the windy sunshine and debated with himself whether he should go back inside and try to talk to Juhle. But he was reluctant to put himself in the position of seeming to apologize for his unorthodox ways.
After all, in spite of even Gina’s concerns that he’d acted recklessly, he had delivered Dominic Como’s and Nancy Neshek’s murderer into Juhle’s hands without even a minor scuffle. In the process, he’d saved his friend, and Russo as well, from another false or, at best, deeply flawed arrest.
If Juhle didn’t like the way Hunt had done that job, that was just too bad. When you’re at the table and your hand comes in, you’ve got to bet it and play it now, and that’s what Hunt had done.
Sure, it could have gone differently. Granted, there were more risks involved than Juhle and even Gina felt comfortable with, but the fact was that Hunt was not a cop. He was a private investigator and didn’t have to abide by the written and unwritten rules of the police force. If Juhle didn’t like that, he’d have to get over it.
He checked his watch, scanned the traffic as it flowed by him on Bryant, then descended the steps and jaywalked across the street, to where Lou the Greek’s was probably just starting to serve the day’s first orders of the Special, whatever that might turn out to be.
If Hunt went right down now, he could get a table with no wait.
He was halfway through his Yeanling Clay Bowl, sitting at a two-top that faced away from the entrance and the bar, when a shadow crossed his table and in the next second Juhle was in the chair across from him.
“I saw you in there,” Juhle said without preamble. “I love that she pleaded not guilty.”
Hunt shrugged. “How does she do that after she confessed?”
“Happens all the time,” Juhle said. “You’d be surprised.” He pointed at Hunt’s food. “Yeanling Clay Bowl?”
Hunt nodded. “And the yeanling today is especially fresh and tasty.”
“Do I have time to get some and talk to you, or are you running out to solve another crime?”
“I’ve got no crimes on the agenda. I’m back to litigation work. Not that I’m complaining. There’s suddenly a ton of it.”
“Getting your name in the paper never hurts.”
“Yeah, there’s that.” Hunt shrugged again, twisted a forkful of the noodle contingent of his dish. “What else do you want to talk about?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a week now. It’s driving me crazy. I don’t know how you knew.”
Hunt chewed. “I didn’t. Not till the last minute. Before that, I was wrong on every guess. Turner, Ellen, Alicia. I was all over the money. I never even looked at Hess.”
“So what changed?”
“She snagged herself. At Como’s memorial, she pretended she had barely heard of Neshek’s death, but then a few minutes later, before anybody had said anything about it, she asked me if the cops had found anything at Neshek’s house.”
Juhle spoke up. “And she shouldn’t have known that soon that Neshek had been killed in her own home.”
“See? You can figure things out, after all. But I didn’t figure it out. At least not then. I just thought somebody might have included that detail before I went over to talk to them. You know, ‘Did you hear Nancy got killed at her house last night?’ kind of thing. So I didn’t put too much on it. She possibly could have known. So I gave her the benefit.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, so the next day, Mickey’s up at Sunset talking to her about her alibi for Monday night and she tells him she’s got a son she’s helping with homework all night, but then she lets drop that she doesn’t even know where Neshek lived. So I get this little ‘ding ding ding’ in my brain and wonder how likely that is. I mean, she’s worked with Dominic like for a decade and all these execs go to the same functions.” He raised a hand and stopped one of the waiters going by. “You ordering?”
Juhle nodded and told the waiter he was going to walk on the wild side and have the Special and a Diet Coke, and then he came back to Hunt. “So she said she didn’t know where Neshek lived?”
“Right. At the same time, she tells Mickey how she’s hurting for money. Big bills, medical stuff. But somehow before that she had the money for a full-time caregiver and a tutor. Anyway, that sticks with me a little bit. But still, I mean, possible, I suppose. And she’s still got her kid as an alibi. Plus, there’s absolutely no hint of a motive, so I let it pass again. Strike two.”
“All right, the oh two pitch.”
“I’m talking with Alicia Thorpe, trying to bust her story wide open, and she tells me that she’d met Ellen Como at a Sanctuary House benefit at Neshek’s place.”
“Ellen Como? Am I missing something?”
“No, hang on. So Alicia’s talking about this first meeting with Ellen and then she lets slip-I mean, really just an aside, pure luck-that Dominic pulled her away from the Sunset staff to introduce her to Ellen. And she mentions Hess specifically, at Neshek’s house.”
“Better.”
“Getting there. Then it occurs to me that the reason Ellen is sure that Dominic is screwing Alicia is because Hess told her so. She said she caught them in the act a couple of times. Now, there’s no doubt that Dominic was screwing around. How likely is it he’s going to get caught in his office not once, but a few times? So I’m starting to wonder, if Hess isn’t telling Ellen the truth, what’s she got against Alicia? Bringing me, of course, to the oldest motive in the world.”
“You got her.”
“Not yet. I’ve got some thoughts and some definite issues, but nothing solid for Como and no reason in the world for Neshek. So I’m stuck.”
“Until?”
“Until I remember Al Carter, who’s worked there for eight years and presumably knows everything. And he’s uptight because he’s black and he’s got a record and thinks you guys are going to come after him.”
“That’s bogus, Wyatt. We don’t do that. We never even gave him more than a passing look.”
“I’m not the guy you’ve got to convince, Dev. Anyway, whatever, Al wants to help us find whoever did Como if he can, and not just for the reward either. So I have Mickey find him and we have a talk and I ask him, one, if, back in the day, did Lorraine and Como have a thing? And guess what? Not just back in the day, evidently, but back up until a few months after Alicia came on. In other words, until a few weeks ago.”
“And Carter didn’t think to mention that to anybody?”
“He thought Lorraine had no problem with it ending. She was cool. It wasn’t like passion anymore, he didn’t think. She’d gotten old.”
Juhle’s Diet Coke arrived and he took a long drink. “That’s pretty much what she told us, motive wise. And you might like to know that what happened Monday night with Neshek is that she came up to Hess after the COO meeting and actually asked Hess if she should talk to you, Wyatt.”
“Did she say why?”
“She was in Dominic’s office one time and saw a concealed safe full of money. Wouldn’t it be better for COO, she asked Hess, if they came forward with the money the feds claimed was missing? Or would it just tarnish Dominic’s reputation and the work they were trying to do? Hess thought that what Neshek was really saying was that she knew that Hess had taken the money. So she killed her.”
“So that would be the money you found in Hess’s house?”
“Five hundred eighty-seven thousand, six hundred and eighty dollars, but who’s counting? Not, by the way, in
