"Not since yesterday afternoon."
"Okay, maybe that's good news. What time was that?"
"Two. Two thirty. Why would it be bad news?"
Wu paused. "I've been calling all around. Nobody's seen her. Well, nobody I've talked to at least. I've called Spencer, too, and he hasn't heard from her since Tuesday night. He told me to try you."
Hunt knew well enough the reason that her Trial TV producer hadn't heard from her. He also assumed that Fairchild must have seen him rush out after Parisi at the Occidental.
But Wu was going on. "Last night I paged her and also left a message at her home, asking her to call me no matter what time she got in, and she never did."
"Call? Or get in?"
"I don't know for sure. Both."
"What was so urgent?"
Wu hesitated. "Did you hear they identified the woman who was killed with Judge Palmer?"
"I did. Staci something, right? Waitress at MoMo's. I didn't know her."
"We did. Andrea and Jason and I. We all knew who she was at least."
"So that's why you wanted to get to Andrea? To tell her about Staci?"
"Originally. You know, to talk about it a little. But then when she didn't call back…"
"Did you try her at work? She was going in there when I left her."
Another pause. "When you left her? You're saying you didn't just talk to her yesterday afternoon, you were with her?"
"She passed out, and I took her back to my place." He gave her the short version. "Anyway, after she got herself together, I took her home. She was talking about going in to work."
"But she didn't go to work. Not yesterday. And she's not there now and hasn't called this morning."
Hunt, frowning, checked his watch. True, it wasn't yet ten o'clock. And okay, Parisi could have gotten in sometime after he left her driveway last night and be out having an early meeting with a client. She could be doing a morning workout. She could be out jogging. She could have simply decided to sleep in and not answer her telephone. She might even have stood him up to go out with another guy and wasn't back home yet. But Wu, not really given to histrionics, was upset. Hunt felt a seed of real concern in the bottom of his gut. "Was her secretary worried?" he asked.
"Not particularly. She said that sometimes she comes in later."
"That's probably what it is."
"Maybe. But you know Andrea, Wyatt. You page her, she calls back. Her cell phone's surgically implanted in her ear."
"Maybe she's turned it off."
"That would take us to the outer fringes of reality."
Hunt believed Wu, but so what? Given the events of Parisi's last couple of days, he considered it plausible that she might have turned off her cell phone and simply checked out for a few hours. She'd given him every sign that she wanted to think about things. But again, Wu was their mutual friend, and her worry was genuine and somewhat contagious. "Who else have you tried?" he asked her. "Does she have family nearby? Maybe she's staying with them."
"I know her mom teaches at Cal and lives in Berkeley, I think, but I don't have her number, and I'm not sure if I want to get her worried, too."
"I could find her and call and make it sound innocuous. I promise."
"Do you think it would be dumb to check anywhere official?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know. The police? Hospitals?"
"Not yet, I don't think. How long has it been? Am I the last one who talked to her?"
"So far."
"And what's that? Eighteen, twenty hours ago?" Though those numbers startled him in some way, Hunt kept up the optimistic front. "She's a big girl, Amy. She could be anywhere. She could just be hiding out."
"From what?"
"Fame. I don't know. Figuring out what she's going to do with Spencer. Or her law career. It really could be anything."
"You really think so?"
"I really don't know. But why don't I find her mother's number, and after that, if she's not there, I'll call around, the official places. Meanwhile, you wait and see if she calls you back. And when she does, you call me, right?"
"Okay."
"Okay, then. Later."
They hung up and within fifteen minutes, Hunt was talking to Deanne, one of Andrea's sisters in Berkeley, keeping his questions generic and low-key. Identifying himself as a private investigator, he said he was doing a background check on the résumé for someone who had given her sister as a reference at this number. Deanne certainly didn't sound as though she'd experienced any trauma recently in her life. She laughed and said her sister hadn't lived there for years, so whomever Hunt was checking up on wasn't very current. Deanne hadn't seen Andrea in a month or so, but she was fairly sure that her mother had talked to her last weekend. Hunt thanked her for her time and hung up.
So Andrea wasn't at her mother's house. Feet up on his desk, Hunt thought for another minute or so, then picked up the phone again and punched in some numbers he knew by heart.
15
"Juhle, homicide."
"Hunt, Chinatown."
"Wrong."
"How could I be wrong? I haven't said anything yet."
"Why do I have to explain everything, Wyatt? If I say, 'Juhle, homicide,' you don't say, 'Hunt, Chinatown.' You say something like 'Hunt, investigations.' It's the work, not where you do it. Try again later." And he hung up.
Hunt sometimes thought that the only thing worse than dealing with someone who had a personality was dealing with somebody who didn't. He punched up Devin's number again, got his deadpan, "Juhle, homicide," and this time said, "Hunt, investigations."
"Wyatt," Juhle boomed, "how've you been all this time?"
"I've been good, Devin, but I'm investigating right now even as we speak. I need you to find out something for me."
"That would be me investigating, not you. And I believe I've mentioned I do homicide. Are you calling about a homicide?"
"I hope not."
"Then I'm not your man. Shiu and I, we're out the door in about two minutes on a murder case, which is what we do. And it's all we do. So good luck."
"Don't hang up!" Hunt was surprised to note the sharper edge in his voice. In spite of his assurances to Amy Wu that everything probably was fine with Andrea Parisi, Hunt was aware that the knot in his stomach where the last pork bao had settled had not gone away. "You remember last night we talked a little about Andrea Parisi…"
Juhle's voice fell half an octave. "Yeah."
"I just got a call from Amy Wu."
"What about?"
"About Andrea not returning her calls since yesterday and not showing up at work this morning."
"Hey, I almost didn't come in myself. It happens. My arm was killing me. I had to drop a Vicodin."
"Not the same thing, really." Hunt tried to keep the impatience and worry out of his voice. "I wondered if you could make a few calls around and see if a thirty-something Jane Doe has turned up somewhere."
"She wouldn't be a Jane Doe if it's Parisi. Somebody would recognize her."
"That would depend on how she looks, wouldn't it? Say if she was beat up…"
"You're serious, aren't you?"
"Yep."
"Why can't you make those calls and look for her?"
"I'm tied up with clients for the next several hours. You could do it quicker through one of those magical networks you cops employ, where you can find out about anything. Besides, you answered your own phone, which indicates that you're in your office either doing paperwork or screwing around until something more important comes up. And this is it."
Juhle looked down at the first stack of Judge Palmer's bank records on his desk in front of him. "How long has she been gone?"
"Since before dinner last night."
"And you want me to check where?"
"Everywhere you'd look if you were looking for somebody. The morgue would be my last choice, but hospitals. Maybe she got herself drunk and arrested last night and isn't checking her messages."