"Slim pickin's," Piersall said.
"Yes," Shiu agreed, "but now that she's apparently missing, there's…"
Juhle, at the end of his patience, uncrossed his legs, held a hand out toward his partner, hoping to stem the flow.
Piersall reacted as though he'd been jabbed. "What do you mean, apparently missing? She's not…excuse me a minute, would you?" He picked up his phone. "Carla? Gary Piersall," he said. "I'd like to speak with Andrea, please… I see, since when?…All right, thank you. Have her call me as soon as she gets in, would you? Thanks." He hung up, the confident face suddenly slack.
Juhle had gotten to his feet. He wanted to get Shiu out of the room before he could do any more damage. He managed to place his business card on Piersall's desk. "We're really not trying to waste your time, sir. If you hear from her, we'd appreciate it if you had her give us a call. ASAP."
Three floors down in the same building, Juhle, Shiu, and Carla Shapiro were in an employee lounge that was larger than the entire homicide detail-six tables with four chairs each, vending machines for coffee, tea, sodas, candy, snacks. The smells of popcorn and stale coffee hung in the air. Andrea's secretary was thin, bespectacled, frizzy-haired, earnest, and sick with worry now about her boss, she told them. Just sick.
She was talking, all nerves, as they took seats at one of the tables. "She called at about quarter to three and said she was feeling a little better and wanted to come in and catch up on some of her work, but first, she was going to go out and visit a client at her home, then probably be in after I went home, no doubt till pretty late. I didn't have to wait around-she'd leave stuff on my desk for the morning."
"But she didn't?" Shiu asked.
"No. She never came in. At least she never signed in downstairs. After hours, we have sign-in here in the building, you know." Then, as though it had just occurred to her, "She'd missed most of yesterday, too, you know? And she never misses work. I mean, never."
"So what was she doing yesterday?" Juhle asked. "That made her miss."
"Food poisoning, they said."
"Who was that?"
"Her doctor, I think. He called and talked to reception, not to me."
Shiu had his small notepad out and glanced down at it, then looked up. "But then she was apparently better by about quarter to three?"
"Yes, I think so."
"You talked to her personally," Shiu asked, "and she was going first to meet a client at her house. Did she do that a lot? Meet clients at their homes?"
"I think so, yes. Sometimes. It depended."
Suddenly Juhle broke in. "Do you know the name Staci Rosalier? Was she one of Andrea's clients?"
Carla shook her head. "No. That name isn't familiar. I'm sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry about, ma'am," Shiu said. "Did Andrea tell you who she was going to see?"
"Yes. Carol Manion. You know the Manions? Except she never got there."
"How do you know that?" Shiu asked. "Did you call her?"
In Carla's nervous state, the question appeared to startle her. "Who?"
"Mrs. Manion."
A haunted expression of guilt settled in Carla's dark eyes. "Well, no. I mean, there was no reason to last night before I left, and then…because she called here instead. I mean, the office. Later last night. There was a message on Andrea's line when I got in this morning."
"From Mrs. Manion?"
Head sunk into her shoulders, she nodded. "Wondering if Andrea had forgotten or gotten the wrong day or something. Which of course Andrea would never do."
"No." Juhle made circles with his index finger on the table. "So she never made it to the Manions? If she was going there at all."
"I think she was. That's where she told me she was going. Then coming back here."
"And that," Juhle asked, "is the last you've heard from her?"
She reached under her glasses and brushed away a tear. "As far as I know," she said, "that's the last anyone's heard from her."
17
Wes Farrell's work environment didn't bear much resemblance to the other law offices Hunt visited throughout the city. It took up nearly the entire third floor of a stately renovated building in the heart of downtown. A casual visitor who came up via the elevator in the underground parking lot-thereby avoiding the formal reception area and bustling legal offices on the floors below-might reach the conclusion that this was the private residence of an eccentric and spectacularly slovenly person.
Farrell's mostly unused desk sat over in the corner under one of the windows, which left the rest of the space free to resemble a living room, with an overstuffed couch and matching easy chairs, a couple of floor lamps, a Salvation Army coffee table. A Nerf basketball net graced the wall by the door. Farrell had willy-nilly pinned up some old and unframed advertising prints from the Fillmore era and one poster of Cheryl Tiegs walking out of some water somewhere wearing a see-through bathing suit and a killer smile. The counter and cabinets on the left-hand wall might have been a college student's kitchen, with the sink and coffee machine and mugs out, and binders of stuff, legal pads, and books scattered about everywhere.
But nobody was enjoying the place at the moment. Farrell, slouched on the couch, his feet up on the table, summed it up for all of them. "I'm getting a bad feeling here."
Wu slumped in one of the easy chairs, hands folded in her lap. Hunt, who'd charged out of McClelland's a few blocks away after his depos finished up, was standing by the television perched on a low wall unit under the street windows. He reached over and switched the thing off. They'd just finished watching today's Donolan wrap-up on Trial TV, featuring only Richard Tombo, no mention at all of Andrea Parisi. "Amy and I, we're ahead of you on that one, Wes," he said. He turned to Amy. "You talked to Spencer recently?"
"Forty-five minutes ago," she said. "She hasn't called. He's thinking it's serious."
"He's right," Hunt said. "So, as far as we know, nobody's talked to her since she left to go to the Manions?"
"Do we know she even did that?" Farrell asked.
Hunt nodded. "She took her car. We know that. It was in her garage when I dropped her off at her house, and it wasn't there last night."
"So where's the car?" Wu asked.
"No lo se." Hunt blew out in frustration. "And apparently she never made it out to her meeting. Manion called her office and asked where she was-if she'd forgotten the appointment."
"So she just gets in her car and disappears?" Farrell asked.
"So far," Hunt said, "that's what we've got. It's not good." He walked over to the seating area, straddled the armrest on the other easy chair. "And while we're at it, here's the other thing I've been wondering about most of the day. She'd just found out she wasn't going to get the anchor gig in New York, right? She was badly hungover. She even thought that slapping Spencer might cost her the regular gig on Trial TV, with ramifications if it got out at Piersall as well."
"You're saying she might have killed herself?" Wu asked.
Hunt didn't want to think that but knew that it wasn't impossible. People were complicated, endlessly unknowable. What he had interpreted as a hopeful beginning, she could have seen as another possibly tawdry episode in a life that might have been filled with similar connections. He said, "I've got Tamara calling emergency rooms all around the state because it's the only thing I can think of. But you know her better than I do, Amy. What do you think?"
"Do I think she might have killed herself? I want to say no, but…"
Hunt's cell phone rang and, holding up a finger to Wu, he got it and moved over to the window for better reception. "Yeah, we just saw it, too," he said. Then, "I know… Uh-huh. Sutter Street, Wes Farrell's place upstairs… Yeah, we're all here now… What about?…Okay, just a sec." He turned back to face the room, spoke to Farrell and Wu in a suddenly husky voice. "Devin wants to come up and say hi to all of us. It's about this. We all gonna be here for ten more minutes?" He got nods all around and went back to the phone. "Okay, Dev, we're here. Sure, it's your call."