When he closed the phone, he remained standing by the window, facing out. His shoulders rose, fell, rose again.
"Wyatt," Wu said with some concern. "What is it?"
Finally, he turned around. "It's just that Devin and Shiu are homicide, and they want to come up here and talk about Andrea." He let out a long breath. "Homicide means somebody's dead."
The next few minutes passed in an agonized semi-silence. At one point, Wu said, "If they had anything definite, it would have been on the news. Especially what we just watched. They can't have anything."
"Unless the police didn't tell them or asked them to sit on it. But let's hope," Farrell said.
Hunt called Tamara again, found out that Andrea hadn't been admitted to any of the emergency rooms she'd called so far, although she still had another ten or fifteen to call in the nine-county Bay Area alone, to say nothing of the state at large. It was going to be a while.
The conference phone buzzed and Farrell picked it up and said, "Good. Send him up."
The first sight of Juhle's face was reassuring. He looked done in after a long day of work, but it didn't look like he was here to deliver the kind of bad news they'd all been fearing-his eyes, in fact, appeared lit up with a kind of expectation. But the sense of relief hadn't gotten any chance to take hold before Wu asked if they'd heard anything about Andrea.
"Just tell us she's not dead," Farrell added.
Juhle shook his head. "Not that I know of. You got any reason to think she's dead?"
"You do homicides, Dev," Hunt said. "You wanted to talk to us."
"I did. I do. And it's a homicide, all right, but not hers." He looked into the three concerned faces in front of him. "I just came from talking to Rich Tombo down outside the Hall after his gig. He'd called and left a message that he felt there was something he needed to tell me. Any of you guys hear the rumor that Andrea Parisi had been romantically involved with Judge Palmer?"
Hunt felt the blood drain out of his face. Because immediately the rumor rang true. How had it not occurred to him? Palmer, of course-the "other guy" Andrea had been seeing for two years before Fairchild, who didn't want a serious relationship, who had dumped her, who worked with the CCPOA. And now, who had been murdered.
Wes Farrell harrumphed. "It's hearsay, Dev."
"Well, yes, it is." Juhle wasn't here to fight anybody. "But we're not in trial, and this is the kind of hearsay that makes us feel like it would be a good idea to question the object of it if at all possible."
"Which, right now, it isn't," Hunt said.
"So it seems," Juhle said.
"Wait a minute," Amy said. "You're saying you want to ask Andrea about George Palmer's death?"
"Right."
"As a suspect? That's ridiculous."
Juhle shrugged.
Farrell was unconvinced. "It's just a rumor."
"Granted," Juhle said. "But we know about when Palmer started up with Staci Rosalier. The other victim. About six months ago. Right about when Donolan began. Which, according to Tombo, is when the judge broke it off with Andrea."
Shiu amplified. "Tombo's opinion was that she wasn't over him."
"Yeah, but Dev," Hunt said, "they broke up six months ago. And then she kills them both last Monday?"
"I'm sorry," Farrell said. "There's just no way."
"No? Were you with her, Wes, on Monday night?"
"No, but…"
Juhle looked from Wu to Hunt. "Either of you? Okay, then. Here's what we know. She did the broadcast with her TV people at four thirty and another one at five, after which her limo dropped her at her firm at five thirty or so. She worked for an hour and a half and signed out of the building at seven-oh-eight."
"And then what?" Farrell asked.
A shrug. "Then we don't know. It's why I wanted to talk to all of you. Tombo told me you guys all were out with her the next night, Wyatt's little anniversary soiree, which I now so wish I'd attended. Maybe she mentioned something about what she'd done the night before to one of you."
"This is insane," Wu said. "I know she saw the judge every week or two with the union stuff they did. In fact, she'd just…" Suddenly, Wu stopped.
Juhle didn't miss the slip. "I'm listening, Amy."
Wu looked for help from Hunt to Farrell, but neither could offer anything. "Well, she had seen him having lunch that Monday."
"And how," Shiu asked, "do you know she did that, ma'am?"
"She told me at Sam's. She couldn't believe it about him having been shot. She'd just seen him at MoMo's the day before."
Juhle's eyebrows went up. "MoMo's is where Staci Rosalier waited lunch tables."
"Wait up, Dev," Hunt put in. "So your theory is that six months after Andrea and Palmer broke up, she sees him and his new girlfriend at MoMo's and out of the blue succumbs to this mad fit of jealousy and decides she has to kill them both that night? At his house? Doesn't that seem a little out there?"
"Absolutely. I don't pretend to have the answers, just questions. The primary one being where is she? But add that to her apparent motive…" He shrugged. "I don't know how out there it is anymore."
Hunt was out on Sutter Street alone with Juhle, who'd hung back while Shiu went to get the car. "So you want to know what she was doing Monday night?"
"Yeah. First, though, same as you, I'd just like to find her." His face set hard, he went on. "And it's funny, we heard from Tombo that your very own self left your cigar place hot on her tail Tuesday night. You catch her?"
"She was drunk, Dev," Hunt said. "I took her back to my place to dry out. Then brought her back home around noon."
"That would be yesterday, the last anybody's seen her." Juhle paused. "You fuck her?"
The question, completely unexpected, left Hunt tongue-tied just long enough.
So that Juhle said, "Shit. You did."
"I never said that."
Juhle had no patience for it. "Yeah, you did. Give me a break. And now you're also the last one we know to have seen her."
"And now I'm a suspect, too?"
"It's not as funny as you seem to think. I'm not kidding. It's going to occur to Shiu, too, I guarantee you."
"And then what? He's going to arrest me?"
"Don't push it, Wyatt. Don't give him an excuse. He might." After a second, Juhle said, "So Parisi's the one who stood you up last night." It wasn't a question. He had figured it out, and now took a step forward into Hunt's personal space. He lowered his voice to a whisper laced with anger. "Maybe you remember last night when you told me she didn't do much work herself involving the prison guards' union? Except for meeting with my murder victim every week or so? Did you know she was sleeping with him, too?"
"I didn't know that. I never suspected that."
"Good for you. But the rest of it, you just didn't think it mattered?"
Hunt's guts roiled and he felt the flush rise in his face. He'd asked for this. "I know it matters, Dev. What can I say? I should have told you. I fucked up. I'm sorry."
"Damn straight you fucked up."
"Right. I know. She was hurting. She was a mess. I guess I was trying to protect her."
"From me?"
"From everything. But you, too. Right."
"You know what? That really pisses me off. If she's innocent, she doesn't need protection from me or anybody else. You get that?"
"Yeah, but if any of this gets out, it won't matter if she killed those two or not. If she's been having an affair with the judge on her biggest case, she's toast."
"Not my problem. Not yours, either. I need to find her."
"So do I."
"If you do, I need to see her."