But Hunt couldn't think of any other assignment for the cabbie before the first patrol car finally arrived. It really hadn't been that long since he'd woken up Juhle-maybe twenty minutes. He met the police vehicle at the garage entrance and led the way down. The uniformed officers had him move his own car while they laid out the yellow tape around the Miata. Treating the car as a potential crime scene, which perhaps it was.
Juhle pulled up-no Shiu, no comment-eight or ten minutes later. A CSI unit was on the way to do a once-over before they towed Andrea's convertible downtown. If there was anything on or in the car, Juhle was confident that they'd find it. At this time of the morning, they didn't need crowd control, so Juhle dismissed the uniformed officers. When they'd driven off, he boosted himself onto the hood of the family car he'd driven down and said, "So what do you make of this?"
Hunt ran down his scenario.
"You're saying somebody snatched her out of here?"
"That's my guess. They've got video cameras coming out of the elevators in the lobby, so we can find out for sure as soon as we can get to them. But there's no way she ever made it up to her office. Someone would have seen her."
"How about if she just parked, then walked back up through the garage here and out onto the street? Then away."
"Remotely possible, I suppose," Hunt said. "But why would she do that?"
"Maybe after she left her house, she heard something or talked to somebody and decided she had to disappear."
"So she wants to disappear and immediately dumps her best way to get out of town? Plus, she doesn't hit the ATM and she hasn't used any of her credit cards." Hunt shook his head. "There's only two ways to go, Dev. Either somebody picked her up or she was snatched."
"Not saying I don't agree with you, but we keep coming back to why. If somebody wanted to kill her, they'd have killed her. If it was a kidnap, where's the ransom demand? You're saying somebody just took her because they wanted to look at her or something? The most logical thing, admit it, is that she's on the run or killed herself. And if you've got a better reason for her to do that than because she killed Palmer and Staci, I'd like to hear what it is."
Hunt hesitated, but he'd brought Juhle along with him this far already. He had to tell him about Piersall and the CCPOA. Screw the attorney-client privilege. But before he could really begin, he got interrupted by the arrival of the crime-scene unit. When the techs went to work, Hunt started again, and by the time he'd finished, they'd dusted the outside of the car for fingerprints and now were setting up to tow it to the PD garage to do a thorough search of the interior, luminol it for blood, and check it for gunshot residue.
Juhle was pacing, all the prison guards' union facts making an impression. "You're telling me that Palmer was already drafting this order to federalize the whole prison system on Monday? I talked to his secretary, and she never mentioned anything about it."
"Did you ask her?"
"I asked her if she knew of anybody who might have had a reason to kill the judge."
"Maybe she didn't think of the order in those terms. Maybe she thought it was another piece of paper like the thousand others she'd typed up before. Slow grind of the court."
"So how did you find out about it?"
"What's more important than that is whether it's true. And I'm sure you'll check it out, but this will save you some time: It is."
"And Jim Pine got wind of it and sent somebody, some parolee, to make sure the order didn't get signed? That's the theory?"
Hunt nodded.
"What about the girl? Staci. That was just bad luck, her being there at precisely that time? I have some troubles with that."
"Me, too. But I can also think of ten ways to explain it."
"But all of them, I bet, some variation on the theme of luck or coincidence." Dissatisfied, Juhle pushed absently at the source of the pain in his shoulder. "But let's leave that for a minute and go back to Parisi. When the judge got killed, say, she had a feeling Pine must have been behind it. So what? You're saying she went to Pine and asked him about it? Only if she was an idiot, which she wasn't."
"How about if she mentions it to Piersall, just to float the idea, and he lets enough of it slip to tip off Pine?"
"We did this earlier," Juhle said, "when I said you were reaching. You still are."
"I don't think it's any kind of a reach to see a connection between the union and Parisi, Dev. She worked for it. The judge was all over it. The timing is perfect. It all fits."
"Staci Rosalier doesn't fit."
"Again, bad luck. Or-and I know you hate this-coincidence."
"No. I've got a better one. How about this?" Juhle held up a finger. "One, Rosalier had Parisi's card." Juhle pointed at the Miata, held up a second finger. "Two, a car that looked a lot like this one right here was in the street in front of the judge's house when he got shot. Three, regardless of what you may think, there wasn't anything professional about the job on the judge and Staci. We've got one missed shot and no coups to the head. Not a pro. Four, by your own admission, Parisi might be a jealous woman with at least some propensity to violence-the slap?-and a gun collection. Further, she has just maybe that day come to believe, contrary to what she's been thinking for the past six months, that she isn't going to be able to move three thousand miles away from the man she still loves and who she's forced to see all the time because of business. Finally, and again, just that day, Monday, she goes to lunch and sees the judge and puts it together that the sweet young thing who's waiting on him is the girl he's fucking instead of her! You think that doesn't get her just a little upset?" Back to pacing now, Juhle had gotten himself wound up. "Hell, Wyatt, the more I think about it, the more I like her for these killings. And then she blows Dodge."
Hunt, leaning against Juhle's car, was silent. It was an impressive litany, he had to admit. All of Piersall's theories and concerns about the union and all of the apparent linearity of the crises that had forced the judge to begin drafting his order lacked the immediacy and passion of Juhle's argument. The only reason Hunt couldn't bring himself to accept it was because he didn't want to or couldn't bear to, he wasn't sure which.
"And you know what I would have done after that?" Juhle stopped in front of him. "I would have tried to tough it out, to go on with my work, my normal life. But the very first night, I get so drunk I pass out. And the next day, I'm so distracted and lost that I leave for an appointment and wind up in my parking lot at work, never having thought about where I was going or what I was doing. And I realize it's hopeless. I'm not going to pull it off. I'm going to get caught, arrested, and tried, and then spend most if not all of the rest of my life in prison-and that's something I know more about than almost anybody who hasn't been inside because I work for the people who guard them."
"You're thinking she killed herself."
A brisk nod. "I'm thinking she walked out of here on her own two feet, got herself out to the Golden Gate Bridge by the time it was dark, and then walked halfway across. That or something very much like it is really what I think happened here, Wyatt, and my heart goes out to you if it did. Now, am I going to check the security cameras here in this building in the morning? Will I have a talk with Mr. Pine and follow up with Jeannette Palmer and maybe even take an interest in how Mr. Mowery managed to get himself out of a high-security prison environment and what he might have done or be doing right now in his hours of precious freedom? You bet I am. All of the above.
"But until I find even a little tiny bit of actual evidence that connects anyone in the union or anywhere else to these murders, I'm going to stick with what makes the most sense, leaving coincidence and luck out of it. And that is Andrea Parisi. And I hope like hell I'll find some evidence that proves either theory. I don't care which. I just want proof." Finally, Juhle tried a smile. "Meanwhile, though, I think I'll get back home and try to squeeze a little sleep into this night while there's still time. And you might want to try the same thing."