"So it made sense to you? Andrea wanting to see you?"
"Sure. It's the kind of thing we would do. Definitely."
Judge Oscar Thomasino was the warrant magistrate on duty today, and he was a much easier sell than Marcel Lanier had been. It took Juhle about forty-five seconds to explain to His Honor what he and Shiu would be looking for at Parisi's home and why a search was necessary, and the judge signed off before Shiu had finished filling out the affidavit.
Twenty minutes later, they were inside her house, standing over the handgun collection. The cabinet wasn't locked, and Juhle started picking up the pieces one by one, smelling them, then placing them on the table next to them. All the guns were in working condition, firing pins intact; most appeared to have been cleaned relatively recently, although in their enclosed cabinet, they might have simply been protected from dust over a period of months or even years. But they still smelled of oil. There were nine of them in all. Seven Old West-style revolvers. When Juhle looked down the barrels of both derringers, however, he could tell that they hadn't been cleaned since they'd last been fired. And they were.22 caliber. He had Shiu bag the tiny guns to bring to the police lab for ballistics comparisons on the slugs retrieved from Palmer's study.
Pretty sure that he'd found his evidence, Juhle let some cockiness show. "Are we glad we came here, Shiu, or what? I'm tempted to run those puppies down to the lab right now and be back in Marcel's office by noon with the results."
"They might not be a match."
"Well, we'll find out. But I've got to tell you, I feel lucky."
Juhle closed the cabinet back up, made his way slowly back through the kitchen, then across the living room and into the hallway that led to the bedrooms and a bathroom, which Juhle entered, turning on the light.
"What are we looking for in here?"
Over by the hamper, Juhle said, "You know those videotapes you didn't want to watch the other day? Monday's Trial TV?" He rummaged around for a second and then pulled out an instantly recognizable purple blouse. "Look familiar? I don't think she changed after they shot the show. First, she went back to work, right. Then I think she drove right out to the judge's and shot him still wearing this blouse. So let's bag this sucker for GSR and blood. And I'm betting we find the suit she wore still in her closet. And if we're lucky, the shoes."
Jim Pine worked in West Sacramento.
He liked being nearby the capital so that he could schmooze the lobbyists and legislators and direct the workings of the political action committees that did his bidding. Controlling a yearly income of over twenty million dollars in annual dues, he was the largest contributor to California 's political scene-bigger even than numbers two and three, the California Teachers Association and Philip Morris, respectively. Every election cycle, the CCPOA was the major backer of between twenty and forty state lawmakers, and dozens of local office candidates, not to mention the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and state attorney general, regardless of party. Pine had also teamed the political clout of the prison guards' union with three of California 's powerful Indian gaming tribes and formed the Native Americans & Peace Officers Independent Expenditure Committee, another superpowerful PAC, whose offices, too, were in West Sacramento.
Over the years, under Pine's direction and leadership, the CCPOA and its supporters had lobbied for tougher and tougher laws, with more and bigger prisons to house the criminals that broke these laws. In the process, the California Department of Corrections, the CDC, grew from thirteen to thirty-one prisons, with a total population of one hundred sixty thousand inmates, and to have a yearly operating budget of nearly five billion dollars. And while the twenty-five thousand prison guards now earned a yearly salary of fifty-four thousand dollars, it was far from uncommon for an individual guard to actually make more than one hundred thousand dollars or more with overtime and sick-leave benefits.
Now Pine was not in West Sacramento, though, but in the office of the managing partner of his attorneys, at Piersall in San Francisco. After the slaying of Judge Palmer on Monday, he had deemed it necessary to be close to the investigation, should anyone in authority need to contact or question him. He knew that sometimes there had been apparent animosities between the judge and the union, and Pine was here to keep the story straight. He'd given over a dozen interviews in the past couple of days to various handpicked members of the media, always with the same message: George Palmer and Jim Pine had been adversaries from time to time in their professional lives, but personally they got along. They attended the same fund-raisers and functions and supported many of the same political candidates. And now, today, Pine would be at Palmer's funeral, in conspicuous mourning.
Mostly to be sure the bastard was really dead.
Gary Piersall wore black, too. He hadn't finally gotten more than four hours of turbulent sleep last night and now sat on the leather couch across from his client, on his third demitasse of espresso.
They would be leaving together for Saint Mary's Cathedral in a few minutes. Pine was sixty-three years old and looked ten years younger, as always, in his business suit. Carrying about 220 pounds on his six-foot frame, he was a robust forty pounds overweight, with a marine cut and the rosy cheeks of either a choirboy or a heavy drinker.
But for all of his cheerful, upbeat public persona, Pine was not happy. He'd been nearly assaulted by reporters downstairs when he'd gotten to the building-everyone gathered in the street and even in the lobby for this new angle on Andrea Parisi. And the rumors had begun again-that her disappearance had to do with the Palmer homicide and somehow, mysteriously, with the union.
Where did they come from? Pine wanted to know. How could he stop them? "I mean, what do they think, Gary? I'm putting hits out on people? First George and then Andrea? Christ! I liked that old son of a bitch. And I loved Andrea, I really did." He leveled his gaze across the room. "You look like shit, Gary. Are you feeling all right?"
"I'm fine, Jim. Just a little done in with all of this."
"Well, don't let them see it down there, let me tell you. You want to go throw some water in your face, you go ahead. You show any weakness, they'll eat you."
"Don't worry about me."
"But I do." He kept his flat gaze on his attorney. "And I'm worried about Andrea. Do you have any idea what could have happened to her?"
"None."
"You sure? You have any thoughts? Opinions?"
Piersall forced himself into a rigid calm. What was Pine doing here? Feeling out what he knew? Testing his loyalty? "I think she may have killed herself, Jim. She wanted to ride this Trial TV thing to New York, and when that fell apart-"
"So you also don't think there's a thread running through us?"
"Us?"
"Me, you, the union."
"No," Piersall said. "How could there be? What kind of thread?"
Pine sat back, the picture of relaxation, although his eyes were pricks of almost feline intensity. "I have people on the street who hear things, Gary."
And at that moment, Piersall resolved to have the outer lobby swept for recording devices, as he regularly did with his own office. If Pine had heard what he'd confided to Hunt last night…
"Then this morning they had it on the Net, the Trial TV site. Where do they get this shit? But anyway, the point is by tonight it's everywhere. You know what I'm talking about?"
Piersall cleared his throat, tried to get down a swallow of his coffee. "I've tried to steer clear of all that, Jim. It's just these irresponsible journalists one-upping each other. It breaks on the Net, you know its unattributable bullshit."