"Yeah, but then the legit stations pick it up. What I'm saying is we've got to treat this story as beneath contempt."
"And the story is…?"
"That Andrea knew something, and we had to shut her up. That's hysteria talking, and we don't want to feed it. We shouldn't discuss it on any level."
"I have no intention to, Jim. It is beneath contempt."
"She ever talk to you about anything like that?"
"No. Not even remotely. She was a company girl all the way, Jim."
"And you're a company man?"
Piersall put down his coffee cup, mustered his calmest tone. "I have been a company man for fifteen years, Jim. It's a little painful to me to think you'd have to ask."
Pine studied him for a long moment. "Okay. Just so we're on the same page."
Carla had called Gary Piersall as soon as Hunt had shown up unannounced at her desk. She liked Wyatt, and the boss had told her to cooperate with him in every way she could. Beyond that, she knew that he was on Andrea's side, and that was also the firm's side. They were considering her a victim of abduction, and Piersall had given Hunt the okay to look wherever he needed. Wherever.
And, just back from his talk with Betsy Sobo, he'd hesitated, trying to decide on his next move, before he told her he'd like to look through Parisi's office. There might be something in her files, her notes, on her tapes or answering machine, almost anywhere, that might provide a clue to what had happened to her.
But to allow Hunt access to the intimacies of Andrea's office-Carla felt this was beyond the pale. She called Mr. Piersall again to get his specific permission but was told that he was in his office now with Mr. Pine and absolutely could not be disturbed. So she'd stalled, first having trouble locating the key, then taking a trip to the bathroom, until finally Piersall was still unavailable, bunkered down with Pine, and there was no alternative.
"Dev. Wyatt."
"Talk to me. Where are you?"
"Piersall's again. In Parisi's office."
"Are you shitting me? I'm on my way over there right now, stuck in traffic with Shiu. Why is it, you think, I'm the cop in the case and you're already inside?"
"Maybe the personal-charm thing?"
"Can't be that. Don't touch anything."
"Too late. And you've got to see this."
"I thought you didn't consider Parisi a suspect?"
"I don't. She's not."
"That's funny, because we just pretty much sewed that up with what we found in her house just now."
"Good for you, but I wouldn't go public with it until you see what I'm looking at."
"In a contaminated scene."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you're in it. So whatever you've got, it's no good as evidence. Who's to say you didn't put it there?"
"Me. And even if I did, you're still going to want to see it."
Hunt had been in the room-really not much larger than a cubicle-for nearly fifteen minutes, the door closed behind him, and here in front of Carla's desk now was a man identifying himself as Devin Juhle, homicide inspector, accompanied by the firm's security officer and asking for Wyatt Hunt.
Carla Shapiro thought her heart might stop. This was not supposed to happen. She'd made the final decision on her own to allow Wyatt into Andrea's personal space, and now the police had come to find her out. She struggled a second for a breath, then managed to string together the words. "Our investigator's in Ms. Parisi's office."
The inspector's face didn't do much to ease her sense of dread. "I know that," he said. "Where's the office?"
Carla was already standing, though she didn't remember getting up. She walked over the few steps, grabbed the knob, and pushed the door open. The inspector was right behind her.
Behind Andrea's desk, in her chair, Hunt closed the lower left-hand drawer next to him and looked up. "Where's Shiu?"
"On his way to the lab. We're going to settle this thing once and for all. What do I need to see?"
Hunt had the manila folder ready and handed it over. The inspector put it down on the desk and opened it. Inside was a half-inch stack of newspaper clippings of various sizes as well as several printouts of what looked like Web pages. Carla risked another step into the room so she could see the headlines. The one on top read: "DA Killed in Hunting Accident."
As the inspector turned to the following pages, Hunt was saying, "You'll notice the folder has no title on the tab. It was under her regular hanging folders in the back of the desk file here. The first one's Porter Anderton, who was the DA prosecuting some prison guards at Avenal. Then there's all seven of the stories about vandalism to candidates' headquarters up and down the state. Sixteen stories all told. Four deaths of people-Anderton's hunting accident, a couple of hit and runs, one suicide. Every one of the victims had dealings with one prison or another. One prosecutor, two whistle-blowers, one physician." Hunt reached across and tapped the printouts. "If you're still not believing in coincidence, then she was on to something."
"She was building a case."
Hunt nodded. His eyes were so cold that a chill seemed to come off him. "Maybe more than a case, Dev. Maybe a story. And she'd already built it. And she told it to the wrong person."
24
Mickey Dade finally checked in and got through to Hunt while he was still at Piersall, and was double-parked outside ready to play chauffeur when he and Juhle came out of the building. Hunt gave him Staci Rosalier's address and told him to hit it. Most of the way over to her condo, Juhle was on his cell phone with Shiu, who was still at the lab. They were backed up and the various tests might keep him there for most of the afternoon. No, they hadn't even done the ballistics. That would be the first test, they promised. Yes, Shiu would call immediately the second he had the results.
Juhle's response was clipped. "Shiu, listen to me. We need those results now! Exert some goddamn authority, would you? We're homicide, for Christ's sake. Top of the food chain. Kick some ass. Threaten to get ' em fired. Whatever it takes." He snapped the phone shut. "Idiot."
Mickey Dade and Juhle had never met each other before, and now the young cab driver threw a worried glance first at his boss and then into the backseat, where Juhle sat smoldering. Next to Mickey in the passenger seat, Hunt turned halfway around and said, "You're scaring my driver."
"That's another thing," Juhle said. "How is it you have an on-call, off-the-meter cab to drive us around wherever you want to go, while I'm a goddamn inspector of homicide and I'm reduced to hitching rides?"
"It's got to have something to do with karma," Hunt said.
Now they had gotten the key again from the marginally cooperative Mr. Franks and were on their way up in the elevator. This stop was necessary, Juhle was explaining, because Lanier's criticism that they hadn't even identified next of kin on one of the victims wasn't completely off the mark. They should have moved on that already if only for credibility's sake. So he needed to come here and grab the larger, framed, but still very fuzzy photo of the young boy and then get one of the papers to run it with a DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS PERSON? tag. They'd blown up the other photograph that had been in Staci's wallet and brought it back to the station, and it had been useless. The kid must be some relation to Staci, didn't Hunt think?
Hunt knew. "He's her brother."
"How do you know that?"
"Mary Mahoney. The waitress at MoMo's…?"
"I know who she is, Wyatt. I'm the one who gave her to you."
Hunt wasn't going to fight. He didn't blame Juhle for his frustration. In the last hour, Juhle had gone from what he considered a probable closing out of this case to an entirely new and increasingly plausible theory of it. Particularly if the ballistics on the derringers didn't match and he found himself back at square one. And it didn't help that the new theory was one that Hunt had pressed him to consider from early on, and Juhle had flat out rejected.