"Carol Manion? Of course," Jeannette said. "We've known Ward and Carol for at least fifteen years. They were at the funeral this morning."
"Yes, I know." Hunt had pulled over and sat on an ottoman in front of the coffee table. "I was there, too, Mrs. Palmer. But I didn't notice that they had their son with them."
"Todd, you mean. No, that's right. I imagine he was in school. Funerals are no place for children, anyway."
"He's about eight now, isn't he?"
She paused, considered a moment. "Yes, I think so."
"So he's adopted?"
The question didn't slow her down at all. "Yes. He couldn't very well not be, could he? I think Carol's a year or two older than I am, and I'm sixty-two."
"Mrs. Palmer," Hunt said, "when the Manions adopted Todd, when they first brought him home, do you remember anybody remarking on the fact, the strangeness of it. I mean, Carol was fifty-six or fifty-seven, she already had a sixteen-year-old son. Cameron, right?"
"Yes. Cameron."
"So what on earth did she want with a new baby? She did bring Todd home as a newborn, right?"
"Oh, yes, very much so."
Hunt came forward expectantly. "Mrs. Palmer, did you think then or do you know now if Todd was actually Cameron's baby?"
Jeannette Palmer pursed her lips, then finally relaxed her mouth and nodded. "Cameron went away the summer before to a ski-racing camp. They brought Todd home in late April the next year. Not to be uncharitable, but it was a little bit hard not to draw that conclusion. Although, of course, no one ever said anything to them directly, not to Ward and Carol. And they never treated Todd differently or referred to him as anything but their own son."
28
Hunt wasn't far from the Little League field at the Presidio, so he swung by there to find that the evening's early games had all concluded almost an hour ago. Juhle and his family were nowhere to be found, probably out having a postgame meal at one of the city's five thousand eateries. But he tried calling Juhle's house first-you never knew, they might have just had their game and gone home for the first time in history.
But no, the streak was still secure.
He then tried Juhle's cell again, got the voice mail again. He left a much more specific message than the earlier one: "Todd Manion isn't Staci's brother. He's her son. You've got to talk to the Manions immediately, Dev. And bring your handcuffs. Call me."
But all pumped up, Hunt wasn't inclined to drive out to Juhle's house and wait until his friend got home with his family from wherever they'd gone out to eat. He had at least enough now to give Juhle leverage to start a meaningful discussion with Carol Manion.
But his problems with proof continued to plague him.
He knew that even if Todd was adopted, and even if Staci was his birth mother and Cameron the father, so what? If there was no record of any phone conversation or other contact between any of the principals-Carol Manion, Palmer, Andrea, and Staci-then the Manions could deny that they'd had anything to do with Staci since her arrival in San Francisco and stonewall Juhle forever. And with the banks of top lawyers they could afford to hire, they would.
At the very least, to make any headway Juhle would need proof that Staci was indeed Todd's mother. Cameron had died last summer at the age of twenty-four. Staci had been twenty-two. They would have been sixteen and fourteen, respectively. And they would have met while he was at ski camp. And the closest Hunt could come to that with Staci was in Pasadena, four years ago.
But at least it was someplace.
Hunt had learned in the people-finding business that quite often you started with the easiest, most obvious solution. Still parked in the lot by the Little League field, he punched up information for the Rose Bowl city and not really even bothering to hope, asked for Rosalier, first name unknown. Not exactly Smith, he was thinking. But then the operator said, "I have one listing," and he pushed his star key to get the number, which he scribbled on his pad while listening to the telephone ringing four hundred-odd miles to the south.
"Hello." A cultured woman's voice.
"Hello. Am I speaking to a Ms. or Mrs. Rosalier?"
"Yes, this is Mrs. Rosalier, but if this is a sales call, the dinner hour on Friday night really isn't-"
"Not a sales call! Promise. My name is Wyatt Hunt and I'm a private investigator working out of San Francisco. I'm trying to locate the relatives of a Staci Rosalier. It's really very urgent."
"Staci Rosalier?" The woman paused, her voice harsh when she spoke again. "Is this some sort of prank call? Some twisted joke? I'm going to hang up now."
"No! Please."
But it was too late. She was gone. Immediately, Hunt hit his redial button, heard a busy signal, hung up, and tried one more time with the same result. When after a couple of minutes he calmed down, he started his car and checked the time on the dashboard, still a few minutes short of eight o'clock. The sky was turning dark overhead. Maybe he should go out to the Royal Thai and check to see if Staci had left any references, pass Juhle's house on the way, see if he was home. Or would it be worthwhile, perhaps, after all, to drop in on the Manions?
As he was leaving the Presidio, he hit his redial button again. This time, much to his satisfaction, the phone rang. Pulling quickly to the side of the road, he shut off his engine, and waited.
When a man's voice said hello, Hunt answered with, "This isn't a prank call. Please don't hang up." He identified himself again and gave his phone number, telling the man he could call him back if he'd prefer. Repeating that it was an urgent matter.
The guy heard him out, then said, "We know who Staci Rosalier is. She's the girl who got killed with the judge up in San Francisco."
"That's right," Hunt said. "I told the woman who answered before that we were trying to locate her relatives. I didn't mean to upset her."
"You have the same name as somebody who gets killed, people tend to tell you about it. It's made my wife a little uptight. She thought you were some weirdo. We don't know any Staci Rosalier personally."
In theory, that should have ended the call, but something about his answer struck Hunt. "I don't mean to be difficult, sir, but are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. What kind of question is that?"
"She would be twenty-two years old."
This time, the hesitation was lengthier. "That's what we read."
Now it was Hunt's turn to pause-if only for an instant. He didn't want to lose him. "You said you didn't know a Staci Rosalier personally. But it seemed that the name meant something to you."
He spoke away from the phone. Hunt heard, "No, it's okay, I got it. He seems all right." Then back to him. "It's just that, well, of course our last name is Rosalier. And we've got a daughter, Caitlin, who has just turned twenty-three."
Hunt had no idea where Mr. Rosalier was going with this, but he intended to let him keep talking. "And?"
"And her best friend in high school was named Staci. Staci Keilly. She basically lived here with us for Caitlin's senior year. We used to joke that she really should be in the family." The voice husked up a bit. "That's why when we heard about Staci Rosalier being the name of the woman shot with the judge-"
"Did you call the police?"
"No. We talked about it of course, but Staci Keilly really isn't Staci Rosalier. In the end, we decided it must just be a coincidence."
Except, Hunt thought, that Juhle was right. There were no coincidences in murder cases. And of course the Rosaliers didn't want to become involved in any trouble involving a murdered federal judge. "If you'll bear with me a minute, sir, do you have any idea where Staci Keilly is now? Have you heard from her recently?"