"Did you ask her out?"
"No. She's got a boyfriend."
"And also twins, from what I hear."
"What? My waitress?"
"No. The real Julia, you fool. You want to tell me about the Manions?"
"Well, first off, the kid did not want the haircut, and I can't say I blame him. But the mom had made up her mind. By the way, is she really the mom? I have to say, grandmother is more what she looks like."
"Well, she might be the grandmother, but she's also the mom."
"If you say so."
"I do. It's complicated. So, the haircut Todd didn't want? What about it?"
"They buzzed him clean. He was pissed. I would have been pissed, too. But she was, like, extremely uptight about it. It was going to happen."
"She needed to change his appearance. Today."
"Why?"
"So he wouldn't look like that picture you saw yesterday with me and Juhle. The kid."
"That was him?"
"That was him. So where are they now?"
"I don't know. I assume back home or off to the auction."
Hunt's voice reflected his disappointment. "You're not still with them?"
"That would have been a little obvious, don't you think? No. Since I was there, I stayed and got my own haircut. Just a trim, thanks."
"Mick."
"You want me to catch up with them again." Not a question.
"If you could."
"Are you coming up?"
"What do you think?"
31
From Hunt's descriptions, Juhle thought he'd have better luck with Caitlin Rosalier than with any of the other principals. Besides that, she lived in Boston, where it wasn't so early in the morning. The gods smiled, and she was home and seemed eager to talk with him.
The phone call she'd had last night had really bothered her and kept her awake most of the time since then. Yes, she would be fine with Juhle faxing her an autopsy photograph. "It's not too gross, is it?" She'd been really close to Staci once and now seemed to need some sense of closure if, in fact, her friend had been the victim. There was a copy shop on the corner, and she could go there and call Juhle back with the fax number, and he'd told her he would wait for her call.
Before it came, though, Juhle's partner got back to him with the news that he wasn't coming in on this weekend morning. Maybe Juhle didn't realize it, but some cops couldn't live on their meager city incomes and had to supplement their earnings with part-time work such as Shiu's shifts at the Manions. Juhle would stay in touch and keep him informed, though. Right? Thank you very much. He could probably arrange to be in by early afternoon if it was a real emergency, but he didn't even want to commit to that until Juhle had something truly substantive and, in Shiu's words, "Remember, based on evidence, Dev."
Juhle hung up, said, "Asshole," and stared out through the fog at the freeway from his desk in the otherwise empty homicide detail.
For most of the next twenty minutes, he studied the forensics folder, laboring over the affidavit he would attach to the warrant he hoped to get on the Manions' two homes and their cars. At these locales, he would specifically be looking for the murder weapon or clothes that might be contaminated with blood or gunshot residue. From the cars, he hoped to get a hair or even a blood sample that would match Andrea Parisi's.
The evidence would not be as compelling since fingerprints lasted a long time, and perhaps Mrs. Manion had been to Palmer's home socially, but if he could get them, he'd like to find fingerprints indicating that Mrs. Manion had been in Judge Palmer's office. The rug in the judge's office, too, had yielded several different hair samples, and though any DNA or other sophisticated tests on these would be slow coming in, if they came up positive, they would help.
The telephone rang and he snatched at it. Caitlin, at last, with the fax number at her copy shop. He wrote it down, thanked her, told her to stay on the line if she could. He grabbed the best autopsy face photo of Staci Rosalier from the file and fed it into the detail's fax machine. By the time he was back at his desk, she was crying and he had his identification.
Still working on the affidavit for his warrant, Juhle looked up and broke a smile. "Look what the cat dragged in. Don't blame me for anything about last night. I told you to go home."
Hunt wasn't in much of a smiling mood himself. "Did you put them on me?"
"Give me a break, Wyatt. You did that to yourself. I even warned you. You find out anything for all your troubles?"
"Yeah. You're working with sociopaths."
"Hey, that's on the application. Get over it."
Hunt really hadn't come in to berate Juhle, and now he let it go, pointing at the folder. "They're up in Napa," he said.
"I know."
"How do you know that?"
"It was in the paper. Plus, you'll be pleased to hear that we've got four reasonably rock-solid IDs on Staci's picture. He's Todd Manion."
"He also got his hair cut this morning. Buzzed."
"Interesting. A little too late, as it turns out, but interesting." Juhle's head jerked up. "But wait a minute. How did you find that out?"
"Mickey's up there."
Juhle sat back, massaged his shoulder, apparently in real pain. When he spoke, he had his official voice on. "You've got to get out of this, Wyatt. I mean it. All the way out. And keep your guys out, too."
"Hold it. Let me frame an appropriate response." It took him about a second. "No, I don't think so."
"You obstruct this investigation at this point-"
"Hey!" Hunt pointed down at Juhle's face. "I'm the only reason you've got an investigation at this point."
Juhle remained calm. "Wyatt. It's moved beyond you. Caitlin Rosalier ID'd Staci about a half hour ago."
"I knew that twelve hours ago."
Juhle shook his head. "You didn't know it. You thought it. I proved it."
"And lost half a day while you were at it. And stopped me in my tracks in the process."
"That's because it is a process, my friend. Due process. Ring a bell? Sometimes it takes time to get it right."
"Sometimes you don't have the luxury of time. How about that?"
"This isn't one of those times."
"Except if it is, Dev. Except if it is."
Hunt's words brought Juhle up short. The fire went out of his voice. "You still think you're going to find Parisi alive, don't you?"
"Let's put it this way. I'm looking for Andrea. You're looking for a murderer. We can pretend there's no inherent conflict."
"Inherently, maybe not. But we'll be dancing close enough to one another we've got a pretty good chance we're going to trip each other up. And I need you to stay out of my way, Wyatt. I'm looking for a righteous arrest here before too long, and that whole process-process again-really is an orchestrated ballet. You've got to get it right or nobody applauds."
"I like to think I'm sensitive to that, Dev. But your arrest really is not my issue."
"You'll pardon me, though, if it's mine, huh?" But Juhle wasn't unaware of all of Hunt's contributions to his investigation so far. He'd basically built the case that Juhle was now trying to verify. And without any useful contributions from his true partner in homicide, Juhle was inclined to take whatever help he could get, so long as it didn't compromise his own endgame. He sat back in his chair, looked up at his friend. "So what are you here for?"
"I wanted to tell you about Napa and the haircut, make sure you were up to speed. I figure you're moving on your due process down here, am I right? Pulling warrants, whatever else you do. Get a team inside Manion's house and look around."
"A little of that, hopefully, yeah. So meanwhile, what are you doing?"
"Meanwhile, I think I'm in Napa."