"Yes, Your Honor, although this is not…"
"Goes without saying, inspector, of course. No explanation necessary." Moving on again, adjusting his glasses, the judge lowered his gaze to the pages Juhle had placed in front of him and scanned over them. "Now what I might suggest, if I may, is you've got no privacy or probable cause issues with the crime scene. You note here that you've got unidentified fingerprints, hair, and fabric fibers that have already been collected. If you can connect some of this to Mrs. Manion, then okay, at least you've got some plausible reason to search her home to ask her to explain how they got there. If evidence rises to the level of probable cause, I'll entertain another request for a search warrant for her home at that time. Meanwhile"-he looked up, offered his avuncular smile-"you might want to go home and sleep off some of that medication. It's Saturday, inspector. People aren't going to begrudge you a day off."
But Juhle, shaken, wasn't about to take the day off. There were other avenues under the great canopy of due process that he could take with impunity, and now he was going to be forced to explore them. Judge Thomasino may have been right that his request for a search warrant on Carol Manion's house was premature. But as a homicide inspector, Juhle was entitled to interrogate people when and as he saw fit, provided he could get them to talk to him.
Mrs. Manion may not have known on last Tuesday that Staci Rosalier was Staci Keilly, but the fact remained that it would be instructive, perhaps even conclusive, to see how she reacted when he confronted her with this fundamental truth. Juhle had a gut for witnesses-if they were lying, there were a million tells, and he could spot most of them. Then at least for himself, he would know. He would take the investigation from there and slowly, carefully build a case, over months if necessary, which the DA could prosecute and win against any army of high-priced lawyers.
If Carol Manion, in her wealth and hubris, had dared to kill a federal judge on his watch, Juhle would bring her down. And to do that-and right now while the questions he would ask her were all so clear!-what he had to do first was have a conversation with her.
32
In the wide and sun-splashed upstairs corridor of their château in Napa Valley, Carol Manion knocked on the door to her son's bedroom. "Todd."
No answer.
She knocked again. "Todd, please. Your mother wants to talk to you."
"I don't want to talk to her. I'm mad at her."
"Please don't be. I can't stand it when you're mad at me. Your hair will grow back, I promise."
"And meanwhile I look like a geek."
"You don't. You look like what you are, a handsome young man. Would you please open the door?"
"I don't want to."
"But I really need to talk to you."
"What about?"
"Todd. Not through the door, okay? Please. I'm saying please."
"I asked you please not to before you made him cut off my hair. Please, please, please." Punctuating the words by kicking at the door. "It wasn't fair."
"I know it wasn't. I'm sorry. Your father and I just thought it would be a good idea."
"Why?" In three syllables. "It wasn't hurting anything." But the knob turned, and the door came unlatched, although Todd didn't pull it open.
Carol gave it a gentle push.
Todd had crossed to the window seat that overlooked the vineyards, where he'd piled some blankets from his bed and now burrowed into them. Carol walked over and sat so that she felt the contours of his little body up against her. "Thanks for letting me in," she said. "You're a very good boy."
"Doesn't do me any good, though."
Carol Manion sighed. "Aren't you getting a little hot under there?"
The blankets moved as he shook his head no. "What did you need to talk to me about?"
Now was the time. She sighed again. "There's a picture in the paper this morning of a boy who looks like you. In fact, it might even be a picture of you that someone took from a long distance away a couple of years ago."
The head, teary-eyed but now curious, too, peeked out. "Why would somebody do that?"
"I don't know for sure, but in the paper it said that they found the picture in the room of somebody who was killed last week."
"Killed? You mean like really killed in real life? Not like on TV?"
"No. Really killed."
"Cool," Todd said.
"Well, it isn't really, Todd. It's really kind of scary. But, anyway, they thought if somebody could recognize the picture of the boy who looks like you that they might be able to find the relatives of the young woman who got killed. If you were related to her. Do you understand?"
"But I'm not."
"No, you're not. But your father and I don't know who took the picture or why. Or if it even has to do with you. We just want you to be safe."
"And that's why you cut my hair? Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"Because we didn't want to scare you."
"I wouldn't have been scared."
"No. Probably not, I know. But it scares your mother and father to think that somebody who got killed took a picture of you and kept it, and now the killer might know what you looked like. So we thought it would be smart to change that a little, for a while at least. You see? I really want you to understand."
"I think I do."
"Good. Because some people might come by and ask questions. Maybe even policemen. And I don't want you to worry."
"Why would I worry?"
"You shouldn't. That's what I'm saying, that there's nothing to worry about. We're just going to tell everybody it's not you. It might look a little like you, but we don't think it's you."
"In the picture, you mean?"
"Yes. And that way we just stay out of everything altogether. We don't get involved because we don't need to be. This doesn't have to do with us. I want you to understand that."
"But what if it is me? Can I see it? I bet I could tell."
"I bet you could, too. But the picture's not the most important thing, Todd. The most important thing is that we protect you. That you always know that you're safe, no matter what."
"I do know that, Mom."
"Because you are my only son, and I'm never going to let anything happen to you. Ever. Okay? Now how about if you come out from under those blankets and give your old mother a big hug?"
Ward Manion had the face of a Marlboro man gone corporate, and it wore a stern expression as he looked across the front seat at his wife. "I don't think I agree that that's a good idea at all. I wish you wouldn't have talked to the boy without discussing it with me first." Though Jay Leno wouldn't take the stage and the auction itself wouldn't formally begin until six o'clock, the Manions had been invited to an exclusive preview of some of the wine lots that would be up for bid, and they were driving the BMW with the top down on the Silverado Trail.
He glanced over at his wife, whom he thought was still a very handsome woman, albeit unconventionally so, with her strong jaw, deeply set and widely spaced gray eyes. She'd had her face lifted twice for lines and crow's feet, but the cheekbones needed no help and never would. "I agreed with the haircut," Ward said, "because what could it hurt? But I don't understand why you don't want to contact the police yourself. Say that it looks like Todd all right, but you don't know anything more about it, which is true."