And yet she denied it. With a gathering calm and growing disdain.
As they continued to spar, Juhle could feel the air between them grow thick and putrid. Though his understanding of exactly what had happened and why seemed to shock her, she grew more imperturbable as the interrogation went on.
Finally, Juhle got to the phone call. "Mrs. Manion. You talked to one of our witnesses not two hours ago, and you didn't deny that you called Ms. Parisi on Wednesday afternoon from the Saint Francis Hotel to change your appointment to her office downtown."
The accusation-and with it the knowledge that Juhle had obviously spoken to the young woman who'd chatted her up in the tent at Meadowood-drew new blood. The facade gave, cracked, came back together. "That's just not true, inspector. I wasn't there."
"You told our witness you were."
"I did not. She's either mistaken, or she's a liar."
Juhle didn't miss a beat. "How do you know it's a she?"
"I don't really know, inspector. It had to be a he or a she, didn't it? I picked one at random. Do you have other witnesses who say they actually saw me at the Saint Francis?"
"We'll find them."
"I doubt you will, inspector. I very much doubt you will. Because I wasn't there. I was at home waiting for Ms. Parisi."
At last, Ward could endure it no longer. "Aren't we just about to the end here, Sergeant? If you haven't gotten what you came here for by now, don't you agree it's probably not going to be forthcoming? Obviously, my wife has some inadvertent connection to all these tragic events, but to assume as you appear to that she played even the most minor role in any of them is patently absurd."
Part of Hunt's plan had been for Juhle to deliver the message to Carol that she hadn't fooled anyone. The truth was out there. People knew what she had done. He had done that. But he couldn't pass up at least taking a shot at getting her to confess.
He went into a crouch to put himself at her eye level, his elbows resting on his thighs and his fingers linked in front of him. He spoke from his heart. "Mrs. Manion," he said. "You're an intelligent woman. I think you must intuitively understand that it's only a matter of time before this will destroy you. You're not a bad person. You snapped under an unexpected threat to your son's future and your life together and then tried to cover up what you'd done. But you're not the kind of person who will be able to live with yourself, knowing what it is you've done, that you've killed innocent people. You don't want your son to have to live with all the ways this will change you. And you know it will. It already has."
From her expression, he thought for just a moment that he had her.
"It can be over right now," he said. "You can end it all right here."
She seemed to be considering what he'd said. Drawing a breath in sharply, she pursed her lips and blinked rapidly several times. At last, she cocked her head to one side and brought her open hand down over her mouth. Her back went straight in the chair. "Todd is my son, and he is innocent. He loves me."
And Juhle knew that he had lost.
"I am his mother," she went on. "I would never let any harm come to him. I will protect him. I am his mother," she repeated.
Juhle, sickened and depleted, pulled himself up to his feet. "As a matter of fact," he said, "you're not even that."
35
Hunt's base camp was up a side road that began a few hundred feet north of the Manions' driveway and wound up the western slope facing the château. It was a place Mickey knew of-he'd come up here a few times with female companions to make out-where a turnout that coincided with a break in the topography gave them an unimpeded look and more importantly walkie-talkie access across to the valley, the promontory, and to the California oaks, which grew amid the boulders at the very crest of the ridge beyond the Manions' roof.
On a line, they were less than a half mile from the main house.
Hunt's Cooper and Mickey's Camaro, both excessively visible on the Silverado Trail, were parked on the shoulder of the road. Jason, back from the Meadowood, had parked his purple PT Cruiser well up the street, so that the random Napa County cop, should one appear, wouldn't become suspicious.
Amy and Jason, Hunt and Mickey stood in a tight group in a patch of shade. Juhle had been in the house across the way for about a half hour, and the small talk in the clearing had gotten smaller and smaller until finally it had disappeared altogether. Suddenly, Mickey, who hadn't taken his eyes off the château the whole time, said, "Happening."
Hunt lifted his binoculars and was watching as Juhle appeared at the front door on his way out. His body language alone told the story, affirmed when nobody accompanied him out.
Juhle got to his car door and opened it, Hunt lowered the binoculars, got his telephone off his belt, and handed it to Wu.
"You ready?"
She'd been game all along. Though her task was simple and straightforward enough, she and Wyatt had discussed it in some detail, and now she took the phone without any hesitation. Still, she did have a question. "You're sure you don't want to wait until Devin gets up here?"
"I'm sure," Hunt said. "Whatever else happened with Dev and her, you can bet he delivered the message, so we hit her now when it's still in her craw, before she can digest it. And I'm damn sure Dev doesn't want to see this next part. He won't even want to hear about it."
Mickey said, "The dude's in this far, Wyatt, he's following your lead, he ought to get over it."
Hunt shrugged. "Yeah, well, it's his job. Everything he's done up to now, it's in his little manual of what he's allowed to do. As we all know, he's got these due-process issues, which fortunately I don't have to worry about."
"Yeah, but for the record, Amy and I are officers of the court, too. In fact, last time I looked I was a DA." Jason, all nerves now, wasn't complaining, just stating a fact. "So Wyatt's idea that we don't talk about it, that might be a good thing to remember when this is over."
Amy put a calming hand on his arm. "Understood. I think everybody gets that, Jason. Let's get this done. Wyatt, what's the number?"
Hunt gave it to her, and she punched it in, the three men standing around her in various attitudes of tension. Hunt, arms crossed, the muscles in his jaw working. Mickey shifting from foot to foot. Jason, hands in his pockets, high color in his face, although his dark eyes were hooded, almost brooding; he chewed at the inside of his lower lip. Nobody said a word.
Amy affected being cool, but her eyes darted from the trees to the sky to the men around her while she waited for the first ring and gave away the state of her nerves. A breeze freshened and blew some of her hair across her face, and almost angrily, she brushed it away. Suddenly, with an audible sigh of relief, she nodded. "Ringing," she whispered.
Then she nodded. Someone had picked up.
"May I please speak to Carol Manion?" Wu's eyes were closed in concentration. "Yes, I understand that," she said, "but this is an emergency. I need to speak with her personally." Another pause. "That won't be possible. Would you please ask? It's actually really urgent. Yes." And finally, the coup. "Tell her it's Staci Rosalier."
Wu's knuckles were white on the cell phone. She opened her eyes, caught Hunt's steely gaze, and nodded again imperceptibly. Carol was coming to the phone.
When it came, the voice was far from the refined contralto Wu had noted at the auction preview. Everything that had happened to Carol Manion today, first with Amy and then evidently with Juhle, had as Hunt predicted finally managed to erode the surface veneer of control and sophistication. The voice rode a wave of dread now that broke and churned in her throat. "Who is this?"