The Hunt Club (37 page)

Juhle's face went slack. He felt a rush of blood draining from his head. Not that the basic fact of Todd's parentage was any longer in doubt—or at least, he didn't think so—but Carol Manion didn't necessarily know about Staci on Tuesday when he and Shiu had questioned her about her original appointment with Parisi.

The only way Carol could have known Staci's true relationship to her son was if, in fact, she had been confronted with it and killed her. But that was putting the cart before the horse. If she hadn't done that, and there was no evidence at all that she had, then all of her actions since—not mentioning Todd to him and Shiu, buzz-cutting Todd's hair because, after all, summer was coming on—had been blameless.

He also suddenly realized that even he and Shiu had been unable to identify Staci as either a Rosalier or a Keilly until late Tuesday night when they'd met up with Mary Mahoney in the morgue. And what, then, did this mean about the four identifications of Todd Manion this morning?

The judge was still looking over his templed fingers. “Are you all right, inspector? You don't look well.”

“No. Fine, Your Honor. I've been taking some pain medication. I just got a little dizzy there for a minute.”

Thomasino clearly wasn't so sure that was it, but he let it go and moved on. “So, bottom line, inspector, is that I'm a little bit leery to sign off on what amounts to an open-ended fishing expedition on one of the city's most prominent families. Especially given the fact that this would be the second nearly identical warrant on two different suspects that I'd have approved in about as many days. You can see where it might raise some eyebrows, huh? Where you and I both might be open to accusations of overreaching? Invading privacy without cause? In your case, even launching a desperate vendetta to deflect attention away from a stalled investigation?”

“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.

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.”

“No. That's not true, Ward. Not from their perspective, and you know it. How can I tell them it does look like Todd and not mention that his birth mother's name was Staci?”

“It wasn't Staci Rosalier.”

Carol waved that off. “So she changed it. Or maybe the slut had gotten herself married. Two or three times even.”

Ward pursed his lips. To Carol, the girl who'd borne their son's, now their own, child, had always been and would always be “the slut.” It bothered him, but he didn't suppose he was going to be able to do anything to change it now.

“And then what if it is her?” she asked. “Staci. Todd's birth mother.”

He turned to her. “Well? We both agree that it might be. So what?”

“
So what
is that it then involves us, Ward. You and me and Todd. You know we weren't involved in killing anybody, but they'll just rake up all that history, look into Todd's adoption, everything. I know you remember how awful Staci's people were. I don't want to give them any excuse to get back into our lives.”

He seemed vaguely amused at the idea, shaking his head at the absurdity of it.

“It's not funny, Ward. I told you George Palmer called me at home that last day….”

“To ask us to a party, right?”

“Yes, but all they'll know—”

“Who are
they
now?”

“The police. All they'll know is that he made the call. What if they see it as a connection between us and that slut?”

“
What if? What if?
But while we're at it, using the slut word will not help you appear disinterested. The woman, after all, is a murder victim. She deserves a little sympathy.”

“All right. But the point remains, I did hear from George, and then I did place a call to the Parisi woman. That's a lot of coincidence, a lot of interaction with people who are involved in this.”

“Now that you mention it.” Ward was still smiling. “If I didn't know better…”

“Don't you dare even tease!”

“Easy, girl,” he said. “There's no call for that.”

She took a beat, gathering herself. “It's far better if we simply stay out of it completely. If we say that the picture doesn't really look like Todd did at that age, that ends it.”

“Carol.” His own calm more than matched hers. “You're not exactly some prowling murderer, after all. I think we're both rather above all that, don't you? You're acting paranoid, and that isn't like you at all.”

She shook her head. “I think you're underestimating how badly they want to bring us all down. We are rich and, therefore, evil. Just look at what we're doing today.”

“And what exactly is that?”

“The auction.”

“Giving six figures to charity? I fail to see the evil there.”

“Paying criminal prices for wine, Ward. Flaunting it for those who don't have it. Paying seven thousand five hundred dollars just to buy tickets to bid. You don't seem to know how our kind of money affects some people, how we feed their envy.”

“No, of course, I understand that. The worst crime a person can commit in some circles is to be successful. But people who think that way are always with us, and they should be none of our concern. They're far beneath us. Even our contempt.”

“Until they smell that we've done something wrong, where they can bring us down. Look at Martha Stewart, in jail over a handful of peanuts. Michael Milken. All the CEOs.”

“But we haven't done anything like any of them, Carol. I say if we acknowledge that the picture might be Todd, and that Staci might well have been his natural mother, we nip any inquiry in the bud. It's likely one of our acquaintances will have called the police, anyway, one of Todd's teachers, somebody. We're just pointing to ourselves as hiding something if we don't come forth.” He put a large, gnarled hand on her thigh. “We don't want to appear to be hiding anything, Carol. We don't want to
be
hiding anything.” He patted her leg. “I say we bring the matter up to one of our security people down in the city, who after all
are
the police, at our first opportunity. Tell them what we know. Answer their questions if they have any and ask them to be discreet as they've always been. Live with what little fallout there may be.”

Carol turned away from him, then faced forward. Her mouth was set, her jaw clenched, the eyes hardened down. She snapped open a pair of sunglasses and put them on, looked at Ward as if she were about to say something, then thought better of it, and lapsed into a brooding silence.

Wine lovers mingled,
schmoozed, grazed, and drank on a flawless gem of an afternoon in the elegant expanse of the Meadowood Resort. The croquet lawn/putting-green area was a sea of humanity. Woodsmoke hung in a fragrant cloud amidst the oaks and the pines. Celebrity chefs plied their wares on enormous open grills while equally famous winemakers freely poured their best libations into the Reidel crystal glasses of their colleagues and the other assembled guests—the sports heroes, movie stars, industry captains, and other notables from all over the world who shared both a love of all things grape and extravagant wealth.

The young couple chatting with the Manions were well dressed, articulate, charming, and obviously very much at home in the rarefied Napa culture. Making their acquaintance at one of the white wine tables under the enormous tent that shaded the first fairway at Meadowood, Ward Manion had taken the gentleman under his wing, and the two were now in deep conversation about the stunning recent popularity of Rhône-style varietals in California—syrah, mourvedre, carignane—and what it all meant to the local industry, which was so heavily invested in cabernet, chardonnay, pinot noir, and merlot. “Frankly, if you would have asked me to name the new hot varietal, say ten years ago,” the young man named Jason was saying, “I wouldn't have even looked to the Rhône. My bet would have been on sangiovese.”

Ward broke a satisfied smile. “Don't sell that idea short,” he said. “I took that bet just about at that time.” Ward was always happy to talk wine, especially in a setting like this one. “Now I've got nearly seven acres of sangiovese to blend with my cabernet.”

“California Super Tuscan,” Jason said. “Good way to go.”

“It's hardly original,” Ward said, “but it beats ripping out my good vines that are finally producing and guessing wrong on granache or some other damn thing.”

The men clearly would be able to go on in this fascinating vein for a while, but even here and now on her second glass of chardonnay, Carol Manion seemed to be fighting herself to remain engaged, half-smiling in a vacant way, her mind clearly elsewhere, in a self-contained universe of her own.

At Carol's elbow, her own champagne in hand but untouched, Jason's young woman moved a step nearer to her and spoke in a confidential whisper. “It's really so wonderful to be here. It's our first time, and I must say we feel a bit like crashers, though. We shouldn't really be here at all technically, but we're kind of close to Thomas, and he got us in.”

In this context, it went without saying, Thomas could only be Thomas Keller of the French Laundry, überchef of the valley if not, according to many, of the civilized world. “But if you happen to be lucky enough to get offered a couple of tickets on a fabulous day like this one, I say you go,
n'est-ce pas
?”