“The plan is that I go to the memorial service this morning and concentrate on the Como people and see if there’s any I can eliminate. If, say, Mrs. Como had a bridge group over or went to Napa or something on Monday night, then she’s clear. Same with Al Carter. Or even your friend Alicia.”
Mickey shot a quick-angry? defensive?-glance at his sister, then said to Hunt, “What about Alicia? You’re not telling me she’s really still a suspect in this.”
“Well, she’s a person without an alibi for the time Como was killed. If she’s got one for Neshek… what’s that look?”
Tamara answered. “We had her and her brother over for dinner last night.”
“Her and her brother?” His jaw suddenly clamped down, Hunt looked from Tamara to Mickey, and back again. “Why did you do that?”
“Because they’re good people,” Mickey said. “I wanted to have them over. We’re starting to be friends.”
“I’m happy for you,” Wyatt said evenly. “But they’re also-or at least she is-a suspect in a murder investigation, unless she’s got an alibi on Monday night.”
Mickey and Tamara shared another furtive look.
“What now?” Hunt said.
Tamara let out a breath. “She slept out in her car by the beach Monday night. Got up early to surf Tuesday morning.”
After a pause, Hunt asked, “What beach?”
Mickey took it. “Ocean. Out by Seal Rock.”
Hunt hesitated again. “Did I tell you where Nancy Neshek lived?”
“No.” The defensive pose sitting heavy on Mickey now. “Where?”
“Just above Phelan Beach, well out that way.”
Mickey was shaking his head. “There is no way Alicia killed anybody, Wyatt. If you talked to her, you’d know that in five minutes.”
“How would I know that?”
“Because you could tell. You could just see the person she is.”
Hunt just barely did not snort. “I don’t think I’ve got to remind either of you how unreliable personal reactions can be. People can hide things, really for truly. They can fool you even with who they are.” He pointed a finger at each of them. “All of us know this firsthand, so excuse me if I’m not overly enthusiastic about Alicia’s overtures to become your friend.”
“She hasn’t made any moves, Wyatt. I asked her over to dinner.”
“That’s true,” Tamara added.
“I’m sure it is.”
Mickey, getting a little hot now, “What do you mean by that?”
Hunt held up a restraining palm. “Nothing. I’m just cautioning you to go slow and be a little wary. And neither of you should be socializing with these people. Really.”
But Mickey couldn’t let it go. “She didn’t do anything, Wyatt. I know she didn’t.”
“All right,” Wyatt said, “but let me ask you this: Did she tell you that Dominic Como had fired her on the last day of his life?”
The siblings exchanged another glance. “Who told you that?” Mickey asked.
“Mrs. Como. Who heard it point blank from her husband.”
“Maybe she was lying to you. Maybe he was lying to her.”
“Maybe both,” Hunt admitted. “But maybe I’m going to ask Alicia about it today, if she’s at the service. Not at a nice friendly dinner. And while I’m at it, I plan to ask her, and Al Carter if I get the chance, if either of them know where they store the tire iron in a Lincoln Town Car.”
“Why would that matter?”
“Because we know the weapon that killed Dominic Como was a tire iron. And we know that the tire iron from his limo isn’t there anymore.”
“We do?” Mickey asked. “When did we find that out?”
“Yesterday afternoon. Juhle and Russo went out to Sunset and looked. And they’re probably looking for more in it now even as we speak.”
After a minute, Tamara brought up the usual objection. “That doesn’t mean the tire iron that killed him came from that car.”
“Good, Tam. No, it doesn’t. Not automatically. But on the other hand, there’s nothing says it isn’t either. It certainly could be. And, Mick, just consider this: Your friend Alicia, who might have just been jilted by him, and fired at the same time on the last day we know he was alive, had easy access to it. And then certainly had access back to him.”
Mickey was sitting back, his mouth set, his hands clenched in his lap. “This is bullshit.”
“No, Mick. These are facts we have to deal with.” Hunt slowed himself down with a breath. “Look, I’m not saying she’s guilty of anything. She might be the nicest person in the world. But she’s in this until conflicting evidence or an alibi gets her out, okay? You can’t become friends with her, and probably not with her brother either. I’m sorry, but you just can’t.” He looked from one of them to the other. “Neither of you.”
A heavy silence settled in the tiny reception area. Mickey and Tamara shared a few more looks, until at last Mickey came back to Hunt, his voice again under control. “So. What do you want me to do?”
“Look around up at Sanctuary House. Nancy Neshek’s place. That would be a start. Juhle and Russo are going to be futzing with the limo and crime scene stuff from last night all morning. This gives us a small opening before anybody in Sanctuary has a chance to get their guards up.”
“So you’re going to talk to Al Carter?” Mickey asked.
“Yeah. If he’s at the service, which he should be. What about him?”
A shrug. “One of my lunatics yesterday, Damien Jones? Maybe he wasn’t actually off on everything. He said we should look for somebody, probably with the Battalion but maybe not, up at Sunset. Which, by the way, my grandfather agrees with. Meanwhile, just so you’re clear that Al Carter’s another guy with access to the tire iron. Also the last known human to see Como alive. I don’t know about his alibi, if any. And he hasn’t told us very much about Como’s mysterious last appointment either.”
“Yeah. I’ll talk to him. That’s a good thought. But listen”-Hunt leaned his lanky form forward, his elbows on his knees-“the main thing for all of us-even you, Tam-is to be careful here. Whoever it is, this killer’s now done it twice. Let’s not force a third. All we’re trying to do is collect information and pass the valid stuff along to Devin. That’s all.”
Mickey shook his head. “Nice try, but it’s gotten bigger than that, Wyatt,” he said. “A whole lot bigger.”
The address of the administrative headquarters for the Sanctuary House for Battered Women was on Potrero Avenue near San Francisco General Hospital. Unlike the other service-oriented nonprofits he’d visited in the last few days, for obvious reasons Sanctuary did not shelter, educate, or test any of its clientele on-site-instead, they were assigned, often with their children, to one of the organization’s seventeen secure locations within the city limits. Because of this, Sanctuary’s footprint here on Potrero was so small as to be nearly invisible. Mickey drove by what should have been the address twice before he realized that the office must be somewhere among the buildings that made up the much larger hospital complex.
Fifteen minutes after he’d finally managed to park in a handicapped zone in the hospital’s main but still woefully inadequate lot, he found the place-one of many apparently identical offices on the ground floor of the hospital’s Admitting and Triage Building. It was a typical overused bureaucratic medical landscape-already at nine A.M., long lines had formed at each of the glass windows, with the chairs in the main lobby filled with mostly older and poorly dressed patients. Although there was still the usual complement of mothers with their coughing or sleeping children, spaced- out young adults, and obvious derelicts, all waiting in numb patience while the clammy fluorescent lighting lit the area and reflected up at them from the greenish tile flooring.
The only indication of Sanctuary House’s presence was the name of the organization stenciled onto the glass doorway, now open at the farthest extent of the lobby. Mickey stood in the doorway for a long moment. In front of him, a counter bisected most of the room across the front, and behind it were mazes of green and gray filing cabinets and a few desks. Venetian blinds over the high back windows. To his left, the counter made a right angle, and behind it more of the ubiquitous green-tinged glass separated out the two or three other offices.