Part 23 (1/2)
Alicia shook her head. ”I went to sleep in my car. I've got a mattress I throw in and a sleeping bag. I wanted to be up early. What happened Monday night?”
Again ignoring Alicia's question, Russo threw a sharp glance at Juhle, then reached under her jacket and pulled a color photograph out of her breast pocket. She placed it on the table in front of Alicia. ”Do you recognize this?” she asked.
Alicia's eyes lit up briefly, then closed down as she looked at Russo to answer her. ”Yes. That's my scarf. I lost it a couple of weeks ago. Where did you find it?”
”Her name is Linda Colores.” Tamara had Hunt sit down in the one chair across from her in the reception area as soon as he'd arrived back at the office. ”The Hang-Up Lady.”
”I'd forgotten all about her,” Hunt replied. ”What'd she have to say?”
”That she was out by the Palace on the night Mr. Como was killed. Like maybe ten or ten-thirty. She was just walking by herself after dinner on the path by the lagoon and two people were having an argument right in front of her.”
”Tell me she saw them.”
”I wish I could, but she didn't. They were around where the path turns right down there at the end, near where Mickey found the body. But the point is that she heard them, really clearly.”
”Okay.”
”A man and a woman. The man telling the woman he didn't love her anymore. Then, maybe, the sound of her hitting him. At least this grunt of exertion and then this kind of sickening sound.”
”So what'd she do then? Your witness.”
”She got scared and turned and got out of there as quickly and quietly as she could.”
”While our murderer,” Hunt said, ”made sure Como was dead, then got him into the lagoon and tucked him away in the roots.”
”Linda didn't know anything about that, but I'd say probably.”
”I would too.”
”Anyway,” Tamara said, ”I don't know if that tells us anything we don't already know, or think we know, but it seemed important to me somehow.”
”It's d.a.m.ned important,” Hunt said. ”If only because that was really the end of it. If that's when Como was killed.”
”That's what it sounded like to Linda.”
”And if that's the case, it's not part of the money issues, is it? In spite of what Gina would have me believe.”
”And it's also,” Tamara said, ”not a guy.”
”Maybe not. Not unless our woman here hid Como away and then called somebody to finish up.”
”So two of them?”
”Not likely, I admit, but not impossible. Alicia and her brother-”
”No, Wyatt, no.”
”I'm just saying . . .” But then other possibilities sprang into his mind-Ellen Como and Al Carter or Ellen Como and Len Turner; or even Nancy Neshek and an accomplice who'd wound up then killing her. Then back again to Alicia and . . . almost any man who would do anything for her and her favors, which, after only a quick glimpse of her at the memorial service, Hunt figured would include most of the male population of the known world.
22.
If Mickey had turned left, which was south, on Potrero, he would have gotten to Cesar Chavez Boulevard after only a couple of blocks, then immediately taken the on-ramp to 101 North and made it back to the Stockton garage at just about the time he figured Wyatt would be returning from the memorial service. They would have grabbed a bite somewhere, compared notes on their respective morning's adventures, and developed a plan for the rest of the day, or even week.
But as it happened he turned right, got up to Eighteenth Street, which reminded him of the tasty and tender goat he'd bought the day before at Bi-Rite Market, which happened to find itself on Eighteenth as well. So he turned left on Eighteenth, intending to get provisions for the homestead-whatever looked good, and something would-for the next couple of days. His plan was to keep cooking at home for as long as Tamara kept showing her renewed appet.i.te.
The light was solid green for him to go when he got to Mission and so there wasn't any reason to slow down. He was thinking about special cuts of pork they might have at Bi-Rite and then after that maybe he'd go to his favorite burrito place only a few blocks over to his right on Mission.
He never even began to see the 2009 Volvo going, according to the accident records that were later filed in the incident, approximately thirty miles per hour. The car ran the red light and broadsided him on his pa.s.senger-side door.
The initial impact pushed his car sideways for exactly thirty-six feet until its momentum was stopped by a ten-year-old Chevy Suburban that was parked at a meter on the west-side curb of Mission. This second collision, on Mickey's side of his car just behind his seat, T- boned his Camaro, smashed his head against the side window, concussed him, broke his left arm and three of his ribs, and rendered him unconscious. His cell phone, which he'd thrown onto the pa.s.senger seat a few minutes earlier, and which held all of his contact information, got bounced around like a pinball inside the car and hit something hard enough to smash its screen and break it, making it useless.
The parked Suburban, jumping the curb, killed a homeless John Doe everybody called Frankie who'd been a fixture begging at that intersection for the past seventeen months. The driver of the Volvo, who was wearing her seat belt and whose airbag deployed perfectly according to factory specifications, was a bit banged up but basically uninjured.
Hunt came out of his own office in the back and hooked a hip over Tamara's desk. She was working on a scheduling spreadsheet on her computer and kept tapping the keyboard for a second before, still typing, she turned to face him. ”Yes?”
”I've been wrestling with it for half an hour driving back here and I've got to ask you a question.”
She didn't miss a beat. ”Almost thirty,” she said, ”but most people guess closer to twenty-five.”
In mock chagrin, Hunt hung his head. ”When am I going to learn?”
Tamara put on an empathetic face. ”One day it'll just happen. You wait.” She broke a smile. ”Okay, what's the real question?”
”The real question is Mick. How serious is he with this Thorpe woman?”
Tamara sat back. ”Alicia, Wyatt. Her name's Alicia.”
”I know what her name is, Tam. I'm a little worried about both of you using it, being on a first- name basis with her. I don't want you two getting too close to her.”
”You said that this morning.”
”I meant it then too. And I noticed it kind of p.i.s.sed off both of you, Mickey maybe a little more. And that was before I talked to Al Carter and heard the latest from Devin. That's what I've been wrestling with. Whether I should even tell you what they said, either of them, either of you.”
”Of course you should tell us. We've got to know what we're dealing with.”
”That's true, but I don't want either of you shutting me out because I'm keeping an open mind on all the possible suspects.”
”Are you?”
”As far as I can tell, Tam. You tell me where I'm not.”
She touched his hand. ”You don't have to get mad.”
”You know, I'm afraid I can't help that. Six months ago, you'll remember, we had a little problem with-”
”This isn't like that.”