The Hunter Read online

  THE HUNTER

  ALSO BY JOHN LESCROART

  Damage

  Treasure Hunt

  A Plague of Secrets

  Betrayal

  The Suspect

  The Hunt Club

  The Motive

  The Second Chair

  The First Law

  The Oath

  The Hearing

  Nothing But the Truth

  The Mercy Rule

  Guilt

  A Certain Justice

  The 13th Juror

  Hard Evidence

  The Vig

  Dead Irish

  Rasputin’s Revenge

  Son of Holmes

  Sunburn

  John

  Lescroart

  THE

  HUNTER

  A NOVEL

  DUTTON

  DUTTON

  Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First printing, January 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © 2012 by The Lescroart Corporation

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Lescroart, John T.

  The hunter : a novel / by John Lescroart.

  p. cm.

  EISBN: 978-1-101-55945-1

  1. Private investigators—Fiction. 2. San Francisco (Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3562.E78H88 2012

  813′.54—dc23 2011029532

  Printed in the United States of America

  Set in ITC Berkley Old Style Std.

  Designed by Leonard Telesca

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  To the memory of my parents,

  Maurice Eugene Lescroart and Loretta Gregory Lescroart;

  and again, forever, and always,

  to my wife and true love,

  Lisa Marie Sawyer

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  [The Under Toad] was the color of bad weather. It was the size of an automobile.

  John Irving

  The World According to Garp

  1

  THEY WERE HAVING THE SPECIAL, wings and tuna wontons, in a window booth at Lou the Greek’s, two guys in their early forties, talking over the lunchtime noise.

  The good-looking one, Wyatt Hunt, said, “Gina and me, we’re both reluctant to commit.”

  “Reluctant,” Devin Juhle said. “I like that.” He was a San Francisco homicide cop, and relationship issues, even those in his own life, weren’t his main concern. He’d been with Connie for fourteen years and didn’t think about that stuff too often. They just worked, had their three kids, did their jobs. Loved each other. Committed.

  Juhle picked up a wing, held it out between them. “What is on this thing?”

  “Skin.”

  “No, Kemo Sabe. What spice?”

  “Peanut butter, I think,” Hunt said. “And garlic and cayenne and probably soy sauce. Pretty good, huh?”

  Juhle nodded. “For Lou’s.” He took a bite and chewed. “So you guys are done?”

  “Pretty much, I’d say.”

  “I can’t say it breaks my heart, you know.”

  “Yeah, well, you and she had kind of a different thing.”

  “She’s a ball-buster.”

  “Not to me.”

  Gina Roake, the woman in question, was a lawyer a few years older than Hunt who’d had occasion to fillet Juhle on the witness stand in a murder trial a while ago. It hadn’t been his finest moment.

  “I don’t want to hear any trash talk about her, Dev. We had a good run and she and I are still going to be friends, okay?”

  Juhle shrugged. “It’s your life.”

  Hunt nodded. “Damn straight.”

  BUT THEY WEREN’T THERE to talk about Hunt’s love life. This was a job interview.

  And Juhle was holding up his hand. “Before you get too far, Wyatt. I appreciate the offer, I really do. I’m surprised and flattered, honest. But I don’t see how I could.”

  “You reach your hand out over the table, we shake on it, the deal’s done.”

  Juhle shook his head. “Connie would kill me.”

  “Connie wouldn’t even maim you. She wouldn’t care if you changed jobs. You could push a hot dog cart and she’d dance ahead of it, hawking sales in her cheerleader outfit.”

  Juhle nodded in acknowledgment. “Well, okay, so maybe not Connie. But there are other reasons. My retirement, for example. Health insurance. Being in homicide, which puts me at the top of the food chain. Besides which, I actually like what I do.”

  “Yeah, but the bureaucracy, the union stuff, all the rules . . .”

  “Hey, rules are my life. I love the rules. Why do you think I became a cop? I’m a rule guy.”

  “That’s what Ivan said, too.” This was Ivan Orloff, one of Hunt’s new hires. “And guess what? That whole rule-guy thing—it turns out, not so much. He loves the freedom of being on his own, plus he turns out to be an amazing investigator, which he didn’t even know until he stopped being a cop. Now he sees stuff even I miss on the first pass. Not to mention we get along great together, which I’m hoping might even happen with you. Although that’s a bit more of a long shot.”

&
nbsp; “And getting longer every minute.”

  Hunt leaned back and crossed his arms. “Twenty-five percent.”

  Another head shake. “It’s not the money. Twenty’s fine if I wanted to do it. But I’m not even slightly tempted. Besides, I’ve got some pretty severe reservations about the whole boss thing between you and me . . .”

  “I wouldn’t be your boss.”

  “You’d be paying me, am I right? Wouldn’t that make you the boss?”

  “Technically, perhaps. But you know me, I wouldn’t ever pull rank.”

  A small smile. “Yeah. Until you did. And then there goes twenty years of you and me getting along, such as we do.”

  Hunt stayed hunched back against the wall of the booth for a moment, then came forward, his elbows on the table. “Come on, Dev. Don’t you think we could have us some real fun?”

  “We’re having fun now, dude. Eating great wings. No hierarchy between us. Just two guys out living the high life on a weekday afternoon. It ain’t broke, so we don’t need to fix it. That’s a main life rule, and as I said, I’m a rule guy.”

  * * *

  HUNT WAS IN HIS BEDROOM, having changed into nicer clothes for his next appointment, sitting on his bed, talking to his receptionist/secretary/assistant Tamara Dade on his cell phone, telling her the disappointing news about Devin Juhle. He heard the little ping telling him he was getting a text message, but as usual when he was talking to someone, he ignored it.

  “It was a long shot anyway,” he was saying, “but I figured worth a try.”

  “Definitely, but I can’t believe he didn’t jump at it. Was it even close?”

  “He stopped me before I’d even finished the pitch. No interest.”

  “Could it be that fun being a cop?”

  “I guess. Who would’ve known? Or here’s a thought—maybe he thinks it’s not that much fun being a private eye.”

  “That couldn’t be it. He’s seen us at work, where the fun never stops. Now, for example. Are we having fun now or what?”

  “Fun. No question.”

  “QED, right?”

  “Well, there is one other theory.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You.”

  “What about me?”

  “He finds you too attractive to deal with and is afraid if he works around you every day, it’ll impact his marriage to Connie.”

  “Right, Wyatt.”

  Again he heard the tone indicating a message, and again he ignored it.

  “No, seriously,” Hunt continued. “He’s worried he’ll become addled with wild sexual fantasies, unable to concentrate. Eventually turn to drink, despair, and divorce.”

  “He mentioned this to you, did he? Used the word addled?”

  “Not exactly. I read between the lines, though. It was kind of sad.”

  “I’d imagine,” she said.

  He said good-bye and touched the “End” bar on the face of his cell phone. The latest text message—the second message, the one that showed on his screen—was from Tamara’s brother, Mickey, but to Hunt it barely registered. The messages could wait. Hunt didn’t want any interruptions at the moment and he held down the button to turn off the power and then slipped the cell phone into its holster.

  Frowning, he swore under his breath.

  Why did he bring up that lame attempt at humor to Tamara? That Juhle thought she was too attractive to work around? Distracting? Addle making?

  When it was he who was having the problem.

  SINCE 1912, the Mission Club has made its home in the Kearny Mansion, an enormous yet gracious four-story stucco structure on Nob Hill Circle, just around the corner and a little downhill from the Fairmont and Mark Hopkins hotels. Its membership includes 183 members—never more, sometimes less—making it the most exclusive private club in the city.

  The club employed a male butler, Taylor, a chisel-faced, strongly built African-American in his late fifties or early sixties. Taylor was leading Hunt back to his meeting room when Hunt touched his arm and stopped their progress to check his reflection in the foyer’s mirror.

  He was wearing his best slacks and sports coat, but as always when he came here, he felt inadequately turned out.

  “You look fine, sir,” Taylor intoned.

  Taylor was in a tuxedo. Hunt looked him up and down and couldn’t keep a smile off his face. “Easy for you to say.”

  Because of his assignment here, Hunt had gotten access to some of the club’s statistics, such as the average age of sixty-seven, the average net worth around sixty million dollars. What wasn’t in the stats was the average cost of what the women wore. Hunt figured, what with the designer dresses and shoes and handbags and other accessories—and oh, let us not forget the jewelry—nobody walked around with less than twenty thousand dollars worth of stuff clinging or hanging or otherwise attached to their bodies.

  And then they were at the doorway to the room where the three members of the Membership Committee sat chatting in Queen Anne chairs that surrounded the lace-covered table on which rested a selection of pastries, cookies, coffee, and teas.

  Taylor intoned, “Mr. Hunt.” The door closed behind him.

  “Ah, Wyatt.” Dodie Spencer got to her feet and crossed over to him, offering her cheek for him to kiss. She was a distractingly beautiful woman reminiscent, Hunt thought, of Grace Kelly or January Jones. From his background research, he knew that she was forty-two years old and married to Lance Spencer, owner of Execujet. “So good to see you again,” she said. “It’s always good to see you.”

  “And you,” Hunt said, then added, “all of you.” He included the other two women who remained seated. “Mrs. Wren, Ms. Hatcher. Good afternoon.”

  Deborah Hatcher nodded politely. Hunt knew that she was seventy, that she had never been married, that her father had made their fortune in mining salt out of the bay.

  Gail Wren, eighty-four, observed Hunt with her glacier-water eyes. She wore ornate gold and emerald earrings, several rings, and a multistrand necklace that Hunt thought probably contained forty carats in diamonds, maybe a thousand carats. She was old, old money, with somewhat obscure equity ties to the first years of the Bank of America.

  Deborah Hatcher reached forward to take a cookie from the tray while Dodie kept a light hand, possessively, on Hunt’s arm, as she turned back toward her two comembers. Gail fixed Hunt with an impatient cold eye. “Since you’re a little late, we may as well get right to it. Does that suit you, Mr. Hunt?” The elderly dowager pointed with a bejeweled, arthritic finger. “Take that chair. Pour some coffee if you want. And, Dodie, for God’s sake, quit mushing, would you? And sit down.”

  “JUDITH BLACK,” Hunt began, “is not exactly who she appears to be.”

  “I knew it!” Gail Wren slapped the side of her chair. “I knew something wasn’t right with that woman.”

  Deborah Hatcher turned her head, reached a hand across to her neighbor’s chair, and spoke in a calm tone. “Mr. Hunt hasn’t said that exactly, Gail dear. Not yet.”

  “Oh, nonsense. Of course he has.”

  “Maybe we could just let him go on,” Dodie Spencer said. “Wyatt?”

  He nodded. “Thank you.” He came forward, elbows on his knees. “She is in fact on the payroll at Abbot-Cantor Securities and has been for the past five years . . .”

  “She’s a broker?” Gail might as well have said hooker.

  Dodie glanced her impatience at the older woman as Hunt pressed on. “Not exactly a broker, Mrs. Wren. More like a finder, although Josh Cantor called her a business development manager. I was up front with Cantor and told him that I was helping with Judith’s membership application background check here and he made no bones about her role in the firm.”

  “Her role in the firm?” Deborah asked. “Which is what, exactly?”

  “She cultivates clients and funnels them to Abbot-Cantor.”

  “Cultivates,” Gail said. “Charming. Funnels. And sends them to our city’s very own Bernie Ma
doff, only he hasn’t been caught yet.”

  Again, this got a small rise out of Deborah. “Now, Gail, we don’t know that.”

  “Hmph! Would either of you work with him, with what we already know? He’s been dodging indictments for the past decade.” And then, back to Hunt. “How much does he pay her?”

  “We didn’t get into that, and I don’t think he would have told me if I’d asked.”

  “Never mind that,” Dodie said. “The point is, she lied on her application.”

  “Well, not exactly. Under ‘Employer,’ she put ‘not applicable.’ ”

  Deborah huffed at that. “She’s working for Abbot-Cantor. That’s applicable.”

  Hunt spread his hands. “That might be a matter of interpretation.”

  “Nonsense. It’s purposefully deceptive,” Gail said. “Do any of us doubt that she wants to become a member so that she can—what was your word, Mr. Hunt?—she can funnel our members into Mr. Cantor’s funds? When the rules explicitly forbid soliciting other members in business matters . . .”

  Dodie reached across and touched Hunt’s knee. “Did you find any evidence of that? Specific solicitation?”

  “Well,” Gail put in, “I don’t think we’re going to need that. Not after this.”

  “Nevertheless,” Hunt said, “I did contact each of her three sponsors and, yes, two of them have moved their money to Abbot-Cantor within the past two years, and the third one, Florence Wright, is thinking about it right now. None of them seemed aware that Mrs. Black worked for that firm, and I asked all of them specifically as it came up. And then when I asked if they thought the monthly dues would be a problem for Judith, they all volunteered that she was one of the most astute investors they knew, with close ties to Abbot-Cantor. In fact, the results she was getting with that firm were why they’d switched or were thinking about switching.”

  “Funneled,” Gail rasped out in disgust.

  Hunt nodded. “Funneled. I tend to agree.”

  Dodie let out a disappointed little sigh. “Well.”

  “It’s such a shame.” Deborah’s eyes were downcast. “She should have known she wouldn’t have been happy here if she really wasn’t who she’s pretending to be.”