The Hunt Club

"That was too easy," Mickey said. "It can't be that easy."

"Sometimes it is." Hunt wasn't in a joking mood. He had the Manions' phone number, and that's what he'd needed, and now he had his cell phone back at his ear, on with Juhle.

"What is this place?" Devin asked him. " Disneyland? The Epcot Center? I didn't know they made this many cars all told in history, and they're all here right now. I haven't moved a mile in fifteen minutes."

"Where are you now?"

"In traffic."

"I guessed that. You've got to get out of it. I just got word from Amy and Jason. Carol Manion all but admitted she made the call from the Saint Francis."

"What's that mean? All but admitted."

"Didn't deny. Amy mentioned it specifically."

"If that's true," Juhle said, "it may be our first real break."

"It might be," Hunt admitted. "But you've got to hustle. Carol and Ward are on their way home."

"They'll be in this parking lot, too."

"Yeah, but coming from the other direction, and maybe a lot faster. Where are you now?"

"On some freeway somewhere. Twenty-nine."

"Are you through the town of Napa?"

"I think so."

"Okay. You're going to make it. Take your next right."

"Any right? You don't even know where I am."

"You're north of Napa, I don't care. Take your first right, and every chance you get keep going right, toward those hills you see out your passenger window. Got it? The next big road you'll hit is the Silverado Trail, where you'll hang a left. I'm on it now, and the traffic's moving both directions. You'll see Quintessa Vineyards on your left-it's huge, you can't miss it, slow down. Manion Cellars is next on your left, but Mick's got his green Camaro parked on the right side of the road a few hundred feet up, and that's where you'll find us. You shouldn't be another ten, fifteen minutes, which ought to do it."

"Do what?"

"Get you here before they get home."

"And why is that important?"

"Maybe it isn't. But since you wanted to talk to her anyway, humor me, all right? I'm delivering her to you. Maybe badly shaken up and maybe ready to break."

"In spite of your promise that you weren't going to talk to her."

"I never did."

"But you got her shaken up. How did that happen?"

"Magic. I'll tell you the secret later, but for now, your job is to drive, okay? I know you're a cop and it flies in the face of your every belief, but speed if you have to."

"Fat chance," Juhle said.

Juhle drove up the winding driveway, past the "Open to the Public" tasting room and its parking area and continued uphill until he stopped and pushed the button on the box by the wrought-iron gate that straddled the private road. Identifying himself as a police inspector with the San Francisco homicide detail, he waited another five minutes or so until a young man in a dark suit appeared, let himself out of the compound area through another gate in the fence, and came to Juhle's driver's window to verify the credentials.

"But I'm afraid you may have driven up here for nothing. They're not home right now."

"That's all right. I'll wait if you don't mind."

"It might be a while. They're down at the auction."

"What auction?"

"Auction Napa Valley."

"Sorry. I don't know it."

The guy didn't know if he believed Juhle, but he said, "Well, it's a big event up here, and it's been known to go late, with parties afterward."

"Are you telling me you're not letting me come up?"

Long pause. "Sir, you can come up the drive, but I can't let you into the house without explicit instructions from the Manions."

Flashing a smile, Juhle nodded. "Thanks, then. I'll take my chances."

The security guard punched a code into the box, the gate opened, and Juhle drove through. The road climbed steeply for fifty feet and then forked immediately as it leveled slightly, one lane going off to the right, winding through vines, before it disappeared around the side of the promontory. Juhle waited at the fork until the man who'd let him through got to the car. "You want a lift to the top?"

"Sure, thanks. It's farther than it looks from the road."

"Left or right."

"Left."

They drove in silence over another rise, dipped to the right in front of the new caves with their impressively carved heavy oaken doors, climbed a last time and leveled off on a large, gravel-strewn circular parking area with a working fountain in the center and bounded by olive trees in front of the ornate structure of the château itself. Juhle passed two parked dark SUVs and an old Honda Civic and continued around the circumference until he caught up with some shade and stopped within it, telling his passenger that he'd wait in the car.

"It really could be some time."

"If I get stir-crazy, I'll walk around. How's that?"

"Your call, sir, but please don't leave this area in the front of the house." He walked around the car and paused by Juhle's window. "Excuse me, but it just occurred to me. You're with homicide? Is this bad news? I mean, for the family? I do have a number to reach them, but only in an absolute emergency."

"Just routine." Juhle offered nothing else.

After a second or two, the young man shrugged and walked away.

Juhle sat in the car with the window down for a short while, enjoying the warmth and the sunshine. From his vantage point up here, he could see for miles in both directions up and down the valley. The green of the budding vines against the reddish soil, the jagged peaks studded with granite on the eastern slope, the cerulean cloudless sky with a lone turkey vulture circling in a thermal. It was a stu

Closer in, he noticed that while the traffic wasn't exactly thin on the Silverado Trail below him, it was moving. If Hunt was correct in his assumptions-and he had been so far-Carol and Ward wouldn't be long.

It eventually got too hot in his seat, so he opened the door, slid out, and walked to the front edge of the parking area where the promontory fell off steeply below him. Here, with the foreground up close, the view wasn't as magical. With something of an effort given the grandeur of the rest of the setting, he reminded himself that vineyards, after all, were basically just farms that grew grapes as their crop.

And, indeed, in a little hollow to the side of the new caves, Juhle caught the jarring note of a truly dilapidated ancient redwood barn surrounded by what seemed to be an inordinate amount of rusting old farm tools, as well as some of the newer heavy machinery that had obviously been used in the recent excavations, gradings, and plantings-a couple of tractors, backhoes and rotary hoes, huge bits and drill parts, shovels and spades, mattocks and rakes. Some were glinting in the sun; most had fallen into hopeless, permanent disrepair. The land itself around the cave entrances was still scratched and stripped of its soil, the bare limestone shining like animal bones in the bright sunshine.

But he'd come here for a specific purpose, and much to his satisfaction, Juhle saw that he wasn't going to have the time to take any more inventory of the château and surrounding grounds up here. Just below him, a black BMW Z4 convertible crested the rise beyond the gate.

Juhle backed up a couple of steps until he was lost to the view of the car's passengers. By the time they cleared the promontory and broke onto the olive-shaded area where he'd been waiting, he'd put on his sunglasses and was walking toward them, his badge extended in front of him, his face locked down into impassivity.

His footfalls crunching noisily on the gravel of the parking surface, Juhle walked directly to Carol's side of the car, spoke before it had rolled to a complete stop. "Mrs. Manion? Inspector Juhle from San Francisco homicide. You might remember me. If you could spare some time, I'd like to have a few more words with you."