Trying to conjure up some sort of a relationship between Manion and Staci Rosalier to complete the trifecta got him nowhere except to scorn at himself for grasping at such feeble straws. But the exercise didn't seem completely futile as it led him to consider even the most peripheral dancers in this fandango.

Fairchild? Parisi's ex-lover, but no known connection to either Palmer or Rosalier.

Tombo? No. Nothing.

And both men alibied one another Monday night in any event.

Piersall?

Hunt stopped chewing, lowered his drink to the table. Piersall knew both Palmer and Parisi. Undoubtedly he'd eaten lunch at MoMo's at least once. Maybe he was a regular there. It was possible then that he'd met Staci Rosalier, which would make him the only person associated with all three victims. Also, Andrea had come to him about the imminent danger to the union represented by Palmer's order, and again with her concerns about the apparently criminal activities of the CCPOA. Beyond that, the Saint Francis Hotel was a short walk from his firm's offices on Montgomery. Might he have called Parisi from there on Wednesday afternoon and asked her to stop by the office…?

Where what? Where he had Pine's people meet her as she parked in the downstairs garage and then drive her away?

Hunt closed his eyes, willing his brain to slow down, get a grip. This was what he and Juhle, too, for that matter, had been doing for more than two days now, building theories and scenarios out of possibilities plucked from thin air. He knew he could now spend the next hour checking to see where Piersall had been on Monday night, whether he'd left the office between two and three thirty on Wednesday afternoon. And even if Piersall hadn't hired it done, even if he'd done it himself, even if he couldn't account for any of those times, Hunt would still be back where he was now, with no evidence, no hint of proof.

But the tantalizing thought resurfaced. It was a fact that Piersall remained the only human being with a demonstrable connection to Palmer and Parisi and quite possibly to Rosalier. With no other alternatives, Hunt asked himself, wasn't this worth pursuing, too? What did he have to lose?

He finished his Coke, wrapped up the remains of his burrito, and stood up. The old woman gave him a smile, and he patted his stomach and returned the smile, then walked behind her and dropped his garbage in the can by the door.

This neighborhood was usually the last place the fog hit in the city, and now it was thick and wet, so he knew it was going to be miserable everywhere else. He ran the short distance back to his car and, in the relative warmth inside it, pulled out his phone and called his office.

By the time Hunt got home, he had nothing left.

On his instructions, Tamara talked to Gary Piersall's private secretary and learned that her boss had been chairing a shareholders' meeting Monday night that had run through dinnertime until nearly eleven o'clock. All of Wednesday afternoon, Piersall had been with Pine and other union representatives and attorneys in the firm's conference room.

Tamara also told him that Craig had gotten his last two subpoenas served early, then gone to Ocean Avenue and found the place where Staci Rosalier had worked before MoMo's. It was called Royal Thai, and she'd been there for two years. It was her first job after graduating from high school in Pasadena, down in Southern California.

Juhle put the last nail in the coffin. Hunt had called him just after he left Lamott's to save him a trip to the parole office and to offer his revised opinion now on the likelihood that Arthur Mowery had played any kind of role in either the Palmer/Rosalier murders or in Andrea's abduction. He'd just pulled into his warehouse, the door closing down behind him, when Juhle called him to say that it had been a long and fruitless day and now he was going home for the weekend, but Hunt might want to know that they'd just gotten word that the Cessna aircraft that had been reported missing from Smith Ranch Airport had been located, crashed in rugged terrain at seven thousand feet of elevation in the Tehachapi Mountains outside of Bakersfield. The pilot, not yet positively identified although the plane was, was assumed to be Arthur Mowery, who'd apparently been trying to make it to Mexico.

"I'm back to thinking she killed herself," Juhle said. "There's nothing else. You want to come by and have some dinner with us? You'd even get to watch me coach a Little League game first. I could call Connie. We wouldn't have to have pizza."

But Hunt had just eaten and didn't feel like company, certainly didn't feel like arguing with Juhle, who was welcome to think whatever he wanted. But for Hunt's part, he was certain that Andrea didn't kill herself, and that this was true because she hadn't killed Staci or Palmer. He took that as unshakable fact, immutable truth.

Hunt sat at the computer terminal, going through his e-mail. He had spam-blocking software but still the majority of his messages were from organizations or businesses he'd never heard of. There were a couple more Web site hits from people interested in his services and several others from law firms he'd already worked with. He forwarded all of the inquiries along to Tamara at the office on the chance that she didn't already have them-it was his fail-safe backup system.

Mickey's e-mail from yesterday gave him the street address of the Manion home, and his young runner had even gone the extra mile and dug up the private and unlisted residence telephone number, which Hunt no longer needed. Cursorily viewing the JPEG photos Mickey had attached, Hunt wasn't surprised to see that the house was huge and elegant. Terra-cotta, it could have been an Italianate castle overlooking the sea on the Amalfi coast. It must have had twenty rooms, but its most striking architectural feature was a bougainvillea-covered square tower. Mickey had expensive lenses and a good eye, and he'd shot the place from three or four different angles, maybe planning to use it as a model and build one just like it when he became a famous chef.

The last telephoto picture-catching Mrs. Manion and her son coming down the front walkway to what appeared to be a waiting limo-tapped into Hunt's continuing frustration. Hard times for the rich folks, he thought. And then, remembering the waterskiing death of the older son, immediately regretted the reaction. He was being petty.

This wasn't getting him anywhere. Nothing had gotten him anywhere. Somebody had killed Parisi just about right in front of him and gotten clean away with it. Hitting his keyboard nearly hard enough to break it, he logged off.

A few minutes later, having changed out of his work clothes into sweats and tennis shoes, he was back out in the warehouse side, standing at his free-throw line. He intended to shoot from there until he made ten in a row or wore himself out, whichever came first. He dribbled a time or two, stopped, dribbled once again, focusing on his target, narrowing it all down.

Setting himself, instead of taking a shot, he unleashed a straight hard pass-as hard as he could throw-at the backstop. The ball slammed into the top of the reinforced glass. The sound echoed loud and deep, a hollow gunshot, a hammer blow on an empty oil drum. The sound ricocheted off the walls around him.

He caught the return on the fly.

He gripped the ball again now with all of his strength. Stood stock-still. Then he threw it again. Same trajectory, same force. Same explosion of sound reverting to silence.

As he rode the wave, the wait between explosions became shorter. From one twenty-second interval, to once every ten seconds, then every five, then two. Throwing so hard he was grunting with the effort. Finally, shrinking uncounted minutes later, Hunt threw and caught the ball one last time. He was breathing hard, the muscles of his jaw cramped.