by J. A. Jance
Down in the Rainier Valley I was early enough that I was able to park close to the church. I was so early, in fact, that the doors to the African Bible Baptist Church were not yet open, so I walked the length and breadth of Church Street and talked to any number of Etta Mae Tompkins’s neighbors.
Mostly I got nowhere fast. No one had seen anything, or, at least, no one would admit to having seen anything. Finally I branched out and wandered up and down MLK. Two blocks to the north I spoke to a gas station attendant from a BP station who reported having noticed a single white woman—a nun—walking in the neighborhood shortly before LaShawn Tompkins was shot. I didn’t ask him if he had happened to mention any of this to the other detectives because I was sure he had. It turns out the other detectives hadn’t happened to mention it to me. In this business, though, you can’t afford to take that stuff personally.
“Did she look suspicious?” I asked.
The man laughed outright. “Are you kidding? I figured that nun was just like one of those Jehovah’s Witnesses babes that are always coming around here—scary but not suspicious.”
“She was wearing a habit, then?”
“You mean one of those black robe things? Yes, she was, carrying her Bible and her umbrella. When I saw her there, all by herself in the dark and the rain, I remember asking myself, ‘Man, what is that woman thinking?’”
“Did you get a good look at her?”
“Naw. Just because she was dumb enough to stand outside in the rain didn’t mean I was, but I know she was white if that’s what you’re asking.”
It was what I was asking, and I made a note of his comment. If a nun had been out there on the street at the time LaShawn Tompkins was shot, there was an outside chance that she might have seen a vehicle coming or going. I needed to track the woman down and talk to her. Other than that, I learned nothing. Zero. Zip.
By one-thirty and still on foot, I made my way back up Martin Luther King Jr. Way to the African Bible Baptist Church. This was, as I remembered, Etta Mae Tompkins’s home church. It was also her neighborhood church and within walking distance of her home. Even though the neighborhood had changed and there was a far greater Asian presence there now, the congregation of African Bible Baptist—at least the members assembling there that afternoon—was primarily black. And although I certainly didn’t blend, I was made to feel welcome.
A media van pulled up to the curb. I was intent on keeping a low profile. Having my mug show up on local television newscasts didn’t seem like a good idea, so I headed for the door to the church, where a smiling usher in a shiny charcoal-gray suit greeted me and led me into the sanctuary.
I sat near the back. From there I was able to spot Etta Mae seated alone in the first pew. With unwavering dignity she gazed at LaShawn’s open, flower-bedecked casket.
Moments after I was seated, a group of people led by Pastor Mark Granger made their way up the aisle. Among them I caught sight of both Sister Meth Mouth Cora and the King Street Mission attorney of record, Dale Ramsey. The group commandeered two full pews directly behind Etta Mae.
She turned and looked at them as they filed in. With a scowl of distaste and a slight shake of her head, she looked away again. I suppose she was thinking much the same thing I was. She had given King’s Mission free rein in how they did their own send-off for her Shawny, and I think she was worried that Pastor Mark and his flock wouldn’t allow her the same courtesy.
By the time the appointed hour of 2:00 p.m. rolled around, the church was packed. Detectives Jackson and Ramsdahl came in during the first hymn—a moving rendition of “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” By then, late arrivals were having to be shoehorned into extra chairs that had been hauled out and placed in the aisles. Jackson’s chair was at the end of the pew I was in; Hank Ramsdahl was seated two rows ahead of us.
Having attended Beverly Jenssen’s memorial service the previous afternoon, I couldn’t help thinking that her send-off suffered in comparison to the one given LaShawn Tompkins by Etta Mae’s African Bible Baptist Church. It was her show from beginning to end. Even though this was early on a Friday afternoon, the funeral service played to a capacity crowd. Not only was the full congregation in attendance, but so was a top-notch, full-throated choir.
Funeral or not, attendees and choir alike came prepared to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. I noticed that the visitors from King Street Mission held their hymnals open, but they looked uneasy and didn’t seem to be singing along with everyone else. This may have been due to the fact that they didn’t know the words to the various hymns, or maybe they were accustomed to practicing a somewhat more subdued version of Christianity.
Good for Etta Mae, I thought.
The Reverend Clarence Wilkins officiated. When it came time for the eulogy, he spoke movingly of LaShawn as a cute but mischievous little boy who had regularly attended Sunday school. The minister also spoke of LaShawn’s years in the wilderness when he had been lost in a world of drugs and gangs. Finally, to a chorus of heartfelt “Praise Gods” and “Amens,” Wilkins related how, in the end, LaShawn had come back to Jesus. Wilkins made only the slightest nod in Pastor Mark’s direction as he told that part of the story, and the reverend made no mention at all of LaShawn’s work at King Street Mission. I wondered if that was an accident or a deliberate oversight.
The service came to an end rather abruptly after that, closing with a final hymn and with no chance for attendees to come forward and make comments of their own. Maybe I have an overly active imagination or possibly it was simply prejudice on my part, but I assumed Etta Mae had precluded any additional speakers in order to keep Pastor Mark from taking to the pulpit. Since he had seemed intent on hijacking the entire service, I could hardly blame her for that.
Out on the street, while we waited for the casket to be carried out of the church and transferred to the waiting hearse, I tracked down Kendall Jackson. Hank Ramsdahl was nowhere in sight.
“I thought you were going to call me,” I said.
Jackson was busy scanning the crowd. “That’s right. I said we’d call when we finished interviewing Elaine Manning.”
“Well?” I asked.
“We never finished,” he said, “because we never found her. I was hoping she’d show up here. So far no such luck.”
“She wasn’t at the shelter?”
“She probably was there,” Jackson corrected. “If so, she wouldn’t come out to talk to us. And the woman who ran the place was pissed as hell that we had any idea that’s where Elaine was staying in the first place. It’s a domestic-violence shelter, you know.”
“But if LaShawn was her boyfriend and he’s dead, who’s she running from?”
“Good question,” Jackson said. “For right now, my money’s on Pastor Mark.”
“But he has an alibi for the time of LaShawn’s murder,” I said. “At least he claims to have an alibi.”
“He also has an attorney,” Jackson said.
Who also happens to be in attendance, I thought, but somehow I didn’t mention that fact to Detective Jackson. This wasn’t a grudge match, but since he hadn’t told me about the nun, I figured that made us even.
By then the front pews of the church were finally emptying. When the King Street Mission people emerged, most of them wandered off toward three eight-passenger vans parked down the block. Pastor Mark and Dale Ramsey walked off together toward a black Lincoln Town Car that came complete with a driver in a black suit. The vans may have been good enough for Pastor Mark’s flock, but they evidently weren’t good enough for the shepherd himself.
“I guess that means he’s not going to the cemetery,” Jackson said to me. “And I guess that means Hank and I won’t be going either. We’ll just follow along and ask him if he has any idea why Elaine would have left King Street and taken up residence in a DV shelter.”
“My guess is he won’t say a word.”
“Mine, too.” Jackson grinned. “But it doesn’t matter. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words.”
Hank showed up in their car right then. Detective Jackson hopped inside and they headed down MLK Way behind the retreating Town Car.
It took about fifteen minutes to get the funeral procession formed up and ready to travel. I walked back to my Mercedes. Once the procession rolled past, I pulled into what I assumed was the caboose position as we headed south for Renton and the Mount Olivet Cemetery. A block or two south of Church Street I noticed that another vehicle, an older-model Honda, had pulled in behind me. There was only one occupant in the Honda, a woman. She didn’t turn on her headlights, but as the procession made its way south, it was clear she was part of LaShawn Tompkins’s funeral cortège.
Homicide detectives always look for things that are slightly out of the norm, slightly off. Funerals aren’t fun, and most of the people who bother showing up for them want full credit for doing so. They sign guest books. They chat with grieving friends and family members. They want survivors to know they were there, almost as though they were storing up stars in their crowns or putting in markers for when the time comes for their own funerals. But the lady in the Honda clearly wasn’t looking for credit, and the fact that she was deliberately avoiding attention captured mine.
So before we reached the gates to Mount Olivet, I peeled off onto a side street. Most of the cars in the procession followed the hearse on into the cemetery and stopped close to a canopy-covered grave site. The Honda, on the other hand, stopped just inside the gate.
The woman who exited the vehicle was sturdily built. She was black, in her mid-thirties, and wore her shoulder-length hair in a cascade of tiny braids. She was dressed in boots and a long denim skirt. She went over to the grassy edge of the road, far enough to see the people clustering around the grave site. The woman watched the funeral attendees, but none of them noticed her, and she wasn’t seeing me, either. I stepped out of the Mercedes and walked up behind her.
“Ms. Manning?” I asked.
Startled, she jumped and then spun around to face me. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“My name’s Beaumont,” I told her. “J. P. Beaumont. I’m an investigator with the Washington State Attorney General’s Office.” I held out my ID, but she kept her eyes on my face rather than on my identification or my badge.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she said simply.
“From what I’ve been told, you and LaShawn Tompkins were an item,” I returned. “Why wouldn’t you come to his funeral?”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to anybody.” She dodged away from me and headed back toward the Honda, but I managed to beat her to the driver’s door.
“We’re trying to figure out what happened to him,” I said. “Don’t you want to help us?”
“Somebody shot him.” She was crying now. Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving glistening tracks on her skin.
“Do you know who killed him or why?” I asked.
She shook her head. “All I know for sure is that LaShawn is dead.”
“Why did you leave King Street Mission, Ms. Manning?” I pressed. “And why are you staying in a domestic-violence shelter? What are you afraid of? Who are you afraid of?”
Without answering she tried to reach around me to grasp the door handle, but I was in the way. When the attempt failed, instead of falling back she leaned into me, weeping uncontrollably on my shoulder. For a moment I didn’t quite know what to do. Eventually, with no other choice, I wrapped my arms around her and held her close.
“Shhhh,” I said, patting her. “It’s going to be all right.”
Finally she drew back, wiping fiercely at her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was stupid of me.”
“Grieving isn’t stupid,” I said. “But not talking to me about this would be. Please, Ms. Manning, that’s all I’m asking you to do—just talk to me. Tell me what you know or even what you think you know. Don’t you owe LaShawn that much?”
“Yes, but not here,” she said, turning back toward the group clustered around LaShawn Tompkins’s open grave. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
“My car or yours?” I asked.
“It’s not mine,” Elaine answered. “It belongs to a friend of mine—from the shelter. But I can’t leave it here. I saw a Burger King on the way here, down by 405. What if I meet you there?”
“That’ll be fine,” I said. “You lead the way.”
CHAPTER 12
I thought Elaine might try to skip out on me, but she didn’t. We drove straight to the Burger King and parked side by side. Inside she went to one of the window booths while I placed our order—coffee for me, Diet Coke for her.
By the time I got to the booth she was putting away a com-pact, having repaired the damage her tears had done to her makeup, and she seemed to have her emotions well in hand.
“I didn’t see Pastor Mark get out of any of the buses at the cemetery,” she said.
“That’s because he didn’t go there,” I told her. “He was at the funeral, but I think he was annoyed because he didn’t get to run that show. He left the church and drove off in the opposite direction with Mr. Ramsey.”
“Oh,” Elaine said.
“Is Pastor Mark the one you’re afraid of?” I asked.
She nodded. “Is it that obvious?”
“I’m a detective, remember? But what isn’t obvious is why.”
“Pastor Mark has a temper,” Elaine said.
“I already figured that out,” I interjected.
“And he didn’t approve.”
“Of you and LaShawn?”
She nodded. “Pastor Mark claimed we were setting a bad example for the other people at the mission, and he made it pretty clear that if LaShawn and I insisted on being a couple we’d have to leave King Street.”
“Would that have been a problem?” I asked.
“More to Pastor Mark than for us,” Elaine returned.
“Why’s that?”
“Because we were his best worker bees. LaShawn did a lot of the physical labor around the place, in addition to much of the active counseling. He was the one who made sure people were doing the work they needed to be doing.”
“You mean work as in jobs—as in the duty roster I saw?”
“I ran the household end of it—made up the duty roster and ordered supplies,” she said. “And I handled client intake. Yes, Pastor Mark is the one with the degree in divinity, but LaShawn was way better than Pastor Mark at doing the kind of spiritual work it takes to turn lives around. After all, LaShawn had actually been there. He knew what it was like to be cast into the lion’s den and walk out unscathed because it happened to him. His was an example other people could relate to and copy.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I insisted.
“About why I’m afraid of Pastor Mark?”
I nodded. She sipped her Diet Coke for several thoughtful seconds. “I think he was jealous of LaShawn,” she said finally. “And I think he did it.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re saying you think Pastor Mark is responsible for LaShawn’s death?”
It was Elaine’s turn to nod.
“But he has a foolproof alibi,” I returned. “At least he claims to have one. He says he was teaching a Bible study class at the mission at the time LaShawn was shot and he says he has a list of participants to prove it.”
“Pastor Mark knows a lot of people,” Elaine said. “Not very nice people,” she added. “Ones who may have come to the mission at one time or another but who, for one reason or another, have gone back to their old ways.”
“So he knew people and could put out a hit. But would he have done that over you? Would he gave gone that far?”
“I think he was afraid LaShawn and I would go out on our own and start a new mission somewhere else.”
“In competition with Pastor Mark?”
“He’s not good at competition of any kind,” she answered. “Yes, he was jealous of LaShawn and me, but I think he was even mor
e jealous of the relationship LaShawn had with some of the clients. Thought it was undermining his authority somehow.”
“Was it?” I asked.
“Yes,” Elaine said simply.
“What happened Saturday morning?” I asked. “I heard you and the good pastor did a few rounds in his office.”
“The cops had come to talk to him the night before, but he never said a word to me about it until Saturday morning, when he made the public announcement at breakfast. He knew what LaShawn meant to me. I couldn’t believe he’d be that cruel. I went to talk to him about it and things…got out of hand.”
“What do you mean?”
“I accused him of having something to do with LaShawn’s death. And he just snapped. Told me if he heard I’d even hinted to the cops that he might be responsible, that the same thing could maybe happen to me.”
“He threatened you?”
Elaine nodded again. “So I went to the shelter. A friend of mine runs it. I knew she’d take me in.”
I knew that this tale of joint romantic and professional jealousy was one that would gladden Ross Connors’s heart. If Pastor Mark had set out to clear the field of competition, at least it couldn’t come back to bite the state of Washington in the butt. In order to prove that to be the case, I needed more information—and so would Kendall Jackson.
“What can you tell me about God’s Word, LLC?” I asked.
Elaine shrugged. “It’s an umbrella 501-C corporation. Donations go to that. God’s Word pays the mission’s bills, owns the property, that kind of thing. And that’s something else—the money. I’ve heard rumors that some zoning changes are in the works that might alter the makeup of the neighborhood. I’m guessing if that happened, God’s Word would stop being a mission and start making money.”
“What would LaShawn have thought about that?” I asked.
“He was never in it for the money,” she said. “That wasn’t what he was about.”
But it was certainly another possible bone of contention between the dead man and Pastor Mark.