Justice Denied

by J. A. Jance

  “Besides,” she added, circling around to turn onto Mercer, “if it’s a choice between having you at my back or having a bunch of gun-happy SWAT guys, I’ll take you any day of the week. Now get DeAnn on the phone. Let’s find out what’s going on.”

  I picked up the phone. With Mel at the wheel, we’d either get to Redmond in a hell of a hurry or we wouldn’t get there at all. I knew I was better off manning the phone than I was watching the speedometer.

  “Where are you?” I asked when DeAnn Cosgrove came on the line.

  “I’m doing what you said,” she told me. “I moved my car down the street. Are you coming?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, we are. We’re on Mercer now, heading for I-5.”

  There was a pause before DeAnn said, “Just because you found blood on his shoes doesn’t mean he did it, you know. Isn’t there such a thing as innocent until proven guilty?”

  Sitting alone in the dark, I’m sure DeAnn had been replaying everything that had happened in the course of the last several days, everything that had been said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Maybe he didn’t.” I was agreeing for form’s sake and to keep DeAnn talking. The blood on Donnie’s clothing, his bizarre behavior, his going missing. None of those spoke of innocence, but I didn’t say that aloud.

  “What if he goes to prison?” DeAnn asked with a despairing catch in her throat. “What will happen to the kids and me then?”

  I wanted to say, You’ll do what you have to do. But I didn’t say that, either. The idea that Donnie Cosgrove was on his way to prison was a likely possibility.

  “Let Mel and me talk to him first,” I said, throwing DeAnn a reassuring bone. “Let us get his side of what happened.”

  “Just don’t hurt him,” DeAnn said. “Please don’t hurt him. I don’t care what he did. I still love him.”

  “You’ve got to let us handle this, DeAnn.”

  “I’m hanging up now,” she said. She did. When I tried calling back, she didn’t answer.

  Sick with worry and a short fourteen minutes after pulling out of the parking garage at Belltown Terrace, we turned onto the Cosgroves’ quiet cul-de-sac. Unplugging the flasher, Mel pulled in front of Donnie Cosgrove’s SUV and shut down the engine.

  Before the Mercedes could come to a complete stop, I was out the door and racing back toward the Tahoe. There I was relieved to see for my own eyes that DeAnn was right. The blued-steel handle of a .357 Magnum lay partially visible under a folded newspaper that had been left on the passenger-side front seat. As soon as I saw the revolver, I knew for sure it wasn’t the weapon that had left behind the shell casing that had been found at the scene of the Lawrence double homicide. Revolvers don’t eject their brass.

  By then Mel had joined me on the sidewalk. “His gun’s here,” I whispered to Mel. “As least we’ve got that much going for us.”

  Just then there was a single flash from a pair of headlights on a car a block or so down the street. A car door slammed some distance away and running feet splashed toward us on the rain-soaked pavement.

  “Thank God you really did come alone,” DeAnn said, gasping. “I was afraid you were lying to me, that you’d bring a whole army along with you.”

  I had given DeAnn Cosgrove the benefit of my very best advice. She wasn’t listening to any of it. “Go back to your vehicle,” I whispered urgently, catching DeAnn by the arm and bodily turning her. “Or else go sit in ours and stay the hell out of the way. Let us do our jobs. Is the front door locked or unlocked?”

  “It was locked when I left it,” she said, “but I don’t know if it’s locked now.”

  “Give me the key.”

  She hesitated, so I said it again. “The key. Give it to me.”

  Reluctantly she reached into her jacket pocket and handed it over. “This one,” she said. “The Schlage.”

  “Now get out of the line of fire.”

  “What do you mean, ‘line of fire’?” she yelped, her voice rising. “You said you wouldn’t hurt him. You promised. I checked on him just a minute ago. He’s still sleeping. He hasn’t moved.”

  “Shut up!” I ordered. “Stay the hell out of the way!”

  There are essentially two ways for police officers to approach a sleeping subject. In one, you sneak up on him and try to catch him completely unawares. In the other, you come on like gangbusters. You burst in with guns drawn, breaking down doors and screaming, “Police! Police! Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” at the top of your lungs. The second method is generally used when you have overwhelming firepower to back you up. The god-awful racket is calculated to do two things—to ratchet up the courage for all arriving officers and let them know where all the good guys are and to scare the living crap out of the unsuspecting suspect.

  On the way to Redmond, Mel and I had discussed which strategy was called for in this particular situation. In view of DeAnn’s claim that Donnie’s gun was safely locked in his car and assuming—hoping—that was the only weapon involved, we had come down on the “let sleeping dogs lie” side of the equation. If Donnie really was sound asleep and since we’d be entering the house with DeAnn’s permission, it wasn’t necessary to go breaking down doors in the process. And if we came upon Donnie quietly enough and fast enough, it seemed likely that we’d be able to subdue the man before he woke up fully and knew what was happening.

  We had determined that Mel would go around to the back of the house and wait on the far side of the patio doors in case he made a break for it and tried to exit that way. Once she was in place, I’d go in through the front door and tackle him wherever he was sleeping.

  That was the plan, at least. Once we arrived, we didn’t stand around jawing about it before putting it into play. I nodded to Mel and off she went.

  I suppose there are those who think I shouldn’t have sent Mel off like that. Some people are of the opinion that if I really loved her, I would never have put her in jeopardy. The reality is this: I had and have one hundred percent confidence in Melissa Soames and her abilities. I know what she’s capable of, and I know I can count on her.

  With one hand resting on her Glock, she set out through the side yard to circle around to the back of the house. Rain was falling at a steady enough clip that it thrummed on the rooftops and dripped out of the gutters. I hoped the noise of the rain would help muffle the sounds of our moving footsteps. The front yard was a minefield of scattered Big Wheels and toys, and I hoped there weren’t more of the same waiting in the side-or backyard to send Mel ass over teakettle. In this kind of life-and-death situation the last thing I needed was to have my partner taken out by somebody’s toy fire engine or dump truck.

  Wanting to give Mel plenty of time to get into position, I stayed where I was and counted to one hundred—very slowly. Only then did I move forward. Carefully. Quietly. One silent step at a time.

  I eased my way up onto the porch where glass sidelights on either side of the front door offered a narrow glimpse of the living room. Pressing up to one of the windows, I saw the figure of a man lying sprawled against the back of the living room couch. One arm dangled limply over the end of the armrest with no sign of movement. On the coffee table I glimpsed the outline of a spilled booze bottle, which probably accounted for why Donnie Cosgrove was sleeping so soundly despite all the unusual activity in front of his house.

  As I reached for the doorknob I knew there was a fifty-fifty chance that the door would be locked, but it wasn’t. The knob turned easily in my hand. The latch let go with what was probably only a tiny click, but the sound bore an ominous resemblance to a bullet dropping into a chamber. I waited for a moment to see if Cosgrove had heard it, but there was no movement from the couch, none at all.

  Grateful that the Pergo flooring didn’t sag or squeak under my weight, I stepped into the tiny vestibule. On the far side of the living room I caught a glimpse of Mel through the glass of the patio door. She had yet to draw her weapon, and neither had I. If we could do the takedown without unholstering
our weapons we’d all be better off—and a hell of a lot safer. Being shot by friendly fire is no benefit, especially if you’re dead.

  I was within three steps of the couch when DeAnn Cosgrove took Mel’s and my well-thought-out plan and smashed it into a million pieces. Without any warning, she darted past me, screaming like a banshee. “Donnie, wake up! You have to wake up!”

  I tried to grab her, but she dodged out of the way. Despite the racket, though, Donnie Cosgrove didn’t move; didn’t even budge. And that’s when I saw several empty prescription-drug containers next to an almost empty vodka bottle that had spilled most of its remaining contents on the coffee table.

  Mel popped the flimsy lock on the patio door, shoved it open, and burst into the room. Kneeling beside the couch, she grasped Donnie’s loose wrist. By then I had managed to grab DeAnn and hang on to her. She was screaming frantically when Mel turned to us. “He’s still alive,” she said. “Barely. Call 9-1-1.”

  From the look on Mel’s face I knew the situation was serious, and there wasn’t much time. I can tell you straight out that it’s impossible to hold a desperately struggling woman with one hand while dialing a cell phone with the other. I finally gave up and let DeAnn loose in favor of calling the EMTs. DeAnn raced around the coffee table and fell to her knees at her husband’s side, shaking him and begging him to wake up. He didn’t stir.

  By then it was almost three o’clock in the still of a cold March morning. I’m guessing the ambulance crew was thrilled to have something happening on their watch. They showed up in their rubber boots and waterproof jackets in something less than three minutes. When they arrived, my heart was still pounding with post-incident jitters. While I attempted to keep a shaken and sobbing DeAnn out of the EMTs’ way, they slapped Donnie onto a gurney. They wheeled him out to the waiting aid car. With a burst of noisy sirens the ambulance took off, headed for Evergreen Hospital a few miles away.

  At the time they were leaving, there was no way to know if a stomach-pumping procedure would do the trick or if Donnie Cosgrove was a goner.

  “I’m going, too,” DeAnn insisted. She pulled away from me, and I let her go.

  Moments later Mel and I were alone in a living room littered with the ambulance crew’s debris—muddy boot prints and discarded latex gloves.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Mel nodded. “But you’d better take a look at this,” she said.

  She was pointing at the coffee table. Next to the vodka bottle and under one of the empty prescription bottles lay a page of notebook paper covered with writing.

  “Suicide note?” I asked.

  “Looks like,” she said.

  I moved over to the table and examined the paper without actually touching it. At the beginning of the note the penmanship was reasonably legible. Toward the bottom of the page it devolved into an illegible scrawl. The ballpoint pen still lay on the floor where it had fallen.

  Honey Bun,

  I didn’t do it, but they’ll think I did. That cop I talked to will think I killed them because I told him I was going to. I even had the gun along. My gun. But that was only because I wanted to scare the shit out of Jack Lawrence. I wanted him as scared as you were the other day. But mostly I took the gun along for protection. I was there when it happened, or right after, and the cops will be able to figure that out. They’ll find my footprints there. There’s blood on my clothing and on my shoes. I never knew there could be so much blood. It was awful.

  I saw the car of the guy who did it—at least I think it was his car. I watched him drive away. You’ve got to believe me when I tell you they were already dead when I got there. I checked. That’s how the blood got all over me, but there was nothing I could do to help them, God help me. Nothing.

  I know I should have called right then and reported it. But there was so much blood that I just panicked. I was scared and couldn’t think straight. I just wanted to get away. And when that detective came to the house this morning to tell you what had happened, it just got worse and worse. By not reporting it to begin with, that was one lie. And by not saying anything then, that was another.

  I’m sorry…and you and the kids…

  The note ended its illegible scrawl in midsentence. It was unsigned.

  “What do we do about this?” Mel asked.

  “We call Detective Lander over in Chelan and let him know that we’ve got Donnie. He may not be our suspect, but he is a potential eyewitness.”

  “If he lives,” Mel muttered. “And if DeAnn had listened to us and stayed away from here, he’d be dead for sure.”

  About that time there was a knock—a firm, businesslike knock—on the door and a uniformed Redmond cop entered the room.

  “We understand there’s been a disturbance here,” he said. “Maybe you two would like to tell me what’s been going on.”

  That took time. Local jurisdictions do not look kindly on other law enforcement agencies conducting raids or investigations of any kind on their turf without letting the home team know what’s happening. We showed the patrol officer our SHIT ID. We told him what had transpired. It made no difference. Not only was the responding officer not impressed, he was offended. The patrol officer’s supervisor, when he arrived, was also offended. And when the desk sergeant heard about it, he was really offended. We tried explaining why DeAnn Cosgrove had summoned us instead of them, but to no avail. Nothing was going to fix it since DeAnn wasn’t there to vouch for us.

  At three forty-five I finally admitted defeat and did what I should have done to begin with. I called Harry I. Ball at home and woke him up. He arrived on the scene in fifty minutes flat—all the way from the far side of North Bend. We gave him the shorthand version of what had happened.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “You’ve told them all this?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the assembled local yokels.

  “Several times,” I answered.

  “You two go on home, then,” Harry told us. “Leave this to me. I’ll kick ass and take names later.”

  Mel and I retreated to the Mercedes. As we drove away we could hear Harry bellowing into his cell phone at some poor hapless soul or other.

  “There are occasions when Harry I. Ball can be annoying as hell,” Mel observed, “but there are other times when you’ve gotta love the guy.”

  This was definitely one of the latter.

  CHAPTER 20

  As we drove across the 520 Bridge, it was 5:00 a.m. The early-bird morning commute was already under way, and Mel and I were both starving.

  Twenty-four-hour dining has almost gone the way of the dodo bird in downtown Seattle, with the notable exception of the Five Point Café at Fifth and Cedar. Smoking may have been abolished in Washington restaurants, but there’s enough residual smoke lingering in the Five Point to make an old Doghouse regular feel right at home.

  While we waited for our breakfasts I dialed DeAnn’s cell phone number just to see if she had any update on Donnie’s condition. She didn’t. I also called Detective Lander across the mountains in Chelan to let him know what the deal was. We ate breakfast—no coffee—and then staggered home to bed. At six. In the morning. To say we were both beat is understating the obvious.

  Harry I. Ball called at nine and woke us up, and I was something less than cordial. What had been downright endearing at 5:00 a.m. was a lot less lovable on three hours of sleep. When the phone rang Mel didn’t even wiggle. Answering it was my responsibility.

  “Time to rise and shine,” Harry bellowed into the phone, breaking my eardrum.

  “Come on, Harry,” I said, “have a heart. I barely got my eyes closed.”

  “And I haven’t closed mine at all,” he returned cheerily. “So stop complaining. This BOLO that just came across my desk. That would be on the guy who went off to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. Right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  Mel turned over on her side and buried her head under her pillow.

  “And what about these phone record
s, the ones that were faxed to me this morning? They’re for Jack and Carol Lawrence up in Leavenworth—the two victims, presumably. What do you want me to do with those?”

  I sure as hell didn’t want to drive across the water to pick them up. “How about faxing them over to me here in Seattle?” I asked.

  “Barbara isn’t here,” Harry said with a growl. “Has to take her kid to the dentist. Faxing’ll have to wait until she gets in. That probably won’t be before noon.”

  The truth is, Harry is one of the world’s greatest technophobes, a guy who has never sent a fax in his life. His ineptitude makes me feel like a telecommunications genius. Besides, right about then, noon didn’t sound half bad.

  “Fine,” I said. “Whenever.”

  I put down the phone. It immediately rang again. “This is the doorman,” Jerome Grimes told me. “I have a Mr. Hatcher down here to see you.”

  The very last thing I wanted right then was an in-house visit from Ross Connors’s pet economist, but he was already there. “All right,” I said. “Tell him to go to the deli next door for some coffee and a bagel. Tell him we’ll see him in fifteen minutes.”

  Mel groaned. “See who?” she mumbled from under her pillow.

  “Todd Hatcher,” I told her, giving her a whack on her down-comforter-shrouded hip. “Up and at ’em. The world awaits. Todd’ll be here in fifteen.”

  He was, too, bringing with him two extra toasted onion bagels with cream cheese—in case we were hungry. We weren’t. I went to the door to let him in. Mel was still in the shower.

  “You did tell me to come back on Monday, didn’t you?” Hatcher asked uncertainly.

  “Yes,” I said. “I just didn’t know we’d be out all night working a case, is all. Come on in and get set up. Mel will be out in a minute.”

  While Todd went about taking over the kitchen counter I muddled around making coffee. Mine isn’t as good as Mel’s, but it’s drinkable, and that’s what was called for that particular Monday morning—gallons and gallons of coffee.