by JA Jance
And if Delilah had zero connection with any of those long-lost detectives, she’d have even less to Rory “Mac” MacPherson. After leaving the Patrol division, I knew he had spent years with the Motorcycle unit, including a decade in which he was in charge of Seattle PD’s motorcycle drill team. Although he had loved riding motorcycles, they had almost been the death of him. He left the department years before I did, mustering out as a double amputee with a full medical retirement disability after a drunk driver ran a red light and sent both him and his bike flying through the air.
But I did know all those guys, all four of those honorable fellow officers. I knew them up close and personal, the way partners know partners. Of those four, Mac was the only one whose integrity I could conceivably question—the only one who gave me any cause to worry that he might not be a straight-up kind of guy.
As much as I had tried to avoid this issue, there had always been something slightly hinky about the way the two of us had gotten our two separate promotions. One day we had been out on patrol, riding around in a marked car, pulling over the occasional speeder. And then, the next day, we both got the very promotions we had been chasing.
During my first months and years in Homicide, I had faced down the doubters by working like crazy, earning my fifth-floor chops in my own right. I had always assumed that Mac had done the same thing in his unit. But even if I had some personal doubts about the guy’s uprightness, I could see that of all the people involved, he was the least likely one to have had anything to do with the disappearing evidence box. The reason was simple—he wasn’t a detective. As a member of the Motorcycle unit, Mac would never have had the kind of access to the evidence room that everybody else did.
I was still thinking about that when Delilah called. “Speak of the devil,” I said. “What are you up to this fine day?”
Outside my window, I could see that the early-morning fog had burned off, leaving behind one of those gloriously clear early autumn days when the weather in Seattle just can’t get any better. Seeing the blue sky overhead made me wish I was in the great outdoors as opposed to being tethered to a hospital room.
“I’m on my way to Sammamish,” she said. “I’m going there to talk to Rory MacPherson.”
I know about the City of Sammamish. It’s out on the Sammamish Plateau, on the far side of Issaquah, on an area of higher ground between Lake Washington and the Cascades. It used to be part of unincorporated King County, but sometime in the last twenty years or so it had supposedly turned into a city. Having never been there, I couldn’t swear one way or the other.
“That’s where Mac retired to?” I asked. “Sammamish? I had no idea.”
“According to Records it is,” Delilah said. “I called to make sure he was home, because I didn’t want to go driving all the way out there on a wild-goose chase. He asked me what it was about, and I told him we were reopening one of his cases. Can you tell me anything more about him than what we discussed last night?”
I had already told her everything I remembered from Mac’s and my last second-watch ride together all those years ago—the phone call from Frankie and Donnie; finding the girl in the barrel; doing the initial canvass of the neighborhood under the direction of Watty Watkins and Larry Powell. What I hadn’t told her about was what had happened two days later.
“I suppose there is one more thing,” I admitted reluctantly, “something I probably should have mentioned earlier but didn’t.”
“What?”
“It turned out that was my last shift as far as Patrol was concerned, and Mac’s, too. I had taken the test and applied for Homicide before then. I had also been told there weren’t any openings, but when I came back from my days off two days after that shift, I discovered I had been moved out of Patrol and into Homicide. And I wasn’t the only one to get a promotion. All of a sudden, Mac was working Motorcycles, which was the exact assignment he had always wanted.”
“The idea of both of you being promoted at once sounds too good to be true and maybe slightly more than coincidental,” Delilah observed. “Are you thinking there was some kind of cause and effect here?”
“I tried to convince myself otherwise at the time, but maybe there was,” I admitted.
“You never asked anyone about it?”
“If you’ll pardon the expression, I was low man on the totem pole back then,” I told her. “I had the promotion I wanted, and I sure as hell didn’t want to rock any boats.”
“Didn’t want to get kicked back to the gang?” Delilah asked, ignoring my unauthorized Native American gibe. In law enforcement these days, political correctness rules. Working with someone who was half Sioux was making me aware that, without my noticing it, a lot of those potential land-mine phrases had wormed their way into my manner of speaking. Of course, maybe they had always been there; I was simply not paying attention.
“Exactly,” I said.
“So you’re suggesting I ask him about it now?” she asked.
“I don’t see what it could hurt,” I agreed. “After all, we’re both out of Seattle PD, along with most of the other guys who were working there at the time.”
“Including whoever disappeared the evidence?”
“Most likely,” I admitted grudgingly.
My surgeon came in about then. Dr. Auld had breezed through my room a couple of times in the days since my surgery, but I hadn’t had a chance for a real conversation with the man. Hoping to get cut loose, I didn’t want to miss the chance to talk to him now.
“Gotta go now,” I said to Delilah. “Talk to you later.”
The doctor stripped the sheet off my knees. Staring down at the two matching lines of staples that were all that showed of his handiwork, he nodded his approval.
“How come they call it rounds?” I asked. “Why don’t they call it squares?”
It was a meaningless quip, but Dr. Auld answered it quite seriously. “I believe it had its origins at Johns Hopkins, where the hospital was built under a dome. But let’s not worry about that, shall we? Let’s get you sorted out.”
Pulling his own iPad from the pocket of his white jacket, Dr. Auld clicked it a few times and then studied what appeared on the screen. “From your PT reports, you appear to be a star pupil, Mr. Beaumont,” he said. “Great range of motion. No sign of infection. No fever. How’s the pain?”
“Manageable,” I said. “But I’ve got a couple of numb spots, one on each leg.”
“Nerve damage,” he said. “The numb spots may go away or they may be permanent. No way to tell. What’s your house like? How many stairs do you have to negotiate?”
“None whatsoever,” I replied. “We live in a condo with full elevator service.”
“Anyone there with you?”
“My wife, Mel,” I replied. “I’m sure you met her the other day, but she’s currently out of town. I’m not sure when she’ll be back.”
“All right, then,” he said, slipping his iPad away. “You’re making great progress. I might be able to boot you out of here a couple of days early as long as you agree to continue working on your PT at home, but I can’t release you without your having someone there to keep an eye on you. What say we revisit this tomorrow? But here’s a word of advice. When you do go home, I want you to ease off the pain meds gradually. No going cold turkey. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said. With that, Dr. Auld was gone.
By now I was used to the hospital routine. I did my morning OT and had some lunch. After that, however, it was time to talk to my sponsor. Sighing in resignation, I called Lars Jenssen.
Lars spent a lifetime as a halibut fisherman, commuting between Seattle and Alaska’s fishing grounds aboard his boat, the Viking Star. Despite having been born and raised in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, Lars speaks English with a thick Norwegian accent that becomes even more pronounced whenever he gets near a telephone.
“Ja sure,” he said, when he heard my voice on the phone. “How’re ya doing?”
“I almost calle
d you last night.”
I could hear a slight shift in his position, as though he was sitting up straighter than he had been before and was paying closer attention.
“So they got you on some of them painkillers?” Lars asked. “The powerful ones?”
“That’s right.”
“When you’re hopped up on them, it’s easy to slip back onto the hard stuff,” Lars observed. “You need me, you call me, anytime, day or night. I’ll grab a taxi and be there.”
I knew he would be.
“Thanks, Lars,” I said.
“Ya got yourself a good life now, Beau,” he said. “Wouldn’t want ya to screw it up, that’s for sure.”
I agreed with him there. “I promise, if the urge comes over me again, I’ll call.”
“Gotta go,” I told him when call waiting buzzed. “I’ve got another call.” I could tell by the number on the screen that it was coming from Joanna Brady’s direct line.
“I think I found what you needed,” Sheriff Brady said when I answered. “Doug’s death was big news here in town when it happened, and there was quite a spread. Listed among his survivors was his fiancée, Bonnie MacLean, of Coconut Grove, Florida. That’s all it says about her. No additional information was given.”
“What about other relatives there in town?”
“The obituary said Doug had two brothers. I knew the one who died about ten years ago, a decade or so after Doug’s mother, but I have no idea what’s become of the second one.”
“The information on the virtual wall said Doug Davis was a Roman Catholic,” I offered. “Is it possible a local priest would be able to provide more information?”
“Hardly,” Joanna replied. “Father Rowan has only been at St. Benedict’s a couple of years. I doubt he’d have any connections going back that far. I can keep asking if you’d like,” she added, “but you didn’t really tell me what this is about.”
It took a while for me to answer. It was time to be straight with someone about my search for Lennie D.’s fiancée, and I decided Joanna Brady was it.
“Doug and I served together,” I admitted at last. “In Vietnam. He was my commanding officer, my platoon leader, and he saved my life. I’m hoping to track down his fiancée and tell her thank you.”
“So you’re what earned Doug that Silver Star?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” I said. “Those were two other guys. What he did for me was loan me a book. When we got caught in that firefight, the piece of metal that should have killed me outright got buried in the pages of the book instead of in the wall of my chest. If he hadn’t given me the book to read, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Under the circumstances, I can see why you’d want to reach out to his fiancée,” Joanna said. “I’ll keep making inquiries around town. If I come up with anything more, I’ll let you know.”
“Great,” I told her. “Thanks.”
There was a pause. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You sound funny.”
I didn’t know how to answer her on that. After all, Lennie D. died more than four decades ago. But she was correct. I was anything but all right. Why was it so difficult for me to talk about this now? What was wrong with me? And why was that damned lump back in my throat?
“I’m fine,” I said.
When she hung up, I tried shaking off this latest mood swing by picking up my iPad and googling Bonnie MacLean. Not surprisingly, I found nothing. Not one thing. It was likely that she had married in the intervening years and moved on. That’s what people do.
By then it was time for afternoon PT. When that was over, I wanted to talk to Mel, but I didn’t call her. I knew she was busy working, and I didn’t want to disturb her. She’d get around to calling when she could, but I was beyond bored. I was delighted when my phone rang.
“You son of a bitch!” It took a while for me to recognize Mac MacPherson’s voice.
“Top of the day to you, too,” I responded mildly.
“What do you mean opening up this can of worms all these years later?” he raged. “Couldn’t you just let things be? Is this the thanks I get?”
“Thanks for what?” I asked.
“For keeping my mouth shut all this time,” Mac replied. “For making it possible for you to get that early move up to Homicide. But no, instead of letting it rest—instead of letting a closed case stay closed—you had to send that woman out here to nose around.”
“Like it or not,” I told him, “the Monica Wellington homicide case has been officially reopened. If both of our promotions back then came about because of something related to that, because of some information you withheld at the time? Too bad. Now’s the time to come forward, especially if it’s some detail that would help us close the case.”
“I don’t know anything about the Girl in the Barrel,” he insisted, “not a damned thing! As for you? Do me a favor and go straight to hell! And the next time either you or that babe with the boobs stops by for a chat, I’m going to have an attorney present!”
I started to ask him why he was so upset, but before I could, he slammed the phone down in my ear. Having a landline phone crammed into a receiver is a lot more of a statement than ending a call on a cell phone.
Delilah had given me her number, and I dialed it. “What the hell did you say to Mac MacPherson?”
I was about to say something about Mac’s being on the warpath, but I caught myself.
“I told him we were reopening the Wellington homicide. He claimed to have no knowledge of the case; said that he’d forgotten it completely after all these years. Which was obviously a lie.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because as the interview went on, I noticed that he seemed to become more and more agitated. Eventually he invited me to leave.”
“He threw you out?”
“Yes, and none too politely, either.”
“Did you give him my number?”
“I gave him both our numbers in case anything occurred to him after I left. Why are you asking?”
“Because he just called here and read me the riot act for bringing the case up and for siccing you on him. He also said that the next time either of us talks to him, he wants to have a lawyer present.”
“That’s what he told me, too, but why would he lawyer up unless he has something to hide?” Delilah asked. “Is it possible we should be treating him as a suspect in Monica’s murder?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t see how he could have done it. We were riding patrol together that day when the call came in. If he had been involved in it, I would have noticed that something was wrong.”
“So maybe he has something to do with the missing evidence,” Delilah suggested.
“Maybe,” I said. “But from what he said to me, I suspect whatever he’s hiding has something to do with our promotions.”
“From all the way back in 1973?” She sounded skeptical.
“Where are you now?” I asked.
“On my way back to the department. Why?”
“Do me a favor. Go up to HR and see if you can find the records from back then. I want to see who signed off on the paperwork for those two promotions.”
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Delilah observed. “What makes you think they’ll still have a paper trail after all this time?”
“I’m sure the paper itself is long gone,” I agreed. “But if the records haven’t yet been digitized, they’ll still have them on microfiche.”
“How quaint,” she said. “That’s just how I don’t want to spend the rest of this lovely fall afternoon, scrolling through microfiche records.”
“Somebody has to do it,” I said.
“All right,” she allowed grudgingly, “but you owe me.”
Call waiting buzzed. I could see that Mel was on the line. “Gotta go,” I told Delilah. “I’ve missed you,” I said to Mel when I switched over to her call. “I was afraid you had forgotten me completely.”
“Not completely,” Mel
agreed. “But close. We’ve got a suspect in the death of that supposedly peaceful protester, Mr. Abernathy—Reginald Abernathy—Reggie for short.”
“A cop?” I asked.
“Luckily for me and for the rest of Bellingham’s law enforcement community, the POI isn’t a cop,” Mel answered. “Her name is Aspen Leonard, and she happens to be Reggie’s girlfriend. Was Reggie’s girlfriend,” Mel corrected.
“That would be the same girlfriend who went to ground?”
“The very one,” Mel said. “We’ve already put out a BOLO on her, but I’m thinking of changing it to an all points.”
It made perfect sense to me that Mel and I would talk business first and whisper sweet nothings later.
“What makes you think the girlfriend is responsible?” I asked.
“Thanks to Ross Connors, the tox report came back weeks earlier than it would have otherwise,” Mel replied. “It turns out Reggie died of an overdose all right, but it’s an overdose of something that isn’t one of your usual recreational drugs.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“Pentobarbital,” Mel answered. “It’s currently the big drug of choice for vets doing pet euthanasia. And guess who happens to work in a vet’s office, or at least who used to work in a vet’s office?”
“The girlfriend?”
“Right you are, and, strangely enough, two vials of the stuff—enough to do in two eighty- to one-hundred-pound dogs—have evidently gone missing from the veterinarian’s locked drug storage. Unfortunately for the late Mr. Abernathy, he was a bit of a lightweight in that department. He tipped the scales at one sixty-two.
“So that’s what’s going on with me,” Mel added. “How about you?”
“Not much,” I said, “other than the fact that I was just bitched out on the phone by Mac MacPherson.”
“The guy you rode with on Patrol years ago?”
“The very one, and the same guy who was with me when we found Monica Wellington’s body.”