by JA Jance
“That’s right. No warrant. No muss. No fuss.”
“And without having to send him a bogus envelope to lick and return,” Mel added. “Isn’t technology great!”
Todd was good to his word. My e-mail dinged with his incoming message before we even made it to Woodinville. His e-mail came with an attachment as well as with directions for opening and duplicating it that would allow for the attachment to be used in an interactive fashion.
When I opened the PDF, I was pleased with Todd’s concoction—a simple but very realistic form, stating that an illegally parked vehicle belonging to the deceased, Faye Lee Adcock, had been towed by Seattle PD to the following location, and asking for the signature of the next of kin to acknowledge that they had been told the location of said vehicle. The form came complete with all the proper legal-sounding bells and whistles, including the Kia’s VIN. At the bottom, there was a place for the recipient to sign and date, a spot underneath that for him to print both his name and his e-mail address, and a place for me to countersign as well.
As my granddaughter Kayla used to say, easy peasy.
“You do realize,” Mel admonished, “that both the stylus and the iPad will have to go in an evidence bag?”
That was the downside of this whole operation. “Well,” I said with a grin, “I guess we’ll just have to be old-fashioned and be your basic one iPad/one iPhone family for the duration.”
“Not for long,” she said. “We’re getting my iPhone back today!”
By the time we hit I-405, I had programmed Ken Adcock’s address into the GPS. Afternoon traffic was just starting to build up when we turned off at the 70th Street exit and made our way over to 132nd. We drove through a thickly forested area of the city called Bridle Trails, where the lots are what they call “horse acres” or larger, complete with backyard stables and riding trails.
Eventually the GPS directed us off 132nd and into a long driveway that swept uphill to Ken Adcock’s looming mansion. The rambling edifice took up most of what was plainly a huge lot with no sign of stables or horses. It reeked of the wealth that grew as well as trees in the Northwest’s silicon forest.
The house looked smug and opulent, and just seeing it there made me suddenly furious. I had no doubt that eventually the DNA would tell the tale. Kenneth Adcock the younger had murdered a sweet, innocent girl who had inconveniently become pregnant with his child. With cover-up help from both his parents, Adcock had continued to go to school and live the good life, amassing a reasonably sized fortune in the process. And what did Monica Wellington have to show for her life? A headstone in a Leavenworth cemetery and a mother who, almost forty years later, kept candles burning in her daughter’s memory.
Life isn’t fair.
The paved circular driveway that wound around a lushly flowing fountain was filled with the cars of sympathetic well-wishers who had evidently arrived en masse to express their condolences about Faye Adcock’s tragic death. A pair of swinging ornamental gates had been left open to allow for all the comings and goings. As far as Mel and I were concerned, things were getting better and better.
Fortunately, my Mercedes, even though it wasn’t a brand-new model, fit in with all the other spendy vehicles that included at least one chauffeur-driven Bentley. If we’d shown up in that esteemed company driving a beat-up, unmarked patrol car, I have no doubt someone would have immediately emerged from the house and sent us packing. As Cousin Vinny learned all those years ago, it’s a good idea to blend.
Before getting out of the vehicle, Mel took great pains to wipe both the iPad screen and the stylus. Then, with the cover flapped shut over both the iPad and the stylus, she carried those while I wrestled my body and my two Technicolor canes out of the car. Slowly I made my way up the smoothly paved driveway and onto the massive porch. The front door was open to accommodate the stream of visitors. We could have walked inside, but without a warrant it was best to stay on the porch.
The woman who came to the door in answer to the doorbell, clearly a caterer’s assistant, invited us inside.
“No, thank you,” I said cordially. “We know this is a difficult time, and we don’t want to intrude, but we do need to have a word with Mr. Adcock.”
Nodding, she disappeared.
When Ken Adcock appeared in the entryway a few minutes later, I felt as though I were seeing a ghost. The man was definitely his father’s son in size and build, but his face was a mixture of both his mother and his father. He had his father’s square jawline and his mother’s fathomless dark eyes.
“I understand you wanted to see me?” he asked.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my badge and ID. I worried that Adcock might somehow connect my name with the location of his mother’s fatal leap, but he’d had enough interactions with cops that day that he didn’t give either of them a second glance.
“You still haven’t said what you want.”
“Sorry to bother you at a time like this, and we’re so sorry for your loss,” I said in my most conciliatory fashion.
“What’s this about?” he asked brusquely. His voice said it all. Yes, his mother was dead. That made Mel’s and my presence a necessary annoyance.
“Your mother’s vehicle,” I answered.
“What about it?” he said. “My understanding is that it’s been towed to a lot somewhere over in Lake City.”
“Yes,” I said. “That would be Big Boy Towing. Did the people who gave you that information have you sign a receipt?”
Ken frowned. “No,” he said. “They didn’t. Were they supposed to?”
“That’s why we’re following up,” I explained. “In situations like this, it’s best not to leave anything to chance.”
“So where’s the paper?” he asked impatiently. “Give me whatever it is I’m supposed to sign. I need to get back to my guests.”
As if to underscore the statement, another vehicle was just then nosing its way up the drive. Without a hitch, Mel held out the iPad and flipped open the cover, revealing the stylus. Switching on the iPad, she opened it to the proper document, and then she passed the device over to Adcock. In the process she managed to do a well-faked stumble that almost knocked both the stylus and the iPad out of his hands. In juggling to keep from dropping the iPad and the stylus, Adcock managed to put his fingerprints, and hopefully some DNA, all over them.
“So sorry,” Mel said with an apologetic smile. “It’s the canes. I can’t get used to having a gimp for a partner. I keep tripping over the damned things.”
As the new arrivals emerged from their vehicle—a bright red Volvo—and came toward the porch, Adcock hurriedly scribbled his signature, the date, printed the required information at the bottom and then handed it back to Mel.
“Are you going to send me a copy of that?” he demanded.
“Yes, of course,” Mel said with her sweetest smile as she took hold of the very tip end of the stylus. “That’s why we needed your e-mail address. Once we get back to the office, we’ll forward you a copy.”
As the new guests arrived, Adcock dismissed us and turned to greet them. He didn’t see Mel slip both the stylus and the iPad into a waiting evidence bag, and he didn’t see the wink she sent in my direction, either.
As far as I was concerned, her wink said it all—mission accomplished!
CHAPTER 25
Obviously I didn’t jump up and down and click my heels as we headed back to the car, but I felt like it.
“Where to now?” she asked, once we were in the car and she was fastening her seat belt. “The crime lab?”
“You got it.”
Mel nudged our way around the fountain and back out onto 132nd. “You realize this is going to take time, don’t you? It’s not like having a cheek-swab sample. They may have to use PCR to make it work.”
“I don’t care how long it takes,” I said. “If we’re right, he’s gotten away with Monica’s murder all this time. As far as he’s concerned, everyone at Seattle PD is totally buying the id
ea that Monica was Adcock Senior’s lover and that Faye’s death is about blackmail. As long as Junior has no clue that you and I are onto him, he’s got no reason to run.”
“Because he thinks he’s got everything sacked and bagged.”
“Exactly.”
It was full-on traffic now. Because we were at the top end of Bellevue, we went across the 520 Bridge. It was stop-and-go the whole way, from the time we exited 405 until we were midspan. Maybe I wouldn’t mind paying the tolls so much if they had actually done something to ease traffic congestion. But they haven’t. If anything, it’s worse.
We were on I-5 headed south when my phone rang. “Hello,” Marge Herndon said. “Remember me? Where are you?”
“We just got back from Leavenworth,” I said.
“I didn’t get out anything for dinner,” Marge said. “But there was no point in standing around all day doing nothing. I’ve mopped, vacuumed, dusted, and cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen. I’m also calling to tell you I’m taking the rest of the evening off!”
The truth is, Mel and I spend so much time together, coming and going as we please, that I don’t think it had occurred to either one of us that we needed to report in to Marge.
“Thank you, Marge,” I said. “We didn’t mean to leave you hanging.”
“I’m not hanging any longer,” she said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She didn’t add “or else,” but I’m sure I heard those two words out there in the ether.
“I guess we missed curfew?” Mel asked with a grin.
I nodded.
“Great,” Mel said. “We’ll go to El Gaucho for dinner. You can call for a reservation while I run in and out of the crime lab.”
That’s what we did. After the crime lab stop, we went by Seattle PD and picked up Mel’s cell phone as well. Before my knees got really bad, Mel and I would walk the few blocks from Belltown Terrace to El Gaucho. Lately, though, the valet parkers had grown accustomed to our showing up in either Mel’s car or mine, and they’re careful to leave whichever vehicle we arrive in close at hand.
Walking into the velvety darkness of that particular restaurant with Mel at my side always raises my spirits. I know the food will be good and the conversation will be better.
In the time since Mel had been back, we’d done very little talking about her sojourn in Bellingham. Now, with her sipping a glass of wine and me easing into an O’Doul’s, she told me all about it. She was finishing up when she came to the part of the story that scared the hell out of me.
“The sense around town is that Police Chief Hamlin never should have let the protest situation get as out of hand as it did,” Mel said thoughtfully.
“So?”
“There’s a real movement afoot in the city council to demand her resignation. Several people let me know that if that happens, they think I should apply for the job.”
My heart gave a lurch inside my chest. I love living in Seattle. I love living in Belltown Terrace, but maybe that’s just me. After all, isn’t “whither thou goest” a big part of being married?
“What do you think?” I asked.
She grinned at me. “Bellingham is a nice enough place to visit, but I don’t think I want to live there. Besides, I don’t think either one of us would be very happy with you stuck in the background as Mr. Mel Soames.”
“But if you wanted it . . .”
“I just told you what I want,” she said. “I like where we live. I like our life together.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m with you.”
We finished our dinner. For someone who was still out on medical leave, I thought I had put in a pretty good day’s work. I didn’t care how long it took to nail Kenneth Adcock just as long as we did nail him.
We were back in the unit and I had sunk into the comfort of my recliner when my phone rang. The number wasn’t a familiar one, and neither was the tentative voice that replied to my answer.
“Jonas?” she said. “Is this Jonas Beaumont?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Bonnie Abney,” she said. “I don’t believe you know me. Years ago, I was Doug Davis’s fiancée. Glenn Madden suggested I might want to give you a call. I take it you knew him? Not Glenn, I mean. That you knew Douglas.”
With those few words it all came flooding back, washing over me in a kaleidoscope of color and unholy noise. In that single instant I was transported back to the sights and sounds and smells of war: the clatter of gunfire; the stench of blood and smoke; the screams of the wounded. It was August second of 1966, and I was back in the middle of the firefight.
I had been given a sacred charge to find her, and now that I had, I was speechless. I had no idea what to say. Words failed me.
“Yes,” I said finally, after a long pause. “Doug Davis was the platoon leader, my second lieutenant, and he saved my life that day. I should have told you about it a long time ago, but somehow I never got around to doing it, and I’m not sure you’re even interested at this point.”
“Glenn said you live in Seattle,” Bonnie said. “I live in Coupeville on Whidbey Island. If you wanted to come out here tomorrow, maybe we could go have coffee somewhere,” she offered.
“Not tomorrow,” I said quickly. “I’m involved in a funeral tomorrow. Also, I recently had knee-replacement surgery, so I wouldn’t be able to drive there on my own. My wife, Mel, would need to come with me.”
The relief in Bonnie’s voice was readily apparent. She must have thought I was trying to hook up with her. The news that I had a wife and that she would be with me put the situation in a whole different light. She gave me her address and I jotted it down.
“Why don’t we do this on Thursday, then? Maybe you could come here for lunch.”
“How far is it to Coupeville?”
“It’s only about eighty miles, depending on where you are in Seattle, but it’s close to three hours of driving.”
“Lunch won’t work,” I said. “I have a standing appointment for physical therapy in the morning. We won’t be able to leave until after that.”
“Let’s make it either a late lunch or an early dinner,” Bonnie said. “I’ll fix a salad that I can put out whenever you get here.”
“Fair enough,” I told her. “We’ll be there sometime Thursday afternoon.”
Mel came into the room carrying my evening pills and water just as I ended the call.
“We’ll be where on Thursday afternoon?” she asked.
“Coupeville on Whidbey Island,” I said. “That was Bonnie Abney, Lieutenant Davis’s fiancée. She invited us to lunch.”
“I’ve never been to Whidbey Island,” Mel said. “How far is it?”
“Eighty miles, give or take.”
“Jeez Louise,” Mel said. “We’re going to turn into regular tourists.”
It was only nine o’clock or so when I headed off to bed. I was whipped. I wasn’t carrying car keys, but when I emptied my pockets onto the dresser, out came my badge and ID wallet along with the other things that I was keeping there—the three aces of spades and the hunks of shrapnel. I stared at them for a moment when I put them down. Was giving them to Bonnie Abney the right thing to do or the wrong thing? If she had married someone else, I doubted her husband would care to have mementos of a previous fiancé lying around the house.
Tired as I was that night, I didn’t sleep very well. Hearing Bonnie Abney’s voice had given me something else to worry about. Maybe that was just as well. Otherwise I would have been agonizing about Delilah Ainsworth, Monica Wellington, and Kenneth Adcock. It’s possible that thinking about Bonnie was a blessing in disguise.
On Wednesday I focused on Delilah Ainsworth. It was her day, all of it. Everyone at the various cop shops had gotten the memo. No one showed up in uniform, but that didn’t keep them from showing up anyway. The church was full to overflowing. In the front of the church, massed around the casket, was a riot of floral bouquets. The service was simple enough. They talked about Delilah’s being a go
od mother and a good wife. No one talked about her being a good cop, but some things go without saying. After all, that was why she was dead.
I walked down the aisle on my canes, just behind the pallbearers carrying the casket, and stood to one side as they loaded it into the hearse. Brian Ainsworth had specifically requested that there not be dozens of cop cars lined up to follow the hearse from the church to the cemetery, and there weren’t. But there were plenty of out-of-uniform police officers on either side of the street, standing at attention and holding small American flags as the procession went by. And there were plenty of civilian cars parked along the street, waiting to join the funeral procession.
After the graveside service, Mel and I were making for the car when Brian Ainsworth caught up with us.
“Thank you,” he said.
I had managed to get through the whole service without making a fool of myself, but hearing those words from him caught me off guard. After all, wasn’t it my bright idea to reopen the Wellington case that had gotten Delilah killed?
“I’m not sure—” I began, but Brian overrode my comment.
“You maybe didn’t put Del’s killer in jail, but you found her,” Brian told me. “She won’t be hurting anyone else, and my family won’t have to live through the pain of a trial.”
It would have been nice to tell him right then that Mel and I were on the trail of Monica’s killer, too, which would mean Delilah hadn’t died in vain. I could have told him that, but I didn’t dare. I didn’t want even the slightest hint to leak out that we were after someone else. I didn’t want Kenneth James Adcock to know we were onto him until we were ready to take him down.
“You’re welcome,” I said, blinking back tears. “It was the least I could do.”
We made a brief appearance at the reception in the church’s basement social hall, and then Mel and I went home. Marge had pulled together a selection of cold cuts. Those combined with slices of steak left over from the previous night’s dinner were probably better than any postfuneral buffet fare we would have found at the reception.