Dance of the Bones

by J. A. Jance

  Having just read through the Danielson/Horn interview, I was impressed that Calliope had somehow made good on her ambitions of becoming a minister to the homeless. Good for her!

  “Any idea where they live?”

  “Probably only blocks from you,” Todd said. “Their address is on Elliott. I have a phone number if you want it.”

  “Of course I want it.” He read off the number, and I jotted it down. “Any luck on Ava?”

  “One problem at a time,” Todd admonished. “And don’t expect miracles.”

  Duly chastened, I dialed the number he had given me without any idea of what I’d say when someone answered. After all, I wasn’t with Special Homicide anymore, and I wasn’t with Seattle PD, either. For the first time in decades, I was operating entirely on my own.

  “I’m looking for Reverend Calliope Horn-­Grover,” I said when a woman answered.

  “Calliope?” she said. “Yes, that would be me. Who’s calling, please?”

  “My name is J. P. Beaumont. I’ve been asked to look into the death of an acquaintance of yours, and I wondered if you could spare me a few minutes.”

  “Which acquaintance?”

  That wasn’t such a surprising question. ­People die in homeless shelters all the time. They live outside in all kinds of weather and often in less than sanitary conditions. I knew from reading the papers that over the previous winter several of Seattle’s homeless had fallen victim to cold weather, especially during an unexpectedly frigid cold snap that had roared through western Washington the weekend after Thanksgiving.

  “His name was Kenneth Mangum, although I believe you knew him as Kenneth Myers,” I added. “My understanding is that the two of you were close at one time.”

  Her sharp intake of breath told me my assumption wasn’t wrong. When she said nothing, I continued, “We could talk on the phone, or I could drop by your home or office. Your address is listed as being on Elliott. My condo is only a few blocks away from there. It’s your call.”

  “Why talk to me?” Calliope asked. “Kenny’s homicide has gone unsolved all these years. Why is someone looking into his death now?”

  “Because someone who was once a friend of Mr. Myers was viciously attacked during a prison riot earlier today. We’re trying to figure out if there’s any possible connection between today’s attack and the previous homicide.”

  “What friend?” Calliope asked.

  “A guy named Lassiter.”

  “Big Bad John Lassiter?” she asked.

  Even after so much time, Calliope recognized the name right off and without any prompting from me. Sue Danielson had never asked about any connection between the dead man and John Lassiter because, at the time of that interview, there had been no known link between them. Still, when Sue had inquired about Ken’s friends, why hadn’t John Lassiter’s name come up? That’s when I realized Sue had asked about Ken’s girlfriends but not about his male friends.

  “That would be the one,” I said.

  “And he was attacked?”

  “Yes, in prison. He’s serving time down in Arizona.”

  “When did this attack happen?”

  “As I said, earlier today.”

  “Are you a cop?” Calliope asked.

  “Used to be,” I answered, “but not anymore.”

  “What’s your connection to all this?”

  Tenuous at best, I thought, but I didn’t want to go into any of the details, not right then. “I’m working in conjunction with a group called The Last Chance—­TLC. They specialize in solving cold cases.”

  “Ken’s case is cold, all right,” Calliope said with a sigh. “I suppose you’re welcome to stop by here if you like, but I don’t see how I’ll be able to help. And my husband and I have a meeting to go to at seven. We’re in the Lofts on Elliott.”

  “I have the address,” I said.

  “There’s visitor parking in the garage beneath the building.”

  I knew that, too. The building probably wasn’t more than ten blocks away from Belltown Terrace. Getting there on foot would have been easy because the going part was all downhill. Coming back up one of those glacial ridges to return to the Denny Regrade would have been hell, though. Since Mel wasn’t there to insist I do otherwise, I drove.

  When you live in downtown Seattle, you tend to keep an eye on nearby real estate, if for no other reason than worrying about some building sprouting up and wrecking your view. Mel and I had watched the transformation of a former lowbrow manufacturing plant into an upscale residential property called the Lofts. Thanks to a long succession of bumbling developers, the building had gone through some tough times. Still, buildings in downtown Seattle that come with any kind of parking, and most especially guest parking, don’t come cheap. As I parked in the Lofts underground garage and walked toward the security phone by the elevator lobby, I couldn’t help but think that Calliope Horn had come a long way from living in a makeshift tarp-­covered homeless camp decades earlier.

  When I called, a male voice answered and directed me to come to apartment number 502. A glance at the elevator control panel told me that floor number five was the top floor, which meant their unit was also a penthouse. Yes, Calliope Horn had indeed come a very long way.

  When I rang the bell, the door was opened by a man in a wheelchair. That shouldn’t have surprised me, since the door came equipped with two peepholes—­one at the regular height and one a ­couple of feet lower. One half of the man’s face drooped, but he gave me a welcoming smile with the side that still worked, and the grip of his handshake was warm and welcoming.

  “Mr. Beaumont?”

  I nodded. Having someone call me “mister” still gives me pause. For the greater part of my life, the word “Detective” was an integral part of my name. I still miss it, although I expect I’ll get over it one of these days.

  “I’m Dale Grover,” the man said, “Callie’s husband. Come on in.” Using a joystick on the arm of his chair, he backed effortlessly out of the way and led me into what turned out to be an impeccably decorated room. There were no rugs on the polished hardwood floor, probably to accommodate the wheelchair. The furnishings were clean-­lined and sleek, but comfortable. The place was modern without being either ostentatious or obnoxious. Dale parked his chair next to the far end of a black leather sofa and motioned for me to sit down.

  “I’m afraid Callie’s just been called to the phone in the office next door. She’ll join us in a ­couple of minutes. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No, thanks,” I told him. “I’m fine.”

  “She mentioned that you were coming,” Dale continued. “I believe this has something to do with an old beau of hers, Kenneth.”

  “Did you know him?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Dale answered. “Kenny was long before my time. Callie and I met in seminary. We were both starting over. I’d had a stroke in the course of routine surgery—­an appendectomy, for Pete’s sake. It was supposed to be in and out. Didn’t work out that way and I ended up having a stroke. When my wife at the time learned that I’d be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, she declined to hang around. She told me she wasn’t prepared to spend the rest of her life looking after a cripple.

  “Before the stroke, I had been a high school football coach. I’d always prided myself on being physically fit and setting a good example for my players. You know what they say, ‘Pride goeth before the fall.’ Once I was stuck in this, I just couldn’t see myself coaching from the sidelines.”

  “Had to be tough,” I offered.

  Grover gave me another lopsided grin. “Not really. God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes you have to be hit smack over the head for Him to get your attention. At least, that’s how it was for me. Once He did, I could see only one way forward. I decided to ride my wheelchair into the ministry. That’s where Callie and I met.
She’d had her own personal struggles—­including losing Kenny, the guy she had thought was the love of her life. In a way, we met when we were both starting over from square one.”

  Glancing around the spacious room, I thought that together they’d done a remarkable job of starting over.

  “Callie’s calling was to minister to the homeless,” he resumed. “Since we were teaming up, I decided to make her mission my mission. Fortunately, I had a sizable malpractice settlement from both the hospital and anesthesiologist. That gave us a bit of a nest egg. We still have a fair amount of it. That’s important, since most of our parishioners are dead broke. When it comes to tithing, ten percent of nothing is still nothing. We got into this place during an economic downturn and were able to combine two units into one so we’d have some separation from work and home. Cuts way down on the commute.”

  I had already done a quick calculation on the size of that nest egg. Knowing it had been large enough to allow them to purchase and remodel two units rather than one, I revised my estimate upward.

  A pocket door opened at the far end of the combination living room/dining room. A woman stepped through and carefully closed the door behind her. Before my talk with Dale Grover, I had formed a mental image of Calliope Horn-­Grover that turned out to be completely wrong. She was a short but formidable-­looking woman dressed in a severe black pantsuit topped by a white clerical collar. Her no-­nonsense square-­toed oxfords looked as though they had been made to kick butt. Her plain face, devoid of makeup, was framed by a wild mane of naturally graying hair. She struck me as a fifty-­something woman comfortably at ease with her life, her looks, and her circumstances.

  Like her husband, Reverend Horn-­Grover greeted me with a genuine smile and a warm handshake.

  “I’m Callie,” she said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” Then, turning her attention on her husband, she asked, “Did you offer our guest any refreshments?”

  “I did,” Dale said. “He turned me down.”

  “Very well then, Mr. Beaumont,” she said, taking a seat on the far end of my sofa. “What can I do for you?”

  “I just finished reading through the transcripts of the interview you did with Detective Sue Danielson.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Yes, it was,” I agreed. “But when I mentioned John Lassiter’s name on the phone earlier, you recognized it immediately.”

  “Yes, I did. Kenny considered John Lassiter to be a good friend. He felt Lassiter’s imprisonment was a complete miscarriage of justice.”

  “But you never reached out to Mr. Lassiter?”

  Callie sighed and shook her head. “No, I didn’t. At first when I thought Kenny had just gone back to Arizona and forgotten about me, I refused to even think about his friends, much less have anything to do with them. Once I learned he was dead—­had been dead right here in Seattle for years rather than taking off for ­Arizona—­I was too ashamed. And then . . .”

  Shrugging, she broke off.

  “And then what?” I prodded.

  “Big Bad John was Kenny’s friend, not mine. When I learned Kenny had lied to me about everything—­including his last name—­it seemed likely to me that he might have lied to me about John Lassiter as well. For all I know, Kenny might have been involved in whatever it was that put Lassiter in prison in the first place. Dale and I talked it over and decided the best thing to do was let sleeping dogs lie. And that’s what we did. I’m sorry to hear that the man has been seriously injured, though. We’ll certainly pray for him.”

  “You could just as well go ahead and tell him the rest of it,” Dale Grover said.

  “The rest of what?” I asked.

  Calliope took a deep breath. “Dale and I have had twenty-­plus years to think about this and talk about it, too,” she said. “He came up with a theory that I’d never considered.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The way Ken talked about John Lassiter, it was almost as though he blamed himself that his friend was rotting away in prison. A ­couple of times he said things to me about going back and ‘making it right.’ But then, almost overnight, he started talking about our having some kind of a big payday coming and about our being able to move into an actual apartment. It was like he expected to come into a sum of money—­a lot of money.”

  She paused and looked at her husband as if pleading for assistance.

  “What Callie is trying to say,” Dale Grover said, “is we think there’s a good chance Kenneth knew who killed Amos Warren. As for that expected payday?”

  I could see the pieces falling into place. “Blackmail?” I asked.

  Calliope Horn-­Grover nodded as a pair of tears slid down her weathered cheeks. “Yes,” she said softly. “That’s what I think now, too. He knew something about what happened and was maybe even involved in it, and that’s where the money would have come from—­blackmail.”

  That’s the moment I realized why Calliope was really weeping. It wasn’t just because she had lost the “love of her life.” It was worse than that. She had always thought of Kenny Myers as the one who got away. Even though he had left her, she had still thought of him as a “good guy” in her interview with Sue Danielson. Now, though, she was faced with the grim possibility that almost none of that was true. And if Kenneth Mangum/Myers had been involved in some kind of blackmail scheme, there was also a chance that he had been involved in something much worse—­the murder of Amos Warren.

  CHAPTER 23

  SPEAKING SOFTLY, OWL TOLD SHINING Falls to wake up and follow him. When she tried, Owl could see that she was no longer all asleep, as she had been, but she was not yet fully awake, either.

  Evil Giantess had used some red feathers when she put Shining Falls to sleep, and because Owl had no red feathers, he could not bring her completely awake. Owl decided that he would take Shining Falls home with him until he could find some red feathers.

  Slowly the girl followed Owl until they came to a water hole surrounded by large rocks. When Shining Falls stepped on one of those rocks, it made a sound. Owl tried to call out a warning, but it was too late. Evil Giantess had heard the noise, and she was awake. Her hair spread out like an evil cloud, and Owl’s feet got tangled in her hair. While Owl struggled to get free, Shining Falls fell into the water.

  IT HAD BEEN YEARS SINCE Ava Martin Hanover Richland had actually cleaned a house. She had ­people to do that detestable chore just as she had ­people to carry out her other orders. That afternoon she did the work herself, however, and she did a thorough job of it, too. Looking up from her vacuuming, she peeled back the top of her latex glove and studied her watch. In an hour or so, John Lassiter would be a thing of the past. An hour or so after that Henry Rojas would be gone as well.

  Nodding to herself, Ava went back to work. She had always been careful to keep her life entirely separate from Jane Dobson’s, and in that regard, she was nothing if not a chip off the old block. Ava had been twelve years old when her mother discovered, quite by accident, that her husband, Ava’s father, was a bigamist with another whole family living in Eloy. A subsequent investigation revealed that there was yet a third family living in Deming, New Mexico.

  Ava’s father was a long-­haul trucker, and he’d been able to keep all the balls in the air for quite some time until a gallbladder attack unexpectedly landed him in the hospital and put him out of commission for a number of weeks—­long enough for the other two families to come looking for him. Ava had watched the unfolding drama from the sidelines. She had never been especially fond of her mother, so she’d had scant sympathy for the woman. What had really fascinated her was how her father had managed to pull off the whole escapade. He’d created separate identities complete with checking accounts and social security numbers—­one for each family, paying for it by working part-­time jobs with three different trucking companies.

  That was all a lot easier to do back in
the day before computers and cell phones and in-­car navigation systems. Ava was careful. She had never brought her cell phone here, and she’d never used her GPS to come to Jane Dobson’s house, either. There might be a trace of her travels lingering somewhere in the Mercedes’s black box, but she was confident by now her once shiny luxury vehicle had disappeared into some faraway, dusty spot or else it had been reduced to dozens or perhaps hundreds of anonymous pieces.

  But that didn’t mean there weren’t traces of her lingering in the house, and once someone found Henry’s body here—­however long that took—­the cops would be all over the place searching for traces of Jane Dobson. By erasing Jane’s presence, Ava deleted her own as well, and that was the reason for her frenetic but very thorough job of housecleaning. She vacuumed everything. She made sure there were no traces of hair left in any of the sinks, sending a batch of hair-­cleaning Liquid-­Plumr down the drains.

  She wiped down everything, polishing away fingerprints from every conceivable surface—­light switches, cabinets, appliances, furniture, silverware, dishes, canned goods in the cabinets, and frozen food in the fridge. From the lack of fingerprints, the cops would be able to tell at once that Jane Dobson had been a crook. What they wouldn’t be able to tell was that Jane Dobson and Ava Richland were one and the same.

  And once the house was clean, all Ava had to do was wait.

  WHEN I LEFT THE GROVERS’ condo, I could hardly wait to get back down to my car. I found I had a signal on the top floor of the parking garage, and I called Brandon Walker back immediately.

  “Tell me about Amos Warren. Refresh me on the timeline.”

  “In the spring of 1970, he went out on one of his prospecting/scavenging jaunts in the desert. Weeks later, his vehicle turns up at Tucson International Airport. Ten years after that, his remains are found in the desert twenty miles from the airport.”