Dismissed With Prejudice (9780061760631)

by Jance, Judith A.

“This is him,” Chrissey said to her husband. It wasn’t a very enthusiastic introduction. I didn’t get up, but I held out my left hand. Dean Morrison took it and we shook, guardedly sizing each other up as we did so.

  “My wife here says you want to talk to me.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “About the dead man you found the other night at MicroBridge.”

  “What about him? He was alive when I started to work, and when I went back to give him the bill he was dead. What else is there to tell?”

  “Did Chrissey ask you about a sword?”

  “Yes, and I didn’t see one, neither.”

  “It wasn’t lying there on the floor, next to the body?”

  “No.”

  “What time was it when you found him?”

  Dean Morrison shrugged. “Ten or so.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “I got the hell out of there. Fast, man! I was scared shitless. I don’t want to get sent back up, no sir.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “I just drove.”

  “Where to?”

  “I ended up in a place down in Tukwila, the Silver Dollar, and had me a couple of pitchers to calm down. But after a while, I got to thinkin’ that you cops might come lookin’ for me anyways, on account of the bill, and I went back to get it.”

  “That’s when you found that the door to the loading dock had been locked?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Well, as I was goin’ there, I was still scared, see. I figured if somebody had already found him, I didn’t want nobody to see me hangin’ around, so I parked the truck two buildings over and walked from there.” Dean Morrison paused and looked at his wife.

  “Go on,” she said. “Tell him. This is what we come for.”

  “So anyways, I’m almost there, walkin’ along the railroad track. All of a sudden, this car comes screamin’ away from the loadin’ dock and practically runs me down.”

  “Who was it, do you know?”

  “How the hell would I know? It was dark. I was just tryin’ to get the hell out of the way so the bastard wouldn’t hit me.”

  “Could you tell what kind of car it was, or did you get the license number?”

  Dean shook his head. “No way. He was drivin’ too damn fast.”

  “So the driver was a man?”

  “I think so.”

  “What kind of car was it?”

  “Small. Foreign. I don’t know what kind.”

  “Was there anything about it that might help us identify it?”

  “I didn’t see nothin’, except for one thing.”

  “What was that?”

  “The taillights. The car had funny little slanted taillights. Reminded me of one of them barber poles.”

  “Could you tell what color the car was?”

  “No way, man. It was dark back there. I couldn’t hardly see nothin’. So after he left, I went up on the dock and tried the door, but it was locked, so I give up and come on home.”

  “What time was that?”

  Dean shrugged. “Around midnight, I guess, maybe later. I didn’t check.”

  The timing element in the story bothered me. If Kurobashi was already dead at ten o’clock, why was the killer still hanging around Industry Square at midnight, two hours later? There had to be some compelling reason for the murderer to risk being caught with the body.

  I glanced at Dean Morrison. He was standing there, watching me apprehensively, waiting for my next question. “Did you see anyone else around the office during the course of the evening?”

  “Only the woman. Chrissey already told you about her.”

  “No one else?”

  “Nobody.”

  “How many bags of confetti were there when you finished?”

  “Six. Five of paper and one with nothin’ in it but floppy disks.”

  “Can you think of anything else?”

  “Nope, that’s just about it.”

  “That’s what I need then,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

  “You mean I can go?”

  I nodded. He looked down at Chrissey, as though he couldn’t quite believe his ears. She returned the look with a smile of encouragement. They turned and started away.

  “One more thing,” I said.

  Dean Morrison’s shoulders sagged as he slowly turned back to face me. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Get your butt back to work,” I said. “You and your wife have a good little business going, but if you go AWOL in that truck very often, you’re going to screw it up.”

  Gradually a grin spread over Morrison’s somber face. “You bet. We’ll be open again on Monday.” He gave a thumbs-up sign.

  DataDump was back in business. Have shredder, will travel.

  Dean Morrison reached over and put one arm across his wife’s shoulders. The two of them walked away. I watched while they crossed the series of footbridges and then went out toward the parking lot through the gardens. They were struggling, but maybe they’d make it. For all her shortcomings, Chrissey Morrison had a whole lot more going for her than Monica Halvorsen.

  I sat on the bench for another ten minutes, giving them plenty of time to leave without worrying about being followed. I was lost in thought. A car with barber pole taillights and a handcart loaded with six bags of shredder confetti didn’t make for much of a lead, but it was more than we’d had before. Often it’s a whole slew of little things taken together that solve a case rather than one huge mind-boggling revelation.

  Spending my Saturday afternoon going from auto dealership to auto dealership trying to spot late-model foreign cars with striped and slanted taillights didn’t sound like my idea of a good time, and I didn’t much want to hike along a railroad track looking for confetti, either, but I knew I’d do both if I had to, if there was no other way.

  The phone in the car was ringing as I turned the key in the ignition. “Hello, Ralph,” I said.

  “How did you know it was me? Am I the only person who calls you on your cellular phone?”

  “Damn near. What’s up?”

  “I just dropped Machiko off at the Four Seasons and wondered if you’d like to have lunch. I’ll buy, and not at the Doghouse, either.”

  Ames is a good sport about going to the Doghouse with me, but I don’t think he’d nominate it for inclusion in the local dining guide, Seattle’s Best Places. Seattle Cheap Eats is more like it.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Meet me at Triples. I’m in the mood for Dijon chicken.”

  Triples is built right on the water at Lake Union. It’s a place where you can park your car or your boat with equal facility. It was almost two, but the Saturday lunchtime crowd lingered over coffee and drinks. We had to wait a few minutes to get a window table.

  “So how did the meeting go with George?” I asked.

  Ames seemed distant, preoccupied. “Oh, that was fine. No problem. From the way it sounded, I think the two of them may get around to burying the hatchet eventually. Machiko told Dr. Yamamoto the same story she told us.”

  “About her first husband? How’d he take it?”

  Ames frowned. “Relieved I’d say. Like he finally had the answer to a question that had been plaguing him for a long time.”

  “Forty years is a long time to be asking the same damn question,” I said. “But he did give Machiko the sword?”

  “He didn’t give it to her; he lent it to her.”

  “Lent it! What the hell does that mean?”

  “He said they got the results back from the lab. The only prints on it belong to Tadeo Kurobashi. George still needs to have the sword available for possible court room proceedings, but Machiko convinced him to let her have it for the afternoon, complete with the rosewood box. Sentimental reasons I guess.”

  So George Yamamoto hadn’t entirely knuckled under. Somehow he and Machiko had reached an agreement. “Isn’t George worried that she’ll take off with it?” />
  Ames shook his head. “He isn’t. She gave her word. The two of them evidently came to some kind of understanding. They were speaking in Japanese, so I’m not entirely sure what was said. I offered to post a security bond, but George said that wouldn’t be necessary.”

  “Surely your friend Winter could translate for you.”

  “He wasn’t there. Archie got called to Vancouver, B.C., this morning two hours before our first appointment. He had to go up right away to check out something that’s coming on the market. The sword business could be delayed indefinitely.”

  “What about the other appointment, the one with Davenport?”

  Ames frowned. “Not so good. That’s the one that’s bothering me.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Davenport is pushing too hard. It’s like he wants all of this completed overnight. It’s far too complicated for that. I advised Machiko to take her time and not be pushed into anything, particularly considering what’s happening with Winter and the sword. Archie may be able to come up with a program that will give them enough capital to pay off the judgment.”

  “If that flake of a Clay Woodruff would shape up and agree to testify…”

  “Who’s Woodruff?” Ralph Ames was suddenly on point and sitting a full three inches taller in his chair.

  “Woodruff. Clay Woodruff, the guy who ditched me over in Port Angeles last night.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He was supposedly Tadeo Kurobashi’s friend, a key witness in the patent infringement trial, but he didn’t show up when he was supposed to testify, and Kurobashi lost the case. I talked to the judge, Chip Kelley, who’s a friend of mine. He said that if Woodruff would actually testify, there was a good chance Kimiko could countersue Blakeslee and void the judgment against her father. But like I said, Woodruff’s flake. When I tried to talk to him last night, he ditched me and disappeared.”

  “He’s here,” Ralph Ames said quietly.

  “He’s what?” I demanded.

  “He’s here. In Seattle. When I dropped Machiko off at the Four Seasons on my way to meet you, Woodruff was waiting for her in the lobby.”

  “Jesus Christ, Ames! Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

  “You never asked,” Ames replied. “You never told me his name.”

  I was already standing up, pushing aside my chair.

  “Wait a minute,” Ames said. “Where are you going?”

  “To find them, goddamnit. I still don’t know which side that slippery son of a bitch is on.”

  CHAPTER 20

  THE WAITER WAS COMING TOWARD US CARRYING a tray laden with our food. I nearly knocked him flat as I rushed by. How Ames managed to pay the bill and still catch up with me before I got out of Triples’ parking lot, I’ll never know. “I’m coming too,” he said, climbing into the car. “Where are we going?”

  “The Four Seasons,” I said. “Maybe they’re still there.”

  But of course Woodruff and Machiko weren’t there, or if they were, we couldn’t find them.

  “What now?” Ames asked.

  “I don’t know,” I told him.

  We went back down the escalator to the hotel’s University Street entrance with its brass and glass doors and circular drive. Beside the door a uniformed doorman and three parking attendants were involved in an earnest conversation about the afternoon’s University of Washington football game in Husky Stadium.

  “Did any of you happen to notice a wild-looking man come in here in the last few hours? He looks like an unreconstituted hippie—mid-thirties, long brown hair, some gray, wears it in a ponytail. He’s a friend of mine. I need to find him.”

  One of the parking attendants nodded. “You mean the guy in the big green station wagon? Sure, I saw him. He was here, but then he left. Had a little old lady with him.”

  My stomach turned sour as a solid knot of fear grew in my gut. Woodruff had Machiko, and he had taken her someplace with him. That meant he probably had the sword as well.

  “What kind of little old lady?” I asked, more out of habit than anything else. I already knew the answer.

  “Tiny. Japanese, I’d say.”

  The parking attendant was basking at being the center of attention. He went on with his story. “When she went to get into the Suburban, it was too tall for her. The guy had a little stool in the backseat. A footstool. She used that.”

  “Did you say Suburban?” I asked. “A green Suburban?”

  The attendant grinned. “That’s right. With a bumper sticker that said, ‘Have you hugged your horse today?’”

  Two limos filled with members of an arriving wedding party drove into the driveway. The doorman and attendants left off their conversation to go to work.

  “I’m a son of a bitch,” I said. “What the hell is Clay Woodruff doing driving Kimiko’s car, and how the hell did he get it?”

  Leaving Ames standing there, I hurried back to the car, punched a number into the phone, and dialed the department. Once I was connected, I asked to speak to the traffic supervisor. “This is Detective Beaumont from homicide. Who’s this?”

  “Captain Donovan. What can I do for you, Beaumont?” he asked cheerfully.

  “I need to have people on the lookout for an old white-over-green Suburban with a bumper sticker that says ‘Have you hugged your horse today?’”

  “How about a license number instead of a bumper sticker?” Donovan asked. “We prefer ’em, actually.”

  About that time, I didn’t need a stand-up comedian. “I don’t have a damn license number. The vehicle is registered to a Kimiko Kurobashi who lives over near Colfax. If you can get the number, more power to you.”

  “So what do you want us to do if somebody sees it?” Donovan asked. “Detain it? Blow it up?”

  “No, call me on my car phone, and let me know where they are. I don’t want to spook this guy into doing something crazy. He’s got a woman with him, an old woman. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to her.”

  For the first time all trace of humor went out of Donovan’s voice. “This sounds serious, Beaumont, like maybe it ought to be going out on an APB.”

  “No. No APB. Keep it low profile.”

  “If anything goes wrong, Beaumont, it’s your ass not mine.”

  “Right,” I said. “That’s not news. And something else. Have someone search along the Burlington Northern track around Industry Square to see if they can locate some fifty-gallon trash bags filled with confetti.”

  “As in New Year’s Eve?” Donovan asked.

  Donovan is one of those people who couldn’t get serious to save his life. “As in from a shredder,” I growled.

  “Okay, okay, Beaumont. We’ll look into it.”

  I put the phone back in its holder, and then sat there without moving. The engine was running and my hands were on the steering wheel, but I didn’t know where I was going. Ames climbed in beside me.

  “Goddamnit, Ames, this case is driving me crazy! We’ve got a damn suspect in jail in Chicago, but it’s not even our case. For the life of me, I can’t see any Chicago connection back to Tadeo Kurobashi.”

  “Chris Davenport is from Chicago,” Ralph Ames said quietly.

  “He is? How’d you find that out?” I asked.

  “At his office this morning with Machiko. His diplomas are on the wall. Northwestern and Loyola are both Chicago schools.”

  That took me back a step or two. Why hadn’t I made the connection? “Davenport’s from Chicago? But then, all kinds of folks are from Chicago. It’s not against the law to leave there, you know. People do it all the time.”

  “His kind of lawyering ought to be against the law,” Ames declared grimly. “We have first-year summer interns who do better jobs than he’s done for the Kurobashis.”

  I shifted into gear and started into traffic.

  “Where to now?” Ames asked.

  “Maybe he’s still at his office. I want to have a little chat with him.”

  Ames g
lanced at his watch. It was 3:35. “I doubt he’s still there,” he said. “By now he’s probably on his way to the memorial service.”

  “He’s going?”

  “That’s what he told Machiko this morning when she asked him about it. Davenport said he was planning to attend.”

  I had merged onto University and made a dash for the left lane in order to turn north on Fourth and head over to 1201 Third. Now, with a glance in the mirror, I jumped the green light and headed for a right-hand turn onto Fifth instead.

  “God damn you, Ames, you’re one closemouthed bastard. What the hell else do you know that I ought to know?”

  “Maybe the memorial service is where Machiko is going, too.”

  “That’s where you’re dead wrong. She wouldn’t go there on a bet.”

  “How much?” Ames asked.

  “How much what?”

  “How much do you want to bet? As we were leaving Davenport’s office, when Machiko asked him if he was going to the memorial service and he said probably, she said she’d see him there.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said.

  I was a man putting together a jigsaw puzzle in the middle of an earthquake, with pieces falling off the table in all directions. Important pieces. Corner pieces. Machiko Kurobashi, who had been dead set against holding any kind of memorial service, was now planning to attend one organized by her sworn enemy. And my friend, old Aimless Ames, had been sitting on a ton of information like a great big bird without feeding me any of it. Maybe Davenport was the Chicago connection. Maybe it wasn’t Kurobashi at all. I fumbled in my pocket and got out the notebook where I had written down Alvin Grant’s home number.

  “Call this guy at home. Have his wife wake him up if you have to. Tell him I need to know if he’s ever heard of anyone named Christopher Davenport.”

  Darting in and out of traffic, I turned down the hill on Yesler and raced across the north/south arterials on a series of yellow lights. If my driving scared him, Ralph Ames didn’t say anything about it. He had picked up the cellular phone and was punching numbers into it.

  When I reached the corner of Main and Occidental, I discovered that the whole half block along Main was reserved for fire department vehicles only. I parked there anyway, leaving the motor running and the flashers on.