by J. A. Jance
She looked at me and smiled. "You already did it," she said. "You gave me a way of letting off steam before I walk back into the apartment. Believe me, that's a big help. Good night."
I rode on up to my own floor. It struck me that Dick Mathers, Belltown's resident manager, ought to go on TV and make a public apology for accusing Heather and Tracy of the hot tub bubble caper, but that didn't seem likely. Dick Mathers isn't the apologizing type.
Once in the den, I pored over the tapes on my big-screen TV. Unfortunately, it didn't make any difference. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make out the license number on the back of the Crown Victoria. I'm enough of an expert to know that enhancing a video image is possible, but I didn't have either the technical skill or the equipment to do so, not there in my apartment at nine o'clock at night.
The phone rang about then, offering a welcome interruption. "Detective Beaumont?" a man's voice asked uncertainly.
"Yes."
"This here's Norm Otis with Yellow Cab. I know I was supposed to call you earlier this evening, but it's been real busy tonight. This is the first chance I've had."
"That's all right, Mr. Otis. Did Sally Redding tell you what I wanted?"
"She sure did. About that poor girl from last week. I'm glad to hear someone's doing something about it. I felt really sorry for her, just as sorry as I could be. I don't think I've ever heard anybody cry as hard as that. Like her heart was broken. But she didn't hire me for my advice-only to drive the car-so all's I could do was take her where she wanted to go."
"Where was that?"
"Main Street in Bellevue, number one zero two eight five Main Street."
"Sally Redding already gave me that," I told him.
"If you already knew where I dropped her, why do you need to talk to me?" Norm asked.
"Is that a house? An apartment?"
"Neither. A business," Norm answered. "Looked to me like a china shop. It worried me that she was getting out at such a strange place in the middle of the night, so I made sure she was safely inside before I drove away."
"Do you remember the shop's name?"
"A woman's name, but I don't remember any more than that."
"It wasn't open, was it?"
"Are you kidding? This was the middle of the night. Sometime after midnight. No, but she had a key. She let herself in, and I saw her monkeying with a keypad right by the door, so she must have been turning off an alarm."
"It's probably where she works," I surmised.
"I'd say," Norm Otis agreed.
"Did she mention anything at all about what had gone on before you picked her up?"
"No, but you could sort of figure it out. I mean her clothes were torn half off. She had a cut on her lip. And the asshole who did it had nerve enough to walk her out to the curb. Had to be him, because he was in his shirtsleeves, and she was wearing a man's jacket. He tried to open the door for her like a gentleman, just as nice as can be. As if nothing in the world had happened. But she wouldn't have nothin' to do with him."
"And she didn't say a word about what had put her in that state?"
"Nope. Not a word. Like I told you. She gave me the address and then cried her eyes out the rest of the trip, from downtown Seattle right on across the I-Ninety bridge." Norm paused a moment and then added, "Are you going to get that guy, Detective Beaumont?"
"I don't have to," I told him.
"Why not?" Norm asked.
"Because somebody else already has. He's dead."
"Dead?" Norm repeated.
"Murdered," I said.
"Hot damn!" Norm replied. There was another pause. "Who did it?"
"I don't know. I'm the detective assigned to the case. I'm working on it."
"It wasn't her, was it?"
All too clearly I remembered what Latty had said to Don Wolf on the tape and in the heat of absolutely understandable anger: If you touch me again, I swear to God I'll kill you.
"It could have been," I said carefully.
"Jesus," Norm Otis whispered. "I hope not. She was a real pretty little girl. Looked just like a young Marilyn Monroe. Isn't there such a thing as justifiable homicide in cases like that?"
"There is," I said, "but it's hard to prove. Besides, I'm just a cop. All that legal crap is up to the prosecutor's office and the defense lawyers."
"Maybe she'll find herself one of those smart lawyers who'll get her off," Norm Otis said wistfully. "But let me give you my home number just in case somebody needs it. I mean if it would help for someone to know what kind of shape that poor girl was in that night, I'll be glad to go to bat for her."
"We'll see," I said. "Go ahead and give me your number. We'll need to get a statement from you anyway. Just in case."
Ten
I fell asleep some time before the news came on, and slept like a log. One phone call at a time, I was making progress, and my evening's worth of phone calls made me feel as though I was on track. I woke up early, rewrote the several reports the computer had eaten the day before, and then headed for the office. I was sitting in my cubicle using the Ethernet card on my computer to send files to the printer on our local area network when Watty poked his head in at the doorway.
"The captain wants to see you," he said. "He's looking for your paper."
"He can have my reports," I said, "just as soon as I finish printing them."
I never should have said it aloud. The words were no more than out of my mouth when a message decorated with a tasteful stop sign flashed on the screen. PRINTER IS OFF
LINE OR OUT OF PAPER it said. PLEASE CHECK YOUR PRINTER AND TRY AGAIN.
"Damn!" I exclaimed, heading down the hallway toward Captain Powell's office. "If Henry Ford's Model T's had been this undependable, we'd still be using the horse and buggy."
"Aren't you going to try to fix it?" Watty asked after me.
"No," I told him. "That's not my job. I'm a detective, not a nerd."
Captain Powell was waiting in his fishbowl office. A brass plaque on his desk gave his name and rank. On the front of it, someone had attached a Post-it that announced, "This is a computer-free zone." My sentiments, exactly, I thought, as I dropped into a chair in front of the cluttered desk.
"Any reports for me this morning, Detective Beaumont?" Captain Powell asked. "Or are you too busy handing out autographs these days to bother doing mundane things like actually writing reports?"
Even though I had figured Kramer would try to make the most of Johnny Bickford's visit, I guess it still surprised me to have the first derogatory comment come back to me from Captain Larry Powell. Gritting my teeth, and trying not to let on how much that bugged me, I went into my lame 1990s version of "My dog ate my homework. Twice."
Powell listened impassively to my sad story. Because he doesn't actually use computers, I think he considers himself above the fray. "I want those reports," he said, when I finished. "I want them on my desk ASAP. You realize, of course, that this is turning into a very sensitive case."
Double homicides are always sensitive, I thought, but I didn't say it aloud. Powell's glower as he sailed a piece of paper toward me was enough of a warning that this was no time for one of my typically smart-mouthed comments.
I caught the paper in midair. On it was a list of four names-names and nothing else: Carrol Walsh, Crystal Barron, Martin Rutherford, and DeVar Lester.
I read through the list. None of the names belonged to people I knew personally, but they were nonetheless names I recognized. These were all high-profile people. You couldn't live in Seattle without knowing something about them.
Carrol Walsh was a newly made software multimillionaire who had created a media splash by donating a mountain of money to Fred Hutch cancer research. Crystal Barron, an heiress from back East, had taken up life on a Lake Union houseboat after divorcing her fourth hubby, an aging Hollywood star. Martin Rutherford was a corporate free spirit who had been cut loose in an acrimonious buyout by one of Seattle's premier family-owned and — operated coffee ro
asting companies. DeVar Lester was an ex-football player who had made a bundle on an outrageously overpriced rookie contract with the Seahawks only to end up blowing his knee in a preseason workout without ever playing a single pro game.
I dropped the paper back on Captain Powell's desk. "What about them?" I asked.
"Those are the people Detectives Kramer and Arnold are off to interview this morning."
I picked up the list and studied it again. "Interview them?" I asked. "How come?"
Powell leaned forward in his chair. "Because these people are recent major investors in D.G.I., or did you already know that?"
"No," I admitted. "I had no idea."
"And you probably also have no idea that Martin Rutherford, the ex-coffee-bean guy, is dating the mayor."
Seattle's mayor, Natalie Farraday, is a divorced single mother who, since her election, has gone through several boyfriends at the rate of about one a year.
"I guess I had heard that," I said, now understanding the implications and how this had suddenly become such a sensitive case. "I'd heard it, but I think maybe I'd forgotten."
"So what exactly are you doing to solve it?" Powell asked.
Hurriedly, I gave Captain Powell a shorthand version of what I had learned so far. He seemed even less impressed with that then he had been with my tale of computer woes. When I finished, Powell sat looking at me, drumming on the surface of his desk with a pencil eraser.
"I spoke to Detective Kramer at some length before he and Detective Arnold hit the bricks," Powell said thoughtfully. "Based on this new information," he said as he gave the list of names a meaningful tap, "I was going to assign another pair of detectives to the case, but Kramer asked me not to. He said that pulling in more people at this point would probably do more harm than good. He says he thinks the three of you will be able to pull it out of the fire. What do you think?"
The public seems to like the "task force" approach to major crimes. Unfortunately, from my point of view, when it comes to effective investigations, less is usually more.
"Kramer's probably right, Captain Powell. I think we're making progress."
"And you don't think you need any more troops?"
"Not at this time."
Captain Powell glanced at his watch. "All right, then," he said. "I'm giving the three of you twenty-four hours to bring this case to some kind of order. If I don't have really solid progress by tomorrow morning at this time, the head count goes up. Understood?"
Nodding, I rose to my feet. "Is that all?" I asked.
"Not quite," Powell answered. "There's one more thing."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Let me remind you, Detective Beaumont, complacency can be a dangerous thing." While he spoke, the captain's steady gaze held mine. "When cops lose their edge-when they stop being hungry-that's about the time they get careless. The next thing you know, somebody gets hurt."
I paused in the doorway. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Do yourself a favor," Captain Powell returned. "You're a cop, not a professional ball player, Beau. Until further notice, no more autographs. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly!" I said.
I stormed back to my office, grabbed my jacket, and headed for the great outdoors. "Hey, Beau," Watty said as I charged past his desk. "Where are you going? You forgot to sign out."
Initially, I headed for the motor pool. I think if I had run into Paul Kramer along the way, I would have punched his lights out. Halfway to the motor pool, I changed my mind-not about cleaning Kramer's clock but about taking a company car.
"Hell with it," I muttered under my breath, startling a sweet young thing clerk headed downstairs with a cartload of file folders. Kramer could be pissed off about where and how I lived, and Captain Powell could order me to not sign autographs, but if I wanted to drive my Guards Red Porsche on my trip to Bellevue, then I would, and nobody-including Captain Lawrence Powell-was going to stop me.
The 928 didn't exactly observe the speed limits as I crossed Lake Washington on the I-90 bridge. Fortunately, the state patrol didn't spot me or pull me over. That would have been tough to explain. By the time I turned off on Bellevue Way, I had cooled down a little.
For someone who has lived downtown for years and who often walks from home to work, the problem of going from Seattle to Bellevue isn't so much a matter of geography as it is one of mind-set. Seattle has a city feel and smell and look to it. Office workers and tourists, drunks and bums mingle on sidewalks on multilane one-way streets filled with traffic.
Bellevue, on the other hand, a city one quarter the size of Seattle proper, is an alien kind of place where, although high-rise buildings dot the skyline, Main Street is still a narrow, two-lane cow path. For some strange reason, North East Eighth, the real main drag, is several blocks to the north.
Downtown Seattle seems intent on banking and commerce while downtown Bellevue is more inclined toward serious shopping. It's a place where Mercedes-wielding, Nordstrom-bound matrons have been known to run down any fellow shoppers who have nerve enough to try to reserve a parking place without benefit of a four-wheeled vehicle. Seattle's largely liberal, pro-Democrat citizenry see Bellevue as a suburban hotbed of rich, recalcitrant Republicans-a questionable place to visit and one where you certainly wouldn't want to live.
I arrived on Main Street in what is quaintly called Old Bellevue, with all my Denny Regrade, dyed-in-the-wool Seattleite prejudices still firmly intact.
It turned out to be easy to find the address I'd obtained from Yellow Cab. Dorene's Fine China and Gifts-complete with a woman's name-was right where Norm Otis had said. Finding the place was simple. Getting in wasn't. Dorene's was closed. A sign on the door said they supposedly opened at nine-thirty. My watch read nine-fifteen.
Like Seattle, Bellevue seems to have an espresso cart stationed on every corner. The one outside Dorene's was no exception. I figured the price of a latte and biscotti would give me the right to ask the cart's long-haired proprietor what, if anything, he knew about Dorene and company.
He shrugged his grunge-clad shoulders and shook his purple-tinged locks. "I think Latty goes to school in the morning. She usually doesn't come to the shop until after noon," he said. "The old lady usually opens up, but she more or less gets here when she gets here, earlier or later, depending."
It was an answer, although not a very definite one. I hung around for a few more fruitless minutes. Finally, it made sense for me to try seeing Eddie at Northwest Mobility first and come back to Bellevue about the time Latty herself was due to show up for work.
I headed off toward Snohomish, threading my way through the maze of suburbs with the help of my faithful companion, The Thomas Guide. Since Ron had told me that Eddie and his wife had started out as hot-rodders, I headed for Rich's Northwest Mobility with a whole headful of preconceptions. I expected a run-down garage with derelict vehicles scattered behind it, maybe an aging, marooned motor home of an office, and a motley collection of worker-bees whose grease-covered clothing went far too many overhauls between washings.
Turning left off Maltby Road onto a narrow paved track that ran through a thicket of towering trees, I was sure my worst suspicions would be confirmed, especially when I saw the ominous sign that warned, in no uncertain terms: STAY ON PAVED ROAD. That generally means if you wander off, you'll be caught in mud up to your hubcaps before you can say Triple-A Towing.
My first inkling that I was mistaken came when I saw the second Rich's sign, the one sitting in the middle of an ornate bricked entryway. I rounded a corner and found myself looking at a collection of several neat, low-built buildings, all painted an inviting pale yellow, nestled at the base of a grass-covered hill. I counted three separate garages on either side of a central paved area. At the far end of that central courtyard was a well-maintained house and yard. Taken together, the garages and house formed a U-shaped outline, the interior of which was parked full of wheelchair-accessible vans. Some of them looked brand new. Others were obviously olde
r and waiting for service at one of the stalls in the various garages, all of which seemed to be fully occupied at the moment.
I parked my 928 out of the way as best I could. At the near end of the U was a sign that must have been a holdover from the old hot-rod days: STREET ROD ALLEY. Unnoticed, I walked toward a group of people gathered around one of the shiny new vans where a heavyset man in a wheelchair was laughingly rolling himself up a gentle ramp into the vehicle. Once inside, he turned around and gave his audience a triumphant thumbs-up. While they responded with a rousing burst of applause, the man headed, chair and all, toward the driver's side of the car, where he seemed to clamp his chair in place.
Looking down at the ground clearance of the Aerostar van, I noticed that it was no more than three or four inches off the ground. That might be fine for getting the wheelchair in and out, I thought to myself, but how the hell is he going to get over the major speed bump between here and Maltby Road?
As if in answer to my question, the man switched on the engine. Without the slightest hitch, the ramp retracted and the outside door closed. Then, with a pneumatic sigh, the van's fender began to rise. When it quit moving, the van sat on ordinary tires, with the floor level and frame the exact same level as any other minivan. Meanwhile, the guy in the chair put the van in gear and began backing out of the lot. I stepped out of the way to let him pass. When he drove by me, he was grinning from ear to ear and waving in every direction, like the marshal of a Fourth of July parade.
"Sorta gets to you, doesn't it?" a tall, green-eyed man said, stepping over to where I was standing. "Watching 'em drive off the lot on their own that first time always puts a lump in my throat."
He paused for a moment, watching the van disappear from view. Then he turned to me, holding out his hand. "By the way, I'm Eddie Riveira," he added. "Is there something I can do to help you?"
"Yes," I answered, pulling out a card and handing it over. "My name's Detective J. P. Beaumont with the Seattle Police Department. I'm looking for some information."
Eddie smiled. "Most people are," he said.
"A friend of mine owns one of your units, one of those Braun Chair Toppers."