by J. A. Jance
Grace led us to the door and held it open, shivering as the lake-dampened air chilled the room. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble, Detective Beaumont, would you mind bringing in another log? I can usually manage just fine, but right now…"
"Sure," I said. "I'd be glad to."
Hurrying out to the woodpile, I selected another ten-inch log, carried it back inside, and shoved it into the fire. As the new log dropped into place, the burning one disintegrated into a shower of sparks and glowing coals. A disapproving Kramer eyed this whole procedure from just inside the front door.
"I believe we're in the middle of a burning ban, Miss Highsmith?" he said, while I dusted crumbs of dirt from my hands. "Aren't you worried about that?"
"Oh, no," Grace answered at once, peering up at him through her tiny glasses. "Burn bans only apply if you have some other source of heat. I don't. My father was a very stubborn man, you see. When I was growing up, we had a dairy farm and orchard over where Magnolia Village is now. Mother and Father bought this place as a summer cabin when the only way to get here was to ride across the lake on the Kirkland Ferry. Coming here each year was a major expedition. Father insisted that a summerhouse shouldn't need central heat, and he refused to install a furnace. My parents argued about it for years, and my sister Florence and I continued that battle long after our parents were both gone. A few years back, when I decided to retire here, I made up my mind to leave the house just as it was. Now I'm glad I did. On a day like today, there's nothing quite as comforting as the flames from an open fire."
"No, ma'am," a suddenly subdued Detective Kramer agreed. "I don't suppose there is."
Seventeen
I could see Kramer was fried as we huffed our way back up Grace Highsmith's stairs to the car. "Who the hell do you think you are?" he demanded. "Since when do we conduct police business based on the whims and schedule of the suspect's goddamned defense attorney?"
"Since I gave my word, that's since when," I responded. "And let me remind you, the suspect is entitled to representation. That's the law. Weren't you the guy who was telling me, just a little while ago, that rules are supposed to apply to everybody?"
I don't think Paul Kramer liked having his words spouted back at him. He yanked open the Caprice's driver's-side door, threw himself inside, and then slammed the door shut behind him. I climbed in on my side, matching slam for slam.
"You don't give a shit if we solve this mess or not, do you?" he growled, starting the car and mashing it into gear. "It doesn't matter to you if Captain Powell is bent out of shape. It's no skin off your nose if we're up to our eyebrows in a case that involves a dozen high-profile folks from the mayor's main squeeze to some dotty old lady member of the Board of Regents to a murder-weapon-buying former head of the Washington State Patrol."
"What do you mean, it's no skin off my nose?"
By then, Paul Kramer's pot of seething resentment had come to a full boil. "It's all a game for you," he fumed. "You don't care if you ever get promoted or not. And whether or not we solve this case in a timely fashion is no big deal to you. For guys like Sam Arnold and me, though, it is. For us, it's real life. My getting a promotion means the difference between whether or not my wife can trade in her old station wagon for a newer car. It determines if we'll be able to put money aside for our kids to go to college. You can be a high-flying playboy all you want, Beaumont. Just stop pretending to be a cop to the detriment of everyone around you."
Pretending to be a cop? I could barely believe my ears.
"Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You think I'm deliberately trying to blow this case? That I agreed to schedule Latty Gibson's interview around her attorney's availability out of some kind of spite? To keep you and Sam Arnold from getting credit and making the next promotion list?"
Kramer, driving hell-bent for election through downtown Kirkland, looked straight ahead and didn't reply, which, in itself, was answer enough. When we paused for a stoplight, I opened the door.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Kramer demanded, as I stepped out onto the sidewalk.
"What does it look like?" I growled back. "I'm getting the hell out of the car before I end up wrapping the steering wheel around your damned stiff neck. The interview with Latty Gibson is at two o'clock at Dorene's Fine China and Gifts on Main Street in Old Bellevue. See you around."
With that, I slammed the door shut and walked away. For a few seconds after the light changed, Kramer sat there in the Caprice, honking and gesturing for me to get back in the car. When frustrated drivers behind him started honking at him in turn, he finally gave up and drove off, shaking a fist at me as he went by.
Looking around, I found I was somewhere in downtown Kirkland. If you're a true Seattleite, that phrase sounds like an oxymoron. The buildings along the main drag of Western Washington's "little Sausalito" are low-rises-long on art galleries and trendy restaurants and short on much of anything else. I started to look for a phone, thinking I'd have to call for a cab, but surprisingly enough, when I reached the stoplight, a Metro bus pulled up beside me. I dashed over to it and pounded on the door.
"Hey, in case you haven't noticed, this isn't a bus stop," the brown-and-gold-clad driver observed as he opened the door. "The next stop is two blocks down."
I flashed a badge in his direction.
"Where are you headed?" I asked.
"Bellevue Transit Center."
"Is that anywhere near downtown Bellevue?" I asked.
The driver shook his head, rolled his eyes, and motioned me aboard. "It's right in the middle of downtown Bellevue. Get in, will you? We're holding up traffic."
As the diesel-powered bus rumbled along, I sat there stewing over Kramer's totally unfounded accusations. What nerve, calling me a playboy cop! I was no such thing. Maybe I wasn't the world's best team player, but then again, neither was Kramer. I was absolutely offended by his thinking that I would deliberately undermine a case for any reason, whether to spite him or even just for the hell of it. I wanted closed cases every bit as much as he did. Maybe even more than he did.
I was so steamed that my hangover headache receded to a dull throb. What had seemed like possible hunger pangs in Grace Highsmith's living room faded into the background as well. Through some stroke of good fortune, the bus I had chosen at random traveled right down Bellevue Way, directly past the Grove on Twelfth, but I was so lost in thought that I missed it. I got off the bus two blocks later and walked back.
Bent on retrieving my Porsche, I headed straight for the parking garage only to be headed off at the garage door entrance by Maribeth George, the reporter from KIRO, packing her ever-ready microphone and trailed by her inevitable cameraman. As soon as I saw the devastated look on her face, I knew that she had made the connection. Maribeth's wheelchair lady from Pier 70 and the woman dead upstairs were most likely one and the same.
Maribeth ditched the cameraman and caught up with me before I made it to the elevator. "It's her, isn't it," she said.
"Probably," I agreed quietly, "although we don't know that for sure."
Maribeth closed her eyes and swayed on her feet. I caught her before she toppled over. "It's her, all right. I recognize the car. It's the same one. It's my fault," she said. "I know it is."
"How could that be?"
"I know you told me not to mention her, but I did. We weren't getting enough on the murders through official sources, and my editors wanted us to run everything we had on the two cases. You don't suppose the killer saw the tape and then went after her, do you?"
"No," I said quickly, wanting to comfort her. "I'm sure not." Although in actual fact, I wasn't nearly as certain as I tried to sound.
The cameraman showed up right then driving a van. He stopped directly beside us. "Come on, Maribeth," he said, rolling down the window. "If we're gonna make the five o'clock news, we've got to get this stuff back to the station."
Nodding wordlessly, Maribeth hurried around and climbed into the van. Glancing around the garage, I was relieved
that Kramer's Seattle P.D. Caprice was nowhere in sight. If he had shown up right about then and climbed my frame about talking to a reporter, I'm not entirely sure what would have happened.
Officer Ryland of the Bellevue Police Department was still on duty in the Grove's underground garage. He nodded pleasantly as I came past.
"Any news?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Not much."
"Detective Blaine still around?"
Ryland nodded. "I think so. The victim's brother just showed up. I believe they're in the office. The crime scene techs are still working on the apartment."
"Which way?"
"Up this elevator to the first floor. If you turn right, I think it's at the far end of the hall."
On the first floor, the first door to the left of the elevator had been left ajar, but a festoon of yellow crime-scene tape had been strung across the entrance. I paused there long enough to peer inside, but I didn't try to enter. There was no sense in disturbing the techs as they went about their meticulous work. Instead, I continued on down the hallway to the office where a teary-eyed receptionist met me at the door.
"I'm sorry," she said. "There's been an emergency in the building. Our sales office is closed at the moment. If you'd like to see one of our units, could you please come back-"
"I'm a police officer," I interrupted, once again flashing my badge. "I'm looking for Detective Blaine."
"Oh, just a minute," she said. "He's meeting with someone in our conference room." She went to the closed door of an inner office and tapped timidly. Blaine himself answered her knock.
"I thought I said…" Catching sight of me, he let the rest of the sentence go. "Detective Beaumont, what's going on?"
"I've scheduled an interview this afternoon at two o'clock at Dorene's Fine China and Gifts on Main Street here in Bellevue. I think you'll want to be there."
"Why?"
"Because I'll be talking to someone named Latty Gibson, a young woman whose boyfriend-turned-rapist was being investigated by Virginia Marks."
Blaine opened his mouth as if to object, then shut it and nodded. "You're absolutely right. Two o'clock? One or the other or both of us will be there with bells on."
"Anything going on here that I should know about?" I asked.
"According to her brother, who just showed up, and to the part-time bookkeeper who found the body, the only thing missing that anybody can see so far is the laptop computer Virginia Marks used every waking minute of every day. She used it to take notes on her cases. Her calendar was in it, her database, as well as the information the bookkeeper used to do client billing. I guess when she wasn't working on the damned thing, she was using it to play solitaire."
"The computer's gone and nothing else is missing?"
"That's right," Blaine answered. "Including the jewelry in her dresser and the cash in her purse."
"I guess that lets out a random robbery or burglary, doesn't it."
Blaine nodded.
"And the computer's the only thing missing?"
"That's right."
"So maybe the computer contained some damaging piece of information, something so inflammatory that it's worth killing for."
"The same thought had occurred to me," Detective Blaine said. "All we have to do now is figure out what it was, right?"
"Right," I said. "See you at two."
"Where will you be between now and then?" Blaine asked. "Just in case something comes up."
I glanced at my watch. If I hurried, there was a slim chance I might still be on time for Lars Jenssen's AA meeting.
"Lunch," I said, without going into any more detail than that. I handed Tim Blaine a card on which I had jotted my cellular phone number. "Call me at that number if anything comes up. It's a cell phone, and I may have to leave it off for a while," I told him. "If I don't answer, keep trying until you get me."
Back in my own car and armed with a new set of Eastside driving instructions courtesy of Officer Ryland, I headed for Angelo's, which turned out to be only a couple of miles away in the middle of a light-industry area north of Bel-Red Road. The meeting, already in progress when I arrived, was in a smoky back room, tucked in behind a packed and noisy lunchtime bar. The irony of the proximity of those two back-to-back and contraindicated meetings wasn't lost on me. And that day, if I'd had my druthers, I would have opted for the MacNaughton's side of the border.
I might have done it, too, but just inside the meeting room door, I caught sight of Lars Jenssen. Since he had gone to the trouble of coming all that way and of spending at least an hour on buses to do so, and since he also had managed to save me a chair, I could hardly not show up.
As AA meetings go, that noontime get-together certainly wasn't one of the best, but it wasn't the worst, either. And eating a hot roast beef sandwich washed down by several stiff cups of coffee made me start feeling almost human.
When it came time to talk, one guy mentioned that this was his twenty-fifth birthday of being sober. Everybody applauded and toasted him with coffee cups. "Hear, hear!" they cheered while I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair.
Twenty-five years! Damn. There's nothing like having someone bring you face-to-face with your own inadequacies. Later on in the meeting, when it was my turn to talk, I somewhat guiltily allowed as how I had something less than twelve hours of sobriety under my belt. The guy with the twenty-five years was the one who grinned at me and gave me some sympathetic encouragement.
"At least you're twelve hours to the good," he said. "Sometimes, a day at a time is asking too damned much. You have to go minute by minute and be thankful for that."
When the meeting was over, Lars hurried around the room, busily grabbing up extra rolls from the various bread baskets and greedily stuffing them into his pockets before the waitress had a chance to clear the leftovers off the tables. Meanwhile, I picked up both our lunch bills and headed for the cash register.
"Hey, wait a minute," Lars sputtered, limping out of the room after me. "You ain't gonna pay for my lunch now, are you?"
"Yes, I am," I told him. "You came all the way over here by bus. Not only am I buying your lunch, I'm also giving you a ride back home."
By then, the cashier-a good-looking, dark-haired woman with a bright smile, amazingly long fingernails, and a pair of bright green golf-tee dangling earrings-had already punched the totals of our two tickets into the cash register. I shoved a twenty across the counter.
"Keep the change," I told her.
Her smile broadened. "You keep coming back," she said.
"Sure thing," I said.
Once we were out in the parking lot, Lars nudged me in the rib and gave me a semitooth-less grin. "You think that little lady back there is in the program, too?" he demanded.
"Could be," I answered, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the cashier's invitation for me to return was based less on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous than it was on the generous size of my tip.
I had told Detective Blaine to call me, but it would have been rude to take my cellular phone into the meeting. As soon as we got in the car, I punched the recall button. Sure enough, someone had tried to call in my absence. As far as I knew, there was only one person in the world who would have been trying to reach me right then-Detective Tim Blaine. Heading out Highway 520 toward the Evergreen Point Bridge, I tried calling him back with no success.
When I put down the phone and glanced over at Lars, my passenger was sitting in the rider's seat with his arms crossed and a glum frown pasted on his face.
"Telephones got no place in automobiles," he grumbled. "Don't see how people can drive and talk or dial at the same time."
"Sometimes, neither do I," I told him.
Three or four times on the way across Lake Washington I started to spill the beans to Lars about what was really going on with me-about Karen and Hilda Chisholm and the rest, but each time, I lost my nerve and kept quiet.
When Lars got out of the car, he turned and poked his head back in the window. "T
hink you'll need another meeting tonight?"
"I don't know," I answered. "Maybe. If I do, I'll call."
He walked away, shaking his head and muttering to himself. Maybe wasn't a good enough answer for Lars, which is part of what makes him a good sponsor.
Lars Jenssen's building is only a few blocks from my own. Looking down at yesterday's rumpled clothes, I decided a quick shower and change of clothing were both in order. I swung by Belltown Terrace, parked on P-1, and tossed the keys to Harold, a guy who owns and operates an auto detail shop on the first level of the Belltown Terrace parking garage.
"Do you want it washed today, Mr. Beaumont?" Harold asked.
"No, just hang on to the keys for a few minutes," I told him. "I'll be right back."
When I turned my key in the lock upstairs, I was surprised to hear classical music wafting through my apartment. What day is this? I wondered. At first, I thought maybe it was my cleaning lady, but she plays soft rock, never classical.
"Beau?" Ralph Ames called from the den. "Is that you?"
"Ralph!" I exclaimed. "When did you get here?"
He appeared in the doorway of the den looking tanned and fit, wearing a totally out-of-character tropical print shirt, and carrying a fanfold of papers. "One o'clock," he said.
I began stripping off my jacket and shoulder holster. "Just a few minutes ago?" I said.
"One o'clock this morning," he answered with an amused grin. "Our plane got in at midnight. You were supposed to come get us, remember?"
My heart sank. Ralph lives in Phoenix, but he had taken his Seattle-based girlfriend, Mary Greengo, to the Caribbean for an early winter cruise. I had taken Ralph Ames and Mary Greengo to the airport a week earlier when they had left on the cruise and had agreed to come get them when they returned.
"Damn! I completely forgot."
"No kidding. By the time our luggage came off the plane, we'd pretty well figured that out, so we caught a cab. Don't worry. It's no big deal. I was talking to Mary on the phone a few minutes ago. Since it looked like you stayed out overnight, she's betting that maybe you've found a new girlfriend and maybe even got lucky."