Proof of Life

by J. A. Jance

  “Thanks,” she said, sinking back down on the chair next to mine.

  “Purcell is at Harborview being treated and stitched up. After that he’s on his way to jail. I blew the whistle about his being out on bail. You’re expected to go down to Seattle PD tomorrow to give your statement.”

  “I figured as much,” she said. “I already called in and told my people that I won’t be in. Depending on how Lucy’s doing, I may not be in on Tuesday, either.”

  “Lucy will be fine,” I said, offering reassurance with no real basis in fact, other than the fact that Mel needed to hear it, and I needed to say it.

  “How do you think Purcell found us?” she asked.

  “The only thing I can think of is that he got Lucy’s location by way of her chip provider. They gave me all kinds of hell when I called in looking for information, but maybe Purcell was able to talk to someone a bit more accommodating.”

  “If Lucy had been with Nancy and her kids, he would have been able to find them the same way he found us, only they would have been far more vulnerable. Speaking of which, while I was in the bathroom, I used my phone to take a selfie. I’ve got a hell of a bruise on my belly from that elbow.”

  “Bastard,” I muttered.

  She gave me a small smile. “Thanks,” she said.

  A young woman in scrubs entered the waiting room. After pausing for a moment to look around, she came straight toward us, smiling as she approached. Mel sprang to her feet, and we both went to meet her. “Is Lucy going to be okay?” Mel asked.

  Although the new arrival looked like she should still be in high school, she turned out to be Dr. Jillian Lawes, Lucy’s vet. “Your dog is out of surgery,” she said. “We had to give her a transfusion, but she should pull through. Your keeping pressure on that wound is what saved her.”

  Mel sat back down. “Thank you,” she murmured. “That’s such good news.”

  “We’ll want to keep her overnight,” Dr. Lawes continued. “That deep puncture wound in her shoulder will take time to heal. Be aware, though, that due to the extent of her injuries, she may end up with a permanent limp.”

  “Not to worry,” I said. “These days there’s a lot of limping going around.”

  “In the meantime, she’ll need to be kept quiet, and she’ll probably need some assistance when it comes to walking. You’ll have to try to keep her from putting too much weight on that shoulder.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I suggest you get one of those canvas or leather slings people use to carry firewood. That way you can give her some support.”

  “I’ll find one of those first thing tomorrow,” I promised.

  Dr. Lawes looked up at me. “Are you Mr. Soames?”

  Sometimes you just have to go with the flow. “Yes, I am,” I answered.

  “Glad to meet you,” she said.

  Before we left the building, I forked over my credit card and made a thousand-dollar payment toward the bill. The clerk handling the finances for us mentioned that Lucy’s remaining charges would be totaled and due at the time of pickup. The truth is, I would willingly have paid twice that.

  Meanwhile, on the counter next to us sat a birdcage containing a droopy, almost featherless parrot. The parrot’s tearful owner was talking to another clerk. “I can’t possibly afford that much for treatment,” she said. “I’ve had Louie for years, but I guess I’ll have to put him down.”

  I caught the clerk’s eye. “How much?” I asked.

  “Somewhere between two hundred and five hundred dollars.”

  “Whatever it turns out to be, I’ll leave a credit card to cover it,” I said.

  “Really?” The clerk looked dismayed while the woman was utterly dumbfounded.

  “Why would you do that?” she asked.

  “I owe big,” I told her. “You and Louie are helping me pay it forward.”

  Fifteen minutes later we pulled off Second onto Clay. As we waited for the garage gate to open, Mel looked toward the building across the street.

  “Do you think Sam and Billy Bob are out there right now?”

  “I’m pretty sure they are.”

  She shivered. “It’s so cold. Can’t we help them find a warmer place to live?”

  “I’ll ask,” I said, “but I get the feeling that Sam Shelton is on the streets because that’s where he wants to be.”

  I had thought I was beat hours earlier. Now it was after 2 A.M. and I was done. Up in our unit, we stripped off our clothing and tumbled into bed. Mel cuddled up next to me and was asleep in an instant. She snores a little, but it doesn’t bother me. I lay there listening to her for a long time and thought about how differently this night might have turned out for all concerned if it hadn’t been for that single bag of kibble.

  CHAPTER 36

  MONDAY BEGAN WITH OUR SPENDING TWO HOURS AT Seattle PD, where both Mel and I were interviewed about what was referred to as “the Clay Street incident” as opposed to “the Kinnear Place incident.” Believe me, I’ll be happy to go a very long time without having two incidents of any kind on the books in a single day.

  Because I finished up earlier than Mel, I went upstairs to talk to Scott and bring him up to speed. While I was there, he gave me an insider’s tour of the Tactical Electronics Unit. These days I’m fairly conversant as far as electronic gizmos are concerned, but some of the stuff he was talking about was, as they say, Greek to me.

  I was back in the waiting room when Greg Stevenson stuck his head inside. “Somebody told me you were here. You’ll never guess what we found in that hole in the ground under Duc Nguyen’s clothing.”

  “What?”

  “A whole pile of electronics—a laptop, an iPad, a phone, and an old-fashioned desktop PC, all of them apparently belonging to your Mr. Cole. We have people analyzing the contents of his files and his correspondence to see if it will give us any clues about how all this came together.”

  “Wait, you’re able to access his files? How?”

  “Mr. Cole wasn’t exactly big on cybersecurity. His birth month and year were enough to let us open his phone, and in his message file there was one called Passwords that listed them all.”

  “Is the manuscript for his book there, too? It’s called Tangled Web.”

  “Could be,” Stevenson said.

  “When you find out, be sure to let Erin Howard know. It’ll be up to her to see if there’s any way to finish the project and get it published.”

  “Will do.”

  “What’s the deal with Bian?”

  “Her arraignment is set for tomorrow afternoon,” he said.

  “I’m not sure on what charges exactly, but they’re adding up fast. There’s no way in hell the woman is going to make bail. We found a whole cache of false IDs. Combine that with the funds she has available? In my book that makes her a serious flight risk.”

  “What about Lawrence Harden?”

  “As far as we can tell, he had nothing to do with any of the criminal activity. I think she’s bamboozled him from the very beginning.”

  “How’s he doing physically?” I asked.

  Stevenson shook his head. “Not good. They’re still not sure if he’s going to pull through. Even if he does, months of being fed mind-altering drugs may have done permanent damage. If that’s the case, he’ll probably have to go into some kind of assisted living facility.”

  Stevenson’s phone rang. He answered and then waved to me as he walked away, leaving me thinking about Lawrence Harden. I hadn’t liked the man, not at all, but I certainly hadn’t expected or wished for this kind of an outcome. And then there was Kramer. He had thought his friend Harden was fortunate to have a sweet young thing of a wife to keep him out of assisted living when, in fact, she was the one who would most likely end up putting him there.

  Shaking off that disturbing thought, I opened my iPad and searched until I located a barbecue supply place in Ballard that had two different versions of canvas firewood slings for me to choose from—medium and la
rge. “Put a reserve on the large one for me,” I told the clerk. “I’m pretty sure that’s the one we’ll need. We should be there within the hour.”

  By one o’clock in the afternoon we were parked outside Urgent Pet Care. When a male attendant brought Lucy out to the waiting room, he was using a sling as well. His was a lot more official-looking and probably cost a lot more than the one I’d just purchased, but they both did the job.

  Lucy seemed overjoyed to see us. It took the joint effort of both the attendant and me to lift her into the car. I was afraid she’d try to pull her usual stunt and stand with her chin on my shoulder. Seeming to grasp that she was in no condition to do so, she immediately stretched out across the length of the backseat, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

  Mel and I had already come to the conclusion that Lucy’s recovery meant we needed to be at home in Bellingham rather than in the condo. Using the doggy door was out of the question for the time being, but being able to go out to the yard from inside a single-story house would make for far shorter trips than riding up and down in the elevator, trudging through the garage, and crossing the street.

  Lucy rode with me and slept all the way from Seattle to Fairhaven. Once we made it home and got unloaded, I launched off on my new career as caregiver in chief. Lucy adjusted to her changed circumstances and the necessity of using the sling in short order, while I, on the other hand, had to learn to read her distress signals. Whenever she started struggling to get up, I figured out that probably meant she needed to go outside. She’s tall enough that I could use the sling without wrenching my back. Even so, between her injured shoulder and my bruised knee, we were a matching pair of gimps, and going in and out of the house that way took a toll on both of us.

  Mel went back to work on Tuesday. For the first several days we were home, Lucy mostly slept. Dr. Lawes had sent us home with a full set of meds, some of which were designed to alleviate pain and others to stave off possible infections. I started out mixing the meds with Lucy’s food. That was a definite no-go. Her kibble would disappear, but whatever pills had been mixed in with the food would be left in the bottom of her dish. Peanut butter sandwiches were the answer to that. We had already figured out that Lucy adores peanut butter sandwiches. Once we slapped her medications inside one of those, her gigantic tongue couldn’t separate the pills from the sticky spread.

  Tuesday afternoon, I went out to the street and brought in the snail mail. Front and center among the collection of bills and unwanted catalogs was the wedding invitation from Harry I. Ball and Marge Herndon. Looking down at Lucy snoozing comfortably on her bed, I knew at once that Mel’s and my circumstances had changed and a weekend trip to Vegas wasn’t in the cards. I had no intention of leaving a recuperating Lucy in the care of some anonymous dog sitter.

  The wedding invitation, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke, included an RSVP card along with a self-addressed stamped envelope. I filled out the card saying Mel and I would not be in attendance. Next I wrote out a check, one that was probably big enough to handle both their hotel and airfare. I slipped that into the envelope along with the card. So what if their wedding present didn’t come complete with beautiful gift wrapping and a flowery verse? Harry has never struck me as the flowery sort. That goes double for Marge, but seeing her name reminded me of Bob, Belltown Terrace’s head doorman. Knowing he would be on duty at that time of day, I gave him a call.

  “Heard you had some excitement out in the dog park the other evening,” he said.

  “We certainly did.”

  “How’s your dog?”

  “Lucy’s recovering, but that’s actually why I’m calling—about a dog, the other guy’s dog.”

  “You mean the homeless guy’s dog?”

  “That’s the one,” I said. “The two of them really saved our bacon, and I’d like to ask you for a favor.”

  “Sure thing,” Bob said. “Whatever you need.”

  “Go upstairs and let yourself into our unit. There’s a bag of kibble stored under the kitchen sink and a box of Ziploc bags in the drawer next to the dishwasher. I want you to fill a bunch of those bags with kibble and keep them in your desk downstairs. Then, in the evenings, when whoever is on duty is about to leave work, he can go out and drop two of the bags off in the fire escape alcove on the back of the church on the far side of Clay.”

  “Two a day?” Bob asked.

  “Yes, one for morning and one for evening.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to just give the guy a whole bag of dog food?”

  “No,” I answered, “it wouldn’t. A full bag of kibble would be too much for someone whose only means of transportation is a grocery cart. If it starts to look like you’re about to run out of either kibble or Ziploc bags, let me know.”

  “Sure thing, Beau,” Bob said. “We’ll see to it.”

  I had every confidence that he and his fellow doormen would follow through. Each year during the holidays, the condo association gives its employees bonuses in lieu of tips, but since Mel and I routinely give the door staff generous gifts of our own, I knew my request wouldn’t be regarded as a problem. In addition, the next time we were back in town, I fully intended to have a talk with Sam Shelton to see if there was anything we could do to otherwise improve his and Billy Bob’s living arrangements.

  A jubilant Ben Weston called me late Tuesday afternoon. “I just came from the arraignment,” he said. “The Keeper of Secrets’s ass is grass!”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “An Duong, Bian’s other cousin and the guy considered to be her first lieutenant in the LABs, has agreed to turn state’s evidence. In exchange for taking the death sentence off the table, he’s admitted to being the shooter in the death of Detective Blaylock, but his written confession lays out the whole shebang, and she’s been formally charged with all of it—drug and weapons violations along with two counts of conspiracy to commit, one count of vehicular homicide—”

  “You even got her for Duc Nguyen’s death?”

  “You bet. Bian had that same cousin of hers take the Escalade to a local chop shop to have the broken headlight fixed. She wanted that done off the books rather than taking it to a dealership. Guess what? The chop shop guys didn’t do a very good job of detailing it because CSI was still able to find Duc’s DNA profile in the seams around some of the chrome.”

  “Good-o!”

  Ben continued his recitation. “After vehicular homicide comes two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of resisting arrest, and . . . wait for it . . . one count of elder abuse and one of fraud. There’s a good chance that the quitclaim deed turning Harden’s Kinnear property over to her is a forgery. Not surprisingly, when An’s judge locked him up, he issued an order that An Duong be held in isolation from the general population.”

  “In case Bian might put out a hit on him?”

  “Exactly. As for the lady herself? Since she wasn’t granted bail, Bian Duong is locked up, too. With any kind of luck, she’ll stay that way for a very long time.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Down on the floor, I saw Lucy attempting to scramble to her feet. “Sorry to cut you off, Ben,” I said into the phone. “Duty calls.”

  A week went by—a quiet week. Time slowed to a crawl, because that’s how it is when you’re caring for an invalid. Your life adjusts to their needs and schedules rather than the other way around. Lucy and I spent a lot of time in the living room, looking out at the water, primarily because that room was closest to the front door and required the fewest steps to negotiate.

  The news as far as Ken Purcell was concerned was almost as good as that on Bian Duong. Ken’s father was the one who had posted his $500,000 bail. That had been revoked. As the old song says, “Now ain’t that too damned bad!” Not! After being released from Harborview, Purcell had been transported back to the jail in Bellingham, where he remained under arrest on both the assault and the domestic violence charges. Charges for his attack on Mel and Lucy were still pending,
ones far more serious than that worthless assault in the third degree.

  Erin called to say she had met with Max’s attorney. She was still in shock, but the extent of her good fortune seemed to be sinking in. “I just can’t believe it,” she said. “I always knew Uncle Max had some money, but I had no idea how much. And it turns out, you’re right. I really will be able to pay cash for a house. I’m about to make an offer on a town home here in Bellevue, and I’m driving his Volvo. I’ve never had a car this new.”

  I gave myself a mental note to put Jim Hunt in touch with Erin. After Karen threw me out of the house in Lake Tapps with nothing but my recliner, Jim was the guy who had taken me in hand and outfitted my first condo in the Regrade. With Erin’s new digs, her household goods and furnishings would need the same kind of upgrade. My housewarming present for her would consist of a decorating consultation with Jim accompanied by a generous allowance for furniture.

  On Thursday, when I took Lucy down for a checkup, I drove on down to Renton to see Erin. We talked about the complications of bailing Max’s electronics out of the evidence locker, something that was proving to be very difficult.

  “What about the book?” I asked.

  Erin sighed. Obviously I had just touched on a painful subject. “I’ve talked to Mr. Raines about that. He thinks that once he lays hands on the files, the publisher may want to find a ghostwriter to finish the project so it can still be published.”

  I had a feeling that a book written by a murdered author might be a sure bet as far as bestseller lists were concerned. Erin might not have thought about that, but I’m pretty sure both Maxwell Cole’s literary agent and editor would have taken that possibility into consideration. As far as I could see, having Tangled Web make it big was the best possible outcome. Max had been worried about getting pushback from writing the book. Whatever pushback resulting from the book would now come from Max himself.

  “I’m pretty sure that if Maxwell Cole had a vote,” I told Erin, “he’d rather see it published than lost. After all, not only is it part of his legacy, but also yours.”