by Gregg Olsen
Connie Carter was not a happy drunk. She was never lampshade-on-the-head kind of fun. It wasn't her nature. Drinking only made her mean. Janet and Jett had felt their mother's drunken wrath: first, the sting and squeal of a rubber Old Mother Hubbard spoon; later, when they were older, the buckle end of a leather belt.
“We are running out of time,” Connie barked from the sofa when the trio arrived. “Do you know that Lindy is in danger of being raped again by that monster?”
Everyone knew it. They all felt the sense of impending doom. A clock was ticking. Louder and louder. If something wasn't done in time, there would be hell to pay. A little girl, a sweet and innocent little girl, was in danger.
Janet introduced Jim Winston and seated him next to her mother.
“You must think you're really something,” Connie said, stubbing out another cigarette in a black plastic ashtray that resembled a hedgehog from the proliferation of butts that overflowed from it.
Jim's eyes widened. “Come again?”
“Big shot. Mister-I-want-five-thousand-dollars-for-a-rat's-ass-hit.”
He sprang up. He was a marionette. “I don't need this. I don't want any trouble.”
“Sit down and shut up,” Connie instructed.
Jim ignored her and remained on his feet.
“I said, sit down. I have a compromise.”
Deke nodded at his pal from the mill. “Better listen to her.”
Jim slid back into his place on the sofa.
“I'm a little short on the down payment. I almost have it and I've been thinking that if you'd wait this out until after the job, I'd pay you ten grand when it's over.”
Jim Winston refused and he backed off. His little game had gone too far and he was desperate for a way out of that smoky living room and away from that bleached blonde with red chipped fingernails and murder on her mind.
“How much have you got?”
“I'll give you $420 now and the rest later; when I can get my hands on it. And, trust me, I can get it. Lindy is a beneficiary on a policy I bought for her and I'll use her money to pay you off.”
Jim said he'd think it over. He wanted out of there. He made up an excuse about calling his brother who was working offshore in Australia.
“Got to call him before it gets too late their time.”
Jim Winston, of course, had no brother.”
-
“I LIED TO THEM TO GET THE HELL out of there. I had never seen such stupid people in my life. Speaking of stupid, God, was I dumb,” Jim Winston told Martin Raines when they talked that first time in his living room.
The detective agreed. “I won't argue with you there. You know, you're going to have to come in to make a statement down at the Justice Center.”
“But I didn't take any money. Not one dime. I didn't even really consider it. Connie tried to hand me $420, but I left it on the coffee table. Like I said, I just wanted to get out of there.”
An enormous tortoise shell brown tabby leapt up onto the investigator's lap and Jim jumped up to shoo his pet away.
“Soldier! Get down!”
The cat hit the floor and Raines stood up to indicate it was time for the two of them to leave.
“Am I going to be arrested?”
Raines didn't think so.
“I can't promise anything, understand? But I think it's fair to say I don't think you'll be in too much trouble if you cooperate with us,” he said.
Jim Winston fed Soldier and grabbed a navy pea coat before locking the door.
“Hey, I thought of something that'll back up some of what I told you.”
Raines stopped in his tracks. “What?”
“Are you sure you're not gonna arrest me?”
“I told you it isn't likely, but I can't promise.”
“I guess I'll go with that. I won't need a lawyer, right?”
“Not if you're not going to be arrested. Remember, cooperation is key here.”
Jim Winston went to his Cavalier and retrieved a State of Washington vehicle registration.
“We're not impounding your car, either,” Raines said, offering a laugh to break a little tension. He was an expert at putting people to ease. It was a skill that served him well and probably kept him younger than his colleagues who couldn't make—and certainly never take—a joke.
Jim grinned slightly. “I know. Look at the back of it.”
The detective flipped over the green and white sheet.
“So?”
“Look right here.” He pointed to some pencil marks along the right hand edge of the document.
“Yeah?”
“It's Janet's handwriting... it's from the night when she and Deke came over and they wanted me to kill Paul Kerr. We—they—were mapping out how far things were from each other ... making a plan for the hit.”
The detective could distinctly make out words tied to local landmarks. If the handwriting checked out, the hot water Janet Lee Kerr was sitting in was about to rise to a boil.
Two-tenths.
Half mile.
One mile.
“You know something, officer?” Jim confided during the short ride to the Justice Center. “I hate to admit it, because by doing so might make you think less of me than you probably already do, but I'm not surprised Danny Parker is mixed up in the Cameron shooting.”
Raines hated when people called him officer, but he had grown weary of explaining the difference over and over. At least by using the term officer, it was a measure of respect.
“Why is that?” he asked.
“I saw Janet not long after I turned her and her mother down. She was at the Hammer 'n Nails. She was playing pool for beers and had a couple of empty schooners balanced on the side table. She wasn't sloppy drunk, just real mouthy.”
Raines was beginning to put together a picture of the young woman he sent kicking and screaming to a jail cell. It was an ugly picture.
“I hear she gets that way,” he said. “What'd she say?”
“She flat out told me that I was a coward—her exact words were 'Jim Winston, you're as fuckin' big a weenie as Deke Cameron.' I asked her what she meant and she told me—and I'll never forget her words—'Boys like you and Deke pale next to a real man. You need a big man to do a man's job'.”
“Did she say if she found a big man to do the job?”
Jim shook his head up and down. He had been talking so fast that spittle formed at the corners of his mouth and the force of his movement sent a bubbly spray into the air and landed white against the near black of his coat. He was dying to point the finger at someone else.
“Sure did. As bold and ballsy as could be, she said Danny Parker was going to do the deed for her. And she said she didn't have to pay him one red cent. I remember she even laughed at that. She said Danny Parker was going to do it for love.”
-
THE JUSTICE CENTER HAD NEVER been more convenient, which of course, was the very reason it had been designed as it had been. Raines handed off Jim Winston like a Frisbee to another deputy, whom he briefed, to make the veneer maker-cum-misbegotten hit man's written statement. It was time to see if Danny Parker was ready to talk some more.
♦
Note from Val: Two things. Your toner is about dead. I heard you shaking it like a maraca last night and I'd say you've squeezed every last bit of black out of the thing. Get a new one. You're a professional, Kevin. Act like it. Look like it. Toner is the answer here. OK, that was item no. 1. Number 2, Connie is scary! She's actually got the nerve to bitch slap a hit man and then dicker him down to a $420 down payment? She's treating him like a sales clerk at Loehman's. Poor Jett. I even feel sorry for Janet. Make that everyone who's ever met Connie Carter.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Tuesday, September 3
THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL CAME just in time, as it always did. I was so thankful for its arrival and the relief it would provide. From morning to afternoon, I'd be back to a routine that would allow me to get my work done. Valerie had Tay
lor and Hayley line up in front of our weather-beaten rose arbor with Hedda as she photographed the event for posterity. Our girls were lovely. Low teased fishtail braid on Taylor and swept bangs on Hayley. New jeans and tank, one covered with hearts, the other peace signs. The festival style from Coachella had traveled up the coast and had finally reached Port Gamble preteens —a sure sign the look was officially over. They looked like high-schoolers, more so to me, than sixth-graders beginning their final year at Breidablik Elementary. Valerie had taken photos of their first day since preschool. Only fourth grade was a battle. By sixth, both girls knew that the First Day photo was something they'd have to accept until they graduated from college.
“At least mom doesn't make us stand beside the bus anymore,” Hayley said as she squinted into the morning sun and smiled for five more shots.
“Don't even say it, or she might try,” Taylor warned her sister.
After big hugs and near tears, Valerie loaded the Honda for a client presentation in the city and the girls and I took the LUV to school. Hedda was left with a new rawhide bone to occupy her day in the backyard. I was so glad for things to be returning to normal. I was so happy that the days of blue raspberry Mr. Freezes were over for another year. This summer, more than any I could think of, had been a frighteningly wild ride. It had been rough on all of us, especially Valerie. Her temper had flared at the slighted provocation. I took it for what it was: the stress over her job and mine. The worry about money. School clothes had tapped out the bank account and we were back on charge cards until my publisher sent the money for signing the contract on Love You to Death. Valerie's business was picking up, however. She had several new artists to rep and a strong shot at an online catalog for an outdoor gear-maker in Seattle.
“The client wants no photos, only computer-generated illustrations. We're talking about eighty to ninety images,” she said that morning.
“Maybe we'll have Christmas after all,” I said.
Valerie looked a little doubtful. “Christmas? I'm worried that we'll be about to pull off Thanksgiving.”
“Should have the advance money by then,” I said.
“Don't those people in New York understand that writers actually live on their advances?”
We both knew from experience that they hadn't a clue. They had no idea that their writers were actually trying to make a living out there.
I dropped off the girls into a living and breathing sea of brand-new clothing and fresh-scrubbed hair and skin for their first day of class. Neither was crazy about the teachers they had, but both were relieved that Renny Ann Quinn was not in either's classes. Renny Ann Quinn was a booger-eating ditz who had latched onto the Ryan girls like a barnacle on a rock. This year was the first year one of my girls didn't have to deal with her. They could not have been happier.
The girls would take the bus home after school. Taylor had a house key she kept on the zipper pull of her black canvas backpack.
I had arranged for a couple of appointments in Timberlake. At lunch time, I was going to see Martin Raines. After that, Jett Carter and I were going to meet at the kiosk in front of the Hotdog on a Stick stand at the Food Circus in the Columbia Mall.
♦
APRIL RAINES WAS ROLLING BEESWAX candles when she invited me in, the air heavy with the sweet scent of the honeycombed wax. She explained she was making candles for a Christmas wedding for one of the mothers in their church. She led me inside, past her kitchen work table, and pointed down the hallway.
“Marty's in his den. He's expecting you.”
I found my way to the faux fishing lodge. It was exactly as it had been last time I was there. Not a single new wooden pole or lure had been added. The detective was sitting behind his desk watching CNN. An electric hotpot on his credenza steamed.
“Your home inside your home,” I said, surveying the room. “Seems like you've settled in here for the fall.”
A wary smile slightly broke across his face. “Sometimes I wish I could. Make that, most of the time, I wish I could.”
His ears didn't seem as large as they had nor did he seem as fat. I was glad at that instant that I hadn't written him as some kind of human gargoyle.
“Marty, I'm glad we're still talking.”
“Since the incident, you mean,” he said.
“The arrest,” I said. “The fucking false arrest.”
He didn't blink. “Yeah, that.”
We talked a few minutes more, sizing up each other, wondering if the author/source relationship was still within our reach. I was still bitter. He was still doing his job.
“Kevin, I'm talking out of school here, but I have no choice.”
He had my interest. “Go on,” I said.
“What I tell you can never, never, never leave these walls.”
“Is this another I'd love to tell you something, but it has to be off the record speeches?”
“It is.”
I stood up. “I thought we were beyond this. Marty, you owe me. I hate to use those words, but it's a fact. Your arrest could have cost me everything.”
“Could have,” he said. “Those are truly the operative words.”
“It still can. I don't know what kind of long-term damage this has done. Monica Maleng of Green Light Pictures wants to make a goddamn movie out of this.”
“No shit?”
“No way. She wants the movie only if I'm rearrested and charged with Mrs. Parker's murder.”
He pretended to brighten. “Wonder what kind of percentage I could get?”
“It isn't funny. My family has been through hell... God, my own mother called me and said she'd still love me even if I killed the woman. My own mother!”
Raines told me to sit down. “What I'm about to tell you has to be off the record because there are people in the office who think you still might be guilty. I know you didn't do it. I have another idea about what's going on. It's an idea that I stand alone on.”
I sat on the edge of the chair. “What? “What is it?”
Raines got up and poured hot water into his cup and tugged on a used-up tea bag. The water barely registered a light amber hue.
“How many times do you reuse those damn things?” I asked.
“Too many. I'm trying to give up caffeine. Gave up lattes two weeks ago. April tells me I was getting too fat and too jittery. Want some tea?”
“No. I just want one thing. The truth. I want to know what it is that you're going to tell me.”
Raines shut the door and sat on the edge of his desk facing me.
“We thought the technicians made a mistake when they ran your fingerprints through Edgar's system.”
“What kind of mistake?”
“They were backwards.”
I was puzzled. “What do you mean, backwards?”
“The prints came back a perfect match for yours, with one exception: they were a mirror image of yours.”
“A mirror image? I don't follow you.”
Raines set his anemic teabag on a napkin. Liquid bloomed from the teabag, a slightly brown-edged circle formed on the white paper. It was time for a new bag.
“Want some? I can get another cup of this.”
I declined his offer for the second time. “What do you mean, a mirror image?”
My mind raced as Raines explained how the Edgar system worked. I wanted to tell him to get on with it—I had been to the same damn seminar he had. He said Edgar mapped out the prints off the paper, fed it into its mammoth brain, and spit out a match. My prints had the exact same configuration.
“You mean that someone out there has the same prints as I do, just in reverse?”
He shook his head with great adamancy. “At first we wondered about it, but then we figured the lab guys reversed the laminate that held the prints. It was a mistake, pure and simple. We went back and found that there had been no mistake. The prints had been made on the paper in reverse in the first place.
It still didn't set in. My mind continued to speed. What did it me
an?
“Kevin, the fact is, your prints were put on the paper found in Mrs. Parker's hand. Do you get it? Someone meant for us to, excuse the pun, finger you for the crime.”
I thought my head was going to explode. The room seemed small and claustrophobic. “How? I don't see how someone could put a person's prints on another object?”
“We didn't either. I mean one guy in the lab said he read of a case where a dead man's prints were put on a gun by a killer to fake a murder/suicide. But you weren't dead.”
“My career is on its last legs, but, no, I'm not dead. Not yet, anyway. Besides, in that scenario they would be right-reading, not reverse.”
Raines nodded. “So we finally figured.”
Reeling, I got up to leave.
“One more thing,” he said, putting his cup down.
“Yeah, is this a CSI move?”
“Sort of. The paper found in June Parker's hand was manufactured in Japan. The company that produces it is Kubuta International Paper.”
I looked blank. “Huh?”
“Yeah, it isn't even available in the U.S. It is a high-grade cotton rag with an eight percent silk content. It's a paper admired by calligraphers because ink imbeds itself onto a surface unparalleled for its durability—or some marketing-type jargon like that.”
He had my interest. I asked if he knew where the paper could be purchased.
He didn't.
“Nowhere that we can find. We're still looking... and while the paper is important, it is not as important as what was on it.”
I was caught off guard. What more?
“But you know my prints were put there,” I said.
Raines drew in a deep breath and then wheezed a little. I wondered for a second if he was hesitating or if he had started smoking again.
“Not just the prints—and I'm risking my pension if this leaks—there is an adhesive residue on the paper, too. We're still checking on it. There are about a zillion formulas from 3M alone.”