Payment in Kind

by J. A. Jance

  “It sounds almost too good to be true.”

  “I think that's what the Riggs thought at first, that Marcia had screwed up again.”

  “Who are the Riggs?”

  “Marcia's folks. LaDonna and George Riggs. He's retired now. They spend their winters in Arizona and their summers in Gig Harbor. Like I said, to begin with, they weren't wild about the idea. For one thing, Pete wasn't Mormon, and Marcia was, in name at least. She was always way too wild for her own good. She's what they call a Jack Mormon. Much to her folks' surprise, though, after the wedding, Pete didn't raise the least objection to George and LaDonna taking Erin along to church with them. They ended up with a good Mormon grandchild after all. Erin is quite devout. She takes it all very seriously. She's all set to go on a mission next year after she finishes her degree.”

  “What can you tell me about their marriage?”

  Max eyed me speculatively. “What did Pete tell you?”

  “That it wasn't all a bed of roses.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Max agreed. “They've had their troubles just like everybody else, but what can you expect? They come from such different backgrounds.”

  “What exactly is Pete's background?”

  “His folks divorced when he was very young. He was on his own by the time he was sixteen, so you can see how he and Marcia would be coming from opposite ends of the spectrum, with her family solid and stable, and his anything but. Anyway, they were both a little on the wild side when they got married, and I think maybe they both fooled around some on the side--Marcia more than Pete, perhaps--but that was always just surface stuff. Those were meaningless relationships. There was never anything that came close to breaking them up. Those two shared something very special between them, a real bond. I always envied them that.”

  This was a somewhat different marital report card than the one we'd gotten from Pete Kelsey himself.

  “So you knew about their so-called open marriage?”

  Max looked startled. “Pete called it that?”

  I nodded and Max drew a long breath. “I knew about it, as much as an outsider ever knows about those kinds of things, but like I said, those occasional dalliances didn't mean that much to either one of them. They both cared about staying together, not only for each other but for Erin as well.”

  “What if one of them did?” I suggested, letting a hint of Paul Kramer's pet theory loose in the room for the first time. “What if one of those dalliances turned serious? Would Pete Kelsey have become violent about it?”

  “You're implying…No. No way. Not on your life.”

  I heard what Max said, but declarations of that sort from good friends are to be taken with a grain of salt.

  “Did you and Marcia stay close through the years?”

  “Not so much lately,” Max admitted ruefully. “Pete and I have become good friends over the years, and we keep in touch. I try to go down to the Trolleyman every once in a while when I know he's there. I tip back a pint of bitters, and Pete and I have a chance to shoot the breeze.”

  “How long has he worked for the Trolleyman?”

  “Off and on for as long as they've been open. He likes it, he's good with the customers, and he's dependable. They flex with him when he has a remodeling job.”

  “What's his background, do you know?”

  “Not really. He came from Ottawa originally, I believe. When he did that work for my mother, he was just starting out and struggling. All he had then was his green card and a whole lot of talent. After he and Marcia married, of course, he became a naturalized citizen.”

  “Where'd he go to school?”

  “To college, you mean?”

  I nodded and Max shook his head. “I know he went somewhere, but I'm not sure where. Started out as a history major and decided he didn't like it. I don't think he ever graduated. And for the kind of thing he does, he certainly doesn't need a degree. His work speaks for itself. Believe me, he makes a very good living doing remodels when he feels like it. He can pick and choose his jobs, too. He's a craftsman, you see, someone who understands wood. That's rare these days.”

  “What about Erin?”

  Max's face clouded over. “Erin's one sweet kid, and she couldn't have loved Marcia more if she'd been her real mother.”

  “You'd say Marcia was a good mother then?”

  “The best. Not according to her mother, maybe. Not in the old-fashioned motherhood-and-apple-pie sense. LaDonna Riggs still believes a woman's place is in the home. I don't think she ever approved of the fact that Pete did most of the cooking and cleaning. Marcia may have been sloppy as hell, but she was an interested mother, a concerned mother, and a smart one.

  “She exposed Erin to the arts, to the kinds of plays and books and performances that most kids never have a chance of seeing. Marcia recognized Erin's intelligence early on and encouraged her every step of the way. Erin finished up her undergraduate degree at the U-Dub here in Seattle in three years flat, and now she's down in Eugene working on her masters in English lit.”

  Max paused. “She's my godchild, you know. Did anyone tell you that? She was almost two when I first met her, but Pete said she didn't have a godfather because he'd never thought of it. I was deeply honored. It's probably the closet thing I'll ever get to being a parent, I suppose,” he added somewhat wistfully.

  “Are you in touch with Erin?” I asked.

  He nodded. “She writes to me at least once or twice a month. In fact, Pete asked me if I could go down and pick her up from the airport this morning and I hated to turn him down, but with this cold, I told him I'd better not. I wouldn't want her to catch it.”

  “Have you ever heard of someone named Andrea Stovall?”

  Max frowned. “Andrea Stovall,” he repeated. “It sounds familiar. I'm sure I've heard the name, but I can't place it.”

  “The Seattle Federated Teachers' Association,” I said. “Now does it ring a bell?”

  He nodded. “That's right. She's the president, isn't she?”

  “Yes. Did Marcia ever say anything to you about her?”

  Max paused to consider. “Wait a minute. Now that you mention it, I think I may have met her once at a Christmas party at Pete and Marcia's. As I recall, I didn't like her much. Dykish females tend to rub me the wrong way.”

  “Dykish? She didn't strike me that way, and I thought she was married.”

  “Divorced,” Max answered. “A lot of times they get married, but it's just for show and it doesn't last. Don't look so surprised, J. P. It's not like they have to go around wearing a sign or something.”

  An errant thought crossed my mind. “What about Marcia Kelsey?” I asked.

  Now it was Max's turn to be surprised. “Marcia? A les? No way. She was a fun-loving girl, all right, but strictly heterosexual. If that's what you're thinking, you're barking up the wrong tree.”

  This time it was my pager that went off and interrupted the process. Max directed me to the kitchen phone, which was far enough away to be out of earshot when I called in, I was given Ron Peters' number.

  “There you are,” he said when he heard my voice. “Amy gave me strict orders to get in touch with you early today, but I've been stuck in a meeting all morning long. We just got out.”

  “What do you need?”

  “We wanted you to come to dinner tonight. Amy's doing a pot roast. It should be good.”

  A pot roast? Real home cooking? It was too good to resist. “What time?” I asked.

  “What time can you make it?”

  My after-work AA meeting would last from five-thirty to six-thirty in the basement of a downtown church across from Denny Park.

  “Is seven too late?”

  “No. That'll be fine. See you then.”

  Ron started to hang up, but I stopped him. “Wait a minute, Ron. There's something I need some help with.”

  “What's that?”

  “Do you remember hearing anything about a series of bomb threats at the school district office las
t fall?”

  “Bomb threats? I don't remember anything about it.”

  “Me either,” I told him, “but they happened, and they didn't get reported. What I want to know is who buried those reports and how they did it.”

  “Sounds like something that's right up my alley,” Ron said. I could hear a smile lighting up his face, an echo of the old enthusiasm leaking into his voice.

  “That's what I thought. By the way, don't try checking directly with the Firearms and Explosives guys,” I warned. “We don't want to get Sparky's tail caught in a wringer on this one.”

  “Don't worry,” Ron Peters responded with a laugh. “I have my own sources, and I'll be the soul of discretion. See you at seven.”

  I left the phone and went back into Maxwell Cole's living room. He was leaning back with his eyes closed. For a moment I thought he had fallen asleep, but he sat up as soon as he heard me pause in the doorway.

  “Did Pete tell you about the harassing phone calls?” Max asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And he told you that Erin had been getting them too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it possible the phone calls and the murders are related?”

  As a loyal friend of Pete Kelsey's, Max was gently trying to lead me away from pointing an accusing finger in Pete's direction. Under the circumstances, I probably would have done the same thing. He was also fishing for information.

  “I wouldn't know about that,” I replied evenly, trying not to let any information slip into my words or intonation. “It's much too early to speculate.”

  “Well, I think they are,” Max declared forcefully, maybe trying to convince himself as much as he wanted to convince me. “When you find the person making those phone calls, you'll find the killer. You mark my words.”

  It always sounds so easy when somebody else says it. So easy and so simple. Saying it and doing it, however, are two entirely different things.

  “Right, Max,” I said, picking up my coat and showing myself to the door. “We'll have to see about that.”

  We'll just have to wait and see.

  Chapter 14

  When I stepped out onto the covered porch of Maxwell Cole's Victorian home, it was such a relief to be out of the hot house that I thought at first it was much warmer. It wasn't. I was just overheated from the inside out.

  My growling stomach said it was lunchtime, and I listened. Rather than go back down the way I'd come, I decided to trek on across the summit of Queen Anne Hill to the upscale little business district at the top of the Counterbalance, the steepest part of the hill, where heavy weights had once been used to aid trolleys going up and down Queen Anne Avenue.

  By eleven-thirty I found a comfortable chair in a trendy café called Après Vous and was stuffing myself with a mouthwatering Tower Burger, named after the cluster of radio towers, including one still covered with Christmas lights, that had sprouted like three gangly weeds across the crest of the hill behind the restaurant.

  I chewed my food and mulled over my conversation with Maxwell Cole. I couldn't get beyond the uneasy sense that something was strangely out of kilter in what I was learning about Pete and Marcia Kelsey. There was no one thing I could point to, no one blatantly obvious discrepancy, just an overall sense that what I had discovered about them so far was somehow dim and slightly out of focus. I couldn't get a clear picture of either one of them.

  According to Pete, the marriage had been wrong, at least as far as he was concerned, for a considerable period of time. Yet he hadn't left. And if, as Max had told me, Marcia had flitted from one meaningless relationship to another, then it hadn't been right for her, either. Yet something had compelled them to stay together. What was it? And did this elusive “something” have anything to do with the murders at hand? The only way to find out was to gather more information.

  While downing my second and third cups of coffee, I wrote up a detailed report on everything I had learned from Kendra Meadows and an equally detailed version of Max's interview. If Watty wanted reports, I'd plant my butt on a chair somewhere and give him reports until the damn cows came home.

  Over dessert I studied my lists of things to do and people to see, both the ones I had made and the ones given me earlier that morning by Kendra Meadows. I tried to prioritize those things that needed to be handled first.

  Speculating about Pete and Marcia Kelsey's kinky marriage was intriguing as hell, but I didn't want to be as guilty of neglecting Alvin Chambers as everybody else was. He was inarguably part of the puzzle. He was also equally dead, and Charlotte Chambers' next-of-kin interview was still missing.

  That at least was something I could fix, another little trophy I could lay on Sergeant Watkins' desk to say what a good boy am I. And in keeping with my good-boy persona, I made one pro forma call to the department to check on whether Detective Kramer had turned up for his court appearance or if he would be joining me for the afternoon's labors. Luckily for him, the son of a bitch was stuck in court for the remainder of the day and possibly for much of the rest of the week. I was free to work on my own for the afternoon with a totally clear conscience.

  I walked out of the restaurant fully prepared to head back down to the department and check out a car to take to the North End. Instead, providence stepped into the picture in the guise of a battered Farwest cab.

  The ancient green hulk of a taxi was stopped directly in front of me as I stepped out onto the sidewalk. It was disgorging an improbable number of laughing, baby-gift-carrying women on their way to a noontime shower. Without a moment's hesitation, I climbed into the newly unoccupied taxi and directed the driver to take me north to Charlotte Chambers' Forest Grove apartment complex.

  The heavily traveled streets weren't nearly as bad as they had been earlier. Sand, slightly warmer temperatures, and friction from passing vehicles had combined to turn most of the roadways to lumpy slush, although driving conditions would probably still change for the worse once the sun went down for the evening.

  When we reached the Forest Grove Apartments, I could see that someone had made a halfhearted attempt at scraping clean the driveway down into the complex. Nonetheless, I had the cabbie drop me on the street and I walked the rest of the way.

  The rickety stairway and handrail leading up to the Chambers' apartment had also been scraped clear of snow, but the layer of ice that remained on the slick wooden steps was far more treacherous than the snow would have been.

  From inside, I could hear the noise of an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner. No one answered my first knock, or the second. I waited until the vacuum went off before I tried again. This time the door opened immediately, and a wizened man stood before me.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  I handed him my card. “I'm looking for Mrs. Chambers,” I said.

  He glanced uneasily over his shoulder. “Charlotte isn't here just now,” he said. “She's expecting some family members to arrive from out of town, and the wife and I are waiting here in case they come before she gets back.”

  “I see. Can you tell me where she is or when you expect her?”

  The man looked back into the room. “I can't say for sure,” he replied. A woman wearing an apron and carrying two bulging garbage bags appeared over his shoulder.

  “Who is it, Floyd?” she asked.

  “A policeman,” Floyd replied uncertainly. “He wants to know where Charlotte is and when she'll be back.”

  “Well,” the woman said impatiently. “Let him in. Don't just stand there with the door open. It's cold outside. And go ahead and tell him where she is. If Charlotte Chambers isn't ashamed of herself, she certainly ought to be.”

  Floyd stepped back from the door and motioned me inside. Gravely he held out his hand. “The name's Patterson. Floyd Patterson, and this is my wife, Alva.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Patterson,” I said, glancing over his shoulder into the room behind him. The curtains were open, and an almost miraculous transformation had taken place in the dingy litt
le apartment. It was clean, almost spotlessly so. The dirty dishes were gone, as were the collection of boxes and the wads of clothes. The unmistakable back-and-forth tracks of a vacuum cleaner marched virtuously across the orange and green shag carpeting.