Long Time Gone

by J. A. Jance

  “Amy,” Ron began. “I didn’t mean…”

  But it was too late. Amy didn’t hang around long enough to listen. Instead, she fled back the way she had come. Her departure left me with absolutely nothing to say. I hadn’t walked a mile in Amy’s moccasins—or in Ron’s, either, for that matter.

  “Just go,” Ron said at last. “That’s enough damage for one day.”

  I stopped in the doorway. “What about the memorial service?” I asked.

  “What about it?”

  “You told Lujan it was private. Is it family only or am I invited?”

  “Of course you’re invited,” Ron said. “Whatever made you think you weren’t? Two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. The Bleitz Funeral Chapel over by the Fremont Bridge.”

  “Okay,” I said. “See you there.”

  It wasn’t until I was back outside and standing in the rain that I remembered my car had been towed. I was about to call for a cab when a battered Ford Focus with British Columbia plates pulled into the driveway. The passenger door opened and Heather charged out of the car. She raced past me with her head bowed, without a glance or a word of greeting. The mascara running down her face had nothing to do with falling rain. I was standing looking after her when a voice asked, “Need a lift?”

  “Yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “Where to?” Dillon asked as I climbed into the cramped front seat. It was pulled so far forward I had to readjust it before I could fit my knees past the glove box.

  “Belltown Terrace,” I said. “It’s at the corner of Second and Broad.”

  The interior of Dillon’s Focus was littered with a layer of fast-food wrappers and crushed soft-drink containers. When Heather and Tracy were little, Ron had tried his level best to turn them into vegans and to keep them safe from the evils of Coca-Cola. The strategy hadn’t taken—at least not as far as Heather was concerned. If, as I suspected, she was experimenting with drug use, eating right wasn’t the only lesson she had failed to learn at her father’s knee.

  I sniffed the air for telltale odors and glanced around for drug paraphernalia—a stray roach clip or a visible hypodermic needle—that would tend to confirm my suspicions, but nothing jumped out at me. All that really indicated, though, was that whatever was going on probably wasn’t going on in the Focus.

  As we started down Queen Anne Hill, I caught a glimpse of Queen Anne Gardens and realized that I hadn’t talked to Lars in several days, not since he had told me my grandmother was a little under the weather. When my phone rang halfway down Queen Anne Hill, I thought it might be Lars and Beverly, even though they seldom try calling my cell. When I saw the SHIT office number in the caller ID window, I slipped the phone back into my pocket without answering. Whoever was calling to chew me out—Harry I. Ball or Mel Soames—I wasn’t about to endure what would most likely be a severe dressing-down within earshot of a young punk like Dillon.

  “What’s going to happen?” Dillon asked as he drove. “To Heather’s dad, I mean. Do you think he’ll go to prison?”

  “Not if he didn’t do it,” I said grimly.

  “Heather’s real upset about all this, you know,” Dillon continued. “I mean, like, she’s upset about her mother being dead and everything, too, but her dad…It’s like he’s her hero or something.”

  He ought to be her hero, I thought grimly. He’s willing to give up everything in order to save her hide.

  “Heather says you’re a cop,” Dillon continued. “Do you think he did it?”

  On the surface, it could have been an innocent comment from someone just making conversation. On the other hand, it could have been someone fishing for inside information. I decided to turn the question right back on the questioner.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Me?” Dillon stammered.

  “Yes, you. You’re evidently close to Heather. You’re around the house a lot. Do you think Heather’s dad is capable of doing such a thing?”

  Dillon concentrated on his driving for a time before he answered. “You mean, like, do I think he’d kill somebody?”

  I nodded.

  “He seems like a regular guy to me,” Dillon answered at last.

  “And Heather?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is she capable of murder?”

  This time his answer was as explosive as it was immediate. “Of course not! No way!”

  “Were the two of you together Friday night?”

  “Sort of,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “We were, but we weren’t supposed to be. Heather told her parents she was going to a friend’s house, but she came over to my place instead. We planned on going to a movie, but she was too upset. There was some big hassle with her family at dinner.”

  “Her father got served papers in the custody dispute.”

  Dillon nodded. “That’s right,” he said.

  “What did you think about that?” I asked.

  “About Heather maybe moving to Tacoma?”

  I nodded and Dillon shrugged his shoulders. “It wasn’t that big a deal,” he said. “I’ve got wheels. I can go where I need to go.”

  “So you would have kept on seeing Heather even if she had gone to live with her mother?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “And when did you bring her home on Friday?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Early or late?”

  “Late, I guess.”

  “How late?”

  “Five-thirty,” he said. “Or maybe six.”

  That stopped me. “In the morning? She spent the night?”

  “We fell asleep,” he said. “No big deal. Nothing happened.”

  Right, I thought. And the pope ain’t Catholic!

  “So how do you get along with Heather’s folks?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he said. “We get along just fine.”

  That was the first straight-out lie I had caught him in. I might have caught him in more, but we pulled up to Belltown Terrace right then. “Thanks for the lift.”

  “Don’t you worry about Heather,” he said as I got out and started to close the door. “Whatever happens, I’ll be there for her because that’s the kind of guy I am.”

  “Good,” I said. “Glad to hear it.” But of course that was a lie on my part, too, because I didn’t think for a minute that this little weasel was a stand-up kind of guy.

  As Dillon drove away, I realized that I had no idea what his last name was or where he lived, but I’m a cop. Years of habit came into play. I noted the number of his license plate and jotted it down.

  When I turned to enter the building, Jerome was there to open the door. “Where’s your pretty little Porsche, Mr. Beaumont?” he asked. “I thought for sure I saw you drive it out of the garage this morning.”

  “Somebody wrecked it,” I said. “A guy put a big old SUV in reverse and drove right over the top of it.”

  “You’re kidding,” Jerome said.

  “I only wish I were.”

  “I’m real sorry to hear it,” he said. “It’s a crying shame.”

  “Yes, it is,” I agreed. “In fact, I’m going upstairs right now to see if my insurance company will set me up with a rental.”

  Except I didn’t. Instead, I went up to my apartment and paced back and forth, trying to sort things out. Who had killed Rosemary Peters? I knew for sure that Ron hadn’t done it. He was convinced Heather had done it. And maybe Dillon was, too. No wonder he had given me that phony and most likely unverifiable alibi for Heather’s whereabouts on the night in question.

  But what if everyone was wrong? What if, in focusing on the complicated family aspects of the murder, we were missing someone else—someone who was using the custody dispute as camouflage for getting away with murder? Michael Lujan, for example? What was his relationship with Rosemary Peters? Involvement on Lujan’s part might explain why the body had been moved from the Bread of Li
fe parking lot. Or maybe she had been killed by one of her coworkers at the mission. Had anyone looked into that? Of course, the problem with all of those possibilities came back to the use of Ron’s gun as well as his vehicle.

  Whom did that leave as possible suspects then? Ron or Amy or maybe, God forbid, Heather’s big sister, Tracy. That was another thought that was too awful to consider. The point was, if Mel and Brad could be suckered into accepting Ron’s claim of responsibility, then the real killer—maybe Heather or maybe someone else entirely—might well get away with murder.

  The big question for me was whether or not I was going to go along with the program—and the cover-up. Ron was thinking of Heather. I was thinking of everyone else—of Ron and Amy, of Tracy and Jared.

  Four to one, Heather, I told myself finally. You lose.

  Cops make judgment calls all the time. So do friends. I picked up the phone and called Mel Soames’s cell number.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” she muttered when she answered. “If you aren’t about the last person in the universe I expected to hear from about now.”

  “Why would that be?” I asked.

  “Because I just saw a picture of you on the evening news, holding Ron Peters’s little boy, Jared. Looked like a really cozy photo op. I’m guessing Harry will be livid when he hears about it, and so will Ross Connors. I’m not too happy about it myself.”

  “Want to talk about it?” I asked.

  “Is there something to talk about?” I heard the stir of interest in her voice.

  “Possibly,” I said. “We could have dinner somewhere.”

  “Not out in public,” she returned. “You were on the evening news tonight, and so was I. Seattle’s not that big a town. If we’re seen having dinner together, someone’s bound to report it. Do you have any food in that penthouse bachelor pad of yours?”

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  “That’s what I thought. I’ll pick up something on the way. What about wine?”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Well, I do,” she said. “Do you mind if I bring some along, too?”

  “Suit yourself,” I said. “I’ll see you when you get here.”

  CHAPTER 12

  WHILE WAITING FOR MEL TO ARRIVE, I finally got on the phone to my insurance guy, who told me he’d make arrangements to have a car delivered to Belltown Terrace for me in the morning. I also tried calling Lars and Beverly. When there was no answer at their place, I left a message on their machine saying I was thinking about them. Then I took a shower and put on clean clothes.

  A little over an hour later, when I opened the door in answer to Mel’s ring, she walked into my apartment in a pungent cloud of garlic.

  “Hope you don’t mind chicken or garlic,” she said. “It’s shish tawouk from the Mediterranean Kitchen. They’re right next door to where I live.”

  “I didn’t know you lived on Queen Anne Hill,” I said.

  She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “I don’t,” she said. “I mean the one in downtown Bellevue. I live in the Parkvue Apartments, just down from Bel-Square.” She set the bags of food on the kitchen counter, along with a bottle of chardonnay. “And I brought along an opener in case you didn’t have one.”

  “I have openers,” I said. “And glasses. I just don’t keep wine around anymore. Or booze.”

  “In AA?” The offhand way she asked the question made it sound as though she knew something about the subject. I nodded.

  “My ex sobered up after we got a divorce,” Mel said with a shrug. “Pissed the hell out of me, too. I guess I thought he should have done it for me, but of course he had to do it for himself in order for it to take. We’re on reasonably good terms now,” she added, “as long as he stays on his side of the country and I stay on mine.”

  “That what caused the divorce?” I asked. “Drinking?”

  “Booze was only a part of the problem,” she said. “He’s a liberal and I’m not. I think I thought I could fix that, too, but I couldn’t. We called it irreconcilable differences. Fortunately, we didn’t have any kids, so there wasn’t anyone else for us to screw up.”

  In a matter of a few minutes I learned more about Mel Soames than I had picked up in months of working with her, and her lighthearted way of chatting about things put me at ease in a way I hadn’t expected. While I busied myself with uncorking the wine she made herself at home, searching through cupboards and drawers until she found enough dishes and silverware to set the table. She had transferred the food to serving dishes and was surveying her handiwork when I handed her a glass of wine.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Now what are you going to drink?”

  “Coffee,” I answered. “I made a new pot just before you got here.”

  “You can drink coffee at night and it doesn’t bother you?”

  “I can drink coffee round the clock,” I said. That wasn’t entirely true, but I thought the comment hit the right notes of casual macho-dudeness.

  “You’re lucky,” she said. “The other night I hardly slept at all after you filled me full of caffeine.”

  “Sorry about that,” I told her.

  “Don’t apologize. Staying awake late at night is good for me sometimes. Gives me a chance to think about stuff I usually manage to ignore during the day.”

  I like to think of the Mediterranean Kitchen’s shish tawouk as garlic squared. The fluffy saffron rice is infused with garlic and then the grilled hunks of chicken are covered with a milky crushed-garlic sauce and it comes with lentil soup and salad. The first savory bites were nothing short of glorious.

  “You like it?” she asked.

  “Love it,” I returned.

  She grinned. “My ex didn’t like garlic, either. Now maybe you’d better tell me how come you called. I have a feeling something happened.”

  There it was again, that sudden switching of topics and moods that women do so effortlessly and, in the process, drive men nuts. Because I knew I was about to breach Ron’s confidence, it took me a moment to answer.

  “Ron Peters fired his attorney today,” I said for starters.

  Mel nodded. “I know. I met him—Ralph Ames. Didn’t expect to like him, but he seems like a pretty squared-away guy.”

  “Ralph is squared away,” I told her. “And he would have done a good job for Ron. The problem is, I believe Ron is getting ready to plead guilty to a murder he didn’t commit.”

  “I think you’re right,” Mel Soames said.

  That stopped me. I hadn’t expected the two of us to be on the same side of this question. “But the other night I thought you said…”

  “I wouldn’t be much of a cop if I let my personal experience get in the way of an investigation, would I?” she asked.

  “No, but what changed your mind?”

  “Facts, mostly,” she said. “Like the fact that someone had wiped down Ron’s Camry for fingerprints, but they left all the blood in the trunk. Brad and I think someone’s trying to frame Ron Peters for his ex-wife’s murder, and we’re thinking whoever did it is likely one of his own family members.”

  “Heather,” I said at once.

  “The younger daughter,” Mel confirmed with a nod. “The one who was the subject of the custody battle and who didn’t want to go live with her mother.”

  I felt a sudden wave of relief. If Mel and Brad had already reached many of the same conclusions, that let me off the hook.

  “Have you spoken to her directly?”

  “No. For the moment, it’s easier for us to play along and act like Ron’s the only game in town. In the meantime, we’re talking to everyone else and gathering what additional information we can. We’re hoping to have what we need so we can question Heather either before tomorrow’s funeral or after it.”

  “Ron isn’t going to want you anywhere near her.”

  “What Ron Peters wants and what he gets are two entirely different things,” Mel said.

  “Are you looking at anyone else for this?”

&nbs
p; Mel looked at me sharply. “Any suggestions?”

  “What about Michael Lujan? He was at Ron and Amy’s this afternoon, raising hell about the funeral tomorrow, throwing his considerable weight around, and insisting Bread of Life be part of it.”

  “Ah,” Mel said. “Rosemary’s attorney. Now there’s a guy who’s completely convinced Ron did it no matter what the evidence may say. What happened?”

  “Ron told him to take a hike, and he did, running his Escalade over my 928 in the process.”

  “Ouch,” Mel said. “Hope he didn’t hurt it.”

  “Smashed it flat is more like it, but getting back to Rosemary, I’m worried about having tunnel vision here. Lujan is certainly more involved than I’d expect. And what about the clients who show up at Bread of Life? Did any of them have some kind of beef with the victim?”

  “You don’t want us to look at Heather any more than her father does,” Mel observed with a smile.

  “I suppose you’re right about that.”

  “But think about it. She lives there. She’d have access to her father’s car keys, and my guess is that she also knows how to gain access to his weapons. According to Tracy, Heather went to her room right after dinner that night and stayed there.”

  “That’s not what I heard,” I told her. “That may be the story she and Tracy told Ron and Amy, but I have it on good authority that Tracy and Heather let themselves in and out of the house overnight with complete impunity.”

  “That’s pretty typical,” Mel said. “When I was in junior high and high school, I pulled that same stunt.”

  “Maybe not quite,” I said. “According to a kid named Dillon, Heather Peters spent most of Friday night at his house.”

  “Dillon would be Dillon Middleton,” Mel said. “Tracy told us about him. He’s the boyfriend, isn’t he?”

  I nodded.

  “How do you know him?”

  “I never heard his last name, but the little creep gave me a ride down the hill in his garbage-heap Ford Focus.” I retrieved my notebook from the entryway table, tore out the page with Dillon’s plate number written on it, and handed the paper over to Mel.