by J. A. Jance
"The realtor remembered there was something odd about the deal-that the house was bought by a corporation of some kind, but he couldn't remember the name last night. Another neighbor, a woman who works in the post office over in Stanwood, said that the woman who lived in the house, a Denise Whitney, claimed it was hers. She said she owned it along with somebody else. Detective Jacek and I think that other person may actually have been Gunter Gebhardt."
"I suppose it's safe to assume that Denise Whitney was quite a bit younger than Gunter," Sue said.
"Evidently," I replied. "From everything I hear, she's on the downside of twenty-five."
"It figures," Sue said.
She had kept her cool while I passed along the dope Alan had given me about Gunter's sweet young thing. Rather than risk landing once more on my partner's wrong side, I was scrupulous about not leaving anything out. I went ahead and told her what he had said about still carrying a torch for Else, Gunter's widow. When I told Sue that, she turned thoughtful on me. "It wasn't him, was it?"
"Wasn't who?"
"Your old friend Alan Torvoldsen. You just told me he's still in love with Gunter's wife…his widow. What if he's had a grudge against Gunter-first for stealing Else out from under his nose, years ago. Think about it. First he loses Else. Then thirty years later, he finds out the guy who did marry her is screwing around behind her back."
Unfortunately, the exact same thought-that Alan might have had some reason to be after Gunter-had occurred to me as well. I hadn't exactly rationalized my way around it, but I'll admit I hadn't sat down to scrutinize it too closely, either.
"I can see why Alan might be pissed off at Gunter," I said, "but why would he take out the girlfriend?"
"I don't know, but you did say he knew where she lived, didn't you?"
I nodded. "Yes. He said he followed her home when she showed up down at the Isolde."
"Which means he was at the scene of the crime the day of the murders."
"That's right. But by the time the Camano Island fire started, he was back here in Seattle. And remember, he has an airtight alibi for that time. He was with me, drinking espresso at Club Four-four-nine up in Greenwood."
Sue seemed prepared to accept that notion, at least for the time being. "What time do you expect to show up at the office yourself?" she asked, changing the subject.
"I'll plan on being there by ten," I told her. "I should be on the job by the time you and Bonnie Elgin finish with the sketch."
"All right," Sue said. "See you then."
I was dog-assed tired. I slipped down into the comfort of the still-warm covers, and it didn't take five minutes for me to fall back asleep. I slept the sleep of the just-for all of twenty minutes. That's when the phone rang. Captain Lawrence Powell was on the line-an irate Captain Larry Powell.
"Detective Beaumont," he said. "Who the hell appointed you as spokesman for the Homicide Squad?"
"Excuse me?" Shoving my feet out of bed, I put them flat on the floor. I tend to think better sitting up. "What are you talking about, Captain Powell?" I mumbled sleepily. "What's going on?"
"You know very well that it's against departmental policy for officers to make any kind of unauthorized statement to the media regarding the progress of an ongoing investigation, particularly a homicide."
"Statement to the media?" I echoed. "What are you talking about?"
"Have you read this morning's P.-I.?" Larry Powell asked. "And isn't Maxwell Cole some kind of buddy of yours?"
The Post-Intelligencer is Seattle's morning paper. I don't take it myself, and I don't read it, either. As a matter of fact, I don't read any newspapers at all, except when unavoidably provoked into doing so. I try to limit my journalistic intake to relatively harmless items like crossword puzzles and comics. I encounter enough blood and guts in my own life-the real stories-without having to have reporter-revised versions of those same events polluting the flavor of my breakfast coffee.
Maxwell Cole is another story entirely. He's a regular columnist for the P.-I. He uses his three-times-weekly forum, "City Beat," to take journalistic potshots at anyone handy. His favorite targets happen to be police officers. Max is a former fraternity brother of mine from my days at the University of Washington. Even then he was a pain in the ass, and thirty years of practice have allowed him to raise his level of assholosity to something of an art form.
I rubbed the grit out of my eyes. The corneas felt as if they were made of etched glass and the lids of sandpaper.
"What's he saying about me now?" I asked wearily.
"It's not about you," Captain Powell responded. "Want me to read it to you?"
"Not especially," I said, "but go ahead."
"‘Ron and Bonnie Elgin, ace procurers of auction items for Poncho, Seattle's premier arts fund-raising event, are busy attending to months of preparty planning. Much to their surprise, yesterday they found themselves embroiled in Seattle's most recent murder.
"‘According to sources close to the case, Seattle police officers are combing the city, looking for a young Hispanic male who was seen running from the scene of yesterday's tragic and fatal boat fire on board the Isolde at Fishermen's Terminal in Ballard.
"‘The fleeing suspect evidently suffered a close encounter of the worst kind when he ran into the path of a vehicle driven by Bonnie Elgin. Despite injuries serious enough to merit medical attention, the man fled the scene on foot without waiting long enough to have his injuries attended to by a Medic I unit that had already been summoned by a call to nine-one-one.
"‘It sounds as though the missing suspect's wounds were fairly extensive, and it doesn't seem like it should be all that difficult to find him. Of course, that all depends on how hard someone is looking.
"‘Rumor has it that these days Seattle's Finest are spending their time trying to learn how to work their newest crime-fighting tools-laptop computers-which were purchased at taxpayer expense with the understanding that they would offer cops high-tech aid in taking criminals off the streets.
"‘I have a feeling our men in blue are spending so much time learning keystrokes that they can't be bothered with doing their real jobs-like actually looking for suspects and making arrests.'"
"Where the hell did Max come up with all that crap?" I demanded.
"That's what I thought you'd tell me," Lawrence Powell returned grimly. "And once I find the guy who blabbed, I'm going to bust his nuts."
"Look, Captain. I never talked to Maxwell Cole about this case. And I didn't talk to anyone else in the media, either. Somebody else must have told him, but it wasn't me."
"Sue Danielson maybe?"
"I doubt it."
"According to Watty, she's the only other Seattle Police Department detective assigned to this case."
"It wasn't Sue," I asserted. "She wouldn't shoot off her mouth to the media any more than I would."
"Maybe you're right," Powell returned. "And then again, maybe you're not. In any case, Beaumont, it's your problem now. I want you to find the source of that leak, and I want it stopped. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"And I want it done today."
When I put down the phone that time, I didn't even bother crawling back under the covers. There was no point. Instead, I staggered out of bed and headed for the bathroom and a much-needed shower. I had taken a shower when I came home from Camano Island but I wasn't sure one shower was enough to wash the soot and smoke off my body and out of my nostrils. It sure as hell wasn't enough to wash what I had seen out of my mind.
I left Belltown Terrace and drove straight down Clay to Western. A short twenty minutes after I got off the phone with Captain Lawrence Powell, I was standing in the reception area of the Seattle P.-I.
Times have changed in the country, and not necessarily for the better. In the old days, it was possible to walk into an airport or a radio station or a newspaper office without having to go through a whole security rigmarole. Compared to getting into the P.-I., breaking into an armed camp
would have been easier.
"I'm sorry, but Mr. Cole isn't available," the receptionist told me with a blandly sweet smile. "He's on special assignment today."
"Where?"
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't give out that information."
"When will he be back?"
"Probably later on this week. For sure by next Monday morning."
Captain Powell hadn't given me until Monday. He wanted results today. Now. And so did I.
"Is he calling in for messages?"
"I'm not sure. Somebody up at the City Desk could probably answer that better than I can."
The switchboard phone rang, not once but three separate times in a row. And each time the receptionist handled the phone before coming back to me. It's the same kind of song and dance that happens in auto-parts stores or hardware stores where the important person on the phone always takes precedence over the poor hapless boob who is actually standing in front of the counter with money in his hand waiting to buy something.
The receptionist came back to me eventually. She looked at me as though she'd never laid eyes on me before. "May I help you, please?"
"Maxwell Cole, remember? You were going to connect me to the City Desk." By then I was no doubt clenching my teeth.
The light came on. Dim, but a light. "Oh, that's right. Sorry. Just step to that phone over there."
In the long run, the City Desk folks wouldn't or couldn't give me a straight answer on Maxwell Cole's whereabouts, either. But someone did finally agree to connect me with the "City Beat" voice-mail line.
"Max," I snarled into the phone. "This is Detective Beaumont. I need to talk to you. ASAP. And I mean talk in person, not just play telephone tag back and forth on these damn voice-mail networks."
I left both my home and office numbers on the voice-mail message and then stalked back outside, where my 928 waited next to the curb. Even after maneuvering through downtown morning rush-hour traffic, I parked in the garage on James and still made it into the Public Safety Building and up to the homicide digs on the fifth floor a good fifteen minutes before Sue Danielson.
"What are you doing here, Sleeping Beauty?" she asked when she caught sight of me. "The last time I talked to you, I thought you were going back to bed."
"So did I," I grumbled. "Right up until Captain Powell called to ream my ass out."
"What about?"
I handed her a photocopy of Maxwell Cole's column, one that had magically appeared in the middle of my desk by the time I arrived at work. Sue read the column in silence, then gave it back to me.
"Where did he get his information?" she asked.
"That's what Captain Powell wants to know. It wasn't from you, was it?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Are you accusing…?"
I cut her off, stopping her in midreply. "No, I'm not, but I had to ask. Forget it. Powell gave me orders to find the leak. I'm going through the motions, that's all. But if you didn't talk to Maxwell Cole, and if I didn't, who else is there?"
"The two guys from Patrol who took the initial report and Bonnie Elgin herself."
"Wait a minute," I said, remembering my late evening phone call to the Elgins' house. There had been a lot of noise in the background. "That has to be it."
"What does?"
"When I called Bonnie about the prints, it sounded as though there was a party going on. Maybe there was. I'll bet either Maxwell Cole was there in person, or else one of his big-mouthed sources was."
"When Bonnie shows up for fingerprinting, we'll have to check that out," Sue Danielson said.
"Yes," I agreed. "We certainly will."
11
As it turned out, I was nowhere near the Public Safety Building by the time Bonnie Elgin and Sue Danielson finished up with the prints and sketch.
About 9:15 A. M. Detective Stan Jacek came wandering back through the fifth-floor maze of cubicles and found me sitting at my desk, holding up my head and working on paper. Paper paper. Somebody needed to let Maxwell Cole know that not everybody at Seattle P.D. had a handy-dandy laptop computer at his or her disposal.
Stan hadn't slept any longer than I, and he was equally grouchy. "How can people stand living and working in a place like this?" he demanded irritably. "It took me ten minutes just to find a parking place."
I've never visited Stan Jacek's home turf up in Coupeville, but it's safe to assume that parking isn't that much of a problem in the downtown area of Island County's county seat on Whidbey Island.
"It's no big deal," I said. "All you have to do is be born in a parking place, and then you're set."
Detective Jacek wasn't up for that kind of early morning quip. "Very funny," he said. "You want to come for a ride or not?"
"Where to?"
He pulled out a notebook and thumbed through the scrawled-on, dog-eared pages. "Remember the letter we found in the Caddy parked out in front of the house last night?"
"The one signed ‘Mom'? What about it?"
"I finally managed to track that back to the woman up in Anchorage who wrote it," he answered. "She and her husband are flying into town later on today. She's willing to help as much as she can, but she doesn't have access to any of her daughter's more recent dental records. They'll bring along whatever they do have."
The condition of the dead woman's body had meant that dental records would be necessary to establish a positive I.D. My heart went out to those two unfortunate parents-to any parents-forced to set out on that kind of devastatingly awful mission. They might be hoping for the best, yet I'm sure they were dreading the worst.
"It's going to be rough on them," I said.
Jacek nodded. "I'll say. In the meantime, the mother gave me a line on their other daughter-Denise's older sister. Her name is Deanna Meadows. She lives down in Kent in a place called Fairwood. Ever heard of it?"
I shook my head, but then there are lots of places in the Puget Sound area that I've never heard of.
Jacek shrugged and continued, "It doesn't matter. I've got an appointment with her about forty-five minutes from now. I thought maybe you'd like to ride along."
For an answer, I stood up and put on my jacket. "Lead the way," I said.
We crossed Lake Washington on I-90 in fog so thick that the water was invisible. We might have been driving in a universe made of cotton balls. Detective Jacek was far too aggressive a driver for me to be able to doze off and catch forty winks. Instead, I stayed wide awake the whole time, gripping what I call the "Oh-shit bar," and thinking about all those fog-caused multicar pileups that happen every year on that long stretch of California freeway they call "the Grapevine."
I was relieved when we finally turned off Interstate 405 onto the Maple Valley Highway. Valley population and traffic has far outstripped the capacity of that piece of rural two-lane road, and it's certainly had its share of head-on collisions, but at least there Stan Jacek slowed down to a relatively sane sixty.
For all the ease of finding our way, we might just as well have been traveling in the middle of the night. The fog was that thick. But as we rose up out of the valley onto a plateau, the sun began to burn through the haze.
We meandered around a housing development that had been built around the perimeter of a golf course. For golf-course houses, the places were fairly modest. The new cedar shake roofs told me the development must be about twenty years old. The little kid tearing up the middle of the street on a Big Wheel was probably the child of a second generation of owners.
The house we stopped in front of was much newer construction than some of its neighbors. It was one of those new phony French-chateau places with a three-car garage that covered almost the whole front of the house except for a front porch three stories tall. The porch light was so far up on the wall that you'd need an extension ladder just to reach it and change the lightbulb. A brand-new white Infiniti, still wearing temporary plates, sat by itself inside one open garage door.
"Yuppies," I muttered to myself, thinking the people who lived there were probably ex
-Californians who deserved to have to use a ladder just to change a lightbulb. "Definitely yuppies."
Detective Jacek must have thought I was saying something important. "Huh?" he asked, pulling his finger back from the doorbell without pressing the button. "What did you say?"
"Never mind," I told him. "It's nothing."
Deanna Meadows turned out to be a woman in her early-to-mid-thirties. She wore a thick terry-cloth bathrobe. Her carrot-colored hair was pulled up on top of her head with a dark blue band of some kind. It looked as though she had started out wearing makeup, because two twin trails of drowned mascara still lingered on her cheeks. There was nothing besides the dead mascara to cover the fine sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks. She had been crying. When she opened the door, she was still sniffling.
Detective Jacek introduced himself and showed her his I.D. Deanna nodded. "I remember. You're the one I talked to earlier."
"And this is Detective Beaumont of the Seattle Police Department. He's working on this case as well."
Deanna Meadows led us into a spacious living room. Looking beyond the living room and out through the dining-room picture window, I could see one of the fairways on the golf course outside. That smooth expanse of green, evenly mowed-and-manicured grass provided a backyard that was long on lush and low on homeowner-driven maintenance. The thought crossed my mind that maybe not having to spend every Saturday pushing around a lawn mower outweighed the hazard of an occasional golf ball bouncing in through a window and landing on the dining-room table.
"I'm sorry things are in such a mess," Deanna Meadows apologized.
Mess? I didn't see much mess. A few scattered newspapers were strewn around on the floor. There were two coffee cups sitting on an end table along with a pile of soggy, crumpled tissues. Other than that, the room was spotlessly clean, with no sign of kiddy-type debris anywhere. Unless there was an ever-vigilant nanny stowed somewhere upstairs, it was safe to assume that Deanna Meadows and her unnamed husband-she was wearing a wedding band-were childless.