by J. A. Jance
“No doubt you could, but my advice is don’t. Leave it be. You were given strict orders to butt out, and that’s what you’d better do.”
“Since when did you become such an observer of rules and regulations, Detective Beaumont? Who appointed you guardian of the world?”
“You’re my partner, Al. I don’t want to see you do something stupid.”
He thought about that for a moment or two and finally nodded. “Thanks,” he said bleakly. “I guess.”
Allen Lindstrom shoved a roll of black electrical tape across the top of his desk and rolled it onto mine. “Here,” he said, “put some of this on your badge.”
I tore off a hunk of tape, stuck it across the face of my badge, and then passed the roll back to him. Big Al stood up, pocketed the tape, picked up his latte, and wiped up the remaining spillage from his desk with a hankie.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” he said. “My main job here today is as a dispenser of black tape for the fifth floor. It’s not much, but it sure as hell beats staying at home.”
What he said sounded innocuous enough, but I didn’t quite believe that was the whole story. “Stay out of trouble, Al,” I cautioned.
“You betcha,” he replied.
I wasn’t convinced, but I figured Allen Lindstrom was a big boy, and I didn’t take him to raise. I had my own agenda, one that needed attending to, starting with Dr. Emma Jackson. I called her first thing.
“Detective Beaumont here,” I said. “Am I catching you at a bad time, Dr. Jackson?”
“Actually, I was on my way out the door. I have to stop by the hospital this morning for a few minutes.”
She sounded composed, businesslike. It occurred to me that a doctor’s patients don’t necessarily stop being sick just because the doctor’s child happens to have been murdered. We agreed that after her hospital visit we would meet at the Little Cheerful, a university area hangout known citywide for its homemade, onion-laden hash browns. I was halfway through my breakfast, hash browns included, when Emma Jackson showed up. She ordered black coffee and orange juice.
“Nothing else?” I asked.
“I’m not hungry.”
Emma Jackson sat there stone-faced, watching me eat and making me feel terribly self-conscious. “The funeral arrangements are all handled?” I asked, trying to make casual conversation.
She nodded. “Reverend Walters is taking care of most of it, coordinating it really. I’m just not up to it, and neither is Harmon, Ben’s father. He wanted to have a joint service.”
“How big is Mount Zion?” I asked.
She frowned. “Big enough. Why?”
“Ben was a police officer,” I explained. “There will probably be a fairly large contingent of law enforcement people from all over the state in attendance.”
“Oh,” she said. “I never thought of that. I doubt Ben’s father did either.”
I was probably way out of line asking the question, but if I did it, Big Al wouldn’t have to.
“What about pallbearers?” I asked.
“What about them?”
“Usually, when a cop dies, a contingent of fellow officers carries the casket. We consider it a duty and an honor.”
Dr. Emma Jackson’s eyes met and held mine above the rim of her coffee cup. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Not this time. Adam’s father was a cop. He was also a rat. I won’t have cops for pallbearers and neither will Harmon Weston.”
“It’ll break my partner’s heart.”
“Why?”
“His name’s Detective Lindstrom…”
“He has another name, doesn’t he?” she interrupted.
“Big Al.”
“I know about him,” she said, “and I know he was a good friend of Ben’s, but Harmon and I agreed, no cops whatsoever, no exceptions. Now let’s get down to business. I don’t have much time.”
Leaving the last few crisp crumbs of the hash browns languishing in traces of egg yolk, I pushed my plate aside. “Thanks for squeezing me in,” I said. “I more than half expected to have to take a number and get in line to talk to you this morning.”
Emma frowned, taking umbrage. “Are you being sarcastic because I’m not taking time off, Detective Beaumont? I can’t afford to. Medical school rules don’t allow for residents’ children being murdered. It’s not supposed to happen that way.”
I flushed in confusion. “That wasn’t what I meant at all.”
“Maybe you’d better explain.”
“I expected you’d be busy with calls from reporters and from some of the other detectives down at the department as well.”
“No. No one called except you.”
“I don’t understand that,” I said. “The other detectives should have been in touch with you the minute they got out of the task force meeting.”
There was the slightest softening in the anger-hardened contours of her face. She looked at me and shook her head, smiling sadly. “You’re really very naive, aren’t you, Detective Beaumont? You don’t understand at all.”
“Understand what?” I demanded.
“Adam was only a little boy,” she said softly, “and African American besides. His death is hardly newsworthy. And I don’t expect people down at the Seattle PD to pay any particular attention. In fact, I guess I’m surprised you do.”
For the first time since meeting her, I had the smallest glimmer of what made Dr. Emma Jackson the way she was.
“Your son was murdered,” I told her. “And I’m a Homicide detective. It’s my job to find out who did it, regardless. I care.”
She nodded. “I know,” she said. “Ask your questions, Detective Beaumont. I’ll do my best to answer them.”
The waitress stopped by and poured more coffee. The interruption gave us both a break, some emotional breathing space. Once she left I went about getting the interview on track.
“Did you check on the dog bite?”
“I tried to, but I didn’t turn up anything at all. Chances are, if the man was bitten, it was only a superficial wound, one that didn’t require stitches or medical attention.”
“I’m not surprised. A wound serious enough for stitches might have interfered with the killer’s ability to function.”
She nodded. “That doesn’t seem to have been the case, does it.”
Emma Jackson was a curious and puzzling mixture, forever switching back and forth between dispassionate professional and grieving mother. From moment to moment, it was impossible to predict which one of the two would surface.
“No,” I agreed.
“If you already had a pretty fair idea that was the case to begin with, why did you send me off on a wild-goose chase? Was the plan to keep me occupied and out of your hair?”
When it comes to dealing with difficult women, especially smart difficult women, it’s often best to fall back on some of my mother’s sage advice about honesty being the best policy.
“You’ve got me dead to rights,” I admitted. “I wanted to keep you out of my hair, but I’ve changed my mind about you.”
“How so?”
“Some things have surfaced in this investigation that make me think you may be able to be very helpful.”
Dr. Emma Jackson eyed me intently. “What kinds of things?” she asked.
“You’re going to have to bear with me, Dr. Jackson. To begin with, I’m going to ask some tough questions. Please be patient and don’t expect any answers in return, at least not right away.” She started to voice an objection, but I held up my hand to stop her.
“I’m going to ask you things about Ben and Shiree Weston’s relationship that only someone like you, only a close family friend, would have any knowledge of. Those things may or may not have some future bearing on the case. If they don’t, whatever you tell me stays between us. If they do, then I’ll do my best to protect you as the source of whatever revelations may be pertinent.”
“It sounds as though you expect some of these ”revelations,“ as
you call them, to be damaging, either to Ben or Shiree.”
I nodded.
“And what’s in it for me?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. All I can hope to promise you is a better chance at catching your son’s killer.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Not Ben Weston’s killer?”
“I’m the only detective who’s been officially assigned to your son’s case,” I said quietly. “And by solving that one, we’ll automatically solve the others as well, but my primary responsibility is to you and to Adam.”
She gave me a long, searching look, and it was clear from the expression on her face that my answer to her question had been correct.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Everything, Dr. Jackson. I’ll need to know every single detail you can tell me.”
“You can call me Emma,” she said.
I knew then that I had won big. Emma Jackson was going to be working with me on this one and not with Detective Paul Kramer. Maybe he and I really don’t work on the same team.
“Thanks,” I said. “My friends call me Beau.”
We spent the better part of the next two hours together, drinking cup after cup of Little Cheerful coffee. Gradually Ben and Shiree Weston’s story trickled out. At first it seemed like a fairy tale, like something too good to be true, and maybe that was part of what had gone wrong.
According to Emma Jackson, Ben and Shiree Garvey had known each other vaguely from church, but they hadn’t really become well acquainted until that critical period of time in Ben’s life when his first wife, Vondelle, was dying of cancer. With his wife sick, Ben had struggled desperately to keep all the various balls in the air-his job, his kids, the regular bills, and the medical bills. When he found himself inevitably sinking into a morass of past-due notices, Reverend Homer Walters sent him to Shiree Garvey at the Mount Zion Federal Credit Union for some much needed help and counseling.
Shiree had worked with him and with the creditors through the cash flow crunch, helping to smooth things over until insurance payments and hospital bills coalesced into an understandable whole. With Shiree’s guidance, the financial picture began to improve, even while Vondelle’s physical condition steadily worsened. Gradually, almost without either one of them really noticing, Shiree Garvey began assuming more and more responsibilities in the Weston household, helping to care for the children while Ben spent long nights haunting hospital corridors. By the time Vondelle died, Shiree had become emotionally indispensable to all of them. She and Ben married six months later.
“That’s what hurt Shiree so much, you know,” Emma said. “And I don’t blame her.”
“What?” I had no idea.
“He never ran around on Vondelle, not during all the years she was sick. He was true to her to the very end. He and Shiree were nothing but friends until after Vondelle was dead and gone. So Shiree couldn’t understand what was going on when he started messing around behind her back.”
“Do you know who with?”
“No, not yet. But I will. You just wait and see. Somebody will spill the beans, and when they do, you and I will know where to go next.”
So Emma Jackson was still convinced that the killer was a jealous husband, but then she didn’t know anything about the loan applications either.
“Were Ben and Shiree having money troubles?”
“You mean recently? No. No way. Not them. Shiree Garvey Weston knew how to budget and how to squeeze the very last pinch out of each and every penny. Ben never had another moment’s worth of money worries from the time Shiree started handling the bills. Why are you asking about money?”
I wanted Emma Jackson’s help, but I didn’t want to tell her everything I knew. “Sometimes that’s one of the reasons marriages go bad,” I said evasively.
“Not this one,” Emma declared with yet another flare of anger. “Ben and Shiree Weston’s marriage went bad because Ben was too damn stupid to recognize a good thing when he had it.”
CHAPTER 13
On my way back to the department I slipped into a noontime brown-bag AA meeting in a downtown Methodist church. It’s not a meeting I attend often, so I could come and go without being trapped into a long-drawn-out post-meeting conversation as sometimes happens. When I got back to the fifth floor, Curtis Bell was comfortably ensconced at my desk chatting earnestly with Big Al Lindstrom. Curt looked cheerful, Big Al thunderous.
Curt scrambled out of my chair as soon as I appeared in the doorway. “Didn’t mean to take over your desk,” he apologized, “but I’ve been playing phone tag with that attorney of yours. I wanted to check with you and see if we’d be able to get together some time over the weekend. The attorney sounded like he wanted to be in on the appointment.”
“Watch out for this guy,” Big Al warned. “If you ask me, he’s nothing but a goddamned ambulance chaser. He even tried to get an appointment with me.”
Curtis shrugged off Detective Lindstrom’s comment as though it was nothing more than a good-humored dig, but from the sour expression on Big Al’s face I guessed he wasn’t really kidding.
“Whatever it takes to get people to listen to reason,” Curtis said with an easy grin. “After all, there’s nothing like a couple of bullets whizzing past a guy’s ears to give him a sense of his own mortality, right, Beaumont?”
“No doubt about it,” I said, and meant it.
“So what’s this guy’s name? Your attorney?”
“Ralph Ames.”
“Yeah, him. He said we’d either have to do it sometime over this weekend, or we’d have to wait a whole month.”
“That’s right. He’s only here until Monday or Tuesday this trip. I forget which.”
“I don’t understand why he has to be included in the first place. What’s the big deal? I mean, can’t the two of us just get together and talk?”
“Believe me, if it’s got something to do with me and money, Ralph Ames is in on it from the very beginning, or it doesn’t happen. That’s what I pay him for.”
“Well okay then,” Curtis agreed reluctantly. “When?”
“Hold on,” I told him. “I’ll call Ralph and ask.”
Picking up the phone, I dialed my home number. It was shortly after one, and I wondered if Ralph might once more be entertaining his noontime lady friend. The phone rang, but instead of reaching either Ralph or my answering machine, my eardrum was pierced by a high-pitched, raucous screech. Thinking I must have dialed wrong, I tried again only to have the same thing happen.
“What’s the matter?” Big Al asked. “Nobody home?”
“My phone must be out of order.”
I dialed the operator and told her about the difficulty on my line. “Before I report the trouble to Repair, sir, let me try it for you,” the operator said.
This time, I had brains enough to hold the phone away from my head before another ear-splitting squawk came zinging through the receiver.
“You must have left your fax machine hooked up,” the operator told me.
“Fax machine?” I echoed. “I don’t even own a fax machine, so how could it be hooked up? There must be some mistake.”
The operator’s tone grew a bit testy. “Sir,” she said, “there is no mistake. If the number you gave me is correct, then, whether or not you own a machine, there is definitely one attached to your telephone outlet at the present time.”
Good old “Gadget Ralph” was obviously up to his old tricks again. “No doubt you’re right,” I told the operator. “It is hooked up, and I probably do own it. I just didn’t know I owned it.”
“That’s quite all right, sir,” she returned, sounding slightly mollified. “Glad to be of service.”
“Well?” Curtis asked when I put down the phone.
“You’ll have to wait for me to get back to you, after I get hold of Ralph and check his schedule. Until then, I can’t make any promises. And as far as I’m concerned, if this case heats up over the weekend, my own schedule may go out the window. I could
end up working the whole time.”
Curtis nodded. “I understand Ben Weston’s funeral is tomorrow. It sounds like the brass are treating his death like a line of duty, so I guess the force will be out in force regardless of…” Catching sight of the expression on Big Al’s face, Curtis Bell backed away from the pun and allowed his voice to dwindle uneasily away.
“Regardless of what?” Allen Lindstrom demanded.
“You know. Everyone’s talking about it-about Ben and whatever it was he was up to.”
“Get your butt out of here,” Big Al ordered. “Who the hell are you to say it wasn’t line of duty?”
Curtis Bell looked at the other man appraisingly. “Come on, Al. Lighten up. I didn’t mean anything by it. People are talking, that’s all. Everybody down in CCI is hoping you guys will find something that will exonerate him. Ben Weston was one hell of a guy. Nobody wants to see his name dragged through the mud.”
But Big Al was in no mood to be placated. “Like hell they don’t. Get the fuck out of here, Curtis, and quit gossiping. We’ve got work to do. Besides, aren’t there rules against conducting private business on company time?”
“Hey, I’m off duty this morning,” Curtis Bell returned, but he edged toward the door all the same. “Call me, Beau. About the appointment, I mean. After you hear from Ralph Banes.”
Ralph Banes indeed!
As Curtis took off down the hallway, we heard the sounds of a slight scuffle followed by a mumbled apology. Moments later, Ron Peters and his wheelchair appeared in the doorway. He waved at Big Al and nodded to me. “What on earth did you two say to that guy?” Ron asked. “He almost ran me down.”
“I told him to get out of my face,” Big Al said morosely. “And he did.”
Ron studied Big Al for a long moment. “I probably would, too,” he said. “How are you doing, Al?”
Detective Lindstrom dropped his gaze and stared at the floor. “All right, I guess,” he said.
“They told me upstairs that you were handing out the tape. I could have gotten it from somebody up there, but I’m a fifth floor kind of guy, Al, and I wanted to wear fifth floor tape. I also wanted to tell you how sorry I was.”