More Perfect Union (9780061760228)

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More Perfect Union (9780061760228) Page 2

by Jance, Judith A.


  For the first time Officer Baxter looked me full in the face. “Why, excuse me, Detective Beaumont. I didn’t recognize you. How’d homicide get here so fast? I was just getting ready to call you guys.”

  “Go ahead and call,” I told him. “I’m not here representing homicide.”

  “You’re not?”

  I didn’t want to go into all the gory details of why I was there. “Trust me on this one,” I said. “Call Harbor Patrol and have them send somebody out.”

  Baxter turned to his partner. “Do that, would you, Merrilee?”

  With a nod, Officer Jackson headed back toward the patrol car.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned, there was Derrick Parker. “Hey, Beau. What’s going on?” he asked tentatively. “Hannah really got an eyeful. She fainted dead away.”

  “How is she?”

  “Hyperventilating. She was coming around, but she had a relapse as soon as the medics showed up. Hannah’s got the hots for guys in uniform.”

  Derrick Parker wasn’t the least bit fond of his female costar. He and I had chummed around together some while he had been in Seattle. We shared similar tastes, although his ran to Glenlivet rather than MacNaughton’s. He seemed to enjoy slumming in some of my favorite watering holes. The waitresses at the Doghouse still hadn’t tumbled to the fact that he was a genuine celebrity. Parker said he wanted to keep it that way.

  “Who was he?” Parker asked, nodding toward the water.

  “The dead man?” I shrugged. “That’s up to the medical examiner and the detectives on the case.”

  “But you’re a detective, aren’t you?” Parker objected.

  “This isn’t my case. I’m doing a movie, remember?”

  Officer Jackson came back to where we were standing. She gave Derrick Parker a small, tentative smile. I’m sure she recognized him, but when she spoke, Merrilee Jackson was strictly business. “They’re all on their way.”

  “All?” I asked.

  “Someone’s coming from the medical examiner’s office. So are two detectives. Davis and Kramer.”

  It wasn’t exactly by the book, but Officer Jackson had taken a little initiative, and calling everybody at once would probably save time.

  I nodded. “Good,” I said. “By the way, we haven’t been introduced. I’m Detective J. P. Beaumont, and this is Derrick Parker.”

  She held out her hand. “Merrilee Jackson,” she said, shaking my hand, but flashing Parker a wide grin. “I’m glad to meet you.”

  Merrilee Jackson didn’t comment aloud on Derrick Parker’s star status, and neither did Baxter. They had other things to worry about. A crowd of movie crew members was edging closer. “We’d better get these people moved back out of the way,” Baxter said. “The M. E.’s van will need to pull up close to the water.”

  They had barely turned their attention to crowd control when another car with lights flashing and siren blaring pulled onto the dock. Detective Manny Davis got out on the rider’s side and strode over to me while Detective Paul Kramer stopped to talk with Officers Jackson and Baxter.

  “How’s it going, Beau?” Manny asked with a chuckle. “How soon are we going to see your name in lights?”

  “Cut the comedy, Manny.”

  “But I heard you were enjoying the movie business.”

  I glowered at him.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “No big. What have we got, fish bait?”

  “That’s right. A floater.”

  Manny sauntered over to the edge of the dock and looked into the water. “He’s been in the water awhile,” Manny observed. As if to confirm his words, the wind shifted just then and the pungent odor of putrid flesh wafted over us like an ill-smelling cloud. Fortunately, Goldfarb had led Cassie away by then. Had she been within range, I’m sure she would have barfed again.

  One whiff and Derrick Parker’s engaging smile vanished completely.

  “Jesus,” he said with a grimace. “That’s awful.” He started to back away, but Manny stopped him.

  “Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t you…” Manny paused, searching for the name, then broke off, embarrassed.

  “Derrick Parker?” Parker finished for him. He sighed. “Yes, that’s me,” he said, and held out his hand.

  Manny shook it wonderingly. “You know, my wife’s crazy about you, your pictures, I mean,” he said. “She was pissed as hell that Beau got this assignment and I didn’t.” Manny groped in his pocket for the small notebook he carried there. He found it at last and tore out a page which he handed to Derrick. “Could I have your autograph? For my wife, I mean. She’d be thrilled.”

  Obligingly, Derrick took the paper. Using the back of Manny’s notebook as a writing surface, he scrawled his name. He was just giving the autographed sheet of paper back to Manny when Paul Kramer showed up.

  Manny Davis has been around the department for years. The last time I had worked with him had been several years earlier on a bum-bashing case. Paul Kramer was the new kid on the block, and I use the word kid advisedly. He was thirty years old and had just moved up to homicide from robbery. His rise to detective had been meteoric, but word was out around the squad that working with Kramer was a royal pain in the ass.

  Kramer arrived just in time to see Manny taking the piece of paper from Derrick and stuffing it in his pocket. He looked from Derrick to Manny and back again.

  “Witness?” Kramer asked.

  Manny glanced in my direction then shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I was just lining Beau and his friend here up for a friendly game of golf.”

  Partnerships, like some marriages, aren’t always made in heaven. Manny and Kramer’s working relationship was evidently an uneasy one.

  I understood the situation. So did Derrick. We both had sense enough to keep our mouths shut.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Crime-scene investigation is an exact science, complicated by the countervailing demands of accepted protocol and a need for swift, definitive action. What may seem absolutely straightforward in an artificial laboratory situation or in a case study at the police academy becomes less clear-cut in the real world. At crime scenes, hard-and-fast rules of evidentiary procedure often fall victim to jurisdictional disputes and personality conflicts. After all, cops are people too.

  In this particular instance, the infighting started immediately after the arrival of an investigator from the Medical Examiner’s office. Her name was Audrey Cummings, and she turned up almost on the heels of Detectives Kramer and Davis. As soon as Paul Kramer noticed her, he took offense and attacked.

  “Who called you in?” he demanded. The question and the way he asked it were both only one step under rude.

  Officer Merrilee Jackson had followed Kramer down the dock. Now she stepped forward, ready to accept full responsibility. “I did, Detective Kramer. It seemed like a good idea.”

  “That decision is supposed to be left up to the detectives,” Kramer snapped, irritation sharp in his tone.

  “Sorry,” she answered.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Manny put in quickly to Officer Jackson. “You were right. We do need her, and it’s a good thing she’s here. It’ll save time.” He turned to Kramer. “Don’t get your bowels in an uproar, Paul,” he said.

  The admonition came too late. Detective Kramer is one of those intense, territorial individuals who can’t stand having other people set foot on his private turf. As far as I’m concerned, he’s in the wrong business. Murders seldom come posted with “No Trespassing” signs. In fact, at that very moment, Seattle’s media clan, alerted by the sudden surge of mid-afternoon activity, was beginning to gather in a disorderly knot just outside Kramer’s line of vision. Woody Carroll was doing his best to keep them herded together behind a blockade of police vehicles.

  The lady from the medical examiner’s office, a mid-fifties dame who had been around more than the barn, remained cool and collected in the face of all the wrangling. Audrey Cummings’ studied disinterest made
it clear that professional squabbles were old hat to her.

  Waiting until the fireworks died down, she finally tapped one foot impatiently. “Well, do I get a look or not?” she asked.

  Manny grinned and made a low bow, stepping aside with a gallant sweep of his arm. “Please be our guest, milady,” he declared.

  Smiling at Manny’s courtly gesture, Audrey Cummings marched past us in a suitably regal manner. In the world of homicide, where death and disaster are daily companions, we tend to take our laughs wherever we can find them.

  Audrey good-naturedly joined in Manny’s joke, but only up to a point. The fun ended the moment she reached the edge of the dock. There she knelt down on one knee and took a long, careful look at the body in the water below her. At last she stood up and walked back to where we waited.

  “I’ll have to have one of the assistant medical examiners come take a look at this,” she said. “I think Mike Wilson is on call.”

  “Any obvious wounds?” I asked, as she started to walk away.

  She shrugged. “Possible homicidal violence.”

  The words “homicidal violence” constitute a catchall phrase that can mean anything or nothing.

  Paul Kramer frowned, jerking his head in my direction. “Wait just a damn minute here. How come he’s asking questions, Manny? I thought this was our case.”

  Manny made little effort to conceal his growing annoyance. “Professional courtesy,” he answered curtly. “Beau was here when they found the body.”

  “Oh,” Kramer replied. He didn’t sound convinced.

  I tried my best to give Detective Kramer the benefit of the doubt. After all, being a novice on the fifth floor of Seattle’s Public Safety Building isn’t any bed of roses. I thought maybe having a seasoned homicide veteran like me peering over his shoulder was making him nervous. Whatever was bugging him, Paul Kramer was creating a bad first impression as far as I was concerned.

  Not wanting to escalate the situation further, I changed the subject. “That’s one good thing about being called out on a Saturday,” I said jokingly. “At least you won’t be stuck with Doc Baker.”

  Manny snorted. “You got that right, Beaumont. Compared to Baker, Mike Wilson’s a piece of cake.”

  On several different occasions in the past it had been my personal misfortune to summon Dr. Howard Baker, King County’s chief medical examiner, away from a social engagement of one kind or another. Irascible under the best of circumstances, Baker could be a real pisser late at night or on weekends. Around homicide, a place where consensus on anything is virtually impossible, there seemed to be almost total agreement that Mike Wilson, Baker’s newly appointed assistant, was a big improvement.

  Wilson had a pleasant, easygoing way about him that was a breath of fresh air compared to his hard-assed boss. A recent transplant to Seattle, Wilson was an energetic man in his mid-thirties. Rumor has it that one of his undergraduate degrees is in philosophy, although that’s probably something he wouldn’t want advertised around in the law-enforcement community.

  Mike Wilson arrived at Lake Union Drydock a few minutes later, still dressed in casual tennis togs. He went straight to Audrey Cummings. The two of them conferred briefly before going over to view the body, squatting together side by side on the edge of the dock. “How long do you think he’s been in the water?” I heard Wilson ask.

  Audrey cocked her head to one side as if giving the matter serious consideration. “A week, maybe?”

  Wilson glanced up at the metallic blue sky above us and nodded in agreement. “Pretty good guess. Maybe longer than that, but in this kind of heat, a week is probably right on the money. That’s about how long it would take for him to float to the surface.”

  Getting up, Wilson helped Audrey to her feet then ambled back to where the bunch of us still stood in a quiet circle—Manny Davis and Paul Kramer, Officers Baxter and Jackson, Derrick Parker and I. Mike glanced around the group, trying to figure who was in charge.

  “We’ll need a boat,” he said finally to the whole group in general. “A boat and a body basket. Has anyone called Harbor Patrol?”

  “They’re supposedly on the way,” Manny told him. He turned to Officer Jackson. “See what’s holding them up, will you?” Merrilee Jackson nodded and left, slipping quickly through the assembled group of reporters, a few of whom had, despite Woody Carroll’s best efforts, managed to work their way inside the perimeter of vehicles.

  Meanwhile, Derrick Parker slipped away from us long enough to edge his way to the side of the dock and steal a curious glance at the body. He turned away, groaning. “I think I’ll go check on Hannah and Cassie,” he said, hurrying off without another word to anybody.

  Manny watched him go. “Some hero, huh?” he said, shaking his head. “But my wife thinks he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

  “Come on, Manny,” Kramer said shortly. “Quit stalling. Let’s get this place cordoned off for a crime-scene search.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Crime scene? When a floater has been in the water as long as that one had, there’s no way it would come to the surface the same place it went down. Not even someone as new to homicide as Kramer could be that stupid. It was a grandstand play, pure and simple, but I was in no position to call him on it. Mike Wilson did.

  “Are you sure you want to bother, Detective Kramer? It looks to me as though the body’s at least a week old. My guess is he died somewhere else and got carried here by the water. Not only that, we have no way of knowing whether or not it’s homicide.”

  “But you can’t say for sure one way or the other, can you?” Kramer insisted.

  Wilson shrugged. “No,” he agreed mildly. “I suppose not, but even if he went in the water on this very spot, look around. There’s been a whole lot of activity on this dock. How can you expect to find any useful physical evidence in a place like this after that long a time?”

  What Wilson was saying should have been clear to the most casual observer. Lake Union Drydock, already working overtime to get a series of naval minesweepers back in working order for duty in the Persian Gulf, was one busy place even before you factored in Goldfarb’s moviemaking army. In fact, the naval repair contract schedule was so overloaded, they had been forced to cut back our on-site shooting from two weekends to one. During the previous week when I had stopped by the drydock with the location manager, the place where we were now standing had been a beehive of activity cloaked in a cloud of sandblasting dust.

  Wilson was right, of course. No physical evidence could possibly have survived a week in that kind of turmoil, but Detective Paul Kramer wasn’t buying any of it, and he was the one calling the shots.

  “We’re still going to look,” he said shortly. He motioned to Officer Baxter. “Go get some tape,” he ordered.

  Baxter left, reluctantly, with Kramer right behind him.

  I turned to Manny. “That’s one arrogant asshole,” I told him. “What Mike said made all kinds of sense.”

  Manny gave a long-suffering sigh. “Just because something makes sense to the rest of the world doesn’t mean it will to Paul Kramer. He marches to a different drummer.”

  “But Goldfarb and his crew are going to need to go back to work here. They’ve only got today and tomorrow to finish filming this sequence.”

  Manny shrugged. “You’re welcome to try to talk some sense into him, Beau, but don’t hold your breath. Once Kramer gets a wild hair up his butt, you can’t change his mind for nothing.”

  I started after Detective Kramer. Sam Goldfarb and Cassie Young intercepted me before I could catch up.

  “What’s happening?” Goldfarb wanted to know. “When are they going to clear out of here so we can get back to work?”

  “I’m checking on that right now,” I told them.

  Kramer was removing a roll of Day-Glo crime-scene tape from the trunk of his unmarked patrol car when I caught up to him. He handed the tape to Baxter. “You and that partner of yours start roping off the area,�
�� Kramer directed. He pointed toward the minesweeper towering in the drydock. “Start from that boat over there and go all the way to the end of the dock.”

  “Come on, Kramer,” I said. “Isn’t this a little premature? Why rope off half of Lake Union when you still don’t know whether or not you’ve got a homicide? You know as well as I do that you’re not going to find anything. There’ve been dozens of people all over that dock today. There’ve been dozens of people on it all week long, and nobody saw anything.”

  I was stepping on toes, but Kramer needed to be taken down a notch.

  “It’s my case, Beaumont, and as far as I’m concerned, this is a crime scene,” he insisted stubbornly. “If I say we do a search, we do a search.” He slammed the trunk lid closed for emphasis.

  “Are you aware they’re trying to shoot a movie here this afternoon?”

  “What of it?” he asked. “I’m a police officer.”

  “So am I, Detective Kramer. Like it or not, my current assignment is to help these folks get their movie finished.”

  He stared at me, his long look critical and appraising before he finally replied. “And my assignment is to find out how this dead bastard in the water got that way. That’s just what I’m going to do. Get off my back, Beaumont. I’m not in the habit of taking advice from playboy cops.”

  With that, he stalked away. I stood there in a fury after he left, with explosions of light blurring my vision and blood pounding in my temples.

  Playboy cop my ass! I was aware that there had been some idle comment around the department about my change in lifestyle. The red Porsche 928 and my penthouse condo in Belltown Terrace had been the subject of mostly congenial ribbing, especially on the fifth floor where some of the guys regularly asked me if I was still on the take. There may have been more serious gritching going on behind my back, but Kramer was the first one ever to tackle me about it head-on.

  I wanted to wring his neck. Unfortunately, Kramer is built like a Marine, with a thick neck that goes straight from his chin to his broad shoulders with barely an indentation. Ripped as I was, though, I think I could have handled him.

 

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