by J. A. Jance
“Homer has?”
“Yes, goddammit. Homer.”
“Any word on Wilson?”
“Hell no.”
“Keep me posted if you hear anything, Hal.”
“Sure thing. The search warrant didn't come through yesterday. I'm hoping for this afternoon. And Beau?”
“What?”
“You do the same. If anything turns up at the funeral, give me a call.”
I dressed and walked down Fifth to University. The Congregational Church is located at the corner of Sixth and University. The tiny chapel at the south end of the building pinchhits as a downtown Catholic chapel for weekday noontime business Masses. Ecumenism is alive and well and living in Seattle.
Taking up a position in the lobby of the Park Place building across the street, I watched as people arrived or were dropped off at the church. The first black limo accompanied by two state patrolmen deposited Homer and his illustrious son, Senator Darrell Watkins. The second limo, also with an armed guard, brought Governor Reynolds.
When the third, unattended by official motorcycles dropped off an older, nondescript man who paused uncertainly on the sidewalk, I left my vantage across the street and approached him.
“Are you Tom Lander?” I asked.
“Mr. Beaumont?” he returned, his tone doubtful.
“Yes.” Relief passed over his face. We shook hands. He looked down at his old-fashioned suit and dusted an imaginary fleck of lint from his arm.
“Big cities make me nervous,” he said uncomfortably.
Homer materialized out of nowhere. “Hello, Tom,” he said, elbowing me aside. “They're ready for us now.” He scowled at me, trying to place me. “This is a private service, Mr.—”
“Beaumont,” I supplied.
“It's all right, Homer,” Tom said. “He's with me.”
Homer Watkins gave Tom a constrained nod. “Very well,” he said, walking stiffly toward the church. Tom Lander and I followed. The chapel couldn't have held more than forty people. An usher showed Tom to a front-row seat, while I took one near the door.
As people came in, I realized Peters would have recognized the political personalities from their pictures. I was an outsider, with no program or scorecard. My only hope of identifying the various guests was to lay hands on the guest book in the vestibule.
I did recognize the parole board, however. Led by Madame Bowdeen, they appeared far more nervous than they had been in Welton. Pressure was taking its toll. Had I been in their shoes, I would have been nervous, too. Looking around, however, I could have assured them with reasonable accuracy that Don Wilson was nowhere to be seen.
A young, bearded minister conducted the service in a smooth, professional way, telling us that Ginger Watkins was a person who had found herself in service to others. His comments made me hope that maybe he had at least a passing acquaintance with the lady.
As the eulogy began, my eyes were drawn to Darrell Watkins' heaving shoulders. He sat in the front row head bowed, silent sobs wracking his body. Next to him Tom Lander reached over and laid a consoling hand across his grieving son-in-law's shoulder.
I can stand anything but hypocrisy. Darrell was making an obvious play for sympathy, and Tom Lander fell for it—comforting the asshole who had screwed around on his daughter the whole time they were married, who had never bothered to give her the smallest satisfaction in lovemaking, who had kept her locked in a confining, stifling marriage, trotting her out on command when his rising political star demanded the display of a pretty wife.
It put a lump in my throat to realize I had given Ginger more pleasure by accident than that whining bastard had in eighteen years of marriage. I didn't hear the rest of the service. I seethed, watching Darrell's bitter, remorseful, crocodile tears. Too little too late. When the pallbearers carried the white coffin out the door, Darrell followed, his face contorted with anguish, supported on one side by Homer and on the other by Tom.
“That son of a bitch,” I muttered to myself. I don't think anyone heard me.
Outside, people milled on the sidewalk, waiting for the funeral cortege to form and lead us to Woodlawn Cemetery. I paused as long as I could over the guest book, mentally noting as many names as possible. Then I waited by Tom's limo, expecting to tell him good-bye. Instead, he asked me to come along, to ride to the cemetery with him.
I didn't particularly want to go, but it was hard to refuse the old man. He was so isolated and alone that, in the end, I went.
We rode in silence. I was still seething over the funeral, and Tom seemed lost in thought. I stayed in the car during the graveside ceremony, refusing to be an audience to any more theatrics on Darrell's part. I used the time to jot down as many names as I could remember from the guest book. Once we started downtown, I had myself fairly well in hand.
“What now?” I asked, initiating conversation.
Tom shrugged. “Darrell said I was welcome to come over to the house, but I don't know. I don't feel comfortable with all those muckymucks.”
“Do you know most of those people?” I asked.
“No.”
“How about a cup of coffee before you decide?”
He seemed to welcome the delay. He nodded. “That would be real nice.”
The limo driver raised a disapproving eyebrow when I dismissed him, telling him to drop us at the Doghouse. I knew Tom would be far more at home there than in the rarefied atmosphere of the Four Seasons-Olympic or the Westin. He settled gratefully into a booth and smiled when the waitress, calling me by name, brought a coffee pot with the menus.
“I guess even big-city folks can be friendly,” he said.
“This is my neighborhood, Tom. I live just a few blocks from here.”
We both ordered coffee. I watched Tom shovel three teaspoons of sugar into his cup. “How did you know Ginger?” he asked, stirring absently.
“I only met her the day before she died,” I said quietly, “but she helped me, more than I can say. She talked me through a problem I had been avoiding for months. I had to go today. I owed her.”
“Ginger was like that,” he said. He smiled sadly. “Always ready to help the other guy, always a friend in need. She was the kind of kid who dragged home broken-winged birds and expected me to fix them.” He paused. “They mostly died,” he added. He stared disconsolately into his cup. “Did you know about the drinking?” he asked.
His question jarred me. “Yes.”
“I thought she had beaten it. Sig Larson helped her. What made her start again?”
“I don't know.” I didn't have a clue. I ached for him as he pondered Ginger's death. His child's death. Why had she died drunk? Someone had neglected to tell him that her death had been reclassified as a homicide, and I figured it wasn't my place to tell him. That was up to Hal Huggins.
“There was some gossip about them, you know,” Tom continued, “Sig and Ginger. But I never put any store in it. Ginger wasn't like that.”
“No,” I agreed. “I'm sure she wasn't.” The topic made me very uneasy. “Did you know she intended to file for a divorce?”
“She wouldn't have,” he answered with firm conviction. “She might have threatened, to get Darrell to shape up, but she wouldn't have left him. We Landers hang in there. It's a family tradition.”
I wanted to say that Ginger had hung in there more than long enough but I didn't. That would have been kicking him while he was down. Besides, it would have given away too much about Ginger and J.P. Beaumont. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. As far as Tom Lander was concerned, Ginger Watkins and I had been just friends. Nothing more.
“Do you want to go to the house?” I asked.
“Would you come along?” he countered.
He needed an ally, and I was it. “Why not?” I said, rising. “Between the two of us, we should be able to handle that bunch.”
We took a cab to the motel where Tom was staying, then we drove to Darrell Watkins' Capitol Hill mansion in a GMC pickup with “Tom's Union 76” emblaz
oned on the door.
CHAPTER
23
The Watkins mansion sits atop Capitol Hill with a spectacular view of downtown Seattle and Puget Sound. At the base of the hill, Interstate 5 bisects the city. As we rounded the circular driveway and drove past a gurgling fountain, I could imagine Homer and Darrell sipping cocktails and watching the freeway turn to a parking lot each evening as commuters tried to go home.
“Who lives here?” I asked.
“Homer used to,” Tom said, “but now he's moved into a condominium.”
“This is where Ginger lived, then?”
“For about a year,” Tom answered.
The mansion itself was a spacious white colonial, set in a manicured, parklike setting. By the time we arrived, the drive was already teeming with a variety of trendy late-model vehicles. Ginger had described the last few years as a struggle for financial survival. That was why she had gone to work for the parole board. These surroundings gave no hint of encroaching poverty.
“They bought this from Homer?”
Tom shrugged. “Ginger never talked to me about their private affairs. They used to live over there someplace.” He gestured down the back of Capitol Hill. “Nice enough place, if you didn't need to find it in the dark.”
We rang the bell, setting off a multinote chime. A uniformed maid opened the door. “Yes,” she said in a truculent manner designed to frighten off gate-crashers.
“Tom Lander.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Lander.” She stepped back, opening the door in welcome. “You're expected.”
We entered a foyer with an intricate parquet floor and a magnificent chandelier that hung from a vaulted ceiling far above us. Polished mahogany handrails lined a circular staircase. From behind a closed door to our left came a murmur of voices. “This way, please,” the maid told us.
As the door opened, we heard a small burst of laughter from a group of people gathered near a fireplace at the opposite end of an enormous room. To one side an arched doorway led into the dining room where a lavish buffet supper lay spread across a gleaming tabletop.
A scatter of twenty-five or thirty fashionably attired people chatted amiably over drinks and hors d'oeuvres. It would have made a wonderful cocktail party. Any relation to a funeral was purely coincidental.
Our host was nowhere in sight, but Homer broke away from the congenial group and came to meet us, a careful smile displayed on his face. “I'm glad you decided to come, Tom. You too, Mr. Beaumont. Care for a drink?”
“I'll have a beer,” Tom said.
“McNaughton's and water,” I answered. Homer nodded to the maid, and she disappeared.
Gravely solicitous, Homer guided Tom toward the fireplace. I trailed behind. “Let me introduce you to some of the folks, Tom. There wasn't enough time at the church.”
Several of the names were preceded by “Representative” or “Senator.” Clearly this was more a gathering of Darrell's peers than it was one of Ginger's friends. I tried keeping track of names, attempting to remember only those I hadn't already gleaned from the guest book.
Senator George Berry and Representative Dean Rhodes. Ray Johnson always told me that the secret to remembering names was creating colorful word pictures using the names. I had seen him do it for years. I made a stab at it.
Rhodes and Berry. I imagined several roads and saw them intersecting at one giant strawberry. Representative Doris Winters. I covered the strawberry with a giant load of winter snow. Berry, Rhodes, Winters. So far, so good. Representative Larry Vukevich. Shit. Vukevich! Race car driver. Okay. Vukevich racing past the berry. Senator Toshiro Kobayashi. I gave up.
The maid handed me my McNaughton's. I wandered away from the introductions to a chair beside a leaded-glass window. I needed Peters. He'd know all those people. The room was stifling. I belted that drink and ordered another when the maid walked past again.
The door at the end of the room opened, letting in a welcome rush of cool air. Darrell Watkins—accompanied by a handsome, smiling young brunette—entered the room. Tom's back was to the door. Homer, facing both Darrell and Tom, gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head over Tom's shoulder. Darrell caught the warning and spoke quietly to the woman, who melted smoothly into the crowd.
So this was the tender blossom, the competition Ginger had talked about, already marking her territory and claiming her prize. I downed my second McNaughton's and sauntered over to where the brunette had settled on a green velvet love seat. She crossed her legs, revealing a rather lengthy stretch of shapely thigh.
“Would you like a drink?” I asked.
She smiled up at me. “Sure. Vodka tonic.”
I found the maid and placed the order. “It's for the young woman over there, I forget her name.”
“Miss Lacy,” the maid supplied helpfully.
“I'll have another McNaughton's,” I said, returning my glass. Casually I meandered back to the sweet young thing on the love seat. “My name's Beau,” I said. “You're Miss Lacy?”
“Darlene,” she replied, smiling.
“Glad to meet you, Darlene. Mind if I sit down?”
“No.” She moved to make room, demurely covering some of the visible thigh. “Are you a lobbyist?” she asked.
“No, I'm a friend of Ginger's”
“Oh,” she said, a trifle too quickly.
I don't believe any of Ginger's friends had been expected.
“It's too bad about Ginger,” Darlene continued. “I didn't know her personally, but everyone says she was a very nice person.”
“She was,” I replied.
The maid brought the drinks. Darlene sipped hers, eyes holding mine over the top of her glass.
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I'll go to Olympia in January. I'll be on staff, either with the lieutenant governor's office or the senate. It doesn't matter to me.” She laughed. “A job's a job.”
Homer caught sight of us sitting together and hastened toward the love seat. “Mr. Beaumont, I didn't mean to ignore you. Would you care for a sandwich, deviled eggs, salad?”
“No, thanks. I was just chatting with Miss Lacy here. She was telling me about her new job. Sounds like a good deal to me.” I managed a hollow grin, hoping it adequately expressed my feelings on the subject.
“Have you met Darrell?” Homer asked.
“No,” I replied. “Haven't had the pleasure.” I took another belt of McNaughton's—for luck, maybe. Or maybe because the room was uncommonly hot and I was very thirsty. I set my empty glass on a polished table and followed Homer to where Darrell was waxing eloquent with the lady from my memory word picture. Snow, I decided fuzzily. That was her name.
Homer caught Darrell's attention. “Darrell, this is Mr. Beaumont. It was his—”
Darrell turned toward me, his smile turning sallow. “Oh yes, Mr. Beaumont. I hope your Porsche isn't ruined.”
“No. It'll be fine. It takes time. I wanted to express my condolences,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said, his face assuming the grieved air that had offended me at the funeral. “So nice of you to stop by.” I resisted the temptation to smack that phony look right off his face. Homer steered Representative Snow away from us, leaving Darrell and me together. Darrell signaled the maid for two more drinks. “It's scary,” he said, turning back to me. “First Sig, then Ginger, now Mona.”
I was sure he knew all about Don Wilson. Considering the family's close ties to the governor's office, that was hardly surprising.
“I hope to God they catch that guy before he gets anyone else,” Watkins continued.
“Me too,” I said. “We usually do, sooner or later.”
He gave me an appraising look. “We? Is Seattle P.D. involved too?” he asked.
“No, not officially. I'm here because Ginger and I were friends.” The maid broke in to deliver drinks. My series of McNaughton's had come in rapid enough succession that I was getting a little buzz.
“I don't recall her mentioning your name.�
� It did my heart good to note the subtle shift in Darrell's manner, a wariness. I was something he didn't expect. How about that! Maybe Ginger had some secrets too, asshole. How d'you like them apples? The thoughts bubbled unspoken through my new glass of McNaughton's.
“You can't tell about women,” I said jokingly. “Ginger and I go back a long way. We ran into each other up at Orcas by accident; but then, life is full of little surprises, right?”
“Right,” he replied lamely.
The door opened, and a new trio of people entered. Darrell excused himself to greet them. The room had grown more crowded. There were far more people sipping drinks than had been at the chapel earlier.
The coffee, the McNaughton's, and the water asserted themselves. Searching for a restroom, I wandered into the kitchen, slipping through the swinging door when a maid carried a new tray of deviled eggs into the dining room.
The kitchen, massive and polished, was a combination of old and new. An ancient walkin refrigerator covered one wall while, on the other side of the room, a long commercial dish-washer steamed under the hand of a heavyset woman rinsing a tray of plates. On a third wall sat a huge eight-burner range, while the middle of the room held a sleek stainless steel work-table laden with food. The woman looked up from the dishwasher and saw me at the door-way. “Can I help you?” she demanded.
“I'm looking for a restroom.”
“No restrooms here,” she stated flatly. “Upstairs. On the right.”
Chastised, I retreated the way I had come, threading my way through the chatting guests to the foyer and up the stairs. A dizzying trip up the circular stairway convinced me I had had too much to drink. The first likely-looking door I found was locked. I tried the next floor. Bingo.
I had already flushed and was splashing my face with cool water in an effort to sober up when I heard voices in the hall outside. I'm sure it never occurred to anyone that a guest might have ventured all the way upstairs in search of a restroom. I opened the door and stepped into the hall. “It looks great, Darrell,” a voice was saying from a room farther up the corridor. “The fact that it was private makes it that much better.”