by J. A. Jance
“What can I do for you, Detective Beaumont?” she asked.
“I wanted to talk to you about the League of Women Voters.”
“They were awful.” She smiled. “Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. I almost lost my mind.”
“I wanted to ask you about one of the speakers, Darrell Watkins.”
“That jerk. He was late. I had to pay my people overtime because they didn't finish on time.”
“What happened?”
“He was supposed to speak at the beginning of the program. He didn't show up until nine when they were almost finished. They let him give his whole speech anyway. I was livid.”
I stood. “That's all I needed to know. Did he offer any explanation?”
“Car trouble, I think. Does this help?”
“You'd better believe it. Thanks.”
Galloping out of the Holiday Inn, I sped north to Anacortes, hoping I'd hit the ferry schedule right. No such luck. A ferry was just pulling away from the dock as I drove up to the ticket booth. There was nothing to do but cool my heels and wait for the next one.
It was possible Darrell could have been on Orcas with Homer at the time Ginger's room was broken into and still have made it back to Everett by nine. If, that is, he had better luck with the ferries than I did.
Once on Orcas, I drove straight to Rosario without notifying Huggins. I wanted to get in, verify the information, and get back out—without arousing attention.
It was Saturday evening. a laughing crowd was grouped around the massive fireplace in the Moran Room, and a clutch of people stood in front of the desk, waiting to register. The overtaxed desk clerk was far too busy to help me right then.
I went into the Vista Lounge. Barney was at his station. He glanced up and waved as I walked past. I had no more than taken a seat on a stool at the end of the bar when he brought me a McNaughton's and water.
“That's pretty good,” I said as he set the drink in front of me.
He grinned. “I don't do much, but I'm good at what I do.”
Someone signaled for a beer. Barney drew one from the tap, delivered it, them came back to me. “So what's up? You get your car back all right?”
I nodded. “Ernie did a great job. I'm up here looking for some answers,” I told him.
“What kind?”
“I need to see the guest register for the eighteenth…. Quietly,” I added.
“Unofficially?” I nodded, and he grinned. “I might be able to help. Did you see the lady at the desk?”
“Just a glimpse. She was busy.”
“We're engaged,” he said proudly. “Tell me what you want. She'll get it for you.”
Another customer summoned him. When he returned, he stood in front of me, vigorously polishing the bar. “What are you looking for?” he asked.
“At least one room was rented twice that day. Someone checked in, changed his mind, and checked back out. I need a copy of any registration slips on rooms that were rented twice that day.”
He gave me a sly wink. “Looking for somebody sneaking around, eh?” He glanced at my glass. “You want another?”
“No. I'd better switch to coffee. It's a long drive.”
“You're not staying over? We've got rooms.”
I shook my head. I drank a couple of cups of coffee and ate a hamburger while I waited. It was almost an hour before Barney's fiancée delivered the goods. There were three rooms that had been rented twice on the eighteenth. Using a lighted hurricane lamp from one of the tables, I studied the copies Barney gave me. Five of the six names didn't ring any bells. Three of them had actually spent the night. The other two were probably respectably married people sneaking an illicit afternoon without their lawfully wedded husbands and wives.
The last name stopped me cold. Don Lacy. The address was in Burien. I wrote it down, 12823 S. 124th. The clincher was that the car was a 1981 Audi, the same make and model listed on Darrell Watkins' guest registration at the Holiday Inn. Naturally the license numbers didn't match. What a surprise! Don Lacy and Darrell Watkins had to be one and the same.
I left the lounge and walked to the last wing of the hotel where Ginger's original room had been. The room registered to Lacy was right next door to Ginger's. When Darrell had been talking to her, pleading with her not to divorce him, he had been directly on the other side of a narrow wallboard partition, not calling long-distance from somewhere on the mainland.
Hurrying back to my car, I barely had time to catch the last ferry to Anacortes. I sat by one of the huge windows, staring at glass that reflected the bright lights inside the boat rather than the midnight water outside.
My mind jumped to a dozen different conclusions. Wilson, Homer, and Darrell all had to be involved together. Somehow. All three of them had been at Orcas that afternoon. Funny how both Darrell and Homer had neglected to mention it. The question remained, Were they in it together, or was one covering for the other?
I wanted to be the one to find the answers. I owed Ginger that much, but I wasn't working with a full contingent of soldiers. I didn't have all the resources of Seattle P.D. standing behind me, backing me up. I suppose I could have called Huggins and insisted he reopen the case, but I didn't. Pride, I guess. I wanted to nail the case down with a fistful of incontrovertible evidence before I called for reinforcements.
My mother used to say, “Pride goeth before a fall.” It's true.
By the time I reached Anacortes, I had a game plan mapped out in my mind.
It was almost two in the morning when I hit Seattle. I drove straight through town and took the Sea-Tac exit to Burien. The address on S. 124th street wasn't hard to find. A silver Audi was parked in the driveway. I drove home.
Once in the house, I went searching for the phone book. I looked under Lacy, Darlene, 12823 S. 124th Street. That answered a lot of questions. I put the phone book away and went to bed.
Ames woke me Sunday morning. According to my count, that was two Sundays in a row. He wondered if I would care to join Cody and him for brunch at the Westin. Ames sounded smug. He couldn't quite conceal his lack of disappointment when I said no. Ames had never struck me as much of a ladies man. He was proud of what he regarded as a personal conquest.
I wasn't the kind of guy to tell him that he had been duck soup for someone like Colleen Borden, and she was far too much of a lady to tell him herself. I left his delusions of adequacy intact.
“Too much to do, Ames, sorry. But I'll want to talk to you later today or tomorrow about some of the reward money.”
“Okay,” he said. “But if you don't reach me in my room, you might try Cody's.”
“Right,” I said.
I waited until ten o'clock before I called Janice Morraine at home. She's a criminalist in Seattle's Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. Over the months, she and I had become friends. I couldn't call the crime lab directly to ask for help. I didn't have an official case number.
“How are you at handwriting analysis?”
“So-so,” she answered.
“How about trading breakfast for an off-the-record opinion.”
She laughed. “Smooth talker,” she said.
We went to an omelet house at the bottom of East Madison, right on Lake Washington. There, amid the early-afternoon Sunday brunch crowd, she smoked one cigarette after another and compared the two signatures from copies of the guest-registration forms. She studied them in silence for several long minutes, leaving me to sip my coffee and stare at the top of her head bent over the papers in total concentration. At last she looked up at me.
“You know I'm not the final word,” she said. I nodded. “But in my opinion, they were signed by the same person.”
“That's what I thought.”
“Is this the Darrell Watkins?” she asked, pointing at his signature. I nodded again. “If this is something bad, you'd better not just take my word for it,” she warned.
“I won't.”
“And we haven't had this conversation?”
&nb
sp; “How did you guess? Now, what do you want to eat?”
We each had huge omelets with crisp hash browns and thick, jam-covered toast. As far as I was concerned, it was a celebration. I was getting closer and closer to nailing those bastards. Nothing definite. Strictly circumstantial, but closer nonetheless.
Darrell Watkins, Homer Watkins, and the deceased Don Wilson. Gradually I was closing in on the truth.
Hurrying back to my apartment, I pawed through the receipt shoebox until I found my bill from Rosario. The long-distance phone calls were there—time, duration, phone numbers, and charges. Thank God for computer printouts.
I saw the problem immediately. How could Homer have been seen by Blia Vang at seven o'clock Friday night, less than an hour after he had phoned my room and left word for Ginger to call? Her answering call to Seattle was right there on my bill, dialed direct from my room. The time on the printout said seven-forty. The call from Orcas to Seattle had lasted six minutes.
Settling into my recliner, I studied the list of phone calls with minute care. Again on Saturday, there were calls to Seattle numbers, one to Homer in the early evening and one to Peters much later.
I didn't bother to work the crossword puzzles Ida Newell had dropped outside my door. I sat there and wondered why Blia Vang had lied to me, or if she hadn't, how had Homer Watkins managed to be in two places at once.
CHAPTER
35
Monday morning I woke up early and waited until six before I called Ray Johnson in Pasco. Evie answered the phone. “Just a minute, Beau. Ray's in the shower.” Evie and I chatted amiably until Ray came on the phone.
“How the hell are you?” he boomed.
“I need your help, Ray.”
“Sure thing. What's up?”
“Remember that morning when we were all there in your office and the governor's office called?”
“I remember. Just before the press conference. They wanted to make sure we had you safely under lock and key.”
“Do you happen to remember the man's name? The governor's aide?”
Ray Johnson is an encyclopedia of names. Once he hears one, he doesn't forget it. When he left Seattle for Pasco, I felt as though I had lost my right arm. I had come to depend on him to remember names for both of us.
“Just a minute now,” he said. “Hold on and it'll come to me. Something to do with a bird. Hawk…Hawkins. That's it, I'm almost sure. What do you need him for? I thought the case was all sewed up.”
“Except for a couple of loose ends,” I said.
By ten to eight I was suffering from a serious case of twenty-four-minute flu. I called the Department at eight. Peters wasn't in yet. Margie took the call.
“I'm not feeling well, Marge,” I said, doing my best to sound feeble.
“I hope it's not stomach flu,” Margie sympathized. “That's going around. My kids were both down with it last week and missed two whole days of school.”
By five after eight, I was in the Porsche heading south on the freeway, feeling much better. It was a miracle. As I drove toward Olympia, my mother's words came back to me. “One thing about Jonas, he doesn't let good sense stand in the way of what he wants.”
My mother's twenty-five-year-old words still held the ring of prophecy. What I was doing didn't make good sense. J.P. Beaumont, good sense to the contrary, was turning up the heat under Homer and Darrell Watkins, attempting to smoke them into the open. It was best not to use a direct attack.
I parked as close as I could to the governor's office on the governmental campus and walked in as big as life. I asked the doe-eyed young receptionist for Mr. Hawkins.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“No,” I said, flashing my ID in her direction. “But I'm sure he'll see me just the same.”
I was right. Within five minutes I was shown into Lee Hawkins' office. I handed him my City of Seattle business card which he examined with some care.
“Weren't you the one—”
“Who was mistakenly arrested in Pasco?” I supplied helpfully. “Yes, I am.”
He nodded. “I thought so. The name looked familiar. What can I do for you?” He dropped my card onto his desk.
“I'm actually here about the Washington State Victim/Witness Protection Program.”
“I see.”
“What's going on with that?”
“Well, we've been involved in negotiations with the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. There's no question that the program will cost money, although the governor's office supports the idea wholeheartedly.” He paused and looked at me. “Is this on or off the record?”
“Off.”
“We've about ironed out all resistance. We're hoping it'll be presented as a joint bill early next session.”
“No announcement will be made prior to that?”
“That would be premature, Mr. Beaumont.”
“And no announcement was planned for the parole board retreat on Orcas?”
“Absolutely not.”
Just in case my message hadn't gotten through, I added one final hook. “That's funny. Don Wilson was sure there would be an announcement at Orcas.”
Lee Hawkins smiled. “He must have been mistaken.”
“Of course,” I replied. “Thanks.” I left and drove straight back to Seattle. If somebody called to check on my health, the invalid should be at home, in bed. And if somebody took the bait, the fisherman should be hanging onto the other end of the pole for dear life.
Predictably, the phone was ringing as I got off the elevator. It was Peters. “Where the hell have you been? You're supposed to be sick.”
“I needed some medicine,” I lied. “How're the girls?”
“They're in school. The baby-sitter Ames hired will pick Heather up after kindergarten. Tracie can walk home by herself. Mrs. Keen—that's the baby-sitter's name—will stay until I get home tonight. Do you have everything you need? Yogurt, or maybe some Pepto-Bismol?”
“Everything, thanks. I'm much better. What are you doing?”
“Many and Al are trying to negotiate a peace treaty with the feds to extradite Farley from Canada.”
“Good luck.” I was glad I wouldn't be there to fight and lose the opening rounds of the paperwork war. I've seen more than one crook hole up across the border, hiding out in plain sight behind a mountain of red tape.
“Get well,” Peters said. “See you tomorrow.”
I fixed a pot of coffee, sat down, and put my feet up. The next caller was Ames, totally focused on business. “What about the reward money?”
“Never mind. The witness may have lied to me. We'll have to see.”
“Okay,” Ames said agreeably. “Whatever you say.”
“How's Cody?” I couldn't resist catching him off base. Ames was trying with some difficulty to concentrate on work. His obvious confusion was laughable.
He hesitated, half switching gears, attempting to maintain his dignity. “She's working today. I don't know doing what.” He paused again, scrambling for what to say next. “I guess, as long as I'm here, I'll go ahead and motherhen the penthouse deal. Are you going to do any customizing?”
I hadn't thought about it. “What do you suggest?”
Ames sighed. “I'll get a couple of decorators to take a look and see what they say.”
“Just one thing, Ames.”
“What's that?”
“Wherever I go, my recliner goes.”
“Right,” he said.
He hung up. I poured myself a cup of coffee. And waited. It was the calm before the storm. I was convinced the storm was coming. Who would call, Darrell or Homer? I figured it was a toss-up.
When the phone finally rang at four that afternoon, it was a delivery boy bringing flowers. I buzzed him into the building and opened the door without even bothering to check the peekhole. The crime prevention unit would have drummed me off the force.
“Hello, Detective Beaumont,” Darrell Watkins said easily. “I've got a gun. You're comin
g with me.” He raised a snub-nosed .38 from behind the box of flowers.
He lifted my Smith and Wesson out of its holster and dropped it into a jacket pocket, all the while keeping me covered.
“I understand you were making inquiries about the Victim/Witness Protection Program.”
“That's right.”
“Was your interest personal or professional?”
“Both.”
“Since that's a program I'm interested in, too, I thought maybe we should get together and talk. Where's your car?”
“In the garage.”
“Let's go.”
He directed me to the Watkins mansion on Capitol Hill. I walked ahead of him to the house and pushed the door open, half expecting to find Homer waiting inside, but the entryway was empty, the house itself quiet.
I stepped over the threshold, tensing as I realized we were alone, hoping I could catch him off guard, take him by surprise.
Instead, something hit me behind my right ear. I went down like a sack of potatoes.
The cold woke me. I opened my eyes, thinking I'd gone blind. I could see nothing. I struggled to move, and ran my nose into my knee. It startled me to find my knee jammed directly in front of my face. It shouldn't have been there. I tried moving my fingers and felt my feet. Slowly it started making sense. I was tied, trussed in a fetal position, with my hands and feet fastened together at my ankles.
I was also stark naked.
It's tough getting your bearings in pitch darkness. Under me were what seemed to be wooden slats. A humming motor clicked off, followed by ominous silence.
I was trapped in a refrigerator waiting to die.
Rocking painfully on the small of my back, I tried rolling as far as I could in one direction, hoping to find a door and figure out a way to open it. I rolled until I encountered a smooth, hard surface. Before I could ascertain whether it was door or wall, a door at the other end of the compartment jerked open. A single light bulb next to the door snapped on, momentarily blinding me.
When I could see, Darrell Watkins was standing over me. “My, my. Aren't we clever. I didn't think you'd wake up before I got back. I had to take your car downtown and park it on Third Avenue. In the bus zone. By now it's being towed at owner's expense. It'll take days to find it.”