Taking the Fifth (9780061760891)

by Jance, Judith A.

  “The night of the load-in, what did you do?”

  “I was here in my room, the way I always am the night before a show. I worked out, I got a good night’s sleep.”

  “Was there anybody here with you? Anyone who saw you and would be able to say you didn’t leave the hotel all night?”

  She looked at me, frowning, a puzzled expression on her face. The feigned innocence made me furious.

  “Jasmine, this is murder. Homicide. I came here to talk to you, to give you a chance to give yourself up and maybe turn state’s evidence. Once all the facts are known, maybe there’s a possibility of a plea bargain, maybe there were extenuating circumstances—”

  I never saw it coming, never noticed when she slipped noiselessly out of the sandals. The ball of her foot cleared my face by a hair’s breadth and crashed through the wall board next to me. The wall splintered with the force of the blow.

  “Next time, it’ll be your face,” she snarled. “Now get out!”

  The next thing I knew, we were standing in the hallway.

  “Jasmine…” I began.

  “Don’t worry about the damage,” she said icily. “It’ll be a pleasure to pay for it. You’re trying to set me up, aren’t you? What is this, blackmail? Is that what you’re trying to pull?”

  Alan Dale came hurrying down the hall. “What’s going on?”

  “He’s trying to set me up, to frame me for murder.”

  “He’s what?” Dale demanded.

  “It’s not bad enough that he’s gotten Westcoast to cancel the rest of the tour. Now he’s trying to frame me for murdering that stagehand, the one who died the night of the load-in.”

  “You’d better get the hell out of here,” Dale growled at me. “If I see your ugly face again, I’m liable to flatten your nose or break your balls.”

  He took Jasmine’s hand and led her away from me, back into her room. The door closed. For a long time, I stood looking at it. I had just seen a spectacular display of deadly force. Jasmine Day’s brown belt was more than empty words, and she could easily have coldcocked me if she wanted to.

  I looked up and down the hall, embarrassed that she had caught me off guard. No one was there. Luckily, no one had witnessed my humiliation. That was some small comfort anyway.

  What would happen now? I wondered. I had blown it, told her she was under suspicion. Now what would she do? Would she run or not? There was no way to tell.

  Just then the door opened and Alan Dale stepped back into the hall.

  “I told you to get the hell out of here,” he said.

  “Tell her not to leave town,” I said.

  “Tell her yourself,” he retorted. “If you’re tough enough.”

  Dale turned away from me and walked down the hall. Making no move toward Jasmine’s door, I stood there watching him go as I tried to assess the damage to my ego.

  At least it wasn’t fatal. I’d probably get over it. Eventually.

  CHAPTER 17

  I DROVE BACK TO THE DEPARTMENT, FEELING uneasy. Something was eating at me, nagging away at the back of my mind. I was so lost in thought that when I saw the familiar face across the crowded lobby of the Public Safety Building, I didn’t move quickly enough to duck out of sight.

  The face belonged to none other than my old nemesis, Maxwell Cole.

  Max is an ex-boyfriend of my ex-wife, which is the nicest thing I can say about him. We were in college together, in the same fraternity. He’s nursed a grudge against me ever since I waltzed Karen, my first wife, out from under his nose and straight down the aisle.

  Usually, once those teenage romantic rivalries are over, they’re over. It’s kid stuff, and it goes away. Unfortunately, Max and I run in the same circles. His work as a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and mine as a police officer continually throw us together. We get in each other’s way, on each other’s nerves. Besides which, I don’t like him. I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.

  I wasn’t happy to see his overstuffed, walruslike form thumping through the crowded rush-hour lobby. He hailed me from across the room.

  “Hey there, J. P. How’s it going? I was just coming upstairs to look for you.”

  “I’m busy,” I returned. I punched the button and watched impatiently as the light showed the building’s sluggish elevator stopping on every floor on its way to the lobby.

  “All I want is the answer to one question. Who’s the blonde?”

  “What blonde?”

  “That’s not nice, J. P. Here I am, coming to you to do my civic duty, and you hold out on me. Is that any way to treat an old pal?”

  “What civic duty?” I asked. “And what blonde?”

  “Come on now. You dicks aren’t the only guys with sources on the streets. I happen to have some informants of my own. You tell me what you know, I’ll tell you what I know.”

  The elevator door opened. I waited while the crowd drained out; then I got on and pushed the button for floor two. I wanted to stop by the crime lab and talk to Janice Morraine before I went on up to my cubicle on the fifth floor.

  Max followed me onto the elevator without pushing any buttons of his own. He was evidently going wherever I went. “You’re working the Burlington Northern homicide, aren’t you?” he asked.

  I gave a noncommittal shrug. When we reached the second floor, I got out and Max tagged along.

  “Somebody told me you were the one screaming for an autopsy on that queer up on Bellevue, the one who died of an overdose instead of AIDS.”

  “So?”

  Max grinned, a knowing smirk that waggled the ends of his drooping handlebar mustache. “I’ve been doing a little detective work of my own, J. P. I heard through the grapevine that you interviewed a bag lady about that shoe-wielding killer, a blonde in a long blue dress.”

  That got me good. I don’t like it when newspaper reporters tell me things about my cases that they’re not supposed to know. “How’d you find out about that?”

  “The bag lady’s got more than a couple of screws loose, J. P. She blabbed her story to anyone who’d listen before you and Reverend Beardsly managed to lock her up in the Pike Street Mission.”

  I moved toward him menacingly. “Max, if you so much as breathe a word…”

  The remainder of my threat went unfinished. Max sprang backwards, holding up one soft, white hand to protect his equally soft, flabby face. “So she was real.”

  “If you know what’s good for you, Max, you’d by God better not leak word of this. You’ll jeopardize the entire investigation.”

  “Who said anything about leaking? I came here to give you some information.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “About the blonde.”

  “What about her?”

  “I’ve located another witness who saw her.”

  Another witness? Maybe one who would prove to be more reliable than Belinda? One who had also seen the fatal struggle in the parking lot? The noose seemed to be tightening around Jasmine Day’s pretty little neck. My pulse beat faster in my throat, and I felt a sense of rising excitement like a trailing hound catching a scent.

  “Where?” I demanded. “Down by the tunnel? In the parking lot?”

  Maxwell Cole enjoyed his brief moment of triumph. He wanted to bask in it, to rub my nose in it. He pursed his lips and shook his head. The movement sent his thick glasses sliding down his nose. He shoved them back into place.

  “Are you going to tell me who she is or not? I’ve got a hunch, but I want to know for sure.”

  “This isn’t ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ Max,” I reminded him. “It’s a homicide investigation. If you knowingly withhold information, I’ll personally see to it you go to jail. You can count on it.”

  Maxwell Cole suddenly looked uneasy. He’d never make it playing poker. His face gives him away. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?” he whined.

  “Try me.”

  “Up on Bellevue,” he said.

  “What?”

&nbs
p; “My witness saw the same blonde up on Bellevue, right in front of the house where the other guy died. Same blue dress, same long gloves, same blonde hair.”

  “What time?”

  “Around one or so. That squares with what the medical examiner’s office says was the approximate time of death.”

  I took out my notepad. “Who’s the witness?”

  “An LOL who lives down the street.”

  “What’s this little old lady’s name, and what exactly did she see?”

  “Her name’s Mavis Davis.”

  I must have looked dubious.

  “Honest to God, J. P., that’s her name,” Max continued. “I didn’t make it up. She’s got this ugly little mutt named Corky, an old dog. Corky’s been sick. The other night, he had to go for a walk. Late. While she was waiting for him to do his job, she saw a cab stop in front of the house on Bellevue. A woman in a long blue dress got out.”

  “What kind of cab?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She said she watched the woman get out of the cab, pay the driver, and go inside the house.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Did the cab go or stay?”

  “It left.”

  “Did she say what kind of cab?” I asked again.

  “No. Only that it was green.”

  “How did you find her?”

  “I was up there poking around, trying to find an angle, and I just stumbled into her. It was blind luck. She was out walking her dog. Again. He’s still sick.”

  I couldn’t recall the name Mavis Davis surfacing in any of the apartment buildings Big Al and I had visited the previous morning, but then we must have talked to seventy-five people while we were searching for a possible witness.

  “Where does this woman live?” I asked.

  “Just off Harvard, a couple of blocks north.”

  “What’s her number?”

  “Wait a minute. You haven’t told me about the blonde.”

  “And I’m not going to. What’s the number?” He gave it to me finally, under protest, and I wrote it down.

  “Is it Jasmine Day?” Max blurted suddenly.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Just a hunch, that’s all.”

  Maxwell Cole doesn’t have a modest bone in his body. His diffident answer was totally out of character. I had made the connection between Jasmine Day and Richard Dathan Morris, but I wanted to know how Max had done it. If there was another trail leading to Jasmine Day, I was going to check it out myself.

  “Bullshit!” I told him. “You got the idea somewhere, Max. It’s a long jump from a witness seeing an unidentified blonde in a blue dress to accusing a particular blonde of murder, especially if the blonde is a famous singer. I want to know who put that notion in your head, how you made the connection.”

  Max backed away from me. “Why should I tell you? You won’t help me.”

  “I’ll help you, all right. I’ll keep you from going to jail. Now tell me where you got your information.”

  Max blinked and looked puzzled. “Does that mean it isn’t her?”

  I didn’t answer, but Max jumped to his own conclusions. “If it isn’t her, why did someone call me and say it was?”

  “Someone called you? Who? When?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know who it was. Just an anonymous tip. You know, people think newspaper people can actually do stuff. A guy called late this afternoon, right when I got back to the office after talking with that Davis woman.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Just that Jasmine Day was under suspicion in two drug-related murders. I talked it over with my editor. He said the story was too hot to print without some sort of official confirmation. Libel, you know, and all that. So I came looking for you.”

  “He said two?”

  Max nodded. “That’s right.”

  So someone was passing out inside information, someone who knew Jasmine was under suspicion in the Jonathan Thomas case before we knew she was.

  “But why’d he call you?” I asked.

  Max shrugged. “He said he thought maybe it was something I’d be interested in putting in my column.”

  “He said that on the phone?”

  “Sure.”

  “What days does your column run?”

  “Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays,” Max answered. He looked annoyed, as if he thought I should have known that vital information without having to ask.

  “And this guy asked for you by name?” Max nodded. “What have your columns been about this week?”

  I’m sure Max thinks every word that drips from his fingertips is golden. He was probably shocked to know that I had no idea what tub he’d been thumping on.

  He answered grudgingly. “Tuesday’s was about the judge in Tukwila who’s got three DWI convictions. Thursday’s was all about overcrowding in the jail. Tomorrow’s is about people stealing parking meters from downtown Seattle.”

  My radar came on with a little warning pip. I don’t like it when murder trials are conducted in the newspapers, especially when the trial is in full swing before a suspect is even arrested. This smacked of a frame-up to me, of someone wanting to put Jasmine Day so firmly in front of our noses that we wouldn’t look beyond her.

  Part of making a successful frame-up work is to make it seem plausible, to get people to buy the story. How better to do that than to engage the help of the local media? You get them to do your job for you, have them print the story for you so it will seem logical and reasonable.

  Maybe you could engage a local cop too, if you could find one dumb enough to fall into the trap. That brought me up short. Was somebody using both Max and me as fall guys? I didn’t like the possibility, but it was there all the same.

  If that was the case, who was behind it? Max’s description of that week’s column material didn’t sound like such hot stuff to me. It didn’t sound like something that would capture the imagination of someone who had just blown into town. What would make an outsider think that someone writing columns about stolen parking meters or DWIs might be interested in solving a murder?

  They wouldn’t. If someone was indeed trying to frame Jasmine Day, it had to be somebody local, someone who knew Maxwell Cole well enough to be sure he would snap at the bait.

  “I don’t know who the blonde is,” I said, “but you can bet I intend to find out.”

  I turned and headed for the crime-lab door, knowing full well that Maxwell Cole couldn’t follow me inside. Don Yamamoto, head of the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, had thrown Max out long ago, telling him to get lost and not come back.

  “J. P., you’re lying to me,” Max protested over my shoulder. “You come back here and tell me the truth.”

  The funny thing was, if I had known the truth right then, I might very well have told him.

  Inside the crime lab, I found Don Yamamoto himself seated in a small, cluttered private office. Stripped down to his shirtsleeves, with a knotted tie hanging loose around his neck, he was poring through papers from a disorderly jumble of file folders strewn across the desk in front of him. Standing up when I tapped on the glass window of his office, he came toward me holding out his hand.

  “I wondered when you’d show up, Beau. Did you get Jan’s message?”

  I shook my head. “I just got in. I haven’t been upstairs yet.”

  “She had to leave early. She called upstairs looking for you just before she went off duty.”

  “I’ve been out.”

  Yamamoto smiled. “That’s okay. I don’t suppose she’ll mind if I jump the gun and give you the news first. She did a first-rate job. She got hold of the import/export company that deals with the shoe manufacturer and traced the shoes to a—”

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess. To a shoe store in Beverly Hills.”

  Don Yamamoto frowned. “If you never got Jan’s message, how’d you know that?”
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  “Just lucky, I guess. Go on.”

  “Anyway, when she found out the customer’s name, she ran a few of the prints we found on the shoe through our new fingerprint identification system. We got a match.”

  “Of course you did. They’re her shoes.”

  I’ve known Don Yamamoto for a number of years, and I’ve never seen him flustered. But he was this time. It showed all over.

  “You know about Jasmine Day, then?” he demanded. “About her priors? Jan got one of the guys upstairs to run a check on her.”

  “Jasmine doesn’t make a secret of her past,” I said. “Were any of her prints bloody?”

  “No, but…”

  It was too easy, the finger was pointing too clearly. My warning pip got stronger. “No buts, Don. The killer was wearing gloves.”

  Don looked at me and shook his head. “You mean to tell me you don’t think she did it? There’s the wig and the shoes and the prints, but you still don’t think it’s her?”

  When he said the word shoes, everything that had been bothering me came into focus. The shoes. The killer had used the shoes to pummel Richard Dathan Morris. Jasmine wouldn’t have needed shoes as a weapon, wouldn’t have stooped to that, not when she had a perfectly good foot handy.

  A flood of relief rushed through my body. I hadn’t wanted it to be her, and now I was sure. Jasmine hadn’t killed Richard Dathan Morris, but who had? Someone wearing her costume, the one Morris had stolen.

  I came back to the present to find Don Yamamoto staring at me, waiting for me to answer.

  “Something about it doesn’t seem right to me,” I mumbled. “I don’t like it when all the pieces fall into place without a fight.”

  It sounded half-assed and feeble, but it was better than blurting out what was really going through my mind and admitting to Don Yamamoto that the real reason I knew Jasmine hadn’t done it was that I had seen the lady in action, and she’d scared the living shit right out of me.

  Don Yamamoto scratched his thinning black hair and shook his head. He looked as if he didn’t much believe me, and I didn’t blame him. On the surface it didn’t sound very plausible to me either.

  “A frame-up?” he asked with a scowl. “Maybe it’s time to think about early retirement, Beau. The benefits are real good.”