Improbable Cause

by J. A. Jance

  Mom? Had he said, "Mom"? I glanced at the bartender in admiration. If that was true, she must have had him when she was twelve.

  Moments later, the maitre d' and two waiters showed up again to escort the protesting Mimi and Buster out of the place. The bar patrons got quiet long enough to watch the excitement, but the volume went back up as soon as the elevator door closed behind them.

  "Sorry about that," the bartender said, setting another drink in front of me. "This one's on the house." She stood there waiting while I took the first sip. "What's your name?" she asked.

  "Beaumont," I said. "J. P. Beaumont. What's yours?"

  "Darlene," she answered. "Is it true what you told him, that you own part of that building?"

  "That's right," I said. "What about you? Does this joint belong to you?"

  "You'd better believe it," she said with a grin.

  First liar doesn't stand a chance.

  CHAPTER 9

  Most people despise alarm clocks with abiding passions. I don't have to—I have a telephone. I also have a collection of early-bird friends who think that as long as they're up, everyone else should be, too.

  The phone beside my bed jangled me awake, and I groped for it blindly.

  "He did it again!" Peters announced when I finally fumbled the receiver to my ear. "That big bozo did it again."

  People who've been up for hours always expect me to come up to speed instantly. "Who did what?" I mumbled.

  "Your old friend Maxwell Cole. He's running off at the pen again or the word processor or whatever they use these days."

  Maxwell Cole is no friend of mine. Never as been. We met in college when we had the misfortune of being in the same fraternity at the University of Washington. He's been a thorn in my side ever since. Currently, he's a thrice weekly columnist for the local morning paper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Because of our respective jobs, we frequently stumble into each other. When that happens, you can count on the two of us being on opposite sides of any given issue.

  His crime column, "City Beat," burns me up every time I read it, so I don't read it. At least I try not to, but there are some people, like Peters for instance, who feel compelled to bring it to my attention anyway. I've learned to put up with it the same way I used to choke down my mother's occasional doses of castor oil when I was a kid.

  I propped a pillow up behind me and peered at the clock. Seven-thirty. Plenty of time.

  "What is it now?" I asked.

  "The headline says, 'Murder Moves Uptown.' "

  I was gradually coming to my senses. "Sounds catchy," I said. "Maybe somebody should set it to music."

  "You won't think it's so funny when you hear what it's about," Peters growled. "How does Dr. Frederick Nielsen grab you?"

  "Not by name! He didn't put the name in there, did he?"

  "He sure as hell did. Want me to read it to you?"

  "That asshole! That goddamned stupid son of a bitch!"

  "Do you want me to read it to you or not?"

  "You could just as well."

  " 'A little over a year ago, area dentist Dr. Frederick Nielsen closed his Pioneer Square office and moved uptown. He told his old neighbors that he was sick and tired of his patients being hassled by drunks and panhandlers and petty criminals. He said he was moving his practice to a nicer neighborhood in the Denny Regrade.

  " 'Dr. Nielsen's patients won't have to worry about petty crime anymore, because their dentist died Saturday afternoon, brutally murdered in his recently refurbished office on the ground floor of one of Seattle's newer high-rise condominiums.

  " 'I can't help wondering why Seattle P.D. has been keeping such a tight lid on this case. Maybe they don't want people to know that it's possible to be murdered in broad daylight in one of Seattle's posher downtown settings. After all, letting word out could be bad for business. Certainly it's bad for developers and real estate magnates who are trying to sell the idea of downtown living to a largely indifferent suburban public.

  " "Those suburbanites have every right to be indifferent. Why should they leave relatively crime-free neighborhoods in the north end or on the east side and come downtown where murders are almost routine?

  " 'For years the Seattle homicide toll has been about one a week. Fifty-two a year. It would be interesting to know exactly how many of those occur in the downtown core.

  " 'Seattle P.D. does acknowledge that Dr. Nielsen's death is number thirty-one for this year. In case you don't want to do the math yourself, that means we're currently running five ahead of this time last year.

  " 'If murders are up that much, it seems reasonable that the police department would be doing something definitive about it. Are they? Not as far as I can tell.

  " 'A check with the Seattle P.D. media relations office revealed that only two homicide detectives are assigned to and actively working on the case of Dr. Frederick Nielsen. Those two, Detectives J. P. Beaumont and Allen Lindstrom, may be long-term homicide veterans, but they do not constitute the Seattle Police Department's mounting a major, concerted effort to solve this case. Arlo Hamilton, Seattle P.D. public information officer, stated that so far there are no leads in Dr. Nielsen's case. Not any. None.

  " 'Remember, I'm not talking here about a couple of nameless, drug-crazed addicts duking it out in a darkened alley between Pike and Pine at one o'clock in the morning. This is the bloody midday slaughter of a Seattle businessman who died in his downtown office at one o'clock on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

  " 'Broad daylight, folks.

  " 'And there aren't any leads?

  " 'Come, come now, Seattle P.D. Certainly you can do better than that. Certainly you can afford to put more manpower into this case than just two measly detectives.

  " 'It's ironic that Dr. Nielsen moved out of Pioneer Square to escape petty crime. Obviously it didn't work. Crime—major, not petty— came right along with him, loaded into the moving van along with his office equipment and furniture.

  " 'Dr. Nielsen tried a geographical cure for crime. Geographical cures usually don't work because they never deal with the underlying problem. In this case the bottom line is that crime is rampant in our city streets.

  " 'I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I do have a suggestion or two. Maybe all the people who are planning to take a drive downtown to look at condominiums next weekend should call their real estate agents and cancel.

  " 'After all, if the mayor and the city council and the police department can't make downtown Seattle safe to live in, if a law-abiding dentist can't work there in his own office on a Saturday afternoon without putting his life in jeopardy, then maybe it's time for people to vote with their feet, their moving vans, and their checkbooks.

  " 'The mayor's office is busy promoting his In-Town-Living campaign. Maybe he should rename it. In-Town-Dying would be more to the point.'"

  "That's it?" I asked, when Peters stopped reading.

  "Isn't that enough? Why did he mention Nielsen by name? He claims to have talked to Arlo Hamilton. If that's the truth, you can bet Max knew good and well that no next of kin notification had been made."

  "He did it to show off," I told Peters. "To prove to himself and to us that he could do it with or without our help. And because he's a first-class asshole."

  "What if the wife sees this article before your appointment this morning? Will she still show up?"

  "That remains to be seen." I didn't say that LeAnn Nielsen's appearance had never been a foregone conclusion. Now it was little more than a remote possibility.

  "Speaking of which, I'd better hit the trail. Al doesn't know we have an appointment at nine o'clock over in Madrona. I'd better get on the horn and tell him. By the way, were you able to come up with anything else on that Martin guy?"

  "No such luck. Amy says she's sorry but the name was all she could get."

  "Too bad," I said, "but thanks for trying."

  As soon as I said good-bye to Peters, I called Al Lindstrom's house in Ballard. Molly told me th
at Allen, as she calls him, was already on his way to the department, that I'd have to catch him there. So I hauled my tail out of bed, threw on some clothes, and headed for the Public Safety Building myself.

  I didn't bother to eat anything for the very good reason that there still wasn't anything fit to eat in the house.

  Al Lindstrom was on the phone when I came into our cubicle. His face was beet red. Veins stood out in a vivid blue pattern on his flushed forehead.

  "What's going on?" I asked when he slammed the receiver down, throwing the telephone halfway across his desk in the process.

  "That was the prosecutor's office. Remember that assault-with-intent case that was supposed to come up last week and never did?"

  I nodded. "What about it?"

  "It's come up now, first thing this morning. The prosecutor's office figures they'll need us right around ten, maybe a little after."

  "What do you mean? We've got an appointment to meet with a lady from the shelter and possibly LeAnn Nielsen at nine o'clock. Where the hell do they get off not giving us any more warning than that?"

  "Beats me. That's what I was saying just as you came in," Big Al said. "They said they tried to reach us yesterday, but I don't have any messages about it."

  "We flat can't do it," I told him. "Our nine o'clock is at Thirty-fourth and Union. There's no way we can be back by ten."

  Al snatched up the receiver and dialed. "This is Detective Lindstrom. I was talking with a Jeannie somebody about today's court schedule. Yeah, let me talk to her again. I'll wait."

  He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table while he waited for Jeannie somebody to come back on the line. When she did, he explained our predicament and then sat there shaking his head while she droned on and on, giving him no opportunity to get a word in edgewise. Finally he slammed down the receiver once more.

  "She said they'd settle for one of us—they don't care which—but somebody has to be at the courthouse at ten o'clock sharp or the guy is off the hook permanently. The judge will dismiss with prejudice."

  One of the major frustrations of being a cop, any kind of cop, is the hours spent tied to a desk or a phone waiting to put in a court appearance that may or may not ever come off. It's like being hamstrung. You can't go anywhere or do anything for fear the prosecutor's office is going to call and tell you to show up in court on the double. If we happen to miss a court appearance, chances are the crook goes free.

  Between the two of us, I don't know who hates sitting around waiting to go to court more, Big Al Lindstrom or J. P. Beaumont. We're pretty much neck and neck on that score.

  "Wonderful," I said. "Okay, I'll flip you for it."

  Al shook his head. "Nope, you'd better keep the appointment with LeAnn Nielsen. After all, you're the one who made it. Any ideas about what I should do while I'm locked up here? I'd at least like to make myself useful."

  "Try going through the Department of Licensing and see if you can get a line on Larry Martin's VW. And check with both the crime lab and the medical examiner's office to see if they've come up with anything helpful. Those'll do for starters. By the way, did you happen to read the P-I this morning?"

  "No. How come?"

  "Maxwell Cole's up to his old tricks again. Plastered Dr. Nielsen's name all over his column."

  Al shook his head in disgust. "Damn him! Did you ever wonder what makes guys like that tick?"

  "Not me. I don't want to know. Finding out would scare the hell out of me."

  Al was reaching for his telephone as I got up to leave.

  It wasn't hard to find Thirty-fourth and Union, but I was a little dubious about the Hi-Spot Cafe. It seemed to be a small storefront in the middle of the block. A huge black spider, regally ensconced in a front window, was labeled charlotte in small, square letters. The spider evidently occupied the window undisturbed.

  I opened the door and the yeasty smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls rolled over me. They say that smells stay in your memory banks better than any of the other senses. Opening the door to the Hi-Spot Cafe made a believer out of me.

  Instantly I was transported back to my childhood. I couldn't have been more than five or six. My mother managed to scrape out a living for us in a tiny alterations shop just off Market Street over in Ballard. The shop next to Mother's was a bakery. The owner wasn't much better off than we were, but about closing time every day he always seemed to have a plate of leftover cinnamon rolls or doughnuts that he swore would go stale by the next morning if someone didn't give them a good home. I remember times when cinnamon rolls were all we had for supper.

  The scent of those rolls dragged me into the Hi-Spot Cafe like a high-powered magnet. I couldn't have turned and walked away if my life had depended on it.

  Once inside, I stopped to look around. It seemed to be more of a take-out place than a restaurant. There were several people lined up at the counter waiting to buy rolls from a huge tray that had just come out of an oven and were being sliced apart on a huge, flour-covered table in one corner of the shop.

  I had my wits about me enough to remember I was supposed to ask to sit at the round table. The problem was, every table in the room was a round table.

  It was a tiny place, and the eight or so visible tables were all of the round, postage-stamp cocktail-lounge variety. None of them were big enough for two people to eat a regular meal on, and they didn't look particularly private, either.

  Just then a woman appeared at the top of a half flight of stairs at the back of the room. She looked down at me. "Are you here for breakfast?"

  I nodded. "This way," she said, turning and disappearing up the stairs. "Do you smoke?" she asked over her shoulder.

  "No," I answered.

  I followed her. The stairway turned out to be an umbilical cord connecting the tiny storefront shop to an old-fashioned two-story house set behind it. The lower floor of the house was crammed with tables, although only five or six of them were actually occupied. At the back of the house, behind a shoulder-high pass-through window, I could see someone hustling around in a kitchen.

  "How about right here, then?" the woman asked, holding out a chair at a small square table next to a window that looked out onto the street. "Or would you rather sit outside?"

  I glanced around me. All the tables I could see were either square or rectangular. "I was told to ask for the round table," I said.

  The woman shrugged. "You won't be alone, then?" she asked.

  "I guess not."

  She led me to another room, one just off the kitchen. From the looks of the place, it must have been the original dining room back in the old days when the house had been a home not a restaurant. The round table was there, an ancient oak pedestal one, tucked out of sight in a corner behind a door. There was no one at that table or at the gray Formica one on the other side of the room.

  "Coffee while you wait?"

  "Yes, please," I said. She brought me coffee in a mismatched cup and saucer. The dishes and silverware may not have been part of a set, but the coffee was strong and hot, just the way I like it. I was a few minutes early. While waiting, I sat there quietly sipping coffee and inhaling the enticing aroma.

  Right at nine a woman stopped in the doorway of the small room. She looked straight at me. "Are you Detective Beaumont?" she asked.

  Alice Fields was short and grandmotherly-looking, with narrow glasses, short white hair, and a buck-toothed smile that showed some evidence of gold spot-welding.

  "Yes, I am." I stood up and held out my hand. She shook it firmly. "Mrs. Nielsen couldn't make it?" I asked, trying to conceal my disappointment.

  Alice shook her head. "I don't know. I had one of my volunteers drop a note off at her place last night, but it's up to her whether or not she comes."

  "At her place?" I repeated.

  "She's moved into her own apartment. Phoenix House is only a temporary shelter, Detective Beaumont. We encourage our clients to get into their own places as soon as possible."

  We were making
some progress. At least Alice Fields had dropped the phony pretense that she didn't know LeAnn Nielsen from a hole in the wall.

  "I see," I responded.

  "Do you?" Alice Fields asked, looking at me with sharp penetrating eyes. "The women we deal with have already been dreadfully victimized. I'm here to make sure she isn't further violated by you, the system, or anybody else. Is that clear?"

  It was clear all right. I shifted uncomfortably under the leaden weight of her gaze. "So you didn't talk to her in person," I said, clearing my throat. "You didn't tell her what has happened?"

  "No," Alice Fields said. "But I did see the article in the paper this morning. I hope and pray she didn't. It would be terrible if she found out that way."