Justice Denied jpb-18

by J. A. Jance

  “What do you mean, ‘line of fire’?” she yelped, her voice rising. “You said you wouldn’t hurt him. You promised. I checked on him just a minute ago. He’s still sleeping. He hasn’t moved.”

  “Shut up!” I ordered. “Stay the hell out of the way!”

  There are essentially two ways for police officers to approach a sleeping subject. In one, you sneak up on him and try to catch him completely unawares. In the other, you come on like gangbusters. You burst in with guns drawn, breaking down doors and screaming, “Police! Police! Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” at the top of your lungs. The second method is generally used when you have overwhelming firepower to back you up. The god-awful racket is calculated to do two things-to ratchet up the courage for all arriving officers and let them know where all the good guys are and to scare the living crap out of the unsuspecting suspect.

  On the way to Redmond, Mel and I had discussed which strategy was called for in this particular situation. In view of DeAnn’s claim that Donnie’s gun was safely locked in his car and assuming-hoping-that was the only weapon involved, we had come down on the “let sleeping dogs lie” side of the equation. If Donnie really was sound asleep and since we’d be entering the house with DeAnn’s permission, it wasn’t necessary to go breaking down doors in the process. And if we came upon Donnie quietly enough and fast enough, it seemed likely that we’d be able to subdue the man before he woke up fully and knew what was happening.

  We had determined that Mel would go around to the back of the house and wait on the far side of the patio doors in case he made a break for it and tried to exit that way. Once she was in place, I’d go in through the front door and tackle him wherever he was sleeping.

  That was the plan, at least. Once we arrived, we didn’t stand around jawing about it before putting it into play. I nodded to Mel and off she went.

  I suppose there are those who think I shouldn’t have sent Mel off like that. Some people are of the opinion that if I really loved her, I would never have put her in jeopardy. The reality is this: I had and have one hundred percent confidence in Melissa Soames and her abilities. I know what she’s capable of, and I know I can count on her.

  With one hand resting on her Glock, she set out through the side yard to circle around to the back of the house. Rain was falling at a steady enough clip that it thrummed on the rooftops and dripped out of the gutters. I hoped the noise of the rain would help muffle the sounds of our moving footsteps. The front yard was a minefield of scattered Big Wheels and toys, and I hoped there weren’t more of the same waiting in the side-or backyard to send Mel ass over teakettle. In this kind of life-and-death situation the last thing I needed was to have my partner taken out by somebody’s toy fire engine or dump truck.

  Wanting to give Mel plenty of time to get into position, I stayed where I was and counted to one hundred-very slowly. Only then did I move forward. Carefully. Quietly. One silent step at a time.

  I eased my way up onto the porch where glass sidelights on either side of the front door offered a narrow glimpse of the living room. Pressing up to one of the windows, I saw the figure of a man lying sprawled against the back of the living room couch. One arm dangled limply over the end of the armrest with no sign of movement. On the coffee table I glimpsed the outline of a spilled booze bottle, which probably accounted for why Donnie Cosgrove was sleeping so soundly despite all the unusual activity in front of his house.

  As I reached for the doorknob I knew there was a fifty-fifty chance that the door would be locked, but it wasn’t. The knob turned easily in my hand. The latch let go with what was probably only a tiny click, but the sound bore an ominous resemblance to a bullet dropping into a chamber. I waited for a moment to see if Cosgrove had heard it, but there was no movement from the couch, none at all.

  Grateful that the Pergo flooring didn’t sag or squeak under my weight, I stepped into the tiny vestibule. On the far side of the living room I caught a glimpse of Mel through the glass of the patio door. She had yet to draw her weapon, and neither had I. If we could do the takedown without unholstering our weapons we’d all be better off-and a hell of a lot safer. Being shot by friendly fire is no benefit, especially if you’re dead.

  I was within three steps of the couch when DeAnn Cosgrove took Mel’s and my well-thought-out plan and smashed it into a million pieces. Without any warning, she darted past me, screaming like a banshee. “Donnie, wake up! You have to wake up!”

  I tried to grab her, but she dodged out of the way. Despite the racket, though, Donnie Cosgrove didn’t move; didn’t even budge. And that’s when I saw several empty prescription-drug containers next to an almost empty vodka bottle that had spilled most of its remaining contents on the coffee table.

  Mel popped the flimsy lock on the patio door, shoved it open, and burst into the room. Kneeling beside the couch, she grasped Donnie’s loose wrist. By then I had managed to grab DeAnn and hang on to her. She was screaming frantically when Mel turned to us. “He’s still alive,” she said. “Barely. Call 9-1-1.”

  From the look on Mel’s face I knew the situation was serious, and there wasn’t much time. I can tell you straight out that it’s impossible to hold a desperately struggling woman with one hand while dialing a cell phone with the other. I finally gave up and let DeAnn loose in favor of calling the EMTs. DeAnn raced around the coffee table and fell to her knees at her husband’s side, shaking him and begging him to wake up. He didn’t stir.

  By then it was almost three o’clock in the still of a cold March morning. I’m guessing the ambulance crew was thrilled to have something happening on their watch. They showed up in their rubber boots and waterproof jackets in something less than three minutes. When they arrived, my heart was still pounding with post-incident jitters. While I attempted to keep a shaken and sobbing DeAnn out of the EMTs’ way, they slapped Donnie onto a gurney. They wheeled him out to the waiting aid car. With a burst of noisy sirens the ambulance took off, headed for Evergreen Hospital a few miles away.

  At the time they were leaving, there was no way to know if a stomach-pumping procedure would do the trick or if Donnie Cosgrove was a goner.

  “I’m going, too,” DeAnn insisted. She pulled away from me, and I let her go.

  Moments later Mel and I were alone in a living room littered with the ambulance crew’s debris-muddy boot prints and discarded latex gloves.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Mel nodded. “But you’d better take a look at this,” she said.

  She was pointing at the coffee table. Next to the vodka bottle and under one of the empty prescription bottles lay a page of notebook paper covered with writing.

  “Suicide note?” I asked.

  “Looks like,” she said.

  I moved over to the table and examined the paper without actually touching it. At the beginning of the note the penmanship was reasonably legible. Toward the bottom of the page it devolved into an illegible scrawl. The ballpoint pen still lay on the floor where it had fallen.

  Honey Bun,

  I didn’t do it, but they’ll think I did. That cop I talked to will think I killed them because I told him I was going to. I even had the gun along. My gun. But that was only because I wanted to scare the shit out of Jack Lawrence. I wanted him as scared as you were the other day. But mostly I took the gun along for protection. I was there when it happened, or right after, and the cops will be able to figure that out. They’ll find my footprints there. There’s blood on my clothing and on my shoes. I never knew there could be so much blood. It was awful.

  I saw the car of the guy who did it-at least I think it was his car. I watched him drive away. You’ve got to believe me when I tell you they were already dead when I got there. I checked. That’s how the blood got all over me, but there was nothing I could do to help them, God help me. Nothing.

  I know I should have called right then and reported it. But there was so much blood that I just panicked. I was scared and couldn’t think straight. I just wa
nted to get away. And when that detective came to the house this morning to tell you what had happened, it just got worse and worse. By not reporting it to begin with, that was one lie. And by not saying anything then, that was another.

  I’m sorry…and you and the kids…

  The note ended its illegible scrawl in midsentence. It was unsigned.

  “What do we do about this?” Mel asked.

  “We call Detective Lander over in Chelan and let him know that we’ve got Donnie. He may not be our suspect, but he is a potential eyewitness.”

  “If he lives,” Mel muttered. “And if DeAnn had listened to us and stayed away from here, he’d be dead for sure.”

  About that time there was a knock-a firm, businesslike knock-on the door and a uniformed Redmond cop entered the room.

  “We understand there’s been a disturbance here,” he said. “Maybe you two would like to tell me what’s been going on.”

  That took time. Local jurisdictions do not look kindly on other law enforcement agencies conducting raids or investigations of any kind on their turf without letting the home team know what’s happening. We showed the patrol officer our SHIT ID. We told him what had transpired. It made no difference. Not only was the responding officer not impressed, he was offended. The patrol officer’s supervisor, when he arrived, was also offended. And when the desk sergeant heard about it, he was really offended. We tried explaining why DeAnn Cosgrove had summoned us instead of them, but to no avail. Nothing was going to fix it since DeAnn wasn’t there to vouch for us.

  At three forty-five I finally admitted defeat and did what I should have done to begin with. I called Harry I. Ball at home and woke him up. He arrived on the scene in fifty minutes flat-all the way from the far side of North Bend. We gave him the shorthand version of what had happened.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “You’ve told them all this?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the assembled local yokels.

  “Several times,” I answered.

  “You two go on home, then,” Harry told us. “Leave this to me. I’ll kick ass and take names later.”

  Mel and I retreated to the Mercedes. As we drove away we could hear Harry bellowing into his cell phone at some poor hapless soul or other.

  “There are occasions when Harry I. Ball can be annoying as hell,” Mel observed, “but there are other times when you’ve gotta love the guy.”

  This was definitely one of the latter.

  CHAPTER 20

  As we drove across the 520 Bridge, it was 5:00 a.m. The early-bird morning commute was already under way, and Mel and I were both starving.

  Twenty-four-hour dining has almost gone the way of the dodo bird in downtown Seattle, with the notable exception of the Five Point Cafe at Fifth and Cedar. Smoking may have been abolished in Washington restaurants, but there’s enough residual smoke lingering in the Five Point to make an old Doghouse regular feel right at home.

  While we waited for our breakfasts I dialed DeAnn’s cell phone number just to see if she had any update on Donnie’s condition. She didn’t. I also called Detective Lander across the mountains in Chelan to let him know what the deal was. We ate breakfast-no coffee-and then staggered home to bed. At six. In the morning. To say we were both beat is understating the obvious.

  Harry I. Ball called at nine and woke us up, and I was something less than cordial. What had been downright endearing at 5:00 a.m. was a lot less lovable on three hours of sleep. When the phone rang Mel didn’t even wiggle. Answering it was my responsibility.

  “Time to rise and shine,” Harry bellowed into the phone, breaking my eardrum.

  “Come on, Harry,” I said, “have a heart. I barely got my eyes closed.”

  “And I haven’t closed mine at all,” he returned cheerily. “So stop complaining. This BOLO that just came across my desk. That would be on the guy who went off to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. Right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  Mel turned over on her side and buried her head under her pillow.

  “And what about these phone records, the ones that were faxed to me this morning? They’re for Jack and Carol Lawrence up in Leavenworth-the two victims, presumably. What do you want me to do with those?”

  I sure as hell didn’t want to drive across the water to pick them up. “How about faxing them over to me here in Seattle?” I asked.

  “Barbara isn’t here,” Harry said with a growl. “Has to take her kid to the dentist. Faxing’ll have to wait until she gets in. That probably won’t be before noon.”

  The truth is, Harry is one of the world’s greatest technophobes, a guy who has never sent a fax in his life. His ineptitude makes me feel like a telecommunications genius. Besides, right about then, noon didn’t sound half bad.

  “Fine,” I said. “Whenever.”

  I put down the phone. It immediately rang again. “This is the doorman,” Jerome Grimes told me. “I have a Mr. Hatcher down here to see you.”

  The very last thing I wanted right then was an in-house visit from Ross Connors’s pet economist, but he was already there. “All right,” I said. “Tell him to go to the deli next door for some coffee and a bagel. Tell him we’ll see him in fifteen minutes.”

  Mel groaned. “See who?” she mumbled from under her pillow.

  “Todd Hatcher,” I told her, giving her a whack on her down-comforter-shrouded hip. “Up and at ’em. The world awaits. Todd’ll be here in fifteen.”

  He was, too, bringing with him two extra toasted onion bagels with cream cheese-in case we were hungry. We weren’t. I went to the door to let him in. Mel was still in the shower.

  “You did tell me to come back on Monday, didn’t you?” Hatcher asked uncertainly.

  “Yes,” I said. “I just didn’t know we’d be out all night working a case, is all. Come on in and get set up. Mel will be out in a minute.”

  While Todd went about taking over the kitchen counter I muddled around making coffee. Mine isn’t as good as Mel’s, but it’s drinkable, and that’s what was called for that particular Monday morning-gallons and gallons of coffee.

  Mel emerged from the bedroom fully dressed, made up, and looking far better than she should have under the circumstances.

  “Didn’t mean to wake you,” Todd Hatcher apologized. To her. I noticed he hadn’t bothered apologizing to me.

  “It’s okay,” Mel said. “We had to get up anyway. What have you got?”

  “I spent most of the weekend working on my copies of the abstracts,” he said. “I’ve gone over all but two of them and input most of my observations. If you two could sit down and work on the rest of them this morning…”

  That seemed unlikely to me. On less than three hours of sleep, I wasn’t going to be in the best condition to go searching for tiny discrepancies in a stack of old dead files. Mel gave me a look, took her stack of paper and her cup of coffee, and settled down in the window seat to go to work. I was saved by a phone call from Detective Lander over in Chelan.

  “Any word on Donnie Cosgrove?” I asked.

  “Not since he got to the hospital. I tried checking, but the hospital wouldn’t give me any info.”

  Welcome to the world of patient privacy.

  “I have DeAnn’s cell phone number,” I told him. “I’ll try reaching her. When they hauled Donnie away in the ambulance, it didn’t look too promising.”

  “What do you think about this supposedly suicidal non-confession?” Lander asked. “Do you think he really wasn’t involved in the Lawrence homicides, or was he just trying to throw us off?”

  I had been in the room and had seen the note Donnie had left behind as the drugs and booze took effect.

  “I think Donnie Cosgrove really did mean to kill himself,” I responded.

  “Does that mean he meant the rest of the note as well?” Lander asked.

  “Maybe,” I said. “He doesn’t claim to have witnessed the actual shooting. He says he saw a vehicle that could have been the killer’s drive away. At th
is point, even a description of the vehicle would give us a big leg up.”

  “You’ll check on Cosgrove and let me know if and when I can come talk to him?” Lander asked.

  “Will do,” I said.

  “In the meantime, Ross Connors came through like a champ. The phone records we ordered yesterday were on my desk when I showed up this morning. Have you seen yours yet?”

  The fact that Tim Lander was absolutely focused and on task annoyed the hell out of me. Obviously he hadn’t spent the whole night traipsing back and forth across Lake Washington.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “They’re pretty interesting,” he continued. “They go along in a pretty predictable pattern. Most of the time the Lawrences were calling the same numbers and the same people over and over. That lasted right up until early last week. After that, we’ve got a bunch of calls that haven’t shown up on the records before. Who was that guy you mentioned to me yesterday, the one you’d said you’d left a message for but he hadn’t called you back?”

  “Dortman,” I said. “Thomas Dortman. Why?”

  “Because I have a whole series of calls from Jack Lawrence to Thomas Dortman starting first thing on Tuesday morning.”

  “That would be the day after I first talked to DeAnn.”

  “Like I said, there are no calls at all to this Dortman character until Tuesday morning. Then there are eight, nine, ten calls altogether from Jack Lawrence’s cell phone. Why were you looking at Dortman again?”

  “Because in the process of reexamining Tony Cosgrove’s disappearance, I came across an article by Dortman that mentioned Tony by name.”

  “This Tony guy is DeAnn’s father, the one who disappeared back when Mount Saint Helens blew?”

  “That’s right,” I replied. “Dortman mentioned Tony as a possible whistle-blower. I wondered if there might be some connection between them. They both worked at Boeing around the same time, so I thought maybe they knew each other there or worked in the same department. I also wondered if there might be a relationship between Tony’s possible whistle-blowing activities and his disappearance.”