Justice Denied

by J. A. Jance

  “Yes,” she said. “But I missed you last night, and there’s something I’d like to do first.”

  And that’s exactly what we did. It wasn’t until much later—after we were showered, dressed, and waiting for Scott and Cherisse to show up—that we actually started talking about work. She told me how far she’d gone in making notes on the abstracts, and I told her about my semi-fruitful trip to Leavenworth.

  “What’s the defense analyst’s name again?” Mel asked thoughtfully, reaching for her laptop.

  “Dortman,” I said. “Thomas Dortman. He lives here in Seattle. I already Googled him.”

  Mel did several quick keystrokes and then studied her screen. “And he has a new book coming out at the end of the month, The Whistle-blower’s Survivor’s Guide. Want me to order you a copy from Amazon.com?”

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “From what I read in the article, Tony Cosgrove was supposed to be a whistle-blower. Or maybe he would have been, if he hadn’t disappeared when Mount Saint Helens blew up.”

  “So obviously Cosgrove didn’t live long enough to benefit from the book,” Mel observed.

  “No, he didn’t,” I agreed. “I sent Dortman an e-mail asking him to give me a call, but it’s the weekend. I’ll give him until Monday before I try doing anything else about finding him.”

  We were still waiting for Scott and Cherisse to show up when the phone rang. Caller ID identified the call as coming from Kelly and Jeremy’s place in Ashland.

  “She took off,” Jeremy blurted the moment I answered.

  “Who took off?”

  “Kelly.”

  “Where did she go?” I asked.

  “That’s the problem,” Jeremy answered, “I have no idea. She tried to grab the car keys out of my pocket. When I wouldn’t give them to her, she lost it. She screamed something about the kids and me being better off without her, then took off on foot. What am I going to do?” Jeremy added miserably. “I can’t take care of these two little kids all by myself. I wouldn’t know where to start. What’s the matter with her, Beau? What’s going on?” He sounded utterly mystified and despairing.

  “Are you saying you think she’s left you for good?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” he returned. “I told you what she said, but I don’t know what it means. Do you?”

  From the sound of things, it was probably a good thing Kelly wasn’t behind the wheel of a vehicle.

  “Did the two of you have a quarrel of some kind after you got home?” I asked.

  “How could we argue?” Jeremy said. “She wasn’t even speaking to me.”

  Yes, I thought. I know how that works.

  “Before you left Seattle then?” I asked. “Did something happen while you were here that upset her?”

  “You saw how she was,” Jeremy answered. “She was upset the whole time we were there—upset and on edge. The thing is, what am I supposed to do now? Go looking for her? Let her go and hope she cools off? Call the cops?”

  I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what to tell him.

  “What’s going on?” Mel asked in the background.

  “It’s Jeremy,” I explained. “Kelly cried all the way home from Seattle back to Ashland. Now Jeremy says she told him he and the kids would be better off without her and took off on foot.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Mel said. I handed over the phone. She switched it to speaker mode. “How long ago did she leave?”

  “A few minutes,” Jeremy answered. “I called as soon as she was out the door.”

  “So she’s probably still in the neighborhood somewhere,” Mel said. “Take the kids with you, get in the car, and go find her.”

  “But—”

  “And when you do, take her straight to her doctor and tell him exactly what’s going on.”

  “But what is going on?” Jeremy asked.

  “Have you ever heard of postpartum depression?” Mel asked.

  “Yes, but I always thought it was some kind of joke.”

  Jeremy’s thinking on the matter wasn’t that far from my own. As far as I knew, postpartum depression was right up there with mother-in-law jokes as fodder for stand-up comedians.

  “It’s no joke, Jeremy,” Mel told him. “It’s serious, and it can also turn deadly on occasion. If that’s what’s going on, Kelly needs to see her doctor right away so she can be diagnosed and treated.”

  “She’s not crazy or something, is she?” Jeremy asked. His voice was subdued. And scared. The deadly seriousness of Mel’s demeanor had me scared, too.

  There was a call-waiting alert on the phone, but Mel ignored it and so did I. “Kelly may be acting crazy,” Mel countered. “But having a baby is hard work. It probably left her internal chemistry totally out of whack. Since she’s not nursing…she isn’t, is she?”

  “No.”

  “Then having her doctor prescribe medication to counter that chemical imbalance shouldn’t be a problem, but you’ll have to find her first.”

  “Should I call the cops?” Jeremy asked. “Tell them that she’s missing?”

  There were plenty of reasons not to do that. Filing a police report could well give rise to questions about whether or not domestic violence was part of the equation. An official report might also bring Child Protective Services into the fray with questions asked about Kelly’s suitability for motherhood. The idea that someone might step in and try to take Kayla and Kyle away from them froze my heart.

  Before I could say anything on that score, however, Mel said it for me.

  “No,” she told him urgently. “In the long run that’ll only make things more complicated. Just go find her. What’s her doctor’s name?”

  “Howell,” Jeremy answered. “Dr. Faye Howell here in Ashland.”

  “I’ll call the doctor and let her know what’s going on,” Mel told him. “Once you find Kelly, call back here. I’ll tell you what the doctor says and where you should take her.”

  While Mel busied herself with dialing information, I was summoned by the doorbell. I found Scott and Cherisse waiting outside in the hallway.

  “The doorman tried calling to let you know we were on our way up,” Scott said as I let them into the apartment. “Is something the matter with your phone?”

  I waved him to silence so I could listen to Mel. By then she had used her law enforcement officer persona to mow down whatever gatekeepers stood between Dr. Howell and her patients.

  “All right, then,” Mel was saying. “As soon as Jeremy locates her, I’ll tell him to bring her directly to the hospital, that you’ll wait for them at the ER.”

  Scott looked worriedly from Mel back to me. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “It’s Kelly,” I said. “She took off and left Jeremy and the kids behind. He’s frantic.”

  “It’s postpartum depression, isn’t it,” Cherisse said.

  Mel nodded. Cherisse turned back to Scott and poked him in the ribs. “See there?” she said. “I told you so.”

  Scott and I exchanged long-suffering glances. That’s what’s so mystifying about women. Neither Mel Soames nor Cherisse Beaumont had ever had a baby themselves. Still, they somehow knew what was going on with Kelly, even though Kelly herself didn’t seem to.

  I’ve long maintained that women are born knowing things it takes men a whole lifetime to figure out. This was simply one more case in point.

  CHAPTER 15

  Two nights earlier, Kelly’s temper tantrum had spoiled one dinner. Now, from hundreds of miles away, her situation cast a pall on this meal as well.

  We were halfway through our entrees when my phone rang. I could tell it was Jeremy calling, but it was too noisy for me to hear inside the restaurant. I excused myself and went outside to stand among the crew of waiting parking valets.

  “Did you find her?” I demanded.

  “Yes,” he answered, relief apparent in his voice. “She was sitting on a bench down by Lithia Creek. It was cold as hell down there. She wasn’t even wearing a sweater.”


  I felt as relieved as Jeremy sounded. “She’s all right, then?” I asked.

  “I guess,” he said. “I did just what Mel told me to do. I took her to see Dr. Howell. She prescribed something to help her sleep. I don’t think she’s slept in days, but she’s upstairs resting right now. Dr. Howell gave her some antidepressants. I guess it’s a good thing Kelly decided against nursing.”

  “I guess so,” I agreed.

  “Is Mel there?” Jeremy asked.

  “She’s back inside the restaurant.”

  “Tell her thank you for me,” he said. “I kept thinking it was something I had done wrong, but Dr. Howell says it’s something that happens to some women after they give birth. It can happen sooner rather than later, and this is definitely sooner. Dr. Howell said it was really smart of me to figure it out and let her know, but it wasn’t me at all. It was Mel.”

  “I’ll tell her,” I said. “But remember to give yourself some of the credit, too, Jeremy. You had brains enough to ask for help, and we’re lucky it just happened to be someone smart enough to know what was going on.”

  Unlike your father-in-law, I thought.

  A baby wailed in the background. “Gotta go,” he said.

  I went back inside. I greeted Mel’s anxious glance with a thumbs-up. “Dr. Soames’s diagnosis is correct,” I announced. “The patient is back home. With the help of a sedative, she may be sleeping peacefully for the first time in days. The doctor also prescribed some antidepressants. Jeremy says thank you, and so do I.”

  After the group heard Jeremy’s good news, the remainder of the dinner was a lot more festive. We made arrangements to meet the kids and Lars for one more brunch extravaganza before their scheduled departure the next day, then Mel and I went home and fell into bed. It was amazing to realize how much better I slept with her there beside me. I awakened the next morning to the smell of brewing coffee. There was a note next to the pot. “Taking a run in Myrtle Edwards,” it said. “Back in a few.”

  I had been thinking about Thomas Dortman as I fell asleep, and this seemed as good a time as any to continue my LexisNexis research on him. With my first cup of coffee in hand and waiting for the computer to boot up, I happened to think of something else. And so, out of idle curiosity, instead of typing in the defense analyst’s name, I typed in something else—“Richard Matthews, Mexico”—and waited to see what, if anything, would show up.

  It didn’t take long. What popped up first was an article dated November 14, 2004, from the El Paso Herald.

  Two weeks ago, Candace Matthews kissed her husband Richard Matthews good-bye as he left to go on his regular morning walk near their beachfront retirement home in Cancún, Mexico. She hasn’t seen him since. Although Mexican authorities say they have launched an investigation into Mr. Matthews’s disappearance, information on the progress of that investigation is difficult to come by.

  “No one will talk to me,” Ms. Matthews said. “No one will answer my questions or tell me what’s going on. They seem to think he just decided to leave me, but Rich would never do that. I’m sure he’s dead.”

  Richard and Candace Matthews were newlyweds four years ago when they purchased their dream home. It was a second marriage for both of them.

  Richard had retired from a career in the U.S. military and Candace was a former Realtor when they met at a dance club in El Paso, Texas. They married two months later.

  “It was love at first sight,” Candace said, choking back sobs during a telephone interview from Cancún. “And it still is. No one here seems to take this seriously. They act like he’s just wandered off somewhere and it’s no big deal.”

  “The investigation is progressing,” says Sergeant Ignacio Palacios of the Cancún Metropolitan Police Department. “We are treating this as a missing persons situation, but so far there is no indication of foul play.”

  That was as far as I had read when the door opened and a winded Mel bounded into the room. “On my way to the shower,” she said. “What time’s brunch? I’ll be glad when the company leaves. I feel like we’re just bouncing nonstop from one meal to the next.”

  She disappeared down the hall. I turned back to the computer.

  Richard Matthews came to the El Paso area with his first wife and daughter when he was posted to Fort Bliss as a noncommissioned officer with the United States Army. He stayed on after his retirement, even though his life here was dogged by tragedy. This is where his only daughter, Sarah, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while a freshman at the UTEP. His first wife, Lois, spent the last twenty years of her life with limited mobility due to the crippling effects of MS. It wasn’t until after her death that Richard’s life seemed to take a turn for the better.

  Five years ago, on a dare from a coworker, Richard Matthews signed up to take lessons at Tango-Rama, a short-lived ballroom dancing school where divorced Realtor Candace Sanders was a part-time instructor. The rest is history. After a whirlwind romance, the two married and spent their week-long honeymoon in Cancún. When they returned to El Paso they sold their respective homes and resettled in Mexico, where their joint real estate dollars went much farther than they would have in the States.

  “This was our dream home and our dream life,” says Candace Matthews. “There’s no way Rich would just walk away from everything we’ve built together.”

  Frustrated by a lack of official response, Ms. Matthews has posted a $5000 reward for information leading to her husband’s safe return.

  It probably only looked like a lack of response, I thought. What was actually going on was no doubt a spasm of legal infighting across jurisdictional boundaries—not the least of which was the international border. That would immediately translate into investigative paralysis. Mexican authorities, wanting to underplay anything that might adversely impact the tourism industry, were probably stalling for all they were worth, just as the guys in Aruba did when that teenage girl went missing.

  Down the hall the shower stopped running and I heard the hair dryer whine to life as I struggled to fend off the intense sense of foreboding that suddenly gripped me. I looked back at the computer screen and double-checked the date: November 14. Mel and I hadn’t been involved then, but I did remember Mel’s returning from a week’s worth of vacation sometime late in the fall—sometime prior to Thanksgiving. I recalled that she had come back to work in high spirits looking tanned and fit and bringing with her a gift for Barbara Galvin’s son, Timmy—a huge sombrero with his name embroidered on it. Had she been to Cancún? That I didn’t know.

  I called up the next entry, dated November 18:

  Unidentified human remains, discovered washed up along the base of a beachside cliff near Cancún, Mexico, are thought to be those of former El Paso resident Richard Lowell Matthews, who disappeared almost three weeks ago while on an early-morning walk. While confirming that remains have been found, Mexican authorities say that a positive identification will have to await the arrival of dental records that are expected in Cancún sometime tomorrow.

  Sergeant Ignacio Palacios of the Cancun Metropolitan Police Department reported that the autopsy had revealed the presence of a gunshot wound that was most likely the cause of death. The case is being investigated as a possible homicide.

  Candace Matthews, former El Paso real estate agent and wife of the missing man, expressed frustration at the lack of urgency surrounding the investigation. “They didn’t even bother calling me until after they’d already done the autopsy. How can that be? With Rich already reported missing, shouldn’t they have come to me first?”

  So Richard Matthews was dead, possibly of a gunshot wound. Down the hall the hair dryer switched off and on as Mel wielded hot air and a brush to force her hair into submission. In the weeks and months Mel and I had lived together I had learned to welcome the dryer’s ungodly racket. It was an audible and daily reminder of how my life had suddenly changed for the better. It announced to me and to the world at large that another person had come into my previously solitary life
. This morning, though, that hair dryer felt more like a screeching buzz saw slicing into my heart.

  Surely not, I told myself. Surely it couldn’t be happening again, could it? Maybe I’m mistaken. After all, Mexico is a big place. There are lots of resorts she could have gone to that weren’t Cancún. Or maybe I’m wrong about the timing. Then again, maybe I’m not.

  Once before I had fallen for a beautiful but flawed woman, one who had transformed herself into a one-woman vigilante brigade for both convicted and suspected child molesters. Smitten, I had been blind to Anne Corley’s inexplicable interest in the death of a young girl at the hands of members of a local religious cult. My inability to grasp the seriousness of the situation had led inevitably to Anne’s death—and almost to mine as well.

  Now history seemed to be repeating itself. Only yesterday Mel had told me that she was still haunted by learning too late of her best friend’s incestuous relationship with her father, a relationship that had eventually resulted in Sarah Matthews’s tragic suicide. Mel had told me that she still agonized over having done nothing to avenge her friend’s death. But was that true? That friend’s pedophile father had now turned up shot to death. I had personally witnessed the fact that Mel Soames knew her way around the business end of a handgun. How could I be sure she had nothing at all to do with Richard Matthews’s death, especially since there was a chance Mel had been in the same area at the time of his murder?

  You’re jumping to conclusions, I admonished myself. You’ve got no proof she was involved. Give it a rest.

  The hair dryer switched off permanently. The bathroom door opened, freeing a cloud of steamy air. A heady combination of fragrances wafted down the hallway. There was shampoo, hair spray, and perfume—in short, all the individual fragrances that worked together to make Mel Mel.

  Guiltily, like a kid caught reading prohibited Playboy magazines, I closed the screen containing the most recent El Paso Herald article and hurriedly typed Thomas Dortman’s name into the search field.