Name Witheld jpb-13

by J. A. Jance

  Because the screen was separated into two simultaneous images, the picture on the department's twenty-one-inch viewing screen was very small. I leaned closer, trying to ascertain what I was seeing. And when I did, I could barely believe my eyes.

  The car was an older-model Crown Victoria, vintage 1988 or so. In the distorted mercury vapor lighting, the vehicle appeared to be lavender. A car that old-what used-car salesmen always call "reliable transportation"-is the kind of vehicle that blends. It's old enough not to be out of place in some neighborhoods and new enough to fit into others. What set this one apart, however, was the distinctive, clam-shaped attachment that had been fitted to the vehicle's roof. I recognized it at once, because, except for the color, it was almost a carbon copy of the one on Ron Peters' Buick.

  If it weren't for Ron, I wouldn't have known anything at all about Braun Chair Toppers. These units, resembling old-fashioned, top-of-car luggage carriers, are specially designed for carrying wheelchairs. They come complete with motorized lifts that raise or lower chairs as needed.

  I know for a fact there aren't all that many Brauns around Seattle these days, because people who need wheelchair capability tend to go after one of those newer-model minivans-ones that come with either lifts or ramps. Ron Peters had bought the Braun after a single look at prices on the vans had thrown him into an almost terminal case of sticker shock. The Chair Topper had provided him with a relatively inexpensive way of converting his old sedan into a wheelchair-carrying mode of transportation. It had worked so well, in fact, that when his Reliant died an awful death as a result of a car chase through the Sea-Tac Airport parking garage, he was able to move the Chair Topper from the dead Reliant to its secondhand Buick replacement within a matter of days.

  Seconds and minutes ticked away in real time while I continued to watch the video of the Crown Victoria parked in front of D.G.I. I desperately wanted to catch a glimpse of the person driving the wheelchair-equipped car. After all, Maribeth George had just told me that a woman in a wheelchair seemed to know a good deal about this case.

  Get out, I found myself silently urging the unseen driver. Get out of the car and let me take a look at you.

  But no such luck. Nobody moved. Occasionally, cars and headlights slid past on Western, but the parked car didn't move, the doors didn't open. Then, at exactly 12:07:00, and with no discernible warning, the headlights flashed on. The Crown Victoria pulled away from the curb, paused for several seconds, and disappeared onto Western. On the other half of the screen, Don Wolf and Latty were just emerging from the elevator. So the movement that had caught my eye had been the Crown Victoria leaving, not a cab arriving.

  Moments later, two people came out through the building's front door. They stepped out to the edge of the driveway, almost to the same spot where the Crown Victoria had been parked earlier. Latty was crying again, but as far as I could tell, no words were exchanged during the next eight minutes while they waited for the cab. They were both underdressed for the weather. Looking at the shivering, weeping girl pictured on the screen, the father part of me couldn't help wondering where the hell she had left her damn coat.

  Finally, a Yellow Cab pulled up to the curb. Naturally, Wolf darted out and opened the door. Ignoring him, Latty walked around to the other side of the cab and let herself into the car.

  As I switched the tape to rewind, I felt a surge of relief. Latty had gotten into a cab that had taken her somewhere-to an address. And with an address and a description, I'd be able to learn Latty's last name.

  Now we're getting somewhere, I told myself gleefully. Now we're finally getting somewhere.

  Eight

  For several minutes after I clicked off the VCR, I sat without moving in the darkened fifth-floor conference room. I had replayed the front-entrance sequence several times. I had even played the beginning of the rape tape to double-check the exact time Don Wolf and Latty had arrived at his office.

  There was no doubt in my mind that those several occurrences were somehow interrelated. The Crown Victoria had parked in front of the building about two minutes prior to Don Wolf and Latty's appearance in his office. Assuming they had parked in the garage under the building and maybe necked a little on the way inside, then it was conceivable that whoever was at the wheel of the Victoria had followed them to the building. And the fact that the unseen driver had gunned away from the curb just as the elevator door opened meant that whoever it was hadn't wanted to be spotted.

  Now, after switching on the light, I pulled out my notebook and began to assemble a TO DO list.

  1. 1. Locate and notify Wolf next of kin.

  2. 2. Locate proper I.D. on Lizbeth Wolf.

  3. 3. Find Latty.

  4. 4. Find Wheelchair Lady.

  5. 5. Watch the ten o'clock news.

  6. 6. Rewatch the tapes on a big screen; license #???

  7. 7. Work on report.

  Making TO DO lists is always far easier than doing TO DO lists, but I left the conference room and headed back to my cubicle to get started. My first call was to D.G.I. Bill Whitten wasn't in, so I asked to speak to Deanna Compton.

  "Detective Beaumont," she said when I identified myself, "did you get the packet I messengered over to you?"

  "Yes, thanks so much. I've taken a cursory look at the tapes, and I have a couple of questions for you. Does D.G.I. have any wheelchair-bound employees?"

  "Wheelchair? No, none that I can think of. Why?"

  "There was a car with a wheelchair rack parked in front of the building on the night Don Wolf took the girl up to his office. I was wondering if you had any idea who the vehicle might belong to and whether or not there was a legitimate reason for it to be here. For instance, could it belong to someone working on the janitorial crew?"

  "If it does, I don't know anything about it."

  "Let me ask you something else, then. On your personnel records, do you ask employees to list people who should be contacted in case of emergency?"

  "Yes."

  "Could you check and see if Don Wolf listed anyone other than his wife?"

  "You can't find her?"

  Time to duck and run. Right that minute I didn't want to reveal to anyone even the most general details of the grisly remains we'd found waiting for us in Don Wolf's condo. "Not at the moment," I said. "I was hoping you could help me locate someone else."

  "Just a minute, please," Deanna said. "I have his file right here."

  There was a long pause. I could hear paper shuffling on the other end while she looked through the file. "No," she said eventually. "Lizbeth is the only one listed here."

  "I see."

  "Does it list a place of birth?"

  "Tulsa, Oklahoma."

  I thought about that for a moment. Birth records generally stay put, but people don't necessarily do the same. Trying to track down someone that way can be a time-consuming, tedious process. What I needed was a shortcut.

  They say the only things in life that are certain are death and taxes. But right up there on the list, running a close third, are calls from college and university alumni associations. I think it's virtually impossible to permanently dodge the armies of telephone-wielding fund-raisers who track their potential victims to the ends of the earth.

  "Where did Don Wolf go to school?" I asked.

  "His bachelor's is from Stanford. MBA is from Harvard."

  With Deanna reading me the information, I jotted down the degrees Don Wolf had earned, his majors and minors, and the years in which the degrees were conferred. Obviously, at four o'clock in the afternoon, it was far too late to talk to anyone at Harvard. But there was a chance I could still reach someone down at Stanford.

  In the past, I would have played it straight-called in, identified myself properly as a police officer, and then worked my way up the chain of command. Recently, though, my months spent in a tempestuous off-again/on-again relationship with a lady named Alexis Downey, a development officer who raises funds for the Seattle Repertory Theatre, has given me a
nother perspective.

  Alexis is an enticing handful, but she's one of those women who, although she has a strong career track going, also has an audibly ticking biological time clock. We broke up completely when I finally convinced her that, at my stage of advancing middle age, I would never be willing to take a second crack at fatherhood. Being with Alexis has taught me a thing or two, not only about women, but also about how devious-minded and cagey development officers can be.

  Bearing that in mind, I approached the Stanford alumni office with what I knew would be irresistible bait. Once I had a likely candidate on the phone, I identified myself as Roger Philpott, an attorney with Bates, Philpott, and Orange. (I figured if I was going to try my hand at lying I could just as well have some fun with it.) I told the young woman on the phone that one of the university's alums had died suddenly and there was a chance, if no other heirs could be located, that his entire estate would be left to the university.

  "Is it a very big estate?" the young woman asked. The audible catch of excitement in her voice made me feel like a regular heel.

  "It's the biggest one I've ever handled," I told her. That, at least, wasn't a lie.

  "Do you have his matriculation number?" she asked, and I knew I had her. I couldn't provide a matric number, but I gave her everything else-the year Don Wolf graduated and the degree he'd received, and then I waited. And waited. And waited some more, listening to Muzak all the while. Finally, she came back on the phone sounding puzzled and disappointed.

  "There must be some mistake," she said. "I can't find a Donald R. Wolf registered that year. In fact, the closest Donald Wolf I've found is a Donald B. who graduated in electrical engineering, but that was five years later than the date you gave me."

  "That's strange," I said. "Let me do some more checking and get back to you."

  I put down the phone and sat looking at it. If one statement on a job application isn't true, chances are other things are false as well. I picked up the phone once more and redialed D.G.I.

  "Do you have Don Wolf's previous employment records?"

  "I suppose," Deanna said, sounding slightly impatient. "Just a minute."

  Again there was a period of paper shuffling before Deanna came back on the line. "Do you need complete addresses?"

  "Please," I said.

  Deanna ended up giving me three names, addresses, and phone numbers: Downlink, San Diego, California; Bio-Dart Technologies, Pasadena, California; Holman-Smith Industries, City of Industry, California. It was almost five o'clock by then, but I figured even if the switchboards were closed, I'd probably still connect with someone.

  I dialed the first number. After two rings, the distinctive disconnect sound came through the receiver, followed by a recorded message. "The number you have reached is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again. If you feel you have reached this number in error, please hang up and dial the operator."

  My first thought was that maybe the company had just moved, but a check with the operator came up empty. Mentally, I crossed Downlink off the list. I tried the number listed for Bio-Dart. This time, a little kid answered. Figuring I had somehow misdialed and rather than trying to explain, I hung up and redialed with the same result. This time, though, the phone was wrested away from the child by a woman.

  "Who is this?" she demanded.

  "I'm looking for a company named Bio-Dart," I told her, and then read off the number Deanna Compton had given me. "They probably do some kind of bioengineering."

  "That's my number, mister," the woman responded. "But there's nobody here but my son and me. The only kind of bioengineering we do here is an occasional batch of chocolate chip cookies."

  "There must be some mistake," I said. "Please excuse the ring."

  The number for Holman-Smith turned out to be a disconnect as well. In other words, as near as I could tell, not one of those three companies existed at the moment. I was beginning to wonder if they ever had. Most likely, the Harvard MBA would turn out to be equally bogus, but checking on that would have to wait until morning.

  When an investigation runs into an unexpected blank wall, that's the time for partners. Sometimes, all it takes is a brainstorming session over a cup or two of coffee to figure out a way to get back on track, but Sue Danielson was stuck in Cincinnati with a bad case of chicken pox. That meant brainstorming with her was out, and I sure as hell wasn't going to try mulling things over with Paul Kramer. When it comes to the free-flowing exchange of ideas, Detective Kramer is definitely not my type.

  What I did do finally was pick up the phone and call Audrey Cummings at the medical examiner's office up in Harborview Hospital. "Make this quick, Beaumont," she said. "I was supposed to start Don Wolf's autopsy half an hour ago."

  "Did you print him?"

  "No. We could, but don't usually do that unless there's a question of identification."

  "There might be in this case."

  "Are you trying to tell me that Bill Whitten misidentified the body?" Audrey asked. "It would be nice to know exactly who's dead and who isn't."

  "What I'm saying is that the person Bill Whitten thinks of as Don Wolf may have been someone else all along." As briefly as possible, I went on to explain the difficulties I'd encountered in trying to locate possible next of kin. Then I enumerated the phony employment and educational references I had blundered into along the way. I must have made a fairly good case of it. When I finished, Audrey capitulated.

  "All right, all right," she agreed. "We'll print him, then. But you won't have either prints or autopsy results before noon tomorrow at the earliest. If you have something for me on the woman by then, maybe we can make a trade-prints on him in exchange for a positive I.D. on her?"

  "It's a deal," I told her, although it didn't seem very likely that I would meet that noontime deadline, not at the rate I was going.

  It was long after five when I finally gave up on the first item of my TO DO list and took an initial crack at number two. If you believe what passes for homicide cops on television, this job entails nothing more than car chases and pitched gun battles. On a day-to-day basis, I spend far more time with a telephone glued to my ear than with a weapon in my hand.

  My first call on that score was to Alpha-Cyte, the La Jolla biotechnology company Deanna Compton had told me had employed Lizbeth Wolf. And because I was calling so late in the afternoon, my efforts met with exactly what they deserved-an unguided trip through a voice-mail jungle.

  "Alpha-Cyte's office hours are nine to five, Monday through Friday," the recorded voice told me. "If you know the extension of the person to whom you wish to speak, please dial that number now; otherwise, stay on the line for more options."

  Voice-mail options never include quite what you want, especially if you don't know exactly who it is you need to speak to or what his or her extension number might be. The last choice was to leave a message and someone would get back to me.

  "I don't think so," I said, and hung up. "It's time to send out for reinforcements."

  With the help of a directory assistance operator, thirty seconds later I was on the phone with Captain Wayne Kilpatrick, a homicide supervisor down in La Jolla, California.

  "What can I do for you, Detective Beaumont?" he asked, once I had identified myself.

  "I'm working on a case up here in Seattle," I told him. "Two of them, actually. It's possible both victims may be former residents of La Jolla. I'm trying to verify I.D. s and do next-of-kin notifications, and I'm running into walls."

  "Maybe you'd better fill me in on the details."

  That didn't take long, because it turned out I didn't know much. "I'll get someone on it right away," Kilpatrick said when I finished. "I'll check with Dispatch to see if there's an emergency number on record for Alpha-Cyte. And we'll check out that home address you gave me as well. I'll have one of my officers get back to you ASAP. Give me your number."

  Instead of one number, I gave him the full set-home, office, and cell phone. "Thanks for the h
elp," I said.

  "Whaddya expect?" Captain Kilpatrick returned. "It's our job."

  "One more thing," I added. "Do you have access to any old telephone books?"

  "How old?" he asked.

  "Last year's," I said. "Maybe even the year prior to that. I'm looking for the last place Don Wolf listed as a place of employment before taking the job in Seattle."

  "You're in luck there," Kilpatrick told me. "Last year's phone book is the only one I have. Somebody stole my new one."

  "Look up a company called Downlink," I told him.

  "It's not here," Kilpatrick said a few moments later. "How could he give it as a place of employment if it doesn't exist? Sort of makes you wonder what he was up to, doesn't it."

  "It does," I muttered, putting down the phone. "Indeed it does."

  Returning to my TO DO list, I placed a check mark beside number two before turning my attention to number three: Find Latty.

  In that regard, the greatest possibility of success lay with the cab driver. In the best of all possible worlds, Don Wolf would have called Farwest Cab instead of Yellow. Years ago, I was involved in a case where a Farwest cabby was murdered. What initially looked like a straightforward robbery gone awry actually turned out to be a complicated insurance plot staged by the man's estranged wife and her boyfriend. I was the one who cracked the case and sent both the wife and boyfriend to the slammer. Whenever I need Farwest info, I can always get it-fast and without any hassle.

  Back in my Fuller Brush days when I was working my way through school, I learned the value of third-party referrals. It was always easier to sell brushes to someone if a neighbor up the street called ahead to say I was coming. Naturally, I called Farwest first.

  "Hey, J.P.," said Wally, one of Farwest's old-hand dispatchers. "Long time no see, especially now that you don't need your butt hauled out of bars on a regular basis. How long you been off the sauce?"

  "Two years and a little bit."