by J. A. Jance
"I understand that word-relationship-is very big now," Grace added with a thoughtful frown. "In my day, girls didn't want a relationship; they wanted a wedding band. The really sensible ones still do."
"Let's go back to Don Wolf for a minute," I interjected, but I could just as well have saved my breath. Once Grace Highsmith launched herself into her story, nothing anyone else said could sidetrack her.
"Years ago, I told Abby that I was leaving everything I own to charity-to Children's Hospital. That is no longer true, of course. Since Latty came back to Seattle late last summer, I've reconsidered that position. The poor girl wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth, although she certainly could have been. And due to the haphazard way she's been raised, she didn't have the advantage of a real education, either. I've been encouraging her to take courses at Bellevue Community College and that kind of thing. I picked up Dorene's when a friend of mine retired due to ill-health. I've worked there part of the time because it's fun and because I enjoy it. But I'm letting Latty manage it for me to give her a little on-the-job training in the world of business."
"About Don Wolf…" I hinted.
"Oh, yes. I do tend to ramble a bit now and then. According to my will as it is currently written, Latty will be my sole beneficiary. That includes paying those ridiculous amounts Suzanne tells me are so-called generation-skipping taxes. That being the case-Latty being my sole heir, I mean-I was interested in learning more about this Don Wolf character. Latty kept hinting that she thought he was wonderful husband material, and I didn't want her marrying some gigolo.
"As far as I could tell, however, there were several bad signs. I knew he was new to town and quite a bit older than she was, so I did the only sensible thing-"
"And hired a private detective," I finished.
This time, Grace Highsmith's smile was nothing short of glowing. "Why, Detective Beaumont, how in the world did you know that?"
"I am a detective, too, remember?"
Grace laughed. "Why, yes, I suppose you are. Well, Virginia Marks comes from a longtime Eastside family. Her grandparents' place was just down the road from ours-from our summer cabin, that is. Back then, the Marks family was fairly well to do, but then they ran into some bad investments and had to sell out far too early to reap the kind of financial benefit that would have been possible only a few years later. Both Virginia's parents died while she was fairly young, and so she and her brother have pretty much had to shift for themselves. That's not all that bad. Working is good for you, don't you think?"
I nodded and then attempted to steer things back to the question at hand. "So you hired Virginia Marks to do a background check on Don Wolf. Then what happened? Did she discover anything important?"
Grace Highsmith didn't answer immediately. While she seemed to struggle with indecision, Suzanne Crenshaw reached out and grasped the older woman's forearm. "Grace, if you've changed your mind…"
"No, thank you, Suzanne," Grace managed. "I'll be fine in a minute. It's just terribly difficult, you know. Terribly difficult."
She took a deep breath and looked at me. "Don Wolf raped my niece, Detective Beaumont. It happened last Wednesday night, around midnight, in his office in downtown Seattle."
"How did you find out about it?" I asked.
"Latty told me, but I would have known even if she hadn't. Virginia was following them that night, and she saw them coming out of the building afterward. Latty was crying. Her clothes had been torn to shreds. From the way Latty looked as they came out of the building, Virginia deduced what had happened. She reported the incident to me, and I asked Latty about it the next day. I told you before, my niece is quite incapable of lying. That's another thing Abby never taught her-the art of telling a plausible fib when necessary. So she admitted the whole thing, even though it broke her heart to have to do it."
"What happened next?"
"What do you suppose? I had my detective find out where that low-down worm would be and when I could catch him unawares. Then I went down to the shop, took the gun out of the drawer where we keep it-for protection, you see. And after that, I took care of him."
By then, Suzanne was shaking her head in obvious despair. "Grace, please…" she objected, but Grace ignored her completely.
"Where did you find him?"
"I had told Latty not to see him again, but she made arrangements to meet him down in Myrtle Edwards Park at eleven-thirty on New Year's Eve. I followed Latty there, and when she left him alone, I shot him."
"Where?"
"In the park. I already told you."
"Where exactly did you shoot him? In the face? The chest? The back of the neck?"
"Does that matter?" Grace Highsmith asked. For the first time she looked slightly flustered.
"Actually, it does. Especially in a confession."
Grace frowned. "I'm afraid I don't remember exactly. I must have been too upset at the time."
That was the moment when, as far as Grace Highsmith's so-called "confession" was concerned, the whole thing fell apart. In twenty-plus years of being a cop, I've been compelled to use deadly force on occasion. Each and every time, I've been what Miss Highsmith would have termed "upset," but I've never had the good fortune of forgetting even one incident. I remember them all-in vivid, bloody color and in heart-stopping detail.
Instead of mentioning that, I patted the pocket in which I had deposited the Seecamp. "Where did you get the gun, Miss Highsmith? I happen to know this particular weapon is very popular, and there's a minimum of a year-long wait to purchase one of these new from the factory."
"That I simply won't tell you," Grace declared. "A gentleman friend of mine gave it to me, and I'm not about to involve him in this tawdry business. He's a very nice man and doesn't deserve to have his name dragged through the mud."
By then, Suzanne had eaten her way through the grilled salmon. The waiter took her empty plate and then stopped by with a fully loaded dessert tray. It contained the usual things one expects to find in a place like that-fresh mandarin orange sorbet, double chocolate cheese cake with a Bailey's Irish Cream mousse, a coconut mousse tart, and a caramel apple cake.
Suzanne took the chocolate mousse. When the waiter looked at me, I started to shake my head. "Oh, please join us for dessert at least," Grace insisted. "You must have something. It'll do you a world of good. Try the cake. It's my absolute favorite. That's what I'm having, along with a cup of decaf."
I'm a sucker for anything with caramel on it, so I knuckled under. "All right," I said.
When the cake came, it was nothing short of delectable. The single layer of rich, moist cake was covered by a caramel sauce and topped by a dollop of whipped cream. Grace Highsmith broke off a tiny forkful and put it in her mouth. As she did so, her eyes misted over for the first time.
"I don't suppose they'll have desserts like this in the King County Jail," she said wistfully.
"They don't," I agreed. "But who said anything about jail?"
"You are going to arrest me, aren't you?" Grace Highsmith asked pointedly.
"No," I said. "I don't think so."
She looked clearly offended. "Why not?"
"Miss Highsmith, when it comes to murder investigations," I explained, "the process of making arrests is far more complicated than most people think."
"What about the gun?" she asked.
"What about it?"
"Was I or was I not carrying the murder weapon?" she demanded.
"That remains to be seen," I told her.
Her face fell for a moment, then brightened once more. "But I was carrying a concealed weapon."
"Carrying is a misdemeanor," I said. "For simple carrying we usually confiscate the weapon and issue a citation, unless the person is actually brandishing and placing people's lives in danger, which you weren't. Furthermore, since we're outside Seattle city limits, I couldn't arrest you anyway. Bellevue isn't part of my jurisdiction."
For the first time since I met her, Grace Highsmith appeared to be gra
vely disappointed. "Shoot," she said. "I suppose I should have thought of that. We could just as well have gone there for lunch."
Moments later, the waiter dropped off the check. Grace may have been upset, but she deftly slipped the bill off the tray before I ever had a chance to touch it. As the waiter went away to take care of the credit-card transaction, Shelley stopped by the table one last time.
"How was it?" she asked.
"Perfect," Grace answered "For what I thought was my last meal, it was absolutely wonderful."
Shelley frowned. "What do you mean, last meal, Grace? Are you going away?"
"I thought so. I was under the impression Detective Beaumont would be arresting me and I'd be spending the rest of my life in jail. Now it turns out I'm not going to jail after all. I'm disappointed. Very disappointed!"
It turned out that in a lunchtime of bizarre conversational twists and turns, Grace Highsmith had finally managed to say something that momentarily rocked Shelley Kuni's virtually unshakable composure. For a second, the restaurant owner paled, glancing back and forth from Grace to me. Finally, Shelley leaned down and gave the older woman a hug.
"I'm sure everything will work out just fine," she said. "If you do end up in jail and the cooks don't serve caramel apple cake, maybe I could send some in for you special."
"Oh, Shelley," Grace said, her eyes misting once more. "You're one of the most thoughtful people I know."
Being a gentleman, I walked Grace back to her store on Main Street. There was no further conversation. She was obviously quite put out that I had failed to perform as expected. When we arrived at Dorene's, the door was open, but the middle-aged woman I glimpsed through the window couldn't possibly have been Latty Gibson.
"I'm still going to need to talk to Latty in person," I said, pausing outside the door. "Will you give her my number and ask her to call?"
"Oh, all right," Grace agreed.
"And I'll want to speak to Virginia Marks as well. I've already tried calling her, but I only reached her answering machine."
"She's out of town," Grace said. "She's due back sometime later this afternoon. I expect to hear from her as soon as she gets in."
It sounded to me as though Virginia Marks was still working for Grace Highsmith. "Do you know where she's been?"
"Of course. She's been down in California."
"Doing what?"
"Tracking Don Wolf."
"But why? The man's dead."
"As Mark Antony said about Julius Caesar, ‘The evil that men do lives after them.' These are the nineties, Detective Beaumont. Just because the man is dead doesn't mean he can no longer hurt her."
There was a short pause before I finally tumbled to what she meant. "You mean AIDS?"
"Of course I mean AIDS. I haven't brought it up with Latty, because I don't want to alarm her unnecessarily. Nonetheless, Virginia is trying to find out if he had any other…sexual connections. Besides his wife, I mean."
It crossed my mind that for that kind of information, a trip to California wasn't the least bit necessary. In fact, all Virginia Marks would have needed to do was talk to Jack Braman of the Lake View Condos. But I didn't tell Grace Highsmith that. It wasn't my job.
"I'll need to talk to Virginia Marks as soon as possible, Miss Highsmith," I said. "And to Latty as well. Please give them my phone numbers. Here's another card in case you misplaced the first one. It would be better for all concerned if they contacted me rather than having to be tracked down."
This time Grace Highsmith slipped the card into her pocket. She seemed suddenly subdued and diminished. "You knew right away I was lying, didn't you," she said.
I nodded.
"I was a fair actress once," she said sadly. "I really thought I could pull it off. Now that it's out in public, though, my confession is probably going to cause a good deal of trouble."
"Telling me doesn't mean it's public knowledge. Don't worry about it," I added. "I certainly don't hold it against you. After all, Latty's your niece. You were only trying to protect her."
"Thank you, Detective Beaumont," she said. "You've been most kind."
I opened the door and let Grace back into her shop, then I climbed into the parked Porsche and started the engine. As I glanced in the rearview mirror, I noticed that a van with a television station's logo emblazoned on the front was waiting to pull into my parking place.
At the time, I didn't think a thing about it, although, if I'd been smart, I would have.
Thirteen
Once I was in the car and headed back into Seattle, I remembered the previous day's hassle with Sergeant Watkins about my not using the beeper. Just to be on the safe side, I checked the display. As soon as I saw the number on the readout-Watty's, of course-I felt like one of those fork-bending psychics.
I called him on my cellular phone. "Detective Beaumont," he grumbled. "Where the devil have you been? I've been looking everywhere. I even checked with motor pool, but they told me you hadn't signed out a car."
"I've been busy," I said. "What's up?"
"I'll tell you what's up. The Media Relations folks have been climbing all over me for the last hour and a half. Phil Grimes is fit to be tied."
"Media Relations? How come?"
"The jail commander is calling every other minute, complaining because the street outside their sally port is blocked almost solid with wall-to-wall television trucks, cameras, and reporters."
"What's going on at the jail?" I asked. "Have I missed something important?"
"Don't try running that phony innocence crap past me, Detective Beaumont," Watty growled into the phone. "This time, I'm not falling for it."
Phony innocence? For once, it wasn't a matter of feigning innocence, because I didn't have the foggiest idea of why Watty was so steamed. One thing was painfully clear, however. It had something to do with me.
"What's going on?" Watty continued. "I'll tell you what's going on. Right around eleven-thirty, somebody supposedly in the know faxed every damn newspaper and television and radio station in town and told them that early this afternoon, Seattle Homicide Detective J. P. Beaumont would be arresting Grace Highsmith and charging her with the murder of Don Wolf. The accompanying confession to Don Wolf's murder appears to be handwritten on Grace Highsmith's personal stationery and over her signature."
"But I didn't even meet up with her until…Suddenly feeling half sick, I remembered how long it had taken Grace Highsmith to come back out of the back room. She hadn't tried to skip out on me. She had simply outfoxed me at every turn.
"She sent out a signed confession? And an advance announcement of her impending arrest?"
"That's right," Watty returned glumly.
I tried making light of it. "Come on, Watty. You know how this stuff goes. There isn't a major case on the books where we don't end up with at least one or two phony confessions. This one's no different."
"Believe me, Detective Beaumont, it is different. Now where is she, Beau? Did you arrest her or not?"
"No, I didn't arrest her. Her confession was so full of holes it was a joke-a put-up deal. The last time I saw Grace Highsmith, she was walking in the door of her gift shop in downtown Bellevue. I don't understand why everybody's so upset. There was never any question of my arresting her."
"Why the confession, then?" Watty asked.
"Grace Highsmith is a nice little old lady who was trying to protect her niece."
"Nice little old lady!" Watty scoffed. "Here she is, confessing to a killing and announcing the victim's name in public when we haven't even released that information to the media. Makes the whole department look like a bunch of jackasses. And if she's so damned nice, Detective Beaumont, how come she knew the victim's name?"
"I already told you, Watty. She was trying to protect her niece."
"So the niece is the killer then?"
"Could be. I don't know," I said. "Not yet anyway, although there's a good possibility. The aunt gave me a gun that may be the murder weapon. She opened up her
purse and dumped a thirty-two auto out onto the table right in the middle of lunch."
"Is it the murder weapon or isn't it?" Watty demanded.
"Maybe."
"Look here, Detective Beaumont. I want a lot more than maybes on this, and I want it fast. Where is this alleged murder weapon right now?"
"In my pocket."
I didn't add that it was wrapped up in doggy-bag aluminum foil. I don't think Sergeant Watkins would have seen any humor in that.
"You'd by God better find out whether it is or not," he fumed. "I want a definitive yes or no, and the sooner the better. If I were you, I'd take the damn thing straight to the crime lab and check it out. And I'd do it before Captain Powell nails you. He's hot."
"Hot? What's he upset about?"
"About your not keeping us informed about what you're doing, that's what. If one of his officers is investigating a member of the University of Washington Board of Regents with regard to a current homicide case, then it stands to reason that the captain would appreciate having that information come to him directly from the detective involved and not from some lippy television reporter who looks like she just got her high school diploma late last week."
A few words leaped out at me from Watty's latest harangue, and they left me stunned: Member of the Board of Regents! Did that mean Grace Highsmith?…Of course, no wonder her name had sounded so familiar.
"Now where the hell are you?" Watty continued. "Captain Powell was looking for you a few minutes ago, and so was Detective Kramer."
Obviously, at that precise moment, they both wanted to see me a whole lot more than I wanted to see either one of them.
"Like you suggested, I'm on my way to the State Patrol Weapons Section in Tacoma," I said quickly. "If I head down there right away, I may be able to make the trip before rush hour rather than being caught in the middle of it."
