by J. A. Jance
"I want to hear from you the moment you know anything," Watty said. "You got that?"
"Got it," I said.
"What about this next-of-kin situation on both Don Wolf and the I.D. on the second victim? With his name out over all the media, people are beginning to link the two cases. The captain wants to know-"
"Tell him I'm on it," I said. "I'll keep you posted."
"Good," Watty returned. "You do that."
Once I hit I-5, I turned south toward Tacoma. In the old days, two o'clock in the afternoon would most likely have been pre-rush hour. Nowadays, in the Seattle/Tacoma area, rush hour tends to last twenty-four hours a day. I made fairly good time until I got to the diamond-lane construction zone and a three-car injury accident down by Boeing Field. From then on, it was stop-and-go traffic all the way to the Midway landfill. A drive that should have taken forty-five minutes max took almost two hours.
That's the price of progress, I guess. Used to be, in order to get to the weapons experts, all I would have had to do was walk down a couple of flights of stairs. For years, most of the local functions of the Washington State Patrol crime lab were performed in the Public Safety Building in downtown Seattle. In recent months, however, all that had changed as the crime lab moved into more modern and supposedly more earthquake-proof quarters elsewhere. The firearms section was now working out of a temporary location on the outskirts of Tacoma.
Gabe Rios is a forensic scientist who specializes in weapons, especially firearms. When the receptionist led me into his cluttered office, I was pleased to note that here was a man whose work space was even messier than mine. Sitting with his feet propped up on a paper-strewn desk, Gabe was so deeply engrossed in reading a gun magazine that I wondered if he'd even notice our presence.
"Sorry," he said, when he eventually looked up and caught sight of us. He put down the magazine, made some kind of notation on a computer keyboard, then looked back at me with a lopsided grin as the receptionist dropped me off and then backed out the door.
"Hey, Detective Beaumont. Long time no see. What brings you all the way down here to the wilds of east Tacoma?"
Without a word, I handed over the foil-wrapped package.
"Lunch?" Gabe asked. "Beau, you shouldn't have."
"Don't worry, I didn't," I returned. "It's one of those new Seecamps."
"Pretty little thing, isn't it," Gabe said, once he untwisted the foil and the. 32 was exposed to view. "What is this, your new backup weapon? Did you stop by to show off and rub our noses in it? I understand these little babies are real tough to come by."
"It's not mine," I said. "This one fell out of a little old lady's purse, right in the middle of lunch. There's a good possibility it's a murder weapon. Did the medical examiner's office send over the bullet from the New Year's Eve shooting?"
"Which one?" Gabe asked.
"Don Wolf. The floater with the bullet in his head. Has Audrey Cummings sent you anything on him yet?"
"I think so," Gabe said. "Hang on a minute." Frowning in concentration, he rifled through the top layer of debris stacked on his desk. At last, he unearthed a large manila envelope which he waved at me in triumph.
"See there?" he said. "I knew it was here somewhere. It came in just a little while ago. I've taken a preliminary look at it, but that's about all. The bullet's in pretty good shape, considering, so I'd say it mostly went through soft tissue."
I nodded. "That's right. Base of the skull at point-blank range."
Gabe looked down at the. 32 auto and clicked his tongue. "They may be little, but oh my."
"How's the rifling?" I asked.
Fortunately, most people never have to look down the barrel of a gun. If they did, they'd see a series of spirals. Those markings, known in the trade as lands and grooves-lands for the raised parts and grooves for the depressions-are what put the spin on a bullet when it comes through the barrel of the gun, leaving behind a series of distinctive marks. These marks are called rifling. For an expert like Gabe, rifling patterns from one gun are distinctly different from those made by any other. To him, they're also as easy to differentiate as two different sets of fingerprints would be to someone who spends all his or her working hours dealing with the details of putting fingerprints into the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.
"Pretty good for a hollowpoint," Gabe answered. "Want me to lift prints off the gun before I test fire it?" he asked.
"You can try, but my guess is it's been wiped clean."
Gabe shrugged. "It can't hurt to try." He got up and headed for the door, taking the. 32 with him. "This may take some time, especially if we're lifting prints. Make yourself at home, Beau. You're welcome to use both my phone and my desk if you want, as long as the mess doesn't bother you too much."
"Thanks," I said. "The phone would be a big help, and the mess looks just like home."
Careful not to turn any of the stacks of paper into miniavalanches, I gingerly made my way around Gabe's desk, eased into his leather chair, and picked up his phone.
On the way down in the car, I had tried reaching Captain Kilpatrick down in La Jolla. It hadn't been a particularly satisfying experience. "The captain's in a meeting, and I don't know anything at all about a next-of-kin notification," the young woman on the phone had told me in a tone that implied she didn't much give a damn, either. "I don't know if he'll be back in his office this afternoon or not. He may go straight home after the meeting."
"Would you mind taking a message, just in case?"
"Who did you say was calling?"
"Beaumont," I had answered. "Detective J. P. Beaumont of Seattle P.D."
"Where's that?" she had asked.
"Seattle. All the way up here in Washington State."
"Oh, really?" she had said vaguely. "I always thought Seattle was somewhere in Oregon."
Gritting my teeth, I had gone on to leave a message asking Kilpatrick if there were any new developments in the Don Wolf case. I had ended the call and spent the rest of the trip to Tacoma grousing about the half-witted nim-nulls who had decided public schools in this country no longer needed to teach geography.
That exercise in mental curmudgeonliness had kept me occupied. It had given me an excuse to gripe at someone else, and had provided enough intellectual interference to keep me from thinking about some of my own issues. Like Grace Highsmith's all-too-public confession. Like Captain Larry Powell's current case of righteous indignation. Like Detective Paul Kramer's whining.
It took time to sort through all the hoops it takes to make a third-party long distance call from Gabe's office phone. Call me a Luddite if you want, but please spare me from all that newfangled telecommunications equipment with all the computerized bells and whistles. There was something wonderfully simple and straightforward about the old days when you picked up a telephone receiver and some nice lady said, "Number, please." Back then, if you wanted to bill a call to another number, all you had to do was say so.
In Gabe's office at the crime lab in Tacoma, I discovered the hard way that it isn't easy to make the Washington State Patrol's long distance provider coordinate with Seattle P.D.'s long distance provider. I dialed in access codes until I was blue in the face before I finally made a telephone actually ring in far-off La Jolla, California, at ten after five.
Not only did the phone ring, but-miracle of miracles-a live human voice answered, "Homicide Captain Wayne Kilpatrick speaking."
"Detective Beaumont of the Seattle Police Department, Captain," I said.
"Oh, yeah," he returned. "I just found your message asking about whether or not there are any new developments. Unfortunately, I don't have much of anything to report from this end. I turned that situation over to one of my people, Detective Enders. Haven't you heard from her yet?"
"Not so far."
"Hold the phone and let me see if I can track her down."
He put me on hold. I was grateful that, instead of the strains of Muzak, only silence greeted my ear. After what seemed like sever
al minutes, Kilpatrick came back on the line. "Are you still there?"
"So far."
"Hold on and I'll transfer you."
After only one ring, a woman answered. "Detective Lucille Enders," she said.
"Detective Beaumont here," I said. "Seattle P.D."
"Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier-I got called out on another case."
"That's all right. Do you have anything for me?"
"As a matter of fact, I do. I spent a big part of my morning at Alpha-Cyte talking to a guy named Harry Moore who owns the place. I picked up Lizbeth Wolf's mother's name, address, and phone number, but I still haven't been able to locate her. Moore seemed really broken up by the idea that something may have happened to Lizbeth Wolf. He wanted details, and I told him I didn't have any. That he'd have to talk to you or to someone else up there in Seattle to get the whole story. He gave me his direct line at work as well as his home number. He said for you to go ahead and call regardless of how late it is."
She read off the numbers, and I jotted them down. "And the mother?"
I heard the shuffle of pages as Detective Enders thumbed through her own notebook. "Here it is. Her name's Anna Dorn. She lives in Laguna Beach."
"What about finding anyone connected to the other victim, to Don Wolf?" I asked.
"I've run into a brick wall there," Detective Enders told me. "It's as though he never existed. Are you sure you didn't make him up?"
"I'm relatively certain I didn't."
I looked over my notes. "How far is Laguna Beach from where you are?" I asked.
"Ninety minutes or so, depending on traffic. Why?"
"Damn!" I said. "That's too far. I guess I'd better call there and see if someone in the Laguna Beach police department will go out and track her down."
"Why, what's going on?"
"Don Wolf's name was inadvertently released to the media today, and the connection to Lizbeth can't be far behind," I explained. "I'm afraid the mother will end up seeing it on television or reading it in the newspaper before we have a chance to notify her in person, especially since we still don't know for sure whether or not the second victim is Lizbeth Wolf."
"I'll handle it," Lucille Enders said briskly. "I'm off shift now. I was just completing some paperwork. I'll leave for Laguna Beach as soon as I finish."
"I can't ask you to do that, Detective Enders. I'll-"
"Nobody's asking me," Lucille cut in. "I'm telling you, I'll handle it. And I'll call you and let you know when it's been done."
"Why would you do that?" I asked.
"Because I'm a mother, too," Lucille Enders answered. "And because Lizbeth Wolf is Anna Dorn's only child."
"Thank you," I said. "Thank you very much."
Who says there's no place in the world for women detectives? Maybe I would have said so once, but not anymore. I've learned my lesson.
When I finished that call, at least I already knew all the necessary codes. Compared to the first long distance call, the second one was a snap. And even though it was almost five-thirty by then, Harry Moore answered his direct line at Alpha-Cyte.
"Detective Beaumont," he said. "Ever since Detective Enders left, I've been sitting here hoping you'd call. Tell me, what happened?"
"It's all very sketchy, so far. At this time, we're reasonably sure Don Wolf was murdered. If the victim found in his apartment turns out to be his wife, she may or may not have committed suicide."
Harry Moore's sharp intake of breath was almost a sob. "Oh, my God!" he whimpered. "Suicide? I was afraid that's what you were going to say. If she killed herself, it's my fault. All my fault."
"Why would it be your fault?"
"We had a big argument, a couple of days after Christmas. She left in a huff."
"What was the argument about?"
"What else? That worthless husband of hers."
In Harry Moore I had encountered yet another nonfan of the late, great Donald Wolf.
"Wait a minute, Mr. Moore. Let me ask a question. How well do you know Lizbeth Wolf?"
"Very well. She started working here as an intern while she was still in college. I trained her myself. She's done virtually every job here, from the most intricate research procedures to typing annual reports."
"Can you tell me if she was right- or left-handed?"
"Left, of course. Why do you need to know that?"
I closed my eyes, remembering the scene in Don Wolf's bedroom. I could still see a clear image of the dead woman's lifeless left hand, complete with gold wedding band, hanging down on the left-hand side of the bed. Potentially, that made one more piece of the puzzle slip into place. The gun had been found on the other side of the bed. If Lizbeth Wolf actually turned out to be the victim, Audrey Cummings was right in saying she hadn't committed suicide.
"In that case, Mr. Moore, if it's any consolation, I think I can assure you that the dead woman, whoever she is, was murdered."
"Did Don Wolf kill her?" Harry asked.
Good question. We had all been going on the assumption that Don Wolf had died first, thus leaving him out as a suspect in the death of the woman found in his condo. That possibly erroneous conclusion was largely based on the fact that his body had been found first. I made myself a note to check with Audrey Cummings to see if the autopsy had allowed them to pinpoint time of death for either victim.
"By person or persons unknown," I said.
"Just wait," Harry Moore said. "You'll see. I always knew there was something terribly wrong with that guy. Oh, he looked great. He was a snazzy dresser-a real lady's man. But when he waltzed in here last summer and swept Lizbeth off her feet the way he did, I knew right then something wasn't right. Lizbeth had been with me for so long that she seemed more like a member of my family than an employee. Like the daughter I never had. Maybe I was a little overprotective, and I think Lizbeth resented it. But jeez, I could tell from the start that the guy was bad news. It's hard for someone like me to keep my mouth shut. Then last week, when the SOB proved me right, I had to go and open my big yap and tell her ‘I told you so.' After that, all hell broke loose."
"Maybe you should try telling me the whole story," I suggested, "from the beginning."
Harry took a deep breath. "Don Wolf showed up down here midsummer of last year. I forget now where he and Lizbeth met. Once they did, it was whirlwind courtship time. Within weeks, she was wearing a rock for an engagement ring. I tried to tell her that he was rushing things too much and pressuring her into getting married before she knew enough about him. These days, with all the drug dealing and such, when somebody has plenty of money and no visible means of support, no regular job, you can't be too cautious. So anyway, when I tried to talk her into slowing down and taking some time to get to know him before jumping into anything, we had a huge fight. I was afraid she was going to up and quit on me. In the end, she just told me to mind my own business. Two weeks after that-less than a month after they met-they ran off to Vegas and got married. And two months later, he tells her, ‘By the way, I've got this new job up in Seattle. See you around.' Lizbeth tried to pretend that his taking off like that didn't matter, but it did. It had to hurt like hell."
"My understanding was that she was down here waiting for the house to sell," I said.
"In order to sell a house, you have to list it," Harry Moore said. "That business about staying here to sell it is what she told everybody, just to save face. And who can blame her? There she was, a blushing first-time bride almost forty years old. And what happens? The groom takes off and leaves her high and dry."
"So what happened last week?"
"Lizbeth called me from home. She had been off on sick leave for several days the week before Christmas, and Alpha-Cyte shuts down completely between Christmas and New Year's. She called me, crying. She asked me to come over because she needed to talk to someone, and she didn't know where else to turn. When I got to the house, she was in pretty bad shape. She had been in bed for two days with a terrible cold. Not only that, she'd ju
st received a letter from Don saying there had been some kind of mistake. That there had been a glitch in the proceedings somewhere along the line. The upshot was that Wolf's divorce from his first wife hadn't been final at the time he and Lizbeth eloped to Vegas. According to him, it turned out they weren't married after all. That sleezeball was a bigamist."
Among other things, I thought. "What then?" I asked.
"First I said, ‘I told you so,' which, as my wife pointed out later, was exactly the wrong thing to say. Then I offered to put Lizbeth in touch with my personal attorney so she could get some advice on her legal standing-like, did she need an annulment or could she take the bastard to court and sue his socks off? I don't know why I bothered. It was just like pissing into the wind."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because as soon as I finished, she asked if she could have another week off once the Christmas holidays were over. She said she was going to drive up to Seattle and try to straighten things out with Don. And I said, ‘What's to straighten out? Stay the hell away from the slimy bastard.' I probably said some other things, too. I don't remember it all. I'm sure I hurt Lizbeth's feelings. I guess I'm not what you call a sensitive guy when it comes to women. I just wanted to protect her is all. I didn't want her to be hurt."
Harry Moore's voice broke. I could believe that the connection between him and Lizbeth Wolf went beyond the ordinary employer/employee connections, although I couldn't sort out exactly what their relationship might have been.
"When was this conversation, Mr. Moore?"
He cleared his throat. "The twenty-ninth. Maybe even the thirtieth."
"She would have driven?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "Lizbeth loved to drive. She had herself a little four-wheel-drive Subaru wagon. Even with snow, she wouldn't have had any trouble getting over the mountains."
"When I first told you about Lizbeth, Mr. Moore, you asked me if her husband had killed her. Was there any particular reason you said that? Do you know anything about him that would make him a possible suspect in your mind?"
