Proof of Life

by J. A. Jance

  Our waitress came over with her ticket pad at the ready. We both ordered coffee and said we weren’t ready to order food.

  “What about having kids?” I asked once the waitress left.

  Cherisse searched through her purse, took out a single piece of paper, and pushed it across the table to me. It resembled a very blurry photograph, but it wasn’t exactly an appropriate time to go searching for my reading glasses.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “It’s from an ultrasound,” Cherisse said, “proof of life. I’m pregnant.”

  That wasn’t at all the news I had been dreading, but there it was. I knew that Scott and Cherisse hadn’t planned on having kids ever, but despite all that, they were about to. Surprise, surprise. That happens. All the time. If you don’t believe it, just ask my daughter . . . or my mother.

  “We discussed the topic while we were still dating,” Cherisse went on. “We always said we weren’t going to have kids. And we’ve been using protection, but . . .”

  “It didn’t work.”

  She nodded miserably. “When I tried to tell Scott—when I tried to bring it up—he had such a bad reaction, I just couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t, and now I don’t know what to do. If he’s completely opposed to having kids, maybe I should just go ahead, get it over with, and have an abortion.”

  Now I was totally and completely out of my depth! Where the hell was Mel when I needed her? If Cherisse was pregnant with Scott’s child, that baby was my grandchild. Mine! The last thing I wanted was to miss the chance to meet and cherish that unknown little one. And yet . . . I had no right to tell Scott and Cherisse how to live their lives. Except she had asked for my advice, right? And in a way, so had Scott.

  I knew I was walking an emotional tightrope here. I couldn’t risk saying something that would betray the unwitting confidences Scott had shared with me. I also couldn’t leave poor Cherisse sitting there trapped in such abject misery. Another deflection was in order.

  “You love Scott, right?”

  She nodded.

  “And he loves you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have to talk to him about this, then,” I said. “You have to. I don’t think it’s so much that he doesn’t want to have a baby—this baby or any other. I think he’s afraid he won’t measure up and be a good enough father.”

  “You think that’s all it is?”

  “I know that’s all it is. He’s over forty, he’s recently embarked on an entirely new career, and he’s a Beaumont.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That Scott has a terminal case of thinking he’s not good enough. It’s one of those unfortunate family traits that are passed on from generation to generation.”

  I had noticed our server keeping a wary eye on our table. Now that Cherisse seemed to have recovered her composure, the waitress returned to take our two orders—mine for ham and eggs and Cherisse’s for nothing but dry toast.

  “Queasy?” I asked as the waitress walked away.

  Cherisse nodded. “Very,” she said.

  During that brief order-taking interlude, I searched my soul for the right thing to say. Still coming up empty, I dragged out my reading glasses and then picked up the black-and-white photo that still lay on the table. After peering at it for some time, I eventually made out the ghostly image of a baby.

  “If your father were here, what would he want you to do about this?” I asked, with my eyes still on the ultrasound image.

  “Keep him.”

  Him? So this baby wasn’t just an it—he was my grandson!

  “What about you? What do you want to do?”

  “The same—keep him.”

  And that’s when the answer came to me—like a bolt out of the blue—in the form of a mostly unwanted dog, one who was even now sitting outside in the car, waiting for me.

  “I’m guessing you know that Mel and I have been talking about getting a dog—sort of a maybe, maybe-not situation?”

  Cherisse nodded.

  “It turns out now we have one.”

  She looked surprised—more like astonished. “Really?”

  I nodded. “Her name’s Lucy, and take my word for it—she’s an ugly-looking beast. When I first met her late on Sunday afternoon, I was more than a little wary, but do you know what’s happened? In just a matter of days, that damned dog has grown on me—and I have a doggy door, forty-plus pounds of kibble, four dog dishes, and three dog beds to prove it.”

  Cherisse gave me a faint smile. “So?”

  “There’s a huge difference between wanting or not wanting a hypothetical dog and meeting a real one. I think the same thing will hold true here.”

  I handed the paper back to Cherisse. “All you have to do is show Scott this,” I continued. “Once he sees this little person, he’s going to want him, too.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, I do,” I told her. “I believe it with all my heart.”

  The truth is, I’m every bit as much of a Beaumont as my son is. What I was hoping, of course, with my out-of-sight fingers crossed under the table, was that this little riff of Father Knows Best would be good enough to do the trick.

  CHAPTER 17

  AS CHERISSE AND I LEFT JULIA’S AFTER BREAKFAST, WE stopped by the car long enough for me to officially introduce Lucy to my daughter-in-law. On the way back to Belltown Terrace, with Lucy’s head once again resting on my shoulder, I attempted to explain to the dog how grateful I was that she had helped me out of a tight spot with Cherisse and Scott. Did she get the message? Maybe. Her lanky tail thumped against the back of the front passenger seat a couple of times.

  I waited until Lucy and I were back upstairs at the condo before answering any missed calls. One of the buzzes on my phone had been from Mel. She had left a message saying she was jammed up with meetings all day and wondering when I’d be home. Would Rambo (Mel had yet to make the name transition over to Lucy) and I be coming up to Bellingham for the weekend, or should she plan on joining us in Seattle? Gratified to know that Mel actually missed me, and hoping to spend at least part of the weekend working on the Maxwell Cole situation, I sent her a text suggesting that she come south once she finished up at work, adding that, for today only, she was in charge of dinner arrangements.

  This constituted a clear win/win for me. That way I wouldn’t be making some kind of dinner reservation for which Mel might or might not arrive on time. And presumably, if she picked up some kind of takeout along the way, she and her relatively hot food would arrive simultaneously.

  The other buzz announced an e-mail from Todd with a subject line that said, “With regard to your earlier question.” The message included a downloadable PDF and a single telephone number—one with a 360 prefix, which meant it was somewhere in Washington State but outside the Seattle area. Once I downloaded and opened the PDF, I saw a photocopy of what was apparently a Washington State driver’s license. I had to enlarge the image several times before I was able to read it.

  Once I did, it stopped me cold. The name on the license was that of John David Madsen, with an address in Chehalis, Washington. But what really got my attention was the familiar face of the man in the photo, because I had just seen him—hurriedly ducking out through the back door after Max’s funeral. In the photo the beard was much shorter than he wore it now and so was the hair, but this was definitely the same guy. No wonder that he had seemed familiar but unplaceable, and no wonder he had been in such a hurry to leave. The man I had once known as Pete Kelsey had wanted to escape the funeral without having to encounter his estranged foster daughter.

  Todd had thoughtfully tracked down Madsen’s phone number for me and sent it along. I dialed the number at once but got no answer. When the prompt asked me if I wanted to leave a message, I didn’t. I thought it was best that when I finally did get around to speaking to John Madsen, it would be a surprise.

  Temporarily stymied on that score, I dialed another number—this time the one Dr
. Roz had given me as Albert Thorne’s home number.

  “Hey, Beau,” Al said once I identified myself. Obviously Al was someone who still used his landline phone; otherwise he would have known who was calling without my having to tell him. “How’s it hanging?” he asked. “And how the hell did you get this number?”

  Answering the second question took a fair amount of explanation and lots of detail. “So let me get this straight,” Al said at last when I finally finished my long spiel. “Maxwell Cole sent this Erin person an e-mail saying that he was worried someone might knock him off and telling her that he wanted you to investigate whatever might happen. In the process, he also asked her to invite you to his funeral?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “If he was that worried someone was after him, why the hell didn’t he call the cops his own damned self?”

  “Believe me,” I said, “I’ve asked myself that same question and come up with no reasonable answers.”

  “Regardless,” Al said, “I’m telling you right here and now that the fire that killed Maxwell Cole wasn’t arson.”

  “You know that because . . .?” I prompted.

  “No multiple ignition spots, for one thing,” Al told me. “No sign of any accelerants, either, other than the spilled bottle of scotch that got knocked onto the floor beside his bed. I’m sure that flamed up like nobody’s business. I’ve seen this scenario way too often, Beau. You drink yourself into oblivion and then go nighty-night with a smoke of some kind in your hand, what do you expect? But given all that, you still think this wasn’t an accident?”

  “I’d like to be sure.”

  Al sighed. “Anybody ever mention that you’re a complete pain in the ass?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh aloud at that. “Plenty of people; plenty of times. You’re certainly not the first.”

  Al laughed, too. “Now tell me again, when’s the last time you saw our mutual dead guy?”

  “Last Friday night late as he was leaving a restaurant here in the Regrade—El Gaucho. He told me he was working on something—an old case maybe—and he was concerned about the possibility of some kind of pushback. On Saturday he sent Erin that text I told you about, urging her to contact me if anything happened to him. In other words, between Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, things must have changed for the worse, or he would have spoken to me about it directly the night before, right?”

  “Makes sense, I suppose,” Al agreed. “So what exactly are you looking for?”

  “What I need more than anything is to locate one or more of Max’s electronic devices—a computer, a cell phone, or an iPad. Once we find them, Erin can go through the legal hoops to give me access to his files. So that’s my question: did someone from Homicide collect any of Max’s equipment as evidence and cart it out of the house on Sunday morning?”

  “Not on my watch,” Al assured me. “In dealing with a fire involving possible injuries or fatalities, it’s ABS’s job to make the call as to whether or not Homicide is brought in on the case. Based on what I saw at the scene, I opted to leave Homicide out of the loop. Didn’t think they were needed. And I certainly never authorized that anything at all be removed from the house. Once the fire was out, it was Seattle FD’s job to board up the place and install crime scene tape.”

  “In other words, unless there was interference from looters of some kind after the firefighters left, whatever was in the house at the time of the fire should still be there?” I asked.

  “Should be.”

  A long silence followed. I worked my way through college as a Fuller Brush man. I suppose Fuller Brush boy would be closer to the mark, but my manager back in that long-gone era of door-to-door sales taught me that if you’re in some kind of negotiation and the other person goes completely quiet on you, it usually means your opposition is busy considering his or her options. In that case, the first person to open his trap is bound to lose.

  “Tell me about this Erin person again—your client . . .” Al began.

  “Erin Howard is a friend rather than a client,” I corrected.

  “Whatever,” Al said impatiently. “Whoever she is, she’s of the opinion that somebody came into Maxwell Cole’s house, somehow doped him up with a combination of sleep meds and booze, lit up his cigar, and then walked out of the house and left him to die? A scenario like that doesn’t seem very realistic to me.”

  I had to admit, the whole thing seemed far-fetched to me as well. “You’re saying there were no signs of any kind of struggle?”

  Al laughed. “Come on, J.P. You know the drill. By the time the fire department finishes putting out a fire, you’d better believe there are going to be signs of a struggle—all kinds of signs. But you’re asking if there were any troubling signs of a struggle that preceded the fire, in this case, I’d have to say no. I saw no indication of forced entry or of any kind of confrontation between the victim and someone else. By the way, you ever hear of an attorney by the name of Delia Rojas?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “It turns out she’s Maxwell Cole’s attorney—at least that’s who she claims to be. She left a message for me late last night, and I called her back this morning. She’s attempting to initiate the homeowner’s insurance claim, and time is of the essence. In situations like this, water damage from fighting the fire can be far worse than that caused by the fire itself. In order to get the cleanup ball rolling, a claims adjustor needs to have access to the dwelling. Since the residence is currently red-flagged, no one is allowed inside until a building inspector from the city of Seattle deems the structure safe. It so happens, I’ve got an appointment to meet up with the inspector at three o’clock this afternoon.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “I’m saying we could go through channels and ask the attorney if she’d be willing to allow you to go inside or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  “Or maybe you’d like to do a ride-along.”

  As far as my investigation was concerned, getting a firsthand look at the crime scene would be invaluable. “You bet,” I said at once. “I’ll be there with bells on. Should I meet you there?”

  “No, sir,” Al said. “When I said, ‘ride along,’ that’s exactly what I meant. You tell me where you are, and I’ll come pick you up. That way, when you arrive on the scene in an official vehicle with your very own hard hat, the building inspector won’t be any the wiser. Unless you get hurt, of course. In which case my ass is grass.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  “There’s one more condition,” Al added. “Nothing gets touched and nothing leaves the scene. If you find one of Mr. Cole’s so-called devices, it stays right where it is until we get official permission from either Ms. Rojas or that Erin person saying you’re allowed to touch it. Got it?”

  “Understood,” I told him.

  I gave him my address and got off the phone feeling like I’d won a lotto jackpot. Al Thorne had just given my “unofficial” investigation a big step up. As far as I was concerned, it didn’t get much better than that.

  To his credit, Al was good to his word. When he showed up outside Belltown Terrace at ten to three in one of the old, clunky metallic blue departmental sedans, I was already down in the lobby waiting. He had to move a pair of hard hats out of the way in order to clear a spot on the passenger seat so I could have a place to sit. He gave my clothing—a pair of slacks, a white shirt, and a sport jacket—a once-over and followed with a disapproving shake of his head.

  “You’re not exactly dressed for the occasion,” he warned.

  When we stopped in front of Max’s house on Bigelow and stepped out of the car, I noticed that he was wearing a full-body khaki jumpsuit embroidered with the monogram ABS just above the Seattle PD emblem. Knowing whatever clothing he was wearing underneath was fully protected, I felt a little envious. Still, if he had brought along an extra jumpsuit for me to wear, we both would have been walking dangerously close to the line of my imper
sonating a police officer—a crime, by the way. Later when Al introduced me to the building inspector as his “colleague, J. P. Beaumont,” we were both pretty close to that slippery slope.

  The building inspector, however, couldn’t have cared less who either of us was. Accepting our presence as the real deal, he demanded no badges or identification of any sort. Armed with his own hard hat, jumpsuit, and clipboard, he marched purposefully up to the house and used a battery-powered screwdriver to remove the sheet of plywood someone had screwed into the frame to cover the front door. I noticed that all the windows had been similarly shuttered.

  “Here,” Al said, handing me a miniature Maglite. “We’re both going to need one of these.”

  We stepped through the door and into an evil-smelling murky darkness. Saturated wall-to-wall carpet bubbled and squished underfoot. The place reeked of smoke and mold and mildew. Firefighters had managed to confine the fire to the upper floor of the house, but the water used to fight the flames had run downstream, soaking everything on the lower floor into a sodden mess.

  While the building inspector did his thing, Al and I took a look around, including making a brief foray into the burned-out upstairs bedroom. A charred booze bottle lay on the floor next to a mound of naked bedsprings. I recognized the melted remains of Max’s three-pronged cane, lying among what appeared to be the ruins of an overturned bedside table. Nearby something shiny caught the beam from Al’s flashlight and glittered in the darkness.

  Al bent over to examine the item more closely. “Rolex,” he pronounced, but he left the watch where it was. Nearby lay a tangle of bare wires, all of them devoid of their respective casings. Those were readily identifiable as several different charger cables, but there was no sign of any accompanying devices.

  I flashed my light around the charred ceiling and eventually found what I was looking for. “Isn’t that a smoke detector?” I asked.