Long Time Gone

by J. A. Jance

  Tony Freeman gave me a searching look. “Marchbank. The name sounds familiar. Wait a minute. Isn’t Marchbank the name of the woman who was found at the bottom of a flight of stairs last night?”

  “That’s right. Elvira Marchbank, not Madeline. And Elvira was one of two perpetrators identified by the eyewitness in that other case.”

  “And Wink Winkler was the investigating officer.”

  I nodded. “You’re sure he committed suicide?”

  “Nothing’s for sure. If he didn’t and with this Elvira woman dead as well, that eyewitness of yours could be a whole lot more than what she claims to be,” Tony Freeman observed.

  It was a fair conjecture. If Paul Kramer and his detectives weren’t making the same connection themselves, they soon would be.

  “Is there money involved?” Tony asked.

  I thought about the Marchbank Foundation. “Probably,” I said.

  “Well, then,” Tony said. “Do what I do. Follow the money.”

  He finished writing his note and stuffed the notepad back in his pocket. “I’ll take a look at the file,” he said. “If anything jumps out at me, I’ll let you know.”

  Tony excused himself to go talk to Ron while I went looking for Sister Mary Katherine. She was sitting in the same place where I had left her, but someone—Tracy, presumably—had brought her a cup of coffee and a plate of tiny sandwiches and cookies.

  “Time to go home?” she asked.

  “Home,” I agreed. “But mine, not yours.”

  “We’re going to your place?” Sister Mary Katherine asked. “Why?”

  “Wink Winkler is dead.”

  “What happened?”

  “First reports suggest a possible suicide.”

  “Is he dead because of me?” Sister Mary Katherine asked.

  It seemed to me that was probably true, but I chose not to say so.

  “Is that why I can’t go home?” she added.

  “Kramer may have blown us off this morning, and we didn’t see Detective Jackson at lunch, but you can bet they’re going to want to talk to you this evening. If I take you home, you’ll just have to turn around and come straight back.”

  “Why are you so sure they’re going to want to talk to me?” she asked.

  “Because I’m going to call them up and tell them to,” I said.

  And I did. Some telephone numbers never fall out of your head. Captain Larry Powell’s number was still there in my dialing finger even though his desk was now in another building and belonged to someone else. Kramer answered his phone on the second ring.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said dismissively once I identified myself. “That little lady of yours is something else. Everywhere she goes, people are dropping like flies.”

  I bristled at that. Sister Mary Katherine was nobody’s “little lady” and she most especially wasn’t mine.

  “This is a courtesy call,” I said civilly. “Sister Mary Katherine was about to head home for Whidbey Island when we heard about Wink Winkler’s death. I thought you might want to speak with her about the Madeline Marchbank situation after all.”

  “I doubt that will be necessary,” Kramer replied brusquely. “That whole situation is under control.”

  I could hardly believe my ears. “You’re not interested in interviewing her?”

  “Not at this time. I told you earlier that we’re not going to do any kind of investigation based on the faulty premise of forgotten memories. Maybe the AG’s office can afford to squander resources like that, but I can’t. We’ve reopened Madeline Marchbank’s homicide, and we’ll be following up on it through conventional methods and with conventional detective work.”

  “I don’t think you’re paying attention, Paul. Sister Mary Katherine says Elvira Marchbank was one of the perpetrators in that case—”

  “One of the alleged perpetrators,” Kramer corrected.

  “And Winkler was the lead investigating officer,” I continued. “Both of them died within hours of learning about Sister Mary Katherine’s potentially damaging allegations. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “It tells me people are messing around where they shouldn’t be messing,” Kramer replied. “Wink Winkler blew his brains out. Lots of ex-cops do that. Would he have done it if Sister Mary Katherine hadn’t been stirring up those old pots? Who knows? We’ll be investigating that, of course, and trying to find out what else was going on in his life that might have pushed him over the edge. As for Elvira Marchbank? I suspect her death will end up being ruled accidental. There was a stack of magazines near the top of the stairs where she took that fall. One of them—one that was found near her body at the bottom of the stairs—showed evidence of a partial shoe print. I’m guessing she stepped on it and went flying—sort of like stepping on a banana peel.”

  Earlier in the day Kramer had referred to Elvira’s death as being unexpected. He hadn’t said a word about it being a possible homicide. Now that previous statement made sense. The good captain was playing the closure game. Ruling a homicide an accidental death and conveniently labeling something suicide when it maybe wasn’t suicide at all helps skew the statistics. It keeps those pesky unsolved cases from showing up on your squad’s track record.

  Captain Paul Kramer was definitely a bottom-line kind of guy. If he couldn’t solve a particular case—or if he didn’t want to be bothered—he simply made it disappear. As for Mimi Marchbank? Her death hadn’t happened on his watch, so he could afford to reopen that one and leave it open indefinitely. Regardless of whether or not the case was solved, it wouldn’t count against Kramer’s closure stats.

  I put the phone down and found Sister Mary Katherine staring at me. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You look upset.”

  “I’ll take you back to Whidbey,” I said. “It turns out I was wrong. We won’t be paying another visit to Homicide after all.”

  “Why not? Because the captain thinks I made the whole thing up?”

  I simply nodded. Explaining the reality of Seattle PD internal politics was beyond my ability right then.

  “I’ll call Sister Therese and have her meet us in Mount Vernon,” Sister Mary Katherine offered. “There’s no sense in your having to drive me all the way home.”

  Dealing with Kramer had taken the edge off my ability to argue. “All right,” I agreed, and handed her my cell phone so she could make the call.

  We started north on I-5 in rush-hour traffic. Sister Mary Katherine was quiet for a long time. Finally she sighed. “There’s something else I should tell you,” she said. “I should have mentioned it right away.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, assuming it was some other fragment of memory she had dredged up about Mimi Marchbank’s murder.

  “The people from the memorial service, Ron and Amy, they’re good friends of yours, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “None of this is any of my business, but I couldn’t help overhearing the unpleasantness after the service. The daughter they were talking about, the girl…”

  “Heather?” I asked.

  Sister Mary Katherine nodded. “How old is she?”

  “Fifteen. Why?”

  “I was just sitting there near the entryway door when the boy from the funeral home…”

  “Dillon Middleton,” I supplied.

  “Yes, if that’s his name. He came to the front door and rang the bell. Heather came down from upstairs. Neither one of them realized I was right there, but I heard what they were saying. Dillon asked Heather to come away with him, and she went straight upstairs to pack a bag.”

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Ron and Amy’s number. Tracy answered. “Trace,” I said, using a pet name I alone am allowed. “Do me a favor. Put your sister on the phone.”

  The receiver clattered onto some hard surface. That sound was followed by a very long silence. Finally Tracy came back on the line. “I can’t find her. She’s not here.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” I said. “You’d be
tter let me talk to your father.”

  CHAPTER 15

  I DIDN’T WANT TO BE the one to tell Ron Peters that Heather had run away, but I did. Once he heard what I had to say, Ron was every bit as upset as I thought he’d be. “Running away makes it look pretty bad,” he said glumly.

  “Depends on how far she ran,” I said. “And which direction. Tell me about the guy she’s with.”

  “Until today I thought Heather had broken up with that little creep,” he growled. “He’s from Vancouver. His parents are divorced. His father still lives in Canada along with his second wife. His mother went to college with Molly, and they’ve been great pals ever since. The mother is a complete ditz who has married and divorced several times. One of her husbands lived here in Seattle, and she brought Dillon along for the ride. When she left that guy and moved to greener pastures in San Francisco, she more or less abandoned the kid. Rather than sending him home to his father where he belonged, she set him up with an apartment of his own. The idea was that he would stay here and go to school, but school doesn’t seem to be very high on his list of priorities. He was lonesome and needing company, so Molly took pity on him. She invited him over for dinner. That’s how Heather first met him.”

  “So Dillon is Molly’s doing?” I asked.

  “He is as far as I’m concerned.”

  That went a long way toward explaining what had gone on at the end of the memorial service.

  “Mel Soames was supposed to interview Heather tomorrow morning. Are you going to tell her about Heather taking off, or am I?”

  “Maybe she’s just over at Dillon’s place,” Ron said. “I’m sure Molly knows where he lives. Let me try to find her. If I can’t…”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m on my way to Mount Vernon right now. I’ll give you until I get back to see if you can find her. If you haven’t located her by then…”

  “All right,” Ron said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Timing was everything, and I probably shouldn’t have given Ron that much leeway. At the very least, Heather was a person of interest in her mother’s homicide. At worst, she was a prime suspect. Her boyfriend was from Canada, which, depending on traffic, is only two and a half hours north of Seattle—about the same amount of time it would take me to drive to Mount Vernon and back.

  If Canada was where Heather and Dillon were heading, Ron was right. It always looks bad if you attempt to flee across an international border. With Canada in particular, bringing homicide suspects back across the U.S.-Canadian border to face charges is never a slam dunk. I tried looking on the bright side. Maybe Ron and Amy would go to Dillon’s apartment and find their fifteen-year-old daughter in bed with her boyfriend. The fact that such an eventuality would be good news left me feeling sick to my stomach.

  “I should have kept quiet,” Sister Mary Katherine said in response to my long, brooding silence. “I should have minded my own business, but I just didn’t think that a girl that young should be running off with a boy like that.”

  “No,” I said. “You did exactly the right thing.”

  “You really care about this girl, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve known her since she was tiny.”

  “Is she in trouble?” Sister Mary Katherine asked.

  I didn’t know if she meant “in trouble” in the way it was used in our day, when “in trouble” and “pregnant” were used interchangeably. Or if Sister Mary Katherine meant something else entirely.

  “It’s possible Heather shot her own mother,” I answered at last. “Which sounds like trouble to me.”

  “Yes,” Sister Mary Katherine breathed. “I suppose it is. As soon as I get back to the convent, I’ll put her name on our prayer list,” she said. “The sisters and I will pray for her, morning, noon, and night. That’s what we do best.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

  We met up with Sister Therese and the Odyssey van in the parking lot of the Burger King north of town. I was headed back to Seattle when Ron called.

  “I can’t find her,” he said.

  “Are you going to call Mel, or should I?”

  “You go ahead,” Ron said.

  And I did. “What do you mean, she took off?” Mel Soames asked.

  “Just that. She and her boyfriend disappeared.”

  “The boyfriend is from Canada,” Mel responded. “Do you think they went there?”

  “That would be my first guess.”

  “Damn,” Mel said. “How much of a head start do they have?”

  “Probably a couple of hours.” I didn’t specify how much of that head start was due to my delay in sending out an alarm.

  “That’s long enough for them to have made it across the border.”

  “I know,” I said. I wasn’t even sorry. No matter what I said, a part of me wanted Heather to walk. It was the reason I shouldn’t have been involved in the case to begin with—I cared too much. It’s the same reason doctors shouldn’t treat themselves—or their loved ones.

  “Thanks for the heads-up, Beau,” Mel said. “I’ll get right on it.”

  I might not have felt so guilty if she hadn’t thanked me. But there you are. I always have been a magnet for guilt.

  The long solitary drive back to Seattle gave me plenty of time to think. In order to avoid thinking about Heather Peters, I focused on Kramer. Once you reach a certain level in the police hierarchy, newspaper headlines, not necessarily the articles themselves, become far more important to you. “Local Philanthropist Dies in Fall” was less of a hot potato than “Local Socialite Found Murdered.” And “Former Officer Commits Suicide” would be far less inflammatory than something like “Disgraced Cop Slain.” And if Kramer could convince the media to say those things long enough and loud enough, he might convince the general public they were true.

  But I wasn’t the general public, and I wasn’t convinced. Wink Winkler had carried his wrongdoing around with him for fifty-plus years. Why would having it revealed now push him far enough to put a bullet through his own head? And Elvira Marchbank had fallen to her death due to stepping on a magazine? How lame was that? But if Kramer was on track for quick closures in both those cases, details on them were going to be hard to come by—especially for a Seattle PD outsider like me.

  One of the good things about the attorney general’s Special Homicide Investigation Team is that it’s relatively new—so new that it hasn’t had time to develop the kind of entrenched bureaucracy that exists in many law enforcement agencies. As a result, there’s less emphasis on paperwork and more emphasis on fieldwork; less emphasis on punching the clock and more emphasis on getting the job done. That calls for people who are self-starters. Ross Connors decides on who works for him and who doesn’t. Harry I. Ball is in charge of the Bellevue branch, but Connors is the one calling the shots, and every investigator has access to the attorney general himself. We have his phone numbers, and we’re encouraged to call if necessary without being hassled about going through channels and across desks. This was one of those instances where I thought a call was in order.

  Months earlier, Ross Connors’s wife had committed suicide when a witness protection scandal in Ross’s office had come to light. Instead of covering up what had happened, Ross had faced up to it in public, and voters reelected him in a statewide landslide.

  I know what it feels like to lose a spouse to suicide. It hurts like hell. And I know that burying yourself in work is sometimes a substitute for dealing with the empty spot in your heart, so I wasn’t surprised to find the attorney general still in his office at eight o’clock at night.

  “Hey, Beau,” Ross Connor said cordially when he heard my voice on the phone. “How’s it going with Sister Mary Katherine? Are you making progress?”

  “Some progress,” I said. “And some new developments as well.” Over the next several minutes I brought him up to speed on everything that had happened.

  “You’ll write all this up for me?” Connors
asked when I finished.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll have a report in Harry’s hands in the morning.”

  “And you think Kramer’s going to deep-six both of the new cases?” Connors continued.

  “He’s going to try. He’ll most likely do a cursory job on Wink Winkler and come up with some kind of plausible excuse for the suicide. With Elvira he’ll go for an accidental death. By ignoring Sister Mary Katherine’s allegations, he’s most likely giving Elvira and Albert a pass on their involvement in Mimi Marchbank’s homicide, which, according to him, he intends to solve by ‘traditional’ methods.”

  “Meaning, of course,” Connors said, “that he’s really going to let it disappear once again. What do you think the chances are that Kramer’s conclusions are being suggested from the top down? Doing it Kramer’s way avoids the awkward possibility of besmirching the beloved memory of a local and recently departed arts patroness.”

  “Are you suggesting the possibility of more police corruption?” I asked. I didn’t want to hear an affirmative answer. I didn’t want to think that some of the people I had worked with for so many years had gone over to the dark side.

  “Not necessarily,” Connors said. “More like wanting to avoid bad PR. The Marchbank Foundation was and is an influential arts institution in Seattle. But you know what? I work in Olympia, and I don’t give a rat’s ass about what goes on in Seattle. So what do you need from me?”

  “Access to official information,” I said at once. “If Paul Kramer’s being pressured to close these two cases as quickly and quietly as possible, he’s going to stonewall me at every turn. To do the job right I’m going to need to see the crime scenes and autopsy reports and to have a look at any and all witness interviews that have been done so far.”

  Connors paused. “I’m not sure how much good seeing that material will do. After all, street cops can tell which way the wind is blowing. What they write down may have more to do with what’s expected as opposed to what is. If I were you, I’d rely on whatever information you’re able to turn up on your own.”