by J. A. Jance
"Sorry about playing what you call telephone tag, but I'm down here in Olympia on special assignment, paying a visit to Ulcer Gulch. I think I may be on the trail of a little graft and corruption."
Ulcer Gulch is a snide in-crowd code name for the crowded hallway in the State Capitol down in Olympia where lobbyists can hang out and rest up between sessions of heavy-duty legislative arm-twisting. Legislators and their Olympia-based peccadillos are a little outside Max's normal "City Beat" investigative-journalism territory, but I didn't question it. After all, Camano Island is outside my usual jurisdiction boundaries as well.
"There's no way for me to receive a phone call here at the moment," Max continued, "and it's hard as hell to make outgoing calls. I had to lie like a son of a bitch for permission to make this one. I'll have to get back to you tomorrow or the next day, J. P. Hope that's soon enough." Click.
"No, it isn't soon enough, thank you very much," I said irritably, talking back to the machine since I couldn't talk back to Maxwell Cole himself. Shaking my head, I ground my finger into the Erase button and sent Max's voice whirling into the great beyond. It was easy for him to put off talking to me until it happened to be convenient for him — tomorrow or the next day or even the day after that. Max didn't have to face a pissed-off Captain Lawrence Powell when he reached his office later that morning. I did.
The next voice on the machine I recognized at once. It was my grandmother, Beverly Piedmont.
"Hello, Jonas," she said, keeping her now-familiar tone brisk and businesslike. "It's late Thursday afternoon, right around five, I think. I don't want to make a pest of myself, but it's so quiet around the house here today that I'm driving myself crazy. Not that your grandfather talked all that much, mind you. He was a man of few words even before his stroke. I'm sure you know what I mean.
"I guess I must be feeling lonely. Anyway, if you're not already busy, maybe the two of us could have dinner together tonight. My treat. We could go to the King's Table." Her voice faltered unmistakably. "Your grandfather and I didn't go out to eat often, you see, but King's Table was one of his favorite places. It was easy to get his chair in and out, and it's not terribly expensive."
Beverly Piedmont took a sharp breath. "Oh, dear," she said. "I'm afraid I'm sounding like a big crybaby. As I said, if you're too busy, just ignore this. It's not as though there isn't any food in the house. I can always open a can of soup or something, and we'll have dinner together some other time. Bye."
Awash in guilt, I looked at my watch as if I could make it run backward. I hadn't ignored Beverly Piedmont's plaintive message, but she had no way of knowing that. The message was a good twelve hours late, and dinnertime was long gone.
Damn! That's the story of my life. It seems as though when someone I care about needs something, I always fall short of the mark. I'm never quite where I'm supposed to be when I'm needed. I never quite make the grade.
I saved that message for later and went on to the next one.
"BoBo," said Else Gebhardt. "You probably won't get this until morning. It's sometime after midnight. I apologize for calling so late, but this is the first time I've been able to get to the phone.
"I really appreciate your giving me a card with your home number on it. I need to talk to you as soon as possible-in person. And alone, please, if you don't mind. It'll be hard enough to discuss this with you. I don't think I can discuss it at all in front of a stranger or even over the phone."
There was a pause. Else Gebhardt took a ragged breath that was just one choke short of a sob.
"I've had three reporters show up here at the house earlier today. This afternoon. They were all asking me what the connection is between Gunter's death and some fire that happened up on Camano Island last night. Night before last, now. I told them I hadn't heard about any fire and that I had no idea what they were talking about. Do you?"
I nodded silently to myself.
"BoBo," she continued, "if you can shed any light on all this, I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop by and let me know. I feel so…so confused.
"And then there's Kari. She and Michael finally drove down from Bellingham earlier tonight. She went to bed just a few minutes ago. I'm thankful to have her here, but that's another reason I waited so long to call.
"Kari was in terrible shape when they first got here. Hysterical. Couldn't stop crying. She kept saying it was all her fault-that somehow she was the cause of what happened to her father-almost as though she killed him herself.
"Of course, I told her that was ridiculous, but she didn't seem to pay any attention. I think it's hitting her so hard because they were…well, you know…she and Gunter were…estranged."
This time Else was unable to suppress a series of sobs that rose in her throat and temporarily choked off her ability to speak. Her audible anguish, captured in all its misery on the recording, flashed through the machine and into me-emotions transformed to electrical shocks.
Bad as Else Gebhardt's suffering was right then, I knew it would only grow worse once she learned about the existence of Denise Whitney and the young woman's relationship to Gunter.
Eventually, Else's voice came back on the recording. A little stronger and steadier, more under control.
"Sorry," she managed. "I didn't mean to fall apart like that. Anyway, I'll be up early in the morning. If I go to sleep at all, that is. So call me any time after six or else stop by. I really do need to talk to you."
I erased that message. Alan Torvoldsen had dodged the bullet, that damned lucky stiff. I was the one who would be stuck with the thankless task of revealing the fact that Gunter Gebhardt had made a mockery of his marriage vows.
The next hour seemed to take forever. My coffee dipstick wasn't registering quite full, so I made another pot and then sat in my recliner, sipping coffee and considering what I had learned about the people I so far knew to be part of Gunter Gebhardt's life. More often than not, murderers are found within the realm of the victim's circle of acquaintance.
In other words, Gunter was a whole lot more likely to have been bumped off by someone he knew than by someone he didn't. And by someone who knew him well. The savagery of the crime didn't point to random violence perpetrated by a passing stranger. The killer was someone twisted who reveled in human suffering-someone with an appalling grudge against Gunter and Denise both. Which of those two was the primary target? I wondered. Was it one or the other or both? That was the basic starting point. Until we understood that, the investigation had no focus. We were shooting blind.
My instinctive choice for primary target was Gunter. That's probably nothing more than prejudice on my part. The reading we'd been getting on him was a mixed bag. Yes, he had done good things-including rescuing his financially failing in-laws, but there were plenty of other things that weren't nearly so commendable.
And that's when I started thinking about Gunter's twenty-two-year-old daughter, Kari. Naturally, Else had categorically dismissed her daughter's self-incriminating admission of guilt. And why not? Mothers are almost universally like that. Else had attributed Kari's emotional distress to the fact that Gunter had died without ever resolving the quarrel between them.
And that was possible. But I wondered if that was all of it. Exactly how long had Kari Gebhardt and her father been at war? I asked myself. How long and why?
I happened to know there were things about Gunter Gebhardt that his wife and widow didn't yet suspect. What about Kari? Had she somehow learned her father's ugly secret? What if she had discovered not only the existence of Denise Whitney, but also of the concealed financial assets that allowed her mother's rival to live in isolated splendor in the house on Camano Island.
As the father of a more-or-less unpredictable daughter, I'd like to think that torture patricide isn't something well-brought-up girls do-not even when they learn awful truths about their daddies screwing around behind their mommies' backs. Still, irate daughters have committed murder on occasion. Had that happened here? Or if Kari Gebhardt wasn't
tough enough to do the dirty deed herself, might she not-in defense of her mother's honor-have found someone else to do it for her?
After years in Homicide, I have more than a nodding acquaintance with killers. Some of the most disturbing perpetrators-the ones I consider to be the scum of the earth-are the contract-killer types, the ones who murder for hire and see their job as nothing more or less than a business transaction. Some of them are willing to do anything for money-anything at all. And a scary few take inordinate pride in a job well done-the bloodier the better.
I left my apartment at a quarter to six and drove through Seattle's third day of unremitting morning fog. When I got to the top of Greenbrier, I had to dodge out of the way of a fire-engine-red Jeep Cherokee that came surging up the rise and almost ran me off the road. I would have had a few choice words about drivers of bright red cars, but I didn't. After all, I happen to be the driver of a bright red car myself.
I arrived at Else Gebhardt's Blue Ridge house at exactly the same time as the delivery boy for the Post-Intelligencer.
I picked up the paper from where he had tossed it in the driveway and carried it into the house. It seemed to me it was probably fortunate that the paper and I arrived at the Gebhardt house at precisely the same time. At least it gave Else someone familiar to lean on as the tawdry details of her dead marriage began to unravel in public.
Maybe I was kidding myself, but I wanted to believe that my being there would help.
14
I had a single, overriding reason for not wanting to be the one who gave Else Gebhardt the damning news about her husband-I knew how much it would hurt.
Faced with this kind of after-the-fact revelation of betrayal, people are always quick to trot out that useless old saw "The truth will set you free." Use of that particular quote always causes me to respond in kind with a line of my own, with the title of a song from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess — to wit, "It Ain't Necessarily So."
I know from personal experience that a painful truth learned about a departed loved one-news that arrives after that person's death-is more than merely hurtful. It can be paralyzing. I'm not hypothesizing, either. I know that pain personally because I've been there, and years later, it still hurts.
I've wondered sometimes, in the years since Anne Corley died, how would I have reacted if things had been different. For instance, if I had been given a clear-cut choice to go either way-to know the truth about her or to spend the remainder of my life in blissful ignorance-which would I have chosen? Would I have opted for truth or would I have clung blindly to those few precious moments and memories? Yes, having to come to terms with the "real" Anne Corley inalterably changed me. Grieving over her loss forced me to grow up. Was loving and losing worth it? I don't know.
Some days-like the day I first held Kayla, my granddaughter, in my arms-I can say unequivocally that life since Anne was well worth the pain. But other times, I'm not so sure. The jury's still out.
On occasion I give myself little pep talks and try to convince J. P. Beaumont that of course he loved Anne Corley unconditionally. That's a hell of a lot easier to say or contemplate as long as she's dead and safely buried up in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. I'm afraid the reality of living out our lives would have been a whole lot tougher. For one thing, we would never have been able to live together as man and wife, not with me working homicide year after year and with her locked away, either in a prison or else in a facility for the criminally insane.
So Anne Corley was on my mind that morning when I sat in Else Gebhardt's cheerfully decorated kitchen, telling her what I suspected to be the sad truth about Gunter, her philandering and now-dead husband. Else's sallow, haggard features became even more so as I related what I knew of her husband's illicit connection to Denise Whitney and of the still-smoldering love-nest hideaway on Camano Island.
The problem for Else Gebhardt was entirely understandable. I believe that while Gunter was alive, Else gave him his husbandly due in the form of willing and unconditional love. Now she was finding out too late that rather than treasuring her devotion, he had hurled it back in her teeth. I told her as diplomatically and gently as I could, yet she seemed to shrink under the hurtful impact of my words.
"How long did you say she's lived there?" Else asked listlessly when I finished my series of revelations. Her face was strained and pale. There didn't seem to be any spunk or fight left in her. Two days earlier, when she was arguing with Officer Tamaguchi on the Fishermen's Terminal dock, her features had been alive with anger, outrage, and exasperation. Now she seemed to have simply given up. My sense was that the fire of life in Else Gebhardt was about to sputter and go out.
We were seated at the small oak table in the well-lit kitchen of her house on Culpeper Court NW. Two coffee cups sat on the table before us. By then mine was empty. Else's, still completely full, had grown cold without her ever having touched it.
"Two years," I answered.
"How can you be sure Gunter bought it?"
"The purchaser was a corporation named Isolde International. What do you think?"
"Who's Isolde International?" she asked. "I've never heard of them."
"It's the company that purchased the Camano Island house," I told her. "The corporation commission lists your husband as president. Denise Whitney is on the books as vice president."
"Oh." Else frowned, absorbing the information.
"But where did he get the money to buy an extra house?" she asked. "I remember two years ago. It was a real tough season. We were all right, but only because we weren't carrying a whole lot of debt. I…"
"Is it possible Gunter came into an inheritance of some kind?" I interrupted. "Did he sell off some equipment, maybe?"
"No." Else looked at me, her eyes narrowing. "You think he was involved in some kind of illegal activity, don't you?" she said accusingly. The spark inside her lit up a little, gave off some heat. "Smuggling, drug-trafficking, is that what you mean?"
"I suppose it could be something like that," I conceded reluctantly, not wanting to plant unsubstantiated ideas in her head. "What I can tell you is that some of the rooms of the house on Camano Island were left pretty much intact. Our investigation of those has turned up evidence that those rooms for sure, and most likely the others as well, were thoroughly searched before the house was torched.
"At this point, it's impossible for us to tell whether or not the killer found what he was looking for. We don't know what, if anything, is missing, since we have no idea what was there in the first place."
Else shook her head several times, more determinedly with each successive shake. "I can't believe Gunter would have been mixed up in anything like illegal drugs, but then…" She paused and backed off. The glowing ember inside her dimmed once more.
"Come to think of it, though, I wouldn't have thought he'd have anything to do with another woman, either, so I guess you can't set much store by my opinions."
A door opened and closed somewhere else in the house. Moments later, Inge Didriksen propelled her creaking, wheeled walker across the living-room floor and into the kitchen. Else raised a cautioning finger to her lips and shook her head.
"Shhhhh," she whispered. "Don't you tell her. Let me do it."
But Inge's hearing was far better than Else knew, or else she had come much closer to the kitchen than either of us realized.
"Don't tell me what?" Inge asked sharply, pushing over to the kitchen counter and pouring herself a cup of coffee.
A small wire basket-a pink-and-white webbed-plastic bicycle basket-had been welded between the two uprights near the handlebars of Inge Didriksen's walker. Despite the shaking of her palsied hand, the old woman somehow managed to lower a full coffee cup down into the basket. Then, without spilling a single drop, she maneuvered herself, the walker, and the steaming coffee cup over to the kitchen table.
Else waited until her mother was seated at the table before she took a deep breath. "Mother," she said, "Detective Beaumont has discovered that Gunter had a gi
rlfriend. Now she's been murdered as well, most likely by the same person who killed Gunter."
Inge Didriksen looked harmless enough. Comic almost. She was wearing a dainty, lace-edged housecoat. The topmost button was fastened properly, but she had skipped the second one, leaving the rest of them crooked. Her thinning hair peaked at the top of her head, making her resemble a white-haired Woody Woodpecker. Her eyes, huge behind thick glasses, focused on her daughter.
"Oh, that," Inge said. "My stars, Else! Are you just now finding out about her?"
I don't know who was more taken aback by Inge Didriksen's surprising revelation-Else Gebhardt or Detective J. P. Beaumont. I know Else's mouth gaped open, and mine probably did as well. Else's already pale face faded to ashen, but the spark came back to life in her voice.
"Mother!" she exclaimed, her voice tense with outraged indignation. "Do you mean to tell me you knew about this? You knew Gunter was carrying on an affair, and you didn't bother to tell me?"
Inge took a delicate sip of her coffee. "You know I make it a practice never to interfere between husbands and wives," she replied primly.
"Only when it suits you," Else retorted angrily. "How did you know about it?"
"She was here one day. I saw her."
"Here?" Else asked in shocked dismay. "Right here in my house?"
"My house," Inge corrected blandly. "But, yes, she was here. At least I believe it was the same one. A brunette, wasn't she?" The old woman peered at me slyly over her coffee cup and waited for confirmation.
In less than two minutes, that little no-holds-barred verbal exchange between Else Gebhardt and Inge Didriksen taught me more about open warfare between mothers and daughters than I ever wanted to know.
"Well?" Inge prodded. That's when I finally realized she was looking at me and waiting for me to answer.
"Yes," I said. "A brunette."
"When?" Else demanded. The fire was back in her eyes now-her eyes as well as her voice.
