by J. A. Jance
Halfway through my steak, I gave out completely. “You two are going to have to excuse me,” I said, abandoning my plate. “I just hit the wall. If I don’t go to bed soon, you’ll have to carry me.”
Alex Downey stood up and offered her hand. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Beau. Can I call and talk to you about the Bentley Monday or Tuesday of next week?”
Back to the Bentley again. “You can talk to me about it anytime you please, just not tonight.”
With that, I staggered off to bed. I was asleep within seconds, but my last waking thought was something about Ralph Ames’s strange taste in women.
I slept for twelve solid hours. The clock radio evidently came on and went off again without my hearing a thing. Big Al called at ten to eight. “Aren’t you supposed to be down here for a task force meeting in ten minutes?”
“Holy shit! I overslept.”
With no time to shower, I bounded out of bed and started rummaging for clothes. I was slipping on my shoes when Ralph knocked on the bedroom door.
“Coffee?” he asked. He was already dressed. In his hand he held a steaming mug of coffee which I accepted gratefully.
“I’m late,” I told him. “Do you mind dropping me off at the department?”
“Not at all. I’ll go get my wallet.”
The lights on Second and Fourth Avenues are timed so that, if you hit them just right, you can make it all the way from Denny to Jackson or the other way around without being stopped. Ralph guided my newly repaired Porsche down Second without the slightest hitch, and I dashed into the building at three minutes after. The real traffic jam of the morning was inside the building, where the lobby was crowded with people waiting for elevators. The door of one was plastered with a hand-painted OUT OF ORDER sign, making a critical problem out of a chronic one. I bypassed the elevators and ran, puffing, up the seemingly endless flights of stairs.
After jostling my way through another lobby, this one crowded with media types, I edged my way into the eighth floor conference room. Sergeant Watkins, standing in front of a chalkboard, fixed me with a hard-edged stare as I tried to slip unobtrusively into the last row of seats.
“Glad you could make it this morning, Detective Beaumont,” he said, meaning, of course, that everyone else had managed to arrive on time. “Hope this meeting isn’t inconveniencing you.” Properly chastised, I stared down at my feet. Only then, in the brilliant glow of fluorescent lights, did I realize I was wearing one brown and one black sock.
Up front, Watty continued his chalk talk. While he spoke, I listened to what he was saying, but my eyes kept straying back to the black ribbon, the department’s traditional symbol of mourning, that had been taped over part of his badge. Looking at the badge was a constant reminder that, no matter what Ben Weston may or may not have done, the business at hand was really about a dead cop.
“As I was saying, this task force is a team effort, and I do mean T-E-A-M. Each of you will have focused responsibilities on one aspect of the case or another, but every one of you will be sharing all pertinent information with everyone else. Is that clear?”
Nods of agreement spread through the room. Detective Kramer, seated next to a small table in the front of the room, nodded so hard I’m surprised his teeth didn’t fall out-the ass-kissing son of a bitch.
“Through the years, many of you may have had personal dealings with Benjamin Weston,” Watty went on. “He was a well-liked, well-respected officer. At this time, however, there’s a distinct possibility that this investigation may turn up some wrongdoing on his part. Our responsibility, as officers of the law, is to find the killer and take him off the streets. If Ben Weston’s reputation ends up taking a beating in the process, that’s life! Our first and foremost duty is to solve these homicides without any kind of whitewashing or cover-up. Again, am I making myself clear?”
There was a second series of nods, this one less general, and it was accompanied by an uneasy shifting of butts on chairs. No one, with the possible exception of Detective Kramer, wanted to hear that Gentle Ben Weston had somehow gone bad.
“Taking all this into consideration, we have to remember the kind of impact this case is going to have on the entire community. Because Ben was an African American and because the investigation may lead to suspects involved in some of the better-known gangs-the Bloods, Crips, and Black Gangster Disciples-we must be careful that no one involved in the investigation says or does anything to further inflame the situation. There are all the usual restrictions about not speaking directly with the media, but it’s not out of line to suggest that we all exercise extra caution in this regard.”
Watty paused and glanced around the room, letting his eyes hold those of each officer for a fraction of a second. Finally he nodded. “All right then. Enough cheerleading. Let’s get started. Kramer, what have we got?”
With that Sergeant Watkins sat down abruptly while Detective Kramer took the floor and assumed the speaker’s mantle. Ever since he showed up in Homicide, I’ve been one of Kramer’s main detractors and not, I believe, without reason. As a partner, he’s a damn prima donna at best, but I have to admit that the military-type briefing he delivered that morning was good, very good, in fact.
The first day following a multiple homicide is like the first day of a war-there are so many things happening on so many fronts that it’s almost impossible to get a clear overview of any of it. Kramer had done his homework. Starting from the collection of written reports by everyone involved, he broke the whole process down into bite-size pieces, going over in detail the pertinent information about the murder victims themselves, times of death, manner of death, etc. He discussed the preliminary autopsy findings as well as what little had so far been gleaned from Crime Lab analyses. He went on to discuss what avenues were being explored in the immediate neighborhood of the crime scene as well as some of the side issues-the questionable bank loans, the involvement of various gang members, etc. At the very end he even threw in a brief mention of the almost fatal attack on yours truly.
When Kramer finished his formal presentation, he called on the officers present in the room to volunteer any additional information that had turned up during the night. Sue Danielson was the first to raise her hand.
“I’ve been in touch with all the schools mentioned on the loan applications,” she said. “All of them cite confidentiality issues, and they all refuse to confirm or deny the attendance of any of the names listed.”
“What do you mean, refuse?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Just that. Evidently, one of the schools gave out unauthorized information on a student years ago and that student ended up as the victim of a serious crime. They all seem to be under orders not to make the same mistake again. The only way we’ll get any real information out of them is with a court order.”
I tried to catch Watty’s attention. “Can we get one?”
He deferred my question to Kramer, who said, “When we get around to it, Beaumont. All in good time.”
In other words, don’t hold your breath.
A brief silence followed before one of the uniformed officers raised his hand. “I’ve been down working the neighborhood canvass. This morning I had a callback from the mother of a paperboy, who told her he’s seen a couple of strange cars hanging around Ben Weston’s neighborhood for the past few days. The kid goes to school at Garfield. I’ve got his name. Do you want me to go interview him, or should somebody else?”
“Detective Danielson, how about if you handle that one?” Kramer said. She nodded.
It was neat the way he did it, giving her something relatively important to do so she wouldn’t have any spare time to go trailing after the school records of those student loan applicants. I figured it was a good bet that Kramer wouldn’t authorize me to go after them either.
“Anything else?” he asked.
I waited to see if someone else would volunteer. No one did. “I may have something to add,” I said.
“What’s that?�
�� Kramer asked bluntly.
“Ben Weston Junior has been moved to an undisclosed location for safekeeping.”
Kramer looked surprised to hear that. “Really. Who came up with that brilliant idea?”
“I did. It came to my attention that his grandfather might not be physically able to protect him properly. Mr. Weston is, after all, up in years and hard of hearing, while Junior Weston must be regarded as an invaluable eyewitness.”
“Do you mind telling us where this ”undisclosed location‘ is so those of us who need to interview him will actually be able to find him?“
“He’s staying out on Beacon Hill with Reverend Homer Walters and his wife, Francine.”
“I see. Anything else?”
I didn’t want to bring up Big Al’s part in the proceedings. “Well, actually, there is one more thing. When I was taking Junior over there, to the Walterses’ place, he happened to remember that the man, the killer, was wearing gloves of some kind, yellow rubber gloves.”
“Do you place any particular importance on this, Detective Beaumont?”
“Only that the killer may be a known criminal with readily identifiable fingerprints.”
Kramer gave a half smile designed to put me in my place. “I think most of us already figured that out. Anything else?”
He glanced around the room. No one on the task force seemed to have anything more to add, but now Captain Powell, who had slipped virtually unnoticed into the chair beside me, raised his hand. When Kramer acknowledged him, Powell strode to the front of the room. He too was wearing a badge with a somber black ribbon covering part of its face.
“In a few minutes, Sergeant Watkins, Detective Kramer, and I will be meeting with the Media Relations folks to decide what, if anything, from this meeting can be released to the public. There will be the usual holdouts, of course, so I don’t need to tell you again that confidentiality is essential, but there’s something else I do feel compelled to add.
“You are all aware that in the past few months there’s been an increase in the number of threats made against the police officers of this city. One of our own is dead, and another, Detective Beaumont here, came very close to taking a bullet early yesterday morning. At this time, no firm link has been made between these last two incidents and the other threats, but it is certainly possible that they are connected.
“Therefore, as you conduct this investigation, I ask each and every one of you to exercise extreme caution. We are dealing with some very volatile and dangerous elements here, and I don’t want to have to wear more than one piece of black ribbon on my badge at a time. Is that clear?”
It was clear, all right, and also extremely sobering. Twice now, in the course of the task force meeting, I had been reminded that I, too, had been a target. I had been so busy hustling around and being a worker bee that I had almost forgotten the bullet that had slammed into the wall behind me. Remembering didn’t improve my outlook on life, and it didn’t change the color of my socks either.
People were fairly quick about clearing the room once the meeting was over. Sue Danielson had been close to the door. I had to push and shove my way through the crush to catch up with her by the time she reached the elevator. “Care to stop long enough for a cup of coffee?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not? But not in here. There’s an espresso cart down on the street.”
A few minutes later we found ourselves huddled under the building overhang on Third Avenue, drinking lattes and trying to stay out of a chill wind while Sue Danielson inhaled deeply on one of her Virginia Slims.
“What did you want to talk about, Beau?” she asked.
“Tell me exactly what the schools said when you talked to them.”
“You want me to tell you what they said, or do you want my gut instinct?”
“Both.”
She shrugged. “All right. You heard what I said upstairs, and that’s the official line, but I think they’re lying through their teeth. That’s instinct, pure and simple. In each case, I didn’t get an answer from the little lowly clerk who first took my call. In each case, I got passed on upstairs more than once before someone told me that no, they could neither confirm nor deny that person’s presence. My impression, and it’s nothing more than that, is that those people are actually there and enrolled in each of the schools, but they are absolutely under wraps and with some kind of flag on their records that dictates special handling. Bottom line, it sounds almost like some kind of witness-protection arrangement, except no one here at the department is willing to say so.”
I nodded. That assessment sounded almost plausible. We stood there for a few moments in contemplative silence.
“Supposing that’s true,” I said finally, “what does it take to pull three or four fast-living, souped-up, hell-bent-for-election gang-type kids out of their home turf and get them back in school, any kind of school?”
Sue Danielson looked at me thoughtfully through an eddying plume of smoke. “Are you asking me?”
“You bet I’m asking you. You’ve got teenagers, don’t you?”
“A club,” she answered.
“You mean like Kiwanis or Rotary?”
She smiled. “No sir. I mean club as in baseball bat. A club and a miracle. In that order. Now I’d better get my ass moving and head for Garfield.”
I smiled as I watched her go. Kramer may have given her an assignment designed to keep her away from traipsing after the student loans, but by accident he was sending her on another errand for which Sue Danielson was eminently qualified. If anyone could get usable information from an adolescent paperboy at Garfield High School, Detective Sue Danielson was definitely it.
CHAPTER 12
I took what was left of my latte, bought one for Big Al, and went back up to the fifth floor. Big Al makes fun of the numerous outdoor espresso carts that have sprung up like so many weeds all over downtown Seattle. He may joke about them, but he didn’t turn down the latte.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
On Captain Powell’s orders, Big Al had been locked out of the official task force meeting. I knew it was bothering him.
“Nothing much to report,” I told him. “Sue Danielson’s on her way to interview a paperboy who may or may not have seen suspicious vehicles in the Weston neighborhood over the past few days. Kramer’s pissed that we moved Junior Weston to another location without his express knowledge and permission. That’s about it.”
“Hell with him,” Big Al muttered, then sipped his latte in brooding silence.
“Hey, by the way. Thanks for dragging me out of the sack this morning. If you hadn’t, I would have missed the meeting completely, but I didn’t think you were going to be here at all today. Aren’t you supposed to be home? I distinctly remember hearing Captain Powell say something about administrative leave.”
“You’re right. I’m supposed to be home,” he concurred, “but I can’t take it. The only thing worse than being here doing nothing is being home doing nothing. At least here I have some idea of what’s going on. At home, I’m completely in the dark. Not only that, Molly’s in a real state over all this. I don’t know what to do with her. She’s always been the strong one, you know, thick-skinned and tough. When she bursts into tears every time I look at her, it drives me straight up the wall.”
Truth be known, looking at Allen Lindstrom’s haggard face was probably pretty hard on Molly as well. No doubt she was just as happy to have him out of the house as he was to be gone.
For a while, the two of us sat there quietly in our dingy little cubicle. A ring of latte had slopped out of the cup onto Big Al’s desk top. Idly he ran one finger through the sticky stuff, leaving behind a blurred, milky finger painting on the worn laminate.
“They’re saying Ben went bad,” Al said eventually.
He left the words hanging in the air between us like an ominous cloud while he waited for me to say it wasn’t so, to give him the comfort of a heartfelt denial. Unfortunately, I had seen c
opies of Ben Weston’s loan applications with my own two eyes. I had also read through the voluminous rap sheets on Ben’s nefarious cosigners.
“The jury’s still out on that,” I said noncommittally. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Big Al slammed his massive fist onto the desk top while the paper cup with what was left of his latte danced wildly in place, spilling another ring of coffee.
“The hell we will!” he thundered. “Ben Weston’s never going to get his shot at due process. He’ll never have his day in court, but he’ll be tried and convicted in the media anyway. You know that as well as I do. Once somebody gets labeled a bad cop, that reputation sticks. It never goes away, no matter what, not even when you’re six feet under!”
He paused for a moment while the voices of detectives in nearby cubicles fell silent. Big Al Lindstrom wasn’t the only one thinking those thoughts, but he was the only one voicing them. Aware that other people were listening, Al did his best to regain control.
“Think about it,” he said, lowering his voice, forcing himself to speak calmly. “What if Ben didn’t really break any rules? What if he just bent them real good? You said last night that Sue Danielson was checking with the various schools to find out whether or not those kids were actually enrolled. What did she find out?”
Big Al was clutching at straws. I didn’t blame him, but I couldn’t encourage him either.
“Nothing,” I told him. “Not a damn thing. She ran into all kinds of bureaucratic tangles with each of the three registrars’ offices. No one would tell her anything, one way or the other. They all said she’d have to have a court order if she wanted more information.”
“So let’s get one.”
“Did you say ”let’s‘? How often do I have to tell you? It’s not up to me, Al. That’s not my end of the investigation, and it sure as hell isn’t yours, either.“
“Let me loose for half an hour in those goddamned administration buildings. I’ll bet money I could find out.”
