by J. A. Jance
“In a downtown condo?”
“Gertrude must be an upscale duck,” I told her.
I was under the impression that we were headed directly for the church. When the limo driver took us down to Columbia and up the entrance ramp onto the Alaskan Way Viaduct, I didn’t understand what was happening. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“To West Seattle,” Emma replied. “To pick up Harmon.”
I shook my head. “He’s not going to be thrilled having me along for the ride.”
Dr. Jackson pulled Junior Weston close to her and held him protectively under her arm the way a mother hen shelters her helpless chicks.
“He’ll understand,” she said. “He may not like it, but he’ll understand.”
I settled in for the ride, surreptitiously glancing over my shoulder now and then to make sure we weren’t being followed. Just because Sam Irwin was dead didn’t mean that was the end of all our difficulties. It would take time to figure out whether or not Sam Irwin had taken his own life, but in any event I was fairly certain Sam was the knife-wielding killer Junior had seen on the night of the murders. I was also convinced that, whatever his involvement, Sam wasn’t operating alone. The other killers had no way of knowing whether Sam was all the child had seen.
We sped south along the viaduct. The previous few days of clear skies had given way to heavy clouds. Puget Sound lay slate-gray beneath a dark and lowering sky. I’m sure both the weather and fatigue contributed to my growing sense of gloom and despair. So did the fact that I was on my way to a five-person funeral. If we couldn’t save innocent people like that from the bad guys, I berated myself, what the hell was the point of being a cop?
For a few minutes, Junior was content to sit there cuddled against Emma Jackson’s breast, but finally he pushed himself away.
“Is Mr. Lindstrom all right?” he asked.
Emma looked to me for an answer. “He should be, Junior,” I replied. “But he wouldn’t have been if Dr. Jackson hadn’t been right there to help when it happened.”
The boy nodded. “I’m glad he’s going to be okay,” he said. “I was afraid he’d die too.”
I caught Emma Jackson’s eye. “Thank you for reminding me, Junior. I should have remembered to thank Dr. Jackson myself as soon as I got in the car.”
She gave me a half smile and shook her head. “You don’t have to thank me, Detective Beaumont,” she returned. “You’re not the only one around here with a job to do.”
Considering the previous fireworks between us, the matching antagonisms, conversation between us in the limo was surprisingly cordial, and it lulled me into a false sense of security, made me think maybe things were starting to get a little better.
We crossed into West Seattle on the Spokane Street Bridge and meandered south, stopping at last in front of a small, carefully maintained bungalow on Southwest Othello Street. Harmon Weston must have been watching through the window. As soon as the driver stopped the limo, the front door banged open, and the old man came hurrying toward the car. I moved to the jump seat to give him a place to sit.
“The killer’s dead!” Harmon Weston declared animatedly as he clambered into the limo. Then, seeing me, a curtain seemed to fall across his features.
“What’s he doing here?” Harmon Weston demanded.
“Got who?” Junior was asking excitedly. “Who’d they get? Tell me.”
“What’s happened?” Emma asked.
Harmon Weston looked hard at me. “Ask him,” he said. “I’m sure he knows all about it.”
Three pairs of questioning eyes turned on me, but I was under strict orders to keep my mouth shut. Tony Freeman had told me that when I heard the news I’d better be surprised, but I’ve never been known for my propensity for role play.
“Knows all about what?” I asked ingenuously. “Who’s dead?”
Harmon Weston’s smoldering eyes drilled into me. “My son’s killer, that’s who. They found him somewhere over in Bellevue.”
“Is he dead for real?” Junior asked. “Did the cops get him? Did somebody shoot him?”
Suddenly accusatory, Emma Jackson turned on me as well. “You knew about this, didn’t you?”
“No,” I said, trying for total innocence. “I had no idea.”
My acting ability will never win an Academy Award. Emma shot me a withering look. “You expect us to believe that you, one of the detectives on the case, didn’t know a thing about this?”
Emma turned from me to Harmon Weston. “What happened?”
“A drug overdose,” he answered. “They think he committed suicide.”
She looked back at me, shaking her head disparagingly. “So the police didn’t even catch him.” She turned away from me and stared out the window while an uneasy silence settled over the car. No one spoke for several minutes while Junior Weston looked questioningly from one adult face to another.
Finally he caught my eye. “I’m glad he’s dead,” the child said. “I wanted him to be dead.”
I nodded, but I didn’t say anything else. I figured I was better off keeping my mouth shut.
We arrived at the Mount Zion Baptist Church a full hour and fifteen minutes before the two o’clock funeral. Already the neighborhood was dogged with traffic, including an ever-growing contingent of law enforcement vehicles from all over the state. They lined one side of Nineteenth Avenue for three full blocks.
The limo stopped in the front courtyard of the church behind a collection of gray hearses. Emma, Harmon Weston, and Junior Weston were whisked away into the church by three solicitous funeral attendants. They probably would have let me come along too, if I had pushed it, but I felt I had intruded enough. Undecided as to what to do next, I started toward the street to join forces with some of the other police officers who were scattered here and there on the sidewalk, talking together in small groups.
Halfway across the courtyard, a young black male sidled up to me. Staggering drunkenly, he was dressed in ragged, disheveled clothing. A battered baseball cap, worn sideways, was pulled down low on his forehead.
“Hey, man,” he whimpered to me. “You gots a dollar for a cuppa coffee?”
Before I could answer, a formidable African-American man, much older and dressed in an impeccable black suit along with spotless white gloves, appeared from nowhere.
“You get out of here now,” he told the kid firmly. “These folks are here for a funeral. We don’t need the likes of you hanging around begging.”
“I ain’t beggin‘,” the boy whined. He caught my eye for a fraction of a second, then dropped his gaze and stared at my feet. “I’m jes axing my friend Beaumont here if he gots ’nuff money to buy me some coffee.”
The deacon frowned, looking hard from the kid to me. “You know this young man, mister?”
He did seem vaguely familiar, and although I couldn’t place him right off the bat, he obviously knew me. I don’t make a habit of giving money to bums on the street, but then most bums don’t know me by name either. I reached for my wallet. The deacon shrugged and shook his head.
“You get away from here now, boy,” the deacon said firmly as he walked away. “I don’t want to see your face around here anymore.”
I handed the kid a dollar bill. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” I told him.
He pocketed the money, staggered a little, and grinned, but the urgency in his voice belied the drunken leer.
“Ron Peters says for me to talk to you right away. Only to you, and away from here. Down the hill on Madison at the deli in ten minutes.”
He shambled off in the opposite direction, meandering unsteadily from side to side and heading for the corner of the building that would allow him to avoid the growing collection of cops. I was still watching his slow progress when Sue Danielson materialized beside me.
“Don’t you know better than to give money to bums?” she demanded.
Maybe it was the sound of her voice that jogged the memory department of my brain. I knew then where I
had seen that face before-on a rap sheet. My drunken bum was none other than Knuckles Russell minus his trademark four-inch Afro.
With no advance warning, one of Ben Weston’s missing student loan cosigners had magically reappeared, found by none other than Ron Peters, who had directed him straight to me.
“I’ve gotta go,” I said to Sue, backing away, heading for the door of the church.
“Where? I thought we could sit together.”
By rights, I should have invited her along, but Knuckles Russell had been very specific about that, and so had Ron Peters.
“To see a man about a dog,” I told her. “Don’t go away, Sue. I’ll be back.”
CHAPTER 24
I went into the church itself. There I met another black-suited, white-gloved man-a deacon presumably. I asked him for directions to the nearest rest room. There, after allowing a suitable interval, I ducked out through a back door that opened on to another parking lot. Hurrying over to Madison, I half walked, half jogged down the hill, knowing that eventually my bone spurs would exact a terrible price for such rash folly.
As I approached the appointed place, I wondered if the whole thing might be some kind of trick or if Ron Peters really was behind the mysterious message delivered by Knuckles Russell. If the news was that important, surely Ron would have come to convey it himself, wouldn’t he? Why trust a street-toughened gang member or even ex-member to carry missives back and forth between us? The closer I got to the deli in the swale at the bottom of the hill, the dumber I felt and the more tempted I was to call a halt and go back the way I’d come, but then I spotted Ron Peters’s K-car with its distinctive wheelchair carrier perched on top. It was parked on the street directly in front of the deli.
Inside, I found Ron Peters and Knuckles Russell seated in the far corner. Ron, alert and keeping watch, had positioned himself facing out. Knuckles, with his disheveled clothing straightened and minus the baseball cap, sat with his face averted and shoulders hunched, nursing a cup of coffee. Ron waved and motioned for me to join them. I stopped by the counter and picked up my own cup of coffee along the way.
“What’s going on?” I asked Peters as I sat down at the table. “I don’t have much time. I don’t want to miss the funeral.”
“I know you two have met before,” Ron Peters said, “but I don’t believe you’ve been properly introduced. Beau, this is Ezra Russell. Ezra, this is Detective Beaumont.”
I held out my hand. Ezra “Knuckles” Russell looked at it for a long moment before taking it. He nodded and shook hands but said nothing.
“What seems to be the problem?” I asked.
“Go on,” Ron Peters urged. “Tell him.”
“My friend’s dead,” Knuckles blurted, “an‘ I can’t even go to the funeral ’cause if I do, they’ll smoke me too.”
“Who’ll kill you?” I asked.
He raised his eyes and looked at me, unveiled distrust written on his face. “You maybe? And maybe this dude too? Ben says for us not to come back, no matter what. He says this be…this is our one chance to get away. But this One-Time here”-he motioned to Ron-“he says I gotta help. That otherwise Ben’s killer walks.”
I knew Captain Freeman had warned me to keep quiet, but if Harmon Weston already knew about Sam Irwin’s death, why shouldn’t I?
“Word’s out on the street that Ben Weston’s killer’s dead,” I told them.
Ron’s jaw dropped in surprise. “Really?”
“Who?” Knuckles Russell demanded.
“His name’s Sam Irwin.”
For a moment or two after I spoke it was quiet at our table as the news soaked in. “You mean Sam Irwin from down in Motor Pool?” Ron asked.
I nodded. “One and the same,” I said.
Maybe word about traitors in our midst was news to people like Ron Peters and J.P. Beaumont, but clearly Sam Irwin’s name was no surprise to Knuckles Russell.
“So?” He spat in disgust. “You think that motherfucker’s the only one? All he knows is cars and knives and cuttin‘ people. Sam Irwin’s not the brains. He ain’t runnin’ the show.”
“Who is then?”
Knuckles shrugged. “I dunno.”
“I’ve heard rumors that Ben Weston was in on it,” I said tentatively, just to see what kind of reaction the comment would elicit. The result was far more explosive than I expected. Ezra Russell half rose to his feet until his face was barely inches from mine, his features contorted into a look of sheer hatred.
“Don’t you dis’ my friend, One-Time. You say that again, and I’ll smoke you sure!”
I took Knuckles Russell at his word. No disrespect for his dead friend Ben Weston would be tolerated.
“Tell me about Ben,” I said, backing off, modifying my tone. “What made him tick?”
Unexpectedly, Ezra Russell’s eyes clouded with tears. He wiped them away angrily with the back of his hand. “Ben Weston was the onliest real friend I ever had,” he said despairingly. “The only one.” He broke off, his voice choked with raw emotion.
The whole time, I had been wondering how Ron Peters had managed to overcome Knuckles’s entirely understandable distrust and antipathy toward cops, how he had talked him into coming to talk to us. Now I knew the answer. Something about Ben Weston had engendered a powerful loyalty in the boy.
“How did that happen?” I asked. “How did you two become friends?”
He shook his head. “I dunno. Not exactly. I didn’t want it. Ben shows up at my door one mornin‘ and says he wants to talk to me. I say I don’t wanna talk to no cops. He says we talk anyway, he says he knows my uncle from church and my mama and Mrs. Davis, my fourth grade teacher. He says he knows I be…he knows I’m smart and do I want to be somebody’s smart homeboy and do their dirty work and get myself killed or do I want to have a life?
“I say to him you can’t come in here. My friends’ll say I’m turnin‘ on ’em, and Ben says that’s right, that’s the way it’s gonna look. He says he’s puttin‘ the word out on the street that me and him is good buddies, so if I doan wanna get my ass killed, I better be. And so he come almost every night and we talk. He talks ’bout my mama and my uncle and how family’s the most important thing of all. And he talks ‘bout how bein’ somebody’s homeboy’s no better’an bein‘ their slave.
“So word gets out that me an‘ him hang out together. The BGDs all say I’m spyin’ for him. Ben laughs and says that’s right, that’s the way it looks. So what’m I gonna do now? He axs me if I know Harriet Tubman. He says she run the Underground Railroad back in the old days. He says he’s startin‘ one of his own-a railroad to out, away from gangs and drugs. He axs me if I want to be on that train or be dead. I say that’s not much choice and he and says, boy, that’s the only choice you gots. And so I took it.”
Knuckles’s words had tumbled out in an almost breathless rush. Now he stopped and waited.
“Where did the railroad take you?” I asked.
“Ellensburg. Ben Weston worked some kind of deal to get me an‘ this other kid in over at Central. We both be…we’re both in this special English class. He helped me sell my car for this quarter and he was gonna get me student aid for the next one. All I gotta do is promise not to come ’round here, not to get involved. He says my family can’t even know ‘bout what I’m doin’ ‘cause they might tell the wrong people. He says he ain’t tellin’ anybody, not even his woman, neither.
“And so I’m over there workin‘ my ass off. I doan read no papers, doan see no TV. So when this One-Time here wakes me up at six o’clock in the mornin’, I think maybe some of my ex-friends’re lookin‘ for me to cause trouble. Instead, he tells me ’bout Ben and all those poor little kids.”
“You’ve been in Ellensburg the whole time?”
He nodded.
“What about your briefcase?” I asked. “The one you got from your mother for your birthday?”
His eyes narrowed. “What about it? How’d you know ‘bout that?”
“It was f
ound on what used to be your doorstep the morning after the murders. Some of your former associates from the streets turned it over to us. The clothes inside-red sweats-were soaked with blood.”
“I be a BGD,” he announced defiantly. “I don‘ wear red sweats. Ever!”
As soon as he said it, the frame-up was so obvious I felt stupid for falling for it even momentarily. The color red and BGD do not go together.
“Okay.” I nodded. “I understand that, but somebody wanted us to think you did it. They went to a lot of trouble to make it look as though you had something to do with what happened to the Westons. Maybe they figured that if we didn’t get you for the murder, maybe some of your ex-friends would take care of you just on general principles. So you tell me, who did it, Ezra? Do you have any idea?”
“You already know one name,” he said. “Sam Irwin. If I say the others, I be breakin‘ my word to the Black Gangster Disciples and to Ben Weston both.”
“As far as the BGD are concerned, you’re a marked man anyway. They already told me that. And after talking to them, I can understand why Ben wanted you to stay out of it, to keep your mouth shut. We’ll try not to use your word alone to build our case, Ezra. There’ll be other evidence as well. In fact, there probably already is. Did Ron tell you about Junior, Ben’s son, that somebody tried to kill him again last night?”
“Yes,” he said with downcast eyes. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Don’t you owe Junior Weston the same kind of chance his father gave you? If we don’t stop these guys, they may try again, and the next time they may succeed. I can’t promise that you won’t be called on to testify against whatever police officers are behind this operation, because you probably will be, but I can say you’ll be given the best protection we have to offer.”
He raised his eyes and met mine, but he said nothing. “I’ll ask you again. What happened to your briefcase, Ezra?”
“One-Time took it.”
“A cop took it? Which one? When?”
“Name’s Deddens.”
“Gary Deddens? From Patrol?” I remembered Deddens from Ben Weston’s house. He had been one of the officers left guarding the crime scene, the guy who, along with me, had gone chasing after my would-be assassin. Talk about leaving the wolf to guard the henhouse. No wonder Ben Weston’s Day-Timer had disappeared into thin air.
