Injustice for All

by J. A. Jance

  “You're crazy.”

  “Maybe,” he said agreeably. “But smart.”

  “Is this how Wilson died of exposure?”

  He nodded. “I let him hang around long enough for the drug to get out of his system, then I sprayed him with cold water. Worked like a charm. I never had to tie him up. I'm afraid your rope burns will show.”

  I wanted to keep him talking. I gauged the distance between us, wondering if I could roll against his legs with enough strength to knock him down.

  “You met him on the ferry?”

  “He met me on the car deck so I could give him a copy of the governor's proclamation.”

  “But there was no proclamation.”

  Watkins shrugged. “Don Wilson didn't know that. He got in the car, I gave him one little prick with this, and he went night-night.”

  He held up a hypo, the needle glinting in the light from the bulb near the door. I made a tentative roll toward him. He laughed and stepped away. “None of that,” he said.

  “Wilson went off the ferry in your car?”

  “That's right. Out cold on the floor of the backseat. I put him in the trunk later. He slept like a baby until Sunday when I finally got him back to Seattle. I had plenty of time to see Sig Larson.”

  “And kill him?”

  He grinned. “That too.” He sobered suddenly. “You puzzle me, Detective Beaumont. As far as I can tell, you're the only one who doesn't believe Wilson did it. How come?”

  “Gut instinct. Wilson left a chicken thawing at home, and he didn't feed his cat. Looked like he planned to come back.”

  “He did. You think you're pretty smart, don't you! Guess that's why you're there and I'm here, right?” He laughed—the maniacal laughter of someone losing his grip. “Except for that, I was good, though, wasn't I? Framed Wilson every step of the way, that poor, stupid bastard. He wanted to make headlines.”

  “You're the one who called him to Orcas?”

  He nodded, grinning. “You bet. I even arranged for that reporter to do a series on him. That was brilliant.”

  His words reeked of ugly truth. “You've been planning this for a long time.”

  “Months. This was my last chance before the sheriff's sale. After that it would have been too late.”

  “Mona too?”

  “Mona too.”

  “How did you know she was at the Red Lion?”

  “My father. I told him I wanted to explain why I couldn't go to Sig's funeral. I was waiting. When you drove up, I decided to use your car. That was masterful, don't you think?”

  “You did it for the money?”

  “Money isn't everything, but it helps. I'll need every penny to get back on even ground.”

  “You did it for the money?”

  “Money isn't everything, but it helps. I'll need every penny to get back on even ground.”

  “You think you'll get away with it?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “How did you get Ginger drunk?”

  He laughed. “You should have seen her face. She was real surprised to see me. I was waiting just outside the gate. I almost missed her because she was driving a different car. Your car. How come?”

  I ignored his question and repeated my own. “How'd you get her drunk?”

  “A hose, a soft plastic hose. That was for Tom's benefit. She promised him she'd never drink again. Little Miss Perfect. Shoved it down her throat and poured the booze through it. She was already unconscious. It worked, too. Did you see old Tom at the funeral?”

  “What about the calendar. Did you take it?” If I was going to die, it would at least be with some answers.

  “Sure. I had to put Wilson's fingerprints on something while he was passed out in the back of the car.”

  Far away, through the chill, I heard the chime of the doorbell. Darrell jumped as though shot. I tried to call for help. He covered the distance between us in one long step. A hand clamped over my mouth, and a needle pricked my arm.

  The lights went out, literally and figuratively.

  CHAPTER

  36

  When I awakened again, my fingers and toes were numb. Trying not to succumb to panic, I moved them as much as possible, hoping to force circulation back into them. There was a gag in my mouth with sticky tape holding it in place.

  The humming motor clicked off. In the subsequent silence, I could hear another person's breathing.

  I strained to listen. The roaring beat of my own heart threatened to drown out the shallow sound. The person was sleeping a sleep very close to the big one. Panting with effort, I rocked toward the sound. Four painful rocks away, I encountered another naked body, bound and trussed as I was, with legs as hairy as my own. Another man. For some unaccountable reason, that made me feel better.

  Positioning my back against his, I tried to jar him awake. He stirred a little, but immediately resumed his shallow breathing. Again I attempted to shake him. Exertion caused beads of sweat to pop out on my body. I was aware of further heat loss as cold, dry air met perspiration.

  Painfully I scooted around until my feet were in his face. I kicked him, and his breathing changed. He was awake now, whoever he was. Some circulation had returned to my fingers and toes. I felt for the tape that covered his mouth. Grasping a corner of it between my thumbs and forefingers, I rolled away from him, taking the tape with me.

  It took long, precious minutes to roll back again and reposition myself to remove the cloth material that had been stuffed into his mouth behind the tape. “Thank you,” he choked once the gag was out. I recognized the voice.

  Homer Watkins lay on the wooden slats beside me.

  He had not yet mastered the fundamentals of movement in our condition. I rolled around until my face was against his fingers. His first numbed attempts at grasping the tape on my gag didn't work. It took numerous tries before he was at last able to hold the tape while I rolled away. Then I manuevered my way back so he could remove the gag.

  “Who are you?” he asked as soon as I could speak.

  “Beaumont,” I answered. “What time is it?”

  “I don't know. It was morning when he put me in here. He kept me up all night, raving. He's crazy.”

  “We'll discuss that later. Let's get out of here first before we die of cold or suffocation. Can you untie me?”

  We struggled in the dark, our fingers too numb and clumsy to know what they were about. Time passed, I don't know how much. Finally I gave up in defeat. “Stay here,” I ordered. “I'm going to find a bottle to break.”

  I remembered seeing a wine rack, but in the struggle to free us, I had become disoriented. I rocked back and forth across the confines of our prison, searching for the rack, my muscles screaming at the unaccustomed position. After what seemed like hours, I finally bumped up against the stack of corked bottles.

  Deliberately breaking a bottle seems easy, but not if your hands and feet are tied together. The adult male body has long since lost the newborn limberness which allows a baby to suck its toes. Each movement was an agony, each failure unbearable. I wanted desperately to break the bottle in the farthest corner of our cage. There's an atavistic fear of bleeding to death in the dark. I didn't want to roll blindly and helplessly on broken glass.

  At last I managed to return to Homer with a jagged shard from a bottle. “You do me,” I said. “If anybody gets cut, it'll be me.”

  Fortunately, the insides of our wrists were tied together. The cuts and slices in my flesh, though painful and bloody, were also superficial. As Homer sawed at my restraints I asked him questions. The exercise served two purposes. It gave me some answers, and it took both our minds off the sticky blood that accompanied his work.

  “Why did you go to Rosario that Friday?”

  “Darlene said she thought that's where Darrell went. I was worried about him. He was upset.”

  “Why?”

  “God knows he had no right to be jealous, but he couldn't believe she'd go ahead and divorce him.”

&
nbsp; “You took the maid's keys and broke into Ginger's room?”

  “Someone had already been there. The room was a mess. I panicked.”

  “But I talked to you. Ginger called you back.”

  “When she didn't return my call at first, I was afraid he might have killed her too.”

  “Ginger called you in Seattle. I have the phone number on my bill.”

  “I have a phone in the car. I forwarded calls there.”

  A long silence ensued between us, with only the scraping of glass on the fibrous rope filling the emptiness left by the stilled motor. “Why didn't you turn him in?”

  He waited a long time to answer me. “When they said it was Wilson, I believed it, wanted to believe it.”

  “It wasn't.”

  “I know,” he said hollowly.

  Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, the rope parted. My hands and feet were freed.

  To my complete frustration, I wasn't instantly able to straighten up and walk to the light switch. My muscles were too cramped and stiff. I lurched across the wooden slats, crawling awkwardly on my knees, dreading the broken glass, groping blindly for the elusive switch I knew was there. Eventually I found it.

  The sudden light from the single 40-watt light was dazzling. I found the thermostat and turned the refrigeration unit off, then I cut through Homer's bonds. Movement returned slowly. Even then, it didn't do us a hell of a lot of good: there was no latch inside the refrigerator door, only a smooth, seemingly impenetrable metal surface.

  I turned from the door to Homer. “How long have you known for sure?”

  “Since last night. I wouldn't let myself believe it. I never saw him in a jealous rage before.”

  “Jealous rage hell!” I said harshly, stripping away Homer's last vestige of justification. “He's after money, the insurance. He set it up to frame Wilson for the first three. You can bet he has some plan so it will look like J.P. Beaumont did away with you.”

  Homer swayed dangerously. I caught him and broke his fall. “He would, wouldn't he! He'd kill me too.” Homer Watkins sank the rest of the way to the floor. You don't fake the kind of shock that spread across his face. Seeing it told me once and for all that Homer was innocent. Darrell Watkins had acted alone.

  The naked old man, diminished, squatted brokenly on his haunches, a picture of abject defeat. I looked down, thinking to help him to his feet. In looking down, I saw our way out.

  Our cell's wooden slats were actually the tops of pallets, wooden lathing on frames of sturdy two-by-fours. “Get up, Homer, quick,” I urged, grasping him by the wrist and pulling him to his feet.

  The pallets were about three and a half feet square. I picked one up, hefted it, stood it on edge. With both of us swinging in concert, we could use it as a battering ram. The latches on the outside of the door couldn't hold forever under that kind of treatment.

  I explained the plan. “If the door opens and he's outside, chances are he'll have a weapon. Keep swinging, and hope we can hit him.”

  We took a first tentative swing at the door. The noise of the blow seemed deafening. We waited, breathless, expecting Darrell to charge through the door. Nothing happened. We swung again. Again nothing happened.

  “All right,” I said, “here goes. Swing together in rhythm. Back and forth. Eventually we'll build momentum.”

  I didn't tell Homer my other worry, that our air would run out and we'd suffocate before we ever broke through to the outside. At least we'd die warm.

  Swing, blam. Swing, blam. Swing, blam. Obviously the house was empty, or the noise would have aroused a response. Swing, blam. Swing, blam. Swing, blam. The metal dented as the inside of the door crushed against an outer shell. Swing, blam. Swing, blam. Swing, blam. The door shuddered each time we hit it, giving way under every blow. Swing, blam. Swing, blam. Swing, blam. As the hinges crumbled, momentum carried us into the kitchen. We were out. We were free. We weren't going to die.

  At least not then, and not in a refrigerator.

  The kitchen was dark. It was night. Homer crossed the floor and switched on a light. A clock over the sink said nine o'clock. “what night?” I asked.

  “Tuesday,” he said. “Election night.” The strength that had sustained him as we battered the door ebbed away. He leaned heavily against the stainless steel table in the center of the room. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  I gave the first answer that came to mind. It had no bearing on the question he was really asking. “I'm going to find some clothes.”

  There is something implacably sane about insanity. I found all our clothes, both Homer's and mine, in a dirty-clothes hamper in the laundry room. Where else? It was as though Darrell expected a maid to appear and wash them for him, maybe even dispose of the corpses in his refrigerator—a kind of macabre noblesse oblige. Darrell Watkins was no more accustomed to living without money than I was used to living with it.

  Homer was still leaning against the table when I returned to the kitchen. He hadn't moved. “What are you going to do?” he asked again, his voice a plaintive monotone.

  I countered with another question. “Where is he?”

  “The victory party.”

  “Where?”

  Homer took the clothes I handed him. “I won't tell,” he said stubbornly. “I'll show you. Will you arrest him?”

  “If I can.”

  “Don't,” he said.

  I was bent over, tying my shoe, convinced I had misunderstood him. “What did you say?”

  “Don't arrest him. Put him out of his misery. He's a mad dog.”

  I knew what he was asking and why. I shook my head. “I'm an officer of the law, Homer. I can't do that.”

  My .38 had been in its holster at the bottom of the clothes hamper. I checked it now, making sure it was loaded, that it wasn't jammed. “Will he be armed?”

  “No.” Homer stopped speaking abruptly and stood examining his shoes as though unsure which shoe went on what foot. “I can't say,” he resumed at last. “He's killed four people so far. What do I know?”

  A phone hung on the kitchen wall. I had seen it the moment the light came on, but I waited to use it until we were both dressed. Homer's dignity had suffered enough.

  While I waited, I washed the dried blood from my hands and wrists. When Homer finally finished tying his shoelaces, I picked up the phone and dialed the department. It was late, after nine, but I knew Peters would be there. We were partners. He would be working, trying to find me.

  “Beau!” he exclaimed, relief evident in his voice. “Where the hell are you?”

  Quickly I gave him the address. “Come as fast as you can. Bring a couple squad cars with you, but no sirens, understand?”

  “Right,” he replied without question.

  Homer had disappeared from the kitchen while I talked on the phone. He returned now, wearing a heavy jacket over his suit. He still looked cold and pale. “Are you warming up?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I'm coming with you.” He was determined.

  “You can't,” I said. “It's too dangerous. It would be better if you stayed here.”

  “No. I know where he'll be. Maybe I can talk him into giving up.”

  It was remotely possible. “Where's the party?” I asked.

  “Will you take me along?”

  I relented. “Oh, all right. Now where are we going?”

  “The Trade Center,” Homer replied.

  “Shit!” I remembered seeing live electionnight coverage from the Muni-League party in previous years. It was usually held in the Seattle Trade Center. The candidates and their campaign workers would gather there, winners and losers alike, to watch the returns. There would be throngs of people, drunk and sober, television cameras, bands, lights, reporters. It would be chaos—the last place any cop in his right mind wants to go after a crazed killer.

  Peters and four uniformed patrolmen arrived within minutes. The three of us—Peters, Homer, and I—rode in a squad car to the Trade Center at Elliott a
nd Clay.

  “Let me talk to him,” Homer insisted as we made our way through traffic. “Maybe I can get him to surrender.”

  My initial reaction was to say no out of hand. We're not in this business to risk civilian lives. Peters, however, assumed the role of devil's advocate. “It's going to be a madhouse in there. If Homer can get him to come quietly, it could prevent wholesale bloodshed.”

  Spending well over twenty-four hours in cold storage had put me in a mood to listen to sweet reason. “All right,” I agreed. “So how do we handle it?”

  Homer let out his breath as though he had been holding it. “I'll lead the way to our spot. We're usually on the first floor, near the escalator. Give me a minute or so to find him.”

  It was better than no plan at all.

  We approached the Trade Center with lights flashing but no sirens. Not wanting to broadcast a warning, we maintained radio silence. Surprising him was our only chance. Alerting the world could create a riot.

  Once there, Peters designated an officer to assume command outside the center. He deployed men to cover all building and parking-garage entrances. It was an empty gesture. We all knew that if panic ensued, no one would be able to tell Darrell Watkins from hundreds of other terrified partygoers crushing through the doors, racing to get outside.

  Peters and I paused for a moment outside the door, giving Homer a head start in crossing the crowded room. “Are you sure you're okay?” Peters asked.

  “Yeah. I'm all right.”

  “I'll go first,” he said. “You follow.”

  “No deal, asshole,” I told him. “You've got a couple little kids to raise. No fucking way you're sticking me with that job.”

  Before Peters had a chance to object, I pushed my way in front of him, following Homer Watkins into a wall-to-wall throng of people.

  CHAPTER

  37

  Afterwards, there were conflicting stories. A woman said she saw Homer Watkins walk up to Darrell, pull a gun out of his jacket, and try to shoot him. Others said there was a struggle, the gun went off, and Homer fell mortally wounded.