Breach of Duty (9780061739637)

by Jance, Judith A.

  “Go ahead and call him,” I said. “We might as well get it over with.”

  With my call to Sue finished, I caught up with Tim Blaine and another man just as a uniformed officer came sprinting out of Barry Newsome’s house. “The photographer’s finished, Detective Blaine,” he said. “The lady from the ME’s office is asking if you want to look around one more time before they remove the body.”

  Tim Blaine turned to me. “I’d better go take alook,” he said and then gestured toward his companion. “This is Captain Davis, Beau. I told him you had some information that might prove helpful.”

  Captain Davis turned out to be a tall, scrawny guy about my size but several years younger. “Detective Beaumont is it?” he asked holding out his hand. “Now what’s all this about medicine men?”

  If I had been a betting man, I never in a million years would have figured Capt. Todd Davis for a sympathetic listener, but he heard me out, all the way to the end. When I finished, he was quiet for several thoughtful seconds. “Do you happen to know how to get in touch with Mr. Leaping Deer?” he asked finally.

  “Not really. I mean, I don’t have his address and phone number right here, but I could probably find him.”

  “Maybe you should do that,” Captain Davis observed. “It sounds to me as though several of his predictions have been disturbingly accurate. With Mr. Greenjeans still in jeopardy, we should do everything in our power—including using every possible resource—to locate the man. What do you think?”

  I was blown away. Tim Blaine had said the man was broad-minded, but having him actually give credence to Henry Leaping Deer’s visions was far more than I would have thought possible.

  “I’ll do what I can to track him down,” I said.

  Davis nodded.

  “Good,” he said. “Now, about your captain…”

  “Squad commander,” I corrected. “Paul Kramer is only a squad commander.”

  “I see. What do you think Squad Commander Kramer would think if we called in the guys from the attorney general’s Special Homicide Investigation Squad? It seems to me that we’ve got so many countervailing jurisdictions here that if we don’t bring in one entity to oversee the whole deal, we’ll all be stepping on toes and getting in one another’s way.”

  The Washington State Special Homicide Investigation Squad, originally dubbed the Special Homicide Investigation Team, had been the brainchild of one Daniel Seward, an ambitious Washington state legislator known for his get-tough stance on crime. He had envisioned an elite group of investigators, under the aegis of the state’s attorney general’s office, that would be able to crisscross jurisdictional boundaries in a way individual officers could not. Not only would they assist local police departments in the investigation of major crimes, they would also create a computer database of criminal activity to be used on a statewide and regional basis.

  It wasn’t a bad idea. In fact, I knew several older detectives who had taken retirement from SPD and then had moved their years of combined experience and expertise straight over to the new unit. The only snag in this otherwise ingenious idea was that Seward had done such a poor job of naming his unit. Somehow he had failed to realize what would happen to the Special Homicide Investigation Team once that unfortunate combination of words was reduced—as it inevitably would be—into a typical cop-speak acronym—SHIT. As soon as someone realized the error, the proverbial SHIT hit the fan and the bureaucrats had tried to do damage control. The word “Team” had been replaced by the word “Squad.” There had been a flurry of activity in which official directories, stationery, and business cards all had to be reprinted. Unfortunately, no amount of determined effort made any difference. The original name stuck like so much superglue. In law-enforcement circles, that elite group was now and forever known as the attorney general SHITs. Had Captain Davis known me better, he probably would have used that term himself.

  Given Paul Kramer’s propensity for empire building and his concerns about negative publicity, I could well imagine his likely reaction. Someone would have had to hold a gun to the man’s head to get him to knuckle under and ask for outside help. Davis, however, was intent on doing the job without being sidetracked by ego issues or how his performance would be reported in the media. Not only that, Davis was on the scene. Kramer wasn’t.

  “He’d probably think it was a great idea,” I lied.

  “Good, then,” Davis said. “I’ll put those wheels in motion.”

  As he turned back to his car, the pager went off in my pocket. When I checked the display, the number on the screen was one I didn’t immediately recognize, but the prefix indicated the caller lived in West Seattle—the same neighborhood where Kramer lived with his wife and two kids. Flipping the pager to off, I returned it to my pocket without bothering to note the number. That was one call I had no intention of returning.

  A little kid sidled up to my elbow. He couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. “Are you a detective?” he asked. I nodded.

  “I heard my dad talking. He said people are dead in there. Is that true?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It is true. Do your parents know you’re out here?”

  He shook his head. “They think I’m in bed. There’s a tree by my room. I opened the window and climbed out. I do it all the time, especially in the summer. I go down to the lake late at night and look for frogs.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Jonathan,” he said. “Jonathan Carruthers. That’s my house over there,” he added, pointing to a house next door to Barry Newsome’s.

  “Well, Jonathan,” I said. “It’s late. If your parents notice you’re gone, they’ll be worried sick. If I were you, I’d shimmy back up that tree before they figure it out.”

  “They don’t care what I do,” Jonathan said. “They’re down in the family room watching TV.”

  “Well, I care,” I told him. “You shouldn’t be out here by yourself. And if you’re concerned about what happened, you should talk to your parents about it.”

  Jonathan didn’t move. “It’s Mr. Newsome who’s dead, isn’t it?”

  There didn’t seem any reason to deny it. “Yes,” I said. “I believe he is one of the victims.”

  “And Mr. Atkins, the mean one, is the one who did it?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I saw him leave,” Jonathan Carruthers said. “I was sitting by the window and wishing I was outside shooting baskets when I saw him come running out of the house. He jumped in a little white car, and drove away. I thought it was kind of strange that he went off and left the front door wide open.”

  “Wait a minute. What little white car?” I asked, feeling the slight catch of excitement in my throat that comes over me when I know something important has come my way.

  “It’s a Subaru,” Jonathan said confidently. “An Outback, like they have in those neat commercials on TV. Where the guy from Australia is always tricking the bad guys.”

  “And Mr. Atkins was alone in the car when he left?” I asked.

  “No,” Jonathan said. “He came out of the house by himself, but there was somebody else in the car with him when he drove away. I couldn’t tell who.”

  There was still one person unaccounted for in all this, a potential victim who might still be alive—Jimmy Greenjeans. I took a breath. Not wanting to spook the kid, I tried to soften my voice before I spoke again. “What time was that?”

  “After seven,” Jonathan said. “It was after I went upstairs.”

  “And you know both Newsome and Atkins?” I asked. “You wouldn’t be mistaken? You’d be able to recognize them?”

  “Sure,” Jonathan said. “I’m their paper boy. Whenever I go to collect, I always hope Mr. Newsome answers the door. He gives me nice tips. At least he used to. Mr. Atkins never did.”

  “Jonathan,” I said. “If all this happened over two hours ago, why didn’t you come down sooner and tell someone? If the police had known right away…”

&
nbsp; “I had a fight with my parents at dinner,” Jonathan said. “With my stepmom. My dad sent me to my room and told me to stay there.”

  “But Jonathan, what you saw makes you an important witness. You should have come forward long before this. Surely your parents would have understood if…”

  “My dad hits me,” Jonathan said matter-of-factly. “If I did that—if I came back downstairs to tell them something when Dad told me to stay in my room, he would have hit me some more.”

  You can never tell with kids. Some of them take the smallest thing and blow it all out of proportion while others accept the most horrific of circumstances with seeming equanimity. Not knowing Jonathan Carruthers, I didn’t know what to think.

  “What will your father do if he finds out you left the house?”

  Jonathan’s wordless but somber shrug was answer enough. It didn’t seem fair that his willingness to help with the investigation should come with that kind of price.

  “Your father wouldn’t do anything to you if other people were around would he?” I asked.

  Jonathan shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, then I’ll tell you what,” I said. “We won’t let your parents know that you’ve been out here talking to us. You go on back to your house, climb up the tree, and let yourself back into your room. In a little while, I’ll send one of the Bellevue detectives over to your place. When he rings the bell and asks if anyone there has seen anything, you come downstairs and tell your story.”

  “So they won’t know about my tree?” he asked.

  “Right,” I told him. “The detective who’ll be over there is a good friend of mine. His name’s Blaine, Detective Tim Blaine. If your parents give you any trouble about all this, you tell him. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Jonathan said. “But will it do any good? Will you guys be able to catch him?”

  “Atkins? I think so,” I said. “Especially if we have your information to help us do it.”

  “Good,” he said. “I hope you do.”

  “Go on now,” I urged. I stood watching while he walked back across the driveway and disappeared through a hedge of photinia. Moments later, I saw a brief flash of white T-shirt against the dark bark of a towering cedar as he made his way back into the house. Only when a light came on in the bedroom did I turn away and go looking for Tim Blaine.

  I found him just inside the front door of Barry Newsome’s house where a crime-scene technician was dusting the door for prints. “Hey, Tim,” I called. “I have some information for you.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be right with you.”

  “Beau?” I turned around to find Sue Danielson hurrying up the sidewalk behind me. “Is he here yet?”

  “Who?”

  “Kramer.” “I haven’t seen him. Why?”

  “He went off the charts when I told him. I thought he was going to have a coronary right there on the phone. I think he’s on his way over. I came by to give you some advance warning and to run interference if necessary.”

  That made me smile. It was a little like me sending Tim Blaine in to keep Jonathan Carruthers’ father from beating the crap out of him. “As you can see, he’s not here yet. Don’t worry. I can probably handle Kramer all right, but thanks all the same. It never hurts to have backup.”

  She nodded and smiled back. That’s when I looked at her—really looked at her. At work Sue usually wears lady-cop clothes—skirts and blazers cut generously enough to fit over and around the bullet-resistant vests we all wear to work these days. I’d seen her in dresses on occasion, but I always managed to forget what a nice figure she kept hidden under her soft body armor. That night she was wearing some kind of shirtwaist dress. Because of the lighting, I wasn’t sure about the color, a pastel of some kind, but it did show her figure to good advantage. For work, Sue’s hair is mostly pulled back, but that night it was down, curling gently around her face.

  I whistled. “Don’t you look nice,” I said. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Richie took the boys and me downtown for dinner. Planet Hollywood. He spent a ton of money and then sprang for shirts and caps for both the boys. They were absolutely ecstatic.”

  “So it worked out all right?” I asked.

  “Better than all right,” she said. “After talking to Richie on the phone last night, I thought he was going to hassle me about this Disneyland thing when he turned up today. But he must have come to his senses. He’s working on getting the reservations moved to next week, and he brought each of the boys one of those roll-aboard suitcases to take with them on the trip. They’re both on cloud nine. After all that, when he invited me to go along with them to dinner, I couldn’t very well say no.”

  Sometimes women amaze me. You think they’ve got brains and then some two-timing jackass hands them a load of BS and they fall over him with gratitude.

  “That’s great, Sue,” I told her, with far more enthusiasm than I felt.

  Just then, Tim emerged from the house. “What’s up, Beau?”

  As quickly as possible, I told him about Jonathan Carruthers. “Which house does he live in again?” Tim asked.

  “That one,” I said, pointing.

  “Good work,” Tim said. “I’ll go straight there. And believe me, if the father looks at the kid sideways, I’ll make sure he realizes that raising a hand to Jonathan would be a very bad idea.”

  As the bull-necked detective rumbled off in the direction of the Carruthers’ two-story split-level, another car pulled up beside us and screeched to a stop. I didn’t even have to look to know it was Kramer’s.

  “Detective Beaumont,” he thundered. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “My job,” I responded.

  “You’ve got no business being here, you or Danielson either one.”

  “I have every right to be here,” I countered calmly. “Barry Newsome called me. When I returned his call…”

  “Barry Newsome!” Kramer cut in. “God damn it, Beaumont. I ordered—ordered—you off that case! You should have…”

  “Newsome called me at home, hours after I punched out. If I choose to return calls on my own time, that’s up to me.”

  “It’s not up to you,” Kramer insisted. “When I issue an order, I expect it to be obeyed.”

  “Then how about issuing orders that make sense?” I shot back.

  That stopped him. Cold. Gasping like a fish, Kramer was just opening his mouth to speak again when Capt. Todd Davis came charging up the sidewalk. “Where’s Detective Blaine?” he demanded.

  “He went next door to interview a witness.”

  “Go get him,” Davis said, “while I go inside and find his partner.”

  “Why?” I demanded. “What’s happened?”

  “That Subaru on Blaine’s APB. It’s just been located down in Pierce County, but it sounds as though there’s not much left of it. The driver evidently tried to beat a freight train to a railroad crossing somewhere outside Edgewood. According to information just in from the Pierce County sheriffs department,” Davis added, “there’s not much left of the car, or him either. I told them I’d send two detectives down. Investigators from the SHIT squad are already on the way.”

  “The SHITs?” Kramer yelped. “The attorney general SHITs? Who the hell called them in?”

  “I did,” Davis replied. “Capt. Todd Davis, Bellevue PD. Who are you?”

  “Kramer. Seattle Homicide Squad Commander Paul Kramer.”

  “Oh,” Davis said. “Detective Beaumont’s supervisor. When we could see there were so many jurisdictions involved, I went ahead and called my chief to have him put the AG’s guys in place. Detective Beaumont said you wouldn’t mind. They were already on their way here when the Pierce County call came in. To save time, they want to rendezvous with Tim and Dave down at the Pierce County crime scene as soon as possible.”

  “I wouldn’t mind…” Kramer sputtered, tuning up. I didn’t wait around long enough for him to finish the
sentence. Neither did Captain Davis. He sprinted into the house to fetch Tim Blaine’s partner while I headed for the Carruthers’ split-level.

  “Beaumont!” Kramer yelled after me. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “I’m a homicide detective,” I called back over my shoulder. “I’m going to do my job.”

  A few minutes later I came back out to the street with Tim Blaine in tow. He jumped into the rider’s seat of a waiting Crown Victoria, and then he and his partner took off. Looking around, I realized Captain Davis was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Sue Danielson. The only person still around was Kramer. He was waiting and fuming. It didn’t seem like the right time for the two of us to have a meaningful discussion. Instead of going toward him, I deliberately turned aside and headed back in the direction of my waiting Porsche.

  He saw me. “Beaumont,” he roared. “You come back here. I want to talk to you.”

  I got as far as the car and had the door opened when he caught up with me. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are or where you think you’re going…”

  “I’m going down to Pierce County,” I said coldly. “In case you haven’t heard, the sheriffs department down there is currently involved in an accident investigation. I want to know what’s going on.”

  “Beaumont, I forbid…”

  “Look, Kramer, we already tried doing things your way and at least three more people are dead with another one missing. You can forbid until you’re blue in the face, but until I find Jimmy Greenjeans, dead or alive, I’m not going to stop.”

  “I’ll have your badge.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Do your worst.”

  With that, I climbed into the 928 and slammed the door behind me. The last thing I saw of Kramer was his image in my rearview mirror. With his face distorted by rage he glared after me, shaking his fist.

  Halfway down the block, Sue flagged me down. “Want me to go along?” she asked.

  “Who’s watching the boys?”

  “Richie.”

  “You go on home,” I told her. “Atkins is dead, and it sounds like the whole place is crawling with cops.”