by J. A. Jance
Okay, so I admit Dr. Majors was probably dead-on as far as I’m concerned. No doubt that explains why I went looking for the attorney general’s investigative job before the ink had finished drying on my letter of resignation from Seattle PD. It also explains why the five days leading up to the wedding were unbearable. Dave, the FOTB (father of the bride), and the best man all played golf. I don’t play golf. They also went deep-sea fishing. I don’t like boats-big or small-so fishing was out of the question. The MOTB (mother of the bride), Cherisse, and her maid of honor were up to their eyeballs in last-minute arrangements with flowers, dresses, hairdos, and other essential pre-wedding preparations. Those left me cold as well. So, as co-FOTG, I had spent the days leading up to the wedding enjoying the bikini-clad scenery on the beach but generally feeling like the proverbial fifth wheel.
The wedding itself was a lovely affair. We gathered on a moonlit beach with the sand around us studded with flickering tiki lamps. Cherisse was tall and slender and lovely in her long white dress. Scott was tall and handsome in his tux. They were perfect together. The ceremony was read first in English and then in French. Dave sniffled unabashedly into his hankie all the way through the ceremony. When it came time for the “till death do us part” part, Helene reached over and leaned against Pierre’s shoulder. That small gesture was enough to put a lump in my throat. Nobody was talking about the elephant in the living room, but it was there as big as life.
“I just wish Karen could have been here to see it,” Dave told me later on that night after the multicourse wedding supper. “She would have loved it.”
We were at an outdoor hotel bar where Dave was drinking Scotch and I wasn’t, and I knew he was right. Karen had loved weddings. God knows she dragged me to enough of them over the years.
Some people might think it odd to find the two forlorn men who had shared their lives with Karen Beaumont Livingston sitting together consoling each other. It sounds, in fact, like lyrics from some pathetic country-western song, but the truth is, we were both coming from the same place. When someone dies, other people have to learn to go on with their lives. Weddings happen and babies are born and even the joyful events hurt because the people who are gone aren’t there to witness them.
Once the busy merry-go-round of wedding festivities ended and the kids went off to have fun with their best people, Dave and I had fallen to earth like a pair of balloons with all the helium let out. Dave was grieving for Karen and so was I, but I was thinking about my second wife’s death as well. Losing Anne Corley on our wedding day had left me in an emotional black hole from which I had yet to fully emerge. So while Scott and Cherisse were looking hopefully toward what the future might hold and Helene and Pierre spent the long shank of the evening dreading the future, Dave and I were mired in the regretful past. Bearing that in mind, I think the four of us deserve a lot of collective credit for not having rained on the kids’ parade.
Two days later, as I pulled into my assigned space in the SHIT squad’s parking garage, that balmy evening’s worth of quiet conversation seemed eons away-eons and more than fifty degrees.
Unit B, my unit, is the Special Homicide Investigation Team’s Seattle area office. It consists of four investigators, our commander, Harry Ignatius Ball, who, for perverse reasons of his own, prefers to be called Harry I. Ball, and our office manager, Barbara Galvin. Unit C works out of Spokane. Everybody else works out of the attorney general’s office down in Olympia. Unit B’s newest investigator is Melissa Soames, an easygoing, forty-something, blue-eyed blonde who prefers to be called Mel. She and I ended up checking in at Barbara’s desk at the same time.
“Looks like it’s our lucky day,” she said.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Coming down from North Bend, Harry ended up on the wrong side of a twenty-car pileup east of Issaquah,” she told me. “That means we won’t be doing our morning briefing anytime soon. Hallelujah! So how was the wedding?”
“Fine,” I said.
Barbara Galvin and Mel exchanged looks. Mel rolled her eyes. “Men!” she exclaimed, and stalked off to her office.
“What’s wrong with fine?” I demanded.
“Never mind,” Barbara said with a sigh. She handed me a stack of papers. “Here’s some reading material to hold you until Harry shows up.”
I took the pile of memos and updates and retreated into my office. In most buildings it would have been a cubicle. It wasn’t much larger than a cubicle, but whoever used the building before we took it over had gone to the trouble of creating tiny separate offices with walls that went all the way from floor to ceiling, thus allowing all of us a bit more privacy than we would have had otherwise, and that’s a good thing. It means that when I’m at my desk, I don’t have to hear Barbara Galvin’s phone calls to her son or her new country music. It also means I don’t have to listen in on Mel’s steady diet of twenty-four-hour talk radio.
Reading steadily and in reverse order, I was about to start on Wednesday’s first memo when my phone rang. “Someone’s here to see you,” Barbara Galvin announced. “His name is Frederick MacKinzie. He says he doesn’t have an appointment, but he’s waiting downstairs for you to come sign him in.”
Frederick MacKinzie. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Who would bother making an appointment to see me?” I returned. “I’ll go get him.”
I rode the elevator downstairs. The man waiting by the check-in desk was good-looking, medium build, about my age. He wore nice-fitting slacks, a brushed camel sports coat, and carried a leather briefcase. My first guess pinned him as an attorney.
I held out my hand. “J. P. Beaumont,” I told him. I signed for him and handed him a visitor’s pass. “I hope you’re in a visitor’s parking spot. Otherwise they tow within twenty minutes.”
“I am,” he said.
We stepped into the elevator. “Jonas Piedmont Beaumont,” he said quietly, filling in the unwritten names indicated by my visible initials.
That one stopped me. Not many people know my full name. It’s not something I announce in polite or impolite company. Surprise must have registered on my face.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” he went on.
“No,” I said apologetically. “Sorry, I don’t believe I do.”
The elevator stopped and we stepped into the corridor.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I’ve changed quite a bit since you saw me last. We went to school together-Ballard High School. I worked for the school paper and the yearbook. When you were on the basketball court, I was on the sidelines with a camera taking pictures for The Talisman and The Shingle.”
And then it hit me. “My God!” I exclaimed. “Freddy Mac! I never would have recognized you in a million years. How the hell are you and what have you been up to?”
And it was true. The Frederick MacKinzie I had known in high school was a pudgy, pasty-faced kid, with thick glasses and a mop of unruly red hair. Now the hair was combed down and neatly styled. It was a far more muted red than I remembered, so it was possible that the new Fred was actually dipping in the dye. Freddy of old had been smart but anything but cool. This one had cool down pat.
I ushered him down the hall and offered him a seat in my tiny office.
“I haven’t been up to much,” he said. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a business card and handed it over. “Frederick W. MacKinzie,” it said. “Hypnotherapist.”
“Got married in college, got divorced three years later,” he explained, answering my unasked question. “Then I went back to our tenth class reunion and ran into Debby Drysdale. Remember her?”
Debby I remembered. If Ballard High School had had an “It” girl, Debby Drysdale would have been a contender. She was cute and smart. Head of the cheerleading squad. Homecoming queen our sophomore year and prom queen when we were seniors. I couldn’t imagine Debby Drysdale giving nerdy Freddy Mac the time of day. Once again, Fred must have read my mind.
“She was a bit out
of my league in high school,” he admitted ruefully. “In fact, I don’t think we ever exchanged a single word.”
“I thought she married Tom…What’s his name again? I seem to remember he was a real jock.”
“Gustavson,” Fred supplied with a nod. “And yes, Tom was a jock-an all-state jock and a big-time jerk. Went off to college, got involved in drugs, and burned out his brain on LSD. Committed suicide the night of their eighth wedding anniversary.”
“Nice guy,” I said.
Fred nodded. “As I said, Deb and I met up again at our tenth class reunion. We were both single. She was looking for someone steady in her life, and I turned out to be the lucky guy. We’ve been married going on thirty years now. How about you?”
“Divorced once and widowed once,” I told him. “Other than that I’m doing fine.”
“Kids?” he asked.
“Two. Both married. One grandchild and another on the way.”
“Deb and I never had any kids,” Fred said with a shrug. “For a long time my whole life was my job-property development. Then, about eight years ago, I had a wake-up-call heart attack. The doc told me to change my life. Lose weight and lose my job or lose my life. So I went to see a hypnotherapist. He helped me so much that now I am one.”
As Fred spoke, he opened his briefcase and pulled out a frayed copy of the Ballard High School yearbook, The Shingle. Please don’t ask me why it’s called that. I have no idea.
He opened the book to a page marked with a slip of paper. He passed the yearbook over to me, tapping one picture in particular with his finger. “Remember her?” he asked.
I looked down and saw the picture of a girl-a girl with downcast eyes hidden behind thick glasses, no smile, and a sorrowful expression on her face.
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” I said.
Fred closed the yearbook, returned it to the briefcase, and closed the lid. “I’m not surprised. Bonnie Jean Dunleavy was two years behind us when we were in school, but she’s a friend of mine-a friend and a patient. She’s also the reason I’m here.”
Glancing first at the open door, Fred looked back at me. “Do you mind?” he asked. With that he reached over and pushed the door shut. “It’s about a murder,” he said. “One we believe happened many years ago. I’m hoping you can tell me whether or not it really happened. This is a new experience for me-uncovering a crime like this from someone’s past-and I need to be really sure it’s the truth and not some little kid’s horrific fantasy.”
“Look,” I said, “I’m not a regular homicide detective anymore. I work for the Washington State Attorney General’s office. I only work cases I’m told to work, and I doubt Ross Connors would look kindly on my going out and chasing after some cold-case homicide that may or may not have happened.”
“It’s all right,” Fred assured me easily. “Somebody’s already squared it with Ross Connors. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
It sure as hell wasn’t fine with me. Ross Connors, the Washington State attorney general, happens to be my boss. He’s also a very political animal. The last thing I needed was to go messing around in a murder investigation that was connected to one of Ross’s cronies or to some big-time political contributor. Either one had almost limitless potential for career suicide.
“Bonnie Jean was in town for a conference over the weekend,” Fred continued. “She stayed over last night on the slim chance that I might be able to set up a meeting with you today. This morning, in fact,” he added. “Whenever you can get away.”
Talk about more nerve than a bad tooth! I was floored. Right about then I would have been happy for the return of the old pudgy Freddy Mac rather than his grown-up pushy and very cool counterpart.
“Hang on,” I said. “I’ll have to check with my boss.”
I left Fred sitting there beside my desk and went in search of Harry I. Ball. I more than half hoped he was still stuck in traffic. No such luck. He was talking on the phone when I popped my head into his office. “What is it?” he demanded, covering the mouthpiece.
“I’ve got this guy in my office…”
“I know, I know,” he grumbled. “The hypnotist guy. Word came down from on high about that. It’s your case, now get the hell out and do whatever needs to be done.” With that he waved me away.
I returned to my office with my worst-case-scenario suspicions fully confirmed. Whoever was pulling Ross Connors’s string had influence out the kazoo.
CHAPTER 2
When I returned to my office, Fred let me know that my surprise luncheon meeting-a surprise to me anyway-was scheduled at Equus, the upscale restaurant in downtown Bellevue’s Hyatt Hotel. To get there from my Eastgate office, I had two choices. Get on I-90 and I-405 or stay on surface streets. With the cross-lake freeway mayhem still fresh in mind, I opted for the surface streets and that decision turned out to be on the money. I later learned that a garbage truck had jackknifed at Southeast Eighth, blocking all northbound lanes on 405.
I may not have known about the garbage truck at the time, but I did notice that traffic on Bellevue Way was bumper-to-bumper and slow as mud. It gave me plenty of time to anticipate my upcoming meeting with Bonnie Jean Dunleavy. I had no doubt she would have changed over the years every bit as much as Freddy Mac. I expected that LASIK surgery would have corrected her vision problems and so she would have ditched the glasses. And if she had hooked up with one of the movers and shakers in state government, she’d probably be wearing a size 3 dress and dripping in diamonds. I have a natural aversion to women like that.
I pulled into the Hyatt’s entry drive and was glad to see it had been thoroughly sanded. I always worry when I hand over the keys to my 928 to a valet parking attendant. Anne Corley gave me my first Porsche, and I wouldn’t have one now if it hadn’t been for her. For the valet car jockeys it’s just another high-powered car. For me the 928 is pretty much the only memento I have to remember Anne. I watched until my Guards’ Red baby disappeared around the corner of the building, then I went inside.
Midmorning is an odd time to show up at hotel restaurants. Breakfast service is generally over. The waitstaff, setting up for lunch, can be less than hospitable. I looked around for Freddy. He had left my office a good ten minutes before I had, so I expected him to be there first. That wasn’t the case. The restaurant’s sole diner was a woman sitting near the fireplace in the far corner of the room. As I walked in her direction, she stood and beckoned me toward her.
One glance made it clear that Bonnie Jean Dunleavy was definitely no fashion plate. I had expected designer duds. Instead, she wore a plain white blouse and a simple gray skirt topped by a matching gray cardigan. Instead of killer high heels, she was comfortably shod in Birkenstocks and heavy black stockings. And she wasn’t dripping in diamonds, either. Her only visible piece of jewelry was a gold crucifix that hung on a thin gold chain around her neck. She still wore glasses. The lenses were even thicker now than they had been in high school, but the once popular cat’s-eye style had given way to a simple wire frame. What set her apart from the girl in Freddy Mac’s yearbook was the expression on her face.
In high school Bonnie Jean Dunleavy had looked as though she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her eyes had seemed haunted somehow. The corners of her lips had turned down. This woman was totally at ease with herself. She approached me with a relaxed smile, an air of breezy confidence, and a hand outstretched in greeting. Something had worried Bonnie Jean as a teenager, but it no longer seemed to trouble her as an adult.
“Hello, Mr. Beaumont,” she said. “I don’t believe we officially ever met back in high school. After all, you were a senior when I was a lowly sophomore, but I certainly remember seeing you back then, and I’d still know you anywhere. It’s so good of you to come.”
She led me back to the table. I glanced over my shoulder at the entrance. “Fred will be here eventually,” she said. “He called a few minutes ago. He’s stuck in some kind of traffic tie-up on the freeway. Can I get you something,
coffee or tea? It’s a little too early to order lunch.”
“Coffee would be fine,” I said.
She waved down a waiter and I ordered coffee. As soon as the waiter had left, she sat up straight, folded her hands on the edge of the table, and studied my face. “How much did Fred tell you?” she asked.
“Not much,” I admitted, probably sounding as grumpy as I felt. I’ve never liked being jerked around like a puppet by the whim of some invisible puppeteer.
“Did he mention that I’m not Bonnie Jean Dunleavy anymore?”
“No,” I said. “As a matter of fact, he didn’t.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “He made it clear that if you were going to know about any of this, it would have to come from me directly. He didn’t want to run the risk of violating my privacy. My name is Sister Mary Katherine now. I joined a convent-the Order of Saint Benedict-right out of high school. Now I’m mother superior of a small convent over on Whidbey Island.”
“He made no mention of that, either,” I said.
“It’s a long story,” she said. “Are you sure you have time?”
I thought about Harry waving me out of his office. “I’m at your disposal,” I told her.
“My folks married young. Daddy was eighteen and Mama was sixteen when they eloped. They left their disapproving families behind in Pennsylvania and came west. Neither of them had a high school diploma. In fact, I didn’t realize until after my father died that he had never learned to read. With benefit of hindsight, I suppose he was dyslexic, but I doubt people knew much about dyslexia back then. My mother covered for him as best she could, but he moved from one menial job to another and finally ended up working as a mechanic. By the time I graduated from eighth grade, I must have attended twenty different schools. That meant I was always behind academically, and the older I got, the further I fell behind.”
