Long Time Gone jpb-17

by J. A. Jance

  We found Paul Kramer lying faceup on the concrete floor. He looked so pallid in the yellow-tinged glow of the fluorescent lights that at first I was afraid he was already dead, but when we reached him, he was still breathing.

  “Thank God!” I exclaimed.

  He had been wearing a vest. Unfortunately, a single bullet had sliced through the edge at the bottom of the vest and veered into his ample gut. He was doing his best to maintain some kind of pressure on the bloody wound, but he was losing it and slipping into unconsciousness. I moved his hand aside and put my own in place of his. Kramer was a pain in the ass, but I had never wished him this kind of ill.

  “Stay with me, Kramer,” I ordered. “You son of a bitch, you’d better not give up and die on me now. What in blazes were you thinking coming here alone?”

  His eyes blinked open briefly and then closed again. “Hurts,” he murmured. “Hurts like hell.”

  Mel whipped off her dove-gray blazer and put it under his head. “Stay here,” she told me. “I’ve got a blanket in my trunk.” She took off like a shot.

  “I’m sorry…” Kramer began.

  “Forget about it,” I said. “Don’t talk. Save your strength. The ambulance will be here soon.”

  Mel returned a minute or so later carrying a plaid wool blanket which she unfolded and carefully placed over Kramer’s body. His eyes blinked open again as he felt the weight of the blanket. “Catch him?” he mumbled.

  “Not yet,” Mel said. “They’re looking. He evidently had a boat of some kind moored out back. He took off in that. The uniforms have called for more help-a helicopter, a police boat, and a canine unit. Don’t worry. They’ll find him.”

  A wailing siren announced the arrival of an aid car and soon a troop of EMTs jogged through the door.

  “Over here,” Mel shouted, standing up and waving. “We’re over here.”

  Within seconds, the latex-gloved EMTs took over. Now that the crisis was out of my hands, I moved to one side, feeling surprisingly shaky.

  “Are you all right?” Mel asked.

  I nodded.

  “You should probably go wash up,” she said. “You’re covered with blood. The rest room’s right over there.”

  She was right. There was lots of blood. I went into the rest room and spent the better part of five minutes letting the soap and water sluice over my hands, but the blood didn’t want to let go. The water in the bowl turned pink time after time. Even when I could no longer see it, I knew it was still there-on my hands and on my clothing. When I finally exited the rest room, Mel was waiting outside. Her dove-gray outfit and white blouse were as bloodstained as mine. Clearly we were a matched pair.

  “That’s what you get for wearing good clothes so early in the day,” I told her. “You’re a mess, too.”

  “According to my mother, I always was,” she said.

  I looked around the interior of the warehouse. The place was crawling with cops, in uniform and out, but the EMTs and Kramer were nowhere in sight.

  “Where’d they take him? Harborview?”

  Mel nodded. “I told Detective Monroe, the lead investigator, that’s where we’d be going, too. I gave her our cell-phone numbers.”

  I remembered Sasha Monroe’s first day in uniform. Now she was a lead investigator. Feeling old as the hills didn’t improve my frame of mind.

  “Let’s go then,” Mel said.

  As we drove out through the gate, the neighborhood was parked full of patrol cars, but somehow Bill Winkler had given them the slip.

  “What the hell was Kramer doing there alone?” I demanded.

  Mel laughed. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve never done anything stupid?”

  “Well…”

  “We were pushing him,” she said. “I’m sure he had access to the same phone records we have. The only difference is he went through them, and we haven’t. He wanted to ace us out of solving the case. Once he figured out what was up, he didn’t want to wait around until any of his guys showed up.”

  “And besides,” I added, “he’s invincible.”

  “Exactly,” Mel agreed.

  The two of us were already in the ICU waiting room-the same waiting room I’d occupied the night before-when Kramer’s wife, Sally, and his daughter, Sue Ann, showed up. Sue Ann was fifteen and could have been a dead ringer for Heather Peters, except Sue Ann’s hair was green.

  When they first saw the blood on my clothing both Sally and her daughter flinched away from me. Once we’d all been introduced, though, Sally went off to see what she could learn about her husband’s condition. I could see Mel watching Sue Ann as the two Kramer women walked away.

  “That’s one reason I never wanted to have kids,” Mel said. “They always have to rebel against their parents. Her green hair must drive her father absolutely nuts. Think about it. If I’d ever had kids, they probably would have turned out to be Democrats.”

  “Would that have been so bad?” I asked.

  Mel scowled at me. “Of course it would have been bad,” she returned as though my question were too ignorant to answer. “Only a true independent could even think such a thing.” And then, after a pause, she added, “I may have to give up on you after all.”

  Sally Kramer returned a few minutes later. “The doctors are resectioning his bowel, so it’s going to take time. Detective Monroe called while we were on our way here and told us what you’d done. Thank you, Mr. Beaumont. Thank you so very much.”

  “It’s Beau,” I said. “And you’re welcome.”

  Reassured that Kramer might make it, Mel was impatient to leave the hospital. “Since it’s going to be a while before we hear any more, let’s go home and change,” she suggested. “I’ll drop you off.”

  As we rode down in the elevator and walked through the lobby, people caught sight of the blood and slunk out of our way as though we were carriers of some dreadfully contagious disease.

  “Are we still on for the funeral?” Mel asked when she pulled up and stopped in front of Belltown Terrace.

  “We can go,” I said, “but with everything else that’s going on, we probably won’t have a chance to talk to Raelene today. And I think I’m going to grab some shut-eye first. I’m dead on my feet.”

  “Me, too,” Mel said. “I’ll call you at one, and I’ll be here to pick you up by one-thirty.”

  I was too damn exhausted to argue. “Fine,” I said. “See you then.”

  “Whooey, Mr. Beaumont!” Jerome Grimes exclaimed as he opened the door to let me into the lobby. “If you don’t look like you’ve been in a hell of a fight.”

  I was too tired to venture that old joke about how bad the other guy must look. I was glad none of my fellow residents rode with me in the elevator as I went upstairs. Once in my apartment, I undressed and stood in a hot shower for the better part of twenty minutes. After that I fell into bed.

  Good to her word, Mel called me at the stroke of one. “I’m just now leaving my apartment,” she said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  I didn’t bother telling her to drive carefully. It wouldn’t make any difference. I was waiting in the lobby, dressed but barely conscious, when she pulled up half an hour later. “Sorry it took so long,” she said.

  “For most people it is a thirty-minute drive,” I pointed out.

  Mel gave me a look, and we headed for Saint Mark’s Cathedral. “Any word on Winkler?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “He gave everybody the slip. When I last talked to Detective Monroe, she was still on the scene. They found Winkler’s boat, but they haven’t found him. They’re still looking. Detective Monroe says the crime scene folks are there examining the blood spatter. Her guess is that’s where Wink Winkler bit it. She also says it wasn’t a suicide.”

  “His son pulled the trigger?”

  “Presumably. Monroe wants us to get together with Kendall Jackson and Hank Ramsdahl after the funeral. I told her that would be fine.”

  Mel nodded. “What about Kramer?” she ask
ed.

  “Sally says he’s finally out of surgery but not out of the woods. I told her we’d come by there later, too.”

  “Good.”

  The funeral was a long-drawn-out affair, but not nearly as crowded as I would have expected. Elvira Marchbank had evidently outlived most of her contemporaries. Tom and Raelene Landreth were there, sitting together in the front row. Tom had cleaned up reasonably well for the event, although, if you got close enough, you could tell he’d had at least a nip or two of Scotch to brace himself for the ordeal. Next to him, dressed in a black designer suit, Raelene looked genuinely bereft-far more so than she had appeared the day before, when I had spoken to her in her office.

  A former governor, the head of the Seattle Symphony, and the director of the Seattle Opera all took to the podium to say how much of a difference Elvira and Albert Marchbank’s financial support had made to the social fabric of the city. At least that’s what I assume they said. I dozed through much of the ceremony and all of the music. I roused myself, though, when Tom Landreth strode to the microphone as the last of the speakers listed on the program.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said. “Elvira Marchbank has always been part of my life. As you have heard today, she was an elegant, charming, witty woman. She was also one who knew her own mind and insisted on having things done her way. She set out detailed instructions for her funeral. She chose the speakers and the music. She has asked that her remains be cremated and scattered in the waters of her beloved Puget Sound. Even though she has left us, I can assure you that, through the Marchbank Foundation, the contributions she and Albert have made over the years will continue in perpetuity.

  “It was Elvira’s wish that this day would end with a celebration of her life. So my wife, Raelene, and I would like you all to join us for food and refreshments at the Marchbank Foundation. It’s exactly what Elvira would have wanted.”

  As people began to file out of the church, I wondered how different Elvira’s funeral would have been had Sister Mary Katherine’s murder allegations been made public. How many people would have been here, too, if Elvira had carried through on her stated intention to dissolve the Marchbank Foundation? Certainly the social movers and shakers had been in attendance out of respect for Elvira, but they were also there because they were looking for continuing financial support from those left in charge of the foundation-Tom and Raelene.

  Mel and I were headed for her car when someone tugged at my sleeve. “Beau?”

  I turned and was surprised to find Sister Mary Katherine and another nun standing behind me. The second woman was tiny, a good ten years older than Sister Mary Katherine. The somber occasion hadn’t clouded the merry twinkle in Sister Mary Katherine’s eyes.

  “I’d like you to meet Sister Elizabeth,” she said. “She’s a good friend of mine. I believe I told you something about her, Beau. Before Sister Elizabeth took her vows, she was Maribeth Hogan. Many years ago she was my camp counselor.”

  I remembered the story well-about how a camp counselor had looked out for Bonnie Jean Dunleavy during the terrible hours, days, and weeks after her parents died in the car accident. Somehow it came as no surprise that Maribeth, like her younger charge, had also become a nun.

  “Yes,” I said. “I do remember. I’m glad to meet you.” The grip of Sister Elizabeth’s handshake was far stronger than I would have expected. “And this is a colleague of mine, Melissa Soames.”

  “Are you going to the reception?” Sister Mary Katherine asked.

  I nodded. “Me, too,” she continued. “For closure.”

  I wasn’t at all sure I agreed that visiting the old murder scene one last time was necessary, but I kept my mouth shut. If Sister Mary Katherine and Freddy had decided closure was called for, who was I to argue the point?

  “One more thing,” Sister Mary Katherine added. “I heard the terrible news about Dillon Middleton as I was driving into town this morning. That young friend of yours, Heather-is she all right?”

  “She’s not all right now,” I said. “But she will be eventually.”

  “Yes,” Sister Mary Katherine said. “She will. I’ll keep on praying for her. So will everyone at Saint Benedict’s.”

  Mel, impatient with the delay, waited until we were in the car before she called me on my sin of omission. “Shouldn’t you have told Sister Mary Katherine about what’s going on with Bill Winkler and Captain Kramer?”

  “No,” I said, “I don’t think so. This all started when Sister Mary Katherine went to see Elvira. She’s already carrying around enough guilt. Why add more right now? She’ll find out soon enough.”

  Mel and I weren’t the first to arrive at Elvira Marchbank’s postfuneral reception, nor were we the last. Sister Mary Katherine parked her minivan directly behind Mel’s BMW. The four of us ambled up the walkway together. Tom Landreth, a potent drink in hand, stood at the doorway, personally and expansively welcoming arriving guests. I would have expected to find the Marchbank Foundation’s executive director at the door as well, but Raelene Landreth was nowhere in evidence.

  Uniformed servers greeted guests as well, taking coats or orders for drinks. Mel and I gratefully accepted cups of coffee. As I took the first sip, I caught sight of Sister Mary Katherine walking the perimeter of the room with her head bowed and hands clasped as though she were treading hallowed ground and finally having a chance to honor Mimi Marchbank, the murdered woman who had once been kind to an isolated child named Bonnie Jean Dunleavy.

  The room was crowded. People were talking and laughing while a string quartet played in the background. It seemed more like a high-class cocktail party than it did a postfuneral reception. Having had nothing to eat since breakfast, I started in on a plate stacked high with hors d’oeuvres when, much to my surprise, Detectives Jackson and Ramsdahl came looking for me.

  “What are you guys doing here?” I asked.

  “Looking for Raelene Landreth,” Jackson said grimly. “Somebody finally got a look at the phone records Kramer dug up. If calling each other twenty times a day is any indication, I’d say she and Bill Winkler are going at it hot and heavy. We’re thinking she may have some idea of where he’s disappeared to. She may even have picked him up when we were looking for him and brought him here. Now which one is she?”

  “She was at the funeral,” I told them, “but I haven’t seen her since.”

  Mel had joined us in time to hear the news. “Whoa,” she said. “That puts things in a whole new light. Hold on while I go ask Tom Landreth if he’s seen his wife.”

  I watched while Mel wove her way through the crowd. When she spoke to Landreth, I could see he was somewhat befuddled. He looked around the room and shook his head in a dazed way. In other words, he didn’t know where his wife was either.

  Mel was coming back toward me when Sister Elizabeth appeared at my elbow. “Excuse me, Mr. Beaumont, but have you seen Sister Mary Katherine? We were about to leave when she said she wanted to go outside. Now I can’t find her.”

  There are times in my life when I simply know things. The sudden sinking sensation I felt in the pit of my stomach told me this was one of these times. I had seen Sister Mary Katherine walking meditatively through the house. If she had stepped outside, I had a pretty good idea of where she might have gone-back to pay a final visit to her old hiding place, the secret hidey-hole that had once saved her life. The problem was, there was a good chance Bill Winkler might be hiding there right now.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Jackson demanded. “What’s going on?”

  There wasn’t time to explain. I turned to Mel. “Are you wearing a vest?”

  “After this morning, are you kidding? I wouldn’t leave home without it.”

  And neither would I.

  By the time I made my way through the crowd to the front door, I was having second thoughts. I already knew Bill Winkler was armed. There were far too many people here for the kind of confrontation that might well ensue. I stopped
on the porch outside. The sun had come out, bringing with it a brilliantly blue sky. I think I would have been happier if it had been raining.

  “We need more people,” I said. Nodding, Detective Jackson reached for his phone. I turned to Sister Elizabeth, who had followed us out onto the porch. “I think whatever’s going down will happen behind the house next door,” I said. “Back there in the greenhouse. Until we know for sure, we have to keep everyone else inside. No one comes in or goes out. Can you do that?” Nodding, Sister Elizabeth stepped back inside.

  “You think Bill Winkler’s back there, too?” Mel asked.

  “I’d bet money on it.”

  Detective Jackson was on his phone. As I spoke, he relayed everything I said to Dispatch. “You want all the neighboring streets cordoned off?” he asked at last.

  “ASAP,” I said. “These two houses share a common backyard. I’ll go up between the houses and see what I can see. Kendall, you take the far end of this house. Hank, you go to the far end of the one next door.”

  “What about me?” Mel asked.

  For half a second I was torn. On the one hand, I didn’t want to do anything that would put Melissa Soames in any more danger than she already was. On the other hand, there wasn’t anyone else I wanted watching my back. I had lobbied hard against having another partner, but it seemed God had given me one anyway.

  “You’re with me,” I said.

  Sticking close to the wall of the house where the Dunleavys had once lived-the house where Elvira Marchbank had died-Mel and I made our way up the shared driveway. When I could peek around the corner, I half expected to see the run-down building and the weedy backyard Sister Mary Katherine had described. Instead I saw a state-of-the-art greenhouse and a well-tended expanse of yard.

  From the greenhouse came the sound of voices. I motioned for Mel to be still in hopes we could hear what was being said.

  “I’m leaving now,” Bill Winkler announced. “The only question is whether or not you’re coming with me.”