Improbable Cause

by J. A. Jance

  Wanda grinned from ear to ear. "Really? They never told us that on TV."

  "Why should they? It makes a better story if they imply the other guy had a gun."

  "You don't mind if I tell the other girls, do you? They'll get a real bang out of it."

  "Be my guest," I told her.

  She hustled off toward the kitchen while I settled down to eat my breakfast.

  Knowing I had deliberately avoided Sergeant Watkins the day before, I wasn't exactly looking forward to going into the office. My game plan was to go in, get Big Al, and get the hell back out ASAP. Watty must have read my mind. The sergeant was leaning against my desk waiting for me when I got to the cubicle.

  "Got back too late to put in an appearance up here, did you?" he asked with a frown.

  I nodded.

  "You write me a report, Beaumont. We'll take it to Captain Powell together after I get a chance to look at it. He wants to know what the hell a suspected murderer is doing sitting in isolated splendor up at Harborview Hospital. Believe me, so do I."

  I glanced across my desk. Big Al Lindstrom was sitting there making himself as small as possible. When you weigh 220, that's no easy task. There was a definite twinkle in his eyes.

  "I'll have a report on your desk in half an hour," I said.

  "You'd better," Watty replied grimly.

  He took off, and I turned to Al. "What the hell are you laughing at?" I demanded.

  "For once it looks like the prosecutor did me a favor. At least my ass isn't in a sling."

  "Don't count on it. What about that assault case? Are you done with it or not?"

  "He plea-bargained down to simple assault late yesterday afternoon. I came by to tell you, but Margie said you'd already disappeared. What can I do to help?"

  "Go check with the crime lab and the medical examiner's office and see if they've come up with anything while I get Watty's goddamned report out of my hair."

  Twenty minutes later, I took my report into Watty's office. He read it through, then tossed it on his desk.

  "I guess I owe you an apology," he said. "Margie was under the impression that you were on your way home. I didn't realize you still had someone else to see last night."

  I didn't tell him that when I talked to Margie I was on my way home. I'm gradually wising up and learning when to keep my mouth shut.

  "The captain isn't going to swallow this stuff about the wife and the carpet installer. It sounds fishy even to me, especially considering they spent the weekend together."

  Watty certainly called that shot: Captain Powell wasn't impressed. He read my report with both Watty and me seated on chairs in his window-lined fishbowl. I felt like a kid stuck in a principal's office waiting to collect a swat. When Powell finished reading, he dropped the paper on his desk, glowering at me.

  "I've already been on the horn with Logan.” he fumed. "What do you mean talking him into committing Martin for psychiatric observation? What the hell kind of deal is that? For God's sake, man, that bastard held half of Seattle hostage yesterday afternoon."

  "Have you talked to his boss yet to find out what really happened?" I asked.

  "No one has talked to Richard Damm, if that's who you mean. He's in intensive care with a heart attack, and instead of putting his attacker in jail where he belongs, you've got him in a goddamned hospital. Beaumont, are you aware that Larry Martin's an ex-con who's already spent two years in the slammer?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you know that his fingerprints were found all over Nielsen's office?"

  "I didn't know it for sure, but it makes sense. He was laying carpet there. Why wouldn't he leave fingerprints?"

  "And now you're telling me that he spent the weekend shacked up with the grieving widow, but you still claim he had nothing to do with her husband's murder? Come on, Beaumont. Give me a break. I didn't just fall off a turnip truck yesterday, you know."

  "Look," I said, "I've got a line on another suspect, the receptionist's husband. The good doctor and the receptionist were screwing around. If the husband knew about it, that certainly gives him motive. So far, we haven't been able to account for any of his movements on Saturday, from the time his wife left for work in the morning until he got back home about five o'clock in the afternoon."

  "In other words, you'd rather go looking for another suspect altogether than track on the one we already have in custody."

  "That's right. What's it going to hurt? It's no skin off your teeth. Martin's locked up tight, and it looks like he's going to stay that way for a while. In the meantime, I want to find the real killer."

  Captain Powell shook his head in exasperation. "You are one stubborn son of a bitch, Beaumont. I'll say that much for you."

  I took that to mean I was dismissed, so I got the hell out of there and went looking for Big Al. I found him over by the coffeepot pouring himself a fresh cup.

  "Seems like you made it out with a whole skin," he observed with a grin.

  "Just barely," I answered. "Now, what did you find out?"

  "They're in the process of running all the fingerprints through the computer. So far, Larry Martin's are the only ones that match."

  "Tell me something I don't already know."

  "Bill Foster says he got one real good footprint."

  That got my attention. "No shit. Really?"

  "Yes, from the carpet right in front of that back door. It's a distinctive tread of some kind. He'll let us know more as soon as he knows more."

  "Good. Let's get out of here."

  Al followed me, coffee slopping from his Styrofoam cup. "Where are we going, and why the big hurry?"

  I glanced at my watch. "We're going to Cedar Heights. We're already fifteen minutes late."

  "Late for what?"

  "I made an appointment with Calloway, the resident manager, to take us through the building and find out if anybody saw anything."

  "Good thinking," Al said. "We coulda done that yesterday, if I hadn't been tied up here in the office."

  Henry Calloway was sitting in the lobby of Cedar Heights waiting for us, ready for his fleeting moment of glory. If helping us solve Dr. Frederick Nielsen's murder was going to be his only claim to fame, he was prepared to make the most of it.

  He took us up to the nineteenth floor and we worked our way back down, knocking on every door as we went. He stood in the hallways with us and personally introduced us to every resident who answered the door. Of course, there were a lot of people who weren't home, and there were two units he skipped altogether because the residents were day sleepers who had given strict orders they were not to be disturbed.

  All things considered, we could have saved ourselves the bother. Nothing came of it. The previous weekend had been one of perpetual sunlight. Everyone who had been able to do so had escaped to the mountains, the beach, anywhere but downtown Seattle.

  By noon we had done Cedar Heights from top to bottom, and we'd checked up and down the block as well. To no avail. It was discouraging, but hardly surprising.

  "What say we go try to track down Tom Rush?"

  "Sounds good to me," Al replied.

  We drove over to Eastlake. The wooden porch in front of the Rushes' apartment was littered with cardboard boxes, some empty, some full. I knocked on the door, and Debi Rush answered. She was crying.

  "I hope you're satisfied, you son of a bitch!" she said, when she saw who it was. . "Why? What happened?"

  "I told him and he told me to get out, just like that. He says he can't leave because it's only a month before the end of the term, so I have to."

  "Where are you going?"

  "Home to Yakima. My folks said I could come stay with them for a while."

  She left me standing by the door while she went to the couch, got a tissue, and blew her nose. Then she picked up another box and carried it out to the porch.

  "Did he know or not?" I asked.

  She stopped and glared at me, the two angry spots I had seen before glowing bright crimson on her cheeks.
"No, he didn't know. And he didn't have to know, either. I never would have told him if you hadn't made me."

  "Where's your husband now?"

  "Back at the U. He was up all night, throwing my things into boxes. He told me to pack my stuff, take the car, and be out of here by the time he gets home tonight." She started crying again. If it was a bid for sympathy, she was barking up the wrong tree.

  "Do you know how we could find him?"

  "Why the hell should I help you find him?" she demanded. "Oh, all right, the dean's office of the Dental School has his schedule. Now get out of here and leave me alone."

  We got.

  "That doesn't look so good for your theory, does it," Al observed once we were in the car.

  "What do you mean?"

  "If Rush was really the killer, wouldn't he be the one running away instead of sending his little woman packing."

  Unfortunately, Big Al's question made a whole lot of sense.

  The car sweltered in the noonday heat, and our little standard-issue departmental Dodge was without air-conditioning of any but the open-window variety. We peeled out of our jackets for as long as we were in the car, but we put them on again once we reached the university. Naturally, the only parking space available near the Health Sciences Complex was nowhere near any shade. Par for the course.

  A receptionist directed us to the Dental School Dean's Office in D-Wing, and the dean's office passed us along to the student paging office on the fourth floor of B-Wing. We felt like a couple of rats lost in a maze, but surprisingly, the student paging system worked and worked well. Within ten minutes, we met Tom Rush on the grass outside the main hospital lobby.

  "I didn't want to talk to you in there," he said, motioning over his shoulder toward the building. His face was flushed. His hands shook.

  "I didn't do it," he rushed on, without waiting for us to ask. "Debi told me you thought I killed him, but I didn't, I swear to God. I might have if I'd known, but I didn't have the foggiest idea, not until last night. Why'd you make her tell me?"

  "So we wouldn't have to," I told him.

  He shoved his hands deep in his pockets and walked away from me. With his face averted, he spoke again. "At first I couldn't believe she'd done it again. I mean, it was just like the other time. We've only been married a year and a half."

  "What do you mean 'the other time'?"

  "She did the same thing with the other dentist she worked for. I made her quit that job when I found out, and then she went to work for Nielsen. What does she see in those old farts?"

  He moved farther away from us across the grass. I heard the other part of his question, the unspoken part. The part that said, "What's the matter with me? Why aren't I good enough?" I knew those questions only too well. I had asked the same ones over and over after Karen took off.

  I felt sorry for Tom Rush. I noticed he hadn't mentioned the money part, the raise Debi claimed to have gotten. I doubted she had lied to us about that. From their shabby apartment and threadbare clothes, I was sure it had taken every dime of that raise just to live and pay the bills. And I'm sure someone from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would have told me that this was a clear-cut case of sexual harassment and exploitation in the workplace. But still, I knew only too well what Tom was going through, and my heart went out to him.

  Finally he got control of himself and came back to where Big Al and I were waiting.

  "That's why you threw her out, then?" I asked. "Because it had happened before?"

  Rush nodded. "I told her then that if it ever happened again, that was it. I would've left last night myself, but it's too close to the end of the term. I'll be damned if I'm going to blow dental school at this stage!"

  He paused and looked away while a look of utter desolation passed over his face. "I'll probably take her back eventually," he said. "I did it before. I came here to school today because I didn't know what else to do. I've sat here the whole day, and I haven't done a thing. It's like my mind's paralyzed or something."

  "I know this is tough," I told him. "But we need to ask you some questions about Saturday."

  "You still think I did it?" Tom asked.

  "Just answer the question," Big Al put in. "Unless you'd rather have an attorney present when you do."

  "I was here," Rush answered quickly.

  "Where, in one of the labs?"

  "Yes. The same one where they paged me just now."

  "Did anyone else see you?"

  "Sure. There must have been five or six of us who were here all day."

  "Are any of the others up there now? Could we talk to them?"

  "Do you have to?" Tom Rush's pride was showing, but he didn't have any choice.

  "With them you have an alibi," I said.

  "Without them you're up shit creek."

  Without another word, Tom Rush led us up to a small dental lab on the fourth floor of the building. There were probably ten people in the room altogether. We talked to all of them, one at a time. Six of them said they had been in the lab on Saturday, and all six confirmed that Tom Rush had been there with them. He had arrived before nine-thirty and hadn't left until after four. Three of them, including the instructor, had eaten lunch with him in the cafeteria.

  When we finished talking to them, it was about three o'clock. We walked back out and got in the car. It was an oven. The steering wheel was too hot to touch.

  "What do you think?" I asked, as we rolled down the windows and tried to breathe.

  "Sounded like gospel to me," Al said. "Tom Rush isn't our man, period. You don't get that many people to lie off the tops of their heads and do that good a job of it."

  "That's the way it sounded to me, too," I said.

  "So where the hell does that leave us?"

  "In this particular game," I told him, "I believe we're back to square one."

  CHAPTER 18

  That night after work I finally got myself up to Bailey's Foods on Queen Anne Hill to buy some groceries. I also made a foray across the street to the state liquor store to restock my depleted supply of MacNaughton's. Bailey's has installed one of those yuppie salad bars, so I treated myself to a huge taco salad—the kind my mother never used to make.

  I went straight home and ate a medium-elegant dinner, served at my new glass-and-brass dining room table. I ate the salad from the chinette deli plate and drank my glass of chilled Vouvray from crystal stemware. It's no surprise that after dinner I ended up falling asleep in my recliner. I spend more time there than I do in my bed.

  I have no idea what time I fell asleep, but I know when I woke up—eleven. The phone on the table beside me was ringing its head off. I caught it just before the answering machine did.

  "Hello," I mumbled.

  "So it is you," a woman's voice announced. I'm not sure how she recognized my voice from that one-word grunted greeting. I sure as hell didn't know who she was, but I could hear the tiny telltale beeps that said she was calling from the security phone downstairs in the lobby.

  "Who is this?" I asked.

  "Darlene," she answered.

  "Darlene who?" I couldn't recall anyone by that name. "I think maybe you've got the wrong apartment," I said.

  "Darlene from across the street, remember?" she asked, sounding offended. "The one who brought you your pork chop sandwich the other night. Are you going to let me in or not?"

  Darlene from across the street. It finally made sense—the bartender from Girvan's.

  "I'll buzz you in," I said. I pressed the entry code on my phone, realizing as soon as I did so that I had failed to tell her what floor. As a security measure, Belltown Terrace has no listing of the tenants' names and apartment numbers either on the reader-board or in the lobby.

  I was sure the phone would ring again, and I wasn't disappointed.

  "Where the hell are you?" she demanded before I even had a chance to say hello.

  "Twenty-fifth floor," I replied. "Turn left as you get off the elevator."

  I pulled my
jacket back on, straightened my collar, slipped shoes back on my feet, and went out to the hallway to meet her.

  The twenty-fifth floor happens to be the penthouse floor. The interior design is slightly more upscale than the elevator lobbies on the other residential floors. It's supposed to make a statement. It evidently worked. Darlene Girvan popped her head out into the elevator lobby, looked around, and whistled.

  "I'll be go-to-hell," she said.

  "What's the matter?" I asked.