Long Time Gone Part 14

"You can drink coffee at night and it doesn't bother you?"

"I can drink coffee round the clock," I said. That wasn't entirely true, but I thought the comment hit the right notes of casual macho-dudeness.

"You're lucky," she said. "The other night I hardly slept at all after you filled me full of caffeine."

"Sorry about that," I told her.

"Don't apologize. Staying awake late at night is good for me sometimes. Gives me a chance to think about stuff I usually manage to ignore during the day."

I like to think of the Mediterranean Kitchen's shish tawouk as garlic squared. The fluffy saffron rice is infused with garlic and then the grilled hunks of chicken are covered with a milky crushed-garlic sauce and it comes with lentil soup and salad. The first savory bites were nothing short of glorious.

"You like it?" she asked.

"Love it," I returned.

She grinned. "My ex didn't like garlic, either. Now maybe you'd better tell me how come you called. I have a feeling something happened."

There it was again, that sudden switching of topics and moods that women do so effortlessly and, in the process, drive men nuts. Because I knew I was about to breach Ron's confidence, it took me a moment to answer.

"Ron Peters fired his attorney today," I said for starters.

Mel nodded. "I know. I met him-Ralph Ames. Didn't expect to like him, but he seems like a pretty squared-away guy."

"Ralph is squared away," I told her. "And he would have done a good job for Ron. The problem is, I believe Ron is getting ready to plead guilty to a murder he didn't commit."

"I think you're right," Mel Soames said.

That stopped me. I hadn't expected the two of us to be on the same side of this question. "But the other night I thought you said..."

"I wouldn't be much of a cop if I let my personal experience get in the way of an investigation, would I?" she asked.

"No, but what changed your mind?"

"Facts, mostly," she said. "Like the fact that someone had wiped down Ron's Camry for fingerprints, but they left all the blood in the trunk. Brad and I think someone's trying to frame Ron Peters for his ex-wife's murder, and we're thinking whoever did it is likely one of his own family members."

"Heather," I said at once.

"The younger daughter," Mel confirmed with a nod. "The one who was the subject of the custody battle and who didn't want to go live with her mother."

I felt a sudden wave of relief. If Mel and Brad had already reached many of the same conclusions, that let me off the hook.

"Have you spoken to her directly?"

"No. For the moment, it's easier for us to play along and act like Ron's the only game in town. In the meantime, we're talking to everyone else and gathering what additional information we can. We're hoping to have what we need so we can question Heather either before tomorrow's funeral or after it."

"Ron isn't going to want you anywhere near her."

"What Ron Peters wants and what he gets are two entirely different things," Mel said.

"Are you looking at anyone else for this?"

Mel looked at me sharply. "Any suggestions?"

"What about Michael Lujan? He was at Ron and Amy's this afternoon, raising h.e.l.l about the funeral tomorrow, throwing his considerable weight around, and insisting Bread of Life be part of it."

"Ah," Mel said. "Rosemary's attorney. Now there's a guy who's completely convinced Ron did it no matter what the evidence may say. What happened?"

"Ron told him to take a hike, and he did, running his Escalade over my 928 in the process."

"Ouch," Mel said. "Hope he didn't hurt it."

"Smashed it flat is more like it, but getting back to Rosemary, I'm worried about having tunnel vision here. Lujan is certainly more involved than I'd expect. And what about the clients who show up at Bread of Life? Did any of them have some kind of beef with the victim?"

"You don't want us to look at Heather any more than her father does," Mel observed with a smile.

"I suppose you're right about that."

"But think about it. She lives there. She'd have access to her father's car keys, and my guess is that she also knows how to gain access to his weapons. According to Tracy, Heather went to her room right after dinner that night and stayed there."

"That's not what I heard," I told her. "That may be the story she and Tracy told Ron and Amy, but I have it on good authority that Tracy and Heather let themselves in and out of the house overnight with complete impunity."

"That's pretty typical," Mel said. "When I was in junior high and high school, I pulled that same stunt."

"Maybe not quite," I said. "According to a kid named Dillon, Heather Peters spent most of Friday night at his house."

"Dillon would be Dillon Middleton," Mel said. "Tracy told us about him. He's the boyfriend, isn't he?"

I nodded.

"How do you know him?"

"I never heard his last name, but the little creep gave me a ride down the hill in his garbage-heap Ford Focus." I retrieved my notebook from the entryway table, tore out the page with Dillon's plate number written on it, and handed the paper over to Mel.

"He's Canadian, then?" Mel asked after studying it for a moment.

"Maybe," I said. "But whatever nationality he is, he's also a worm who ought to be brought up on charges of statutory rape. Heather's still not sixteen."

"Not old enough to screw around," Mel said, "but she's old enough to be a homicide suspect. There's something wrong with that picture."

"What about the security video?" I asked. "Can you tell whether or not she's the one driving the car?"

"It's grainy. You can see the vehicle but not the driver. We've sent it off to the FBI in hopes their people can enhance it. And Brad has been collecting security tapes from Friday night and early Sat.u.r.day morning on every route we can think of from here to Tacoma and back in hopes of coming up with a video that might give us a clearer shot of the Camry and its occupant or maybe even occupants."

"As in more than one?"

"Rosemary wasn't a tiny person," Mel said. "If Heather actually did it, she might have needed help."

"Heather and Dillon together?" I suggested.

"Maybe. The crime lab folks are going over the car looking for anything and everything. One way or the other, we will find out who was driving the car."

"And break Ron Peters's heart," I said.

"That, too," she agreed.

When dinner was over, we cleared away the dishes and then adjourned to the living room. I turned on the gas log fire while she settled in the window seat. "So tell me about the case you're working on," she said.

I did. Mel listened, making occasional comments and suggestions as I told her about Sister Mary Katherine and her long-suppressed memory of a brutal murder. The easy give-and-take between us was almost like...having a partner again, and that worried me. Over the years I've been very hard on partners.

"Fifty-plus years later, you work on a cold case for what-two days-and it's solved already? How could the detectives have missed it the first time around?"

"Wink Winkler missed it because he wanted to miss it," I said. "Why else would he have lied about it today? And how else would he have known that the eyewitness was female?"

"What's your plan?" Mel asked.

"Since Elvira is evidently still alive, I'm going to track her down and see what, if anything, she has to say."

"You've already identified her as a suspect. Are you going to read her her rights?"

"Absolutely. I'm not going to do anything that might screw up this case. Would you mind taking a look at the Sister Mary Katherine videos? You might notice something I've missed."

"I'd love to," Mel Soames said, and we did. For the next two hours or so, we sat side by side-with me in my recliner and Mel cross-legged on the floor-and watched the videos, starting, stopping, and replaying them as we went. I was about to put the last one into the VCR when my phone rang.

It was late by then, almost ten. I checked the number on caller ID. When the name Lars Jenssen appeared, I picked up.

"Beau?" Lars said, sounding relieved. "I'm glad you're there."

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"Ya, sure," he said. "I yust got back from the hospital. They took Beverly over to Swedish in Ballard."

I felt my heart constrict. "What's wrong? Do you need me to go there?"

"No. Not now. She's sleeping. Has a touch of pneumonia, is all. They're keeping her for a day or two."

I wasn't rea.s.sured. At age ninety-one, "a touch" of pneumonia can be very serious. And I was also more than a little annoyed that no one had bothered to let me know that Beverly's condition had changed from being a little "under the weather" to something potentially fatal.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do?" I asked. "What about taking you back to the hospital in the morning? Will you need a ride?"

"No. I talked to the lady at the front desk. Queen Anne Gardens has a van that takes residents where they need to go. I've already lined up a ride. Now I yust want to go to bed."

"You'll call if you need anything?"

"You bet," he said and hung up.

Mel was watching me closely. "Is someone ill?" she asked.

I nodded. "My grandmother. She's ninety-one, and they've slapped her in the hospital with pneumonia."

"She's the one who made the afghan?" Mel asked.

I nodded again. "Beverly Jenssen. My mother was pregnant with me and unmarried when my father died in a motorcycle accident. My grandfather-my biological grandfather-disapproved of unwed mothers and threw Mother out of the house. She raised me on her own and remained estranged from her parents for as long as she lived. In fact, I never met them until I stumbled across them by accident a few years ago. By then my grandfather had suffered a stroke and was ready to let bygones be bygones. After my grandfather died, Beverly met and married an old friend of mine, Lars Jenssen. He's the one who just called. He's also an independent old cuss who won't even let me give him a ride to the hospital."

I didn't add that, other than my kids, Lars and Beverly were all the family I had left in the world, but I think Mel picked up on that anyway. "You're sure there's nothing we should do?"

"Lars as good as told me to mind my own business."

There was a knock on the door, and it startled me. Belltown Terrace is a secure building. People inside the building usually don't go knocking on doors at that hour of the night, and if it was someone from outside, either the doorman should have let me know a visitor was coming up or that person should have announced himself over the security phone at the front door or in the elevator lobby.

"Who is it?" I asked without opening the door.

"It's me," Paul Kramer growled from the far side of the door. "Now let me in before I break the d.a.m.ned door down!"

I opened the door to find him, bristling with rage, standing in the corridor.

"Who let you up here?" I demanded.

"My badge let me up here," he returned. "What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing, Beaumont?"

"Until you knocked on the door, I was sitting in my own living room and minding my own business. Why?"

"I want to know what you're up to. If you had told me what the deal was instead of going off and leaving me with that evidence box and nothing to go on, maybe she wouldn't be dead."

"Who's dead?" I asked, sure his answer would be Sister Mary Katherine. It wasn't.

"Elvira Marchbank was found dead this evening at the bottom of her bas.e.m.e.nt stairs," he said. "And I don't believe it's a coincidence that she would die under suspicious circ.u.mstances on the very same day I catch you prowling around the cold case file of her sister-in-law, who was murdered some fifty-plus years ago. So now that you've managed to get my name instead of yours on the checkout sheet for that evidence box, you're going to tell me what the h.e.l.l is going on."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Don't blame me because your name is on the sheet. I seem to remember your insisting on taking charge of that cold case box all on your own."

Kramer looked as though he was going to explode. "I asked you straight out what this was all about and you-"

"Is something the matter?" Mel asked, stepping into view behind me.

Kramer was taken aback. Clearly he hadn't expected me to have a visitor at this hour of the night. If Elvira was dead and the captain was worried about a public relations problem, the last thing he needed was a witness to this little tirade. I, on the other hand, was worried about Sister Mary Katherine for fear she could be next on someone's list.

"This is police business," Kramer snapped. "Tell your girlfriend it's got nothing to do with her and to stay the h.e.l.l out of it."

I was about to explain that Mel Soames was a colleague of mine and not a girlfriend, but Mel handled that on her own.

"Would you like to see my badge?" she asked sweetly. "Or should I do us all a favor and start out by shoving it up your a.s.s?"

I could have kissed her-probably should have, especially considering the fact that her comment left Kramer utterly speechless for the better part of a minute. Finally, with blood throbbing in his temples, he turned his fury on me.

"If Mrs. Marchbank's death could have been prevented by my knowing what was going on-"

"Wait a minute, Kramer," I interrupted. "I told you if you wanted that information, you should call my boss. I even gave you his number. Did you call him?"

"Well, no, but-"