Emma until after I do.”
“Of course,” Carl Johnson agreed. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
“And I’d appreciate it if you’d hold off making any kind of official announcement, again at least until after I get in touch with her.”
“You’ll let me know?”
“Yes,” I said. “Go ahead and start gathering up the people you need. Just don’t give out any names until you get an official go-ahead.”
“Right,” he said. “I understand.”
Carl Johnson strode away from me, his broad shoulders straight, his chin set. Again he stepped over the yellow tape. His ancient Beamer sputtered and backfired before he was able to start it on the third try.
Educators like him seem to be rare these days-old-time teachers who put kids first and everything else second. From the looks of the car he drove, making money sure as hell wasn’t Carl Johnson’s first priority. No matter what the salary schedule, we’ll never be able to pay the Carl Johnsons of this world a fraction of what they’re worth.
Janice Morraine came out on the porch just as Carl was driving away, his car coughing and choking. “Who was that?” she asked.
“His name’s Carl Johnson,” I told her, “and he’s a national treasure.”
She leveled a hard stare at me, as though I were some kind of raving maniac. “You don’t seem to have a car here. Would you like a ride back downtown?” Detective Kramer had taken off while I was dealing with Carl Johnson, and only now did it occur to me that I was totally without transportation.
Considering my previous behavior, I was a little surprised Janice Morraine made the offer. Maybe the fact that someone almost killed me had softened her bony little heart. “I’d appreciate it,” I said, meaning every word. “So would my bone spurs.”
“It won’t take much longer,” she said. “I’ve got one more load of gear to take out to the van.”
She turned down my offer of help with the loading. While waiting for her to finish stowing equipment in her state-owned Aerostar, I stood off to one side and thought about Paul Kramer’s questions. It seemed unlikely to me that anyone so apparently inoffensive as Gentle Ben Weston would have two entirely different sets of enemies out to kill him, both on the same night. I suffer from the homicide detective’s natural aversion to coincidences, and two entirely separate murder plots at once was a bit of a stretch. That being the case, then the second scenario was far more likely-a vicious murderer was out to do in any number of Seattle’s finest and their families as well.
Which brought me abruptly to the question of why me? Out of the fifteen hundred or so police officers in the city of Seattle, why had the gunman shot at me? It seemed likely that fate alone had cast me as a potential victim since Simmons, the officer left guarding the front door, would have been far more likely to open it.
I remembered how we had sprinted down the sidewalk after the gunman’s car disappearing in the early- morning darkness. Almost all the law enforcement vehicles in the neighborhood had been gone by then, and the crime scene tape had not yet been strung across the gate. If it had been, Simmons, Deddens, or I would have stumbled over it in our race to the car. With that in mind, it was conceivable, then, that whoever did the shooting still believed that Ben Weston was the only possible person who would open his own door at that ungodly hour of the morning.
Which brought me full circle and right back to Ben being the target of two totally separate murder plots at the same time-unless, as Janice Morraine had suggested, the killer really was a cop who knew full well that Ben Weston was already dead, who understood exactly what was going on, who had an accurate count of who was still inside the house, and who could make a pretty good guess which of those was most likely to open the door.
Around and around I went, my thoughts chasing themselves like so many stupid dogs, endlessly pursuing their own tails.
Janice Morraine climbed into the van and started the engine while I jolted myself out of my reverie and settled into the rider’s seat. “Where to?” she asked. “The department?”
“Sure. That’s fine. I need to pick up a car.”
We drove in silence for a few blocks. “Sorry about tonight,” I said. “I was out of line.”
“We were all tired,” she returned. “When people are running on nerves like that, you can’t expect everyone to be on their very best behavior.”
“You may be right,” I said quietly. “Not about Big Al, but about the murderer being a cop out to kill other cops.”
“Forget it,” she said. “I’ve changed my mind about that, too.”
“You have?”
“We found six Flex-cufs in Ben Weston’s nightstand drawer and two in the kitchen. Maybe he was collecting them. God knows how many others he had stashed here and there around the house, but a cop wouldn’t have made all the mistakes.”
“What mistakes?”
“The footprints, for one thing. If we once find that pair of shoes, believe me, we won’t have any trouble matching them up. And the hair for another.”
“The hair stuck between Shiree Western’s fingers?”
She nodded. “That’s right. Any cop in his right mind would have noticed and had brains enough to get rid of those.”
“What about fingerprints?”
Janice shrugged. “Naturally, we found those all over the house, but until we have a record of all the family members’ prints, there’s no way to tell which ones, if any, are strays.”
By then we were pulling into the garage at the Public Safety Building. “Thanks for the ride,” I said.
“No problem.”
“And no matter what I may have said before, for a criminalist, you’re not bad.”
She grinned back at me, and I knew I’d been forgiven. “You’re not bad either,” she returned lightly, “for a boy.”
Touche.
I went upstairs long enough to pick up my messages and to receive a hug from Margie, my clerk, who seemed delighted that I hadn’t been shot to pieces. Then I hurried back down to the garage, checked out a car, and went home.
It was only eight o’clock. I could smell the coffee and bacon as soon as the elevator door opened on the twenty-fifth floor. Obviously, Ralph Ames was making himself at home. I don’t know what kind of metabolism the man has, but he eats like a horse and never seems to have a problem with his weight. It probably has something to do with swimming daily laps at his pool there in Scottsdale.
“Hey, you’re just in time for breakfast. Want some?”
“No time. I came home to grab a shower and change clothes. Pour me a cup of coffee and let it cool. I’ll be out in a minute.”
By the time I got back out to the dining room, Ralph handed me a message from Carl Johnson. “Rough night?” Ames asked.
I knew from looking in the mirror that I had dark circles under my eyes. “Pretty rough, all right,” I said. “Five people dead and I ended up having someone take a potshot at me before the evening was over.”
“You’re in a tough line of work,” Ames said. “Sure you won’t try some eggs?”
The food smelled wonderful and I was famished. I allowed myself to be persuaded.
“Try some of the salsa on your eggs,” Ames suggested. “It’s the real McCoy, straight from Phoenix. I brought it up special.”
I tried a daub of the green salsa on my eggs and it instantly cleared every sinus cavity in my head. I bolted my food, toast and all, and pushed my chair away from the table.
“Where to this time?” Ames asked.
“I’ve got to do a next-of-kin notification. In feet, I should be on my way right this very minute.”
I was headed out the door when the phone rang. Expecting new marching orders from Watty or Captain Powell, I picked it up. Instead, it was Curtis Bell, a guy I knew vaguely from the department, who, now that he was moonlighting as a life insurance salesman, was renowned throughout Seattle PD as an A-number-one pest. He had been hounding me for an appointment for months.
