Torvoldsen and J. P. Beaumont shared in common.
'Actually, I spent most of the night alternately sweating like a pig or freezing my ass off, prowling around the scene of a house fire up on Camano Island. It was still hot in places.'
'A house fire on Camano Island?' Sue asked. 'Why would you want to do something like that?'
'Because Detective Stan Jacek of the Island County Sheriff's Department asked me to. By the time he called me, he already knew it was a fatality fire, and he was hoping I could help him figure out who the victim is. We did pick up a letter from the scene-actually from a singed white Cadillac parked in the driveway outside the house. One of Jacek's deputies found it.
'It was addressed to somebody named Denise Whitney, and the address was the same as the burned house. The letter was signed ‘Mom,' and the envelope had an Anchorage, Alaska, return address. By now I'm sure Detective Jacek's followed up on that, trying to locate next of kin.'
'Wait just a minute,' Sue interrupted. 'How come this Island County detective is pulling you in to investigate his case?'
'Because,' I said, 'we think it may be the same perpetrator as whoever killed Gunter Gebhardt.'
As briefly as possible, I brought Sue up to speed, telling her everything I could remember, starting with the phone call from Detective Jacek at 11:00 P. M. I told her about the grisly copycat connections between the Camano Island homicide and our own. I explained, however, that there were some notable differences between the two separate blazes.
For instance, the one on Camano had been started by setting fire to piles of newspaper scattered in separate rooms throughout the house. Unlike the blaze on the Isolde, there were no apparent signs of a liquid accelerant in most of the house, but that was a long way from conclusive. It was possible that subsequent arson investigation would reveal the use of accelerant in that part of the house that had still been too hot to handle by the time I left the scene to return to the city.
Attempting to be thorough, I became so caught up in telling the story that I never saw it coming. When I finally finished my recitation and shut up, I was dumbfounded to find that Sue Danielson was steamed-at me.
'How come you didn't call me right away?' she demanded angrily. 'You should have let me know the minute all this came up.'
'Detective Jacek's call didn't come in until after eleven. I figured you were sound asleep in bed by then. Besides, you've got kids at home to worry about. You can't spend half the night traipsing around all over the countryside with them there by themselves.'
'Wait a minute here, Detective J. P. Beaumont,' she bridled. 'Wait just one goddamned minute! Since when do you have the right to make those kinds of decisions for me? I'm a big girl. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm also a sworn police officer. I've been working outside the home all my life, and all my kids' lives, too.
'Jared Danielson may be a jerk at times, but he's not a baby. I started out working night shift at the Communications Center while he was still in diapers. My sons Jared and Chris both understand that my job is what keeps food on the table and a roof over our heads. They know there are times when they have to look after themselves because I can't always be here.'
'I stand corrected,' I said, although I was sitting on the edge of my bed at the time. When faced with that kind of an unexpected, cross-gender firefight, I've learned to shape up and apologize right away. Somebody told me once that the first rule of holes is that when you're standing in one up to your eyeballs, stop digging.
In this instance, that strategy worked.
'So what is it you need me to do?' Sue asked, sounding somewhat mollified.
I explained the bit about the solid-gold wrench, then, and told her Bonnie Elgin was due at the department at nine to have her fingerprints taken and to work on an Identi-Kit sketch of our missing hit-and-run victim.
'Bonnie most likely will need to be walked through the process, have her hand held a little,' I said. 'Evidently, she's never been involved in anything like this before, and I think she's nervous about it.'
'I can certainly understand that,' Sue said briskly. 'What else needs doing?'
'Be in touch with Detective Jacek.' I gave her both his phone as well as his fax number at the Island County seat in Coupeville. 'As soon as we can get a photo from Else, we need to fax Jacek a picture of Gunter Gebhardt- one taken while he was still alive.'
'What's that for?' Sue asked.
'For him to show to the neighbors on Camano. I have a feeling Gunter may have been spending a good deal of time up there.'
'And what makes you think that?'
Sue's last question brought me face-to-face with my second sin of omission-I hadn't yet briefed her on my conversation with Alan Torvoldsen, either.
'I believe Gunter Gebhardt was playing the field,' I told her. 'I heard it first from Alan Torvoldsen earlier last night, but I heard it again from people who live around the fire scene. Camano Island is one of those places where nothing much happens. The fire was like a neighborhood picnic. Everybody in town must have showed up last night to find out what was going on. Jacek and I talked to most of them, including the real estate man who sold the place to the new owners two years ago.
'The realtor remembered there was something odd about the deal-that the house was bought by a corporation of some kind, but he couldn't remember the name last night. Another neighbor, a woman who works in the post office over in Stanwood, said that the woman who lived in the house, a Denise Whitney, claimed it was hers. She said she owned it along with somebody else. Detective Jacek and I think that other person may actually have been Gunter Gebhardt.'
'I suppose it's safe to assume that Denise Whitney was quite a bit younger than Gunter,' Sue said.
'Evidently,' I replied. 'From everything I hear, she's on the downside of twenty-five.'
'It figures,' Sue said.
She had kept her cool while I passed along the dope Alan had given me about Gunter's sweet young thing. Rather than risk landing once more on my partner's wrong side, I was scrupulous about not leaving anything out. I went ahead and told her what he had said about still carrying a torch for Else, Gunter's widow. When I told Sue that, she turned thoughtful on me. 'It wasn't him, was it?'
'Wasn't who?'
'Your old friend Alan Torvoldsen. You just told me he's still in love with Gunter's wife…his widow. What if he's had a grudge against Gunter-first for stealing Else out from under his nose, years ago. Think about it. First he loses Else. Then thirty years later, he finds out the guy who did marry her is screwing around behind her back.'
Unfortunately, the exact same thought-that Alan might have had some reason to be after Gunter-had occurred to me as well. I hadn't exactly rationalized my way around it, but I'll admit I hadn't sat down to scrutinize it too closely, either.
'I can see why Alan might be pissed off at Gunter,' I said, 'but why would he take out the girlfriend?'
'I don't know, but you did say he knew where she lived, didn't you?'
I nodded. 'Yes. He said he followed her home when she showed up down at the Isolde.'
'Which means he was at the scene of the crime the day of the murders.'
'That's right. But by the time the Camano Island fire started, he was back here in Seattle. And remember, he has an airtight alibi for that time. He was with me, drinking espresso at Club Four-four-nine up in Greenwood.'
Sue seemed prepared to accept that notion, at least for the time being. 'What time do you expect to show up at the office yourself?' she asked, changing the subject.
'I'll plan on being there by ten,' I told her. 'I should be on the job by the time you and Bonnie Elgin finish with the sketch.'
'All right,' Sue said. 'See you then.'
I was dog-assed tired. I slipped down into the comfort of the still-warm covers, and it didn't take five minutes for me to fall back asleep. I slept the sleep of the just-for all of twenty minutes. That's when the phone rang. Captain Lawrence Powell was on the line-an irate Captain Larry Powell.
'Detective Beaumont,' he said. 'Who the hell appointed you as spokesman for the Homicide Squad?'
'Excuse me?' Shoving my feet out of bed, I put them flat on the floor. I tend to think better sitting up. 'What are you talking about, Captain Powell?' I mumbled sleepily. 'What's going on?'
'You know very well that it's against departmental policy for officers to make any kind of unauthorized statement to the media regarding the progress of an ongoing investigation, particularly a homicide.'
