matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make out the license number on the back of the Crown Victoria. I'm enough of an expert to know that enhancing a video image is possible, but I didn't have either the technical skill or the equipment to do so, not there in my apartment at nine o'clock at night.
The phone rang about then, offering a welcome interruption. 'Detective Beaumont?' a man's voice asked uncertainly.
'Yes.'
'This here's Norm Otis with Yellow Cab. I know I was supposed to call you earlier this evening, but it's been real busy tonight. This is the first chance I've had.'
'That's all right, Mr. Otis. Did Sally Redding tell you what I wanted?'
'She sure did. About that poor girl from last week. I'm glad to hear someone's doing something about it. I felt really sorry for her, just as sorry as I could be. I don't think I've ever heard anybody cry as hard as that. Like her heart was broken. But she didn't hire me for my advice-only to drive the car-so all's I could do was take her where she wanted to go.'
'Where was that?'
'Main Street in Bellevue, number one zero two eight five Main Street.'
'Sally Redding already gave me that,' I told him.
'If you already knew where I dropped her, why do you need to talk to me?' Norm asked.
'Is that a house? An apartment?'
'Neither. A business,' Norm answered. 'Looked to me like a china shop. It worried me that she was getting out at such a strange place in the middle of the night, so I made sure she was safely inside before I drove away.'
'Do you remember the shop's name?'
'A woman's name, but I don't remember any more than that.'
'It wasn't open, was it?'
'Are you kidding? This was the middle of the night. Sometime after midnight. No, but she had a key. She let herself in, and I saw her monkeying with a keypad right by the door, so she must have been turning off an alarm.'
'It's probably where she works,' I surmised.
'I'd say,' Norm Otis agreed.
'Did she mention anything at all about what had gone on before you picked her up?'
'No, but you could sort of figure it out. I mean her clothes were torn half off. She had a cut on her lip. And the asshole who did it had nerve enough to walk her out to the curb. Had to be him, because he was in his shirtsleeves, and she was wearing a man's jacket. He tried to open the door for her like a gentleman, just as nice as can be. As if nothing in the world had happened. But she wouldn't have nothin' to do with him.'
'And she didn't say a word about what had put her in that state?'
'Nope. Not a word. Like I told you. She gave me the address and then cried her eyes out the rest of the trip, from downtown Seattle right on across the I-Ninety bridge.' Norm paused a moment and then added, 'Are you going to get that guy, Detective Beaumont?'
'I don't have to,' I told him.
'Why not?' Norm asked.
'Because somebody else already has. He's dead.'
'Dead?' Norm repeated.
'Murdered,' I said.
'Hot damn!' Norm replied. There was another pause. 'Who did it?'
'I don't know. I'm the detective assigned to the case. I'm working on it.'
'It wasn't her, was it?'
All too clearly I remembered what Latty had said to Don Wolf on the tape and in the heat of absolutely understandable anger: If you touch me again, I swear to God I'll kill you.
'It could have been,' I said carefully.
'Jesus,' Norm Otis whispered. 'I hope not. She was a real pretty little girl. Looked just like a young Marilyn Monroe. Isn't there such a thing as justifiable homicide in cases like that?'
'There is,' I said, 'but it's hard to prove. Besides, I'm just a cop. All that legal crap is up to the prosecutor's office and the defense lawyers.'
'Maybe she'll find herself one of those smart lawyers who'll get her off,' Norm Otis said wistfully. 'But let me give you my home number just in case somebody needs it. I mean if it would help for someone to know what kind of shape that poor girl was in that night, I'll be glad to go to bat for her.'
'We'll see,' I said. 'Go ahead and give me your number. We'll need to get a statement from you anyway. Just in case.'
Ten
I fell asleep some time before the news came on, and slept like a log. One phone call at a time, I was making progress, and my evening's worth of phone calls made me feel as though I was on track. I woke up early, rewrote the several reports the computer had eaten the day before, and then headed for the office. I was sitting in my cubicle using the Ethernet card on my computer to send files to the printer on our local area network when Watty poked his head in at the doorway.
'The captain wants to see you,' he said. 'He's looking for your paper.'
'He can have my reports,' I said, 'just as soon as I finish printing them.'
I never should have said it aloud. The words were no more than out of my mouth when a message decorated with a tasteful stop sign flashed on the screen. PRINTER IS OFF
LINE OR OUT OF PAPER it said. PLEASE CHECK YOUR PRINTER AND TRY AGAIN.
'Damn!' I exclaimed, heading down the hallway toward Captain Powell's office. 'If Henry Ford's Model T's had been this undependable, we'd still be using the horse and buggy.'
'Aren't you going to try to fix it?' Watty asked after me.
'No,' I told him. 'That's not my job. I'm a detective, not a nerd.'
Captain Powell was waiting in his fishbowl office. A brass plaque on his desk gave his name and rank. On the front of it, someone had attached a Post-it that announced, 'This is a computer-free zone.' My sentiments, exactly, I thought, as I dropped into a chair in front of the cluttered desk.
'Any reports for me this morning, Detective Beaumont?' Captain Powell asked. 'Or are you too busy handing out autographs these days to bother doing mundane things like actually writing reports?'
Even though I had figured Kramer would try to make the most of Johnny Bickford's visit, I guess it still surprised me to have the first derogatory comment come back to me from Captain Larry Powell. Gritting my teeth, and trying not to let on how much that bugged me, I went into my lame 1990s version of 'My dog ate my homework. Twice.'
Powell listened impassively to my sad story. Because he doesn't actually use computers, I think he considers himself above the fray. 'I want those reports,' he said, when I finished. 'I want them on my desk ASAP. You realize, of course, that this is turning into a very sensitive case.'
Double homicides are always sensitive, I thought, but I didn't say it aloud. Powell's glower as he sailed a piece of paper toward me was enough of a warning that this was no time for one of my typically smart-mouthed comments.
I caught the paper in midair. On it was a list of four names-names and nothing else: Carrol Walsh, Crystal Barron, Martin Rutherford, and DeVar Lester.
I read through the list. None of the names belonged to people I knew personally, but they were nonetheless names I recognized. These were all high-profile people. You couldn't live in Seattle without knowing something about them.
Carrol Walsh was a newly made software multimillionaire who had created a media splash by donating a mountain of money to Fred Hutch cancer research. Crystal Barron, an heiress from back East, had taken up life on a Lake Union houseboat after divorcing her fourth hubby, an aging Hollywood star. Martin Rutherford was a corporate free spirit who had been cut loose in an acrimonious buyout by one of Seattle's premier family-owned and — operated coffee roasting companies. DeVar Lester was an ex-football player who had made a bundle on an outrageously overpriced rookie contract with the Seahawks only to end up blowing his knee in a preseason workout
