Long Time Gone

into a druggie, too, that is.”

“That’s exactly what I told Rosemary on Friday,” Ron said. “And I told her I’d see her in hell first.”

“Probably not the best choice of words,” I said. “Especially in light of what’s happened. What did she do?”

“Called her lawyer, evidently. He’s the one who sicced the Tacoma cops on me. He told them I had threatened her. I didn’t, Beau. I swear. It was strictly a figure of speech. Rosemary’s been so big on hellfire and damnation lately that I thought I’d put the situation into terms she’d understand.”

“So what happened?”

“Two Tacoma homicide dicks turned up at my office down at Internal Affairs about three this afternoon. They claimed they were coming to notify next of kin, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I did that job long enough to know the drill. They notified me, all right. Then they asked as many questions as they thought they could get away with without having to read me my rights. You know where all this is going, don’t you?” he asked.

Unfortunately I did. “Straight to the SHIT squad, right?”

Ron nodded. “I wanted to give you a heads-up, Beau. I owe you that much.”

“Believe me, Ron. You don’t owe me a thing.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I needed a place to vent. Now I’d best get home. I have to tell the girls what happened- before someone else does.”

For some time after Ron left, I sat and wrestled with the uncomfortable knowledge that one of my best friends was about to come under the scrutiny of my colleagues at the Special Homicide Investigation Team.

A year earlier Tacoma’s chief of police had run off the rails. He had used a gun to murder his estranged wife and had then taken his own life while their horrified young children observed the carnage from a few yards away. Subsequent investigations had revealed that for years Tacoma PD had either ignored or covered up reports of domestic violence at the chief ’s house. Had those reports been handled differently, a terrible family tragedy might well have been avoided. The city of Tacoma hasn’t exactly stood up and accepted responsibility for the mishandling of the case, but I personally have no doubt the city’s coffers will be greatly depleted by the wrongful death suit that’s been filed on behalf of the dead woman’s survivors.

Police-related domestic violence has long been one of law enforcement’s dirty little secrets. When cops are involved in such incidents-as either perpetrator or victim-we tend to turn a blind eye. That had certainly been the case with my dead partner, Sue Danielson. She had gone to great lengths to conceal her former husband’s violent nature and the recurring bouts of domestic violence that had preceded her divorce. I’ve often wondered what would have happened had she reported it. Would he still have managed to kill her? I don’t know.

But when Sue died, she was just a cop-an ordinary foot soldier-and hardly anybody noticed. Besides, she was the victim, not the perp. When a police chief is the one pulling the trigger, though, everybody pays attention-even the state legislature. They got busy down in the state capitol and have been drafting a slew of new laws that will require uniform policies and procedures for reported cases of police-related domestic violence. And if one of those cases results in a fatality, it’s automatically kicked upstairs to the attorney general’s office, where his Special Homicide Investigation Team becomes the lead investigating agency.

Ron and I were close friends. That meant I wouldn’t be one of the investigators working the case, but I’d still be part of the investigation. I’d be one of the witnesses my colleagues would be questioning, and the fact that Ron had come straight from the next-of-kin notification to talk to me wouldn’t look good for either one of us.

Now instead of one disaster-bound case, I was dealing with two.

It was enough to make me wonder why I’d even bothered to come back home from Hawaii. Bored as I was, I should have known when I was well off and stayed there.

CHAPTER 4

For some strange reason, after that, my heart wasn’t into analyzing Fred MacKinzie’s taped interviews. Instead, I called Lars Jenssen-my stepgrandfather and AA sponsor-at Queen Anne Gardens, the assisted-living facility where he and my grandmother, Beverly, have taken up residence.

“Hey, Lars,” I said, once he’d adjusted his hearing aid so he could talk on the phone. “It’s Monday. Want me to come pick you up and bring you down the hill for the meeting?”

On Monday nights Lars and I usually grab a bite to eat and then attend the AA meeting that’s held at the old Rendezvous Restaurant on Second Avenue. And since Lars no longer drives (he’s ninety-three, so that’s a good thing!), I pick him up and drop him off. Lars has been sober for so long that I’m not sure he actually needs to go to meetings anymore, but he gets a kick out of being the oldest guy there-in terms of age rather than sobriety. As for Beverly? She let me know once that she appreciates having him out from underfoot occasionally, too. That way she can spend time hanging out with some of the other “girls.”

But on this particular evening, Lars turned me down. “No,” he said. “I t’ink I’ll stay home tonight.” His Norwegian accent tends to be thicker on the telephone than it is in person. “The missus isn’t feeling too good. I need to stick around and keep an eye on her.”

Beverly Piedmont Jenssen is a sprightly ninety-one. “Nothing serious, I hope,” I said.

“Oh, no. She’s yust a bit under the weather.”

Lars, a retired fisherman, loves his fish-baked, deep-fried, grilled, sauteed, stewed, and chowdered. On Monday nights when he’s out with me, we usually stop off at Ivar’s for clams. I can take fish or leave it. And on this occasion, leave it is what I did, opting for Mexican food instead, something Lars won’t eat.

Pulling on a leather jacket, I braved the weather and hoofed it up Second to Mama’s Mexican Kitchen. The after-dinner meeting was short. Only about eight guys showed up, all of them regulars. The people in attendance were far more interested in talking about the weather than they were in the Big Book or the drunkalogue, and rightfully so. By the time we came back out onto the street, it was snowing. And sticking.

Back at Belltown Terrace, the night doorman was among the missing, so I buzzed myself into the building with the keypad. Then I went upstairs and turned on the gas log. I checked the phone for messages, hoping to hear how things were going for Ron at home. All evening long I had been wondering how Heather and Tracy had handled the disturbing news of their mother’s murder, but my light wasn’t blinking. There was no message from them, and none from Harry I. Ball, either.

I wondered briefly if I should call Harry at home and tell him what had happened, but I got over it. Harry would find out about the case through regular channels soon enough.

You’re better off letting the wheels of bureaucracy grind away at their own pace on this one, I told myself. No sense borrowing trouble.

And trouble was coming. As soon as news of Rosemary Peters’s death hit the media, I’d be in it up to my eyeballs. For one thing, the fact that Ron and I were former partners was a long-established fact. Unearthing our friendship wouldn’t be difficult for anybody. I hated to think what someone like Maxwell Cole, an old fraternity brother and my longtime nemesis, who was a columnist down at the Seattle Post- Intelligencer, would make of the fact that Ron had stopped by my condo to tell me about his former wife’s death before he went home to tell his two daughters. With a little imagination combined with journalistic license, Max would probably turn that visit, along with my presence on the Special Homicide Investigation Team, into the second coming of Conspiracy Theory.

After a several-hours-long hiatus, I forced myself to return to the VCR. I watched all three of the Sister Mary Katherine tapes in order. Carefully, in a nonthreatening fashion, Fred encouraged her to delve more deeply into the forgotten memories of that awful day that had clearly become pivotal in Bonnie Jean Dunleavy’s childhood. It was a fascinating and eerie process. By the time the third tape ended, I felt as though I had been standing on the kitchen chair beside that traumatized and frightened little girl as she witnessed a vicious stabbing and murder. If I hadn’t been convinced beforehand, the clincher would have come during that last tape when Bonnie Jean revealed that when she had returned from her hiding place, she had discovered the body was gone and the blood washed away.

With my notebook open and a pencil handy, I went through the tapes again, jotting down questions and comments as I watched.

How much hand-eye coordination does it take to play jacks or hop-scotch? BJ has to be five or maybe six.