going at all the way I had intended. Where was Mel Soames when I could have used her to run interference?
My grandfather’s moral superiority, supposedly based on religious principles, had driven his daughter, my mother, away in disgrace. It was also the main reason I had grown up largely unchurched. Faced with Etta Mae Tompkins’s piercing stare, I decided that an honest answer was better than attempting to dodge the issue.
“Probably not according to your lights,” I said.
“You might be surprised about my lights,” she replied. “But I’ll tell you this: My son was saved. He went into prison one way, and, praise Jesus, he came out another. He wasn’t doing drugs,” she added. “And he wasn’t selling drugs, neither. Shawny wasn’t doing nothin’ wrong. He was here fixing my supper, looking after me. Why would someone want to kill him like that?”
“I have no idea.”
“And who did you say you work for again?”
“Ross Connors. The Washington State attorney general.”
“And why’s this Mr. Ross interested in who killed my Shawny?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Maybe he thinks those detectives from Seattle PD won’t do a good job?” she suggested.
That was, of course, a distinct possibility.
“That Detective Jackson seemed nice enough,” Etta Mae added.
I was happy to have that piece of information. Detective Kendall Jackson, who is probably as tired of wine jokes as I am of whales, is one of the newer guys in Homicide, but he’s also someone I know and respect. I was glad to hear he was on the case. I figured he was someone I could go to with a few discreet questions.
“What do you want from me?” Etta Mae asked.
“Maybe you know something,” I said. “Maybe your son said something to you that would have some bearing on what happened. For instance, did he mention anything to you about having any difficulties with people at work?”
Etta Mae shook her head. “If he had any troubles like that, he never said nothin’ to me about ’em.”
“What about friends from around here?” I asked. “Did he take up with any of his old pals from the neighborhood once he came home?”
“I already told you, Jonah,” she said firmly. “LaShawn came out of prison a changed man. He didn’t go back to any of his old friends or his old habits. He knew them for what they are, the way of the devil. So he stayed away from them. If you make a habit of standing in the way of temptation, you just might get run over.”
I didn’t bother correcting the Jonah bit. There was no point. “What about a girlfriend?” I asked. “Did he have one?”
“Not that I know of.”
“What about difficulties with money?” I asked.
Homicidal violence often has its origin in some combination of drugs, women, and/or money, and I’m not just talking about homicides in the Rainier Valley area of Seattle, either.
“He didn’t have no money,” Etta Mae declared. “Didn’t need it, neither, because he was giving his life over to the Lord and to the King Street Mission. When he got that settlement from the state, I think Pastor Mark thought Shawny would turn right around and drop the whole thing in the collection plate, but he didn’t. Instead, LaShawn spent it on me, fixing this place up all nice and cozy so I’d have myself a comfortable place to live.”
I didn’t remember the exact amount of LaShawn Tompkins’s wrongful-imprisonment settlement. I wondered how much of it was left, and was it enough to provide a motive for murder?
“If your son had no money, what did he do for food and clothing?” I asked.
“He ate his meals at the mission. As for clothing? I don’t know nothing about that. You’ll have to ask Pastor Mark.”
I said, “You and the good pastor seemed to be having a slight difference of opinion when I first got here. What was that all about?”
“Oh, that,” Etta Mae said. “Pastor Mark is under the impression that just because Shawny worked for him, it was like he owned him or something, and that he could say how and where the funeral was gonna be and all that. I had to set him straight on that score, and I did.”
Yes, Pastor Mark and the King Street Mission would bear some scrutiny. It would have been nice to think that LaShawn Tompkins and Pastor Mark had both seen the light and that the two of them subsequently had devoted themselves to lives of selfless service to others. But I just didn’t happen to think that was true. It was likely there was something else at work here. If I ever managed to figure out exactly what that was, I’d most likely know who had gunned down LaShawn Tompkins and why.
CHAPTER 5
I left Etta Mae’s house about midafternoon. Before leaving I had been introduced to Etta Mae’s neighbor, Janie Griswold, who had eventually emerged from the kitchen and resumed her thankless task of trying to clean up the blood-spattered entryway.
Walking back to the car, I felt frustrated. What should have been an uncomplicated, straight-up interview had ended up being more of a prayer meeting, one in which I had been on the defensive far more than I should have been. I came away knowing that Etta Mae’s belief in her son’s miraculous transformation was utterly unshakable. I, on the other hand, had my doubts.
When I had first pulled up in front of the house on Church Street, I had turned off my cell phone. It would have been more than a little awkward if Mel had called and asked what I was doing when I was in the midst of interviewing an important witness in a supposedly nonexistent case. As soon as I turned the phone back on, it was bristling with a collection of messages and missed calls.
I dialed Mel immediately. “Where are you?” she wanted to know.
“Headed home,” I hedged. I was in fact driving back toward downtown Seattle at that very moment-just not from the direction she might have anticipated.
“How’s Lars?” she asked.
“Medium,” I said.
“Did you invite him to dinner?” she said.
“Did,” I said. “He turned me down.”
“He probably shouldn’t be alone right now,” Mel said. “He should have people with him.”
I thought about the gaggle of unattached Queen Anne Gardens dames Lars had claimed were hovering around him, all of them circling for a premature landing. “I doubt he’ll be all that alone,” I said.
“Still,” Mel said. “He should be with family at a time like this. Do you think I should call and ask him?” she wanted to know.
Mel probably could have talked Lars into coming out for dinner, but if she did, we might end up having a discussion of exactly when I had dropped him off and what I’d been doing in the meantime, et cetera, et cetera. What was it my mother always used to say? “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”
“He seemed pretty tired,” I said. “Let’s leave well enough alone.”
I gave her the arrangement details for Beverly’s services so she could pass them along to Barbara Galvin and Harry. She extracted a promise that I’d order more flowers. She also told me that she’d made arrangements for the kids to stay at the Homewood Suites a few blocks away from Belltown Terrace at the bottom of Queen Anne Hill. Once again I appreciated Mel’s attention to detail. Making room reservations was something I probably wouldn’t have remembered-until it was too late.
“What are you going to do now?” Mel asked.
“Go home and put my feet up,” I said. “It was a pretty short night.”
On the way, I listened through a string of condolence calls-from Ron Peters, a former partner and a good friend; from Ralph Ames, my attorney; from Ross Connors along with several other members of the SHIT squad. In
