Justice Denied

other words, Mel had put out the word.

When I got as far as downtown, I thought briefly about stopping by Seattle PD, but decided against it. It would create far less of a stir if I phoned Kendall Jackson than it would if I showed up on the premises in person asking questions. And since Ross seemed to want deniability, less of a stir would be far preferable to more of one.

Back at the condo I settled into the recliner, picked up the phone, and dialed that old familiar number that took me straight to the heart of Homicide. In the old days I couldn’t have made such a call without spending several minutes chewing the fat with Watty Watson, who was, for many years, the telephone-answering nerve center for Seattle PD’s homicide squad. But now Watty had moved on-either up or out. The phone was answered by someone whose name I neither caught nor recognized. I was put through to Detective Jackson with no chitchat and no questions asked.

“Hey, Beau-Beau,” Kendall boomed into the phone. “How’re you doing these days? Did they finally get all that glass out of your face?”

Jackson had been first on the scene after I went through the shattered wall of that greenhouse. The last time he had seen me I had been a bloody mess on my way to the ER.

“Pretty much,” I said. “Although I still find shards of it now and then.”

“You’re doing better than Captain Kramer,” he said. “You know he’s still out on disability? Everyone says he’s coming back soon now, though, probably sometime in the next couple of weeks.”

Mel and I might have saved Paul Kramer’s sorry butt, but that didn’t mean I liked him any better. “Glad to hear it,” I lied.

The words came to my lips almost effortlessly. Maybe I was starting to get the hang of it. After all, I had managed to lie to Mel. Now it looked as though I might be able to spin believable whoppers at the drop of a hat for anybody at all, no exceptions.

“What can I do for you?” Jackson asked.

“I understand you’re working the LaShawn Tompkins case.”

“Yup,” Jackson said. “Hank and I drew that one.”

Hank was Detective Henry Ramsdahl, Jackson’s partner.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“Is that an official ‘how’s it going’ or an unofficial?” he returned.

“Unofficial,” I replied. “After the state made that payout in the Tompkins case, Ross Connors wants to be sure everything is on the up-and-up, but he also doesn’t want to make a big fuss about it, if you know what I mean.”

“We’re not making much progress so far,” Jackson admitted. “From everything we’ve been able to learn, Tompkins had been keeping his nose clean. We’ve turned up no sign that he was involved in any illegal activities. According to what we’ve been told, LaShawn found God while he was in prison. Once he got out, he straightened up and flew right-right up until somebody shot him dead, which, if you ask me, sounds pretty iffy,” Jackson concluded. “Old bad guys mostly don’t go straight.”

We were on the same wavelength on that score.

“With the possible exception of the girlfriend angle, though,” he added, “we haven’t found anyone with a beef against him.”

“What girlfriend?” I asked. The fact that LaShawn might have a girlfriend was news to me, and it would no doubt be news to Etta Mae as well.

“Name’s Elaine-Elaine Manning. That would be Sister Elaine Manning.”

“Sister as in she’s black?” I asked.

“That, too, but mostly sister as in that was her title at King Street Mission. Also an ex-con. Spent five years at Purdy for armed robbery. From what I can tell, that’s pretty much the prerequisite for becoming a counselor at King Street-you’ve already done your crime and your time. It’s a cachet that gives you more credibility with the clients.”

“What about Elaine Manning?” I prompted.

“We’re hearing bits and rumors that she and Brother Mark may have had something going, but that was before Brother LaShawn turned up on the scene. Once that happened, Sister Elaine more or less spun out of Brother Mark’s orbit.”

“So we could be dealing with a simple love triangle?” I asked.

Of course, love triangles are hardly ever simple.

“Maybe,” Jackson agreed. “Problem is, so far we haven’t been able to locate Ms. Manning.”

“You’re saying she’s gone missing?”

“Yup. No one’s seen her since sometime Saturday morning. Took off right after breakfast. Since then, she hasn’t shown up at work and hasn’t called in, either. No one seems to know where she is or how to reach her. We consider her a person of interest.”

Someone close to a murder victim who goes missing about the same time as the murder is always a person of interest, especially if there are hints of a love affair gone bad. Jackson made it sound like it was no big deal, but I guessed that the full powers of Seattle PD were being brought to bear on locating Sister Elaine Manning. It was probably better if I just sat back and let them do the heavy lifting. There would be plenty of time for me to talk to her once she was found.

“Tell me about Pastor Mark,” I said. “What’s his deal?”

“That would be Brother Mark or Pastor Mark, depending on who you talk to,” Kendall said. “Last name’s Granger. Former druggie. Did a fifteen-year stretch for second-degree murder. Been out for the past five years. Another unlikely prospect for a Goody Two-shoes award, but we haven’t been able to find anything new on him, either. Everybody at King Street seems hell-bent on keeping their noses clean-no drugs, no booze, no illegal activities. They don’t even allow cigarettes.”

“They just aren’t making ex-cons the way they used to,” I said.

“I guess not,” Jackson agreed with a laugh.

I started to ask him if he had any details on the payout Tompkins had received from the state. I stopped myself just in time. If my cover was that Ross Connors was worried about it, I’d better have the details of that at my fingertips. And I jotted a note to myself to make inquiries about the settlement on my own.

“So there’s nothing on the street about who might have done this?” I asked.

“So far not a word,” Jackson replied, “and believe me, we’ve been asking.”

“What about forensics?” I asked.

“A thirty-eight,” Jackson said. “We ran the bullet through NIBIN. Nothing turned up.”

NIBIN is the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network, which keeps track of bullets the same way AFIS (the Automated Fingerprint Identification System) keeps track of fingerprints. The fact that the bullet used to kill LaShawn Tompkins hadn’t shown up in the database meant that the weapon was clean-that it hadn’t been used in any other crime prior to his murder. Now that it had been entered into the system, however, if it was used again, it would be noticed. When or if that happened, it would make the killer easier to trace. Right now, though, it didn’t do us any good.

“So you’ll keep me in the loop on this one?” I suggested.

Jackson laughed. “Unofficially in the loop, that is.”

“Yes.”

“Only if you do the same,” he returned. “Quid quo pro, whatever. If you dredge something up, I want to hear about it, too.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

I put down the phone, leaned back in the recliner, and closed my eyes. I may even have drifted off for a second or two before the phone rang, startling me awake if not to full consciousness.

“How come we have to stay in a hotel?” my daughter demanded. “Why can’t we stay with you? Is it because of her?”

And there, in a nutshell, is why men find women so baffling-daughters included. Or perhaps, daughters especially.

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t always the best of fathers when Scott and Kelly were kids, but in the years since I stopped drinking I’ve gone to great lengths to undo as much of that damage as possible. Maybe I’ve