and we’ll follow up on some of the leads she suggested, but I’m not holding my breath. Without something more solid than her suspicion…”
“That’s pretty much where I am on that, too,” I told him. “What about the nun? Any luck tracking her?”
“All bad,” Jackson returned. “But I seem to remember that your boss has way more high-level connections inside the Catholic Church than I do. Here’s an idea. How about if you see what
I was still pissed that he hadn’t mentioned the existence of a possible eyewitness without my having to find it out on my own, but there was no sense arguing over it, especially not when I still needed Detective Jackson in my corner on occasion.
“Thanks for the suggestion,” I told him. “I’ll give it a whirl.”
Ross Connors is a lifelong Catholic, and one of his best friends from O’Dea High School is now a special assistant to the bishop at the Seattle Archdiocese. So I called Ross. It was March and nippy, but it was also that rarest of rare northwest commodities-a sunny Saturday. I had no doubt Ross was out on a golf course somewhere.
I left him a message to call me back. Then I put my phone away and tucked in.
CHAPTER 14
On the drive back to Seattle, LaShawn Tompkins’s murder slipped to a back burner as I concentrated on what my trip across the mountains had produced concerning Tony Cosgrove’s disappearance. If nothing else, talking to Carol Lawrence had upped my suspicion level significantly. I was convinced that she and her husband did have something to hide, even though I wasn’t sure what.
To my mind there was now a whole new urgency in my wanting to track down Thomas Dortman, the defense analyst. If, as I suspected, he had worked at Boeing during the seventies and eighties, there was a chance he had actually known Tony Cosgrove or maybe even Jack Lawrence. What I needed more than anything right then was to talk to someone who would either confirm what Carol Lawrence had told me-or blow her out of the water.
It wasn’t until I turned south on 405 that I started thinking about dinner-and about Mel. I wasn’t looking forward to going to dinner with Scott and Cherisse and having to explain why Mel wasn’t joining us. I thought briefly about calling her. I glanced at my cell phone, but there hadn’t been any calls. Then I thought about going by her place in Bellevue on the way home to Seattle. But I didn’t want to show up outside the security door at her apartment only to be told I wasn’t welcome. So I drove onto State Route 520 and straight home.
On the parking garage ramp leading down to P-2, however, I was astonished to see Mel’s 740 parked in its customary spot. I headed up to the penthouse, not the least bit sure if it would be safe to open the door without wearing a flak jacket. When I stepped inside, however, I found Mel at the far end of the living room. The window seat was covered with stacks of papers, which I immediately recognized as excerpts from Todd Hatcher’s abstracts. She was seated cross-legged on the floor in front of a yellow pad, reading glasses perched on her nose. She stood up as soon as I came into the room, walked over, and kissed me hello.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was out of line.” I kissed her back. I would have done more, but she dodged out of my arms before I could get a good grip on her. She returned to the window seat and began gathering the papers. “I should have talked to you about this a long time ago,” she added.
“Should have talked to me about what?” I asked.
“About why I’m involved with SASAC,” she replied.
I felt a funny twist in my gut. If this was something Mel didn’t want to tell me, it was also probably something I didn’t want to hear.
“Look,” I said, “I was out of line, too. Whatever it was must have happened a long time ago. It’s none of my business. You don’t owe me an explanation of any kind.”
“But I do,” she said. “What happened back then is why I’m involved in sexual assault issues today. It’s also why I’m a cop. Coffee?”
I recognized that her offer of coffee was nothing more or less than a diversionary tactic. I accepted it for the same reason. We were waltzing around something important and uncomfortable, and we needed to get past it. Mel’s face looked so troubled-so hurt-that I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her, but she wasn’t having any of that. She went back to the relative safety of the window seat and perched there, coffee cup in hand. I, on the other hand, retreated to my sturdy recliner. We both knew that whatever was coming wouldn’t be easy to discuss, and maintaining some physical distance would serve us both in good stead.
“Did you ever have something happen to you where it wasn’t your fault-I mean, you
My mother died of cancer. My ex-wife died of cancer. Sue Danielson died of gunshot wounds. Anne Corley died of gunshot wounds. Only with Anne did I personally fire the weapon that killed her, and even that ended up being ruled justifiable homicide-self-defense. In all the others I was held blameless-as far as the world was concerned, but not on my own personal scorecard.
“Once or twice,” I conceded.
“Have I ever mentioned Sarah Matthews to you?”
I racked my brain and came up empty. “I don’t think so. Who’s she?”
“She was my best friend in high school-Austin High School in El Paso. Her father was a staff sergeant in the army and my dad was a major at the time. We were in the same homeroom.”
I was scrambling to pull together what little I did know about Mel Soames’s background. She had grown up as an army brat. Her dad, William Majors, was retired military who now lived somewhere in Italy with his second wife, Doris. Mel’s mother, Katy, was living in Florida with a long-term boyfriend, name unknown, whom she had so far declined to marry. I knew there had been bad blood all around during the breakup of their almost thirty-year marriage. As a result I had yet to meet any of Mel’s parental units.
“Major Majors?” I asked, trying to inject a little humor. “That must have been fun.
Mel didn’t respond in kind, and her grim expression didn’t change.
“Sarah and I were in the same homeroom for three years,” she continued. “My senior year Dad was transferred back to D.C. Sarah and I stayed in touch for a year or so-through graduation and for the first semester of our freshman year in college. She committed suicide a few days before Christmas of that year. She shot herself.”
“Where?” I asked.
“In the head,” Mel answered. “Blew her brains out.”
“No. I mean where was she when she died?”
“She was still in Texas-University of Texas at El Paso.”
I knew Mel had graduated from the University of Virginia. “So you weren’t anywhere around when it happened?” I asked.
“No,” Mel said. “Sarah was in El Paso. I was in Charlottesville.”
“So how could her committing suicide possibly be your fault?” I asked.
For an answer, Mel picked up a small book that had been sitting on the floor beside her. She got up, walked across the room, and handed it to me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Sarah’s diary,” Mel replied. “I’m sure she was afraid someone at home might find it, so she must have hidden it on my bookshelf. When we moved, it got stuck in a box of books that stayed in storage until after my parents bought the house in Manassas at the beginning of my sophomore year. Mom found it and gave it to me. It pretty much explains everything.”
I was holding the book, but I didn’t think Mel actually intended for me to read it.
“What does it say?” I asked.
Mel’s eyes filled with tears. “Her father molested her,” she said. “From the time she was little. She tried to tell her mother, but her mom didn’t believe her.”
“Did she tell you?” I asked.
