of Pacific Northwest lore and legend. Dead or alive, Tony Cosgrove didn’t have nearly the same kind of media staying power.
“So you’re saying you don’t think Cosgrove’s really dead?” the young detective continued.
“I didn’t say he isn’t dead,” I answered. “Carol admitted that she and Jack Lawrence were involved before Tony’s disappearance. DeAnn told me that once Tony was out of the picture, Carol moved on in a hell of a hurry. Instead of waiting around long enough for Tony to be declared dead, she divorced him and married Jack Lawrence within months of Tony’s going missing. That’s the real reason I wanted to see the Lawrences yesterday-to assess if the two of them might have had something to do with what happened to him.”
“According to DeAnn, her stepfather seemed very disturbed to think that anyone would be revisiting Tony’s disappearance,” Lander said. “Did Carol give you any idea why that might have been the case?”
“You mean other than the fact that they might have been behind it? No, she claimed Jack was upset because he’s a ‘very private man.’ That struck me as a load of crap. He may have been private, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.”
“How did you leave things with Carol Lawrence?” Lander asked.
“I handed her one of my cards and asked her to have Jack give me a call. I told her I needed to talk to him, but I figured it would be a cold day in hell before he ever called me back. In fact, I was a little surprised Carol even bothered to take my card in the first place.”
“Not only did she take it,” Lander told me after a pause, “she kept it, too. The CSI guys found your business card in her hand. Her cell phone was on the ground next to her body. We know for sure that Carol Lawrence tried to call you on it. Your office number here at the office is the last one listed under dialed calls. She placed that call at eight fifty-seven p.m., which is about the same time the preliminary coroner’s report estimates as the time of death.”
The idea that Carol Lawrence had tried and failed to reach me left me feeling half sick.
“It was the weekend,” I muttered. “The office was closed. After-hours calls to SHIT go to our general voice mail. I can call our office manager and have her check to see what was left-”
“Don’t bother,” Lander interrupted. “I’m sure she didn’t leave a message. The duration of the call is just over thirty seconds. Long enough to show that the connection was made but not enough to for her to make it through the voice mail prompts. Believe me, I already tried it.”
“How did this whole thing go down?” I asked.
Lander considered the question for a moment, weighing how he should proceed. Either he’d treat me as a suspect or as a fellow investigator. Considering that my dinner in Seattle made it impossible for me to be the killer, I figured he’d come down on the investigator side, and he did.
“The scene’s a little chaotic,” Lander said at last. “We made casts of several different sets of tire tracks going in and out. We already know that one of those sets belongs to the kid who found the bodies. We’ve located an area where a car pulled off the road and sat for a while. We found several empty beer bottles and some discarded gum there in the dirt.”
“So there could be fingerprint and/or DNA evidence?” I asked.
Lander nodded. “If it turns out the shooter is the one who chewed it. We think he parked on the shoulder waiting for something, maybe for Jack Lawrence to come home. After that, it appears there was some kind of confrontation in the yard next to Jack Lawrence’s vehicle. All three of them were involved, including the two victims. In the course of the struggle several shots were fired. Jack was hit once in the right shoulder and once in the gut. We believe Carol tried to flee and was shot in the back.”
“Did you find any brass?” I asked.
Lander nodded. “That’s where we got lucky.” He grinned. “Nine millimeter. The killer was smart enough to go around picking it up but he missed one. Looks like that one bounced off something and rolled under Lawrence’s RAV4. We didn’t find it until early this afternoon, after the vehicle was towed.”
I closed my eyes and tried to envision Carol and Jack Lawrence’s yard with its peaceful-looking log home tucked in among towering fir trees. It was hard to turn that idyllic setting into part of a deadly crime scene, one that had left two people dead.
“Another vehicle was parked in the Lawrences’ yard when I was there,” I said, pulling out my notebook. “A Subaru, I believe. A Forester. I’m pretty sure I jotted down the plate number-”
“That would be Carol’s car,” Lander interjected. “As far as I know it’s still there.”
I was disappointed that my one little snippet of information wasn’t going to be of any help in solving the case. I returned the notebook to my pocket.
“So who killed them?” I asked at last.
“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” Lander replied. “For instance, what can you tell me about the son-in-law?”
“About Donnie Cosgrove?” I asked. “I haven’t met him. I’ve only talked to him on the phone, but he sounds like a good guy. He’s an engineer of some kind and works for Fluke up in Everett. Makes enough money that his wife can be a stay-at-home mom.”
“Did you call him or did he call you?”
“He called me,” I said. “Lots was going on. I don’t remember exactly when he called, but I think it was Friday morning.”
“What was said?”
“He was mad as hell. Jack Lawrence had come to the house the day before and made a scene. Jack was convinced DeAnn had somehow jump-started our renewed interest into Tony Cosgrove’s disappearance.”
“Had she?”
“No, not at all. DeAnn Cosgrove had nothing to do with it. According to Donnie, Jack told DeAnn she didn’t know when she was well off-whatever that means.”
“Did Donnie come right out and threaten Jack Lawrence?”
“Not in so many words. He mentioned something about tearing Jack’s head off. He certainly didn’t say he was going to shoot him. I told him he should swear out a restraining order. But it sounds like you’re thinking Donnie’s responsible.”
Lander gave me a grim smile. “Are we talking proof or gut instinct here?” he asked. “The man was nervous as hell when I was there talking to them this morning. He could barely sit still, his hands were shaking, he looked like he was about to puke.”
The symptoms sounded familiar. “Maybe he was just hungover,” I suggested.
“That’s what he told me,” Lander said. “Claimed he had been out late last night, drinking with his buddies and tying one on. I’ll be checking his alibi. I’ll also be checking the gum. And as I was leaving, Donnie Cosgrove’s SUV just happened to be parked out on the street and I just happened to have a camera with me, so even if he goes out this afternoon and buys a new set of tires, I’ve got a copy of the tread to match up with our plaster casts.”
I thought about DeAnn Cosgrove-her little house in Redmond and her three little babies. I hated to think that her husband might be responsible for any of this. But a homicide detective’s suspicions often count for something, whether they’re mine or someone else’s. I had to give Detective Lander his due.
“What about getting the Lawrences’ phone records?” I asked. “Finding out who they’ve called and who’s called them in the past few days would probably be a help.”
Lander frowned. “We’re working on it,” he said glumly, “but of course that’s going to take time.”
I know that drill all too well. When I used to send requests for phone information from Homicide at Seattle PD, getting a response usually took forever. Now that I worked for the A.G.’s office, however, that was no longer true. Requests for information that had been signed by Ross Alan Connors were usually handled with surprising alacrity. Not only that, I suspected that giving Tim Lander a leg up in his double homicide investigation now was something that could possibly serve me in good stead in some future investigation of my own.
“Ross Connors could probably speed up that process for you,” I suggested.
Lander looked at me sharply. “He could?”
I nodded.
“And would he?” Lander asked.
“If you and I made a joint request.”
Lander looked astonished to think that I might be able to bring the power of the Washington State attorney general to bear on his investigation. Since I’ve never been much of a team player, I couldn’t quite believe it
