either.
“How long would it take to do that?” Lander asked.
For an answer I picked up my phone and scrolled through my phone book. I located Ross Connors’s cell number and punched “send.” Ross himself answered after the fourth ring, and he didn’t sound the least bit fazed by the fact that my call was interrupting his Sunday-afternoon golf. From the sounds in the background he was already ensconced at the nineteenth hole.
“So you think the new double homicide up in Leavenworth is related to your old missing persons case?” Connors asked once I finished.
“No way to tell that for sure,” I told him, “but it’s a distinct possibility. I drove up to Leavenworth thinking the Lawrences might have had something to do with Tony Cosgrove’s disappearance and they had simply used the Mount Saint Helens eruption as convenient cover. Now, though, with both Jack and Carol Lawrence dead, there’s a possibility someone else was involved as well, someone who doesn’t want us looking into Tony’s disappearance any more than Jack did.”
“All right, then,” Connors said. “Fax over the paperwork. I’ll see what I can do.”
“He must be a pretty good guy to work for,” Lander commented after the call was finished.
“He is that,” I agreed. “Ross is all about getting the job done. He doesn’t much care who gets the credit.”
“Where do I sign on?” Lander asked.
“We’re full up right now,” I told him. “But I’ll tell Harry I. Ball about you and ask him to keep you in mind.”
“Harry who?” Lander asked.
“Harry I. Ball,” I told him. “My boss.”
“You’re kidding me. That’s his name, no shit?”
“Yes,” I said. “Harry middle-initial-I Ball.”
Detective Lander shook his head in wonder. “Sounds like you guys have a great time working here.”
“We do,” I said. “It’s a barrel of fun.”
“Anything else I should be tracking?” he asked as he stood up to leave. “Any other leads?”
Since we were working together, there was no reason to hold back. “I’ve got a call in to someone named Thomas Dortman,” I said. “He’s a defense analyst who years ago used to work at Boeing with Carol Lawrence’s first husband, Tony. I called him looking for background information more than anything. Since I haven’t heard back, he’s probably out of town.”
“If you find out anything useful from him, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”
“You bet,” I told him. “I’ll be glad to.”
CHAPTER 17
Because the elevator is key-controlled on weekends, I had to escort Detective Lander back down to the parking lot. On our way I noticed that Mel’s door was open and the lights and radio were both off.
I had visions of her walking back to Seattle, striding purposefully through the bike traffic on the I-90 bridge. Back upstairs, I tried calling her cell phone and was surprised when she answered.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Outside,” she said. “In the smokers’ hut.”
Last year the Washington state legislature passed its most recent rendition of the statewide no-smoking ban. The rules and regs not only prohibit smoking inside public buildings, they also forbid smokers from congregating within some arbitrary number of feet from any building entrance or exit. Knowing that some smokers, including our office manager, Barbara, will never quit no matter what, SHIT’s compassionate landlord had handled this legal bump in the road by installing a two-car-wide canvas-topped vehicle canopy just outside the prescribed boundary. He had stocked this rain-proof shelter with ashtrays, trash cans, and picnic tables. In other words, banished outdoor smokers would still freeze their butts off (in every sense of the word), but at least they wouldn’t be wet.
I hurried downstairs. With a brisk wind blowing down off the snow-covered Cascades, it was clear and sunny outside but cold as hell. Mel was huddled inside one of the collection of justin-case outerwear she keeps in her office-a hooded, fleece-lined jacket. She sat at the table with a lighter and a package of Marlboros and a huge glass ashtray in front of her. An unlabeled file folder lay next to the ashtray.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said, taking a seat across from her as the chill of the picnic bench bit into my backside.
Mel blew a column of smoke skyward and watched it drift off toward the traffic speeding past along I-90. “I don’t,” she said. “I borrowed these from Barbara.”
It seemed mean to point out that she was indeed smoking. For once in my life, I had brains enough not to say anything.
“The last time I smoked before this was the day I came home from work early and found Greg in bed with my best friend,” Mel continued. “I walked into the bedroom and there they were, both of them stark naked. I didn’t say a word to either one of them. I stripped off my work clothes, put on a pair of sweats and tennis shoes, and went jogging. Threw my cigarettes into the bedroom trash can on my way out. I knew I couldn’t jog and smoke. Never smoked again-until today.”
These were gory details from Mel’s past that I had never heard before, but knowing her, especially knowing her when she’s mad as hell, I could see it all in my mind’s eye. In another time and place I might have made a joke about it, but she was hurting way too much for me to make light of her pain. I didn’t want to make it worse than it already was.
“Why today?” I asked.
“Someone’s trying to frame me for murder,” she said. “And it must be one of my so-called friends. It’s so damned close to what happened to me before, with Greg and Gina, that it really set me off. Brought up all those bad old times; sent me looking for some of my bad old friends-one of these, for instance.” She pointed at the pack of Marlboros.
I wasn’t surprised. This is the kind of emotional setback that can send long-sober drunks bellying up to the nearest bar.
Mel stubbed what little was left of her smoldering cigarette into the ashtray. I pushed the ashtray aside and covered her icy hand with mine.
“Which so-called friend do you think is involved?” I asked.
She shrugged. “One way or another, it’s all tied in with SASAC. I came down here to work up my courage before calling Ross. I’m sure he’ll want to put me on a leave of absence before somebody in the media gets wind of this rather than after, the way he had to do with Destry.”
“Destry?” I asked. “Destry Hennessey?”
“Sure,” Mel said. “It was three years ago, just after she came back here but before I showed up. Don’t you remember?”
I did remember, but only vaguely. I wasn’t involved with a news junkie back then; current events tended to get by me. “Something about her grandmother?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mel answered. “The shorthand version of the story goes like this. The grandmother had been widowed for several years and was living alone in Salt Lake City when a sixteen-year-old punk broke into her house one night, robbed her, raped her, and left her to die. But she didn’t die-not right then. A neighbor saw the kid running out of the house and reported it. He was only two blocks away and still on foot when the cops managed to nail him with some of the grandmother’s personal goods still in his possession. When the case went to court, the kid’s defense attorney finagled a plea bargain. Juan Carlos Escobar went to a juvie facility up in Logan until he was twenty- one.”
“And Destry’s grandmother?” I asked.
“She was left with permanent internal injuries. She had been independent right up until then, but after the
