was every bit as much of a pain for Alvin Bernard, Bisbee’s chief of police. Now, as Tom Hadlock learned the ropes as media spokesman for Joanna’s department, Marliss was becoming Tom’s problem as well. He would have to learn how to handle her.
“Don’t let Marliss get to you,” Joanna advised. “She’s always on someone’s case. If she mentions it again, you might point out to her that the so-called locals don’t have a ten o’clock news broadcast. If we’d had to wait until this morning’s paper to put out our missing persons announcement, Philippa Brinson might well have succumbed to hypothermia. In that case Alma DeLong would be sitting in jail and facing a possible homicide charge.”
“She may be anyway,” Deb Howell said. “I just got off the phone with a woman named Candace Welton. She’s the daughter of a woman who was a patient at Caring Friends. Her mother, Inez Fletcher, developed a severe infection that turned into sepsis. When she died, the physician who works with the facility listed the cause of death as natural causes, but the daughter thinks the infection started as a result of an untreated bedsore. Her older brother, Bob, was evidently in charge of making the mother’s final arrangements. The daughter didn’t ask for an autopsy at the time. She was told that because her mother’s death was due to natural causes, she’d have to pay for an autopsy herself. She didn’t have one done because she didn’t have the money. But she’s heard about the Brinson situation, and she’s asking for one now.”
“She’s willing to have her mother’s body exhumed?”
Deb nodded. “That’s what she said.”
“If the brother was in charge of arrangements, we’ll probably have to clear the exhumation with him as well,” Joanna said. “In the meantime, I’ll talk to Dr. Machett about it and see what he has to say.”
Joanna had no doubt that if George Winfield were still in charge, the investigation would be given an immediate go-ahead. With Guy Machett at the helm, she wasn’t so sure.
“What else?” Joanna asked, looking around the table. Jaime Carbajal raised his hand. “I have an appointment with Chuck Savage later on this morning. He’s bringing me a copy of the surveillance tape from the Lester Attwood homicide.”
“From the camera by the gate?”
Jaime nodded. “According to Chuck, he and his brother installed that camera just recently-only a week or so ago. He also said that when Mr. Attwood found out about it, he was upset. He claimed that if they were putting in a camera, it must be because they didn’t trust him, and Chuck Savage told me confidentially that was true. They didn’t want to hurt their stepmother’s feelings, so they hadn’t let on about it to her, but they had heard Attwood was back in the chips-that he seemed to have more money than he should have had. They decided to check up on him.
“They set up the system so there was a video recorder and monitor in Attwood’s trailer. The tape from that is missing. Luckily for us, they also created a feed to a second off-site recorder, one Mr. Attwood knew nothing about. That’s the one we’ll be getting a copy of later today.”
“Great. What about the crime scene?” Joanna looked around the table and realized her crime scene investigator, Dave Hollicker, wasn’t there. “Where’s Dave?” she asked.
“His wife called in and said he didn’t get home from photographing the Caring Friends scene until after five this morning,” Tom replied. “I told her to let him sleep until he woke up.”
“So we don’t have photos from either scene?” Joanna asked.
“Not yet. We’ll have to take a look at those later, but he did tell me that he found a spot at the far corner of the Action Trail property where it looked like somebody did some pretty heavy loading and unloading. At least three vehicles were involved, along with lots of movement going back and forth.”
“A drug-smuggling operation, maybe?” Joanna asked.
“Maybe,” Jaime said. “We’ll know more once we see the tape.”
Without much more to discuss on the homicide situation, the detectives went on their way, leaving Joanna and Tom Hadlock to go over more routine matters. They had finished and were about to leave the conference room when Tom added one parting comment.
“When we were on the phone, Marliss Shackleford asked about Frank’s party tonight,” he said. “I told her no comment.”
“That’s correct,” Joanna said. “It’s a private party. No comment is the right answer.”
It was close to midnight before we finally got back home after our side trip to Black Diamond and our late- night dinner. Mel fell into bed and was out like a light. I love the woman dearly, but the truth is, she snores. Most of the time it doesn’t bother me, but it did that night, mostly because Tom Wojeck’s hairy-chested coffee, combined with indigestion from our late-night dinner, left me tossing and turning. Finally I gave up on sleeping altogether. I climbed out of bed and went into the room that’s now our combination family room/office.
I spend a lot of time there now that my recliner has been permanently banished from the living room. I don’t blame Mel for insisting that if I refused to opt for a new one, the old one would have to disappear from the living room. The furniture she bought for the living room is stylish and surprisingly comfortable. And, much as I hate to admit it, the recliner no longer measures up.
For one thing, the poor old thing lists badly to one side these days. I had it recovered with leather a long time ago, but even good leather doesn’t last forever. It’s developed a certain sway to the cushions. And the last time the kids were here, I caught Kayla jumping on it. By the time the grandkids went back home, the recliner had lost the benefit of full motion. It no longer goes all the way up or all the way down. In other words, the recliner is a bit like me-a little butt-sprung and with a hitch in its get-along.
I sat there for a while looking at the city lights playing off the low-lying clouds and thinking about Mama Rose. Finally I picked up my laptop and logged onto the Internet, put in my LexisNexis password, and went looking for Rose Marie Brotsky. And found plenty. Her recent history wasn’t nearly as colorful as her earlier history, but as the owner of the Silver Pines Mobile Home Park, she was in the news. A lot.
Somewhere along the way, Mama Rose had missed the memo about not fighting city hall. Just as she had told us earlier that evening, she and her lawyers had taken on the local city council and city manager and had won one round after another. The city had tried to shut down Silver Pines based on the fact that the place harbored registered sex offenders-although, for the most part, former hookers are sex offenders in only the broadest sense of the word. The city next claimed that the mobile home park was too close to a local elementary school, even though the school had been built long before Mama Rose became the owner of the property. But that hadn’t worked either. A new survey, conducted at Mama Rose’s expense and using modern GPS technology, had determined her property was 2.3 inches to the good. After that, the city had tried to condemn the trailer park under eminent domain so they could sell it to a developer. Her lawyers had succeeded in stopping that one in its tracks as well. In the process, Mama Rose had become something of an idol to property-rights-minded people everywhere.
But if articles about Mama Rose were in abundance, I found no mention of Tom Wojeck, Thomas Wojeck, or even Tommy Wojeck. It seemed he had left Seattle PD and fallen into a hole of utter obscurity. If he had taken up with Mama Rose, a lady of ill repute, it was possible there was more to his quiet exit from the force than anyone had ever let on, and that left me with one option.
When you work partners with a guy, you pretty much have to know everything about him-good, bad, and indifferent. It’s the only way you can be sure that when push comes to shove, he’ll have your back covered. Or not. And if not turns out to be the case, your very life may be at risk. It seemed reasonable to me that if Tommy Wojeck had left the department with some kind of blemish on his record, Big Al Lindstrom would know all about it. He’d also know where the bodies, if any, were buried.
In order to find out for sure, I’d have to go see Big Al in person and ask him. The big question in my mind that morning was whether or not I’d have nerve enough to do it.
Al Lindstrom had turned in his badge, pulled the plug, and retired from Seattle PD shortly after being shot in the gut while trying to protect an endangered homicide witness, a little five-year-old boy named Benjamin Harrison Weston. Ben Weston Senior, little Ben’s daddy, had also worked for the department. Senior had been about to unmask a whole gang of crooked cops when someone had broken into the family home in Rainier Valley and slaughtered the whole family-every one of them except for little Benjamin. He had fallen asleep in a closet during a long-drawn-out game of hide-and-seek. That was the only reason he was still alive-the only reason little Benjy hadn’t died that night along with the rest of his family.
Big Al Lindstrom and Ben Senior had been friends, and Big Al took those senseless murders very personally. In trying to protect Ben Junior, he had also taken a bullet. He had recovered from his wounds enough to come back
