Betrayal of Trust

The cloud cover overhead broke up briefly, illuminating the two of them-Giselle and Ron-in a shaft of sunlight. And that’s when I saw them for what they were: two of the beautiful people whose sense of perfection would have been offended by the very existence of someone less than perfect-namely an interloper like Josh.

I remembered what Monica Longmire had said about Giselle resenting his being added to her family. It seemed reasonable enough to assume that someone with her intimate knowledge of Josh’s background could easily have provided fodder for all those taunting e-mails, while Ron’s connections to the Janie’s House computer and communications systems could have provided the delivery system. If that was the case, the two of them might not have been legally responsible for kicking the chair out from under Josh and his homemade noose, but they were morally responsible for putting him on that chair in the first place.

As for the video clip? That seemed to be part of the general harassment program. Was it possible then that Giselle and Ron, in all their native superiority, were also responsible for that? Had they pretended to murder Rachel Camber and then found it necessary to kill her once the investigation started to get too close? Or had they done it just for kicks? And did they really believe they could murder someone and get away with it?

The brief splash of sunlight went away, taking with it that single telling moment of clarity. I was left with something that was little more than an unfounded hunch. If I was going to follow up on it-if I was even considering investigating the possibility that one or both of the governor’s daughters might be involved in the harassment of Josh Deeson or in the death of Rachel Camber-I needed some evidence that was a hell of a lot more compelling than a bare-bones hunch. I was pretty sure that we were going to have DNA evidence to work with. What I wanted now was something to compare it with. Without probable cause we wouldn’t be able to demand DNA samples, but if we just happened to have some on hand. .

My mother loved Columbo. Had she lived long enough to see the advent of video recorders, she would have watched each and every episode over and over. She loved how Peter Falk, playing the bumbling detective, always got his man. . or woman. It seemed to me that this was an occasion that called for a real-life bumbler.

When Mel is talking on the telephone, she doesn’t like to be interrupted by anyone or anything, but that didn’t keep me from pestering her while she was taking notes from Rosemary’s phone call.

“I need some of your business cards,” I said.

Mel glared at me in exasperation and shook her head as if to say, “Go away. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

When I persisted, she finally let loose with an exaggerated sigh. Then she handed me her purse-her oversize, magic, man-eating purse. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have ventured into the damned thing, but I was determined. I once saw a catalog photo of the ultimate Swiss Army knife with all of the Swiss Army tools loaded into one gargantuan assembly. The thing cost fourteen hundred bucks and looked huge, but I’m sure it would have disappeared into Mel’s purse without a whimper.

I had to paw through any number of levels of stuff before I finally spotted what I was looking for-the little mother-of-pearl-covered card-shaped carrying case that holds Mel’s business cards. I pulled some of them out of the case and slipped them into my right-hand pocket. Strictly speaking, for this kind of evidence gathering I should have been wearing gloves, but those would have given me away. For this to work I needed Giselle Longmire and Ron Miller to think of me as an incompetent idiot.

Leaving Mel standing there talking on the phone, I sauntered over to Giselle and Ron. “Gizzy?” I said.

The disapproving frown she leveled at me told me Mel was right. Giselle Longmire did not care for her nickname, and she most certainly didn’t like being hailed by that name in public by someone who was, as far as she knew, a perfect stranger.

I held out my hand. “J. P. Beaumont,” I said. “I’m a friend of your mother’s. We went to Ballard High School together.”

Her look softened, but only a little.

“I’m also a police officer,” I continued, waving offhandedly back toward the fire scene and hoping they would assume that I was part of the fire investigation. “Are you involved with Janie’s House?”

“I volunteer here,” Gizzy said. “This is my boyfriend, Ron Miller. He volunteers here, too.”

I took Ron’s hand and gave it a firm handshake. “At least we used to volunteer here,” Ron said wryly.

It was summer. It was going to be a warm day. I noticed the long sleeves on Ron Miller’s tracksuit and wondered if that was important.

“I work for the attorney general’s office,” I explained, keeping my tone both brisk and casual. I wanted them to think that whatever was going on here wasn’t particularly important or critical. “We’ll be working on this case with the Olympia PD.”

“Oh,” Ron said, equally casually. “Is it arson, do you think?”

Ah, yes. The old how-much-do-they-know routine. That’s one of the interesting things about firebugs. They often want to be on the scene in person to assess the damage.

“Too soon to tell,” I said, shrugging and waving his question aside. “By the time this is over, we’ll probably be interviewing all of the people involved with Janie’s House-employees, volunteers, and clients, but if you happen to hear any rumors about what went on, please don’t hesitate to give me a call. By the way, when’s the last time either of you was here?”

“Yesterday afternoon,” Ron said.

“A couple of days,” Gizzy replied.

Reaching into my right-hand pocket, I pulled out Mel’s cards. I handed one to Ron and a second one to Gizzy. Involved in sizing me up, man-to-man, Ron didn’t even glance at his card. Gizzy did.

“Funny,” she said. “You don’t look like a Melissa.” She held up the card so I could see my mistake.

“So sorry,” I apologized. “Let me have those back. They belong to my partner. I’d much rather you called me directly. Ms. Soames is a bit of a control freak, you see. She won’t like it if she thinks I’ve been passing her cards out indiscriminately.”

Shaking my head at my own stupidity, I quickly retrieved the two cards, dropped them into my right-hand jacket pocket, and pulled two of my own business cards out of the left. I handed those to Ron and Gizzy. Another boy approached us just then. I handed him one of my cards as well and gave him the same pep talk about calling me if he happened to hear anything about the origin of the Janie’s House fire.

With that, and trying to conceal a smirk on my own face, I hurried back to Mel. She was sitting in the front seat of the car with her laptop open and the air card tuned up and running.

“What the hell was that all about?” she demanded. “Why did you need my business cards? Did you run out of yours?”

“DNA,” I told her with a grin. “My DNA will be on the two business cards in my pocket, but with any kind of luck, we’ll have DNA from Ron Miller and from Gizzy Longmire, too.”

“You think she’s involved in all this?” Mel asked.

“I’d bet money on it.”

“In that case,” Mel said, “good work. In fact, good for both of us. While you were playing sleight of hand with the business cards, I’ve had two phone calls. The first one was about Rachel Camber’s autopsy. The second one was about the two watches. A friend who works at Macy’s was able to give me the phone number for the company that serves as the national sales rep for Seiko. Maybe we can get one of Joan Hoyt’s investigators to track that. With any kind of luck, they should be able to tell us which retailer sold each of our two watches and when. From that information, we may even be able to track back to the individual customer.”

“Right,” I said. “Good for both of us. In the meantime let’s go see about collecting Josh’s dirty clothes.”

We pulled into the driveway to the governor’s mansion and stopped just behind a bright red Audi. I was already dreading this encounter, and so was Mel. Having any kind of audience in attendance would make it that much worse.

The guard outside the front door nodded in recognition when we walked up to ring the doorbell. Before we could do so, however, Monica Longmire came striding out of the house. She stopped short in front of us.

“Are you here because she’s missing?” Monica demanded.

There it was again-another case of faulty pronoun reference.

“Who’s missing?” I asked. “What are we talking about?”

“Giselle,” she said impatiently. “Gizzy. I came over here to have a word with Gerry and Marsha about it. Gizzy told her mother she was staying with us last night and she told us she was staying with her mother when in reality she didn’t stay at either place. Now she isn’t answering her phone. With everything that’s going on around here,