for.
My next call was to Larry Mowat at the Thurston County medical examiner’s office. I was hoping to talk to a secretary or a receptionist-anyone but him-so of course he answered after the second ring.
“J. P. Beaumont here,” I told him. “We need to know where you sent Josh Deeson’s personal effects.”
“ ‘We’ being you and that rabid dog you call a partner?” he asked.
“Mel Soames is my partner,” I said. “She also happens to be my wife. Now answer the damned question!”
My response evidently surprised him. He swallowed whatever additional smart-assed comment he had intended to make.
“I did what I always do in cases like this. I sent the personal effects to the funeral home, along with the body.”
“Which funeral home?”
“Nelson’s mortuary on Pacific. Why?”
I hung up without answering and turned to Mel. “Let’s go,” I said.
“Where to?”
I knew generally where Pacific was, and I headed there without having to wait for Mel to work the GPS.
“To a funeral home,” I told her. “Here’s the deal. The key was released along with the body. I’m hoping we can get there and grab it before your friend Mowat can pull the plug on us. If we can pick it up without a hassle, fine. If we can’t-if the personal effects have already been turned over to the family-then we’re going to have to ask Ross for another court order.”
This was one of the times when the gods were on our side. Larry Mowat is a top-down kind of guy. While he was consulting with Charles Nelson, the owner of the mortuary, Mel and I threw ourselves on the mercy of the minimum-wage-earning young woman who was running the Nelson Funeral Home’s outer office. We showed her our badges. She handed over what we needed, and we gave her a receipt. We were out of there in five minutes flat with the phone ringing in the background as we hurried out the door.
We drove back to Sam Dysart’s place. The ambulance was gone, although some fire department vehicles were still in attendance. As we walked through the side yard, the newly mowed grass was littered with medical debris. A young fireman was emerging from the cottage as we approached.
“Hey,” he said. “You’re not supposed to go inside here.”
Mel showed him her badge while I walked up to the door and put the skeleton key in the old-fashioned lock. It turned home with a satisfying click.
“Bingo,” I said. “Sam Dysart is our guy-Dysart and Josh.” I pulled the door shut and locked it. “Now let’s go see Ross Connors. We need a search warrant and some DNA evidence. We handle the evidence by the book. If Sam Dysart did this, I want him to go to jail for it for a very long time. I don’t want there to be the smallest possibility that he’s able to get off due to some mishandled piece of procedure or evidence.”
“The man had a crippling stroke that went untreated for days,” Mel pointed out. “If we lock him up, the taxpayers of Washington will end up footing his medical bills.”
“Fine,” I growled. “If paying a huge medical bill means the state treasurer has prevented one other kid from being victimized by this creep, it’ll be worth it. Let’s just say it will be taxpayer money well spent.”
“Josh won’t be there in court to testify against him.”
“No,” I said. “He won’t, but we will be. Just as soon as we get the go-ahead on that search warrant. We’ll be able to testify and so will the DNA from that glass of water I offered him a little while ago. Come on. Let’s go.”
Chapter 25
As we headed for the car, Mel’s phone rang. I seem to remember that back in the old days we managed to get by without the constant use of cell phones, but I’m not sure how.
“No,” she was saying. “As I told the officers on the scene, we had no idea there had been a fatality. We were there regarding another matter. If your officers want more information than that, they’ll have to check with our boss, Ross Connors.”
“What’s going on?” I mouthed in her direction.
She shook her head and waved me off. And then my phone rang, too, with an unfamiliar number.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Beaumont? Monica Longmire.”
“Did you find Gizzy?”
“Yes, I did. She was right there where you said she’d be-in with that whole crowd of onlookers at Janie’s House. The two of us had something of a set-to. I told her she was behaving badly to stay out all night and not answer her phone when things are at such sixes and sevens at home with what happened to Josh. I told her she needed to stop being such a self-centered little twerp and start thinking about someone else for a change. I said she should be home helping her mother and Gerry deal with their houseguests arriving for the funeral instead of being out running around. At which point she told me I wasn’t her mother and needed to mind my own business. Ron stepped in then, called me a bitch, and told me to leave Gizzy alone.
“About that time a cop from Olympia PD showed up and started asking questions. I think that’s when most of the kids there found out someone had died in the fire. It looked to me as though that’s the first Gizzy knew about it, too. She turned pale as a ghost. I thought she was going to faint. Ron grabbed her by the arm and led her away. They got in his car and took off.
“Look,” Monica continued. “I’ve tried to be a team player on this. I know the Millers were big supporters of Marsha’s campaign. That’s one of the reasons Sid asked me to keep my misgivings to myself where Ron and Gizzy are concerned, but I’m done with that.
“I spent twenty years of my life married to a man very much like Ron Miller. He had money to burn, and as far as the world was concerned, Dan Masterson was the greatest guy in the world. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. But at home and hidden underneath all that good-guy crap was a real snake. So I recognize the type. If the cops at the fire had bothered asking Ron any questions, I’m sure he could have lied his way out of it with no trouble at all. The problem is, I’ve known Gizzy since she was ten. She’s not nearly as good a liar.”
“Wait,” I said. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying-that you believe Ron Miller and Gizzy might have something to do with the fire at Janie’s House?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Ron at least, and maybe Gizzy, too.”
“Based on the expressions on their faces when the cop started asking questions?”
“That and the way they skipped out of there before the cops got around to talking to them.”
Monica’s words served to confirm my own private hunch, but two hunches don’t make a case, and the fatality arson investigation itself wasn’t Mel’s and my deal. It belonged to Olympia PD.
“Look,” I said. “Special Homicide operates under the direction and at the sole discretion of Attorney General Connors. Even with a death involved, the fire at Janie’s House isn’t our case. You’ll need to speak to the guys here in Olympia.”
“Have you looked at Ron’s driving record?”
We had, but I didn’t want to say so.
“Not really,” I said.
“I know he has some points on his record,” Monica said, “but not nearly as many as he ought to have.”
We thought as much, too. “You’re saying you think cops here in Olympia might give him a pass?” I asked.
“They have in the past.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was a fire a few years ago at a boathouse out along Budd Inlet. It belonged to neighbors of the Millers’. It burned up the boathouse as well as the boat that was stored inside it. The fire ended up being declared an accident rather than arson. No charges were ever filed, but Ron’s parents ended up paying for the damage. Does that sound like a pass to you?”
“How did you find out about this?” I asked.
