near the shelter. One of the shelter workers meets them there, picks the woman up, and takes her the rest of the way.”
I could hardly fault the cloak-and-dagger mentality. After all, we were investigating a homicide. Frederick Nielsen was dead and his abused wife was under suspicion.
“So how would we go about getting in touch with someone in one of the shelters? What would you suggest?”
Marilyn shrugged. “You could call and leave a message. They won’t tell you whether or not she’s there, but they’ll post a message on the bulletin board. She can call you back or not. The choice is up to her.”
“What do you suppose the chances are that she’d actually return the call?”
“Not very good.”
“That’s about what I figured.” The brick wall wasn’t giving an inch. I got up to leave. “Come on, Al, let’s get going. We’re wasting time.”
Al eased his bulky frame out of the chair while Marilyn McDougal leaned back in hers, a sharpened yellow pencil balanced deftly between two opposing index fingers. She regarded me seriously over the top of the pencil.
“Are you going to stop playing games and tell me what this is all about, Detective Beaumont?”
The brick wall won. I sat back down. So did Big Al.
“It’s a homicide,” I said. If sneaking around hadn’t worked with Marilyn McDougal, maybe honesty was the best policy after all. It couldn’t hurt to try.
“I figured as much. Whose?” she asked.
“A man by the name of Nielsen-Dr. Frederick Nielsen. He’s a dentist with a house on Green Lake and a swish office up in the Denny Regrade.”
“And the woman?”
“LeAnn Nielsen, his wife.”
“Why are you trying to find her-notification of next of kin or is she a suspect?”
“Both,” I said simply.
Marilyn dropped the pencil onto her desk, got up, and walked to the door of her office. “Wait right here,” she said. It was an order, not an invitation.
“Now what?” Al asked.
“Beats me,” I replied. I’ve long since given up trying to understand how women think. It’s too complicated. Besides, Marilyn McDougal was in a league by herself. She came back a few minutes later. “I checked our records. We didn’t transport her,” she announced firmly. “Which means, if she’s actually there, that she checked in on her own. What makes you think she is?”
“The husband’s secretary told us. So did his aunt.”
“I see. Are there children?”
“Two. A boy and a girl as I understand it. Seven and eight.”
“When did this happen?”
“Saturday. The body wasn’t found until this morning. We’re worried someone will slip the name to the media before we have a chance to notify the wife.”
“If she didn’t do it,” Marilyn added.
“That’s right.”
She sat back down at her desk. “It happens over and over. We see it all the time. They stay too long, until they feel totally trapped and can’t see any other way to break the cycle. They end up trying to fight fire with fire and somebody gets hurt or killed.”
She didn’t seem to be talking to us. With a sudden, decisive movement, she spun the Rolodex on her desk, picked up the discarded pencil, and jotted a series of names and telephone numbers onto a piece of paper. When she finished, she handed the paper to me.
“Those are the numbers of each of the three shelters. The women on that list are the executive directors. When you call them, tell them I gave you their names. I don’t know exactly what the reaction will be, but I expect they’ll want to be sure the wife is properly notified so the family isn’t traumatized more than they already are.”
“What made you change you mind?” I asked.
Marilyn shook her head again. “It’s got to stop,” she said. “The violence must stop somewhere. Killing the sons of bitches isn’t the answer.”
On that score, we were in total agreement.
“I’d try Phoenix House first,” Marilyn added. “The last one. It’s fairly new. It has better facilities for women with children.”
“Thanks.” I told her. “We’ll do that.”
Once outside the door I noticed Al was shaking his head. “We may do it all right,” he said, “but not today. It’s past quitting time. We’re having company for dinner. Molly’ll have my ears if I get home much later than this. I’m already in deep shit.”
We drove back to the Public Safety Building. Al took off from the parking garage without bothering to come upstairs. I was in no particular rush to get home, however, so I stopped by our cubicle long enough to try calling the three numbers Marilyn McDougal had given us. Shelter directors must keep bankers hours because at ten to five not one of the three was in her office. I left messages with my name and both telephone numbers and headed home.
A man’s home is his castle, right? It’s supposed to be a haven of tranquility where he can recover from the slings and arrows that the world and his job throw at him, right? And since I live in the penthouse of one of Seattle“ s newest condominiums, it should have been true. But when I got off the elevator and saw the two distinct puddles dripped on the carpet outside my front door, I knew there was trouble afoot.
Ron Peters, my partner until March when he was badly injured, was still confined to the rehabilitation floor at Harborview Hospital. His dippy ex-wife had disappeared into thin air while on a religious mission to South America. As far as his kids were concerned, that left things pretty much up to me.
I had moved Peters’ two young daughters, Heather and Tracie, as well as their live-in baby-sitter, Mrs. Edwards, into a vacant unit several floors below mine. It was a hell of a lot easier for me to pay the extra rent than it was to run back and forth across Lake Washington to their house in Kirkland. Mrs. Edwards is by and large a fine baby-sitter, but during Mrs. Edwards’ occasional naps, the girls tend to get into mischief.
I’m sure the mischief is mostly inadvertent on their part. In fact, when they left the swimming pool with Mrs. Edwards sound asleep in a deck chair, the plan was simply to raid my refrigerator for the sodas they knew I keep there as special treats.
But the sodas had somehow evolved into ice cream floats that had overflowed and slopped all over my kitchen floor. They were both down on their hands and knees trying to mop up the mess when they heard my key in the lock. One of them jumped and the remains of her float disappeared entirely under the drip tray of my refrigerator.
If it had been ten years earlier, if it had been my own kids, Kelly and Scott, I probably would have raised hell. I’ve evidently mellowed with age. I helped clean up the mess, fixed the tearful Heather a replacement float, and went in search of the still slumbering Mrs. Edwards.
“Oh dear,” she said when I shook her awake. “I must have dozed off. They didn’t get into any trouble, did they?”
“No trouble at all,” I said. Did I say mellow? Soft in the head is more like it. I didn’t even chew Mrs. Edwards out for sleeping on the job. She looked worn out. Besides, both Heather and Trade swim like fish.
I left the girls with Mrs. Edwards on the sixth floor and went back up to my apartment. I dialed Ron Peters’ number at Harborview. He answered on his speaker-phone.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Can’t complain,” he replied. “How about you?”
“Big Al and I got sent out on that murder in the Regrade today, the one in the dentist’s office.”
“What does it look like?”
“Domestic violence probably. The husband was a first-class shit. We think maybe the wife hooked up with a carpet installer to do him in.”
“Same old story. We’ve heard it dozens of times,” Peters said. “Anything I can do to help?”
