including his petty feud with me. That meant I had to shape up, too.
“What’s this character hiding?” Kramer asked musingly while rubbing the stiff bristles of his five-o’clock shadow. “It must be something serious for him to have been hiding out for more than twenty years. That’s a long time. A capital crime, maybe? The statute of limitations would have run out by now on something less than that.”
I nodded. It was a good point, and one I hadn’t thought of in precisely the same way.
Kramer referred once more to the first page of my report. “It says here you couldn’t find any of John David Madsen’s South Dakota relatives when you called looking for them.”
“Not through information. And not by that name. That’s not to say they don’t exist, however. There may be others, but it’ll take someone on the spot to track them down.”
“And as soon as Kelsey saw you were there with the gun, he took off?”
“That’s right.”
“He probably figured we were getting too close to the truth. Now that I think about it, what if Marcia knew about whatever it was and was threatening to expose him? Maybe that’s why he knocked her off.”
I could see where his line of reasoning was going, and reluctantly, I had to agree it made sense. “Whatever it is, it could also explain why he stuck it out in an otherwise unsatisfactory marriage, but why two guns?” I asked. “And why leave one at the scene and leave the other one hidden in a place where, once found, it would inevitably point suspicion in his direction?”
“That’s pretty damn stupid,” Kramer agreed. “Think about it. If we hadn’t already stumbled on this AFIS report, we certainly would have once the gun was found, and if he’s hidden out under cover for this long, you’d think he’d be smarter than that.”
It was interesting to realize that for the first time during the investigation, Detective Kramer and I seemed to be operating on similar wavelengths. As he was inching away from his conviction that Kelsey had to be the killer, I was moving toward it. With any kind of luck, we’d meet somewhere in the middle.
“So what’s going to happen?” Kramer asked. “Do you think he’ll try to go back to the house?”
“I doubt it. I’ve made arrangements for a twenty-four-hour surveillance team, though. As near as I can tell, there are only two ways into the house-the passage up from the garage that leads into the pantry and the front door, both of which are visible from Crockett.”
“It sounds like that daughter of his wouldn’t be above helping him out if she got a chance. Aren’t you worried that she’ll try to deep-six the gun or mess with it in some way?”
“I can’t say for sure,” I told him, “but my guess is no. She gave me her word, and I think she’ll honor it and let us take the gun when we show up with the warrant. Actually, she’s doing us a favor. That way there can be no question later about whether or not that gun was illegally removed from the premises.”
“When is the warrant supposed to be ready?”
“Later this evening, maybe. Otherwise, not until tomorrow morning. Do you have to be in court again tomorrow?”
“Yes. From ten o’clock on.”
“Maybe, before you go there, we could pick up the search warrant and go collect the gun. Then, while you’re in court, I’ll see about tracking down some of the loose ends. I’ll go to work on the Kendra Meadows information and take another crack at seeing Charlotte Chambers.”
I looked up at the clock on the far wall. Five-eighteen. “I’m late for that meeting,” I added. “I’ve got to get out of here right now.”
I didn’t tell Kramer exactly what meeting I was late for, and I knew I was laying myself open for more criticism about not keeping up my end of the investigation, but at fifty-one AA meetings in as many days and counting, I didn’t want to have to start over on my ninety meetings in ninety days. Especially not when the only thing holding me back was sitting around chewing the fat with Detective Paul Kramer.
He nodded absently. “Sure,” he said. “That’s fine. Go ahead.” He seemed lost in thought, and I don’t think he even noticed when I stepped past him and left the room.
Watty and I ended up in the stairwell together. When he noticed me glancing at my watch, he asked if I needed a lift.
Because I live downtown, most of the people at the department who know me realize I usually don’t drive my car to work. Some of them, like Watty, routinely offer me rides. If the weather’s good, I say thanks but no thanks. This time the weather was rotten, and I grabbed it.
“You late for something?” Watty asked.
“A meeting,” I said. That’s all I said, but it was enough. Watty nodded knowingly.
“Good,” he said. “Glad to hear you’re still working on the problem. Now, if you and Kramer can just get this case wrapped up, I’ll get the two of you off each other’s backs.”
He dropped me at Seventh and Denny and headed for the freeway. I trekked through a snowy and deserted Denny Park, slipping into the meeting a full ten minutes late. It was overly warm in the church hall basement, and it was almost impossible to concentrate on what was being said, because by then all I could hear in my head was the siren call of Amy Fitzgerald-Peters’ legendary pot roast.
When the meeting was over, I hurried home, showered, and dressed to go downstairs. I paused in front of the mirror, debating whether or not to leave my pager at home. Eventually, though, I decided to take it along. If somebody came up with Pete Kelsey during the course of the evening, I didn’t want to miss out on the action.
Dinner at Ron Peters’ downstairs apartment was every bit as wonderful as I’d anticipated. It was delightful to sit in the warm glow of happiness in that newly blended little family. I chowed down on the home-cooked grub and listened to the girls’ endless prattle about whether or not there’d be school the next day. They were finally getting sick of their much-extended Christmas vacation.
When the meal was over, Amy directed Heather and Tracie at clearing the table and then took them off to get ready for bed, leaving Peters and me alone to talk.
“I don’t like being stonewalled,” Ron said quietly as soon as the girls disappeared down the hallway. “I don’t like it at all.”
For a moment I thought that maybe he and Amy were having some kind of difficulty. “Who’s stonewalling you?” I asked.
“I’m talking about the bomb threats,” he said. “I don’t know who it is exactly, not yet, but I can tell you this. They’re real, and they have pull with a capital P.”
“What do you mean?”
“I made a few inquiries today, and that’s all it took. Before the afternoon was over, Captain Harden called me into his office and let me know in no uncertain terms that members of the media relations team have absolutely no business helping someone from the homicide squad with one of his investigations.”
“If Harden told you to back off, you must have stepped on some toes.”
Ron Peters smiled thinly. “Presumably so. In fact, now that you mention it, it’s the first chance I’ve had to step on someone’s toes since they stuck me in this chair. It felt damn good. What’s the next move?”
Peters had caught the scent and was raring to go. “Whoa down a minute. If you’re already in hot water with Hardass Harden, there’s not going to be any next move for you, buddy-boy. Just forget I ever mentioned it. Forget the whole thing.”
Peters’ smile disappeared. “Drop it? Are you kidding? Like hell I will! Tracking that bomb threat information was more fun than I’ve had in a long, long time. It felt like I was back in the real world again, back making a meaningful contribution for a change instead of writing one of the chief’s prepared statements. It was fun, dammit, and I liked doing it.”
Tracie and Heather reappeared at his side, clad in matching long flannel Pj’s. Their teeth were freshly brushed and their damp hair still smelled of shampoo and conditioner. After collecting ritual hugs and kisses from their dad, they made an obligatory pass by me on their way back to the bedroom. Peters watched wistfully after them as they walked away.
“I want my life back, Beau,” he said quietly. “My whole life.”
I knew what he meant, and I couldn’t blame him. I worried that he might lapse back into one of the black moods that had plagued him in the early months right after his injury and before Amy Fitzgerald had appeared on the scene. The only weapons I had at hand were the kind of meaningless platitudes that come so easily to people who aren’t in chairs.
