J. Jance - Until Proven Guilty

“We’ve got another homocide. This one’s down in Auburn. It was in the paper this morning.”

“I hate to mention this, but I don’t work in Auburn. I work for the city of Seattle.”

Powell went on as though he hadn’t heard me. “A guy came tearing in here at seven o’clock looking for you. He says it’s about the Auburn case. He refuses to talk to anyone but you.”

“Where is he?”

Powell nodded in the direction of one of the interview rooms. “He’s in there. His name is Tom Stahl.”

I didn’t recognize the name right off the bat, and the slightly built, crewcut young man who paced nervously back and forth in the tiny interview room didn’t ring any bells either. From the delicate sway of his hips, I guessed he was a little light in his loafers, one of Seattle’s more obvious gays. I let the door slam shut behind me. “I’m Detective Beaumont,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“Everybody connected with this case is getting killed. I’m sure I’m next. When I read the newspaper this morning, I almost had a heart attack. I knew right away it was the same man; I mean, how many Charles Murray Kincaids can there be?” His words came in a breathless lisp.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Stahl had been clutching a newspaper in his hand. Now he dropped it on the table like a hot potato.

“It happened right after I tried to call you, the night before last or yesterday morning, too late to make it into the paper until today. I always read the paper early, before I go to church.”

“What happened? For God’s sake, make some sense, man.”

Without meaning to, I was yelling at him. He pushed the paper in my direction and scurried to the far side of the room.

“Read it yourself. I demand some protection.”

I read the article. It was simple enough. An Auburn resident, Charles Murray Kincaid, had been found shot to death in an automobile outside his home early Saturday morning. Police were investigating. He had been shot once in the back of the head. There was nothing in the article to explain Tom Stahl’s extreme agitation. “So what?” I asked.

“Look at the address.” I looked. “It’s the same address I gave your wife.”

“Now wait a minute,” I said, trying to modify my tone. He was obviously frightened. “Let’s get this straight. I didn’t have a wife until six-fifteen this morning. Why don’t you tell me the whole story, from the beginning.”

He took a deep breath. “It’s about Angela Barstogi,” he said. “She ran up a big long-distance bill talking to some guy down in Auburn. Her mother called to complain about the bill. Said she wouldn’t pay it because she didn’t make the calls. I did some checking. Kincaid had an easy telephone number, 234-5678. It’s long-distance from Seattle. Kids called him all the time. As soon as they learned their numbers on ”Sesame Street,“ they’d string numbers together and call him: 1-234-5678. We tried to get him to change his number, vacate it so it would be a disconnect. But he wouldn’t. Claimed he loved talking to little kids.

“Anyway, I called one morning to talk to the mother, Mrs. Barstogi. She was asleep, so I ended up talking to Angela. I told her she shouldn’t call him anymore, that her mother would have to pay the bill. She said she liked talking to Uncle Charlie on the phone, so when—”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Did you say Uncle Charlie?”

He nodded. “So after I heard she was dead, I tried to call you and tell you, just in case it was important. I only wanted to give you his name and phone number. It’s illegal for me to do that, you know. I could be fined and lose my job, but I didn’t want to go through security when it was probably nothing. The guys in security don’t like me.”

“You work for the phone company?” The name came back to me, the messages I had ignored and thrown away. He nodded again.

“When I couldn’t reach you at the office, I finally got your unlisted number and called your house. I could be fired for that too.”

“My house?”

“Yeah. I called Friday morning. I went to a two-day training session out in Bellevue on Wednesday and Thursday, so I didn’t try calling again until I got back to the office on Friday. The woman I talked to said she was your wife, said she’d give you the message. I left Kincaid’s name and address with her.”

My stomach turned to lead. Just then Powell tapped on the door. “A detective from Auburn is here with their preliminary report. I thought you’d like to talk to him. He says Kincaid drove a black van. You think maybe there’s a connection?”

“I’d bet money on it,” I said grimly. “Where’s the detective?”

“He’s taking some stuff down to the crime lab.”

I picked up the phone in Powell’s office. Some numbers you know by heart. I dialed the crime lab. Janice Morraine answered. I recognized her voice. “Hi, Jan,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Beaumont here. Did they bring you a slug from that Auburn case?”

“I think so,” she replied.

“Run a comparison with the Faith Tabernacle slugs and call me back.” I put down the phone, fighting the urge to heave it across the room.

Powell was looking at me, puzzled. “What have you got, Beaumont?”

“Just a hunch, nothing more.”

Tom Stahl came to the door of the interview room. “What next? Protective custody? Do I go, or stay, or what?”

“First we’ll need to get a statement. Hang on a minute. You want a cup of coffee?” I couldn’t handle being locked up in a small room taking a statement, not when my mind was flying in a dozen different directions.

“Coffee would be fine,” he said. “Black.”

I walked past my desk on the way to the coffeepot. I stopped and dialed my home number. I got a busy signal. There was a stack of messages on the desk, too. The top one was from Peters, clocked in at seven-twenty that morning. The number was different from the hotel I had tried the previous day.

I dialed and was connected to Peters’ room. “Thank God you caught me. I was just heading out to catch a plane. I’ve booked an earlier flight from Tucson. Where’d they find you?” he asked. “When the operator said your phone was out of order, I took a chance and called the department. They were looking for you. I told them you might be driving the Datsun.”

“It worked,” I said. “They found me. What have you got?”

There was a distinct pause. “It’s not pretty, Beau,” he began. “I hope it’s not too late. Has she told you about her father?”

“Some,” I replied.

“Coroner ruled it a suicide, but Anne swore she’d shot him for killing her sister. That’s when her mother had her committed.”

My mind scrambled to make sense from what Peters was saying. “Shot him? Anne said she shot her father?” I felt like I was stumbling in the dark.

Peters heard my disbelief. “I came down to Bisbee to check it out. According to records here, Anne’s father fell carrying Patty down some stairs. He felt so bad about it he put a bullet in his head two weeks later. Anne insisted she shot him, and she claimed that Patty’s death was no accident, that her father had murdered her. Her mother had Anne committed. That’s why she spent eleven years in the state hospital.”

I could hear the sound of Peters’ breathing on the other end of the phone. For the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Beau, are you all right?”

After being in the dark, sudden light blinded me. “I’ve gotta go, Peters,” I said. I slammed the phone down in his ear. Powell was coming toward me. I almost knocked him over. “Get somebody to take Stahl’s statement,” I said over my shoulder.

“Hey, wait a minute. Janice Morraine from the lab tried to get you while you were on your phone,” he called after me. “Says to tell you it’s a match.”