J. Jance - Name Witheld

To look at him, Jack Braman didn't appear old enough to be out of high school for three years, to say nothing of managing condos.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

Braman shrugged. "From what I understand, he had a wife down in California somewhere, but being married sure as hell didn't seem to slow him down none. If you catch my drift," he added.

"You mean Don Wolf had female visitors?"

"Constantly."

"The same one or different ones?"

Jack Braman shook his head. "Different ones, although there was one who was here so much I was starting to think maybe she was his wife. But there were younger ones as well. Girls who were closer to my age than his."

"Hookers?" I asked.

"I wouldn't know about that," he said. "Not for sure, but I guess they could have been."

Flushing furiously, Jack Braman turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door to Don Wolf's apartment. As soon as he did so, the appallingly unmistakable odor of death gushed out into the hallway.

Braman's eyes widened. He gagged and choked and almost fell. "My God. What's that awful smell?" he demanded.

Had Jack Braman ever been a homicide cop, he wouldn't have had to ask. I reached out a hand to steady him and to keep him from stepping forward into the apartment and possibly destroying evidence.

"Go call nine one one," I said. "Tell the dispatcher to send a patrol car and a crime scene investigation team. Tell the operator to notify the medical examiner's office."

Braman looked at me through watering eyes. "Medical examiner?" he repeated. "That means somebody's dead here. I thought you said Don Wolf died somewhere else. Out on the water or something."

"I did."

"But what's this, then?" Braman asked weakly. His color had gone so bad I was afraid he was going to pitch forward flat on his face. "If somebody's dead in here, who is it?"

"That's what we have to find out," I said. "Go make the call. Hurry now."

Shaking his head, Jack Braman shambled away. Meanwhile, I sidestepped around the door, avoiding the usual traffic pattern, and eased my way into the overheated room.

If this was Don Wolf's apartment, the place was totally in character. It was neat as a pin. Nothing in the elegantly appointed living room appeared to be out of place. The door had been locked when Jack Braman opened it, and there was no sign of forced entry.

Trying not to disturb any footprints, I skirted the edge of the fine white carpet as I headed for the hallway. There the reek of decaying flesh seemed far worse than in the living room. Breathing through my mouth and using a handkerchief to grip the knob, I opened a closed bedroom door. Even though I'd had ample warning, the overpowering stench inside left me gagging.

Because the blinds were closed, the room was enveloped in a dusky gloom. Even so, it was still possible to see the grim spatter pattern of blood and gore that had been sprayed across the headboard and the wall over the bed where a lump of pathetically still humanity lay concealed beneath a brightly colored comforter.

Obviously, the person on the bed was dead. Once upon a time, I would have rushed forward just to make sure there was nothing I could do. Once, but not now. This isn't the good old days. When it comes to murder cases, investigating officers find themselves on trial right along with the defendants. Under the minute glare of the media, even the slightest misstep in procedure can be damning. As a consequence, we've all learned to avoid doing anything that might jeopardize the chain of evidence.

In other words, standing in the doorway of that foul-smelling room, I couldn't afford to do a damn thing, not without other cops to witness my actions and to back up my assertions of whatever was found there. And from that position, although I could see the form on the bed, the mound of covers made it impossible to see whether the victim was man or woman, adult or child. That didn't keep me from drawing my own possible conclusions.

Is it Latty? I wondered. That would make sense. She had threatened Wolf on the videotape. Had she made good on that threat, only to be stricken by overwhelming guilt afterward?

The very possibility filled me with an ineffable sadness. The blonde I had seen on the video had been so young and vital and beautiful. It offended me to think of her taking her own life. Given society's deplorable track record for apprehending and prosecuting rapists, it isn't too surprising that some victims resort to vigilante justice. But why commit suicide? In this case, it seemed to me that even the dumbest court-appointed attorney in town could have gotten her off.

Outside the building, the distinctive wailing of separate sirens announced the arrival of several emergency vehicles in the street below-as a fire truck, a Medic-One van, and at least one blue-and-white converged on the Lake View Condominiums. Hurriedly, I made my way back to the entrance to the apartment. The person in the bed had been dead for days. With no hope of a lifesaving rescue, I wanted to intercept the crush of well-intentioned, fully booted EMTs and firemen who were no doubt on their way.

Out in the hallway, I almost collided with the first person who burst out of the elevator-a pasty-faced Jack Braman. Right on his heels was a grizzled Seattle Fire Department captain, a man I'd seen on occasion over the years. Nostrils distended, he stopped in midstride. Like me, he knew as soon as he smelled the odor that there was no point in going any farther.

"Too late?" he asked. I nodded. The captain turned back to his milling crew. "Okay, guys. Nothing to be done. If we hang around here, we'll only be in the way. Somebody grab that elevator before it gets away."

Herding his squad like a brood of unruly chicks, the captain corralled them back into the elevator door. Jack Braman, too, hovered uncertainly in the hallway. He seemed undecided about whether to go or stay.

"I guess I'd better head back downstairs," he said, swallowing hard, and leaping into the elevator just as the door closed. "That way, I can let people in if they need to be."

"Good idea," I said. "You go ahead."

With the elevator gone, I glanced around at the rest of the fifth floor. There were evidently four apartments and a locked utility door of some kind. The room behind it might have been a garbage chute or maybe a laundry room. Early on this weekday afternoon, none of the other fifth-floor residents were home. If they had been, they certainly would have been in the hallway by now.

I had heard the elevator open and shut downstairs. Now it was once again creeping upward. I hurried back to the elevator lobby in order to be there when the door opened once again.

This time, the first person off the elevator was Audrey Cummings. "I thought you were stuck in court," I said.

She shook her head. "My case was continued. I was already in my car on my way back to the office when the call came through. I should get the prize for being here before anybody else."

Right behind Audrey, almost treading on the backs of her high-heeled shoes, was my own personal nemesis from Seattle P.D., none other than Detective Paul Kramer. He was accompanied by his most recently acquired partner, a novice detective named Sam Arnold.

Kramer looked at me. I looked at him. "What are you doing here?" we both said at the same time. It sounded almost like one of those responsive readings at church, but believe me, neither one of us asked the question with joyous, worshipful, or love-filled hearts.

Detective Kramer and I don't get along. We haven't from the first day we laid eyes on each other. He's one of those ambitious, ass-kissing sons of bitches who's out to make a reputation for himself, no matter what. If somebody gets in his way, too bad. He'll walk over or through them to get where he's going. I've pretty much made up my mind that if the day ever comes when Paul Kramer gets promoted to a supervisory position in Homicide, that's the day I turn in my badge.