J. Jance - Name Witheld

Suzanne Crenshaw's eyes bulged. "Confession to what?"

"Why, to Don Wolf's murder, of course," Grace Highsmith said with a smile. "It was premeditated, you see. I planned it well in advance."

Suzanne Crenshaw's jaw dropped. "Grace!" she exclaimed. "You can't say that."

"I most certainly can," Grace Highsmith replied archly. "Detective Beaumont hasn't read me my rights yet. As long as that's the case, I can say anything I please."

While Suzanne Crenshaw stared daggers in my direction, the waiter, with his continuing knack for perfect timing, returned once again.

"Have something nice, Suzanne," Miss Highsmith advised. "I ordered the grilled cheese because it happens to be my favorite. And since this may be my last meal on the outside, I'm going to have some dessert. You go ahead and have whatever you want. It's my treat."

Suzanne perused the menu and settled on the grilled salmon, a mixed greens salad, and a flute of the free champagne. Once the waiter left with her order, Suzanne stood up. "Come with me, Grace," she said. "I believe we both need to go powder our noses."

Grace started to object, then didn't. The two women went off to the rest room together. When they returned, Grace was as sprightly as ever, while a tight-lipped Suzanne Crenshaw was even more grim.

"You can read me my rights now, Detective Beaumont," she commanded. "Let's get on with it."

Obligingly, I pulled out my handy-dandy pocket cheat sheet and read Grace Highsmith her rights. The lack of privacy in the room disturbed me enough that I flubbed one or two of the familiar lines. That was no problem, however, since Grace knew the whole routine by heart and was able to prompt me with the correct verbiage whenever necessary.

When we finished with that, she gave me another cheery smile while I returned the card to my wallet. "That wasn't so bad now, was it, Detective Beaumont?"

Doggedly self-conscious, I dragged my scruffy notebook and ratty pencil out of my pocket. Miss Highsmith frowned disapprovingly.

"You mean you aren't going to tape-record my confession? I thought all police officers carried those cute little miniature recorders."

"We usually record confessions down at the department, so they can be properly transcribed and signed at a later time. At this point, I merely want to ask a few questions."

"I see," Grace sniffed. "I suppose you'll do that after you take me in. I thought we'd be going straight to the confession right now. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered dragging Suzanne away from her office."

Suzanne Crenshaw's mixed greens salad arrived at the table. "Well," Grace Highsmith urged the moment our waiter's back was turned, "let's get on with it."

"Where do you live?" I asked.

"I have a little place up above Juanita, just down the hill from Juanita Drive," she said. "It was our family's summer place when I was a little girl. Now I live there full time."

Over a forkful of salad, Suzanne Crenshaw sent me a withering look. "Miss Highsmith's home is on Holmes Point Drive on the shores of Lake Washington, between Champagne Point and Denny Park," the attorney said.

The way Suzanne made that pronouncement implied that Grace Highsmith's Holmes Point Drive address alone should have commanded considerable respect from a lowlife homicide cop. I didn't really need Suzanne Crenshaw's help in that regard. I had pretty well figured out on my own that the lady seated in the booth next to me was an old-school, old-guard, old-money, and thoroughly remarkable woman.

"And what exactly was your relationship to Don Wolf?"

"Mine?" Grace hooted. "Good gracious! How can you even ask such a dull-witted question, Detective Beaumont. Of course, I had no relationship with that…" She paused, groping for a word. "That…slimeball…is that the proper term, Suzanne?"

Chewing her salad greens, Suzanne Crenshaw simply nodded.

"Slimeball of a man," Grace finished.

"How did you know him then?"

"I didn't know him," Grace corrected firmly. "I knew of him. I only saw him in person that one time down near Pier Seventy, and that was certainly enough."

"What about his wife?" I asked.

"Once again," Grace Highsmith replied. "I know about Lizbeth Wolf, but of course, I've never met her in person."

"Never?"

"Never."

"Let's go back to what you said about seeing Don Wolf."

Grace's unblinking gaze met and held mine. "What about it?"

"When was that exactly?"

"Why, when I killed him, of course," Grace Highsmith snapped. "Don't be coy, Detective Beaumont. It doesn't become you."

Convinced that every ear in the room had to be trained on the conversation at our table and wondering how all this would play in local newspapers, I backed off a little. "Maybe you could tell me what brought Don Wolf to your attention."

"Latty, of course. My niece."

"What's Latty's full name?"

Grace glanced at Suzanne. "Do I have to answer that?"

Suzanne Crenshaw grimaced and then nodded her head. "Look," she said. "As you know, this entire meeting is in direct opposition to my best advice. But since you're obviously determined to go through with it, Grace, you'd better go ahead and answer."

"Sibyl Latona," Grace said. "I think you'll agree that's a perfectly awful name! Her mother-my actual niece, and a disagreeable one at that-was a Greek and Roman mythology major at the University of Washington back in the late sixties before she dropped out of school. She's the one who stuck that poor little baby girl with such a ridiculous handle. Sibyl alone would have been bad enough. Latona has to do with a goddess who changed men into frogs or some such women's lib nonsense. Latty's grandmother-my sister-and I were the ones who shortened it to Latty. That's unusual, too, but at least it's something a person can live with. Life can be very tough on children with unusual names."

Having grown up bearing the onus of an unusual name myself-Jonas Piedmont Beaumont-I felt more sympathy for somebody stuck with a name like Sybil Latona than Grace Highsmith could possibly have realized.

"What's Latty's last name?" I asked.

"Gibson," Grace answered.

"And where does she live?"

"Over the shop," Grace said. "There's a little apartment up there. It's not very posh, but after all those years of living in a bus, Latty is very appreciative of even the most primitive accommodations. At least this has indoor plumbing, which is more than you can say about what she lived in before."

"A bus?" I asked.

"Abigail Gibson, Latty's mother, is something of a free spirit," Suzanne Crenshaw put in helpfully. "Latty's younger years were spent as a vagabond. She grew up being shuttled all over North America in a converted school bus which Abby insisted on driving back and forth from Alaska to Mexico City."

"Where did Latty go to school?" I asked.

"She didn't," Grace answered shortly. "Abby home-schooled the poor child. My niece was a very early advocate of that, although the term home schooling would seem to imply having a proper home in which to do it. For my money, a converted school bus doesn't qualify."

"I see," I said.

Grace eyed me speculatively. "Do you, Detective Beaumont?" Then she shook her head. "No, I don't believe you do. You can't possibly. Schooling requires a whole lot more than just learning vocabulary words and rules of punctuation. Real education is far more complicated than that. It's where children hone their communication skills. It's where they learn the rules of socialization. It introduces them to the real world. My niece, Abigail, tripped out early and hasn't touched down on the real world in years."

"Drugs?"

"I'm sure there were drugs early on, of course. Now Abby's just evolved into one of those permanent kooks. She's totally irresponsible. She's never worked a day in her life. She lives off her trust fund, and still has friends with one-word names like Moonbeam or Rainbow."