J. Jance - Name Witheld

"Don't worry, I didn't," I returned. "It's one of those new Seecamps."

"Pretty little thing, isn't it," Gabe said, once he untwisted the foil and the. 32 was exposed to view. "What is this, your new backup weapon? Did you stop by to show off and rub our noses in it? I understand these little babies are real tough to come by."

"It's not mine," I said. "This one fell out of a little old lady's purse, right in the middle of lunch. There's a good possibility it's a murder weapon. Did the medical examiner's office send over the bullet from the New Year's Eve shooting?"

"Which one?" Gabe asked.

"Don Wolf. The floater with the bullet in his head. Has Audrey Cummings sent you anything on him yet?"

"I think so," Gabe said. "Hang on a minute." Frowning in concentration, he rifled through the top layer of debris stacked on his desk. At last, he unearthed a large manila envelope which he waved at me in triumph.

"See there?" he said. "I knew it was here somewhere. It came in just a little while ago. I've taken a preliminary look at it, but that's about all. The bullet's in pretty good shape, considering, so I'd say it mostly went through soft tissue."

I nodded. "That's right. Base of the skull at point-blank range."

Gabe looked down at the. 32 auto and clicked his tongue. "They may be little, but oh my."

"How's the rifling?" I asked.

Fortunately, most people never have to look down the barrel of a gun. If they did, they'd see a series of spirals. Those markings, known in the trade as lands and grooves-lands for the raised parts and grooves for the depressions-are what put the spin on a bullet when it comes through the barrel of the gun, leaving behind a series of distinctive marks. These marks are called rifling. For an expert like Gabe, rifling patterns from one gun are distinctly different from those made by any other. To him, they're also as easy to differentiate as two different sets of fingerprints would be to someone who spends all his or her working hours dealing with the details of putting fingerprints into the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

"Pretty good for a hollowpoint," Gabe answered. "Want me to lift prints off the gun before I test fire it?" he asked.

"You can try, but my guess is it's been wiped clean."

Gabe shrugged. "It can't hurt to try." He got up and headed for the door, taking the. 32 with him. "This may take some time, especially if we're lifting prints. Make yourself at home, Beau. You're welcome to use both my phone and my desk if you want, as long as the mess doesn't bother you too much."

"Thanks," I said. "The phone would be a big help, and the mess looks just like home."

Careful not to turn any of the stacks of paper into miniavalanches, I gingerly made my way around Gabe's desk, eased into his leather chair, and picked up his phone.

On the way down in the car, I had tried reaching Captain Kilpatrick down in La Jolla. It hadn't been a particularly satisfying experience. "The captain's in a meeting, and I don't know anything at all about a next-of-kin notification," the young woman on the phone had told me in a tone that implied she didn't much give a damn, either. "I don't know if he'll be back in his office this afternoon or not. He may go straight home after the meeting."

"Would you mind taking a message, just in case?"

"Who did you say was calling?"

"Beaumont," I had answered. "Detective J. P. Beaumont of Seattle P.D."

"Where's that?" she had asked.

"Seattle. All the way up here in Washington State."

"Oh, really?" she had said vaguely. "I always thought Seattle was somewhere in Oregon."

Gritting my teeth, I had gone on to leave a message asking Kilpatrick if there were any new developments in the Don Wolf case. I had ended the call and spent the rest of the trip to Tacoma grousing about the half-witted nim-nulls who had decided public schools in this country no longer needed to teach geography.

That exercise in mental curmudgeonliness had kept me occupied. It had given me an excuse to gripe at someone else, and had provided enough intellectual interference to keep me from thinking about some of my own issues. Like Grace Highsmith's all-too-public confession. Like Captain Larry Powell's current case of righteous indignation. Like Detective Paul Kramer's whining.

It took time to sort through all the hoops it takes to make a third-party long distance call from Gabe's office phone. Call me a Luddite if you want, but please spare me from all that newfangled telecommunications equipment with all the computerized bells and whistles. There was something wonderfully simple and straightforward about the old days when you picked up a telephone receiver and some nice lady said, "Number, please." Back then, if you wanted to bill a call to another number, all you had to do was say so.

In Gabe's office at the crime lab in Tacoma, I discovered the hard way that it isn't easy to make the Washington State Patrol's long distance provider coordinate with Seattle P.D.'s long distance provider. I dialed in access codes until I was blue in the face before I finally made a telephone actually ring in far-off La Jolla, California, at ten after five.

Not only did the phone ring, but-miracle of miracles-a live human voice answered, "Homicide Captain Wayne Kilpatrick speaking."

"Detective Beaumont of the Seattle Police Department, Captain," I said.

"Oh, yeah," he returned. "I just found your message asking about whether or not there are any new developments. Unfortunately, I don't have much of anything to report from this end. I turned that situation over to one of my people, Detective Enders. Haven't you heard from her yet?"

"Not so far."

"Hold the phone and let me see if I can track her down."

He put me on hold. I was grateful that, instead of the strains of Muzak, only silence greeted my ear. After what seemed like several minutes, Kilpatrick came back on the line. "Are you still there?"

"So far."

"Hold on and I'll transfer you."

After only one ring, a woman answered. "Detective Lucille Enders," she said.

"Detective Beaumont here," I said. "Seattle P.D."

"Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier-I got called out on another case."

"That's all right. Do you have anything for me?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. I spent a big part of my morning at Alpha-Cyte talking to a guy named Harry Moore who owns the place. I picked up Lizbeth Wolf's mother's name, address, and phone number, but I still haven't been able to locate her. Moore seemed really broken up by the idea that something may have happened to Lizbeth Wolf. He wanted details, and I told him I didn't have any. That he'd have to talk to you or to someone else up there in Seattle to get the whole story. He gave me his direct line at work as well as his home number. He said for you to go ahead and call regardless of how late it is."

She read off the numbers, and I jotted them down. "And the mother?"

I heard the shuffle of pages as Detective Enders thumbed through her own notebook. "Here it is. Her name's Anna Dorn. She lives in Laguna Beach."

"What about finding anyone connected to the other victim, to Don Wolf?" I asked.

"I've run into a brick wall there," Detective Enders told me. "It's as though he never existed. Are you sure you didn't make him up?"

"I'm relatively certain I didn't."

I looked over my notes. "How far is Laguna Beach from where you are?" I asked.

"Ninety minutes or so, depending on traffic. Why?"

"Damn!" I said. "That's too far. I guess I'd better call there and see if someone in the Laguna Beach police department will go out and track her down."

"Why, what's going on?"

"Don Wolf's name was inadvertently released to the media today, and the connection to Lizbeth can't be far behind," I explained. "I'm afraid the mother will end up seeing it on television or reading it in the newspaper before we have a chance to notify her in person, especially since we still don't know for sure whether or not the second victim is Lizbeth Wolf."