J. Jance - Without Due Process

“We need you to do a positive ID,” I said into the echoing silence. “On the other victims as well, if you could, since you evidently knew them all.”

“It’s true then?” she whispered brokenly. “All of them?”

“Yes,” I answered. “It’s true, all but Junior.”

I expected another outburst. Instead, she tugged her hands free of mine just as a blue-and-white squad car pulled up and parked behind the Rabbit. Emma Jackson started inside as two uniformed cops leaped out of the car and came toward us.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To put on some other clothes,” she answered, her voice fiercely calm and controlled. “I can’t go downtown dressed like this.”

I’ve seen some pretty amazing things in my time as a police officer, but Emma Jackson’s transformation was downright astonishing. Now that I know her a little better, I suspect that pride kept her from wanting to share pain that was that deep, that intense with a total stranger, but I can’t say for sure. In any event, she started into the house.

“Tell your friends here that it’s okay,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

I turned to meet the two patrol officers who were hurrying up the walkway. Rank hath its privileges around Seattle PD, and most of the day-shift officers have been on the force for some time. I knew both these guys, Joe Miller and Fred Keanes.

“Hey, Beau,” Joe said, recognizing me. “What’s going on? We had a report of a domestic disturbance.”

“Not a domestic,” I told them. “The woman who lives here is the mother of the child who spent the night with Ben and Shiree Weston.”

“The one who’s dead?” Joe asked. I nodded. “And she just found out?”

“That’s right. I came to tell her what happened and to take her downtown for the ID.”

“Jeez!” Joe shook his head. “It’s terrible. I hear through the grapevine that whoever it was took a potshot at you too, didn’t they? What’s the world coming to, Beau? Seattle never used to be like this.”

He was wrong there. Seattle always used to be “like this.” That’s why people like me have jobs as homicide detectives.

Moments later Emma Jackson emerged from the house. She was wearing a blazer, a blouse, and a pair of well-tailored slacks. Her face was set in a grim mask. “I’m ready,” she said flatly. Her voice was low and husky, as though the strain of screaming had somehow damaged her vocal cords. “Where to? The medical examiner’s office?”

I nodded, remembering after all that since she was Dr. Emma Jackson, she probably knew the drill.

“Yes.”

I led the way. Emma Jackson stood to one side while I held the car door for her. Once we were both inside, I started the car and headed for Harborview Hospital and Doc Baker’s office. I glanced at her from time to time, but she remained locked in stoic silence. I felt like I was riding next to a human Mount St. Helens. Emma Jackson was quiet, just like the mountain was for a hundred-and-twenty-odd years, but smart money said she was probably going to blow sky-high sooner or later.

“When did you find them?” she asked eventually.

“I didn’t. Not me personally. Somebody else did. Around eleven.”

“Eleven?” she demanded. “That long ago? Why the hell am I not finding out about it until almost twelve hours later?”

“The child wasn’t wearing any identification,” I told her. “At first we had no way of knowing who he was. In fact, we thought he was one of Ben and Shiree’s until we found Junior.”

“Junior? He’s all right?”

“He’s fine. He was hiding. The killer missed him. Junior gave us Adam’s name, but he couldn’t give us an address or tell us where you worked. And your phone number isn’t listed.”

“It still shouldn’t have taken so long,” she said. “You said yourself that it’s already been on the radio.”

“Without any names being mentioned,” I told her. “We never release names until after we’ve located the next of kin.”

“Just like good Boy Scouts,” she returned sarcastically. “Ben was always a great one for telling us that you guys did things by the book. So who killed him?”

“Who killed your son?”

“No. Adam was just a little boy. The real question is who killed Benjamin Weston, isn’t it?”

The hard edge on her question put me on notice that there was something behind it. “I don’t know,” I answered. “Do you have any idea?”

She shrugged. “A jealous husband, most likely,” she said. “That would be my guess.”

I was thunderstruck. Gentle Ben Weston? Screwing around on the side? That didn’t square with anything I personally knew about the man, but I wasn’t exactly what you could call a friend of the family either. Emma Jackson was, and she sounded quite certain.

“Do you know something about that,” I asked, “something we maybe should know too?”

“You tell me. For months now Shiree’s been complaining to me about him going to work early and coming home late with no apparent explanation. You figure it out. What’s the usual answer when that kind of thing gets started? I told Shiree that in this day and age she was stupid as a stump to look the other way and let him get away with it.”

“Shiree Weston discussed the situation with you?”

“Shiree Garvey and I go back a long way. We discussed everything. I hated him for what he was doing to her.”

The shrinks call it transference, I believe. It works the same way radar jamming does. By keeping her mental signals full of other angers and issues, Emma Jackson avoided the terrible subject at hand-the senseless death of her son. It’s a form of denial, and denial is common in the people I deal with. Nevertheless, I couldn’t afford to ignore the fact that this woman might be presenting me with both a possible motive and hence a possible suspect.

“Did she mention any names?”

“No, but it won’t be hard to find out. Men are never nearly as clever about these things as they think they are.”

“I assume Garvey was Shiree Weston’s maiden name?” Emma nodded. “How far back do you two go?” I asked.

“Grade school.”

Both my question and Emma’s initial answer seemed innocuous enough, but then she added an afterthought. “About the same age Adam is now. Was,” she whispered.

Suddenly Dr. Emma Jackson’s steely reserve shattered. She began crying quietly into her hand while I kept driving. By the time we arrived at Harborview, Emma had pulled herself together again. I would have gone around and opened the car door for her, but she beat me to the punch. She led the way into the building as though she knew it well.

“You seem to know your way around,” I commented.

“I’ve been here before,” she replied without explanation.

The lower floor of Harborview Hospital, occupied by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, is dedicated to the dead rather than to the living. There Dr. Howard Baker reigns supreme over a small corps of dedicated employees and an ever-changing and always deceased clientele. As a Homicide detective bringing in victims’ relatives to make identifications, I’m used to taking charge at the receptionist’s desk. This time, however, Emma Jackson handled it herself.

“I’m Dr. Jackson,” she announced. “I’m here to see Dr. Baker about my son, Adam.”

The receptionist, bleary-eyed from being called in during the middle of the night, blinked in recognition at the name. “Oh, of course. Wait right here. Dr. Baker’s busy in the back right now.”

“In the back” is a medical examiner’s office euphemism that means either that Doc Baker’s really out playing golf or else he’s up to his armpits in an autopsy, a word that is seldom if ever uttered aloud in that grim little waiting room.