J. Jance - Without Due Process

“Really,” she snorted. “Wonders will never cease.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Ben Weston’s father hated everything about the Seattle Police Department. I’m surprised he’d set foot in that place, even to pick up his grandson.”

“But why?”

“Who knows?” she returned. “I gave up trying to figure out men years ago. There’s no percentage in it.”

The reverse is also true, I almost told her, but I didn’t. Because Emma Jackson had what kids playing tag used to call King’s-X so they couldn’t be caught by whoever it was. Her son was dead and mine wasn’t. She had full permission to say any damned thing she pleased and get away with it.

After dropping her off at her place, I headed back home. It was close to noon. I’m too old to work all day, all night, and all the next day without stopping long enough for a nap. There was plenty to do, but nothing that wouldn’t wait until I caught a couple of hours’ worth of shut-eye.

I walked into my apartment and went straight down the hall to my bedroom. Kicking off my shoes, I flopped across the bed fully dressed while my back and feet heaved heartfelt sighs of relief.

Tired as I was, I didn’t fall asleep instantly. There was too much about this case that hit close to home, too many crossed and recrossed connections-Ben Weston and Big Al Lindstrom, Emma Jackson and Doc Baker. Everyone involved seemed to be involved twice over, and at least one of the people who had killed Ben Weston had tried to kill me as well. The slug that had smashed into the wall behind me had come far too close for comfort.

Then, just as I was telling myself I was being jumpy for no good reason, I heard the door of my apartment open and close. My heart pounding, I eased my way off the bed, gasping at the pain in my feet. I limped across the room to the closed bedroom door and stood there listening.

“You’re sure he won’t come in and catch us?” a woman’s voice asked.

Relief flooded through me when I heard Ralph Ames’s answering laughter. “He won’t, not when he’s busy working a case. We’ve got hours. Come on. Let’s get started. Can I get you something to drink?”

The voices moved away from the entryway into the front end of the house, the living room, dining room, and den. Every once in a while I could hear the sounds of low voices and muffled laughter. I was uncomfortably aware that Ralph and his female companion were under the erroneous impression that they had my apartment all to themselves. No telling what they were up to.

There I stood, trapped in my own bedroom, while the impeccable Ralph Ames carried on with a lady friend just down the hall. I didn’t know if I should be more embarrassed for him or for me, so I finally gave up, undressed, and crawled back on the bed. Into it this time, covers and all.

If I was going to have to take an enforced nap anyway, I might just as well be comfortable.

My pager woke me up an hour or so later. Lack of sleep left me feeling as rummy and miserable as any honest hangover I’ve ever encountered. The call, when I returned it, was from none other than the Weston Family Task Force commander, Sergeant Watty Watkins himself.

“Beau, where are you?”

“In bed. Asleep actually. I was up all night, remember?”

“You and everybody else. You’re not the only one whose tail is dragging. I’m headed home myself in a few minutes, but I wanted to touch bases with everyone first. I heard from Doc Baker that you got the positive IDs handled. Good work. Anything else turn up that I should know about?”

I tried to sweep some of the cobwebs out of my poor, befuddled brain.

“Did Doc Baker mention the two separate hair samples and the possible dog bite?”

“He told me about both of those,” Watty acknowledged. “Anything else?”

Only one other item stood out in my mind as being important enough to mention. “Emma Jackson, the one boy’s mother, believes Ben Weston might have been screwing around on the side. She thinks his death may be somehow related to that.”

There was a pause while Watty mulled over what I had told him. “No kidding. That doesn’t sound like Ben Weston to me. What exactly did this Jackson woman say?”

“Remember, she’s a long-term friend of the family, a childhood chum of Shiree Weston’s. She claims that in the past few months Ben’s been coming and going at all hours of the day and night. She says Shiree assumed it was another woman and had talked to her about it, complained about it.”

“What do you think?” Watty asked.

“I think there are a whole lot of other possibilities besides another woman. Besides, a jealous husband might have a beef with Ben, but not with the entire rest of his family. It just doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe not,” Watty replied, “but you’d better check it out anyway and see if there’s any truth to it. If there does turn out to be another woman involved, then we’ll look for a possible connection.”

Watty paused. Through the receiver I could hear the scratching of pen on paper as he made notes. “Do you want to mention all this to Detective Kramer or should I?” he asked.

“It’ll all be in my report when I get around to writing one, but be my guest. You go right ahead and tell him if you want to,” I said. The less I had to talk to Paul Kramer, the better I liked it.

“Will you be coming back in to the department?”

“Eventually, I suppose. I had planned on getting a little more sleep first. Anything important going on that you think I should know about?”

“Everybody’s in pretty much the same shape you are-worn-out and barely upright. Several of the guys are trying to catch a little shut-eye while we wait for some of the preliminary test results. Both the Crime Lab and Doc Baker’s crews are hard at work. Kramer has a squad of officers out surveying the Weston neighborhood to see if anyone saw or heard something out of the ordinary last night.”

By rights, I should have been part of the neighborhood survey, but considering the number of people involved, I supposed dividing up the investigative territory made sense.

“I’ve scheduled the first official task force meeting tomorrow morning at eight,” Watty continued. “Don’t be late, but don’t push yourself to come back in tonight, either. We’ll all be better off if everybody gets some rest and takes a fresh run at this thing in the morning. In other words, do what you can, but don’t kill yourself.”

“Right,” I replied. “I’ll make a point not to.”

“By the way,” Watty added. “Speaking of which, we lucked out on that score, didn’t we. I’m real happy that slug didn’t have your name on it.”

“That makes two of us,” I told him, and meant it.

After Watty hung up, I lay there on my back, unable to fall back asleep and wondering what to do next. How long did discretion dictate that I stay out of the way and give Ralph Ames and company clear sailing? Were they up and dressed and out, or would I walk down the hall and stumble across something indiscreet that would embarrass us all?

But then I remembered Ralph’s totally nonjudgmental response a few months earlier at his home in Arizona when the shoe had been firmly on the other foot, when Rhonda Attwood, Ralph’s other overnight guest, had unaccountably turned up in my room at breakfast time.

Totally unflappable as usual, Ralph had fixed coffee and juiced a bunch of oranges, serving both juice and coffee without so much as a single snide editorial comment. If Ralph Ames could be that cool, that cosmopolitan, I decided, so could I. Determined to be totally blase about the whole situation, I staggered out of bed and headed for the kitchen, where I had plenty of Seattle’s Best Coffee but absolutely no tree-ripened oranges.