J. Jance - Payment in kind

“No,” he said, jerking his arm out of my grasp. “I don’t want to go back in there. I can’t.”

“But we must ask you some questions,” I insisted. “We need to get as much information from you as we possibly can. We’ll need you to tell us everything you remember about your wife’s activities during the last few days.”

“Yes, of course,” he answered reasonably. “I understand all that, but just not in there, okay? Can’t we go to my house? It’s not far from here.”

I didn’t tell him that Detective Kramer and I had been to his house once already that morning. “Just let me tell my partner,” I said. “He can meet us there. Would you like me to drive?”

“No,” he said. “I’m okay now. Really.”

Once back in the cars, Kelsey and I led the way in the Eagle, with Kramer following behind. When we turned onto Boston, we found the lower street almost totally blocked with haphazardly parked vehicles. The collection included minivans and cars bearing radio station and newspaper logos. There was also a small knot of people milling disjointedly around on the snowy street carrying video cameras and handheld recording equipment.

Pete Kelsey’s eyes narrowed when he saw them, but he said nothing. Without being told, he knew at once who they were and what they wanted. Moving steadily through the vehicles and people, he turned up Everett, going the wrong way up what was ostensibly a one-way street. A smaller group of people stood in the street at the corner of Crockett and Everett. Grudgingly they moved aside as we came up behind them.

While we were still a good half block away, he dropped the sun visor and punched the button on a garage door opener. By the time we reached the two-car garage, the door was already open. We pulled into it before the media ambushers realized who he was or what he was doing. Kramer parked in the street and dashed into the garage just as the door started back down. The startled welcoming committee was left stranded on the other side.

It was a neat maneuver on Pete Kelsey’s part. Despite the tragic circumstances, it almost made me smile. In the long-term continuing warfare between J.P. Beaumont and the media, Pete Kelsey’s garage-door-opening Genie had just won a round.

As I climbed out of the car, I glanced around the garage, expecting to see the usual suburban garage clutter, but I was disappointed. In my experience, most people’s garages are similar to those old-fashioned rolltop desks whose lids can easily conceal months and years of accumulated junk and disorder. Pete Kelsey’s garage was not like most people’s. It was, in fact, disgustingly neat and well organized.

Not only was it totally free of garage-type clutter, it was also a whole lot bigger than I expected. Two thirds of the way down the wall, there was a dividing line between new and old concrete that showed where the side of the hill had been carved away, making the garage deeper by half a car length. A set of ancient yellow kitchen cabinets with all doors removed had been installed in the newly created area. Arranged neatly on the open shelves was an enviable collection of tools and tool chests.

As Pete Kelsey got out of the car, he paused long enough to extricate a red toolbox and the several sets of blueprints from the back of the Eagle. On his way toward the door that led into the house, he slipped the chest onto one of the shelves, where it fit perfectly into a gap between two others. He shoved the rolls of blueprints into a series of open blueprint-sized openings-slots that had been built into the cabinets where drawers had once been.

I couldn’t help but feel a growing curiosity about the man. News of his wife’s death had rocked him, but it hadn’t kept him from conscientiously closing up the Trolleyman before he left, and it didn’t keep him from properly put ting away his tools and equipment, either.

“Come on in,” he said, leading the way.

As I followed him, I was struck by the contrast between Marcia Kelsey’s messy office and the pristine condition of Pete Kelsey’s garage. Cupid must get a helluva kick from linking up poor unfortunate odd couples and watching while they try to work out a lifetime’s worth of differences.

The door from the garage led to a stairway and up into a back-door entryway that also served as a pantry. From there we followed Pete Kelsey into what the real estate ads always refer to as a country kitchen. This one had been spectacularly remodeled, from the recessed lighting in the ten-foot ceiling to the glossy finish on the hardwood floor. Both the cabinets and the countertops were made from the same light-colored Swedish-finish wood, and both were varnished to a lustrous shine.

I’m not a cook, nor do I consider myself a connoisseur of kitchens, but in my uneducated opinion, this one clearly possessed all the modern conveniences. The whole effect was one of quality design executed by highly skillful workmanship. Maybe Pete Kelsey looked like an oldfashioned hippie, but the house screamed of advanced yuppiedom, and I sensed from his casual pride in ownership that we were looking at a Ph. D.-level do-it-yourself project.

“Coffee?” Pete Kelsey asked, motioning us onto chrome-legged stools grouped around an island counter.

I nodded. It had been a long morning, with no time out for a single cup of coffee, to say nothing of breakfast.

While we watched in silence, Pete ground fresh, gourmet-type beans, started a pot of coffee, and put a hunk of crusty homemade bread on the countertop in front of us along with a container of butter and a pot of homemade apricot jam. He moved with the easy assurance of someone accustomed to working in a kitchen.

“Help yourselves,” he said, handing us knives and napkins. “I’ve got to make some calls first. Our daughter is in school at the U of O down in Eugene. I need to get hold of her. And then there’s Marcia’s parents,” he added bleakly.

Rather than retreating to the relative privacy of another room, Pete made the two calls from a wall phone in the kitchen. He reached Erin, the daughter, first.

Munching on the delicious brown bread and helping myself to the robust, black coffee, I heard only one side of the difficult conversation. Pete Kelsey delivered his shocking news as humanely as possible. After a short pause punctuated by murmured words of comfort, he went on to arrange the businesslike details of how and when Erin should get back home.

His judgment, one with which I heartily concurred, was that the roads were far too hazardous for her to risk driving. He advised her to catch the first available plane and that he’d be sure someone was at the airport to meet her when she got in.

The next call was to Marcia’s parents, who, he explained, were retired and wintering on the Arizona snowbird circuit. Kelsey handled himself well through both difficult calls, but once he got off the phone with his mother-in-law, his face was chalky gray and his eyes red-rimmed. He looked totally drained. For a moment, he stood leaning against the doorjamb, covering his eyes with his hands. When the front doorbell buzzed from two rooms away, he jumped as though he’d been shot.

“Would you mind getting that?” he asked. “I don’t want to see anybody just now, I don’t care who it is.”

I was only too happy to oblige. I had a pretty good idea of who would be ringing his bell right about then. It had taken some time for the locked-out reporters to get organized and work up their considerable nerve.

I’ve always thought it takes a hell of a lot of gall to try for a firsthand interview with someone whose life has just been jolted by some terrible tragedy. In this instance the circling pack of newshounds had evidently decided that sending one emissary was a better tactic than having everybody show up at once.