J. Jance - Payment in kind

“That’s not entirely legal,” I pointed out.

“Neither is homicide,” Kramer returned. “If you want to squeal about it, Detective Beaumont, go right ahead. Be my guest. Meanwhile, I’m going out to start the car.”

Kramer left, taking the pilfered spoon with him, and I didn’t try to stop him.

Kramer didn’t have to convince me. Between lifting a spoon and nailing some creep who was responsible for the cold-blooded execution of two people, there was absolutely no contest.

Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.

I waited until Pete Kelsey returned to the kitchen. He paused in the doorway and gave me a long, searching look. It seemed to me that he somehow sensed that things had changed between us. He was right. They had, and not for the better.

“We’re going now,” I said, handing him one of my business cards. “Call me if anything comes up that you think I should know about.”

He nodded, but he tossed the card on the countertop in an offhand, don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you fashion. “Do you need me to show you the way out?” he asked.

“No. I’m sure I can find it.” I made my way down the stairway and through the immaculate garage. I let myself out onto the street, where Kramer was sitting in the already idling Reliant.

I looked around. The crowd of eager newsies no longer jammed the neighborhood. It was too damn cold. Either they had retreated to the warmth of their vehicles parked a block below on Boston or they had abandoned the field entirely and returned to their individual newsrooms.

“Well?” Kramer asked as soon as I climbed into the car and fastened my seat belt.

“Well what?” I returned.

“What do you think? Do you agree or not?”

“You mean have you convinced me that Pete Kelsey’s our man? No, you haven’t. It’s all conjecture, Kramer, without any supportive facts. He may have lied to us about some things, but so far I can’t see that we have a smidgen of solid evidence.”

Kramer shook his massive head. “Come off it, Beaumont. Show me your stuff. Ever since I got to Homicide, everyone’s told me about you and your terrific hunches.”

“My ”terrific hunches,“ as you call them, sure as hell aren’t telling me that Pete Kelsey is a killer.”

Kramer didn’t bother to mask his disgust. “You know what’s the matter with you? You fell for all that open marriage bullshit. That doesn’t mean the poor bastard wasn’t being led around by the balls. He was. That wife of his must have been a real piece of work, but then, so’s Kelsey.

“I think he fed us that whole line of crap just to throw us off track, to make us think he knew what she was up to the whole time. My guess is, he didn’t. I’ll lay you odds he just found out his wife was two-timing him and decided to put a stop to it once and for all. Where I come from, jealousy’s still a pretty damn good motive for murder.”

We were headed back to the department. I suppose I could have argued with Detective Kramer on the way, told him that he was being premature and lectured him about jumping to conclusions, but I didn’t. Reluctantly, and based on my own observations, I was forced to admit that there was some plausibility in what Kramer was saying.

By then, Kramer was wearing on me, getting on my nerves. I’m basically an impatient person. I always have been, and sobering up hasn’t made any difference. Through my work in the AA program, I’ve been trying to learn to accept the things I can’t change and to change the things I can.

I couldn’t change Detective Kramer, couldn’t keep him from running off at the mouth, but I could and did get out of the car. I had him drop me at the garage entrance. Bypassing the elevators, I took to the stairwells and pounded my way up to the fifth floor while Kramer parked the car.

Margie, my clerk, had two messages for me. One was from Big Al telling me not to worry, that he was much better, but that he was taking a few days of personal leave to help Molly while she finished recuperating. The other was from a lady named Kendra Meadows, who identified herself as the director of Personnel for the Seattle school district.

It was after three. With the midwinter afternoon waning fast, I figured I’d better hurry and get back to Kendra Meadows before she left her office and headed home.

As soon as she answered the phone, I could tell from the low, husky timbre of her voice that Kendra Meadows was a middle-aged black woman. She was all business.

“I have a memo here from Dr. Savage telling me that I’m supposed to render whatever assistance you may find necessary, Detective Beaumont. Phone numbers, addresses, that sort of thing. I’ll be here the rest of the afternoon if you want to stop by. My directions are to stay as late as you need me to.”

Dr. Savage had pulled out all the stops on this one. Kendra Meadows was ready and willing to help, but I didn’t yet know exactly what help we would need. Not only that, we had a mound of paperwork to tend to before we called it a day. I hedged for time.

“Things have gotten pretty hectic around here today,” I said lamely. “Will you be in your office tomorrow?”

“I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t,” she countered.

If Kendra Meadows had a sense of humor, none of it leaked into her telephone presence. “I come to work every day, Detective Beaumont, rain or shine.”

“Good,” I said. “Either Detective Kramer or myself will be in to see you tomorrow then.”

Over my desk I keep a ribald poster featuring a bare-assed kid sitting forlornly on a pot. The caption says, “The job’s not finished until the paperwork’s done.” The same can be said of police work. I was reaching in one of my drawers for a blank report form when Detective Kramer’s bulky frame appeared in the door of my cubicle.

“Boy, do I have a deal for you,” he said.

“What’s that?” I turned to look at him. He was holding up his own fanfold of messages.

“How about if I push the papers around here and you go back up to the district office and pick up their bomb threat file? Doris Walker called three different times to say it was ready and were we going to pick it up today.”

I found it interesting that although I had been the one who had actually talked to Doris Walker, somehow all three of her messages had been shuffled to Kramer. None had come to me. I had heard rumors from one or two of the other detectives who had been stuck working with Paul Kramer that he had developed a system for hogging important messages and that he loved doing reports. All of them. Believe me, for homicide cops, this is not normal behavior.

Both items had raised eyebrows, although to my knowledge, no one had filed an official grievance on the issue. The report-writing incidents in particular had provoked numerous derogatory comments, the general consensus being that Kramer volunteered to do the paperwork so he could write things his way and make Detective Paul Kramer look good. Officially. That didn’t scare me in the least. No matter what he wrote, it wouldn’t be any skin off my nose. I sure as hell wasn’t lobbying for a promotion, and I hate paperwork.

“You bet,” I told him. “Sold.”

I took long enough to put in a “Locate Car” call to 911 on Marcia Kelsey’s vehicle in the hopes that somebody might stumble across it. The dispatcher took my “Homicide Hold” request seriously, but he didn’t offer much hope of success.

“You want us to locate a misplaced car in this weather? Go ahead and give me the info, Beaumont, but don’t hold your breath. With the streets the way they are, I’d say the chances of our finding it are slim to nonexistent.”

Two minutes later, I was on my way. The streets were still relatively deserted, and the people who were out seemed to be in a jovial holiday mood. I grabbed one of the Queen Anne-bound buses on Third Avenue rather than go through the hassle of checking out a departmental car. That way, once I had Doris Walker’s file in hand, I could go directly home, settle into my user-friendly recliner for a while, and maybe get a little perspective on the day.