J. Jance - A more perfect union

We set off walking at a pretty good clip, but I had trouble keeping up. Jimmy kept bounding ahead, then he'd rush back to hurry me along. Watching him, I had an attack of guilty conscience, but I pushed it out of my mind. He was such a guileless innocent-it had been all too easy to con Linda Decker's phone number out of him. Anybody could have gotten it from him, if they'd only bothered to ask.

Of course, my guilty conscience wasn't so serious that I pulled the notation with Linda's phone number on it out of my notebook and threw it away. After all, as long as I had the information, I could just as well use it.

"Is Linda in…trouble?" he asked suddenly.

The question caught me off guard. I didn't know if he was asking me if she was pregnant or if he meant something else.

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"Because those men were detectives. Just like on ‘Miami Vice.' That's my favorite. What's yours?"

I don't watch television, but I didn't want to explain that to Jimmy Rising. "Mine, too," I answered.

"Who do you like the most?"

That was a stumper. He had me dead to rights. "I like 'em all," I waffled.

"Oh," he said, and we continued walking in silence.

When I unlocked the car door and let him into the Porsche, he was ecstatic. "I've…never been in a car this…nice," he said. "Are you sure you don't…mind?"

"I don't mind," I said.

"But doesn't it…cost a lot of money? Mama's always…saying that. Cars cost…money." Reverently he touched the smooth leather seat. "Is this brand-new?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

We headed back down toward I-90. Jimmy was fascinated by the buttons and knobs. He turned the radio on full blast, moved the seat back and forth, rolled his window up and down. He had a great time.

It was well after two when we turned off 15th onto Armory Way and stopped in the parking lot of the Northwest Center for the Retarded. A woman walked out of one building and headed down a shaded walkway toward another. Jimmy leaped out of the car and bounded after her. "Miss Carson, Miss Carson. I'm here," he shouted.

Miss Carson stopped in mid-stride, turned, and came back toward us. Even from a distance I could see she was willowy blonde. I turned off the motor, telling myself that Jimmy Rising would probably need some help explaining why he was so late.

He came rushing headlong back to the car, dragging Miss Carson by one hand. "He's the one," he said, pointing at me. "He even knew how…to get here. I didn't have to…tell him."

Close up, Miss Carson was still blonde and still willowy. She had almond-shaped green eyes, a fair complexion, and a dazzling smile. She held out her hand. "Thank you so much for giving Jimmy a ride. That was very kind of you. He told me he missed the bus." She turned to Jimmy. "Did you tell him thank you?"

Suddenly shy, Jimmy Rising ducked his head and stepped back a step. "Thanks," he mumbled.

"I was glad to do it."

Miss Carson smiled at him. "You go on to work now, Jimmy. The others are just going on break. I want to talk to Mr…"

"Beaumont," I supplied.

"To Mr. Beaumont," she added.

Jimmy hurried away without a backward glance, and Miss Carson turned to me. The smile had been replaced by a look of concern.

"I'm Sandy Carson," she said. "I run the micrographics department. Where did you find him? We called his mother, Leona, but she couldn't leave work to go look for him."

Briefly, I told Sandy Carson everything I knew about Jimmy Rising missing the bus, about his being upset because Linda Decker had left town without taking him with her.

"No wonder he got rattled," Miss Carson said when I finished. "His sister's really special to him. Are you a friend of the family? Do you happen to know his mother?"

I shook my head, not wanting to admit to Sandy that I was a total stranger who had wandered onto the Rising porch in the course of a police investigation.

"It's too bad Linda couldn't take him," Sandy said. "He'd be a lot better off with her. His mother's about at the end of her rope." She glanced down at her watch. "I'd better get going," she said. "They'll be tearing the place apart. Thanks again," she added. "Coming here is terribly important to people like Jimmy. It's more than just a job, you know. It's their whole life."

With that, she turned and walked away, still blonde and still willowy, disappearing behind the same door that had swallowed Jimmy Rising.

I couldn't help wondering if Jimmy Rising ever noticed that about her, or if to him she was simply Miss Carson from micrographics.

Either way, it was sad as hell for Jimmy Rising and not so sad for J.P. Beaumont.

I 've said it before and I'll say it again-the telephone is a homicide detective's most valuable tool. If we venture into areas where court orders are required, telephone-company people can be hard-nosed as hell. Outside those sticky areas, though, they are worth their weight in gold.

Using the telephone over the years, I've established working relationships with any number of people I never see, people I know by voice on a first-name basis but wouldn't recognize if I ran into them in the grocery store.

Gloria Hutchins is one of those people. I wouldn't know her from Adam if I met her on the street, but if I heard her speak, I'd know her anywhere. Gloria is the gravelly-voiced lady in the security department at Pacific Northwest Bell who handles requests for information from law-enforcement officers.

When I got back to Belltown Terrace late that afternoon, I took out my notebook, opened it to the page with Linda Decker's new phone number on it, and dialed Gloria Hutchins' number. I didn't have to look it up. That's one I know by heart.

"Hi, Gloria," I said casually. "Detective Beaumont here. How's it going?"

There was a warm greeting in her low voice when she answered. "Why, hello there, Beau. Long time no see. Where've you been, on vacation?"

"No such luck," I responded. "I've been locked up on a special assignment."

"What can I do for you?"

"I've got a telephone number, but I need an address."

"Case number?" Gloria asked.

I just happened to have one. I had jotted down the boat-fire case number from Jim Harrison's file folder at Harbor Station. I gave Gloria the case number and Linda Decker's phone number.

"Things are really popping around here right now," Gloria said. "It's going to be awhile before I can get to this. What's your number?"

The problem was, I was calling her from home. I didn't much want to give her that number for a callback. That would look bad. Instead, I gave her my extension at work. "I'll be leaving here in a few minutes," I told her. "Just give the address to whoever answers. Tell them it's for me."

"Will do," Gloria said. "Anything else?"

"Nope. That's it for now. Thanks."

I hung up and turned to a stack of unopened mail that had accumulated on the table beside my chair. The first three envelopes were bills, but between the bills and the gaudy collection of junk mail addressed to "Resident" was a handwritten envelope with no return address. I slit it open and scanned down the scrawled page to the signature on the bottom-Martin Green.

Letting the letter drop back on the table, I went to pour myself a MacNaughton's. If I was going to be forced to endure a tirade about the Bentley, at least I could do it in comfort.

And tirade it was. Mr. Green informed that he was most unhappy with the lack of availability of the Bentley, especially since he had reserved it well in advance. He went on to say that the Bentley was one of the advertised amenities which had attracted him to the building in the first place. Since I was the only member of the real-estate syndicate who was readily available, he said he hoped we could get together to resolve the situation amicably. If not, he was prepared to take us to the Better Business Bureau.