J. Jance - A more perfect union

Marilyn was sticking it to me and to Belltown Terrace as well, but I was in no position to object. I kept quiet.

"Anything else I can do to help?" she asked brightly.

"Not at the moment." I didn't want to say more, not with Reed Harding sitting there in the room. Marilyn was perceptive enough to figure it out.

"Call me when you get back home and let me know what's going on. It must be serious."

"It is that," I said. "I'll be in touch." I handed the phone back to Harding. He took it from me and sat there unmoving for several seconds with the receiver cupped in his hands. Finally, he tapped the phone on the desk a time or two.

"You'll bear with me while I go by the book and check out one more thing, won't you?"

I shrugged. "Be my guest."

He looked down at the notes he had taken during his call with Marilyn and punched a number into the phone. "Who am I speaking to?" he asked when somebody answered.

"My name's Harding, Sheriff W. Reed Harding down here in Chehalis. We've had a tip that one of our stolen vehicles was sighted in your complex last night. I understand that you keep track of license numbers of all vehicles entering and leaving the property, is that true?"

There was a pause. "I see, but you don't have last night's list there with you? Do you know where we could locate it? Yes, it is important. Fine, I'll hold."

Harding held his hand over the mouthpiece. "He's transferring me to the security company's main office in Seattle," he said. "What's the license number on that Porsche of yours? I've got it in the file in my office, but I need it now."

I gave it to him. Harding went back to the phone. "Sure, just read me the whole list. That'll be fine." It took several minutes. Finally the list was completed. "Okay," Harding said. "Thanks for all your help. What's your name again?" He scribbled a name and number on the sheet of paper. "Sounds to me like we must have been mistaken."

He put down the phone and looked over at me. "In more ways than one, Beaumont," he added. "Just like you said. The number's there. In at eleven and out again this morning. I owe you an apology."

"It happens," I said. "We all make mistakes." I could afford to be magnanimous with Harding. He wasn't the one who had knocked me on my ass.

"But what the hell were you doing out there in Pe Ell anyway? And what's Linda Decker so scared of? It's a miracle she didn't shoot you on sight. She said you claimed to be working on her boyfriend's case, on his homicide, but that when she called to check, Seattle P.D. said no."

In less than a minute, Harding and I had gone from adversaries to allies. The shift was so sudden, it almost made me dizzy.

"There are two other detectives who are actually assigned to the case," I told him. "I've been working it anyway. I felt like it."

"Oh," Harding replied with a nod. "I got that much from Watkins."

"Watkins?" I asked.

"You know, Watkins, your sergeant up there in Seattle. I talked to him just a little while ago while we were still trying to check you out."

If Harding had talked to Sergeant Watkins, then my tail was already in a gate but good.

"Wonderful," I said. Watty would be ripped, ready to chew me to pieces. So would Detective Paul Kramer.

I changed the subject. "Is that when she called you for help, then, after they told her I wasn't assigned to the case?"

"She never called."

"She didn't? But what about the deputy who showed up at the house? How'd he get there?"

"We sent him out to notify her about what had happened to her mother and her brother. Someone from the brother's job had called us and asked us to let her know. As soon as she found out, she told the deputy about you. He radioed here for help while she loaded up her kids and headed for Seattle."

"To the hospital?" I asked.

Harding nodded. "Harborview. The burn unit." He cocked his head to one side and studied me. "I wonder what she would have done to you if my deputy hadn't turned up right then."

It was a sobering thought. "I don't want to think about it," I said. There was a pause. "Did she mention any tapes to you?"

Harding sat up straight, alert, interested. "Tapes? What kind of tapes?"

I shrugged. "Beats me. Videotapes. Cassettes maybe. She let something slip about tapes, something about them being hidden in a safe place where no one would be able to find them."

"So she thought you were after her or the tapes."

"Or maybe both. Somebody must want those tapes real bad."

Harding pulled a small notebook from his pocket and jotted something into it. "I'll call Watkins and have him put a guard on her."

"Good idea. On her brother, too," I added.

"Tell me more about the tapes."

I shrugged. "I don't know anything else, except if they were in her mother's house, they're gone now."

"Burned up?"

"That's right. I understand it's a total loss. Not so much as a toothpick left standing."

I didn't want to think about the house or Leona and Jimmy Rising, especially not Jimmy, but Harding had given me an opening.

"How'd the fire start?"

"Gas hot-water heater exploded. I guess initially the fire investigators thought it was an accident, but it didn't take long for them to figure out otherwise. Not Linda, though. She knew right off."

"Knew what?"

"That it wasn't an accident. As soon as the deputy told her, she said ‘They did it again.' And she was right. By then the arson guys in Bellevue had discovered that someone had messed around with the water-heater controls."

"And since I had been seen in the neighborhood the day before…"

Harding nodded. "You got it. Everybody jumped to the wrong conclusion, including Linda Decker who figured you were after her even before she heard about the fire."

"If I'd been in her shoes, I probably would have thought the same thing," I said.

We were quiet for several moments and then Harding stood up. Slowly. Leaning against the desk for support like a man whose back hurts if he straightens up too fast.

"Come on," he said. "We'll go back over to my office and get your stuff. I had your car towed into a garage here in town. No charge, of course, but we'll have to bail it out of there before you'll be able to head home."

By eleven o'clock, I was back on I-5 heading north. It had taken time to get my car out of the impound lot and then hours more at the St. Helen's Hospital emergency room. They said my nose was broken but my shoulder wasn't. I could have told them that myself, but Harding insisted on doing it right.

As I drove, there was a dull ache in my shoulder where I'd fallen on the floor thanks to my friend Jamie. If it hurt this much already, by the next day it would be giving me fits. I was almost sorry I hadn't accepted the doc's offer of a painkiller, but I figured that and driving home to Seattle were contraindicated.

It was less than twelve hours from the time I had turned off the freeway onto Highway 6 going to Pe Ell. Twelve hours and a lifetime ago.

Those are the kind of hours that make a man old before his time. Driving home that night I was feeling downright ancient.

When the elevator door slipped open on the twenty-fifth floor of Belltown Terrace, an ocean of garlic washed over me. The garlic was thick enough that I could smell it despite my broken nose. Without opening the door I knew Ralph Ames was inside my apartment, cooking up a storm. My interior designer created a kitchen that unleashed Ames' culinary genius.

As I walked in the door, Ames glanced up from ladling a pot full of fettucini Alfredo into one of my best bowls. "How about a midnight snack," he grinned. "I'll bet you're starved."

Two places were set in the dining room. The middle of the table held a large wooden bowl of tossed salad as well as an uncorked bottle of wine.