J. Jance - A more perfect union

"Most?"

"That's right. Most but not all. Some of them weren't there. That's what makes the detectives at the scene think maybe he took a walk, a powder. He and his wife were evidently having problems. They think he decided to take off rather than hold still for a divorce."

"Sometimes running away has a whole lot of appeal," I said.

"It makes my life a hell of a lot tougher," Janie responded, adding with a half laugh, "but then, a job's a job I guess. Anything else, Detective Beaumont? You want the wife's name and number? Let me give it to you. It's unlisted." I wrote down Gail Martinson's phone number.

"Thanks."

"So why's homicide interested in Wayne Martinson?" Janie asked.

"There may be a connection to a case we're working."

"Let me know if you put anything together. It would be nice if there were a connection for a change. Most of the time I feel like I'm working in a vacuum."

I hung up. "Who's Martinson?" Big Al asked.

"An accountant. The former bookkeeper for the ironworkers' local here in town."

"He's missing and you think there's some connection between him and that ironworker who got blown up down on Lake Union?"

"It's beginning to look that way."

"And that's why you're here working with Paul Kramer instead of taking vacation?" Big Al was incredulous. "You don't need a vacation, Beau. You should be on medical leave to have your head examined."

Big Al Lindstrom always says exactly what he's thinking. "You're not the first one to tell me that," I said just as Paul Kramer came back to the door of our cubicle.

"Tell you what?" Kramer asked, pausing there.

"That I'm a couple of bubbles out of plumb," I answered.

Kramer let it drop. "Gibson already left company headquarters in Toronto. He's catching the red-eye back to Vancouver tonight. We'll have to try to locate him in the morning if we want a look at that film. What did you find out from Missing Persons?"

I told him briefly what I had learned from Detective Jacobs. Paul Kramer shook his massive head. "It still doesn't make sense. If Martinson ran off, I'd lay odds it's got more to do with the ironworkers and those goddamned tapes than it does with his wife."

It hurt like hell to admit Kramer might be right, but his supposition certainly tallied with mine.

"Whoever the lady was on the phone in Toronto," Kramer continued, "she said Gibson is due back at work here in Seattle tomorrow morning by seven. Either at the job site or in their temporary headquarters in the Arcade Building. Want to meet there about seven-fifteen?"

"In the office?"

Kramer shook his head. "Let's meet outside first. By the fountain at Second and Union."

"All right, but I'll have to be back home by ten-thirty. I've got a date for lunch."

I'm not sure why I said it that way instead of coming right out and telling him that taking Tracie and Heather to Bumbershoot was a prior commitment. By then we had been working together for several hours with no recurrence of our ongoing feud.

A look of barely concealed contempt washed over Kramer's face. "By all means, don't let this case screw up your social life." With that, he turned on his heel and stalked away.

Good riddance, I thought. If he's still looking for playboy cop symptoms, I'll give him one every now and then. Just for drill.

Ralph Ames has been on an Italian food kick for as long as I've known him. By the time I got home that night, he had invited Heather and Tracie to dinner and had enlisted their help in making a gigantic batch of spaghetti. The three of them were already eating when I put my key in the lock.

My kitchen was a shambles. Some charred remains, vaguely recognizable as slices of French bread, sat on the counter giving mute testimony to at least one failed batch of garlic toast. A thin dusting of Parmesan cheese covered the floor. More dirty cooking pots than I could possibly own were scattered throughout. Whoever was volunteering for KP duty was in deep trouble.

I poured myself a MacNaughton's and water and carried it with me to the table. Heather beamed as Ames put a plate stacked high with spaghetti in front of me.

"We got to help, Unca Beau. He let us," she lisped happily. Her triumphant grin was missing two front teeth. "I got to stir, and Tracie fixed the bread."

With a slight warning shake of his head, Ralph Ames passed me a basket full of garlic bread which was only somewhat less charred than the discarded batch still in the kitchen.

I took a bite and nodded appreciatively at Tracie. "Delicious," I said.

She ducked her head and wrinkled her nose. "It's a little burned. I forgot to set the timer."

"It's fine," I told her.

The kids were excited and overflowing with news, babbling to Ames and me about their father's upcoming wedding, their new dresses, the foibles of poor Mrs. Edwards, and our planned outing to Bumbershoot the next day. I tried to stay with the flow of conversation, but my mind kept wandering back to Logan Tyree and Jimmy Rising and Angie Dixon. At least one of those three cases was now officially mine.

I must have been on my third or fourth MacNaughton's by the time the kitchen was mucked out and the girls had gone back downstairs. Finally, mercifully, the apartment was quiet. I leaned back in my ancient recliner, resting my head, closing my eyes. But as soon as I did, it all came back to me-Logan Tyree, Jimmy Rising, and Angie Dixon. Names with questions and no answers.

Sitting up, I wrestled the Seattle telephone book out of the drawer in the table next to my chair. I checked the K's and found there was only one Don Kaplan, a Donald B. Kaplan on N.E. 128th. I dialed the number. It rang and rang, and nobody answered.

Ralph Ames came into the living room from the kitchen just as I put the phone back in its cradle. He looked at me quizzically.

Instead of answering his unasked question, I got up and poured myself another drink, offering him one in the process. Ames shook his head.

"I was calling someone from Martin Green's party," I explained. "Remember me telling you about the man on the balcony, a guy named Don Kaplan? He's not home right now, but if he shows up there before it gets too late, I'll stop by and see him tonight."

I sat back down in my recliner. A little too hard. Some of the MacNaughton's slopped into my lap. I wiped it off.

"It's already too late, Beau," Ames said.

"What do you mean? It's just barely ten."

"It's too late for driving. Look at yourself. You're in no condition to drive, much less question a potential witness."

It wasn't the first nudge Ames had given me on the subject of drinking, not just counting drinks that night in particular, but drinking in general. He had mentioned my alcohol consumption on several earlier occasions, and I always resented it. I resented it now. Just because I had a drink or two or three in the evening after work didn't make me an alcoholic in my book. I thought he was overreacting and told him so.

"So what are you, my mother?"

"I'm your attorney, Beau. I'm concerned about you."

"Get off it, Ralph. If I want to drink too much, I'm not hurting anyone but myself."

Ames shrugged and dropped it for the moment. "What's bugging you tonight? All evening long when the girls tried to talk to you, it was like there was nobody home. You barely paid attention."

"This is beginning to sound a whole lot like a lecture," I countered. "I've been thinking about the case, that's all."

"The case," he echoed. "What case? And why do you want to talk to Don Kaplan? When I left this morning, I understood you were on vacation until Tuesday morning. Whatever happened to that?"

"I got Watty to put me on it after all," I said.

"The case he gave you strict orders to leave alone on pain of being fired."