J. Jance - Improbable cause

“No,” Daisy answered. “We did that this morning as soon as we saw the article in the paper. Rachel said we didn’t need people calling here. I know they mean well, sympathy calls and all that, but with Dotty just out of the hospital…” Her voice trailed away.

“Leaving it off the hook is probably a good idea,” I told her.

When I dialed the department, Big Al wasn’t in, so I asked to speak to Sergeant Watkins instead.

“Did the prosecutor finally put Al on the witness stand?” I asked.

Watty laughed. “Are you kidding? There’s been another delay. He’s at lunch now, but I’ve got a note that says they’ll want him for sure at one. What’s happening with you, Beau? I heard from Al that you’ve managed to reach Dr. Nielsen’s next of kin. Arlo Hamilton has scheduled a press conference for twelve-thirty. Any objections?”

“None from me.”

“How about leads?”

“It’s coming together.”

My answer was evasive. Watty knew it and called me on it. “So what are you finding out?” he asked.

“There’s a witness up in Lake City,” I replied. “Since I’m already halfway there, I think I’ll go on up and see him. Once I talk to him, we’ll know a whole lot more.”

“That still doesn’t sound like a straight answer to me. Come on. What gives?” Watty insisted, pushing me into a corner.

“This is all supposition, of course, but I’m leaning toward justifiable homicide.”

“Justifiable! What makes you say that?”

“According to the wife, there was a fight. Nielsen tried to attack her and she fended him off, with the help of this other guy, a carpet installer named Larry Martin.”

“The one you’re going to talk to now?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

“No, I’m not going to arrest him. I already told you. I just want to ask him some questions. My guess is it’ll probably boil down to self-defense.”

Watty was silent, but only for a moment. “Tell me about the wife, Beau. Is she a looker? Your recent track record isn’t so hot, you know. It wouldn’t be the first time a pretty lady’s turned your head.”

“Go to hell, Watty,” I snarled.

“By the way, Al says the medical examiner wants to know if you’re psychic or what. He says there was a helluva bruise just behind Nielsen’s left ear, a bruise and some pottery fragments.”

“I’m psychic, all right,” I told him. I hung up the phone long enough to cut the connection, then I dropped the receiver again, leaving it hanging loose the same way I had found it.

Behind me, Daisy came into the kitchen carrying a cardboard box. She opened it on the counter and carefully began removing and unwrapping the contents-a set of fine, bone china teacups and saucers. She held a delicate cup up to the window and examined it in the sunlight.

“Dotty wants us to use her things,” she said. “I’m afraid we’ll break them.”

I could understand her concern. The china was as far from their worn Melmac as a shiny new Mercedes is from a broken down VW bus. Behind us the telephone squealed, letting us know it had not been hung up properly. We ignored it.

Daisy escorted me back through the living room. On the bed in the corner, Dorothy Nielsen appeared to be sound asleep.

“I couldn’t help overhearing,” Daisy said, once we were outside the apartment and well beyond Dorothy’s earshot. “Did you say something about arresting someone?”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” I told her. “That was my supervisor downtown. He’s overeager. This is an important case. The department wants some action, especially after Maxwell Cole’s piece in the paper this morning, but it’s far too soon to arrest anybody.”

“Do you have a suspect?” she persisted.

I didn’t want to offend her, but I didn’t want to spill my guts, either. “Look,” I said kindly,

“I can certainly understand your concern, but I can’t answer that question without jeopardizing the investigation. You wouldn’t want that, would you?“

She shook her head. I put one foot inside my car then pulled it back out. “By the way, Sergeant Watkins did tell me that they’ve scheduled a press conference for twelve-thirty. That’s when they’ll release your nephew’s name. I know word leaked out before, but this will be the first official announcement.”

“All right,” she said. “Thanks for telling me.”

She seemed strangely subdued, far different from the angry woman I had seen the day before, one who had been pitching heavy boxes and furniture into a U-Haul trailer. Today she was less angry, more approachable. I decided to go ahead and ask her the question that had been bothering me ever since my conversation with Dorothy Nielsen. After all, if Daisy turned on me, the worst that could happen would be having the car door slam shut in my face.

“How did your sister break her hip?” I asked.

“You heard what she said,” Daisy replied. It was an answer that avoided my question.

“I heard her say she was stupid, but stupidity doesn’t usually break bones.” Daisy turned her face away from me. Her eyes seemed to focus on a pair of squawking crows arguing noisily in a nearby tree. I tried another tack.

“What did you think of your nephew?” I asked.

She swung her face back toward me with something of the previous day’s fire snapping in her eyes. “He was a worthless little no-account, no matter what his mother says.” With that, Daisy turned on her heel and marched into the house.

Her opinion of Dr. Frederick Nielsen tallied with everyone else’s-everyone’s but his mother’s.

I drove back to 1–5 on Forty-fifth and got on the freeway heading north. The Lake City Way exit is only two off-ramps above where I was. I cut across Seattle“ s north-end urban sprawl and through Lake City itself.

Someone in Lake City had recently invested a wad of money in a local neighborhood beautification program. Trees and shrubs had been set in the median along Lake City Way. The greenery was accompanied by some artwork that looked for all the world like baked potatoes with knives stuck in them. It’s part of a program called Art in Public Places.

I call it Rocks in Public Places. For obvious reasons.

My notebook told me that Larry Martin’s address was on Erickson Place N.E. I never would have found it without a map. It was a short street, not much over a block or two long, off to the right, north of Lake City proper. I spotted the address first, then the orange-and-black for rent sign in the window.

The apartment fronted on an alley. It was a small frame walk-up built over the garage of a weathered house that faced the street. I climbed the steep stairs and knocked. There was no answer.

“You lookin” for a place to rent?“ a voice called up to me.

I turned around and looked down. An old man in a faded blue plaid shirt sat in a wobbly deck chair on the back porch of the main house. The chair had been positioned to take advantage of the single patch of sunlight that wasn’t shaded by a huge, overhanging alder.

“Actually, I’m looking for Larry Martin,” I answered. “I understand he lives here.”

“Used to live here,” the old man corrected. “Lived here right up until this morning.”

“What do you mean?” I climbed down the steps and crossed a tiny scrap of yard to where the old man sat. He was gnarled and wizened and totally bald. An old-fashioned hearing aid protruded from behind one ear. He leaned down and held out a misshapen paw of a hand.

“Name’s John Caldwell,” he said. “Larry came tearing in here in that little red bug of his just about an hour and a half ago. Looked like he’d been in a cat fight, if you ask me. He was cut up pretty bad, had stitches all over his face. Told me his mother was real sick. He said she was so bad off that he was going to have to move back home to help take care of her. He asked me if he could have his deposit back, but I told him no way, not without at least a month’s notice in advance so we’d have half a chance to rent it to someone else.”