J. Jance - Improbable cause

“You don’t mind if I tell the other girls, do you? They’ll get a real bang out of it.”

“Be my guest,” I told her.

She hustled off toward the kitchen while I settled down to eat my breakfast.

Knowing I had deliberately avoided Sergeant Watkins the day before, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to going into the office. My game plan was to go in, get Big Al, and get the hell back out ASAP. Watty must have read my mind. The sergeant was leaning against my desk waiting for me when I got to the cubicle.

“Got back too late to put in an appearance up here, did you?” he asked with a frown.

I nodded.

“You write me a report, Beaumont. We’ll take it to Captain Powell together after I get a chance to look at it. He wants to know what the hell a suspected murderer is doing sitting in isolated splendor up at Harborview Hospital. Believe me, so do I.”

I glanced across my desk. Big Al Lindstrom was sitting there making himself as small as possible. When you weigh 220, that’s no easy task. There was a definite twinkle in his eyes.

“I’ll have a report on your desk in half an hour,” I said.

“You’d better,” Watty replied grimly.

He took off, and I turned to Al. “What the hell are you laughing at?” I demanded.

“For once it looks like the prosecutor did me a favor. At least my ass isn’t in a sling.”

“Don’t count on it. What about that assault case? Are you done with it or not?”

“He plea-bargained down to simple assault late yesterday afternoon. I came by to tell you, but Margie said you’d already disappeared. What can I do to help?”

“Go check with the crime lab and the medical examiner’s office and see if they’ve come up with anything while I get Watty’s goddamned report out of my hair.”

Twenty minutes later, I took my report into Watty’s office. He read it through, then tossed it on his desk.

“I guess I owe you an apology,” he said. “Margie was under the impression that you were on your way home. I didn’t realize you still had someone else to see last night.”

I didn’t tell him that when I talked to Margie I was on my way home. I’m gradually wising up and learning when to keep my mouth shut.

“The captain isn’t going to swallow this stuff about the wife and the carpet installer. It sounds fishy even to me, especially considering they spent the weekend together.”

Watty certainly called that shot: Captain Powell wasn’t impressed. He read my report with both Watty and me seated on chairs in his window-lined fishbowl. I felt like a kid stuck in a principal’s office waiting to collect a swat. When Powell finished reading, he dropped the paper on his desk, glowering at me.

“I’ve already been on the horn with Logan.” he fumed. “What do you mean talking him into committing Martin for psychiatric observation? What the hell kind of deal is that? For God’s sake, man, that bastard held half of Seattle hostage yesterday afternoon.”

“Have you talked to his boss yet to find out what really happened?” I asked.

“No one has talked to Richard Damm, if that’s who you mean. He’s in intensive care with a heart attack, and instead of putting his attacker in jail where he belongs, you’ve got him in a goddamned hospital. Beaumont, are you aware that Larry Martin’s an ex-con who’s already spent two years in the slammer?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know that his fingerprints were found all over Nielsen’s office?”

“I didn’t know it for sure, but it makes sense. He was laying carpet there. Why wouldn’t he leave fingerprints?”

“And now you’re telling me that he spent the weekend shacked up with the grieving widow, but you still claim he had nothing to do with her husband’s murder? Come on, Beaumont. Give me a break. I didn’t just fall off a turnip truck yesterday, you know.”

“Look,” I said, “I’ve got a line on another suspect, the receptionist’s husband. The good doctor and the receptionist were screwing around. If the husband knew about it, that certainly gives him motive. So far, we haven’t been able to account for any of his movements on Saturday, from the time his wife left for work in the morning until he got back home about five o’clock in the afternoon.”

“In other words, you’d rather go looking for another suspect altogether than track on the one we already have in custody.”

“That’s right. What’s it going to hurt? It’s no skin off your teeth. Martin’s locked up tight, and it looks like he’s going to stay that way for a while. In the meantime, I want to find the real killer.”

Captain Powell shook his head in exasperation. “You are one stubborn son of a bitch, Beaumont. I’ll say that much for you.”

I took that to mean I was dismissed, so I got the hell out of there and went looking for Big Al. I found him over by the coffeepot pouring himself a fresh cup.

“Seems like you made it out with a whole skin,” he observed with a grin.

“Just barely,” I answered. “Now, what did you find out?”

“They’re in the process of running all the fingerprints through the computer. So far, Larry Martin’s are the only ones that match.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know.”

“Bill Foster says he got one real good footprint.”

That got my attention. “No shit. Really?”

“Yes, from the carpet right in front of that back door. It’s a distinctive tread of some kind. He’ll let us know more as soon as he knows more.”

“Good. Let’s get out of here.”

Al followed me, coffee slopping from his Styrofoam cup. “Where are we going, and why the big hurry?”

I glanced at my watch. “We’re going to Cedar Heights. We’re already fifteen minutes late.”

“Late for what?”

“I made an appointment with Calloway, the resident manager, to take us through the building and find out if anybody saw anything.”

“Good thinking,” Al said. “We coulda done that yesterday, if I hadn’t been tied up here in the office.”

Henry Calloway was sitting in the lobby of Cedar Heights waiting for us, ready for his fleeting moment of glory. If helping us solve Dr. Frederick Nielsen’s murder was going to be his only claim to fame, he was prepared to make the most of it.

He took us up to the nineteenth floor and we worked our way back down, knocking on every door as we went. He stood in the hallways with us and personally introduced us to every resident who answered the door. Of course, there were a lot of people who weren’t home, and there were two units he skipped altogether because the residents were day sleepers who had given strict orders they were not to be disturbed.

All things considered, we could have saved ourselves the bother. Nothing came of it. The previous weekend had been one of perpetual sunlight. Everyone who had been able to do so had escaped to the mountains, the beach, anywhere but downtown Seattle.

By noon we had done Cedar Heights from top to bottom, and we’d checked up and down the block as well. To no avail. It was discouraging, but hardly surprising.

“What say we go try to track down Tom Rush?”

“Sounds good to me,” Al replied.

We drove over to Eastlake. The wooden porch in front of the Rushes’ apartment was littered with cardboard boxes, some empty, some full. I knocked on the door, and Debi Rush answered. She was crying.

“I hope you’re satisfied, you son of a bitch!” she said, when she saw who it was.. “Why? What happened?”

“I told him and he told me to get out, just like that. He says he can’t leave because it’s only a month before the end of the term, so I have to.”

“Where are you going?”

“Home to Yakima. My folks said I could come stay with them for a while.”