J. Jance - Improbable cause

I parked in the Public Safety Building garage and pushed my way into an already crowded elevator. I was headed for my cubicle, but Margie stopped me as I sprinted past her desk.

“Hey, have you heard the news?”

“What news?”

“Detective Lindstrom called in from Olympia. He was all excited. One of the license numbers belongs to Dr. Nielsen. He had stopped for coffee and spotted the name on the list while he was waiting for his food.”

“I know,” I said.

Margie’s face fell. “Somebody already told you? I thought I’d get to you first.”

I shook my head. “You did, but I’m a detective, remember? How long ago did you talk to him? Where is he now?”

“Only about fifteen minutes ago. I’m sure he’s on his way back.”

“All right. Get somebody to patch you back through to him. Tell him to get here on the double. I’ll have the search warrant ready by the time he gets here.”

The search warrant was signed and sitting on my desk long before Big Al showed his face. As I sat there waiting for him, I had some time to think. They weren’t good thoughts.

Detectives usually get a real rush when they close a case. It’s like an addictive drug, a high that we live for. But the rush was missing this time.

Every scrap of information we had gathered showed Dr. Frederick Nielsen to be something less than your basic, all-around nice guy. In fact, our victim was a wholesale son of a bitch who had learned what he knew about life at his father’s knee. He had damaged and abused all those whose lives had touched his.

And now someone was going to have to track down his two LOL aunties, arrest them, and charge them with homicide.

It wasn’t a task I relished.

There’s something almost un-American about reading someone their rights when they’re wearing a red-checked gingham apron and kneading bread dough. Remembering Rachel’s trick from the previous time, however, Al and I decided to cover both entrances to the Edinburgh Arms apartment. He went to the front door while I went around to the back.

Rachel was in the kitchen with her hands covered with flour. Tiny white specks dusted her eyebrows and eyelashes. Buddy was confined to a cage in one corner of the kitchen.

“Freeze, sucker!” I heard through the screen door as soon as I knocked.

“Why, hello, Detective Beaumont,” Rachel said, smiling in greeting and holding the door open to let me in. “How are you today? Cool weather like this always makes me want to bake, even in the summertime.”

“This isn’t a social visit, Rachel. Detective Lindstrom’s at the front door.” Through the dining room I heard Dorothy Nielsen call for Big Al to let himself in.

“Why, whatever is he doing there?” Rachel asked.

“What’s your name? What’s your name?” Buddy wanted to know.

I ignored him and focused all my attention on Rachel. “You gave us the slip the last time, remember? We’re taking precautions.”

Smiling again, she shrugged and returned to the counter, where she picked up a smooth round cushion of bread dough that had been sitting on a floured breadboard. “I explained all about that,” she said. “I wanted to be the one to tell Dotty.”

“I think it’s time we stopped the charade, Rachel. We’re here with a search warrant.”

She stood there holding the dough, looking at me. “A search warrant?” she repeated, frowning. “What for?”

There were voices coming from the other room. Dorothy Nielsen had evidently captured Al and drawn him into conversation. Without waiting for him to show up in the kitchen, I pulled my plastic-covered copy of the Miranda warning from my pocket and began to recite it. After all these years I don’t really need the cue card, but I keep it in my hand, just in case.

When I finished, Rachel was still holding the dough. She hadn’t moved. “Why did you do that?”

“Because you and your sister are under investigation for the murder of your nephew.”

The bread dough dropped unnoticed onto the breadboard.

“No!” she said.

“Yes,” I responded. “Where were you on Saturday afternoon?”

“I was at the hospital, with Dotty.”

“All afternoon?”

“From noon until four or so.”

“Will anyone remember seeing you there?”

“I don’t know. Dotty surely. I don’t know about anybody else. The nurses perhaps.”

Big Al appeared in the dining room doorway and was greeted by Buddy’s usual salutation. Al made a face, but he spoke directly to Rachel. “Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said. She didn’t seem to notice him. Her eyes were glued on me.

“Tell us about your visit to Dr. Leonard’s office that morning.”

“What about it?”

“What happened?”

“She told us that Dotty refused to go into a nursing home. She asked if we could have her here with us for a while.”

For some reason, Rachel was still shying away from giving us totally straight answers. Verbally I forced her into a corner. “Why did she need a nursing home? Why couldn’t she just go back home with her son?”

“She couldn’t because he-” Rachel blurted, then she stopped.

“Because he what?”

She lifted the hem of the apron and wiped her hands with it. “He beat her,” she said hopelessly, keeping her voice hushed and leveling a meaningful glance at the open doorway behind Big Al. “Freddie beat his own mother. I still can’t believe it. The doctor said that’s how her hip got broken.”

“You never knew about it before Dr. Leonard told you?”

She shrugged. “We may have had our suspicions off and on over the years. I knew he ruled LeAnn with an iron fist, but I never thought he’d stoop to physical violence-not with LeAnn and certainly not with Dotty. She’s his mother, for heaven’s sake!”

“Is Saturday the first Daisy learned about it, too?”

“As far as I know. If Daze knew otherwise, she never mentioned it to me.”

“Where was Daisy Saturday afternoon?” Big Al asked.

“The zoo, of course. Some of the time she works as an aide in animal health, but this week we’ve been busy getting ready for the Jungle Party. It’s tonight, you know.”

Al arched an eyebrow. “Animal health?” he asked. “Would she know how to run an autoclave?”

“Probably,” Rachel said. “Why?”

“Never mind about that right now,” I said. “What you’re telling us is that Daisy wasn’t with you at the hospital?”

“That’s correct. She dropped me off on her way. I caught a bus home after visiting hours.”

“Dr. Leonard told us you and Daisy were arguing as you left her office. What about?”

Rachel sighed. “It was something I said.”

“What?”

“That Freddie was a worthless son of a bitch. That I wished he would die.”

“Daisy disagreed with that?”

“She said someone needed to talk with him, to convince him that he needed help.”

“Do you remember what Daisy was wearing that afternoon?”

“Her uniform. We had the appointment with Dr. Leonard, and then she had to get right over to the zoo. She had a tour scheduled for one o’clock. We all have to work a certain number of public contact hours, you see.”

“So she was driving?”

Rachel nodded.

“Which car?”

“Freddie’s. The one he gave Dotty. He told us we should drive it at least once a week to keep the battery charged.”

“And what kind of car is it?”

“A nice one. A BMW. It’s out in our garage. It’s not that new, but it’s a whole lot newer than our Buick. We thought we should try to keep it in out of the weather to protect the finish.”

“Had it been in an accident the last time you saw it?”

Her eyes grew wide. “The BMW in an accident? No.”