J. Jance - Justice Denied

“The crime lab, to drop off the ballistics info.”

“I’m coming too,” Mel said determinedly.

“But Todd needs you to work on the FBO situation,” I objected.

“Todd has a telephone,” Mel declared. “And I have a telephone. If Todd needs me to do something, he can call. Right, Todd?”

“Right,” Todd said, ducking his head into his computer screen and not meeting her eye. I suspected that he had seen more of Mel Soames than he expected that morning. She seemed to be coping with the situation far better than he was. And leaving them alone to work together clearly wasn’t an option.

“Okay, then,” I said. “Come on. Bring along our Destry and Anita info. That’ll give us something to read if we end up having to sit around somewhere and cooling our heels.”

The Mercedes was almost out of gas, so we took Mel’s BMW. She drove. When my phone rang I expected the caller to be Todd Hatcher or Ross Connors. It was Harry I. Ball.

“You don’t call,” he said. “You don’t write. And considering I bailed your butts out of hot water yesterday morning you’d think you could be bothered to pick up the phone and say thanks a bunch.”

“Sorry, Harry,” I said. “We’ve been busy.”

“Hah!” he said. “I’ll bet. Now are you two ever coming back or should I just sublet your space and get it over with? No sense sitting here with empty offices going to waste.”

“We’re working, Harry,” I said. “We’re making progress.”

“But I shouldn’t hold my breath waiting for you to send me an actual report on what you’re doing. Brad and Aaron are a little pissed about this, you know. Barbara, too. They come in every day, punch the time clock, put in their hours, while you and Mel are wandering around free as a couple of birds.”

Brad Norton and Aaron Oliver were two of our SHIT Squad B teammates.

“Sorry to leave you out of the loop, and I’ll shoot you an update,” I promised, “as soon as we get within shouting distance of our computers.”

“You do that,” Harry said. “But I’m not holding my breath.”

When we reached the crime lab parking lot, I thought Mel would want to come in with me.

“You go on,” she said. “There are a couple of things I want to check out.”

I went. I’ve been to the crime lab countless times without ever catching sight of Destry Hennessey, but as I pointed out earlier, this was the Ides of March, and the stars were not in our favor. She was down in the lobby, talking to the lady in charge of handing out visitors’ badges.

“Hey, Beau,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

She seemed happy enough to see me. She wouldn’t have been had she known what I was up to.

“Ballistics,” I said. “Need to see Larry.”

“Your old bud,” she said. “This about the double homicide up in Leavenworth?”

“Yup,” I said. “That’s the one,” making a mental note to be sure Tim Lander sent Larry something about that Golden Saber shell casing that would keep everyone out of trouble.

“Good work,” she said. “Sounds like you cleared that one up in a hell of a hurry.”

I took my visitor’s badge and rode the elevator upstairs. Larry was aghast when I told him I had run into Destry herself in the lobby. “Don’t worry,” I said. “Put in a call to Tim Lander at the Chelan County Sheriff’s Department and make sure he sends you everything there is to know about the weapon involved in the double homicide up in Leavenworth.”

“But he already did,” Larry said. “That’s what I’m supposed to be working on this morning.”

“We’re covered then,” I said. “Not to worry.”

I gave him what I had. He looked it over, sniffing his disapproval. “This isn’t all that good,” he said. “But it may be enough. Give me a number so I can get back to you.”

I did and then headed back down to the car, where I found Mel talking on her cell. When I got into the car, she handed me a scrap of paper. On it she had scribbled something that looked like “Wingnuts and Butte Av.” She hung up.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Ross Connors,” she said. “I just finished telling him that his boy wonder economist, Todd Hatcher, is in fact a genius. He’s located two more FBOs-Wingnuts is in Roseburg. Butte Aviation is in Butte, Montana. The dates Anita’s plane was in those areas coincide with two of my sexual offender ‘mysterious deaths.’”

“So they are connected?”

“Looks like,” Mel said.

“And we’re dealing with serial killers.”

“That, too,” Mel agreed.

“So what’s the next step?”

“Ross has the whole Olympia squad working the problem as well-checking out the plane, where it’s based, flight plans, all that kind of thing. Since we can put the plane in the vicinity at the time of four homicides, three in the U.S. and one in Mexico, he’s also looking into whether or not we have sufficient probable cause to get a search warrant.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“That’s what I told him,” Mel agreed. “He said it depends on the judge, and Ross Connors knows a lot of judges.”

“So what’s the next step for us?” I asked.

“Breakfast,” Mel said. “Cold pizza doesn’t do it for me. Then what say the two of us head out to Kent and have a chat with Diane Massingale or Trudy Rayburn? An unexpected visit from us might force them into making some kind of error.”

“If we spook them, what if they just jump in the plane and take off?” I asked.

“If they try that, we’ll know where the plane is, won’t we,” Mel said with a smile. “And if they’re apprehended while attempting to flee, we’ll have probable cause for sure.”

Which is exactly why Mel Soames is my kind of girl.

We stopped off at the Yankee Diner in Renton on our way to Kent. Mel ordered breakfast; I ordered lunch. We had taken the Destry/Anita papers in with us. While we waited for our food, we tried to work on them again, but Mel pushed hers away after only a minute or so. Glancing at her face, I saw she looked troubled.

“I thought these women were my friends,” she said. “And I thought the whole purpose of SASAC was to help people-to accomplish something worthwhile.”

The comment made me revisit the betrayal I had felt when I learned Anne Corley wasn’t at all who or what I had thought her to be. Not knowing exactly which way Mel was leaning, and not wanting to make the situation worse, I tried to soft-pedal Anita Bowdin’s involvement.

“We don’t know for sure Anita Bowdin did this,” I said. “Maybe her pilots were acting on their own.”

Mel remained unconvinced. “We don’t know that she didn’t, either. If she wanted to find unconvicted and anonymous sexual offenders, the crime lab was the perfect place to go hunting,” Mel declared. “I know for a fact that Anita was bound and determined to place someone inside the DNA profiling lab. That was a major goal when I turned up on the scene. She may not have pulled the actual triggers, Beau, but I know Anita Bowdin is involved. I’m guessing the pilots are the puppets while Anita controls the strings.”

“But we still don’t know why.”

“One way or the other,” Mel said determinedly, “we’re going to find out.”

By the time we arrived at Trudy Rayburn and Diane Massingale’s neatly rehabbed 1920s bungalow on the edge of downtown Kent, Mel and I had come up with a suitable fiction and with the decision that, in this instance, Mel would do all the talking. We parked Mel’s BMW three blocks away and almost out of sight of Trudy Rayburn’s house. Mel opened the trunk and removed the his-and-hers Kevlar vests we keep there. Only after donning them did we walk back to the house. A blue Ford Freestyle minivan was parked in the driveway. We walked past it and stepped up onto the low porch. Then Mel rang the bell.