J. Jance - Justice Denied

For a while it seemed as though our search wasn’t going to uncover anything particularly incriminating. By the time we had finished sorting through the plane and its contents, I was growing discouraged. That was when I turned my attention to an unlocked footlocker in a relatively dim far corner of the hangar.

When I pulled up the lid, the first thing I saw was a cardboard box-a large shipping box. The printed label was still visible: “Display and Costume Supply.” I recognized the name at once. When I first moved to the city, Display and Costume Supply was located in the Denny Regrade neighborhood, just down the street from my first condo in the Royal Crest. Years later, as the neighborhood changed, they moved their operation out to the burbs somewhere, and I lost track of them.

But I still have happy memories of the owners, Dallas and Suzie Carlton. Back when I was newly divorced and the Doghouse Restaurant was my home away from home, they tended to show up there around Halloween-and the Fourth of July, Saint Patrick’s Day, and Easter-dressed in costumes from their apparently never-ending supply and bringing their unfailingly good spirits with them.

So I knew something about Display and Costume Supply before I ever lifted the lid on the box. That corner of the hangar wasn’t well lit. And when I first opened the box, it was almost like looking into a black hole. When I reached inside, I touched fabric-black fabric-yards of it. And when I pulled some of it out, I knew at once what it was-a nun’s habit. Not a real nun’s habit, a phony nun’s habit. No wonder none of the samples from the various convents in Utah had matched up with the black-thread trace evidence. Those were real. This was a costume, a disguise.

Mel came up behind me. “What in the world…?”

But by then I already had my phone in my hand and was dialing information. Within seconds I had Dallas Carlton on the phone. With a little prodding he remembered me-or at least he claimed to-and when I told him I was looking at a shipping box loaded with nun’s habits, he knew right away what I was talking about.

“Oh, those,” he said.

“So you know about them?”

“Of course. We usually get orders for five or six nun’s habits at Halloween. Fewer of them now that that popular Capitol Hill production of The Late Night Catechism closed. But I do remember ordering that one whole carton. It was a special order-the only one I’ve ever done.”

“You wouldn’t happen to remember who was it for?” I asked.

“Sure,” Dallas said. “Anita Bowdin’s a good customer of ours. She said she was working with a school somewhere that was putting on a production of The Sound of Music . I was able to get her a really good price.”

“Thanks,” I told him. “Thanks so much.”

I turned to Mel. “Guess who ordered a case of phony nun’s habits?”

“Who?”

“Your friend and mine, Anita Bowdin.”

“Let’s go get her, too,” Mel said. “She lives in Laurelhurst.”

“Do you have the address?”

“I don’t need the address,” Mel returned. “I’ve been there.”

Ross called while we were on the road and brought us up-to-date. “The DNA lab is secure. With the help of several Washington State Patrol Internal Affairs officers, Mrs. Kim is in the process of gathering up the rape kits in question. Yolanda Andrade is in custody for possible evidence tampering. Destry Hennessey has been relieved of her duties, and she’s in custody as well. I’ve asked for the suspects to be housed separately at the Justice Center until we have a chance to interview them. So far Destry is the only one calling for a lawyer. What about you?”

“We’ve found a whole boxful of fake nun costumes, purchased by Anita Bowdin and stored in her airplane hangar at Renton Municipal Airport. Mel and I are on our way to pick her up.”

“Excellent,” Ross said. “Once you have her in custody we’ll settle in for a game of Let’s Make a Deal, and we’ll see which of these ladies is interested in spilling the beans.”

We drove to Anita’s humongous waterfront villa on the edge of Lake Washington in Seattle’s tony Laurelhurst neighborhood. Just as at Renton Municipal Airport, we entered Anita’s property through a remote-controlled security gate. When we rang the front door a uniformed maid greeted us and then led us through to the back of the house. (Or the front. With waterfront houses I’m never sure which is which.)

There, on a sun-drenched sunporch, we found a sweats-clad Anita, iPod earphones clapped to her ears, jogging along at a very fast clip on a high-tech treadmill.

“Mel, Beau,” she gushed, taking off the earphones. “What a pleasant surprise. Have a seat. I’ll be done in a minute. Dory,” she added for the maid’s benefit. “Do bring our guests something to drink.”

Her arrogance was such that I don’t believe it occurred to her for one moment that we were onto her or that the jig was up. When Anita finished her workout she grabbed a towel, slapped it around the back of her neck, and then came toward us smiling.

“To what do I owe the honor?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, Anita,” Mel said. “You’re under arrest on suspicion of murder.”

Anita Bowdin was shocked. “No!” she exclaimed. “I’m under arrest? That’s insane. What for? You can’t possibly mean-”

“Oh, but I do mean it,” Mel said grimly. “Hands on your head. Now!”

Anita Bowdin did as she was told without further protest. By then I think she knew we knew and there was no need for any further discussion.

Halfway between the sunporch and the front door we met up with Dory. She was carrying a silver tray laden with a complete coffee service along with an ice bucket, glasses, and a selection of sodas.

“Call Calvin,” Anita snapped at the maid as we went past. “He’s at the office. Tell him I need him.”

We walked on. Behind us we heard the tray crash to the floor, glasses and cups shattering as they fell.

Mel Soames and I had both worked high-profile cases before, but nothing could have prepared us for the storm of controversy we’d fallen into this time. It’s one thing for a derelict pig farmer to be murdering folks society is ready to label throwaway prostitutes. Cops who bring down a guy like that are heroes while, through some warped logic, society views those kinds of victims as somehow complicit in their own deaths-as in, they were asking for it. As for the killer? He’s a nutcase, to be sure, but he was also doing some of society’s dirty work, so let’s put him away somewhere and move on.

Anita Bowdin and her gang of female vigilantes turned that whole scenario on its ear. She and Destry Hennessey were and are well known and ostensibly respectable women in Washington State, with plenty of people who, without knowing any of the story, were ready to back them to the hilt. As far as those folks were concerned, the two of them could do no wrong, whereas Mel and I were nothing but a pair of malcontents who should never have brought any of this up. Ditto Todd Hatcher, who, I learned much later, did indeed turn his fifteen minutes of fame into a whopping two-book publishing contract.

What really ended up pulling all the various threads together, however, was a young IT wizard, also a friend of Todd Hatcher, who, search warrant in hand, went on a mission through Anita Bowdin’s computer’s hard drives. The information he uncovered there was nothing short of a gold mine.

Destry Hennessey’s initial position-that she had been duped the same way Mel had-went bye-bye when we uncovered and decoded a secret recording Anita had made of a telephone conversation between her and Destry. In it the two women not only discussed exactly when Juan Carlos Escobar was due to be released from jail but also how serendipitous it was that both Destry and her husband would be in Washington, D.C., at the time. Ambrose Donner of Bountiful, Utah, was especially pleased to hear about that one.