J. Jance - Long Time Gone

“Look,” I said. “I know what it’s like when an ex-spouse dies. I’ve been there, remember? Divorces are all about the bad times, but when somebody dies, the good times resurface. They come back to bite you in the butt when you least expect it.”

“The divorce wasn’t exactly over,” Ron said bleakly.

“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Wasn’t I the best man when you and Amy got married?”

“Rosemary was trying to regain custody,” he answered. “Of Heather. Tracy’s close enough to her eighteenth birthday that it’s not really an issue for her, but Rosemary claimed that since I’ve had Heather all to myself for so long, she wanted some time with her as well.”

“When did all this come about?” I asked. “The last I heard, Rosemary was just out of jail and was going into a drug-treatment facility. Was she clean and sober then?”

“That’s all a matter of opinion,” he replied. “Whenever she got involved in something, she always went overboard. While she was in treatment, she hooked up with this religious group, and she dove into that the same way she dove into drugs. It’s called Bread of Life Mission. They operate soup kitchens for the down-and-out all over the country. Rosemary ended up managing one for them. It’s down near the Tacoma Dome, corner of Fifth and Puyallup. She lived in an apartment over the storefront.”

I thought of the nice home on Queen Anne Hill in which Ron and Amy Peters were raising their three children-Tracy, Heather, and Jared Beaumont Peters-a cute little guy who happens to be my namesake and who’s already charming the socks off the little girls in his kindergarten class.

“Surely Rosemary didn’t expect Heather to go live there, did she?” I demanded.

“As a matter of fact she did,” Ron replied. “In a run-down building that backs up to the railroad tracks and with drug-using bums lined up outside day and night.”

“Sounds like the perfect place to raise a precocious, headstrong teenager,” I said. “If you want her to turn into a druggie, too, that is.”

“That’s exactly what I told Rosemary on Friday,” Ron said. “And I told her I’d see her in hell first.”

“Probably not the best choice of words,” I said. “Especially in light of what’s happened. What did she do?”

“Called her lawyer, evidently. He’s the one who sicced the Tacoma cops on me. He told them I had threatened her. I didn’t, Beau. I swear. It was strictly a figure of speech. Rosemary’s been so big on hellfire and damnation lately that I thought I’d put the situation into terms she’d understand.”

“So what happened?”

“Two Tacoma homicide dicks turned up at my office down at Internal Affairs about three this afternoon. They claimed they were coming to notify next of kin, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I did that job long enough to know the drill. They notified me, all right. Then they asked as many questions as they thought they could get away with without having to read me my rights. You know where all this is going, don’t you?” he asked.

Unfortunately I did. “Straight to the SHIT squad, right?”

Ron nodded. “I wanted to give you a heads-up, Beau. I owe you that much.”

“Believe me, Ron. You don’t owe me a thing.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I needed a place to vent. Now I’d best get home. I have to tell the girls what happened-before someone else does.”

For some time after Ron left, I sat and wrestled with the uncomfortable knowledge that one of my best friends was about to come under the scrutiny of my colleagues at the Special Homicide Investigation Team.

A year earlier Tacoma’s chief of police had run off the rails. He had used a gun to murder his estranged wife and had then taken his own life while their horrified young children observed the carnage from a few yards away. Subsequent investigations had revealed that for years Tacoma PD had either ignored or covered up reports of domestic violence at the chief ’s house. Had those reports been handled differently, a terrible family tragedy might well have been avoided. The city of Tacoma hasn’t exactly stood up and accepted responsibility for the mishandling of the case, but I personally have no doubt the city’s coffers will be greatly depleted by the wrongful death suit that’s been filed on behalf of the dead woman’s survivors.

Police-related domestic violence has long been one of law enforcement’s dirty little secrets. When cops are involved in such incidents-as either perpetrator or victim-we tend to turn a blind eye. That had certainly been the case with my dead partner, Sue Danielson. She had gone to great lengths to conceal her former husband’s violent nature and the recurring bouts of domestic violence that had preceded her divorce. I’ve often wondered what would have happened had she reported it. Would he still have managed to kill her? I don’t know.

But when Sue died, she was just a cop-an ordinary foot soldier-and hardly anybody noticed. Besides, she was the victim, not the perp. When a police chief is the one pulling the trigger, though, everybody pays attention-even the state legislature. They got busy down in the state capitol and have been drafting a slew of new laws that will require uniform policies and procedures for reported cases of police-related domestic violence. And if one of those cases results in a fatality, it’s automatically kicked upstairs to the attorney general’s office, where his Special Homicide Investigation Team becomes the lead investigating agency.

Ron and I were close friends. That meant I wouldn’t be one of the investigators working the case, but I’d still be part of the investigation. I’d be one of the witnesses my colleagues would be questioning, and the fact that Ron had come straight from the next-of-kin notification to talk to me wouldn’t look good for either one of us.

Now instead of one disaster-bound case, I was dealing with two.

It was enough to make me wonder why I’d even bothered to come back home from Hawaii. Bored as I was, I should have known when I was well off and stayed there.

For some strange reason, after that, my heart wasn’t into analyzing Fred MacKinzie’s taped interviews. Instead, I called Lars Jenssen-my stepgrandfather and AA sponsor-at Queen Anne Gardens, the assisted-living facility where he and my grandmother, Beverly, have taken up residence.

“Hey, Lars,” I said, once he’d adjusted his hearing aid so he could talk on the phone. “It’s Monday. Want me to come pick you up and bring you down the hill for the meeting?”

On Monday nights Lars and I usually grab a bite to eat and then attend the AA meeting that’s held at the old Rendezvous Restaurant on Second Avenue. And since Lars no longer drives (he’s ninety-three, so that’s a good thing!), I pick him up and drop him off. Lars has been sober for so long that I’m not sure he actually needs to go to meetings anymore, but he gets a kick out of being the oldest guy there-in terms of age rather than sobriety. As for Beverly? She let me know once that she appreciates having him out from underfoot occasionally, too. That way she can spend time hanging out with some of the other “girls.”

But on this particular evening, Lars turned me down. “No,” he said. “I t’ink I’ll stay home tonight.” His Norwegian accent tends to be thicker on the telephone than it is in person. “The missus isn’t feeling too good. I need to stick around and keep an eye on her.”

Beverly Piedmont Jenssen is a sprightly ninety-one. “Nothing serious, I hope,” I said.

“Oh, no. She’s yust a bit under the weather.”

Lars, a retired fisherman, loves his fish-baked, deep-fried, grilled, sauteed, stewed, and chowdered. On Monday nights when he’s out with me, we usually stop off at Ivar’s for clams. I can take fish or leave it. And on this occasion, leave it is what I did, opting for Mexican food instead, something Lars won’t eat.