J. Jance - Long Time Gone

The next morning my back was killing me. I lay in bed for a long time, drifting and dozing and waiting for the kinks to straighten out.

When I had first heard Sister Mary Katherine’s account of what had happened on that glorious day in May so long ago, I had thought Elvira Marchbank would be the only surviving person who would know whether or not the story was true. Then Wink Winkler had been added into the mix. Now, with both of them dead, I had too many years of homicide work behind me to buy into Kramer’s notion that the two deaths-an accident and a suicide-were purely coincidental.

I happened to believe that Elvira Marchbank had been alive when Sister Mary Katherine left the old woman’s home. I also believed that, as Sister Mary Katherine left, Wink Winkler had arrived. That meant that Wink was, if not the last, then certainly among the last to see Elvira Marchbank alive. Had he killed her and then rearranged the evidence so her death would appear to be an accident rather than a homicide? And what was the point of killing Elvira in the first place? What in Sister Mary Katherine’s account of Mimi Marchbank’s death was so damaging that Wink Winkler would be willing to commit yet another murder in order to avoid having that story revealed more than half a century later?

Presumably Elvira, determined to make things right, would have identified the long-silent witness who had effected Elvira’s remarkable change in attitude. And if Wink’s sole purpose had been to suppress the story, wouldn’t he have attempted to silence not only Elvira but Sister Mary Katherine as well? And what was the point in his killing himself?

Or had he? Was there another person involved in all this-another person who knew all the particulars and who was smart enough to manipulate evidence? What if Elvira had been murdered and the evidence had been doctored to make it look as though she had died of an accidental fall? And if that was the case, could the same be true of Wink Winkler’s supposed suicide? What if someone other than Wink held the gun to his head and pulled the trigger? Suicide can be successfully faked, but only if the killer is smart enough to take bullet trajectories, blood spatter, and gunpowder residue into consideration.

Half awake and half asleep, I tried to catalog everything I had learned in the last several days. I was jolted out of my half-sleep by the recollection of the photograph Sister Mary Katherine had shown me in Bakeman’s at lunch the day before-the one of her and her father posing together, with her perched on the hood of his spanking-new car.

Hurrying into the living room, I found the phone book and tracked down the number for the Department of Licensing.

After passing through the required verbal identification process, I gave the clerk the year I was interested in and the name-William Winkler.

“Which one?” she asked. “Senior or junior?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Give me both.”

And that’s when I hit pay dirt. In 1950, William Winkler Sr., the man who was evidently Wink’s father, was still making do with a two-year-old 1948 Oldsmobile Futuramic 98. William Winkler Jr., on the other hand, began the year driving a 1946 Ford Super Deluxe, but in June of 1950, he must have landed in tall cotton. Suddenly he was listed as the proud owner of a Ford Custom Deluxe two-door convertible.

Was it my imagination, or had Sister Mary Katherine’s father’s new Ford arrived at almost the same time as Wink Winkler’s? So I checked the DOL records for Sean Dunleavy as well. Sure enough, his new Ford had arrived on the same day as Wink Winkler’s. And the Dunleavys’ new address was listed as an apartment on Market Street in Ballard.

The same day? Two brand-new Fords for two guys who both were probably having a hard time making ends meet? This had all the trappings of a classic payoff and cover-up. Between them, Wink Winkler and Sean Dunleavy had managed to keep Bonnie Jean from coming forward to reveal what she had seen.

Was that the first time Wink had stepped outside the bounds? I wondered. Maybe, but it certainly wasn’t the last. I suspected he had gone on to bigger and better scores, right up until he was drummed out of Seattle PD and maybe even beyond that. Sean Dunleavy, on the other hand, had hit it big just that one time before he’d had to swallow his pride and go back to buying used cars.

I dialed the number for Saint Benedict’s Convent. It was still relatively early in the morning, but long after 5:00 A.M. prayers. I identified myself and was put through to Sister Mary Katherine.

“What is it?” she asked. “Has something else happened?”

“Do you remember that picture you showed me yesterday, the one with you sitting on the hood of your father’s new car?”

“Of course I remember.”

“Who else do you think got a new Ford about the same time your father got his?” I asked.

“Who?” she asked.

“William Winkler,” I answered. “Wink’s vehicle was a slightly different and more expensive model than your dad’s, but he got his car on the exact same day.”

“Are you telling me that somebody bribed my father?” Sister Mary Katherine asked. “You’re saying they bought him a car on the condition that he keep me from telling what I knew?”

“And they bought Wink a car to ensure that whatever you said, he wouldn’t hear it.”

“So I must have told somebody,” Sister Mary Katherine breathed after a long pause. “At least I must have tried to tell someone.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I believe you did.”

“Thank you, Beau,” she managed, stifling a sob. “Thank you for telling me.”

With that she hung up. I didn’t blame her for crying. Bonnie Jean Dunleavy’s silence hadn’t wronged her murdered friend. The five-year-old girl had tried her best to help Mimi Marchbank and to tell what she knew, but the system had betrayed her. It had betrayed them both, and I was the one tasked with setting it right.

Once I got off the phone with Sister Mary Katherine, I headed to Bellevue to deliver the written report I had promised Ross Connors. When I arrived at the building, Mel and I rode up in the elevator together. “Any sign of Dillon and Heather?” I asked.

She shook her head. “We’ve been in touch with Dillon’s father in White Rock and with his mother in San Francisco. Both claim they haven’t heard a word. What do you know about the sister?”

“Whose sister?”

“Amy Peters’s sister, the one who lives with them.”

“Oh, Molly,” I said. “Molly Wright. Not exactly my cup of tea. Why?”

“Brad and I got a search warrant for Dillon’s apartment. We found an empty packet of birth control pills with Molly Wright’s name on the prescription.”

“You think she got them for Heather?” I asked.

“That would be my guess,” Mel said. “And Molly is the person Dillon sat with at the funeral. Considering how much Ron and Amy disapprove of Dillon, why would Molly be so chummy with him?”

“Causing trouble?” I asked.

“But why?”

“Jealousy, maybe?” I suggested. “Molly and her husband used to be big deals here in Seattle, then her life went to hell. They lost everything. Her husband went to jail and she was forced to file for bankruptcy. From what I can tell, Ron and Amy took her in because she had nowhere else to go. She’s got nothing-no home, no husband, no kids. From where she’s standing, it must look like her sister has everything.”

“So she repays Ron’s and Amy’s kindness by undermining their authority with their own kids?” Mel asked.

Suddenly I was in the odd position of defending Molly Wright. Compared with her, Melissa Soames was a newcomer. “I guess she helps out with the kids,” I said lamely. “Makes meals, that kind of thing.”