J. Jance - Long Time Gone

“I thought I was taking you back to your car.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “We’re almost to the 520 Bridge. If we leave from here right now, maybe we can catch her.”

The Landreth house was just off Eighty-fourth and close to the bridge. From there I knew it couldn’t be more than fifteen miles to downtown Seattle, but it was a rainy Friday afternoon with a Sonics game scheduled at KeyArena. In other words, traffic was a mess. As we worked our way toward the freeway entrance, Mel was silent for some time.

“How come he could remember the phone call but didn’t know Elvira and Wink were dead?” Mel asked. “Or was he lying about that?”

“I don’t think he was lying,” I said. “I think what Elvira told him pushed the man so far over the edge that he drank himself into a stupor. I know from the Seattle PD reports that the officers who came to the Landreth house that evening stated that they spoke to both Raelene and Tom.”

“They remember, but he doesn’t?” Mel asked.

“Blackout, maybe?” I suggested.

“Oh,” Mel said, nodding. “Of course.”

That was all she said, but I read in her acknowledgment that she and I both knew what we were talking about.

“Will Tom Landreth remember our talking to him today?”

“Considering how much scotch he was stowing away, he may not.”

“So why would Raelene Landreth stay with such a loser?” Mel asked. “When you first told me about Raelene Landreth, it sounded like she had something on the ball. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Raelene told me Tom and Elvira were close,” I explained. “That Tom was like a son to her. It’s possible that if Raelene had booted Tom out of the house, Elvira might have sent her packing from her job at the foundation. That would have left Raelene with no husband-however lame-no job, and no status in the community.”

“Just like someone else I know,” Mel muttered. I wondered what she meant, but before I could ask she continued. “Were Tom and Elvira close enough that he might be a beneficiary under her will?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“If he is, and as long as they’re still married, then Raelene benefits as well. So we’ll need to check that.”

“We?” I asked.

“You did ask me along, didn’t you?” she demanded.

“Well, yes, but…”

“No buts,” she said. “You may be allergic to having a partner, but I’m here and I’m not a silent partner, so get used to it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. And then we both laughed.

We were inching our way across the bridge when my phone rang. I tossed it to Mel so she could answer. “Hi, Barbara,” she said. “He’s driving. And since he’s a man, it’s probably just as well that he doesn’t try doing two things at once. What do you have for him?”

When Barbara Galvin finished speaking, Mel held the phone away from her ear. “The phone company info on Tom Landreth’s number just came in. She wants to know if you need it right now or if it can wait until Monday?”

“Have her look at Wednesday,” I told her. “We need a list of any numbers Tom Landreth may have called after three forty-five that afternoon.”

There was silence in the car for several minutes while I drove and Mel scribbled telephone numbers into the notebook I handed her.

“Now,” I said, “check those numbers against the ones listed on the page with Raelene Landreth’s number on it.”

“Bingo,” Mel said. “At four-ten there’s a call from the Landreth residence to the one you have down as Raelene’s cell phone.”

“There you go,” I said. “Lie number two. By four-ten Raelene knows Elvira is about to pull the plug on the foundation. She told me nothing out of the ordinary happened on Wednesday afternoon, but finding out your job is about to disappear can’t be counted as nothing.”

I had barely put the phone away when it rang again. Mel answered, spoke briefly, and then handed it over to me. “Wendy Dryer,” she said. “From the crime lab. Says she’ll speak only to you.”

Wendy Dryer wasn’t nearly as cordial as she had been earlier. “I don’t like it when people play games with me,” she snarled.

“Games,” I repeated innocently. “I’m not playing any games.”

“But I’ll bet you’ve seen Elvira Marchbank’s autopsy report.”

“No,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t. It wasn’t in yet when I went by Seattle PD to pick up my material last night. Why?”

“Because there was an unexplained bruise in the middle of her back, right between her shoulder blades,” Wendy said. “They thought maybe she had landed on the newel at the bottom of the banister, but you already knew better than that, didn’t you, Beau. You just had to be cute.”

“I’m anything but cute. What are you talking about?”

“So I checked the back of the dress Elvira was wearing when she died, and what did I find? Tennis-ball fibers. What a surprise. So if the murder weapon was a tennis ball, maybe you’d like to speculate if she was killed by a forehand stroke or a backhand.”

“It was a walker,” I said. “The tennis balls were on the bottom of Wink Winkler’s walker. I thought he had been to the house, but I wasn’t sure and I had no idea he might be the one who killed her.”

“Sure you didn’t,” Wendy said. “It was just a lucky guess. Captain Kramer wasn’t in when I called his office to pass along this information, but I’m sure you’ll be hearing from him once he’s aware of the situation. He’ll be as interested in your pet theories as I am.”

And then she hung up.

“That sounded bad,” Mel said when I got off the phone.

“It is. Kramer’s detectives are working the Marchbank and Winkler cases. He’ll go ballistic once he finds out I’m still nosing around in them, and now the crime lab is mad at me, too.”

“That’s no problem,” Mel replied. “All we have to do is find out what happened before he does.”

It was almost five-thirty by the time we hit Sixth Avenue. Heading northbound, I crossed Pine and pulled into the valet parking line beside Nordstrom. I gave the attendant twenty bucks for him to keep the car on the street, then Mel and I walked over to Gene Juarez. When we stepped off the elevator, the lady at the check-in desk gave us the bad news.

“Oh,” she said to Mel when we asked about Raelene Landreth. “I’ll bet you’re the one who was looking for her earlier. I’m sorry to say you just missed her.”

My phone rang again. I expected it to be Kramer, ready to tear me to pieces, but it wasn’t. It was Beverly.

“Oh, good,” she said when I answered. “Where are you? Will you be here soon? Lars and I are down in the lobby waiting, so you won’t have to come all the way up to the room.”

Damn! I had forgotten the dinner arrangement. Traffic was a mess. Taking Mel back to the office in Bellevue and returning to Queen Anne Gardens before dinner was over just wasn’t an option. “Can I get back to you in a minute?”

“You’re not planning on standing us up, are you?” she warned.

“No, Beverly,” I reassured her. “I’ll call you right back.”

“When the desk answers, tell them we’re waiting over by the piano.”

“What’s that all about?” Mel asked.

“Dinner,” I answered. “I’m supposed to be having dinner with my grandparents tonight, at their assisted-living place up on Queen Anne Hill. The problem is, I forgot about it.”

“Is this the same grandmother who crocheted your afghan?” Mel asked.

“Yes.”

“Sounds like a neat lady.”

“Beverly and Lars eat in the dining room,” I said. “So it probably wouldn’t be a problem if you came along. But if you’d rather go straight home, I understand. I’ll be glad to call you a cab.”