Breach of Duty (9780061739637) (23 page)

“Is anyone hurt?” one of the uniforms asked as he reached us.

“Mr. Lawrence here is having chest pains,” I told the patrolman. “If you can, help him over to the ambulance. Then, when you come back, if you happen to have an extra Kevlar vest just lying around, I'd really appreciate being able to borrow it.”

The two cops exchanged disparaging looks. “Detectives,” one of them muttered with a shake of his head. “I'll radio back to the lieutenant and see what we can do.”

As they headed away, hustling Lawrence into the patrol car, I was dismayed to see the Lawrences' front door come open. I don't remember taking my 9mm out of its holster, but by the time the screen door burst open, the weapon was in my hand. I raised the gun, expecting that I'd have to lay down a fusillade of protective fire to cover the retreat of the uniformed officers who were moving Malcolm Lawrence to safety. To my surprise, when Becky Lawrence appeared on the porch, the shotgun was nowhere in sight. One hand was empty. The other held something that looked like an ordinary overnight bag.

“Drop it, Mrs. Lawrence,” I ordered. “Put your hands up in the air so I can see them!”

Becky complied at once. She dropped the bag. It landed on the clasp, breaking it open, and sending a cascade of metal hair curlers rolling across the porch, down the steps, and onto the sidewalk. While Malcolm and I had been huddled behind the Town Car fumbling for his nitroglycerin pill, his wife had been inside the house, calmly taking the curlers out of her hair. She had combed out the curls and even put on some lipstick.

Holding my gun in one hand and fumbling out flexicuffs with the other, I went forward to meet her. “As soon as I saw you drive up,” she said. “I knew it was over. As long as you and that lady detective didn't come back, I figured I was all right.”

Becky and I rode into the department in one of the patrol cars, with me in front and with her locked behind the screen in the backseat. Once in the Public Safety Building, I took her into an interview room. Because she waived her right to an attorney, we went at it right away. She was more than happy, proud almost, to confess to Agnes Ferman's murder.

“Why?” I asked her when she admitted she had set fire to the couch. “Why did you do it?”

“I may not have wanted Malcolm anymore,” she told me, “but I sure as hell didn't want anyone else to have him.”

Kramer, showing his face for the first time since the Bellevue crime scene, took it upon himself to observe the entire questioning process although he did have brains enough to keep quiet most of the time.

“A real nut case,” he said to me, once a pair of officers were dispatched to take Becky Lawrence down to the King County Jail and book her on an open charge of murder. “Sounds to me as though she was more upset about Agnes Ferman borrowing the lawn mower than she was about the woman screwing her husband.”

“Becky's not nearly as crazy as she'd like you to believe,” I said. “I think if we do a little digging, we'll be able to show premeditation. You heard what she said. She knew about Malcolm's affair with Agnes for at least six months before she did anything about it. The thing that put her over the edge was hearing Frederick Considine's argument with Agnes Ferman. The only reason she did the murder then was because she expected we'd blame the whole thing on him.”

“Well,” Kramer said grudgingly. “You didn't. Good job. I'm glad to have that case cleared, but this Lone Rangering stuff has to cease.”

Lone Rangering is something I had been accused of before on occasion, but considering all the mitigating circumstances this time it made me see red, even if the man did have a point.

There comes a time in every man's life when he realizes that his childhood dreams are never going to come true. No matter what, he's never going to be president; never going to play second base for the Yankees; never going to walk on the moon. And if you're reasonably squared away when that realization hits you, you're all right with it. Your life is your life and that's okay.

That day on Lake Chelan, I had tried to explain all that to my grandmother. Now, listening to Kramer, I tried explaining it to myself. It wasn't working. My one ambition in life had always been to be a good cop. There were several underlying and accompanying assumptions. One was that being a good cop matters. That police officers save people's lives and make this country a better place.

Maybe those assumptions sound stupidly idealistic, but they were mine nonetheless. I had done my best for twenty-odd years with the expectation that when it came time to leave, I'd do it under exemplary circumstances, with a boring retirement dinner complete with typically boring law-enforcement high jinks, with rubber chicken, plenty of rotten jokes, and even worse speeches. I had never once expected to be run out on a rail by a supposed superior who was less of a police officer than I was in every way.

“You've got to stop running all over the place acting like you're a one-man crime fighting unit, Beaumont.” Kramer continued. “We've got procedures for that. And partners. You're not supposed to be out on your own like you have been the past two days. If it doesn't stop, I'll have you up before a board of inquiry on breach-of-duty charges.”

“Like hell you will!”

“Detective Beaumont, I—”

“You'll do nothing of the kind, Kramer, you jackass! I'm not going up before a board of inquiry for anything. I'm pulling the pin,” I told him. “I quit!”

The words were out of my mouth before I knew it and before I realized how much I meant them. “In the last twenty-four hours, my Lone Rangering, as you call it, has saved the lives of at least three people. So you can stick your bloody procedures where the sun don't shine, buster, and leave me the hell alone!”

With that, I turned and stalked away. I didn't stop to check out that one last time. I didn't have to. Sergeant Chuck Grayson, the night-shift desk sergeant, had heard every word.

It was almost nine as I headed up 3rd Avenue. I walked as far as University. Then, on a whim, I turned up the hill. Sue's folks and kids were still at the Four Seasons. If I was no longer going to be answering my own phone at the department, I needed to stop by and tell them what was going on in person.

Hank Hinkle came downstairs as soon as I rang their room. The two of us sat in the Garden Court and talked. “I hope your quitting doesn't have anything to do with what happened to Sue,” he said. “She wouldn't have wanted that.”

“No,” I said, “the two aren't related.” But even as I said it, I could see that wasn't the case. It had everything to do with Sue and almost nothing at all to do with Paul Kramer. I didn't need some half-baked squad commander to point out my failures. I could do an admirable job of that on my own. Sue Danielson was dead. My partner was dead and for one reason only—because I hadn't saved her.

W
hile I was talking with Hank Hinkle, I realized I'd had nothing to eat all day and stopped long enough for a bowl of soup. After I left the Four Seasons, I considered tracking down an AA meeting on my way home, not because I needed a drink, but because I needed a place to talk. In the end, I decided I was too tired and went straight on home. It's a good thing, too. If I hadn't, I would have missed the impromptu meeting that was going on at my condo.

I'm not sure who called everyone together, but when I walked up to the door in the hallway, I could tell by the murmur of voices coming from inside, that there were several people waiting for me. Ralph's girlfriend, Mary Greengo, heard my key in the lock and met me at the door. She's a lithe blonde with a perpetual upbeat way about her. She drew me inside with a hug. “Thank heaven you're here,” she said. “Did you have something to eat?”

I nodded. “Well, come on in then,” she added, “I think almost everyone is here.”

And they were. Ron's girls, Heather and Tracie, were sacked out on the floor in the den, sound asleep in front of a silenced television set. Ron's chair was parked at the far end of the room where he and Ralph Ames appeared to be deep in conversation. On the long upholstered benches of the window seat sat both my grandmother, Beverly Piedmont, and Lars Jenssen, my AA sponsor.

Even if all the people involved are friends, it's still a bit disconcerting to walk into your own living room and find it seems to have developed a life of its own by declaring a party in your absence. I was too tired to be gracious about it. “Don't let me stand in your way,” I groused, “but if you folks don't mind, I believe I'll go straight to bed.”

“Don't do that, Jonas,” my grandmother said. “We've all been worried about you. Ron told us you had left the department earlier. When you didn't come right home, we didn't know what to think.”

“Left the department as in coming home for the night?” I asked. “Or as in I quit?”

“Both,” Ron admitted. “Chuck Grayson called and told me what was up. I'm the one who called everybody else. You didn't mean it, did you?”

“Yes, I meant it,” I said.

That pronouncement was met with a period of silence. “Well, good for you,” Lars said finally, hobbling across the room and giving me a spine-cracking whack on the back. “Congradulations,” he told me. “Been sayin' for years that you work too dad-gummed hard for your own good. It's 'bout time you stopped to smell them roses.”

“You had a phone call a few minutes ago,” Ralph interjected, handing me a note. “You may want to return this as soon as possible.”

The name on the note was Bridget Hargrave along with a telephone number. The moment I saw it, I felt sick. I had been so tied up with everything else I had completely forgotten about Jimmy Greenjeans. Seeing his girlfriend's name in Ralph's neat printing gave me a nudge of awful premonition. “If you'll excuse me,” I said. “I believe I'll return this from the phone in the bedroom.”

Dialing the number I tried to prepare myself for news that would be, in its own way, just as awful as the doctor saying Sue was dead. No doubt Jimmy Greenjeans was dead, too. There had simply been some kind of delay in finding his body.

“Bridget?” I said when she answered. “Detective Beaumont here.” Old habits do die hard.

“Thanks for calling. I had to talk to you.”

“Why? What's going on?”

“Jimmy called me about an hour ago from somewhere out on the coast…”

I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer of thanksgiving. Jimmy wasn't dead after all. Somehow he had managed to outwit David Half Moon's curse.

“That's great,” I said. “I'm delighted to hear it.”

“You may be, but I'm not,” Bridget said. “He gave me some bullshit story about having to go out there with some woman—Carla Something. Jimmy had some lame excuse about having to meet with Carla's father.”

“Her name's Darla,” I corrected. “Darla Cunningham.”

“That's right. So you
do
know her then,” Bridget said.

“Yes.”

“And is it true that Jimmy had to go see this man, or is it just a way of avoiding meeting my mother?”

“What did Jimmy say?”

“He says he had to go, that it was a matter of life and death, but that he made a promise—a sacred promise—never to tell anyone what went on. I don't know what to think. Should I believe him or not? What if he and Carla…Darla…have something going and Jimmy just doesn't have guts enough to tell me?”

I could see now what had happened. Jimmy had called Darla and she had immediately packed him off to Taholah for a purification ceremony. And, since Jimmy was still alive, I had to believe that Henry Leaping Deer's promised cure had worked.

“Here's my advice,” I told Bridget. “If I were you, I'd take Jimmy's word that he had to go out to the coast to see this man. And I'd also take his promise about not telling very seriously. If he swore not to divulge what went on, you're better off not knowing.”

“I shouldn't ask him ever?”

If nothing else, I had learned that a shaman's curse could be tricky. And long-lasting.
“Not ever,” I said.

“And you don't think I have a right to be mad at him for standing me up and making us worry so much?”

“Whatever you do,” I counseled, “don't be mad. As far as I can see, you're lucky that Jimmy Greenjeans is still alive.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I put down the phone.
One for our side,
I told Sue Danielson silently.
You and I saved Jimmy Greenjeans' life as surely as I lost yours.

Swallowing hard, I made my way back out to the living room where the others were still waiting.

“Any word on services?” Beverly Piedmont asked.

“Hank says they're going to have only a memorial service here in Seattle the day after tomorrow, at a funeral home up in Lake City. It'll be at two o'clock in the afternoon. The funeral and actual burial won't happen until they take the body back home to Ohio.”

“What about a place to gather after the memorial service?” Mary Greengo asked. “If you wanted to invite people over here to the Regrade Room for a reception, I'd be glad to handle refreshments.”

“I don't know. That's very kind of you. I can check with Sue's parents in the morning,” I said, trying to waffle. “And the common room may already be booked.”

“It isn't,” Ron said. “I checked with the manager a little while ago before the girls and I came upstairs. Dick Mathers said that as far as he knew, the room was free for the next three days in a row. I asked him to put a tentative reserve on it until I tell him otherwise.”

“All right,” I said. I was thinking about the last funeral I had attended for a fallen police officer. That one, held at the enormous Mount Zion Baptist Church on Capitol Hill, had been standing room only. “The only problem is, I don't know if the Regrade Room will be big enough.”

“It's spring,” Ron said. “Any spillover can end up outside on the recreation deck.”

“How many do you think?” Mary Greengo asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I have no idea,” I said.

“Probably a bunch,” Ron told her.

“We were watching the news a few minutes ago,” Ralph said. “I just can't get over the thing about the drugs.”

“Drugs?” I asked. “What drugs?”

“Haven't you heard? The crime-scene investigators were going through Sue's house today and they came upon two brand-new roll-aboard suitcases. They were gifts, evidently, and still had tags on them with both Chris and Jared's names on them. The problem is, as soon as one of Janice Morraine's investigators picked one up, he knew there was something wrong with it. The cases were way too heavy to be empty. So the investigator slit open the bottom. Guess what he found inside?”

“I give up.”

“Coke,” Ralph said. “Pure cocaine.”

“Are you kidding?”

Ron looked at me and frowned. “If that news is already on TV, how come you didn't know about it?”

“I'm out of the loop,” I said. “That's one of the reasons I quit. You mean you've heard about it, too?”

Ron nodded. “I thought everybody had. The way the boys from the DEA have it pegged, Richie Danielson was on a delivery trip with a set schedule and a set itinerary. He was planning on using the boys for cover. As soon as Sue altered the plan ever so slightly, things fell apart. Richie must have realized that if he couldn't make his connections at the appointed times, he'd lose big-time. No wonder he went off the deep end. The amount of coke involved would have brought a significant amount of change. It must have driven him crazy to have Sue screwing up the whole program for the simple and not-very-complicated reason that she didn't want her sons having unexcused absences from school.”

I was still trying to come to grips with the reality of it. “That's why he shot her, over drugs?”

“That's the way it looks,” Ron said.

“And he was going to use the boys for mules?”

Ron nodded.

“That rotten son of a bitch!” I muttered. “Dying's way too good for scum like that.”

“I agree,” Ron said. He had rolled his chair toward the den, most likely intent on waking the girls and taking them back downstairs. In the doorway, though, he stopped and turned back to me.

“By the way,” he added, “I thought you'd like to know that Amy and I finally managed to agree on a name. We wanted to name the baby after you, but Amy balked at Jonas. She said it would probably open the poor kid up to a lifetime of Jonas-and-the-whale jokes.”

“She's not wrong there,” I told him. “That's one of the reasons I switched to plain initials. What did you decide?”

“Jared,” Ron answered. “Jared Piedmont Peters. That way, we can call him J.P., too, for short. What do you think?”

I thought it was wonderful, but a simple “Thankyou,” was all I could manage.

“Speaking of Jared,” Ralph interjected, sensing that I was out on an emotional limb and in need of rescue. “What's going to become of those boys?” he asked. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

That was vintage Ralph Ames. Give him a problem involving kids, and he'll take the bit in his teeth to get it solved. His diversion gave me an opportunity to get my voice back under control.

“It sounds to me as though it's all pretty well set,” I told the roomful of people. “Chris and Jared will go back home to Ohio with Sue's folks. Hank Hinkle told me they had been thinking about selling the family home and moving into a condo. Now, he says, they'll just stay put.”

“Good,” Ralph said. “Glad to hear it.”

Ron and the girls left about then, and everyone else followed suit a few minutes later. Ralph and Mary took my grandmother home. Lars Jenssen walked. And I went to bed. I slept for twelve hours straight. When I finally clambered out of bed at eleven the next morning, I had some coffee and toast. Someone—most likely Ralph—had restocked the larder. After breakfast, I went in to the department to close up shop.

Watty Watkins looked up and smiled when I showed up at his desk. “Hey, Beau,” he said. “Hope you've changed your mind about pulling the pin.”

“No,” I told him, handing over my departmental laptop. “I came to check this in and then I'm going to pack. You wouldn't happen to have any more of those empty boxes, would you?”

He nodded and went to get me some from the supply room. Minutes later, I was in Sue's and my cubicle packing up more than twenty years' worth of accumulated junk. The phone rang several times while I was going through my desk. One caller was an agent for the IRS who had read about Agnes Ferman's money in the paper and was hoping to get a shot at some of it.

“Good luck,” I said. “It looks to me as though the bulk of the cash came from well beyond the seven-year statute of limitations. And I'll bet that what she's been receiving in the annuity since 1993 has all been properly documented.”

The IRS agent was not so easily dissuaded. “How do I go about gaining access to your official records?” she asked.

“As of today, there should be another detective assigned to the case. You'll have to check with him—or her.”

Audrey Cummings called. I told her about Jimmy Greenjeans, and she promised to be in touch with Darla Cunningham and with Henry Leaping Deer. “Don't let it go,” I warned.

“I won't,” she said. “I had already made plans to go down to the coast this weekend. And I'm still going. I was actually going to leave tonight, but now I won't leave until tomorrow afternoon. After Sue's services.”

“And what about that investigator?” I asked. “The one in Harborview. What's his name again?”

“You mean Dirk, Dirk Matthews. It looks now as though he's going to make it. But he's lost several fingers and part of one hand. I suspect his juggling days are over. Maybe his investigator days as well.”

“Talk to him,” I said. “He may want to make his own pilgrimage down to Taholah.”

Eventually, all the boxes were pretty much packed and labeled. Mine sat in one corner of the cubicle and Sue's in another. That done, I turned on the desktop computer one last time to finish up the necessary reports and to sign off on my cases. When those were done, I called up Sue's case file. I had given a statement to both the officers on the scene and later to detectives. Now that I'd had a decent night's rest, I wanted to check the reports to see if they were reasonably accurate.

They weren't. I printed a hard copy of Sue's file and then stormed down the hall to Kramer's Fishbowl. “What the hell do you mean classifying Sue's death as a DV? It should have been line of duty.”