Authors: J. A. Jance
“Good,” I said. “Send him up.”
I’ll confess right now to having had certain preconceived notions about our visiting economist—none of them very flattering. I had envisioned someone with a fairly wide-load build, horn-rimmed glasses, and a mop of long greasy hair. Todd Hatcher failed to meet those specifications—on every count.
For one thing, he was tall and lanky—scrawny, in fact. And he looked like a cowboy just in off the range in boots and Levi’s and wearing a dripping Stetson and a soggy leather jacket. In one hand he carried a bulging backpack that was just as damp as he was.
“Mr. Beaumont?” he asked as I opened the door.
I nodded. “Welcome. Come on in,” I said. “Make yourself at home.”
Removing his hat, he banged some of the excess water off it out in the hallway before stepping into the apartment. His blond hair was cut in a short but not quite military buzz cut. Without even shedding his jacket, Hatcher, like every other visitor to the
penthouse, was immediately drawn to the windows on the far side of the living room.
“Wow,” he exclaimed, looking out on the gray expanse of water that was Elliott Bay and Puget Sound. “What an amazing view!”
“It’s even more amazing when it isn’t raining,” I told him. “Can I take your coat?”
He peeled it off and handed it over, revealing the unapologetic pearl-buttoned Western shirt underneath. As I walked away with the jacket I noticed that the only part that wasn’t wet was the part that had been under the backpack. Rather than putting the wet jacket in the closet, I draped it over the back of one of the kitchen bar stools in hopes of letting it dry.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Todd replied, “coffee would be great. Black, please.”
By the time I returned to the living room he had abandoned the view in favor of sitting in the window seat and examining the room itself. “Growing up in Benson, I never could have imagined a place like this.”
“Benson?” I asked.
“Benson, Arizona.”
“I think I’ve been there,” I said, handing him his coffee. “Isn’t Benson just down the road from Bisbee?”
He grinned. “You’ve actually heard of it? Most people never have. Benson is actually down the road if you’re in Tucson and up the road if you’re in Bisbee, and relative elevations have nothing to do with it.”
I went back to the kitchen and poured a second cup of coffee for me. First impressions are important. The fact that he looked
like a hick just off the farm—or ranch, as the case may be—didn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence, but we needed to know something about him. I took my coffee and returned to my recliner.
“What brought you to Washington?” I asked.
“An Ingmar Hanson Fellowship in economics,” he said. “I came here to finish my Ph.D.”
I didn’t know Ingmar Hanson from a hole in the wall, but clearly Todd Hatcher was a hell of a lot smarter than he looked.
“It’s done now,” he said. “My degree was awarded last June. I had a couple of offers to teach, but I wanted to do this first.” He glanced down at the sodden backpack.
“By ‘this’ you mean the study for Ross Connors?”
He nodded. “I had hoped to be able to use it for my dissertation. That would have broken new ground—a dissertation about something useful, for a change—but my adviser wasn’t having any of it. He told me no one’s interested in analyzing the need for geriatric prison beds, which, of course, is patently stupid, since prisons are still one of this country’s growth industries, and the prison population is aging everywhere.”
I tried to picture Todd Hatcher in his cowboy boots and Stetson sauntering across the U. Dub’s beloved Red Square. Talk about out of place! It came as no surprise to me that Todd and one or more of his professors wouldn’t have seen eye to eye.
“Presumably you are interested, though,” I said. “Mind if I ask why?”
Hatcher uncrossed his legs and gave me a speculative look. “I mind,” he said, “but since we’re going to be working together, I could just as well tell you.”
It appeared that we were starting our working relationship
based on a certain level of mutual distrust. Maybe that was a good thing.
“Nobody ever expected me to amount to much,” he said. “My mother was a waitress; my father was a failed bank robber. When I was four, he went to prison for shooting a security guard in the course of an attempted bank robbery. Those are the first memories I have of my father, taking that long ride up to Florence every once in a while to visit him on weekends.
“Growing up, all my friends were fascinated with Luke Skywalker or Spider-Man, but we were too poor to go to movies. My mother took me to the library instead. While my friends were still playing with Transformers, I was working my way through Sherlock Holmes. By the time I was thirteen or so, I wanted to be Alan Greenspan when I grew up. My mother and I survived on almost no money, and Greenspan seemed to be someone who knew all about money and how to get it. While other kids were focused on high school sports, I was spending my summers working as a ranch hand and reading Ayn Rand on the side. I won a full scholarship to the University of Arizona. That’s where I got my B.A. and my master’s. I came to the U. Dub to earn my Ph.D.”
He stopped, but that clearly that wasn’t the end of the story.
“And?” I prompted.
“My father was sentenced to life in prison,” he said after a pause. “Five years ago they released him, sent him home to my mother in Benson. Claimed it was because the prison was overcrowded and they had determined he was no longer a danger to himself or others. That’s what they
said
. The reality turned out to be they had diagnosed him with early-onset Alzheimer’s and they didn’t want to have to take care of him, so they sent him home to my mother to die.
“She had never divorced the man for the simple reason that she loved him. She had health insurance—major medical for herself—but not for him. There was no way for her to add him onto her policy, and he was too young for Medicare. She applied for disability Social Security benefits for him, but they kept turning her down. So she took care of him to the best of her ability. He died two years ago, and she died six months later. He would have died anyway. Sending him home like that was a death sentence for her.”
Now Todd Hatcher’s doggedly persistent interest in the aging prison population made a whole lot more sense. It was much more than just a “study” for him. It was a labor of love.
“If this country really buys the three-strikes-you’re-out mentality, then we’d better be prepared to pay the piper,” he added after a pause. “If we say someone’s going to prison for life and mean it, we’d better get ready.”
“So that’s why you’re here, then,” I said.
He nodded. “In order to know how many geriatric prison beds will be needed, I hope to create a computer model that will predict exactly how many current prisoners will end up dying there. In order to be accurate, however, I need to have some idea of how many new offenders will land in the prison system on a permanent basis as well as how many ex-cons are likely to reoffend and be returned to prison. Recidivists, of course, are far more likely to fall under three-strikes provisions and end up with lifetime sentences. That’s my expectation.”
“And everything was going along fine and dandy until you stumbled across a whole bunch of young dead ex-cons who screwed your so-called model all to hell.”
“Right,” Hatcher said. “If they’re dead, they won’t reoffend,
and they won’t need geriatric prison care, either. The problem is, in the normal course of events some of them will be dead long before they grow old in prison, but they shouldn’t be dead yet. It struck me that this whole cluster of deaths was some kind of an anomaly. When I brought the situation to Ross’s attention he asked me to look into it in more detail. And here I am.”
I recalled Ross Connors’s somewhat cynical remark about Hatcher probably having a book deal waiting in the wings. From what I could see, the man’s motivation was much less self-serving than that—and a lot more understandable.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked.
“Mel told me I should work on the spreadsheet here. That way, I can consult with one or the other of you as I go along. If we’re all going over the files and picking out what strikes each of us as important, we’ll probably come up with better data. Once we have that, we’ll run a paradox analysis and see if anything pops.”
For all the sense it made to me, that last sentence could just as well have been uttered in Russian. Or Chinese.
“So what do you need from me?” I asked.
He opened the backpack and took out a slim laptop. His boots may have been on their last legs, as it were, but his computer was absolutely state-of-the-art.
“A place to spread out and work,” he said.
I pointed toward the granite counter of the breakfast bar. “Will that do?” I asked.
He nodded. “Sure,” he said. “What about logging on?”
There I had him. “We’ve got a WiFi network complete with a broadband connection.”
“Cool,” he said.
That remark came with no need of translation. I was gratified that our telecommunications system measured up to his expectations. And I was also glad that, despite the considerable difference in our ages, cool was still cool.
Somehow I found that reassuring.
T
odd Hatcher was hustling around and setting up shop when my phone rang. “Hey, you are there,” Detective Jackson said. “I tried calling your office and they said you were off.” Off wasn’t quite the same as out, but I let it pass. “How was the memorial service?”
“Pretty low-key. Naturally Manning didn’t show, but we’ve got a lead on her this morning. According to our sources, she’s staying in a shelter up on Aurora. Hank and I are on our way to interview her right now. I’ll let you know what we find out.”
“Maybe I should talk to her, too. Want me to ride along? Meet you there?”
“Considering your persona non grata status around here,
maybe that’s not such a good idea,” he said. “I can give you a rundown of what we learn—”
“I want to talk to her myself,” I said. “What’s the address?”
“You’re not listening,” he said irritably. “I’ll give you a call when we finish up the interview and let you know where to find her. I don’t want you showing up while we’re still there.”
“No,” I agreed. “Of course you wouldn’t.”
“And remember,” Jackson added, “no matter what, you didn’t hear any of this from me.”
That I understood completely.
My next order of business was to see about tracking down Thomas Dortman, but before I got to square one on that, Jeremy called.
“Wanted to say thanks for everything,” my son-in-law told me. “We really appreciate the hospitality, but we’re headed back to Ashland as soon as Kelly gets out of the shower and we can get packed up.”
Once again Jeremy had been drafted into doing the dirty work and talking with Kelly’s ogre of a father. I assumed that meant I was still in the doghouse.
“But I thought you were staying until Sunday…” I began.
“Kyle was awake most of the night last night, and so was everybody else,” Jeremy said. “We’ve decided we’ll all be better off if we’re back in our own place. At least that way we’ll have a little privacy when the baby is crying or Kelly is yelling.”
In terms of needing privacy, I suspected that the former was less of a problem than the latter. “My daughter can be a handful at times,” I said.
Jeremy’s sigh of agreement was heartfelt. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“She certainly can be that. I’m really sorry about not coming to dinner the other night. I don’t know why she was so upset about Mel.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jeremy,” I told him. “Mel can take it and so can I.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Oops, gotta go.”
Kelly’s shower had evidently ended and so did Jeremy’s phone call. I know I should have been sorry at the idea that they were taking off two days early, but I wasn’t. Call me an old curmudgeon, but I was losing patience with Kelly’s theatrics. And that’s all I thought it was—theatrics. Kelly’s mother had certainly been good at pitching a royal fit in her time, and Kelly seemed to have inherited the same tendency.
I went out to the kitchen, poured the last cup of coffee, and made a new pot. With Todd now ensconced at the bar, I took myself and my laptop to my recliner and went looking for Thomas Dortman. He turned out to be a freelance writer and sometime Fox News contributor whose Web site’s home page said he lived in the Seattle area, although his 728 phone prefix hinted at a downtown location. I called the number and left a message, telling him who I was and asking him to call. And then, because there was always a chance he was off gallivanting around somewhere, I shot him an e-mail as well.
Hoping for Kendall Jackson to call me back, I spent the remainder of the morning working side by side with Todd Hatcher. We finally decided that we’d both go through the documents and make our own separate notes, which Todd would then transcribe into the spreadsheet. That way Mel could come along later and do the same thing. The resulting document would contain all of our impressions of what we each had read, hopefully boiled down into
one readily accessible document where, with any kind of luck, the most important points would somehow bubble to the surface.
I concentrated primarily on the file concerning Ed Chrisman, the genius who had been taking a leak when his own vehicle knocked him off a cliff and into the drink several hundred feet below. I learned Chrisman was anything but a Boy Scout, with several increasingly serious scrapes with the law before he’d finally been sentenced for sixteen years after brutally raping his ex-wife. He’d been released early—ten percent off for good behavior—and had been free for just over a year when he took his nosedive. It chilled me to glean from his file that for the past six months he had worked as an in-store security guard. (Doesn’t anyone bother checking résumés anymore?)
Much of the police report simply didn’t make sense. As Mel had pointed out the day before, most people aren’t stupid enough to relieve themselves while standing in front of a vehicle that is still in gear. I thought maybe this was a weird accident, one of those situations where a vehicle somehow takes on a mind of its own and slips itself into drive from neutral. But the vehicle had been examined in great detail once it had been hauled from the water, and there had been no sign of mechanical failure.
Some attempts had been made to follow up on Chrisman’s activities in the days before his death, but those efforts had come up short. The evening before, he had been seen drinking in a bar in Fairhaven in the company of a still-unidentified woman. All efforts to trace her had also come to nothing. Several people said they thought she was a hitchhiker Chrisman might have picked up the day before driving back from Seattle, but even with the help of a composite drawing they had been unable to come up with any kind of identification.
The passage about the unidentified and so far unreachable woman made my blood run cold. What were the chances that Chrisman had assaulted this unnamed woman and left her either dead or dying somewhere in a winter-bound forested landscape that might never yield up either her remains or her identity?
Reading an abstract has its shortcomings. It’s not nearly the same as reading an actual file. And reading about evidence isn’t the same as seeing it with your very own eyes. According to the record, Chrisman’s smashed vehicle remained in the Skagit County Sheriff ’s Department impound lot. After several weeks underwater, very little usable forensic evidence had remained in the vehicle. The keys had been found still in the ignition. Chrisman’s wallet had been stuffed under the seat, with money and credit cards intact. If anyone else had been involved in what happened to him, robbery had not been part of the program.
The file did reference a single scrap of dark material—not matching any of Chrisman’s clothing—that had been found caught in the front passenger door. Other than saying the cotton broadcloth was either blue or black, there was no way of telling if it had been lodged there on the day Chrisman had taken his last Sunday drive or if it somehow predated the day of his death. As I made my notes I realized that sometime soon someone in our group—Mel or me or even Todd—might have to travel north to Bellingham and see the evidence for ourselves.
I kept looking at the clock, hoping Mel would come home or that Kendall Jackson would call me in time for me to go see Elaine Manning prior to LaShawn Tompkins’s funeral. By noon, however, it became clear that neither of those things was going to happen. I gave Todd carte blanche to rummage through our two-day-old leftovers, but he was so absorbed in his work
I doubted he’d notice I was gone—to say nothing of remembering to eat.
Weather in Seattle can turn on a dime. By the time I finally pulled out of the garage the morning rains were gone and the sky directly overhead was a brilliant blue. The sky was clearing, although the pavement was still wet. The sun glinting off it was blinding in spots. As I drove toward the I-90 bridge, even Mount Rainier was gradually emerging from its wintertime cocoon of low-lying clouds. I tried calling Mel as I drove, but her phone went straight to voice mail.
Down in the Rainier Valley I was early enough that I was able to park close to the church. I was so early, in fact, that the doors to the African Bible Baptist Church were not yet open, so I walked the length and breadth of Church Street and talked to any number of Etta Mae Tompkins’s neighbors.
Mostly I got nowhere fast. No one had seen anything, or, at least, no one would
admit
to having seen anything. Finally I branched out and wandered up and down MLK. Two blocks to the north I spoke to a gas station attendant from a BP station who reported having noticed a single white woman—a nun—walking in the neighborhood shortly before LaShawn Tompkins was shot. I didn’t ask him if he had happened to mention any of this to the other detectives because I was sure he had. It turns out the other detectives hadn’t happened to mention it to
me.
In this business, though, you can’t afford to take that stuff personally.
“Did she look suspicious?” I asked.
The man laughed outright. “Are you kidding? I figured that nun was just like one of those Jehovah’s Witnesses babes that are always coming around here—scary but not suspicious.”
“She was wearing a habit, then?”
“You mean one of those black robe things? Yes, she was, carrying her Bible and her umbrella. When I saw her there, all by herself in the dark and the rain, I remember asking myself, ‘Man, what is that woman thinking?’”
“Did you get a good look at her?”
“Naw. Just because she was dumb enough to stand outside in the rain didn’t mean I was, but I know she was white if that’s what you’re asking.”
It was what I was asking, and I made a note of his comment. If a nun had been out there on the street at the time LaShawn Tompkins was shot, there was an outside chance that she might have seen a vehicle coming or going. I needed to track the woman down and talk to her. Other than that, I learned nothing. Zero. Zip.
By one-thirty and still on foot, I made my way back up Martin Luther King Jr. Way to the African Bible Baptist Church. This was, as I remembered, Etta Mae Tompkins’s home church. It was also her neighborhood church and within walking distance of her home. Even though the neighborhood had changed and there was a far greater Asian presence there now, the congregation of African Bible Baptist—at least the members assembling there that afternoon—was primarily black. And although I certainly didn’t blend, I was made to feel welcome.
A media van pulled up to the curb. I was intent on keeping a low profile. Having my mug show up on local television newscasts didn’t seem like a good idea, so I headed for the door to the church, where a smiling usher in a shiny charcoal-gray suit greeted me and led me into the sanctuary.
I sat near the back. From there I was able to spot Etta Mae seated alone in the first pew. With unwavering dignity she gazed at LaShawn’s open, flower-bedecked casket.
Moments after I was seated, a group of people led by Pastor Mark Granger made their way up the aisle. Among them I caught sight of both Sister Meth Mouth Cora and the King Street Mission attorney of record, Dale Ramsey. The group commandeered two full pews directly behind Etta Mae.
She turned and looked at them as they filed in. With a scowl of distaste and a slight shake of her head, she looked away again. I suppose she was thinking much the same thing I was. She had given King’s Mission free rein in how they did their own send-off for her Shawny, and I think she was worried that Pastor Mark and his flock wouldn’t allow her the same courtesy.
By the time the appointed hour of 2:00 p.m. rolled around, the church was packed. Detectives Jackson and Ramsdahl came in during the first hymn—a moving rendition of “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” By then, late arrivals were having to be shoehorned into extra chairs that had been hauled out and placed in the aisles. Jackson’s chair was at the end of the pew I was in; Hank Ramsdahl was seated two rows ahead of us.
Having attended Beverly Jenssen’s memorial service the previous afternoon, I couldn’t help thinking that her send-off suffered in comparison to the one given LaShawn Tompkins by Etta Mae’s African Bible Baptist Church. It was her show from beginning to end. Even though this was early on a Friday afternoon, the funeral service played to a capacity crowd. Not only was the full congregation in attendance, but so was a top-notch, full-throated choir.
Funeral or not, attendees and choir alike came prepared to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. I noticed that the visitors from King Street Mission held their hymnals open, but they looked uneasy and didn’t seem to be singing along with everyone else. This
may have been due to the fact that they didn’t know the words to the various hymns, or maybe they were accustomed to practicing a somewhat more subdued version of Christianity.
Good for Etta Mae,
I thought.
The Reverend Clarence Wilkins officiated. When it came time for the eulogy, he spoke movingly of LaShawn as a cute but mischievous little boy who had regularly attended Sunday school. The minister also spoke of LaShawn’s years in the wilderness when he had been lost in a world of drugs and gangs. Finally, to a chorus of heartfelt “Praise Gods” and “Amens,” Wilkins related how, in the end, LaShawn had come back to Jesus. Wilkins made only the slightest nod in Pastor Mark’s direction as he told that part of the story, and the reverend made no mention at all of LaShawn’s work at King Street Mission. I wondered if that was an accident or a deliberate oversight.
The service came to an end rather abruptly after that, closing with a final hymn and with no chance for attendees to come forward and make comments of their own. Maybe I have an overly active imagination or possibly it was simply prejudice on my part, but I assumed Etta Mae had precluded any additional speakers in order to keep Pastor Mark from taking to the pulpit. Since he had seemed intent on hijacking the entire service, I could hardly blame her for that.
Out on the street, while we waited for the casket to be carried out of the church and transferred to the waiting hearse, I tracked down Kendall Jackson. Hank Ramsdahl was nowhere in sight.
“I thought you were going to call me,” I said.
Jackson was busy scanning the crowd. “That’s right. I said we’d call when we finished interviewing Elaine Manning.”