Improbable Cause (11 page)

“ ”The mayor’s office is busy promoting his In-Town-Living campaign. Maybe he should rename it. In-Town-Dying would be more to the point.“”

“That’s it?” I asked, when Peters stopped reading.

“Isn’t that enough? Why did he mention Nielsen by name? He claims to have talked to Arlo Hamilton. If that’s the truth, you can bet Max knew good and well that no next of kin notification had been made.”

“He did it to show off,” I told Peters. “To prove to himself and to us that he could do it with or without our help. And because he’s a first-class asshole.”

“What if the wife sees this article before your appointment this morning? Will she still show up?”

“That remains to be seen.” I didn’t say that LeAnn Nielsen’s appearance had never been a foregone conclusion. Now it was little more than a remote possibility.

“Speaking of which, I’d better hit the trail. Al doesn’t know we have an appointment at nine o’clock over in Madrona. I’d better get on the horn and tell him. By the way, were you able to come up with anything else on that Martin guy?”

“No such luck. Amy says she’s sorry but the name was all she could get.”

“Too bad,” I said, “but thanks for trying.”

As soon as I said good-bye to Peters, I called Al Lindstrom’s house in Ballard. Molly told me that Allen, as she calls him, was already on his way to the department, that I’d have to catch him there. So I hauled my tail out of bed, threw on some clothes, and headed for the Public Safety Building myself.

I didn’t bother to eat anything for the very good reason that there still wasn’t anything fit to eat in the house.

Al Lindstrom was on the phone when I came into our cubicle. His face was beet red. Veins stood out in a vivid blue pattern on his flushed forehead.

“What’s going on?” I asked when he slammed the receiver down, throwing the telephone halfway across his desk in the process.

“That was the prosecutor’s office. Remember that assault-with-intent case that was supposed to come up last week and never did?”

I nodded. “What about it?”

“It’s come up now, first thing this morning. The prosecutor’s office figures they’ll need us right around ten, maybe a little after.”

“What do you mean? We’ve got an appointment to meet with a lady from the shelter and possibly LeAnn Nielsen at nine o’clock. Where the hell do they get off not giving us any more warning than that?”

“Beats me. That’s what I was saying just as you came in,” Big Al said. “They said they tried to reach us yesterday, but I don’t have any messages about it.”

“We flat can’t do it,” I told him. “Our nine o’clock is at Thirty-fourth and Union. There’s no way we can be back by ten.”

Al snatched up the receiver and dialed. “This is Detective Lindstrom. I was talking with a Jeannie somebody about today’s court schedule. Yeah, let me talk to her again. I’ll wait.”

He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table while he waited for Jeannie somebody to come back on the line. When she did, he explained our predicament and then sat there shaking his head while she droned on and on, giving him no opportunity to get a word in edgewise. Finally he slammed down the receiver once more.

“She said they’d settle for one of us—they don’t care which—but somebody has to be at the courthouse at ten o’clock sharp or the guy is off the hook permanently. The judge will dismiss with prejudice.”

One of the major frustrations of being a cop, any kind of cop, is the hours spent tied to a desk or a phone waiting to put in a court appearance that may or may not ever come off. It’s like being hamstrung. You can’t go anywhere or do anything for fear the prosecutor’s office is going to call and tell you to show up in court on the double. If we happen to miss a court appearance, chances are the crook goes free.

Between the two of us, I don’t know who hates sitting around waiting to go to court more, Big Al Lindstrom or J. P. Beaumont. We’re pretty much neck and neck on that score.

“Wonderful,” I said. “Okay, I’ll flip you for it.”

Al shook his head. “Nope, you’d better keep the appointment with LeAnn Nielsen. After all, you’re the one who made it. Any ideas about what I should do while I’m locked up here? I’d at least like to make myself useful.”

“Try going through the Department of Licensing and see if you can get a line on Larry Martin’s VW. And check with both the crime lab and the medical examiner’s office to see if they’ve come up with anything helpful. Those’ll do for starters. By the way, did you happen to read the

P-I

this morning?“

“No. How come?”

“Maxwell Cole’s up to his old tricks again. Plastered Dr. Nielsen’s name all over his column.”

Al shook his head in disgust. “Damn him! Did you ever wonder what makes guys like that tick?”

“Not me. I don’t want to know. Finding out would scare the hell out of me.”

Al was reaching for his telephone as I got up to leave.

It wasn’t hard to find Thirty-fourth and Union, but I was a little dubious about the Hi-Spot Cafe. It seemed to be a small storefront in the middle of the block. A huge black spider, regally ensconced in a front window, was labeled charlotte in small, square letters. The spider evidently occupied the window undisturbed.

I opened the door and the yeasty smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls rolled over me. They say that smells stay in your memory banks better than any of the other senses. Opening the door to the Hi-Spot Cafe made a believer out of me.

Instantly I was transported back to my childhood. I couldn’t have been more than five or six. My mother managed to scrape out a living for us in a tiny alterations shop just off Market Street over in Ballard. The shop next to Mother’s was a bakery. The owner wasn’t much better off than we were, but about closing time every day he always seemed to have a plate of leftover cinnamon rolls or doughnuts that he swore would go stale by the next morning if someone didn’t give them a good home. I remember times when cinnamon rolls were

all

we had for supper.

The scent of those rolls dragged me into the Hi-Spot Cafe like a high-powered magnet. I couldn’t have turned and walked away if my life had depended on it.

Once inside, I stopped to look around. It seemed to be more of a take-out place than a restaurant. There were several people lined up at the counter waiting to buy rolls from a huge tray that had just come out of an oven and were being sliced apart on a huge, flour-covered table in one corner of the shop.

I had my wits about me enough to remember I was supposed to ask to sit at the round table. The problem was, every table in the room was a round table.

It was a tiny place, and the eight or so visible tables were all of the round, postage-stamp cocktail-lounge variety. None of them were big enough for two people to eat a regular meal on, and they didn’t look particularly private, either.

Just then a woman appeared at the top of a half flight of stairs at the back of the room. She looked down at me. “Are you here for breakfast?”

I nodded. “This way,” she said, turning and disappearing up the stairs. “Do you smoke?” she asked over her shoulder.

“No,” I answered.

I followed her. The stairway turned out to be an umbilical cord connecting the tiny storefront shop to an old-fashioned two-story house set behind it. The lower floor of the house was crammed with tables, although only five or six of them were actually occupied. At the back of the house, behind a shoulder-high pass-through window, I could see someone hustling around in a kitchen.

“How about right here, then?” the woman asked, holding out a chair at a small square table next to a window that looked out onto the street. “Or would you rather sit outside?”

I glanced around me. All the tables I could see were either square or rectangular. “I was told to ask for the round table,” I said.

The woman shrugged. “You won’t be alone, then?” she asked.

“I guess not.”

She led me to another room, one just off the kitchen. From the looks of the place, it must have been the original dining room back in the old days when the house had been a home not a restaurant. The round table was there, an ancient oak pedestal one, tucked out of sight in a corner behind a door. There was no one at that table or at the gray Formica one on the other side of the room.

“Coffee while you wait?”

“Yes, please,” I said. She brought me coffee in a mismatched cup and saucer. The dishes and silverware may not have been part of a set, but the coffee was strong and hot, just the way I like it. I was a few minutes early. While waiting, I sat there quietly sipping coffee and inhaling the enticing aroma.

Right at nine a woman stopped in the doorway of the small room. She looked straight at me. “Are you Detective Beaumont?” she asked.

Alice Fields was short and grandmotherly-looking, with narrow glasses, short white hair, and a buck-toothed smile that showed some evidence of gold spot-welding.

“Yes, I am.” I stood up and held out my hand. She shook it firmly. “Mrs. Nielsen couldn’t make it?” I asked, trying to conceal my disappointment.

Alice shook her head. “I don’t know. I had one of my volunteers drop a note off at her place last night, but it’s up to her whether or not she comes.”

“At her place?” I repeated.

“She’s moved into her own apartment. Phoenix House is only a temporary shelter, Detective Beaumont. We encourage our clients to get into their own places as soon as possible.”

We were making some progress. At least Alice Fields had dropped the phony pretense that she didn’t know LeAnn Nielsen from a hole in the wall.

“I see,” I responded.

“Do you?” Alice Fields asked, looking at me with sharp penetrating eyes. “The women we deal with have already been dreadfully victimized. I’m here to make sure she isn’t further violated by you, the system, or anybody else. Is that clear?”

It was clear all right. I shifted uncomfortably under the leaden weight of her gaze. “So you didn’t talk to her in person,” I said, clearing my throat. “You didn’t tell her what has happened?”

“No,” Alice Fields said. “But I did see the article in the paper this morning. I hope and pray she didn’t. It would be terrible if she found out that way.”

A waitress appeared and placed another mismatched cup and saucer in front of Alice. “Here’s your coffee,” she said. “Are you having breakfast this morning, or just coffee?”

“Coffee and a roll, please. How about you, Detective Beaumont? The rolls are delicious here.”

“The same,” I said.

The waitress started away. Alice Fields stopped her. “How’s it going, Diane?”

Diane turned back to us. Looking for a name tag, I saw none and wondered how Alice Fields knew her.

“All right,” Diane answered. “I’m plugging away.” With that, she left us.

I must have looked puzzled. Alice Fields smiled. “One of our alumnae,” she explained. “Our job is to help women get back on their feet. Many of them have never held jobs outside the home before, and they don’t have any training. The owner here has been a big help in hiring some of our people and giving them a place to start.”

Diane was back almost instantly, carrying two of the biggest, gooiest cinnamon rolls I had ever seen. They were still hot from the oven.

Miss Manners and Emily Post notwithstanding, there is only one way to eat a hot cinnamon roll properly—tear it apart, layer by layer, and butter each bite as you go. I was well into the process when a second woman stepped through the doorway and stopped beside Alice Fields.

She was thirty-five or so, with doelike eyes and fawn-colored hair. She was small and delicate and scared to death. There was a huge purple bruise under her left eye.

“Why, hello, LeAnn,” Alice Fields said, ignoring the ugly bruise. “I’m glad you could come. This is Detective Beaumont, the person who needs to talk with you.”

I stood up, attempting to wipe the sugary goo off my fingers. They were so sticky the paper napkin shredded completely. “I’m glad to meet you, Mrs. Nielsen, won’t you sit down?”

LeAnn sat, but almost without seeing or acknowledging me. She was concentrating on Alice Fields.

“I got your note,” LeAnn said. “Is something wrong?”

Alice glanced at me, one eyebrow arched in question. I nodded. It would be better if the words came from someone LeAnn knew rather than from a total stranger.

“Have you read the paper this morning?” Alice asked.

LeAnn shook her head. “No. Why?”

“Detective Beaumont has been trying to reach you since yesterday,” Alice Fields said.

“Something terrible has happened, LeAnn. Your husband is dead.”

For several long seconds we sat there quietly at the table with Alice Fields’ words lingering in the air. The only sound was the clatter of dishes in the kitchen on the other side of the wall.

“You’re kidding,” LeAnn said at last.

Alice shook her head. “Ask Detective Beaumont,” she said.

LeAnn Nielsen turned to me. “Is it true?” she asked.

“Yes, Mrs. Nielsen,” I answered. “I’m afraid it is. He was murdered in his office sometime over the weekend.”

LeAnn began shaking her head, moving it slowly from side to side. “It can’t be. It can’t be,” she repeated over and over.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She put one hand to her mouth as if to stifle a sob, but the wail that escaped her lips wasn’t a cry so much as it was a laugh, a strangled, hyenalike, hysterical laugh.

The very sound of it made my blood run cold.

LeAnn Nielsen’s reaction was anything but typical. In all the years I’d been doing next-of-kin notifications, no one had ever laughed before. I waited, unsure of what to do or say, while Alice Fields took LeAnn in her arms and held her in a fiercely protective hug. She was there to backstop LeAnn every step of the way.

Gradually LeAnn’s strange laughter evolved into something different, into something that approximated genuine weeping. At one point I started to say something, but Alice leveled a forbidding look in my direction and gave a slight shake of her head that told me to shut up, take a number, and get in line. I’d talk to LeAnn Nielsen when Alice Fields was damned good and ready and not a moment before.