Name Withheld : A J.p. Beaumont Mystery (9780061760907) (4 page)

When I finished reading the brief article, I started to hand it back to Johnny Bickford. “Would you sign it, please?” he asked.

“Sign it?” I repeated, not quite comprehending. “You mean autograph it like it was a baseball card or something?”

Johnny beamed and nodded. “Exactly. I want to send it to my folks back in Wichita. I'm not mentioned by name, of course, but they'll be thrilled to know that I was the jogger in question. And having a real detective's signature on it will
make it that much better. My mother is a big fan of true crime.”

What the hell?
I thought. “Where do you want me to sign?”

“Anywhere.”

Doing my best to mimic a doctor's prescription handwriting, I scrawled my signature across the body of the article and then handed it back.

“Thanks,” Johnny said gratefully. “If you don't mind, I'll send your card along with the article. You have no idea how much this will please my mother. She would have liked me to be a policeman, you see. I've never quite had the courage to explain to her why that wouldn't work.”

I made for the door and Johnny followed. As I started down the steps, he was standing in the doorway, carefully holding the front of his robe to keep it from yawning open. I have no idea how one goes about staging a series of sex-change operations, but I have to admit, Johnny Bickford did have a figure.

He must have understood my questioning glance. He smiled. “They don't call them WonderBras for nothing,” he said.

I was still blushing when I closed the car door and shoved the key into the ignition. I kicked up a spray of wintertime, road-sanding grit as I backed out of the driveway and headed downtown.

I was just starting south on Fifth Avenue when a call came in for me on the radio. “Sergeant Wat
kins wants to know what's wrong with your pager,” the dispatcher said. “He's been trying to reach you for the past fifteen minutes.”

In recent years, pagers, along with laptop computers and Kevlar vests, have all been added to the ordinary police detective's tools of the trade. There are circumstances in which all of them offer some advantage. As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to pagers, though, the bad far outweighs the good. It's a real annoyance, especially when I'm in the middle of a complicated witness interview, to have a pager buzzing away in my pocket, telling me that I really need to be talking to someone else. A pager can be almost as obnoxious as the phone company's little custom-calling gimmick—“Call Waiting.” Call
Interrupting
is more like it.

Having been issued a brand-new pager, I do buckle under and wear it, but that doesn't mean I always keep the infernal thing turned on, especially not in interview situations. I try to be conscientious about turning it back on once I'm through talking to witnesses. In my hurry to leave Johnny Bickford's place, however, I had completely forgotten to do so.

“What's he want?” I asked.

“Something about Chip Raymond needing to get in touch with you. He says it's important. Want me to patch you through to Watty?”

Not particularly
, I thought. Besides, if Chip was trying to reach me, that probably meant someone had turned up who looked like a possible match
with Mr. Floater John Doe. “Can you put me through to Detective Raymond?”

“No can do. Watty, yes. Detective Raymond, no.”

“Put me through to Sergeant Watkins, then,” I said. “I might as well get it over with.”

But when Watty's voice came through the radio, he didn't say a word about the pager, not at first. “Detective Raymond wants you to meet him at thirty-three hundred Western ASAP. The name of the company is D.G.I., ‘Designer Genes International.'”

“Do you have a suite number?”

“No, it's a brand-new building. According to Chip, the same outfit evidently owns the whole thing.”

“Did you say
D.G.I
.? I'm assuming that's not jeans, as in Levi's?” I asked.

“Right,” Watty replied. “The other kind: G-E-N-E-S, as in DNA. It's one of those new bioengineering companies. Some kind of cancer research.”

“Did Chip give you a name of the man he thinks is my guy?”

“Yeah. Wolf. Don Wolf. He's the operations manager there. Newly transferred up from California.”

“Okay,” I told Watty. “If you can raise Chip, either by phone or radio, tell him I'm on my way.”

“That shouldn't be too difficult,” Watty told me. “Unlike some people who shall remain
nameless, Detective Raymond actually uses his pager. On a regular basis.”

I didn't miss the sarcasm in Watty's voice. As official reprimands go, it was relatively harmless. If he had actually ordered me to keep my pager on at all times, I probably would have done so, but it would have been compliance under duress. Sergeant Watkins is smart enough to know that he gets the best work out of his people when he lets them use their own judgment in non-life-threatening situations.

Riding herd on a bunch of homicide detectives has to be a whole lot like being a parent and, no doubt, almost as thankless. Watty Watkins is a past master at doing both—raising kids and running detectives. His hand on the reins is sometimes light, sometimes firm. He gets what he wants by alternately ordering and cajoling. Nobody in the department has ever accused the man of not giving a damn.

I reached down and switched on my pager. “All right, all right,” I muttered. “It's on.”

“Good.”

“And I'm sorry.”

“That's okay, Beau,” Watty said. “These things happen.”

That was all there was to it. Clearly, I was in the wrong. Watty and I both knew that, but once I had apologized, he didn't waste both his time and mine by rubbing my nose in it. If I had been in his shoes, I doubt I would have exercised the same kind of restraint.

It all goes to show why Watty's the sergeant, and I'm not. It might also explain why after all these years, he's still married to his first wife.

That's not luck at all. It's because he's one hell of a nice guy.

T
hese days the traffic lights on Seattle's Fifth Avenue are supposedly timed to benefit drivers who actually observe the speed limit. Theoretically, a driver ought to be able to go from the upper end of the Denny Regrade to the International District at the far end of the downtown area with only one or two stops along the way.

While I'd been on the radio, I had come south, sailing along with traffic. Beyond University, however, just about the time I realized I needed to go someplace other than back to the Public Safety Building, forward progress ground to a halt. For the next two interminable blocks, Fifth Avenue was coned down to a single left-hand lane. The numbskull directing traffic wouldn't allow a right-hand turn on Seneca, not even for a homicide cop who had slapped a portable blue flasher on top of his vehicle.

I finally managed to turn west on Madison. Once out of the southbound gridlock, I made it back north with no further hassle. The Denny Regrade is a flat area north of Seattle's downtown proper that has been carved from where Denny Hill used to be. It ends at the bottom of Queen Anne Hill. Denny Avenue runs on a diagonal across the northern end of the Regrade, providing a logical boundary. Logic disappears, however, in a sudden curve where, for no apparent reason other than to bedevil newcomers, Denny transforms itself briefly into a street called Western.

With three lanes of traffic roaring past, I ducked into a passenger load zone outside the building marked 3300 Western and tried to get my bearings. When I first moved back into the city, that block had been the site of a once-fine steak house. In its later years, the place degenerated into a singles-scene joint before shutting down altogether. For years, a fading billboard had promised that a hotel would soon be built on the property. Obviously, that plan had come adrift, because a spankingly new six-story glass-fronted office building sat there now.

The six-foot-tall brass letters that said
D.G.I
. were easy to spot. So was the fountain, closed down for the winter, that graced a front-door plaza. What wasn't easy to find was parking. Just then, Chip Raymond sauntered out through the door, waving me around to the north end of the building, where I found a discreetly camouflaged entrance to an underground garage. Chip beat me
back inside and waved me into a slot marked
VISITOR
.

“Have you been waiting long?”

Chip shook his head. “As soon as the report came in by phone, I figured the guy was probably your floater. I didn't want to go charging in here to check it out without having you along. When Watty couldn't find you right off, I grabbed some lunch on the way—a hamburger from Dick's. I bought two. You want one?”

“No, thanks. I'm fine. What have you got?”

Chip unfolded a computer-generated piece of paper and read off the information. “Name's Don Wolf. Donald R. Moved up here from La Jolla, California, a couple of months ago to assume the position of operations manager at Designer Genes International. Thirty-eight years old. Six feet one inch tall. Weighs about one eighty-five, one ninety. Blond hair. Blue eyes. Tattoo on right wrist that says
MOTHER
.”

“Way to go, Chip. It sounds like my guy, all right.”

“According to the man who called in the report—”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Somebody named Bill Whitten,” Chip answered. “He's the CEO of D.G.I. He said he and this Wolf character were supposed to have a meeting yesterday afternoon, and Wolf didn't show.”

“For good reason,” I said.

Chip nodded. “There was supposed to be an
other meeting this morning—at seven. When Wolf didn't show for that one either, Whitten started trying to track the guy down. The call was put through to my desk at ten o'clock, just a little while after you left the department.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Doesn't that strike you as soon? Family members would report it in less than twenty-four hours. But that seems early for people at work.”

Chip nodded. “The same thought crossed my mind, but that's before I learned about his car. Wolf is nowhere to be found, but his car is right here in the garage. It's that white Intrepid over in the corner. I took a quick look at it and couldn't see anything wrong. Anyway, the situation seemed thorny enough that I didn't want to go upstairs to see Whitten without having somebody from Homicide along with me.”

“Good call, Chip,” I told him. “Let's do it.”

We stepped into the elevator and rode up one floor to the lobby, where a sweet young thing was “womaning” a reception desk and switchboard. By mutual if unspoken agreement, Detective Raymond was the one who presented his credentials. There was no need to bring up the word
homicide
until we had a positive identification.

“We need to see Bill Whitten, please,” Chip said. “I believe he's expecting us.”

Moments later, we were back in the elevator riding up to the sixth floor. The interior walls of the elevator were covered with some kind of upholstered material that still reeked of new dye.
Because of my involvement with the syndicate that bought Belltown Terrace, I know a little about the development and relative cost of downtown Seattle real estate. This particular six-story building—underground parking garage, upholstered elevator, and all—hadn't come cheap. An operation like this represented a big chunk of investment capital, especially considering that Designer Genes International was the building's sole occupant.

Chip Raymond was evidently having much the same thought. He ran one finger across the plush material that covered the walls. “No wonder cancer research is so expensive,” he said.

I nodded. “Whatever kind of genes we're talking about, they must be solid-gold plated.”

Just then, the elevator door opened and we stepped off into another lobby with a desk occupied by a vividly made up, middle-aged lady who greeted us with a gracious smile when Chip presented his card. “Mr. Whitten's on the phone right now,” she said. “I'm his assistant, Deanna Compton. He asked that I show you into the conference room. Would either of you care for coffee?”

If I had encountered Deanna Compton and her unruly mane of red hair on the street, I would have taken her for either a real estate maven or a well-to-do matron. She was dressed in a flawless, navy-colored, double-breasted pantsuit. She wore spike heels that barely peeked out from beneath the hem of her pants. With all the gold on her
body—rings on nearly every finger, earrings, and several gold chains—I'm surprised she didn't clank like a knight in armor.

“Is your coffee genetically engineered?” I asked.

Deanna smiled again, this time with somewhat strained tolerance, as though mine was an old and not entirely welcome joke.

“I wouldn't know about that,” she said. “We use Starbucks. You'll have to ask them.”

Chip passed on the offer of coffee; I accepted. While she went to fetch same, I examined our surroundings. The mostly glass-walled conference room was sumptuously appointed. The windowed wall to the west looked out almost eyeball to eyeball with the huge globe that sits atop the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
building on Elliott. Beyond that was the slate expanse of Elliott Bay edged by Bainbridge Island in the distance.

The furnishings in the conference room—oblong table, ten chairs, and an enormous credenza—were made of some kind of light-colored wood, polished to a high gloss. Like everything else in the D.G.I. building, the furniture spoke of quality, of designers working for someone with both an eye for class and a bottomless checkbook.

Chip and I both took chairs along the far side of the table. When Deanna Compton returned, bearing a cup of coffee, she opened a drawer in the credenza and pulled out a brass, felt-bottomed coaster. Examination of the coaster re
vealed an engraved version of the Designer Genes International company logo—the letters
D, G
, and
I
artfully entwined to mimic a credible modern rendering of an ancient coat of arms.

“First class all the way,” I muttered to Detective Raymond, passing him the coaster.

He glanced down at it with an “I'll say,” and handed it back.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” a portly, balding man announced from the open doorway of the conference room. Compared to the way the secretary was dressed, this guy looked like your basic rumpled bed. His khaki-colored double-breasted suit could have used a good pressing. “I see Deanna brought you coffee,” he said.

Chip and I both rose in greeting. “Mr. Whitten?” Chip asked.

“Yes.”

“I'm Detective Raymond with Missing Persons. I talked to you on the phone earlier. This is Detective Beaumont.”

Whitten moved briskly into the room and shook our hands with a broad-handed, surprisingly strong grip. Then he took a seat at the end of the table. “I don't know why you guys are bothering to hang around here,” he grumbled irritably. “If Don Wolf had shown up for work this morning, I wouldn't have called you, now would I?”

“It's possible we may have already found him,” I suggested quietly.

Whitten looked at me sharply. “Really. Where?”

Without a word, I extracted one of my business cards from my wallet and slid it down the table where it stopped directly in front of him. Whitten picked it up, held it out at the far end of his arm, and squinted at it.

“This says
Homicide
,” he objected, looking questioningly from the card back to me. “I thought you were from Missing Persons.”

“Chip here is from Missing Persons,” I said. “I'm Homicide.”

There was a long pause during which Bill Whitten's eyes sought mine. It's a moment that happens in every investigation when the people closest to the victim first become aware that the unthinkable has happened. Homicide cops are trained to observe the survivor's reactions, to gauge whether or not the response is typical, and if not, why not.

Whitten leaned back in his chair and steepled his thick fingers under his chin. “I see,” he said. “You're saying you think Don Wolf is dead? When did this happen?”

His was a measured, emotionless reaction, the response of someone to expected, rather than unexpected, news, and one that fully justified Chip Raymond's reluctance to approach the D.G.I. interview without having someone from Homicide along for the ride.

“At this juncture, we're not one-hundred-percent sure,” I told him. “An unidentified body
washed up in the water off Pier Seventy early yesterday morning. As you know, that's only a matter of a few blocks from here. From the sound of the description you gave Detective Raymond, I'd have to say the dead man could very well be your missing Don Wolf. We'll need someone to come over to the morgue at Harborview to verify our tentative identification.”

“He was in the water? What happened, did he drown?”

I shook my head. “It's too soon to say. There'll have to be an autopsy report. That'll take a few days, and a toxicology report will take a few weeks beyond that. My suspicion, however, is that death came instantly in the form of a wound from a single bullet.”

Bill Whitten blanched visibly. “Don was murdered then?”

“We're investigating the case as a homicide,” I corrected. “Whether or not the victim turns out to be Don Wolf remains to be seen. That's why we're here. We need someone who knew Don Wolf to come along down to the morgue and try to give us a positive I.D.”

“You want me to do that?” Whitten asked.

I nodded. “That would be the first step. Actually, the third. Before we leave the building, I'd like to take a look at Mr. Wolf's office for a moment, and also at his car, if I may. I understand it's still parked in the garage.”

“Certainly, but—”

“Furthermore, until we have ascertained
whether or not the dead man is Mr. Wolf, it would probably be better if you didn't mention any of this to anybody, just in case the victim turns out to be someone else.”

“Not even to Deanna…to Mrs. Compton, my secretary?” he asked.

“No,” I responded. “Not even to her.”

Whitten led us out of the conference room and diagonally across the reception area to an office located in the southeast corner of the building. The door was closed, but unlocked. “Here it is,” he said, opening the door into an airy, windowed room.

Don Wolf's office was as compulsively clean and carefully organized as the furniture in a model home. Nothing at all appeared to have been disturbed. A bank of carefully framed diplomas graced one of the two nonwindowed walls. The other was covered with bookshelves. On the credenza behind the desk was a framed, eight-by-ten photo—a head shot of a smiling, glasses-wearing brunette.

“That's his wife,” Whitten told me when he saw me looking at the picture. “Her name's Lizbeth. She's still down in La Jolla, waiting for the house to sell.”

“That's enough for now,” I said. “We can come back here later. Please ask that no one go in or out of this room until we do, would you?”

Whitten nodded. “Mrs. Compton will see to it,” he said. As we left Don Wolf's office, we stopped in front of his assistant's desk. “Please
cancel my appointments for this morning, Deanna, and for lunch as well. This may take some time. Also, please lock up Don's office and don't allow anyone in it until further notice.”

“Certainly,” Deanna Compton said, frowning up at him. “Is anything wrong?”

“I don't know,” he returned. “It's too soon to tell.”

Detective Raymond and I had arrived at the building in separate cars. If this was going to be a homicide investigation, there was no further reason for Raymond to stay involved. Down in the parking garage, he took his vehicle and headed back to the Public Safety Building while I drove Bill Whitten to the medical examiner's office in the basement of Harborview Hospital.