A Question of Ghosts (16 page)

“Luther. I am indeed.” He pulled a jelly doughnut out of the stained box and bit into it. Jo supposed that if she wanted one, she’d have to help herself. “I’ve had ten blessed years away from midnight calls to homicide scenes, Becca. Threw my pager in the terlit my last day at the station. I leave all the flatfoot work to this one now.” He waved his doughnut at Pam.

“He thinks he’s insulting me with the flatfoot thing.” Pam edged one dab of icing from the corner of her mouth delicately. “I’ve been almost twenty years on street patrol.”

“Gonna be walking a beat the next twenty, too, you can’t stop playing lesbian avenger at the station.” Luther regarded Becca over his sunglasses. “Miss Thang here thinks she has to be the voice of social justice at every roll call. Gets damn tiresome, and it holds her back.”

“As he still bitches to all and sundry who will hear.” Pam snickered. “He’s jealous I look so good on my bike.”

This had the tone of an old and loved bickering between father and daughter, with no real malice. The man was obviously comfortable enough with gay people to sunbathe in their midst, and there was pride in his voice when he referred to Pam. Which was all nice for them, but Jo had the urge to move them on to actual information. Besides, Pam Emerson was smiling at Becca with a familiarity she didn’t especially appreciate.

“Luther, you performed the preliminary investigation at the house on Fifteenth Avenue that night, correct?” Jo positioned the recorder on the blanket.

“Lord, she’s that Mariska Hargitay woman,” Luther muttered. “Yes, your honor. I’d just made grade. Not easy back in the seventies, a black man making detective.”

“I hear that,” Pam murmured.

“And do you feel you conducted a thorough and conclusive investigation into these deaths?”

“You were one lost little girl, the first time we met.” Luther’s tone mellowed again as he spoke to Becca. “I sure felt bad for you and never forgot your face. Wondered about you, over the years.” He jutted his chin at Pam. “We both have.”

“Thank you.” Becca patted his gnarled hand. “I understand Pam was sweet to me that night, too.”

“In any case,” Jo snapped, flapping a butterfly out of her face. “Luther, did you ever consider the possibility that Madelyn Healy didn’t fire the gun—that there was an outside shooter?”

“Oh, I always liked the sister-in-law for it.”

Jo stared at him. Then she and Becca stared at each other. Becca summoned words before Jo could.

“The sister-in-law. You mean my
aunt
? My Aunt Patricia? Patricia Healy,
that
aunt?”

“Patricia Healy, wife of Attorney Mitchell Healy of Kirkland.” Luther’s mouth was brooding now, his eyes hidden by the black glasses. He sucked jelly from his thumb with a wet slurp. “So look. There was no forced entry. There was an outside door giving access to the kitchen, and it was unlocked. The Healys weren’t known to own a handgun. The thirty-eight was unregistered. We never traced it. Yeah, a third party could have come in, fired the shots. I wrote all this in my reports.”

No, he hadn’t. He definitely hadn’t. Jo cleared her throat. “Not in the reports I’ve seen, sir.”

A humorless smile crossed his whiskered face. “Oh, I’m not doubting my words got changed around a bit. I was new on the unit, which made me both green and black. Besides, Mitchell Healy, Esquire, had some powerful contacts, even back then. He was making a run for a state senate seat at the time. We weren’t encouraged to look into things real close.”

He tipped his glasses and looked at Becca. “I’m sorry if that means I did a disservice to you, those many years ago. I guess it bugged me enough for the details to stay clear in my mind. But it’s also possible the call on that case was right on, ma’am. I’m afraid your mama was just not real well.”

“I understand that.” Becca still looked disoriented. “But my
aunt
?”

“Oh, that.” Luther pulled another doughnut out of the box, frowned at it, and dropped it back in. “That’s just one of them snapshots. Don’t mind me. I’m old.”

“No, tell her, Pop.” Pam was watching Becca sympathetically. “I don’t care if it is far out. You had good instincts, even back as a rookie.”

“Okay.” Luther sighed deeply and hunched lower against the backrest. “So cops get these snapshots in their heads. Just glimpses, fast impressions. And when your aunt and uncle came over to pick you up that night, Becca, Patricia Healy insisted on seeing the bodies. Wasn’t necessary. Her husband already ID’d them. But I took them both back in that kitchen, and that’s when I got that snapshot. Their faces stay with me, almost as much as yours did.”

Jo glanced at Becca uneasily.

“Far as I remember, neither of ’em looked at your daddy, Scott Healy, not even a glance. That stuck with me at the time. Both Mitchell and Patricia zeroed in on Madelyn Healy right away, and that camera went off in my head, pop. I saw this flash of…anguish pass over your uncle’s face, Becca. He couldn’t hide it. And in that same quick second, your aunt? She looked satisfied. Just as pure and strong as her husband’s grief, was that woman’s look of satisfaction.”

“Luther.” Becca folded her legs beneath her, elaborately calm. “Why in the world would Patricia Healy shoot my parents?”

“Are you aware of the fact that Mitchell had romantic feelings for your mother?”

Becca looked at Jo and closed her eyes. “I’ve heard a rumor to that effect.”

“Well, whoever passed on that rumor spoke the truth, I’m afraid.” Luther yawned hugely. “S’cuse me. I did get to dig that far. Gossip with the hired help was that Mitchell Healy’s eye had strayed more than once in his marriage. He’d had several ladies on the side. His wife seemed capable of overlooking this, but then she’s an odd duck. Word was Mitchell had been putting the moves on Madelyn Healy, but she wanted nothing to do with him.”

“So you’re describing a motive for Becca’s uncle for these deaths.” Jo, who distinctly disliked Becca’s uncle, was more than willing to go there again. “He was a spurned lover. A passion killing.”

“Could be.” Luther scowled at the beautiful view. “But I got to go by that snapshot in my gut. Mitchell Healy wasn’t the one looking pleased with himself that night, looking down at that dead woman. That was Patricia.”

They sat quietly for a while, and Jo fought back the urge to break the silence. The birdsong and the sparkling water were soothing, there was friendly laughter around them, and Becca needed this break.

Becca’s gaze was pensive on the distant mountains, and she sat with a stillness that made her seem just as remote. Her fine fingers drifted through the grass, much as they had at the headstone of Loren Perry’s grave. As Jo watched, Pam Emerson’s hand moved exactly as she wanted her own to, and rested lightly on Becca’s hair. Becca looked over her shoulder and smiled at Pam, who winked at her.

Jo understood, clinically, that there was nothing sensual or flirtatious in Pam’s gesture. A snapshot of her own appeared to Jo, of the motherly comfort the Lady of the Rock offered to the weary girl whose head rested in her lap. Pam’s face held only friendliness and a similar maternal warmth. The mild tousling she gave Becca’s hair could have come from Marty or Khadijah. Regardless, Jo found herself mired in a wistful regret, a mild jealousy completely foreign to her, that Becca was smiling into a different pair of eyes.

“Why don’t you three toddle off sometime soon and let me get some sleep?” Luther yawned again, his capacity for company apparently worn thin. “How am I supposed to pick up any cute boys with all you women hanging around?”

“Pop, you’re the straightest mean old black man on the Hill.” Pam stretched and rose smoothly to her feet. “I think the cute boys are safe.”

“Not if they’re rich enough.” Luther’s chin settled into his chest, and he twined his fingers again over his belly. “Good-bye, Becca. Good-bye, other one. Take good care. I am retired.”

Pam walked with them up the gentle slope away from the reservoir, though Jo didn’t see a particular need for an escort. She glanced past Becca and saw the way the muscles in Pam’s arms gleamed in the sun, her easy athletic stride. Police officers who walked a beat had to be fit, and Pam obviously worked out a dozen times a day. Jo sighed.

“He means it, you know, the good-bye bit.” Pam stuck her hands in the pockets of her denim shorts. “He won’t want to talk with you again. He’s really told you all he remembers about the case, anyway.”

“Oh, I think he cleared things up for us nicely.” Becca gave her a wan smile. “My aunt shot my parents. Unless it was my uncle. Or my father. But that was an incredibly good doughnut, and I like your dad.”

“I like him, too,” Pam said, and Jo began to feel that the two of them were walking alone together. “But you do get some take away from this, Becca. My dad was open to the prospect of an outside shooter. And you’re trying to prove your mom didn’t do it, right?”

“We’re trying to find out the truth.” Becca sighed. She looked up at Jo and slid her arm through hers, and the beauty of the sunny day hit Jo at last.

“Yo,
Emerson
!” One of a group of three women lounging on the steps of the Asian Art Museum hailed Pam. “Seven o’clock!”

Pam and the three women broke into a rapid, rhythmic sequence of claps that mystified Jo. They unleashed a raucous cheer.

Becca grinned up at her. “That was the Storm clap. There must be a game tonight.”

“Must be a game? Y’all don’t follow the Storm?” Pam eyed them, askance. “My missus and I get season tickets every damn year.”

Hearing Pam had a missus warmed Jo toward her considerably, as did Becca’s light hold on her arm.

“So I’ll check in with the station before tip-off, see if there’s any developments.” Pam lifted her chin at Jo. “We dusted your place for prints, Jo. No catches yet. The dude or dudes wore gloves. Most of your block’s retail, so there weren’t neighbors nearby late at night to hear anything. We’re still digging, though.”

“Pam, I’m not crazy about the timing of this.” Becca looked pensive again. “What if whoever did this is trying to threaten Jo? Warn her off? That break-in was really violent.”

“I think that’s a possibility we have to keep in mind.” Pam regarded Jo soberly. “Any guesses as to who might not like the questions you’ve been asking lately?”

“Someone with a stake in hiding the truth about what happened.” Jo realized her answer was so generic as to be useless. She wanted to erase the new shadow that had filled Becca’s eyes.

“Well, you keep your eyes and your ears sharp. It’s just as well you two are together most of the time, right now.” Pam was watching them with an odd smile. “Safety in numbers. Okay, I’ll check in with you peeps later on. You’ve got my numbers; you can call me any time.”

“Thank you, Pam.” Jo tried to summon a sufficiently butch tone for Becca. “The bastard who did it is lucky, you know. If he’d touched my
Xena
DVDs, he’d be dead meat.”

“
Xena
?” Pam turned back to them, her face dawning with light. “I knew there was something I liked about you guys!” She raised one fist and gave a cracking good rendition of Xena’s trilling war cry.

Chapter Thirteen

An hour later, it was Becca’s turn to wait beside the Bentley, drumming her fingers on its glossy hood while Jo closed the clasps on her shoulder bag with meticulous care. Jo glanced up and seemed startled by her glare.

“Something?”

“Cut tulips require something like water, Jo. They don’t thrive if they’re left on a bookshelf.”

“Becca, I’ve explained I did not deliberately leave Rachel Perry’s cut tulips languishing on a bookshelf. And I’ve apologized. Not sure what more I can offer at this point.”

Jo sounded as impatient as Becca felt, and she curbed a snappish response as she slid into the Bentley. Neither of them was sleeping well. She knew that. Becca was comforted by Jo’s presence in that sad house, but Jo had to be even more exhausted than she was, after three straight nights in that damn armchair. Becca would insist she log some hours in a real bed soon. She looked out the window and sighed inwardly, feeling the blood rushing to her face. Hot flash, it had to be. She was much too tired to feel this sudden arousal, simply picturing Jo’s lithe length stretched out on a bed.

She studied Jo’s profile as she turned the powerful car smoothly onto Fifteenth, her weary features more chiseled today. “Can we stop on the way and slap my Aunt Patricia around? Make her talk?”

“Of course.” Jo seemed relieved by the lightness in Becca’s tone. “May I pound on your uncle? Of all our suspects so far, he’s the easiest to dislike. Well, short of Mr. Voakes.”

Becca nodded, her gaze drifting to the window again. Marty and Khadijah had disliked her Uncle Mitchell from their first meeting. Her best friends had been polite to Patricia, who treated them with the same puzzled, distant benevolence she showed Becca, most of the time. Patricia could be brittle, and she was fiercely loyal to Mitchell. But Becca could not, for the life of her, picture her pulling a gun on her parents.

“Luther Emerson said Mitchell was running for a state senate seat back when the shootings occurred.” Jo sounded thoughtful as they took the interstate south. “Do you know what happened to his political aspirations?”

“I’m clueless there. I never knew he’d had any.” Becca remem-bered that revelation in the park. “No one’s ever talked about any kind of political campaign. But there was a lot going on with my family at the time. That newsflash might have gotten lost in the drama.”

She fell silent to drink in Mount Rainier as they crossed the West Seattle Bridge. The mountain was still resplendent in the afternoon sunlight, and she appreciated Jo’s companionable quiet. The Bentley’s tires glided soundlessly across the expansive bridge, the blue waters of Puget Sound and the rising orange cranes of the docks to their right. They were bound for Tukwila, a small suburb south of downtown Seattle, a neighborhood Becca had never had cause to explore much.

“What can you tell me about Horizons?” Jo asked. “Surely it’s a secure facility, right, if it’s housing John William Voakes?”

“You know, I don’t think it’s a lockup program.” Becca had heard of Horizons at one or more distant staff meetings, but she remembered little about it. “I know they’re contracted through DSHS with Western State to house people who don’t need hospitalization any more, but aren’t ready for independent living. I had no idea they accepted ex-patients with a history like Voakes.”