Name Withheld : A J.p. Beaumont Mystery (9780061760907) (23 page)

We went on upstairs, but when the elevator opened onto the sixth-floor reception area, it was like entering a deserted village. Deanna Compton wasn't at her desk. Bill Whitten wasn't at his, either.

“Looks like everybody took off early,” Ron said, glancing around.

But it didn't feel right to me. Most CEOs I've ever heard of don't punch time clocks. Neither do
their private secretaries. Trying to understand what my instincts were telling me, I walked all the way around Deanna Compton's desk. Everything was in order. When I had been there before, the top of her desk had been covered with papers and files. In the upper right-hand corner had sat an oversized, leather-bound appointment book. But now, at two minutes after five, none of those things were in evidence.

I was about to suggest that we head back to the elevator, when I glanced down at the three separate trash containers stowed next to the wall. Leaning down, I pulled out the mixed paper recycling box. One of the top items was an envelope from one of Seattle's downtown, bicycle-dependent messenger services. And inside that was a second empty envelope. The return address said The Travel Guys with an address in a high-rise on Pike.

I started adding things up. The investment money the mayor's boyfriend and his friends had dropped into D.G.I. was among the missing. Harry Moore didn't know all the details about who had stolen what from Alpha-Cyte, but if Virginia Marks had been able to figure it out, someone else would be able to uncover that information, too, now that they knew what to look for. Three people connected to Bill Whitten's dying D.G.I. were dead, and there was a good chance we were coming close to finding out how come and who had killed them.

And if Bill Whitten was our man, there was an
excellent possibility that he was about to blow town.

Sometimes, you just have to go for it. I picked up Deanna Compton's phone and dialed the number listed on the outside of the envelope.

“This is Jason,” an overly sibilant male voice answered. Jason of The Travel Guys sounded as though he and Johnny Bickford might frequent some of the same hangouts. “May I help you?”

“This is Bill Whitten!” I grumbled into the phone. “There's been a mistake. The tickets you sent me have somebody else's name on them. Where are mine?”

When he heard me say that, I'm surprised Ron Peters didn't tumble out of his chair.

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” Jason said quickly. “I can't understand how that happened. Christopher is already gone for the day, but let me check your records, Mr. Whitten. Just a moment.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Ron demanded.

Silently, I shushed him with a finger over my lips. And it was a good thing, too, because just then Jason came back on the line. “Here it is. Those must be the tickets to Puerto Vallarta at ten thirty-five tomorrow morning. If you'll just tell me whose tickets were sent to you, I'll have someone come pick them up, and we'll get this whole thing—”

Jason was still talking when I put down the phone.

My mother would have been ashamed of me. I didn't even say thanks.

“I
guess I'd forgotten how you do things sometimes,” Ron said in the elevator. I didn't remember whether or not I had told him about the surveillance cameras in the elevator. But if Bill Whitten was on his way out of town, maybe that didn't matter.

“It worked,” I said.

Ron just shook his head. “Where to next?”

“Next, we find out where Bill Whitten lives, and we go there.”

“And what kind of subterfuge are you planning to use to do that?”

“No subterfuge,” I answered. “How about if we try directory assistance?”

It probably would have worked, but we never had a chance to use it. My pager was going off as we headed to the car. While he loaded his chair into the carrier, I dialed Watty's number. Kent
Reeves, the night-shift homicide sergeant, answered the phone.

“Hey, Detective Beaumont,” Kent said, “you just missed her.”

“Missed who?”

“A lady named Grace Highsmith. She said if you called in to tell you that your answering machine at home isn't working.”

“I know.”

“And that if you want to drop by her house, she has some information for you. Something to the effect that she knows who Don Wolf really is. Does that make sense? Her message was a little hard to understand.”

“Grace Highsmith is like that,” I said. “Did she leave a number?”

“She said you had it.”

“I do, but I'll have to look it up.”

“Sorry, Beau.”

“What's going on now?” Ron asked, as I started fumbling my notebook out of its pocket. One of the advantages of two-way radio communications is that both partners hear the communication without unnecessary repetition. “And where are we headed?” he added.

“Kirkland,” I said. “We've been summoned to Grace Highsmith's house,” I said. “She's got some kind of—” I stopped cold.

“Some kind of what?” Ron asked. “What's wrong?”

“Information. All of a sudden she has information about Don Wolf, about who he really is.”

“So?”

“And she didn't have it earlier today, when we were talking to her at the shop this afternoon.”

“Beau,” Ron said impatiently. “You're talking in circles. What the hell are you blithering about?”

“If it came from Virginia Marks, then it was probably sent the same way Harry Moore's was—by fax before she died. And if she sent it with that little computer of hers, then there'd be the full text of the fax as well as a complete record of where it was sent. That information would have been in Virginia Marks' computer which, as far as anyone can tell, was the only thing missing from her condo when her body was found there this morning. And if whatever it was made it worthwhile to kill Virginia Marks…”

Ron didn't need any further urging. “Where-abouts in Kirkland?” he asked.

“Down along the water, below Juanita Drive. On Holmes Point Drive, just below Denny Park.”

“There's a bubble light in the glove compartment,” Ron said. “Drag it out, turn it on, and give it to me.”

We were at the north end of the Regrade. The shortest way to the north end of Kirkland would have been across the Evergreen Floating Bridge on Highway 520. But by now, at five-fifteen, we were smack in the middle of rush hour, and the floating bridge would be a parking lot. Even with lights and siren, it would be slow going. Ron made the entirely sensible decision of going south
to head north. It may have added another sixteen miles to the trip, but we both knew it would save time.

We were headed down Fifth Avenue when Peters asked the tough question. “Are you going to call Kramer?”

At that juncture, calling Detective Kramer was the last thing on my mind. “Why would I do that?” I returned.

“Because you need to,” Ron answered. “Look, you told me yourself that Grace Highsmith's house is halfway down a cliff.”

“That's right. What's the point?”

“Think about it,” Peters said with a glower. “If I were you, and if my partner had turned out to be some kind of gimp, I sure as hell would call for backup. You should, too.”

Ron and I are good friends. We go back a long way. He was the one, who on that disastrous day when I married Anne Corley, had done me the incredible kindness of stuffing the remains of that damned wedding cake down the garbage disposal. Most of the time, his physical infirmity is a taboo subject between us—one of those unmentionable but understood issues that hover in the background of our friendship. We didn't sit around discussing the permanent injuries that long-ago car wreck had done to Ron's body any more than we did the indelible damage Anne had inflicted on my heart.

“You're worth three or four Paul Kramers any day of the week,” I said at once.

He glared at me again. In the glow of the headlights from oncoming vehicles, I could see the stubborn set of his jaw.

“That's bullshit and you know it,” he returned. “Now shape up and dial the damned phone. I don't want anything to happen to you because I'm physically incapable of bailing you out if your tail ends up in a sling.”

After Ron's accident, it had taken a long time for him to reach an accommodation with his new and permanently rearranged physical reality. Other people, those of the bleeding-heart persuasion, might pretend his handicaps didn't exist or else meant nothing. Peters himself, viewing those limits from the inside out, had no patience for phony sentimentality. Not from anyone. Including from me, his best friend.

“All right,” I said.

Without another word, I shut up and dialed Paul Kramer. He didn't answer, but that didn't get me off the hook. “Call Sergeant Reeves back,” Peters said. “Have dispatch find him.”

“Boy, you guys are really racking up the overtime,” Kent said. “I think he's on his way back from the Eastside right now.”

“Patch me through to him, if you can,” I said. “I need to have him turn around and go back.”

By the time Kramer came on the line, Ron and I were driving through the International District. “How soon can you and Sam Arnold meet us at Grace Highsmith's house in Kirkland?” I asked.

Putting it that way, without any polite pream
ble, clearly raised Paul Kramer's hackles. “Why should I?” he asked. “It's after hours. I'm on my way home.”

“What if I told you Bill Whitten may be our man?” I said.

“How'd you happen to come to that brilliant conclusion?”

At least the instant antagonism between us was a two-way thing. With Ron hanging on my every word, however, I knew better than to let myself be sucked into an argument.

I took a deep breath. “Look, Kramer, cut the crap. Grace Highsmith claims she has some important new information about Don Wolf, information that was probably faxed to her by Virginia Marks before her death.”

“So?”

“Three people are dead so far. You want to try for four, or are you going to get your butt over there so we can check it out?”

“I'll go, I'll go,” Kramer grumbled. “Because of the traffic, I was heading home by way of Lynnwood. So I'm only a few minutes out. How soon will you be there?”

“Twenty minutes, maybe? We're in the express lanes heading for the I-Ninety bridge.”

“If this turns out to be a wild-goose chase, Beaumont…”

I punched
END
on my phone and cut Detective Kramer off in midthreat. “Satisfied?” I asked.

“For the time being,” Ron Peters said.

Back when he was married the first time, Ron
and his family used to live in Kirkland. So when we ventured off I-405 at Totem Lake, he didn't need either a copilot or a map. Within minutes of leaving the freeway, we were careening along the steep, winding road that led down the bluff to Grace Highsmith's cliff-side cottage.

“You're a hell of a lot better at getting here than I am,” I told him.

“I ought to be,” he answered. “When we lived on this side of the lake, the girls and I came to Denny Park about once a week.”

Heading north along the water, we were just passing Grace Highsmith's neighbors to the south when I caught sight of Kramer's car. “Pull over,” I said. “He must have gotten here ahead of us.”

We pulled up alongside the unmarked Caprice. Empty, it was double-parked, half on and half off the roadway. It sat at an angle partly behind and partly alongside a second vehicle that was stopped on Grace Highsmith's parking ledge. The positioning of the Caprice effectively blocked the other vehicle, a Lexus, from being able to return to traffic.

The Lexus had Washington plates. Using the cell phone once again, I called through to records to check ownership of the parked vehicle.

“Where do you think Kramer went?” Peters asked as we waited for the clerk to give us an answer. “I heard you tell him to meet us. He wouldn't have gone down there by himself, would he?”

“Somebody who's as much of a fan of team
work as Detective Kramer? Surely you jest. Of course he went down by himself. Why wait for the rest of the troops when you have a chance to play hero?”

The records clerk came back on the phone. “The Lexus is owned by a company named D.G.I.,” she said.

“Bingo,” I told Peters, tossing him my cell phone. “Get on the horn to Kirkland Police and tell them we need help here. Fast.”

“You're going down, too?” Peters asked, picking up the phone.

I nodded. “One fool makes twenty.”

Just then, a pair of bright headlights appeared in the northbound lane behind us. The driver flashed his brights impatiently and laid on his horn, trying to move us the hell out of his way. He was probably some big-wheel executive, pissed off because we were holding up cocktails and dinner in his lakeside mansion. He certainly didn't give a damn that his rude honking horn would effectively squelch any hope of our arriving on Grace Highsmith's doorstep unannounced.

Ignoring the guy behind us, Ron waved me out of the Buick. “Go on ahead,” he said. “I'll pull up beyond the garage so the cops from Kirkland can in-fill behind us.”

Nodding, I pushed open the car door and jumped out, wrestling my nine-millimeter Beretta out of my shoulder holster as I did so. By the time I hit the pavement, the weapon was in my hand.
As the creep behind us—an asshole driving an Infiniti Q45—pulled even with me, he couldn't resist flipping me off. In the process, he must have caught a glimpse of the weapon. He floored it. The Infiniti shot forward, barely missing Ron's rear bumper.

I was left there standing night blind in the sudden silence. And that's when I heard a moan coming from somewhere I couldn't see. The moan was followed by a single word, a very faint
Help
.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

“Kramer?” I whispered. “Is that you?”

“Beaumont…down here.”

Following the voice as best I could, I crept over to the edge of the retaining wall and peered down. Paul Kramer lay sprawled on the rocks ten feet below. One leg was folded under him, bent backward in a way ordinary human anatomy never intended.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Be careful,” Kramer warned. “He took my guns.”

Not only was Kramer injured, he was also disarmed. “What happened?” I asked.

“I got out to check—”

Farther down the hillside, a door slammed shut. Footsteps on the wooden porch and voices wafted up from below. “Shhh,” I whispered. “Someone's coming.”

With my heart pounding in my chest, I looked around for cover, choosing at last to fall in behind the back tire of the Caprice. Just then, a car door
opened. I heard the distinctive whir of the lift mechanism as Ron lowered his chair to the roadway.

While I ducked into the shadow behind the car, a motion-sensing fixture shot a beam of light down the stairway. Seeing it, I uttered a silent prayer of gratitude. If I had headed for the stairway right then instead of toward Kramer, the light would have flashed a vivid warning to everyone below that someone was coming. Had I been caught in that blinding shaft of light, I would have been a sitting duck.

“Come on, come on,” Bill Whitten urged. “Get a move on.”

“I'm moving as fast as I can,” Grace Highsmith returned crisply. “I'm no spring chicken, you know.”

Bad as the situation was, I couldn't help smiling. Faced with the very real possibility of her own death, naturally Grace Highsmith was arguing with her self-appointed executioner, lecturing this man who was most likely a multiple murderer as though he were nothing but an errant schoolboy.

Long seconds passed before she finally came into view, pulling herself along the handrail, her purse dangling from one forearm. Seeing that purse, I couldn't help wishing that the .32 auto was still concealed in Grace Highsmith's pocketbook rather than languishing in the safety of the Firearms Section of Washington State Patrol. Latty had said her aunt had wanted the gun for
protection. If ever that stubborn old woman needed protection, it was now.

I had hoped for an opportunity to get off a clean shot, but there was no chance of that. Bill Whitten was walking directly behind Grace. If he had killed three times already, there was no reason to think he would hesitate to do so again. In fact, what I couldn't understand was why he was bringing Grace along.

“Mr. Whitten,” Ron Peters called, rolling into sight around the garage. “Let the woman go.”

Everything stopped. No one moved. For several seconds, no one said a word.

Then Bill Whitten grabbed Grace Highsmith and pulled her back against him. I saw the gun then as he pressed it against her head.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What do you want?”

“I'm a police officer,” Ron said, raising his hands in the air. “I'm unarmed. Let her go. Just because your life is falling apart is no reason to go around killing people.”

“Shoot him,” Grace shrieked. “Don't worry about me. Get him. He's a killer. He tried to frame my niece. He—”