Improbable Cause (18 page)

“I talked them out of it for the moment.”

He managed a small, grotesque grin as the lines of stitches wrinkled into a nightmare mask. “Thanks,” he said. “I owe you.”

“How about answering some questions about Saturday? You don’t have to, of course, not without an attorney present.”

“You believe me, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“I don’t need an attorney. I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.”

“Is there a chance LeAnn Nielsen went back to her husband’s office alone, after you left her?”

Martin studied me for a long moment. I thought maybe he had changed his mind about answering. “I didn’t leave her,” he said finally.

“You didn’t what?”

“We spent the weekend together. The first time we weren’t together was this morning when she borrowed my car to come talk to you. I suppose that’s going to look bad, isn’t it?” he added.

“It could,” I said.

“We didn’t plan it like that. Things just worked out that way. She took me right from the office to the emergency room here at Harborview. She was so flustered that she ran the side of the van into a fire hydrant when she was trying to park. After they finished sewing me up, we went back to Cedar Heights for my tools, but we couldn’t get in. I already told you that.”

“What time was that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Three or three-thirty. I don’t remember exactly. By then we were both hungry, so we stopped to have something to eat.”

“Where?”

“Dag’s Drive-In up on Aurora. We were on our way to the store to drop off the van. We were in no condition to go inside anywhere. And she was like, in shock, or something.”

“Shock? What do you mean?”

“Like it was all too much for her. She was walking and talking and eating, but later she didn’t remember anything about it. We dropped off the van and picked up my car. She was going to catch a bus, but I told her if she’d wait while I changed clothes, I’d give her a ride.”

“And that’s what happened?”

“Yes. On the way, she told me about her husband. He was a regular son of a bitch, wasn’t he?”

“Exceptional, not regular,” I corrected.

“Anyway,” Larry continued. “She told me about going to see him to get the money for her apartment. She said she had to move out of the shelter that weekend, because they only let them stay for a month. Her time was up yesterday. She’s a nice lady. I offered to help her move. She doesn’t have a car.”

“And she invited you to spend the night?”

“It didn’t hurt anything. Her kids were still at the shelter that night. Besides, she needed the help. The shelter has a mini-warehouse with donated furniture and dishes and pots and pans. She rented a trailer and I helped her get her stuff moved.”

“Where to?”

“A little apartment down in Tukwila. She got it pretty cheap. It’s around the same area where the Green River Killer is supposed to be, that’s probably why she got such a deal, but it’s close to her job. I think she was scared to be there alone. The landlord told her she could put up wallpaper in the kids’ rooms, so Sunday I helped her with that.”

“I

thought you were too cut up to work. That’s what Richard Damm told me.“

“I knew he’d give me all kinds of grief over the van and the tools. I just didn’t want to have to put up with his comments about how I’d gotten scratched up. I didn’t think he’d fire me over it, though.”

“Tell me about what went on in Nielsen’s office, from the beginning.”

“It must have been about twelve when I got there. I was late. The first job that morning really held me up. There wasn’t that much left to be done, though, just finish stretching the carpet in the one room, lay the carpet in the other, and put the molding back in place. Nielsen pitched a fit when I got there, but after he finished yelling at me, I went into the back and got started.

“I heard a funny bell a little later—you know, a sort of

ding-dong.

That must have been when LeAnn came in, but I didn’t see her then. I was in the back with the door shut. When I heard her scream, that’s the first I knew she was there.“

“She screamed?”

“Yes. I thought it was an accident out on the street, somebody hit by a car or something. I came running out of the back room to see if I could help. That’s when she screamed again. By then I could tell it was coming from inside his little office. I was about to open the door when she came out with him right behind her. She looked scared to death. He’d already hit her once. I swear to God, I think he would have raped her if I hadn’t been there.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said.

There was a knock on the door behind us. The uniformed guard poked his head inside. “Detective Beaumont?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“There’s somebody out here asking to see Martin. What do you want me to do?”

“Who is it?”

“She says her name’s LeAnn something. She says you know her. My orders are not to let in any unauthorized people, but if you’re willing to accept responsibility…”

“Have her wait,” I said. “I’m not finished yet.”

The guard disappeared with my message, but moments later LeAnn Nielsen bounded into the room. The guard was right behind her. “Hey, lady,” he was saying. “I told you, you can’t go in there.”

The guard was followed by a young woman in a gray pin-striped suit with a brunette, Dutchboy haircut and huge dark-rimmed glasses.

“Mrs. Nielsen,” the woman was saying,

“I

must warn you—“

LeAnn’s face was desolate. She’d evidently cried until she couldn’t cry anymore. She glanced briefly at Larry Martin on the bed, but she walked straight up to me.

“You can’t do this,” she said, grabbing my jacket by the lapels and shaking me. “He was only trying to help. Larry didn’t hit Fred, I did. Don’t you understand that?”

The guard reached out and took LeAnn by the arm, attempting to lead her from the room. At that, the second woman sprang into action. She grabbed his wrist. “You let her loose, you son of a bitch!”

The guard swept her hand away, and she cut loose with an impressive stream of profanity.

“Who’s she?” I asked.

“She claims to be this one’s attorney.”

“Let them stay,” I said. “It’ll be all right.”

“If you say so,” the guard said doubtfully, but he seemed only too happy to leave the room. He beat a hasty retreat while the attorney, still cussing, turned on me.

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are. Are you trying to question my client without allowing me to be present?” She was a belligerent cat, puffed up and spitting and hissing.

“No, I’m not. Mrs. Nielsen came in here of her own accord,” I said. “And I haven’t asked her anything.”

“You damned well better not, either!”

During this heated little exchange, LeAnn decided to let the attorney and me duke it out while she walked over to Larry Martin. “Are you all right?” she asked, leaning over the bed.

He nodded, patting her hand when she placed it next to him. “I’m fine,” he said.

Satisfied, she came back to me. “You’ve got to let him go, Detective Beaumont. Don’t you see? Larry didn’t do anything. I’m the one who hit him. I just didn’t know I hit him that hard.”

LeAnn Nielsen had spent long enough thinking she was responsible for her husband’s death. Alice Fields had pulled her out of the Hi-Spot Cafe before I ever got a chance to tell her that Dr. Frederick Nielsen had died with a dental pick stuck through his throat, not from a crack over the head with a broken flowerpot. It was time to set her straight.

“You didn’t,” I said.

“What did you say?”

“You didn’t hit him that hard. The flowerpot isn’t what killed him.”

LeAnn stepped away from me, looking first from me, then to Larry, and then back to me. “What did then?” she asked.

“A dental pick. Somebody stabbed him with a dental pick while he was out cold in the chair.”

By then LeAnn had backed far enough away from me that she was leaning against the edge of Larry Martin’s bed. It’s a good thing. If she hadn’t been, she would have fallen flat on the floor.

“You mean I didn’t kill him?” she asked. Her voice shook with disbelief. “You mean I really didn’t do it?”

“No.”

“Who did, then?”

“Beats the hell out of me.”

“Why’s Larry locked up like this, then?”

“That’s a whole other problem. We’ll have to work on that one later. This is the best I could do on short notice.”

I turned to the attorney, who was standing, speechless, exactly where the guard had left her. “Any objections, Counselor?” I asked.

She shook her head and didn’t say a word.

“Good,” I told her, “because I’m going home. I’m off duty. It’s been one hell of a day.”

I planned to go home. I meant to go home. I dropped the departmental vehicle off in the garage of the Public Safety Building, called upstairs to tell Margie I was gone for the day, and headed for Belltown Terrace with every intention of putting my feet up and settling down with a nice, cool drink.

There’s a free bus zone in downtown Seattle, an area where people can hop on and off Metro buses without having to pay a fare. It’s designed to help reduce automobile traffic in the downtown core, although I can’t see it’s made much difference. There still aren’t any parking places when you need one.

That particular summer, they could just as well have posted Under Construction signs on the outskirts of downtown Seattle. Massive construction projects were everywhere, from the convention center rising over the freeway to the transit tunnel burrowing under the city. It was a noisy, dusty, crowded mess. What had once been a pleasant, straight-shot stroll from work back to my condominium now meandered through a maze of wooden walkways past buildings going up and holes going down. Dump trucks, some empty, some full, rumbled past while the jarring racket of jack-hammers reverberated up and down the street.

With what I had been through that day, starting with Alice Fields and ending with Larry Martin, I didn’t need to fight my way through an earsplitting obstacle course to get home. Bearing that in mind, I left the department and dashed down the hill to First Avenue where I climbed on board one of the free buses. I’m not cheap. Old habits die hard.

It was rush hour, so of course the bus was jammed, but I didn’t mind standing for what should have been a seven- or eight-minute ride from James Street to Battery. Unfortunately the bus was not only free and crowded, it was also one of the kneeling ones, a vehicle that hydraulically lowers a wheelchair lift so disabled riders can board.

The bus stopped for someone in a wheelchair. Standing riders pressed farther back into the bus to make room for the chair. By the time the bus made two more stops, I was stuck between a reeling, reeking drunk who breathed noxious odors over my shoulder and a heavy-set lady who kept both her purse and shopping bag jammed firmly into my ribs.

That did it. Walking past construction sites was preferable. I got off the bus at First and Stewart.

Coming down Second Avenue“s slight incline toward Belltown Terrace, I had to walk directly past Cedar Heights. I looked up at it, and my mind shifted out of neutral and back into high gear.

Statistics say that if a homicide isn’t solved within the first forty-eight hours, the chances of its ever being solved go down appreciably. Dr. Frederick Nielsen’s case was well beyond that forty-eight-hour limit. We were a hell of a long way from figuring out who had killed him. Not that I personally gave a shit, but the Seattle Police Department frowns on unsolved homicides. No matter what I had come to think of the late Dr. Nielsen, his case file had my name on it—my name and my reputation.

Instead of walking straight past Cedar Heights, I paused briefly in front of the building and gazed at the glass door to Dr. Nielsen’s office. There was a police padlock on the door with yellow crime scene no trespassing signs attached.

While I stood there staring, the earlier question I had been dealing with returned. If LeAnn Nielsen and Larry Martin hadn’t killed Dr. Frederick Nielsen, who had? Who else had opportunity? And motive.

My memory did a free-fall through all the information Big Al and I had gathered, coming to rest on what the building resident manager had said about Debi Rush, how he had seen her hurrying into Dr. Nielsen’s office at nine o’clock on Monday morning when she had told us she’d been there since eight.

It was a discrepancy we hadn’t had time to check out yet, one that had considerably more weight to it in view of what LeAnn had told us about Debi Rush and Dr. Nielsen.

Lost in concentration, I focused momentarily on Debi Rush—the obliging dental assistant, the lying dental assistant, all puns intended. On the lady who had been only too willing to offer Dr. Frederick Nielsen the cleaning and conjugal services his wife had declined to provide. On Debi Rush, the lady with the gangly, nervous, dental-student, dumb-shit husband.

The answer I had been looking for came to me in a sudden flash. Cuckolded husbands have plenty of motive. I know something about that from the injured-party side of the fence. If I’d ever had a fair crack at him, I cheerfully would have murdered Karen’s chicken ranching/egg conglomerate second husband. My heartbeat speeded up. Maybe I was on to something, but a voice interrupted my train of thought before the idea had a chance to jell.

“Hey, you can’t go in there.” It was the resident manager from Cedar Heights, still wearing his orange coveralls. He hurried out of the residential lobby next door, motioning for me to stay away. “The police told me not to let anyone go monkeying around here.”

“I

am

the police,“ I said. ”Detective Beaumont, remember?“ Reaching out to shake his hand, I tried to recall the man’s name, but it was gone, erased completely from my memory bank. Fortunately, he recognized me.

“Oh, I know you. You’re the detective, aren’t you? The one I talked to yesterday?”

“That’s right. Has anyone else been snooping around here?”

The man shrugged. “Some reporters, I guess, and a few television people. That’s about all.”

I was impatient to get away, to follow up on my latest brainstorm, but I delayed long enough to make polite conversation with the overeager manager. It’s called public relations.