Payment in Kind (31 page)

But she shook her head stubbornly, defiantly, as though the milk had somehow revived her and given back some of her spunk. “Oh no, you don’t. You said you’d tell me about my father.”

“I thought Maxwell Cole already told you.”

“Uncle Max is a friend. He didn’t want to tell us any more than he absolutely had to. You’re not a friend, Detective Beaumont. You’re a cop, and I want to know the truth. What did my father do? It must have been something terrible, something awful, for him to hide out all these Years. Tell me. I’ve got a right to know.”

“I can’t tell you any more than Max did,” I told her.

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t been able to find out anything else. According to what we’ve been able to piece together so far, your father was a smart kid who went off first to West Point and then to Vietnam. At some point in time, something snapped and he made up his mind to never go home again. His own parents died in South Dakota years later without ever knowing for sure whether their son was dead or alive.”

“So he lied to them too?”

I nodded, and that was all Erin was willing to hear. She stood up abruptly. “Did you say you’d give me a ride?”

“Yes.”

“Take me home then, Detective Beaumont. I can’t listen anymore.”

I stopped briefly at the cashier’s desk before following Erin outside, where I found her waiting for me on the sidewalk. She seemed to be listening to the muted city noises around her. Just then, far away from us, the chill night air was split by the haunting wail of a distant siren.

“My car’s right over here,” I said.

I led her around the mounds of ice and snow that still littered the parking lot. Once on the street, I headed the 928 for Denny Way and Capitol Hill. Erin was silent now, huddled miserably against the door. I knew that no matter how much it hurt, I had to ask her one more question.

“Did you talk to your Auntie Andy today?” I asked.

“Don’t call her that!” Erin hissed. “She’s not my aunt. I thought she and my mother were friends. And no, I didn’t call her. I’ll never speak to her again.”

Once more, Erin Kelsey began to cry, weeping silently, her face covered with her hands. “I feel like such a fool,” she mumbled through her tears. “Such a stupid, stupid fool!”

We drove on in silence. If Erin hadn’t called Andrea Stovall, who had?

As we made our way down Broadway, I had to pull over to the side to wait for a blaring fire engine to rush past. Several blocks away from Boston, we began to encounter a whole phalanx of emergency vehicles—aid cars and fire trucks as well as police patrol cars. By then, looking up the side of the hill, we could see the eerily leaping flames of a house fire surging into the air. Although the flickering glow was visible, the house itself was still hidden from view.

“It’s my house, isn’t it?” Erin Kelsey breathed with despairing certainty.

“No,” I said. “Don’t be silly.”

When we reached the intersection of Tenth and Boston, a uniformed officer was diverting traffic away from the area. I stopped and hopped out of the car. I flashed my badge in his face and asked him if he knew the address of the burning house.

“Thirteen fifty-two East Crockett, I believe that’s the address,” he said.

Shock must have registered on my face.

“You know the house?” he asked.

I nodded.

“There’s not much more I can tell you,” the patrolman said sympathetically. “One of the guys from the fire department came by a few minutes ago and told me it’s a total loss. No victims so far, but they’re still looking.”

“Arson?” I asked.

“Probably, but that’s not official yet.”

“I know.”

I turned away from him and went back to the car to give Erin Kelsey the rest of the bad news. At least she hadn’t been there when the fire started, although I felt sure that whoever did it had meant her to be.

Realizing that gave me pause. If Erin hadn’t been meeting with me at the Doghouse when the fire broke out, she too could be dead, joining her mother as a youthful statistic in the realm of violent crime.

Suddenly I knew, knew in my gut, that whoever had called Pete Kelsey with the lie about Marcia and Andrea moving in together, whoever had called Erin and told her about the phony birth certificate, and whoever had called Andrea to say Pete Kelsey was gunning for her—those three separate, sadistic phone callers were all one and the same person.

Whoever it was, this laughing Cassandra had predicted that Pete Kelsey would lose everything, that it would be payment in kind for something, some crime he had committed in the past.

So far, Pete Kelsey hadn’t lost everything. Not yet. Not quite, but he had come close—very, very close—and at this rate, he still might.

A
t one o’clock Thursday morning, I delivered a stunned and ashen version of Erin Kelsey to her grandparents’ condo on Queen Anne Hill. The mounting losses left Erin numb, speechless, and beyond tears. She fell into LaDonna Riggs’ comforting arms, but her grandmother’s murmurs of sympathy and outrage fell on seemingly deaf ears.

Belle Riggs led Erin back into the apartment while George, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, walked me back to my car. He seemed to want to say something, and I stood with the door open waiting for him to get around to it.

“Marcia wasn’t perfect,” he said at last, clearing his throat. “I mean, the things they said about her in the paper…” He paused awkwardly, and shook his head.

“Well, we didn’t know for sure, although I guess I always suspected. Maybe Belle didn’t—she’s always been naive about those kinds of things—but I did.”

He sighed, and walked away a foot or two, looking off over the side of the hill at a lighted grain ship being loaded at the terminal below us. The night was still, and the noisy clatter from the grain elevator conveyor belts filtered up the hill to where we stood. The air was noticeably warmer now compared to the arctic deep freeze we’d been locked into for the better part of the week, but it was still chilly to be outside dressed in nothing but shirtsleeves, as George was. The old man, however, seemed totally oblivious to the weather.

“But Pete now,” he said thoughtfully, “Pete’s all wool and a yard wide. I couldn’t have asked for a better son-in-law. He’s always been real steady—a good provider, a good worker, an old-fashioned family man—things that my daughter didn’t necessarily appreciate. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying he’s perfect, and I didn’t approve of him working in that bar off and on the way he did, but Pete’s not Mormon, and I made it a point to stay out of his business. That’s probably one reason why we always got along.”

George Riggs’ voice cracked with emotion, and he aimed a swift kick at a chunk of hardened snow and ice that had been pushed to the edge of the driveway.

“What are you telling me, Mr. Riggs?” I asked.

“I don’t care what his real name is, Detective Beaumont. No matter who he is really or what he may have done in the past, no matter how it looks, I
know
Pete Kelsey never killed my daughter. He may have been provoked, but he didn’t
do
it. He wouldn’t. Do you understand?”

“Mr. Riggs…” I began, but he ignored me.

“What about the fire?”

“What about it?”

“You haven’t said, but it wasn’t an accident, now was it? It had to be deliberate. Pete replaced every inch of wiring in that house and brought it up to code. It was all old knob-and-tube stuff, and fixing it was one heck of a job. So now he’s lost his wife and he’s lost his house. What’s next, and who’s doing this? who’s got it in for Pete Kelsey?”

“I don’t know.”

“But it does look like somebody’s out to get him?”

“Yes, Mr. Riggs, it is beginning to look that way, and I’m on my way down to the jail to find out what I can from Pete Kelsey himself. In the meantime, how about if I get the Patrol Division to send a unit up here, just to keep an eye on things.”

“You mean a police guard?”

“Listen, Mr. Riggs, I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, but there’s already been one attempt on Erin’s life tonight, and there could as easily as not be another.”

“No,” George said, shaking his head stubbornly. “No way. I believe I can handle it myself. The women are already upset enough as it is. Having police guarding the house would upset them that much more.”

I left him then, but on my way down to the King County Jail, I called the Patrol Division anyway. Just to be on the safe side. They told me they’d handle it and be discreet.

In the jail, Pete Kelsey/John David Madsen was being held in Ten South, a cellblock reserved for suspects arrested in connection with serious crimes.

I waited in the small, pie-shaped cinder-block interview room while one of the night guards brought the prisoner from his cell. He arrived wearing his orange jumpsuit jail uniform and looking as though he’d been rudely awakened from a sound sleep.

“Detective Beaumont, what are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you, Pete. I’ve got some bad news.”

He blanched. “What is it? Has something happened to Erin?”

“No,” I said. “Erin’s safe for the moment, but your house isn’t. It burned to the ground earlier tonight. I’m here to ask you the same question your father-in-law put to me a few minutes ago. Who’s got it in for you?”

Kelsey dropped onto the only remaining plastic chair. “The house is gone?”

“Yes, completely, but Erin’s all right. I took her to her grandparents’ house. Fortunately, she wasn’t home when the fire started. If she had been…”

“She’d be dead,” Kelsey finished.

I nodded.

“Was it arson?” he asked.

“Probably, although right now it’s officially known as a fire of suspicious origin. Once the arson investigators get inside, I’m sure they’ll find all the telltale signs. So tell me, Pete, who did it?”

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine.”

“Maybe this will throw some light on it. Erin had a call an hour or two before it happened, a threatening call from a woman who laughed all the while she was telling your daughter that you hadn’t lost everything yet, but that you would. Does that sound familiar?”

He looked at me, his electric blue eyes searching mine. “Laughing?” he asked.

I nodded. “Laughing and saying that what’s happening is payment in kind for something you did to her. So who is it, Pete? Tell me.”

“It must be the same woman then, but I’ve no idea…”

I was losing patience. “Look, let’s not play games. Someone’s out to get you, any way they can. So far your wife is dead and your home has been destroyed. If somebody’s decided to beat you out of everything, the way I figure it, there’s only one thing left for them to take away.”

I saw the stricken expression on his face and knew I’d landed a telling blow. “Erin?” he whispered.

“That’s right. Erin,” I said. “So are you going to help me or not?”

“I’ll try, but what can I do?”

“Think, man. Who’s got it in for you?”

“I don’t know. I swear to God, I don’t know.”

“You must. This is somebody with a major grudge. Maybe you’re not proud of it, maybe it’s something you never wanted to see the light of day, but it’s not something you would have forgotten.”

“Detective Beaumont, I don’t have any idea…”

“Is it something you’re afraid would be self-incriminating and could be used against you in a court of law? Would it help if I called Cal Drachman down here?”

“No, don’t do that.”

“Talk to me then. It’s someone from years ago, someone who knew all about Erin’s birth certificate.”

Pete Kelsey’s head snapped erect. “What about her birth certificate?”

“That it’s a fake, just like your name.”

“But how could someone know about that? Erin didn’t even know.”

“She does now. Tell me, Pete, what are you hiding? I’ve got to know. Erin’s life is at stake. Unless I know the whole story, I can’t help.”

He stared at me, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. I kept quiet, knowing he was verging on spilling whatever it was.

“She’s not mine,” he said at last.

“Who’s not yours?”

“Erin. I stole her, or rather we both did. Marcia and I.”

It took a moment for that to soak in. “You stole her? You mean as in kidnapping?”

“Not exactly. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.” He gave me an odd look, as though it was some kind of joke, but I wasn’t smiling. “If you’d only seen what was happening…”

“You’d better tell me about it, Pete. From the beginning.”

“Did you ever play much poker?” he asked.

“Not me. People tell me I’ve got an honest face.”

Pete Kelsey smiled hollowly. “Not me. I’ve always been a good bluffer, too good, in fact. I bluffed my way into and through West Point. My father was only second-generation American, and he wanted me to go all the way to the top. He wanted me to be a general or head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That was his idea of the great American Dream, that a farm kid from Marvin, South Dakota, could rise to the top.

“I was good at target practice, and I was good at tests—academic, personality profile, you name a test and I could pass it with flying colors. But I didn’t find out about killing until after it was too late. Oh, I could talk a good game, but I couldn’t kill worth a damn. Once I was in Nam, I froze up. I couldn’t pull the trigger, not even to kill someone who was out to kill me. And our guys were counting on me, leaning on a bent reed, so I managed to steer clear of actual combat and took off the first time I got a chance.”

“Where did you go?”

He shrugged. “All over. I knew I could never go home. My father couldn’t have stomached having a coward for a son. It was better that I simply disappear. That way he never knew.”

Pete Kelsey stopped in the middle of his story and looked at me questioningly. “How is my father, Detective Beaumont? You must have talked to him by now.”

“Your father’s dead, Pete. Both your parents are. Years ago.”

He swallowed hard and nodded. “Thank God. At least I won’t have to face them.” For a moment he buried his face in his hands. When he looked up, he seemed dazed. “Where was I?”

“You were telling about what you did after you left Vietnam.”