Second Watch (29 page)

Ken frowned. “No,” he said. “They didn’t. Were they supposed to?”

“That’s why we’re following up,” I explained. “In situations like this, it’s best not to leave anything to chance.”

“So where’s the paper?” he asked impatiently. “Give me whatever it is I’m supposed to sign. I need to get back to my guests.”

As if to underscore the statement, another vehicle was just then nosing its way up the drive. Without a hitch, Mel held out the iPad and flipped open the cover, revealing the stylus. Switching on the iPad, she opened it to the proper document, and then she passed the device over to Adcock. In the process she managed to do a well-faked stumble that almost knocked both the stylus and the iPad out of his hands. In juggling to keep from dropping the iPad and the stylus, Adcock managed to put his fingerprints, and hopefully some DNA, all over them.

“So sorry,” Mel said with an apologetic smile. “It’s the canes. I can’t get used to having a gimp for a partner. I keep tripping over the damned things.”

As the new arrivals emerged from their vehicle—a bright red Volvo—and came toward the porch, Adcock hurriedly scribbled his signature, the date, printed the required information at the bottom and then handed it back to Mel.

“Are you going to send me a copy of that?” he demanded.

“Yes, of course,” Mel said with her sweetest smile as she took hold of the very tip end of the stylus. “That’s why we needed your e-mail address. Once we get back to the office, we’ll forward you a copy.”

As the new guests arrived, Adcock dismissed us and turned to greet them. He didn’t see Mel slip both the stylus and the iPad into a waiting evidence bag, and he didn’t see the wink she sent in my direction, either.

As far as I was concerned, her wink said it all—mission accomplished!

CHAPTER 25

O
bviously I didn’t jump up and down and click my heels as we headed back to the car, but I felt like it.

“Where to now?” she asked, once we were in the car and she was fastening her seat belt. “The crime lab?”

“You got it.”

Mel nudged our way around the fountain and back out onto 132nd. “You realize this is going to take time, don’t you? It’s not like having a cheek-swab sample. They may have to use PCR to make it work.”

“I don’t care how long it takes,” I said. “If we’re right, he’s gotten away with Monica’s murder all this time. As far as he’s concerned, everyone at Seattle PD is totally buying the idea that Monica was Adcock Senior’s lover and that Faye’s death is about blackmail. As long as Junior has no clue that you and I are onto him, he’s got no reason to run.”

“Because he thinks he’s got everything sacked and bagged.”

“Exactly.”

It was full-on traffic now. Because we were at the top end of Bellevue, we went across the 520 Bridge. It was stop-and-go the whole way, from the time we exited 405 until we were midspan. Maybe I wouldn’t mind paying the tolls so much if they had actually done something to ease traffic congestion. But they haven’t. If anything, it’s worse.

We were on I-5 headed south when my phone rang. “Hello,” Marge Herndon said. “Remember me? Where are you?”

“We just got back from Leavenworth,” I said.

“I didn’t get out anything for dinner,” Marge said. “But there was no point in standing around all day doing nothing. I’ve mopped, vacuumed, dusted, and cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen. I’m also calling to tell you I’m taking the rest of the evening off!”

The truth is, Mel and I spend so much time together, coming and going as we please, that I don’t think it had occurred to either one of us that we needed to report in to Marge.

“Thank you, Marge,” I said. “We didn’t mean to leave you hanging.”

“I’m not hanging any longer,” she said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

She didn’t add “or else,” but I’m sure I heard those two words out there in the ether.

“I guess we missed curfew?” Mel asked with a grin.

I nodded.

“Great,” Mel said. “We’ll go to El Gaucho for dinner. You can call for a reservation while I run in and out of the crime lab.”

That’s what we did. After the crime lab stop, we went by Seattle PD and picked up Mel’s cell phone as well. Before my knees got really bad, Mel and I would walk the few blocks from Belltown Terrace to El Gaucho. Lately, though, the valet parkers had grown accustomed to our showing up in either Mel’s car or mine, and they’re careful to leave whichever vehicle we arrive in close at hand.

Walking into the velvety darkness of that particular restaurant with Mel at my side always raises my spirits. I know the food will be good and the conversation will be better.

In the time since Mel had been back, we’d done very little talking about her sojourn in Bellingham. Now, with her sipping a glass of wine and me easing into an O’Doul’s, she told me all about it. She was finishing up when she came to the part of the story that scared the hell out of me.

“The sense around town is that Police Chief Hamlin never should have let the protest situation get as out of hand as it did,” Mel said thoughtfully.

“So?”

“There’s a real movement afoot in the city council to demand her resignation. Several people let me know that if that happens, they think I should apply for the job.”

My heart gave a lurch inside my chest. I love living in Seattle. I love living in Belltown Terrace, but maybe that’s just me. After all, isn’t “whither thou goest” a big part of being married?

“What do you think?” I asked.

She grinned at me. “Bellingham is a nice enough place to visit, but I don’t think I want to live there. Besides, I don’t think either one of us would be very happy with you stuck in the background as Mr. Mel Soames.”

“But if you wanted it . . .”

“I just told you what I want,” she said. “I like where we live. I like our life together.”

“Good,” I said. “I’m with you.”

We finished our dinner. For someone who was still out on medical leave, I thought I had put in a pretty good day’s work. I didn’t care how long it took to nail Kenneth Adcock just as long as we did nail him.

We were back in the unit and I had sunk into the comfort of my recliner when my phone rang. The number wasn’t a familiar one, and neither was the tentative voice that replied to my answer.

“Jonas?” she said. “Is this Jonas Beaumont?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Bonnie Abney,” she said. “I don’t believe you know me. Years ago, I was Doug Davis’s fiancée. Glenn Madden suggested I might want to give you a call. I take it you knew him? Not Glenn, I mean. That you knew Douglas.”

With those few words it all came flooding back, washing over me in a kaleidoscope of color and unholy noise. In that single instant I was transported back to the sights and sounds and smells of war: the clatter of gunfire; the stench of blood and smoke; the screams of the wounded. It was August second of 1966, and I was back in the middle of the firefight.

I had been given a sacred charge to find her, and now that I had, I was speechless. I had no idea what to say. Words failed me.

“Yes,” I said finally, after a long pause. “Doug Davis was the platoon leader, my second lieutenant, and he saved my life that day. I should have told you about it a long time ago, but somehow I never got around to doing it, and I’m not sure you’re even interested at this point.”

“Glenn said you live in Seattle,” Bonnie said. “I live in Coupeville on Whidbey Island. If you wanted to come out here tomorrow, maybe we could go have coffee somewhere,” she offered.

“Not tomorrow,” I said quickly. “I’m involved in a funeral tomorrow. Also, I recently had knee-replacement surgery, so I wouldn’t be able to drive there on my own. My wife, Mel, would need to come with me.”

The relief in Bonnie’s voice was readily apparent. She must have thought I was trying to hook up with her. The news that I had a wife and that she would be with me put the situation in a whole different light. She gave me her address and I jotted it down.

“Why don’t we do this on Thursday, then? Maybe you could come here for lunch.”

“How far is it to Coupeville?”

“It’s only about eighty miles, depending on where you are in Seattle, but it’s close to three hours of driving.”

“Lunch won’t work,” I said. “I have a standing appointment for physical therapy in the morning. We won’t be able to leave until after that.”

“Let’s make it either a late lunch or an early dinner,” Bonnie said. “I’ll fix a salad that I can put out whenever you get here.”

“Fair enough,” I told her. “We’ll be there sometime Thursday afternoon.”

Mel came into the room carrying my evening pills and water just as I ended the call.

“We’ll be where on Thursday afternoon?” she asked.

“Coupeville on Whidbey Island,” I said. “That was Bonnie Abney, Lieutenant Davis’s fiancée. She invited us to lunch.”

“I’ve never been to Whidbey Island,” Mel said. “How far is it?”

“Eighty miles, give or take.”

“Jeez Louise,” Mel said. “We’re going to turn into regular tourists.”

It was only nine o’clock or so when I headed off to bed. I was whipped. I wasn’t carrying car keys, but when I emptied my pockets onto the dresser, out came my badge and ID wallet along with the other things that I was keeping there—the three aces of spades and the hunks of shrapnel. I stared at them for a moment when I put them down. Was giving them to Bonnie Abney the right thing to do or the wrong thing? If she had married someone else, I doubted her husband would care to have mementos of a previous fiancé lying around the house.

Tired as I was that night, I didn’t sleep very well. Hearing Bonnie Abney’s voice had given me something else to worry about. Maybe that was just as well. Otherwise I would have been agonizing about Delilah Ainsworth, Monica Wellington, and Kenneth Adcock. It’s possible that thinking about Bonnie was a blessing in disguise.

On Wednesday I focused on Delilah Ainsworth. It was her day, all of it. Everyone at the various cop shops had gotten the memo. No one showed up in uniform, but that didn’t keep them from showing up anyway. The church was full to overflowing. In the front of the church, massed around the casket, was a riot of floral bouquets. The service was simple enough. They talked about Delilah’s being a good mother and a good wife. No one talked about her being a good cop, but some things go without saying. After all, that was why she was dead.

I walked down the aisle on my canes, just behind the pallbearers carrying the casket, and stood to one side as they loaded it into the hearse. Brian Ainsworth had specifically requested that there not be dozens of cop cars lined up to follow the hearse from the church to the cemetery, and there weren’t. But there were plenty of out-of-uniform police officers on either side of the street, standing at attention and holding small American flags as the procession went by. And there were plenty of civilian cars parked along the street, waiting to join the funeral procession.

After the graveside service, Mel and I were making for the car when Brian Ainsworth caught up with us.

“Thank you,” he said.

I had managed to get through the whole service without making a fool of myself, but hearing those words from him caught me off guard. After all, wasn’t it my bright idea to reopen the Wellington case that had gotten Delilah killed?

“I’m not sure—” I began, but Brian overrode my comment.

“You maybe didn’t put Del’s killer in jail, but you found her,” Brian told me. “She won’t be hurting anyone else, and my family won’t have to live through the pain of a trial.”

It would have been nice to tell him right then that Mel and I were on the trail of Monica’s killer, too, which would mean Delilah hadn’t died in vain. I could have told him that, but I didn’t dare. I didn’t want even the slightest hint to leak out that we were after someone else. I didn’t want Kenneth James Adcock to know we were onto him until we were ready to take him down.

“You’re welcome,” I said, blinking back tears. “It was the least I could do.”

We made a brief appearance at the reception in the church’s basement social hall, and then Mel and I went home. Marge had pulled together a selection of cold cuts. Those combined with slices of steak left over from the previous night’s dinner were probably better than any postfuneral buffet fare we would have found at the reception.

On Thursday morning we were up early. Ida Witherspoon was there to do her stuff. This time we did one and a half times around the running track. I was starting to get the hang of it. There was a soft rain falling, a light drizzle. Not enough to get really wet, and not enough to stay completely dry, either.

By eleven or so, Mel and I were in the car and on I-5, headed north toward Anacortes, Deception Pass, and eventually Whidbey Island.

“I don’t understand why we couldn’t just catch a ferry,” Mel said.

“Sorry,” I said. “The vagaries of the Washington State Ferry system are more than I can understand at times. We just have to drive.”

“You don’t look happy about this,” she added. “The words ‘invitation to a beheading’ come to mind. You were in better spirits on Monday on our way to Leavenworth.”

“On Monday we were going to help Hannah Wellington close an old wound. Today I’m afraid we’re going to reopen one for Bonnie Abney.”

Had Mel been any other kind of wife, she might have taken that moment to point out that finding Bonnie Abney was something I myself had set out to do and that I had only myself to blame. She didn’t have to point it out. I was busy blaming myself without the need of any outside assistance.

By the time we were approaching Coupeville, the weather was starting to clear. The morning drizzle had dried out and the sun was breaking through the cloud cover. The GPS warned us that it would not be able to provide turn-by-turn directions. We had backstopped that with a downloaded MapQuest document that did, but in the end, taking that precaution wasn’t necessary. We drove straight to the right street. Once we reached the proper address we turned onto a narrow lane that wound through the woods. After several turns we found ourselves in a clearing on a bluff overlooking the slate blue water of Penn Cove. The cozy house was covered with weathered shingles that were punctuated by picture windows. The flagstone porch out front was lined on two sides by massive baskets of slightly faded summer petunias.

I had opened the car door and was struggling to get my canes organized when an immense black-and-white dog, barking his head off, bounded out of the house. A tallish blond woman wearing black slacks and a bright red sweater followed the huge dog into the yard.

“That’s Crackerjack,” she explained, pointing at the hundred or so pounds of gamboling black fluffy fur. “He’s a Bernese mountain dog, and I’m Bonnie. You must be Jonas.”

Her information from the guy running the reunions had come from my military records, where I was inevitably listed by my given name.

“Most people call me Beau,” I said.

By then, Mel had come around to my side of the car and had thrust her hands deep into Crackerjack’s wondrously thick coat. “And this is Melissa Soames, my wife,” I added. “Most people call her Mel.”

“Welcome,” Bonnie said. “I’m glad the weather cleared up enough to enjoy the view. Do come in.”

We followed her into the house. It was the kind of comfortable place that makes a visitor feel instantly at home. Light streamed through six triangular skylights that also gave view to the tall pines and cedars that soared above the house. Windows across the front offered panoramic views of the cove with its sailboats and the lush pastures of the Three Sisters Cattle Company far across on the opposite bank. In the rustic living room a wood fire crackled in the fireplace and on the mantel above it sat two small velvet-covered jewel boxes. I didn’t have to open them to know what would be inside—Lennie D.’s medals, his Purple Heart, his Silver Star.

Standing before them, I instantly recalled the play Kelly had starred in while in high school—
The Old Lady Shows Her Medals.
It’s the story of an old London charwoman during World War II. When her coworkers start bragging about their sons’ heroic exploits on the battlefield, the childless old woman pretends to have a son of her own by plucking the name of someone else’s son from news reports and laying claim to his battlefield accomplishments. Eventually the soldier gets wind of the old woman’s subterfuge. He comes to town and gives her hell about it. Later, though, when he dies in battle, he sees to it that his medals are sent to her.