“But if LaShawn was her boyfriend and he’s dead, who’s she running from?”
“Good question,” Jackson said. “For right now, my money’s on Pastor Mark.”
“But he has an alibi for the time of LaShawn’s murder,” I said. “At least he claims to have an alibi.”
“He also has an attorney,” Jackson said.
Who also happens to be in attendance, I thought, but somehow I didn’t mention that fact to Detective Jackson. This wasn’t a grudge match, but since he hadn’t told me about the nun, I figured that made us even.
By then the front pews of the church were finally emptying. When the King Street Mission people emerged, most of them wandered off toward three eight-passenger vans parked down the block. Pastor Mark and Dale Ramsey walked off together toward a black Lincoln Town Car that came complete with a driver in a black suit. The vans may have been good enough for Pastor Mark’s flock, but they evidently weren’t good enough for the shepherd himself.
“I guess that means he’s not going to the cemetery,” Jackson said to me. “And I guess that means Hank and I won’t be going either. We’ll just follow along and ask him if he has any idea why Elaine would have left King Street and taken up residence in a DV shelter.”
“My guess is he won’t say a word.”
“Mine, too.” Jackson grinned. “But it doesn’t matter. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words.”
Hank showed up in their car right then. Detective Jackson hopped inside and they headed down MLK Way behind the retreating Town Car.
It took about fifteen minutes to get the funeral procession formed up and ready to travel. I walked back to my Mercedes. Once the procession rolled past, I pulled into what I assumed was the caboose position as we headed south for Renton and the Mount Olivet Cemetery. A block or two south of Church Street I noticed that another vehicle, an older-model Honda, had pulled in behind me. There was only one occupant in the Honda, a woman. She didn’t turn on her headlights, but as the procession made its way south, it was clear she was part of LaShawn Tompkins’s funeral cortege.
Homicide detectives always look for things that are slightly out of the norm, slightly off. Funerals aren’t fun, and most of the people who bother showing up for them want full credit for doing so. They sign guest books. They chat with grieving friends and family members. They want survivors to know they were there, almost as though they were storing up stars in their crowns or putting in markers for when the time comes for their own funerals. But the lady in the Honda clearly wasn’t looking for credit, and the fact that she was deliberately avoiding attention captured mine.
So before we reached the gates to Mount Olivet, I peeled off onto a side street. Most of the cars in the procession followed the hearse on into the cemetery and stopped close to a canopy-covered grave site. The Honda, on the other hand, stopped just inside the gate.
The woman who exited the vehicle was sturdily built. She was black, in her mid-thirties, and wore her shoulder-length hair in a cascade of tiny braids. She was dressed in boots and a long denim skirt. She went over to the grassy edge of the road, far enough to see the people clustering around the grave site. The woman watched the funeral attendees, but none of them noticed her, and she wasn’t seeing me, either. I stepped out of the Mercedes and walked up behind her.
“Ms. Manning?” I asked.
Startled, she jumped and then spun around to face me. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“My name’s Beaumont,” I told her. “J. P. Beaumont. I’m an investigator with the Washington State Attorney General’s Office.” I held out my ID, but she kept her eyes on my face rather than on my identification or my badge.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she said simply.
“From what I’ve been told, you and LaShawn Tompkins were an item,” I returned. “Why wouldn’t you come to his funeral?”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to anybody.” She dodged away from me and headed back toward the Honda, but I managed to beat her to the driver’s door.
“We’re trying to figure out what happened to him,” I said. “Don’t you want to help us?”
“Somebody shot him.” She was crying now. Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving glistening tracks on her skin.
“Do you know who killed him or why?” I asked.
She shook her head. “All I know for sure is that LaShawn is dead.”
“Why did you leave King Street Mission, Ms. Manning?” I pressed. “And why are you staying in a domestic-violence shelter? What are you afraid of? Who are you afraid of?”
Without answering she tried to reach around me to grasp the door handle, but I was in the way. When the attempt failed, instead of falling back she leaned into me, weeping uncontrollably on my shoulder. For a moment I didn’t quite know what to do. Eventually, with no other choice, I wrapped my arms around her and held her close.
“Shhhh,” I said, patting her. “It’s going to be all right.”
Finally she drew back, wiping fiercely at her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was stupid of me.”
“Grieving isn’t stupid,” I said. “But not talking to me about this would be. Please, Ms. Manning, that’s all I’m asking you to do-just talk to me. Tell me what you know or even what you think you know. Don’t you owe LaShawn that much?”
“Yes, but not here,” she said, turning back toward the group clustered around LaShawn Tompkins’s open grave. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
“My car or yours?” I asked.
“It’s not mine,” Elaine answered. “It belongs to a friend of mine-from the shelter. But I can’t leave it here. I saw a Burger King on the way here, down by 405. What if I meet you there?”
“That’ll be fine,” I said. “You lead the way.”
CHAPTER 12
I thought Elaine might try to skip out on me, but she didn’t. We drove straight to the Burger King and parked side by side. Inside she went to one of the window booths while I placed our order-coffee for me, Diet Coke for her.
By the time I got to the booth she was putting away a com-pact, having repaired the damage her tears had done to her makeup, and she seemed to have her emotions well in hand.
“I didn’t see Pastor Mark get out of any of the buses at the cemetery,” she said.
“That’s because he didn’t go there,” I told her. “He was at the funeral, but I think he was annoyed because he didn’t get to run that show. He left the church and drove off in the opposite direction with Mr. Ramsey.”
“Oh,” Elaine said.
“Is Pastor Mark the one you’re afraid of?” I asked.
She nodded. “Is it that obvious?”
“I’m a detective, remember? But what isn’t obvious is why.”
“Pastor Mark has a temper,” Elaine said.
“I already figured that out,” I interjected.
“And he didn’t approve.”
“Of you and LaShawn?”
She nodded. “Pastor Mark claimed we were setting a bad example for the other people at the mission, and he made it pretty clear that if LaShawn and I insisted on being a couple we’d have to leave King Street.”
“Would that have been a problem?” I asked.
“More to Pastor Mark than for us,” Elaine returned.
“Why’s that?”
“Because we were his best worker bees. LaShawn did a lot of the physical labor around the place, in addition to much of the active counseling. He was the one who made sure people were doing the work they needed to be doing.”
“You mean work as in jobs-as in the duty roster I saw?”
“I ran the household end of it-made up the duty roster and ordered supplies,” she said. “And I handled client intake. Yes, Pastor Mark is the one with the degree in divinity, but LaShawn was way better than Pastor Mark at doing the kind of spiritual work it takes to turn lives around. After all, LaShawn had actually been there. He knew what it was like to be cast into the lion’s den and walk out unscathed because it happened to him. His was an example other people could relate to and copy.”