At the time they were leaving, there was no way to know if a stomach-pumping procedure would do the trick or if Donnie Cosgrove was a goner.
“I’m going, too,” DeAnn insisted. She pulled away from me, and I let her go.
Moments later Mel and I were alone in a living room littered with the ambulance crew’s debris-muddy boot prints and discarded latex gloves.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Mel nodded. “But you’d better take a look at this,” she said.
She was pointing at the coffee table. Next to the vodka bottle and under one of the empty prescription bottles lay a page of notebook paper covered with writing.
“Suicide note?” I asked.
“Looks like,” she said.
I moved over to the table and examined the paper without actually touching it. At the beginning of the note the penmanship was reasonably legible. Toward the bottom of the page it devolved into an illegible scrawl. The ballpoint pen still lay on the floor where it had fallen.
Honey Bun,
I didn’t do it, but they’ll think I did. That cop I talked to will think I killed them because I told him I was going to. I even had the gun along. My gun. But that was only because I wanted to scare the shit out of Jack Lawrence. I wanted him as scared as you were the other day. But mostly I took the gun along for protection. I was there when it happened, or right after, and the cops will be able to figure that out. They’ll find my footprints there. There’s blood on my clothing and on my shoes. I never knew there could be so much blood. It was awful.
I saw the car of the guy who did it-at least I think it was his car. I watched him drive away. You’ve got to believe me when I tell you they were already dead when I got there. I checked. That’s how the blood got all over me, but there was nothing I could do to help them, God help me. Nothing.
I know I should have called right then and reported it. But there was so much blood that I just panicked. I was scared and couldn’t think straight. I just wanted to get away. And when that detective came to the house this morning to tell you what had happened, it just got worse and worse. By not reporting it to begin with, that was one lie. And by not saying anything then, that was another.
I’m sorry…and you and the kids…
The note ended its illegible scrawl in midsentence. It was unsigned.
“What do we do about this?” Mel asked.
“We call Detective Lander over in Chelan and let him know that we’ve got Donnie. He may not be our suspect, but he is a potential eyewitness.”
“If he lives,” Mel muttered. “And if DeAnn had listened to us and stayed away from here, he’d be dead for sure.”
About that time there was a knock-a firm, businesslike knock-on the door and a uniformed Redmond cop entered the room.
“We understand there’s been a disturbance here,” he said. “Maybe you two would like to tell me what’s been going on.”
That took time. Local jurisdictions do not look kindly on other law enforcement agencies conducting raids or investigations of any kind on their turf without letting the home team know what’s happening. We showed the patrol officer our SHIT ID. We told him what had transpired. It made no difference. Not only was the responding officer not impressed, he was offended. The patrol officer’s supervisor, when he arrived, was also offended. And when the desk sergeant heard about it, he was really offended. We tried explaining why DeAnn Cosgrove had summoned us instead of them, but to no avail. Nothing was going to fix it since DeAnn wasn’t there to vouch for us.
At three forty-five I finally admitted defeat and did what I should have done to begin with. I called Harry I. Ball at home and woke him up. He arrived on the scene in fifty minutes flat-all the way from the far side of North Bend. We gave him the shorthand version of what had happened.
“Fair enough,” he said. “You’ve told them all this?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the assembled local yokels.
“Several times,” I answered.
“You two go on home, then,” Harry told us. “Leave this to me. I’ll kick ass and take names later.”
Mel and I retreated to the Mercedes. As we drove away we could hear Harry bellowing into his cell phone at some poor hapless soul or other.
“There are occasions when Harry I. Ball can be annoying as hell,” Mel observed, “but there are other times when you’ve gotta love the guy.”
This was definitely one of the latter.
CHAPTER 20
As we drove across the 520 Bridge, it was 5:00 a.m. The early-bird morning commute was already under way, and Mel and I were both starving.
Twenty-four-hour dining has almost gone the way of the dodo bird in downtown Seattle, with the notable exception of the Five Point Cafe at Fifth and Cedar. Smoking may have been abolished in Washington restaurants, but there’s enough residual smoke lingering in the Five Point to make an old Doghouse regular feel right at home.
While we waited for our breakfasts I dialed DeAnn’s cell phone number just to see if she had any update on Donnie’s condition. She didn’t. I also called Detective Lander across the mountains in Chelan to let him know what the deal was. We ate breakfast-no coffee-and then staggered home to bed. At six. In the morning. To say we were both beat is understating the obvious.
Harry I. Ball called at nine and woke us up, and I was something less than cordial. What had been downright endearing at 5:00 a.m. was a lot less lovable on three hours of sleep. When the phone rang Mel didn’t even wiggle. Answering it was my responsibility.
“Time to rise and shine,” Harry bellowed into the phone, breaking my eardrum.
“Come on, Harry,” I said, “have a heart. I barely got my eyes closed.”
“And I haven’t closed mine at all,” he returned cheerily. “So stop complaining. This BOLO that just came across my desk. That would be on the guy who went off to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. Right?”
“Right,” I said.
Mel turned over on her side and buried her head under her pillow.
“And what about these phone records, the ones that were faxed to me this morning? They’re for Jack and Carol Lawrence up in Leavenworth-the two victims, presumably. What do you want me to do with those?”
I sure as hell didn’t want to drive across the water to pick them up. “How about faxing them over to me here in Seattle?” I asked.
“Barbara isn’t here,” Harry said with a growl. “Has to take her kid to the dentist. Faxing’ll have to wait until she gets in. That probably won’t be before noon.”
The truth is, Harry is one of the world’s greatest technophobes, a guy who has never sent a fax in his life. His ineptitude makes me feel like a telecommunications genius. Besides, right about then, noon didn’t sound half bad.
“Fine,” I said. “Whenever.”
I put down the phone. It immediately rang again. “This is the doorman,” Jerome Grimes told me. “I have a Mr. Hatcher down here to see you.”
The very last thing I wanted right then was an in-house visit from Ross Connors’s pet economist, but he was already there. “All right,” I said. “Tell him to go to the deli next door for some coffee and a bagel. Tell him we’ll see him in fifteen minutes.”
Mel groaned. “See who?” she mumbled from under her pillow.
“Todd Hatcher,” I told her, giving her a whack on her down-comforter-shrouded hip. “Up and at ’em. The world awaits. Todd’ll be here in fifteen.”
He was, too, bringing with him two extra toasted onion bagels with cream cheese-in case we were hungry. We weren’t. I went to the door to let him in. Mel was still in the shower.
“You did tell me to come back on Monday, didn’t you?” Hatcher asked uncertainly.
“Yes,” I said. “I just didn’t know we’d be out all night working a case, is all. Come on in and get set up. Mel will be out in a minute.”
While Todd went about taking over the kitchen counter I muddled around making coffee. Mine isn’t as good as Mel’s, but it’s drinkable, and that’s what was called for that particular Monday morning-gallons and gallons of coffee.