"This is Beau, returning your call. Sorry I couldn't get back to you last night. I was out on a case." I swallowed a little after that last sentence. It wasn't exactly a lie, but it was certainly less than honest. "Thanks for letting me know what's happening. I'll keep trying."
After ending that call, I looked around the garage. There was no sign of either of the two detectives. The only officer visible was that same uniformed cop-an officer named Ryland-still standing guard at the garage entrance. With no potential interference on the horizon, I dialed in Lars Jenssen's number. Calling my AA sponsor then was a little late-like locking the barn door and all that crap-but it was better than not calling him at all.
The phone rang eight or nine times. I knew better than to hang up too soon. Lars is pushing eighty. If he doesn't rush to answer his phone, he has the perfect excuse.
"Hello," he bellowed into the mouthpiece when he finally lifted the receiver off the hook.
"Hello, Lars," I said. "It's Beau."
"What's that? You gotta speak up. I can't quite make you out."
I could hear him fumbling with buttons, most likely turning up the volume control on his telephone. "It's Beau," I repeated. "Is that better?"
"You bet. What can I do you for? Haven't seen you at too many meetings lately."
One of the things I've always liked about Lars Jenssen is his straightforward manner, the way he always comes right to the point.
"As a matter of fact," I returned sheepishly, "that's one of the reasons I'm calling right now. I had a little problem last night."
"How big a little problem?" Lars asked. "You in jail?"
"No, nothing like that…"
"Been in a meeting yet today?"
"Not yet. I'm at work right now, and-"
"Work?" Lars Jenssen sputtered. "Did you say work? If you know what's good for you, you'll haul your sorry ass off to a meeting and you'll do it now. Where are you?"
"I'm over here in Bellevue, and-"
"Bellevue? You hang on a minute. I'll be right back."
Lars slammed the phone down in my ear. I could hear him rummaging through papers, pulling drawers open and then shoving them shut, the whole while muttering under his breath. He's a widower who lives alone in a downtown high-rise retirement complex. His only son died in Vietnam, and his wife's been dead now for many years. When I first came back from treatment in Arizona and ventured into a neighborhood AA meeting down in the Denny Regrade, Lars Jenssen was the first person to come over to me and tell me how glad he was that I had come to the meeting.
"You keep coming back, now," he had told me as I headed for the door. "Just keep coming back."
In the last few months, I hadn't been back very often. I had let being busy get in the way of following that one very important piece of advice.
"Here it is," he said. "I knew I'd find it eventually. Hang on, let me find my damn magnifying glass. I swear, they make this gol-durned type smaller all the time. There it is. Okay, where are you?"
"Bellevue, but-"
"Hang on, hang on. Don't get your sweat hot. Now, what day is it again?"
"Thursday, I think. January fourth."
"Okay. Thursday. Let me see. It says here, there's a noontime meeting over there on Thursdays at a place called Angelo's. On a street called One hundred thirtieth. Think you can find it?"
"Lars, I swear, it was just a little slip," I began. "A one-time thing. I only called to talk for a couple of minutes. Like I said, I'm right in the middle of a case, and-"
"A case?" Lars repeated. "Baloney. And don't say it was a little slip. There's no such thing, and you know it. You let one of those go, and it'll turn into a whole damned train wreck right before your eyes. You get yourself to that meeting, Beau. Here's the address."
He was so insistent that I wrote down the restaurant's address when he gave it to me, but to be perfectly honest, I was just going through the motions. I was busy. I had my hands full with not one, not two, but three separate homicides. Detective Kramer was on his way to pick me up. I didn't really have any intention of taking off at noon to go wandering off to an AA meeting.
"You get that address all right?" Lars asked.
"Right, but-"
"No buts, and no time to talk," he interrupted. "I'll see you there."
"What do you mean, you'll see me there?" I asked.
"At the meeting. I'll be there, too. I haven't been to a meeting so far today. It'll do me good."
"But Lars," I objected. "It's in Bellevue."
"So?" he returned. "What do you think, I was born yesterday? I'll catch a bus. Like I said. I'll see you there."
He hung up. End of argument. Shaking my head, I got out of the car and walked over to where Officer Ryland was waving one of the medical examiner's gray vans into the garage. I wasn't all that surprised when Audrey Cummings stepped out of the driver's seat.
"Not you again," she said, catching sight of me as she heaved a heavy leather satchel out of the back of the van and headed for the elevator. "Isn't this a little off your beat, Detective Beaumont?"
"Different beat; same case," I told her. "There's a woman dead upstairs. She happens to be a private eye who was hired to investigate Don Wolf's background."
"I see. What does it look like up there?"
I shrugged. "Like you said, it's not my beat. I haven't been invited upstairs. There are two Bellevue detectives up there, but if you see anything you think I ought to know, let me know."
She nodded. "Of course. By the way, did Detective Kramer tell you about the car?"
"What car?" I asked.
"Lizbeth Wolf's. It turned up in the visitor's parking place in the Lake View Condominiums. Detective Arnold found it. So we can be pretty sure that's who it is, although I'm still waiting for someone who knew Lizbeth Wolf to give me a positive I.D. Do you have anything for me there?"
"I've located Lizbeth Wolf's mother down in southern California. Her name's Anna Dorn. You should be hearing from her sometime today."
The elevator door opened. Sergeant Orting stood waiting inside, with one finger holding the DOOR OPEN button. "Good work, Beau," Audrey said as she stepped inside. The door started to close, but I pried it back open.
"Wait a minute. What about our deal?" I asked. "What's happening with those prints?"
"The ones we took off Don Wolf?" Audrey asked. The door had been held open too long, and the alarm began to howl. "I sent them over to the latent fingerprint lab. They asked me what they were supposed to do with them," she continued, raising her voice so she could be heard over the alarm. "I told them to run them through AFIS for an I.D. That is what you wanted, isn't it?"
"That's what I wanted all right," I answered, letting the door slide shut. "For whatever good that will do."
I walked the length of the garage and walked up the ramp into vivid midday sun. After the gloom inside the garage, the unexpected sunlight was almost blinding. The glare hurt my burning eyes and escalated the pounding between my ears. My mouth felt dry and cottony, and it tasted even worse. Standing with my hands in my pockets and waiting for Detective Kramer to show up, I longed for a breath mint, for something that would combat the sour taste in my mouth. Kramer still hadn't arrived when I caught sight of a drugstore across the street.
"If anyone comes looking for me, tell them I'll be right back," I called over my shoulder to Ryland. "I'm going across the street for a minute."
I was back on the sidewalk and sucking on an Altoid when Kramer showed up in a full-size Chevy bulge-mobile a few minutes later. By then, though, I think excess MacNaughton's must have been leaking out through my pores. When I climbed into the car and shut the door, he wrinkled his nose in distaste and made a production of rolling down his window. "Where to?" he asked.