Tim and I exchanged glances. Most likely, he was thinking about Virginia Marks' missing computer. I know I was.
"But she didn't fax you anything last night after she got back to town?"
"No. Not as far as I know. She might have. There was a whole stack of paper in the tray this morning. It looked to me like it mostly had to do with shipments to and from the shop."
The bell over the door jangled noisily, and in walked Latty Gibson. She paused just inside the door and looked questioningly from face to face.
"Why are you still here?" she demanded, settling her gaze on me. "What's going on?"
"We were just talking to your Aunt Grace," I said. "We had to ask her some questions as well."
"Are you done now?"
Tim was already on his way to the door. "Yes," he said. "Now that you mention it, I think we are pretty much finished, aren't we, Detective Beaumont?"
"Evidently," I said dryly.
Nodding to each of the ladies in turn, I followed Detective Blaine out into the street. "Isn't she something!" Tim Blaine was saying as I caught up with him.
"I'll say," I agreed. "I've only known her for two days, but I can tell you that Grace Highsmith is full of surprises."
"I wasn't talking about Grace," he said. "I mean Latty. She's the most beautiful woman I've ever met. How could that son of a bitch do that to her! I swear, if he weren't dead already…"
As I said before, the late Don Wolf was amazingly unlamented. Even people who never met him were glad he was dead. It should have been enough to give the guy a complex. "You and everybody else," I said.
"I believe somebody's out to get her," Tim continued. "They're trying to frame her. Maybe Virginia Marks was even in on it. That business with her finding the gun is just too much of a coincidence."
Cops aren't ever supposed to mix business with pleasure. With good reason. The people who turn up involved in homicide cases-suspects and witnesses alike-are supposed to be off limits, especially when it comes to romantic entanglements. The prohibition makes perfect sense. Once an investigator has a personal connection to someone involved in the case, his perspective and judgment both become clouded, and his impartiality flies right out the window.
Assuming the mantle of wise old man, I made a futile attempt to give Tim Blaine the benefit of my own hard-won experience. When I set out to pop his romantic bubble, I was speaking from the unenviable position of first-hand experience. Of being able to say, "Do as I say, not as I do." After all, years ago, when I fell for one of my own prime suspects, that relationship had come within inches of being fatal-for both of us.
"Tim," I said, "would you mind if I gave you a word of advice?"
"What's that?" he asked.
"Forget about Latty Gibson, at least for the time being."
"Forget about her? Are you kidding?"
"No," I said. "I'm not kidding at all. I'm as serious as I can be. And I'm telling you this for your own good."
Our eyes met for a moment as we stood there on that sunlit sidewalk. "I'll take it under advisement," he agreed grudgingly. "But I'm not making any promises."
He turned toward his Ford, reached down, and wrenched open the door. "See you around," he added, before climbing in and slamming the door shut behind him.
In other words, "Screw you!" As I watched him drive away, I realized I had never told him about the real implications of Latty leaving her coat with the gun in it somewhere on the premises of D.G.I. That was all right, though. Blaine was a Bellevue police officer, and Bill Whitten was in Seattle.
The day before, Captain Powell had threatened to add more personnel to the case if, after twenty-four hours, Kramer, Arnold, and I weren't making measurable progress. As far as I could tell, we weren't. That meant that if Powell had carried through on his promise to increase the body count, we'd be able to draft someone to go to D.G.I. and collect the missing coat.
Tossing Don Wolf's jacket over my shoulder, I crossed the street to my own car. At three o'clock in the afternoon, there was already a traffic jam on Main Street in Old Bellevue. With the interview over, I reached down to check my pager. I wasn't particularly concerned when I realized it wasn't there on my belt where it belonged. I reasoned that I had probably left it on the bathroom counter earlier when I stripped out of my clothes for that quick shower. But that was no great loss. If people who knew me were trying to reach me, they were probably used to the idea that I didn't return calls instantly.
As I waited for my turn to go play in the gridlock, I checked the recall button on my cell phone. Naturally, there was a call.
At first, I thought my caller might be Ralph, but when I tried reaching him at Belltown Terrace, there was no answer. Next, I checked in with the department.
"Sergeant Watkins here," Watty said, answering his phone.
"Did Kramer ever show up?" I asked.
"As a matter of fact, he did. But before I put him through to you, I've got a bone to pick with you, Detective Beaumont. Where's your pager?"
"Oops," I said, hoping this sounded like news to me. "It's not here. I must have misplaced it."
"Right," Watty answered. "You win the booby prize. And I just happen to know where you left it."
"Where?"
"A housekeeper found it at the Silver Cloud Motel over there in Bellevue. I told her to leave it at the desk, that you'd come by and pick it up. At least it was on. I checked with the person who called."
"Look, Watty," I said, hoping to mollify the man. "I'm just a couple of minutes from there right now. I'll go straight over and pick it up."
"And if I were you, in the future, I'd be a whole lot less careless with departmental equipment. Now, do you still want to talk to Detective Kramer?"
"No, thanks," I said. "Not necessary. I'll see him when I get back down there. Tell him I'm on my way."
"Oh, one more thing," Watty said, before I could hang up. "Lori's looking for you."
"Lori?"
"You know, Lori Yamaguchi, who works in the latent fingerprint lab. She didn't say what she wanted, but she said to have you come see her as soon as you're back downtown."
"I'll go right away," I said.
"But not until after you retrieve your pager."
"I wouldn't think of it," I said.
I gave a generous tip to the desk clerk at the Silver Cloud who handed over the pager, and I left an equally hefty one for the housekeeper who had found it. Unwittingly, those two people had saved my life. If I had lost the pager for good, both Sergeant Watkins and Captain Powell would have had my ass.
Twenty-five minutes later, with Don Wolf's jacket still slung over my arm, I was standing leaning against the counter in the reception area of King County's Fingerprint Lab. When the receptionist told me Lori was on the phone, I told her I'd wait, and helped myself to a chair. Sitting there waiting and with nothing in particular to do, I picked up the jacket and started going through the pockets.
One pocket after another yielded nothing but pocket lint. Until I reached the last one, the lower inside pocket. There, tucked into smooth lining, was a single tiny scrap of paper that had been folded once, twice, and yet again into a tiny square no bigger than a respectable spitwad. When I unfolded it, the resulting piece of paper was no bigger than an inch square. The printed message on the paper was equally tiny.
"Donnie," it said, "see you at the apartment at six." It was signed with the initials, "D.C." A heart had been drawn around the outside of the two letters and a whimsical pair of happy faces had been made of the insides of both letters.