Kramer returned to the kitchen, announcing that a call had come in for Pete Kelsey, that Erin wanted to give him her arrival times and flight numbers. While Pete went to pick up the phone in the other room, Detective Kramer edged his way over to me.
“I’ve got some news for you,” he said under his breath. “From Doc Baker. They haven’t completed the autopsies yet, but he did have one gem for us, a preliminary finding that he thought we ought to know about.”
“What’s that?”
“The doc says we’ve got a double on our hands.”
“You mean Pete Kelsey’s right? Marcia didn’t commit suicide after all?”
Detective Kramer nodded. “That’s right. And how do you suppose he figured that out before anybody else did? You can bet it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with her being a goddamn vegetarian! It’s because he did it. He caught ‘em in the act and decided to put an end to it.”
Even though I suspected Pete Kelsey had lied to me about something, that didn’t necessarily make him a killer. “Wait just a minute here, Kramer. Did Doc Baker tell you something more about Pete Kelsey, something I ought to know?”
“Doc Baker treats me like shit. He didn’t tell me a goddamned thing, but I’m smart enough to put two and two together. That longhaired freak invites us in here and serves us homemade bread and coffee like we’re some kind of visiting royalty instead of cops investigating his wife’s murder. He admits he knows she’s been whoring around on him, but he still acts grief-stricken. What a load of crap! I’m not falling for it. Kelsey’s cool. Too damn cool, if you ask me. All we have to do is wait. He’s bound to trip himself up.”
Kramer’s absolute conviction that Kelsey was our man caught me off guard. Jumping to those kinds of conclusions so early in an investigation is bad for everyone concerned. It’s too easy to go looking for answers that will match some preset scenario, to create a set of erroneous self-fulfilling prophecies, rather than focusing on what really happened.
“Hold up a minute, Kramer,” I cautioned. “Let’s back off a little.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “I’m not backing off an inch,” he declared. “Not one goddamn inch!”
As he said the words, Kramer reached across the counter to the place where Pete Kelsey had been sitting. Without touching the handle, he picked up a teaspoon that had been lying in Kelsey’s saucer. With a single smug look at me, he placed the spoon in a glassine bag and dropped it into his pocket.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Fingerprints,” Kramer responded with a smile. “Maybe our friend Kelsey has a police record someplace and his prints are on file with AFIS. If not, we’ll happen to have a couple handy. Just in case.”
AFIS is the state of Washington’s new Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a computerized program that’s turning previously unusable fingerprints into valuable crime-solving evidence.
“That’s not entirely legal,” I pointed out.
“Neither is homicide,” Kramer returned. “If you want to squeal about it, Detective Beaumont, go right ahead. Be my guest. Meanwhile, I’m going out to start the car.”
Kramer left, taking the pilfered spoon with him, and I didn’t try to stop him.
Kramer didn’t have to convince me. Between lifting a spoon and nailing some creep who was responsible for the cold-blooded execution of two people, there was absolutely no contest.
Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
Chapter 8
I waited until Pete Kelsey returned to the kitchen. He paused in the doorway and gave me a long, searching look. It seemed to me that he somehow sensed that things had changed between us. He was right. They had, and not for the better.
“We’re going now,” I said, handing him one of my business cards. “Call me if anything comes up that you think I should know about.”
He nodded, but he tossed the card on the countertop in an offhand, don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you fashion. “Do you need me to show you the way out?” he asked.
“No. I’m sure I can find it.” I made my way down the stairway and through the immaculate garage. I let myself out onto the street, where Kramer was sitting in the already idling Reliant.
I looked around. The crowd of eager newsies no longer jammed the neighborhood. It was too damn cold. Either they had retreated to the warmth of their vehicles parked a block below on Boston or they had abandoned the field entirely and returned to their individual newsrooms.
“Well?” Kramer asked as soon as I climbed into the car and fastened my seat belt.
“Well what?” I returned.
“What do you think? Do you agree or not?”
“You mean have you convinced me that Pete Kelsey’s our man? No, you haven’t. It’s all conjecture, Kramer, without any supportive facts. He may have lied to us about some things, but so far I can’t see that we have a smidgen of solid evidence.”
Kramer shook his massive head. “Come off it, Beaumont. Show me your stuff. Ever since I got to Homicide, everyone’s told me about you and your terrific hunches.”
“My ”terrific hunches,“ as you call them, sure as hell aren’t telling me that Pete Kelsey is a killer.”
Kramer didn’t bother to mask his disgust. “You know what’s the matter with you? You fell for all that open marriage bullshit. That doesn’t mean the poor bastard wasn’t being led around by the balls. He was. That wife of his must have been a real piece of work, but then, so’s Kelsey.
“I think he fed us that whole line of crap just to throw us off track, to make us think he knew what she was up to the whole time. My guess is, he didn’t. I’ll lay you odds he just found out his wife was two-timing him and decided to put a stop to it once and for all. Where I come from, jealousy’s still a pretty damn good motive for murder.”
We were headed back to the department. I suppose I could have argued with Detective Kramer on the way, told him that he was being premature and lectured him about jumping to conclusions, but I didn’t. Reluctantly, and based on my own observations, I was forced to admit that there was some plausibility in what Kramer was saying.
By then, Kramer was wearing on me, getting on my nerves. I’m basically an impatient person. I always have been, and sobering up hasn’t made any difference. Through my work in the AA program, I’ve been trying to learn to accept the things I can’t change and to change the things I can.
I couldn’t change Detective Kramer, couldn’t keep him from running off at the mouth, but I could and did get out of the car. I had him drop me at the garage entrance. Bypassing the elevators, I took to the stairwells and pounded my way up to the fifth floor while Kramer parked the car.
Margie, my clerk, had two messages for me. One was from Big Al telling me not to worry, that he was much better, but that he was taking a few days of personal leave to help Molly while she finished recuperating. The other was from a lady named Kendra Meadows, who identified herself as the director of Personnel for the Seattle school district.
It was after three. With the midwinter afternoon waning fast, I figured I’d better hurry and get back to Kendra Meadows before she left her office and headed home.
As soon as she answered the phone, I could tell from the low, husky timbre of her voice that Kendra Meadows was a middle-aged black woman. She was all business.
“I have a memo here from Dr. Savage telling me that I’m supposed to render whatever assistance you may find necessary, Detective Beaumont. Phone numbers, addresses, that sort of thing. I’ll be here the rest of the afternoon if you want to stop by. My directions are to stay as late as you need me to.”
Dr. Savage had pulled out all the stops on this one. Kendra Meadows was ready and willing to help, but I didn’t yet know exactly what help we would need. Not only that, we had a mound of paperwork to tend to before we called it a day. I hedged for time.