I stood there listening, transfixed by the music, struck by the awful senselessness of it all, and then a funny thing happened. A new sense of resolve and purpose seemed to settle over me, washing away my all-nighter fatigue and filling my body with bone-hard determination. Captain Powell may have sidetracked me on to the Adam Jackson end of the investigation, but every one of us, even that worthless Kramer, were all working the same problem, searching for the same killer, and find him we would. I searched the room over but found nothing that would help locate Adam Jackson’s mother.
Motivated, ready to do something else positive, I decided to check the place where Big Al had parked to see if, by some lucky chance, he had left the car there for me when he went home. I was almost at the front door when the doorbell rang. In the meantime, the patrol officer on the couch, a guy by the name of Simmons, mumbled something to me. I opened the door, but I leaned away long enough to ask him to repeat it.
No doubt those mumbled words saved my life, because the. 44 slug that crashed into the mirrored wall directly behind me shattered the glass right at chest height. Whoever fired it hadn’t expected to miss, and at that range, chances are my bulletproof vest wouldn’t have done much good. Like Ben Weston, I, too, would have been all through listening to country music.
Stunned, I hit the floor, my ears ringing. Then, as fast as I could, I scrambled back to my feet and fumbled for my automatic while Simmons bounded over me. We both reached the door in time to see a car door open and close as someone leaped inside a waiting, dark-colored vehicle. Leaving behind a spray of gravel, the car, with headlights and taillights both doused, sped away down the still night-black street.
Simmons’s partner, a guy named Gary Deddens, had been left to guard the back door. He sprinted up behind us. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
The two of them must have arrived at the Weston house at about the same time I did, the second time around. Their car was parked a good block and a half away. While Simmons raced after it, his partner started up the street after the long-gone vehicle. I paused long enough to explain to an ashen-faced Janice what had happened, then I too darted up the sidewalk. We flagged down Simmons as he drove past. The wheels on his patrol car were back in motion before the doors closed.
“You all right, Detective Beaumont?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m fine. A little shaky, but fine.”
“You handle the radio,” he said to Deddens. “Did either of you see what kind of car it was?”
“No,” we both answered together.
“Shit!” Simmons muttered. “Neither did I.”
Within minutes of our call, all of Rainier Valley was crawling with a bunch of very spooked cops. Word was out that someone had declared open warfare on officers of the Seattle Police Department. With Ben Weston and his family dead, and after my narrow escape, we were all feeling mighty vulnerable. And mortal.
Unfortunately, nothing Simmons, his partner, or I could tell our fellow searchers was of any help. In the next hour and a half, a careful dragnet of the neighborhood turned up a few moving violations, including one DWI, but there was no trace at all of our missing gunman and his getaway car.
With Simmons still driving, we had searched as far as the western shore of Lake Washington when the sun came up over the still snowbound Cascades later on that morning. I don’t know if this happens in other parts of the world or not, but it was one of those special Washington mornings when, as the natives say, the mountains were out, their rugged profiles shining brilliantly in the early-morning sun without their usual cloak of cloud cover. It was the kind of morning when Seattle’s cross-bridge commuters get regular traffic advisories warning them to watch out for the unaccustomed glare of sun off Lake Washington. It was a morning when, shootings aside, Seattle really is one of the most livable cities on the face of the earth.
Believe me. I was happy as hell to be alive to enjoy it.
CHAPTER 6
Simmons and Deddens offered to give me a lift back downtown to the Public Safety Building, and I would have been more than happy to accept, but Watty sent a message through Dispatch that I was to return to the Weston house for a debriefing. When I got there, Detective Kramer was sitting on the front porch waiting for me, notebook in hand. He was not a happy camper.
“I was just crawling into bed for a nap when Watty called and told me to come back here and take your statement. I feel like so much dogshit.”
“Well pardon me all to hell for getting shot at,” I returned. “Remind me to schedule the next one at a more convenient time, would you, Kramer? I hate to think that I’m causing you to miss your little nappy.”
“Cut the crap, will you, Beaumont? Just tell me what happened so we can both get out of here.”
So I told him, as briefly as possible, while he took notes. No doubt I’d have to do some paper on the assault, but it seemed fair enough that someone else should have to do so as well. After all, I’m a taxpayer too, I thought, remembering, for the first time since writing it, the sizable check to the IRS that I had left in Ralph Ames’s charge.
“The crux of the question, then, is did someone plan to hit Ben Weston, or were you the target this time?” Kramer asked finally.
“I have to assume the bullet was meant for me. Why kill a dead man?”
“Maybe they didn’t know he was already dead. Who all knew you were here tonight? Anyone at home?”
“No, I have company from out of town, but at the time the call came in and I left the house, Big Al and I had no idea where we were going or when we’d be back.”
“Anybody follow you?”
“Are you kidding? Even if they were, who would notice? Do you watch the rearview mirror when you’re on your way to a crime scene?”
“Hardly ever.”
“I rest my case.”
“Have you been in any kind of a beef with someone here at the department?”
I hesitated for a fraction of a second before I answered, remembering Janice Morraine’s blurted theory that a fellow cop might have killed Ben Weston. But I couldn’t think of anyone at Seattle PD who would be that happy if J. P. Beaumont was no more.
“You mean other than you?” I returned.
Kramer glared at me. “Yeah. Who else other than me? I’d already gone home, remember?”
“I don’t know of anyone.”
“The place was crawling with reporters. I know you don’t like them. Is the feeling mutual?”
“Most likely, but I can’t think of any of them who’d have balls enough to take a shot at someone they didn’t like. Besides, the ones I know are mostly opposed to guns as a matter of principle.”
Kramer made another note. “Who all was still here when this happened?”
“Janice Morraine and the rest of her crew from the Crime Lab. And there were two officers from Patrol who were left on duty guarding the front and back doors. They’re the ones who brought me back here, Officers Simmons and Deddens.”
“And nobody got a good look at the car?”
“No. It was dark-maroon or black maybe, but I can’t be sure. It was too far away to get even a glimpse of the license.”
It was morning now. People leaving their houses on their way to school and work slowed and stared openly at the two men sitting on the steps of Ben Weston’s house-at the two men and also at the grim-looking yellow tape that had been wrapped around the outside of the yard.
Kramer got up stiffly and stretched. “I’m going to go take a look at that hole in the wall. Is the slug still in it?”
“No, Janice Morraine had one of her guys dig it out. They’re gone now, but they said they’d have it whenever anybody needed it.”
I let Kramer go by himself to examine the bullet hole. He certainly didn’t need me holding his hand while he looked at the shattered mirror and the crater in the wallboard. I was waiting for him to come back out on the porch when a beater of a BMW stopped in the street, and a tall black man got out. He started toward the gate. He stopped at the barrier created by a strand of yellow crime scene tape.