George seemed disappointed. “Are you sure you can’t use me right now?”
“No, really. I’ve got company, George.” At that, he peered in through the door as though trying to identify exactly who Rachel’s “company” might be. He made no move to leave.
“Come back around suppertime,” Rachel added firmly. “We’ll have some nice macaroni and cheese. You can help us unload.”
He nodded grudgingly. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be here at six.”
Rachel returned to the table smiling. “He’s my gentleman caller,” she explained. “He’s been hanging around here for months, ever since his wife died. I like him well enough, but only as a friend, you understand.”
It was none of my business, but I nodded anyway, just to be polite. “Look,” I said, “if you won’t give us any information regarding your sister, what about your nephew’s wife?”
“What about her? It took a lot of gumption for LeAnn to do what she did,” Rachel said. “I’m proud of her.”
“To do what?”
“To pack up those two kids and leave, just like that, without saying anything to anyone.” There was undisguised admiration in Rachel’s voice.
“She didn’t tell her mother-in-law?” I asked.
“Nope. Not anybody. Not a word.”
“Why did she do it?”
“She had to.”
There was no point in circling the question any longer.
“Did your nephew beat his wife?” I asked the question bluntly, letting the words fall heavily in the quiet room. I saw the slight hesitation before Rachel Miller raised her eyes to meet mine.
“That’s LeAnn’s business, not mine. If she wants to tell people about what all went on, that’s up to her.”
“Do you have any idea where she is?” I asked. “As I told you before, we’re obligated to notify the next of kin. If you think it’s a bad idea for us to talk to your sister, then maybe we should speak to LeAnn instead.”
That’s what I said. I left unsaid the domestic violence statistics, particularly the murder ones, that show how often an abused spouse finally hits the end of her rope and turns on her tormentor. It was more than slightly possible that LeAnn Nielsen herself would turn up among our prime suspects.
“No, I don’t know where she is,” Rachel replied. “Besides, I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”
In my book white-haired little old ladies (LOLs for short) are due a certain amount of respect, just on the basis of longevity, if nothing else, but I was fast losing patience with this one. Rachel Miller had information that would make Big Al’s and my work infinitely easier.
“Look,” I said, “we’re involved in a homicide investigation. Are you aware that deliberately withholding evidence in a case like this is a crime? It’s called obstructing justice. You could wind up going to jail.”
Without blinking, Rachel Miller looked from my face to Al’s and then back to me. “All right,” she said, nodding slowly. “If that’s the way it is, just let me put the food away. We can go as soon as I clear up the dishes and leave a note for Daisy.”
Rachel Miller got up swiftly and marched through the swinging doors into the kitchen, carrying a stack of dirty dishes with her.
“She’s calling your bluff,” Al whispered under his breath. “What are you going to do now, dummy?”
All I could do was give him a helpless shrug. “Beats me,” I said.
Ask anyone from my college fraternity. Ask anyone from the department. J. P. Beaumont never was and never will be much of a poker player. Besides, although I didn’t know it yet, Rachel Miller had me totally outclassed in the bluff, raise, and call department.
Al and I moved back to the living room couch to wait while Rachel carried dirty dishes and leftovers from the dining room into the kitchen.
While we sat there waiting for her to finish, I kept wondering how I’d paint my way back out of the obstruction-of-justice corner I was in. I envisioned Gray Panthers coming out of the woodwork to protest and make my life miserable once they got wind that I’d so much as threatened to lock her up. Not only that, I know from experience that Seattle Police Department brass listen with a very attentive ear when senior citizens start protesting. Pissing off the elderly, particularly the vocal elderly, is bad for public relations. Every reporter in Seattle would have a field day.
Several minutes passed. Several long minutes. Eventually, it registered in my brain that although water was still running in the kitchen, I was no longer hearing the accompanying clatter of rinsing plates and silverware. I got up and hurried to the kitchen with Big Al right on my heels.
The kitchen was empty. The faucet was running full blast, but Rachel Miller was long gone. She had slipped out the open back door with the noise of the water masking her movements.
We went outside, dashed up the grassy lawn to Fremont Avenue, and looked in both directions. Rachel Miller was nowhere in sight.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch!” Big Al muttered.
Those were my sentiments exactly.
CHAPTER 5
Rachel Miller got us good. Al and I had been snookered, plain and simple. Without exchanging a word, we walked back to our car, got in, and drove away. It wasn’t something either one of us wanted to discuss or write down in a report or even remember. It was the oldest trick in the book, and a couple of homicide squad veterans had no excuse for being taken in by it.
“I guess you don’t want to call Sergeant Watkins and put out an APB on the lady.” Big Al’s comment was laced with sarcasm.
“We’ll just let it pass,” I said.
“We sure as hell will,” he agreed.
If word of the incident leaked out, I knew we’d be the laughingstock of the department, enduring weeks of pointed ribbing from all the other detectives on the fifth floor of the Public Safety Building. Neither one of us was tough enough for that. No way Jose!
We drove up and down the streets of the neighborhood, trying to spot Rachel Miller, but there was no sign of her. She had vanished completely, totally, although the Buick and the U-Haul remained parked exactly where Daisy had left them. Knowing that Rachel had not only ditched us but that she’d done it on foot rubbed salt into the wound.
We stopped at the stop sign at Forty-eighth and Fremont and waited for the break in traffic. “Why do you think she took off like that?” I asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does to me,” Al grumbled.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s exactly what you’d expect from a dame kooky enough to love that stupid bird.” Al was still packing a grudge against Buddy. He wasn’t any too happy with me, either.
“So what do you want to do now?” he asked. “Try getting a line on the wife, go back to Cedar Heights and talk to the neighbors, or track down the carpet installer?”
It was an impressive list of possibilities. Multiple choice. I picked one.
“Let’s stop by the carpet company on the way back downtown. I remember seeing it down by the Fremont Bridge. It’s on our way.”
Behind us a car honked impatiently for us to move. We were blocking traffic. Al glowered at the driver in his rearview mirror, but he turned left and got back on Fremont going south.
I could remember back when the Damm Fine Carpets building used to house a fire extinguisher company, although I had forgotten the exact name. I had driven past it for years, and I remembered hearing stories that the place had originally served as a Model T Ford assembly plant.
Now, though, all trace of both Model T’s and fire extinguishers had been obliterated. The place sported a brand-new coat of brilliant yellow paint, and the company’s name, emblazoned in six-foot-tall block letters, ran the entire length of the building. The only reminder that the shell was a relic from a bygone era was the old-fashioned metal grillwork in each of the small glass windows.