“Put the gun away, J. P. I told you there wouldn’t be any trouble. I told you Pete was ready to turn himself in.”
Kelsey/Madsen was looking me straight in the eye. “Will I be able to go to Marcia’s funeral?” he asked.
“I already told Max that we don’t make deals, Madsen. Now, up against the wall, feet apart and hands over your head. You’re under arrest.”
For a long moment Pete Kelsey didn’t move. He leveled his ice blue eyes at me in a steady, unblinking stare, but the working muscles across his jawline told me that my use of his real name had hit home. At last, when he dropped his eyes, his whole body seemed to sag. He started to lower his hands.
“Hands up, Madsen!” I barked again, putting real menace in it this time. “I said move it!”
He did move then, but slowly, as though he were in some kind of uncomprehending trance. As soon as he turned his back to me, I stepped behind him and propelled him toward the house with a swift shove to his shoulder. He had gotten away from me once, and I wasn’t going to allow him the slightest opportunity to do it again.
“I didn’t do it,” he said quietly, almost under his breath. Standing behind him, I was the only one who heard him speak. “No matter what you think, Detective Beaumont, I didn’t kill my wife.”
As soon as Max and Kelsey had appeared on the porch, my backup officers had abandoned their positions and converged behind me. Now two of them, their weapons drawn, sprinted up onto the porch, shoving Max aside as they did so. While one of them kept Kelsey covered, another did a quick pat-down search, finishing by cuffing Kelsey’s arms tightly behind him.
“He’s unarmed,” the pat-down officer reported.
Relieved, I nodded. “Good.”
“I told you,” Max said indignantly.
Holding Kelsey by the arm, one of the officers spun him around so the two of us stood facing each other. It’s a moment I’ve lived through a thousand times when hunter and hunted, captor and captive, come face-to-face. Maybe it’s due to the adrenaline pumping through my system at those times, but years later, although the names have long since disappeared, I can still recall those moments and those faces with absolute clarity.
Some murderers, especially repeat offenders, swagger when they’re caught, their faces haughty with contempt because they know there’s no such thing as life in prison and no such thing as life in prison and no such thing as the death penalty either, no matter what the lawbooks say. They know there are plenty of ways to slip through plea-bargaining cracks and plenty of attorneys who will help them do it. They’re sure they’ll walk away without doing any time at all, and usually they’re right.
The inadvertent ones, drivers in vehicular manslaughter cases, drunks who kill without meaning to in the course of a barroom brawl, don’t swagger and are usually scared shitless when we pick them up. The domestic violence types-people who kill their husbands and wives and kids-are often still angry when they’re arrested: angry at the victims for causing their own deaths and angry at the cops for catching them doing it.
A very few killers are grateful to have their crimes finally out in the open-a few but not most. Unlike the others, they make no protestations of their innocence because they want the nightmare to be over.
Despite his claim of innocence, what I saw on Kelsey/Madsen’s face was just that kind of relief. No fear, no bitterness, no animosity-just a profound resignation. I wondered if, after so many years of living a lie, he wasn’t grateful that the other shoe had finally dropped.
We stared at each other for some time. I was the one who spoke first, and then not to him but to the other officers.
“Read him his rights,” I said, “then take him downtown to the fifth floor so we can take his statement. Have someone call the Criminal Investigations Division down at Fort Lewis to find out what they want us to do with him. His ID will give his name as Kelsey, but his real name is Madsen, John David Madsen. For the moment the only charge against him is desertion.”
Maxwell Cole’s mouth dropped open a foot. I think he had missed it the first time I called Pete Kelsey by his real name.
“What’s this?” he demanded. “What’s going on?”
“This man is a deserter,” I said, “from the United States Army. We’re holding him for them.”
“Wait just a minute,” Max objected. “Pete’s never even been in the Army in his life. This is crazy.”
“Let it go, Max,” Kelsey said tersely, his voice almost a low growl. “Stay out of this.”
“But…”
“I said let it go,” Kelsey repeated.
Rebuffed and hurt, Maxwell Cole ducked back as though he’d been slapped. Meanwhile, Kelsey/Madsen turned to me. “How’d you find out, Detective Beaumont? Fingerprints?”
“Does it matter?”
He gave a short, harsh snort and shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose it matters at all.”
He looked back at Max, who stood to one side wringing his hands helplessly. “There is something you can do for me, Max. Go tell Erin, so she doesn’t find out about this from somebody else. Tell her I love her no matter what and not to worry.”
“Is that all you want me to do? Jesus Christ, man! Don’t you want me to get you a lawyer or something?”
“I don’t need a lawyer, Max. I don’t want a lawyer. Just go talk to Erin. Do that for me, please.”
By then the other officers were ready to lead him away, and Madsen went without protest. Max stood on the porch watching them go, shaking his head in stunned silence. He didn’t speak until the last of the three cars had disappeared around the curve in the street.
“How come you called Pete by another name?” he asked at last.
Considering the situation, I figured I owed Max at least a partial explanation.
“Because John David Madsen is his real name, Max. Pete Kelsey is a fraud, a phony. He’s lived under an assumed name for as long as you’ve known him.”
“No,” Max said, and then, a little later, “Why would he do a thing like that?”
“Who knows?”
“But he’s my best friend,” Max objected, as though he hadn’t heard me. “Why would he pretend to be someone he wasn’t?”
“I intend to find that out, Max, and when I do, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“I guess I’d better do like he said and go tell Erin.”
“First I’m going to need a statement from you.”
“About what?”
“About last night. About what happened when he came here.”
Max nodded. “All right then, but let’s go inside before I catch pneumonia.”
We went into the house and he led the way into the furniture-crowded living room where we had sat the day before. I took out my notebook.
“What time did he get here?”
“I don’t know. Seven-thirty, eight. I don’t know for sure. I was reading and not paying any attention.”
“And how did he get here?”
Max shrugged his shoulders. “I thought he came by car, but I didn’t see it outside on the street anyplace this morning, and it’s not there now. All I can tell you is that it was dark when he turned up on the doorstep, and I let him in.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked if he could stay over. He said Erin was staying with her grandparents, but that the phone calls and the reporters were driving him crazy. He had to get away.”
“What did you do?”
“Got drunk. Sat around and talked and got drunk. Not roaring, just enough to dull the pain a little.”
Some pains take more dulling than others. I know that myself from firsthand experience. “What did you talk about?” I asked.
“Mostly Marcia,” Max answered. “Marcia and Erin. That’s all he wanted to talk about, his family, especially the old days when they first got married and they were so happy together. Pete talked. All I did was listen.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing really. Nothing and everything. I didn’t know until last night, though, that they must have been having lots worse troubles than either one of them let on. He said that before she died, he knew he was losing her. He had worried about what kind of effect a breakup would have had on Erin-he’s always been more concerned about Erin than himself.”