There was a pause while Watty mulled over what I had told him. “No kidding. That doesn’t sound like Ben Weston to me. What exactly did this Jackson woman say?”
“Remember, she’s a long-term friend of the family, a childhood chum of Shiree Weston’s. She claims that in the past few months Ben’s been coming and going at all hours of the day and night. She says Shiree assumed it was another woman and had talked to her about it, complained about it.”
“What do you think?” Watty asked.
“I think there are a whole lot of other possibilities besides another woman. Besides, a jealous husband might have a beef with Ben, but not with the entire rest of his family. It just doesn’t add up.”
“Maybe not,” Watty replied, “but you’d better check it out anyway and see if there’s any truth to it. If there does turn out to be another woman involved, then we’ll look for a possible connection.”
Watty paused. Through the receiver I could hear the scratching of pen on paper as he made notes. “Do you want to mention all this to Detective Kramer or should I?” he asked.
“It’ll all be in my report when I get around to writing one, but be my guest. You go right ahead and tell him if you want to,” I said. The less I had to talk to Paul Kramer, the better I liked it.
“Will you be coming back in to the department?”
“Eventually, I suppose. I had planned on getting a little more sleep first. Anything important going on that you think I should know about?”
“Everybody’s in pretty much the same shape you are-worn-out and barely upright. Several of the guys are trying to catch a little shut-eye while we wait for some of the preliminary test results. Both the Crime Lab and Doc Baker’s crews are hard at work. Kramer has a squad of officers out surveying the Weston neighborhood to see if anyone saw or heard something out of the ordinary last night.”
By rights, I should have been part of the neighborhood survey, but considering the number of people involved, I supposed dividing up the investigative territory made sense.
“I’ve scheduled the first official task force meeting tomorrow morning at eight,” Watty continued. “Don’t be late, but don’t push yourself to come back in tonight, either. We’ll all be better off if everybody gets some rest and takes a fresh run at this thing in the morning. In other words, do what you can, but don’t kill yourself.”
“Right,” I replied. “I’ll make a point not to.”
“By the way,” Watty added. “Speaking of which, we lucked out on that score, didn’t we. I’m real happy that slug didn’t have your name on it.”
“That makes two of us,” I told him, and meant it.
After Watty hung up, I lay there on my back, unable to fall back asleep and wondering what to do next. How long did discretion dictate that I stay out of the way and give Ralph Ames and company clear sailing? Were they up and dressed and out, or would I walk down the hall and stumble across something indiscreet that would embarrass us all?
But then I remembered Ralph’s totally nonjudgmental response a few months earlier at his home in Arizona when the shoe had been firmly on the other foot, when Rhonda Attwood, Ralph’s other overnight guest, had unaccountably turned up in my room at breakfast time.
Totally unflappable as usual, Ralph had fixed coffee and juiced a bunch of oranges, serving both juice and coffee without so much as a single snide editorial comment. If Ralph Ames could be that cool, that cosmopolitan, I decided, so could I. Determined to be totally blase about the whole situation, I staggered out of bed and headed for the kitchen, where I had plenty of Seattle’s Best Coffee but absolutely no tree-ripened oranges.
I banged around in the kitchen, making as much noise as possible. Despite the rattling and clattering, no one emerged from the guest room. Ralph Ames and his lady friend were evidently either dead to the world, or they had vacated the premises while I was asleep.
On the dining room table I discovered an early-afternoon city edition of The Seattle Times with its full, three-column-wide, front-page account of the tragic Weston family murders. While I waited for the coffee, I scanned through the article. There wasn’t much in the story that I didn’t already know.
Various luminaries in city government as well as prominent members of the African-American community were quoted expressing their shock, dismay, and outrage. Speculation was pretty evenly divided between those who regarded the murders as racially motivated hate crimes and those who saw in the deaths the specter of escalating gang warfare. Neither possibility did much for Seattle’s much-vaunted national reputation for livability.
The coffee still wasn’t finished when a key turned in the lock and Ralph Ames sauntered in, grinning broadly from ear to ear. He was clearly inordinately pleased with himself, and I was discreet enough not to let on that I knew the real origins of that grin. Remembering Rhonda Attwood, I offered him coffee without even so much as the smallest sarcastic remark.
“Been here long?” he asked.
“Nope. Just walked in a few minutes ago.”
“Oh,” he said. “Good. I see you found the copy of the paper I left you. I figured you’d want to see it. How’s the case going?”
“Not bad, I guess. Things are always slow at this stage of the game while we wait for results from the various labs. Detective Kramer supposedly has a bunch of detectives out canvasing the nearby neighborhood. So far as I know, nothing much has turned up. I’ll find out more once I get back down to the department.”
“You must be beat,” Ralph said. “Aren’t you going to try to sleep for a while?”
I didn’t want to tell him I’d already done that. Hurrying to the counter after the coffeepot and another cup, I hoped my face wouldn’t give me away. Lying has never been one of my long suits.
“No,” I said. “I’m in pretty good shape, all things considered. I just came home to put my feet up for a few minutes and to have some decent coffee.”
That was true as far as it went, but it was also somewhat dishonest. Next to Ron Peters, Ralph is probably my best friend, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I knew what he’d been up to at lunchtime. I’m not the type to whack somebody on the shoulder and congratulate him for getting lucky in my guest room when he thought I was safely at work. I noticed he didn’t mention it to me either. Men may have the reputation for bawdy locker room score-keeping-type talk, but in my experience we’re a whole lot more reticent about personal disclosures than women are-Emma Jackson and Shiree Weston being prime cases in point.
I stood by the counter lost in thought, staring down at the two newly filled coffee cups sitting there steaming in front of me.
“What’s going on?” Ralph asked. “Is something the matter?”
“Nothing,” I told him, bringing the cups back to the table. “Nothing important.”
The phone rang just then. The caller was none other than Detective Paul Kramer himself, sounding excited.
“Beaumont, give me that Jackson woman’s phone number, will you,” he said. “Watty told me you had it. I need to talk to her right away.”
I knew from his voice that Detective Kramer was on to something. “Why? Did you find something to corroborate her story?”
“Not exactly,” he returned, suddenly turning coy. “I just want to hear whatever it is she can tell us about him.”
Like hell he did. “What exactly did you find, Kramer?” I insisted. As the one person at Seattle PD in sole possession of Emma Jackson’s phone number, I had myself some bargaining room and I was prepared to play hard to get.
Kramer paused, pondering whether or not to let me in on his little secret horde of knowledge. When someone’s that wound up, a few seconds of silence is the best ploy in the world.
“Did you know Shiree Weston worked for the Mount Zion Federal Credit Union?” he asked.