That got Kramer’s attention about the same way a red flag grabs a maddened bull. “I don’t think anything of the kind, and don’t you go leaking one word of it. Crimes have been committed, Detective Beaumont. Murders to be exact. That already takes this case well beyond the scope of the guys upstairs. I don’t want one word of this to go to the Double I’s,” he said. “This is first and foremost a homicide investigation. Understand?”
I understood all right. As per usual, Detective Kramer wanted to play with all the marbles again, and he didn’t want any interference and/or help from anyone else. Regardless of field of endeavor, that’s the way it is with fast-rising stars. They can’t afford to share the limelight. They’re also scarce as hens’ teeth when it comes time to take responsibility for something that goes wrong.
“You do whatever you want to, Kramer,” I told him, “but if I were you, I think I’d talk this over with Watty before making too many unilateral decisions. He’s the one who’s really in charge of the task force, you know. He should be consulted.”
Kramer stopped loading files into the cardboard box. “You do your job and I’ll do mine, Beaumont. Incidentally, I haven’t seen any reports on the Adam Jackson end of the investigation. If I were you, I wouldn’t show up at that meeting tomorrow morning empty-handed. That would be a real shame.”
So the battle lines were drawn. I headed for my own cubicle with my jaws clenched as well as my fists. Paul Kramer has the unerring capacity for bringing out the very worst in me.
Back at my desk, I dialed my voice-mail code and had a message to call Big Al, but when I returned the call Molly said he wasn’t home. Just the way she said it sounded funny, as though the words didn’t quite ring true.
“Tell him I called,” I told her. “I’m here at the office working on paper. I’m due to be home around six. If he misses me here, he can try there.”
I started in on the reports, but I kept nodding off. Twice I fell asleep with the pen on the paper and had to start over again to get rid of the stray line of ink that trailed cornerwise across the bottom half of the page. I was out like a light, drooling, with my chin resting on my chest and probably even snoring when the phone woke me up.
“The killer was wearing gloves, yellow rubber gloves,” Big Al announced without preamble. “Junior didn’t remember that until just a little while ago. I thought you should know. It’s got to be somebody in the AFIS files, somebody we could find for sure if we just had a set of prints. Otherwise, why screw around with gloves?”
The Automated Fingerprint Identification System is a new, computerized system that can nail crooks to the wall as long as there’s enough money in the budget to feed the file prints as well as the requests for matchups into the system. Big Al almost got me. I was so struck by the presence of gloves on the killer’s hands that it took me a minute to wonder how he happened to be in possession of that stray bit of information.
“Hold on. You say Junior remembered that a little while ago? That means you’ve been over to his grandfather’s house talking to him?”
Big Al sounded offended. “Why shouldn’t I go there? I’m a friend of the family, remember? I can talk to Junior Weston any damned time I want to, and nobody’s going to tell me I can’t.”
“But how’d you get permission? I got the distinct impression this morning that Harmon Weston isn’t exactly wild about cops. Are you telling me he actually let you in to talk to the kid?”
There was a slight pause. “Well, maybe he didn’t,” Big Al admitted. “Not exactly. The old man was sound asleep, taking a nap. When I showed up at the door, Junior let me in. Why wouldn’t he? He knows me. Besides, I had a Nintendo along for him. I figured he’d be better off with one of those instead of a potful of flowers.”
“Wait a minute, you went over there while the grandfather was asleep, essentially broke into the house, gave Junior a game, talked to him, and the old man was never any wiser?”
“I didn’t break in. Junior let me in,” Big Al insisted. “I just wanted to visit with him for a little while to see if there was anything else he remembered. And there was. Like I told you, the gloves.”
A dozen alarm bells went off in my head. “Hell with the gloves, Al! Forget about them. Junior’s a witness for Christ’s sake. He actually saw Bonnie’s killer. If you got in and out that easily, so could somebody else!”
For a moment the phone was so quiet I was afraid it had gone dead. “Al, are you there?”
“I’m here,” he said, “and I get your drift. If the killer bothered to read this afternoon’s newspaper, he knows for sure that he screwed up and missed one kid who is also the only living eyewitness. Shit! They could get to him in a minute. What the hell are we going to do?”
Just as doctors don’t practice medicine on their own family members, police officers aren’t allowed to work on cases that come too close to them personally. They lose their professional detachment, take unnecessary risks.
“You stay out of it, Al. If Watty finds out you’ve been within a mile of Junior Weston, your tail will be in a gate for sure. Tell me, would the grandfather hold still for protective custody or a police guard?”
“Not likely. Old man Weston hates cops-all cops-his own son included.”
“Then I’d better come up with some better idea.”
“Like what? We’d best get on the stick. It’ll be dark soon.”
“Goddamnit, Lindstrom, you hardheaded lug. I told you we aren’t doing a thing. You stay the hell out of it, you hear?”
For an answer, he banged the receiver down in my ear. I hung up too and sat there staring at the phone trying to imagine a solution. Who could I call in to deal with Harmon Weston? From what Al Lindstrom had told me, I knew instinctively that I could haul the mayor or the police chief himself into the melee, and it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good.
What I needed was a higher authority, an ultimate authority. When the answer came to me, it was like a bolt out of the blue. It even made me smile. I grabbed the nearest phone book and looked up the number of the Mount Zion Baptist Church. Reverend Homer Walters himself didn’t answer the phone, but I was put through to him with only a minimal delay.
“This is Detective Beaumont,” I said. “We met briefly earlier this afternoon at Dr. Jackson’s place.”
“Yes, Detective Beaumont. I remember. What can I do for you? I hope you’re not calling to ask me to change the funeral time.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Nothing like that. I was actually calling to ask for your help. I’m concerned for the safety of Junior Weston, especially since he qualifies as an eyewitness.”
Briefly I went on to explain what had happened earlier that afternoon, how Big Al had come and gone from Harmon Weston’s place without the old man ever hearing a thing. If I expected my tattling to be news to Reverend Walters, I was wrong.
“That’s true,” Reverend Walters said when I finished. “Harmon Weston sleeps like a rock, and that includes sleeping in church. If I happen to run on too long of a Sunday morning, he turns off his hearing aid and doesn’t hear a thing. Sometimes one of the deacons has to go back and wake him up after the service is over. I can see we’re going to have to do something about this.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Bring Junior over to our house, of course,” Reverend Walters said decisively. “And we’ll bring that new Nintendo game along as well. Francine and I can look after him with no trouble, but he’ll need games and things to help occupy his time.”
When I finally came back home to Belltown Terrace at five forty-five, my tail feathers were dragging, but I was feeling a real sense of accomplishment. Through my intervention, Homer Walters had picked Junior up and taken him, along with his new teddy bear, to the Walterses’ gracious home on the back side of Beacon Hill. I stopped by briefly to check on the boy and found him deeply engrossed in a game called Super Mario Brothers, whatever that is. His Teddy Bear Patrol teddy bear sat on the couch nearby, well within safe touching distance.