Again I struggled to read the text. At last Hammer could stand it no longer. “What are you, blind? Look at the metal plate glued to the bottom of the CRT.”
I saw it and read it and felt like somebody had jabbed me in the ribs. “Property of Benjamin Weston, Sr.,” the plate said, followed by Ben’s complete address and phone number.
“So what do you think?” Hammer gloated. “Have we found the killer for you or not? You guys are always rubbing our noses in it, but this time we’ve got the drop on you. What say we go over to the Pancake Corral when we finish here and have a cup of coffee. You buy.”
“Buy nothing!” I headed for the door.
“Wait a minute,” Tom Crowe said. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To call Sergeant Watkins. He’s head of the Weston Family Task Force. He needs to know about this on the double.”
Freeman met me in the doorway. “Needs to know about what?”
I pointed. “That’s Ben Weston’s computer. It’s got an ID plate on the CRT.”
The head of IIS went over to the computer and looked for himself. “I’ll be damned,” he said under his breath. He turned around and faced Detectives Hammer and Crowe. They were grumbling back and forth about me being your basic spoilsport.
“Do you two know who I am?” he demanded. The question and the way it was asked cut through the comedy.
“Yes, sir,” Detective Crowe said respectfully. “We certainly do.”
“Good,” Freeman returned. “Now I’m going to tell you to forget it. Not just tell you to forget it, order you to forget it. Do you understand?”
The two King County detectives exchanged puzzled glances.
“There’s a whole lot more at stake here than a simple murder investigation,” Tony Freeman continued. “It is absolutely vital that no one-no one at all-knows that Detective Beaumont and I were here this morning.”
Detective Hammer looked as though he was building up to say something cute, but Freeman cut him off. “I’ve already spoken to your superior about it. He understands the seriousness of the situation. You are to say that the body was reported by person or persons unknown. I’ll get the nine-one-one operators to back you up on that for the time being. No way is word of Detective Beaumont’s or my participation in this to be leaked to anyone inside or outside your department. Is that clear?”
“You bet,” Detective Hammer returned, but his reply sounded less than halfhearted. Captain Anthony Freeman was not amused.
He moved a foot or so closer to Edwin Hammer. “You may think,” he said softly, “that as a King County police officer you are immune from an Internal Affairs officer at Seattle PD, but let me assure you, if word of Beau’s or my presence here leaks out, I will hold you both accountable for whatever happens, and I’m prepared to make it stick.”
Tony Freeman may have been SPD’s regular straight arrow, but it didn’t pay to piss him off. Detective Hammer finally got the message. He swallowed hard and took a step backward.
“Yes, sir,” he responded. “I understand completely.”
Freeman did not smile. “Good,” he said. “We’ll be going then. Come on, Beau. They’re holding the media at bay out front. I have it on good authority that once we make it to the street, someone can lead us out of here by a back way. That red car of yours is a little too distinctive.”
Moments later we were back in the Porsche and threading our way through Beaux Arts. “So that’s what you meant earlier when you told me you could be persuasive?” I asked.
Tony sighed and leaned back against the headrest, closing his eyes. “Whatever works,” he said wearily. A moment later he was sound asleep and snoring.
CHAPTER 23
Captain Freeman didn’t wake up until I pulled to a stop in front of the Public Safety Building. “My brains are scrambled,” he said. “Detective Danielson’s probably already here for our eight o’clock meeting, but I’m going to have to cancel on her. I’ve got to go home and get some sleep.”
Those were my sentiments exactly. It was somehow reassuring to realize even the resident Eagle Scout of IIS, the original iron man himself, needed sleep occasionally. I was in good company.
“You’ll be coming to the funeral, won’t you?” he asked as he climbed out of the car.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
“Good. The three of us-you, Sue Danielson, and I-will have to get together and strategize sometime later on today, but probably not until after the funeral, considering the way I feel right this minute.”
“You’re the boss,” I told him.
Tony Freeman smiled and nodded. “Thanks, Beau. It’s been a hell of a night, but you do good work. Go home and get some sleep.”
It’s a good man who can remember to compliment someone else when he’s too tired to keep himself upright. Tony Freeman’s stock was already pretty high in my book, but it went up a little more right about then.
He closed the car door and started away, but he turned and came back before I could pull away from the curb. I rolled down the window.
“Remember,” he warned, “not a word of this to anyone. No one is to know that you and I were anywhere near Sam Irwin’s house in Beaux Arts. When you hear the news that he’s dead, it had better be news to you. Understand?”
“I got the message,” I told him. “I figured it out at the same time you were telling Hammer and Crowe.”
“Good,” he said. He waved me away and hustled into the building. I arrived home right around eight o’clock, staggering into what I expected to be a quiet house. Wrong. The apartment reverberated with the clatter and rumble of electronic warfare. In the den I discovered Heather Peters and Junior Weston happily ensconced on the floor, deeply engrossed in some kind of two-player video game.
I wanted to interrupt, to tell Junior that I thought we had found at least one of the men responsible for the murders of his family members. I would have liked to be able to tell him that I was almost certain the bad man who had killed Bonnie was dead himself, but Tony Freeman had given me marching orders to the contrary. There were far too many other loose ends in the investigation for me to risk speaking out of turn and revealing IIS involvement.
Stifling my loose-lips impulse, I left the kids where they were and went looking for Ralph Ames. I found him in the kitchen, bemoaning the fact that I didn’t own a waffle iron. Someday in the far distant future I may have a kitchen that will measure up to Ralph’s expectations.
“Where’d you get the video game?” I asked, pouring myself a glass of orange juice from a pitcher of freshly squeezed that had appeared mysteriously in my formerly empty refrigerator.
Ralph shrugged. “I called Reverend Walters and asked him. When he said no problem, I sent a messenger over to his place to pick it up. It was a present to Junior from Big Al, you know. The poor kid was really upset that he couldn’t bring it along last night. As much as he’s been through the past few days, I wanted it here first thing this morning.”
Ralph Ames is the only person I know who’s a softer touch than I am, especially when it comes to little kids. “And how did you go about locating Reverend Walters?” I asked.
He grinned at me. “It’s an old Indian trick,” he told me. “I used the phone book.”
On that note, I headed for bed. “By the way,” I said, pausing in the doorway, “did Homer Walters say anything about what arrangements have been made for Junior to attend the funeral?”
“The way I understand it, the limo from the funeral home will pick up Emma Jackson first and then stop by here for Junior around noon.”
“Good. Wake me up no later than eleven so I can get ready.”
“You’re going along in the limo?”
“You bet. I’m not letting that kid out of the building without me along as a bodyguard. What about clothes for him? I didn’t think to bring along anything but the pajamas he was wearing when I picked him up.”