Injustice for All Read online

  J.A. JANCE

  INJUSTICE FOR ALL

  To Norman and Evie,

  from their “only” child

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  There's nothing like a woman's scream…

  CHAPTER 2

  Deputy Jake Pomeroy arrived about seven.

  CHAPTER 3

  Huggins had barely asked his first question…

  CHAPTER 4

  Once Ginger regained her composure,…

  CHAPTER 5

  Smitty's partner from the Washington State…

  CHAPTER 6

  I knocked. “Who is it?” Ginger called.

  CHAPTER 7

  I spent some time looking for a delicate…

  CHAPTER 8

  The telephone jarred me awake at seven.

  CHAPTER 9

  The fastest way out of the building was…

  CHAPTER 10

  I called Ralph Ames, my attorney in Phoenix.

  CHAPTER 11

  We took a meandering route back to…

  CHAPTER 12

  They found the Porsche at seven Sunday…

  CHAPTER 13

  Peters stopped at the front desk and…

  CHAPTER 14

  When I woke up, cold sober, at two…

  CHAPTER 15

  Hal Huggins was in a foul mood when…

  CHAPTER 16

  Hal marched into Ernie's Garage looking…

  CHAPTER 17

  The State of Washington is divided…

  CHAPTER 18

  I drove the forty miles into Pasco thinking…

  CHAPTER 19

  A sharp rap on the door jarred me awake.

  CHAPTER 20

  I slept. I don't know how, but I did.

  CHAPTER 21

  We did enjoy the press conference.

  CHAPTER 22

  It was pouring rain the morning of Ginger…

  CHAPTER 23

  The Watkins mansion sits atop Capitol Hill…

  CHAPTER 24

  Friday morning. My last day of vacation,…

  CHAPTER 25

  Ernie Rogers called at six forty-five Saturday…

  CHAPTER 26

  I could hardly wait to get home.

  CHAPTER 27

  Anyone who's ever been on vacation…

  CHAPTER 28

  I woke up Tuesday morning, tired…

  CHAPTER 29

  My back was broken when I woke up.

  CHAPTER 30

  I felt like a goddamned rubber band.

  CHAPTER 31

  Once more I had a face full of shaving…

  CHAPTER 32

  I was sick as I walked through the…

  CHAPTER 33

  Hal Huggins didn't answer either…

  CHAPTER 34

  The Porsche loves to get on the…

  CHAPTER 35

  Monday morning I woke up early…

  CHAPTER 36

  When I awakened again, my fingers…

  CHAPTER 37

  Afterwards, there were conflicting…

  CHAPTER 38

  We went to Peters' house in Kirkland…

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BOOKS BY J. A. JANCE

  RESOUNDING PRAISE

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  CHAPTER

  1

  There's nothing like a woman's scream to bring a man bolt upright in bed. I had been taking a late-afternoon nap in my room when the sound cut through the stormy autumn twilight like a knife.

  I threw open the door of my cabin. The woman screamed again, the sound keening up from the narrow patch of beach below the terrace at Rosario Resort. A steep path dropped from my cabin to the beach. I scrambled down it to the water's edge. There I spotted a woman struggling to drag a man's inert form out of the lapping sea.

  She wasn't screaming now. Her face was grimly set as she wrestled the dead weight of the man's body. I hurried to help her, grasping him under the arms and pulling him ashore. Dropping to his side, I felt for a pulse. There was none.

  He was a man in his mid to late fifties wearing expensive cowboy boots and a checkered cowboy shirt. His belt buckle bore the initials LSL. A deep gash split his forehead.

  The woman knelt beside me anxiously, hopefully. When I looked at her and shook my head, her face contorted with grief. She sank to the wet sand beside me. “Can't you do something?” she sobbed.

  Again I shook my head. I've worked homicide too many years not to know when it's too late. Footsteps pounded down the steps behind us as people in the bar and dining room hurried to see what had happened. Barney, the bartender, was the first person to reach us.

  “Dead?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Get those people out of here, every last one of them. And call the sheriff.”

  With unquestioning obedience Barney bounded up the steps and herded the onlookers back to the terrace some twenty-five feet above us. Beside me the woman's sobs continued unabated. It was a chilly autumn evening to begin with, and we were both soaked to the skin. Gently I took her arm, lifting her away from the lifeless body.

  “Come on,” I said. “You've got to get out of those wet clothes.” She allowed me to pull her to her feet. “Is this your husband?”

  She shook her head. “No, a friend.”

  “Are you staying here at the hotel?” She nodded. “Where's your room?”

  “Up by the tennis courts.”

  She was shaking violently. The tennis courts and her room were a good quarter of a mile away. My cabin was just at the top of the path. “You can dry off and warm up in my room. The sheriff will need to talk to you when he gets here.”

  Like a dazed but pliant child, she followed me as I half led, half carried her up the path. By the time we reached my room, her teeth chattered convulsively. It could have been cold or shock or a little of both. I pulled her into the bathroom and turned on the water in the shower. “Get out of those wet things,” I ordered. “I'll send someone to get you some clothes.”

  Kneeling in front of her, I fumbled with the sodden laces of her tennis shoes with my own numbed fingers. “What's your name?” I asked.

  “Gi…Ginger,” she stammered through chattering teeth.

  “Ginger what?”

  “Wa…Watkins.”

  I stood up. Her arms hung limply at her sides. “Can you undress, or do you need help?”

  Clumsily she battled a button on her blouse, finally unfastening it. Leaving her on her own, I let myself out of the bathroom. “I'll be outside if you need anything.”

  Alone in the room, I stripped off my own soaked clothing and tossed the soggy bundle on a chair near the bed. I pulled on a shirt, a sweater, and two pair of socks before I picked up the phone and dialed the desk clerk. “This is Beaumont in Room Thirteen,” I said. “Did someone call the sheriff?”

  “Yes we did, Mr. Beaumont. The deputy's on his way.”

  “Have someone stay down on the beach with the body until he gets here. Make sure nothing is moved or disturbed. The woman who found him is here in my room. She was freezing. She's taking a hot shower. Her name is Watkins. Can you send someone to her room for dry clothes? Does she have a husband?”

  “There's no Mr. Watkins registered, Mr. Beaumont, but I'll send someone after the clothes right away.”

  “She'll need the works, underwear and all.”

  “I'll take care of it as soon as I can.”

  “Good,” I replied. “And when the deputy comes, be sure he knows she's here with me. Since she's the one who found the body, he'll want to talk to her.”

  The desk clerk himself brought the clothes, handing them to me apologetically. His name-tag labeled him Fred. “I hope I have everythin
g,” he said.

  I opened the bathroom door wide enough to slip them inside onto the floor before turning back to Fred. “The deputy isn't here yet?”

  “There's an accident down by the ferry dock. He can't come until he finishes with that.”

  “Did the dispatcher call for a detective from Friday Harbor?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I guess, but I don't know for sure. You seem to know about this kind of thing, Mr. Beaumont.”

  I ought to. I've worked homicide in Seattle for the better part of twenty years.

  Fred moved uncertainly toward the door. “I'd better be getting back.”

  “Who was he?” I asked. Fred looked blank. “The dead man,” I persisted.

  “Oh,” he replied. “His name was Sig Larson. He was here with the parole board.”

  “The parole board!” Cops don't like parole boards. Cops and parole boards work opposite sides of the street. Parole boards let creeps go faster than cops can lock them up. “What's the parole board doing here?”

  Fred shrugged. “They came for a three-day workshop. They'll probably cancel now.”

  I glanced toward the bathroom door where the rush of the shower had ceased. “And her?” I asked.

  “She's a member too, as far as I know. Her reservation was made along with all the rest.”

  “But her husband isn't here?”

  “No, she's by herself.”

  “What about Larson?” Asking questions is a conditioned response in a detective. I asked the question, ignoring that I was more than a hundred miles outside my Seattle jurisdiction. Someone was dead. Who, How, and Why were questions someone needed to ask. It might as well be me.

  “His wife is due in one of tonight's ferries. I don't know which one. She isn't here yet.”

  I went to the bathroom door and tapped lightly. “I'm going to order a couple of drinks from Room Service. Would you like something?”

  “Coffee,” was the reply. “Black.”

  I turned back to Fred. “Did you hear that?”

  He nodded.

  “Send up a pot of coffee for her and two McNaughton's and water for me. Barney knows how I like them.”

  “Will do,” the clerk replied, slipping from the room into the deepening darkness.

  The door reopened. “I almost forgot. She's supposed to call Homer in Seattle. It's urgent. He said she knew the number.”

  Fred shut the door again, disappearing for good this time. Still cold, I turned up the thermostat in the room, mulling the turn of events. The lady showering in my bathroom was a married member of the Washington State Parole Board. The dead man on the beach was married too, but not to her, although it was evident there was some connection.

  Room Service was on the ball. Coffee and drinks arrived before the bathroom door opened. Ginger Watkins, wearing a pale green dress, stepped barefoot into my room, a huge bath-towel turban wound around her head. She was fairly tall, five-eight or five-nine, with a slender figure, fine bones, and a flawlessly fair complexion. Her eyes were vivid uncut emeralds.

  Coming up from the beach, I hadn't noticed she was beautiful. Standing across the room from me, swathed in the gentle light of the dressing room behind her, she took my breath away.

  She returned my unabashed stare, and I looked away, embarrassed. “Better?” I managed.

  “Yes, but I'm still cold.”

  I rummaged through the closet and brought out a tweed jacket which I put over her shoulders. I handed her a cup and saucer. “Here's your coffee.”

  She slipped into one of the two chairs at the table. “I left my wet clothes on the floor,” she said.

  I pointed to the chair. “There mine are.” I poured more coffee. Her hands trembled as she raised the cup to her lips.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Beaumont,” I answered. “J.P. Beaumont. My friends call me Beau.”

  “And I'm Ginger Watkins.”

  “You told me. The desk clerk said the man's name was Larson. You knew him?”

  She nodded somberly, her eyes filling with tears. “Sig,” she murmured, her throat working to stifle a sob.

  “A friend of yours?”

  She nodded again.

  “How did you happen to find him? It wasn't much of a day for a walk on the beach.”

  “We planned to meet down there to talk, after the meeting. I was late. Darrell called. I didn't get there until forty-five minutes after I was supposed to.”

  “Who's Darrell?” I asked.

  She gave me a funny look, as though I had asked a stupid question. “My husband,” she answered.

  The name sounded familiar, but I didn't put it together right then. I let it go. “Why meet him there? Why not in the lobby or the bar?”

  “I told you, we needed to talk.”

  She set her coffee cup down, got up, and walked away from the table, her arms crossed, her body language closed.

  “What about?”

  “It was personal,” she replied.

  That's not a good answer at the beginning of an inquiry into death under unusual circumstances. Accidental drownings in October are unusual. My gut said murder, and murder is very personal. The ties between killer and victim are often of the most intimate kind. “How personal?”

  She turned on me suddenly. “You don't have any right to ask me a question like that.”

  “Someone's going to ask it, sooner or later.”

  She met my gaze for a long moment before she wavered. “Sig had some business dealings with my family. That's why I needed to talk to him.”

  “Privately?” I asked. She nodded. “Do you know his wife?”

  Her mouth tightened. Her fingers closed tightly on her upper arms. “Yes. I know her.”

  “What's she like?”

  “Mona's a calculating bitch.” It was a simple statement spoken with a singular amount of venom.

  “I take it you're not friends.”

  “Hardly.” She walked back over to the table and sat down opposite me. “Mona thought Sig and I were having an affair.”

  “Were you?”

  She looked at me, her eyes clear and steady in the glow of the light. “No,” she said.

  Irate husbands and wives don't always verify their spouses' indiscretions before they rub out a presumed lover. “Is Mona the jealous type? Or Darrell?”

  She laughed. “Darrell? Are you kidding? He could care less. Mona called him with the story, and he was afraid it would hit the papers and screw up his campaign.”

  Suddenly the names shifted into focus. Darrell Watkins, candidate for lieutenant governor. Boy Wonder tackling the longtime incumbent. I whistled. “You mean the Darrell Watkins?”

  Ginger Watkins peered at me across a cup of coffee. “One and the same,” she said softly. “The sonofabitch.”

  It was no wonder I forgot to give her the message that someone had called.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Deputy Jake Pomeroy arrived about seven. He made a very poor first impression. He was a fat-faced, pimpled kid who looked like he had stepped out of his high school graduation picture into a rumpled deputy sheriff's uniform. Until the detective arrived from Friday Harbor, Deputy Pomeroy was in charge. The deputy considered Sig Larson's death to be the crime of the century on Orcas Island.

  He was trolling for suspects. He tossed his first hook in my direction. “Your name's Beaumont, is that correct?” I nodded. “What do you do?”

  “Homicide detective. Seattle P.D.” I handed him my ID.

  He gave me a shrewd, appraising look. “I understand you moved the body. Is that also correct?”

  “Yes.”

  His look became a contemptuous sneer. “Surely you know better than that.”

  I wanted to slug the officious bastard, but I answered evenly. “We thought he might still be alive.”

  “When you say ‘we,’ you mean you and Mrs. Watkins?”

  “She found him. I heard her scream.”

  “And what tim
e was that?” he asked, addressing Ginger.

  “A quarter to six,” she replied. “I was late.”

  “Late for what?”

  “I was supposed to meet Sig there. At five.”

  The deputy tapped his front teeth with the eraser of his pencil and eyed her speculatively. “Why?”

  “To talk.”

  His look narrowed. “Wasn't it cold down by the water?”

  “We wanted to talk privately.”

  Pomeroy said nothing as he made a note. “How would you describe your relationship with Mr. Larson?”

  “Friends.”

  “That's all?”

  “That's all.”

  “How long have you known Mr. Beaumont here?”

  “We just met. Down on the beach.”

  She was in my room, wearing my robe, her hair wet from my shower, with my bath towel wrapped around her head. She was also barefoot, because the desk clerk had forgotten to bring her shoes. Jake Pomeroy didn't believe for one minute we were recent acquaintances.

  I attempted what must have sounded like a lame explanation. “We were freezing. I was afraid she'd go into shock. Her own room is way up the hill.”

  Jake gave Ginger an overt leer. “You're sure the two of you never met before this afternoon?”

  “I'm sure!” Ginger snapped, a tiny flush marking her delicate cheekbone.

  “You did say ‘Mrs. Watkins,’ isn't that right?” She nodded. “But your husband isn't here with you?” He recast his hook.

  “I'm here on parole board business. So was Sig.” She was rapidly losing patience.

  “Was your husband also a friend of Mr. Larson's?”

  The emerald in her eyes gleamed hard and brittle. “They had some business dealings, that's all.”

  “We'll check this out, of course,” he said.