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“Please,” I said.

  Deanna ended up giving me three names, addresses, and phone numbers: Downlink, San Diego, California; Bio-Dart Technologies, Pasadena, California; Holman-Smith Industries, City of Industry, California. It was almost five o’clock by then, but I figured even if the switchboards were closed, I’d probably still connect with someone.

  I dialed the first number. After two rings, the distinctive disconnect sound came through the receiver, followed by a recorded message. “The number you have reached is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again. If you feel you have reached this number in error, please hang up and dial the operator.”

  My first thought was that maybe the company had just moved, but a check with the operator came up empty. Mentally, I crossed Downlink off the list. I tried the number listed for Bio-Dart. This time, a little kid answered. Figuring I had somehow misdialed and rather than trying to explain, I hung up and redialed with the same result. This time, though, the phone was wrested away from the child by a woman.

  “Who is this?” she demanded.

  “I’m looking for a company named Bio-Dart,” I told her, and then read off the number Deanna Compton had given me. “They probably do some kind of bioengineering.”

  “That’s my number, mister,” the woman responded. “But there’s nobody here but my son and me. The only kind of bioengineering we do here is an occasional batch of chocolate chip cookies.”

  “There must be some mistake,” I said. “Please excuse the ring.”

  The number for Holman-Smith turned out to be a disconnect as well. In other words, as near as I could tell, not one of those three companies existed at the moment. I was beginning to wonder if they ever had. Most likely, the Harvard MBA would turn out to be equally bogus, but checking on that would have to wait until morning.

  When an investigation runs into an unexpected blank wall, that’s the time for partners. Sometimes, all it takes is a brainstorming session over a cup or two of coffee to figure out a way to get back on track, but Sue Danielson was stuck in Cincinnati with a bad case of chicken pox. That meant brainstorming with her was out, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to try mulling things over with Paul Kramer. When it comes to the free-flowing exchange of ideas, Detective Kramer is definitely not my type.

  What I did do finally was pick up the phone and call Audrey Cummings at the medical examiner’s office up in Harborview Hospital. “Make this quick, Beaumont,” she said. “I was supposed to start Don Wolf’s autopsy half an hour ago.”

  “Did you print him?”

  “No. We could, but don’t usually do that unless there’s a question of identification.”

  “There might be in this case.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that Bill Whitten misidentified the body?” Audrey asked. “It would be nice to know exactly who’s dead and who isn’t.”

  “What I’m saying is that the person Bill Whitten thinks of as Don Wolf may have been someone else all along.” As briefly as possible, I went on to explain the difficulties I’d encountered in trying to locate possible next of kin. Then I enumerated the phony employment and educational references I had blundered into along the way. I must have made a fairly good case of it. When I finished, Audrey capitulated.

  “All right, all right,” she agreed. “We’ll print him, then. But you won’t have either prints or autopsy results before noon tomorrow at the earliest. If you have something for me on the woman by then, maybe we can make a trade—prints on him in exchange for a positive I.D. on her?”

  “It’s a deal,” I told her, although it didn’t seem very likely that I would meet that noontime deadline, not at the rate I was going.

  It was long after five when I finally gave up on the first item of my TO DO list and took an initial crack at number two. If you believe what passes for homicide cops on television, this job entails nothing more than car chases and pitched gun battles. On a day-to-day basis, I spend far more time with a telephone glued to my ear than with a weapon in my hand.

  My first call on that score was to Alpha-Cyte, the La Jolla biotechnology company Deanna Compton had told me had employed Lizbeth Wolf. And because I was calling so late in the afternoon, my efforts met with exactly what they deserved—an unguided trip through a voice-mail jungle.

  “Alpha-Cyte’s office hours are nine to five, Monday through Friday,” the recorded voice told me. “If you know the extension of the person to whom you wish to speak, please dial that number now; otherwise, stay on the line for more options.”

  Voice-mail options never include quite what you want, especially if you don’t know exactly who it is you need to speak to or what his or her extension number might be. The last choice was to leave a message and someone would get back to me.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, and hung up. “It’s time to send out for reinforcements.”

  With the help of a directory assistance operator, thirty seconds later I was on the phone with Captain Wayne Kilpatrick, a homicide supervisor down in La Jolla, California.

  “What can I do for you, Detective Beaumont?” he asked, once I had identified myself.

  “I’m working on a case up here in Seattle,” I told him. “Two of them, actually. It’s possible both victims may be former residents of La Jolla. I’m trying to verify I.D.s and do next-of-kin notifications, and I’m running into walls.”

  “Maybe you’d better fill me in on the details.”

  That didn’t take long, because it turned out I didn’t know much. “I’ll get someone on it right away,” Kilpatrick said when I finished. “I’ll check with Dispatch to see if there’s an emergency number on record for Alpha-Cyte. And we’ll check out that home address you gave me as well. I’ll have one of my officers get back to you ASAP. Give me your number.”

  Instead of one number, I gave him the full set—home, office, and cell phone. “Thanks for the help,” I said.

  “Whaddya expect?” Captain Kilpatrick returned. “It’s our job.”

  “One more thing,” I added. “Do you have access to any old telephone books?”

  “How old?” he asked.

  “Last year’s,” I said. “Maybe even the year prior to that. I’m looking for the last place Don Wolf listed as a place of employment before taking the job in Seattle.”

  “You’re in luck there,” Kilpatrick told me. “Last year’s phone book is the only one I have. Somebody stole my new one.”

  “Look up a company called Downlink,” I told him.

  “It’s not here,” Kilpatrick said a few moments later. “How could he give it as a place of employment if it doesn’t exist? Sort of makes you wonder what he was up to, doesn’t it.”

  “It does,” I muttered, putting down the phone. “Indeed it does.”

  Returning to my TO DO list, I placed a check mark beside number two before turning my attention to number three: Find Latty.

  In that regard, the greatest possibility of success lay with the cab driver. In the best of all possible worlds, Don Wolf would have called Farwest Cab instead of Yellow. Years ago, I was involved in a case where a Farwest cabby was murdered. What initially looked like a straightforward robbery gone awry actually turned out to be a complicated insurance plot staged by the man’s estranged wife and her boyfriend. I was the one who cracked the case and sent both the wife and boyfriend to the slammer. Whenever I need Farwest info, I can always get it—fast and without any hassle.

  Back in my Fuller Brush days when I was working my way through school, I learned the value of third-party referrals. It was always easier to sell brushes to someone if a neighbor up the street called ahead to say I was coming. Naturally, I called Farwest first.

  “Hey, J.P.,” said Wally, one of Farwest’s old-hand dispatchers. “Long time no see, especially now that you don’t need your butt hauled out of bars on a regular basis. How long you been off the sauce?”

  “Two years and a little bit.”

  “Good for you. I just passed five. Still going to meetings?”r />
  “Some,” I said, although the correct answer probably should have been “hardly any.”

  “What can I do you for?” Wally asked.

  “I need some help with a Yellow.”

  “Either you need your vision checked or you’re screwing up the alphabet. Farwest is in the F’s, not the Y’s,” Wally told me. “And our cabs are green, not yellow.”

  After I explained the situation, there was a pause during which Wally sent out several cabs. “You know, J.P.,” he said a little testily, “there are ways to get at those customer logs through official channels.”

  “I’m aware of that,” I returned, “but all those channels take time. And mountains of paperwork.”

  “You can say that again,” Wally sighed. “So all right. I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not making any promises. Some of those Yellow guys are jerks. How can I get back in touch with you?”

  I gave him my numbers. Then, smiling to myself, I replaced the receiver in its cradle and put a check mark beside number three. I was definitely making progress. For number four, I called upstairs. Ron Peters answered his own phone.

  “Are you still here?”

  “No,” he answered. “I’ve mastered the art of being in two places at once. What do you want?”

  “To talk to you. Are you on your way out the door right this minute?”

  “I should be, but I’m not. Come on up. I need to talk to you, too.”

  One would think that in the natural order of police hierarchy, the chief’s office would be the undisputed departmental sanctum sanctorum. But at Seattle P.D., the chief’s office has an open door compared to the Internal Investigations Section. I.I.S., on the eleventh floor, is ruled by the iron hand and unwavering Eagle Scout mentality of one Captain Anthony Freeman. In the world of I.I.S., security is paramount. Even after hours, just to drop by and visit with Ron Peters for a couple of minutes, I had to sign in and out at the reception desk.

  Somehow, despite perennial budget tightening, Captain Freeman manages to keep I.I.S. looking more like reasonably well appointed corporate offices than the jumbled mishmash of aging office furnishings that exists in every other department of Seattle P.D. Ron Peters’ office didn’t measure up in grandeur or view to Captain Freeman’s, but it was a damn sight better than my crowded cubicle on the fifth floor.

  “What’s up?” Ron asked, wheeling back to his desk after letting me into the room.

  “Tell me where you got your Chair Topper,” I said.

  Ron grinned at me. “What’s the matter,” he quipped. “Are your heel spurs acting up so much that you’re headed for a chair? Amy tells me surgery can do wonders for those these days.”

  “It’s not for me,” I said. “It’s the case I’m working on—two related cases, as a matter of fact. Each one comes complete with a mysterious wheelchair-bound female witness who drives around in an elderly Crown Victoria with a Chair Topper on it that looks a whole lot like yours.”

  “Cool,” Ron said. “No telling what people in chairs are up to these days. If the lady in question bought her Chair Topper locally, you can pretty well figure it came from Rich’s Northwest Mobility. It’s up in Snohomish County, on Maltby Road.”

  To people who live in the Denny Regrade, words like Snohomish or Maltby Road are enough to give you heartburn. Those hard-to-place place names denote exurbs, not suburbs. Foolhardy city dwellers who venture out in search of them would be wise to arm themselves with a current copy of The Thomas Guide.

  “I assume Rich is the owner, then?” I asked, making a quick notation in my notebook.

  Ron shook his head. “Rich is long gone. He started the place as a customizing joint for hot rods. A young couple named Eddie and Amanda bought Rich out years ago. After a while, they ended up going straight, as they put it. They’re out of hot rods completely. They still do customizing, all right, but now it’s strictly to create handicapped-accessible vehicles.”

  “Would they talk to me?” I asked.

  “Who, Eddie and Amanda? Of course they would. I’ll call ahead and let them know you’ll be stopping by. When?”

  “Tomorrow sometime,” I said. “I’m sure as hell not going to fight my way over there now in the middle of rush-hour traffic.”

  “Wise decision,” Ron agreed. “I’ll call them first thing in the morning. Anything else?”

  “Not right now.” I stood up to leave, but Ron motioned me back into my chair. His face grew suddenly somber.

  “Have you heard from Roz yet…from Sister Constance, I mean?” he asked.

  “Sister Constance!” I said. “Why would I be hearing from your ex-wife?”

  “You probably won’t hear from her directly,” Ron said, “but you’ll be hearing from someone. She’s coming after us demanding full custody. She’s charging Amy and me with willful child neglect.”

  “Child neglect!” I exclaimed. “You and Amy? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Ron shook his head sadly. “I’m not kidding, Beau. I only wish I were.”

  Nine

  Half an hour later, I skulked back down to my fifth-floor cubicle. I had been feeling pretty cocky when I checked off Find Latty. I wasn’t nearly as chipper when I put the little check mark next to number four, Find Wheelchair Lady. Somehow, the possibility that Ron and Amy Peters might lose permanent custody of Heather and Tracy had taken the blush right off my little investigatory rose.

  I studied the remaining items on my list. There wasn’t anything on it that I couldn’t do at home. The big-screened TV—useful for reviewing the tapes and also for watching the news if I managed to make it all the way to ten o’clock—was right there in my den. And as for working on reports, including the almost completed ones the computer had eaten, that could be done on my laptop—assuming I could get the damned thing running again—while sitting in my very own recliner.

  Gathering things into a wad, I was about to switch off the overhead light when Detective Kramer stuck his head in the doorway. “There you are,” he said, “I thought you were still here.”

  Caught, I thought.

  “With any luck, I wouldn’t have been,” I told him cheerfully. “What’s up? If you’re going to brief me on what you and Arnold found out this afternoon, couldn’t it wait until morning? I’m beat.”

  “One of your star witnesses just stopped by to pay a visit,” Kramer said. “I told her to wait in my office while I tried to track you down.”

  Kramer’s cat-eating-shit grin as he spoke warned me that something wasn’t quite right. “What star witness?” I asked.

  “Her name’s Johnny,” he said. “Johnny Bickford. And she particularly asked for Detective Beaumont. She wasn’t the least bit interested in talking to anyone else, even though I tried to assure her that we were working the same case.”

  Groaning inwardly and wondering how long Johnny Bickford had been traipsing around the fifth floor, I followed Kramer down the hall to his cubicle, which happens to be two doors away from Captain Powell’s fishbowl. Parked next to Kramer’s desk sat Johnny Bickford in 100-percent full-dress drag, complete with frosted wig, impossibly high heels, dark-colored panty hose, and a tightly belted trench coat which emphasized that Johnny’s Wonder-Bra was still performing its figure-producing magic. A massive leather purse sat on the floor next to his feet, which were demurely crossed—at the ankle.

  Looking at him made me think of that old 1950s classic Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. I remember seeing the movie back then and being pretty much mystified by all those men running around in women’s clothing. And although I’m supposedly older and wiser than I was in Ballard back in 1959, I have to admit that I still don’t understand it. Nor, would I venture to say, do most of my Homicide colleagues on the fifth floor of the Public Safety Building.

  “Hello, Johnny,” I said without enthusiasm. “You wanted to see me?”

  Chirping with glee, Johnny leaped to his/her feet the moment I appeared in the doorway. “Why, there you are
, Detective Beaumont. I was about to give up hope that this nice Detective Kramer would ever be able to find you. He’s been so helpful.”

  “I’ll just bet he has,” I said. “Come on, we’ll go down to my office to talk.”

  “You’re more than welcome to talk here if you like,” Detective Kramer offered genially.

  “No,” I said, giving Kramer a black look. “I don’t think so.”

  “Detective Beaumont is right,” Johnny added. “I’ve already taken too much of your time, but I do appreciate your visiting with me. Detective Kramer and I were just sitting here chatting. You police officers do lead such interesting lives.”

  “Yes,” I agreed grimly. “We certainly do.”

  While Johnny groped for his purse, Kramer planted himself in the doorway, blocking our exit. “Johnny here seems to have a very high opinion of your skill as an investigator,” Paul Kramer said with a deceptively bland smile. “She dropped by the department to ask you to sign an autograph for her mother back in Wichita.”

  “Another one?” I asked.

  “Another one?” Kramer repeated. “You mean you’ve signed autographs before? Sounds more like a major-league baseball player than a cop. You don’t charge for it, do you?”

  “No,” I said. “No charge.”

  Kramer shook his head. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “Nobody’s ever asked me for my autograph.”

  Now it was my turn to smile. “I’m sure Johnny here could remedy that. As far as your mother is concerned, one detective’s signature should do just as well as any other’s, shouldn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” Johnny agreed dubiously, “but the truth is—no offense, Detective Kramer—I really did have my heart set on Detective Beaumont’s. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Oh, no,” Kramer said. “Not at all!”

  That’s what he said, but it wasn’t what he meant. On the face of it, the whole idea of someone wanting a detective’s autograph was more than slightly ridiculous. Still, I knew enough about Kramer to understand that he was feeling slighted. And jealous. I could see that for myself in the involuntary twitch that was tweaking the corners of his thin mouth. The twitch, combined with the humorless glower in Kramer’s eyes, warned me that both Johnny Bickford’s request for an autograph, along with his outrageous appearance, would be a hot topic around Homicide for months to come. Detective Kramer would see to it.