Improbable cause

CHAPTER 14

You don’t think about how noisy doors are until you try to open one quietly. When Nick Wallace’s key clicked home in the lock of Damm Fine Carpets’ back door, the sound crackled in the silent air like an exploding firecracker, and when I slowly pushed the door open, the hinges squawked and creaked with electrifying shrillness.

Holding my breath, I more than half expected a bullet to come smashing out through the open door. It didn’t. I crouched there beside the doorway, peering into the shadowy gloom of the garage, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light.

Three vans were parked inside. Larry Martin’s was still in the same place with the doors still open. Another was raised up on a jack. A tire lay on the floor beside it. My guess was that the alarm had caught Nick in the middle of changing the tire. The third, with no identifiable ailment, was parked nearest the door.

Using the vans for cover, we worked our way into the room, creeping along, heads down, weapons ready. Howell and Perez were packing automatic Uzis. My trusty. 38 didn’t offer nearly the fire power, but I was glad to have it. It felt like an old friend.

Perez reached the interior door first. He tried the knob and found it locked, then motioned for Howell to join him. Meantime, I made my way over to the workbench and located the telephone. The telephone and the intercom.

If I’d had my druthers, I’d have pulled the intercom off the workbench and ducked down behind one of the vans while I attempted to talk to Larry Martin. Unfortunately, this was Nick Wallace’s domain. Both the phone and the intercom had been permanently stationed, bolted firmly to the wall behind his workbench.

I knew that Perez and Howell were poised between me and Larry Martin, but I still felt incredibly vulnerable as I stood with my back to them and to the door and pressed the white button on the intercom.

“Larry? Larry, can you hear me?”

There was no answer.

“Larry, this is Detective Beaumont with the Seattle Police Department. Can you hear me?”

I waited, but still no response. “If you can hear me, press the button on the intercom.”

An endless period of silence ensued. In it, I could hear the minute ticking of my watch and the muffled beat of my own heart thumping away in my chest. I wasn’t scared. Not much.

“What do you want?” Larry Martin’s voice spilled into the room like a splash of ice water. “Where are you?”

“I want to talk to you, Larry. Where’s Richard Damm? Is he all right?”

“I’m okay, but he’s crazy. You hear me? Help me. Get him out-” Damm’s voice, recognizable but verging on hysterics, was cut off in midsentence. I hoped for Richard Damm’s sake that Larry Martin had simply released the intercom button and turned off the sound. I waited, expecting to hear the report of a fired weapon. None came.

“Larry,” I said. “You’re making a terrible mistake. Release him. Let him walk out of the building.”

“No.”

“Larry, please. It’ll be a lot worse for you if you don’t.”

Larry didn’t answer. At the door, Perez was motioning for me to join them and bring the key. I ignored him. I was determined to try it my way first.

“Look,” I pleaded. “You know the place is surrounded. You can’t get away. Give it up, Larry. Let Damm come out first and then you follow.” Automatically I fell back on my negotiation training. Use the suspect’s first name as much as possible. Try to win his confidence.

“You’ll have to kill me first.”

Those are chilling words when you’re in a standoff. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. A clutch of cold fear gripped my stomach. Those are words that tell you that negotiation isn’t working, that the other guy has nothing left to lose, that he doesn’t care if he lives or dies. When that happens, you’re not playing by the same rules. The odds aren’t even.

“Larry, we don’t want to kill you. You got that? We don’t want you to die.”

“I won’t go back.”

I heard what he said, and I knew what he meant, but I forced him to repeat it. “You what?”

“I said I won’t go back. I’ve been in the joint once. Once was enough!“

It grew quiet again as I wondered what to say next, searching desperately for some life-saving words that would break the stalemate. Again, impatiently this time, Perez motioned for me to bring him the key. I shook my head and released the intercom button for a moment, cutting Larry off from what was said.

“Wait,” I told Perez. “Not yet.” Again I pushed the button. I wavered, but only momentarily. “Did you kill him?” I asked.

“What?”

“You heard me. Did you kill Dr. Nielsen?”

“I was only trying to help,” Larry answered. “I thought he was going to kill her. Then he came after me. I didn’t think she hit him that hard.”

A wave of gooseflesh covered my body. It was the same thing LeAnn had said, the exact same story. “What did she hit him with?” I asked.

“Jesus, I don’t know. Something from the floor. A vase or something. I didn’t know he was dead, for God’s sake. I never thought he was dead.” Martin’s voice broke into something like a sob. A light came on in my head. I knew then and there he was telling the truth, and if he was, so was LeAnn Nielsen.

“Larry, I believe you. Let Richard Damm come out. Help me get to the bottom of this.”

“No,” he answered stubbornly. “It’s a trick. You’re lying. I’m sure of it. I’m not going to talk anymore.”

“Larry?”

There was no answer, only oppressive silence.

“Larry, I’m sure you can still hear me. What happened after LeAnn hit him? What happened next?”

Perez strode over to me, his face thunderous. I let go of the intercom button so Larry wouldn’t be able to hear.

“Will you give me the fucking key?” Perez demanded.

“No,” I answered. “Not yet.”

I turned the intercom back on. “Come on, Larry,” I wheedled. “Tell me what happened. Did he fall?”

“I caught him and carried him over to the chair.”

“The one there in the examining room?”

“Yes.”

“And then what?”

“We left. There was so much blood in my eyes that I could barely see. She led me to my car and drove me to the hospital.”

“And Nielsen was still alive when you left?”

“He was still breathing. His heart must have stopped.”

“It stopped all right. It stopped because somebody shoved a dental pick in his throat.”

I waited, letting my words sink home.

“What?”

“Somebody shoved a dental pick in his throat after you left. He bled to death.”

Perez was staring at me like I’d gone stark raving crazy, but I wasn’t paying much attention to him. I was waiting to see what kind of impact my words would have on Larry Martin.

When he spoke again, he sounded stunned. “You mean he didn’t die because she hit him over the head?”

“That’s right.”

“You mean somebody else…” He paused. “Wait a minute, is this the truth?”

“It’s the truth, Larry, I swear to God. Let Richard Damm go.”

His voice came back, almost a whisper. “It’s too late.”

My heart fell. Was Richard Damm dead then? Had Larry finished him off when he tried to talk to me? I tried to stay calm, focused.

“It’s not too late, Larry. It’s never too late.”

“If I come out, they’ll kill me. I know how SWAT teams work.”

“Larry, listen to me. I’m not on the SWAT team. I’m just a detective, a plain old homicide detective. If you won’t come out, let me come in. Trade me for Richard Damm. Is he still there? Is he all right?”

I could hear a muffled sound in the background, but I had no idea what it meant.

“If you didn’t kill Dr. Nielsen, you’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s all a mistake, Larry. Don’t make it worse. Let Damm go.”

“It’s a trick. It’s gotta be a trick.”

I decided to go for broke. It was a gamble, but all of life is a gamble, and there are far worse ways of dying than attempting to save innocent lives.

“It isn’t a trick, Larry. I’ll prove it. We’re in the garage right now. There are three of us.”

“Beaumont!” Perez howled. “What are you trying to do?”

“We’re in the garage,” I repeated, plunging ahead. “I’m with two guys from the Emergency Response Team. I’m giving them my gun.”

Perez stepped away from me. “What? Are you crazy?”

“Unlock the door. I’m coming in unarmed, Larry. Just me, do you understand? You won’t be able to talk to me anymore. I’m turning off the intercom.”

I put my. 38 on the workbench beneath the telephone and started toward the door with the key to the inside door clenched tightly in my fingers. “Okay, guys, let me through.”

Howell was standing in front of the door. “You can’t do this. Logan will shit a brick.”

“Let him,” I said. “I’ve got to end this before it gets worse. You two stay here.”

They could have stopped me, if they’d put their minds to it. After all, there were two of them and only one of me. They had guns; I didn’t. But there’s a certain understanding that’s usually unspoken among cops, a mutual respect, that says when to back off. Howell and Perez knew that Larry Martin was mine. Grudgingly, Howell stepped aside to let me pass, holding out his hand for the key.

“You’ve got five minutes,” he said tersely. “After that we come in with the tear gas.”

“It’s a deal,” I said, giving him the second key.

I made my way through the warehouse and showroom. The place was well lit yet eerily silent except for the soft swish of my shoes on the thick carpeting. Standing outside the door to Richard Damm’s private office, I whipped off my jacket, revealing the empty shoulder holster under my arm. I tried the doorknob. It was still locked.

“Let me in, Larry. It’s Beaumont. Hurry. There’s not much time.”

After what seemed an eternity, the lock clicked. I turned the knob and opened the door a crack. The room was totally dark. I stopped and shut one eye, hoping to help ease the visual transition.

“Turn on the light so you can see I’m unarmed. I just want to talk to you.”

“Come in first. Put your hands up.”

Martin’s voice came from behind the wall next to the door. With my knees shaking, I stepped into the room and stopped. Behind me the door swung shut. I was still holding my breath when the lights came on.

The room was a shambles. The fish tank had been smashed to bits. The carpeting was soaked and littered with shards of glass and pieces of decorative shells and plants that had once decorated the bottom of the tank. All the booze bottles had been shoved off the shelves of the bar and lay in a shattered, soggy heap on the floor. A huge hole had been beaten into the face of Richard Damm’s big screen television set.

“Turn around slowly,” Larry Martin ordered. “Keep your hands up.”

I turned. The first thing I noticed was his face. Three separate lines of stitches fanned the length of his cheek from scalp to chin. He was lucky he hadn’t lost an eye. He was standing there in a big league batter’s stance with an old wooden baseball bat aimed at my head.

My initial reaction was to laugh. When you’re expecting the muzzle of a rifle, a baseball bat is a welcome surprise. My relief was overwhelming. Cindy was nearsighted all right, so much so that the wooden bat must have looked like a gun to her. I canned the laughter, though, because the baseball bat was still a hell of a lot more weapon than I had, and Richard Damm’s shattered haven gave mute testimony to Larry Martin’s ability to use it.

“What do you want?” Larry asked.

“Where’s Richard Damm?” I asked.

“Over there on the couch.”

“Is he all right?”

“Sit up and show him, Dick,” Larry ordered.

I glanced over my shoulder. Richard Damm sat up, his face peeking over the back of the couch. His skin was a pasty, unhealthy shade of gray.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He nodded feebly.

“Can he go?”

“I guess,” Larry said.

With no further prompting, Richard Damm scrambled to his feet and picked his way through the debris.

“Thank you,” he whispered hoarsely to me on his way past. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank me. Go out through the garage.”

Richard Damm nodded and left. “Where’s the intercom?” I asked. “Turn it on and tell them he’s coming out.”

“You go first,” Larry Martin said. “It’s over by the couch.”

I led the way. A remote control for the intercom was on the coffee table. I leaned down and picked it up. “You tell them,” Larry commanded.

He didn’t have to say it twice. I sat down and punched the control button. “This is Beaumont,” I announced. “Hostage coming out through the garage door. Acknowledge.”

“We hear you,” Perez answered.

“And I need more time. Make it ten from right now.”

“Ten it is.”

I looked up at Larry Martin. He was standing there staring at me like I had just stepped off another planet.

“A dental pick?” he asked. “You said a dental pick?”

I nodded.

“But where’d it come from? How did it happen?”

“You don’t remember seeing one?”

“No.”

“Tell me again what happened.”

“She screamed once. I heard her and went looking. When she screamed the second time, I was right outside the door.”

“The door to her husband’s office?”

“That’s right. She came running out with him right behind her. I tried to stop him. We struggled there, in the hallway. She tried to go out the other door, the door in the room where I had been working. He broke away from me and went after her again. I got there just in time to see him grab up my kicker and start toward her. That’s when he got me with it. He would have hurt me real good, if she hadn’t hit him.”

“You said she hit him with a vase?”

Martin nodded. “He started to fall. Toward me. We were over in the corner. The kicker fell out of his hand. It almost hit me again, but I ducked out of the way. I caught him before he fell.”

“And you dragged him over to the chair?”

Martin nodded. “By then the blood was running in my eyes. I could barely see.”

I remembered the unblemished whiteness of the carpet in Dr. Nielsen’s hallway. No blood had dripped on that.

“How’d you get outside then?” I asked.

“We went out the back way, through the garage.”

“But I thought LeAnn couldn’t open that door. That’s what she said.”

“She found a key in the drawer by the door. She let us out that way. I wanted to stop and grab my tools, but she said we’d better get out of there before he came to, that we’d come back later and get the tools.”

“How?”

“She kept the key.”

“And did you go back?”

“We couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“She forgot she didn’t have a garage door opener. She said she’d left it in a car she doesn’t have anymore.”

I could relate to that. There’s nothing quite so thoroughly closed as an electronic garage door when you’re in the car and the garage door opener isn’t.

Martin let the tip of the bat drop to the floor, then he sank wearily onto one arm of the couch.

“Larry, if you didn’t kill him, why’d you do this?”

“LeAnn told me he was dead. I figured it happened when she hit him, and that you’d come looking for me. I tried to leave town, but Damm wouldn’t give me my check. I came over here to get it. We got in a beef. Cindy must’ve panicked and called 911.”

I nodded. “Go on.”

“When I heard the sirens, I lost it. I figured I was going to jail for murder, either that or they’d shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Beaumont?” Howell’s voice came over the intercom. “Time’s up.”

I pressed down the control button. “I’m placing you under arrest, Larry,” I said, loudly enough so Perez and Howell could hear. “Give me the bat.”

“Not for Nielsen’s murder? For this?”

“That’s right, Larry. For this. Give me your bat.”

He handed it to me. “It’s not mine,” he said.

“It’s not?”

“It’s Dick’s.”

I looked down at the bat in my hand and then back at Larry. “Where was it?”

“He pulled it out from under the couch when I came in the room. When I told him I wanted my money, he came after me with it. He said he’d burn the mother-fucking place down before he’d give me one thin dime. I wasn’t about to just stand there and let him knock the shit out of me.”

“If you didn’t have the bat, what were you carrying when you came in? Cindy said she thought you were packing a gun. That’s why she called 911.”

“It was part of the kicker extender. She said he wouldn’t let me have my check until I brought back all my tools. The extender’s all I had left. Everything else was still locked up in Nielsen’s office. See? It’s over there in the corner.”

I looked where he pointed. A yard-long, chrome-plated, steel tube lay in front of the kitchen sink.

“There’s one thing about it,” I told him. “You sure as hell know how to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He nodded his head sadly. “It’s the story of my life,” he said.

I pressed down the button on the intercom. “All clear, guys,” I announced to Howell and Perez. “You can come on in now.”