Justice Denied

CHAPTER 10

When you awaken to the enticing smell of freshly brewed coffee it’s easy to think that all’s right with the world. Mel’s side of the bed was cool to the touch. There was a hint of floral fragrance lingering beneath the aroma of coffee. That would be her shampoo. So Mel had been up long enough to shower and make coffee. I got up and wandered out into the dining room, where I found my two daily crossword puzzle pages, removed them from their (for me) completely extraneous newspapers, and laid them out on the dining room table. Mel came down the hall a moment after I poured my first mug of coffee. She was fully dressed.

“I’m going to go see Lenny,” she announced, slipping on a pair of low-heeled pumps.

I knew that meant she was on her way to visit the crime scene folks at King County to check out the missing-bullet situation.

“I’ve talked to Todd,” she added. “He’s on his way here.”

“Here?” I’m sure I sounded more than a bit territorial. After all, a man’s home is his castle, and the idea of having an itinerant economist show up on my doorstep along with my first cup of coffee did not compute.

“Yes, here. Ross doesn’t want us working on this in the office, remember? Todd’s bringing abstracts of the files on all the cases Ross mentioned last night, and the ones on my list, too.”

“Has anybody told Harry about our new working arrangements?”

“Already handled,” Mel said with a smile. “Ross took care of that bright and early this morning. What about the kids? Have you heard anything from them?”

“As far as I know they’re sightseeing today.”

“So you’re off ‘Gumpa’ duty?” she asked.

“Looks like,” I said.

She gave me a good-bye kiss and left, steaming travel cup firmly in hand. We Seattleites don’t go anywhere or do anything without our personal jolt of java.

Able to ignore the cross-lake traffic reports for once, I settled in at the table with my own hit of caffeine. I doubted Ross Connors would begrudge me the time it would take for me to whip through the Friday New York Times puzzle. I was making excellent progress when my cell phone rang. I figured it was either Mel, who had forgotten something, or else the kids, who had decided they wanted to take me up on my offer to buy breakfast after all, but the number wasn’t one I recognized.

“Mr….” It was a male voice-a relatively young male voice. “Beaumont,” he said uncertainly, butchering my name by pronouncing the “Beau” part the same way you’d say the B-U in “Butte” instead of the way it’s supposed to be pronounced, Beau as in “go.” If this had been my landline phone, I would have expected to hear a recorded spiel offering to sell me vinyl siding for my nonexistent house or to pick up my household castoffs to benefit the blind. But this was my cell phone. Solicitation calls aren’t supposed to intrude on my cell phone minutes.

“The name is Beaumont,” I said, pronouncing it properly for him but all the while trying to sound as cantankerous and off-putting as possible.

“My name’s Donald,” he said nervously. “Donnie, actually. Donnie Cosgrove. I think you talked to my wife earlier this week.”

Was that just this week? I wondered. So much had happened that it seemed eons ago, but I realized it had only been a few days earlier, on Monday, when I had stopped by the Cosgroves’ neat little Redmond rambler.

“Of course,” I said, at once modifying my tone. “DeAnn. What can I do for you, Mr. Cosgrove?”

“I told her I was going to go clean the jerk’s clock, but DeAnn begged me to talk to you instead.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Slow down. What are you talking about?”

“Jack,” he said. “Jack Lawrence, DeAnn’s stepfather. He came roaring through here yesterday while I was at work, yelling and raising hell. Woke the kids up in the middle of their naps. Threw our whole household into an uproar.”

“What was he upset about?” I asked.

“That DeAnn had talked to you. Wanted to know how dare she bring this back up after all these years. Told her she should learn to mind her own damn business and let sleeping dogs lie. Didn’t she know when she was well off. Stuff like that. Can you believe it?” Cosgrove demanded, his voice shaking in outrage. “He actually said that to her about her father-called him a ‘sleeping dog’! And in our own home, too.”

I gave Cosgrove a moment to get a grip on his emotions before asking, “You’re saying Mr. Lawrence seemed to think your wife had something to do with instigating our renewed interest in Anthony Cosgrove’s disappearance?”

“Evidently.”

“How did he find out about it?”

“DeAnn called her mother to see if you had contacted them. Carol is DeAnn’s mother, after all, so we try to maintain some kind of normal relationship with her-as normal as you can with a nutcase like Jack lurking in the background. Carol said you hadn’t called or stopped by, or at least not yet, but she must have mentioned the conversation to Jack. He hit the roof and drove all the way down from Leavenworth to bitch DeAnn out about it. I just wish I’d been there when it happened, but of course Lawrence is such a coward, he’d never tackle someone like me. He’d rather terrorize DeAnn and the kids.”

“Maybe you should consider swearing out a restraining order against him,” I suggested.

“What good would a piece of paper do?” Cosgrove wanted to know.

“For one thing, if he came back and caused trouble, DeAnn could call the cops and have him put in jail.”

“I’ve read about what happens to women with restraining orders,” Cosgrove said bitterly. “A lot of them end up dead.”

“Has your father-in-law been violent toward DeAnn in the past?” I asked.

“Why do you think she moved out of the house when she was in high school?” Donnie returned. “That’s why she went to live with her grandmother.”

“What about his wife?” I asked. “Does he beat her, too?”

“I’m not sure. She hasn’t ever come right out and said so,” Donnie conceded, “but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. She’s shown up with oddball bruises from time to time, but she always has one lame excuse or another for what’s happened to her.”

Domestic-violence victims almost always have excuses, I thought. They don’t want to say what has really happened to them, probably because they don’t think people will believe them, or maybe because they’re afraid they will.

“Anyway,” Donnie continued, “the man’s scary as hell. What I don’t understand is why your looking into Tony’s disappearance all those years ago would send Jack off the deep end.”

Observed over-or underreactions on the part of near and dear relatives or even those who are near and not-so-dear always raise red flags for homicide detectives. They indicate that something is out of whack with the relationship-that all isn’t as it should be. In this case I couldn’t help but be struck by Jack Lawrence’s over-the-top response to learning that we were reexamining a case that, on the surface, had opened and closed twenty years ago.

“What can you tell me about the man?” I asked.

“About Jack? You mean other than the fact that he’s an asshole and a bully?” Cosgrove returned.

“Other than that.”

“Jack Lawrence is a my-way-or-the-highway kind of guy,” Donnie answered. “Ex-marine. Tough as nails. Very opinionated. Always knows everything about everything. I can’t stand the guy and don’t want him in my house. And up until yesterday, he never had been. Like I said, we’ve tried to maintain a relationship with Carol, but Carol without Jack. Just being around him upsets DeAnn too much.”

“Is there a chance that Jack is distressed about our investigating Tony Cosgrove’s disappearance because he was somehow involved in it?”

There was a long pause before Donnie answered. “Maybe,” he said finally.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’ve heard rumors that Jack and Carol were romantically involved long before Tony went fishing at Spirit Lake. It always struck me as a little too convenient that Tony disappears and the next thing you know, Jack and Carol are a couple. But it all happened long before I was part of the picture. When I heard the rumors I kept quiet about them for DeAnn’s sake.”

“You don’t accept as fact the idea that Tony Cosgrove died in the eruption?” I asked.

“Not really,” Donnie said. “It never made sense to me that a man who hardly ever went fishing would just happen to be doing that very thing on Spirit Lake the day the mountain blew up. And I always thought it was strange that nobody ever turned up even the smallest trace of him or his vehicle. When vehicles get burned up or when people do, there are usually some traces-some little bits and pieces-that are left behind.”

I had to agree with him there. The destruction of the World Trade Center came to mind.

“A few years ago,” Donnie continued, “I happened to see a program on TV about a similar case, one that took place somewhere back east-in Chicago, I think.”

“They have volcanoes in Chicago?” I asked.

Donnie paused uncertainly. Then, realizing I was attempting a halfhearted joke, he allowed himself a hint of a chuckle. “No, it’s just that a woman was murdered on the same day an airliner went down in that same general area. I think the jet was flying out of O’Hare. The killer tried to maintain that the dead woman had been a passenger on the plane, but the airline didn’t have any record of her because she’d never been on the plane in the first place. She was already dead.”

“If you don’t buy the official story about Tony Cosgrove’s disappearance,” I said, “have you ever tried to do anything about it?”

“I don’t make a big deal of it, but I do check with people down at the Mount Saint Helens Visitor Center from time to time,” Donnie answered. “Just in case-just to make sure nothing’s turned up in the meantime. I guess the last I spoke to them was months ago-last summer sometime. The mountain had started burping again, and there was a lot more interest in it than there had been previously. I thought that maybe, with a lot more activity and attention, someone might stumble across something of Tony’s-if there was anything to find.”

“But there wasn’t.”

“Not so far.”

“Does your wife know you’ve been making those kinds of inquiries?” I asked.

Donnie Cosgrove sighed. “No,” he said. “I never mentioned it to her.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want to get her hopes up,” he said. “Or kill them, either. There’s a part of DeAnn, the little-girl part, who believes Tony Cosgrove is still alive and that someday he’s going to turn up-that one fine morning she’ll open our front door and he’ll be standing on the front porch.”

I knew Donnie was right on that score. I, too, had heard the unrealistic longings-the dreamy wishful thinking of an abandoned little girl in DeAnn Cosgrove’s voice. No doubt that had been the overriding consideration behind her wanting to keep her maiden name.

“I believe DeAnn mentioned something to me about Jack Lawrence working for Boeing at about the same time her parents were there,” I said. “Was that the case?”

Donnie nodded. “Tony started working there sometime in the late sixties or early seventies. That’s where he and Carol met, at some kind of company event-a Christmas party, maybe. Jack turned up later. After retiring from a twenty-year hitch in the military, he hired on with Boeing in sales. Carol ended up being his secretary.”

“Carol told you this or DeAnn?” I asked.

“Neither one,” Donnie answered. “I worked for Boeing for a little while back when I first got my degree and before I moved over to Fluke, which is where I am now. But back then, when people at Boeing heard I was the guy who had married Tony Cosgrove’s daughter, a couple of them took me aside and hinted around that maybe Tony’s disappearance wasn’t an act of nature after all; that maybe someone should have taken a closer look at what was going on at the time he disappeared.”

“Did you ever ask anyone to look into it?” I asked.

“No. I was just out of school and new on the job. I couldn’t afford to risk drawing attention-rocking-the-boat kind of attention. So other than talking to the folks down at Mount Saint Helens periodically, I haven’t dared raise the issue.”

“Why not?”

“Despite what people think, the aerospace industry is actually a surprisingly small, closely knit group, and these days electronics engineers are a dime a dozen, especially in India. That’s why I’m calling you on my cell, Mr. Beaumont. And not from my office, either. But to have Jack come charging into the house the way he did yesterday…was just…too much.”

That’s about when I figured it out. Donnie Cosgrove was upset that his father-in-law had stopped by and raised hell with DeAnn, but Donnie wanted someone else to do something about it-namely me. The fact of the matter is, raising hell with scumbags is a big part of my job description.

“I’m glad you called,” I told him. “This is all very interesting, and I’ll be looking into it. Do you happen to remember the names of any of the people who talked to you back then about Tony Cosgrove’s disappearance?”

“Not offhand,” Donnie said. “It was just sort of break-room BS. I’ll think about it, though. If I remember anyone in particular I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Do that.”

But by then I was already one step ahead of him. I had read the article in Electronics Engineering Journal, and I had a pretty good idea that a “defense analyst” named Thomas Dortman had been one of Anthony Cosgrove’s coworkers at Boeing in the late seventies and early eighties. All I had to do was track him down.

“So what are you going to do now?” Donnie asked. “Will you go talk to him?”

For a moment I thought Donnie was asking if I was going to talk to Dortman. Then I realized he was actually referring to his erstwhile father-in-law-stepfather-in-law-Jack Lawrence.

“I’m sure I will eventually,” I assured him. “But not until after I check out a few things first.”

“And you’ll let us know what you find out?” Donnie asked. “I mean, you’ll let DeAnn know?”

“Believe me,” I told him, “I’ll let you both know.”

Call-waiting buzzed just then. I ended the call with Donnie Cosgrove.

“Mr. Hatcher to see you,” the doorman announced when I switched to the other line.

“Good,” I said. “Send him up.”

I’ll confess right now to having had certain preconceived notions about our visiting economist-none of them very flattering. I had envisioned someone with a fairly wide-load build, horn-rimmed glasses, and a mop of long greasy hair. Todd Hatcher failed to meet those specifications-on every count.

For one thing, he was tall and lanky-scrawny, in fact. And he looked like a cowboy just in off the range in boots and Levi’s and wearing a dripping Stetson and a soggy leather jacket. In one hand he carried a bulging backpack that was just as damp as he was.

“Mr. Beaumont?” he asked as I opened the door.

I nodded. “Welcome. Come on in,” I said. “Make yourself at home.”

Removing his hat, he banged some of the excess water off it out in the hallway before stepping into the apartment. His blond hair was cut in a short but not quite military buzz cut. Without even shedding his jacket, Hatcher, like every other visitor to the penthouse, was immediately drawn to the windows on the far side of the living room.

“Wow,” he exclaimed, looking out on the gray expanse of water that was Elliott Bay and Puget Sound. “What an amazing view!”

“It’s even more amazing when it isn’t raining,” I told him. “Can I take your coat?”

He peeled it off and handed it over, revealing the unapologetic pearl-buttoned Western shirt underneath. As I walked away with the jacket I noticed that the only part that wasn’t wet was the part that had been under the backpack. Rather than putting the wet jacket in the closet, I draped it over the back of one of the kitchen bar stools in hopes of letting it dry.

“Coffee?” I asked.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Todd replied, “coffee would be great. Black, please.”

By the time I returned to the living room he had abandoned the view in favor of sitting in the window seat and examining the room itself. “Growing up in Benson, I never could have imagined a place like this.”

“Benson?” I asked.

“Benson, Arizona.”

“I think I’ve been there,” I said, handing him his coffee. “Isn’t Benson just down the road from Bisbee?”

He grinned. “You’ve actually heard of it? Most people never have. Benson is actually down the road if you’re in Tucson and up the road if you’re in Bisbee, and relative elevations have nothing to do with it.”

I went back to the kitchen and poured a second cup of coffee for me. First impressions are important. The fact that he looked like a hick just off the farm-or ranch, as the case may be-didn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence, but we needed to know something about him. I took my coffee and returned to my recliner.

“What brought you to Washington?” I asked.

“An Ingmar Hanson Fellowship in economics,” he said. “I came here to finish my Ph.D.”

I didn’t know Ingmar Hanson from a hole in the wall, but clearly Todd Hatcher was a hell of a lot smarter than he looked.

“It’s done now,” he said. “My degree was awarded last June. I had a couple of offers to teach, but I wanted to do this first.” He glanced down at the sodden backpack.

“By ‘this’ you mean the study for Ross Connors?”

He nodded. “I had hoped to be able to use it for my dissertation. That would have broken new ground-a dissertation about something useful, for a change-but my adviser wasn’t having any of it. He told me no one’s interested in analyzing the need for geriatric prison beds, which, of course, is patently stupid, since prisons are still one of this country’s growth industries, and the prison population is aging everywhere.”

I tried to picture Todd Hatcher in his cowboy boots and Stetson sauntering across the U. Dub’s beloved Red Square. Talk about out of place! It came as no surprise to me that Todd and one or more of his professors wouldn’t have seen eye to eye.

“Presumably you are interested, though,” I said. “Mind if I ask why?”

Hatcher uncrossed his legs and gave me a speculative look. “I mind,” he said, “but since we’re going to be working together, I could just as well tell you.”

It appeared that we were starting our working relationship based on a certain level of mutual distrust. Maybe that was a good thing.

“Nobody ever expected me to amount to much,” he said. “My mother was a waitress; my father was a failed bank robber. When I was four, he went to prison for shooting a security guard in the course of an attempted bank robbery. Those are the first memories I have of my father, taking that long ride up to Florence every once in a while to visit him on weekends.

“Growing up, all my friends were fascinated with Luke Skywalker or Spider-Man, but we were too poor to go to movies. My mother took me to the library instead. While my friends were still playing with Transformers, I was working my way through Sherlock Holmes. By the time I was thirteen or so, I wanted to be Alan Greenspan when I grew up. My mother and I survived on almost no money, and Greenspan seemed to be someone who knew all about money and how to get it. While other kids were focused on high school sports, I was spending my summers working as a ranch hand and reading Ayn Rand on the side. I won a full scholarship to the University of Arizona. That’s where I got my B.A. and my master’s. I came to the U. Dub to earn my Ph.D.”

He stopped, but that clearly that wasn’t the end of the story.

“And?” I prompted.

“My father was sentenced to life in prison,” he said after a pause. “Five years ago they released him, sent him home to my mother in Benson. Claimed it was because the prison was overcrowded and they had determined he was no longer a danger to himself or others. That’s what they said. The reality turned out to be they had diagnosed him with early-onset Alzheimer’s and they didn’t want to have to take care of him, so they sent him home to my mother to die.

“She had never divorced the man for the simple reason that she loved him. She had health insurance-major medical for herself-but not for him. There was no way for her to add him onto her policy, and he was too young for Medicare. She applied for disability Social Security benefits for him, but they kept turning her down. So she took care of him to the best of her ability. He died two years ago, and she died six months later. He would have died anyway. Sending him home like that was a death sentence for her.”

Now Todd Hatcher’s doggedly persistent interest in the aging prison population made a whole lot more sense. It was much more than just a “study” for him. It was a labor of love.

“If this country really buys the three-strikes-you’re-out mentality, then we’d better be prepared to pay the piper,” he added after a pause. “If we say someone’s going to prison for life and mean it, we’d better get ready.”

“So that’s why you’re here, then,” I said.

He nodded. “In order to know how many geriatric prison beds will be needed, I hope to create a computer model that will predict exactly how many current prisoners will end up dying there. In order to be accurate, however, I need to have some idea of how many new offenders will land in the prison system on a permanent basis as well as how many ex-cons are likely to reoffend and be returned to prison. Recidivists, of course, are far more likely to fall under three-strikes provisions and end up with lifetime sentences. That’s my expectation.”

“And everything was going along fine and dandy until you stumbled across a whole bunch of young dead ex-cons who screwed your so-called model all to hell.”

“Right,” Hatcher said. “If they’re dead, they won’t reoffend, and they won’t need geriatric prison care, either. The problem is, in the normal course of events some of them will be dead long before they grow old in prison, but they shouldn’t be dead yet. It struck me that this whole cluster of deaths was some kind of an anomaly. When I brought the situation to Ross’s attention he asked me to look into it in more detail. And here I am.”

I recalled Ross Connors’s somewhat cynical remark about Hatcher probably having a book deal waiting in the wings. From what I could see, the man’s motivation was much less self-serving than that-and a lot more understandable.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked.

“Mel told me I should work on the spreadsheet here. That way, I can consult with one or the other of you as I go along. If we’re all going over the files and picking out what strikes each of us as important, we’ll probably come up with better data. Once we have that, we’ll run a paradox analysis and see if anything pops.”

For all the sense it made to me, that last sentence could just as well have been uttered in Russian. Or Chinese.

“So what do you need from me?” I asked.

He opened the backpack and took out a slim laptop. His boots may have been on their last legs, as it were, but his computer was absolutely state-of-the-art.

“A place to spread out and work,” he said.

I pointed toward the granite counter of the breakfast bar. “Will that do?” I asked.

He nodded. “Sure,” he said. “What about logging on?”

There I had him. “We’ve got a WiFi network complete with a broadband connection.”

“Cool,” he said.

That remark came with no need of translation. I was gratified that our telecommunications system measured up to his expectations. And I was also glad that, despite the considerable difference in our ages, cool was still cool.

Somehow I found that reassuring.