Justice Denied

CHAPTER 18

What’s going on?” Mel asked as I hung up with Donner.

“The cops in Bountiful had reports that Escobar spoke to a nun shortly after his release and just before his disappearance. There’s some evidence that the nun was in the car that ran down Escobar.”

“She’s dead, too, then?”

“No evidence one way or the other,” I returned. “And without a missing persons report or any evidence of foul play, Bountiful sat on that part of the case. I’ve asked him to fax over a composite sketch, but we won’t get that until after Detective Donner goes into work tomorrow-if then.”

The phone rang. It was the doorman calling to say Ralph Ames was on his way up.

Even late on a Sunday evening, Ralph arrived looking like someone who had just stepped out of a Brooks Brothers ad. Under the best of circumstances I look like your basic rumpled bed-tux-wearing occasions excepted. Fortunately our friendship is more than skin-deep.

“Good evening,” he said. “Although, from the sound of things, there’s not much good about it.”

Mel gave him a wan smile. “Not much,” she agreed. “Should I get my checkbook?”

“Definitely,” he said. “Then let’s go over this whole thing again, from beginning to end. I’ve got a call in to Lucinda Reyes down in Arizona. She’s a retired Phoenix cop, and she’s the best translator in the business when it comes to talking with federales.”

We spent the better part of the next two hours bringing Ralph up to speed on everything we had learned not only about the Matthews case but about Juan Carlos Escobar as well. In the end, Ralph seemed to agree with us.

“Yes, it is a bit much to think that these are unrelated,” he said. “The fact that you and Ms. Hennessey are both involved in the same organization would seem to indicate some kind of connection. Are you finding any similar cases among those essays you mentioned?”

“I’ve only checked out four of them so far,” Mel said. “One of those was a grandfather, a pedophile who died, reportedly of natural causes, thirty years ago. That’s approximately twenty-five years before SASAC was a gleam in Anita Bowdin’s eye, so I doubt that one has anything to do with this. One was a bar pickup scene date rape where no assailant was ever named, apprehended, or charged. The other two are still locked up in prison. One of those raped and murdered Professor Clark’s eleven-year-old granddaughter. The other attacked Justine Maldonado’s younger sister.”

“And both of those are still alive?” Ralph asked.

“Alive and kicking,” Mel said. “I already checked.”

It struck me as interesting that in almost every case, with the possible exception of the date rape scenario, the women had all been galvanized into taking action-and joining SASAC-by an attack on someone other than themselves. Before I could make that observation, though, the phone rang.

By then it was late enough in the evening that I expected it to be Scott telling me that he and Cherisse were safely home or Jeremy calling to give me the latest update on Kelly. Or maybe even Thomas Dortman finally getting around to returning my call. It wasn’t.

“Mr. Beaumont?” a tearful female voice asked when I answered.

“Yes.”

“It’s me, DeAnn Cosgrove. I need to see you. Right now.”

“Why? What is it? What’s going on? If it’s an emergency, you should probably hang up and call 9-1-1.”

“No. I need to talk to you. Please.”

Taking the hint, Ralph was already gathering up his things in preparation for leaving. DeAnn sounded utterly frantic, making me think that I was being invited into some kind of domestic dispute.

“Is your husband there?” I asked. “Is there some kind of problem?”

“Donnie’s not here,” DeAnn answered. “That’s why I need to talk to you.”

Talking to hysterical women has never been my strong suit, and DeAnn definitely sounded hysterical.

“All right,” I said, “but if you don’t mind, I’d like to bring my partner along. We’ll be leaving downtown Seattle in a matter of minutes.”

DeAnn didn’t wait around long enough to reply one way or the other. She simply hung up. Before I could do the same, Mel was slipping her shoes back on her feet.

“Wait up,” she said to me. “My Glock’s down the hall. So’s my jacket.”

Ralph, Mel, and I rode down in the elevator together. Ralph exited at the lobby and Mel turned to me. “Who was that on the phone?” she asked. “Where are we going and why?”

“DeAnn Cosgrove is a woman whose father disappeared in the Mount Saint Helens eruption in 1980. She lives in Redmond, and that’s where we’re going. As to why? I have no idea. She said she needed to talk to me, and waiting until morning evidently isn’t an option. The other problem, of course, is that her parents were gunned down last night up in Leavenworth. The last thing her husband said to me on the phone was that he was going to rip the stepfather’s head off. Not surprisingly, Detective Lander, the guy working the Leavenworth homicides, is wondering if DeAnn’s husband may have had something to do with the shooting.”

“Do you think he did?” Mel asked.

“Donnie told Detective Lander he was out drinking with his pals last night,” I replied. “But at this point, I don’t have enough information on Donnie Cosgrove to think one way or the other.”

“But he isn’t home right now, is he?” Mel ascertained.

“Right,” I told her. “That’s what DeAnn said on the phone.”

We drove for a while in silence. The clearing that had happened earlier was now a thing of the past. The wind was coming in sharp gusts and it was spitting rain as we headed for the bridge. I knew I should keep my mind on the Cosgroves and what was happening there, but it kept coming back to Mel.

“What’s Anita’s deal?” I asked.

“Anita’s?” Mel returned. “What do you mean?”

“The other women you were telling us about, the ones on the board, all but one of them-you included-got involved because of something that happened to someone else-a friend or a relative. Since Anita’s the mover and shaker behind all of it, I’m just curious about what set her off. Did something happen to her? Did it happen to someone she cared about?”

“I don’t know,” Mel said. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Now that you mention it,” Mel remarked, “I am, too.”

By the time we parked in Donnie and DeAnn Cosgrove’s driveway, the sprinkles had changed into a hard rain. The porch light was on. The moment we pulled into the driveway the front door opened and DeAnn came dashing out to meet us. Her hair, hanging loose, seemed to stand on end in the blowing wind and rain.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” I said at once.

“Thank you,” she said, stepping forward to meet me. “And thank you for coming. I didn’t know what else to do or who else to call. And with the kids already asleep, I couldn’t just throw them in the car and go traipsing all over God’s creation looking for him.”

“Looking for Donnie?” I asked.

She nodded. “He left the house a little while after Detective Lander did. I was so upset about my mother that I couldn’t think straight. I really needed him here with me, but he said he had to go out, that he’d be right back. But it’s been hours now, and I have no idea where he is. I’ve tried calling his cell and his office phone, but he isn’t answering. I even tried calling his friends, the ones he said he was with last night.” She paused.

“And?” I prompted.

“They hadn’t seen him,” she said. “They hadn’t seen him today-or last night either, Detective Beaumont. What does it mean if he wasn’t where he said he was?”

Mel rounded the back corner of the car. Neither she nor I answered, but we both knew what it meant: Donnie Cosgrove’s alibi was out the window.

“I even called some of the local hospitals,” DeAnn continued distractedly. “But then, when I found the note…”

“What note?” Mel asked, speaking for the first time.

DeAnn wheeled and turned on Mel. “Who are you?” she demanded.

Obviously a good part of what we’d said on the telephone hadn’t penetrated DeAnn Cosgrove’s frantic concern.

“I’m Detective Beaumont’s partner, Melissa Soames,” Mel explained. “He asked me to come along and see if I could help. Since it’s raining so hard, maybe it would be best if we went inside.”

Nodding, a distraught DeAnn Cosgrove led us into her house. The place looked entirely different from the way it had looked on my previous visit. The living room appeared to have been cleaned within an inch of its life. There were fresh vacuum cleaner tracks on the rugs. The dining room table had been cleared of almost all paper debris, and no toys at all were anywhere in evidence.

“After Detective Lander left, he did, too,” DeAnn went on. “I mean, how could he do that, leave me here alone with my mom dead and everything? After a while I called some of my friends from church, just so I’d have someone here with me, so I wouldn’t be alone. They came over and helped with the kids. Helped get the house cleaned up. They finally left a little while ago. I knew I needed to get some rest whether Donnie came home or not. That’s when I found the note-when I was getting ready for bed.”

“What note?” Mel prompted.

DeAnn hurried over to the dining room table and picked up a single three-by-five card. On it was written: “I’m sorry. I love you. Donnie.”

“Sorry for what?” I asked.

DeAnn shrugged. “About my mother, maybe? I guess that’s what he meant.”

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor woman. Her mother and stepfather had both been murdered, but at this juncture she was so concerned about her missing husband that grief for the two homicide victims had yet to gain any real traction.

“And the note,” Mel said, “where did you find it?”

“Folded up in my nightgown, under my pillow. Donnie would have known I wouldn’t find it until I started getting ready for bed. I understand that now. It means he knew he wasn’t coming back before bedtime. But why? Why would he do that?” DeAnn wailed. She was crying in dead earnest now.

“You hadn’t quarreled?” Mel asked when DeAnn quieted down some.

“Well, maybe a little,” DeAnn admitted. “I was really mad at him for staying out so late last night. I’m here with the kids all day every day. I expect us to be together on weekends, and usually we are. But last night he said he needed to meet some guys from work. We had a fight about it before he even left.”

“What time did he come home then?” Mel asked.

“Late,” DeAnn answered. “And I mean real late. After the bars closed. He didn’t think I’d be awake, but I had been up with the baby. He parked on the street and then came sneaking in through the garage wearing nothing but his underwear. Said one of his buddies had gotten drunk and barfed all over him, so he put his clothing in the wash before he ever came into the house. That seemed really strange to me because, barf or not, doing laundry isn’t Donnie’s thing. And this morning, when I went out to the garage to do a load, I saw that he’d washed everything, even his sneakers-washed them and put them in the dryer. I don’t know what he was thinking. They came out of the dryer completely wrecked. I had to throw them away.”

“What happened then?” Mel inquired.

“He was really quiet all morning,” DeAnn answered. “I kept asking him what was wrong-if he was sick or hungover or what. I even went out and checked on his car. I was afraid he had wrecked it or something and was scared to tell me about it. Then, when Detective Lander was here, it was like Donnie was…” She paused, as if struggling to find the right word.

“What?” Mel asked.

“I don’t know,” DeAnn said. “Just weird. I mean, my mother was the one who was dead. I needed him to be here for me, but it was like he was out of it or something. And, of course, the kids picked right up on it. Since we were both upset, they were upset, too. It was all I could do to concentrate and answer Detective Lander’s questions. Then, as soon as the detective left to meet you, Donnie left, too. He told me that he had to go out, that he’d be back later.”

“And you haven’t heard anything from him since?” I asked.

DeAnn Cosgrove’s eyes filled with tears. “Not a word,” she said, shaking her head. “Except for the note. What does it all mean?”

“After your stepfather came by here the other day and after Donnie called me, did he go to Leavenworth?”

“He talked about it,” DeAnn allowed. “Donnie was livid Jack had come here to cause trouble. He said he was going to go to their house and do the same thing, but I told him not to. I told him two wrongs don’t make a right and that we’re supposed to be big enough to turn the other cheek.”

I had a feeling that Donnie had been focused on something far more Old Testamenty-an eye for an eye, for example.

“You said you’d done some calling around, looking for your husband,” Mel said. “Where all did you check?”

“He sometimes works weekends, so I thought he might have gone to his office,” DeAnn said. “But I called and checked with the guard shack where people have to sign in and out. Nobody there had seen him. When I found out his friends hadn’t seen him, either, that’s when I finally called you. I didn’t know who else to ask. Should I file a missing persons report now, or is it too soon?”

Under the circumstances, it seemed unlikely that a missing persons report would be needed to jump-start a search for Donnie Cosgrove.

“Does your husband have access to any weapons?” Mel asked.

DeAnn stared at her. “You mean, like a gun?”

Mel nodded.

“Donnie does have a gun,” DeAnn conceded. “It belonged to his father. He keeps it locked in his desk in the bedroom. But why…?”

“Is it there now?”

Without a word, DeAnn left the room. When she returned a few moments later, her face was pasty white. “It’s gone,” she whispered, sinking onto the couch. “You don’t think he’s the one who did it, do you? I’m mean, it’s not possible!”

But of course it was all too thinkable and all too possible, although I’m sure that was the very first moment it ever crossed DeAnn’s mind that her beloved Donnie, the father of her children, might have murdered her mother and stepfather.

“What kind of gun is it?” Mel asked.

“I have no idea,” DeAnn managed. “I don’t know anything about guns-anything at all. I just know I didn’t like him having one.”

“But it was a handgun of some kind?” Mel persisted. “Not a rifle or a shotgun.”

“Yes, I guess that’s what you’d call it-a handgun. I think Donnie said it was a.357, but I’m not sure.”

Had I been asking the questions right then, my face probably would have given away the game. Mel’s didn’t. “I’ll go ahead and take down that missing persons information, then,” she said smoothly. “What kind of vehicle did you say your husband drives?”

It was a deft pivot on Mel’s part, and DeAnn Cosgrove clung to that disarming piece of fiction as though her life depended on it. Maybe it did. Without being able to believe we really were taking a missing persons report, DeAnn might have fallen apart completely.

“A Chevrolet Tahoe,” she answered. Surprisingly enough, the woman was still able to reel off Donnie’s plate number from memory. For the next several minutes, she located and supplied all the necessary info about the clothing her husband had been wearing when he left the house. She gave us his contact information at work as well as the names, addresses, and phone numbers of friends and relations.

“Now what?” DeAnn asked when Mel finally put her notebook and pen away.

“We’re going to try to find him,” Mel said.

“But not hurt him, right?” DeAnn said. “I’m sure he hasn’t done anything wrong. He wouldn’t have.”

I think she was trying to convince herself even more than she was us.

“We’ll do everything in our power to see that no one gets hurt,” I told her.

“Thank you,” DeAnn said gratefully. “Thank you very much.”

She stood on the front porch as we made our way out the gate, down the driveway, and back to the sidewalk. At the end of the driveway a rolling garbage bin had already been hauled out to the street. Mel and I exchanged glances as we walked past it. She held out her hand. “I’ll drive,” she said.

Gentleman that I am, I handed over the keys and climbed into the passenger seat. DeAnn watched while we fastened our seat belts and Mel started the engine. Only when we actually pulled away from the curb did DeAnn disappear into the house, closing the door and turning off the porch light. At the end of the block Mel negotiated a quick U-turn and then brought us back to the garbage bin parked at the end of the Cosgroves’ driveway.

Garbage hauled out to the street no longer has the expectation of privacy. Since the Dumpster in question came from a house awash in toddlers and disposable diapers, opening the lid was not for the faint of heart. I can handle crime scenes. I can handle the stench of death. The odor of several dozen moldering dirty diapers, however, left me gagging.

The top layer consisted of two large white plastic bags, carefully tied shut. For a time it looked as though I’d have to untie the bags and go pawing through them-not a pleasant thought. I hauled them out and placed them on the curb beside me. Then, to my immense relief, visible in the pale glow of a rain-drenched street lamp was exactly what I was looking for-a pair of mangled man’s sneakers. They had clearly been run through both a washer and dryer and looked as though they were no longer wearable.

Triumphantly I grabbed them up, threw the trash bags back inside the container, and hurried back to the car with my booty.

“Got ’em,” I told Mel. “Now drive. Next stop is the crime lab. Let’s see what, if anything, Luminol can tell us.”

Mel, driving like a maniac as usual, steered us straight to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab on Airport Way south of downtown Seattle. There it took only a matter of minutes for Rena Bullworth, one of the criminalists specializing in blood evidence, to confirm what Mel and I already suspected. The Cosgroves’ Maytag may have done its darnedest to clean up the mess, but the Luminol’s telltale blue told us that there were still tiny traces of human blood lingering on the seemingly white shoelaces and seams of Donnie Cosgrove’s Reeboks.

Seeing blood there was one thing. Being able to know whose blood we were seeing was another problem entirely.

Moments later I was on the phone with Detective Lander up in Leavenworth telling him about this latest development.

“So you think I’m right and the son-in-law could be our shooter?” he wanted to know.

“Maybe,” I said. “The lady here at the crime lab isn’t very hopeful about being able to extract a DNA profile from what little blood is left on Donnie Cosgrove’s shoes, but she’s going to try.”

“Even if the blood evidence isn’t there, we’ve got footprints,” Lander said. “If your shoes match our prints, we can at least put him at the crime scene.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “In the meantime, what kind of shell casings were found?”

“Just a minute,” Lander said. “Let me check the log.” It took a while for him to come back on the line. “Here it is. A nine-millimeter Golden Saber. Why?”

“Donnie Cosgrove’s wife told us he owns a handgun of some kind-a.357, she thinks,” I said. “But considering what she knows about guns, it could very well be a nine millimeter. Whatever kind of gun it is, it’s currently missing from its usual spot in their bedroom.”

Lander whistled. “Sounds like we need to have a sit-down with this guy.”

“Yes,” I said. “We do, but good luck finding him. He took off this afternoon after you left without telling his wife where he was going and hasn’t been seen since. He isn’t answering his phone.”

“You want to post the BOLO on him, or should I?” Lander asked.

In cop parlance, a “be on the lookout” is one step under an all-points bulletin, but it means pretty much the same thing. An unwitting DeAnn Cosgrove had willingly supplied all the necessary information.

“Not to worry,” I said. “My partner’s doing that right now.”

“Back to Redmond?” Mel asked as we left the crime lab.

“I don’t see any way around it,” I said. So back to Redmond we went. When we arrived at the Cosgroves’ little rambler a second time, the porch light was still off but interior lights showed at the windows. A fully dressed DeAnn responded to the bell. She came to the door with a sleeping baby cradled in her arms.

“Did you find him?” she asked anxiously. “Is he all right?”

“No,” Mel said. “We have yet to locate your husband, but we did find something else. We need to talk to you about it.”

By then DeAnn Cosgrove must have cried herself out and reached her own conclusions about our earlier visit. She listened to everything Mel and I had to say with dry-eyed concentration.

“You’re telling me he’s a suspect, then?” DeAnn asked.

Mel nodded.

“So what should I do? When Donnie comes home, should I try to talk him into giving up? Tell him that he should turn himself in?”

“No!” I interjected, probably more forcefully than I should have. “Absolutely not. Don’t even think about it. Convincing armed suspects to surrender is dangerous work even for trained emergency response teams.”

I could have added that unarmed wives are notoriously bad at it, but I didn’t. Even fully armed, Sue Danielson had been no match for her ex-husband. She hadn’t been able to convince him to lay down his weapon and stop shooting. I didn’t want DeAnn Cosgrove and her children to suffer the same fate. Neither did Mel.

“It’s always possible that your husband had nothing to do with what happened up in Leavenworth,” she said in a far more conciliatory tone than the one I had used. “But I think we can all agree that his behavior today is unusual. Until we can locate him and sort this all out, our first concern has to be keeping you and your children safe. I think you should take the children and leave.”

“Leave?” DeAnn repeated dully. “You mean run away?”

Yes! I wanted to scream at her. Get the hell out of Dodge!

“It’s the middle of the night,” DeAnn objected. “The kids are asleep,” she added. “I’d have to wake them up and load them into the van. Where would I take them?”

“You said earlier that some of your friends from church came over this afternoon and helped you. Do you think you could stay with one of them?”

Mel met and held DeAnn’s gaze for a period of several long seconds. When DeAnn looked away first, I knew Mel had her. Give a mother a choice between her babies and her husband, and most women will take the former.

“I’ll call Mary Jane,” she said.

Mel and I stayed around while DeAnn packed up a vanload of food, clothing, and toys. Once the child gear had been loaded into the Dodge minivan in the garage, Mel and I helped carry the three sleeping kids out to the car and strap them into their car seats.

With the engine running, DeAnn backed out of the garage and closed the garage door behind her. In the driveway, though, she paused and rolled down the window. “Shouldn’t I leave Donnie a note?” she asked. “What if he comes home and we’re not here? Won’t he be worried? Shouldn’t I let him know where we are?”

I was afraid that if she went back into the house, we’d never get her to leave a second time. Mel must have shared that concern.

“You have a cell phone, don’t you?” she asked.

DeAnn nodded. “Yes, but-”

“You can talk to him on the phone if he calls you,” Mel advised. “Tell him you and the kids are fine, but don’t tell him where you are or how to find you, and whatever you do, don’t agree to meet him. If he contacts you-if he tells you where he is-you call us. We’ll negotiate with him, not you.”

“All right,” DeAnn agreed at last, putting the minivan in gear. “If you think that’s the best way to handle it…”

Mel and I stood in the street and watched until DeAnn’s taillights disappeared around the next intersection. The process of talking her into leaving had left me drained.

“Can we go home now?” I asked Mel. “This has been a very long day.”