Name Witheld

Twenty-three

The aftermath of something like that is almost as nightmarish as the event itself. Officer Smith-everybody else called him Smitty-along with another flashlight-wielding Kirkland cop, found Bill Whitten, what was left of him, sticking out from under what had once been the front door. He had evidently been hiding in the entryway. Without knowing it, I had told Grace Highsmith the truth. Her chosen trajectory through the middle of the house had scored a direct hit.

Smitty and I were up by the van, debriefing the unit commander when another uniformed young patrol officer came hurrying up to us. "The canine unit just found a woman, hiding down along the beach. They're bringing her up through a neighbor's yard."

Moments later, a scratched, bleeding, and handcuffed Deanna Compton was led into the command-post circle. "Mrs. Compton!" I said.

Captain Miller, the emergency response team commander, looked at me sharply. "You know this woman?"

"She was Bill Whitten's secretary."

"For a secretary, she put up a hell of a fight," the officer with her said. "If we hadn't had the dog, she might have gotten away."

"What do you have to do with all this?" Captain Miller asked.

"I want an attorney," Deanna Compton said.

"We'll see if we can't get you one," the captain replied. "Just as soon as we finish cleaning up some of the mess. Lock her in a patrol car until we're ready to deal with the paperwork."

"Sir?" another officer said, speaking from outside the tight little circle.

Captain Miller turned to face him. "What now?"

"There's a Bellevue cop just up the road. He wants to come down. He has a woman with him. He says she's the dead woman's niece."

"That's most likely Detective Blaine," I said quickly. "The niece is Latty Gibson."

"You know them?" Miller asked me.

"Blaine's been working this case with me. It's a joint operation."

Miller shook his head. "Sounds like everybody and his uncle knew what was going on," he grumbled. "Everyone but us, that is. Let 'em through."

A few minutes later, Latty Gibson came stumbling into the light, followed by Tim Blaine. She came straight to me. "Aunt Grace?" she asked.

I shook my head. "I'm sorry."

Without another word, Latty collapsed sobbing in Tim Blaine's willing arms. And as he stood there, holding her and patting her shoulder in that useless way men do when they don't know what the hell else to do with their hands, I had a sudden flash of insight.

Latty didn't know it yet, because she had no idea Grace Highsmith had revised her will. And Tim Blaine didn't know it yet, because the men involved are always the last ones to figure it out. But I had a very strong suspicion that the number of independently wealthy homicide detectives in King County was about to increase 100 percent.

I turned to Captain Miller. "There's an important piece of artwork down in the house," I said. "A statue. We've got to move it out tonight."

"The hell we do. It can stay there until morning."

"No," I said. "This is a very valuable piece. I don't think you want to be legally responsible for it. Grace was talking about it just before she died."

Miller glowered at me. "Is the damned thing even still there?"

"Yes," I said. "I saw it while we were looking for Bill Whitten's body."

"Well, take somebody with you and go get it then."

I ended up taking Smitty and another Kirkland cop. Armed with flashlights, we made our way back into the building. Dusty was heavy enough that it took both of them to lift it. As soon as they did, several pieces of paper, taped to the base of the statue, waved like flags in the wind.

The papers turned out to be Virginia Marks' fax to Grace Highsmith. I tore them loose and read the first few sentences by flashlight, standing in the wreckage of Grace's demolished home.

Daniel James Wilkes, aka Donald R. Wolf, was a disbarred patent attorney who used to specialize in biotech products. Until May of this year, Dan Wilkes was living in a pay-by-the-week motel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Early in April, there was an international biotech convention in Las Vegas. Bill Whitten was in attendance at that meeting. Wilkes disappeared from Vegas two weeks later and resurfaced in San Diego, California, early in June. When he reappeared, he had a new name, a new car, and a new wardrobe. With more digging, I believe we'll be able to verify that Wilkes and Whitten had an employee/employer relationship as early as the beginning of June.

"Hey, Beaumont," Smitty growled. "Bring that flashlight and come on. This thing is heavy as all hell."

Folding the papers, I stuffed them in my pocket. Virginia Marks had been one hell of a detective after all. This was information we would all need as we unraveled the strings of our several interconnected cases-starting with Captain Miller of the Kirkland police and working our way back across Lake Washington.

"I'm coming," I said.

I followed Dusty's slow progress as the two laboring officers carried the heavy bronze up the debris-littered stairs. When they reached the top, they set The End of the Trail down. "Where to now?" one of them asked.

"I'll take it," Tim Blaine said, lifting it single-handedly and looking to Latty to see where she wanted him to carry it. "It belongs to the little lady here."

And so do you, you dimwit, I thought. And so do you.

Twenty-four

I t was six o'clock the next morning by the time Peters and I finally dragged our weary butts back home. My Rollaboard suitcase was already packed and sitting by the door.

"Your plane's at nine o'clock," Ralph Ames said. "You could maybe even grab two winks."

"I can sleep on the plane. What I can't get in the air is a decent breakfast."

"You hit the shower," Ralph told me. "By the time you're dressed, breakfast will be ready."

When I finished dressing and came back out to the kitchen, coffee was made and two matching waffle irons sat warming on my counter. With a phone to his ear and evidently waiting on hold, Ralph was mixing up waffle batter.

"Where did those come from?" I asked, indicating the waffle irons as I poured myself a cup of coffee. "I don't own any waffle irons."

Ralph grinned. "You do now," he said. "It's a bread-and-butter gift. I suppose I should say a waffle-and-butter gift."

I started to say something else, but whoever had put him on hold must have come back on the line. "I'm here," he said. "Go ahead."

Leaving him a little privacy, I went into the living room and sat down on the recliner. I was dog-assed tired. I fell sound asleep and Ralph had to wake me when the waffles were ready. Over breakfast-the waffles were delicious-I gave him the highlights of the previous night's activities. Telling him about Ron's part in the proceedings reminded me of something else.

"What about Hilda Chisholm?" I asked him.

"Oh, that," he said. "That's who I was on the phone about when you came out of the shower. Do you remember someone by the name of Arnold Duckworth?"

"Not that I know of. Should I?"

"You evidently sent him to the slammer a few years back. He and his partner had a lucrative business growing pot in the basement of a house over in the University District. They got into some kind of beef and Arnold beat the other guy to death with a shovel. You nailed him for second-degree murder. He's still in prison up in Monroe."

"What does Arnold Duckworth have to do with Hilda Chisholm?"

"He's Hilda's brother, her baby brother."

I choked on a tiny sip of coffee. "Are you kidding?"

"Not at all. What you told me this woman was doing was so far off the charts that there had to be something to it. I did some behind-the-scenes checking. We're not altogether out of the woods on this thing. There'll still be an investigation, of course, but you can be reasonably certain that Hilda Chisholm won't be running the show. I shouldn't have any difficulty convincing Child Protective Services that she has a serious conflict of interest here. You go on down to California and let me worry about it."

For a minute or so after he finished talking, I just sat there staring at him.

"Is something wrong?" he asked finally.

"Nothing's wrong," I returned. "Not a damned thing."