Payment in kind

Chapter 26

At one o’clock Thursday morning, I delivered a stunned and ashen version of Erin Kelsey to her grandparents’ condo on Queen Anne Hill. The mounting losses left Erin numb, speechless, and beyond tears. She fell into LaDonna Riggs’ comforting arms, but her grandmother’s murmurs of sympathy and outrage fell on seemingly deaf ears.

Belle Riggs led Erin back into the apartment while George, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, walked me back to my car. He seemed to want to say something, and I stood with the door open waiting for him to get around to it.

“Marcia wasn’t perfect,” he said at last, clearing his throat. “I mean, the things they said about her in the paper…” He paused awkwardly, and shook his head.

“Well, we didn’t know for sure, although I guess I always suspected. Maybe Belle didn’t-she’s always been naive about those kinds of things-but I did.”

He sighed, and walked away a foot or two, looking off over the side of the hill at a lighted grain ship being loaded at the terminal below us. The night was still, and the noisy clatter from the grain elevator conveyor belts filtered up the hill to where we stood. The air was noticeably warmer now compared to the arctic deep freeze we’d been locked into for the better part of the week, but it was still chilly to be outside dressed in nothing but shirtsleeves, as George was. The old man, however, seemed totally oblivious to the weather.

“But Pete now,” he said thoughtfully, “Pete’s all wool and a yard wide. I couldn’t have asked for a better son-in-law. He’s always been real steady-a good provider, a good worker, an old-fashioned family man-things that my daughter didn’t necessarily appreciate. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying he’s perfect, and I didn’t approve of him working in that bar off and on the way he did, but Pete’s not Mormon, and I made it a point to stay out of his business. That’s probably one reason why we always got along.”

George Riggs’ voice cracked with emotion, and he aimed a swift kick at a chunk of hardened snow and ice that had been pushed to the edge of the driveway.

“What are you telling me, Mr. Riggs?” I asked.

“I don’t care what his real name is, Detective Beaumont. No matter who he is really or what he may have done in the past, no matter how it looks, I know Pete Kelsey never killed my daughter. He may have been provoked, but he didn’t do it. He wouldn’t. Do you understand?”

“Mr. Riggs…” I began, but he ignored me.

“What about the fire?”

“What about it?”

“You haven’t said, but it wasn’t an accident, now was it? It had to be deliberate. Pete replaced every inch of wiring in that house and brought it up to code. It was all old knob-and-tube stuff, and fixing it was one heck of a job. So now he’s lost his wife and he’s lost his house. What’s next, and who’s doing this? who’s got it in for Pete Kelsey?”

“I don’t know.”

“But it does look like somebody’s out to get him?”

“Yes, Mr. Riggs, it is beginning to look that way, and I’m on my way down to the jail to find out what I can from Pete Kelsey himself. In the meantime, how about if I get the Patrol Division to send a unit up here, just to keep an eye on things.”

“You mean a police guard?”

“Listen, Mr. Riggs, I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, but there’s already been one attempt on Erin’s life tonight, and there could as easily as not be another.”

“No,” George said, shaking his head stubbornly. “No way. I believe I can handle it myself. The women are already upset enough as it is. Having police guarding the house would upset them that much more.”

I left him then, but on my way down to the King County Jail, I called the Patrol Division anyway. Just to be on the safe side. They told me they’d handle it and be discreet.

In the jail, Pete Kelsey/John David Madsen was being held in Ten South, a cellblock reserved for suspects arrested in connection with serious crimes.

I waited in the small, pie-shaped cinder-block interview room while one of the night guards brought the prisoner from his cell. He arrived wearing his orange jumpsuit jail uniform and looking as though he’d been rudely awakened from a sound sleep.

“Detective Beaumont, what are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you, Pete. I’ve got some bad news.”

He blanched. “What is it? Has something happened to Erin?”

“No,” I said. “Erin’s safe for the moment, but your house isn’t. It burned to the ground earlier tonight. I’m here to ask you the same question your father-in-law put to me a few minutes ago. Who’s got it in for you?”

Kelsey dropped onto the only remaining plastic chair. “The house is gone?”

“Yes, completely, but Erin’s all right. I took her to her grandparents’ house. Fortunately, she wasn’t home when the fire started. If she had been…”

“She’d be dead,” Kelsey finished.

I nodded.

“Was it arson?” he asked.

“Probably, although right now it’s officially known as a fire of suspicious origin. Once the arson investigators get inside, I’m sure they’ll find all the telltale signs. So tell me, Pete, who did it?”

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine.”

“Maybe this will throw some light on it. Erin had a call an hour or two before it happened, a threatening call from a woman who laughed all the while she was telling your daughter that you hadn’t lost everything yet, but that you would. Does that sound familiar?”

He looked at me, his electric blue eyes searching mine. “Laughing?” he asked.

I nodded. “Laughing and saying that what’s happening is payment in kind for something you did to her. So who is it, Pete? Tell me.”

“It must be the same woman then, but I’ve no idea…”

I was losing patience. “Look, let’s not play games. Someone’s out to get you, any way they can. So far your wife is dead and your home has been destroyed. If somebody’s decided to beat you out of everything, the way I figure it, there’s only one thing left for them to take away.”

I saw the stricken expression on his face and knew I’d landed a telling blow. “Erin?” he whispered.

“That’s right. Erin,” I said. “So are you going to help me or not?”

“I’ll try, but what can I do?”

“Think, man. Who’s got it in for you?”

“I don’t know. I swear to God, I don’t know.”

“You must. This is somebody with a major grudge. Maybe you’re not proud of it, maybe it’s something you never wanted to see the light of day, but it’s not something you would have forgotten.”

“Detective Beaumont, I don’t have any idea…”

“Is it something you’re afraid would be self-incriminating and could be used against you in a court of law? Would it help if I called Cal Drachman down here?”

“No, don’t do that.”

“Talk to me then. It’s someone from years ago, someone who knew all about Erin’s birth certificate.”

Pete Kelsey’s head snapped erect. “What about her birth certificate?”

“That it’s a fake, just like your name.”

“But how could someone know about that? Erin didn’t even know.”

“She does now. Tell me, Pete, what are you hiding? I’ve got to know. Erin’s life is at stake. Unless I know the whole story, I can’t help.”

He stared at me, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. I kept quiet, knowing he was verging on spilling whatever it was.

“She’s not mine,” he said at last.

“Who’s not yours?”

“Erin. I stole her, or rather we both did. Marcia and I.”

It took a moment for that to soak in. “You stole her? You mean as in kidnapping?”

“Not exactly. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.” He gave me an odd look, as though it was some kind of joke, but I wasn’t smiling. “If you’d only seen what was happening…”

“You’d better tell me about it, Pete. From the beginning.”

“Did you ever play much poker?” he asked.

“Not me. People tell me I’ve got an honest face.”

Pete Kelsey smiled hollowly. “Not me. I’ve always been a good bluffer, too good, in fact. I bluffed my way into and through West Point. My father was only second-generation American, and he wanted me to go all the way to the top. He wanted me to be a general or head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That was his idea of the great American Dream, that a farm kid from Marvin, South Dakota, could rise to the top.

“I was good at target practice, and I was good at tests-academic, personality profile, you name a test and I could pass it with flying colors. But I didn’t find out about killing until after it was too late. Oh, I could talk a good game, but I couldn’t kill worth a damn. Once I was in Nam, I froze up. I couldn’t pull the trigger, not even to kill someone who was out to kill me. And our guys were counting on me, leaning on a bent reed, so I managed to steer clear of actual combat and took off the first time I got a chance.”

“Where did you go?”

He shrugged. “All over. I knew I could never go home. My father couldn’t have stomached having a coward for a son. It was better that I simply disappear. That way he never knew.”

Pete Kelsey stopped in the middle of his story and looked at me questioningly. “How is my father, Detective Beaumont? You must have talked to him by now.”

“Your father’s dead, Pete. Both your parents are. Years ago.”

He swallowed hard and nodded. “Thank God. At least I won’t have to face them.” For a moment he buried his face in his hands. When he looked up, he seemed dazed. “Where was I?”

“You were telling about what you did after you left Vietnam.”

He nodded. “I bummed around for a while, first in Asia and then later in South America. I wanted to come home, to the States, I mean, but I didn’t dare. The closest I came was Mexico. I ended up tending bar in a little place in Baja called Puerto Penasco.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Gringos call it Rocky Point. It’s sort of a poor man’s Acapulco. Anyway, I was bartending in a little beachfront bar there. The guy who owned it thought having a gringo tend bar would pull in the money. That’s where I met Chris McLaughlin.”

“Marcia’s first husband?”

Kelsey nodded grimly. “That worthless bastard.”

“I thought they were in Canada. Is that where you met Marcia?”

“No, Marcia wasn’t there. By then she was already back home with her parents. Chris was the only one I met, although that wasn’t the name he was using at the time. I didn’t find out his real name until much later.”

“What was he doing there?”

“Buying drugs,” Pete Kelsey answered. “Buying drugs, drinking too much, letting himself run off at the mouth. One day when he was half drunk I heard him telling somebody that having the baby along made his work a piece of cake. He called her his little mule. He said he could put whatever he wanted in with that baby and carry it back and forth across the border with no difficulty because the Federales never searched her.”

“His own baby?”

“That’s right,” Kelsey answered bitterly. “Chris McLaughlin was a nice guy. A helluva nice guy.”

“So whose baby is Erin really if she wasn’t Marcia’s?”

“Chris McLaughlin and another woman’s Sonja, I think her name was. They all went to Canada together, but Marcia didn’t know that Chris and Sonja were already married. The way I heard it, he had this fantasy about starting his own patriarchy-you know, the old one-man-many-wives routine? Except it didn’t work out quite the way he planned. I think Marcia liked Sonja more than she did Chris, and I think she would have stayed if it hadn’t been for the drugs.”

“Both Chris and Sonja were into the drug scene?”

Pete nodded. “That’s why Marcia came back home to Seattle.”

“But you still haven’t explained how you ended up with Erin.”

“I knew from what I overhead in the bar that McLaughlin was there to pick up a load and take it back. He was only supposed to be there for a week or so. To make it look like an ordinary vacation, he hired himself a Mexican lady to take care of the baby and then he settled down to having a hell of a good time. He found plenty fun, all right, in all the wrong places. He disappeared and turned up three days later down on the beach with a knife stuck between his ribs.

“In the meantime, the baby-sitter, a cousin of the guy who owned the bar, came looking for him too. She was afraid what would happen to her if the cops found her with an Anglo baby with no father anywhere around. I think she was worried about kidnapping. She brought the baby and all her stuff to the bar, and while I was looking through the bags, in among the false bottoms, I found a stash of phoney IDs.”

“Including one for Pete Kelsey?” I asked.

Pete nodded. “Pete and Erin Kelsey and my deceased wife. I also found a half-written letter to Marcia in an address book. From the sound of it, he had planned to assume Pete Kelsey’s ID and disappear, from his drug connections and from Sonja as well.”

“So you took the baby and the ID and came to the States masquerading as a Canadian citizen?”

“That’s right. It was a ticket home and I used it. I thought, from the letter, that Erin was actually Marica’s baby, but I found out differently. She was as outraged as I was by Chris and Sonja using the baby to smuggle drugs, and between us we came up with the idea of getting married and keeping Erin ourselves. Marcia was the one who thought of letting Maxwell Cole believe he was introducing us and playing cupid. She worked behind the scenes and engineered my getting the remodeling job at Max’s mother’s house. He always took full credit for our getting together.”

“And it made things seem like they were all on the up-and-up,” I added.

“That’s right,” Pete said.

My heart went out to poor duped Maxwell Cole. He had spent twenty years taking credit for bringing Pete and Marcia Kelsey together without ever knowing how completely they’d played him for a fool. It made Erin’s calling him “Uncle Max” seem pitiable rather than laughable.

“So you two set out to raise Erin as your own?”

He nodded. “Marcia and I made an agreement that we would stick together for Erin’s sake, no matter what. It was like an old-fashioned arranged marriage, I suppose. We were both happy enough at first, but keeping that bargain got harder as the years went on, especially after Marcia met Andrea. It never occurred to me that Marcia would really run off with her.”

“Maybe she wouldn’t have,” I suggested.

Pete Kelsey frowned. “What do you mean?”

“According to Andrea Stovall, the woman on the phone told you a lie. She said Marcia had no intention of breaking her word to you.”

Pete Kelsey’s hard jawline went slack. “You mean she told me that just to make trouble?”

“And it worked, too, didn’t it?” I returned.

He thought about it a moment before nodding his head. “Yes,” he answered bleakly. “I guess it did.”

I took a second to try to organize my thoughts. “You’re sure Chris McLaughlin died in Mexico?”

“Yes, I saw him. I didn’t stay around afterward, though. I took Erin and headed for the border.”

“What happened to Sonja?”

“I don’t know. We never made any inquiries for fear of drawing attention to ourselves. Marcia went ahead and let her parents get the annulment, even though she already knew Chris was dead. The rest you know.”

“Where did they live in Canada?”

“In a commune-type arrangement someplace up near Nanaimo on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.”

“You’re sure this Sonja was Erin’s real mother?”

“As far as I know.”

“What was her last name?”

“McLaughlin too. He was a bigamist. That’s how come Belle and George were able to get an annulment without any problem. Actually, they probably didn’t even need to, but they wanted to wipe the slate clean.”

“And Marcia couldn’t have shown up with an annulment, a clean slate, and a baby.”

“By then Marcia had already had a hysterectomy. Erin was our only chance at having a child of our own.” Pete paused for a moment and seemed to mull an idea.

“Are you thinking that maybe after all these years, Sonja has come after us and she’s behind all this?”

“It’s possible.”

“Would she hurt her own daughter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you stop her? I don’t care what happens to me as long as you keep her from hurting Erin.”

“We’ll try,” I said.

Pete Kelsey reached across the table and grasped my hand, squashing it in a powerful grip.

“Do more than try, Detective Beaumont,” he pleaded. “Once Erin finds out about all this, she may never want to see me again, but I can’t stand for her to be hurt anymore. Maybe she isn’t my real daughter, but she’s the only daughter I’ve ever had.”

Extricating my hand, I went to the door and signaled the guard that I was ready to leave. I was about to walk out when I remembered about the fruits of Detective Kramer’s search warrant and something else Andrea Stovall had mentioned.

“Who else besides you and Erin had keys to your house?”

It was a closing-the-barn-door question in view of the fact that the house had burned to its foundations, and if there hadn’t been so much other pain winging around the room, it might have been a painful one, but I asked it anyway, and Pete answered without hesitation. “We’re the only ones, other than Marcia.”

“Were Marcia’s keys in the envelope of personal effects from Doc Baker’s office?”

Pete Kelsey frowned. “No, I’m sure they weren’t.”

“And the garage door opener?”

“No. That wasn’t there either. Isn’t it still in the car?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to check. One last thing, Pete.” Calling him John David Madsen right then would have amounted to kicking him while he was down.

“What’s that?”

“Did you happen to take the pictures of you and Erin that were hanging in Marcia’s office?”

“Why, no. Aren’t they still there?”

“No. I’m sorry to say they’re not.”

That was the final straw. “I was hoping we still had those,” Pete Kelsey croaked. “I was hoping there was something left, but it’s gone, isn’t it? It’s all gone.”

And he buried his face in his arms.

I left then, quickly, feeling my own eyes fill with tears.

I was still sniffling when I reached the front desk. “I must have caught a cold somewhere,” I said to the guard, who eyed me quizzically as I stopped long enough to sign out.

Maxwell Cole’s goddamned cold, but of course, it wasn’t a cold at all.