Payment in kind

Chapter 3

I was on my way to the door to join Doc Baker and Detective Kramer when I almost collided with a lady who came rushing down the stairway into the reception area. She was a horsefaced woman wearing a severe suit that matched her iron gray hair. She stopped directly in front of me, pausing uncertainly and looking anxiously around the room.

“May I help you?” I asked.

“Oh, my, yes. Are you with the police?”

“Yes. My name’s Detective Beaumont. What can I do for you?”

“I’m Doris, Doris Walker, Dr. Savage’s secretary.”

Dr. Kenneth Savage, the superintendent of schools, was the one employee of the school district whose name I recognized without any prompting. He had come to Seattle from Boston several years earlier and was trying to help the district cope with its twin perennial problems of decreasing enrollment and decreasing revenues. The fact that Savage had lasted for five whole years in a mostly thankless position not known for job security probably meant he was doing a reasonably good job.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Doris continued distractedly. “With all that’s happened here this morning, Dr. Savage is having all the calls routed through us upstairs, and…” She stopped in midsentence, seemingly overcome by indecision.

“And what, Doris?” I prodded. “We can’t help you if you don’t tell us exactly what the problem is.”

“Mrs. Chambers is on the phone,” she blurted suddenly, nodding toward the janitor’s closet without actually looking at it. “You know. His wife.”

Although she seemed close to tears, she kept her voice discreetly low. I glanced cautiously around the room to make sure I was the only one listening to what she said.

“She told me that she has his breakfast on the table ready for him to eat it but that her husband still isn’t home. He’s more than an hour late, and she wanted to know if he had left here. That means she doesn’t know anything at all yet, and I don’t want to be the one to tell her. I mean what can you say when something this terrible has happened?”

I could have told Doris Walker that years of doing it, years of bringing people that kind of devastating news, doesn’t make it any easier.

Instead I said, “Get the phone number and address of wherever she is right now. Tell her there’s been a problem here at the office, and that you’ll have someone check and get back to her as soon as possible. All right?”

Doris Walker nodded gratefully, heaving an immense sigh of relief. “So you don’t want me to tell her. I don’t have to?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Oh, good. I was afraid it was going to be up to me.”

“Go back and talk to her now,” I urged. “And when you get the information I asked for, come straight back here and give it to me. We’ll handle it from there.”

“Of course. Right away.” Doris Walker hurried toward the stairs with the step of someone whose shoulders had just been relieved of the weight of the world. I in turn joined Kramer and Doc Baker near the door.

“Where’ve you been?” Kramer asked. “We don’t have all day, you know.”

Behind Kramer’s back, Doc Baker gave an almost imperceptible shake to his head. The blatantly sympathetic look told me he found Detective Paul Kramer almost as tiresome as I did.

“What have we got, Doc?” I asked.

“Looks like homicide/suicide so far, although we haven’t found a suicide note yet,” Baker replied. “My guess is she got him first and then turned the gun on herself. She died right away. He took his time.”

“IDs?”

Baker nodded. “Tentative. We’ll have to have them confirmed by relatives as soon as possible. The male was wearing a name badge.”

“I saw that,” I said.

“People here say his whole name was Alvin Chambers. He worked for Seattle Security. They’re the company with the security contract for the school district. The woman’s name is Marcia Louise Kelsey. She was head of Labor Relations for the district here. We noticed her purse wasn’t here. You may want to see if it’s upstairs in her office when you go up to secure it.”

I nodded. “Thanks for letting us know.”

Baker waved and started away. “No problem.”

“By the way,” I added. “Those are the same names we were given by the receptionist.”

Baker stopped and turned, raising one bushy eyebrow. “Who’s that? Jennifer Lafflyn, the young woman who found the bodies?”

“That’s right.”

The medical examiner nodded his massive head. “I see, but we still have to regard the identification as tentative for right now. Did she have any idea about what kind of links might exist between these two people?”

“As a matter of fact, I asked her that very question just a few minutes ago,” I replied. “According to her, there was no connection whatsoever.”

I could have added that Jennifer’s exaggerated nonresponse to my question had made me wonder, but it was such a tenuous hunch on my part that I didn’t bother. I wouldn’t have minded passing the idea along to Doc Baker, but I wasn’t in favor of giving Kramer the benefit of my theory. Sharing hunches with people you neither like nor respect can be lots tougher in the long run than simply keeping your mouth shut.

“Well,” said Baker, “I was just giving your partner here what we assume to be the victims’ names and addresses. After you finish up, you may want to track down next-of-kin, notify them officially, and bring them by my office for the positive ID. Just give us an hour or so to get the bodies back downtown.”

At that point, one of the medical examiner’s technicians came over and waited patiently to be acknowledged. “What is it, Stevens?” Baker asked.

“There was something under one of the stiffs. Thought you and the dicks ought to take a look.”

We walked back over to the closet. Marcia Kelsey’s body had been removed altogether. Alvin Chambers’ body-bagged corpse had been hefted onto a gurney nearby.

“It was under his ankle,” Stevens said. “Anywhere else and it would have been covered with blood.”

On the floor of the closet, in a small area where the tile hadn’t been stained brown, lay a little yellow Post-it sheet. Grunting, Baker knelt down, studied the paper for a moment, then got up and moved out of the way, letting Kramer and me go by turns.

It was one of those cute little notepad things that says “From the desk of Marcia Kelsey.” The handwriting was firm and perfectly legible: “A, See you tonight at the usual time. M.”

“So they were getting it on in the closet,” Paul Kramer crowed once he had read the note. “I told you.”

Baker shot him a withering glance.

Something was bothering me, nudging my thinking. “Why did she do it in the closet with the door closed?” I asked, looking back inside at the grungy room with its dirty, deep sink. The only light was from a dim, unshaded forty-watt bulb hanging on the end of a rubberized cord with a chain pull for turning it off and on.

“You’re right,” Baker agreed. “That closet’s not a very nice place, but maybe she wanted to muffle the noise.”

But I was still studying the hanging lightbulb. Suddenly another bulb switched on in my head. “Wait a minute, Doc, was this light off or on when you got here?”

Frowning, Baker peered at me over the tops of his thick bifocals. “Off,” he said. “Why?”

“Had anybody messed with it?”

“They all said they hadn’t,” he answered, giving me his undivided attention and nodding as the light dawned for him as well. “Now that you mention it, Beau, you’re right. The light was definitely off. I’m the one who turned it on so we could see what we were doing in there.”

“What’s the light being off or on got to do with anything?” Kramer asked impatiently.

“People hardly ever kill themselves in the dark,” I replied.

“Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me that some poor son of a bitch who isn’t worried about blowing his brains out would be scared of doing it in the dark? Get off it. Once they’re dead, what does it matter?”

Paul Kramer had walked me right up to the very edge of my patience. “Let’s leave interpretation up to the shrinks, shall we, Detective Kramer?”

Before Kramer could reply, Baker broke in. “Thanks for pointing out the light thing, Beau. It’ll keep us on our toes when we do the autopsies.”

“And when will that be?”

“This afternoon, probably. With the lousy weather, business is a little slow for us right now. Except for this, it’s been too damned cold for people to be running around killing each other. For a change we don’t have cases lined up and waiting. Even if we did, though, this would be a priority. After all, these people are supposedly fine, upstanding members of the community. There’s going to be a whole lot of heat from the public and the media wanting to see results fast. This one isn’t going to be any picnic for us, or for you either.”

Baker wasn’t saying something I hadn’t already figured out for myself. Bums can get murdered every day of the week and nobody gives a damn, but let the victim be an ordinary bill-paying, tax-paying citizen, and people get a whole lot more interested. Throw in a dash of infidelity and you have a case that’s going to be conducted in a white-hot spotlight of public scrutiny. Believe me, those kinds of cases are difficult for everybody concerned. They have minimal opportunity for glory and unlimited potential for disaster.

“Any idea when this happened?” Kramer asked.

“I can’t say right now. We’ll know better after the autopsies.”

“And the gun?” I asked.

“A. 38 Special. Probably belonged to Chambers or maybe the security guard company. He’s wearing a holster, but it’s empty.”

“Why would a security guard in a school district need to be packing a piece?” Kramer asked.

Baker shook his head. “Beats me.”

“We’d better stop by and ask the Superintendent of Schools about that,” I said. “We’ll ask him about the logbook as well.”

“Logbook?” Baker asked quickly.

“According to Jennifer Lafflyn, the security guards were required to log everyone who came through the building after hours. She said the book itself is safely put away in the bottom drawer of the receptionist’s desk. She took care of that before she had any idea something was wrong.”

“No doubt we’ll need to take a look at it,” Baker said.

The crime-scene investigators showed up right about then with their little bags of tricks. Crime-scene specialists sift through everything, dust for prints, preserve evidence, and do all the fine detail work made possible and necessary by advanced technology. Their work, combined with what happens later at the crime lab, is absolutely essential in successfully bringing cases both to court and conviction.

That’s fine for them, but not for me. I’m glad those guys can analyze the hell out of threads found in carpets and traces of blood found on shoes, but I’d much rather be out on the streets talking to people-asking questions and getting answers-than being locked up in a lab someplace examining DNA fingerprints under a microscope.

We were almost finished when Doris Walker reappeared at my elbow.

“Here’s the number you asked for,” Doris said, handing me another slip of yellow paper. Post-its are evidently very popular at the school district office, and this one was larger than any I’d seen before. “Mrs. Chambers said she’s at home and will wait for a call back.”

“Good,” I said. “Thank you.”

“When I told him I was bringing this down to you, Dr. Savage asked if you could stop by his office and talk to him for a few minutes before you leave. If it’s not too much trouble, that is.”

“Certainly,” I said. “No trouble at all. We’ll be glad to. We need to see him anyway.”

Doris nodded and returned the way she had come.

“Who was that?” Kramer asked, watching her walk away.

“Doris Walker, the superintendent’s secretary. She came down a few minutes ago and told me that Alvin Chambers’ wife was on the phone wondering why he was so late coming home for breakfast. I told her to take a message about where we could reach the wife later and that we’d be in touch.”

“Who’s this doctor who wants to talk to us?”

“Dr. Savage. The superintendent of schools.”

“Oh,” Kramer said.

While the crime-scene team began work on the closet, we were taken upstairs and shown Marcia Louise Kelsey’s office. It wasn’t a plush executive-suite kind of place. The place was messy and cluttered, but there was no sign that it had been ransacked, and there was no indication that a struggle had taken place there. A pencil lay at an angle on a blue-lined tablet, looking as though the writer had stopped working for only a moment to do something else.

Offices usually have a certain amount of personal junk in them-family photographs, children’s scrawled crayon Mother’s Day greetings, personalized cups. Marcia Kelsey’s office had a curiously impersonal air about it. Neither the cluttered desk nor the faded yellow walls held any artwork or family photographs, only a collection of framed diplomas. Several unfaded oblong spots showed where pictures might have been once, but they weren’t there any longer.

A sagging brown couch stood against the far wall under a window, its cushions piled high with computer printouts and other work-in-progress-type debris. For the first time I felt like I was being given some valuable insight into the dead woman’s personality. I have a hard time relating to people who have to work in perfectly orderly offices.

There was plenty of physical evidence that Marcia Kelsey had left the room with every intention of returning. An open briefcase lay on the floor behind the desk, along with a shoulder-strap purse, a pair of panty hose, two heavy orange and gray woolen socks, and a pair of much-used snow boots.

Kramer pointed meaningfully at the panty hose. “If she started undressing here, how come they ended up in the closet downstairs? Why not clean all that crap off the couch and use that?”

Why not indeed?

When we finished with Marcia Kelsey’s office and sealed it with crime-scene tape, Kramer was anxious to hit the road. “We ought to do like Baker said and get cracking on the notifications right away.”

“First we go see Dr. Savage. I told Doris Walker we would, and that’s what we’re going to do.” I started off down the hall, and Kramer followed reluctantly, complaining all the way.

“I don’t know why we have to do this. Wait a minute, Beaumont. This Dr. Savage doesn’t happen to be one of your high-toned cronies from outside the department, does he?”

Ever since I came into a fair amount of money and moved into Belltown Terrace, a high-rise downtown condo, there’s been a certain sourgrapes element at work among some of my cohorts at Seattle P.D. A few of those folks can’t seem to let go of what they presume to be my rarified social status. Mostly that so-called status is nothing more than a figment of overly active imaginations, but it doesn’t make the ongoing antagonism any less real or any less annoying.

“I’ve never met the man before,” I answered stiffly. “I assume he’s interested in being apprised of what’s going on here. After all, he is the school district’s head honcho. We’re here working on his turf, remember. It can’t hurt for us to show him a little common courtesy.”

“It’ll be a waste of time,” Kramer grumbled.

“Courtesy is never a waste of time,” I assured him.

If she had only lived long enough, hearing that comment coming from her diamond-in-the-rough son would have made my mother proud. Astonished and proud.

When we appeared in front of Doris Walker’s desk, her phone was ringing, ablaze with several blinking lights that indicated calls waiting on hold. As soon as she saw us, however, she dropped the handset back into its cradle, jumped to her feet, and left the telephone ringing unanswered while she escorted us to the door of the superintendent’s private office.

“He told me you were to be shown in as soon as you got here,” she explained.

I had seen Dr. Savage once or twice on television, usually standing in front of a podium addressing either the press or a group of citizens. In person he turned out to be surprisingly short. Well dressed and rotund, he spoke in flat, nasal tones that betrayed his proper Bostonian origins. He stood to shake hands across his desk and then waved us into chairs as Doris made the introductions.

“This is awful,” he murmured, resuming his seat. “I can’t imagine anything worse. How could such a terrible thing happen? The phone lines have been going like crazy all morning. Of course, we haven’t given out any information, none at all. I hope that’s correct. It’s what we were told by the first officer who came here this morning. He said not to release anything, not a single word, until someone has a chance to notify next-of-kin.”

“That’s exactly right,” I said reassuringly. “And we’ll be doing that as soon as we possibly can, but in the meantime, there are a few things we need to clear up. Miss Lafflyn told us that your security guards keep a logbook and that it’s currently located in the receptionist’s desk downstairs. The crime-scene investigators will be picking that up and taking it along down-town with them.”

“Certainly. That’s fine. I’m sure we can scare up another one for whoever Seattle Security sends over to take Mr. Chambers’ place. It’s terrible for the families, of course, and I don’t want to seem incredibly hard-hearted, but my main concern has to be to get this dreadful matter straightened out as soon as possible. We’re an inner-city school system, you know. This kind of tragedy will make headlines all over the county. We can’t afford that kind of PR. We simply cannot afford it.”

Savage paused, seemingly winded by the vehemence of his speech. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Yes,” I told him. “We’ll need to have an opportunity to interview any number of your personnel, although we can’t tell at this time the exact identity of the people involved, how many there are, or how much time we’ll need to spend with each one of them,” I added. “First on the list would be Mr. Jacobs, the fellow who called 911. There are probably numerous others as well.”

Savage nodded thoughtfully. “I sent Martin, Mr. Jacobs, that is, home this morning right after it happened. He had quadruple bypass surgery six months ago. I didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances. We’ll give you his home number, though. He said he’d be happy to talk to the authorities whenever they needed him. And if there are any other phone numbers you need, phone numbers or addresses, we’ll be happy to provide them-unless they’re unlisted, of course. Those would be off limits. We’d have to get permission from each individual employee before we give those out.”

He punched a button on his phone, and Doris Walker’s disembodied voice came floating through the intercom. “Yes, Dr. Savage?”

“Write a memo to Personnel,” he ordered. “Tell them that they are to cooperate fully with these detectives.” Savage turned to us with a frown. “What were your names again?”

“Detectives Beaumont and Kramer,” I told him.

He repeated the names into the intercom. “Whatever information they require is to be given the highest possible priority. Be sure to make that clear. As soon as you have the memo typed up, bring it in for my signature, and then I want you to deliver it personally. No. Absolutely not. Don’t send it through interoffice mail. You make sure it gets to Kendra Meadows herself. Today. This morning if at all possible.”

He switched off the intercom and turned back to us, obviously pleased with himself and the way he personally was handling this crisis. “Is there anything else I can do to be of service, gentlemen?”

I glanced at Kramer, who shook his head and glanced pointedly at his watch. “We really ought to be going,” he said, rising to his feet.

“There is one more thing you could clear up for us, Dr. Savage. To my knowledge, most security guards in this area don’t usually wear weapons, but Mr. Chambers was wearing a holster, and a gun was found at the scene. That troubles me. Why would a weapon be necessary in a situation like this, where he was functioning primarily as a night watchman?”

Savage’s easy affability retreated somewhat. He looked at me warily for several long moments before he answered.

“This district is currently faced with any number of difficult crises, Detective Beaumont, one of which involves closing several schools. That’s always a very emotional issue. We’ve also had our share of union difficulties.”

From his obvious discomfort, I sensed that his initial answer wasn’t the whole answer. “I know about the strike last fall,” I said. “But having a security guard on overnight and on weekends would indicate some kind of ongoing problem.”

He shrugged as if to downplay the importance of what was being said, but the seriousness of his concern was plainly written across his face. Kenneth Savage wouldn’t have been any better at playing poker than I am.

“We’ve had some threats now and again,” he said quietly. “Nothing serious of late,” he added lightly with a quick smile.

“Threats? What kind of threats?” I pressed.

He shrugged. “Oh, you know. The usual kind of crazies.”

“There’s no such thing as a ”usual‘ crazy,“ I returned. ”They’re all one of a kind. Exactly what sort of threats?“

“Bomb threats,” he answered with pained reluctance.

“And they haven’t been reported?”

For an answer he made a waffling motion with his hand.

“Have they or haven’t they?”

“To the authorities, yes, but we’ve tried to keep it out of the media, and so far we’ve been successful.”

“Why keep it quiet?”

“As I said before, gentlemen, we’re a troubled district.” He sat up straighter in his chair, delivering his words with guarded intensity. “As such, we can’t afford any adverse publicity. We’ve been handling this situation the best we know how, monitoring the situation, keeping things under control.”

“I hate to be the bearer of more bad news,” I told him. “With those two murders downstairs, ”adverse publicity,“ as you call it, is here to stay. You’d better brace yourself for it.”

Dr. Savage seemed to have shrunk into himself. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“When Doris finishes that memo,” I said, “you have her gather up every bit of information you have on those bomb threats and have it ready for us to pick up when we come back later on this afternoon.”

“But why? I thought you were investigating the murders. What does that have to do with the bomb threats?”

“Maybe nothing, but then again, maybe they are connected. I want everything you have, regardless of its seeming importance, understand?”

Savage nodded. “Right,” he said. “Everything. You’ll have it.”

Detective Kramer was already standing poised by the door when I got up to follow him.

“Way to go,” he said under his breath as I followed him out the door and down the hall. “Glad to see you can put the screws to somebody when you feel like it.”

I’m sure Paul Kramer intended that remark as a compliment, but to me it didn’t feel like something to be proud of. My mother wouldn’t have liked it either.