Betrayal of Trust

Chapter 25

As we headed for the car, Mel’s phone rang. I seem to remember that back in the old days we managed to get by without the constant use of cell phones, but I’m not sure how.

“No,” she was saying. “As I told the officers on the scene, we had no idea there had been a fatality. We were there regarding another matter. If your officers want more information than that, they’ll have to check with our boss, Ross Connors.”

“What’s going on?” I mouthed in her direction.

She shook her head and waved me off. And then my phone rang, too, with an unfamiliar number.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Beaumont? Monica Longmire.”

“Did you find Gizzy?”

“Yes, I did. She was right there where you said she’d be-in with that whole crowd of onlookers at Janie’s House. The two of us had something of a set-to. I told her she was behaving badly to stay out all night and not answer her phone when things are at such sixes and sevens at home with what happened to Josh. I told her she needed to stop being such a self-centered little twerp and start thinking about someone else for a change. I said she should be home helping her mother and Gerry deal with their houseguests arriving for the funeral instead of being out running around. At which point she told me I wasn’t her mother and needed to mind my own business. Ron stepped in then, called me a bitch, and told me to leave Gizzy alone.

“About that time a cop from Olympia PD showed up and started asking questions. I think that’s when most of the kids there found out someone had died in the fire. It looked to me as though that’s the first Gizzy knew about it, too. She turned pale as a ghost. I thought she was going to faint. Ron grabbed her by the arm and led her away. They got in his car and took off.

“Look,” Monica continued. “I’ve tried to be a team player on this. I know the Millers were big supporters of Marsha’s campaign. That’s one of the reasons Sid asked me to keep my misgivings to myself where Ron and Gizzy are concerned, but I’m done with that.

“I spent twenty years of my life married to a man very much like Ron Miller. He had money to burn, and as far as the world was concerned, Dan Masterson was the greatest guy in the world. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. But at home and hidden underneath all that good-guy crap was a real snake. So I recognize the type. If the cops at the fire had bothered asking Ron any questions, I’m sure he could have lied his way out of it with no trouble at all. The problem is, I’ve known Gizzy since she was ten. She’s not nearly as good a liar.”

“Wait,” I said. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying-that you believe Ron Miller and Gizzy might have something to do with the fire at Janie’s House?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Ron at least, and maybe Gizzy, too.”

“Based on the expressions on their faces when the cop started asking questions?”

“That and the way they skipped out of there before the cops got around to talking to them.”

Monica’s words served to confirm my own private hunch, but two hunches don’t make a case, and the fatality arson investigation itself wasn’t Mel’s and my deal. It belonged to Olympia PD.

“Look,” I said. “Special Homicide operates under the direction and at the sole discretion of Attorney General Connors. Even with a death involved, the fire at Janie’s House isn’t our case. You’ll need to speak to the guys here in Olympia.”

“Have you looked at Ron’s driving record?”

We had, but I didn’t want to say so.

“Not really,” I said.

“I know he has some points on his record,” Monica said, “but not nearly as many as he ought to have.”

We thought as much, too. “You’re saying you think cops here in Olympia might give him a pass?” I asked.

“They have in the past.”

“What do you mean?”

“There was a fire a few years ago at a boathouse out along Budd Inlet. It belonged to neighbors of the Millers’. It burned up the boathouse as well as the boat that was stored inside it. The fire ended up being declared an accident rather than arson. No charges were ever filed, but Ron’s parents ended up paying for the damage. Does that sound like a pass to you?”

“How did you find out about this?” I asked.

“Gizzy told Zoe and Zoe told me.”

“Well, you’re right,” I said. “It’s sounding more and more like a pass all the time. I think Mel and I should have a chat with the charming young couple. Do you happen to know where they are right now?”

“At the governor’s mansion,” Monica answered. “They left the scene of the fire in Ron’s Camaro. Gizzy’s Acura was parked a few blocks away. That’s where they said they were going once they picked up her car. They’re there right now, probably having their asses chewed. Gerry was fit to be tied about the situation.”

“We’re only a mile or so away,” I said. “We’ll drop by and do a little piling on.”

“I’ll head home then,” Monica said, “but please don’t mention that I’m the one who raised this issue. If they find out I’ve been talking out of school, all hell is going to break loose. Gizzy will be furious, Sid will be furious, and so will the governor. Not Gerry, though. When it comes to Ron Miller, Gerry and I are pretty much on the same page, but we’re the stepparents. You know how that goes. I have to live with these people.”

Suspicions were all Gerry Willis had offered us about Sam Dysart, but those were looking a whole lot more viable now. In this case, Monica’s suspicions about Ron Miller coincided with my own.

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “You go on home. We won’t give you away.”

While I had been on the phone with Monica, Mel had been in touch with Ross’s office. She had brought him up-to-date on the situation with Sam Dysart. We had been walking as we talked. By the time I got off the phone with Monica, Mel and I were buckled into the front seat of the S-550.

“Is Ross going to request search warrants?”

“Yes,” Mel said. “And what about us? I take it we’re headed for the governor’s mansion?”

“That’s the idea,” I said. “It turns out Ron Miller may have had a previous firebug involvement that wasn’t prosecuted. Try Googling Ronald Darrington Miller or a boathouse fire on Budd Inlet. The fire in question was declared accidental, but the bad boy’s parents, who also happen to be among Governor Longmire’s big-time contributors, paid for the damages.”

“And thus kept it off his record,” Mel said, working her iPhone as I drove. “Tell me it doesn’t pay to have friends in high places.”

We both knew that wasn’t true, because connections work to smooth out all kinds of little rough spots. Mel had just found an article about the fire when we pulled up at the end of the mansion’s brick-paved driveway. The last two cars parked there were a silver Acura and a shiny new blue Camaro with a temporary paper plate affixed to the back window.

“Okay,” she said. “The boathouse fire happened three years ago in July, allegedly from fireworks being shot off by an unnamed juvenile. Damage to the structure and contents was estimated to be in excess of seventy-five thousand dollars.”

“Ron would have been fourteen back then,” I said.

“He isn’t a juvenile now,” Mel said. “So what’s the plan? Are we just going to blurt out something like, ‘Hey, did you two have anything to do with the fire at Janie’s House?’ ”

“No,” I said. “We’re going to tell them that we’re interviewing everybody connected to Janie’s House. Then we’re going to divide and conquer. Most likely Ron and Gizzy cooked up some kind of story to tell their parents about where they were last night and what they did. I’ll tackle Ron; you talk to Gizzy.”

“If her mother lets me get anywhere near her,” Mel said.

“Then we compare notes. If the stories don’t stack up-and I’m willing to bet they won’t-then we come back at them with lying to a police officer.”

I parked directly behind the Camaro, close enough that I figured it wouldn’t be easy for Ron to pull out without my moving first.

The same WSP guard nodded us through. We walked up to the front door and rang the bell. A woman in her forties, one I’d never seen before, opened the door. We didn’t recognize her and she didn’t recognize us.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“We’re here to see Giselle Longmire and Ron Miller,” Mel said. “I understand they’re both here at the moment.”

“You’d need to speak to the governor first, but she’s completely occupied with a personal matter at the moment. I’m Liz Carnahan, her chief of staff. Can I help you?”

Over Liz’s shoulder I could hear the sound of raised voices coming from somewhere nearby-probably the small study just off the front entryway. Marsha seemed to be doing most of the talking.

“Staying out all night is not okay! I expect both of you to show better sense than that. And how about a little respect for what’s going on with Gerry? With all the people in town for the funeral tomorrow, the last thing we need is to have you behaving like this.”

There were some mumbled replies-a male voice and a female one-but nothing that we could understand.

“I’m sorry,” Liz Carnahan said. “This is a personal matter.”

“If the governor is busy, perhaps we could have a word with Mr. Willis,” I said, handing over a business card. “This concerns his grandson.”

The chief of staff gave me the stink eye, but she took the card with her as she turned and disappeared into the house, leaving the door ajar behind her. A moment later, the door to the study slammed open. Ron Miller strode out into the foyer. Then he pushed his way past Mel and me without even acknowledging our presence while Giselle darted upstairs.

“I’ll take him,” I said, nodding after Ron. “You go tell Gerry Willis about Sam Dysart.”

I left Mel standing on the front porch and hurried back to the driveway. Ron was in the Camaro, doing his best to get out of my deliberate automotive squeeze play. I walked up to the car and tapped on the driver’s window, held up my badge, and waited until he rolled the window down.

“Got a minute?”

He looked at me and shook his head. I was a cop. He naturally assumed that made me dumb as a stump. I didn’t want to do anything to disabuse him of that notion.

“I don’t have to talk to you without one of my parents and/or my attorney in on the discussion,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you invoking your Miranda rights when I haven’t even said anything to you? I just wanted to talk to you about the Janie’s House situation, but if you want to be Mirandized, then you must have reason to believe you’re under suspicion in that incident.”

“Aren’t I?” He was an arrogant piece of work. He backed up again. This time his bumper dinged the one on the Mercedes.

“Hey,” I said. “That’s my car. You bump it again, there’ll be trouble.”

“Then move it out of the way so I can go.”

He said it like he was accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. Mel, having made short work of talking to Gerry Willis, appeared at my side and took up a position just to the left of the Camaro’s front bumper, holding up her iPhone. She didn’t have to tell me that the video app was running. I already knew.

Ron wrenched on the steering wheel, slammed the Camaro into reverse, and stepped on the gas. This time he bumped the Mercedes hard enough to set off the alarm. Then he went forward enough to ram Gizzy’s Acura too, setting off that alarm as well. In another time or two, he might have gotten loose, but by then Mel had joined me.

“If you do that again,” I warned him, “I’m placing you under arrest for assault with a deadly weapon.”

“You and who else, old man?” he demanded. Then he rammed the Mercedes one more time, just for good measure.

I reached in through the open window and tried to grab him. But the car sped back fast enough that all I got was a handful of tracksuit. He slipped out of the shirt like a snake shedding its skin. Then, leaving the Camaro still running, he slid across the seat and charged out through the door on the passenger side of the car.

As he took off, I saw him reach back to pick up something from the passenger seat. For a sick moment, I thought it might be a weapon. He paused, as if considering his options, then ran off down the driveway, loping along at a speed that would have left me in the dust twenty years ago. But not Mel Soames. She runs every day-every single day-and she can run my socks off. I’m sure Ron Miller was counting on being able to outrun me, but he never anticipated that the suit-clad, high-heeled woman standing next to the front bumper of his car would kick off her pumps and take after him like a shot in her stocking feet.

Knowing my gimpy knees would make it impossible to keep pace, I switched off the ignition in the Camaro, grabbed the keys to that, and clambered into the Mercedes. I knew I couldn’t keep up with either Mel or Ron, but I could sure as hell outdrive them. I turned off the alarm, pulled a U-turn, and went after them in hot pursuit.

At the end of the driveway, Ron paused long enough to throw something Frisbee-like up into the tall laurel hedge that lined both sides of the drive, then he darted off across the street and headed into the capitol campus.

Had it been a half hour later, people would have been streaming out of their office buildings. As it was, the path in front of him was relatively deserted. So was the path in front of Mel. And that slight pause was all she needed to close the gap between them to within that magic fifteen-foot margin.

“Police,” she shouted. “Stop or I’ll use my Taser.”

I saw the jerky image of the bright red laser aiming light appear on Ron Miller’s back. He didn’t stop, but Mel had warned him once, and one warning is all punks like that get. She pressed the switch on her Taser, and Ron fell to the ground, flopping spastically to the concrete sidewalk and howling in outrage. By then Mel was on top of him, handcuffs in hand.

“Your arm,” she ordered. “Give me your arm.”

I slammed on the brakes, left the Mercedes sitting idling in the middle of the street, and ran to help. I could see that the spasm from the first Taser shock was starting to fade. By the time I reached them, Mel had one of Ron’s hands in the cuffs and was struggling to grab the other while he tried desperately to buck her off. I reached into the melee, grabbed his free wrist with one paw, and handed it over to her. Then I grabbed Mel’s Taser.

“Be still,” I ordered, “or I’ll Taser you again.”

“Get off me, you crazy bitch!” he exclaimed. “You’re hurting me. What’s this all about? I wasn’t really going to hit you with the car. Can’t you guys take a joke?”

That’s when I saw the scratches on his bare arms, scratches that were a couple of days old. That’s when I knew for sure we had him.

“It’s no joke,” I said. “What did you throw up into the hedge back there?”

“Nothing,” he said. “You made that up.”

I could hear the sound of sirens. Someone had used their cell phone to report a disturbance. A squad car with a Capitol Police insignia was first on the scene. I was more than happy to have a local cop presence. I sure as hell didn’t want to have to throw the guy into the backseat of my Mercedes.

A uniformed campus cop with a name badge that said OFFICER MARGARET WOOD leaped out of her squad car. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

Mel stood up, straightened her rumpled suit, dusted her hands, and produced her ID wallet.

“Book Mr. Miller here on assault with a deadly weapon and resisting for starters,” she said.

Seeing Mel standing there barefoot, wearing torn panty hose and with two bleeding knees, you’d have thought that she’d have a hard time commanding respect. She didn’t.

“Help me haul him to his feet,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Officer Wood said, and the two of them did just that.

“When you book him, be sure they get photos of those scratches on his arms,” I said. “They could be important, because there are likely to be other charges to follow those.”

Officer Wood looked at me, standing there with not a scratch on me. Then she looked at Mel-a one-raised-eyebrow look that was evidently an understandable question even though she said nothing aloud.

“My partner,” Mel explained.

Officer Wood took charge of Ron Miller and loaded him into the backseat of her squad car. I followed them to the car in time to hear Ron muttering something about police brutality. His snide old-man comment to me still rankled. It sounded like something an immature seventh grader would say. It also sounded a lot like some of the text messages that had been sent to Josh Deeson.

“Too bad, tough guy,” I said. “You were taken down by a girl, fair and square.”

“What’s this all about, anyway?” he wanted to know.

“It started out being about some text messages,” I said. “But now it’s turned into something else-like arson and murder. Just to let you know, you may have set fire to all the computers in Janie’s House, but it’s too little, too late. We’d already copied everything on the hard drives just to be on the safe side.”

He gave me a snarly stare and then turned away. I slammed the door shut and then walked back to the laurel hedges. They were flat on top, densely leafed and at least eight feet tall. Mel trailed after me as I attempted to peer up through the leaves.

“What are you looking for?” Mel asked.

“He threw something up there,” I said. “Didn’t you see it? He tossed something up into the hedge right here, just before he crossed the street.”

Mel shook her head. “I stepped on a piece of gravel and looked down at my feet. When I looked back up, I had gained a lot of ground on him and I didn’t know why.”

I went back over to Officer Wood, who was on her radio and in the process of explaining to her sergeant that she was transporting someone to the Olympia city lockup. I waited until she finished.

“I need a ladder,” I said. “Do you know where I could find one?”

“Someone from Physical Plant,” she said. “How tall?”

“Tall enough to see the top of that laurel hedge.”

She nodded and got back on her radio. An Econoline van with state license plates, a uniformed driver, and two kinds of ladders arrived within a matter of minutes, just after Officer Wood drove away in her squad car. By then, the interested crowd of onlookers had dissipated. Interestingly enough, among the people who had gathered around, I had seen no one I recognized from the governor’s mansion. Given the proximity to all the excitement, that was a little surprising.

“Where do you want the ladder?” the guy from the van asked. I pointed, and he unfolded it where I thought it needed to be.

“Do you want me to do it?” Mel asked.

Ron’s comment continued to play inside my head: “You and who else, old man?”

“No, I will,” I said, speaking to Mel far more harshly than she deserved. “You don’t know what we’re looking for.”

I wasn’t sure I did, either. I knew it was small and round and had flown through the air like a Frisbee. I went up and down the ladder three different times. Going up was bad enough. It hurt like hell, but it was doable. Coming down was a killer. Mel watched me go up and down the ladder the first time. As I wiped away tears, she shook her head and said nothing. Then, walking away and leaving me to it, she activated her iPhone and began making arrangements to have Ron’s vehicle towed to the crime lab.

Finally my search paid off. It lay there on the carefully trimmed flat surface of the laurel hedge. At first glance it looked like a tiny coil of wire with a protuberance on one side. I grabbed it, slipped it into an evidence bag, and then climbed back down with my prize.

I handed the evidence bag over to Mel. “We need to document this,” I said when I was finally able to speak again.

“What is it?” Mel asked, frowning as she peered at the bracelet through the glassine bag. “Why would Miller bother throwing away a useless coil of wire like this?”

That’s when I realized Mel hadn’t been with Ardith and Kenny Broward on the drive back to Packwood.

“It’s not wire,” I told her. “Unless I’m sadly mistaken, we’ve just found Rachel Camber’s elephant-hair bracelet.”