Name Witheld

Twenty

My mother always used to say, "A wise man changes his mind. A fool never does."

I had told Watty I was on my way back to the department. And I meant to go straight there. I even made it as far as the Third Avenue lobby of the Public Safety Building. But as I stood there waiting for a fully-loaded, rush-hour elevator to disgorge its mass of humanity, I was puzzling over what implications Deanna Compton's note might have for the cases I was investigating.

I kept remembering the Deanna Compton I had met two days earlier at Designer Genes International. She had seemed suitably startled when Bill Whitten delivered news of Don Wolf's death, but she had handled the resultant requests for information in a coolly efficient, businesslike fashion. I could recall nothing at all in her demeanor that would have indicated anything more than a business-colleague relationship with the dead man. That meant one of two things. Either Deanna Compton wasn't the D.C. in question, or, if she was, she had gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal any kind of inappropriate reaction to the news from me and from her boss, Bill Whitten.

What I needed to do was find some way to verify whether or not Deanna Compton and D.C. were one and the same. That was where my thought process stood when an elevator finally arrived and its door opened. And by the time the last of the passengers filed off and dodged past those of us waiting in the crowded lobby to get on, I realized that I had in my possession a tool that might make that verification possible: the videotapes-Bill Whitten's security tapes. If the surveillance camera switched on whenever someone had walked into Don Wolf's office, then Deanna Compton was bound to have made an appearance somewhere on the footage that was still in my den. If I could show a picture of Deanna Compton to Jack Braman, manager of the Lake View Condominiums…

In my eagerness to turn thought to action, I nearly collided with the people lined up behind me when I turned suddenly and dashed back out the lobby door. I sprinted down Yesler to the garage where I usually leave the 928. Naturally, it was already parked, but one of the attendants was more than eager to go fetch it.

In recent years, a good deal of Seattle's rush-hour bus traffic has disappeared into an underground transit tunnel. There were still buses moving up and down Third Avenue, but I was able to make fairly good time on my way uptown. And when I turned up Broad, not only was there an available parking space right there on the corner of Second and Broad, there was still time on the meter. After yesterday's all-time record low, things were starting to look up. A little.

I dashed into the apartment and went straight to the den without even pausing at the answering machine that was sitting there blinking like a crazed Christmas tree. I know the male gender is supposed to reign supreme in the world of television remotes. When it comes to clicker wars, however, I take a backseat to almost everyone-Heather and Tracy Peters included.

It took time to scroll backward through the D.G.I. tape. Characters came and went, walking in comic reverse overdrive back and forth across the screen. Don Wolf himself entered and exited the room several times. In between, there were long periods of time when he sat working at his desk. Once Bill Whitten came in and out. I was about to give up when my patience was rewarded with a view of Deanna Compton walking backward from the doorway to Don Wolf's desk.

Moving close to the set, I let the tape continue rewinding until I reached the point where she opened the door to enter, then I switched the V.C.R. to play once again.

"What's up, Mrs. Compton?" Don Wolf was asking. There was nothing in his greeting that was in any way suspect. If he was overjoyed to see her, if the two of them had anything going after hours, it was difficult to see that from their perfunctorily polite interaction on the screen.

Deanna put a stack of papers on Don Wolf's desk and then turned and walked away. "You lose, Beaumont," I said, getting ready to switch again into a backward scroll. Just then, Don Wolf reached out and plucked something off the stack of paper. It was a casual gesture that probably would have escaped notice under most circumstances. I switched to rewind and then ran the segment again. Sure enough. What he had picked up was tiny-barely as big as the top of his thump. Moments later, smiling broadly, Wolf stood up, took his jacket from a hook on a hat rack in the corner, and left the office. As he was leaving, he put something in the lower inside pocket of his jacket-the same pocket in which I had found the note.

I rewound the tape, back to the point where Deanna Compton first entered the room. That was what I had wanted in the first place, a picture of Deanna Compton that I could show to Jack Braman at the Lake View Condos to find out whether or not she had been among the frequent guests at Don Wolf's apartment. About that time, the doorbell rang.

If anybody ever starts a Twelve Step Program for gizmo lovers, Ralph Ames ought to be one of the first to join. He's forever trying to update my technology quotient. He was the instigator behind the high-tech electronic security/sound/ light system in my condo. Because of him, lights and music faithfully follow me from room to room. And if I happen to have the special pager with me, I can open doors to allow arriving guests into either the building or the apartment.

The telling detail here is having the pager actually in my possession when needed. And because I have an ingrained aversion to wearing more than one pager at a time, the home pager usually ends up parked on the bathroom counter. Which was precisely where it was right then when the doorbell summoned me away from the VCR in the den.

Rushing to the door, I pulled it open to find Ron Peters and his wheelchair parked outside in the hallway. He was grinning from ear to ear. "In case nobody's mentioned it, your answering machine's broken," he said, rolling past me first into the entryway and then on into the living room.

His words of complaint about the answering machine didn't nearly jibe with the jubilant expression on the man's face. For somebody whose ex-wife was in the process of making life miserable for anyone within striking distance, he didn't look the least bit concerned.

"What's got you so damned cheerful?" I grumbled, heading back toward the den to collect the tape.

"I've got some good news and some bad news."

"Come on, Ron. No games. I'm working on something."

He nodded. "You and me both."

"So what's the news? Give me the bad, first. We could just as well get it over with."

"We're both being investigated by Internal Investigations."

"That's hardly news, Ron. Hilda Chisholm paid me a little visit and dropped that bomb last night. So what's the good news?"

"Tony says I can't be working for I.I.S. at the same time I'm being investigated, so for the time being, they're shifting me back down to investigations. To Homicide. We're partners again, at least until Sue gets back from Ohio or until the I.I.S. investigation blows over, whichever comes first."

"I'll be damned," I said.

"As soon as I showed up on the fifth floor this afternoon, Captain Powell pounced on me and put me straight to work on this Wolf case. I can't tell you how good it feels to be back in the harness again, to be working on an investigation that counts for something out in the real world. I think I've come up with something important."

"What's that?"

"Detective Kramer-somebody needs to shove a corncob up that guy's ass, by the way-said that he thought I could be the most help by going to work on the financial considerations. He and Arnold had already interviewed the high-profile investors, so I went at it from the other end of the spectrum. Guess what? D.G.I. is in big trouble. The bank is within days of foreclosing on the building, and City Light is about to turn off the power. Same thing for trash collection and phone service. They've evidently been meeting payroll, but that's about all."

"Wait a minute. That doesn't make sense," I objected. "With all those big money investors, I thought D.G.I. would be rolling in cash by now."

"The cash may have come in, but they haven't been using it to pay bills."

"So where did it go?"

Ron shrugged. "Makes you wonder, doesn't it," he said with a grin.

Midwinter in Seattle means that it's dark by four-thirty. Somehow, the day seemed suddenly brighter. I found myself grinning back at him. "Aren't you off duty?"

"Depends on whether or not you have something for me to do."

"How about if we go pay a call on Bill Whitten?" I asked, switching off the VCR, ejecting the tape, and stuffing it into my pocket.

"Sounds good to me," Ron agreed. "We'll take my car, if you don't mind. When it comes to my chair, that Porsche of yours just doesn't cut it. I'll go get the car and meet you out on the street."

We had made it as far as the elevator lobby when a thought crossed my mind. "Hey, Ron, are you wearing a vest?"

Ron pressed the button. "You bet I am," he returned, "although I'm not sure why. Who would go around trying to kill a crippled cop?"

"You'd be surprised," I said. "Sitting in a wheelchair sure as hell didn't keep somebody from shooting a freelance detective named Virginia Marks over in Bellevue last night. My guess is that whoever killed Don Wolf also killed the private eye who was investigating him."

I bailed out in the lobby and went to the street to collect my cellular phone from the 928. By the time Ron came around to where I was standing on the curb, I was attempting to take messages off my broken machine upstairs. It was frustrating going. There must have been nine calls in all. Most of them were hang ups, but the messages that were there weren't really messages at all. They were more like message fragments.

"This is Tony Freeman. There's been a little difficulty…" One was from Gail Richardson, the woman downstairs: "My mother went home today. Want to go out and…"

Midway through the messages, I heard the one Ralph Ames had mentioned to me earlier. "Detective Beaumont, this is Harry…" And that was it.

The last partial message, left after several abortive tries, was from Ron Peters. "This damned thing's obviously not working. Call when you get home."

As Peters' Buick came around the corner of First Avenue onto Broad I was just erasing the last message. He stopped on the street to pick me up. "Next stop D.G.I.," he said, as he drove around the block to head north on First. "Do you think they'll still be open? It's almost five o'clock."

"Somebody is bound to be there."

"By the way, on my way down to the garage, I remembered another call that came into the office earlier this afternoon, from Harry Moore down in La Jolla. He wants to talk to you in the worst way."

Sighing, I shifted the seat belt away from my chest and groped for my notebook. Ron beat me to the punch by handing me a Post-it with a California number jotted on it.

"Here's the number," he said. "I didn't think you'd want to look it up."

"Thanks," I said, keying Harry Moore's direct number into the phone. "After being stuck with Kramer and Arnold for a day or two, it's nice to have a real partner again."

"No lie," Ron said.

Moore answered almost immediately. "Detective Beaumont here," I said. "What can I do for you, Mr. Moore?"

"When I first got the fax, I couldn't believe my luck, but now, with her dead…"

"Whoa, not so fast. What fax are you talking about?"

"The one from Virginia Marks. I left a message on your machine-"

"My machine ate your message, so let's start over from the beginning. What fax did Virginia Marks send you?"

"She sent it last night, after I went home, so I didn't actually see it until I came in this morning around ten. But when I tried calling back Virginia this afternoon, somebody told me that she's dead. Is that true?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Damn!" Moore muttered. "I suppose that means I'm screwed then anyway."

"I still don't know what we're talking about."

"Virginia Marks told me she had some critical information for me. She said she could prove that Bill Whitten is using my research-Alpha-Cyte research-to attract investors for D.G.I. And she offered to sell me that information-for a fee, of course. Her asking price was astronomical, but if what she was telling me was true, I could have taken Bill Whitten to the cleaners."

It sounded to me as though someone else had already wiped out Bill Whitten's finances, but I didn't mention that to Harry Moore. He didn't give me a chance.

"So first I sat here and tried to figure out how Bill Whitten could end up with Alpha-Cyte proprietary information, and finally, it dawned on me. Lizbeth!"

"You think Lizbeth Wolf gave it to him?"

"No, don't you see? That worthless bastard stole it. Don Wolf stole it, probably right out of Lizbeth's computer, and handed it over to Whitten. That's got to be it."

By the time Harry Moore finally stopped long enough to draw breath, Ron had already parked the Buick in front of the curb at D.G.I. and was waiting for directions.

I looked over at the door to the building where the five o'clock exodus was already in full swing. "Look, Mr. Moore. I've got to go to an appointment right now. Can we get back to you on this a little later?"

"Sure," he said. "Don't worry about how late it is. I'll be here."

By then, Ron had already lowered the wheelchair and was waiting for me on the curb. "What's going on?" Ron asked. "It sounded bad."

"Come on," I said. "I'll tell you on the way."

But then I glanced up and saw the security camera stationed over the door. It reminded me of the ones inside.

"Come to think of it," I said, "I'll tell you the rest of it when we come back outside. If I tell you in there, Bill Whitten will have it all recorded on his personal Candid Camera. From what Harry Moore is telling me, that's probably a real bad idea."

We went on upstairs, but when the elevator opened onto the sixth-floor reception area, it was like entering a deserted village. Deanna Compton wasn't at her desk. Bill Whitten wasn't at his, either.

"Looks like everybody took off early," Ron said, glancing around.

But it didn't feel right to me. Most CEOs I've ever heard of don't punch time clocks. Neither do their private secretaries. Trying to understand what my instincts were telling me, I walked all the way around Deanna Compton's desk. Everything was in order. When I had been there before, the top of her desk had been covered with papers and files. In the upper right-hand corner had sat an oversized, leather-bound appointment book. But now, at two minutes after five, none of those things were in evidence.

I was about to suggest that we head back to the elevator, when I glanced down at the three separate trash containers stowed next to the wall. Leaning down, I pulled out the mixed paper recycling box. One of the top items was an envelope from one of Seattle's downtown, bicycle-dependent messenger services. And inside that was a second empty envelope. The return address said The Travel Guys with an address in a high-rise on Pike.

I started adding things up. The investment money the mayor's boyfriend and his friends had dropped into D.G.I. was among the missing. Harry Moore didn't know all the details about who had stolen what from Alpha-Cyte, but if Virginia Marks had been able to figure it out, someone else would be able to uncover that information, too, now that they knew what to look for. Three people connected to Bill Whitten's dying D.G.I. were dead, and there was a good chance we were coming close to finding out how come and who had killed them.

And if Bill Whitten was our man, there was an excellent possibility that he was about to blow town.

Sometimes, you just have to go for it. I picked up Deanna Compton's phone and dialed the number listed on the outside of the envelope.

"This is Jason," an overly sibilant male voice answered. Jason of The Travel Guys sounded as though he and Johnny Bickford might frequent some of the same hangouts. "May I help you?"

"This is Bill Whitten!" I grumbled into the phone. "There's been a mistake. The tickets you sent me have somebody else's name on them. Where are mine?"

When he heard me say that, I'm surprised Ron Peters didn't tumble out of his chair.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Jason said quickly. "I can't understand how that happened. Christopher is already gone for the day, but let me check your records, Mr. Whitten. Just a moment."

"What the hell are you doing?" Ron demanded.

Silently, I shushed him with a finger over my lips. And it was a good thing, too, because just then Jason came back on the line. "Here it is. Those must be the tickets to Puerto Vallarta at ten thirty-five tomorrow morning. If you'll just tell me whose tickets were sent to you, I'll have someone come pick them up, and we'll get this whole thing-"

Jason was still talking when I put down the phone.

My mother would have been ashamed of me. I didn't even say thanks.