Name Witheld

Six

Jack Braman, the Lake View Condo's surprisingly youthful manager, returned eventually. He was short, round, and effusively helpful. When I clued him in as to what was going on, he was suitably distressed. With keys jangling nervously on a heavy key ring, he led me to the elevator of the five-story complex.

"I've been managing condos for three years now," he said, shaking his head. "Never had one of my residents get murdered before, although I guess Don Wolf was a likely enough candidate."

To look at him, Jack Braman didn't appear old enough to be out of high school for three years, to say nothing of managing condos.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

Braman shrugged. "From what I understand, he had a wife down in California somewhere, but being married sure as hell didn't seem to slow him down none. If you catch my drift," he added.

"You mean Don Wolf had female visitors?"

"Constantly."

"The same one or different ones?"

Jack Braman shook his head. "Different ones, although there was one who was here so much I was starting to think maybe she was his wife. But there were younger ones as well. Girls who were closer to my age than his."

"Hookers?" I asked.

"I wouldn't know about that," he said. "Not for sure, but I guess they could have been."

Flushing furiously, Jack Braman turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door to Don Wolf's apartment. As soon as he did so, the appallingly unmistakable odor of death gushed out into the hallway.

Braman's eyes widened. He gagged and choked and almost fell. "My God. What's that awful smell?" he demanded.

Had Jack Braman ever been a homicide cop, he wouldn't have had to ask. I reached out a hand to steady him and to keep him from stepping forward into the apartment and possibly destroying evidence.

"Go call nine one one," I said. "Tell the dispatcher to send a patrol car and a crime scene investigation team. Tell the operator to notify the medical examiner's office."

Braman looked at me through watering eyes. "Medical examiner?" he repeated. "That means somebody's dead here. I thought you said Don Wolf died somewhere else. Out on the water or something."

"I did."

"But what's this, then?" Braman asked weakly. His color had gone so bad I was afraid he was going to pitch forward flat on his face. "If somebody's dead in here, who is it?"

"That's what we have to find out," I said. "Go make the call. Hurry now."

Shaking his head, Jack Braman shambled away. Meanwhile, I sidestepped around the door, avoiding the usual traffic pattern, and eased my way into the overheated room.

If this was Don Wolf's apartment, the place was totally in character. It was neat as a pin. Nothing in the elegantly appointed living room appeared to be out of place. The door had been locked when Jack Braman opened it, and there was no sign of forced entry.

Trying not to disturb any footprints, I skirted the edge of the fine white carpet as I headed for the hallway. There the reek of decaying flesh seemed far worse than in the living room. Breathing through my mouth and using a handkerchief to grip the knob, I opened a closed bedroom door. Even though I'd had ample warning, the overpowering stench inside left me gagging.

Because the blinds were closed, the room was enveloped in a dusky gloom. Even so, it was still possible to see the grim spatter pattern of blood and gore that had been sprayed across the headboard and the wall over the bed where a lump of pathetically still humanity lay concealed beneath a brightly colored comforter.

Obviously, the person on the bed was dead. Once upon a time, I would have rushed forward just to make sure there was nothing I could do. Once, but not now. This isn't the good old days. When it comes to murder cases, investigating officers find themselves on trial right along with the defendants. Under the minute glare of the media, even the slightest misstep in procedure can be damning. As a consequence, we've all learned to avoid doing anything that might jeopardize the chain of evidence.

In other words, standing in the doorway of that foul-smelling room, I couldn't afford to do a damn thing, not without other cops to witness my actions and to back up my assertions of whatever was found there. And from that position, although I could see the form on the bed, the mound of covers made it impossible to see whether the victim was man or woman, adult or child. That didn't keep me from drawing my own possible conclusions.

Is it Latty? I wondered. That would make sense. She had threatened Wolf on the videotape. Had she made good on that threat, only to be stricken by overwhelming guilt afterward?

The very possibility filled me with an ineffable sadness. The blonde I had seen on the video had been so young and vital and beautiful. It offended me to think of her taking her own life. Given society's deplorable track record for apprehending and prosecuting rapists, it isn't too surprising that some victims resort to vigilante justice. But why commit suicide? In this case, it seemed to me that even the dumbest court-appointed attorney in town could have gotten her off.

Outside the building, the distinctive wailing of separate sirens announced the arrival of several emergency vehicles in the street below-as a fire truck, a Medic-One van, and at least one blue-and-white converged on the Lake View Condominiums. Hurriedly, I made my way back to the entrance to the apartment. The person in the bed had been dead for days. With no hope of a lifesaving rescue, I wanted to intercept the crush of well-intentioned, fully booted EMTs and firemen who were no doubt on their way.

Out in the hallway, I almost collided with the first person who burst out of the elevator-a pasty-faced Jack Braman. Right on his heels was a grizzled Seattle Fire Department captain, a man I'd seen on occasion over the years. Nostrils distended, he stopped in midstride. Like me, he knew as soon as he smelled the odor that there was no point in going any farther.

"Too late?" he asked. I nodded. The captain turned back to his milling crew. "Okay, guys. Nothing to be done. If we hang around here, we'll only be in the way. Somebody grab that elevator before it gets away."

Herding his squad like a brood of unruly chicks, the captain corralled them back into the elevator door. Jack Braman, too, hovered uncertainly in the hallway. He seemed undecided about whether to go or stay.

"I guess I'd better head back downstairs," he said, swallowing hard, and leaping into the elevator just as the door closed. "That way, I can let people in if they need to be."

"Good idea," I said. "You go ahead."

With the elevator gone, I glanced around at the rest of the fifth floor. There were evidently four apartments and a locked utility door of some kind. The room behind it might have been a garbage chute or maybe a laundry room. Early on this weekday afternoon, none of the other fifth-floor residents were home. If they had been, they certainly would have been in the hallway by now.

I had heard the elevator open and shut downstairs. Now it was once again creeping upward. I hurried back to the elevator lobby in order to be there when the door opened once again.

This time, the first person off the elevator was Audrey Cummings. "I thought you were stuck in court," I said.

She shook her head. "My case was continued. I was already in my car on my way back to the office when the call came through. I should get the prize for being here before anybody else."

Right behind Audrey, almost treading on the backs of her high-heeled shoes, was my own personal nemesis from Seattle P.D., none other than Detective Paul Kramer. He was accompanied by his most recently acquired partner, a novice detective named Sam Arnold.

Kramer looked at me. I looked at him. "What are you doing here?" we both said at the same time. It sounded almost like one of those responsive readings at church, but believe me, neither one of us asked the question with joyous, worshipful, or love-filled hearts.

Detective Kramer and I don't get along. We haven't from the first day we laid eyes on each other. He's one of those ambitious, ass-kissing sons of bitches who's out to make a reputation for himself, no matter what. If somebody gets in his way, too bad. He'll walk over or through them to get where he's going. I've pretty much made up my mind that if the day ever comes when Paul Kramer gets promoted to a supervisory position in Homicide, that's the day I turn in my badge.

We're not talking one-sided here. The feeling is clearly mutual. Paul Kramer seems to resent the hell out of everything about me. He's forever griping about my money, about where I live, about the clothes I wear, and the car I drive. For some reason, my penthouse unit at Belltown Terrace really chaps his butt. He never fails to razz me about me and my high-roller neighbors. Maybe it was funny the first ten or fifteen times he mentioned it, but it isn't funny anymore.

"I'm working," I said. "What about you?"

"And how'd you get here before we did?" Kramer demanded, squaring off in front of me there in the hallway "Watty assigned the call to us. Besides, I thought you were supposed to be chasing after the New Year's floater."

"I am," I answered, making an effort to keep my voice even. "This happens to be the floater's apartment. I'm the one who found the body in there."

The attempt to keep the strain out of my voice must not have been too successful, at least not as far as Audrey Cummings was concerned.

"Now boys," she said, slipping between us. "Be nice. What do you have here, Beau?"

"This way," I said, leading them to the door to Don Wolf's apartment. "The body's on a bed in the bedroom. I didn't go all the way into the room for fear of disturbing something important. It may be a suicide."

"Suicide?" Kramer sneered. "You haven't been in the room, but already you've figured out that it's suicide? Beaumont here must have inherited some of Superman's X-ray vision," he added over his shoulder to his young partner. Sam Arnold had just come to Homicide after a two-year tour of duty in Property Crimes. This couldn't have been more than his second or third case.

"Yes, sir," Kramer continued. "Detective Beaumont here is the latest version of the Man of Steel."

Ignoring him, Audrey pulled out a notebook and began scribbling preliminary notes. "Can you give me any background?"

"It turns out my floater raped a woman in his office several nights ago. On the twenty-seventh. The victim threatened to kill him afterward. I'm thinking she may have made good on the threat and then killed herself afterward."

"Name?" Audrey asked.

"Of the rape victim? Latty. That's all I have on her so far."

"Wait a minute," Kramer objected. "Wait just a damn minute. You're telling me the floater is a rapist? How do you know that?"

"Because I saw it," I snapped. "On tape."

"He did it at D.G.I.?" Audrey asked.

"That's right."

"What's a D.G.I.?" Kramer demanded. "Sounds like the two of you are talking in code."

"Designer Genes International. That's the biotech company down on Western where Don Wolf worked. When he brought the girl into his office, a hidden security camera recorded the whole thing."

"The rape you mean." Kramer grinned. "That sounds pretty kinky. Where can I get a copy of this tape, or are you putting it out on a pay-per-view basis?"

Pocketing her notebook, Audrey proceeded to the apartment door. "We could just as well get started," Audrey said. "You've called for a crime scene team?"

"They were summoned the same time you were. They should be here any minute."

Without entering the room, she turned on Sam Arnold and fixed him with a reproving stare. "When we go on in, stick close to the wall and well away from any footprints or spatters. You got that, Detective Arnold?"

Kramer's hapless new partner cringed under her gaze. Something told me this wasn't the first time he had dealt with the lady.

"Got it!" he repeated quickly. "Yes, ma'am."

Out in the hallway, the awful stench had dissipated a little, but once inside the apartment, the odor was again overpowering. We headed toward the bedroom, following the same circuitous path I had used earlier. Sam Arnold made it around the perimeter of the room all right, but as he neared the bedroom door in the hallway, the smell proved too much. He began making a small gurgling noise in his throat.

"Oh, for God's sake, you useless little wimp," Kramer growled. "Get the hell out of here before you barf all over our shoes."

Retching, and trying to cover his mouth with his hand, Arnold bolted for the door to the apartment. He made it to the outside hallway, but just barely.

Audrey sighed and watched him go. If there had been footprints to be found in the carpeting of the doorway, they were gone now, mashed flat by Detective Arnold's pell-mell retreat. "Damned kids!" she muttered, shaking her head.

Rank has its dubious privileges. In a world of parallel bureaucracies, an assistant medical examiner outranks mere detectives. Kramer and I followed Audrey into the gore-spattered bedroom. Seattle isn't known for having flies in the dead of winter, but I heard an unmistakable buzzing of flies as we made our way into the room.

"Am I having a hot flash or is it hotter than hell in here?" Audrey demanded.

"It's hot," I said. "I checked the thermostat as I came by. It's set at eighty."

"Eighty? Christ!"

"You want me to turn it down?"

Audrey shook her head. "We'd better leave it where it is, at least until the crime scene techs show up. Of course, by then, we'll all be baked to a crisp."

Taking the lead, Audrey approached the bed from the left-hand side. "Yikes," she said. "The whole back of her head is gone."

"After you," Kramer said, motioning me forward with an exaggerated bow.

Following the same path Audrey had taken, I, too, approached the bed. Because I had been watching my feet, I was right beside the bed when I finally looked up. The first thing I saw was the woman's lifeless left hand dangling over the side of the bed-a left hand with a wedding ring. I didn't recall that the girl on the tape had worn a ring of any kind. And looking further, at the terrible carnage of the bed itself, I realized at once that my initial theory was wrong. The exiting bullet had destroyed the back of her head, but the face was pretty much intact.

"It isn't her," I said. "It isn't who I thought."

"First it is and then it isn't," Phil Kramer said tauntingly from over my shoulder. "Make up your mind, Beaumont. So who is it now?"

"Don Wolf's wife," I answered.

"Are you sure?" Audrey asked.

"I think so, although I've only seen her picture. Her name's Lizbeth. She's from La Jolla, California. Bill Whitten told me that when Don Wolf moved to Seattle a couple of months ago, she stayed put in California waiting for the house to sell."

"So maybe some of your guesswork isn't so far off the mark after all," Kramer said. "And maybe it's still murder and/or suicide. Supposing the wife found out her husband was up here screwing around. She probably came looking for him with blood in her eye and then did herself in afterward. Closing these two cases should be duck soup."

"Nobody's closing anything until I know for sure who she is," Audrey Cummings snapped. "I want positive I.D. Comparison with a picture isn't good enough. I'll want fingerprints and dental records or both."

"This must be the place," Janice Morraine said from the doorway, announcing the arrival of the crime scene investigators. "It's hot as blue blazes in here. You don't expect us to work in this much heat, do you?"

Janice, a criminalist by trade, is the lead crime scene investigator for the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. Those who make the mistake of calling her a criminologist do so at their own risk. Smart ones never make the same mistake twice.

"It's hot all right," Audrey replied, "but don't touch that thermostat until one of your guys dusts it for prints."

Behind me, Kramer heaved an impatient sigh. "Dust it for prints? How come? The woman blew her brains out. Don't tell me we're going to squander the next three days jumping through hoops and treating the scene like it's from a multiple-"

"There's a weapon here on the bed. Looks like a three fifty-seven. That may be what killed her. For right now, I'm calling it homicidal violence. It was obviously close range. It may turn out to be suicide, but I doubt it."

Kramer groaned. When you're on a fast track, cases cleared in a hurry look better than those that take longer. A call of homicidal violence meant our job was just starting.

"What makes you say that?" he asked.

"The wall," Audrey Cummings answered confidently. "Women don't usually go out in ways that leave that kind of mess for somebody else to clean up."

"Mess?" Kramer echoed.

"Mess," Audrey Cummings repeated firmly.

"Okay," Janice Morraine said, taking charge. "You'd best move out of the way and let us get started."

While Janice Morraine and Audrey Cummings conferred near the bed, Kramer led the way out of the room. "I've never heard anything so dumb," he grumbled under his breath.

"I think I'd shut up about that if I were you, Detective Kramer," I told him. "At least as long as Audrey Cummings is within earshot."

"But the mess? What kind of fruitcake reason is that?"

I shrugged, enjoying Detective Kramer's annoyance. "When it comes to women," I told him, "like it or not, there are some things you just have to accept on faith."