AS MEL AND I HEADED SOUTH ON FIRST, I DIALED REVEREND Seymour’s number. It was Saturday night after all, and I wasn’t the least bit offended that she didn’t sound especially happy to hear from me for the second night in a row.
“Sorry to disturb your weekend again, but something’s come up,” I told her. “Peter Mayfield’s skeletal remains were found by a hiker near the Yakima River a few weeks ago, apparently the victim of a homicide.”
“Oh, no,” Rachel murmured, “how dreadful! Does Naomi know?”
“Not yet,” I told her. “That’s why I’m calling. My wife and I are on our way to the mission to let her know.”
“Your wife,” Rachel repeated. “The police chief from Bellingham?”
“That’s the one,” I replied. “Mel Soames.”
“Hi, Reverend Seymour,” Mel said, taking advantage of my being on speaker.
“Good to hear your voice again, Mel,” Rachel replied, “but not under these kinds of circumstances.”
“I still have the housemother’s phone number from our exchanges last night,” I said, regaining control of the conversation. “Should I call her directly, or will you?”
“I’ll call,” Rachel said. “How soon will you be there?”
“Ten minutes, maybe.”
“Do you want me to have the housemother tell Naomi what this is all about?”
“No, just say there’s something urgent we need to discuss with her.”
“Will do.” She hung up then.
Mel reached over and patted my thigh. “Almost like old times,” she said, “the two of us riding off to do a next of kin.”
“You’ve always been better at those than I have,” I told her. “And I want you along when I tell Lenora Harrison, too, because you’re also better at reading people than I am.”
“We make a good team,” Mel said, “but aren’t the homicide guys from Kittitas County going to be pissed when they find out we’ve horned in on their investigation?”
“I doubt it. For one thing, Dr. Hopewell asked us to do this, remember?” I said. “The guys on that side of the mountains may try to investigate Petey’s death, but my guess is he died elsewhere and was simply dumped in their jurisdiction.”
“You mean elsewhere as in over here rather than over there?”
“Exactly, and by the way and for the record,” I added, “this isn’t anything like the old days. In the old days, homicide was an all-male preserve—an old-boys’ network. That’s not the case anymore. Think about what’s going on here. There’s you, Dr. Roz, Dr. Hopewell, Loretta Hawk, and Rachel Seymour—an old-girls’ network if ever there was one!”
“Quit your bitchin’!” Mel replied with a laugh. “It sounds to me like all those so-called old girls are getting the job done for you.”
I had to admit that collection of females was delivering the goods. “They are doing that,” I agreed.
I found on-street parking on First, half a block from the mission’s entrance. Fortunately, the rain had let up for a time, and we didn’t get soaked walking from the car to the mission’s entrance. When we got there, I was about to reach for the intercom buzzer when the door opened from inside. Naomi, wearing sweats and a pair of house slippers, stood just beyond the doorway.
“What’s happened?” she asked, peering up at me anxiously with a look of dread on her face. “Is something wrong with Athena? Is she okay?”
“This is my wife, Mel Soames,” I said. “She’s a police officer in Bellingham. Do you mind if we come in?”
Naomi barely glanced at Mel, but she stepped aside enough to allow us to enter. The door to Rachel Seymour’s office was closed. The door to the chapel was open. I picked door number two. “We should probably sit down,” I suggested.
Naomi sat, but she perched nervously on the edge of her pew like a bird ready to take flight. “You still haven’t told me. What’s this about?” she demanded.
“It’s about Petey,” I said finally, “and I’m afraid I’m about to deliver some very bad news.”
Naomi’s hand went to her mouth. “No,” she whispered. “He’s not dead, is he?”
I nodded. “Yes, he is.”
“That can’t be,” she wailed. “How? Where? When?”
In my experience those are questions most killers never bother to ask. They don’t need to, because they already know the answers.
I told Naomi what I could, and she listened as though dumbstruck, without uttering another sound. Finally I switched on my phone and opened it to the message app so I could show her the belt-buckle photo that Dr. Hopewell had forwarded to me. Naomi studied it for a long time. Then, closing her eyes, she held the phone with the photo on it close to her breast, as though it were a precious holy relic of some kind. That’s when the tears came at last, accompanied by body-wrenching sobs that seemed to come from the depths of her soul. Eventually she quieted.
“Yakima’s on the other side of the mountains,” she pointed out. “Petey didn’t have a car. How did he end up there?”
“He wasn’t actually in Yakima,” I corrected. “He was found on the banks of the Yakima River, near Ellensburg. But you’re right. The body was found on the far side of the Cascades. As to your question? I suspect there’s a good possibility that Petey was murdered on this side of the mountains and his body dumped over there in hopes of confusing the issue. What was recovered consisted of skeletal remains only, and no identification was found nearby. Without the DNA samples obtained from the hairbrush you provided, there’s a good chance his body never would have been identified.”
“But who would want to murder him? And why?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you. Did Petey have any enemies—anyone who would want to harm him?”
Naomi shook her head. “No, not that I know of. He was a good guy. He was big, too—physically big—but he wasn’t mean or belligerent. He wasn’t one of those guys who goes around picking fights. And he wasn’t anything at all like my ex, who used to beat the crap out of me on a regular basis.”
For just a moment, I wished I knew who that nameless ex was and where I could find him so I could return the favor by giving him a taste of his own medicine. Tempting as it was to think about, I forced myself back to the issue at hand.
“You said Petey left the day before Halloween.”
Naomi nodded.
“What time of day was it?”
“Sometime in the afternoon, I think.”
“And he left on foot?”
“How else?”
“Someone might have offered him a ride,” I suggested.
Naomi shook her head. “I don’t think so. The last I saw, he was walking—walking in the rain.”
“It was raining?”
“In buckets.”
“You told me earlier that you thought he might have hooked up with one of your old dealers.”
“Kenneth,” she said. “He hangs around the 7-Eleven where Petey went to get the candy. That’s his turf.”
“Does Kenneth have a last name?”
“Dawson, I think, but I’m not really sure. Still, he wouldn’t do something like that. He’s not a killer.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Drug dealers tend to carry grudges. They also carry guns.
“Mr. Dawson may not be responsible for what happened to Petey,” Mel put in quietly, “but it might be worth talking to him. If he happened to be hanging out around the store that particular day, he might be one of the last people to have seen Petey alive. It’s possible he saw or heard something.”
Naomi nodded. “Oh,” she said.
“When we leave here,” Mel continued, “we’ll be going to Bellevue to meet up with Petey’s Aunt Lenora. Is there anyone else besides her who should be notified of Petey’s death?”
“I don’t know of anyone else,” Naomi answered. She took a deep, shuddering breath. “What happens next?” she asked.
“Don’t be surprised if homicide cops from Kittitas County end up coming around asking questions,” I warned her, “and maybe detectives from Seattle PD as well.”
“Will I have to talk to all of them?”
“Yes, you will,” I answered. “I have a feeling this is an investigation that’s going to have pieces on both sides of the mountains. And once the next-of-kin notifications are complete, you’ll need to look into making funeral arrangements.”
“Will those be up to me?” she asked. “How do I go about it? If Petey’s body is over in Ellensburg, how do I get him here? And how much will it cost? I don’t have any money. And how do I know what’s right? I don’t have any idea what Petey would have wanted. Where do I start?”
I could see that she was completely overwhelmed by what had happened and by the magnitude of the unknowable tasks that lay ahead of her. And who could blame her? Naomi and Petey had been relatively young. At that stage in their lives—barely starting out and expecting their first baby—the prospect of dying would have been decades in the future. It wasn’t a time when they would have sat around discussing each other’s preferences as far as funeral arrangements are concerned.
“Funerals are for the living,” Mel said quietly, “so think about what you want and about how you would like to say good-bye. It can be as simple and as private as you want it to be. Or you can have a more formal service at a funeral home.”
“But I don’t even know any funeral homes,” Naomi objected.
“Perhaps Petey’s Aunt Lenora will be able to suggest someone, maybe whoever handled arrangements for Petey’s grandmother. Who knows? She might also be willing to help with the expenses. If all else fails, I’m sure your father will step in and lend a hand.”
“My father?” Naomi scoffed. “Why would he? He’s probably glad Petey’s dead. It’s that much less trouble for him—one less signature needed for him to get out of town.”
Alan Dale had been Naomi’s devoted father all her life. He’d been there for her when I had not, and her instant disregard for all he’d done and been hit me where I lived. He deserved better than that.
“You need to give your dad more credit,” I told her reprovingly. “Think about what he’s done for the last two months. He quit his job, dropped everything, and came here to look after Athena. He’s spent the last six weeks sitting up with her night after night while she suffered through the agonies of withdrawal due to an addiction to methadone. Even so, when he heard about what had happened to Petey, his first concern was for you, not the guardianship. You’re all caught up in your own grief right now, but you might want to take a moment and think about what your dad went through when he lost your mother. He loved that woman with all his heart, the same way you loved Petey. He knows what it cost him to lose her, and that means he understands exactly how much you’re hurting right now. He’s been there and done all of this, Naomi. You’ve lost the love of your life, and so did he. And whether you believe it or not, he’ll do anything in his power to help you.”
Naomi bit her lip and said nothing. I thought for a moment she had shut me out and wasn’t even listening.
Mel stood up and touched Naomi on the shoulder. “So sorry for your loss,” she said, “but we should probably be going.”
Much to my surprise, Naomi’s next words proved me wrong. It turned out she had been listening after all. “If I wanted to get in touch with my dad,” she said quietly, “I wouldn’t even know how to reach him.”
I handed her one of my cards. “He and Athena are staying with Mel and me right now,” I told her. “The number on the bottom is our landline. If it rings, he’ll most likely answer. Feel free to call anytime.”
Mel and I headed for the door. “What about Petey’s hairbrush?” Naomi called after us. “You said I could have it back.”
“And you will,” I told her. “I had to leave it with the lab so they could be sure they had a usable DNA sample. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Most likely I won’t be able to retrieve it until Monday, but I’ll bring it back to you. I promise.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“You were a little hard on her about her dad,” Mel observed once we were out on the sidewalk.
“I know,” I said, “and I probably shouldn’t have been. I just wanted her to understand that Alan is not the bad guy here.”
“But I doubt he’s going to be in any position to help Naomi with body transport or funeral arrangements,” Mel said.
“I doubt that, too,” I agreed. “He may not be able to, but we can. Back child support.”
It wasn’t raining, but the wind was still blowing a gale by the time we reached the car. From Pioneer Square the easiest route to the Eastside was the I-90 Bridge. We were in the car and headed in that direction before Mel spoke again.
“You need to be careful,” Mel said quietly.
“Careful, why? What do you mean?”
“Naomi’s a druggie, Beau,” Mel said. “She may or may not be using right now, but she’s been a druggie for a long time. Everything that’s happening to her right now is incredibly tough, and she might very well fall back into that lifestyle in hopes of dulling the pain. I don’t want you getting your heart set on some kind of happy ending that may not happen.”
I took those words very much to heart, because in my experience Mel Soames is right far more often than she’s wrong.
The bridges across Lake Washington, both the 520 and I-90, are floating bridges. There wasn’t much traffic and it wasn’t raining, but the eastbound crossing was dicey all the same. Whitecaps, driven by gale-force winds, occasionally crested onto the bridge deck and splashed onto our windshield. One moment you could see just fine, and the next you were driving blind until the automatic wipers woke up and cleared the glass.
When we pulled up to the gated entrance to Lenora Harrison’s estate, the contrast between her circumstances and Naomi’s couldn’t have been clearer. The only thing they both had in common was an intercom-operated entry system.
“Who is it?” someone asked, and I recognized Lenora’s voice. The maid who had answered the first time around must have had the evening off.
“J. P. Beaumont,” I said. “I was here on Thursday, asking about your nephew, Peter Mayfield.”
“I still have no idea where Petey is,” Lenora replied. “Why don’t you just go on about your business and leave us alone?”
“It turns out I do know where he is,” I replied. “His remains are in a drawer in the Kittitas County M.E.’s office over in Ellensburg. Petey’s been murdered. That’s what I need to talk to you about.”
“Who the hell drops by unannounced at this hour of the night?” a man’s irate voice rumbled in the background. “Whoever it is, get rid of them.”
I had no doubt the lord of the manor was speaking.
The heavy metal gate swung open, and we motored up the drive. When Lenora opened the front door, she was dressed as though she’d just come in from a night on the town. She was wearing a satiny kind of jumpsuit topped by a diamond-solitaire pendant that probably cost more than Alan Dale’s new used car. There was alcohol on her breath, and she seemed a little tipsy. A graying man, probably in his late sixties, remained in the background glaring at us. He was dressed in a tux with the bow tie hanging loose around his neck. He held a recently filled rocks glass in his hand, and as he stood there, he swayed lightly on his feet. If it takes one to know one, he was a drunk for sure.
“Who are these people again?” he demanded churlishly. “And what the hell do they want?”
“Isaac,” Leonora murmured. “Mind your manners.”
So this was Isaac Henderson, the software guru who had funded Leonora’s upwardly mobile escape from West Seattle. I wasn’t exactly impressed. His being pissed about our visit didn’t bother me in the least, nor did his being drunk. From an investigative point of view, interviewing people when they’re under the influence can often be very productive. Booze suppresses inhibitions, and when you’re a cop working a homicide, it pays to listen closely while possible suspects and persons of interest run off at the mouth. Sometimes they’ll end up saying more than they intended.
“It’s that detective I told you about the other day, Isaac,” Lenora said, trying to smooth things over. “He’s the one who was looking for Petey. He says Petey’s dead—that he’s been murdered.”
Mel eased past me into the house, holding up her badge as she did so. She didn’t mention that her badge was actually from the Bellingham PD rather than Seattle PD, but that hardly mattered. Neither of the Harrisons bothered glancing at it. For all they cared, her badge could just as well have come from a box of Cracker Jacks.
“In cases of homicide, it’s customary to send officers out to do next-of-kin notifications,” Mel informed them. “We learned about the case only a few hours ago. Considering the distances involved, Dr. Hopewell, the M.E. over in Kittitas County, asked us to handle the notifications. Once we’ve done so, she’ll be releasing Mr. Mayfield’s name to the media.”
“So that worthless little creep is dead, huh?” Isaac muttered, giving his wife a scathing look. “If you decide to pony up for his funeral, remember the money will have to come out of your household account. I’m not paying a dime.” With that he stalked off into another room, leaving us in the entryway.
Wow! Talk about an arrogant asshole! Clearly sympathy wasn’t his long suit. Lenora Mayfield might have married up, as they say, but with a husband that rude, living in a Medina mansion sounded like anything but a bed of roses. As she flushed with embarrassment, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.
“Let’s go into the living room,” she suggested.
Lenora led us into a sumptuously appointed room, passing an immense Steinway grand piano along the way. Ornately framed pieces of modern artwork graced the walls. The space was filled with beautifully arranged furniture that was no doubt beyond expensive. Mel and I settled into adjoining wing chairs. Lenora took her place on a spacious white sectional sofa, facing us from the far side of a brass-and-glass coffee table with a goblet of red wine strategically placed in front of her. A mirrored wet bar covered the far wall, and that’s where Isaac stood, making himself a refill.
“Would you care for something to drink?” Lenora offered.
“No thanks,” Mel said quickly. “We’re working.”
Beverage in hand, Isaac Harrison came over to where we were sitting. He had probably been handsome in his prime, but he was long past that now. He had aged into a mean-spirited drunk. He stood there for a moment as if considering joining his wife on the sofa before deciding against it.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said finally, before making his shambling way out of the room. I didn’t say “Good riddance” aloud, but that’s what I was thinking, and as Lenora watched him leave, she seemed relieved.
“So what happened to Petey?” she asked, picking up her glass and taking a sip of wine.
“He was shot in the side of the head and dumped along the banks of the Yakima River. He went missing several months ago and has been dead for some time. The remains that were located are skeletal in nature and were identified due to a DNA match.”
“Oh, my,” Lenora said. “How dreadful! Was his death drug-related? I know he was involved in that lifestyle and with those kinds of people.”
If Peter Mayfield’s auntie was grief-stricken about her nephew’s death, she wasn’t overplaying her hand. There were no tears, no hysterics. We might just as well have been discussing the untimely demise of a neighbor’s pet.
“That’s what we’re trying to ascertain,” Mel said. “Had you been in touch with him recently—at his grandmother’s funeral, perhaps?”
“There was no funeral,” Lenora replied. “Mother didn’t want one, and I abided by her wishes. I had her buried privately in the Mayfield family plot in West Seattle’s Pioneer Cemetery along with my father and my brother.”
No funeral because of your mother’s wishes or your husband’s? I wondered.
“Were you aware that Petey was living in one of the existing dwellings on your mother’s property?” Mel asked.
“I knew she let Petey stay there from time to time,” Lenora answered. “I told her that wasn’t a good idea—that she was just enabling bad behavior and probably attracting all kinds of riffraff to the neighborhood. Is that where he was living at the time he disappeared?”
“Yes,” I answered, stepping into the conversation. “That’s where he’d been staying along with his girlfriend, Naomi Dale. According to her, Petey left in late October after they’d had a row of some kind.”
“If Petey had a girlfriend, my mother never mentioned it.”
“Or the fact that Naomi was pregnant?”
For the first time in the conversation, Lenora looked startled. “She was?” So much for her being ignorant of Naomi’s existence.
“Was,” I said, “but isn’t now. The baby—a little girl—was born at the end of January.”
“Is the baby even Petey’s?” Lenora asked. “You said this Naomi was his girlfriend, which means they weren’t married. For all I know, she’s the same kind of screwup Petey was.”
I remembered the tender way Naomi had cradled the phone containing the photo of Petey’s belt buckle to her breast. I remembered, too, that when she’d been thrown out into the cold just before Christmas, she had packed Petey’s treasured hairbrush into her grocery cart in hopes of returning it. And when she’d come to the mission the other night, she’d brought it with her in that paper bag along with her other paltry belongings. Compared to those three striking images, Isaac and Lenora Harrison didn’t have much going for them.
“When did you say your mother died?” Mel asked.
“Not long before Christmas,” Lenora said, “on the twentieth of December. She’d been ill for some time with Alzheimer’s. She was in a memory-care place in Lake City over in Seattle. It was a blessing all the way around when it was finally over.”
“Did you make any attempt to reach out to Petey at the time?” I asked.
“Why would I?” Lenora replied.
“Maybe because he was a beneficiary under your mother’s will?”
“I doubt that,” Lenora said a little too quickly. “I’m quite sure I’m the only named beneficiary. Well, not really. The will was written years ago when my brother was still alive, so Arthur is probably listed as well, but he’s dead now, too.”
“And the name of the firm handling your mother’s estate would be Stockman and Dodge, located in downtown Seattle?”
Suddenly alarmed, Lenora sat up a little straighter. “How on earth would you know that?” she wanted to know.
“I’m a detective, Mrs. Harrison,” I said. “Probated wills are public records. Since Stockman and Dodge handled your father’s estate, I assumed they’d likely be handling your mother’s affairs as well.”
Lenora’s initial reaction had already told me what I wanted to know. I was willing to bet that Agnes Mayfield’s will had been executed at the same time as her late husband’s and that it had remained unchanged from that time until now. When Peter died, he had bequeathed everything to his wife. Only now, with the second death—Agnes’s death—did the full impact of those powerful words “per stirpes” come into play. The remainder of Peter and Agnes’s joint estate would then go to each of their children in equal shares. With both Arthur and Petey deceased, Arthur’s share of the estate would be passed along to Athena, and I was determined to see to it that she received every last penny. I doubted Lenora was fully aware of any of that, but I sure as hell was.
“Since your mother died several months ago, is there any reason you haven’t gotten around to probating the will?”
Lenora shrugged. “It’s such a pittance that it’s hardly worth going to all the trouble. The estate sale is coming up. I doubt the proceeds will amount to much, and once the lawyer gets paid, there’ll be very little left over.”
Yes, I thought, not enough to bother about, especially considering the existence of those very timely quitclaim deeds. Without them there would have been a lot more.
“Was your mother already suffering from Alzheimer’s when she signed the quitclaim deeds over to you?” I asked. “If so, the deeds themselves might be deemed invalid, which might in turn invalidate your later sale of the properties to a third party. If I were you, I wouldn’t be surprised if an attorney working on Athena’s behalf didn’t come around asking questions about all those real-estate transactions.”
For the first time in the course of the whole conversation, Lenora Harrison looked truly alarmed, but then she got a grip. “It’s late,” she said, pushing away her unfinished glass of wine. “I think I’d like you to go now.”
“Of course,” Mel said, standing up.
I immediately followed suit. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Harrison,” I said, “and sorry for your loss.”
“You’re not the least bit sorry for her loss,” Mel observed as we headed back to the car, “and you’re grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary. What’s up?”
You bet I was grinning. “Because even if we can’t invalidate Lenora’s sale of those lots to Highline, we might be able to get her to cough up Athena’s share of those proceeds.”
In my estimation, after decades of police work, when it came to next-of-kin notifications, that possibility made this one count as one of my very best.