Chapter 9

Bellingham, Washington

Friday, February 21, 2020

It pains me to admit it now, but back when I was a cop, I had very little respect for private investigators. I regarded most

of them as annoying pains in the ass. They always seemed to be sticking their noses into places where they didn’t belong.

And, from where I stood, their primary job was getting the goods on philandering spouses to improve whatever was due to their

clients in the course of upcoming divorce proceedings.

Now that I’m a PI myself, the shoe is on the other foot, and I see things differently. Private investigators often function as courts of last resort for people for whom the justice system has devolved into an injustice system. Although I didn’t have an official private investigator license when I volunteered for The Last Chance, I was doing similar work there, gathering leads and tracking down evidence in cold case homicides that had been left unsolved for decades. In my work with TLC I had helped bring down a number of killers who had gotten away with murder for decades and who figured for sure that they were home free. Much to my surprise, however, I also discovered that there’s a flip side to cold cases. My work for TLC has also helped exonerate two people who had spent years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.

Having a PI license gives me the opportunity to investigate cases, but it doesn’t oblige me to charge for my services, and

mostly I don’t. I’ve helped identify long unidentified human remains and located a missing person or two without a single

divorce lawyer in sight. In the face of Jeremy and Kelly’s contentious marital situation, my divorce-free practice record

might be about to change, but working to sort out what had happened to Darius Jackson on behalf of his grandmother made me

feel as though I was still on the side of the angels.

And that’s what I did on Friday—I went to work on the Jackson case. Once Mel left for work and Kyle set off for school, I

settled in with my notebook and started following up on the leads Matilda had given me. Ironically enough, I began by placing

a call to my old stomping grounds, Seattle PD’s Homicide unit, where, instead of requesting to speak to my son or to Ben Weston,

I asked for Sandra Sechrest.

“Detective Sechrest,” she said when her phone stopped ringing.

“Good morning,” I said. “My name’s Beaumont, J. P. Beaumont.”

I had been away from Seattle PD for so long that I didn’t expect my name to ring any bells, but it did.

“Any relation to Scotty?” she asked.

Karen and I had always called our son Scotty as a child, but once he started working for Seattle PD, I had deliberately banished that nickname from both my lips and my consciousness. I figured that inside law enforcement circles, someone named Scotty might not be taken seriously. Turns out, I needn’t have bothered with that kind of self-censorship. Ben Weston wasn’t the only member of the Homicide squad who called my son that, and chances were, everybody else did, too.

“He’s my son,” I said.

“Good to know,” Detective Sechrest replied. “So what can I do for you today, Mr. Beaumont?”

“I’m working as a PI these days,” I explained. “My client, Matilda Jackson, has asked me to look into the death of her grandson,

Darius Jackson.”

“Is this an open case?”

“No,” I replied, “it’s actually closed. Darius died of a fentanyl overdose on Thanksgiving Day in 2018. The M.E. ruled it

as accidental.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “I vaguely remember speaking to a female relative about that case several months ago. As I told

her on the phone, once a death has been ruled accidental, the case is closed and we’re no longer able to investigate it.”

“Yes,” I assured her. “I understand all that, but on your advice Mrs. Jackson went ahead and ordered the autopsy report. According

to the autopsy, the needle mark was in Darius’s right wrist. The problem with that is he was right-handed.”

“Really?” she asked. “Knowing that might make a difference, but I doubt it’s enough to reopen the case.”

“Probably not,” I agreed, “but I’d still like to look into it. So I was wondering, is evidence from closed cases still stored

in that warehouse south of CenturyLink Field?”

“As far as I know.”

“I’d like to stop by and take a look at what’s there,” I told her, “but it would be helpful to have a case number. Would you mind looking it up?”

“Sure thing,” she said. “Hang on.”

She put down the phone, and I heard computer keys clacking in the background. Moments later she said, “Hey, Scotty, your dad’s

on the phone. Want to talk to him?”

“Not right now,” he said from some distance. “Tell him we’ll talk later.”

That was a relief because I suddenly realized that Scott and Cherisse were most likely completely in the dark about what was

going on with Kelly and Jeremy. The last thing I wanted to do was have to deliver that troublesome information over the phone

while Scott was at work.

Detective Sechrest came back on the line. “Got it,” she said. “Here’s the number.”

I jotted it down in my notebook. Visiting the warehouse would call for another drive up and down the I-5 corridor, but doing

that in the midst of Seattle’s notoriously bad traffic made no sense. So that went on my to-do list for the following week.

Darius had already been dead for going on two years. Obviously this wasn’t going to be a rush kind of job.

My next call was to Jojo’s, the bar where Darius had been working at the time of his death. “Does the owner happen to be in?”

I asked when someone picked up the phone.

“Hang on. I’ll check.”

It took a while before someone answered. I was surprised when the person who came on the line was female. “Patrice here,”

she said.

“Are you the owner?”

“Yes, I am. How can I help you?”

“My name’s J. P. Beaumont. I’m a private investigator doing some work for Matilda Jackson.”

“Looking into Darius’s death, I hope?” she asked.

“Exactly,” I replied. “His grandmother doesn’t believe he was using at the time of his death.”

“Neither do I,” Patrice said. “Darius didn’t drink and didn’t use. He was in recovery and serious about it. Sometimes it takes

one to know one,” she added. “That’s why, when my mother told me about him, I went ahead and hired him.”

“Your mother and Mrs. Jackson are friends?”

“Not just friends,” she said with a laugh. “They’re forever friends, from kindergarten on. Neither one of them would be caught

dead in a place like this. I ended up owning it after my husband died. We were both involved in drugs at the time. After he

OD’d I decided to get clean. Most of the people who work here are in recovery from one thing or another, and if I find out

they’re using again, I send them down the road.”

That was unexpected. Years ago there was a booze-free bar in Seattle. It disappeared decades back for unknown reasons, but

finding a bar in the Rainier Valley—one popular enough to need bouncers—that required all their employees to be clean and

sober came as a surprise to me.

“How long did he work for you?”

“Not quite a year, and he was totally dependable,” Patrice replied. “Never missed a shift. Always showed up on time. And he

was big enough and tough-enough-looking that most people didn’t even think about messing with him.”

Except , I thought, someone who happened to have a syringe loaded with fentanyl .

“Any complaints about him in the days or weeks leading up to his death?”

“None that I know of. I know he had a girlfriend. She wasn’t someone who stopped by Jojo’s, and I didn’t learn until his funeral

that they were about to become engaged.”

“You attended the funeral?”

“We all did,” Patrice said. “I had to shut the place down that day because everyone who worked here wanted to go to the service.

Some of my guys served as pallbearers.”

I’ve frequented a lot of bars in my time, but this was one my mother would have called “a white horse of a different color.”

“What about customers?” I asked. “Did Darius have beefs with any of them?”

“Nothing that ever came to my attention.”

“All right,” I said, preparing to end the call. “If you think of anything that might be of use, here’s my number.”

I gave it to her, and I could hear the scratching of a pen or pencil on paper.

“What do you think happened to him?” Patrice asked.

If I’d still been a sworn officer, I wouldn’t have been able to answer that question. As a PI, I could. “I believe Darius

Jackson was murdered,” I replied without hesitation.

“So do I,” Patrice declared. “Since the cops aren’t going to lift a finger to find out what happened to him, I hope to hell

you do.”

“That makes two of us,” I told her, “and Matilda Jackson makes three.”

Once off the phone with Patrice, I worked my way through the list of friends Matilda had given me and came up empty. Most of the numbers were out of date. Some were simply disconnected or had been reassigned to someone else. Unfortunately, gone are the days when I could have picked up my phone, dialed information, and simply asked for assistance.

Finally, before Kyle came home from school but hopefully late enough not to awaken someone who had to work nights, I dialed

Gina Riding’s number. A woman answered after the second ring. “Hello.”

I started to introduce myself but was interrupted by some kind of a ruckus on the other end of the line.

“Boys, settle down!” she ordered. “I’m on the phone.” The background racket fell silent. “Sorry about that,” she resumed.

“What were you saying?”

“My name is J.P. Beaumont...” I began.

“Right,” she said, before I could go any further. “You’re the private investigator. Matilda left me a message that you’d most

likely be calling. I hope you’ll be able to do something about Darius.”

“I hope so, too, and I’m so sorry for your loss,” I agreed. “I understand you two were in a serious relationship.”

“Thank you,” she said, “and yes, it was a serious relationship. I would have married the man in a heartbeat, and my boys were

crazy about him. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was planning to give me an engagement ring at Christmas. He still did,

in a way. He was making payments on it. His boss from work found out where he was buying it. She paid it off and gave it to

me after the funeral.”

I was touched. Score another point for Patrice Moser! I thought.

“It didn’t seem right to wear it on my finger,” Gina continued, “so I wear it on a chain around my neck. I think about him every day. At the time he died, I didn’t believe for a minute that he had died of an accidental overdose. I work in the ER. I know about fentanyl overdoses and how common they are. But I knew in my heart Darius wouldn’t have done that. I tried to talk to the cops about it, but I was only the girlfriend. No one was interested in my opinion. Matilda might have been able to get more traction, but after that stroke, she wasn’t able to do much of anything.”

“You saw the autopsy report?”

“I did but only because Matilda showed it to me. There was some blunt force trauma to the left side of his head—consistent

with a fall—and that single needle mark on the inside of his right wrist. You’re aware that Darius was right-handed?”

“Matilda told me. But I’m interested to learn if you know about anyone who might have wished to harm him—a friend or acquaintance

with whom he’d had a falling-out.”

“I can’t think of anyone,” Gina said. “He had broken off all connections with the people he used to know back when he was

with Gypsy. He went to work, he went to church, and he went to NA meetings. That’s it. The rest of his spare time was spent

with me and the boys.”

“But what about some other individual from back in the bad old days, someone besides Gypsy and her boyfriend? Did he ever

mention having problems with anybody else?”

“I can’t think of anyone at all,” Gina replied.

“This is a cell phone, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“So now you have my number. If you think of anything that might be helpful, please give me a call.”

“Before you go, Mr. Beaumont, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Fire away.”

“I don’t know how much you charge for your services. If Matilda is paying for this, I know she’s not made of money. I can’t chip in much, but I’d like to help.”

“Don’t give that another thought,” I assured her. “My fees are being handled by someone who wishes to remain anonymous.”

When the phone call ended, I sat there for several minutes in silence thinking about why I was doing this—for Matilda and

for Gina and her boys, yes, but also for that other little boy. I can still see Ben’s tear-soaked face clear as day, staring

up at me, trying to make sense of what had just happened, all the while clutching the only thing he owned—that single teddy

bear.

Eventually I had found the people responsible for the murder of Ben Weston’s family and had brought them to justice, but that

hadn’t been enough, not nearly. Helping Matilda Jackson and Gina Riding navigate their loved one’s death was something I could

do right now that might help wipe out some of that deficit.