Chapter 22

Seattle, Washington

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

By the time Greta and I finished, Sarah had been left alone for far longer than I intended, but at least the rain had stopped.

When I opened the car door, Sarah scrambled her long-legged body into the front seat. That’s Sarah-speak for I need to go, and I need to go now!

Walking my dog right outside the Hallidays’ lakefront home didn’t seem like the proper thing to do, so I drove far enough

up the driveway to be around the curve and out of sight before I stopped to let her out. Back in the old days, for evidence

reasons, I used to carry a container of latex gloves around in my glove box for evidence-collection purposes. Now I carry

a roll of doggie poop bags. To my immense relief one of those wasn’t necessary this time around.

Sarah’s pee pause gave me a few minutes to consider my next step. A quick check of my email revealed that no one other than Greta Halliday had responded to the requests for additional interviews, so there was no sense in my waiting around for another case to surface. I needed to move forward with the ones I had, and that called for another trip to the Homicide unit at Seattle PD, because Seattle is where three of my four dead bodies had been found.

I could have jumped the line by going straight to my friend and former partner, Ron Peters, who is now the longtime assistant

chief of police at SPD, but pulling rank was bound to piss off all the people whose help I would need to reopen any or all

of my cases. Insulting those lower-totem-pole folks seemed like a plan to fail. No, in this instance I needed to go through

channels, across desks, and up the chain of command, carefully crossing all t ’s and dotting all i ’s along the way. As for my starting point? That would be the only Seattle PD officer connected to the Darius Jackson case,

Detective Sandra Sechrest.

In establishing any kind of working relationship, I prefer my initial encounters to be face-to-face. With that in mind, and

with Sarah once again stretched out full length on the back seat, we headed for downtown Seattle on I-90. On the way, I called

both Mel and Kyle, leaving messages to let them know that this was taking longer than expected and that they were on their

own as far as figuring out plans for dinner.

During my years at Seattle PD, I worked out of the fifth floor of the Public Safety Building, known throughout the city for

having the slowest elevator in town. That’s all gone now, not only the elevator, but also the building itself. It went bye-bye

years ago and was replaced by the new Seattle Police Department Headquarters a few blocks away at Fifth and Cherry. I had

been to the new building several times during my years with the Special Homicide Investigation Team, but not often enough

to know my way around.

In the lobby I was asked who I was and why I was there. “My name’s J. P. Beaumont,” I told the clerk. “I’m here to see Detective Sandra Sechrest.”

“Any relation to Scotty?” the clerk asked.

Here we go again!

“He’s my son,” I told her.

“You must be very proud of him then,” she said, beaming at me as she handed over my visitor badge. “He’s a real go-getter.”

I made my way to the elevator and rode up to the seventh floor where I was met by a uniformed desk sergeant who acted as gatekeeper

to a well-appointed office space that bore no resemblance to the Homicide squad’s old digs in the Public Safety Building,

where Captain Larry Powell’s glass-lined office, the Fish Bowl, had dominated the interior landscape.

The desk sergeant greeted me and inquired about my business.

“I’m here to see Detective Sechrest,” I told him.

“Regarding?”

“Regarding some cold cases, three to be exact.”

That got his attention. He picked up his phone. “Detective Sechrest? There’s a J. P. Beaumont here at the desk. Says he has

three cold cases for you.”

The woman who showed up a few minutes later was a petite redhead who reminded me for all the world of someone I had met in

Arizona years earlier, the sheriff of Cochise County, Joanna Brady.

“Glad to meet you,” Sandra Sechrest said, holding out her hand, “and call me Sandy, please, but three cases? I thought you

were working on Darius Jackson.”

“I am,” I told her, “but now I’ve found some other cases, and I suspect all of them are connected—two occurred here in Seattle

while a third happened in Liberty Lake over in eastern Washington.”

“Whoa,” she said. Then, turning back to the desk sergeant, she asked, “Is anyone using the conference room at the moment?”

“Nope,” he said. “It’s free and clear.”

Sandra turned back to me. “Let’s talk in there, then, shall we?”

She led the way. Inside the room, she waited until I was seated before leveling a green-eyed stare in my direction. “Okay,”

she said, “tell me.”

So I did, from the beginning, starting with Matilda Jackson right on through my afternoon meeting with Greta Halliday, including

how Yolanda Aguirre’s study into long-term ramifications of overdose deaths in families of the deceased had allowed me to

zero in on victims whose death rulings of suicide or accident I considered to be erroneous.

Sandra Sechrest was a fast study. “Do you think there might be others beyond the four you’ve already identified?” she asked

when I finished.

“I do,” I said, with a nod. “There are close to a dozen additional files that may or may not be connected, ones where I need

to conduct further interviews. And there are also additional files that have yet to be reviewed. The problem is, those initial

interviews by Yolanda Aguirre were conducted with the understanding that they were confidential, so I’m having to wait to

see if any of those other interviewees will reach out to me to provide additional information.”

“Where do we stand right now?” Sandra asked.

Her use of the word we made me think that, as far as Sandra Sechrest was concerned, we were already in this together. That’s when I pulled the evidence

bag containing Loren Gregson’s personal effects out of my pocket and laid it on the table in front of her.

“I suggest we start here,” I said. “I used gloves when I handled the wallet, but I’d like to have that swabbed for DNA. Ditto for the two hundred-dollar bills I found inside.”

“You know the drill,” she said. “I can’t submit evidence for testing without having an active case number. None of your cases

are active. They’re linked, yes, but at this point I still doubt you have enough to get the M.E. to change manner of death

rulings here, or even to get traction in Liberty Lake. But for our purposes, the fact that all the Seattle cases are considered

closed may be a godsend.”

“How so?”

“Because you can go take a look at the existing evidence boxes, the same way you did with the Jackson case. You know as well

as I do that a lot of the investigation happens in the first forty-eight hours after a body is discovered. Depending on what

else the M.E. had on her plate at the time, the autopsy itself might have been delayed for that long or even longer.”

“And you’re thinking a lot of that evidence may not have been examined very closely?”

“Exactly,” Sandra Sechrest said, “and guess what? I can provide all the case numbers.”

“That would be greatly appreciated,” I said.

“Give me those names again.”

So I did.

“Okay,” she said, rising to her feet. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

She had no more than left the room when there was a tap on the door. When it opened, a frowning Scott Beaumont stepped inside.

“I was coming on shift, and the clerk downstairs told me you were here. What’s up?”

I was momentarily stumped as to where to start. “Working a closed case,” I said. “It’s something Ben Weston asked me to look

into.”

“Darius Jackson?”

Obviously he and Ben had discussed the situation. “Yup,” I said. “That’s the one.”

“Making any progress?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I’ve uncovered some other cases with similar circumstances. Detective Sechrest is helping me look into them.”

“Good-o,” Scott said. “Glad to hear it. If there’s anything I can do...”

The way he said it made me think he was about to head to his desk, but I needed to discuss a few other things with him before

he left.

“Have you heard anything from Kelly?” I asked.

Scott frowned. “No, why? Is something wrong?”

Actually a whole lot of things were wrong, and I had been sitting on them. I gave him a very short version of the current

family situation, leaving out the puzzling part about Caroline Richards having grown up as part of Witness Protection. Unsurprisingly,

Scott was outraged.

“So Kyle is staying with you and Mel, Kelly and Kayla are living in an apartment in Eugene, and Jeremy is shacked up with

his pregnant girlfriend in the house Kelly paid off with her inheritance?”

“That’s about the size of it,” I agreed.

“If I had known all this was going on, I would have driven down to Ashland and cleaned his clock.”

“I expect that’s part of the reason Kelly didn’t tell either one of us,” I said, “but don’t go off half-cocked. When I saw

Kelly, she was holding it together, but only just barely. You can let her know that I told you about what’s going on, but

don’t go inserting yourself into the drama. She’s dealing with enough right now, and your going to fist-city with Jeremy won’t

help matters.”

Scott was about to take issue with that when Detective Sechrest showed back up with a piece of Post-it paper in her hand.

“Here they are...” she began. “Hey, Scotty. Sorry to interrupt. I was getting your dad some case numbers.” She handed them

over. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Will do.”

Once she exited, Scott was still there. “I can hardly believe all this crap,” he muttered. “I never really warmed up to Jeremy,

but I always thought the two of them had the perfect life.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “You’re not the only one,” I said. “My mother always used to say, ‘What you don’t know can’t

hurt you,’ but for the record, I think she was wrong about that, because it sure as hell can.”