Chapter 6

Bellingham, Washington

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

The next afternoon found me perusing the frozen food section of our local Safeway. Since Mel had an after-work meeting that

evening, I wanted to buy a microwavable meal that would allow someone with limited cooking skills to provide a reasonable

facsimile of a family dinner. That’s when my phone rang with an unrecognized 206 number. Despite the fact that I suspected

it to be a spam call, I went ahead and answered.

“Hey, Beau,” someone said. “Ben Weston here. How’re you doing?”

Ben Weston is actually Benjamin Harrison Weston Jr., someone I first encountered when he was a five-year-old kid who was the only survivor of a horrific home invasion in which both his parents, his older brother, and his brother’s best friend had all been murdered. Ben had been playing hide-and-seek with the older boys and had fallen asleep in a closet when the killers entered the home. That was how he had escaped being killed along with everyone else. Shortly before that incident, a local radio station had initiated the Teddy Bear Patrol, providing stuffed bears in the vehicles of first responders. That crime scene was the first time in my career as a Seattle homicide cop that I had deployed the Teddy Bear Patrol stuffed bear stowed in the trunk of my unmarked. Sadly enough, that wasn’t the only time I needed one.

After the deaths of his parents, little Benny had been raised by his aunt and uncle. His father had been a Seattle cop, and

as an adult, Ben Jr. had followed in those footsteps. The last time I’d had any dealings with him had been several years earlier.

At the time he’d been working undercover for Seattle PD.

“Ben!” I exclaimed. “Delighted to hear from you. How are you doing these days?”

“Not too shabby,” he said. “I joined the detective division, and I’m working Homicide these days. Scotty’s desk is the next

one over. He says hello, by the way.”

Like Ben, my son, Scott, had also followed in his father’s footsteps. When he joined Seattle PD, he was initially assigned

to the Tech unit, but he, too, had recently moved over to investigations.

“Tell him hello back,” I said. “What’s going on with you?”

“Well, my son’s a junior in high school, and my daughter’s about to graduate from eighth grade. They’re both honors students.”

I was stunned. “Congratulations,” I managed lamely.

I had no idea that Ben was even married to say nothing of having kids that old. Time flies when you’re not paying attention.

“How’s Bellingham treating you?” he asked.

“Not bad,” I said.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and found a woman with a shopping cart standing behind me with her eyes shooting daggers in my direction. Obviously she needed to get past me to reach that section of frozen entrees.

“Do you mind?” she demanded.

“Sorry,” I muttered, stepping aside.

“What was that?” Ben asked.

“I was talking to someone else,” I told him. “You were saying?”

“I hear you’re working as a PI now.”

“Yes, I am,” I replied. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Actually, there is. I need a favor.”

Remembering that shattered and newly orphaned little boy clutching his teddy bear, there was nothing in my power that I wouldn’t

do for him.

“Sure thing,” I said. “Name it.”

“After my folks passed, there was this lady at church named Matilda Jackson. She was my Sunday school teacher, and she always

looked out for me. I didn’t find out until much later that she and my mother had been good friends. She always asked about

how I was doing and if there was anything I needed. Now she’s the one who needs help. It’s about her grandson. He’s a lot

younger than I am, so he isn’t someone I know personally.”

“Is the grandson in trouble?” I asked.

“He’s dead,” Ben responded. “That’s why she needs help.”

This wasn’t something to be discussed in the frozen food aisle. “I’m actually in a grocery store right now,” I explained.

“How about if you text me her contact info, and I’ll be in touch?”

“Whatever the charges are...” Ben began.

“Don’t worry about any charges,” I told him. “As far as you’re concerned there won’t be any. As I said, just send me her info.”

“Will do,” Ben replied. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

Putting away my phone, I continued shopping. On my way through the store, in addition to my microwavable entrees, I picked up several boxes of macaroni and cheese. Back in my bachelor days, that was the one thing I for sure knew how to cook.

That evening Kyle and I dined on Hungry-Man frozen dinners. He ate all of his and half of mine. I was beginning to get a better

idea of what it means to feed a growing boy. Once he headed for his room, I picked up my phone. Ben had sent me a text that

contained Matilda Jackson’s name and phone number and nothing else. Whatever her issue was, I was going to have to find out

about it on my own, without any help from Ben.

“Matilda Jackson?” I asked when a woman answered.

“Yes, who’s this?”

“My name is Beaumont,” I said. “J. P. Beaumont. Ben Weston gave me your number.”

“Oh, my goodness,” she said. “You’re the detective who gave Benny that teddy bear on the day his parents were murdered. He

still has it, you know. He told me he keeps it in a desk drawer in his office in case he needs it again.”

I had no idea Ben had hung on to his teddy bear, but knowing what horrors await homicide cops on a daily basis, maybe having

a teddy bear stowed in a nearby desk drawer isn’t such a bad idea.

“Guilty as charged,” I told her. “Ben mentioned that you might be in need of a private investigator.”

Matilda sighed. “I certainly am,” she said. “It’s about my grandson. His name was Darius. He died of a drug overdose in November

of 2018. I want to know who killed him.”

“Mrs. Jackson— It is Mrs., correct?”

“Yes, Mrs. But you can call me Matilda.”

“Matilda, as I said, I’m a private investigator now. I’m no longer a homicide detective. If someone murdered your grandson, this is something the police should handle.”

“Except they won’t,” she replied. “They claim he died of an accidental overdose—fentanyl. As soon as the medical examiner

declared his death to be accidental, Seattle PD closed the case and refused to lift a finger.”

“But you believe Darius was murdered?”

“I know he was murdered,” Matilda declared. “When he went to volunteer at the food bank that day, he hadn’t used in months. Why would

he spend the day handing out free turkey dinners to homeless people and then walk away from the food bank and overdose in

a dark alley? Answer me that!”

I happen to know a little about those kinds of situations. When drug addicts clean up their acts and go for a time without

using, if they go back to it, they’re putting their lives in mortal danger. Amounts of their drug of choice that they could

formerly use with impunity are now powerful enough to kill them because they no longer have their former level of built-up

resistance working for them. I thought about all that but I didn’t say any of it aloud to Matilda. Clearly she had enough

to worry about without my piling on.

“This happened on Thanksgiving Day?”

“Yes, and he was in high spirits when he left the house.”

“He was living with you at the time?”

“Yes, but he knew good and well that if he ever started using again, I’d throw him out and he’d be back on the streets so

fast that it would make his head spin. The thing is, he never came home.”

“You reported him missing?”

“I thought maybe he’d decided to spend the night with his girlfriend, so I wasn’t really worried. I was just mad that he hadn’t bothered to let me know his plans. The next morning when he still wasn’t home and wasn’t answering his phone, I started thinking about calling in a missing persons report, but before I got around to it, two detectives turned up and told me that Darius was dead. The driver of a garbage truck spotted him in the alley earlier that morning and called it in. They found both his phone and his wallet. They also ran his prints, but they still wanted me to come in and positively identify him.”

“His prints were in AFIS?” I asked.

Matilda took a steadying breath. “My grandson had a few run-ins with the law and spent some time in jail, if that’s what you’re

asking, Mr. Beaumont, and there were certainly times he deserved to be there, but he didn’t deserve to die. He was starting

over. He was working. He was going to meetings for his addiction issues, and he was also going to church. He had even started

seeing someone he met there—a young widow. He was looking forward to living a normal life, but now he’s dead, and the only

person who gives a damn about him is me.”

That struck a chord. How many people think their kids and grandkids are doing fine when they’re not? You can count me as one

of those. In spades.

“I’m so sorry to hear about this, Mrs. Jackson, but as I told you earlier, I’m no longer a police officer...”

“That’s the whole point. Benny explained to me that the cops won’t look into the case because Darius’s manner of death has

been determined to be accidental. As far as Seattle PD is concerned, the case is closed. I need someone who isn’t a police

officer to reopen it.”

God knows I wanted to say no, but that wasn’t really an option. Benjamin Harrison Weston had asked me to look into the situation

as a personal favor to him, and look into it I would.

“I’m going to need a lot more information than I have so far,” I said at last. “Where do you live?”

“I used to live in the south end of Seattle. A few months after Darius passed, I had a stroke. After that, I couldn’t handle

the stairs anymore, so I sold the house to someone who’s all wound up about gentrifying the neighborhood. I moved in with

my sister down here in Renton. She’s a widow, too, so we look after each other and share expenses. Besides, her house doesn’t

have any stairs—except for the ones on the front porch. Thankfully some people from church installed a wheelchair ramp for

us.”

“Where in Renton?” I asked.

She gave me an address.

“I’m calling from Bellingham. That’s where I live these days. Would it be possible for me to see you tomorrow, maybe some

time in the early afternoon?”

“That would be fine,” Matilda said. “I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning, but I should be home by twelve thirty or

one.”

“In the meantime, I need Darius’s date of birth and date of death.”

“He was born September 18, 1992,” Matilda answered. “He died on November 22, 2018.”

After the call ended, I continued to think about Darius’s birth date. He would have been twenty-six when he died—eight years

older than Kyle. At that age he should have been a young man at the beginning of the prime of his life rather than dead in

a grimy Seattle alleyway. I was sitting there thinking about that when Mel turned up.

“Hey,” she said. “How are things on the home front?”

“Okay,” I said.

“What did the two of you have to eat?”

“Frozen dinners,” I admitted. “I heated them up in the microwave.”

She laughed at that. “Hardly cooking 101,” she said. “Where’s Kyle?”

“He took Sarah for a walk after dinner and then disappeared into his room. He’s not exactly the talkative type.”

“I don’t blame him. He’s got a lot to process right now.”

“So do I... have a lot to process, that is,” I told her. “I’ve caught a case.”

“A paying case or another freebie?” she asked.

“The latter,” I said. “It’s a cold case Benjamin Weston asked me to look into.”

“Your ‘teddy bear’ boy?” Mel asked.

The incident in question had occurred years before Mel and I met, but she knows me too well.

“The very one,” I said.

“How about if I pour myself a glass of wine?” she asked. “Then you can tell me all about it.”