Until Proven Guilty - J. A. Jance [82]
I got in, and the patrolman made a connection to the Seattle dispatcher. “Get down here right away. Powell is waiting. He’s hot!”
“What the hell do you mean, get down there? I just got married. I’m supposed to be off duty.”
“He said to tell you your leave is canceled. He needs you now.”
I got out of the patrol car and slammed the door. “Sorry I pulled you over,” the patrolman said. “If I’da known the circumstances, I never would have seen you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “For nothing,” I added under my breath.
I drove to the Public Safety Building. Powell was in the fishbowl on the phone as I came in. “What the fuck is going on?” I growled as he hung up.
“We’ve got another homocide. This one’s down in Auburn. It was in the paper this morning.”
“I hate to mention this, but I don’t work in Auburn. I work for the city of Seattle.”
Powell went on as though he hadn’t heard me. “A guy came tearing in here at seven o’clock looking for you. He says it’s about the Auburn case. He refuses to talk to anyone but you.”
“Where is he?”
Powell nodded in the direction of one of the interview rooms. “He’s in there. His name is Tom Stahl.”
I didn’t recognize the name right off the bat, and the slightly built, crewcut young man who paced nervously back and forth in the tiny interview room didn’t ring any bells either. From the delicate sway of his hips, I guessed he was a little light in his loafers, one of Seattle’s more obvious gays. I let the door slam shut behind me. “I’m Detective Beaumont,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“Everybody connected with this case is getting killed. I’m sure I’m next. When I read the newspaper this morning, I almost had a heart attack. I knew right away it was the same man; I mean, how many Charles Murray Kincaids can there be?” His words came in a breathless lisp.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Stahl had been clutching a newspaper in his hand. Now he dropped it on the table like a hot potato.
“It happened right after I tried to call you, the night before last or yesterday morning, too late to make it into the paper until today. I always read the paper early, before I go to church.”
“What happened? For God’s sake, make some sense, man.”
Without meaning to, I was yelling at him. He pushed the paper in my direction and scurried to the far side of the room.
“Read it yourself. I demand some protection.”
I read the article. It was simple enough. An Auburn resident, Charles Murray Kincaid, had been found shot to death in an automobile outside his home early Saturday morning. Police were investigating. He had been shot once in the back of the head. There was nothing in the article to explain Tom Stahl’s extreme agitation. “So what?” I asked.
“Look at the address.” I looked. “It’s the same address I gave your wife.”
“Now wait a minute,” I said, trying to modify my tone. He was obviously frightened. “Let’s get this straight. I didn’t have a wife until six-fifteen this morning. Why don’t you tell me the whole story, from the beginning.”
He took a deep breath. “It’s about Angela Barstogi,” he said. “She ran up a big long-distance bill talking to some guy down in Auburn. Her mother called to complain about the bill. Said she wouldn’t pay it because she didn’t make the calls. I did some checking. Kincaid had an easy telephone number, 234-5678. It’s long-distance from Seattle. Kids called him all the time. As soon as they learned their numbers on ”Sesame Street,“ they’d string numbers together and call him: 1-234-5678. We tried to get him to change his number, vacate it so it would be a disconnect. But he wouldn’t. Claimed he loved talking to little kids.
“Anyway, I called one morning to talk to the mother, Mrs. Barstogi. She was asleep, so I ended up talking to Angela. I told her she shouldn’t call him anymore, that her mother would have to pay the bill. She said she liked talking to Uncle Charlie on the phone, so when—”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Did you say Uncle Charlie?”
He nodded. “So after I heard she