Taking the Fifth(53)

“What did he say?”

“Just that Jasmine Day was under suspicion in two drug-related murders. I talked it over with my editor. He said the story was too hot to print without some sort of official confirmation. Libel, you know, and all that. So I came looking for you.”

“He said two?”

Max nodded. “That’s right.”

So someone was passing out inside information, someone who knew Jasmine was under suspicion in the Jonathan Thomas case before we knew she was.

“But why’d he call you?” I asked.

Max shrugged. “He said he thought maybe it was something I’d be interested in putting in my column.”

“He said that on the phone?”

“Sure.”

“What days does your column run?”

“Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays,” Max answered. He looked annoyed, as if he thought I should have known that vital information without having to ask.

“And this guy asked for you by name?” Max nodded. “What have your columns been about this week?”

I’m sure Max thinks every word that drips from his fingertips is golden. He was probably shocked to know that I had no idea what tub he’d been thumping on.

He answered grudgingly. “Tuesday’s was about the judge in Tukwila who’s got three DWI convictions. Thursday’s was all about overcrowding in the jail. Tomorrow’s is about people stealing parking meters from downtown Seattle.”

My radar came on with a little warning pip. I don’t like it when murder trials are conducted in the newspapers, especially when the trial is in full swing before a suspect is even arrested. This smacked of a frame-up to me, of someone wanting to put Jasmine Day so firmly in front of our noses that we wouldn’t look beyond her.

Part of making a successful frame-up work is to make it seem plausible, to get people to buy the story. How better to do that than to engage the help of the local media? You get them to do your job for you, have them print the story for you so it will seem logical and reasonable.

Maybe you could engage a local cop too, if you could find one dumb enough to fall into the trap. That brought me up short. Was somebody using both Max and me as fall guys? I didn’t like the possibility, but it was there all the same.

If that was the case, who was behind it? Max’s description of that week’s column material didn’t sound like such hot stuff to me. It didn’t sound like something that would capture the imagination of someone who had just blown into town. What would make an outsider think that someone writing columns about stolen parking meters or DWIs might be interested in solving a murder?

They wouldn’t. If someone was indeed trying to frame Jasmine Day, it had to be somebody local, someone who knew Maxwell Cole well enough to be sure he would snap at the bait.

“I don’t know who the blonde is,” I said, “but you can bet I intend to find out.”

I turned and headed for the crime-lab door, knowing full well that Maxwell Cole couldn’t follow me inside. Don Yamamoto, head of the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, had thrown Max out long ago, telling him to get lost and not come back.

“J. P., you’re lying to me,” Max protested over my shoulder. “You come back here and tell me the truth.”

The funny thing was, if I had known the truth right then, I might very well have told him.

Inside the crime lab, I found Don Yamamoto himself seated in a small, cluttered private office. Stripped down to his shirtsleeves, with a knotted tie hanging loose around his neck, he was poring through papers from a disorderly jumble of file folders strewn across the desk in front of him. Standing up when I tapped on the glass window of his office, he came toward me holding out his hand.

“I wondered when you’d show up, Beau. Did you get Jan’s message?”

I shook my head. “I just got in. I haven’t been upstairs yet.”

“She had to leave early. She called upstairs looking for you just before she went off duty.”

“I’ve been out.”

Yamamoto smiled. “That’s okay. I don’t suppose she’ll mind if I jump the gun and give you the news first. She did a first-rate job. She got hold of the import/export company that deals with the shoe manufacturer and traced the shoes to a—”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess. To a shoe store in Beverly Hills.”

Don Yamamoto frowned. “If you never got Jan’s message, how’d you know that?”

“Just lucky, I guess. Go on.”

“Anyway, when she found out the customer’s name, she ran a few of the prints we found on the shoe through our new fingerprint identification system. We got a match.”