“Come on,” Sergeant James urged. “Hurry it up.” I hurried.
James led the way into the elevator. “That phone call was from the chief of police in Bellingham,” the sergeant continued. “According to him, Holman spilled his guts. He’s made a complete confession, including the fact that Osgood planted the cocaine in Jonathan Thomas’s pillow to hide the fact that they were looking for something else.”
“The tape?”
James nodded grimly.
“It worked,” I said. “We’re just lucky Mrs. Morris called us.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Sergeant James agreed.
When we got down to the Public Safety Building, Alan Dale was asleep on one of the couches in the fifth-floor lobby. I woke him up. His eyes were hollow as he rubbed the sleep out of them.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“You said you’d help me bail her out, remember? I called here and they told me you’d be back eventually, so I came down to wait. I’ve got the name and number of a bail bondsman. How much is it going to cost?”
I shook my head. “Not a dime,” I told him. “It’s going to take some time, but it’s not going to cost you anything.”
Alan Dale followed me into my cubicle while I told him what had happened since we left him at the Fifth Avenue.
“So she wasn’t in on it?” he asked when I had finished.
“She never was,” I replied. “The whole thing was a setup from beginning to end.”
“Those sons of bitches,” Alan Dale muttered. “Those no good sons of bitches!” He pounded a clenched fist into the open palm of his other hand. It was probably a good thing for Ed Waverly that he was locked up and out of harm’s way about then, because I think the head carpenter would have hammered him if he’d gotten the chance.
It all made sense to me then, although I hadn’t seen it before. It was written all over Alan Dale’s haggard face. He was like a faithful old hound dog, hanging around outside his owner’s door, waiting for a table scrap or maybe, if he got really lucky, a pat on the head. I wondered if Jasmine Day had ever noticed. If not, maybe Mary Lou Gibbon would be smart enough to figure it out.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s see what we can do.”
They released Jasmine Day at five o’clock in the morning. I was waiting in the lobby when they brought her out. Alan Dale held his arms open for her, and she fell into them as if she belonged there. She was crying; I’m not sure why. Dale held her so tight I was afraid she’d break, but she didn’t.
“Are you still staying at the Mayflower?” I asked finally.
He shook his head. “I checked us both out. I’m unemployed, remember? I can’t afford it on my own nickel.”
“Come home with me, then,” I said. “I’ve got lots of room.”
Sergeant James dropped us off at Belltown Terrace.
Nobody can say I’m a sore loser. Without any discussion, I let Alan Dale and Jasmine take my room, while I ended up on the couch in the living room. As I stretched out full length, I was grateful that Michael Browder, my decorator, had insisted I buy an eight-foot sofa. By then, it was already getting light.
I slept the sleep of the dead. I woke up when somebody landed on my chest hard enough to knock the wind out of me. The alarm clock next to my head was still chirping, but I hadn’t heard it.
Tiny arms wrapped themselves around my neck, and a warm face buried itself under my chin.
“Who are those two guys in your bed, Unca Beau?” Heather Peters demanded. “And how come you weren’t at the airport to meet us?”
It took a minute to clear the fog out of my head and figure out who and where I was. “Those people are friends of mine,” I told her. “One of those guys is a lady, Heather. She’s just got a short haircut.”
“Can I have my hair cut that way? Please, can I? Then the boys couldn’t pull it anymore. I hate it when Mrs. Edwards braids my hair.”
“We’ll have to ask your father about that,” I told her. “I don’t think he’d approve.”
CHAPTER 27
WHEN ED DONALDSON OF THE LOS ANGELES office of the DEA showed up late that night, the rest of the pieces began to fall into place.
According to him, Richard Dathan Morris really had been working undercover for the DEA, but out of the Los Angeles office, not out of Seattle. Westcoast Starlight Productions had been under suspicion for some time, but Donaldson had also been aware of something amiss in the Seattle office.
Richard Dathan Morris, after he’d been turned down in Seattle, had tried the L.A. office. The opportunity had been too good to miss all the way around. Donaldson had hired Morris on the spot and put him to work undercover, but he had done it outside all usual channels so no hint of it could possibly leak back to the Seattle DEA. Morris hadn’t had any trouble making contact with Osgood, who, unknown to his wife, hung out on the gay side of town when she wasn’t looking.