Nothing to Lose (J.P. Beaumont #25)(46)

Todd had already told me that the population of Homer was right around five thousand people. In that small pond, Eileen and Roger Adams would have been very big fish, and in a place where everyone knew everyone else’s business, having your sixteen-year-old daughter turn up pregnant by a ne’er-do-well kid would have been a terrible a blow to an overly developed ego. The professionally photographed portrait on the Roger Adams, Attorney at Law Web site showed a robust middle-aged man smiling confidently into the camera lens. Dressed in a well-cut tailored suit and sporting a headful of dark brown hair, Adams appeared to be downright urbane, far more so than I would have expected to find in small-town Alaska.

It wasn’t difficult to conclude that Roger was someone for whom appearances were everything,

And how would someone like that regard the kid who had knocked up his teenage daughter? With utter contempt. He would have seen Chris as little more than a bug on his windshield, an annoyance to be brushed off at the first opportunity. With Chris gone, Roger’s expectation most likely would have been that his daughter would shape up and come home. Instead she’d chosen to ship out.

From what Wally Olmstead had told me, I knew that Roger had looked down on his less well-to-do in-laws, so it must have driven the man nuts to know that Penny and Wally were the very people from whom Danitza had sought shelter and aid in her time of need, thus allowing her to deviate from the path her father had laid out for her and enabling her to chart her own course. As for what might have happened had Danitza knuckled under and come home? Most likely Roger would have pressured her into having an abortion or giving the baby up for adoption. In either case Christopher James Danielson would not exist.

In my years as a cop, I’ve met plenty of abusive spouses. Male or female, they show the world one face, charming the hell out of everybody lucky enough to live outside the four walls of the family home. In the Web site’s photo, Roger Adams seemed harmless enough, benevolent almost, but who was he behind closed doors? Had he simply used his money and power to manipulate Chris into leaving town, or had he resorted to something worse?

At this point most of the world still regarded Chris Danielson as a missing person. Harriet Raines and I both believed he was dead. I suspected that Roger Adams was the only person alive who knew the truth, and I wanted to be the one who confronted him with questions about it.

Would I be interfering in an AST homicide investigation by doing so? Yes, but only if there were an ongoing investigation, and at this point there wasn’t one. Until Professor Harriet Raines told me otherwise, I fully intended to keep on keeping on—including conducting a one-on-one interview with Roger Adams.

That’s how things stood when Mel called once she and Sarah got home. Over the phone I gave her a play-by-play rundown of my day’s worth of activities. It was only when I told her about my plan to drive to Homer the next morning to interview Roger that things came to a full and complete stop.

“Are you kidding me?” she demanded.

I was a bit befuddled. “Kidding about what?” I asked.

“You’re planning on going to Homer in the morning, all by your little lonesome, to have a heart-to-heart chat with the guy you think murdered Chris Danielson?”

“Well, yes,” I allowed.

“So what part of Lone Rangering don’t you understand?” Mel wanted to know. “I refuse to have you come home from Alaska in a frigging body bag. If you do, it’ll ruin Christmas for everybody.”

In the world of law enforcement, Lone Rangering, aka Tombstone Courage, means failure to call for backup. The middle-aged guy I’d seen in that official Web-site portrait didn’t appear to be especially dangerous, but what if he were? If Roger really had killed Chris Danielson and had spent all this time thinking he’d gotten away with it, what would happen if I turned up asking a few uncomfortable and very pointed questions?

“Well?” an impatient Mel prodded.

Obviously she was waiting for my answer, and believe me, I was struggling to find one, because in my heart of hearts I knew she was right. Finally I hit on a response that might possibly pass muster.

“What if I contacted the lady who drove me around today and had her drive me tomorrow as well?” I asked.

“Twinkle whatever?” Mel asked.

“Yes, Twinkle Winkleman,” I replied. “Years ago she served briefly with the Anchorage PD.” I didn’t say exactly how briefly. “She washed out when a suspect took a swing at her and she punched his lights out. She was suspended for excessive use of force.”

“Sounds like my kind of girl,” Mel murmured. “If you got into trouble, do you think she’d be able to help?”

I thought about the effortless way Twink had hefted that loaded toolbox up and into the rooftop luggage rack earlier in the day. With her around, if I ended up encountering some kind of trouble, Twink would probably be able to do more than just call for help.

“In my opinion,” I told Mel, “anyone who underestimated Twink’s physical capabilities would be making a serious error in judgment.”

“Good,” Mel said. “Do you think she’ll agree to go?”

“It depends on whether she’s already booked for tomorrow.”

“Call and find out,” Mel said, “and then let me know. I don’t want you bearding Roger Adams in his den without someone there as backup. Got it?”