Page 37 of Den of Iniquity

The woman who answered identified herself as Detective Byrd, “That’s Byrd with ayrather than ani,” she informed me.

“My name is J. P. Beaumont,” I told her. “I’m a private investigator looking into a series of fatal fentanyl overdoses. My understanding is that Detective Wang is working one of those, a case that may be related to one I’m working. Could I speak to him, please?”

“Ron pulled the plug a couple of months back,” Detective Byrd said. “He and his wife bought some horse property somewhere over near SeeQuiUm.”

Ouch. The state of Washington is divided into two distinct parts, separated by the Cascade Mountain Range. The Westside, dominated by the Seattle metropolitan area, generally leans to the left. The Eastside leans right, and what each side doesn’t know about the other could fill volumes. For instance, until that phone call to Detective Byrd, I’d never knowingly had any dealings with someone from Liberty Lake, and, other than knowing it’s somewhere in eastern Washington, I couldn’t tell you right off the bat exactly where it’s located.

Clearly, Detective Byrd was equally ignorant about this side of the mountains. The town of Sequim is located in Clallam County on the Olympic Peninsula. The problem is, only western Washington outsiders pronounce it SeeQuiUm. It’s supposed to be pronounced likeswimwith aKadded into the mix—in other words,skwim, likesquish.

So I thought about who I was and what I needed. Then I thought about what sounded like a much younger woman on the other end of the line and wondered how much interest she’d have in helping me with a case she likely knew nothing about. I suspected that wouldn’t result in a positive outcome for either one of us.

“You wouldn’t happen to know how I could get in touch with him, would you?” I asked.

Detective Byrd held the phone away from her mouth. “Hey, does anybody here have Ronnie’s cell number?”

“Who’s asking?”

“A private eye from Seattle who’s looking into one of Ron’s old cases.”

In Seattle, there wouldn’t be a chance in hell that someone would actually pass along that kind of information over the phone, but Liberty Lake must still have had something of a small-town vibe to it.

“Sure,” I heard someone else say in the background. “I’ve got his number right here.”

When Detective Byrd repeated it for me, I fed it into my phone. “Thanks,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

A moment later, when I dialed the number, my phone helpfully told me that I was calling Liberty Lake, Washington, even though I knew good and well I wasn’t.

“Hello,” a wary male voice answered.

“Ronald Wang?”

“Who’s asking?”

“My name’s J. P. Beaumont, formerly with the attorney general’s Special Homicide Investigation Team.”

“S.H.I.T. you mean?” he asked.

Somehow that was the only name for that agency that ever resonated with anyone. Special Homicide Investigation Team never rang any bells. S.H.I.T. did back then and obviously still does.

“Exactly,” I replied. “S.H.I.T., but now I’m a private investigator and looking into a fentanyl overdose case that might or might not be related to the unsolved death of Jake Spaulding.”

That’s all I said, and then I waited. I know from personal experience how much homicide cops hate to walk away from the job,leaving an unresolved case on the table. No matter how much time passes, those cases stay with us for the remainder of our lives. Luckily for me, Ron Wang was true to type.

“That son of a bitch?” he said after a long moment. “Whoever booted Jake Spaulding off the planet did everybody else a huge favor, but what do you want to know?”

Biased maybe? If this was the guy in charge of investigating Jake Spaulding’s death, maybe it wasn’t so surprising that the case remained unresolved.

“What can you tell me about him?” I asked.

“His folks have lived in the Liberty Lake area all their lives, and believe me, Darlene and Tom Spaulding are terrific people—churchgoing, salt-of-the-earth people. They’re the backbone of the local high school sports booster club. They volunteer for the local Meals on Wheels. No way did that poor couple deserve to be saddled with a worthless son like Jake.”

“So what happened?”

“He was a top-drawer football player and passable at baseball, but he was one of those kids who peaked early. After his senior year in high school, it was all downhill from there. All through school he was reported to be a bully who liked to pick fights, but because he was a standout at sports, everybody gave him a pass. He picked up his first DUI at age eighteen, the summer after he graduated. He had a full-ride athletic scholarship to WSU, but he fell in with the wrong crowd and flunked out by the end of his freshman year. After that, he moved to Seattle and started working construction. He married and had a couple of kids. According to his wife’s family, his wife, Lisa, was a sweetheart who thought she could somehow fix him.”

“I’m guessing that didn’t happen.”

“Hardly,” Ron replied. “His drinking got worse over time, and so did the violence. He beat the crap out of her on a regular basis, but she never pressed charges.”

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