Breach of Duty by J. A. Jance Page B

looking for help, but the broad outlines are much the same. When Tommy started to talk that night, I wondered what had finally pushed him over the edge.
    The particulars weren't long in coming. He told the usual story of early experimentation with hardcore drinking along with the ability to drink prodigious amounts without appearing drunk, but those days were long gone. In the past few years the ability to hold his liquor had disappeared. As a result, in less than two years he had amassed a total of four DUI arrests as well as several domestic-violence runins with his wife. A wily defense attorney had helped Tommy beat all the charges except the last one. That judge had called a halt. He had sentenced Tommy to the King County Jail for six months, five of which were suspended on the condition that he seek treatment for anger management, and attend mandatory A A meetings.
    Tommy had come to the meetings still steeped in denial and still harboring the unrealistic belief that now that he was sober, he'd be able to talk his wife out of divorce. Not true. Much to his surprise the divorce had become final the previous Friday. His first instinct had been to go out and get roaring drunk. He was in a bar waiting to order when something he had heard at one of the meetings came home to him. "You've got to do it for yourself. Yourself and nobody else." He had left the bar without ordering a drink and had found his way to a meeting instead. For the first time, Tommy was coming to grips with the painful reality that both his wife and kids were gone for good.
    I recognized the words. "You've got to do it for yourself was one of Lars Jenssen's stock phrases. As Tommy ended his story, I caught Lars' eye and winked. He replied with a discreet thumbs-up. When the meeting was over, I had to wait around while Lars went up to Tommy and talked to him."
    "Somebody else in need of a sponsor?" I asked when he finally came away.
    Lars nodded. "Poor guy," he added, as we made our way down the stairs. "Why is it we're all so dumb that we never realize we've got ourselves a good woman until after we've lost her?" Seven years earlier, Lars' wife Aggie had finally succumbed to the ravages of Alzheimer's disease.
    Up against the backdrop of what was going on in Larry and Marcia Powell's life as well as what had happened to Sue Danielson and her kids, Tommy's story had hit surprisingly close to home. "I'm sure you're right," I responded. "It's stupidity plain and simple."
    Out on the sidewalk, Lars paused and leaned on his stick. "I couldn't have asked for a better woman than Aggie," he said thoughtfully. "It makes me sick, sometimes, to think how I treated that poor woman. Every once in a while, I wish God would give me another chance. I'd like to think I'd do better by her."
    Before I could comment one way or the other, the cell phone in my pocket shrilled. "Not that thing again," Lars grumbled. "Whoever invented those confounded cell phones ought to be shot—no, make that tarred and feathered. Phones in houses is one thing, but out on the street, there ought to be a law against 'em."
    "Hello?" I said, ignoring him.
    "Beau? It's Sue."
    "What's going on?"
    "Chuck Grayson just called me."
    Sergeant Grayson was Watty Watkins' night-shift counterpart on the desk at Seattle Homicide.
    "So? What did he want?"
    "He says there's someone down at the department demanding to talk to one of the detectives on the Seward Park case."
    "At this time of night?"
    "That's what I said. The problem is, I can't leave the house right now. I hate to play the mother card, Beau, but with everything that's going on right now, I don't want to leave the boys…"
    "Don't worry about it, Sue. It's no trouble. I can be there in ten minutes."
    "You're not going to mind if I flake out on you this time?"
    There was something in the sound of her voice— a worrisome tremor—that bothered me. "Are you okay?" I asked. "What's going on?"
    "It's just that I told the boys my decision about not