Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

exactly the hero type, but he had his ethics and his point of no return. As he had spent more time listening to what Bill Jensen wanted him to do, he’d been more and more revolted. The guy was perfectly willing to kill his own family! Yancy’s “wife” had worked the streets, but he’d loved her, and he still grieved for her. She had been a murder victim. He figured if a man was lucky enough to have a wife and a couple of kids, he should be grateful. But Bill was eager to throw them away for money.
    Yancy had helped police before—solved a few murders for them—and he was proud of that. He wasn’t a “snitch” who went running to tell on someone for every little picky thing they did—but it made him feel important and worthwhile to know he’d saved some lives. Now, Yancy had become the person who stood between two terrified women and two teenagers and someone bent on destroying them. That was a very large responsibility for someone who spent his life tiptoeing between being a prisoner and being a regular citizen, always living on the edges of society and looking for a quick buck and an easy way to get forbidden drugs.
    He had thought about ripping the man named Bill off, and he’d taken the money from his sister down at the ferry dock. He’d been willing to take the pain pills, and prescriptions for more, that Bill had in his property box, too, but Bill had outfoxed him there.
    But would Yancy Carrothers really kill four innocent people to make $150,000? No. Would he step forward to save four people he didn’t even know, even though it might cost him his own life?
    That he wasn’t so sure about, but in the end, he found himself worrying about the intended victims, afraid that Bill would simply find somebody else to do it if he wasn’t stopped. Yancy realized he wasn’t a killer, or someone who could order a hit on innocent victims.
    Bill Jensen wouldn’t find out all the details of how he’d been found out—not for months.
    Still, wheels were turning. Bill had only a few days to congratulate himself on his clever plan before it ended in ashes.

Four
Closing In
    Cloyd Steiger had been a Seattle Police officer for a quarter of a century, a detective for thirteen years, and in Homicide for a decade. He was a big, rumpled-looking man who didn’t look like a detective—and that afforded him an advantage as he investigated some of the more difficult cases that came across his desk. Steiger took pride in his work, and being a cop was important to him. He felt that a police officer owed it to the community to be honest and someone who could be trusted. Steiger had no patience at all for rogue cops who put a smudge on the whole profession’s reputation.
    Homicide detectives have to be open to information from all manner of sources. They usually talk to those closest to murder victims first—families, friends, coworkers—and look next for witnesses who may have just happened on vital information. Sometimes those who investigate homicides get information from more exotic tipsters. Most prisoners in jails and penitentiaries aren’t violent. They might commit thefts and burglaries, sell illegal drugs, rob banks, or use fraudulent schemes to benefit themselves, but they look down on killers—particularly on those who hurt women and children. Child killers and rapists are at the bottom of the ladder in prison pecking order.
    When someone who walks most of the time on the other side of the law contacts a Homicide detective with what may be vital information, the detective listens.
    When Bill Jensen’s attorney once asked Cloyd Steiger why he always accepted collect phone calls from prisoners, he explained succinctly, “If you’re looking for information on crooks, you don’t go to Boy Scouts. You go to the crooks. If they’re willing to tell you something, you should listen. Whether it’s good or not and you use it is one thing—but if you don’t listen, you’ll never know.
    “Usually,” Steiger continued to explain, “you’ll get a phone call from someone who has information about something you’re working on. I’d meet with them, see what they have to say, and see if it’s a known case, listen to see if things they are telling me are consistent with what I already know about the case—and go from there.”
    Steiger also looked to see what the motivation behind the informant’s coming to him was. He tried to keep an open mind, and he accepted collect phone calls from jail. You never