Lying in wait

9

Alan Torvoldsen dropped me back at Belltown Terrace around nine-thirty. Our newest doorman, Kevin, let me into the lobby, where I stopped long enough to pick up my mail and punch the Up button on the elevator. When the elevator door opened, there was a dog inside-a dog and no one else. And not just one of those little, yappy waste-of-fur dogs, either. This was a big dog-tall, blond, and pointy-nosed. An Afghan maybe. Or perhaps a Russian wolfhound.

Whatever kind of dog it was, standing on all fours, its nose came right to the bottom of my tie. Fortunately, the tail was wagging.

"There's a dog in here!"

"That's just Charley," Kevin said, as though explaining the obvious. "Lives on nineteen. Haven't you two met before?"

"Never. What's he doing in the elevator?"

"Just riding around. Must get bored in the evenings sometimes, locked up in an apartment all day. Gail-the owner-lets Charley spend half an hour or so just before bedtime, riding up and down in the elevator and meeting people."

"He rides up and down all by himself?"

"Don't worry. Charley's very friendly."

"Thank God for small blessings."

Charley moved aside, giving me room enough to join him in the elevator. On the way up, I tried punching nineteen. The door opened on that floor, but Charley looked up at me quizzically and made no move to get off. Instead, he rode on up to twenty-five with me. When the door slid open on my floor, he started forward eagerly, as though he wanted to bail out right along with me.

"No, you don't, pal," I told Charley, barring the way. I was thankful that we were alone and that no one was there to hear me talking to a damn dog. It's bad for the tough-guy image.

"This is where I live," I added. "No dogs allowed."

Before exiting, I hit nineteen one more time for good measure, punched "door closed," and then made sure Charley was still safely inside when the elevator car started back down. I didn't know Charley's owner, Gail, from Adam's off ox, but someone would have to have a serious talk with the woman. Having a dog wandering around loose in a high-rise luxury condo building didn't seem like such a good idea to me.

I let myself into my apartment and started to put the mail down on the entryway table. I usually let it accumulate there for several days before I finally force myself to sit down and go through it all at one time. But the metal box was still there. My grandfather's ashes were still there. I put the mail on the dining-room table.

The red light on my answering machine was blinking steadily. Ralph Ames, my attorney, gave me the machine years ago. It's starting to wear out. Every once in a while, it goes crazy and either eats a tape or garbles a message. Or else it gets stuck in a loop and repeats my message over and over without ever sounding the beep that would allow someone else to leave one for me. Ralph keeps telling me that I ought to get rid of it and sign up for voice mail with the phone company, but I don't want to.

I know all about voice mail. We have it on the phones down at the department. I prefer the machine. With the answering machine, if I'm home, I can screen my calls. When I hear the voice on the recorder, I get to decide whether or not I want to pick it up. With voice mail, there's no way to screen calls. It's potluck; either you answer or you don't. Voice mail may come with a lot of fancy new bells and whistles, but it doesn't come with blinking lights. My old-time machine does. I can count the number of blinks and know exactly how many calls I've had without even picking up the phone.

In this case, there had been only one. I decided arbitrarily that one message could wait, at least until after I had something to eat. By then it was a long time past my noontime burger.

I went into the kitchen and used the last two crusts of bread to make myself a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich. Reminded by a mouthful of peanut butter, I made a mental note to call my grandmother to check on how her dog, Mandy, was doing. Then I grabbed a glass of milk from the fridge and made my way to the recliner. Once I settled in, I punched the Play button on the machine.

"Detective Beaumont," a familiar African-American voice said. "How you doing, my man? This is Rocky Washington from down at the crime lab. Janice Morraine asked me to call you. Says to ask you how come you're hanging out with folks from the Pentagon or maybe the Joint Chiefs. Give me a call back. I'll be here until eleven."

Rocky is a recent graduate from the University of Washington who is now serving an apprenticeship under the careful tutelage of Janice Morraine. Rocky has a quick mind and a great sense of humor. At work he speaks in perfectly articulated English, so he was clearly having fun and playing around when he left the message.

Joking is fine. We all need a little of that to lighten the load at times, but I couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about. Pentagon? Joint Chiefs?

I picked up the phone and dialed the crime lab. Rocky answered the phone himself.

"Rocky, this is Detective Beaumont. What's up? I don't know anybody who works for the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

"We figured you did," Rocky answered. "If not them, maybe NASA. I mean, who else would have a solid-gold wrench? I suppose you've heard about all their two-hundred-dollar toilet seats."

"Wait a minute. Did you say solid gold?" I demanded.

"You got it. Nine-point-one ounces. The way I figure it, at three-thirty or so an ounce, that makes it your basic three-thousand-dollar wrench. And totally useless, besides. Gold's too soft to use on anything."

I couldn't quite believe my ears. "You mean the wrench Bonnie Elgin found, the one Sue Danielson dropped off, is made of solid gold?"

"Didn't you hear me the first time? The whole thing is covered with a thick layer of enamel, so you couldn't tell it right off. But after I finished lifting the prints, I put it under a microscope. I found a tiny chip in the enamel that was invisible to the naked eye. But the chip I saw looked like gold to me, so I measured the specific gravity. Sure enough. It's gold all right."

"I'll be damned," I said.

"Me, too," he agreed. "There were a bunch of prints on the damn thing. Who-all handled it?"

"Bonnie Elgin. The lady who was driving the car. And maybe her husband, although I don't know for sure."

"Find out for me, would you? If he did, we'll need both of them to come in to give us a set of elimination prints."

"Okay," I said. "No problem. It's not all that late. I'll give them a call right away."

After dropping off Rocky's call, I located the Elgins' phone number in my notebook and dialed them up. Bonnie herself answered, but there was a lot of noise in the background, as though there was a party going on. I identified myself and asked her if this was an inconvenient time to talk.

"It's fine," she said. "Go ahead."

"We need you to come down to the department tomorrow morning so we can take a set of fingerprints."

I heard a quick intake of breath. "That sounds bad."

"No. We're just trying to save the taxpayers a little money. It's expensive to run prints through AFIS." I caught myself talking cop jargon and backed up. "Sorry, that's the Automated Fingerprint Identification System," I explained. "By taking your fingerprints and comparing them to the ones lifted off the wrench, the print technician can tell which ones need to be processed and which ones don't. By the way, did your husband touch the wrench?"

"No. I'm pretty sure he didn't."

"Ask him, if you can. If he did, we'll need him to come in to be printed as well. Then, in addition to the prints, while you're down at the department, I'd like to set you up with our staff artist. Maybe you can put together one of those Identi-Kit sketches so we can have a little better idea of what this guy looks like."

Bonnie sounded doubtful. "I don't know if I can remember all that well. Is it important?"

From my point of view, I thought having a sketch was vital, but I didn't want to spook her. "Let's just say that we have uncovered some additional information. It's looking more likely than ever that there's a connection between the man you hit and the one who died in the fire at Fishermen's Terminal. So, yes, it could be very important."

Bonnie Elgin paused, but only for a moment. "What time do you want me there?"

"Is nine too early?"

"No. I'm up and out long before then. Nine will be fine."

After we rang off, I started to put down the phone. Then I thought better of it and dialed my grandmother. She had told me that she never goes to bed before the end of the eleven o'clock news. She answered on the second ring.

"Just thought I'd check and see how you're doing tonight."

"We're doing fine, Mandy and I," Beverly Piedmont returned. "She did manage to have a little something to eat. Kelly's right about the peanut butter. Mandy loved it, except for getting some stuck to the roof of her mouth. After that she ate a bite or two of her dog food as well, so she seems to be feeling better. I let her out for her walk a little while ago. Now we're sitting here waiting for the news to come on. What are you doing?"

"I just got home a few minutes ago. I'm going to kick off my shoes and unwind for a few minutes, then hit the sack early."

"It sounds as though you work too hard, Jonas," she chided gently, her voice full of grandmotherly concern. "You have to remember to take time to smell the flowers every day. Life's much too short if you don't."

"Thank you," I said, and meant it. "I'll try to remember that."

When I put down the telephone receiver, I did finally kick off my shoes. Then I sat back in the creaking leather recliner and gave my grandmother's advice some serious thought.

It had been a day that had brought me face-to-face with my own mortality. It's one thing to deal with homicides on a daily basis. That's my job, and Gunter Gebhardt's death was far more work than it was personal.

The knowledge that my grandfather's ashes still waited on the entryway table brought death into much too close proximity. Not only that, hearing about what had happened to Lars Torvoldsen-someone I still saw as a kid I grew up with-hit me where I lived. Last but not least in that regard, Karen Livingston, my ex-wife, was never far from my thoughts. The two of us had been divorced for a long time, but she was still the mother of my children and the grandmother of little Kayla. Karen had also just finished up undergoing her third round of chemo in a little less than two years.

Damn.

So what if Champagne Al had developed a slight paunch and no longer had any reason to use H. A. Hair Arranger. I didn't use it anymore, either, but that was more because of my perpetual crew cut than because my hair was falling out. Still, Al and I had cause to count our blessings. The two of us were still alive and in reasonably good health. For how long? I wondered morbidly. How does that old saying go? First you get old, and then you die.

On that cheery note, I must have dozed off for a little while, lying back in the recliner and probably snoring. I'd like to believe I didn't drool, but I was sound asleep when the telephone at my elbow startled me awake.

"Hello?" I answered uncertainly.

"Detective Beaumont?"

"Yes."

"My name is Jacek," the man said. "Detective Stan Jacek."

I cleared my throat and tried to sound more on top of things. "Where are you from, Detective Jacek? And what can I do for you?"

"I apologize for calling so late, but I was just talking to Rocky. You know, Rocky Washington down at the State Patrol crime lab? I'm not sure why, but he said I should give you a call. He thought you'd want to talk to me about this, even if I had to wake you up to do it."

I wasn't the least bit sure Rocky knew what the hell he was talking about. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was late, all right-twenty after eleven. I remembered Rocky Washington telling me he was due to be off shift by now. With the budget problems in the crime lab, something must have happened to keep him working overtime, something important.

"Talk to me about what?" I grumbled. "And where did you say you're from?"

"Sorry, I guess I didn't. I'm from the Island County Sheriff's Department up in Coupeville on Whidbey. We had a little problem here on Camano Island tonight. A fire. As I understand it, Rocky's on his way up here right now in one of the evidence vans. He's the one who gave me your number, by the way. He said he didn't want to take the time to call you himself."

A fire on Camano Island? The words caused an uncomfortable tightening in the pit of my stomach. "What kind of fire?" I asked.

"A house fire," he answered. "One fatality. That's the only one we've found so far. Some of the house is still too hot for anyone to go inside, but from what I could see of what's left, it looks as though the place was pretty well tossed before the fire was set."

"A robbery then?" I asked.

"Possibly," he returned.

"Any witnesses?"

"None so far, and I'm not too hopeful about that, although we're starting to check out the neighbors right now. The house sits off by itself in a swale down near the water, so there aren't clear sight lines from any of the nearby houses."

By the time Jacek had told me that much, I was able to guess the rest, especially in view of the Rocky Washington connection. Jacek's investigation and mine had to be linked in some way. The fire on Camano Island had something to do with the earlier fire at Fishermen's Terminal. Using my shoulder to hold the telephone receiver to my ear, I fumbled clumsily in my notebook, trying to locate Alan Torvoldsen's scrap of paper-the piece of paper on which he had penciled the Camano Island address of Gunter Gebhardt's cute little side dish.

Once I had the address in my hand, I still didn't want to blurt out the information to Stan Jacek. Homicide cops are generally cautious folks who believe in playing their cards close to their chests. We don't willingly share information with others, and that's possibly one of the things that accounts for the high divorce rate among members of homicide squads. We especially don't like sharing information with someone we don't know who is clearly a member of an opposing team.

I wanted Stan Jacek to have to talk before I did, and that may sound childish. It's probably a holdover from some long-ago game of darers-go-first.

"What makes Rocky Washington think I'd have any interest in a beach house out on Camano Island?" I asked guardedly.

As soon as I heard Detective Jacek sigh, I knew I had won the first round.

"I saw the victim," he admitted. "It's pretty rough. You don't happen to have a queasy stomach, do you, Detective Beaumont?"

The careful way he asked the question, his tone of voice. It all fit.

"Let me take a wild guess," I said. "Was the corpse mutilated, by any chance? Did this arsonist of yours take the time to whack off all the victim's fingers and toes?"

"All of them," Jacek answered at once. Then, when his brain caught up with his mouth, when he realized exactly what I'd said, there was a long pause. "How in the hell did you know about that?" he demanded. "Did Rocky already call and tell you?"

"No," I answered. "He didn't."

"But how…?"

"That means either I'm some kind of mind reader," I interrupted, "or else we're both working the same case."

"The same case?" he echoed. "How could that be?"

"We had a fatality fire here in Seattle earlier today-a boat fire down at Fishermen's Terminal first thing this morning. One dead male, burned to a crisp with all of his missing fingers and toes toasted to potato chips in a pie plate that was left sitting on his chest."

The phone line went silent for a moment, then Jacek said, "You're absolutely right. If it's not the same guy, we've got a helluva trend starting."

I was already slipping on my shoes. "Where are you right now?" I asked.

"I'm out on Camano, but I told Rocky I'd meet him over in Stanwood. Have you ever been here?"

"Once, years ago. For a Memorial Day picnic."

"Rocky Washington hasn't even done that. The roads and lanes can turn into an impossible maze if you don't know exactly where you're going. I figured it would be easier for me to meet Rocky in Stanwood and lead him out here than it would to try giving him directions over the phone."

"How long ago did he leave?"

"Not very long ago. He was just heading down to get the van when I called you."

"Good," I said. "If you're meeting him, you can meet me, too. I'll be there as soon as I can, and it won't take long. I'm far enough north of the Public Safety Building that I may actually beat him there. Where will you be?"

"As you come into Stanwood, you'll see a blinking red light with a grocery store and shopping center on the far right-hand corner. I'll be waiting there, in the parking lot. What'll you be driving?" he asked. "That way I'll know what to look for."

"A Porsche 928," I said. "Guard red."

"Right," he said, "and I'll be in my Rolls." He paused for a moment, then said, "You're kidding about the Porsche, aren't you?"

"No, I really will be driving a 928."

"What the hell kind of cop are you?" he demanded. "Narcotics? Vice?"

I figured Detective Stan Jacek didn't need to know that this was a special-order 928-one I had purchased to replace another one that had been blown to bits months earlier in a propane explosion down in Ashland, Oregon. So I didn't tell Jacek any of that.

"I'm nothing but a plain old detective," I answered. "Same as you."