Lying in wait

16

After my interview with June Miller ended, I escorted her as far as the elevator lobby. Leaving her there, I jogged down the stairway to the fifth floor.

"See me," said the yellow Post-it note pasted at eye level on the doorway to my cubicle. It was signed with the scrawled initials of Captain L. Powell.

See me, I thought, heading for the Homicide Squad's command post. Words to live by.

Years ago, that kind of summons would have struck terror in my heart, especially if I knew that the reason behind it was a screwup of my own making. But things have changed since then. The truth is, I no longer need this job. I work because I want to. That kind of economic freedom does put a slightly different spin on things when the boss comes around chewing ass.

When I first heard Johnny Paycheck sing his trademark song "Take This Job and Shove It," it seemed like an impossible dream. It's reality now-for me anyway. Anne Corley's generous legacy made that possible. And now that I have a choice, I find it's a whole lot easier to be forgiving of Captain Powell's occasional foibles, to say nothing of my own.

On the fifth floor, we refer to Captain Powell's fully windowed interior office as "the fishbowl." I went straight there, carrying the still-smoldering Post-it with me. I could see from outside that the captain was busy on the phone, so I meandered over to the desk where Sergeant Watkins had assumed his usual position.

"Did Sue Danielson find you?" Watty asked. "She was by looking for you a few minutes ago. I told her Chuck Grayson said you were around-upstairs somewhere-but I couldn't be any more specific than that."

"Did she say what she wanted?"

Watty shook his head. "Last thing I heard, I think she was headed downstairs to the crime lab."

I nodded in the direction of the Fishbowl. "What's he want?" I asked.

"I wouldn't know," Watty answered.

Since Sergeant Watkins is Captain Powell's right-hand man, that seemed unlikely, but I didn't argue the point.

About that time, Captain Powell put down the phone. Then he sat there frowning with his hands steepled under his chin, staring at the molded black plastic instrument as though it had just delivered news of the end of the world. The grim set to his jaw boded ill for my coming interview, but I figured I could just as well get it over with. As I started toward the Fishbowl's perpetually open door, Watty gave me a cheery thumbs-up sign.

As a high school student, I earned spending money by hawking popcorn and sodas in Ballard's now-defunct Baghdad Theater. Watty's gesture reminded me of some of those old gladiator films. There was always a scene in the dusty amphitheater when the doomed gladiators clapped themselves on their armored chests and announced ever-so-solemnly, "We who are about to die salute you."

Watty and I are about the same age, and most likely he grew up watching the same movies I did. I took heart from his raised thumb. After all, in the movies a thumbs-up from Caesar meant the bloodied gladiator lived. Maybe there was hope for me.

I tapped lightly on the doorjamb.

"Come," Powell called out.

Being summoned to Captain Powell's Fishbowl bears an uncommon resemblance to being called to the principal's office back in grade school. My instincts then, as now, were to get my licks in first, to hurry and blurt out my side of the story before anyone else could get a word in edgewise.

"Sorry, Captain, but it's all my fault," I said, not giving him an opportunity to take the first shot. "I tracked down the leak on the story in the paper, and it turns out to be me. I didn't realize it, but at the time I called to discuss the Identi-Kit sketch with Bonnie Elgin, she and her husband had a houseful of company-including Maxwell Cole himself. I made the mistake of not warning Bonnie to keep a lid on…"

"Forget it, Beau," Captain Powell interrupted. "Those things happen. That's not why I called you in here. I need your help. Have a chair."

I shut up and sat.

"I guess you know what they say about shit-that it rolls downhill?"

After twenty-some years on the force, this was not news. "So I've noticed," I said.

Captain Powell nodded gloomily. "Me, too." He plucked a single piece of paper off the morass on top of his desk. "No doubt you've seen this?"

I glanced at the memo. The bar at the top said it came from the office of Kenneth Rankin, Chief of Police, Seattle P.D. It was addressed "To all Squad Leaders," of which Captain Powell is one.

Seattle's recently appointed police chief, Kenneth Rankin, is on a one-man campaign to get cops out of their patrol cars and into the community. To that end, the chief's staff has generated a steady flurry of printed pages that gradually filter across desks and down channels to the men in blue-something that also may change if Rankin's radical proposal to get police officers out of uniform gains approval.

To be honest, there have been so many memos flying around that most people have developed a certain immunity. I, for one, had just about given up bothering to read them.

The piece of paper in my hand was some long, wordy dissertation on the value of police-officer visibility and volunteerism in the community. The general gist of the memo was that Seattle Police Department officers were being asked to use their off-duty hours-whenever those might be-to take part in community-service activities and projects.

I suppose the basic philosophy behind all this is the idea that if a punk and a police officer work side by side cleaning up garbage out of a park or off a beach one weekend, they're not quite so likely to shoot one another the next time they meet on the street. The concept sounds fine on paper, but it doesn't translate all that well into practice.

For one thing, it wasn't at all popular with the rank and file. Seattle's finest-those public servants sworn to serve and protect-weren't exactly running over each other in their eagerness to give up their off-duty time. Neither were their wives and families. Furthermore, the punks of this world-the real baddies-were far too busy selling drugs or shooting one another to be bothered with cleaning up garbage-strewn parks.

I handed the paper back to Powell. "What about it?"

"The chief's riding the individual squad leaders pretty hard about this. In fact, that was his second-in-command on the phone just now, calling to ask for a progress report. By Monday, each individual squad is supposed to come up with some game plan for that squad's community participation."

"What does all this have to do with me?"

"Watty and I were talking it over a little while ago. He said you might be able to help."

"How?"

"You're involved in things like this, aren't you, Beau? Don't I remember you donating a car or something to one of the charity auctions?"

Not the damned Bentley again, I thought, but Powell continued without detouring off into any specifics. "Watty said he thought you might know some of the people who are involved in this kind of do-gooder crap-someone who could point us in the right direction."

"What exactly did you have in mind?"

"Well," Captain Powell said, "we need to come up with something that will actually do some good, won't take up too much time, and will get the chief off my back. Do you have any ideas?"

It took some time, but I did come up with one. The idea, when it came, was almost blinding in its sheer brilliance.

"Captain Powell," I said, barely concealing the smirk that wanted to leak out the corners of my mouth. "This is one time when you've come to the right place at the right time."

"How so?"

"I happen to know just the person you need to talk to-one who can put you in touch with all the movers and shakers around town. She'll hook you up with one of the charity auctions for an item like ‘Coffee-with-a-cop' so fast it'll make your head spin."

Captain Powell frowned. "Are you kidding? Coffee with a cop?"

"It would probably sell like hotcakes."

Powell picked up his pen and held it at the ready. "All right," he said. "Who is she? What's her name?"

"Bonnie Elgin," I answered triumphantly, dragging my ragged notepad out of my pocket. "I have her number right here. You can tell her I suggested that you call."

It must have sounded do-able, because Captain Powell was looking almost cheerful when I left his office. As for me, I was still grinning when I made it back to my cubicle.

There were two messages on the voice mail-one from Kari Gebhardt and one from Sue Danielson telling me she was on her way down to the crime lab. I returned Kari's call first. Sounding young and uncertain, she was the one who answered the phone.

"This is Detective Beaumont," I told her.

"Oh, right," she said. "My grandmother told me to call you. What do you want?"

"I'm a member of the team investigating this incident with your father. Is there a time when my partner and I could get together with you to talk?"

"I don't know. I'm awfully busy. And I don't know how much help I could be, either," Kari answered evasively. "I wasn't even in town when it happened."

"It's just routine," I assured her. "And it shouldn't take too long. We're gathering background information-that kind of thing."

"I can't do it this morning," Kari said. "Mother and I are leaving in a few minutes to go to the mortuary."

"Early this afternoon is fine, if that would be more convenient."

"Where?" Kari Gebhardt asked.

"Detective Danielson and I could come there to the house, if you'd like," I offered.

"No. Not here," Kari said quickly. "I'd rather meet you somewhere away from the house. And not in Ballard, either. Everyone here knows…"

"Would you like to come to my office down here at the department?"

"No," Kari said. "Not that. How about Caffe Minnie's at First and Denny up in the Regrade. Michael and I go there sometimes when we're in town. Michael's my boyfriend."

I didn't tell her that I had already heard about Michael from Else. "What time?" I asked. "Say, one-thirty?"

"Yes," she replied. "Mother and I should be done making arrangements by then."

"Good. I'll see you there."

"One more thing, Detective Beaumont. Would it be all right if Michael came along?"

My first choice was naturally to speak to her without the presence of a support system. For a twenty-year-old whose father had been murdered, she was surprisingly under control. Over the phone, there was no hint of the inconsolable grief her mother had worried so about the night before. On the other hand, seeing both Kari and her boyfriend together might give me some insight into what had gone on between Kari and her father.

"That'll be fine," I told her. "Bring him along. Detective Danielson and I will meet you there."

As soon as I got off the phone with Kari Gebhardt, I called down to the crime lab looking for Sue Danielson.

"She's still here," the crime-lab receptionist told me. "Do you want me to put her on the phone?"

"Don't bother," I said. "This is Detective Beaumont. Tell her to wait there. I'll be right down."

I found Sue and Janice Morraine in one of the back labs standing in front of a table examining several unrecognizable pieces of metal, some of which were covered with what looked like charred charcoal.

"What's that?" I asked, looking at Janice. "Have you been trying to cook again?"

Janice Morraine's lack of culinary skill is almost as legendary as my own. My quip provoked a glare from Janice and a quick hoot of laughter from Sue Danielson.

"It's a melted pruning shears," Janice Morraine replied stiffly. "From the basement of the house up on Camano Island. Tim Riddle, the arson investigator, found it."

Camano Island. Melted pruning shears. Putting the two together, I didn't much like the answer those two items combined to make. "And why would a melted pruning shears be so interesting?"

Janice looked at me as though I were hopelessly stupid. "What if I could prove someone used them to whack off a few fingers and toes?" she asked. "Would you be interested in them then?"

"Yes," I said. "I suppose I would." I didn't add that June Miller had just told me that her friend Lorenzo was a part-time gardener. But before I could go into any of that, Sue took off on another tack.

"Tell him about what you found in the truck," she said.

"What truck?"

"Mr. Gebhardt's truck," Janice Morraine answered. "I don't know if you remember, but it was at the scene of the fire, and we impounded it, just in case. What we found turns out to be very interesting."

Janice moved back to the first table and picked up a copy of an evidence inventory-control sheet. "For starters, airplane tickets for two to Rio de Janeiro in the names of Denise Whitney and Hans Gebhardt."

"You mean Gunter."

"I mean Hans." She shrugged. "At least that's what it says here. According to his widow, the dead man's legal name was H. Gunter Gebhardt, so Hans may very well be his real given name. In addition to the tickets, we found fifty thousand dollars' worth of those slick, new two-person, either/or traveler's checks. There were also two fully packed, brand-new suitcases."

"It sounds as though he and the side dish were on their way out of town at the first available opportunity."

"That's the way it looks to me," Janice answered.

"What were the times and dates on the plane tickets?"

"The afternoon of the day he died."

I shook my head. Poor Else, I thought sadly. Poor, poor Else.

A few minutes later, Sue and I were trudging up the stairwell to the fifth floor. On the way, I told her about our afternoon appointment with Kari Gebhardt before going into my meeting with June Miller.

"By the way," I said casually, as we started through the fifth-floor maze of cubicles. "What do you know about salsa dancing?"

Sue stopped dead in her tracks. "Don't tell me you're into salsa dancing, too. I've never seen you there."

Hello. Did everyone in the world know about salsa dancing except me?

"You mean this is something you know about?" I asked in dismay. "You actually go to these places and do it?"

"Sure. I can't go very often because of the boys. But it's great fun. Some of those Latino guys are great dancers."

"Have you ever seen a tall, willowy blond there?"

"Almost every time I go," Sue sighed. "She always makes me feel like a total frump. Do you know her? Is she a friend of yours?"

"Actually, her name is June Miller. I just spent an hour talking with her upstairs. She lives across the street from Else and Gunter Gebhardt, who-incidentally-offered to shoot her dog last summer when Barney-the dog-left a pile of doggy doo in Gunter's front yard. Furthermore, June Miller happens to know our hit-and-run victim, who turns out to be a part-time gardener named Lorenzo."

Sue is quick. She never missed a trick. "A gardener?" she repeated. "You mean like someone who might be missing a pruning shears? Where do we find him?"

"That's where the salsa dancing comes in," I explained. "June Miller has offered to introduce us tonight at the Ballard Fire House."

"Of course," Sue said. "Today's Friday, isn't it?"

"What does Friday have to do with anything?"

"On Fridays salsa dancing is at the Ballard Fire House. But why talk to this Lorenzo guy at a dance?"

"June said he's terrified of cops. She claims that's why he ran away from the accident. I told her we'd meet her there around nine-thirty or ten."

"You think it's on the up-and-up?"

"Enough so that I agreed to go. Not enough for me to do it without a backup handy."

Sue started into her own cubicle, but she stopped again just inside the doorway. "By the way, Beau, do you know how to dance?"

"Not very well."

"You'll learn," Sue said. "It's easy. You'll pick it up in no time."

I left her and headed for the relative safety of my own cubicle and desk. I hoped she wouldn't slip and tell her son Jared about where she was going that night and with whom.

If he once heard about us going salsa dancing together, that lippy kid would never again believe that his mother's and my relationship was strictly professional.