Lying in wait

3

Women don't seem to faint as much as they used to, at least not as much as they did in the old black-and-white movies my mother watched on TV once she was too sick to sew anymore. She spent countless sleepless nights in the company of one late movie after another.

And in those old thirties movies, when one of those pencil-thin female stars keeled over, there was always a strong leading man to catch her on the way down and deposit her on the nearest bed or couch, depending upon whether or not they were married at the time. My guess, though, is that none of those silver-screen beauties weighed nearly as much as Else Gebhardt.

The woman stood six-something in her stocking feet. Stark naked, she would have outweighed me by a good thirty to forty pounds. She outweighed Alan Torvoldsen, too, especially considering the full-length wool coat, but Champagne Al didn't seem to notice. He simply swept her up into his arms and strode off down the dock. Janice Morraine bent down and retrieved the picture before the wind blew the photo into the water, while I trailed off after Alan and Else.

"Where are you taking her?" I asked.

"To my boat," Alan grunted. "She needs a place to lie down."

"How far is it?" I asked.

His jaw stiffened with exertion and effort. "Just over there," he said, motioning with his head toward the next dock. "It's not far."

Maybe not as the crow flies, it wasn't far. Hitting a tennis ball, from one dock to another, even I could have managed it. But for a man carrying more than his own weight, down half the length of one dock and halfway up the other, it was a hell of a long way. Still, that's one thing I remember about Champagne Al from way back before he even had that name. He was always stubborn as hell. Stubborn and tough.

By the time we started up the other dock, beads of sweat popped out on Alan's brow. Else had come to and was already arguing. "Put me down," she insisted. "I'm all right. I can walk."

"I'll put you down when I'm good and ready," Alan Torvoldsen replied.

He finally stopped in front of one of the ugliest excuses for a fishing boat I had ever seen. Instead of the graceful old Torvoldsen family schooner Norwegian Princess, this was an old steel-hulled, T-Boat-class army lighter trying to pass itself off as a respectable member of the fishing fleet. The name of the boat was newly lettered on the stern- One Day at a Time. That name told me a whole lot about where Champagne Al might be coming from as well as where he'd been during the almost thirty years between then and the time when we'd been schoolmates together at Ballard High.

"Here," he said, setting the protesting Else down on her feet and turning to me. By then his whole face was drenched in sweat. Rivulets rolled down the back of his bald head and neck. He took off the cap and scrubbed away the perspiration with the sleeve of his shirt. "You hold on to her until I hop aboard," he ordered. "Then we'll both help her over the rail."

"I don't need any help," Else asserted, but she wasn't able to deliver. As soon as she tried to move under her own power, the wooziness returned, and once again she leaned against Alan for support.

In the end, it took both of us to help her climb aboard One Day at a Time. As he led her toward the galley aft of the pilothouse, I heard Alan Torvoldsen mumble something about "…one stubborn damn woman."

And although the remark was true as far as Else was concerned, I don't think Alan Torvoldsen had a whole lot of room to talk.

I climbed aboard and followed both of them into the galley, where I found Else Gebhardt seated on a narrow bench beside a tiny, bolted-down, Formica-topped table. She sat there with her elbows resting on the table and her hands clasped tightly to her face. It looked to me as though she was using her hands and fingers to physically hold back tears.

Without a word, Alan opened a locked cabinet with a key and took out a bottle of aquavit. Silently, he poured a generous shot into a glass and then placed it on the table next to Else's right elbow. Then he turned to me, one eyebrow raised and questioning.

I remember trying some of that potent stuff long ago. I know the heart-pounding, head-zinging rush. Even back in my most capable drinking days, I couldn't handle aquavit. "None for me," I said. "I'm working."

Champagne Al nodded sagely, returned the bottle to the cabinet, and turned the key in the lock.

"Drink it, Else," he told her kindly. "You need it."

But when Else Didricksen Gebhardt dropped her hands away from her face, there were no tears visible. Strangely enough, her grief seemed beyond tears. Shock works that way sometimes. Her face was pale, verging on gray, and the fierce blue light in her eyes had faded. She stared dully at the shot glass of liquor without making any effort to pick it up, almost without recognizing what it was.

"How is it possible?" she murmured. "Who would do such a thing?"

If she was expecting an audible answer to either of those two rhetorical questions, none was forthcoming-not from Champagne Al, and not from me, either.

Turning his back to her, Alan fiddled with the control on the galley stove, removed the cover plate, and then waited. When the well in the bottom of the stove filled with fuel, he lit one end of a twisted-up paper towel and used that to light the stove. Once satisfied that the fire was properly started, he replaced the cover, set a grimy coffeepot to heat, then turned back to Else, who had yet to touch her glass.

Alan studied her for some time but said nothing. Finally, he plucked a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, withdrew one smoke, and lit it with a wooden match he struck on his pants leg. He dropped the used match into a chipped, broken-handled coffee mug that was filled to within an inch of the top with an accumulation of ashes, spent matches, and dead cigarette butts.

Leaning impassively against the sink, Alan exhaled a plume of unfiltered Camel cigarette smoke that quickly filled the small galley. He seemed disinclined to say anything at all to break what was fast becoming an unnervingly long silence.

"I finally got Gunter to stop smoking," Else whispered sadly. "That seems pretty silly now, doesn't it? Stopping smoking may prevent lung cancer, but it doesn't make much difference if someone decides to murder you."

With no more warning than that, Else Gebhardt's tears returned. When two of them slipped silently onto the table, she quickly wiped them away. Meanwhile, Alan Torvoldsen remained oddly silent. It seemed as though the effort of carrying Else from one dock to the other had somehow robbed him of the ability to speak. Or the need.

"He was a good man, Alan," Else continued softly, her glance searching Alan's impassive face. "Gunter was a lot like you, you know," she added. "I've always been sorry about what happened. I'm sorry you two could never be friends. I think you would have liked him."

Alan Torvoldsen's eyes narrowed in a look that might have been anger or anguish, I couldn't tell which, and the fleeting expression disappeared before I had a chance to catalog it. With his eyes once more carefully veiled, he stared off over the disheveled graying hair on Else's once-blond head. His distant gaze seemed to drill a hole deep into the smoke-yellowed, years-old pinup calendar tacked to the bulkhead above and behind her.

The stark, empty expression on his face wasn't suitable for casual indoor use, or for mixed company, either. It came uncomfortably close to the thousand-yard stare I've seen occasionally on the faces of Vietnam vets who are going down for the count, unfortunate losers who are trapped in that crazed, memory-filled catch-all mental health professionals call Delayed Stress Syndrome.

Forgotten between his fingers, Alan's smoldering cigarette dribbled a trail of gray ashes across the already ash-strewn galley floor. When he noticed it finally, he shook the rest off into the mug-turned-ashtray he still held in his other hand.

"We won't ever know that now, will we, Else, so you could just as well forget it," he returned darkly. "Drink your drink."

The comment seemed blunt and unkind, and it was barked out more as a command than an invitation. Else's fingers inched uncertainly toward the glass. When her fingertips finally touched it, she looked up at him. "I'm sorry it happened," she said, "but thank you."

The words she spoke seemed strangely out of whack with what I thought was going on. It was as though she was talking about something else entirely-something that had nothing to do with either her husband's death or with the brimming shot glass sitting on the table in front of her.

It took a moment for me to put the pieces together. Embarrassed, I wondered if I hadn't inadvertently stumbled in on a private moment of loss and reconciliation that had been some thirty years in the making. It sounded as though Else was apologizing for marrying Gunter Gebhardt years before instead of Alan Torvoldsen.

Caught in that unexpected crossfire of intimacy in the cramped, smoke-filled galley, I felt suddenly isolated and invisible. It seemed as though the other two people had completely forgotten my presence. I was about to clear my throat to remind them when, as if on cue, the water in the coffeepot came to a sudden noisy boil. The rattling pot provided a much-needed diversion, shattering the moment and disrupting whatever it was that had passed between them.

When Alan turned to tend to the pot, Else picked up the glass and drained the generous shot in a single gulp. Her throat worked convulsively to swallow the burning liquid. Moments after she did so, her unnaturally pale face was suffused in a warm pink glow as the powerful alcohol blasted its way into her system.

"I should warn you," Else said. "I don't hold my liquor very well. It might set me off."

"That's all right," Alan said. "Crying's good for you."

He had taken two chipped but still usable coffee mugs down from the cupboard. He filled them with boiling water, spooned instant coffee into them, stirred thoughtfully, then handed one across the tiny table to me before picking up his own, proving once and for all that he hadn't forgotten my presence.

But his eyes settled on Else. "Especially at a time like this," he added. "When something terrible happens, everybody needs to cry."

One Day at a Time listed suddenly to one side. A quick tattoo of footsteps pounded across the deck. "Detective Beaumont," Officer Tamaguchi called from outside. "Are you in there?"

"Yo," I answered. "What's up?"

"We've got some kind of hit-and-run," he announced, when I opened the door, letting a burst of November chill into the stove-warmed galley. "It evidently happened earlier this morning-before the fire was reported. Sergeant Watkins seems to think the accident may be related to the fire. He wants you and Detective Danielson to get on it right away and check it out."

Alan was already sipping his coffee. The man's lips must have been made of asbestos. The liquid in my cup was still far too hot to drink. Reluctantly, I put my untouched steaming mug down on the table.

"I'll have to take a rain check," I said to Alan. "I've gotta go."

"That's fine," Alan said, waving at me with his cigarette.

I looked at Else. As far as I was concerned, Gunter Gebhardt's widow was no longer Mrs. Gebhardt. She was, instead, Else Didriksen-a schoolmate of mine, a former cheerleader who had once urged a long-legged, awkward kid called BoBo Beaumont on to basketball-court glory. That was back at a time when we had all thought our futures would be very different from the way they actually turned out to be.

"Else," I said. "I'll need to get in touch with you later. How can I reach you?"

Putting one hand deep into the pocket of her long wool coat, she pulled out a set of car keys and a wrinkled business card. She laid the keys on the table next to her empty glass, then handed me the card. On it was written the words, "Else Gebhardt, Consultant." That and a phone number was all.

"What kind of consultant?" I asked, as I pocketed the card.

"Seafood," she answered with a self-deprecating shrug. "What else would it be?"

What else indeed? "Look, Else," I said. "When you're ready to go home, one of the officers will be happy to give you a lift."

"I'm fine," Else said. "I can drive myself home."

"No, you can't," Alan replied.

"Why not?" Else argued with a sudden stubborn jut of her chin.

With a deft movement, Alan reached across the table in front of her, snatched up the keys, and stuffed them in his shirt pocket.

"Because I said so," he answered. "Because you've been drinking." He turned to me. "When she's ready to go, I'll see to it that she gets home."

His manner of saying it made it clear that he meant every word. And considering the effect I remembered from drinking aquavit, not driving anywhere under its influence was probably a damned good idea. I gave that point to Champagne Al. One missing ducktail wasn't all that had changed about him.

When I started back out on deck, Else stayed where she was while Alan walked with me as far as the rail. "She'll be all right," he said.

I don't know which one of us he was trying to convince, me or himself.

"Where will you be?" I asked. "Give me your address in case I need to get back to you as well."

"This is the only address I have," he answered.

"You're living here on the boat? In the dead of winter?"

"It beats the hell out of where I was living before," he said.

I looked around at the ragtag wreck of a boat. I'm sure my skepticism showed.

Alan Torvoldsen grinned and flipped his cigarette butt over the side into the water. "If you think this is bad," he said, "you ought to try living on the streets." And with that, Alan hurried back inside the galley, closing the door behind him.

When I made it back out to the Mustang, Detective Danielson was already sitting in the driver's seat of the idling car, but I didn't see her at first. With one hand on the wheel, she was leaning across the car seat far enough to rummage in the glove compartment. When I opened the door, she slammed the glove box door shut in obvious disgust and sat up.

"I thought every car on the force was supposed to come equipped with a damned street map," she complained. "Somebody must have lifted it."

"Why do we need a map? What's up?"

"According to Watty, we're supposed to go see someone named Bonnie Elgin. I have her address right here. She lives on Perkins Lane, but where the hell is Perkins Lane? And how do we get there from here? Dispatch tells me it's right off Emerson, but I don't think Emerson goes all the way through."

That is an understatement if ever there was one. Sue Danielson was absolutely right. Emerson doesn't go "through" to anywhere, at least not anywhere useful and not directly.

Fishermen's Terminal is off Emerson on one side of Magnolia Bluff. Perkins Lane-one of Seattle's high-rent waterview property areas-is off Emerson on the other side of that selfsame bluff. It sounds easy enough, but between those two not-so-very-distant points, Emerson hopscotches around as though it were laid out by the proverbial drunken sailor. From what little I know about some of Seattle's early surveyors, it probably was.

I knew more about Magnolia than Sue Danielson did, and she settled down when I convinced her I could take us where we needed to go. Following my directions, she angled northwest on Gilman and Fort and then cut back down on Thirty-fourth Avenue West until it intersects with the westernmost section of West Emerson. No problem. In fact, it was totally straightforward.

Except for one small, unforseen complication. I got lost along the way-not physically but mentally. The route I outlined took us almost all the way to Gay Street. And to Discovery Park. And to the scene of a long-ago murder-the one that had brought an unforgettable woman named Anne Corley across my path. Wearing a bright red dress and tossing her hair, she had sauntered purposefully into my life and changed everything about it.

It shocked me to realize that, for the first time, the identity of that murdered little girl had somehow slipped off the end of my memory bank. What was her name?

Too much time had passed. Too many murders. No longer did the answer come readily to mind, not even after several long minutes of silent concentration and mental urging. That wasn't fair, not when the end of that poor mistreated child's life had made such long-lasting changes in mine. Surely her name was far too important a detail for me to have forgotten.

I was still berating myself for my failed memory as we drove past those several fateful landmarks. The whole while, Sue Danielson was talking away a mile a minute, but I wasn't listening, wasn't paying attention. Encountering memories of Anne always stirs me with a terrible sense of loss-with an inconsolable aching for what might have been.

I'm sure if I had caught a glimpse of my own face in the rearview mirror right about then, I would have seen reflected back my own J. P. Beaumont version of Alan Torvoldsen's thousand-yard stare. And maybe for many of the same reasons.

"You say this is a hit-and-run?" I asked finally, as we turned right on Emerson once more and started to get serious about finding Perkins Lane. I figured it couldn't be that hard, since I knew it was right down on the edge of the bluff, near the water.

"You haven't been listening to a word I've said, have you?" Sue Danielson chided.

"No, I guess not."

"I don't blame you," she said. "It was bad, all right. When I first saw him, I almost tossed my breakfast."

It would have been impossible and pointless to attempt explaining to Sue Danielson why Gunter Gebhardt's charred remains had been the last thing on my mind as we traveled around Magnolia's winding streets. Far better to let her continue believing that I, too, was lost in thought, haunted by that day's murder rather than by one that had taken place years in the past.

It was just after nine A. M. when we came down the steep, fallen-leaf-cluttered incline that marks the beginning of Perkins Lane. The Elgins' house-a three-story, ten-thousand-square-foot giant-couldn't be missed. Other houses on the street were clearly of Pacific Northwest origin. This one with its pale rose stucco walls and gray tile roof might have been an Italian villa that had shipped out to sea and come to rest on the wrong coast. It was so new that glass stickers still lingered on some of the upstairs windows.

Although most traces of construction rubble had been removed, the scarred earth sat naked or else covered with bales of hay placed at key spots to prevent erosion. The bare rocky ground seemed to be waiting to see what hardy trees or shrubs could be tricked or trained into clinging to that steep hillside.

Two black Mercedes, one from the mid-eighties and one newer, sat side by side in the driveway. Parked off to one side of the house was an old beater '76 Datsun station wagon that probably belonged to a housekeeper.

"That's cute," Sue Danielson said, wrinkling her nose. "His-and-her Mercedes."

"Don't be so sure about that," I said, once more unfolding my long legs out of the cramped confines of the Mustang. "For all you know, in this day and age, it could be his and his or even her and her."

Walking up to the house, I paused long enough to look at the cars more closely. The older of the two, a 500 SEL, was missing glass from the right front headlight. The fender surrounding the light was bent and buckled, and the grill had a crack in it as well. In addition to that, the hood ornament was missing. From what I knew of European auto repair, Bonnie Elgin was probably looking at several thousand bucks' worth of bodywork to make her slick but disfigured Mercedes look like new again.

Sue Danielson gaped openly at the imposing mountain of house. "I wouldn't want it," she announced with a disinterested shrug, and headed for the front door. "Too many bathrooms to clean."

Better detachment than envy, I thought. As a working cop, Sue Danielson wasn't likely ever to end up living in circumstances anywhere near this kind of opulence.

She gave the doorbell an angry shove, and a man opened the door almost as soon as the bell stopped chiming. He was around fifty years old-a fit specimen of upward mobility, dressed in an impeccable gray suit that was a perfect match for his hair. The man's mane of silvery hair was combed straight back in the classic style of a 1930s movie star.

"Bonnie Elgin, please," Sue said, opening her I.D. "I'm Detective Danielson, and this is Detective Beaumont. We're with the Seattle Police Department."

The man shook Sue's hand while his eyes drilled curiously into my face. "You're kidding me. Really? Detective Beaumont?"

I nodded. "That's the one."

Smiling, he turned to me and offered his hand. "Ron Elgin," he said. "Hang on a minute." Then he turned back into the house.

"Bonnie," he called over his shoulder. "You'll never guess who they sent. Detective Beaumont. Remember? The guy who donated the Bentley to the Rep."

I couldn't believe it. The damn Bentley again! Who was it who said that no good deed ever goes unpunished? Had a hole opened up in that columned porch, I would have been more than happy to have disappeared into it.

"Come on in," Ron Elgin said, totally unaware of my discomfort. He led the way into a marbled entryway with a spectacular vaulted ceiling. "Bonnie will be thrilled to meet you, Detective Beaumont," he continued. "And you, too, of course," he added with a polite nod at Sue. "My wife will be down in a minute. Would either of you care for some coffee?"

"Coffee sounds great," I said.

Sue nodded. "Coffee's fine," she said.

"Just go on into the living room and make yourselves at home," Ron Elgin directed. "There's a new pot of coffee that should be ready by now. It won't take me a minute." He hustled off.

As instructed, I walked into the living room and wandered over to a bank of windows that overlooked the Puget Sound shipping lanes. The fog had lifted just enough to reveal a huge grain ship moving sedately toward the grain terminal.

"Great view," I said, in a lighthearted but vain attempt to change the subject. Sue Danielson wasn't about to be thrown off-track.

"What's this about donating a Bentley?" she demanded.

"It's nothing," I told her. "Nothing at all."

I would have been fine if Bonnie Elgin could have had the common grace and decency to back me up on that story. But she didn't. In her role as a member of the board of directors of the Seattle Repertory Theater Company, she had to come smiling into the living room, give me a big hug-as though we'd known one another forever-and thank me personally for my generous donation.

In terms of my ability to get along with Sue Danielson, my new partner, that was the worst possible thing Bonnie Elgin could have done.