A more perfect union

CHAPTER 10

I 've said it before and I'll say it again-the telephone is a homicide detective's most valuable tool. If we venture into areas where court orders are required, telephone-company people can be hard-nosed as hell. Outside those sticky areas, though, they are worth their weight in gold.

Using the telephone over the years, I've established working relationships with any number of people I never see, people I know by voice on a first-name basis but wouldn't recognize if I ran into them in the grocery store.

Gloria Hutchins is one of those people. I wouldn't know her from Adam if I met her on the street, but if I heard her speak, I'd know her anywhere. Gloria is the gravelly-voiced lady in the security department at Pacific Northwest Bell who handles requests for information from law-enforcement officers.

When I got back to Belltown Terrace late that afternoon, I took out my notebook, opened it to the page with Linda Decker's new phone number on it, and dialed Gloria Hutchins' number. I didn't have to look it up. That's one I know by heart.

"Hi, Gloria," I said casually. "Detective Beaumont here. How's it going?"

There was a warm greeting in her low voice when she answered. "Why, hello there, Beau. Long time no see. Where've you been, on vacation?"

"No such luck," I responded. "I've been locked up on a special assignment."

"What can I do for you?"

"I've got a telephone number, but I need an address."

"Case number?" Gloria asked.

I just happened to have one. I had jotted down the boat-fire case number from Jim Harrison's file folder at Harbor Station. I gave Gloria the case number and Linda Decker's phone number.

"Things are really popping around here right now," Gloria said. "It's going to be awhile before I can get to this. What's your number?"

The problem was, I was calling her from home. I didn't much want to give her that number for a callback. That would look bad. Instead, I gave her my extension at work. "I'll be leaving here in a few minutes," I told her. "Just give the address to whoever answers. Tell them it's for me."

"Will do," Gloria said. "Anything else?"

"Nope. That's it for now. Thanks."

I hung up and turned to a stack of unopened mail that had accumulated on the table beside my chair. The first three envelopes were bills, but between the bills and the gaudy collection of junk mail addressed to "Resident" was a handwritten envelope with no return address. I slit it open and scanned down the scrawled page to the signature on the bottom-Martin Green.

Letting the letter drop back on the table, I went to pour myself a MacNaughton's. If I was going to be forced to endure a tirade about the Bentley, at least I could do it in comfort.

And tirade it was. Mr. Green informed that he was most unhappy with the lack of availability of the Bentley, especially since he had reserved it well in advance. He went on to say that the Bentley was one of the advertised amenities which had attracted him to the building in the first place. Since I was the only member of the real-estate syndicate who was readily available, he said he hoped we could get together to resolve the situation amicably. If not, he was prepared to take us to the Better Business Bureau.

I finished drinking the MacNaughton's and reading the letter at approximately the same time. I had wanted an excuse to talk to Martin Green. Now I had one, although it could hardly be called an engraved invitation. I retied my tie, grabbed my jacket off the dining-room chair, and retrieved my shoes from their place next to the front door. This felt like one of those situations where casual attire would be a distinct disadvantage. Somebody told me once that in winning by intimidation, you have to dress the part.

Secured-building etiquette requires that you call before you knock on someone's door. According to directory assistance, Martin Green had an unlisted telephone number. I went down to the garage and dialed his code on the security phone. A woman answered and I gave her my name. There was a good deal of background noise, and she evidently couldn't hear me very well.

"Who?" she demanded.

"My name is Beaumont," I repeated.

"There are too many people here. It's too noisy. Come on up. Apartment 1704."

The door to 1704 stood slightly ajar and the sound of voices told me a party of some kind was in progress. I'm not sure what I expected. For me the word "ironworker" conjures up a macho image of men in khaki work shirts and hard hats swilling beer and telling dirty jokes. Martin Green's party was nothing like that. The room was full of gray-suited bean-counter types and their female escorts who drank champagne from dainty crystal champagne flutes and nibbled bite-sized canapes.

A silver-haired lady in a pearl-gray dress met me at the door. "I'm Martin's mother." She beamed at me. "I'm playing hostess tonight. Won't you come in? What would you like to drink?"

"I just stopped by to see Martin for a few minutes," I told her. "Maybe it would be better if I came back another time."

She shook her head. "Oh, no. Don't do that. I'm sure he'd want to see you. He left just a moment ago to take some of his guests down to show them the recreation floor, you know, the pool and the Jacuzzi and all that. They'll be back in a few minutes if you don't mind waiting."

I allowed myself to be ushered inside. Almost instantly a glass of champagne appeared in my hand. The room was crowded and stuffy despite the fact that the heat-pump air-conditioning was going full blast. There were far too many people crammed in the relatively small living room. I made my way to the far side, hoping to escape the crush and also to gain a vantage point from which to watch the proceedings.

The 04 units in Belltown Terrace all have balconies which look out on the city. There was a lone man standing outside on the balcony peering out at the rank upon rank of downtown skyscrapers standing stiffly at attention against a pale blue August sky. Here and there hammerhead cranes served as lonely sentinels marking the emergence of yet more new buildings.

Another group of people came into the room, and those already inside pressed back. Feeling claustrophobic, I slid open the door and escaped onto the balcony. The lone man there glanced at me briefly, then continued to stare off into the distance. In his late thirties or early forties, he was reasonably well-built. The fabric of his jacket bunched tightly over muscular arms. He stood with one foot on the lower crossbar, his elbows resting on the upper railing. The drink in his hand wasn't champagne.

He said nothing, and I didn't either. Instead, I moved to the railing as well, and looked where he was looking-straight up Second Avenue toward the point where the raw skeleton of Masters Plaza climbed skyward. Swirling his drink, he gave me another sidelong glance as I stepped to the railing beside him, and then he drained his glass.

"It's bad luck to have a party like this the day after somebody went in the hole."

It was the first time I had ever heard that particular expression, but it wasn't hard to grasp the meaning. He was talking about Angie Dixon falling to her death. From the grim set of his mouth I could see it was gnawing at him. He assumed it was bothering me as well.

"Did you know her?" he asked.

"No," I said.

He shook his head balefully. "It always hurts to lose a hand," he added. "No matter how long a guy stays in this business it never gets any easier."

His fingers tightened around his empty glass. For a moment, I thought he was going to crush it bare-handed. At last he opened his fist, letting the glass lay in his open palm. For the first time I noticed the callouses, the work-roughened texture of his skin. The rest of the men at Martin Green's party may have been bean-counting accountant types with Harvard MBAs, but the guy on the balcony seemed to be an ordinary Joe Blow, a regular working stiff. I wondered if, like me, he had wandered uninvited into the wrong party.

A waitress stepped out on the balcony carrying a tray of champagne glasses. I took one, but my companion ordered Scotch-neat. No rocks, no ice, no soda. As the waitress walked away, he reached up and yanked savagely on the knot of his tie, pulling it loose from the base of his Adam's apple.

"I hate these goddamned monkey suits," he complained, "but we have to wear 'em whenever the visiting dignitaries come to call."

"What visiting dignitaries?" I asked.

He glanced at me wearily. "You're not one of them, then?" he asked, nodding toward the roomful of bean-counters.

I shook my head in answer. "I'm a neighbor from the building," I explained. "I stopped by to talk to Martin. I didn't mean to crash his party."

He frowned. "But you know about…" He jerked his head in the direction of Masters Plaza.

"I read the papers," I said. The young woman returned with his Scotch. He accepted it gratefully and took a swift gulp. I waited until the woman had gone back inside and slid the door shut behind her before I spoke again. "You were saying about the accident…"

He turned away from me, once more leaning over the balcony. "Me and my big mouth," he said. "I was talking out of turn."

"My name's Beaumont. I didn't catch yours."

"Kaplan," he answered, offering me his hand. "Don Kaplan."

"What do you do?"

He laughed bitterly. "Me? I'm just a broken-down rod-buster who went bad."

"Rod-buster?" I asked.

"An ironworker," he explained. "Rebar-reinforcing steel-as opposed to structural. If my back hadn't given out on me, I'd probably still be tying rods on the I-90 bridge. As it is, they kicked me upstairs. I'm a business agent now."

A burst of laughter inside the room behind us. "And what's this all about?" I asked.

Lifting his glass to his lips, Don Kaplan paused before he took a drink. "VIP's from International out pressing the flesh." There was an unmistakable trace of sarcasm in his voice.

Before he could say anything more, the door slid open behind us. "There you are, Don. I've been looking all over for you." Martin Green stepped onto the balcony behind us, leading a trio made up of two men and an accompanying sweet young thing. All three were laughing uproariously.

"Here's Don. You three will be riding with him. You know how to get into the parking garage at Columbia Center, don't you, Don?"

Don Kaplan nodded shortly, as though he didn't much relish the ride.

"And then if you'll drop them back off at the Sorrento after dinner."

"No problem," Don mumbled.

Green turned to me with a puzzled expression on his face. "I don't believe we've been introduced," he said, extending his hand.

"My name's Beaumont." I reached into my breast pocket and extracted the envelope. "I didn't mean to crash your party. I came by to talk to you about this. The lady at the door mistook me for one of your guests."

Martin Green laughed. "That's my mother all right, but this really isn't a very good time for me. We have a dinner reservation downtown in a little while. Could we make an appointment for tomorrow or the next day?"

The charming smile never left Green's face as he took me by the elbow and guided me unerringly through his guests to the front door where his mother was still holding court. It was one of the smoothest bum's rushes I've ever experienced. Smooth as glass and absolutely effective.

"What time tomorrow?" I asked.

"Nine? Nine-thirty? Whatever's good for you."

"Nine-thirty," I said. "Where?"

"Do you know where my office is next door in the Labor Temple?" he asked.

"I'm sure I can find it."

"Good," he said. "I'll see you then." With that he closed the door and left me standing in the hallway. Here's your hat; what's your hurry.

I had no more than gotten back to my apartment when the phone rang. The last person I expected to hear from was Marilyn Sykes, the Mercer Island Chief of Police. She and I had met several months earlier and had become friends. She was single and so was I. On occasion things came up where one of us needed to have an escort and we had called on each other to pinch-hit. We had good times when we were out together, with no pressure for our relationship to be either more or less than it was. We had only one hard-and-fast rule between us-no talking shop.

"How about a hot date?" she asked.

I laughed. "With you?" Our rare dates were fun but hardly hot.

"I know this is late notice. I was supposed to be out of town today and now I'm not. The Mercer Island Chamber of Commerce is doing its big benefit dinner tonight. Would you consider coming along and bailing me out of hot water? I really should put in an appearance."

"Sure," I said. "What time?"

"It's supposed to have started at six, but if we're a little late, it won't matter."

Had the Bentley been working, I would have had Pete drive me over to Mercer Island to pick her up-just to make a splash. As it was, I took the Porsche.

The first time I ever saw Marilyn Sykes she was a take-charge lady wearing a gray pinstriped suit and directing a SWAT team. When I picked her up at home that night, she had on a low-cut cream-colored evening gown. She's tall for a woman, five eleven or so, with hazel-colored eyes and naturally curly brown hair. I liked the dress a whole lot more than the suit.

I drove while she gave directions. It was a circuitous route that took us to the backside of the island and down a long hill to a magnificent house on the water. A parking attendant met us in the circular driveway to take care of the car while I went around to open the door for Marilyn.

"By the way, Beau," she said, taking my hand and letting me help her to her feet. "There's one thing I forgot to mention."

"What's that?"

"I told you it's a benefit dinner, but I didn't tell you what kind."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "As long as it's not my own cooking, I'll eat anything."

She smiled. "It's a murder mystery dinner."

I stopped in my tracks. "A what?"

"You know, one of those dinners where they hire actors to do a fake murder and the guests try to figure out who did it. I was afraid if I told you, you might not want to come."

"You're right about that," I said. "But we're here now. We could just as well go on in."

The host and hostess met us at the door. Mercifully, when she introduced us, Marilyn kept quiet about my profession. When they ushered us inside, I could see we were more than a little late. The huge living room was already full of people. I guess it was a nice enough place, but I didn't have a whole lot of opportunity to check it out.

We had barely gotten inside the door when an elegant blonde made a move on me and started bending my ear about buying some real estate, something about the house next door. What did I think? Would it be a good investment or not? Totally without an opinion on the subject, I glanced around looking for Marilyn, hoping she'd rescue me. Instead, she made a beeline for the food and left me to handle the blonde on my own. I had about convinced myself the lady was a mental case when a man came striding up to us carrying two drinks, one of which he shoved in the woman's direction.

"You just can't do it, can you," he commented snidely to the woman. "You can't be trusted alone long enough for me to go order a drink."

"Wait a minute," I began, "we were just…"

"You stay out of this," he snarled at me. "This is between us. After all, she is my wife."

The blonde began twisting her wedding ring nervously. "Come on, Carl. It wasn't anything like that. I was only telling him about buying the house next door."

"Like hell you were! I saw the way you looked at him when he walked in the room. He's your type, isn't he. Tall-" He paused long enough to look at me. "Tall, gray, and handsome."

"Please, Carl, don't do this. Not here in front of all these people."

Carl shook his head. "I'd stay away from her if I were you. She collects men the way some people collect bowling trophies. They don't mean much afterwards, do they, my dear."

A deep flush began creeping up the back of my neck. Everyone in the room was staring at us, overhearing every word. On the far edge of the crowd, there was Marilyn holding a plate of hors d'oeuvres. She wasn't going to be any help at all.

Carl turned to me and gave me a companionable whack on one shoulder. "No hard feelings, of course, old boy!" he said. With that, he walked away.

At a loss for words, I turned back to the blonde just as she took a tentative sip of her drink. "I'm so sorry," she apologized. "He's been like that more and more lately, and the doctors can't tell me what's wrong."

"Try a shrink," I suggested. "I think he's off his rocker."

Suddenly, the blonde's eyes got big. She sputtered and choked.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

She looked at me helplessly, shook her head, and clutched at her throat. Staggering away from me, she fell facedown on the carpet and lay there without moving.

Carl raced to her side and turned her over. He placed his ear against her breast.

"Get an ambulance," someone shouted.

Carl sat up, gravely shaking his head. "It's too late for an ambulance," he said. "She's dead."

I glanced over at the spot where I had last seen Marilyn. She was almost doubled over with laughter. That's when I finally realized what was going on, that these were the actors and they had suckered me into their script as a reluctant leading man.

When I finally pushed my way through the crowd to Marilyn, she was still laughing.

"What's so funny? Did you know they were going to do that?" I demanded.

She shook her head. "I had no idea, but you were perfect. I didn't know you could act."

"I can't," I answered grimly.

Marilyn handed me a plate of food-smoked salmon, fruit and vegetables with dip. "Try this," she said. "After all that hard work, you should at least get something to eat."

Much as I hate to admit it, the evening turned out to be fun. The rest of the party was occupied with trying to figure out who had murdered the blonde. Some even suspected me which I found hilarious. Most suspected Carl. When all was said and done, though, the killer turned out to be Carl's gay lover.

It was late when I finally took Marilyn home, but she invited me up to her apartment for a nightcap. We sat there for some time, laughing and comparing notes on the evening. I was about to get up and leave when she put her hand on my leg.

"You wouldn't be interested in spending the night, would you?" she asked casually.

I slid my hand over hers. "I could probably be persuaded," I replied.

And so she set about persuading me.