Lying in wait

20

By the time we left the Ballard Fire House, it was far too late for even the former BoBo Beaumont to pay a call on Else Gebhardt. Besides, I was beat. And the bone spur on my heel was kicking up again. I told myself it came from just watching all that salsa dancing, but it probably had a lot more to do with stumbling around in the dark out at the Camano Island fire two nights before.

In any event, I took off for home, where I dosed myself with prescription anti-inflammatories. The directions on the bottle said that the medication was to be taken with food. Since there wasn't much of that lying around loose in my bare-bones kitchen, I followed the pills with a chaser of peanut butter. A generously rounded tablespoonful. I figured since peanut butter seemed to be good enough for the other old dogs in my family, it was probably good enough for me.

And it worked, too. Soon after I crawled into bed, the throbbing in my foot lessened enough for me to fall asleep. During the night, I dreamt, not surprisingly, of salsa dancing.

Ralph Ames, who is often an overnight guest in my high-rise condo, has made a crusade of bringing me out of the technological Dark Ages. He had prevailed on one of his electronics/computer-whiz friends to design a dazzling system for my apartment that can do everything but bring me coffee in bed. If I carry a little electronic wafer in my pocket, I can set the thing to automatically adjust lights and music as I move from room to room.

The system also includes a wireless pagerlike controller and intercom that can, from any room in the apartment and without benefit of telephone, answer and open my apartment door as well as the door to Belltown Terrace's outside entrance. It's a great gimmick-if I'd just remember to wear it. Most of the time it stays parked on the counter in the bathroom, which is where I most often have need of it.

That was the case the next morning when the doorbell rang just as I stepped out of the shower. It was the bell to the apartment.

Belltown Terrace is a secured building. That means no one is supposed to enter without being buzzed in by either a resident or allowed in by the doorman. If the doorman lets a guest inside the building, he's supposed to call and check to see whether or not the arriving person is expected and should be allowed to proceed. In other words, whoever was standing at the door to my apartment should have been one of my fellow residents, a neighbor from inside the building.

And she was. "Hi, Uncle Beau," Heather Peters chirped through the pager. "Can we come in?"

Heather and Tracy Peters are the daughters of Ron Peters, a former partner of mine. After a disabling line-of-duty injury left him wheelchair-bound, he and the girls moved into a unit on one of the lower floors of Belltown Terrace along with Amy, the physical-therapy nurse who became his second wife. Never having had any nieces and nephews of my own, I appreciated being allowed to borrow the girls on occasion.

"Sure, Heather," I said, pressing the button. "I'll be out in a minute. Just let me get some clothes on."

Eight-year-old Heather had said "we." I assumed that meant she and her ten-year-old sister would both be waiting in my living room. I was wrong.

I came down the hallway a few minutes later to find both Heather Peters and an amazingly large Afghan hound-who was either Charley, the elevator dog, or Charley's twin-enthroned on my window seat. Heather's arm was around the dog's shoulder, and they both sat with their backs to the room, peering down through yet another morning of Puget Sound's late-autumn fog.

"Hey, what's he doing in here?" I demanded.

"Charley's a she," Heather corrected primly. "She's named after the perfume."

"Well, get her down off my window seat."

When ordered to get down, Charley complied, but not without a baleful look at me. She sighed, disdainfully shook her footlong ears, and then flopped down at Heather's feet.

"Have you ever met Charley before?" Heather asked.

"Only once. In the elevator. Is that where you found her?"

"Oh no, I'm taking care of her for the whole weekend. I told Amy and Dad that I'm taking her for a walk, but I need your help."

I come from an era when people who owned dogs usually had yards to go with them. When the dog needed to be walked, the owner simply opened the door, and the dog walked itself. No one carried pooper-scoopers and plastic bags back then.

"I don't walk dogs, Heather," I said, stopping in the kitchen long enough to pour the first cup of coffee from the morning's second pot. The last statement sounded grouchy, even to me. When Heather's face fell in disappointment, I modified my position some. "At least I never have up till now," I added.

Heather brightened instantly. "Did you know it's Amy's birthday today?"

Amy Peters is Heather's stepmother. "I had no idea."

"I know what I want to get for her birthday present-Frangos. You know, those chocolate things?" Heather prattled on. "She just loves Frangos. I've got enough money, but my dad's too busy to take me to the Bon. I could walk there by myself, if I had Charley along to look out for me, but then what would happen to her when I went inside the store?"

What indeed? Forty-five minutes later, I was cooling my heels on the corner of Fourth and Stewart outside the Bon Marche, one of Seattle's premier department stores. I stood there hoping to God none of my fellow police officers would see me doing dog-sitting duty with that arrogant, snooty animal. Charley and I seemed to be of the same mind-we were both pretending we'd never seen each other before, which is hard to do when you're on opposite ends of the same leash.

Much as I hate to admit it, Charley was an exceptionally well-behaved dog. Although nearly as tall as Heather, the dog obeyed all instructions issued by her diminutive keeper. Head held high, Charley pranced along beside Heather when we walked, or sat with her narrow nose high in the air while we waited for lights to change at intersections.

Heather is a cute kid in her own right; always has been. Charley is a beautiful dog, and the two of them were a winning combination. Just like any ordinary regular uncle, I got a boot of pride out of the way passersby craned their necks to take a second look.

We spent some time window-shopping downtown and sauntering through the Saturday morning throngs at the Pike Place Market. I told myself I was just minding my grandmother-taking the time to stop and smell the flowers. Along the way, I picked up some groceries. With the gourmet cook Ralph Ames due to arrive the next day, I couldn't afford to be caught foodless in Seattle.

Back at Belltown Terrace, I said good-bye to Heather and Charley in the elevator, put away the groceries, then picked up the phone and dialed Ashland, Oregon. Jeremy Todd Cartwright III, my recently acquired son-in-law, answered the phone.

"Kelly's outside with the kids. Want me to go get her?"

Kelly runs a day-care center out of their newly remodeled home, so she is often "outside with the kids." One of those kids, Kayla-short for Karen Louise-is my only grandchild.

"Don't bother. I can talk to you. Do you and Kelly have any plans for Thanksgiving?"

Jeremy paused. "We had talked about going down to Cucamonga, to visit Dave and Karen, but Dave called the other day and says he doesn't think Karen will be up to having company."

Karen Livingston, my first wife and Kelly's mother, has been battling cancer for more than two years now. Dave, her second husband, is a good guy, one I've come to respect more and more over the years. But the fact that Karen didn't want company for Thanksgiving, not even her new granddaughter, was not good news.

"Besides," Jeremy added gloomily, "I'm not all that sure the old van would make it that far. The clutch may be on its last legs."

"How about coming up here?" I suggested.

"Kelly would probably like that, but I still don't know about the van making it over the passes between here and Eugene."

"Talk it over with her," I said. "I don't need an answer right this minute, but if you want to come, we can see about flying you up from Medford."

Jeremy's reply was interrupted by my call-waiting signal.

I make it a point not to switch calls when I'm on the phone with someone long distance. That seems rude to me. When call-interrupting starts buzzing in my ear, that's the time when I long for the good old days when a dialed telephone offered only one of three uncomplicated results-an answer, a busy signal, or no answer. Life was simpler back then, in more ways than one.

"…expensive?" Jeremy was asking, when I could hear him again.

"Don't worry about the money," I told him. "What matters is whether or not you want to come."

"I'll check with Kelly right away," Jeremy assured me. "We'll get back to you with an answer as soon as we can."

Even though we didn't rush in finishing up the call, as soon as I put down the phone, it rang again. Whoever was calling was persistent enough to stay on the line for far longer than I would have.

"Hello," I said.

"Beau?"

"Yes."

"Detective Stan Jacek here. What do you think of the latest?"

"The latest what?"

"The autopsy results, of course. I faxed them down to Seattle P.D. about half an hour ago."

"Look, Stan, it's Saturday," I pointed out. "This may come as a surprise to you, but I have no intention of going into the office today. I'm trying to learn how not to work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I've already put in a helluva long week, and the Seattle Police Department's new chief isn't all that keen on sanctioning excess overtime. I figure Monday should be time enough for me to take another crack at all this."

"Are you saying you'd rather I hang up now, then, so you don't get the news until after you've actually punched in on the time clock Monday morning?"

It seemed to me Stan Jacek was being a bit testy. "Cut the sarcasm, Stan. We're already on the phone. Go ahead and tell me. What autopsy results?"

"It's not her."

Now I was completely baffled. "Who's not her?"

"Denise Whitney," he answered. "The dead woman isn't Denise. The dental records don't even come close to matching the ones her parents brought down from Anchorage."

That blew me away. Once again my none-too-limber mental rubber bands were being stretched to the limit. One minute I was talking to my son-in-law and hoping to arrange a visit with my grandchild over the holidays, and the next I was back in the dark world of murder. A place where things you thought were straightforward suddenly weren't. And it wasn't even my case.

"If the dead woman isn't Denise," I said, "who the hell is she?"

"Good question," Jacek answered. "We're checking missing-persons reports all over the Pacific Northwest-from northern California to Vancouver, B.C., and from the coast as far east as Montana. Nothing so far."

"What about him?"

Now it was Detective Jacek's turn to be bum-fuzzled. "Him who?"

"If Denise isn't Denise, is Gunter Gunter?"

"I guess," Stan Jacek answered. "At least they didn't say anything to me about him. But then Gunter's your case, not mine, so they probably wouldn't have told me regardless. You'd better check that one out for yourself. I'll let you go, so you can get back to whatever it was you were doing."

"Oh, no, you won't," I replied. "Now that you've dragged me back into a work mode, there are a few things I need to go over with you as well."

In the next ten minutes, I gave Stan Jacek a brief version of what had gone on since he and I last parted company outside the Public Safety Building. I told him about Sue Danielson's and my intriguing interview with Kari Gebhardt and Michael Morris, and the results of my salsa-dancing foray. I told him about Lorenzo Hurtado's revelation that Gunter Gebhardt had been making hasty and ultimately futile preparations to leave town.

"It sounds as though as soon as Kari told him someone was looking for him, he tried to beat it, but the killer or killers got to him first," I concluded.

"Sounds like," Jacek agreed, "but why would he be getting the boat ready to ship out when he already had a plane ticket stashed in his car?"

"Good question." And it was.

"And what about those Wiesenthal guys," Jacek continued. "I always thought they played it straight up."

"So did I, and so does everyone else," I told him. "But it occurs to me that having an international reputation for being absolutely above suspicion is a reasonable reason for checking them out, don't you think?"

"You do have a point," Jacek allowed grudgingly. "An organization like that is bound to have an occasional bad apple or else someone who tags along behind them. We should look into that. Can you go interview them?"

"Sure. If I can find them."

"And how do you do that?"

"Beats me. Call the FBI, maybe? I'll give it some thought. If I come up with any bright ideas, I'll let you know, and you do the same. In the meantime, now that my day off is totally screwed, I could just as well drop by Else Gebhardt's and ask for the use of one of her husband's soldiers."

"What soldiers?"

Oops. "Didn't I tell you about the toy soldiers down in Gunter Gebhardt's basement?"

"Not that I remember."

"They're handmade replicas of Nazi soldiers," I said, making up for my oversight in not telling him earlier. "As far as I can determine, making those miniatures was Gunter's sole hobby. Last night, when I was talking to Lorenzo, I had this sudden brainstorm that maybe they were made of gold, just like that wrench Bonnie Elgin found after the hit-and-run. And where better to hide them than in plain sight?"

"You think they're made from all those melteddown teeth?" Jacek sounded aghast. Even second- and third-hand, Kari and Michael's revelations about Sobibor had hit Stan Jacek as hard as they'd hit me. "That's nauseating. How could he?"

"That's a question I don't even want to think about," I told him.

"But it adds up," Jacek said eventually. "Are you going to check it out, or shall I?"

"I'm closer," I told him.

So when I got off the phone with Detective Jacek, I simply put my jacket back on and headed for the parking garage. Duty called. At least that's what I told myself all the way downstairs in the elevator.

Even though it was early November and winter cold, at least it wasn't raining. So during that chill afternoon drive to Blue Ridge, I had to make my way around the last few end-of-season die-hard garage sales. And once I reached Culpeper Court, I expected to have to fight my way through another collection of friends and relatives to gain admittance to the Gebhardt residence. To my surprise, no one seemed to be around.

More surprising still was the orange, black, and white FOR SALE BY OWNER sign that had been stapled to a wooden stake and hammered into Gunter Gebhardt's otherwise-pristine front lawn.

Because of my job as a homicide cop, I naturally come in contact with lots of grieving relatives and friends. I have more than a nodding acquaintance with several of this city's best-known grief counselors. They differ on some points, but they all agree in advising traumatized relatives to avoid making any precipitous decisions about moving out of the family home or selling property too soon after the death of a loved one.

In the days and weeks following a death-sudden or otherwise-the decision-making faculties may be badly impaired by the overwhelming weight of confusion and loss. Sad but true, there are plenty of vultures loose in the world who make their fortunes by finding and preying on such people.

Even knowing how unwelcome unsolicited advice can be, I was determined to give Else Gebhardt the benefit of my feelings in that regard. I stepped up onto the front porch and rang the bell.

Else answered the door herself, dust rag in one hand and broom in the other. "Why, BoBo," she said, "what are you doing here?"

She seemed to be in far better emotional shape than I would have imagined, so there was no point in shilly-shallying around. "I came to see if you'd lend me a sampling of Gunter's soldiers," I said, going straight to the heart of the matter. "I want to have it analyzed down at the crime lab to see if there's any way to trace the source of the metal."

Else led me into the freshly cleaned living room where vacuum-cleaner tracks still lingered on the carpet. The furniture had been totally rearranged.

"Cleaning seems to make me feel better. I need to be doing something instead of just sitting around brooding," she explained, putting the dust rag down and motioning for me to take a seat on the sofa.

"Now what's this about tracing the metal the soldiers are made of?" Else asked, once she was seated beside me. "Why would that be so important? They're just made out of lead, aren't they?"

I couldn't bring myself to answer that question straight out. Else wasn't ready to hear about Sobibor, and I certainly wasn't ready to tell her. Before I spoke, I listened for the sounds of other people at home, but the house was quiet. We seemed to be alone.

"I'm not entirely sure, but it might be," I hedged. "We have to check everything."

"Well," Else answered, "you're too late. They're gone."

"Gone? What do you mean gone?"

"I sold them, not two hours ago. I wanted them out of my house. If they had asked for anything else of Gunter's, I would have sold that, too." Else's voice was bitter.

"You sold them?" I must have sounded like a witless echo. "To whom?"

"To some men who came by to look at the house."

"What men? Who were they? Someone you knew?"

"Two men, an older gentleman and a younger one. They said they were driving in the neighborhood and saw my sign. I had just put it up half an hour earlier. The young man is getting married in a couple of months, and his parents are going to help them buy a house."

"You showed the house to them, then. The whole thing? Even the basement?"

"Of course I showed them the basement. And while we were down there, they happened to see Gunter's soldiers. They both got very excited about them. Evidently, someone in their family collects miniature soldiers."

"German soldiers," I added.

"Yes, well, maybe the men are German, too, come to think of it. At least the older one might be. It sounded like it anyway. He spoke with what sounded like a German accent."

"But the younger one didn't?"

"No. He's American. I'm sure of it."

A younger man and an older; one with a German accent and one without. Else's description sounded more than vaguely similar to Michael and Kari's portrayal of the two Simon Wiesenthal operatives who had visited their apartment in Bellingham.

"Did the younger one happen to have brown curly hair?" I asked.

Else frowned. "As a matter of fact, he did," she answered. "Why, do you know something about him?"

I did know some things, and I suspected much more. Why the hell hadn't I acted immediately on my hunch about those damn toy soldiers? They probably were solid gold.

Knowing I'd been totally outmaneuvered, I asked Else the bottom-line question, even though I didn't really want to know the answer. "How much did you sell the soldiers for?"

"Five hundred dollars for the whole shebang," she answered, with a smile that showed she was pleased with the bargain she'd struck. "Cash and carry. The two of them loaded the soldiers into boxes and took them away. Now I'll be able to use those shelves to display stuff in a few weeks when I have my moving sale."

That was probably the opening when I could have administered my prepared lecture about the evils of making too-hasty decisions; when I should have warned her that if she acted too quickly, she might be taken to the cleaners. I didn't waste my breath. There wasn't much sense in going to the bother when, likely as not, the cleaners had already come and gone.

Else was watching my face. "You do know something about those two men, don't you?"

I nodded.

"Did they have something to do with Gunter's death?"

"It's possible."

She paled. "And I let them into the house when I was here by myself? I shouldn't have done that, should I?"

"No," I agreed. "You shouldn't have. Now, where's Kari?" I asked.

"She took my mother to have her hair done. I wanted to be here alone. I wanted to do some work-some real physical work…"

"I understand all that, Else," I said. "You don't have to explain, but you really shouldn't be here by yourself right now, and under no circumstances should you allow any more strangers into the house whether you're alone here or not, understand?"

"Yes."

"And for the moment, I want you to take down the For Sale sign."

"No," Else Gebhardt said determinedly. "I'm not taking it down for you or for my mother or for anybody else. Maybe people think I'm being disrespectful by trying to sell it when Gunter isn't even buried yet, but they don't understand. My husband betrayed me, BoBo. Gunter played me for a fool. No wonder he wanted my mother with us. As long as I was locked up here in this house looking after her, he could go about doing whatever he damn well pleased."

She paused and then added, "Well, that's over. Gunter's dead, and so is his girlfriend."

The part about the girlfriend certainly wasn't entirely true since I now had proof that Denise Whitney hadn't perished in the Camano Island fire, but I didn't even attempt to interrupt Else Gebhardt's angry tirade.

"I'll do the right thing by Gunter, even if he didn't deserve it," she continued. "I'll play the part and see to it that he's properly buried, but I'm through being a doormat, BoBo. I want out of this house, and I want out of it now. This was my mother's house and Gunter's house. It's never been mine, and I won't stay here a minute longer than I have to."

Else finally ran out of steam.

"In other words," I interjected, "you won't take down the sign?"

"No! I certainly won't! Why should I? If the soldiers are all those two men were after, why would they come back?"

"You're right," I agreed. "They might not. But somebody else might."

"I don't think so," Else returned.

I'm not very good at changing women's minds, and Else Gebhardt's mind was definitely made up-too much so for me to tackle the problem directly. I simply went around it.

On my way back downtown, I took a swing by Fishermen's Terminal. There was a single light on in Champagne Al's One Day at a Time. When I knocked on the galley door, he answered with a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

In the course of a five-minute visit, I didn't tell Alan Torvoldsen much, only that I was worried about Else Gebhardt being alone in her house up on Culpeper Court and that I wished someone, preferably a friend of the family, would keep an eye on her. Just to be on the safe side.

From the expression on his face when I finished, you'd have thought I'd just handed a lifepreserver to a drowning man. I left the boat a few minutes later. As I headed out the door, Champagne Al was already standing in front of the smoke-filmed mirror, carefully combing into place what little remained of his flaming-red hair.