Lying in wait

1

I didn't get much sleep that night. I was up early the next morning. Standing on my twenty-fifth-floor terrace, I was drinking coffee when the fall sun came creeping up over the tops of the Cascades. The previous day's rainstorm had blown away overnight, pushed eastward by the arrival of a sudden high-pressure system. The storm had left behind it a layer of low-lying, moisture-heavy fog that clung to the ground like an immense down-filled comforter.

Looking out across Seattle's skyline from that height, I found that the city's streets were shrouded and invisible, as were most of the surrounding low-rise buildings. I could hear the muffled sounds of passing cars and buses in the street below, but I couldn't see them. Now and then I could pick out the sound of an individual car churning down the street, its progress marked by the distinctive hum of pavement-destroying tire studs. Here and there across the cityscape, the tops of other high-rise buildings loomed up out of the fog like so many huge tombstones, I thought. Or like islands in the fog.

Wasn't that the name of a book? I wondered. No, it was Islands in the Stream. I had never read that particular Hemingway opus. My familiarity with the title came from working countless crossword puzzles.

That's what happens when you live alone. Your mind fills up with unnecessary mental junk like so much multipath interference on an overused radio frequency. Just as static on a radio keeps a listener from hearing the words, stream-of-consciousness interference keeps people who live alone from thinking too much. At least it helps. I had brought my grandfather's ashes home with me the night before. Even now, that discreetly labeled metal box was sitting on my entryway table. Sitting there, waiting. Waiting for my grandmother to decide what should be done with it.

I had asked her if there was some particular place where she would like the ashes scattered, or did she want an urn? Her answer was that she didn't know. She'd have to think about it. She'd let me know as soon as she made up her mind.

Chilled by the damp, cool air, I was headed back inside the apartment for another cup of Seattle's Best Coffee when the phone rang. Beverly Piedmont had been so much on my mind that somehow I expected the call to be from her, but it wasn't. It was Sergeant Watty Watkins, the desk sergeant from the Homicide Squad.

"How's it going, Beau? How's your grandmother holding up?"

"Pretty well, under the circumstances."

"Are you working today, or are you taking another bereavement day?"

"I'll be in. Why? What's up?"

"We've got a case that just turned up a few minutes ago, over at Fishermen's Terminal-a fatality boat fire. If it's a problem, I can assign it to someone else."

"Watty, I told you, I'm coming in. I'll take it. Who'll be working the case with me?"

"There'll be an arson investigator from the Seattle Fire Department, of course. As far as Homicide is concerned, pickings are a little thin. Detective Kramer and two of the other guys are off in D.C. for a training seminar this week. I'll probably team you up with Detective Danielson."

I was partnerless at the moment. Both of my last two partners, Ron Peters and Al Lindstrom, had been injured in the line of duty. For the foreseeable future, Ron was stuck in a wheelchair, and Al had just taken a disability retirement. Those two separate incidents had turned me into the Homicide Squad's version of Typhoid Mary. I was beginning to feel like an outcast.

For weeks now, I had been working by myself on the cold trail of a twenty-five-year-old homicide. The bullet-riddled skull had surfaced during the hazardous-waste cleanup of an import/export shipping company that had left Harbor Island in favor of cheaper rent in Tacoma. I had pretty well exhausted all possible leads on that musty old case. Frustrated at being exiled to a dead-end case and tired of getting nowhere, I was bored stiff and ready for some action.

Sue Danielson is one of the newest additions to the Homicide Squad. Not only is she relatively inexperienced, she's also one of the few female detectives on the team. Still, a partner is a partner. Beggars can't be choosers.

"Sue Danielson's fine," I said. "Is she there already? Does she have a car, or should I come down and get one?"

"She's right here," Watty replied. "I'll send her down to Motor Pool as soon as I get off the horn with you. She'll stop by Belltown Terrace to pick you up on her way north."

"Good," I said. "I'll be waiting downstairs."

And I was. Sue pulled up to the curb at Second and Broad in a hot little silver Mustang with a blue flashing light stuck on the roof. Some poor unfortunate drug dealer had been kind enough to equip the Mustang with a 5.0-liter high-output V-8 before unintentionally donating it to the exclusive use of the Seattle P.D. by way of a drug bust. As I crammed my six-three frame into the rider's side, I wished the bad guy had been taller. Short crooks tend to buy cars that are long on horsepower and short on headroom.

"How's it going?" I asked.

"Great," Sue said brusquely.

I was still closing the door when she gunned the engine and shot into traffic just ahead of an accelerating Metro bus that was lumbering down Second Avenue. Seattle police vehicles are supposedly nonsmoking in these politically correct days, but there was more than a hint of cigarette smoke wafting around in the Mustang when I got inside. Despite the cold, the driver's-side window was rolled all the way down.

I reached behind me for the seat belt as Sue threw the car into a sharp right onto Clay and raced toward First.

"If you don't mind my saying so, from the way you're driving, I'd guess it isn't all that great," I said.

Sue Danielson made a face. "It's my son," she said. "Jared. He got himself suspended from school yesterday afternoon for fighting in the lunch line. He says one of the other kids stole his lunch money during gym. He claims all he wanted to do was get the money back. So the principal handed out a three-day suspension. Great punishment! How do those jerks figure? Since when is letting a teenager stay home by himself for three days a punishment?"

Ah, the joys of parenthood. No wonder the Mustang reeked of cigarette smoke. Sue Danielson was upset, and I couldn't blame her. Being a parent is a generally thankless can of worms. Being a single parent is even more so. But in police work having a partner whose mind isn't totally focused on the job can prove to be downright dangerous. Cops live in a world where even momentary lapses in concentration can be fatal.

"How old is Jared?" I asked.

"Twelve."

"Generally a good kid?"

"More or less," she said grudgingly.

"Let me give you some unsolicited advice, Sue. The only cure for a twelve-year-old male is time. Lots of it. Wait and see. By twenty, Jared will be fine."

"If he lives that long," she added.

"Where is he right now?" I asked. "At home?"

Sue nodded grimly. "Probably in the family room on the couch, watching MTV even as we speak. I dragged his ass out of bed before I left home and told him if he so much as poked his head outside the door, I'd kill him. Personally. And I left him with a list of chores to be done, starting with scrubbing the kitchen cupboards inside and out."

"That's all you can do for the time being, isn't it?"

"I guess so."

"Then forget about it. For right now anyway. Tell me about the case. Who's dead? Do we know?"

By then we were hightailing it down Elliott past the towering but invisible grain-terminal complex that was totally shrouded in its own thick mantle of fog. Sue is still relatively new to Homicide, but she's a good cop. Her jaw tightened momentarily at the implied criticism in my comments, but she took it with good grace. After a moment or two, her face relaxed into a rueful grin. "I guess I needed that," she said. "Thanks for the friendly reminder."

"The case," I insisted, still trying to change the subject.

She nodded. "The dead guy's on a boat up here at Fishermen's Terminal. Somebody from a neighboring boat saw the fire just after five-thirty this morning. By the time the fire department got there, the cabin was fully engulfed. They didn't know there was a body inside, though, until just a few minutes before Watty called you. I came in early to finish up the paper on yesterday's domestic in West Seattle, but I wasn't getting anywhere. I couldn't concentrate. I was glad the other two guys turned him down."

"Turned who down?"

"Watty. When he asked them if they wanted to work this case."

"Asked them?" I repeated. "I thought Watty's job was to assign detectives to cases. Since when did he start issuing engraved invitations?"

"Don't take it personally, Beau," Sue counseled. "You know how people talk."

"No, I don't. What's the problem? What are they saying?"

Sue Danielson shrugged. "That three's the charm. First Ron Peters and then Big Al."

So that was it. Those jerks. I had wondered, but this was the first time anyone had come right out and called a spade a spade. "You mean everybody really is scared shitless to work with me."

"Don't worry about it, Beau," Sue said with a laugh. "I told Watty I'm a big girl, and not at all the rabbit's-foot-carrying type."

"Gee, thanks," I grumbled. "I suppose, under the circumstances, I should take that as a vote of supreme confidence."

Sue clicked on the turn signal. We swooped off Fifteenth and tore around the cloverleaf onto Emerson. At the Stop sign, she paused, looked at me, and winked. "As a matter of fact, you should," she said. "Besides, now we're even."

"What do you mean ‘even'?"

"You give me advice on child rearing, and I help you get along with your peers. Fair enough. Tit for tat."

Enough said.

The official name, the one used by the mapmakers who write the Puget Sound version of the Thomas Guide, may be Salmon Bay Terminal, but most Seattleites know the north end of the Interbay area as Fishermen's Terminal. It's the place where Seattle's commercial fishing fleet is berthed during the months when the boats aren't out on the Pacific Ocean, plying the waters between the Oregon Coast and the Bering Sea, trying to beat the foreign-owned, U.S.-registered vessels and each other to whatever remains of the once-plentiful West Coast fishery.

We raced through the parking lot outside Chinook's Restaurant and bounced over a series of killer, tooth-rattling speed bumps. Past two huge buildings marked Net Shed N-4 and Net Shed N-3 we darted up a narrow alley that was crammed full of fire-fighting equipment. We threaded our way as far as Dock Three where the fire lane out to the boats was full of trucks and a throng of firemen rolling and restowing equipment. Sue pulled over and parked the Mustang, leaving the blue light flashing on top of the vehicle.

It was early in November, and all the boats were in port. On the east side of the pier stood a long line of two-masted wooden fishing schooners. A few were old sailing vessels that had been converted from wind-driven to diesel propulsion. The others had been built with engines but had carried sails as well at one time. These old wooden boats, used by long-line fishermen to harvest halibut and black cod, were berthed down one side of the planked dock. On the other side were the seine-style-pilothouse-forward-long-liners. On Dock 4, next door to the west, were the salmon seiners, recognizable by their raised mainbooms and open afterdecks.

I wouldn't have known the difference if it hadn't been for Aarnie "Button" Knudsen, one of the guys I once played football with for the Ballard High School Beavers. The summer between our junior and senior years in high school, Button invited me to come work on his father's salmon boat. He told me it was a great part-time job, one he'd had every year from the time he was eleven.

I'm sure it would have been a good deal-if I had ever made it to the fishing grounds, that is. Unfortunately, it turned out I was a terrible sailor. I signed on, but by the time we reached Ketchikan in southeastern Alaska, I was so horribly seasick that Aarnie's disgusted dad gave up, put me off the boat, and finagled me a ride home. Who knows? Had things been different-had I actually found my sea legs and followed in Button's family footsteps-I might never have become a homicide detective. I might have spent my life slaughtering fish instead of studying slaughtered people.

Out beyond the buildings, we came to the place where the fire department had set up a perimeter by roping off the wooden pier at the point where it met a wider paved section. A group of old salts in coveralls, men I suspected to be mostly of Norwegian descent, stood talking to one another in subdued tones, all the while uneasily eyeing the charred wreck of a boat halfway down the dock.

I come down to Fishermen's Terminal sometimes, just to walk around. Early on a chill late-fall morning like this one was, it can be a seemingly idyllic place. Noisy gulls wheel overhead, appearing and disappearing, flying in and out of the fog. Water laps against the pilings. Boats shift and creak, occasionally thumping against the pier. But this idyllic setting is only that-a setting, like the flat backdrop painted on a stage.

The foreground holds the action where a troupe of men do the "work" of fishing-repairing boats and nets, cleaning fish-holes, hosing, painting, building bait benches and fish pens. I have utmost respect for these guys who, year in and year out, pit themselves not only against the unforgiving sea but also against the vagaries of international politics and government regulation. Most of them are independent as hell and more than slightly ornery-a little like the mythical cowboys of the Old West. Come to think of it, a little like me.

On this particular morning, I supposed that most of them had come to work early expecting to spend the day working on their wintertime maintenance logs. Instead of overhauling engines and preparing for the next season's first opener, however, they were stranded far from their boats on the landward end of the dock. From the grim looks on their faces, I realized word must have spread that someone was dead-most likely one of their own.

A uniformed harbor-patrol officer named Jack Casey glanced at Sue's I.D., nodded to me, and waved us through the barrier. "Any idea who it is?" I asked him on my way past.

Casey shook his head. "All I've heard from the firemen is that the stiff's too crisp to I.D."

"Oh."

Sue and I made our way down the dock. Even without having been told beforehand, I would have known we were walking into a fatality fire just from the appearance of the firemen we encountered along the way. They had done their job promptly and well. Not only had they managed to put out the fire, they had kept the blaze confined to only one boat-a schooner called Isolde. The flames hadn't spread either to the pier or to any of Isolde 's nearby neighbors. Even the Isolde herself hadn't burned on the outside, although the forward portion of the boat was heavily damaged.

In terms of fire-fighting success, that should have been a clear-cut victory. But the men and women I saw rolling up their hoses were a bedraggled, disheartened-looking crew. Someone had died in the blaze. Firefighters always take fire deaths hard, as though each and every person lost in a fire is a personal affront-a needless fatality they somehow should have been able to prevent. It's an occupational hazard, I understand all too well. Murder victims affect me exactly the same way.

A few feet from the Isolde a husky firefighter still in yellow coveralls and heavy rubber boots broke away from his companions and hurried toward us. "You from Seattle P.D.?"

Only when I heard the voice did I realize the firefighter was a woman, not a man. Her hair was cut short. Her broad shoulders were muscular, her at-ease stance seemed to reflect some kind of military training. In her early thirties, she looked tough but capable-the kind of woman who's instantly intimidating to a lot of men, but someone you wouldn't mind having on your side during an emergency.

"Detective Beaumont," I answered. "And this is Detective Danielson."

"I'm Lieutenant Marian Rockwell," she returned. "Seattle Fire Department, Arson Investigations."

Seattle's fire department has a team of arson investigators who carry weapons and are authorized to make arrests when necessary. Once the ashes and debris are cool enough to handle, the arson investigators are called in to do their stuff. They handle some fires entirely on their own, but when someone dies as a result of a fire, whether accidental or deliberately set, Seattle P.D.'s Homicide Squad comes into the picture. In those instances, we handle the investigation jointly.

"What's going on?" Sue asked.

"We got to it fast enough that it didn't have a chance to spread outside the fo'c'sle," Lieutenant Rockwell said, abbreviating the word "forecastle" to the approved nautical pronunciation of "foc'sul."

"One crew is just now finishing mopping up and checking for hot spots," Lieutenant Rockwell continued. "We should be able to go on board fairly soon now-as soon as the investigator from the Medical Examiner's Office gets here."

It's always a race between Doc Baker's folks and Homicide to see who reaches a crime scene first. We don't exactly keep score, but people from our squad always want to arrive before one of the M.E.'s somber gray vans. I was glad Sue Danielson had put the little Mustang through its paces.

"They'll show up eventually. Any idea whose boat this is?" I asked, taking out my notebook while Lieutenant Rockwell consulted one of her own.

"The guy who called in the nine-one-one report said it belonged to someone named Gunter Gebhardt."

"Nice Irish name. Pretty unusual for around here," I said.

"Why?" Sue Danielson asked.

Sue's from back East somewhere. Cincinnati, I think, so she could be forgiven for not knowing beans about Seattle's fishing fleet.

"Most of these halibut guys are born and bred squareheads," I explained. "An occasional Dane or Swede here and there, but mostly they're lutefisk-eating Norwegians through and through."

The soot-creased lines around Marian Rockwell's brown eyes wrinkled with amusement. "I thought so, too," she said. "No doubt the guy who made the initial call is. Alan Torvoldsen. Is that Norwegian enough to suit you? His boat's right across the way. He spotted the fire and called for help."

The very mention of Alan Torvoldsen's name rang a bell of memory that carried me right back to Ballard High. "You're kidding? Alan Torvoldsen? You mean good old ‘Champagne Al'?"

"That's not what he said his name was," Marian Rockwell replied. "At least not in the report that came to me."

The Alan Torvoldsen I remembered was a couple of years older than I was. A senior when I was a lowly sophomore, he had been the big man on campus-a high-school playboy, someone who sported new cars, flashy clothes, and a ducktail with never a single hair out of place.

Just as Button Knudsen worked on his father's salmon seiner, Alan and his younger brother, Lars, spent summers on their father's halibut boat. The Knudsens were nondrinking straight arrows. The Torvoldsens weren't. Red Torvoldsen was never far from his flask of aquavit, and the boys were a matched set of hellions. Alan was two years older than I was, while Lars was two years younger.

Even in high school, Alan was a booze-drinking chip off the old block. According to BHS legend, "Champagne Al" Torvoldsen didn't go anywhere without at least one case of beer stashed in the back of his '56 Chevy.

The prom during his senior year was the pinnacle of Alan Torvoldsen's high school career. During the dance, he and his long-term girlfriend, Else Didriksen, were crowned king and queen of the prom. To celebrate, Alan invited everyone to an after-prom party to be held at the far north end of Carkeek Park. That infamous blowout-a party that is still spoken of in hushed tones at Ballard High reunions-came complete with fifteen cases of cheap champagne. It earned Alan Torvoldsen his lifelong nickname of "Champagne Al." It was also his undoing.

Cops busted the party only eight or nine cases into the program. The debauch may have been broken up early, but not nearly early enough as far as some disturbed parents were concerned. Before the arrival of the cops, several highly intoxicated young women-normally prim and proper Lutheran daughters of local Ballard area gentry-had shed not only important parts of their clothing, but several of their respective maidenheads as well.

A delegation of outraged parents descended on the principal's office early the following Monday morning. Looking for blood, they wanted someone to blame-someone who wasn't their own particular offspring. Alan Torvoldsen took the rap for everybody, and he paid big.

Despite a fair but unremarkable academic record, Alan was summarily expelled from school without ever being allowed to graduate. Within weeks, "Champagne Al" was drafted into the army and shipped off to Southeast Asia. Even at the time it had seemed like a miscarriage of justice to hold him accountable for everybody's drunken behavior, but that was the way things worked back then. Near as I can tell, nothing has changed.

Champagne Al got drafted and headed off for Vietnam. I finished up my high school career, and in the intervening years our paths had never once crossed. I hadn't even heard Alan Torvoldsen's name mentioned, not until now.

Audrey Cummings, King County's assistant medical examiner, showed up right about then, accompanied by my old buddy Janice Morraine, the second-in-command criminalist from the Washington State Patrol crime lab. Seeing them together, the old comics characters Mutt and Jeff came instantly to mind.

Audrey is your basic fireplug of a woman. Short, sturdy, stocky, no-nonsense, and a tad beyond middle-aged. Janice Morraine is tall and spare, angular where Audrey is round. Audrey is a nonsmoking vegetarian. Janice smokes like a fiend. Both of these talented women are sharp and politically adroit. Both of them have bubbled to the top in work situations where women have traditionally been excluded rather than encouraged. Young cops of both sexes who make the mistake of not according those two ladies the professional respect they deserve do so at their own risk.

Lieutenant Rockwell cast an appraising glance around the group. "Is this everybody?"

"As far as I can tell," Sue told her.

"This way, then."

Marian Rockwell passed out day boots for us to wear, then led the way toward the Isolde, followed by the rest of us. As I attached myself to the end of the line, I realized, for the first time, that in terms of Equal Opportunity, the investigation into the death of whoever had been on board the Isolde was breaking new ground-even in the politically correct world of Seattle P.D. All but one of the five investigators assigned to the case were women. Four to one.

Four of them and one of me.

Marian Rockwell was the only one of the group properly dressed for the grit and grime of a fire-scene crime investigation. The other women gamely hitched up their skirts and then scrambled over the wet, soot-encrusted rail and down onto a filthy deck covered with piles of wet, ankle-twisting coils of line, meandering hoses, and evil-smelling debris.

As I watched the women clamber over the rail one by one, I couldn't help thinking, You've come a long way, baby.

Because they had. All of them.