Payment in kind

Chapter 13

Max Cole lives on Bigelow Avenue North, a gracious, gently winding, tree-lined street that curves around the base of what’s known as Upper Queen Anne Hill. I used several sets of steep stairway sidewalks to make my way up to Bigelow from the school district office on the lower part of the hill. The cold but invigorating climb left me feeling a little winded but quite virtuous by the time I topped the last set of stairs and came out on the snow-covered street.

Max’s house, which I learned had once belonged to his parents, was a stately old Victorian set back behind a pair of towering, winter-bare chestnut trees. I walked up onto the covered porch and rang the bell. A miserable-looking Maxwell Cole, wearing a flannel robe and carrying a huge red hanky, answered the door. His unwaxed handlebar mustache drooped feebly, his eyes were red and runny. Obviously he had caught himself a dandy of a cold.

“Hi, Max,” I said cheerfully. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood. How’re the sick, the lame, and the lazy?”

He wasn’t exactly overjoyed to see me. “What are you doing here, J. P.? Can’t you see I’m sick?”

Actually, I could. There was only a frail hint of the old mutual antagonism in his voice. Feverish and haggard, he was too sick to carry off his customary obnoxiousness with any kind of believability.

“Just doing my job, Max, that’s all. I’d like to talk to you about Marcia and Pete Kelsey, if you have a minute. May I come in?”

“Suit yourself,” he said gruffly, pulling open the door with one hand while he used the other to stifle a sudden fit of sneezing. As I walked past him, the thought passed briefly through my mind that he was probably contagious as hell right then and I’d most likely end up with a case of pneumonia for my trouble. I accepted his reluctant invitation in the manner in which it was given and went on inside.

Max led the way into a spacious but overly furnished living room. The place was full of things that looked to me like genuine antiques, quality antiques. The only problem was there were far too many of them. And the room was boiling hot. Max had the thermostat set so high that it was sweltering in there.

He took a seat in an easy chair in front of a huge empty fireplace. Dropping my coat and gloves at one end of a chintz couch, I put as much distance between us as I reasonably could, settling at the far end of it and facing him across the wide expanse of an ornate, marble-topped coffee table.

“Wanted to have a fire in the fireplace this morning,” he grumbled, “but wouldn’t you know burning restrictions are in effect today? This is the kind of weather when you want to have a fire in the fireplace.”

That was true. I didn’t mention to him that this was exactly the kind of weather when everyone wanted a fire in his respective fireplace and that was precisely why it was a problem. Besides, had the room been any warmer, I would have died of heat prostration. I said a silent prayer of thanks for all those busy little environmentalists who had made burning restrictions possible.

“I’m sorry to disturb you when you’re sick, Max,” I began, “but I really do need to get some background information from you regarding this case. You’re pretty much the only one I can turn to so far. I understand you’ve known Pete and Marcia Kelsey for some time.”

Much to my surprise, Maxwell Cole slapped the sodden hanky over his face and burst into great lurching, choking sobs. It was several long, noisy minutes before he was able to speak.

“It finally hit home this morning that she’s really gone,” he mumbled miserably at last. “Yesterday, I was like in a dream, a fog. It wasn’t real somehow, but today…”

The day before when I had encountered him in front of the Kelseys’ house, I had very much doubted the veracity of his claim of family friendship, but there in that suffocatingly hot living room, with unchecked tears rolling down his pudgy cheeks and dripping from the ends of his sagging mustache, the depth of Maxwell Cole’s grief was undeniable. As Max’s story spilled out, I found myself missing the old familiar antagonism. His friend’s death had taken all the fight out of him, and in spite of myself, I felt a certain grudging sympathy toward the man.

“From fifth grade,” he added brokenly. “That’s how long we were friends. Her family came to Seattle from southern Utah, someplace around St. George, I believe. They moved to the Hill the summer Marcia and I were between fourth and fifth grades. She liked to read and so did I. We met at the library branch up on Garfield Street. We both had permission to check books out of the adult section. All summer long we passed books back and forth. Marcia always turned down the corners of the sexy parts. She was a lot better at finding them than I was.”

He smiled sadly, tugging with both hands on the wispy ends of his drooping mustache as though hoping to massage them into some kind of order. It didn’t work.

“We were like that,” he went on. Max crossed two fingers and held them out in front of him for a moment to show me what he meant before letting them fall limply back into his lap.

“I never had a sister,” he said, “and Marcia never had a brother. We were both only children. She was like a sister to me.”

“You stayed friends from then on?” I asked.

“More or less. You know how kids are. We had a big fight during eighth grade. I can’t even remember now what it was about, but we didn’t speak for most of that year. We patched things up once we got to high school, though. We were in journalism together, and our senior year we were coeditors of the KUAY.”

“That what?”

“The KUAY,” he repeated. “Queen Anne High’s weekly newspaper. That’s where I first got interested in journalism. Chris was there too. He did sports.”

“Chris?” I asked. “Who’s he?”

“Chris McLaughlin. Her first husband. You didn’t know about him?”

“No.”

“Well,” Max said firmly. “Christopher McLaughlin was a creep, the absolute scum of the earth as far as I’m concerned. I never could see what she saw in him other than sex maybe. He seduced her early on, the night of the junior/senior prom, as a matter of fact. She told me about it at the time, we were that close, and I worried that maybe she’d get knocked up. Of course, that was long before anyone knew she was a Downwinder.”

“A what?”

“A Downwinder. Haven’t you ever heard of them?”

I shook my head. “They’re the people who lived downwind from the Nevada Test Site during the late fifties, when they were still doing aboveground nuclear testing,” he said.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Marcia was staying out on her grandparents’ ranch when they set off a particularly dirty test. Unexpected winds blew the radioactive crap right across her grandparents’ land. Both grandparents eventually died of cancer. The doctors later attributed Marcia’s sterility as well as her female difficulties to that, although nobody’s ever proven it in court. You know how that goes.”

Max paused for a moment, then hurried on. “Anyway, that’s why it was so wonderful when Pete showed up with a ready-made family.”

“You said Chris McLaughlin was her first husband. What ever happened to him?”

Maxwell Cole snorted derisively. “Who knows? Who cares? Marcia left him in Canada and came back home. Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned. Her folks were absolutely delighted to think she had finally come to her senses and left the creep. They helped her get an annulment-that cost them a pretty penny-and they also helped Marcia get back into school at the university. They weren’t wild about Pete to begin with, but they got along fine with him eventually. If it hadn’t been for him, they probably would have missed being grandparents altogether.”

While Max was speaking, I began putting together a rough chronology. Max and I were almost the same age. That meant Marcia Kelsey and Chris McLaughlin were too. Back then there had been only one reason why someone of my generation would disappear into the wilds of Canada and stay there-the Vietnam War.

“So Chris McLaughlin was a conscientious objector?” I asked.

Max nodded. “So he claimed. How’d you guess?”

“It figures,” I said.

“Chris was one of the very early models,” Max continued. “He took off for Canada in 1967 and dragged Marcia along up there with him. He married her on the way, just to put a good face on it, I guess, but her folks were heartbroken.

“I still don’t know everything that went on while they were up there. Marcia and I were always close, very close. We told each other secrets that we wouldn’t share with another living human being, but she never talked to me about those years in Canada, not the details anyway. It must have been pretty bad. She hinted around about drugs and some kind of commune living arrangement. I’ll say this much for him. When it came to scuzzy low-life stuff, Chris McLaughlin was always ahead of his time.”

“So how did she meet up with Pete Kelsey?”

Max shrugged. “Kismet. Fate. Whatever you want to call it. I hadn’t seen her for almost three years when she just happened to drop by the house to say hello and to tell me that her annulment had been granted. She came by to say she was a ”free woman.“ Pete Kelsey was there that afternoon, giving my mother an estimate for a remodeling job she wanted done. As soon as they laid eyes on one another, Pete and Marcia hit it off. I’ve never seen anything like it, and Marcia was wild about Erin. You’ve heard of whirlwind courtships? Theirs took the cake. They got married three weeks to the day from the time they met. A justice of the peace married them right in this very room, here in front of the fireplace. I was the best man, and my mother was the matron of honor. We took care of Erin while they were off on their honeymoon.”

“It sounds almost too good to be true.”

“I think that’s what the Riggs thought at first, that Marcia had screwed up again.”

“Who are the Riggs?”

“Marcia’s folks. LaDonna and George Riggs. He’s retired now. They spend their winters in Arizona and their summers in Gig Harbor. Like I said, to begin with, they weren’t wild about the idea. For one thing, Pete wasn’t Mormon, and Marcia was, in name at least. She was always way too wild for her own good. She’s what they call a Jack Mormon. Much to her folks’ surprise, though, after the wedding, Pete didn’t raise the least objection to George and LaDonna taking Erin along to church with them. They ended up with a good Mormon grandchild after all. Erin is quite devout. She takes it all very seriously. She’s all set to go on a mission next year after she finishes her degree.”

“What can you tell me about their marriage?”

Max eyed me speculatively. “What did Pete tell you?”

“That it wasn’t all a bed of roses.”

“No, I suppose not,” Max agreed. “They’ve had their troubles just like everybody else, but what can you expect? They come from such different backgrounds.”

“What exactly is Pete’s background?”

“His folks divorced when he was very young. He was on his own by the time he was sixteen, so you can see how he and Marcia would be coming from opposite ends of the spectrum, with her family solid and stable, and his anything but. Anyway, they were both a little on the wild side when they got married, and I think maybe they both fooled around some on the side-Marcia more than Pete, perhaps-but that was always just surface stuff. Those were meaningless relationships. There was never anything that came close to breaking them up. Those two shared something very special between them, a real bond. I always envied them that.”

This was a somewhat different marital report card than the one we’d gotten from Pete Kelsey himself.

“So you knew about their so-called open marriage?”

Max looked startled. “Pete called it that?”

I nodded and Max drew a long breath. “I knew about it, as much as an outsider ever knows about those kinds of things, but like I said, those occasional dalliances didn’t mean that much to either one of them. They both cared about staying together, not only for each other but for Erin as well.”

“What if one of them did?” I suggested, letting a hint of Paul Kramer’s pet theory loose in the room for the first time. “What if one of those dalliances turned serious? Would Pete Kelsey have become violent about it?”

“You’re implying…No. No way. Not on your life.”

I heard what Max said, but declarations of that sort from good friends are to be taken with a grain of salt.

“Did you and Marcia stay close through the years?”

“Not so much lately,” Max admitted ruefully. “Pete and I have become good friends over the years, and we keep in touch. I try to go down to the Trolleyman every once in a while when I know he’s there. I tip back a pint of bitters, and Pete and I have a chance to shoot the breeze.”

“How long has he worked for the Trolleyman?”

“Off and on for as long as they’ve been open. He likes it, he’s good with the customers, and he’s dependable. They flex with him when he has a remodeling job.”

“What’s his background, do you know?”

“Not really. He came from Ottawa originally, I believe. When he did that work for my mother, he was just starting out and struggling. All he had then was his green card and a whole lot of talent. After he and Marcia married, of course, he became a naturalized citizen.”

“Where’d he go to school?”

“To college, you mean?”

I nodded and Max shook his head. “I know he went somewhere, but I’m not sure where. Started out as a history major and decided he didn’t like it. I don’t think he ever graduated. And for the kind of thing he does, he certainly doesn’t need a degree. His work speaks for itself. Believe me, he makes a very good living doing remodels when he feels like it. He can pick and choose his jobs, too. He’s a craftsman, you see, someone who understands wood. That’s rare these days.”

“What about Erin?”

Max’s face clouded over. “Erin’s one sweet kid, and she couldn’t have loved Marcia more if she’d been her real mother.”

“You’d say Marcia was a good mother then?”

“The best. Not according to her mother, maybe. Not in the old-fashioned motherhood-and-apple-pie sense. LaDonna Riggs still believes a woman’s place is in the home. I don’t think she ever approved of the fact that Pete did most of the cooking and cleaning. Marcia may have been sloppy as hell, but she was an interested mother, a concerned mother, and a smart one.

“She exposed Erin to the arts, to the kinds of plays and books and performances that most kids never have a chance of seeing. Marcia recognized Erin’s intelligence early on and encouraged her every step of the way. Erin finished up her undergraduate degree at the U-Dub here in Seattle in three years flat, and now she’s down in Eugene working on her masters in English lit.”

Max paused. “She’s my godchild, you know. Did anyone tell you that? She was almost two when I first met her, but Pete said she didn’t have a godfather because he’d never thought of it. I was deeply honored. It’s probably the closet thing I’ll ever get to being a parent, I suppose,” he added somewhat wistfully.

“Are you in touch with Erin?” I asked.

He nodded. “She writes to me at least once or twice a month. In fact, Pete asked me if I could go down and pick her up from the airport this morning and I hated to turn him down, but with this cold, I told him I’d better not. I wouldn’t want her to catch it.”

“Have you ever heard of someone named Andrea Stovall?”

Max frowned. “Andrea Stovall,” he repeated. “It sounds familiar. I’m sure I’ve heard the name, but I can’t place it.”

“The Seattle Federated Teachers’ Association,” I said. “Now does it ring a bell?”

He nodded. “That’s right. She’s the president, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Did Marcia ever say anything to you about her?”

Max paused to consider. “Wait a minute. Now that you mention it, I think I may have met her once at a Christmas party at Pete and Marcia’s. As I recall, I didn’t like her much. Dykish females tend to rub me the wrong way.”

“Dykish? She didn’t strike me that way, and I thought she was married.”

“Divorced,” Max answered. “A lot of times they get married, but it’s just for show and it doesn’t last. Don’t look so surprised, J. P. It’s not like they have to go around wearing a sign or something.”

An errant thought crossed my mind. “What about Marcia Kelsey?” I asked.

Now it was Max’s turn to be surprised. “Marcia? A les? No way. She was a fun-loving girl, all right, but strictly heterosexual. If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

This time it was my pager that went off and interrupted the process. Max directed me to the kitchen phone, which was far enough away to be out of earshot when I called in, I was given Ron Peters’ number.

“There you are,” he said when he heard my voice. “Amy gave me strict orders to get in touch with you early today, but I’ve been stuck in a meeting all morning long. We just got out.”

“What do you need?”

“We wanted you to come to dinner tonight. Amy’s doing a pot roast. It should be good.”

A pot roast? Real home cooking? It was too good to resist. “What time?” I asked.

“What time can you make it?”

My after-work AA meeting would last from five-thirty to six-thirty in the basement of a downtown church across from Denny Park.

“Is seven too late?”

“No. That’ll be fine. See you then.”

Ron started to hang up, but I stopped him. “Wait a minute, Ron. There’s something I need some help with.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you remember hearing anything about a series of bomb threats at the school district office last fall?”

“Bomb threats? I don’t remember anything about it.”

“Me either,” I told him, “but they happened, and they didn’t get reported. What I want to know is who buried those reports and how they did it.”

“Sounds like something that’s right up my alley,” Ron said. I could hear a smile lighting up his face, an echo of the old enthusiasm leaking into his voice.

“That’s what I thought. By the way, don’t try checking directly with the Firearms and Explosives guys,” I warned. “We don’t want to get Sparky’s tail caught in a wringer on this one.”

“Don’t worry,” Ron Peters responded with a laugh. “I have my own sources, and I’ll be the soul of discretion. See you at seven.”

I left the phone and went back into Maxwell Cole’s living room. He was leaning back with his eyes closed. For a moment I thought he had fallen asleep, but he sat up as soon as he heard me pause in the doorway.

“Did Pete tell you about the harassing phone calls?” Max asked.

“Yes.”

“And he told you that Erin had been getting them too?”

“Yes.”

“Is it possible the phone calls and the murders are related?”

As a loyal friend of Pete Kelsey’s, Max was gently trying to lead me away from pointing an accusing finger in Pete’s direction. Under the circumstances, I probably would have done the same thing. He was also fishing for information.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I replied evenly, trying not to let any information slip into my words or intonation. “It’s much too early to speculate.”

“Well, I think they are,” Max declared forcefully, maybe trying to convince himself as much as he wanted to convince me. “When you find the person making those phone calls, you’ll find the killer. You mark my words.”

It always sounds so easy when somebody else says it. So easy and so simple. Saying it and doing it, however, are two entirely different things.

“Right, Max,” I said, picking up my coat and showing myself to the door. “We’ll have to see about that.”

We’ll just have to wait and see.