After introducing themselves, Court waved at the others hanging about. “Maybe talking in private might be better.”
Wu made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I’ve got nothing to hide, detectives.” His English was heavily accented.
“You were heard arguing with Berkeley Drummond last week. What was your argument about?” Court asked.
The old woman interrupted, shooing everyone else out with a bony hand, telling them in Mandarin to go outside and play before settling herself onto the chair next to the bed.
The man’s face transformed into a smooth mask. A perfect poker face. “I wanted better hours.” He held up his hands as if to indicate that was all.
“The argument you had was described as being very heated. And lengthy. You expect us to believe it was about your hours?” Court asked.
Wu examined his hands. “What can I say? I wanted more hours, better hours, not only for me but for about twenty of us.”
Wu had dropped his gaze. It was a sure sign the other man was not being completely honest. “And did Drummond give them to you?” Court asked.
Wu interlaced his fingers and laid his hands on his chest, affecting a nonchalant air. “He promised to listen to the union rep.”
Wu was lying. His voice had risen in pitch, signaling the telltale signs of stress creeping in. Besides, Colchuck Down had a reputation for being more than fair to its workers. And why would Wu go around a union rep if he had one?
The Po-Po growled at Wu in Chinese, ordering him to tell the police to leave him in peace. She looked at Court, challenging him, chin up. “Hóng máo guǐzi. Gǔnkāi.”
Court hoped his own poker face was working. She’d hurled the insult, no doubt to see if he spoke Mandarin. He pretended not to understand it. “What did she say?”
Wu responded with a curt, “My mother doesn’t trust white people.”
The old woman’s lips turned white as they pressed against each other. She crossed her arms and returned to a sullen silence, her dark eyes narrow slits focused on Court. He wasn’t sure she’d bought his feigned indifference to being called a red devil who should go to hell—about the rudest thing a Chinese grandmother would ever say.
Ivy plowed on. “Can you tell us where you were last Wednesday evening?”
“I was at home. With my family.” He pointed at his foot. “After I had this seen to at the hospital. Why? What is this about, anyway?”
There were enough blankets obscuring his injuries that it was impossible to tell whether it was the foot or whole leg that was involved. “When were you at the hospital?”
Wu looked over at his mother. They conferred for a moment in Mandarin.
“I was there from about three until seven in the evening. At Harborview.”
Court managed to withhold a groan. How convenient for Mr. Wu. It would be part of the Triad’s MO to make sure an obvious suspect had an alibi while another member did a hit, however. What a mess. And two suspects at different hospitals at the same time? “You are aware that your employer, Berkeley Drummond, is dead, aren’t you?”
“I saw it on the news. I had nothing to do with Mr. Drummond’s death.” His words were clipped. Deliberate.
“Do you know of anyone who might have wanted him dead?” Court asked.
Wu shrugged. “No.”
“Mr. Wu,” Court said. He paused, his mouth suddenly dry. He had to swallow a couple of times before continuing. “Mr. Wu, are you or anyone you know affiliated with the Triad?”
Wu’s eyes widened. “Me?” He laughed. “Detective, you have an overactive imagination.”
“Do I?”
Wu’s face became a blank slate again. “Yes.” He shook his leg and held up his foot. “I have been completely indisposed since Wednesday afternoon.”
“What happened to your foot, Mr. Wu?” Ivy asked.
Wu and his mother exchanged a glance before Wu answered. He answered with a perfectly smooth poker face. “I dropped my garden shears on my foot and needed some stitches.”
33
“Garden shears, my ass.” Ivy said as soon as their car doors were shut. “Did you see that place? I took a peek out the window, and the back yard is as bereft of life as the front.” She thrust the keys into the car’s ignition.
Court waited until they were a block away from the Wu home to fill Ivy in on the details he’d gleaned from the sparse Mandarin. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make some assumptions. “The altar thing? Totally Triad. I bet the Po-Po is one of the enforcers or something.”
“Po-Po,” Ivy said, smiling around the word. “Does that mean grandma? And what did she say? Sounded like she was not happy.”
“Po-Po means ‘old woman.’ Sort of generic. Did you see her feet?” Court ran his hands through his hair. “When I was in China, back in the late Eighties, I had a host grandmother with those things. God. What a fucking creep show. Smelled disgusting, too.” He shuddered.
“Is that what that smell was? Looks painful, teetering around like that. What did she say to you, Court?”
“Oh. Doesn’t sound half so bad in English. She literally called me a ‘red fur devil’ and told me to ‘go to hell.’ It’s way ruder in Chinese.”
“Huh, I guess some things don’t translate well. So, how does this fit into Drummond’s murder? I imagine there are hundreds of people working regular jobs and also in various gangs.”
“The Triad is not just any gang. But, yeah, if his alibi checks out, it’s unlikely he has anything to do with the death personally. One of his ‘brethren,’ maybe. Crap.”
“I bet Wu doesn’t even own a rake, let alone a pair of garden shears.”
“Let’s call Harborview and get the details on his injury. I’ve got a guy over there.”
“Hold on, Pearson, what about HIPAA? They won’t give you information over the phone. We’ll need a warrant.”
“Like I said, I have a guy over there. Fuck HIPAA. We’ll go the legal round if we need it.” It only took him a few minutes to get his friend to give him the lowdown. He turned off his phone, mopping at his forehead with the back of his hand. “Well, damn.”
Ivy waved a hand in a circular “out with it” motion, keeping her eyes on the road.
“Looks like Wu’s been to Harborview ten times in the last three years. Mostly minor injuries. A couple were work-related. He was there Wednesday night, but, it wasn’t for some nebulous garden-shears wound. Someone cut off his toe.”
Ivy sucked in her breath. “Oy. His toe? Did he think we wouldn’t check? Cut it off? As in off-off? I thought the Triad got all stabby with swords.”
“That’s true for bigger violations. They don’t kill people until they’ve fucked up big time. Taking a toe is personal, more like punishment for failing at a smaller task.”
“The thing about longer hours was all BS, wasn’t it?”
Court fingered the window button and pushed it down a little bit, a small spray of cool mist hit him before he pushed the window back up. He scrubbed at his face with both hands. “Yeah. He had no reason to go to Drummond on behalf of other employees. That’s union business. No. And, if you think about it, Agnes Mooring told us Drummond called Wu into his office, but Wu said he went to Drummond about hours. I’m going to believe Mooring on this one. Given that altar, I’m thinking Triad. Wu was in shipping, and Drummond was on to him about something. Drugs? People? Fuck all. This is getting complicated.”
“I like complicated.”
Court’s phone buzzed with a new text. “Perfect timing, Langston. Audrey Drummond is furiously awaiting our arrival at the station.”
34
Court peered through the observation glass at Audrey Drummond and Harlan Eccles. She could hardly sit still in her chair. She kept moving her hands between her lap and the table and looking around the room. Eccles put a reassuring hand on hers. It didn’t stay long, and it felt entirely paternalistic, not the hand of a lover or close confidant. He and Ivy walked into the room with a pad of yellow paper a
nd a clipboard holding the bridge-toll documentation.
Court sat across from Audrey Drummond while Ivy sat across from Eccles. He flipped on the tape and completed the recording ritual of introducing everyone and getting Drummond to acknowledge the session was being taped with her knowledge. “Do you know why we brought you in, Mrs. Drummond?”
Audrey Drummond nodded, looking down at her hands. “Yes, I do. I believe you’ve learned I crossed the bridge Wednesday night. Shortly after Berkeley did.”
That was easy. Now, if only she’d drop a confession with as much ease. Court spun the report from WSDOT around for her to look at. “Thank you for coming clean so easily. Why did you lie to us the other day?”
Drummond looked down at the report’s three highlighted lines. She had the decency to look sheepish. Eccles reached out to pat her hand. “It’s okay, Audrey, you should have told them the truth the other day. Do it now.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply. “I lied because I forgot all about the toll on the bridge. I didn’t think my trip in would make a bit of difference, so I lied to keep things simple.”
Court could barely believe what he was hearing. Simple? “Being asked to come down here is less than simple, Mrs. Drummond. Were you trying to keep things simple, or were you trying to hide the fact you followed your husband into Seattle the night he was murdered?”
She shrank back, raising her hands in dignified surrender. “No. No. You’ve got it wrong. Yes, I followed Berkeley from home to Capitol Hill. He parked, and I parked down the street behind a minivan so he couldn’t see me. I watched him get out to see where he was going. I knew who he was going to see, but I had never asked where this place was before. I had to follow him.”
She clasped her hands together in front of her and placed them on the table. “When he stopped to talk to those kids, my heart wanted to break. Here he was, one of the richest men in the state stopping to talk to a bunch of homeless kids. I told you he was a good man, didn’t I?”
Court sensed a theme. Everyone in Berkeley Drummond’s family was taking great efforts to emphasize what a fantastic man he was. It came across as protesting too much. Maybe Berkeley Drummond wasn’t the saint he was made out to be. They’d have to dig deeper. The particulars of his death would shock and distance a lot of her friends. Audrey Drummond would end up a social pariah in Medina once the media got hold of the details. Or a laughingstock.
Mrs. Drummond wet her lips. “I watched him talk to those kids and hand them money. Then, he crossed the street and went into the building above the cute little café.”
The same café where Court had purchased sandwiches and juice for the teens Drummond had been talking to. He kept silent, waiting for the rest.
“After he went inside, I sat there and waited for a while, trying to decide whether or not to go inside. I finally decided I would leave it up to him and left. I never got out of my car.”
Court leaned forward, confused. “What would you leave up to him, Mrs. Drummond?”
“I wanted to make sure he told his dominatrix. About his condition.” Her voice had dropped to a desperate whisper. She sucked in a bigger supply of air before blurting out the rest. “I wanted to make sure he had told her he was dying. I wanted her to know she needed to be careful about how hard she pushed him. I didn’t want him dying in there. Not with her.”
Audrey Drummond’s coolness about the domme had some limits. She didn’t want her husband to die with the other woman. Instead, he had died, probably alone, in the domme’s studio, in a tangle of ropes on display for the world. If she’d followed him in, would her husband still be alive? She must be asking the same question. He didn’t see a need to rub it in.
Her cheeks colored as tears trickled down them. Eccles looked like he was about ready to jump in, but Court held a hand out to stop him from talking. He pushed the tissue box from the side of the table toward Drummond.
They weren’t done yet. They had her at the scene of the crime. The story might have been made up to gain their sympathy. Or to cover up.
“So, let me get this straight,” Court said. “You drive all the way into Seattle to make sure the dominatrix doesn’t hurt your husband. Then you sit in your car for half an hour while you think about it. Instead of going inside, you turn your car around and head back home? Really?”
Audrey Drummond moved her head up and down, looking more numbed and subdued than she had on Saturday.
“Yes, Detective. That is exactly what happened. I never got out of my car.” She met his eyes with a fiercely convincing sincerity.
Maybe he could shake her up by stretching the scenario a bit. “Nice story, Mrs. Drummond. But what if I told you those kids saw you follow your husband into the building? What if they saw you come back out half an hour later looking anxious and upset?” Court stood and leaned on the table, over Drummond. He raised his voice. “You went in with him. He told you how to tie him up, and you left him there to die because that is what he wanted.”
“No. No. No. It was nothing like that.” She grabbed a tissue out of the box and dabbed at her face. “I swear, I never got out of the car. Whoever said they saw me was lying. Or, they saw someone else. I chickened out. I never went inside. I didn’t want to meet her. I wanted him to be safe. Safe for the little time he had left.”
Court had made up the kids seeing her, of course, but had decided to try the play to see what kind of response he got from her. There was a long heavy silence. Court gave Drummond some time to compose herself, before nodding at Ivy to continue with the questioning.
Ivy leaned forward, her voice smooth and gentle, contrasting with Court’s harsh accusations. “Let’s try this. Let’s say we believe you. You were sitting in your car contemplating what you wanted to do. Maybe the killer walked by you while you were sitting there. Did you see anything? See anyone? Notice anything unusual?”
Sometimes getting people to talk about their story could trap them in lies. Ivy was going to try to trip her up by letting up on the pressure.
Drummond closed her eyes, let out a sigh of relief. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Let me think.” Her eyes moved beneath her lids. “There were about half a dozen teens hanging around outside the little store. And, there were lots of people out, walking.”
Her fingers worked at her temples, massaging them. “Then, Berkeley went inside, and I sat there, staring at the building. A bunch of businesspeople came out.”
“Think about all the people coming out of the building. Did you see anyone you recognize? Anyone who might have worked for your husband?” Ivy asked, stopping short.
Court could swear she was about to ask “anyone Chinese?”
Drummond closed her eyes again, shutting them tight. “No. People in casual business outfits. It was warm, so most people were carrying their jackets.” She blinked a few times and lifted her head from her hands before sitting back against her chair, deflated. Then, she sat up, her eyes moving quickly back and forth, her hands up by her ears, fingers wiggling around as she pieced something together. “Wait a minute. There was something. It wasn’t terribly odd, I suppose, but I thought I saw a priest come out as I was driving away.”
She smiled broadly, pleased with herself.
“You saw a priest leaving the building?” Ivy asked.
“Well, sort of. I thought he was a priest because he had a high collar, black around his neck but with the white part missing.”
Court had to work to not look at Ivy.
“Go on,” Ivy prompted.
“Well … what I mean is I saw a man leaving the building, and he had a high collar on. You know, up around his neck. But, I decided he wasn’t a priest after all. He was wearing a high-neck Manchu-style collar with a shirt over it. And jeans. It was…odd.”
Court felt the tingle he got when a real clue was presented to him. He leaned in, breaking into the back and forth. “Can you remember what he looked like?” A high black collar would match Hunter’s missing leather outf
it. It would also give her story some weight because the only people who knew about it were Hunter, the killer, and the police.
“Well, he was white. Younger than I am, maybe thirty- or fortysomething? I don’t think there was anything unusual about him. I didn’t pay that much attention.”
“Think, Mrs. Drummond. Think hard, because it’s very possible the man you saw killed your husband. You want to see him caught, don’t you?”
Drummond clenched her fists together and put her thumbs up to her mouth. Her eyes were wild now, moving back and forth in a desperate search for details. “Yes. Yes, of course I do. I only saw him for a few seconds. It was Capitol Hill, for goodness sake.”
Court caught Ivy’s attention and held up his hands to mimic drawing on a pad in the air. She pursed her lips but stood up and slipped out of the room.
Court leaned forward. “Mrs. Drummond, you realize we could charge you with obstructing justice for lying to us the other day?”
Eccles held up his hand. “Look, Detective, my client is being very cooperative. It’s got to be obvious to any sane person she had nothing to do with this death. She was a loving wife, and, with the brain tumor taking him soon anyway, there was no possible motive.”
“We could make a case for assisted suicide.” Court’s voice was clipped, matter of fact. He watched Audrey Drummond as he spoke. She flinched, her face screwing up tightly, her lips drawing downward. Either she was a good actress, or she was truly shocked and disgusted by his suggestion. “You could be making this other thing up. Maybe you followed your husband inside, and he told you how to tie him up. You did it because you knew he’d die a happy man.”
The color drained from her face. “Stop it. Stop it now. I would never want to see him…” Her face twisted, lips pulled tight against her teeth. “He never wanted me to see him like that. We kept it separate. Out of our relationship.”
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