Proof of Life

by J. A. Jance

  I couldn’t help but feel a moment of gratitude that despite my own similar history of drinking, I still had my health, and my kids and grandkids were all a part of my life.

  Once inside the coffee shop, while I stood in line to order the drinks—a mocha for him and a plain Jane coffee for me—Patrick managed to score two leather chairs in the front window of the place.

  “He was murdered, you know,” Patrick muttered as I set the cups down on the scarred coffee table between his chair and mine.

  That, of course, was precisely the premise on which Erin and I and even Al Thorne had been operating, but Patrick’s air of dead certainty surprised me.

  “You know that how?” I asked.

  “Because he’d stopped drinking,” Patrick declared. “We both had.”

  That statement left me confused. Based on what I’d seen that Friday evening at El Gaucho, I was pretty sure Maxwell Cole had still been on the sauce at the time of his death.

  “I quit three months ago,” Patrick continued. “Todd would have gotten his thirty-day chip at the next meeting, but he died first. They claim his blood alcohol level was 0.36. Someone got him to fall off the wagon in a big way. I’m not saying they bodily poured the booze down his throat, but once he started drinking, he didn’t stop until it was too late, and he was a goner.”

  Mrs. Reeder, the hoyden who was my senior English teacher at Ballard High School, was fierce when it comes to the grammatical sin of faulty pronoun reference. “Hells bells, people,” she would say, “a pronoun must refer to the noun that immediately precedes it!” The missing noun in Patrick’s statement had led me to the wrong conclusion.

  “Wait, you’re talking about Todd Farraday being murdered? I thought you meant Maxwell Cole.”

  Patrick shrugged. “They’re both dead, aren’t they? And that’s the last thing Todd ever said to me—that he was going downtown someplace to have dinner with an ex-P-I reporter named Maxwell Cole. Todd said Cole wanted to interview him—something concerning Todd’s mother and maybe something else about that earthquake that happened a few years back.”

  “Which one?” I asked. “The Nisqually Quake, maybe?”

  “Beats me,” Patrick said. “That’s all he said—that earthquake. He didn’t come right out and name it.”

  “Did Todd happen to mention where he and Max were meeting?”

  “A joint on Queen Anne, I think.”

  “Sneaky Pete’s maybe?”

  Patrick frowned and then nodded. “That’s probably the place,” he said.

  “And then what happened?”

  “That Cole guy arranged for a cab to come pick Todd up. He left here late in the afternoon.”

  “What day?”

  “It was a Wednesday.”

  “Wednesday, January fourth?” I asked.

  Patrick nodded. “Sounds about right. Todd left and never came back. Early the next morning he turned up on the front porch of his mother’s old place on Queen Anne. The house belongs to his stepfather now. Todd wasn’t just dead drunk; he was actually dead. Acute alcohol poisoning is what I heard. His stepfather’s wife found him there first thing in the morning when she went out to get the newspaper. Once I heard what happened, I figured Maxwell Cole must have plied Todd with booze in order to get him to talk. A few days ago, when I found out Cole was dead, too, I didn’t know what to think. This afternoon, when I heard you had come around asking questions about both of them, I was afraid I might be next.”

  “But you still came out to talk to me?” I asked.

  Patrick shrugged. “It’s a long time until my next check. I wanted that hundred bucks. Besides,” he added, “compared to what’s coming down the pike to get me, I figured going out fast might not be such a bad idea. So what’s the deal here? If you’re not a cop, what’s your connection to all this?”

  “I used to be a cop,” I explained, “but I’m not anymore. Someone asked me to look into what happened to Maxwell Cole. In the course of going through some old case files, I stumbled across Todd’s name. When I tried to look him up, I found his obituary instead. It said he died after a long illness.”

  “Alcoholism is an illness,” Patrick said. “Just ask anyone in AA. Besides, family members are usually the ones who write up those death notices. They get to say whatever they want, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a lot of sugarcoating in those. After all, just because someone takes himself out by swilling down too much booze doesn’t mean mom and pop want to come right out and say so in front of God and everybody.”

  Patrick wasn’t wrong there. I knew for a fact that some families, especially the more prominent ones, are able to airbrush away any number of inconvenient or unsavory details in publicly disseminated obituaries. Todd may not have been Larry Harden’s blood relation, but the connection would have been close enough that having it widely known that his stepson had died of booze might have besmirched Hard-on Harden’s public image. I guessed that he would have had a hand in directing how Todd’s death notice was written, and that kind of misdirection would have been far easier to do since no one had shown any interest in mounting an official investigation into Todd’s death.

  “So Todd went out to meet with Maxwell Cole and then, after tying one on with him, he went to visit his stepfather?”

  “I doubt he went to the house under his own steam,” Patrick said. “I figured once Todd was bombed out of his gourd, Cole must have dropped him off there.”

  I was trying to make sense of Patrick’s story, and I couldn’t see why Max would have done that. But then, at that point, maybe Max thought Todd was already too drunk to send him back to the Refuge.

  “You don’t think Todd would have gone to his stepfather’s place of his own accord?” I asked. “Why not?”

  “Because Todd hated Larry Harden’s guts, that’s why, and ditto for the guy’s new wife.”

  “So Harden has remarried?”

  “I guess,” Patrick answered. “According to Todd, if it hadn’t been for Harden, his mom wouldn’t have thrown him out of the house and out of his job, and just maybe she wouldn’t have disowned him, either. To be fair, she didn’t disown him completely. When she died, she left him a small trust fund. Todd was also supposed to receive part of the proceeds if and when his stepfather sold the house. Rent at the Refuge is based on ability to pay. Most of the residents, me included, live there on the state’s dime. Todd had enough money that he was actually paying his own freight.”

  “If that’s how Todd felt about his stepfather, I can’t see any reason for him to go to their house, drunk or sober.”

  “Me, either,” Patrick muttered. “When you figure that out, let me know.”

  “After you heard about Todd, did you speak to anyone at the Refuge about what had happened?” I asked. “For instance, did you mention to anyone that you thought Maxwell Cole might have been the one responsible for getting him so drunk?”

  Patrick laughed outright at the question. “Let’s see,” he said bitterly. “I seem to remember trying to talk to the head counselor about it. Guess what? He told me to get lost. He said Todd was a drunk who had fallen off the wagon, gone on a binge, and wound up dying in the process. Big deal. Drunks die all the time. Good riddance and who cares? One less boozer to worry about, and now the Refuge has an open bed, right?”

  “No cops came around asking any questions?”

  “Cop or no cop, as far as questions are concerned, you’re the first.”

  I had no doubt that a quick call to Dr. Roz would provide me with whatever official information existed concerning Todd Farraday’s death, but it was pretty clear no one had regarded it as suspicious.

  I paused for a moment and looked through my notes. “So you and Todd were friends?”

  “Neighbors more than friends,” Patrick answered. “People who turn up at the Refuge usually have issues that don’t work out well when it comes to being friend material.”

  “But, given the circumstances, you were close?”

  �
�I suppose.”

  “Was there anyone else, either a resident or someone on the outside who was friends with Todd?”

  “The only person I can think of would be Jason.”

  My ears pricked up. Was this another name from the murder book? “Jason Ragsdale by any chance?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Patrick answered. “Don’t think I ever heard his last name, although Todd said they’d been friends since they were kids. Jason would drop by every once in a while, always dressed in a fancy suit and tie and driving a BMW. I got the feeling that Jason was the guy who helped Todd get off the streets and into the Refuge.”

  Here was someone else from the distant past whom I’d need to track down.

  Patrick looked at his watch. “If there’s nothing more, I should be getting back home. It’s time for my pills.”

  We left the coffee shop. It was quiet in the car as I drove Patrick back home, and I could tell our long conversation had taken a toll on him. “Todd was lucky to have you as a neighbor,” I assured him, as I pulled into the parking lot. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Nobody ever said that to me before, and I appreciate it. Losing Todd hurt a lot more than I expected, but would you mind doing me a favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “If you do find out what really happened to him, would you let me know?”

  “Glad to,” I told him. “You can count on it.”

  Once Patrick was out of the car, I checked my phone. A call had come in while we’d been talking. The number wasn’t one I recognized, and I had let the call go to voice mail. When I checked the message, it was short and to the point. “Detective Kevin Blaylock here, with Seattle PD Homicide. I’m investigating the death of Duc Nguyen. Could you please give me a call.”

  I returned the call, but when the voice mail prompt came up, I didn’t bother leaving a message. The things I wanted to discuss with Kevin Blaylock were too complex to leave on an answering machine. My next call was to Todd Hatcher.

  “What now?” he asked, sounding very much as though he was tired of hearing from me.

  “I need some phone numbers.”

  “You do realize that it’s still Saturday, and my interns still aren’t on duty, right?”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said with a sigh. “Shoot.”

  I asked for numbers on both Jason Ragsdale and Todd Farraday.

  “Don’t hold your breath,” he advised. “I’m putting together a file of material for you, but I don’t know how long it’s going to take.”

  Once we hung up, I dialed Mel’s number. It was getting on toward evening. The sun had come out briefly. I had a feeling Mel and Lucy would once again heed the call of Myrtle Edwards Park, and I wasn’t wrong.

  “Where are you?” Mel panted into the phone. “And what’s for dinner?”

  I had now heard mention of Sneaky Pete’s from two entirely separate sources. It seemed reasonable to stop by and pay the joint a call, and picking up some takeout would provide as good a cover story as any.

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’ll bring something home. We won’t starve.”

  Sneaky Pete’s is right at the bottom of what’s known as the Counter Balance. Back in the old streetcar days, counterweights were used to haul the trolleys up the steep hillside. On the way back down, they provided braking. Sneaky Pete’s, located on the site of a former church, did, as advertised, have customer parking available at no charge. I availed myself of same and went inside.

  Based on the name alone, I expected the place to be something of a dive, but it wasn’t. There was a gas log fireplace burning at the far end of the room. The room was pleasantly lit, and the leather armchairs at the cocktail tables looked reasonably comfortable. Knowing this was close to the time when Max would have come in for one of his dinnertime visits, I made straight for the bar and for the curious cop’s best friend—the bartender.

  “What’ll you have?” the portly man behind the counter asked.

  “Club soda with lime and a takeout menu,” I told him.

  “Coming right up.”

  The drink and the menu came together. “You new around here?” the bartender asked.

  “Not new,” I told him. “My wife and I live part-time down in the Regrade. This is my first time here, though. A friend of mine used to be a regular.”

  “What friend?” he asked.

  “Maxwell Cole.”

  The bartender’s jaw tightened slightly before he changed the subject. “Did you figure out what you wanted?”

  I ordered two to-go orders of fish and chips with coleslaw and then settled in with my drink.

  “Shame about poor old Max,” the barkeep said the next time he came back down the bar. “Usually stopped by in the evenings to grab a bite to eat, and then he liked to sit here at the bar, working on his laptop. He was a good tipper, but I suspect he was a bit on the lonely side.”

  I pulled out my phone and scrolled through until I found the mug shot Al Thorne had sent me. “Ever see this guy before?”

  Rather than checking out the phone, the bartender gave me a wary look. “You a cop?” he asked.

  “Like I said, Max was a friend of mine, and you’re right, what happened to him was a crying shame. The cops seem to believe his death was an accident, but I’m beginning to wonder about that. I suspect there’s a good chance the guy in this photo could have been involved in what happened.”

  The bartender pulled out his own phone. He removed a tiny pair of reading glasses from a leather case on the back of the phone and then perched the cheaters onto his nose. He studied the mug shot and then passed the phone back.

  “I’ve seen him before all right,” he said, “but he sure as hell didn’t look like this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The bartender pointed at the photo. “See there,” he asked, “that little teardrop tattoo? I recognized that right off.”

  Now it was my turn to track down my reading glasses. Once I did, a closer examination of the mug shot revealed the presence of the tattoo.

  “So how was he different?” I asked.

  “He wasn’t wearing a jail jumpsuit, for one thing,” the bartender said. “He was all gussied up in a suit and tie, enough so that at first I thought he might be one of those foreign engineer types working for Google or Microsoft. Except this guy spoke with an American accent. This guy was here the same night Max was.”

  “The last time he was here?”

  The bartender nodded. “Max had been here for a while. He left and then came right back in, complaining he had a flat tire and would need to wait for Triple A to show up and fix it. To my surprise, Tattoo Guy here hopped off his barstool and offered to go outside and change the tire for him.”

  “Wait,” I said. “He offered to change Max’s flat?”

  “Yup,” the bartender said, handing me back the phone. “I thought it was damned decent of him to do that for a complete stranger.”

  “So they weren’t friends or acquaintances?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “Did the two of them leave together?”

  The bartender nodded. “The Good Samaritan left his drink on the bar. When he didn’t come back to finish it, I figured Max must have given him a ride home. The next thing I knew, Max was dead, but since everything I heard said it was an accident, I didn’t give much thought to the tire-changing thing. Is it possible Tattoo Guy had something to do with what happened?”

  The words “we have a bingo” came to mind. “It’s possible,” I said. With that, I pulled out my cell phone and redialed Kevin Blaylock’s number. This time he answered on the third ring.

  “Blaylock here,” he said.

  “My name’s Beaumont,” I said. “J. P. Beaumont.”

  “Thanks for calling me back. You wouldn’t happen to be Scotty’s dad, would you by any chance?”

  “You know my son?” I asked.

  “I met Scott when he was goin
g through the academy. I was teaching one of the crime scene classes, and we hit it off. He brags about you a lot. When Erin mentioned your name earlier, I wondered if you weren’t related, but right then wasn’t exactly an opportune time to ask.”

  “Where are you right now?” I asked him, cutting to the chase. “We need to talk.”

  “What about?”

  “I think I know how your vehicular homicide victim’s prints ended up at the scene of Maxwell Cole’s fatal fire.”

  There was a slight pause, but that was all it was—slight. “I live up by Northgate,” Blaylock answered. “Where do you want to meet and how soon?”

  The bartender had just deposited my to-go bag on the counter in front of me. I wanted to be in on whatever conversation Detective Blaylock had with the bartender, but I didn’t want Mel’s food to get cold in the meantime. Cold fish and chips are fine for me, but Mel deserved better.

  “There’s a place on lower Queen Anne called Sneaky Pete’s,” I told him. “Let’s meet up there in half an hour or so.”

  “How will I recognize you?”

  “Just ask the bartender,” I said. “He’ll be able to point you in the right direction.”

  CHAPTER 25

  I MAY HAVE WANTED MEL’S FOOD TO ARRIVE WHILE IT was still hot, but I did not want to explain why I was heading back out to meet up with a Seattle PD homicide detective. To that end, I took the coward’s way out. I drove up to the front entrance of Belltown Terrace, called the doorman—a new guy; Bob wasn’t on duty—and asked him to deliver the takeout bag to our penthouse unit.

  Then I drove back to Sneaky Pete’s, where the parking lot was full to the brim. After parking three blocks away I trudged back up the hill in rain that was suddenly more than a “light shower.” As a matter of civic pride, people who live in Seattle mostly don’t believe in carrying umbrellas. That meant that by the time I got back to the bar, I was soaked. The bar had filled up during my brief absence. I ended up grabbing a table at the far end of the room just in front of the gas log fire. Considering the state of my clothing, that was a good thing.