by G. M. Ford
“A little early for protecting and serving, don’t you think?” Corso said.
“We never rest,” Wald assured him.
“You seen the papers?” Donald asked.
“Not yet.”
“I’ll bet you missed our press conference too.”
“Next time I’ll set the alarm.”
Both cops checked the area. “We kept it simple,” Wald said. “Phone tip. We go out for a look-see and, out of the blue, the guy attacks us. Densmore and Defeo get offed in the struggle.”
“Works for me,” Corso said, rubbing his face with his hands.
Donald stepped in closer to Corso. His blue eyes were filigreed with red. “You sure?” he asked. “Last night isn’t going to show up in a book or something, is it?”
Corso looked him over. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I spent last night right here.” Corso yawned. “Read till about midnight.”
“Nothing like a good book,” Donald said.
Corso agreed and then yawned again. Covering his mouth this time.
“You ready for a little mirth?” Wald asked.
“I love the smell of irony in the morning,” Corso said.
“The lab says Defeo had a bullet in his head.”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”
“They say the bullet’s the cause of death.”
“So?”
“They also say the slug came from Densmore’s piece.”
“No shit,” Corso said.
“Who taught you to shoot? I may want to take lessons,” Donald joked.
“I learned from the KGB,” Corso said with a straight face.
“We told ’em Andy must have gotten a salvo off on the way down,” Wald said with a grimace.
“Was that before or after the top half of his head got vaporized?”
“We opted for before,” Donald said.
Corso shrugged. “It’ll look better on his record than on mine.”
Wald shook his head. “Amazing, ain’t it? Densmore makes every mistake a cop can make, damn near gets us all killed, and he comes out of this thing looking like Rambo.”
“Radio said Himes had already said his final words when the call came from the governor,” Corso said.
Wald whistled silently. “Six more minutes and your boy Himes was history,” Wald said.
“He’s fired his ACLU attorney and hired Myron Mendenhal,” Donald said, naming Seattle’s most successful personal-injury specialist.
“He’s gonna get millions,” Wald offered.
“Got a press conference called for this afternoon.”
“What about you guys?” Corso asked.
Wald looked as if he was going to puke. “I’m getting promoted to lieutenant. Chucky here’s getting a commendation for valor.”
“The public does so like a happy ending,” Corso sneered. He got to his feet. Stretched. And then side-stepped up the slip, past the cops.
The good weather had the weekend warriors out. Four boats up, a red-haired woman he’d never seen before was scrubbing the deck of a Morgan Out-Island. Farther along on the far side, a couple of boatyard types were replacing the roller furling on a Catalina thirty-six. The new cable and fittings ran nearly the length of the dock. Half a dozen other boats had people crawling over them. Sunday on the dock.
“What about this Defeo guy?” Corso asked.
Wald shrugged. “The usual. School record full of shrinks and counselors. Been through the mental-health system and back. Diagnosed as schizophrenic when he was sixteen. Applied to the Seattle and King County police departments, about three times each. Took the tests for all four branches of the armed services. Nobody wanted any part of him.”
“A regular super criminal,” Corso said.
“His current doctor and his therapist are both playing hardball. Claiming doctor/patient privilege. Holding out for court orders. It’ll be a week or so before we can be certain, but we’re pretty damn sure Defeo must have told his mama what he was doing back in ninety-eight.”
“Either that or she figured it out on her own,” Donald added.
“You guys see that pile of burnt stuff in the back-yard?” Corso asked.
“His mama’s stuff,” Wald said.
“Interesting relationship there.”
“Freud’d have a field day,” Donald agreed.
Wald rolled his eyes. “Anyway…instead of dropping a quarter on her own flesh and blood, Mama took away his genuine lambs of God ear tags, got him on medication and into therapy. Which, if you don’t count eight murders, worked just peachy until she died a couple of months back.”
“At which time, he, of course, stopped taking the meds,” Wald added.
“And the killing started again,” Donald finished.
“You find the rest of the clothes?”
“One set was still at the dry cleaners. He had ’em all cleaned before he mounted them. Thoughtful of him, don’t you think?”
“We’ve identified six sets for sure,” Wald said. He ran down the list from memory. Kate Mitchell, Analia Nisovic, and Jennifer Robison from ninety-eight. And all three recent victims, Alice Crane-Carter, Denise Gould, and Tiffany Eyre. “The other four we’re working on,” Wald concluded.
“Five,” Corso said.
“Five what?” Donald demanded.
“The other five sets of clothes. You said you’d identified six. That leaves five.” He looked from cop to cop. “There’s eleven victims, right?”
“We’ve got ten sets of clothes,” Wald said. “Nine from the house and one from the dry cleaner.”
“Where’s the other set?” Corso asked.
“You read the shit in that room, didn’t you?” Donald said. “That crap about the ten brides of Christ. He only needed ten sets.”
“Which,” noted Wald, “our Bible-toting brethren in the station house assure us is a notion not to be found in the Bible.”
“So there’s a missing set of clothes, then?”
“Who the hell knows?” Donald said. “Maybe they got torn up during the attack. With that crazy bastard anything could have happened.”
“The dry cleaners only cleaned ten,” Wald said.
On the Catalina, one guy was winching the other guy up the mast in a yellow canvas boson’s chair. “Pretty weird,” Corso noted. “You’d think with Defeo so fixated on his ten brides of Christ thing…you’d think he could keep track of the damn number.”
Donald moved toward Corso with a stiff-legged gait. His face suddenly red. His voice suddenly loud. Along the dock, all work stopped.
“What the fuck is the matter with you, Corso? What is it? The only way you can get up in the morning is if you feel superior to everybody else? You can’t feel good about yourself unless you see something that nobody else sees? Is that what floats your boat, Corso?” Donald was close now, crowding Corso.
“Just wondering,” Corso said affably.
“You know what I think? I think you’re a big-time loser. I think you’re such a loser, you don’t even have sense enough to know when you’ve won, and that’s the biggest kind of loser there is.”
“Hey, hey,” Wald was saying. “We’re all on the same side here.”
He stepped between the two men, stood facing his partner.
Corso kept his eyes locked on Donald. “Wald,” he said, “you better take the lieutenant here home for his nap. He seems to be a bit out of sorts this morning.”
Donald made a show of trying to swim his way past Wald to get at Corso.
“You’re a loser,” he was yelling. “A loser.”
Corso stood his ground, smiling as Wald began shoving Donald down the dock. Halfway down, right after Donald took to walking on his own, Wald stopped for a moment and threw a long quizzical look back Corso’s way, then turned and followed his partner toward the gate and the ramp beyond.
“Two Killed in Trashman Battle.” Big as headlines get. Picture of Wald and Donald standing beside the bullet-riddled car in their sp
iffy Kevlar vests. A sidebar on Densmore and his career. Corso folded the paper beneath his arm, pulled open the front door of the Seattle Sun, and stepped into the lobby.
Behind the security desk, Bill Post looked up and smiled. “Hey, Mr. Corso,” he said. “You seen they got him, huh?”
Corso crossed the room. Leaned on the desk.
“I saw,” he said. “I hear Himes is already out.”
Post nodded. “I’m workin’ security at the Hilton this afternoon. Himes and his new mouthpiece are havin’ them a press conference.”
“A guy can always use a little extra Hawaii money,” Corso said.
“Yeah,” he beamed. “Leavin’ next Wednesday. Ten glorious days and nights on Maui.”
Corso said, “Congratulations,” and started for the elevator. Post waddled out from behind the desk, following Corso down the hall. “You shoulda seen my granddaughter’s face when I told her. Never seen the kid so happy before. Nancy says she’s already packed and ready to go.”
Corso stopped his finger just short of the Up button. Turned to Post. “Where do the people who answer the phones work? What floor is that?” he asked.
“Down two,” Post said. “That’s basement, B.”
Corso thumbed the Down button. “If I don’t see you again,” he said to the guard, “have a mai tai for me.”
“Thanks,” Post said. “I’ll make it a couple.” They shook hands.
The door slid open silently. Corso stepped into the car. Pushed B. Post waved.
Basement B was just that. A windowless room filled with cubicles. The dull roar of a hundred conversations rolled like waves just below the ceiling. Corso had to ask three times before he found the right row. Three desks up. Leanne Samples wore a white plastic band in her hair. She was making conversation with the stout African-American woman at the next desk when Corso turned the corner.
“Mr. Corso,” she squealed when she saw him.
She tried to jump to her feet but the cord on her headset wasn’t nearly long enough and jerked her right back into her chair.
“Oops,” she said, dropping the headset to the desktop and throwing her arms around Corso’s waist. “It’s all done, huh? They got the guy.”
“They got the guy,” Corso repeated. Changed the subject. “You’re looking great. I hear you’re a regular whiz at your job.”
She took him by the hand and led him to the next cubicle. “Georgeanne, this is my friend Mr. Corso.” Georgeanne, whose last name turned out to be Taylor, allowed how it was a great pleasure to meet the famous Mr. Frank Corso and how she faithfully read his column. Leanne dragged him on. They zigzagged the length of the room in a frenzy of rushed introductions and hurried handshakes. Fifteen minutes later, they stumbled out of the maze, directly in front of the elevators.
She pulled at his elbow. “And you must meet my friend Ellie over here…”
Corso resisted. “I’ve gotta go,” he said. “I need to have a few words with Mr. Hawes.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh…,” she said. “We mustn’t keep Mr. Hawes waiting.” She was suddenly flustered. Looked around the room as if she’d never seen it before. “I probably ought to get back to work myself.” She managed a wan smile. “After all, they’re not paying me to stand around and talk to famous writers, are they?” Corso managed a smile of his own. They shook hands. Changed their minds and hugged. Said goodbye and then hugged again.
Corso turned and rang for the elevator. “Mr. Corso,” Leanne said, “thank you for everything.” He nodded. “Everything is different in my life now. Better. It’s like, for the first time, I actually have a life of my own.”
Corso held up a hand. “That’s your doing, not mine,” he said.
She started to argue, but he cut her off.
“You know what my mama used to say, Leanne?”
“What?”
“She used to say, ‘If a miracle takes place within five miles of you, take credit for it.’ That’s what she used to say.” Corso stepped into the elevator, pushed six.
The car slid upward. Corso watched the numbers turn red until the car bounced to a halt on six. Corso held the door open with his arm. The newsroom. Normally, on a Sunday, they’d be down to a skeleton crew and the building would be silent. Last night’s developments cost people another day off. He stepped out of the car and started up the aisle toward Bennett Hawes’s glassed-in office, leaving silence in his wake as phone conversations suddenly ended and coffee cups stopped short of lips. Claire Harris waved. Corso gave her a salacious wink.
“Hey, Claire,” he said, stopping by her desk.
“I’ll tell ya, kiddo…whatever your other failings may be, you sure know how to set the woods on fire.”
“Thanks, Claire.”
“You’re not going to upset poor Bennett, are you?”
“I’m too tired.”
Hawes gestured him in with a nod of his head. Corso continued up the aisle toward Hawes. Pulled open the door and stepped in. He dangled a set of keys from his thumb and forefinger for a moment before tossing them across the desk. Hawes snatched them out of midair and put them in his top drawer. “Once and for all,” Corso said. “Here’s your car back.”
Hawes rocked back in his oversize chair and took Corso in. “Seems your security-guard angle was right on the money.”
“A lucky guess,” Corso said with a smirk.
Hawes searched his eyes for a story. “Am I missing something here?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Corso said. “And it’s gonna have to stay that way.”
Hawes furrowed his brow. “Were you—”
Corso held up a hand. “I can’t,” he said.
“Dougherty’s okay?”
“She’s fine,” Corso assured him.
A silence settled over the room. “You make your reservations for the American Society of Newspaper Editors conference?” Corso asked.
“Sent the registration form in yesterday.”
“If it wasn’t for me, you’d sure as hell get a Pulitzer nomination.”
Both men knew it was true. Small papers that break major stories are usually rewarded with Pulitzer nominations. Corso’s presence on the story, however, made that impossible. As far as the committee was concerned, nominating Frank Corso for a journalism award would be like nominating Jeffrey Dahmer for a culinary medal.
Hawes shrugged. “I’ve got no complaints.”
“Everybody’s got the story they want. Big shootout at the O.K. Corral. At great personal cost, brave cops kill despoiler of virgins. What else could anybody ask for? It’s positively mythic.”
Corso walked over to the desk and stuck out his hand. Hawes got to his feet. Made eye contact and took Corso’s hand in his. “I stand corrected,” Hawes said.
Corso raised an eyebrow.
“About you,” Hawes said. “You ever get tired of writing books and want to get back into the newspaper business full-time, you be sure to give me a call.”
“Tell Mrs. V. I’ll give her a jingle one of these nights,” Corso said.
Hawes said he would. “What’s for you now?”
Corso thought it over. “Finally got some decent weather; I think I’ll wash my boat. Maybe putt over and pump the heads and top it off with diesel.”
“Sailing off into the sunset?”
“Something like that.”
A dock is a special type of community. Diverse beyond reason. Filled with everything from millionaires who barely remember they own a vessel to lifetime live-aboards who have every dime they own tied up in the rig. Moguls, morons, and misfits, all of whom find common ground in the mystique of the water. All of whom, it seemed, wanted to drop by and chat of a sunny Sunday afternoon as Corso washed Saltheart. Everyone mentioned the weather, of course, and then immediately segued into how they’d heard there’d been some excitement down here this morning. Corso handed out quite a few Heinekens but precious little information.
Others bitched about the Carver’s anchor hanging out over the dock. Wa
nted to call management. The guy in the green Cruisahome wanted to push the Carver back in the slip and retie it with a springline, but nobody would lend a hand. You just don’t touch another man’s lines.
Corso had worked up a full sweat. He’d started in the dinghy with the sun hot on his shoulders. Paddling himself around, scrubbing the hull. Worked his way back onboard, where, as the last rays of the day had begun to slide behind Queen Anne Hill, the wind quickly died and the fog appeared from nowhere to take its place. As the mist settled on his bare shoulders, Corso moved the broom in a single-minded frenzy. He’d been at it so long the soft blue bristles had begun to hum in his head, like a mantra. A low Gregorian chant. “Behold the ten brides of Christ…” it intoned, “…who having strayed from his ways are now returned to the fold of our master, like lost sheep. Behold the…”
Chapter 31
Sunday, September 23
1:57 P.M. Day 6 + 1
Why, she used to wonder, would survivors subject themselves to this? She knew why she was here. That was easy. She was covering her ass. Making sure when Chief Kesey called she’d be able to say, “Yes, Chief, as a matter of fact, I did hear what Himes and his attorney had to say. Actually, I was there in the hotel for the press conference, Chief. And you?” On a Sunday too.
But them. The Tates and the Butlers, Mrs. Doyle and the Nisovics. Right there in the front row again. After the week they’d had. Dorothy Sheridan shivered, because, after fourteen years and a daughter of her own, she finally understood. Same as her, they were covering their asses. They were doing everything they could. Making certain that no stone was unturned, no step untaken, no opportunity to remember lost. Fruitful…futile…it didn’t matter. Because somewhere down the road, when the headlines and memories had faded, nothing was going to be more vital to their long-term survival than being able to tell themselves they’d done everything humanly possible.
She’d made up her mind. First thing Monday morning she was calling Monica and setting up an interview. Anything had to be better than this. What good was security if it killed you? First thing Monday.