More Perfect Union (9780061760228)

by Jance, Judith A.

  Houseboats had been collected from all over the city. There was to be a carefully orchestrated fight in which the stuntmen for both stars, Parker’s and the movie’s heavy, were to leap from boat to boat in a climactic chase scene.

  Once more I had tried, unsuccessfully, to include a hint of realism in the process. The scene had been written to include two gun-toting characters, a good guy and a bad guy, crashing through groups of innocent bystanders. At one point in the script, they were to barge through a deckside family dinner, fatally wounding a child in a barrage of cross fire. In the real world that’s called reckless endangerment. Cops who do it don’t stay cops very long.

  I had done battle over this segment when I first saw the script, and now I thought it worthy of one last-ditch effort.

  I tracked Cassie Young down during a break in the filming. “Why does the little kid have to get shot?” I asked. “Police officers can’t do that. They can’t go shooting their way through groups of civilians that way. It’s a joke.”

  “It’s no joke, Mr. Beaumont,” Cassie retorted, pointedly dropping the word “Detective.” I had been summarily demoted. “We’re making a movie here. We want people to care about what happens.”

  “And you don’t give a shit if it’s accurate or not.”

  She smiled sweetly. “That’s right. Accuracy doesn’t sell tickets. Emotions do.”

  Her remark made me wish that I had introduced Maxwell Cole to Cassie Young. They were two of a kind, a matched set, only he sold newspapers instead of movie tickets.

  I made one final attempt. “But your cops look like jerks,” I protested.

  Cassie crossed her arms and looked up at me. “So?” she said.

  The implication was absolutely clear. In Cassie Young’s book, cops were jerks. At least the drydock cops would be generic. There was nothing whatever to connect them to Seattle P.D. Except me.

  “I’m going home,” I said.

  “Can’t stand the heat?” she asked demurely.

  “Won’t,” I replied. “There’s a big difference.”

  I left Lake Union Drydock, but I didn’t go home. There wasn’t a cat to kick, and in my frame of mind, I was mad enough to break up furniture. Instead, I made my way up Eastlake all the way around to the other side of Gasworks Park where I paced back and forth along the water until my blood pressure returned to normal. I started for home, but when I drove past the entrance to Harbor Station, something made me turn in. Force of habit, I suppose.

  The City of Seattle covers an area of ninety-two square miles. What most people don’t realize is that there’s a whole lot more to the city than meets the eye—parts that are underwater. As a consequence the Harbor Patrol, based in Harbor Station, has jurisdiction over some ninety-three miles of shoreline, all within the city limits. Seattle operates a fleet of six boats and boasts the only twenty-four-hour municipal marine unit in the state. When King County’s and Mercer Island’s police boats aren’t working, Seattle P.D.’s Harbor Patrol handles all of Lake Washington on an emergency basis.

  Originally the unit was a separate police organization under the jurisdiction of the Port of Seattle, with a warden in charge. Later, it was part of the Seattle Fire Department. In the late fifties, Harbor Patrol became a branch of the Seattle Police Department. Some of the officers stayed with the fire department while others went through the police academy and became police officers.

  Jim Harrison wasn’t one of those originals, but he was close. I found him drinking coffee in the Harbor Station kitchen when I got there.

  “Hey, Beau, how’s it going?”

  “Can’t complain,” I said. “How about you?”

  He grinned. “I’m counting the days until I’m outta here,” he said. “Then I’m going fishing.”

  I laughed. He sounded like a kid waiting impatiently for summer vacation to start. “After all these years, haven’t you had enough of boats?” I asked.

  “Working on boats, yes. Playing on boats, no.”

  I shook my head. Boats hold no fascination for me. I’m a believer in the old saw that boats are just holes in the water you pour money into.

  “So what are you up to today?” Without asking, Harrison filled a cup with coffee and handed it to me. “From what Manny said yesterday, I was under the impression they were still going to be filming today and that J.P. Beaumont was stuck for the duration.”

  “I took a powder,” I told him. “I’m playing hooky.”

  He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Couldn’t that have long-range repercussions? Isn’t the director some kind of buddy-buddy with the mayor?”

  I shrugged. “Let ’em fire me. I’m supposed to be there to give them technical advice, but they won’t take it when I do, so what’s the point?”

  “Beats me,” Harrison said, then, with a sly grin, he added, “Is that what you’re here for, to cry on my shoulder?”

  “Actually, I came by to ask you about that boat fire last week.”

  “Which one?”

  “There was more than one?”

  “Three by actual count. It was a bad week on the water.”

  “Peters told me it blew up.”

  Harrison nodded. “Oh, that one. It blew all right, to kingdom come. We’re still not sure we’ve found the body. We had divers down for two days straight. They came up empty-handed.”

  “Where was it when it exploded?”

  “Out in the middle of the lake. If the boat had been in a marina when it blew, we wouldn’t have any trouble finding the body, but it wasn’t. That’s the way it goes.”

  “Any idea what caused it?”

  Harrison paused thoughtfully. “Stupidity mostly. That’s my guess. It was a gasoline-powered Chris-Craft. One of those old fiberglass jobs from the early seventies. We got there as fast as we could, but it burned all the way to the waterline. The boat’s a total loss.”

  “What kind of stupidity?” I asked.

  Harrison shrugged his shoulders. “We see it all the time. These goddamned landlubbers buy boats, keep them for less than two years, and then sell them again without ever learning a damn thing about the boat or how to use it. They don’t bother to maintain their equipment properly. My guess is either his fume-sensor system wasn’t working or his blowers weren’t. The engine room filled up with gas fumes. You know all about low flash points.”

  “One spark?” I asked.

  He nodded. “It must’ve popped him right out the top of the wheelhouse like a goddamned champagne cork.”

  “You’re saying it’s an accident?”

  “That’s right. It’s a joint investigation, us and the Coast Guard. We’re pretty much agreed on this one. The boat was called Boomer, incidentally, and it sure as hell did.”

  “How about the missing owner? Does he have a name?”

  Harrison walked into the other room, plucked a file folder out of a drawer, and brought it back into the kitchen with him. “Tyree,” he said. “His name’s Logan Tyree. I told Manny and Kramer about him, just in case.”

  “And this Tyree character. Did he happen to be an ironworker?”

  Harrison ran his finger down the file then peered at me over the top of his glasses. “As a matter of fact, he was. How’d you know that?” he asked.

  “Just lucky,” I told him. “What happened to the boat? What did you call it, the Boomer?”

  “Like I told you, the fire was out there in the middle of the south end of the lake. We couldn’t leave it there, what with float planes landing and taking off. We had it towed back to Tyree’s moorage at Montlake Marina, over here by the bridge. The owner says the rent is paid through the end of the month.” Harrison’s eyes narrowed. “How come you’re so interested in all this, Beau? You’re not working this case, are you?”

  “Curiosity more than anything else,” I answered. I put down my cup, thanked Harrison for the coffee, and took off before he had a chance to ask me any more questions. I couldn’t have given him a better answer, because there wasn’t a better
answer to give.

  I got back in the Porsche and sat there for a moment without starting the engine, trying to sort out exactly what was going on. No, I wasn’t working the case. Playing was more like it.

  When I finally started the car and got going, I pulled up to the stop sign at North Northlake Way. I had two choices. I could go right and go back home, or I could turn left and drive past the Montlake Marina.

  I turned left.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Once you’ve seen a burned-out fiberglass boat, you don’t forget it in a hurry. It’s a scary sight.

  Just as Harrison had told me, Logan Tyree’s Chris-Craft Boomer had burned right down to the waterline. Most of the wheelhouse had disappeared, melted into a gaping hole in the deck. What little was left of the superstructure was lined with an eerie fringe of blackened icicles which were actually melted fiberglass. It had obviously been one hell of a fire.

  If Logan Tyree had been blown clear by the force of the explosion, he must have died instantly. On that score, I counted him among the lucky ones. To my way of thinking, instant death is preferable to enduring the well-meaning tortures of a burn unit’s intensive care. If that ever happened to me, I’d want to go quick.

  “Were you a friend of his?”

  Startled by the sound of a voice, I turned from studying the charred wreckage to see a wizened old man limp onto the dock from a peeling junker of a boat that looked more like a derelict tug than anything else. The deck was cluttered with an odd assortment of mismatched patio furniture and the unassembled parts of several bicycles. Two lines of clean laundry hung lifeless from wires strung between the cabin and the bow.

  “I’m a police officer,” I said, flipping open my identification wallet to show him my badge.

  “Your friends have already come and gone if that’s who you’re looking for,” he said. He was smoking a cigarette. He finished it and tossed the stub into the water between the two boats, where it disappeared with a minute sizzle. At first I thought the man was entirely bald, but closer inspection revealed his head was covered with a thin fuzz of iron-gray hair. The unshaven stubble on his jaws was much more plentiful. If he owned a set of dentures, he wasn’t wearing them.

  He ran one hand over the top of his head and then reached quickly for a baseball cap which stuck out of a frayed hip pocket. “Chemotherapy,” he explained self-consciously, covering his scraggly head. “The name’s Red Corbett.” He held out his hand in greeting. The jutting toothless chin evidently didn’t bother him the way his bald head did. His handshake was firm and thorough enough to belong to an old-time politician.

  “Those other guys told me to keep everyone away, but I suppose it’s all right for you to be here. After all, you’re one of them.”

  Not exactly, but I didn’t disabuse him of the notion. “Who told you to keep an eye out? Detective Davis or maybe Detective Kramer?”

  The old man nodded. “That last one. At least I think that was his name.” He reached in his pocket, pulled out a bedraggled package of unfiltered Camels, and offered one to me.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I don’t smoke.”

  He paused long enough to extract a cigarette and light it with a match from a book stored inside the cellophane wrapper. “I figure they can’t hurt me any more than they already have. Why give ’em up?” He took a pensive drag on the cigarette. He seemed to have forgotten me completely.

  I reminded him. “You were telling me about the detectives.”

  “That’s right. They said it would only be for a day or two, until his family decides what to do with it. Logan’s ex isn’t going to be wild about payin’ the moorage fees. I expect she’ll get out from under ’em just as soon as ever she can.”

  “She’ll get rid of the boat?”

  Red Corbett nodded vigorously. “You’d better believe it. She’ll take the insurance money and run. That broad’s a lulu. Logan was right not to have nothin’ to do with her after they split up. She’s the jealous type, you know, one of them screamin’ Mimis. And jealous of a boat besides. If that don’t beat all. Anyone who hates boats the way she does has to have some kind of problem.”

  “Tyree and his wife were divorced?” My question was calculated to prime Red Corbett’s pump. It worked like a charm.

  “Separated,” Corbett replied. “His wife gave him a choice between her and the boat, and he took Boomer. As far as I’m concerned, he made the right decision. That Katherine’s nothin’ but a ring-tailed bitch.”

  “Where does she live?”

  Red Corbett shrugged. “Who knows? Down around Renton somewhere, I think, but I don’t know for sure. Poor Logan was all broke up when Katy—he called her Katy—when she told him she was actually filing for a divorce. He come creeping onto that there boat of his with his clothes in a box and his tail tucked between his legs. I felt sorry for him. He acted like it was the end of the world. I told him not to worry, that there were plenty of other fish in the sea. It didn’t take him no time at all to figure out I was right, neither.”

  “He found someone else?”

  Corbett nodded. “That little Linda ain’t no bigger ’an a minute, but she’d make two or three of those Katherine types easy. I’d pick Linda over Katy any day of the week.”

  “Linda’s the girlfriend?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you know her last name?”

  “Decker. Linda Decker. I told those other guys all about her just this morning. Don’t you work together?”

  For a change, a plausible lie came right to my lips. “One of the two detectives is pretty new on the job,” I said casually.

  Corbett gave me a sharp look then nodded sagely. “And you’re backstoppin’ him to make sure he don’t miss nothin’?”

  “That’s right,” I answered. My logical-sounding reply not only placated Red Corbett, it gave me some real pleasure. In actual fact, it wasn’t that far from the truth, but Detective Paul Kramer would shit a brick if he ever got wind of it. “Tell me what you can about this Linda Decker,” I urged.

  Corbett eyed me uneasily. “She’s a nice girl. Don’t you go gettin’ no funny ideas about her. The way I understand it, Logan met her in an apprenticeship class down at his union hall. He was teaching welding. She needed to be a certified welder in order to work as an ironworker.” Corbett stopped short and looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face. “You got any idea why a cute little gal like that would want to work at a job like ironworking? I mean it’s hard work, and dangerous too, walking them beams way up in the air and such.”

  “I can’t imagine,” I said, although I suspected that money had something to do with it.

  “Anyways,” Corbett continued. “They met there in that class. He came by here that night to have a beer and tell me all about this lady he had met. You’da thought it was love at first sight, I swear to God. He was grinnin’ from ear to ear like the cat that swallowed the canary. And it went on from there. She was real nice to him, helped him work on his boat on weekends. And he idolized those two little kids of hers. He would have been a good father. Katy refused to have any kids, you know. Just out and out refused.

  “So like I was sayin’, Linda and Logan got along great. My wife and I looked after the kids a few times for them when they went out. You forget how hard it is to find a baby-sitter once you don’t have to use ’em anymore. The wife and I figured they’d wind up married sooner or later—I mean, as soon as the divorce was final. I was real sorry when they broke up.”

  “When did that happen?”

  He shrugged. “Not long ago, I guess. Week before last maybe. Linda came over and they had a hell of a row. I heard ’em yellin’ back and forth. As long as they’d been together, I’d never heard ’em exchange so much as a cross word. When they left, Linda’s kids was both cryin’ fit to kill.”

  “Did he say what the fight was about?”

  “Not really. He was real upset about it. I figured it had something to do with work, but he never said wh
at. All he told me was that sometimes a man has to do what’s right no matter what.”

  “And Linda Decker hasn’t come back around?”

  “No. Not even after the article about the fire was in the paper. That kinda surprised me. I expected to see her. I mean, they’d had a fight and all, but I woulda swore she’d care about what happened to him. Course, she mighta been out of town and just didn’t hear about it. That could be it.”

  “So you haven’t seen her at all?”

  “Nope. Not since the night they had that fight.”

  “Do you know if anyone from the department has talked to her?”

  Corbett shook his head and blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “I doubt it. You know how it is. After the fire some guys came around lookin’ for the next of kin, and Linda wasn’t that. I gave ’em his wife’s name, and Linda’s too, although I got the feeling that there wasn’t much chance anybody’d be interested in talkin’ to an ex-girlfriend. I was gonna give it to your detective friends this morning, but they said the same thing, that the wife’s name was enough. Said they’d get Katherine to identify the body.”

  “Kramer and Davis didn’t bother to take Linda Decker’s name?”

  “Maybe they wrote it down. I don’t recollect exactly, but they said that with an accident like this the wife would be all they’d need.”

  An accident. Jim Harrison at Harbor Station had called it that too, but that was a Coast Guard finding made in a vacuum with no knowledge of an ex-girlfriend and an ex-wife. A jealous ex-wife.

  “Somebody already mentioned that to me,” I said. “Something about the gas-fume sensor or the blowers being out of commission. What do you think?”

  Red Corbett tossed the butt of the second cigarette into the water with a contemptuous shake of his head. “Well sir,” he said finally. “It sure don’t sound like the Logan Tyree I knew.”

  I had been chatting easily with Red Corbett, but that remark put me on point. He had my undivided attention. That kind of comment is a shot in the arm for homicide detectives. It’s what makes them go combing through whole catalogs of victims’ friends and acquaintances. Something in the circumstances surrounding the death that doesn’t fit, something that isn’t quite right.