More Perfect Union (9780061760228)

by Jance, Judith A.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Logan loved that boat. He worked on her and tinkered with her every spare minute. He kept her shipshape.”

  “You mean if something wasn’t working right, he would have noticed right off and gotten it fixed.”

  “You’re damn right!”

  “Did you tell Detectives Davis and Kramer that?”

  Corbett laughed. “Are you kiddin’? I didn’t tell them two nothin’. They didn’t ask.”

  I felt like I had stumbled into something important, and I didn’t want to let it loose. “You wouldn’t happen to have this Linda Decker’s address and phone number, would you?” I asked.

  Corbett gave me a wily toothless grin. “I sure do. Like I said, me and the wife looked after her kids a couple of times. Linda lived with her mother and she left us her mother’s name, address, and phone number just in case there was an emergency. We never had any call to use it, but it’s still written down inside the cover of the phone book. You want it?”

  I nodded. Corbett turned and walked unsteadily back toward his boat. In a few minutes he reappeared on deck, trailed by a woman who appeared to be several years older than he was and in equally bad shape. She stopped on the deck long enough to gather up the laundry while Red tottered over to me with a ragged phone book clutched in his hand. “Leona Rising,” he read, gasping for breath. The phone number and address he gave me were in Bellevue, a suburb across Lake Washington from Seattle.

  As I finished jotting the information into my notebook, the woman stepped forward, stopping at her husband’s side. She looked at me quizzically. “Red said you wanted Linda’s number. Will you be seeing her?” she asked.

  “Probably,” I said.

  “Well, you tell her Doris and Red are thinking about her. Tell her we’re real sorry about the way things worked out.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that,” I said. Turning, I walked away, leaving the two wizened old folks standing side by side. When I reached the car, I was still holding my open notebook with the scribbled name and address plainly visible. Looking down at them I knew I had stepped off the dock at the Montlake Marina and onto the horns of a dilemma.

  What the hell was I going to do about that name and address? Look into them myself? Why? It wasn’t my case. Turn them over to Manny and Kramer? Fat chance. They were already working on the assumption that Logan Tyree’s death was an accident. I might be totally convinced that their assumption was wrong, but any contradictory suggestion from me was bound to cause trouble.

  In the end, I decided to talk the whole situation over with Ron Peters. Young as he is, he’s got a cool head on his shoulders. What’s more, he has the ability to see several sides to any given argument.

  I glanced up at the sky. It was almost afternoon. Over the past few months, I had made a habit of spending Sunday afternoons with Peters’ two daughters, taking them to visit their father at the hospital and then messing around with them for the rest of the day. Our Sunday outings gave their baby-sitter, Maxine Edwards, a much-needed break. It was good for her, good for the girls, and good for me too.

  I wondered briefly if I should go back to Lake Union Drydock and see how things were going, but even thinking about Cassie Young and her moviemaking cohorts filled me with a flood of resentment. It only took a moment to make up my mind. The day was an unauthorized day off, but it was still a day off, a jewel to be treasured. I hadn’t had a break in over two weeks, and neither had Mrs. Edwards.

  Maxine wasn’t just relieved when I offered to take the girls off her hands. She was downright overjoyed. Less than forty minutes from the time I called downstairs to extend the invitation, the girls were at my door ringing the bell—freshly showered, shampooed, and dressed to go visit their father.

  I looked them up and down and gave a low whistle. “Why so dressed up?” I asked.

  Tracie’s answer was serious. “Amy said she has our dresses ready to try on, so if we came over today we should wear our good shoes and stuff.”

  Amy Fitzgerald, Peters’ fiancée, had been busy sewing wedding clothes for herself and for both of the girls as well. With the wedding less than a month away, activity was definitely switching into high gear. Women are like that. If men know what’s good for them, they keep their heads low and go along with the program.

  “So that’s how it is. If Amy wants you dressed up, dressed up you’ll be,” I told them.

  I traded my two-seat Porsche for Peters’ rusty blue Toyota sedan. It was a considerable sacrifice on my part, but I believed in kids using seat belts long before the State of Washington made it a law. Once the girls were securely belted in, we headed for Harborview Hospital on First Hill—Pill Hill according to long-term Seattlites.

  Peters’ room was on the fourth floor, the rehabilitation wing. Over the months the hospital had become far less strange and forbidding for all of us. In the beginning, Peters had been totally immobilized, his back and neck held in rigid traction, but now he had finally worked his way into a wheelchair. Part of every visit included the girls wheeling him around the floor to call on some of the other patients. When they took off on their little jaunt, Amy Fitzgerald and I were left to chew the fat.

  “You sure lit a fire under Ron this morning,” Amy said with a fond laugh.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I got here, all he could talk about was some boat that burned up out on Lake Union last week. I’m glad you let him help with your cases, Beau. It’s good for him. It makes me feel like he’s still making a contribution.”

  Of course, Logan Tyree and his burning boat weren’t my cases at all, but I didn’t tell Amy that. After all, why muddy the water with departmental nitpicking?

  “He is making a contribution,” I said. “Just because his legs don’t work doesn’t mean there’s anything the matter with his brain.”

  Amy Fitzgerald laughed again, the sound of it bubbling to the surface like an irrepressible spring.

  Peters and the girls came back from their trek around the floor with Tracie pushing the chair and Heather walking dejectedly alongside, her hand resting on her father’s knee. She was weeping silently. Peters was doing his best to console her.

  “Don’t worry about it, Heather,” he was saying. “It wasn’t that big a deal.”

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  Heather looked up at me with two huge tears still glistening on her cheeks. “I didn’t do it on purpose, Unca Beau,” she lisped.

  She was totally crushed, and my heart went out to her. “What happened?” I asked.

  Peters chuckled in spite of himself as he answered. “Heather couldn’t see where we were going. She ran my chair into a garbage can. It wasn’t that serious, but one of the nurses climbed all over us.”

  Amy stood up quickly. “I’ll bet I know which one, too,” she said. Then she knelt down in front of Heather and wiped the tears from her face. “It’s all right, hon,” she said. “Let’s go down to the car and get the dresses. Would you like that?”

  Heather’s broken heart was mended almost instantly. She nodded quickly and went racing off to call the elevator. Tracie, always the more reserved of the two, walked sedately down the hallway with her hand in Amy’s.

  Peters watched the three of them step into the elevator with a happy grin on his face. “They really like her,” he said wonderingly.

  That was obvious to even the most casual observer. “You lucked out, Peters,” I said. “That’s some girls’ trio you have there.”

  I had watched from the sidelines as Peters’ and Amy’s romance blossomed. Amy Fitzgerald had never been married before, and she didn’t have any children of her own. At first I had some serious misgivings about whether or not it would all work, but now, as the elevator door closed on a sudden gale of laughter, I could see it was going to be fine. Amy Fitzgerald was a born mother, and both girls seemed to accept her without question or reservation.

  “They’re okay,” Peters agreed quietly. He turned back
to me. “So did you finish the movie then? From what you said this morning, I thought you’d be busy all day.”

  “The movie’s not finished, but I am,” I said.

  “So that’s the way it is.” Of all the people around me, Peters was the only one who really understood my frustration and boredom with the moviemaking assignment. Neither one of us was any good at enforced idleness although Peters was learning to deal with it better than I was.

  I nodded. “For today anyway.” I changed the subject. “Amy tells me you’ve been tracking after the boat fire.”

  “The explosion happened last Tuesday, just before midnight. A forty-two-foot fiberglass cruiser named Boomer. The missing man’s name is Logan Tyree.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know that?” Peters demanded.

  “I stopped by Harbor Station before I came over here.”

  “Has anybody besides us made the connection yet?”

  “Jim Harrison said Kramer and Davis are tracking after it. They had already been to the marina by the time I stopped there this morning.”

  “Oh,” Peters said. He sounded disappointed. “I thought maybe we’d beat them on this one.”

  “We may have,” I said. “I talked to Tyree’s neighbor, an old codger named Red Corbett. He says Davis and Kramer are calling it an accident—faulty equipment. Corbett says that doesn’t jibe with the Logan Tyree he knew.”

  “How’s that?” Peters’ curiosity was aroused the same as mine had been. I told him briefly everything Red Corbett had told me. He listened in silence. When I finished, he nodded slowly.

  “It sounds like Kramer’s up to his old tricks again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Doesn’t it seem a little odd to you that they’ve already decided it was an accident?”

  “Corbett didn’t tell them everything he told me.”

  “Because they didn’t ask. Kramer’s in the market for quick fixes, Beau. That’s how he made such a name for himself in robbery, how he got on a fast track for promotion. He’s left behind a trail of cases that got closed on paper, whether the close was for real or not.”

  “I thought maybe this was just a mistake.”

  “Mistake my ass!” Peters flared. “There’s no mistake. Believe me, I’ve seen it before. You could wallpaper your house with his paper clears. They don’t mean a goddamned thing but they look real good in the record books.”

  “But what about Manny?”

  “You know Manny. He’s easygoing. He’ll take the line of least resistance, and that doesn’t include standing up to Kramer’s constant pushing.”

  “So what do you suggest we do?” I asked.

  There was a long silence. Finally Peters looked over at me. “Would you consider checking this out on your own without anyone being the wiser?” he asked.

  “I suppose so,” I replied.

  “Then do it,” Peters said. “If there’s anything to what that old man said and if Logan Tyree really was murdered, I’d love to see Paul Kramer take it in the shorts.”

  “Consider it done,” I told him. “It’ll be a pleasure.”

  Amy and the girls came back into the room just then. I was reluctantly drafted into the hem-pinning process. My job was to help the girls hold still while Amy measured the hem with a yardstick and stuck pins in the gauzy material.

  “Did you know Amy made our dresses all by herself?” Heather asked.

  “Yes, I did,” I said, “and it doesn’t surprise me. She’s a pretty talented lady.”

  When we left the hospital, I took the girls to McDonald’s for Big Macs. They promised they wouldn’t tell their dad. Big Macs are not on his health-food list. Afterwards, Heather wanted to go down to Myrtle Edwards Park to feed the ducks. Myrtle Edwards is only about three blocks from Belltown Terrace. I knew from things the girls had said that they went there often with Maxine.

  For me the problem with Myrtle Edwards Park was that I hadn’t been back there since that unforgettable day when I had married Anne Corley in a simple sunrise wedding. I didn’t want to think about it.

  In the end, I caved in and went only because I didn’t want to have to explain to Heather and Tracie why I couldn’t go. I sat on a bench overlooking the water and tried not to think while the girls played tag and climbed up and down the rock sculpture.

  When we got home to Belltown Terrace, it was time for dinner. I barbecued hot dogs outside on the recreation floor. I was standing over the grill, but my mind was still on Anne Corley. Heather came dashing up to me just in time to see me wiping my eyes on my sleeves.

  “What’s the matter, Unca Beau? Are you crying?”

  She had me dead to rights, but I didn’t admit it. “No,” I told her. “It’s nothing, just the smoke.”

  Satisfied with my answer, Heather went skipping off to the sport court where she and Tracie were playing badminton.

  “Damn you, Anne Corley,” I said aloud.

  She broke my heart, goddamnit. In the process she made me a homeowner again and gave me back a barbecue grill.

  CHAPTER

  6

  I dropped the girls off at their apartment downstairs and dragged myself home. My foot was killing me. I noticed it the moment I was alone in the elevator. A bone spur is one of those nagging, ever-present ailments that slips into the background when you’re busy but comes throbbing to the surface the moment you’re not fully occupied. I figured a Jacuzzi and an early out would do me a world of good. That was not to be, however, at least not as early as I would have liked.

  The phone started ringing as soon as I put my key in the lock. It was Captain Powell, boiling mad and ready to chew ass, mine in particular.

  “Just who the hell do you think you are, Beaumont?” he demanded. “Ten minutes ago I had a call here at home from the Chief who had just spoken to the mayor. It seems the Dawsons had dinner guests tonight—Mr. Goldfarb and his assistant as well as some other friends of the mayor. It was supposed to be a small reception to celebrate finishing the location shooting.”

  I had some idea of what was coming, but I decided to play dumb. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “They’re not done, goddamnit. According to Goldfarb, you’re the one who held them up.”

  “Me?” I couldn’t believe I had heard him right. “I held them up?”

  “That’s what Dawson said. That you screwed them around all afternoon on Saturday and then walked off the set today. They’re going to have to pay a king’s ransom to rent Lake Union Drydock for a half-day tomorrow.”

  My first instinct was to fight back, to tell the captain to cram it, but something told me that maybe Powell wasn’t playing with a full deck. “Wait just a damn minute here, Larry. Did anyone happen to mention the body?”

  “Body?” Larry echoed, sounding surprised. “What body?”

  “Nobody told you about the corpse we fished out of the lake Saturday afternoon?”

  Powell exhaled a deep breath. “No, they didn’t. I’ve been out of town, haven’t had a chance to glance at the paper. Maybe you’d better fill me in, Beau.”

  By the time I finished telling Powell about Logan Tyree making an unscheduled appearance on the set of Death in Drydock, the captain was already apologizing.

  “Sorry about that, Beau. Either His Honor failed to mention it, or the Chief neglected to pass the word. I don’t know which. Excuse the fireworks. Who did you say is handling the case—Davis and Kramer? I’d better get in touch with them and see if they can tell me anything more before I get back to the Chief. Thanks for letting me know.”

  He hung up the phone. I sat there looking at it, aware that I hadn’t told Powell everything he ought to know. I hadn’t mentioned my misgivings, that maybe Logan Tyree’s accidental death wasn’t. But then, aside from the vague ramblings of a talkative old man and my own gut-level hunch, I had nothing solid to tell him. Captain Powell has reamed me out more than once for what he calls my “off the wall” hunches.

  I was st
ill staring glumly at the phone when it rang again, making me jump. I picked it up. “Hello.”

  “Guess who?” There’s a good deal of interference on the security phone in the lobby. I couldn’t quite make out my male caller’s voice.

  “I give up,” I said.

  “It’s me. Derrick. Guess who’s with me?”

  If I still owned a television set, I could have tuned to the building’s closed-circuit channel and had a bird’s-eye view of whoever was down in the lobby, but I didn’t have one and I was far too tired to play games.

  “I haven’t the foggiest, Derrick. You tell me.”

  “Merrilee,” he said. “Remember her? We’re having a little party. BYOB. Can we come up?”

  I could have said no. I didn’t. When I opened the door it was clear neither one of them was feeling any pain. Out of uniform, Merrilee Jackson was more than moderately attractive. Her regulation shirt and trousers had concealed both her figure and her legs. The clingy knit dress she was wearing accentuated both.

  Derrick made his way to the bar and poured three drinks, two from one bottle and one from another. “She offered to give me a little extra police protection,” Derrick said with an exaggerated wink as he slopped an old-fashioned glass full of MacNaughton’s in my direction. “Cutest little bodyguard I’ve ever had.”

  Merrilee had kicked off a pair of high heels at the door. Even without them, she was none too steady on her feet. She took the glass Derrick gave her and with a giggle the two of them toasted one another’s health.

  “How’d you two get here?” I asked dourly.

  Merrilee grinned and toasted me as well. “A cab,” she said. “I told him we’re both too drunk to drive.”

  “You’ve got that right.” It’s hard to catch up when you come into a party that far behind the rest of the drinkers. I picked up the phone and dialed the doorman.

  Pete Duvall is a full-time biology student at the University of Washington who works part-time as a doorman/limo driver for Belltown Terrace. It’s a good job for a student. He can use the slack times to study.