by J. A. Jance
"At this stage, the whole world is under suspicion." It was half truth, half quip. It met with icy rejection.
"In that case, Detective Beaumont, I don't believe we have anything further to discuss."
"No, wait. Right now we need to reach LeAnn for two reasons, the most important of which is to tell her of her husband's death. We've held off releasing his name pending notification of next of kin, but that doesn't mean one of the television or radio stations might not get it from another source and put it on the air."
"What's the other reason?" Alice Fields asked.
"We'll need to ask her some questions, to see if she can shed any light on the case."
"Which is another way of saying she is a suspect."
I wasn't making much of a dent in Alice Fields' suit of armor. "We know she was expected at her husband's office shortly before he died. She may have seen or overheard something that would be of help to us in solving the case."
There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. It lasted so long that I began to wonder if Alice Fields had hung up on me.
"Do you know where the Hi-Spot Cafe is?" she asked at last. "It's in the Madrona district, at Thirty-fourth and Union."
"I don't know it, but I'm sure I can find it."
"Meet me there tomorrow morning at nine," Alice Fields said decisively.
"How will I know you?" I asked. I'm a veteran of enough missed connections that I've finally learned to ask important questions before I go looking for someone I don't know at a place I don't know either.
"I'm short, white hair, glasses—" she began, then she stopped. "I have a better idea. Tell them you want to sit at the round table. That room's far enough off the beaten path that we'll have some privacy, especially on a Tuesday morning."
She hung up without bothering to wait for me to say yes or no and without saying goodbye, either. I realized later that I hadn't asked her if she'd be bringing LeAnn Nielsen along to the Hi-Spot Cafe. It was just as well. She wouldn't have told me anyway.
My ice cream float was long gone. I was starving. I padded out to the kitchen in hopes of finding food, but before I could lay hands on the refrigerator door handle, the phone rang again.
"Hi there, Beau." It was Ron Peters, speaking to me from the echoing distance of his handless speaker-phone. "I didn't wake you, did I?"
"Don't worry about it. You're not the first. I had another call a minute ago. That's the one that woke me up."
"What are you doing sleeping at this time of night? It's not that late. Besides, I thought you'd want to know what I found out."
"Who found out?" I recognized Amy Fitzgerald's voice speaking in the background.
Peters laughed. "Excuse me. What Amy found out."
Amy Fitzgerald had been Peters' physical therapist during the months he had been confined in Harborview Hospital. She was still his physical therapist as far as I knew, but by now she was also quite a bit more than that. Her off-duty hours seemed to revolve around Ron Peters' room.
"About Larry Martin?" I asked.
"That's right. A woman brought him in to Harborview Emergency Room on Saturday afternoon about one-thirty. He said he was a carpet installer and that one of his tools had fallen on him. They put twenty stitches in his face and head."
"Twenty stitches? That's some cut," I said. "It must have fallen from a long way up."
"Amy says there would have been a lot of blood. I guess facial cuts bleed like crazy."
"There was blood all right," I said. "What about the woman? Was she hurt?"
"She was covered with blood, too. One of the ER nurses said one eye was swollen shut, but she wouldn't give her name and refused to accept any treatment. The nurse figured it was a domestic quarrel of some kind, but the woman didn't want to let on for fear of having one or the other of them wind up in jail. She denied the man was her husband."
Peters was referring to a recent Washington State statute that requires law enforcement officers to attempt to ascertain who's the primary aggressor in domestic violence cases and to lock up the responsible party. It's a law that works a hell of a lot better on paper than it does in real life.
"She was telling the truth there," I said. "If that was LeAnn Nielsen, her husband's dead."
I stretched the kitchen phone cord across to the refrigerator and browsed for food. There wasn't much to be found. In addition to the sodas and ice cream, Tracie and Heather had cleaned me out of English muffins, crackers, peanut butter, and cheese slices. They had also raided the fruit bowl. One lone banana remained, so ripe that it was fermenting in the peel. Banana liqueur on the hoof.
"So what are you going to do now?" Peters asked impatiently. It had to be frustrating for him, lying there trapped in a hospital bed. He could help turn up the pieces of various puzzles but he was unable to manipulate them into place.
"I think maybe I've finally got a line on the wife," I told him. "I have a meeting at nine tomorrow morning. If that works out the way I hope it will, I'll be able to ask her some questions in person."
It wasn't much of an answer, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. I told him I'd call him as soon as I knew anything more, and asked him to gather anything else he could. With that we signed off. I gave up searching for food in the kitchen and mixed myself a stiff drink instead, pouring the dregs of my last bottle of MacNaughton's over ice and adding a drop of water.
Taking my drink with me, I walked back into the living room and settled down on the window seat overlooking Elliott Bay. It was a cloudless, still evening, the long, late dusk of a Seattle summer. As the sun gradually faded behind the Olympic Mountains, the water came to life with lights, mirroring back the glow of the city on one side and West Seattle on the other. Ferries moved sedately back and forth across the water, their lights shimmering both above and on the water's surface. Behind them trailed inky black shadows where the chop erased all reflections from the glassy water.
The conversation with Peters had depressed me. Most of the time talking to him didn't bother me, but that particular night, it got me good, right in the gut. Oh sure, I was thankful it was him and not me who was slowly learning to walk again, to feed himself, and put on his own clothes. But I railed at the unfairness of it, at the injustice, of a man Peters' age, a man still with young children to raise, being locked up on the rehabilitation floor of a hospital for months so far.
If it had happened to me, it would have been different. At least my two kids were already grown, and I was financially set. But I was okay and Peters wasn't. I was still walking around on my own steam. Ron Peters had a broken neck.
He could be in a wheelchair for increasingly long periods of time now, and Amy assured us that one day, with the help of braces and canes, he would walk again. But for the time being, his only avenue of escape and self-determination was to talk on the handless speaker-phone my attorney, Ralph Ames, had given him as a gift. It was that and that alone that allowed Peters to feel he was still a part of life outside his hospital bed, not only with his daughters, but also with the department.
I slugged down the last of my drink, hoping to wash the guilt away, trying not to think about it anymore. The homecoming blasts from the Princess Marguerite's ship's horn jolted me out of my reverie. Back from her daily excursion to Victoria, British Columbia, the ship was returning with a cargo of weary day-trippers. Flashbulbs winked from here and there on the deck as inexperienced photographers tried to use puny pinpricks of light to capture the approaching Seattle skyline. The Marguerite would dock at Pier 66, only a few blocks from where I live.
Glancing down at the street below, I saw a long line of cabs parked single file along Clay Street and turning onto Alaskan Way two blocks below. They would sit there and wait until the passengers cleared Customs and needed cabs. I wanted something to eat, and I wanted it fast, before hordes of Princess Marguerite tourists invaded the waterfront watering holes.
The strength of that one drink, combined with the fact that I hadn't eaten,
ruled out any possibility of driving. From my window, I saw candles blinking in the bar at Girvan's Restaurant at First and Cedar, a block away. I had been inside it once when I was working a case, but I had never eaten there. It seemed as good a choice as any.
Pausing only long enough to put my jacket back on, I headed out to the elevator, rode down to the parking garage, and walked out through the side entrance on Clay.
The restaurant occupied the penthouse suite of the low-rise First and Cedar Building. I took the elevator up to the fifth floor and walked down a long hallway to the maitre d's station. To my left was the dining room filled with quiet, late evening diners. On my right was a doorway. Through it I heard the raucous, comfortable din of a busy bar. That was far more to my liking than the sedate diners I could see in the restaurant. I waved aside the services of the maitre d' and stepped into the bar.
It was busy, all right. Crowded even, for a Monday night. I zeroed in on the only vacant stool at the long bar. The bartender, a lady close to my own age, was a pint-sized brunette wearing a heavy squash-blossom silver-and-turquoise necklace over a long-sleeved blouse. She was there Johnny-on-the-spot before I was firmly settled on the stool.
"What'll you have?"
"Can a guy get something to eat in here?" I asked. "Or do I have to go into the dining room?"
"What'dya want? A sandwich?"
I nodded.
"Ever been in Butte, Montana?" she returned, looking at me with her head cocked to one side, a hand resting on her hip.
"No," I said. "I never have."
"You're not Jewish, are you?"
Now I was convinced I was losing my mind, but I shook my head. "Fallen-away Presbyterian," I told her.
She grinned then. "Boy, do I have a treat for you," she said. "Now, what'll you have to drink?"
"MacNaughton's and water," I said, "light on the water. But what the hell kind of sandwich am I getting?"
"Specialty of the house," she answered. "A pork chop sandwich just like they make 'em at Pork Chop John's back home in Butte."
The priorities were definitely on straight. She poured my drink and served it before she disappeared to place the order for my sandwich. I tested the drink. It was fine—strong enough to help me forget Detective Ron Peters and his broken neck.
While I sipped my drink, I looked around the room. I suspected most of the crowd was from some kind of impromptu office party that had started early and run late. Most of the people seemed to know one another, and they were all having a hell of a good time. It was beginning to wind down though. A few people filtered out of the bar.
The pork chop sandwich, when it came, was enough to make me wish I'd been born and raised in Butte, Montana. It was terrific. I plowed through it like I hadn't seen solid food in a week. When I pushed the plate away, the bartender was back.
"Did your mother always make you clean your plate like that?" she asked with a grin. "If you're still hungry, I can order you another one, or how about dessert?"
I shook my head. "One sandwich is enough, but I do want another drink."
"You new around here?" she asked when she brought the MacNaughton's. "I don't remember seeing you in here before."
"I just moved into the neighborhood," I said. I didn't offer any more specifics. I wasn't wild about making polite conversation. All I really wanted to do was savor my drink in peace.
Someone down the bar signaled for another drink and the bartender went to get it. Next to me a man got up and walked away. A newcomer, a woman, pounced on the vacant stool like her life depended on it. A man I took to be her escort planted himself firmly between the woman and me. He was tall and blubbery with a hairline that had receded almost as much as his chin. His companion was a frowzy, dated blonde whose skirt was about fifteen pounds too tight.
I don't usually object to tight skirts, but this one wrinkled and bunched where it should have been smooth. And I don't object to women getting older, either. The bartender was a prime example of someone who was comfortable with life in her forties. The dame next to me was dressed like she was fourteen and looked like a worn fifty.
She instantly endeared herself to me by hauling out a package of those long brown cigarettes, lighting one, and striking a fake glamour pose with the cigarette up in the air like a Statue of Liberty torch gone bad. Naturally the smoke blew directly into my face.
I would have moved down the bar, but by now the troops from the Marguerite had arrived and the place had filled back up. There was nowhere to go.
About that time my seatmate's companion, still standing between us, began shooting off his mouth. As soon as he started chipping his teeth, I knew he was smashed.
"I tell you, Mimi, when I was here in '80 you could see the Space Needle from right here. From right here where I'm standing, I swear to God. Where the hell do these goddamned developers get off putting up buildings like that god-awful pile of shit that ruins the view for everybody else?"
Gesturing with his drink, a Jack Daniel's and water, he pointed toward Belltown Terrace, my building. As he did so, the better part of his drink slopped out of the glass and ran down my trousers. He set his glass on the bar and grabbed a damp napkin, using it to mop halfheartedly at the wet trail running down my leg.
"Sorry about that, old buddy," he said. "Didn't mean to spill all over you."
"That's all right," I answered, gritting my teeth.
"But did you ever see such an ugly building? I mean, I come here all the way from Abilene. When I'm in Seattle, I want to be able to see the Space Needle. That's why we came here to have a drink, isn't it, Mimi. I told her I knew a place where we could have a drink and see the Space Needle all at the same time. Isn't that right?"
Mimi nodded. "That's right, Buster. That's what you said."
Buster straightened up and tossed the napkin on the counter. "Hey, barmaid. Fix this gentleman a drink, would you? I spilled my drink on his leg, The least I can do is buy him one. What're you having, fella?"
"MacNaughton's and water," I said.
He made a face. "That slop?" he demanded, shaking his head. "If you're going to drink Canadian, how about something decent, something with some class like Crown Royal or VO?"
"I happen to like MacNaughton's," I said, trying to stay reasonably civil.
Buster clicked his tongue. "No accounting for taste," he said. He turned to the lady behind the bar. "MacNaughton's for him and another Jack Daniel's for me. What about you, Mimi? You ready for another one?"
"Why not?"
Why not indeed? Buster paid for the drinks with a fifty and pocketed every last dime of the change. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's an obnoxious, overbearing, tightfisted drunk. When he had tucked his bulging wallet safely away, he turned back to me.
"Tell me, what do you think about that building?" he asked.
He could have pointed to any other building in Seattle and it wouldn't have mattered, but I happen to own a sizable chunk of Belltown Terrace at Second and Broad. Hoping to dodge some of Mimi's cigarette smoke, I had stood up. Now one of Buster's shoes came down hard on my toe.
"I like it," I said firmly, moving my foot away.
He stared at me in shocked disbelief. "You've got to be kidding! You actually like that place?" Buster's voice was rising in volume, and he was beginning to sway dangerously like a giant sequoia about to bite the dust. People turned curiously in our direction. "It's got no class. I mean architecturally speaking, it's a bunch of crap."
Carefully I set my drink on the bar. "I like it well enough to own one fifth of it," I said.
Most of the time I know better than to argue with a drunk, but by then I'd had several myself.
"Bullshit! You don't mean you actually own part of that god-awful piece of junk?"
"Don't knock it until you've tried it," I returned.
The bartender came back down to where we were. With one clean sweep she cleared all the glasses off the counter in front of us. It was a precautionary measure. A wise precautionary measu
re.
"Like hell you own it!" He turned toward me while still pointing a drunken finger in the bartender's face. "If you own that building, I suppose the little lady here owns this joint, too, right?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," she replied briskly.
He gazed at her Wearily for a moment.
"Hey, wait a minute. You took my drink. I wasn't finished with it."
"You're finished with it all right," she said. "Cut off. Eighty-sixed." She turned and called over her shoulder, "Hey, Bob, call this gentleman a cab, would you? We'll pay."
The maitre d', a burly young man who looked to be in his thirties, popped his head around the doorjamb. "Sure thing, Mom," he said.