by Dick Lilly
Nothing Left to Lose
A novel of murder, detection and revenge
set in high-tech Seattle
By Dick Lilly
Hidden in plain sight, an industrial-scale meth lab in a former biotech building in Seattle’s tech hub quietly pumps out millions of carefully hidden profits for the head of one of the city’s old-line wealthy families. That is, until agents from an Afghan rebel group show up looking for a cut and bodies start washing up on Puget Sound beaches.
It looks like smuggling – people or drugs – to the murder squad, but the cops can’t believe such a prominent citizen would be involved. It takes former journalist turned true-crime blogger Eric Falconer – narrowly escaping death himself in the heroin-sick alleys of Vancouver, B.C. – to connect the timber-family scion to the murders and a plot to destroy the re-election campaign of a popular governor.
As the police finally close in, the head of the cartel disappears, murdered for revenge. Only Falconer will ever know the killer.
Dick Lilly has been involved with Seattle media and politics for 40-some years, including early days with the alternative weeklies and 15 years at the Seattle Times. He’s also worked in public relations and advertising, as a spokesman for a mayor and city departments and held local elected office. Retired, he continues to write for on-line publications and, when lucky, the occasional op-ed for the Seattle Times. “Nothing Left to Lose” draws on the Seattle Dick knows: journalism, politics, boats, and the city itself, vividly brought to life.
Cover design by MH Design Associates, Seattle
Author photo by Mary Herrmann
Copyright © 2019 by Dick Lilly
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used ficticiously.
The story takes place in the early summer of 2008, after the “dot-com bust” and shortly before the Great Recession.
Prologue
It was a nice evening. The low sun warmed the boat’s cockpit where the three men sat. One, who was named Dieter but everyone called the Swiss, took pleasure in a martini. The other two, who seemed uncomfortable on the boat, drank bottled water they brought with them. The Swiss knew what came next. They would ask him and he would say no and they would kill him.
But not right away. “A quiet place for some conversation,” they said. So he brought them here and tossed out the anchor comfortably close to a half dozen grander yachts. You could almost hear the clink of ice cubes. Laughter reached them easily.
“You fought with us against the Russians. We are friends, blood brothers.” The smaller one, dark-eyed, thin and wiry, sitting in the helmsman’s chair, did all the talking.
“That was 20 years ago.”
“What is different now?”
“You are different. Together we drove the Russians out but you welcomed the Taliban. Freedom is gone from your country. Your cause is not my cause.”
“Perhaps that doesn’t matter. This is business. As the Americans say, ‘a deal.’” He added a wry, self-amused smile. “Good for both of us.”
“The answer is still no. I don’t like what you’ll do with the profits.”
The thin man stepped slowly down from the elevated helmsman’s chair. “Start the engines,” he said to the Swiss. “I’ll pull up the anchor. Sami will watch you.” He motioned to the big man who got up from the stern seat.
In a few minutes the Swiss was maneuvering carefully among the anchored yachts, north towards the harbor entrance through water the color of sunset. Sami held his gun out of sight at his side.
Chapter 1, Carkeek Park
Sunday June 8, 5:30 a.m.
High tide and the light chop from a dying summer northerly left the body on the beach sometime after 11 p.m. when Carkeek Park closed and before midnight when it was found by four teenagers sneaking down to the Puget Sound beach to make out.
“It really freaked ’em. They hightailed it back up the trail to their car and one of the girls called 9-1-1 from her cell phone. Operator said she gasped out ‘Carkeek Park. A body! On the beach!’ then hung up. Cell number let us round them up. I don’t think the guys would have called. We got lucky.” That was the verdict from homicide Lieutenant Bobby Harms, a hard-muscled 5’-7” former college wrestler whose face carried the elegant cheekbones and Aztec nose of his Guatemalan grandmother.
“One of them, the one who called, was still nearly hysterical when we interviewed her an hour ago. Guy’s on his back, belly up, shirt pulled up. She fixates on his gut. Only thing she can talk about. ‘Totally gross! He had this, like, huge belly. White, and like shining, wet. You could see it ‘cause the moon was on it. Like, totally gross!’” Harms did a bad imitation of a teenage girl, sing-songing the syllables along with a nervous little shuffle. “None of their statements was any better than that. She got the huge part right, though. Look at the size of that guy, even allowing for the bloating.”
Harms and Eric Falconer, one-time investigative reporter and nowadays a true crime blogger, stood drinking coffee just outside the yellow crime-scene tape. Old friends, they spoke comfortably with long silences. Falconer, at 5’-11” the taller of the two, had sandy blonde hair, gray eyes and a blonde beard, trimmed short. He wore what he almost always wore: a blue button-down Oxford cloth shirt with sleeves rolled partway up tucked into Levis he pressed with a crease and loafers that looked like boat shoes. Harms was in his Saturday outfit, dark blue polo shirt with a small facsimile of the SPD patch embroidered on the chest, chinos and ancient running shoes, gun on his belt. Hanging open in front, a reflective vest with its bold all caps POLICE on the back stretched across his muscular shoulders. The two men watched the sun hit the tops of the Olympic Mountains across the Sound and start down the slopes. Carkeek park’s stand of second growth fir and cedar behind them kept the beach in shade. It was 5:30 a.m.
“Good thing they didn’t notice there’s no face,” said Falconer. “Not much of one, anyway.”
“They didn’t mention it. Arm over the chest, shirt bunched up, it’s kinda hard to see until you walk right up. Seahawks jersey, size 56, would you believe that? Team shop must have been the only place he could get his size.”
“Player?”
“Naw, it’s a number 12. “Twelfth Man,” their promotion for the fans. And we have his I.D. California. La Jolla. They’re checking him out.”
“Kind of an early wake up call, Bobby. What do you want me to know?”
“Not an accident. But I think you already figured out he didn’t fall off the ferry. Shot twice. Big slug like a Glock entered his chest just above the heart. Probably killed him, even a big guy like that. Messy exit wound under the shirt where it’s bunched up across his back. But then a second shot, close range to the back of the head. Doesn’t leave much. The lower jaw’s there, but no forehead, no face. Must have splattered brains and bone all over. So I think execution style. Why a second shot? You tell me. Hatred, blood lust, some atavistic part of human nature?”
“Make it harder for you guys to identify the victim. Or maybe he just didn’t like the guy’s face.”
“Yeah, yeah, maybe.”
“And you don’t like ‘execution style’ because maybe it means some major bad guys have arrived on your patch.”
“In 20 years I’ve only seen a couple of killings that looked like this, looked like what I think this is, and those were in street-punk gang wars where some kid thinks he’s big time. This guy is major muscle and it looks like the target got him first.”
“And you’ve told me this because in fact you don’t want me blogging up the big time crime angle.”
“That’s why we’re pals,
Falconer.”
“Favor for favor.”
“I wanted you to see this because it might get big and then, if I hadn’t called, you and the rest of the media would go ape shit about us covering it up, endangering the public, et cetera, et cetera. All the usual crap.”
“And for that reason I’ll give you a couple ‘body found’ paragraphs in the blog briefs, same as you’ll get from the dailies after you post the news release. I’d just as soon it stays small, anyway. We have three good serials running and that’s all my doughty little staff of three, me included, can handle. On-line, everything needs a daily update – twice daily! – or every hour if we could do it. The verdict on the alcoholic mother who left her two-year-old to starve is due this week, probably Monday, so we’ll be stretched thin covering that.”
Falconer tossed the last of his coffee, now cold, onto the pebbles. “Your problem is if one of the kids or, God forbid, their families, dances around the embarrassment of why they were down here with beer and blankets after midnight and calls the TVs. Then you get the whole circus. Taped interviews with the kids on the beach pointing right there,” Falconer waved toward the body, “Stand-ups overlooking the spot at five, six, ten and eleven with long shadows from the TV lights making the night shots suitably ominous. You’d better hope the fear of embarrassment is greater than the pull of 15 minutes of fame, but I wouldn’t count on it. Hell, with all the on-line access to your radios, they’ll all be here anyway as soon as they wake up.”
The sun reached over the trees and warmed their shoulders. A strong saltwater smell drifted in on the morning breeze. The two men stood for a few more minutes, looking across the water at the mountains. On the north faces, patches of snow still clung to the rock.
“Bobby, I’ve got a bet you shouldn’t take. My money says the I.D.’s fake and the killer knew it or he wouldn’t have left a wallet in your victim’s pants. Six pack of Redhook. Double or nothing there’s no record of his prints, either.”
“I am again defeated by your powers of reasoning, Falconer, but I’ll take the bet because you’re fun to drink with.” Harms grinned broadly, showing his unbelievably white teeth. Over beers Falconer had got it out of him that he went to the dentist twice a year to have them whitened. “Because I drink so much coffee on this damn job.”
Falconer crunched through the beach gravel to the pedestrian bridge over the Burlington-Northern-Santa-Fe tracks that connects Carkeek Park to its beach. From the overpass he took a last look at the body, bloated surely from decomposition gases but no doubt a big, big scary guy when he was alive. The size of him, that needed to be in the blog. That made him unforgettable, so there was a chance someone saw him around locally. For starters, Bobby would have officers at the Seahawk’s team shop when it opened.
Chapter 2, Los Angeles
Monday June 9, 11 a.m.
In one respect Carl Barclay looked forward to the monthly delivery. He loved the blast of heat that welcomed him as he stepped out of Victor Wallingford’s plane in Burbank. In that moment he would think about retiring and getting out of Seattle permanently to somewhere warm. Who cared if the Southern California sky was never really blue?
There was nothing else he enjoyed about the trip. Pulling the carry-on bag, he walked the 20 or 30 yards to the car, always a silver or black Beamer or Mercedes, always with deeply tinted windows. The chauffeur, dark suit complete with cap (fucking pretentious, Carl thought), opened the back door for him. Carl shoved the bag onto the seat and got in beside it, fastened his seat belt. The bodyguard, bigger than Carl’s 6’2” and in shape the way Carl hadn’t been in 25 years, got in the other side and patted the carry-on, grinning, satisfied. Waves of heat rising from the pavement in front of them, they rolled past a dozen other private jets and out a back gate.
Carl froze on the drive as the car’s air conditioning pumped full blast. On his first trip the driver yelled at him to “Keep the fucking window shut” and that was all the instruction he needed in local customs. Each month it was a different high-end hotel – Omni, Four Seasons, Mondrian, a couple others – and they always drove directly into the garage. Two more guys dressed like the big guy in the back seat – cream raw silk sport coats, black slacks and black tees with an indecipherable black on black corporate logo embroidered above the heart – appeared beside the car as they parked.
Upstairs in an elegant suite, Carl shared a room service lunch with Adrian. No last name. Just Adrian, a guy impeccably dressed for air-conditioned Beverly Hills business deals, double breasted navy blazer, pin-striped dark blue shirt with a white spread collar, gray slacks, perfectly dimpled tie and sleek shoes so fine you could hardly tell them from slippers.
Victor knew this guy. This was Victor’s deal and it was just like Victor all these months not to tell Carl the guy’s full name or anything much about the guy. Victor always kept bits and pieces of things to himself. No one else knew the whole picture. That was the way he operated. OK then, Carl’s policy was no questions. Still, he searched the Internet every which way for L.A. characters first named Adrian. Top of his finds was a guy named Adrian Topping, head of a company that provided and managed support services for the film industry, lighting experts, sound techs, stand-ins, stunt performers, key grips, best boys, carpenters and all the rest that keep the credits running five minutes after the movie ends. Given the Hollywood crowd, Carl figured Adrian wouldn’t have had a lot of trouble expanding his business to include the distribution of hard drugs.
Carl thought Adrian was a wussy name for a gangster. But maybe Adrian wasn’t just a gangster. Maybe he got into it the way Victor did, as a kind of spinoff of what he mostly did. Victor was a venture capitalist in the dope business, not a street-smart dealer who fought his way to the top. Maybe that was Adrian, too, the new American way. Maybe nobody was strictly legit anymore. Maybe legitimate businesses really owned the street gangs. You could imagine them listed as “narcotics marketing subsidiaries” on the org charts. Carl smiled at the thought. It almost seemed possible. That was how Victor set his operation up, protected by reams of perfectly clean corporate paper.
“Ah, the courier. How are you Mr. Barclay? Nice flight? Not so cramped anymore? I hear our Vic has a new plane, a used something or other, but more headroom than the Lear from the last century, eh? And now lunch.” He shook Carl’s hand, his left hand warmly clasping Carl’s elbow.
Lunch was always there when Carl arrived, under silver covers, warmed in chafing dishes. Handoff complete, the goons retreated. The door clicked shut. Carl imagined them standing guard in the hallway, like in the movies.
Adrian talked, a gourmet’s anticipation of the meal, gossip about celebrity chefs he seemed to know. Carl wondered if Adrian owned restaurants, good places to launder money. He rolled the carry-on across the carpet, pushed the handle into its slots and set it on a suitcase stand next to an identical black Briggs and Riley.
Adrian kept at his polite patter, slightly accented, maybe from somewhere in Europe, finished with British vowels. Carl thought it sounded phony. Wearing the same corporate uniform as the muscle, a slim, slight fellow with a thin moustache served them, always the same guy. Carl thought of him as Adrian’s taster, the guy who took the poison for his boss in medieval times.
Accompanying the seared fois gras and chevre, Adrian described the force feeding of geese and complained gently about the over use of truffle oil in restaurants these days. With the tiny rack of lamb he recounted a visit to an organic ranch in the Sierras and after a meditative tasting wondered how the complex Cabernet from Walla Walla – a Washington wine to please Carl, he said – could be so young.
With the cigars, big ones – like sucking a cock, Carl thought – Adrian turned to politics. The first delivery, almost two years ago now, Carl thought this just polite curiosity. What real interest could this man have in Seattle and Washington State politics? But by his second or third trip Carl could tell the questions were informed, astute and, he noted, often about Governor Maureen Collins.
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Politics was Carl’s turf. He’d been – unabashedly – a political hack most of his life, though for the last 20 years the title had been “public affairs consultant,” which brought in a lot of business from outfits fighting regulations and taxes. And, of course, that’s how he’d met Victor and ended up lobbying for the interests of Wallingford Evergreen.
Carl loved the irony of an old labor Democrat like himself working for the tassel-loafer crowd, spreading Republican money around Olympia, lots of it into the hands of the Democratic leadership. Most of the time the D’s controlled the House if not the Senate and Carl Barclay Associates was connected. With Democrats he had access, a salable commodity. The papers called him “the dean of Seattle political consultants.”
But that was back home. Here in this hotel room with Adrian he was just Victor’s mule, towing a black suitcase worth more than his six-member firm grossed in a year and God knows how much more when Adrian put it out on the street. Here with a guy whose clothes said he never left his guarded, air-conditioned cocoon except maybe for the golf course, Carl couldn’t generate the flair or the wit or the chutzpah to energize the aura of importance he carried into every room in Seattle. It was the fear. He knew it. It dripped corrosively in his stomach and stank in his armpits. It attacked without warning like a nightmare. Carl had never gotten through lunch without imagining narcs kicking in the gold-trimmed double doors and slamming him against the wall, handcuffed. Fear was the unifying emotion of the monthly trips, polite talk but everything in slow motion, the cutlery heavy as lead. A four-star meal that could as easily have been stale bread for all he could taste. This was what he had to retire from. He had to retire from Victor.
Adrian asked about Gov. Collins, her son and daughter, as though he knew the family. Carl wasn’t close to Maureen or Richard Collins. Never had been. He knew her, of course, but not surprisingly she’d never been a client. Her husband, Richard, was East Coast – they met at Harvard Law – and very old-family Republican, not Carl’s side of the street, really, despite his business clients. The business guys were less ideological. How old were the kids now? Where did they go to school? Carl wasn’t sure. The boy was still in high school, he thought, boarding at Lakeside in Seattle, prepping to follow his father’s legacy in the East.