Cold Crossover

by T. R. Kelly

  Noon, Sunday, February 6, 1982

  Sometimes selling real estate gets in the way of scouting basketball players and teams. Or looking for former stars. I nearly forgot about an in-home appointment with Eldon and Caroline Crane to list their old Victorian on five so-so acres of tulip fields just west of Burlington. Eldon got the property from his mother’s estate but did not have the patience to deal with the annual April flowers—and the tourists that clogged his road to see them. His neighbor now farmed the land, and the Cranes got a small share of a shrinking annual profit.

  I eased the bus into the dirt driveway, swept a cluster of dried orange peels from the top of my fake-leather briefcase, and looked up to find Caroline cleaning an upstairs window.

  “The new trim color looks great,” I said with little enthusiasm. “You guys should be pleased with all the work you’ve done. Some buyer is going to be lucky to get this place.”

  She smiled, placed a blue cloth over a plastic spray bottle and pointed toward the first floor. Eldon Crane, a former assistant principal at the junior high school, greeted me in the entry and led the way into the dining room. He’d taken an early buyout five years ago when the district announced it was consolidating two of its elementary schools, then turned a long-time summer job at the cannery into full-time employment. Teachers and administrators crammed the canneries for summer jobs when school let out in June, processing peas and lima beans to make ends meet. The school district superintendent told me he was pleasantly surprised with Eldon’s decision because his physical solutions to handling discipline did not go over well with some parents. Especially after he made a student duckwalk for an hour after school for hocking a loogie that landed on a female classmate’s new saddle shoe.

  Eldon appeared tense and unkempt in food-stained, polyester pants. The house was colder and darker than I remembered. A near-empty square bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label rested with one dirty glass on a drip-spotted buffet. Would the Cranes also put energy into brightening the interior before potential buyers previewed the home? As I considered where to sit, I wondered if the couple had any idea how much the housing market had declined. The past two months had been devastating to the neighborhood. Six new For Sale signs popped up while the Cranes mulled their decision. Four of the homes were single wage-earner households. Five of the six had kids in high school or elementary school. I knew the Cranes had to sell this house if they had any hope of buying a smaller one closer to town.

  Eldon dodged any consistent eye contact and chatted awkwardly about the weather and the “wimpy” National Football League for demanding more protective helmets. I tried to avoid a noticeable assessment of Eldon’s wrinkled, grubby shirt, kept my distance by choosing a spot at the far end of the table, and squared up the briefcase in front of me. The stink of his body easily made the crossing.

  “All right.” Eldon crossed his arms over an ample midsection. “I might as well say it now. You’re going to hear it anyway. I was given notice at Twin City Foods last week. The company is eliminating three mid-level managers over in Stanwood, and I’m one of ’em. Sign of the times.”

  I frowned and tried to picture the faces behind the nearby For Sale signs. All cannery families. “I’m sorry, Eldon. I really am. It seems as though we are losing more jobs in the county every day.” I interlaced my fingers on top of the briefcase like an attentive student. “Did they mention any possibility of bringing you back for the green bean season?”

  Crane quickly skimmed the back of his hand under his nostrils and examined the findings. “Management said I could go into part-time sales,” Crane replied, apparently more bitter at having to tell an acquaintance than at the position itself. “Can’t imagine sellin’ sweet peas to supermarkets a few hours a week. Can you?”

  His hoarse voice made me thirsty.

  “After twenty-six years with the same outfit, you’d think they could find some sort of full-time place for me. Gave those clowns some great summers.”

  I leaned back in the chair, felt it wobble, then quickly snapped to an upright position. Most people let go at the cannery were given no part-time option. They would have taken anything, especially if it meant keeping their kids in the same school until June. “Who knows?” I said. “A bumper crop of summer tomatoes could bring full-time jobs for a lot of people.”

  Crane just glared at the table until Caroline entered the room, methodically folding her beige apron. I opened the briefcase and distributed copies of the agreement; it suggested an asking price in the middle range of our office evaluations.

  Eldon shifted in his chair as he read the first page, then pulled the paper clip from the top left corner of the six-page set. He took a deep breath, bent the clip into a zigzag line, and ran a palm over his balding head. I knew what was coming, but I’d underestimated the force with which it would arrive.

  “There’s no way in hell we are selling this place for one-forty-eight,” he said, his voice rising with the numerals. “The house down the street got more than that three years ago. This is a bigger home on a better lot. ’Sides, there’s the cash every year from the flowers.”

  He did not take his eye off the page. I waited, pulled out a pen, and pointed at the filled-out forms for emphasis. “A lot of people, in our office and elsewhere, helped me arrive at this price.”

  “You know, if that damned Garcia kid hadn’t run out and left us high and dry, we would have been on the market before those other families,” Eldon said. “Probably would have got the price we were lookin’ for.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Ronnie Garcia bid our paint job, some minor repairs. Started scraping and then never came back. Took us months to find somebody else who could do it at a decent price. Pathetic painters charge as much as doctors, and they don’t take insurance.”

  I sat back and let his comments settle. “Ronnie played for me at the high school several years ago.”

  “Did he ever show up for practice? Because he sure as hell didn’t show up much around here.”

  Caroline raised her hand, smiled politely, and focused on her husband. “Honey,” that’s all behind us now. We need to keep moving. We have to sell. We have no choice.”

  Eldon poked at the paper. “It’s gotta be worth more than this. It just has to.”

  Caroline gripped the side of the table with both hands and leaned forward, her face now halfway across the waxed-maple surface. “Have you been blind to the number of homes now on the market? Good Lord, Eldon, there’s a new sign three doors down!”

  I dropped my forearms to the table, hoping a brief silence would heal the moment. I didn’t care to witness this exchange, but it came with the job. I squirmed, waiting be called upon to justify the suggested asking price, but Caroline bailed me out.

  “Eldon, you’ve overestimated the value of this home for years. I know it was your mother’s place, but our memories don’t mean squat to somebody else. You have a professional telling you what he thinks people will pay.”

  Eldon Crane shook his head, slumped in his chair even more, and gripped the contract with both hands. He sneered like a too-proud man assigned a menial job. His eyes darted from the paper to me, then back again. “How much real time did you put into this?” His voice lowered to a near-biting whisper. “I hear all you do is eat and sleep basketball, and look for kids who’ve drowned in the Sound. From what I hear, Linn Oliver is gone, and you better ...”

  I was on my feet and in Crane’s face in a heartbeat. It wasn’t until I had two fistfuls of his smelly polyester shirt bunched under his chin that I realized he could possibly be right. Caroline broke the moment like an early morning alarm interrupting a too-real dream.

  “Eldon! How dare you!”

  I pushed Crane away. The motion propelled him back, whiplashing his neck above the top of his chair.

  “You have no right to talk to him that way.” She turned to me, chin down. “I’m sorry. And so embarrassed. Please forgive my husband.”

  I straigh
tened up. Caroline Crane whipped a wood-armed chair closer to her husband. She plopped down, one knee bumping his thigh. He turned toward her like kid knowing a lecture was headed his way.

  “Eldon, sign the thing,” she snarled. “We need to move on with our lives. We are not in the position of hoping for more, and we might be lucky to even get an offer at this price.”

  **

  Eldon Crane signed the listing at one-forty-nine-five. I drove back to the office, thinking maybe he saved a little face by not signing at one-forty-eight, despite his wife’s scowl and sermon. A fifteen-hundred-dollar ego massage that Caroline would probably never forget. I thought the original price was too high, but it’s human nature for sellers to think their home is always worth more. I had a feeling Eldon would end up paying for the price bump in more ways than one.

  I rambled through the back door of the office. Cookie should enter my new listing into the multiple-listing computer database before the end of the day and maybe get a property sign ordered for the Crane’s yard.

  Edith looked up from her desk, her gray hair stacked in a mini-tower that looked like some sort of ancient gray vase. “Oh, Ernie,” she muttered. “We really have to get you a new attaché piece for Father’s Day. It would make you so much more impressive to our clients. And that shirt. The frayed collar will make people think you don’t shave, and we all know that you do.”

  “Edith,” I said, stopping directly in front of her. “I’m not a dad so a gift that day might be odd. I was just thinking I would junk this case for a nice brown shopping bag from the Red Apple Market. Probably easier for me to carry than this, and I wouldn’t have to fool with any latches that sometimes don’t like to open. And my shirt still fits, so I wear it.”

  “Well, I know my place.” She snatched a copy of House Beautiful from beneath a silver letter opener and laid the magazine across her desk, chin higher than usual.

  “Frankly, Edith,” I said, striding toward Cookie’s office. “I wish you did.”

  Elinor Cutter slammed the receiver to the phone as I entered. “Work my tail off to sell the guy’s house, and he wants me to cut my commission because his price was too high?” she said, surveying the clutter on her desktop. “Already came down half a point.” She looked up, knowing I was in the room but not caring in the least. “Now, what the hell do you want?”

  “Got the Crane listing.” I handed the documents to her.

  “Geez, Coach.” She slumped at the asking price on the front page. “Can we sell this sucker at that number? Half that side of town is down ’cause of the damn cannery layoffs.”

  “The idea was to start at a tick lower. Caroline was in our corner, but you know how it goes with Eldon. Just had to dicker; come back higher than what we suggested. Didn’t surprise me at all, but it sure wasn’t pretty sitting through it. Caroline got a little testy with the old boy.”

  “The guy’s a piece of work. Doubt if he ever leaves that house anymore. I’ll get this to the multiple this afternoon.” Cookie flicked a curly set of bangs from her forehead with a quick neck twitch. “You got any live bodies who might be interested in this place? Speak now before other agents get a shot at it.”

  “Can’t say as I do. My people who aren’t looking for vacation property are mostly like the Cranes—trying to move out of bigger family homes into smaller ones. Thought about some of my customers’ kids with families but they all seem to be set for the time being. I’ll keep after it.”

  She glanced up, then randomly pawed about her desk. “Speaking of keepin’ after it,” she mumbled. “Harvey Johnston is after you. I’ve got the messages here someplace.” She yanked a pink piece of paper that had been covered by a black three-ring binder. “Wants you to call him. ASAP.’’

  I took the paper, looked at the phone number, and stuffed it in my pocket. “Didn’t you say ‘messages?”’

  “I did.” Cookie continued her rummaging. “I actually spoke to another guy. He was calling from Mexico and sounded like he was talking into a tin can on the other end of a string. Absolutely lousy reception. Said he’d be here this week and was trying to get in touch with Linn. Terry somebody.”

  “Rausch. Terry Rausch.”

  “That’s the name. Says he’s flyin’ into Sea-Tac in the next couple of days, I think. The doggone note was right here, someplace.”

  Her phone rang again. She dropped into her tacked burgundy leather chair, spun away so that I only viewed the top of her head, then proceeded to chew out an appraiser. It was her “humble opinion” that he was standing between one of her customers and a bank loan because his valuation of a spiffy three-bedroom rambler “was lower than the depths of hell.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  3 p.m., Sunday, February 6, 1982

  Harvey Johnston’s home phone was busy on the third try so I decided to postpone the visit until the morning. Instead, I stopped by Ronnie Garcia’s house to see if I could connect a few dots about basketball, Barbara, and the night Linn went missing.

  I could tell by Harvey’s questions yesterday at the lake that Linn’s life and family were about to be put under a microscope. Harvey planned interviews with big-city doctors—including a sports-medicine expert—as well as former trainers at the UW, coaches and teachers. People worshiped former sports stars, especially hometown heroes, and I knew Harvey had to pull out all the stops. Perhaps my visit to the Garcia place would help.

  Ronnie played hard for me for two years at Washington High, but only after I clearly explained the goals and roles for everyone on the team. I usually found the young man quiet, often sullen, but once a person connected with him indicated an interest, he was game for just about anything.

  Ozzie and Harriet could have lived in the Garcias’ brightly painted Craftsman. With a white picket fence and a clean walkway, it was clearly one of the nicer houses on a cul-de-sac just off the highway northeast of North Fork. A few bikes and trikes down the block hadn’t made it out of the rain. Most driveways dead-ended into two-car garages with basketball hoops mounted on square backboards above. Always a positive sign to me.

  Alberto Garcia answered the knock in clean Levi’s, brown alligator cowboy boots, and a red plaid shirt. His smile came easily; his handshake was genuine. Alberto was a self-made man, revered in the community, and an innovative grower. He had built one of the first homes in the neighborhood, lived there for twenty-seven years, and raised five children.

  “Good afternoon, Coach,” Garcia said. “What a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe this honor?”

  “Mr. Garcia,” I said. “You are always much too kind--”

  “Coach, please. It’s Alberto.” He stretched an open palm toward his den. “Please, please do come in.”

  I followed him in and took a seat on a comfortable brown sofa. The captivating aroma drifting from the kitchen—I guessed chili peppers and onions simmering in a pan—made my mouth water.

  “I am sorry to bother you. This has been an interesting week, to say the least.” There was no room for fancy intros; Alberto had always been a straight shooter, and I needed to reciprocate, especially now. “I assume you have heard about Linn Oliver’s disappearance.”

  “Yes, I have. What an unfortunate situation. Has anything new been reported?”

  “Not that I know of, but the police are talking to more people all the time. I’ve been circling back with a few former players, seeing if anybody may have heard from Linn. I was thinking he might have had an emergency, maybe a trip out of the area.”

  “Perhaps Dr. Oliver has taken ill and Linn went to see him,” Alberto said. “But surely somebody’s contacted his father by now.”

  I recapped my visit with Robert Oliver.

  “He’s a dear man. He brought all of our children into the world. I remember how my Paola cried when she heard Dr. Oliver had retired. She said a woman’s bond with her doctor is like no other. Perhaps similar to you with your players, no?”

  I felt myself slouching, then jerked forward, Alberto’s instinc
ts were close, if not right on, and the realization hit close to home.

  “Speaking of players,” I said, “I understand Ronnie entered a team in the Montlake winter league. That’s a long drive just to play hoops.”

  Alberto laughed softly and sat back in his chair, legs crossed. “That’s exactly what I told him. But he said he had signed up to take an afternoon class at the UW, and the games were on the same days. I don’t know how many games he’s attended or how the team has done.”

  He suddenly looked down, shook his head as if he’d forgotten a major appointment, and pulled himself to his feet, the veins in his strong brown hands highlighted like dark blue rivers on a tiny map. “I am such a poor host. Can I get you something to eat or drink? Some coffee, perhaps?”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine,” I said. “I’ll just be a moment. How did Linn look the last time you saw him? Anything different about him that you remember?”

  “Well, let me see. It’s been a while. I know I saw Linn in the parking lot behind the school gym during the little kids’ holiday tournament. He was limping a little and didn’t say much. Seemed kind of down. And I don’t really remember if I’ve seen him since then.”

  “How about Ronnie? Do you know the last time he might have seen Linn?”

  “I assume the boys have played basketball together several times lately.” His eyes were wide, eyebrows arched. “They are, you know, on the same team.”

  I nodded. “I drove down to Montlake on Thursday night. Neither Ronnie nor Linn showed up for the game. Seems Ronnie didn’t make it to Tuesday night’s game either. That’s the night Linn went missing.”

  “Really? I will try to locate my son and find out what he’s been up to. He’s working and renting a home down on the Skagit Flats with a couple of guys. I’m sure he will lead me to believe that all of his time is taken up by school or work. Tell me, did Linn play in that game Tuesday night?”

  “Yes, he did, but he left early,” I said. “One of the teammates said he took a few shots, saw the game was out of reach, and headed to the Bremerton ferry. That’s the last anybody saw of him.”