by J. A. Jance
“Is she in any pain?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “She’s yust tired. We both are.”
A glance at Lars’s weathered face told me that was true. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery. “We had some good times,” he added. “But she’s ready to move on.”
I looked around the room. There was no heart monitor. No oxygen equipment. “Isn’t there something we should do? Some treatment? Something?”
Lars shook his head and gestured toward the bright yellow do not resuscitate placard that had been affixed to the door. “No.” he said. “There’s nothing. She yust needs to rest a little.”
“And so do you,” I said. “I’m here now. Why don’t you go take a nap?”
I was surprised by his ready agreement. “Ja, sure,” he said, getting shakily to his feet. “I t’ink you’re right.”
Left alone in the room with Beverly, I sat there for a long time simply watching her sleep. She seemed serene, untroubled, and unafraid. Leaving her asleep, I went out into the corridor and placed the necessary calls, telling Scott and Kelly what was going on. They both wanted to know if they should drop everything and come home.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”
“Have you talked to her doctor?” Kelly demanded. How my daughter somehow had transformed herself from a headstrong, dippy teenager into an amazingly practical adult is one of the mysteries of the universe, and it never fails to surprise me.
“Not yet,” I told her. “But I will.”
Ten minutes after I finished giving the news to my son Scott, my cell phone rang. “Sorry about this,” Dave Livingston said. “Anything I can do?”
Dave is my first wife’s second husband—Karen’s official widower. He’s also my children’s stepfather. I suspected that Kelly was the one who had seen fit to call him and let him know, but it could just as easily have been Scott. Dave is a likable guy and both my kids look up to him. Either way, I was glad someone had notified Dave, and I was touched that he had gone to the trouble of calling.
“No,” I said. “For right now, I guess it’s just a matter of waiting.”
“Waiting’s tough,” he said. I understood without anything more being said that the man knew whereof he spoke.
Back in Beverly’s room I castigated myself for not stopping by Belltown Terrace on the way and picking up Kyle’s picture. Not that it would have made any difference. She was asleep, and I doubted if she would ever waken enough to see the framed photo Kelly had wanted Beverly to have.
My grandmother had been a young bride when she had my mother, and my mother had been a very young not-bride when I was born. And so at a time when other men my age were losing their mothers, my mother, who had died young, was already gone, and I was losing my grandmother instead.
I sat there for the rest of the long afternoon listening to Beverly breathe, thinking about the few short years we’d had together, and regretting the many years we’d spent apart. I was glad for the happy times she and Lars had shared and felt sad when I realized how much it would hurt for him to lose a second well-loved wife.
In his day, Lars had been a serious drinker (that’s why he was my AA sponsor, after all). He had loved his first wife, Hannah, but I knew from things he’d told me over the years that he’d also neglected her—the way alcoholics often do, not out of any particular malice but because nothing’s more important to them than booze. Lars had done much better by Beverly, and losing her would be hard on him. I wondered, in fact, if he’d survive it.
Lars came limping back into the room and resumed his bedside watch about the time the sun went down behind the grain terminal out in Elliott Bay. The sky was layered with banks of clouds that turned pink, purple, and finally gray as the setting sun sank beneath the western horizon. I went down the hall to the nurse’s station and brought back a second chair.
“No matter what,” Lars said quietly, “I wouldn’t have missed this.”
I nodded. That’s always the bottom line where love is concerned. Is loving someone ever worth the ultimate price of losing them?
“And she’s very proud of you, Beau,” Lars added. “Always has been.”
That got me. “I know,” I said, blinking back tears.
Mel turned up about then, bringing with her Kyle’s missing photo. I was grateful she had gone to the trouble in the few spare minutes she had between the end of work and the start of her evening board meeting. After showing Kyle’s photo to Lars, who was suitably unimpressed, I placed the small framed photo on the nightstand next to Beverly’s glass and water pitcher. Mel was smart enough not to ask how I was doing or how long I’d be because I had no idea.
I badgered Lars into going down to the dining room for some dinner just before they closed. He offered to take me along, but I wasn’t hungry. He had barely left the room when Beverly’s eyes popped open. She looked first at the chair Lars had just vacated, then gazed anxiously around the room.
“It’s all right,” I assured her. “He went downstairs for some dinner.”
“Oh,” she said.
Then she mumbled something I couldn’t make out. For a moment I wondered if she even knew who I was. When I asked her to repeat what she’d said, she opened her eyes and looked at me impatiently.
“Where’s Mel?” she demanded.
That was clear enough. It left no doubt about whether she recognized me, and it told me plainly enough that my grandmother was in full possession of her faculties.
“Mel had to go to a meeting,” I said. “She’ll be back later.”
“Lars said you were on a trip,” Beverly mumbled a few seconds later. “Did you marry her?”
So that was it. Beverly had evidently decided that Mel’s and my trip to Ashland had been something it wasn’t.
“No,” I said. “We drove down to Ashland to see Kelly and Jeremy and their new baby…” I reached for the photo to show Beverly her new great-great-grandson. Ignoring Kyle, Beverly stared directly into my face.
“Marry her,” she commanded forcefully. “Mel’s a good girl, and she’s good for you. Don’t let her slip away.”
That single fragment of forceful and lucid conversation seemed to sap all Beverly’s strength and energy. She soon drifted off to sleep once more and was still asleep when Lars returned from the dining room.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Still sleeping,” I said. Somehow I didn’t mention to him what she had said earlier. I didn’t say anything then and I didn’t later as the night wore on and Beverly’s breathing grew more and more shallow. I didn’t want to admit to Lars that she’d roused herself long enough to give me one last set of marching orders. And I didn’t want him to know that, in what might well be her last waking moments, Beverly had been thinking about me rather than him.
By midnight it was over and she was gone. I stayed with Lars long enough to see him settled in the apartment he and Beverly had shared. By the time I left Queen Anne Gardens the clouds had returned and it was raining again. A little past one, I let myself into the condo at Belltown Terrace. Mel, with her feet tucked under her, was curled up in my recliner, sound asleep. I stood there for a long moment or two watching her—stunned by how amazingly beautiful she was and wondering how much time we might have to be together, or if we even should. Finally I reached out and touched her gently on the shoulder. She awakened instantly.
Mel searched my face and read what was written there. “Beverly’s gone, then?” Mel asked.
I nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“So am I,” I agreed. “Sorrier than I would have thought possible. Let’s go to bed.”
CHAPTER 4
When Mel woke me up in the morning it was with a cup of coffee and a good-bye kiss. She was almost dressed and ready to go to work.
“I already called Harry and told him you won’t be in,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said.
“He wanted to know when the services
would be.”
“I’m not sure. Lars says that’s all handled, but we didn’t really discuss it last night.”
“There’s handled and then there’s handled,” Mel declared. “And I’m sure there will be lots of loose ends that need tying up. And if all the kids are coming home,” she added, “we should probably make some hotel reservations for them. I don’t think having all of us stay here together is a good idea.”
“Yes,” I told her, savoring the coffee and enjoying watching her button her blouse. “Living in sin does have its little complications, especially if you’re blessed with serious-minded young adult children who make no bones about knowing right from wrong now that the shoe is somehow, inexplicably, on the other foot.”
Mel smiled. “You can thank your lucky stars that we have only one set of disapproving young adult children. If I’d had kids, too, it could have been a lot worse.”
There was no point in calling Scott and Kelly, or my good friends Ron and Amy Peters, either. Not right then—not until I had a firmed-up schedule from Lars. I was out of the shower and toweling dry when he called.
“Hate to bother you,” Lars began. “But you said you probably wouldn’t be going in today. If you could take me to the mortuary and to a flower shop…”
“Whatever you need, Lars. All you have to do is ask. I can be there in half an hour.”
“An hour’s fine,” he said. “They don’t open until ten.”
It was sometime during that hour that I realized Beverly had done both Ross Connors and me a huge favor. By dying when she did, she afforded both of us the luxury of cover—time off the clock when I’d be able to pursue the LaShawn Tompkins matter with no one, Mel Soames included, being the wiser.
I used that hour of privacy to cull through Mel’s newspapers, carefully putting them back the way I’d found them when I finished. I didn’t find much. News about LaShawn had been relegated to the second page of the local section, and that was comprised mostly of nothing new to report. In the obituary section there was a brief announcement that gave a quick overview of LaShawn’s short-circuited life. The service for him would be held on Thursday morning at 10 a.m. at the African Bible Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Way.
For a moment or two I considered putting in a call to Seattle PD and seeing if I could worm any information out of some of my old compatriots. I thought better of it, though. It would be more useful for me to do some of my own investigating. To that end I located an address and a phone number for E. M. Tompkins on Church Street and stuffed it in my pocket. If I had time after I finished helping Lars, I’d stop by and pay a call LaShawn’s grieving mother.
I found Lars hobbling back and forth in front of Queen Anne Gardens’s sliding glass door. He looked agitated. I assumed he was still upset about Beverly. He was, but that wasn’t the only problem.
He climbed in beside me. “Those old ladies,” he muttered, slamming the car door behind him and shaking his head.
“What old ladies?” I asked.
“Back there,” he said, gesturing back toward Queen Anne Gardens. “Beverly’s not even in the ground and here they were all over me at breakfast, wanting to sit with me and bring me coffee. Ja, sure, they was treating me like I was…fresh fish.”
It was hard not to smile. It occurred to me that since Lars was in his nineties, he had a hell of a lot of nerve calling anyone else “old.” And only a lifelong fisherman would confuse “fresh meat” with “fresh fish” in that particular context. The very idea of Lars suddenly cast in the role of a sought-after and eligible bachelor was one that was difficult to grasp.
“They were probably just concerned about you,” I said.
“No,” he declared heatedly. “I’m old enough to know better than that!”
I had to give him that one. If he thought the randy ladies at Queen Anne Gardens were on the make, he was probably right.
“Where to?” I asked.
“Bleitz,” he muttered.
I knew where that particular funeral home was with no need of additional directions. It was where services had been held for Ron Peters’s estranged first wife back in January. We went up and over Queen Anne Hill and down the back side to Florentia near the Fremont Bridge.
Dana Howell, Lars’s funeral consultant, greeted him warmly. “I’m so sorry to be seeing you again so soon,” she said.
Lars nodded. “Ja, sure,” he said, “but I’m glad we got it done.”
And it turned out it was done. All of it, down to what would be printed on the program as well as what music would be sung and played. Beverly had already been brought to the mortuary from Queen Anne Gardens. There was an opening for a service at noontime on Thursday, if that was appropriate, and Lars allowed as how it was.
“You still want two urns?” Dana asked.
Lars shot me a sidelong glance and then nodded. “Half her ashes go into the lake with her first husband. The other half goes with me. That’s fair.”
That was the first I knew that when the weather cleared, I’d be required to make another pilgrimage to Lake Chelan to scatter a second set of ashes. This time I hoped I’d have brains enough to wear the sea-sick bracelets Beverly had given me. That way I wouldn’t turn green the first time The Lady of the Lake hit rough water.
“My arrangements are here, too,” he added in an aside to me while nodding in Dana’s direction. “Dana here knows yust what I want, and it’s paid for, too. You won’t have to worry about a t’ing.”
After leaving the funeral home we stopped by a florist on top of Queen Anne Hill where Lars blew all of seventy-five bucks on a floral arrangement and then worried about having spent too much. I made a note to call back later and add a few more arrangements to the floral end of things. Beverly Piedmont Jenssen’s memory certainly deserved much more than a single bouquet with a less-than-a-hundred-dollars price tag.
“Anything else?” I asked him, once we were back in the car.
Lars hesitated for a moment, then he nodded. “I t’ink I’d like to find a meeting.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear that, even after years of sobriety, Lars might be thinking about falling off the wagon. If your lifelong coping mechanism for dealing with grief is to numb the hurt with booze, than it’s easy to want to drift back into bad old habits. I made a few calls and located a noontime AA meeting at the back of an old-fashioned diner up on Greenwood. When it came time to repeat the Serenity Prayer, I saw the white-knuckled grip Lars had on his cane and knew right then he was having a hell of a struggle accepting what he couldn’t change. I was in pretty much the same boat.
When I took him back to Queen Anne Gardens, I went around to the passenger side of the car to let him out. Once he was upright, he surprised me by giving me a heartfelt hug. “T’anks,” he said. “T’anks for everything.”
“The kids will all be here tomorrow,” I told him. “Kelly and Jeremy are driving up from Ashland in the morning. They’ll be here in time for dinner tomorrow night, and Scott and Cherisse will be flying in about the same time. But what about tonight? Would you like to have dinner with Mel and me?”
Lars shook his head sadly. “No,” he said. “I’ll be all right.” With that, he hobbled away.
I glanced at my watch. It was only a little past one. Mel wouldn’t be back on this side of the water anytime before six. That meant I had several relatively free hours. I suppose I should have felt guilty about using that time to pursue the LaShawn Tompkins homicide, but I didn’t. After all, Beverly had been proud of the job I do. I thought she would have gotten a kick out of having a one-time-only chance to be part of what was close to an undercover operation.
With that in mind I got back into the S55 and headed for Rainier Valley. When I arrived at the Tompkins place on South Church Street, I looked around for any official-looking cars. Other than a battered eight-passenger van with the words king street mission lettered on the door, I didn’t see any. As far as police presence was concerned, I was it.
Etta Mae Tomp
kins’s house was small but tidy-looking, with a well-kept fenced front yard. A few traces of the earlier tragedy were still visible. A scrap of yellow police tape lingered on a gatepost. When I stepped onto the porch, I could see that someone had gone to the effort of trying to scrub the fingerprint dust off the door frame, but a practiced eye could still see grubby gray traces marring the otherwise white trim around the doorbell. A mop and bucket filled with dingy reddish water reeking of Pine-Sol sat next to the doorway. The screen door was closed, but the inside door stood slightly ajar. As I raised my finger toward the bell, I heard the sound of a female voice coming from inside.
“I know he was important to you and your people, Pastor Mark, and you’re welcome to have whatever kind of memorial service for Shawny you like,” the woman was saying. “And if I can get a ride, you can bet I’ll be there. But the funeral is mine, and that’s final. It don’t matter what LaShawn would or wouldn’t have wanted, neither. He’s dead, you understand me? LaShawn is dead and gone and he gets no say in the matter. Oh, you’re right. King Street Mission was his place and all, but it’s not my place. Funerals is for the living. Bible Baptist is my church, with my pastor and my people. That’s where I’m having it, and that’s final!”
A man spoke then. I couldn’t make out the individual words, but his tone sounded conciliatory.
Just then a second white van pulled up outside the little house’s front gate and parked just behind the first. A magnetic sign affixed to the van’s door announced: meals-on-wheels. A tall black man with a bald head and amazingly wide shoulders stepped out. Then he reached back inside and lifted a small cooler out of the backseat. Excusing himself, he shouldered past me on the front porch, pulled open the screen door, and stepped inside.
“It’s me, Etta Mae,” he called. “Mr. Dawson with Meals-on-Wheels. I’m here with your food.”
“Come on in, Mr. Dawson,” she replied. “You know the way. Janie, Mr. Dawson’s here from Meals-on-Wheels. Could you help him put it away?”
