by J. A. Jance
Lying in vait
( J P Beaumont - 12 )
J. A. Jance
J. A. Jance
Lying in vait
Prologue
The old white dog studied me from her usual place as I stepped up onto the porch, but she made no effort to rise and greet me or even to lift her head off her paws. I walked over, squatted beside her, and gave her silky ears a gentle rub.
"How's it going, Mandy, old girl?" I asked. She leaned into my hand while her tail thumped halfheartedly on the wooden porch, but still she didn't scramble to her feet. Instead, she stared intently up at me through soulful, cataract-dimmed eyes.
Leaving the dog where she was, I rose and walked over to the door. My hand was raised and ready to knock when the porch light snapped on. The door swung open on well-oiled hinges before my knuckles made contact with the wood. My grandmother, Beverly Piedmont, stood before me in the open doorway with her wispy white hair glowing in a backlit halo around her head.
"Just a minute, Jonas," she said quietly. "I'll get my coat."
She came back to the door moments later. A green plaid wool coat that reeked of mothballs was folded neatly over one arm. The pleats in her shiny, silklike black dress made her appear to be far more substantial than she was, but as I helped her into the heavy coat, I noticed there was hardly any meat left on her stooped shoulders. The skin on her liver-spotted hands was as thin and brittle as parchment.
Once the coat was properly buttoned, I waited while she dug a clear plastic, accordion-pleated rain-hat out of her massive black purse. She unfolded the hat, placed it over her hair, and tied it under her chin in a neat bow.
"I'm ready," she announced when the rain-hat was securely fastened in place. "We can go now."
Matching my steps with her small, careful ones and angling my umbrella to fend off the falling rain, I walked her out to my car. When it had been time to go to the mortuary, it hadn't seemed appropriate to pick my grandmother up in my new Guard-red Porsche, but that was the only car I had. I had offered to rent a black limo, but she had turned that down because she didn't "want to put on airs." In the long run, it didn't matter, because I don't believe she even noticed what kind of car it was.
I eased her down into the low-slung seat. She sighed, closed her eyes briefly, and settled back against the soft plush leather. Pulling the strap out of its holder, I reached across her frail body and fastened the seat and shoulder belts around her. As the buckle snapped home, she sat up straight and grasped her purse firmly with both hands.
"Thank you, Jonas," she said in a voice that was surprisingly quaver-free. "Thank you very much."
Most of the time I go by the name of Beau or by my initials, J. P. Only two people in the world have ever called me Jonas-my mother, who has been dead for many years, and now my grandmother. It was only in the course of the last few months, after accidentally encountering my estranged grandparents' name and address in the phone book, that my mother's mother had emerged from the shadows of the long-buried past into the present. At eighty-six, Beverly Piedmont came into my life as both a puzzle and a blessing.
Now she was also a widow.
My grandfather and namesake, Jonas Logan Piedmont, was dead at age ninety-one.
I turned the key in the ignition, and the Porsche's powerful engine roared to life. With headlights slicing through sheets of slanting raindrops, we headed for Newton's Family Mortuary off Aurora Avenue, where Mr. Lloyd Newton, III, at age sixty or so, had been genuinely dismayed when my grandmother had told him in no uncertain terms that there would be no services for my grandfather.
"Absolutely not," she had announced determinedly. "At our ages, there aren't that many people still around that we know, and we only see them at weddings or funerals. These days there are a lot more funerals than weddings. Each time, someone else turns up missing. It's too depressing."
Her decree had brooked no argument. Mr. Newton had been forced to comply with reasonably good grace.
"Are you taking care of yourself?" I asked, glancing in her direction as I threaded through evening traffic made worse by the steady downpour. A rain-slicked layer of newly fallen leaves covered the gutters and blocked Seattle's storm drains, leaving the streets awash. "Are you eating properly? Getting enough rest?"
"Mandy's the one you should be worried about," my grandmother returned with a shake of her head. "That crazy old dog won't eat a thing."
I remembered how Mandy used to sit for hours in mute companionship with my stroke-silenced, wheelchair-bound grandfather. She usually stuck close enough to his side that the slightest movement of his faltering hand would bring his flesh into contact with her patiently waiting head.
"Try bread and peanut butter," I suggested. "That's how Kelly and Jeremy get their dog, Sunshine, to take her arthritis medicine. Kelly claims there isn't a dog in the world that doesn't love bread and peanut butter."
Six months earlier, it would have been inconceivable to me that my daughter-Kelly, the complete airhead, as I once disparagingly called her-would end up passing out dog-care advice to her great-grandmother, but Beverly Piedmont nodded as though granting Kelly's suggestion serious consideration. "That sounds like a good idea," she said. "I believe I'll give it a try."
At the mortuary, we were ushered into Mr. Newton's private, rosewood-furnished office, where we were seated at a small conference table. The man himself appeared a few minutes later, carrying a small metal box in one hand and a file folder crammed with an unruly sheaf of papers in the other. Despite my grandmother's physical presence in the room and at the conference table, Mr. Newton's primary focus seemed to be aimed solely in my direction.
Before he said a word, he pushed an invoice toward me across the smooth expanse of polished wood. "We generally ask for payment upon receipt of the ashes. And I've made two certified copies of the death certificate. If you need more than two, just contact my office."
My grandmother's bony hand reached out and snagged the bill away from Mr. Newton's fingers before I could grasp it, but she left the death certificates lying where they fell. She groped in her cavernous purse and eventually came up with a checkbook. Meantime, I picked up the death certificates myself and studied the top one. On the line titled "Cause of death," it read, "Complications of flu, pneumonia."
I remembered back in August when the news broadcasts had been full of dire pronouncements about how this year's strain of Beijing flu was expected to be particularly bad. People had been urged to get flu shots, especially if they were in one of the at-risk groups.
The detective in me, the part that's worked the Seattle Homicide Squad for more years than I care to count, wondered how that one fatal bit of virus had managed to cross the Pacific Ocean and make its way into my grandfather's stubborn but failing system. Had it come into the house on a bill or with a stray piece of junk mail? Had it tracked him down on one of his infrequent trips to the grocery store or at the post office or in church? And given that he was ninety-one, did it really matter?
Using a fountain pen, Beverly Piedmont finished writing the check in her old-fashioned, spidery hand. After blotting the ink and passing the check to Mr. Newton, she folded the bill neatly, placed it in the back of her checkbook, then carefully returned the worn plastic folder to her purse. When she reached out to pull the metal box of ashes toward her, her thin, bony hand trembled slightly.
"You don't have to do that, Grandmother," I said gruffly, taking charge of the box. "I'll carry it."
"Thank you," she murmured softly. Only then, after all that, did she bury her face in her hands and begin to cry.
1
I didn't get much sleep that night. I was up early the next morning. Standing on my twenty-fifth-floor terrace, I was drinking coffee when t
he fall sun came creeping up over the tops of the Cascades. The previous day's rainstorm had blown away overnight, pushed eastward by the arrival of a sudden high-pressure system. The storm had left behind it a layer of low-lying, moisture-heavy fog that clung to the ground like an immense down-filled comforter.
Looking out across Seattle's skyline from that height, I found that the city's streets were shrouded and invisible, as were most of the surrounding low-rise buildings. I could hear the muffled sounds of passing cars and buses in the street below, but I couldn't see them. Now and then I could pick out the sound of an individual car churning down the street, its progress marked by the distinctive hum of pavement-destroying tire studs. Here and there across the cityscape, the tops of other high-rise buildings loomed up out of the fog like so many huge tombstones, I thought. Or like islands in the fog.
Wasn't that the name of a book? I wondered. No, it was Islands in the Stream. I had never read that particular Hemingway opus. My familiarity with the title came from working countless crossword puzzles.
That's what happens when you live alone. Your mind fills up with unnecessary mental junk like so much multipath interference on an overused radio frequency. Just as static on a radio keeps a listener from hearing the words, stream-of-consciousness interference keeps people who live alone from thinking too much. At least it helps. I had brought my grandfather's ashes home with me the night before. Even now, that discreetly labeled metal box was sitting on my entryway table. Sitting there, waiting. Waiting for my grandmother to decide what should be done with it.
I had asked her if there was some particular place where she would like the ashes scattered, or did she want an urn? Her answer was that she didn't know. She'd have to think about it. She'd let me know as soon as she made up her mind.
Chilled by the damp, cool air, I was headed back inside the apartment for another cup of Seattle's Best Coffee when the phone rang. Beverly Piedmont had been so much on my mind that somehow I expected the call to be from her, but it wasn't. It was Sergeant Watty Watkins, the desk sergeant from the Homicide Squad.
"How's it going, Beau? How's your grandmother holding up?"
"Pretty well, under the circumstances."
"Are you working today, or are you taking another bereavement day?"
"I'll be in. Why? What's up?"
"We've got a case that just turned up a few minutes ago, over at Fishermen's Terminal-a fatality boat fire. If it's a problem, I can assign it to someone else."
"Watty, I told you, I'm coming in. I'll take it. Who'll be working the case with me?"
"There'll be an arson investigator from the Seattle Fire Department, of course. As far as Homicide is concerned, pickings are a little thin. Detective Kramer and two of the other guys are off in D.C. for a training seminar this week. I'll probably team you up with Detective Danielson."
I was partnerless at the moment. Both of my last two partners, Ron Peters and Al Lindstrom, had been injured in the line of duty. For the foreseeable future, Ron was stuck in a wheelchair, and Al had just taken a disability retirement. Those two separate incidents had turned me into the Homicide Squad's version of Typhoid Mary. I was beginning to feel like an outcast.
For weeks now, I had been working by myself on the cold trail of a twenty-five-year-old homicide. The bullet-riddled skull had surfaced during the hazardous-waste cleanup of an import/export shipping company that had left Harbor Island in favor of cheaper rent in Tacoma. I had pretty well exhausted all possible leads on that musty old case. Frustrated at being exiled to a dead-end case and tired of getting nowhere, I was bored stiff and ready for some action.
Sue Danielson is one of the newest additions to the Homicide Squad. Not only is she relatively inexperienced, she's also one of the few female detectives on the team. Still, a partner is a partner. Beggars can't be choosers.
"Sue Danielson's fine," I said. "Is she there already? Does she have a car, or should I come down and get one?"
"She's right here," Watty replied. "I'll send her down to Motor Pool as soon as I get off the horn with you. She'll stop by Belltown Terrace to pick you up on her way north."
"Good," I said. "I'll be waiting downstairs."
And I was. Sue pulled up to the curb at Second and Broad in a hot little silver Mustang with a blue flashing light stuck on the roof. Some poor unfortunate drug dealer had been kind enough to equip the Mustang with a 5.0-liter high-output V-8 before unintentionally donating it to the exclusive use of the Seattle P.D. by way of a drug bust. As I crammed my six-three frame into the rider's side, I wished the bad guy had been taller. Short crooks tend to buy cars that are long on horsepower and short on headroom.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"Great," Sue said brusquely.
I was still closing the door when she gunned the engine and shot into traffic just ahead of an accelerating Metro bus that was lumbering down Second Avenue. Seattle police vehicles are supposedly nonsmoking in these politically correct days, but there was more than a hint of cigarette smoke wafting around in the Mustang when I got inside. Despite the cold, the driver's-side window was rolled all the way down.
I reached behind me for the seat belt as Sue threw the car into a sharp right onto Clay and raced toward First.
"If you don't mind my saying so, from the way you're driving, I'd guess it isn't all that great," I said.
Sue Danielson made a face. "It's my son," she said. "Jared. He got himself suspended from school yesterday afternoon for fighting in the lunch line. He says one of the other kids stole his lunch money during gym. He claims all he wanted to do was get the money back. So the principal handed out a three-day suspension. Great punishment! How do those jerks figure? Since when is letting a teenager stay home by himself for three days a punishment?"
Ah, the joys of parenthood. No wonder the Mustang reeked of cigarette smoke. Sue Danielson was upset, and I couldn't blame her. Being a parent is a generally thankless can of worms. Being a single parent is even more so. But in police work having a partner whose mind isn't totally focused on the job can prove to be downright dangerous. Cops live in a world where even momentary lapses in concentration can be fatal.
"How old is Jared?" I asked.
"Twelve."
"Generally a good kid?"
"More or less," she said grudgingly.
"Let me give you some unsolicited advice, Sue. The only cure for a twelve-year-old male is time. Lots of it. Wait and see. By twenty, Jared will be fine."
"If he lives that long," she added.
"Where is he right now?" I asked. "At home?"
Sue nodded grimly. "Probably in the family room on the couch, watching MTV even as we speak. I dragged his ass out of bed before I left home and told him if he so much as poked his head outside the door, I'd kill him. Personally. And I left him with a list of chores to be done, starting with scrubbing the kitchen cupboards inside and out."
"That's all you can do for the time being, isn't it?"
"I guess so."
"Then forget about it. For right now anyway. Tell me about the case. Who's dead? Do we know?"
By then we were hightailing it down Elliott past the towering but invisible grain-terminal complex that was totally shrouded in its own thick mantle of fog. Sue is still relatively new to Homicide, but she's a good cop. Her jaw tightened momentarily at the implied criticism in my comments, but she took it with good grace. After a moment or two, her face relaxed into a rueful grin. "I guess I needed that," she said. "Thanks for the friendly reminder."
"The case," I insisted, still trying to change the subject.
She nodded. "The dead guy's on a boat up here at Fishermen's Terminal. Somebody from a neighboring boat saw the fire just after five-thirty this morning. By the time the fire department got there, the cabin was fully engulfed. They didn't know there was a body inside, though, until just a few minutes before Watty called you. I came in early to finish up the paper on yesterday's domestic in West Seattle, but I wasn't getting anywhere. I couldn't c
oncentrate. I was glad the other two guys turned him down."
"Turned who down?"
"Watty. When he asked them if they wanted to work this case."
"Asked them?" I repeated. "I thought Watty's job was to assign detectives to cases. Since when did he start issuing engraved invitations?"
"Don't take it personally, Beau," Sue counseled. "You know how people talk."
"No, I don't. What's the problem? What are they saying?"
Sue Danielson shrugged. "That three's the charm. First Ron Peters and then Big Al."
So that was it. Those jerks. I had wondered, but this was the first time anyone had come right out and called a spade a spade. "You mean everybody really is scared shitless to work with me."
"Don't worry about it, Beau," Sue said with a laugh. "I told Watty I'm a big girl, and not at all the rabbit's-foot-carrying type."
"Gee, thanks," I grumbled. "I suppose, under the circumstances, I should take that as a vote of supreme confidence."
Sue clicked on the turn signal. We swooped off Fifteenth and tore around the cloverleaf onto Emerson. At the Stop sign, she paused, looked at me, and winked. "As a matter of fact, you should," she said. "Besides, now we're even."
"What do you mean ‘even'?"
"You give me advice on child rearing, and I help you get along with your peers. Fair enough. Tit for tat."
Enough said.
The official name, the one used by the mapmakers who write the Puget Sound version of the Thomas Guide, may be Salmon Bay Terminal, but most Seattleites know the north end of the Interbay area as Fishermen's Terminal. It's the place where Seattle's commercial fishing fleet is berthed during the months when the boats aren't out on the Pacific Ocean, plying the waters between the Oregon Coast and the Bering Sea, trying to beat the foreign-owned, U.S.-registered vessels and each other to whatever remains of the once-plentiful West Coast fishery.
We raced through the parking lot outside Chinook's Restaurant and bounced over a series of killer, tooth-rattling speed bumps. Past two huge buildings marked Net Shed N-4 and Net Shed N-3 we darted up a narrow alley that was crammed full of fire-fighting equipment. We threaded our way as far as Dock Three where the fire lane out to the boats was full of trucks and a throng of firemen rolling and restowing equipment. Sue pulled over and parked the Mustang, leaving the blue light flashing on top of the vehicle.
