“Talk about unlawful imprisonment,” I said. “What do you think a lawyer from the ACLU would make of that?”
Just then, the front door of the house burst open and a huge black woman flounced outside. “Who are you?” she demanded over the unrelenting roar of traffic that carried up the bluff from the freeway. With that kind of deafening and constant background noise, no wonder Harrison Avenue wasn’t considered prime real estate.
“Why are you botherin’ Mr. George?” she added.
“We wanted to talk to him,” Sue returned, opening the gate and leading the way onto a moldy concrete sidewalk. “It’s about his sister, Agnes Ferman.”
The man I assumed to be Andrew George himself appeared again, head still down. He showed no interest whatsoever in the presence of two strangers on his front walk. In fact, he never looked up from the well-worn path—a trench almost—that had been trampled into the unkempt grass under the clothesline. I wondered how many hours a day he paced back and forth like that, never stepping out of the lines of his worn dirt track, never venturing onto the too-long grass of the unmowed lawn.
“Mr. George already knows about his dead sister,” the woman replied. “He knows and he don’t know, if you get my meaning. He’s been told but nothing much registers anymore. It won’t do no good for you to try to speak to him about it, either. It might upset him. Besides, he don’t talk much.”
The woman stood on the porch, hands on her hips, determinedly barring our way. “If you want information,” she continued, “I suggest you try talkin’ to his missus, to Mildred. But she’s not here.”
“And where would we find her?” Sue asked. I was more than content to stay in the background and let Sue do the negotiating. If Andrew George’s caretaker was less than friendly with my partner, I could well imagine the kind of reception I’d get.
“Work,” the woman answered gruffly. “She don’t get off until three. She’s usually home by three-fifteen or so. Later if she has to stop for groceries.”
By then Sue and I had both reached the far end of the sidewalk. As Sue stepped up onto the bottom step, Mr. George reappeared briefly at the side of the house then disappeared again. Seeing him plodding along like that got the better of my short-lived determination to keep quiet.
“How long does he do that?” I asked.
The woman shrugged. “An hour or two usually,” the woman answered, “depending on the weather. The man used to love walking. Must’ve racked up ten miles or so every single day. Problem is, nowadays, he don’t remember how to get himself back home, but he still wants to walk. Every day, rain or shine.”
Sue held up her ID. “Is Mr. George suffering from Alzheimer’s?” she asked.
The woman glanced briefly at the ID and then nodded. “That’s what they call it—Alzheimer’s. Mind’s pretty much gone but he’s healthy as a horse.”
“And who are you?” Sue asked. “His nurse?”
“Me a nurse?” the woman asked. “Are you kidding?” Suddenly her broad face broke into a wide, toothy grin, then she laughed, a great honking bray of a laugh that shook her whole body. “Not me. Name’s Grace Tipton. I’m a neighbor helping out. Live just over there.”
She pointed across the street to another asbestos-shingled bungalow that looked like a near relation of the one belonging to the Georges. My guess was that most of the houses on the block had been built by the same builder in the late forties or early fifties. Grace Tipton’s house was in somewhat better repair than Andrew and Mildred George’s. It was better, but not by much.
“A real nurse do come in most mornings first thing. After the nurse leaves, either his sister looks out for him or I do. We keep an eye on him afternoons until Mildred comes home.”
“Agnes Ferman used to come watch him?” Sue asked.
“Her?” Grace Tipton huffed. “Not likely. I’m talking about his other sister. From up in Marysville. If neither one of us can come, my nephew sometimes pitches in. Or somebody from church. We make sure he eats his lunch and then we hook him up to that harness so he can walk. I expect it’s good for him.”
Once again, Andrew George plodded into view, walked all the way to the end of the leash, then turned and went back the way he had come. I was close enough now so that I could see the harness was fastened with the same kind of padlock that kept the leash affixed to the clothesline wire.
“He doesn’t mind being chained up like that?” I heard myself asking. “I mean, it doesn’t bother him being treated like some kind of vicious dog?”
“Does he look like he minds it?” Grace Tipton demanded. “He don’t seem the least bit unhappy to me. In fact, most of the time he’s just like a little kid. Can’t wait to finish his lunch and get his harness on so he can go outside. Afterwards he sleeps for an hour or two. What gets to him is not walking. That’s when he gets cranky. He throws things, kicks at people, even tries to bite ’em sometimes. Most people would’ve put him in a home long ago, but Mildred’s been holding on. It’s a matter of money. Them retirement homes is really expensive. Mildred told me the only way she’d be able to afford one was to sell the house, except it didn’t work. Asbestos, you know,” she added. “The real estate lady told her it wasn’t worth nothing. That anybody who bought it would just have to tear it down and the EPA wouldn’t even let ’em haul the rubble to the dump. Cost of tearin’ it down and hauling it away is more than it’s worth. Only thing most of these places is good for is livin’ in until they keel over and fall down. It worries Mildred, I can tell you that. All the worry the past year or so since Mr. George got so bad has aged her—aged her something fierce.”
I looked at the dilapidated house. To someone living in that kind of poverty and disrepair, the possibility of receiving a sizable inheritance might have been tantalizing. Obviously Andrew George himself wasn’t capable of any kind of independent action, but I wondered about his wife. If Mildred George had something to do with Agnes Ferman’s death, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that a financially strapped heir had decided to hasten the arrival of a potential cash windfall.
“Has Mildred ever mentioned anything about Mr. George’s sister having money?”
“Not Mildred,” Grace Tipton said. “But Hilda certainly did.”
“Hilda Smathers?” Sue asked. “Mr. George’s sister?”
Grace nodded. “That’s right, his baby sister. She’s all the time hinting around that her sister Agnes has a whole bunch of money stowed away somewhere, but I don’t pay no mind. Figure it’s just so much idle gossip. After all, from what I understand, the woman worked as a maid all her life. Domestic service ain’t usually the kind of career that allows people to lay by a fortune for their old age, if you know what I mean.”
I was tempted to tell her that three hundred thou in Agnes Ferman’s garage refrigerator was there to prove her wrong, but I didn’t. Instead, I glanced over at Andrew George who happened to reappear just then. I wondered if a man who had to be tethered to a clothesline to keep from being lost was capable of handling even the smallest amounts of money.
Grace Tipton must have read my mind. “Mildred got a lawyer to draw up something. I forget what it’s called. Means she can handle Mr. George’s affairs…”
“You mean a power of attorney?” Sue suggested.
Grace brightened. “That’s right. Power of attorney. Since Mildred has that, if there is any money, she can spend it however she likes. I for one hope it’s true, that there is some. Money, that is. Enough for her to put Mr. George in a home someplace. Maybe even enough beyond that to fix this place up so it’ll be nice to live in. Mildred’s a practical woman. I wouldn’t look for her to go runnin’ off on one of them round-the-world cruises, but it sure would be nice if she didn’t have to work and worry quite so hard.”
“What does she do?”
“Manages a truck-rental office right down the street. Olson’s it’s called. Mildred never used to have to work outside the home, not until two years ago when things got so bad they had to m
ove in here. As soon as she got Mr. George settled in, she went right out and found herself a job. She’s been there ever since.”
“They haven’t always lived here then?”
Grace shook her head. “Good heavens, no. They started out here, years ago, long before I moved in, as a matter of fact. After their son came along, they moved up to a larger house over near the hospital and kept this one as a rental. It’s a good thing, too. When they lost the other house, they still had this one to move into as a back up. It may not look like much, but leaky or not, leastways it’s a roof over their heads.”
Sue and I exchanged glances. Serious illness aside, it sounded as though the Georges had been through some kind of serious financial wringer. After a life of relative prosperity, those kinds of financial reversals and straitened circumstances might make the possibility of an early inheritance that much more tempting.
“Where did you say we’d find Mildred George?” I asked.
“Olson’s Truck Rental,” Grace replied. “It’s just down at the bottom of the hill here on Summit. It’s close enough to be a nice walk in good weather, although, there were times last winter when Mildred had to walk because the Buick didn’t start. One day it was so snowy and slippery getting down the hill that I was afraid she was going to break her neck. Think you can find it okay?”
“You say it’s on Summit?” Sue asked.
Grace nodded.
“I’m sure we can find it then,” Sue told her.
“If you like, I can call ahead,” Grace offered. “That way Mildred will know you’re coming.”
“Don’t bother,” Sue said.
She made it sound casual enough, but we both knew it wasn’t. If there was even the slightest possibility that Mildred George had something to do with her sister-in-law’s death, then it would be far better for us to show up unannounced and unexpected. That way there was a better chance of our catching her with her defenses down.
Those preliminary surprise visits with possible suspects—ones with no Miranda warning anywhere within hearing distance—may not hold up in court, but that doesn’t mean they’re not useful. They don’t always point us in the right direction, but often enough, they give us a place to start.
As we headed back down the walkway, Andrew George reappeared around the corner of the house once again.
“Seeing that happen to the person you love must be hell,” Sue said to me, nodding in his direction. “Which is worse—losing your mind like Andrew George there or losing the use of your body like Marcia Powell?”
I stopped and stood beside the car long enough to watch the man disappear once more behind the side of his house.
“Excuse me,” I told her. “But if I had my druthers, I’d rather not lose either one.”
Four
It took two passes to find Olson’s Truck Rental. Our search was complicated by a maze of oneway streets that wound in and out under a series of raised trestles. The process was made more difficult by the fact that Everett’s Summit Avenue was somehow missing from our map book. When we finally arrived at the correct storefront in a mostly industrial area, we found the front door securely locked. A cardboard sign hanging in the window, complete with a clock face, told us they would reopen at one.
I didn’t feel particularly hungry right then, but I was more than ready for a break. One of the hazards of working with Detective Danielson has to do with her cast-iron bladder. She’s capable of going for hours on end without making a pitstop. In that regard the woman has me totally outclassed.
“Looks like it’s time for lunch,” I said casually. “There must be someplace to eat around here. I didn’t see anything promising while we were driving around, did you?”
“Not right here,” Sue agreed, consulting the map once more. “But Alligator Soul isn’t far.”
“Alligator what?”
“Soul,” she replied. “It’s a Cajun place. I ate there once before a Preservation Hall concert. Just go straight up Hewitt,” she added, pointing. “Now that I finally have my bearings, I know it isn’t far from here.”
My mother’s training kicked in. I did as I was told.
Everett started out over a hundred years ago as a booming sawmill town. The lumber and mills are pretty much gone, leaving an economic gap that’s been partially filled in recent years by the arrival of a Navy home port. In the downtown area, low-rise brick construction harkens back to an earlier era. People who live and/or work in Seattle proper assume we exist in a kind of cultural mecca. It disturbed my proud Denny-Regrade neighborhood sensibilities to learn that Everett, a place we regard as little more than a lowly exurb, had constructed something that sounded suspiciously like a concert hall.
“Preservation Hall,” I muttered disparagingly. “Never heard of it. Where is it and how did Everett come up with the money to build something like that?”
Sue Danielson sighed. “Preservation Hall, Beau. It’s a band, not a building. As in the French Quarter. As in New Orleans-style jazz. They were here for a concert. What kind of a rock have you been living under?”
“I’ve just never cared for jazz all that much,” I returned. It was the best I could manage with a size-twelve foot stuck firmly in my mouth.
I was still licking my culturally deprived wounds when we pulled up in front of the green awning of the Alligator Soul a few minutes later. We parked in an open space on a street without a single parking meter anywhere in sight—something else that sets Everett apart from downtown Seattle. Inside the restaurant, the young hostess gave us a choice of smoking or nonsmoking. Sue opted for the former. By the time we reached our booth at the back of the long narrow room, she had cigarettes out of her purse and was already lighting up.
Before sliding into the booth, I made a quick dash to the men’s room. On the way I noticed that the long, narrow restaurant was clearly an old, rehabbed bar. The major decorating motif—from tablecloths to posters on the wall—was chilies of one kind or another. Bottles of chili sauce lined what was left of a carved oak bar. I couldn’t tell from looking at them if they were there for sale or decoration or if they were simply optional condiments to be added to individual servings the way ordinary people might pile on needless salt and pepper.
Back in the booth, Sue and I ordered lunch. While waiting for our food, I wanted to discuss the case, but Sue, staring off into space through an isolating haze of cigarette smoke, still seemed disinclined to talk. I contented myself with watching the goings-on in the kitchen while she puffed through one cigarette and then another. The chef was a butt-sprung disreputable-looking wreck of a guy with a stubbly growth of beard and a silver front tooth. He looked like an old salt to me, a guy likely to have a ship sailing the briny sea tattooed on his chest. I wondered if he hadn’t blown into town right along with other folks from the home port.
It soon became apparent why the smoking section was located next to the kitchen. That was where the help—from chef to dishwasher—came on their breaks to grab a smoke right along with the customers.
The food when it arrived at the booth—Sue’s red beans and rice and my barbecued ribs—was amazingly good. Hot and spicy, from the jalapeño-laced corn salad to the mouth-and-eye-watering, sauce-slathered ribs themselves. Suddenly famished, I mowed into my lunch without noticing Sue was barely touching hers. I was busily mopping barbecue sauce off my fingers and face when I realized she had pushed her still-full dish to one side and was smoking once again.
“What’s the matter with your food?” I asked. “Don’t you like it?”
“He kicked me,” she said.
Two booths away a little kid in a high chair set up an ear-splitting howl making it almost impossible to hear.
“He who?” I asked, feeling as though I had somehow blundered into a conversation that was already in progress.
“Richie,” she answered in a barely audible whisper. Fortunately, someone stifled the noisy kid enough so I could make out what she was saying. “I was pregnant with Chris at the time. Richie kicked
me in the stomach so hard that my water broke. I was only seven months along. We almost didn’t make it, Chris and I. For years I was petrified that he’d suffered some kind of long-term damage—that he’d be retarded or something. But he isn’t. He’s fine.”
She finished in an offhand kind of way, ducking her head to grind the stub of her latest cigarette into the ashtray. She turned away, but not before I caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes. Detective Danielson is tough. We’ve done horrendous crime scenes together without her ever turning a hair. Six months into our partnership, tears were something new.
“Chris may be fine,” I said. “But you’re not. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “It’s like living through a flashback. Maybe it’s that handy old fall guy, post-traumatic stress syndrome, but just the idea of him being back in town is driving me crazy. I barely slept last night. That’s probably what’s really wrong with me,” she added sheepishly, “lack of sleep.”
I suspected the problem went deeper than missing a few zzzs. It also explained why she’d never talked much about either her marriage or divorce. “Is that why you split?” I asked. “Because he beat you up?”
She nodded. “He had threatened me before, but that was the first time he ever turned really violent. I underwent an emergency cesarean and was in the hospital for three days. That gave me plenty of time to think. I wondered if he’d do that to me—if he’d endanger our unborn baby’s life like that—what might he do to Jared. Back then I was already working as a dispatcher at the Com Center. When I was on days, Jared went to day care, but when I pulled night shift, Jared and Richie were home alone. There in the hospital room I knew I couldn’t risk doing that any more—I couldn’t leave either one of the kids alone with their father. That’s when I filed for a divorce. It took two years for it to be final.”
Sue paused and seemed to be waiting for me to say something. “I didn’t know any of this,” I said at last. “You never mentioned it.”
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