Breach of Duty (9780061739637)

by Jance, Judith A.

  The old Doghouse had catered to working class folks—neighborhood secretaries and salesmen during the day. At night there had been an unlikely collection of retirees, cabbies, cops, and building security personnel sprinkled with a few assorted drug dealers and crooks. Peace had been maintained by the tough-talking, take-no-prisoners wait-staff.

  That same kind of wait-staff was still in evidence—starting with a crew-cut, purple-haired, overalls-and-work-boot-clad hostess sporting black lipstick and a diamond in her left nostril. She met me at the door with a fistful of menus. “Booth or table?” she asked.

  Looking down the long dining room, I realized the place was jammed with similarly clad, punk-looking young people. For clothing, unrelieved black seemed to be the order of the day, while hair color had more in common with Easter-egg dye than with Miss Clairol. At first glance, I assumed I was in a roomful of men, but seconds later the sounds of girlish laughter told me I was mistaken, fooled by my curiously old-fashioned notions about gender-based dressing.

  “Booth or table?” the hostess asked again, more firmly this time.

  Over time and with Ralph Ames’ careful guidance, I’ve gradually updated my wardrobe. The dining room of the Hurricane Cafe wasn’t a place where I could expect a Brooks Brothers sports jacket and Johnston & Murphy shoes to blend in with the regular clientele.

  “What say we try the bar?” I asked.

  “Do you want a menu then or not?” the hostess asked.

  More out of curiosity than hunger, I took one and made my own way to the bar. Hauling myself up onto an empty stool, I was relieved when I glanced down the bar and saw a bartender who, at first glance, appeared to be totally bald.

  Quickly, I scanned through the menu. Other than the addition of a shareable twelve-egg omelette and lattes, the food wasn’t all that different from Doghouse days. No doubt one of the continuing appeals the Hurricane Cafe held for its Generation-X customers had to do with affordability.

  “What can I get you?” the bartender asked.

  “How about a single tall skinny?” I asked.

  One of the old Doghouse bartenders would have been insulted if a customer had ordered a latte. In the Hurricane Cafe, this guy, with a name tag that said Jimmy, didn’t bat an eye. “Decaf or regular and what flavor?” he asked.

  There are more options for ordering coffee in Seattle than some restaurants have for ordering entire meals. I was doing fine, ticking off my specifications until the guy turned away to reach for a coffee cup. That’s when I saw his pony tail. The top and sides of his head had been shaved clean. The only hair remaining was a six-inch patch on the back of the head just over his shirt collar. Out of that patch sprouted a ten-inch pony tail. Even in the dim light there was no mistaking the color—emerald green, verging on chartreuse. Damn!

  “That’ll be two bucks,” he said moments later, pushing my latte across the bar.

  “Mr. Greenjeans, I presume?” I asked, peeling the requested amount and an extra dollar out of my wallet. I laid the money on the counter along with my ID.

  “Jeez!” he exclaimed. “A cop!” He didn’t sound overjoyed to make my acquaintance.

  “Got a minute?”

  Jimmy glanced warily toward the back of the restaurant. “Look,” he said curtly. “I can’t talk right now. I’m already in enough trouble as it is.”

  “For calling in the report?”

  His jaw tightened. “What do you think? Look, those guys don’t fuck around. If they see you talking to me or to Tony…”

  “Tony,” I said. “Tony who?”

  “Never mind,” Jimmy Greenjeans said. Shaking his head, he turned and walked away. Left to my own devices, I spun around on my stool. With my latte in hand, I casually surveyed the other people in the restaurant. Since no one had actually been arrested in regard to the Seward Park case, I had no mug shots to go on and no real description. I waited until Jimmy Greenjeans passed my way again.

  “You’d better tell me who they are, or I’ll have to ask everyone in the place, one customer at a time. That won’t be too good for business.”

  Jimmy glowered at me. “All the way to the back,” he said. “The booth next to the wall. Just don’t tell them I sent you.”

  I sat on my perch a little while longer, taking in the details. At the last booth a pair of long-haired, earring sporting young men held a pair of blond teenyboppers in thrall. The report had said that Don Atkins and Barry Newsome were in their late twenties. Neither one of the two girls looked old enough to drive. Seward Park bones aside, the age discrepancy between the two guys and their jail-bait dates predisposed me not to like them.

  Leaving my partially consumed latte on the bar, I stood up and sauntered through the restaurant. Whether or not Hurricane regulars suspected I was a cop, my out-of-place appearance was enough to stifle conversations at every booth I passed.

  When I stopped beside the booth in question, one of the girls with everything pierced but her ears, looked up at me, gave an involuntary little cough, quickly stubbed out her cigarette into an ashtray, and then pushed it across the table.

  “Which of you is Don Atkins and which is Barry Newsome?” I asked.

  The one guy, with flowing blond locks and a string of diamond studs lining both ears, put down his beer and looked up at me. He had the neck and shoulders of a bodybuilder. When he spoke, however, his words emerged with the wispy incongruity of a ninety-pound weakling. “I’m Barry,” he lisped. “What do you want?”

  I tossed my ID into the middle of the table. “Been visiting any Native American burial grounds lately?” I asked.

  Don Atkins, seated on the other side of the table, gave the girl sitting next to him a shove that almost sent her sprawling off the end of the bench seat. “Go on, Jen,” he said. “I think I hear your mother calling. Go powder your noses, both of you.”

  Without a word of objection, the two girls gathered their tiny, wallet-sized purses and beat it for the rest rooms while I slid into the booth next to Barry Newsome.

  He leaned over and gazed at my ID without ever touching it. “What do you want?” he asked.

  Atkins did reach across the table. He picked up the leather wallet, examined my ID, and then tossed it back. “We haven’t done anything,” he said. “We’re just running our little business, minding our own affairs. I don’t see why…”

  If Henry Leaping Deer had been right about Mr. Greenjeans’ emerald green hair, it was entirely possible he was right about some of the other issues as well. The shaman claimed David Half Moon had died of natural causes, of lung cancer. If murder wasn’t an issue in the Seward Park case, there didn’t seem to be any harm in pulling out a few procedural stops.

  “Let’s see. I believe you picked up the bones a week ago last Sunday, didn’t you?” I said, bluffing and watching for a reaction. I got one, too. Next to me on the bench, Barry Newsome squirmed uncomfortably.

  “Did you go out to the reservation looking for them on purpose?” I continued. “Or did you stumble over them by accident?”

  Barry’s eyes flicked away from my face and settled on his partner’s. Don Atkins shot him a single warning glance. It was enough to cause Barry to settle back in his seat. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about when you say reservation,” he said. “Like we already told that other detective. We found the bones in Seward Park and…”

  “It’s what you told my partner,” I said, cutting in. “But it’s not true, and you know it. The bones came from somewhere out on the Kitsap Peninsula, from a sacred Indian burial ground. I want to know how that happened. Did you find them yourselves or did someone else lead you to them, someone who knew where and what they were?”

  This time, when Barry Newsome opened his mouth as if to answer, Don Atkins headed him off. “Shut up, Barry,” he snarled. Barry stifled.

  But Newsome’s obvious discomfort was enough to keep me interested. “Look,” I continued, trying to strike a reasonable tone. “As you no doubt saw from my ID, I’m with the
Seattle PD’s Homicide Unit. That puts grave robbing and Kitsap County both outside the range of my official jurisdiction. However, I have it on good authority that the Seward Park bones belong to a powerful medicine man—a shaman—named David Half Moon. According to my Native American sources, anyone coming in contact with Mr. Half Moon’s remains is in, pardon the pun, grave danger. Taking that into consideration, wouldn’t it be best for all concerned if his bones were returned to their proper resting place as soon as possible? You two could facilitate that by simply coming clean and telling me where they came from. With corroboration from you, I’d be able to make arrangements to have the ME’s office release Mr. Half Moon’s remains to his people.”

  Don Atkins reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit up. “Barry and I have nothing more to say to you, Detective Beaumont,” he said, feigning casual indifference. “If you have any further questions, you’re welcome to take them up with our attorney, Troy Cochran with Owens, Milton and Cochran. In the meantime, I’d…”

  “Why, J.P., long time no see,” a familiar voice interrupted. “What brings you here? Seems just like old times.”

  A cloud of vermouth, diluted only slightly by the haze of smoke, blew past my face. I looked up to see my old nemesis from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer—a bleary-eyed columnist named Maxwell Cole—standing leering over me. Drunk or sober, Max is one of the last people on earth I ever want to see.

  “Look, Max. I’m busy right now. Do you mind?”

  Disregarding my objection, Max reached across me to drop a load of cigarette ashes into the brimming ashtray the young blond had pushed aside. He looked like hell. His tie was loose and his shirttail hung out of his pants. The wax on his handlebar moustache had given up the ghost leaving the long, wispy ends trailing limply down the front of his shirt. He straightened up and stood swaying, gazing wistfully around the room.

  “Not exactly like the old days around here,” he mumbled. “But still, it’s a good enough place to come tipple a few on occasion.”

  I guessed he had tippled several more than a few, but I also know from personal experience that there’s no point in arguing with a drunk. “Max,” I said patiently, “why don’t you go wait in the bar. I’ll join you in a minute. Matter of fact, tell the bartender that you’ll have one of what I’m having—on me.”

  “Okeydokey,” Max responded cheerfully. Taking the hint, he staggered toward the bar while I turned back to Don Atkins.

  “You know who that is, don’t you?” I asked. Atkins shook his head. “His name is Maxwell Cole,” I continued. “You probably recognize the name because he’s the crime columnist with the P.-I. Max and I go back a long way. We were fraternity brothers at the U-Dub years ago. Now that I think about it, even though grave robbing may be outside the realm of my personal responsibility and jurisdiction, it certainly wouldn’t be outside Max’s. With a little bit of direction, I wouldn’t be surprised if he came up with a wonderful human interest piece on Mr. Half Moon. A story like that would most likely attract the attention and unwanted scrutiny of any number of local Native American activists. They’d rain down around Bloodlust’s ears and make your life hell. It’s possible they might even follow you on your travels around town or picket your place of business. They might also suggest publicly that people boycott your role-playing dramas. I know that’s just a hobby for you guys, but I have a feeling that most of the people who come on those middle-of-the-night adventures pay good money to be there.”

  “That’s blackmail,” Atkins said at once.

  I smiled back at him. “No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s called getting the job done. You think it over,” I added. “Max doesn’t seem to be in any condition to write anything at the moment, so I probably won’t actually give him the information until tomorrow. Say around noon. Unless somebody calls before then and gives me a good reason not to.”

  Pausing long enough to extract a few business cards from my wallet, I dropped them on the table. “My phone numbers,” I explained. “If you don’t get through to me directly, feel free to leave a message. I’ll get right back to you.”

  With that, I got up from the booth and left them. The two girls, out of the rest room, were hanging around the pinball machines as I headed to the bar. “You can go back now,” I told them. “Your friends and I are all done with our little chat.”

  Back at the bar, Maxwell Cole was looking at his latte with all the distaste of a tree-hugger faced with a clear-cut. “You don’t expect me to drink this shit, do you J.P.?”

  What I had told the two creeps at the booth about my history with Max was true as far as it went. Our acquaintance dated all the way from college days. However, I had left out a few telling details, including the fact that a mutual antagonism dated from those old college/fraternity days, as well. My first wife, Karen, had been dating Max when I stole her away from him. Later on, our career choices—mine as a cop and his as a journalist—kept us on opposite sides of the fence. Our views on truth, justice, and the American way just didn’t jibe. They still don’t.

  In my postdivorce binge-drinking days, Max and I had frequented some of the same watering holes. I found it disconcerting to discover that on occasion we still did.

  “A little milk and coffee mixed in with whatever else you’re drinking isn’t going to kill you,” I said.

  Max picked up the cup, examined it as though it might be poison, and then set it down without tasting it. “I suppose,” he said with just a hint of sarcasm, “that since you’re on the wagon now, you expect everyone else to be, too.”

  That wasn’t true. One of the things I had vowed when I first ventured into AA was that I wouldn’t turn into one of those proselytizing AA fanatics. I’m neither a hypocrite nor a spoilsport. I actually enjoyed my drinking days. At least I did, up to a point. The only reason I quit was because my doctor gave me a choice between my liver or the booze. End of story. People who knew me back then sometimes assume I’ve turned into some kind of moralizing prude. That’s not true, either. All I really want to do is live long enough to see my granddaughter, Kayla, grow up to be the spitting image of her mother and grandmother.

  In feeding Max a latte, I was doing the same thing—protecting my butt. Being forced to share the streets of Seattle’s Denny Regrade with a driver too drunk to walk straight didn’t make sense for long-term survival—his, mine, or anybody else’s. I figured pausing long enough for him to consume a nonalcoholic coffee drink would give me a chance to assess the situation. In the process I’d try to determine if Max was actually sober enough to drive home or if he needed to be stuffed in a cab and sent there.

  “Shut up, Max, and drink your drink,” I told him. “I’m working my own program here, not yours or anybody else’s.”

  I picked up my now-cold cup and tasted the contents. There’s hardly anything less appealing than a dead latte. “Hey, barkeep,” I said to Mr. Greenjeans. “Hit me again, too.”

  He glowered at me, but he turned to comply. By the time my second one came, Max had lit another cigarette and was hunched over his cup in typical barfly fashion. “Do you know my old buddy here, Mr. Greenjeans?” he asked.

  “We’ve met,” I said. “But we’re not exactly best pals.”

  “Know where he got his name?”

  “No idea. From his parents, I’d imagine.”

  Max laughed, slapping his pant leg as he did so. “That’s where you’d be wrong, J.P. Wrong, wrong, wrong.” He paused and frowned. “Or else maybe you’d be right. I’m not sure which.”

  The whole issue seemed a no-brainer. I couldn’t see how Max could find it so puzzling. He continued. “Jimmy told me once, that Captain Kangaroo…You remember him, don’t you, good old Captain Kangaroo? You know, the guy with the weird haircut?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I remember.”

  “Jimmy said that when he was little watching Captain Kangaroo in the morning was the nicest part of his day. That as soon as his old man rolled out of bed, he came looking for th
e kids with a belt and some excuse or another to beat the crap out of them. Out of Jimmy especially, I guess. Jimmy told me that once he was old enough, he went straight down to the courthouse to have his name changed. Cost him four-hundred bucks. He said he tried for Kangaroo, but the judge wouldn’t go for it. So he settled on Mr. Greenjeans instead. Cute, huh?”

  “I’ll say.”

  Jimmy Greenjeans came back down the bar and slammed the change on the counter in front of me. He was obviously unhappy that after going over to tackle Atkins and Newsome I had returned to his bar. Now that I knew those two creeps better, I didn’t much blame him. More than anything, though, I felt sorry for the guy—sorry that he had somehow gotten mixed up in a game that put him in danger from a long-dead Indian shaman and sorry, too, that he had grown up in a situation where an hour-long weekday television program was the only thing that had offered his young life any respite from misery. That kind of home situation went a long way toward explaining his green hair, his alternative lifestyle, and his somewhat unfortunate attitude.

  On the face of it, I had come to the Hurricane Cafe in hopes of contacting the role-play ringleaders, which I had done. Secondarily, I guess I had wanted to check out Mr. Greenjeans to find out for myself whether or not anything Darla Cunningham had told me was on the level. Now that I had done that—now that I had met the man with the green hair, the one Henry Leaping Deer claimed was in danger—where did my duty lie? Should I pass along Darla’s message and try to warn him? Or should I forget it?

  I tried to put myself in Jimmy Greenjeans’ place. If someone I didn’t know came into my place of work—the department, for example—hassled me about something I had done or said and then went totally against my wishes in talking to someone I wanted left alone, I probably wouldn’t be feeling especially warm and cuddly toward that individual a few minutes later. And then, if that same person, now in the company of a babbling drunk—which Max Cole inarguably was—tried to tell me that I was in danger of being harmed by the angry spirit of a deceased medicine man, I probably would have thrown the guy ass-first out the door.