Once back in the Caprice, I headed straight for the Hurricane Cafe. I probably should have come clean with Sue right away—should have told her everything Kramer had said, but she didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell.
“You don’t mind if we kill two birds with one stone, do you?” I asked casually, pulling into the lot. “I thought we’d try dropping by to see Mr. Greenjeans one more time. I’d like to get this Tony business settled once and for all.”
Sue shrugged. “Why should I care?” she asked. “It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.”
There are times when ignorance is bliss.
We walked into the restaurant at five of two. If the Hurricane had a regular lunchtime crowd, it had long since disappeared. Plucking a menu off the table near the door, I steered Sue toward the bar.
“Hey,” she said, looking around the room and reaching toward her purse and the packet of Marlboros I knew she kept there. “Why didn’t you tell me you could smoke in here?” she demanded. “Nose ring or not, I may just turn into a regular.”
Unfortunately, Jimmy Greenjeans was not behind the bar. The young woman who was could have given Jimmy a run for his money in the looks department. She came complete with an ankle-length skirt, a buzzcut hairdo, two-inch-long fingernails, painted black, and a trail of tattooed tears that ran down one cheek from the corner of her eye to the edge of her chin. She didn’t seem thrilled when we ordered coffee.
“What time does Jimmy come on duty?” I asked.
“He doesn’t. Today’s his day off. You a cop, too?”
I nodded. I expected my answer to cause her somewhat surly attitude to go from bad to worse. Instead, she seemed to soften a little. “The others were already here—the cops from Renton. You here because of what happened to Tony?” she asked.
Sue and I exchanged glances. Sue started to reach for her ID, but I beat her to it. If Kramer was going to go ballistic over somebody asking unauthorized questions in the Hurricane Cafe, it was only fair that my name and ID should be the ones on the line. The bartender took the ID packet from my hand and studied it nearsightedly for a long moment before handing it back. Her lower lip trembled as she did so.
“He was such a sweet guy,” she said. “I just can’t believe he’s dead.”
“We’re talking about Anthony Lawson here, right?”
She nodded. “Who else?” she responded. “It was the first time I’d ever worked with somebody like that. I was worried about it to begin with. You know, when they first hired him, because I didn’t know what to expect. But he was just as sweet as could be.”
“With someone like what?” I asked.
“With someone who was like…well, you know…retarded.”
“Tony Lawson was developmentally disabled?” I asked.
“Yes, but you almost couldn’t tell it. Not if you talked to him just a little. After a few minutes, you could figure it out, though. Still, he was a good worker and always willing to help.” She sniffed then. The tattooed tears suddenly glistened with a layer of real ones.
“He was such a nice guy. Real sweet. And so proud of his heritage. He was an Indian, you know. Not an India-Indian—American. I think maybe his grandfather was a chief or something.”
I felt the hackles rise on the back of my neck. “No kidding,” I said.
Ms. Buzzcut nodded seriously. “No kidding. The other cops said he was drunk, but I never saw him take a drink the whole time he worked here. Maybe he just fell off the wagon or something. What a shame.”
When Sue put down her menu, the bartender took the hint. “Did you want to order something besides coffee?” she asked.
We ordered burgers. When the bartender went to deliver the order to the kitchen, Sue turned to me. “That’s what Kramer told you, that Lawson was drunk?”
I nodded. “Renton is investigating the incident as a drunk-driving fatality.”
Sue thought that over. “Well,” she said finally, “the Indian part makes me wonder if the case is connected to Seward Park after all, while the drinking part makes me think it isn’t. We’ll just have to work on it, that’s all.”
“We can’t,” I told her.
“Can’t what?” she asked.
“Can’t work on it. We’re off the case, Sue,” I said. “Kramer’s assigning Haller and Nguyen to Seward Park. That puts us totally out of the loop because the City of Renton is taking responsibility for Anthony Lawson.”
For a moment or two, Sue seemed too stunned to speak. “When did all this happen?” she asked finally.
“A little while ago. When I was in Kramer’s office. I was going to tell you, but…”
“Then what exactly are we doing here?” The smoke flowing from Sue’s distended nostrils put me in mind of a dragon, a pissed-off dragon.
“Having lunch?” I asked, feigning innocence but not succeeding.
“Like hell!” Sue was angry now, as angry as I’ve ever seen her. “You tricked me, Beau! We’re here asking questions about Seward Park and we’re doing it against Kramer’s direct orders. Right?”
I nodded sheepishly. “I suppose you could say that.”
“Suppose!” she snorted. “I don’t believe it!”
“Sue, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“The hell you didn’t! I’ve never been thrown off a case before in my life. How did you manage that, Beau? And why didn’t you bother to tell me? Of all the arrogant…”
“More coffee?”
Ms. Buzzcut was back with a steaming coffeepot. Grateful for any diversion that would keep Sue off the subject at hand, I accepted some of the potentially lethal stuff.
“Is it too late to make our burgers to go?” Sue demanded, holding a hand over her own coffee cup.
“No,” the bartender replied. “Probably not. I’ll go check.”
She took the pot and walked away while Sue clambered off her stool. “I’ll be in the car,” she said.
While I waited for the burgers, I had several long, self-castigating minutes to anticipate my impending and pretty much well-deserved execution. At last lunch appeared, loaded into a pair of brown paper bags.
“Will that be all?” Ms. Buzzcut asked.
“There’s one more thing,” I told her. “You say Jimmy doesn’t work again until tomorrow?”
“That’s right.”
“He and I have a mutual friend. Do you suppose you could do me a favor and give him a message for me?”
“I guess.”
I took out one of my cards. “Have him try to reach me at these numbers,” I told her. “If he can’t get through to me, have him call Professor Darla Cunningham at the Physics Department at the University of Washington. Have him tell her I told him to call. She’ll know what it’s all about.”
“That’s all?” the bartender asked.
I nodded. I put a single bill on the counter and shoved it in her direction. “Keep the change,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said without actually looking down at the bill. When she did and saw Mr. Franklin’s portrait, her eyes widened. “Thanks a lot. I’ll be sure Jimmy gets the message.”
Twelve
Some holes are just too damn deep to dig your way out of, and this was one of them. Sue and I ate our hamburgers in the parking lot of the Hurricane Cafe. In utter silence. Sue consumed hers without so much as a word of thanks. My burger was probably fine. I’m sure it wasn’t the cook’s fault that it tasted like shoe leather in my mouth.
“Sue, I…”
“Shut up and eat,” she ordered. “I don’t want to hear it.”
With the burgers gone and still without exchanging any words we headed south toward Boeing Field. Once or twice I glanced in Sue’s direction. Grim faced, she sat with her arms folded across her chest, staring straight ahead.
I’m no stranger to the silent treatment. Karen used to dish it out all the time, but then she was my wife. Having to handle the same ploy from a partner at work was an altogether new and unwelcome experience.
“Who
are the other dicks?” Sue asked finally.
The word “dick” is acceptable in polite conversation only when used by a fellow detective. In that regard it’s similar to use of the “N” word. Street gang kids may toss the word back and forth among themselves with impunity, but let some outsider use it and all hell will break loose. “Dick” works exactly the same way. It also happens to be a word that Sue Danielson seldom uses in casual conversation. As a consequence, when she used it now as the first ice-breaker in our war of nonwords, I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I took a moment to try to decide whether or not there were any hidden traps lurking beneath the surface of her question.
“The other detectives,” she prodded impatiently when I didn’t answer fast enough to suit her. “Who did Kramer assign to our case?”
“Lawson wasn’t ours to begin with. City of Renton has that one,” I told her. “Wayne Haller and Sam Nguyen drew Seward Park.”
“Wayne Haller is your basic Irish setter of a detective—good-looking but not too bright,” Sue said after a pause. “He’s never going to set the world on fire. Sam, on the other hand, is really squared away. I vote we call him.”
I had to agree that Sue’s assessment of the other two detectives was right on target. Haller is fine in a pleasant but dim sort of way. Sam Nguyen is a bright go-getter. He had been a rookie cop in Saigon and his father a high-level South Vietnamese bureaucrat before the city fell to the North Vietnamese. Through his father’s connections, Sam, his mother, and three younger brothers all managed to get out. They had turned up in Seattle months later, all of them virtually penniless.
In an era of newly arrived and mostly impoverished immigrants, the English-speaking Sam had found work as a translator at Seattle PD. Eventually, he had turned that first job as an interpreter into one that came with a uniform. He had been the oldest rookie in his class at the academy. He had also been the first one to make detective.
“Call Sam and tell him what?” I asked.
“About the possibility of a connection,” Sue replied. “Maybe we should even have him ask the ME’s office to run some DNA comparisons. The bartender told us Lawson claimed his grandfather was some kind of big deal on the reservation. Maybe he was a shaman instead of a chief. Since we’re off the case, neither one of us can make that kind of request, but Sam can. And it’ll be a damned sight harder for Kramer to claim the two cases aren’t connected if the two victims turn out to be relatives.”
Whoa. I could buy the idea that the cases were connected, but adding in the theory that the two sets of remains might be from people who were actually related to each other sounded farfetched—even to me.
“I’m not sure that’ll fly,” I said dubiously.
New sparks of anger flamed in Sue’s eyes. “What are you saying, Beau?” she demanded. “In other words, you can buy all this medicine-men shit but you can’t handle a dose of women’s intuition?”
She had me cold. “I’ll make the call.”
“I’m glad you offered,” she said, uncrossing her arms. “After all, if one of us is going to risk getting fired over this mess, it’s better you than me. I have kids to support. You don’t.” She gave me a sideways grin then, and I knew things were going to be okay.
At five after three we pulled into the parking lot at Boeing Field. “Do you have any idea where he’ll come in?”
“According to his office, the company hangar is number 441,” Sue said. “I suggest we go find it.”
When we located the right number, the door to the hangar was rolled wide open. A guy stood just inside, lounging against the door jamb. He wore a pair of greasy overalls long overdue for a trip to the laundry. A frayed toothpick stuck out of one corner of his mouth. Looking at him, it seemed reasonable to peg him as the company’s on-site mechanic.
“We’re here to meet Mr. Considine’s plane,” Sue explained. “They’re not in yet?”
The mechanic glanced at his watch. “Not so far,” he said, “but they should be pretty soon.”
Since the guy didn’t ask for any kind of identification, Sue didn’t bother to give it to him. Instead, she wandered off across the tarmac to the far corner of the building and leaned up against a sunny wall to wait and smoke. She stood there with her eyes closed, soaking up the warm April sunshine. There was nothing about her stance or attitude that invited company, so I stayed where I was and let her be.
“Mr. Considine’s a pilot then?” I asked the presumed mechanic.
The man made a noise that I translated as a derisive chuckle. “Not so’s you’d notice, although he likes to think of himself as a real hotshot.” The man stopped and shrugged his shoulders. “But then again, if Mr. Ambrose is comfortable turning over the controls to him, who am I to complain? If it weren’t for Mr. Considine showing up last year with a whole shitload of investment capital, maybe my paycheck wouldn’t cash so well. I may not get in as much flight time as I used to, but the good news is, I still get paid.”
The downsized pilot/mechanic and I stood in silence for some time while one plane after another came in on the Boeing Field flight path. “That’s them now,” he said finally, pointing to an aircraft easing down to a landing. “I’d better go get busy.”
While he turned back into the hangar, Sue ground out her cigarette butt and came over to me. Together we waited while a slick little Citation taxied down the runway. By the time it came to a stop outside the hangar, the mechanic was back outside pushing a mini luggage cart up beside the slowing plane. As soon as it stopped altogether, the passenger door opened and a woman stepped outside. Tall, blond, and drop-dead gorgeous, she couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. Swathed from head to waist in a thick but totally unnecessary fur jacket, she strolled daintily down the metal steps. Behind her lumbered a huge, bearlike man. He was in his mid-to-late thirties and lugged an oversized ski bag in each hand. Sue and I angled toward the bottom of the stairs.
“Mr. and Mrs. Considine?” Sue asked.
“Yes.” Frederick Considine answered for both of them. “Who are you?”
“Detectives J. P. Beaumont and Sue Danielson with the Seattle PD,” she advised them, presenting her ID. “Would it be possible to talk to you for a few moments?”
“What about?”
“Agnes Ferman.”
There was a slight flicker in Frederick Considine’s eyes. It may have been nothing more than a twitch, but it was there. “What about her?” he asked.
“I’m afraid she’s dead,” Sue returned. “That’s what we need to talk to you about.”
The young woman frowned, although it came across as more of a sex-pot pout. “Who’s Agnes, Freddy?”
“My mother’s old nurse. Mine, too, a long time ago,” Considine replied, then he turned back to Sue. “What happened to her?”
“She died last week in an arson fire. How long have you and your wife been out of town?”
“We left early Tuesday morning. Around six or so. Why?”
“Mrs. Ferman died the night before that,” Sue said. “The clock on the stove in the kitchen stopped at 4:42. Because we didn’t have positive ID until much later, the story didn’t actually hit the papers until Tuesday afternoon. That would explain why you didn’t hear about it before you left.”
“Freddy,” the woman said with an impatient toss of her long blond mane. “What’s this all about and how long is it going to take? I have a hair and nail appointment at 4:00, and we’re due to meet the Slaters for dinner at 5:30.”
Reaching in his pocket, Fred Considine pulled out a set of car keys. “Here,” he said, handing them over. “You take the Town Car and go on home, Katherine. When I finish up here, I’ll have a car come get me. Kauffman?”
The overall-clad guy who was in the process of beginning a postflight check, turned away from the guts of the plane. “Yo.”
“Would you help Mrs. Considine with the bags? Then, we’ll be using the office for a short conference. Please see to it that we’re not disturbed.”
T
he pilot/mechanic, now further demoted to the level of baggage handler, left off what he was doing without a word and went to grapple with the luggage, of which there seemed to be a good deal. Under Katherine’s watchful eye, he hauled one bag after another off the plane and around the side of the building. Considine waited until after his wife and the luggage were safely underway in a silver-gray Lincoln before he turned back to us.
“This way,” he said.
He led us through the hangar and into a spacious but messy back office that reeked of cigar smoke. When Sue and I were both inside the office, he pushed the door shut. “Go ahead and have a seat,” he invited, coming around to the far side of the desk. We sat, as did he. “Now then,” he said. “What is it you want to know?”
“We understand Agnes Ferman worked for your family for quite some time,” I said
He nodded. “That’s correct. For the better part of forty years, from the time my older brother, Lucas, was born until several years ago, until just before we put my mother in a nursing home. Originally, Agnes was hired to take care of my brother when he was a newborn. When I came along several years later, she looked after both of us. She was doing that when my mother became an invalid herself. Agnes Ferman went from taking care of my mother’s children to taking care of Mother herself. She stayed on until her husband became ill. That’s when she had to quit. She couldn’t take care of Mother and look after her husband, as well. Once Agnes stopped working for us, we tried hiring other help, but nothing quite worked out. Eventually, Father and I had no choice but to put Mother in a home—the same one my father is in now, incidentally. It’s called Crescent House and it’s located up in Shoreline. That’s where my mother was when she died a year ago this month.”
“It’s my understanding that you’ve stayed in touch with Agnes since she stopped working for your parents,” I offered. “Is that true?”
Considine gave me a narrow-eyed, appraising look. “What makes you say that?” There was no mistaking the defensiveness in his response.
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