It wasn’t Jimmy Greenjeans, then. I was relatively certain he’d never be caught dead in a Men’s Wearhouse suit, double-breasted or otherwise.
“Not exactly,” I said. “But your cases are no doubt connected to something we’ve been working on over here in Seattle as well as to a dead guy the Renton police pulled out of Lake Washington earlier today.”
Tim Blaine whistled.
“Your other dead guy, is he Don Atkins?”
“Newsome’s roommate? No. The ID in the second victim’s pocket gives his name as Calvin Owens. His business card says Sands of Time Gallery in Pioneer Square. Do you know him? Is he connected to any of those other cases?”
“Not so far as I know.”
“Where are you right now, Beau? And what are you doing?”
“I’m home. I just slipped off my shoes.”
“I hate to pull you right back out,” Blaine continued, “but it sounds as though we need to talk so you can show us what you guys have been working on. Would you mind coming over to Bellevue?”
“No,” I said. “Not at all, but you’ll have to give me directions…”
Moments after he told me how to get to Newsome’s South Bellevue address, I plugged my unwilling feet back into shoes that felt a full size too small. I had my holster on and was reaching for my jacket when there was a tap on my door. I looked out the peek hole to see Ron and Amy Peters’ younger daughter, Heather, standing in the hall holding a dinner plate covered with several loose pieces of pizza.
Ron’s two towheaded daughters, Heather, nine, and Tracie, ten, are the light of my life. With them around, I have all the advantages of being a parent or grandparent—taking them to ball games, the zoo, the Seattle Children’s Theater and occasionally buying them extravagant stuff—with none of the disadvantages of parenthood like having to worry about them wanting driver’s licenses or needing to be put through school.
It may not be fair to play favorites, but I confess that bright-eyed little Heather is mine, and it wasn’t unlike her to show up at my door for an unannounced visit. “Hi,” I said. “Sorry I can’t ask you in, Heather. I’m just on my way out. What’s up?”
She held out the plate of pizza. “These are for you,” she said. “Dad told me to bring this up to you so these pieces don’t go to waste.”
“Thanks,” I said. I took the plate and headed for the kitchen counter, helping myself to a single slice along the way. As soon as I bit into it, I realized how hungry I was. Invited or not, Heather followed me into the kitchen.
“Guess what, Uncle Beau?” she asked.
“I give up,” I said between mouthfuls. Eating standing at a kitchen counter was verboten in my mother’s house, and I felt a little guilty to be observed red-handed, but Heather didn’t object.
“Guess where Dad and Amy went?”
“I have no idea.”
“The hospital,” she crowed happily. “So Amy can have my baby brother. The pizza just got here when all of a sudden Amy got this real funny look on her face and she said ‘Ron, I think it’s time.’ And when Amy stood up, there was a big puddle on the chair. Like she wet her pants or something. So they left. Right away. That’s why there’s so much leftover pizza.”
“If your folks are gone, who’s looking after you?” I asked. Because Ron and Amy sometimes draft me for babysitting duties, I was a little surprised they hadn’t called.
“Dad tried calling you first. When your machine came on, he said you probably weren’t home, so he called Mrs. Humphreys instead.” Heather wrinkled her nose in obvious distaste.
“You don’t like Mrs. Humphreys?” I asked.
“Mrs. Humphreys doesn’t fix us root beer floats,” Heather said.
I smiled. “I’m glad to hear that,” I told her. Wrapping the rest of the pizza in foil, I shoved it in my pocket along with Tim Blaine’s directions and herded Heather toward the door. “I’d hate to think Mrs. Humphreys had eclipsed my place in your affections.”
“She’s an old lady,” Heather insisted.
Mrs. Leila Humphreys, Ron and Amy’s widowed next-door neighbor, is a svelte sixty-year-old who still plays tennis twice a week and who swims laps in Belltown Terrace’s indoor pool every day of the week. “She doesn’t seem that old to me,” I said.
“Well, she is,” Heather insisted. “And I don’t like her. I’d rather be with you.”
“I’d rather be with you, too, but I have to go back to work.”
Heather rode with me as far as the garage, promising to call me either in the car or at home the moment word came from the hospital.
As soon as I was out of the garage, I tried Sue’s number again. Still no answer. This time I went ahead and punched in the numbers for Sue’s pager. Frustrated, I put the phone back in its holder. While I drove, I helped myself to another piece of pizza and waited for Sue to call me back.
As a downtown Seattle resident, what I know about Bellevue would fit in a very small thimble. Consequently, I was glad to have Tim Blaine’s directions, but even they weren’t entirely foolproof. My first attempt to get to the Newsome house led me to a dead end rather than through a tunnel under I-90. My second attempt took me through the tunnel fine. Once I was on 168th, the glow of flashing emergency lights led me straight there. Obviously, Detective Blaine had called ahead. The patrol officer manning the roadblock waved me through.
I drove up a narrow, winding street through a neighborhood of modest middle-class ramblers and split-levels most of which looked as though they dated from the sixties and seventies. Along the way I passed several clumps of concerned onlookers—neighbors from those same houses, no doubt—who stood outside in the cool damp of an April evening trying to fathom what horrors had gone on up the street.
Several blocks up 19th, I ran into the next blockade, one made up almost entirely of emergency vehicles, including a gray van from the ME’s office. No wonder Audrey Cummings had been out when I had tried calling her earlier. She was probably already on her way here.
Beyond the barricade at the far end of a cul-desac stood a house ablaze with lights both inside and out. Stopping to look at it, I remembered Sue saying she thought it had been put together with blocks and Tinker Toys. I had to agree. It looked like a modern-day castle plunked down in among its less ostentatious neighbors. Beyond it was a patch of black that indicated some body of water or other. My rudimentary knowledge of Eastside geography didn’t tell me which one.
Tim Blaine appeared on a grassy parking strip and waved me into the end of a neighboring driveway. As soon as I switched off the ignition, he opened the passenger door and climbed in with me. “Hey, Beau,” he said cheerfully, reaching across the seat to pump my hand. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this. Seems like the only time we run into each other is at crime scenes.”
“Occupational hazard,” I said. “Now tell me, what the hell happened in there?”
“It’s a long story, and we’re still trying to piece it together,” he said. “There are two people dead inside and a set of bloody footprints leading from the crime scene to the front door. We brought in a canine unit. The dog followed the trail out to the driveway and there it stopped. My guess is the perpetrator took off in a car. According to the DMV, there are two vehicles registered to this address. Barry Newsome is the registered owner of a 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse. His roommate, Don Atkins, owns an ’85 Ford Explorer. Both those vehicles are safely stowed in the garage. What isn’t here and may be missing is Mr. Owens’ Subaru Outback. I’ve issued an APB on it, but nothing has shown up so far. Now it’s your turn, Beau. What’s your connection to all this?”
Another vehicle pulled up behind us and a second canine unit took to the street. From inside the house came the occasional flashes of crime-scene photography.
“I’ve been working on a case in Seattle that led us to Newsome and Atkins,” I said. “When I got home at nine tonight, there was a message on my machine from Newsome that came in about a quarter to five. The problem is, the message was interrup
ted halfway through.”
Tim nodded. “That’s probably about when it happened. Our com center reported a 911 call from a house two doors away a few minutes later than that, 4:48. A woman named Mrs. Adams from that house over there…” He pointed to the house at the far end of the driveway where I had parked. “She reported that someone in the neighborhood—a teenager, she thought—most likely was setting off firecrackers and scaring her dog. Responding officers found nothing. The second firecracker complaint from the same lady came in at seven-thirty. This time when officers showed up, they found the doors here wide open. One body was in the living room downstairs. That one, Calvin Owens, looked like a fresh kill. The other one, Newsome, was upstairs in an office of some kind. He looks like he’s been dead for some time, I’d guess a matter of hours.”
“Have you talked to the neighbors?”
“Some. Mostly to Mrs. Adams so far. Sounds as though she didn’t like Newsome and Atkins much. Her assessment is that the boys were pretty weird to begin with and not so hot on maintenance, either. She says the house actually belongs to Newsome’s family, but the guys have lived here rent-free for several years and have let it go to pot. And she’s not wrong there. When I first walked inside, I thought somebody had trashed the place in the course of a robbery. The more I look around, though, the more I think it’s just a bachelor pad that’s deteriorated into a pigsty.”
Headlights flashed in the rearview mirror as a second ME van maneuvered past us and parked beside the first one.
Tim Blaine continued. “Mrs. Adams also said something about how Newsome and Atkins used to have big parties here almost every weekend. That people would show up late at night dressed in all kinds of strange costumes—like vampires and witches, for example. She said the parties finally stopped about six months ago after the neighbors made a stink. Personally, I think the parties stopped because the place was such a mess no one wanted to go inside—not even to party.”
“What about Owens? Have you found out anything more about him?”
Tim Blaine shook his head. “Not much. His business card says he specializes in Native American artifacts.”
“I see,” I said. “That makes sense.”
“What does?”
“Newsome and Atkins may have stopped partying at home, but they haven’t stopped the costume parties. Role-playing parties, they call them. Now, they’ve started staging them in public parks, and that’s where Sue and I come in.”
“Role-playing?” Blaine asked. “What does that mean?”
“It means that everybody dresses up as his or her favorite ghoul or vampire and then they go around scaring the shit out of one another. Your basic ongoing Halloween party for people who’ve never quite grown up. Only it turns out Newsome and Atkins tend to get a little carried away. My partner and I got involved when, in the aftermath of one of those parties, an attendee called in to report that real bones had been used as props. Sue Danielson, my partner, came over here last week and collected a set of bones from Mr. Newsome and delivered them to the ME’s office. Since then, our investigation has led us to believe they are the partial remains of a deceased Suquamish shaman named David Half Moon.”
“They were using this guy’s body for props?” Tim Blaine asked. “What kind of kooks are they?”
“People with no respect for human life,” I told him. “Remember I told you earlier about a body being pulled out of Lake Washington earlier today?” Blaine nodded.
“The victim’s name is Anthony Lawson,” I continued. “It turns out he’s Mr. Half Moon’s developmentally disabled grandson. After talking to Lawson’s adoptive mother, I believe he had in his possession a map that would have shown where his grandfather was buried. Not buried actually. According to tribal customs, Half Moon’s remains as well as his worldly goods were placed in a canoe and raised up into a tree. Lawson was a busboy at Newsome and Atkins’ favorite downtown hangout.”
Frowning, Blaine paused for several seconds before he spoke again. “Grave robbing,” he said thoughtfully. “Would there have been anything else in that canoe besides the bones?”
“Maybe.”
“So that’s where Owens comes in. His card says he specialized in Native American artifacts,” Blaine continued. “He probably came here expecting to make a deal, to buy something.”
“What makes you think that?”
“He had a bank receipt in his pocket that shows he picked up $20,000 in cash late this afternoon, but there was no money on him when we found him. None.
“According to my count then,” he went on, “we’re looking at a minimum of three homicides, one set of partial remains, one missing person, and one stolen vehicle. All of those cases are connected but they all come from different jurisdictions.”
“That’s right as far as it goes,” I said. “Actually, the vehicle Anthony Lawson was found in was also stolen, and there’s another missing person that you don’t know anything about. His name’s Jimmy Greenjeans.”
“Who’s he?” Blaine asked.
“A bartender from the same place where Anthony Lawson worked. He and Tony Lawson may have been friends, and I think he knew something about the connection between Lawson and Newsome and Atkins.”
“Is he the one with green hair?” Blaine asked.
“That’s the one.”
“And that really is his name, Mr. Greenjeans?”
“Yes.”
“And what makes you think he might be dead, too?”
“His girlfriend reported him missing.”
“Missing doesn’t necessarily mean dead.”
“It could in this case,” I said.
“And you think what may or may not have happened to Greenjeans is all tied up with what’s going on here.” I nodded.
“In that case, I think we’d better go talk to Captain Davis,” Tim said. “With so many jurisdictions involved, this could get tricky. He needs to know what we’re up against. You’ll probably want to bring your brass in on it, too.”
“That’s just the problem,” I said. “I can’t really do that.”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, I’ve been pulled from the Seward Park case. For another, my new squad commander doesn’t like some of my sources.”
“Nobody likes informants,” Tim grinned. “Most of them are creeps. I don’t care for them much myself.”
“This one is different,” I said. “He’s a Native American shaman named Henry Leaping Deer.”
“You mean like a medicine man,” Blaine put in.
“Close enough,” I told him. “Most of what Mr. Leaping Deer told me came to him in a dream. The trouble is, everything he told me seems to be coming true, right down the line. For instance. He dreamed that David Half Moon’s remains had been stolen from the burial grounds and that children were playing with them in the city. Calling Newsome and Atkins children maybe isn’t literally true, but it’s close enough. Mr. Leaping Deer told me that there’s a curse associated with handling a dead shaman’s bones. So far we know that at least three of the people who did so are dead. Not only that, when Leaping Deer sent his daughter to clue us in on all this, she said her father had mentioned a green-haired man as being involved and that he, in particular, was in some danger.”
“You’re saying the dream isn’t just a dream. It’s actually more like a vision.”
“I suppose. My problem is, not only have I been ordered off the case, the commander doesn’t believe in visions.”
“Do you?” Tim Blaine asked.
“I didn’t before, but I may now,” I answered. “I started out thinking the whole deal was some kind of phony joke. Now I’m not so sure and, with bodies stacked like so much cord wood, I don’t think we can afford to ignore Leaping Deer’s information. What about you?”
“I still think Captain Davis is our best bet,” Tim Blaine replied, opening the door and climbing out of the car. “The guy’s pretty broad-minded. Who knows?” he added with a laugh. “Maybe he’ll be a little more under
standing than your guy Kramer.”
And that was when I realized that I really was Paul Kramer’s worst nightmare. In less than a day, and without even meaning to, I had managed to turn him into what he had called an “interdepartmental laughingstock.”
There’s going to be hell to pay on this one, I told myself. But that didn’t stop me. I pulled my keys out of the ignition, stuffed the phone in my pocket, and then went looking for Tim Blaine’s Captain Davis.
Sixteen
I was two steps from the car when the phone in my pocket rang. “Beau,” Sue Danielson said. “What’s up?”
“Let’s see,” I said. “One or two things. Jimmy Greenjeans is missing. Barry Newsome is dead along with a Native American artifact dealer named Calvin Owens. And Don Atkins appears to have taken off. Not only that, Tony Lawson turns out to be David Half Moon’s grandson, so you called that one on the money. What else do you want to know?”
“Good grief, Beau!” Sue was aghast. “We were only gone long enough to have dinner. What the hell have you been doing while my back is turned? And where are you?”
“In Bellevue,” I replied. “At the scene of a double homicide.”
“Does Kramer have any idea you’re there?”
“Not so far. I haven’t told Wayne Haller or Sam Nguyen, either, for that matter.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Sue asked. “Do you want me to come over? Richie just left and the kids are getting ready for bed.”
“You don’t need to do that. I’m just on my way to talk to Captain Davis of the Bellevue police to bring him up to speed. I’m not sure what his reaction is going to be when I hit him with all the shaman stuff, but with two dead and Greenjeans missing, we don’t have a moment to lose.”
“Do you want me to call Kramer?”
Notifying the new squad commander was a tough decision. I knew he had to be called. The further things went without Kramer being informed, the worse it would be in the long run. On the other hand, I suspected that as soon as he had even an inkling of what was going on he’d roar across the nearest bridge to Bellevue and begin knocking heads, starting with mine.
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