“Yes.”
“Did you get all that so you know help is on the way? That we’re coming as fast as we can?”
“Yes.”
“Hang on, then. I have to put the phone down to drive.”
Laying the phone on the seat, I swung the Porsche into a tight U-turn and then charged back down 16th and 136th toward Highway 167. It was well after eleven o’clock now. I prayed there wouldn’t be much traffic on the freeway headed north. I had owned 928s for years without once driving them at the kinds of speed for which they were designed. Now I might, but only if I could be reasonably sure doing so wouldn’t end up killing me and/or somebody else.
As the Porsche and the Crown Victoria roared down the entrance ramp onto 167, I tried to picture the layout of Sue’s long, narrow duplex. I had never been any farther inside than the cozy kitchen where the two of us had shared our tea-flavored nightcaps the evening before. I knew that the living room came first, opening off the front door, followed by the kitchen. A hallway led off the kitchen, making me think that the bedrooms and bathroom were somewhere at the back of the house. Unfortunately, I suspected there was a basement of some kind underneath that might make the elevation of the house too high for what I had in mind.
Only when I was back on the highway did I pick up the phone once more. “Okay, Jared, now listen, and listen very carefully. Is there a window in your room?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a screen on it?”
“No.”
“Good. Can you open it? The window, I mean?”
“Yes.”
“How high is it above the ground?”
“I don’t know. A long way. Six feet maybe.”
“Here’s what I want you to do. Strip everything off your bed. Blankets, pillows, everything. Wake Chris and strip his bed, too. You might even empty the clothes out of the closet and drawers. Push everything out the window. Don’t throw them; drop them. If you toss them, they’ll fall too far from the house and they won’t do you any good. Once you have as much cushioning as possible on the ground under the window, I want both of you to go out the window. Maybe you can lower Chris first, and then you drop out next. Put the phone in your pocket when you do, but if we get disconnected in the process, punch redial and call me right back. Okay?”
“But what if Chris won’t listen to me? He’s just a little kid. He doesn’t like it when I boss him around.”
I racked my brain. “Tell him it’s a game,” I said at last. “Tell him it’s part of the Disneyland trip and you’re doing it to surprise your mom. Okay?”
“I’ll try,” Jared said, but it was a very shaky “I’ll try.” An unconvincing “I’ll try.”
“Once you’re outside, go around the other side of the house to reach the front. Do not go to any of the neighbors. Do not knock on any doors. Someone might call 911. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Go out to Dayton and walk as far as the corner. Stay out of sight in case your dad figures out you’re gone and comes looking for you. You know my car, don’t you?”
“It’s a Porsche, isn’t it?”
“Yes, a red 928. When I come around the corner, I want you to stand up and wave at me. I’ll stop. There’ll be some other detectives with me in another car, Tim and Dave. I want you to get in the car with them. Then I’ll go on up to the house and try to get your mother out. Okay?”
“But, Mr. Beaumont,” Jared said. “Will it work?”
“I don’t know. But start putting stuff out the window right now. Quickly. In the meantime, I’m going to have to put the phone down to concentrate on driving. If you need me, yell.”
“Please hurry, Mr. Beaumont. I don’t think I can do this. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
“Hang on, Jared,” I told him. “Please, hang on. Believe me, you’re doing great.”
Eighteen
I stuffed the phone in my shirt pocket, hoping that if something did happen and Jared needed me I’d be able to hear him. Then I drove. Drove like hell. After midnight there was no traffic at all on Highway 167. So I floored it. Between Kent and Renton on the straightaway, the speedometer went as high as 126. At least that’s as high as I noticed. The Crown Victoria didn’t stay right on my tail, but it was close enough.
Tim Blaine must have been working overtime on his radio. As we approached the Highway 167 and I-405 exchange, I noticed a state patrol car sitting on the shoulder, lights flashing. Slowing as I approached the intersection, I turned on my blinker to go north on 405. As soon as I did so, the patrol car roared up the access ramp ahead of me and into the far left lane. He cleared the way as far as I-90. When we turned off, he continued northbound, but another state patrol car took over from there, leading us into the city.
As soon as there was enough traffic to require slower speeds, I plucked the phone out of my pocket. “Jared?” I asked. “Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you now?”
“On the corner of Dayton and 36th. Behind a Dumpster.”
“That may still be too close to the house. Do you know where the troll is, the one under the Aurora Bridge?”
“Yeah.”
“Take Chris and go there. We’ll come by for you on our way to the house.”
The troll is a piece of Seattle’s whimsical statuary, built partially as a joke and partially to honor the Scandinavian heritage of many of the people living nearby. Made of poured concrete, it sits tucked into a hillside under the soaring Aurora Bridge. In one knobby hand it clutches the metal remains of a fullsize VW Bug. The VW is a long way from that old Norwegian folktale, “The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” but in Seattle’s off-the-wall Fremont neighborhood, it works. I thought it might work for Jared and Chris as well.
“Are you boys both okay?” I asked.
“Chris got a bloody nose when he landed,” Jared said. “He was crying at first, but he’s okay now.”
“Way to go, Jared. We’re coming as fast as we can. I’m already on the I-90 Bridge. It won’t be long.”
“Thanks, Mr. Beaumont.”
I thought of all the other times I had encountered Jared Danielson, both in person and on the telephone. I didn’t think the kid had ever learned any manners. Obviously I had been wrong.
“And Jared?”
“Yes.”
“Now that you’re out of the house, I’m going to hang up for a minute. I need to call for some other backup. Wait for a few seconds and then dial my number. As soon as I’m off the line, it’ll ring again and I’ll pick up.”
Ending that call, I dialed the speed-dial code for Dispatch. “Beaumont here.”
“Where are you?” the operator asked.
“Just coming into the city on I-90 and about to turn onto I-5. Sue Danielson’s kids are both out of the house.”
“Thank God.”
“What about Detective Danielson?”
“She’s been shot. I don’t know if she’s dead or alive, but she’s still in the house.”
“We’re in the process of cordoning off that whole Fremont neighborhood, Detective Beaumont. Like you said, no lights, no sirens, but we have cars in place at every intersection. Any idea what kind of car he’d be driving if he made a break for it?”
“Either Sue’s old Escort or a rental of some kind. He’s threatened to shoot the first cop who comes through the door. I’m in my Porsche. I doubt he’ll suspect someone in a 928 of being a cop. I plan to drive up, blatant as hell, pretending to be Sue’s boyfriend.”
I heard Chuck Grayson’s voice in the background. “He can’t do that. It’s crazy. We’d be better off tear-gassing the place and then storming it.”
Before the dispatcher had a chance to relay anything more, I ended the call. The phone rang again, seconds later. “Jared? Where are you?”
“At the troll. But it’s dark under here, dark and cold. I forgot to bring along a jacket. Chris says he’s scared. He wants to go back home.”
“Tell him we�
�ll be there in a few minutes. We’ll bring along blankets and give you a ride.”
As I turned off I-5 onto Mercer, the latest state patrol escort waved goodbye with a thumbs-up sign. Returning the signal I hoped what was coming would be as simple as I had made it sound when I talked to Dispatch.
“Here’s the deal, Jared,” I said. “When we come under the bridge, the car behind me will stop. It’s a gray Crown Victoria. If I’m not there and you want to be sure you have the right car, ask the guy who his girlfriend is. Her name’s Latty. Tim and Dave are to take care of you and Chris. There are other cars and other officers from SPD who’ll be there to help me.”
“But Dad said…” Jared began.
“I know what your father said, Jared,” I interrupted. “Don’t repeat it right now in front of Chris. Your father won’t know I’m a cop. I’ll pretend I’m your Mom’s boyfriend. Maybe that way I can get inside the house to help her. Okay? Does that sound to you like it’ll work?”
“Maybe,” Jared said. “I hope so.”
So did I. Talking as I drove had been a device to bolster my own courage as much as to prop up Jared’s. It had also served to give him a timetable, to let him know where we were and that help was almost at hand.
“We’re coming up Westlake now. How’s Chris’ nosebleed?”
“It’s stopped. He’s still cold.”
“Tell him the blankets are coming, blankets and a teddy bear, too.”
It wasn’t until I crossed the Fremont Bridge that I became conscious of the sweat running down my collar, beading across my forehead and under my nose. My hands were so slick and wet it was all I could do to keep a grip on the steering wheel and the phone. Coming up 34th I saw several unmarked cars scattered along the street and several plain-clothes cops as well, but I was gratified to see they had complied with my wishes. Backup was there in spades, but without the fanfare of lights and sirens. Setting up a full-scale emergency response team operation would have taken hours. My gut told me we didn’t have that much time.
As I approached the troll, I strained forward in the seat, hoping to catch sight of the kids. It wasn’t until I stopped and got out of the car that they appeared. Chris came running toward me and threw both arms around my waist.
“Jared says Mom’s hurt. Is that true?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I said. “I think it is. I’m on my way to help her right now.”
“I want to go, too,” Chris said. “I can help. I learned how to put on bandages in school.”
“I’m sure you did,” I said. The Crown Victoria stopped behind the Porsche. Tim Blaine stepped out. “Here’s my friend, Tim,” I said. “I want you and Jared to stay with him for now while I go help your mom.”
“Is she going to be all right?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope so.”
Chris allowed himself to be handed off. Jared came toward me more warily, as if unsure of his welcome. He seemed exactly the same kid he had always been before. Same baggy pants; same oversized sweatshirt; same Washington State baseball cap perched backward over long flowing locks. But something was different about him. Behind that scraggly, baggy exterior of his, he had unearthed a stockpile of extraordinary courage. In saving his little brother’s life, he had exhibited more bravery than many people twice his age.
I held out my hand as he approached. “Good work, Jared,” I said.
He pulled his hand out of the pocket of his sagging pants, but before he could return my handshake, he had to switch his cell phone from his right hand to his left. When our palms met, his was almost as sweaty and sticky as my own.
“I think you can shut that thing off now,” I told him. “We’ve probably run up enough of a bill.”
It was a lame attempt at a joke, something to lighten both our spirits. But instead of kidding back, Jared simply switched off the phone. “Okay,” he said. His lower lip trembled when he spoke. The fact that he was near tears and trying to hold back got me.
“You stay here,” I said gruffly, not knowing how else to comfort him.
He looked up at me then, full in the face, while his eyes misted with tears. “What if you’re too late?” he asked. “What if she doesn’t make it?”
That was my fear, too. “We’ve done the best we could, Jared,” I told him. “You’ve done your best.”
Fighting back tears of my own, I turned away and went back to the 928. I pulled my extra Kevlar vest out of the 928’s vestigial boot and put it on. Show time, I told myself. Then I knocked wood on the vest and headed for the showdown on Dayton Avenue North.
On the way, I found myself wishing it were farther away to give myself more time to prepare—rehearsal time, if you will. But then again, if there’d been time enough to think it over, to consider what was at stake, I might have backed out. The only thing I knew for certain was that no matter what happened, the kids were safe. Sue Danielson had taken my advice and bought her son a cellular phone. Between the two of us we had managed to save her children’s lives. The question was, could we save hers?
I pulled up in front of the duplex. The place looked as innocuous as it had the previous night. The front porch light was on. So was the light in the front window, but the blinds were pulled shut and the lamplight behind them revealed no movement inside.
What’s that line of Lady Macbeth’s? I asked myself as I switched off the engine. I knew it was something about screwing your courage to the sticking place, but I couldn’t remember the exact quote. Right then, though, I was so soaked with perspiration that the “sticking place” could have been almost any place on my whole body. Before exiting the Porsche, I moved my 9mm from my shoulder holster to the pocket of my sports jacket.
Getting out of the car, I wondered whether or not Richie Danielson had already learned that his sons had escaped. If so, his first response to my ringing the doorbell could very well be a hail of bullets. With every step I took up the walk the Kevlar vest seemed to shrink on my body. It grew smaller and smaller while the nakedly exposed parts of me—my head and arms, abdomen and legs—seemed to balloon in size.
Knees quaking beneath me, I stepped onto the wooden porch. It creaked and groaned under my weight, but nothing happened inside the room, not as far as I could see. I rang the doorbell. No response. I rang again.
“Sue?” I called, opening the screen door and tapping gently on the solid-core door behind it. Standing there I wished this were the same kind of front door as the one on my grandmother’s house. Beverly Piedmont’s old-fashioned mahogany front door came with three small, stair-step panes of glass. Those tiny windows would have afforded me a glimpse inside the house. In Sue’s front door there was only a one-way security peephole.
“Sue,” I said. “Are you ready? It’s time to go. Larry and Marcia are expecting us.”
Those were the only names I could think of right then, Captain Powell and his wife. I don’t know why those names in particular surfaced in my head, but they did and I used them, trying to make it sound casual and as planned.
“Who is it?”
Richie spoke from directly on the other side of the door, mere inches away. I almost crapped my pants.
“It’s none of your business,” I said. “Sue and I have a date. Now, where is she and who the hell are you?”
“Sue’s not here,” Richie said. “She went out.”
Jared had told me Richie was drinking. There was enough slurring in his speech that I was sure he was in fact drunk.
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “Her car’s still here.”
“She went with friends,” he said. “Now go away and leave us alone.”
“I think you’re lying to me,” I said through the closed door. “You just want to keep her to yourself. Let me in.”
“I tell you, she’s not here.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Who are you?”
“I already told you. It’s none of your business who I am. Now let me in.”
There was a pause and then a
stumble. The light from the lamp on the table just inside the window wavered as though Richie might have bumped it. I couldn’t see him. When he spoke again it was from a distance, close enough for me to hear his voice but no longer directly on the other side of the door.
“You’ll be sorry,” he said.
It sounded like a little boy’s taunt, one that harkened all the way back to kindergarten or first grade. If Richie Danielson was going to cast himself as the bad little boy in the drama, I would have to be the daddy.
“What do you mean I’ll be sorry?” I demanded. “What’s going on in there?”
“You can come in if you want to. The door’s unlocked.”
Standing to the side of the door, protected as much as possible by the door frame and the wall itself, I reached for the doorknob. As soon as it moved, the door was splintered several times over by a deafening blast of gunfire. My ears rang, but it seemed to me he had fired at least three separate shots, probably with Sue’s own 9mm.
I remembered then, with the smell of cordite billowing around me, the shapely shirtwaist Sue Danielson had been wearing the last time I saw her. It had been a softly flowing dress, one that showed off her breasts and waist and hips with no room for soft body armor or a concealed weapon.
I remembered how she had looked in that pastel-colored dress. She had come to Bellevue wearing it in order to run interference for me with Paul Kramer. That was why she left her house in the first place, why she had left her children in her ex-husband’s charge, and why she had come home to face a bullet.
The whole time I had been on my way from Auburn, the whole time I had been dealing with the crisis and keeping Jared pumped up and on the phone, I had managed to avoid looking at my own culpability. But now it was there in front of me, as plain as the shattered wood of the door. And the anger that took over then had nothing to do with training or brains or dedication. Unreasoning rage, pure and simple, kicked open Sue Danielson’s front door.
Only Richie Danielson wasn’t there. He had left the living room and disappeared into the kitchen perhaps, or maybe into one of the bedrooms beyond. The person who was there was Sue. She was slumped over against the far wall. At first I thought she was dead, but as I came into the room, crouching low, gun extended, I saw a slight movement—a shudder—as she tried to raise herself up. On the floor beneath her was a pool of blood.
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