“I read,” Tag said, with a touch of indignance. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
Jen at the Mystery Bookshop says men read more nonfiction than women, and Tag had shelves full of books on history. Last winter over dinner, he’d raved about a book on the famous U Dub rowing team that won Olympic gold in Germany in 1936. I’d never heard him talk about the Vietnam War, but he could have read an entire encyclopedia since our divorce. If encyclopedias still existed.
One more pair of opposites that we personify.
“Student Democratic League,” my mother said. “We all belonged at first, until it got too crazy. So we did wonder about a plant. But they both seemed to be the real deal. They stuck around after the major protests in Seattle ended. Roger got kicked off the faculty—”
“No shock there,” Carl said. He gestured with his cell phone and ducked into my bedroom to call his wife.
I took a moment to refill the cookie plate and hoped Arf’s bladder held.
“So, back to Roger,” I prompted when we were all back in place. “Oh, and what about Terry?”
My mother reached for a cookie. “We called them the Unholy Trinity. At first, Roger and Peggy were an item, then they became a threesome. I don’t mean anything kinky—”
“The ’60s have their reputation for a reason,” Carl said, earning a motherly glare in return.
“People in the neighborhood called us a commune, said the adults all slept around and the kids ran wild, but that was before they got to know us. You two know”—she looked from me to Carl—“there was no hanky-panky, and plenty of parental discipline. We were two families who shared a house and a philosophy, and tried always to live consciously and consistently. But some of our friends . . .” She let the words trail off.
“Roger would blow up,” she continued, “and Peggy would seek refuge with Terry. But it never lasted. Some couples seem to thrive on that sort of intensity, mistaking it for love.”
That had not been Tag’s and my pattern, but I knew what she meant. Ben had confessed to an emotional roller-coaster ride in his last relationship. And Josh had described a textbook case with Hannah.
Arf snored softly in his bed, but my own patience was running thin. “Fast forward to 1985, Mom.”
She sighed and twirled her nearly empty wineglass. I threw Carl a meaningful look, and he went to the kitchen to open another bottle. She and I weren’t driving anywhere tonight.
“Peggy helped out in the day care. When she started learning pottery, she had everyone in the house working clay. Do you remember making those little animals?”
I slid to the floor and rooted around in the wicker trunk for the shoe boxes I’d seen last Sunday. Blew the dust off the one bearing my initials and lifted the lid.
Inside lay a lumpy ladybug, recognizable mainly by the black spots on her red back, and an exquisite emerald green turtle. I didn’t have to turn over the ladybug to know I’d find a childish PR carved on the belly. But the turtle . . .
On the bottom of one foot was a pair of neatly carved diamonds. Bonnie’s mark. And Peggy’s, too—one identifier that hadn’t changed. I cradled the gem-like memento, finally knowing where the memories had come from.
“Roger was chief gleaner. He and your father convinced the grocery stores on Capitol Hill and in the U District to donate produce and baked goods to the Pantry. Your dad taught all day, so Roger made most of the pickups. He also got restaurants and caterers on board. I’ll never forget the day we got twelve dozen deviled eggs from a canceled wedding. The clients thought they’d gone to heaven.”
The clients were the men, women, and children we’d fed. “I remember that. We had half days the last week of school, and I was helping out. Was that 1985?”
She bit her lower lip. “After the—incident, they traced the van to Grace House. That was the first inkling we had that Roger still believed in bringing the war home.”
“A Weather Underground slogan,” Tag said.
“We’d all protested the nuclear buildup. We supported Bishop Hunthausen’s stance against the nuclear subs in Puget Sound. We stood on street corners with signs and petitions. We wrote letters and organized boycotts. And we kept on teaching children, and advocating for the homeless, and feeding the hungry.” She paused, sipping, reflecting.
“So what happened while we were in St. Louis?” Carl said.
“Ellen called—the police were at the house. The shooting and explosion were all over the news. Roger was dead—they found his body. The community van was found abandoned near the Strasburgs’ home, in an exclusive neighborhood. It was registered to Ellen and Greg.” Kristen’s parents. “No one kept tabs on it.”
“But Roger was doing more than picking up overripe bananas and day-old maple bars,” Carl said.
“He’d been scoping the neighborhood for days, weeks, figuring out the Strasburgs’ schedule. Neighbors had seen him, but they saw our logo on the van so they trusted him. That may have been the worst betrayal—hiding behind a program that fed hungry kids, and all the while, he was plotting violence.”
“What if he didn’t mean it to turn violent?” I said. “He broke in while the house was empty. He attacked the computers Walter Strasburg used to create code for the nuclear subs. Not that the vandalism wasn’t criminal, but he didn’t plan on attacking the family.”
“He had a gun and explosives,” my mother said flatly. “And when the family surprised him, he shot the father in front of his son. Yes, Walter Strasburg got out his own gun, and yes, that was wrong. But Roger created the danger. He was responsible for everything that happened after that.”
“What triggered the explosion?” Carl asked.
“According to Detective Washington,” I said, “a simple device anyone could have made, with the right materials.”
“No one in our group ever got involved with bombings,” my mother said. “We eschewed violence. We had no reason to think Roger had explosives.” She raised her glass, but her hand shook badly and she set the glass on the crate.
“A few months before the shooting, Greg Hoffman—Kristen’s father—” she said to Tag, “cleaned out the garage behind the house. It was ancient and half falling down—it hadn’t housed a car since the days of the Model A.” She reached out a hand and wiggled her fingers. I found a clean tissue and laid it in her palm. “He found . . . We assumed it was left over from when old Mr. Hoffman set off fireworks displays for the neighborhood.”
“Mom, what did they find?”
“Blasting caps. Detonator cords. Everything you need to make a starburst in the sky.”
“Either he didn’t find it all, or Roger had a secret stash,” I said, my voice shaking. “And he used it at the Strasburg house.”
“So that’s why you flew home, and we stayed,” Carl said. “I remember Dad called you a lot, and Grandpa got all riled up about the phone bill, even after Dad said he was good for it.”
I might bemoan the cost of my cell package, but I didn’t miss the days of overpriced long distance. But I knew Grandpa’s heart. His irritation over the phone bill was a cover-up for his worries about his family.
“Tension gripped all of us,” my mother said. She untucked her legs and propped her feet on the coffee crate. “The police made noises about shutting down the clinic and the pantry. It was a pressure tactic, and it scared us, but the truth was, none of us had known what they were up to. We couldn’t believe that two of our own were involved. We were so angry, we couldn’t mourn the deaths properly. And that poor family . . .”
Tag had been quiet during Mom’s revelations. “Lena, any idea why Peggy took the bracelet, then left it behind?”
She frowned. “Peggy never showed any interest in jewelry. Ellen had a diamond that had been her mother’s reset in an engagement ring. A simple setting, but pretty. I remember all of us trying it on, except Peggy. She said diamonds were ostentatious. Sym
bols of greed and vanity, and exploitation in the mines. Tact was not among her gifts.”
“What did Peggy want, Mom?” I said.
“What we all wanted, I thought. Peace, justice, a home, and friends. But every chance she got, she chose something else.”
Choices. A cramp bit my side, and I massaged it. “Mom, last week at the Market, you went back to her stall. There was shouting. Everyone heard you.”
“I could not believe she’d been alive all those years and never told us. Not a word. And then she just turns up again, as if nothing had happened.”
“Who do you think killed her?”
My mother had always looked like she’d sipped from the fountain of youth. At the moment, the fountain had run dry. She answered my question. “I don’t know.”
Carl’s pocket buzzed. He scanned the screen, sent a reply, and stood. “I gotta get the kids—school decorating party. Remember, Mom, school assembly tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at noon.”
“I’d better say good night, too.” Tag stood and leaned down to kiss my mother’s cheek. Then, sliding from former son-in-law back to the cop I’d almost forgotten he was, he added, “We’ll do everything we can to catch her killer, Lena. I promise.”
* * *
“I walk this dog alone every night. It’s not even close to dark.”
“You’re not walking alone tonight.” Arf peed in the storm grate—a habit I’d been unable to break—and we strolled on, Tag matching his stride to mine.
We walked the first block of Western in silence.
“Nobody thinks my mom killed Bonnie, do they? You heard her. Besides, she was home at Carl’s, and how would she have known where to find the woman?” Carl did have a white SUV. And Mom did have the keys. And she could have taken Bonnie’s business card with her studio address, like I had.
“When Washington heard that Peggy Manning—Bonnie Clay—was back and asked me to keep an eye on her, he hadn’t yet refocused on the others in the community. Eventually, he realized I’m Chuck and Lena’s son-in-law and officially put me out of the loop. Sorry.”
His use of present tense caught my ear.
He went on. “But in cold cases, you go back and retrace all your steps. Reinterview the witnesses, reexamine the physical evidence. That means tracking down everyone who was part of that community. Your parents and Kristen’s dad are the only ones left.”
“From the house, yes. But there were others. Terry Stinson, Dave McNally and his wife, Tim McCarver and his ex. They were all at the party.”
“So they all saw Bonnie,” he said. “And the bracelet.”
“Oh, she makes me so mad. My mom, I mean, but Bonnie, too. I thought I was investigating for them, but now I’m investigating them.”
“How about them Mariners?” Tag said.
I laughed. “Don’t you have to work at dark thirty? I haven’t seen much of you lately. You seeing someone?”
Beside me, Tag stiffened. “I’ve been out a few times, but no one special.”
Kristen always tells me not to get involved with Tag again, and I know she’s right. But at times like tonight, when his presence was a help and a comfort, when we seemed to understand what hadn’t been spoken, I wonder.
We rounded the corner and headed for Alaskan Way. He spoke quietly. “I’ve been too hard on you about Ben. About dating. I need to let you make your own choices.”
I stumbled on a crack in the sidewalk, and Tag grabbed me before I fell. Arf glanced back at us, and for a brief moment, I thought that if Tag hadn’t just mentioned Ben, he might have kissed me.
Ben might not be my Mr. Right.
But that didn’t mean Tag was.
A group of thirtysomethings came out of a restaurant and swelled around us. “Good dog,” one said, stopping to pet Arf, then sprinting after his friends.
“Your mom’s a lot nicer to me now that we’re divorced,” he said. “She never liked me.”
“That’s not true. She never disliked you. She just didn’t think we were a good match.”
“Same thing,” he said, “when it comes to your kids.”
“Do you ever—” I stopped myself. No point asking if he ever regretted that we hadn’t had kids. That by the time he was ready, something in me had said no.
“Yes,” he said, in a tone that told me he’d read my mind.
The phone I’d slipped in my pocket buzzed. Since I’d actually bothered to bring it, I figured I’d better look.
And almost wished I hadn’t.
Twenty-six
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. . . . Because the Lord causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
—Matthew 5:44–45
A light rain fell as we came out of the Harborview ER a tick past midnight. Tag offered to bring his car around, but I didn’t mind. After the shock of Cayenne’s call and the hours of worry, the rain—not much more than a mist—had healing powers. I closed my eyes and raised my face, like a baby bird.
If it hadn’t been for that cast-off three-iron, Mr. Adams might not have made it. But he’d given nearly as good as he got. Somewhere in the city, a hooligan—the ER doc’s overly polite euphemism for a would-be killer—nursed a cracked shin, or worse.
“You have to work in three hours,” I said. “You didn’t have to stay.”
“I called in. I’m taking second watch today.”
Eleven thirty A.M. to eight P.M., much more reasonable hours. “Watch” for “shift” had an almost medieval sound that I found reassuring. It reminded me of Brother Cadfael, but I was too tired to wonder what the old monk would do.
I hadn’t been surprised to see Spencer and Tracy arrive minutes after we did. A beating that sends an old man to the hospital is obviously going to summon the police, and some sort of cross-indexing would quickly flag the case for the dispatch supervisor, who would alert the detectives. They don’t care for that attack-on-a-possible-witness thing.
Turned out that Cayenne had shortcut the system. After her mother had called to relay the news, Cayenne called me from the car while her husband raced to the hospital, then tracked down Detective Spencer herself. She didn’t like that attack-on-a-witness thing, either.
Tag unlocked the black Saab, and I slid in. “I can’t believe you’re still driving this car. We bought it, what, fifteen years ago?”
He gave a halfhearted laugh. “Said by a woman who drives a car older than she is.”
“The Mustang is a classic. Though if my parents move home, I’ll have to give it back.” I leaned against the headrest. “Thanks. You didn’t have to take me up there, and you didn’t have to stay.”
He made a left on Madison and crossed the freeway. “Of course I stayed. I can’t believe you said that.”
“What happens next? With the investigation, I mean. All Mr. Adams saw the night of the murder was a car speeding away—at least, from what he told me.”
“Someone thinks he saw more than that. They’ll go over his statement with him. Put the bits and pieces of his recall tonight together with the Friday night incident and see if anything jumps out. He may remember more as time goes on, as the shock passes.”
I bit my lip to keep from crying. “He was already so frail.”
Tag reached across and squeezed my hand. He eased the Saab onto Western and stopped in front of my building.
No point telling him he didn’t have to walk me up the stairs.
Inside the loft, my cheek warm from his lips, I set my tote gently on the bench beside the door and peeled off my shoes. In the glow of the light my mother had left on in the kitchen, I saw that she’d put away the pasta and cookies and washed the dishes.
On his bed by the window, Arf raised his head. I crouched beside him and whispered, “He’s going to be okay.” I buried my face in the terrier’s t
hick black-and-tan fur and let him nuzzle me. “Tell me everything’s going to be okay.”
Minutes later, I climbed the iron staircase—barely more than a ladder—salvaged during the building’s conversion and peeked into the mezzanine. “Meditation space,” the builder had called the area above my bedroom, obviously on my mother’s wavelength. She’d fallen asleep on the futon—it pulled out into a double bed, but she hadn’t bothered. A paperback from my collection lay on the floor—Margaret Frazer’s The Traitor’s Tale.
Back in the kitchen, I poured a glass of a dry Washington Sauvignon Blanc that Laurel calls “loft white” because I drink so much of it. (Turnabout being fair play, she’s got her own “houseboat red.”) Sank into the paisley chair where Tag had sat hours ago, found on closeout at an import store.
We’d reached the hospital minutes after the family. In the ER waiting room, Cayenne had introduced her mother, a regal woman easy to picture controlling a rowdy classroom with the flick of an eyelash, and her father, the source of her height. I already knew Cayenne’s husband and her sister, who’d seen the HIRING sign in our front window and sent her to me last spring.
“A concussion,” Cayenne told us. “And a broken arm—a compound fracture. They’re taking him to surgery as soon as an anesthesiologist is free.”
With her and her mother as our escorts, Tag and I had been allowed to visit Mr. Adams for a few minutes. He’d been ashen, in pain, but called me by name without prompting.
He’d heard a noise outside the back door and opened it to investigate.
“Did you turn a light on?” Tag asked.
“’Course I did. I’m a fool, but not that big a fool.” Mr. Adams winced as he tried to sit up. His daughter’s hand on his shoulder stopped that nonsense. “Yard’s all fenced. I thought it musta been a stray dog, dug his way in, ripped up my shrubs. But then I saw him, the thug that hit me. I hit him back, I did.”
“Did he say anything?” And to think I’d dismissed the thug theory of murder as an old man’s delusions.
“He yowled up a storm when my three-iron hit his leg, I’ll tell you that for nothing.”
Killing Thyme Page 21
