Tipping the Valet

by K. K. Beck

  Lukowski waved his hand dismissively. “We’re aware of that Dumpster. I know the one you mean.”

  “I wasn’t telling you your job or anything,” said Tyler, thinking that perhaps he’d been less than tactful. It was hard to concentrate and answer these dumb questions when all he could think about was Mom and Dad and that slipper. He should have told the cops who were there the night of the Duckworth shooting the truth about the slipper when they asked him. He supposed if they went on to that topic he should just cave, and tell them he knew whose slipper it was but he had just been embarrassed that his dad had been bugging him at work in his slippers.

  Lukowski now shook his head slowly while assuming a melancholy expression. Then he locked eyes with Tyler and tilted his head and said very gently, “But you understand what you did, don’t you, Tyler? You put yourself in a really bad position.”

  “Yeah. But the gun didn’t go off or anything. I mean maybe it wasn’t strictly smart but…”

  “I’m not talking about firearms safety,” said Lukowski. “You put yourself in big legal trouble. Because you have a record. You’re a felon.”

  “That old charge? That was just a stupid thing,” said Tyler. “I mean, since that incident happened, malicious mischief has been reclassified as a misdemeanor.”

  “Well, it wasn’t then. Which makes you a felon in possession of a firearm now. And there was the assault charge, too.”

  Lukowski looked as if he were sorry about that, but Tyler knew he wasn’t sorry at all, he was just playing with him.

  “The assault charge was dropped,” Tyler said with dignity.

  “Yeah, whatever. The fact remains you’re still a felon in possession of a firearm.”

  “Technically,” said Tyler. “For maybe two minutes.”

  Now the other detective, MacNab—Tyler knew their names now—came into the little room. He beckoned to Lukowski, who left, closing the door behind him. Tyler heard the door lock. Through the window, Tyler could see them talking together. MacNab was smiling and waving a piece of paper and now Lukowski was smiling, too, and gave MacNab a cheery high-five. Was this good or bad?

  Lukowski returned, carrying the piece of paper. He sat opposite Tyler and seemed to be studying it thoroughly. Tyler sipped more coffee and tried not look rattled. Eventually, Lukowski looked up at him with a sad expression—quite a change from his high-fiving grin glimpsed through the window.

  “You already admitted you picked up the gray Audi and returned it to the owners,” Lukowski said. “So I can imagine that your fingerprints might be on the driver’s door.”

  “And the passenger door,” added Tyler. “To let in the wife.”

  “So I have a problem, Tyler. Why are they on the trunk?” Lukowski looked back down at the paper. “Looks like both hands, fingers splayed out. They even got a partial palm print on the right hand. So why were you slamming the trunk shut?”

  “Because it was open,” said Tyler.

  “It was?” Lukowski looked confused. “Did you open it?”

  “No! I happened to park a car right next to it—a Honda Civic. And when I got out, I was looking at the car and I noticed the trunk was slightly popped, and I thought I should close it.”

  “I see. Did you look inside the trunk?”

  “Well, yeah, just enough to see there was a suitcase there. I thought it was unsafe to leave it open. So as a courtesy to the customer I closed the trunk. Besides, if anything disappears from the cars we park, it’s a huge big deal. There are claim forms and stuff.”

  Lukowski didn’t say anything so Tyler added, “I was just about to tell you this when you found the gun.”

  That whole time period between them finding the gun and then arresting him had been ugly. Not only had Mom been there crying, she’d been there when they ran the warrant check on him and found out he was a felon. Tyler hadn’t mentioned that to her before.

  She’d tried to argue with the police officers as they were pushing his head down and piling him into the backseat of the car, and finally Tyler had yelled, “Be quiet, Mom. I am a felon!” And at this point, Flavia Torcelli had clicked out onto the driveway and witnessed this whole horrible scene.

  “Okay,” said Lukowski. “So you closed the trunk because it was open. But why are your prints on the latch, too? Sounds like maybe you opened the trunk, too.”

  Tyler sighed. “I was concerned that there was something wrong with the latch. I checked it out to see if there was something stuck in there that would stop it from closing. Or a bent part or something.”

  Lukowski was silent.

  “I mean, the guy was a regular customer!” said Tyler, alarmed to hear his voice rising. “I have to take care of my customers. If there’d been something wrong I could have alerted him to the fact.”

  “I’m confused, Tyler,” said Lukowski. “You said it was your first day at Alba. How could he have been a regular customer?”

  Now Tyler was embarrassed again. “I knew the car from Donna’s. That’s where I worked before. Elite Valet has a contract for both locations.”

  “Donna’s? That casino down south?”

  “That’s right.” Tyler decided that it was time to talk about the three-hundred-dollar tip. “The guy in the gray Audi came by Alba yesterday and asked me not to tell anyone he hangs out at Donna’s after work. I thought maybe you were a private detective working for his wife.”

  Lukowski didn’t look all that interested, but Tyler plunged on. “In fact, he gave me a three-hundred-dollar tip! Now I’m wondering if he was afraid he’d be tied in to the murder or something. Did you ask the gray Audi guy why he had a body in his car?” Suddenly Tyler realized he sounded ridiculous, and maybe even a little hysterical. They’d told him he could call a lawyer but he didn’t think he really needed one. Maybe he did.

  “You know what,” he said, his voice now calm again, “I want to make a phone call. I get to make a phone call, right? I want to call my grandpa. His name is Gus Iversen.”

  Chapter Twelve

  DEBBIE MYERS WAS STILL chatting with Helene in her office about Roger Benson’s email. “So were you surprised that Mr. Benson wrote this stuff about you?” The cell phone in her pocket vibrated, and she looked at the phone and saw it was a Seattle police number. “Myers,” she said, still scanning the printed-out email message.

  “Hey, Debbie, it’s MacNab, Homicide. Just wanted you to know. Today, my partner and I were down there at that Alba. We just took away a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson snub-nosed revolver from one of the valets there. Anyway, it looks like this valet’s dad was there the night of the shooting, too. While we were there, we learned he left something really weird behind. Our guy’s mom was there trying to retrieve it when we found the weapon on the kid.”

  “Was it a slipper?” said Debbie.

  “That’s right.”

  Debbie smiled. “Can you hold the kid?”

  “No problem. He’s a felon in possession of a firearm.”

  “Excellent,” said Debbie.

  “Lukowski’s talking to him now. The kid’s name is Benson. Tyler Benson.”

  Debbie scanned the email again. “If his dad is Roger Benson, I’m really interested.”

  Helene stared at her, slightly shocked. “Oh, Roger wouldn’t hurt anyone,” said Helene. “He might have been kind of a jerk, and kind of stupid, but he was really a sweet person. I always felt kind of sorry for him.”

  ———

  IN the back of the Everett auto body shop where Old Pasha had once worked, Dmytro Zelenko and Sergei Lagunov stood under a huge cherry tree that hadn’t been pruned in decades and had achieved an enormous height—presumably a leftover from when the area was somebody’s old farm.

  But now, it was a weedy mud and gravel yard that looked like a mini-auto wrecking yard or an auto-parts hoarder’s lair. Fenders, hoods, and doors were leaning against the fence, and there were also boxes of jumbled hardware—mirrors, trailer hitches—and odd bits and pieces like a rusted-out old burn bar
rel, some sheets of corrugated siding, and paint-spattered sawhorses.

  The two men were watching another man loading up a collection of Cadillacs and SUVs onto a car carrier with two decks. While most of the 2000s Japanese cars that provided a steady supply of used parts were disassembled and distributed locally, the higher-end merchandise was regularly delivered from Seattle to Southern California in a straight shot down Interstate 5 on one of these car carriers.

  “So you had this place long?” said Sergei politely.

  “Almost thirty years,” said Dmytro. “We used to be super busy here night and day. Stripping down those ten-year-old Camrys and Civics. Volodya and I started right out of trade school.” He sighed. “I never thought we’d end up in the export business, or that we’d be working with these high-end cars.”

  “Sometimes when a business grows fast like that, it’s not a good thing,” said Sergei. “You lose control.”

  Dmytro nodded. “It was a lot easier back in the day. We just waited till someone brought us a car. Then we parted it out. Or, when we got really fancy, we’d leave the hulks out in the country somewhere, then hustle over to the auto auction to buy the frames and put it all back together again, nice and legal with a real bill of sale.” He chuckled nostalgically. “Now I guess I’m a victim of my own success.”

  “You gotta realize that when you get a nice operation like this, you attract attention,” said Sergei. “Hey, since I’ve been picking up cars for you, I’ve been curious about how it all works. So you’re shipping these high-end cars down to Cali, probably getting them cloned. Hell, I bet the paper on them is so good they can even end up at dealers as fine previously owned vehicles. I’m impressed.”

  Dmytro waved a hand. “Actually, we got a buyer down there. Guy named Yuri. He handles all that stuff for us. They can’t get enough cars down there. I’m happy to be just a wholesaler.”

  “Still, it’s a good business,” said Sergei. “You got the sourcing problem all fixed with those valets on the job. You got a good team going out picking them up. I’m proud to be part of it. But like I said, you could attract attention. And maybe you have.” He changed his tone from one of fawning congratulations to grim seriousness. “I checked out the Gelashvili kid.”

  Dmytro looked alarmed. “What did you find out?”

  “That guy in Tbilisi? Victor’s uncle? He is one mean son of a bitch.”

  “Goddamn!” said Dmytro under his breath.

  “This could be a real problem,” said Sergei sympathetically. He let that sink in and then added, “And you got one other problem.”

  Sergei was delighted to see Dmytro kind of flinch into a hunched posture and look up at him with real fear in his eyes. “What’s that?” he said in a small voice.

  “Your cousin Volodya,” said Sergei. “You may need to do something drastic about him.”

  ———

  TYLER was really embarrassed calling his grandpa. But he didn’t trust his parents. For all he knew, they were in another interrogation room somewhere, talking about the slipper.

  Gus Iversen was already agitated even before Tyler called to announce that he was being questioned by homicide detectives and that he needed a lawyer.

  “What the hell is going on!” said Gus. “Your mother just called and the cops are over at your parents’ house right now! She says they hauled you off in a cop car!”

  “It’s a long story,” said Tyler.

  “Well, for Christ’s sake don’t talk about it on the jailhouse phone!” said Gus. “I’ll get my lawyer down there right away. Let’s hope we can get you sprung before they haul your dad in there. Your mother says the cops think he took a potshot at some millionaire.

  “I’ve always known your dad was kind of a screwball,” Grandpa said matter-of-factly. “No common sense. Capable of pretty much anything.” Gus Iversen had apparently forgotten about the need to be discreet on a jailhouse phone. “Listen, Tyler. Do you think they’re going to arrest you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “If they do arrest you, what’d it be for?”

  Tyler didn’t want to say he’d be arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He’d never told his grandfather that he actually was a felon, or about that stupid incident back on the night of his twenty-first birthday outside some dive bar in Ballard. The fact that the “weapon” in the case had been a gift from Gus made him feel even worse.

  “I don’t know, Grandpa,” he said. “But I want you to send a lawyer. And don’t worry. I can pay him.” Tyler had managed to save quite a bit of his tip money. It would be too bad to spend it on a lawyer, but he might have to.

  “It’s a gal,” said Grandpa. “She’s a tough cookie. When I found out those tenants up in that little Crown Hill duplex were selling drugs, she put the squeeze on them and blasted them right out of there in no time flat. They didn’t wait around to be evicted.”

  “That’s good,” said Tyler, beginning to feel a little impatient. Next thing he knew, Grandpa would be talking about a sagging porch at one of his other rentals. “Get her over here when you can, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Gus Iversen. “I’ll hang up now and call her right away. She’s over at your parents’ house trying to keep your dad from saying anything really stupid.”

  ———

  DEBBIE Myers had gone directly from the Duckworth compound to Ingrid and Roger Benson’s large and carefully decorated turn-of-the-twentieth-century, four-bedroom home on Queen Anne Hill. She sat in one of two matching wing chairs flanking a large, tiled fireplace in the Arts and Crafts style. Roger Benson sat in the other wing chair.

  Roger tried to look relaxed, but it wasn’t easy, especially not with Ingrid right there in the matching loveseat that faced the fireplace alongside that disheveled-looking lawyer her dad had sent over. Veronica Kessler was an ample young woman with a cloud of frizzy hair sporting a pair of horrible overalls and dirty sneakers. Gus was always meddling. Why did he want a lawyer there? It would just make him look guilty.

  “So you didn’t notice that you’d dropped the slipper?” the detective said. “Didn’t it feel weird to drive home with one bare foot?”

  “I didn’t actually drive home. My wife came and got me.”

  “How come?”

  Roger looked pained. “I wasn’t feeling well.” His glance darted over to his wife, who was executing that annoying eye roll that was becoming a perpetual tic. Detective Myers followed his gaze, and seemed to take in Ingrid’s scorn.

  “Had you maybe had too much to drink?” asked Debbie in a friendly tone.

  Veronica picked at the untidy bun on top of her head. “I don’t see how that’s relevant,” she said. “The fact is, Ingrid went and picked him up.”

  Debbie said, “Okay,” then turned back to Roger. “Tell me again why you were there in the first place.”

  Roger Benson looked more relaxed. “I thought it would be a good opportunity to reconnect with an old business associate—Scott Duckworth.”

  “Your old boss, right? And you knew he was going to be there because your son told you.”

  “That’s right. I thought Scott might be interested in a little business idea I had. It was kind of an impulsive thing.”

  “But before you left, you sent an email to Scott Duckworth’s website, didn’t you? Maybe that was kind of an impulsive thing, too.”

  “Yes,” he said, stretching his arms and arching his back a little trying to look casual, but wondering if he actually looked vaguely simian. “Well, when Tyler mentioned that Scott was going to be there, it got me thinking. I felt kind of nostalgic. I Googled around on the Internet and I discovered a link.”

  “So you thought you’d say a few words about your old friend Helene, too,” said the detective.

  “Helene? Yes, I guess so.”

  Just then, Veronica Kessler’s phone rang. She pulled it out of her overalls and murmured, “I have to take this,” then went out into the hall.

  “Hey, Gus,” she
said in a low voice. “It’s okay. His story is pretty goofy. The most it looks like he’s good for is drunk driving. But it’s too late to Breathalyze him so they can’t get him.”

  “Never mind him,” said Gus. “Get down to police headquarters and see what you can do for my grandson.”

  ———

  IN the hall outside the glassed-in interrogation room where Tyler was still sitting by himself, trying not to look terrified, MacNab and Lukowski were having another conference.

  “I just got a call from the kid’s lawyer. She’s on her way. She wants to know if we intend to arrest him.”

  “We’d be crazy not to,” said Lukowski. “And we got him good. He’s a felon and he’s got a gun.”

  “Yeah,” said MacNab. “But I just talked to the captain. The problem is the actual gun in question.”

  “What?” demanded Lukowski.

  “It was stolen from the Seattle Police Department evidence locker about fifteen years ago. Apparently there was a big scandal—or almost a scandal—back in the day. I kinda remember all this. There was an internal investigation and there was some stuff definitely missing. And the only possibility was that a cop was helping himself to some stuff. They never actually nailed the guy—just eased him out of there. But frankly, the captain says he wants to see if we can work around this issue. After all, the only reason we actually picked him up is because of that gun. Maybe check it out and see if there’s anything to this Dumpster story. The captain says we can always pick him up later. On something else that won’t bring unwanted attention to the department. The captain said it’s not a good time to bring this up, seeing as we’re in the middle of this federal corruption investigation and all.” The department had recently received some bad publicity, with the local press talking about “a culture of corruption that goes back decades.”

  Lukowski threw up his hands. “Check out his story? We’re supposed to look for that old drunk?”

  MacNab shrugged. “In a way, the kid’s story does check out. I mean we saw the old drunk down there ourselves.”