Tipping the Valet

by K. K. Beck

  On his next trip down to the parking lot, Tyler parked a car as close as he could to the Lincoln where Chip had been. And then, looking carefully around to make sure he was unobserved, he examined the ground and crouched next to the car to inspect it. Then he ran his fingers along the undercarriage. He encountered a small object that didn’t belong there, removed it from the car—it was attached by a magnet—examined it, replaced it, and took a picture of it with his phone. When he stood up again, he found himself looking straight at Vic who stood about ten yards away, staring at him. “Hey Vic,” he said cheerfully. “I dropped my phone.” He waved it in the air.

  Vic just stared back at him.

  ———

  “OKAY, there’s good news and bad news,” said Lukowski to MacNab, after listening to a voicemail message. The two men had just emerged from a diversity training session and were standing in the hallway of the Public Safety Building.

  “A Russian guy and an old lady went over to the morgue to pick up tattoo guy’s body, but when the clerk there told them they’d have to talk to us, they beat it.”

  MacNab frowned. “Did the clerk get a plate or anything?”

  “Nope. I’ve also got a message from a Father Ushakov at St. Basil’s—Russian church up on Capitol Hill. He says three people showed up at his church wanting him to bury the guy. There was some kind of a skirmish in the church or something. Either way, I’m guessing we’re getting close to finding out who the hell our guy is. This priest says he’ll be around at the church until two.”

  “Let’s go to the church first,” said MacNab, checking his watch. “We can grab a couple of burgers at Dick’s on Broadway afterwards, then go talk to the morgue clerk.” He sighed. “You know what really pisses me off? Those TV detectives always have one case to work on at a time. We got about six active cases right now. No wonder we never get to sit down and have a nice relaxed lunch.”

  At the church a pleasant blond lady with a slight accent led them to Father Ushakov’s office, a cozy, book-lined room with icons and family photographs of a couple of teenagers in soccer uniforms, and an attractive wife laughing at the camera and holding up a newly caught salmon.

  The priest himself was a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed silver beard and light blue eyes. Lukowski had once been to a wedding at this church. He had never forgotten how tough it had been to stand up the whole time during the ceremony, with officiants in elaborate vestments wielding censers of incense.

  He was surprised to see the priest, standing behind his desk to greet them, sporting Spandex bicycle gear. A bright yellow helmet served as a desk paperweight.

  “Hello,” he said, apparently noting Lukowski’s slightly startled expression. “I was just about to ride home.”

  “We appreciate your calling,” Lukowski said. “Tell us what happened.”

  “It was pretty weird,” said the priest, indicating a pair of guest chairs and sitting down. Good. There were chairs in the office even if there weren’t any pews in the church. “This gentleman appeared and asked me to conduct a funeral for somebody he didn’t know. Apparently his picture had been in the paper—an unclaimed body. I knew what he was talking about because I’d seen the picture, too, asking for information, and saying the police thought he might have been from the former Soviet Union.” The priest frowned. “What made you think that he came from there?”

  “He had tattoos associated with the Russian mafia,” said MacNab.

  Father Ushakov sighed. “Oh dear,” he said. “Well anyway, I happened to be in the church, waiting for a parishioner who wanted to come and make a confession. This middle-aged guy came up and said he wanted me to go down to the morgue and claim the body and bury him.” He opened his desk drawer and took out a huge roll of bills held in place with a rubber band. “He gave me this contribution to the church.” Father Ushakov smiled. “I already counted it. It’s a thousand dollars. We’ve got to do some work on the roof of this church and these domes aren’t exactly a standard repair job!”

  “Did you tell him you’d claim the body?” asked Lukowski.

  . “Of course not. I said I couldn’t claim the body—the family had to go hire a funeral director who would handle all that. I didn’t really know what to think. I told him that if he knew who the deceased person was, he should tell the police.”

  “What did he say to that?” asked MacNab.

  “He said he had read about the situation and he wanted the guy to have a good Christian funeral service, because he was a fellow Russian.”

  “So this guy who showed up here was Russian?”

  “I thought so at first. We were speaking English. He had a heavy accent, but his English was fine. Russian isn’t my first language—my family came here way back in 1917, right after the Revolution.”

  “What do you mean you thought he was Russian at first? Did you change your mind?”

  “Well, as I was walking him out of the office and into the church, an old lady came rushing in and I’m pretty sure she was speaking Ukrainian. I understood most of what she said. Apparently she was the mother of the gentleman who gave me the money. She said she didn’t want him in an Orthodox church. She was some kind of Christian fundamentalist. There are a few Ukrainian Baptist congregations around here. She told him he would go straight to hell.” Father Ushakov smirked a little, presumably amused by her bad theology

  “Wow,” said MacNab. “She said the deceased individual would go to hell?”

  “No, she seemed to think her son, the guy who gave me the money, would go straight to hell.”

  “Your message said there were three individuals,” said Lukowski.

  “That’s right. Suddenly, there was a tall, thin guy with a scar—a younger-looking man. He tried to get control of the old lady, and told her to get back in the car. From what I can tell, he was a Russian.”

  “He was speaking Russian to her—not Ukrainian?” asked MacNab.

  “That’s right. He was trying to calm her down. He spoke to her respectfully, but he was trying to get her out of here. I wanted him to because she was carrying on about the icons and I was afraid she might try to damage them. She was that agitated.

  “Next thing I knew, the two men were kind of pushing each other. The older guy seemed to be trying to defend his mother. And the younger guy had her in kind of a bear hug and was muscling her to the door. It was very disturbing. I told them in Russian to leave the church and sort out their differences elsewhere. The old guy apologized and said he’d call me back. And they left. I followed them out the church steps and watched them get in their car and they took off.”

  “Did you get their license number?”

  “No, I’m sorry I didn’t. I’m not even sure what kind of car it was.”

  The detectives were silent for a moment while this all sunk in.

  Father Ushakov spread his hands out in a helpless gesture. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you who your victim is. Tattoos, you say?”

  “Tattoos associated with the Russian mafia,” said MacNab.

  The priest sighed. “I’m not sure there’s really any such thing,” he said. “There are some bad actors from the former Soviet Empire around, all right. Even here in Seattle. A bunch of folks who grew up thinking it’s okay to smash and grab, and sometimes they get together with other folks like them and run rackets and commit crimes.”

  He leaned back and closed his eyes as if preparing to give a little sermon. “Some recent immigrants brought some very bad habits with them. You have to understand that for almost a hundred years, Russians lived in a society where playing by the rules didn’t work. You needed to bribe people to get your kid into college, or get an apartment.” He shook his head sadly. “I have a nice lady in my congregation who told me when she came here and tried to bribe a cop who gave her a speeding ticket, he told her that’s not how we operate here in America. She told me she felt so disrespected that he wouldn’t take her gift.”

  “This body down in the morgue has a bullet in it,” s
aid MacNab. “We’re not talking about bribing a traffic cop.”

  “Thanks, Father,” said Lukowski. “If you hear from these folks again, we’d appreciate a call. In fact, if they call again, can you tell them you’ll do the funeral? We’ll get you the body.”

  “I don’t know,” said Father Ushakov. “I have no way of knowing if the deceased was in good standing with the church.”

  “Can’t you give him the benefit of the doubt?” said Lukowski. “We don’t know anything about this guy either, but we still need to find out who killed him. And the only clue we have is that someone wants him sent off properly.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  IT WAS ABOUT TWO-THIRTY IN the afternoon when the two Slavs—Zelenko, the short squat one, and the menacing Sergei who had asked for a good table at Alba, not to mention a permanent piece of the ownership of the place, sauntered out to get into their car.

  Tyler didn’t want to deal with them, but it seemed they didn’t want to deal with him either. When he asked them for their claim check, the older guy waved him away, and Vic dashed up to them. They immediately got into a huddle with him and seemed to be having a serious conversation.

  Tyler was relieved when a Honda Accord pulled up and he was able to hastily press a claim ticket on the occupant, get behind the wheel, and pull away. Looking at the little confab in his rearview mirror, he was disconcerted to see Scarface point at the car he was in. Tyler didn’t think he was talking about the chrome rims. They probably suspected he’d heard their whole shakedown routine from behind the screen in the banquet room. This was not good.

  Tyler had spent the slow midafternoon part of his shift thinking about whether or not to tell Flavia he thought crooked valets were putting GPS devices on her customers’ cars, presumably so they could be conveniently stolen. Maybe she even knew about it.

  He wanted to reach out to her, but he didn’t really know how. The last four encounters he’d had with Flavia—being handcuffed and arrested in her presence and yelling, “But I am a felon!” at his mom in front of the restaurant; appearing to stalk her on campus; eavesdropping on her conversation with the chef and then showing off his Italian like it was a big deal he spoke another language; and lurking behind that screen in the banquet room and then almost knocking it over—all these unfortunate encounters might have given her the impression he was unstable and creepy.

  When he added all that to the fact that she had pointedly asked the thugs—within earshot of Tyler—if it was okay with them if she fired any of the valets, it looked like the odds were good his job security was shaky.

  Tyler was pretty sure that Jessica, the Account Manager at Elite Valet, liked him, though. She’d find something for him at another Elite location. He just hoped to God it wasn’t Donna’s. Frankly, the less he saw of those scary Russians, the better. Maybe he should see if he could get on at the Harborview Hotel.

  He now realized that the best thing to do would be to call Jessica as soon as possible. Tyler cheered up suddenly. If he told her about Chip and the GPS device, and showed her the picture he took with his phone, it would look like he only got fired by Flavia because he’d discovered what might be happening in the Alba lot.

  ———

  JESSICA was sitting in her office on Lake City Way, trying to look enthusiastic. With her was Elite Valet’s West Coast Regional Manager Chuck Green, visiting from regional headquarters in Fresno, California. Chuck, a bulky, fortyish man with gelled hair and wearing a gray suit with a pink tie and tasseled loafers, was in town to give Jessica her annual employee review.

  “So if you’re interested in some aggressive career development goals, Regional District Manager could be in your long-term future,” he was saying. “Maybe not here, but some of our other less well-established locations. The Dakotas, for instance, and other rural Midwestern sites. Not a lot of restaurant and hotel action, but valet parking in big malls is a real growth area. Aging baby boomers and fat people hate to walk. And the demographics in the Midwest skew old and fat.”

  “Interesting,” said Jessica.

  “But let’s begin by talking about the local Account Manager function, and how it aligns with Elite’s overall vision and mission.”

  Her phone rang and Jessica looked down. “Oh, it’s one of our—” She caught herself just in time and managed to say “service associates” instead of “valets.”

  “Put him on speaker,” said Chuck in a pompous whisper. “I’d like to assess your managerial style. A coaching opportunity for me.”

  Jessica considered warning Tyler that he was on speaker, but Chuck’s conspiratorial manner indicated he didn’t want her to.

  “Hey Jessica,” said Tyler in an urgent, serious tone. “We may have a really bad situation down here at Alba. It looks like one of our guys might be putting GPS devices on customer cars. It’s, like, a magnetic thing attached to the undercarriage.”

  “Why would they do that?” said Jessica.

  “The only thing I can come up with is maybe to steal them later. They seem to be the high-end cars.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It’s kind of circumstantial, but I found a device on one of the cars and I took a picture of it. Weird stuff is going on here. There seems to be some mafia thing happening.”

  Jessica glanced nervously over at Chuck Green. His bland face was now contorted into a mask of horror.

  “Who would be doing something like that? Why would it be one of our associates?” asked Jessica.

  “I saw Chip crouching underneath the car where I found the device. I think he was putting it on the car.”

  Jessica said, “Oh my God.” Her were eyes wide and round. “Umm, I’ll get back to you.”

  “Okay. And there’s one more thing.”

  “Yes?” said Jessica warily.

  “I have a feeling Alba might try to bounce me. I hate to dump all this crap on you. Hopefully you can handle it without those idiots from Corporate finding out about everything and screwing it all up for you with a lot of paperwork and stuff.”

  “I’ll call you back,” said Jessica hastily.

  Jessica and Chuck stared at each other for a moment, then Chuck said, “This calls for immediate action. You and I are driving down to that location right away!”

  “Um, right,” said Jessica.

  “That associate—what did you say his name was—Tyler? Is he some kind of a head case? Mafia? What’s he talking about?”

  “He’s always been a good employee,” said Jessica, allowing an element of doubt to creep into her voice, indicating subtly to Chuck that Tyler might have had a recent psychotic break of which she, Jessica, could not possibly have been aware.

  “The last thing we want is his carrying on about this and getting local law enforcement involved!” said Chuck. “Or, even worse, the account! A primo account! Nobody must know about this until we conduct our own thorough investigation. And hopefully, not even then. Something like this could be very harmful to the Elite brand!” Chuck shoveled Jessica’s employee self-assessment evaluation forms into his briefcase and clicked it shut.

  ———

  “SO what have you got so far on Roger Benson?” said Lukowski. He and Debbie Myers were having coffee in the break room. “Are you taking him seriously as a suspect in your case?” Debbie had just told him that the ballistics lab had finally reported that the bullets in Scott Duckworth’s car matched the gun that had been in Tyler Benson’s pocket. And that their idea there had been two shooters was now confirmed.

  “No witnesses put him at the scene then, but sounds like he was very agitated and possibly shitfaced drunk. He was fired from DuckSoft years ago and now he’s in big financial trouble. His kid had to leave an expensive college back east. He might blame Scott for all that.”

  Lukowski looked thoughtful. “That could tie in the kid. Maybe Benson brainwashed the kid into thinking everything that happened to their family was Duckworth’s fault. You know these spoiled brat kids. Feel entitled to everything.”


  “And the kid lied about the slipper that ties his dad to the scene,” said Debbie.

  “And presumably his kid tipped him off Duckworth was going to be there,” said Lukowski. “And his kid later had the gun on his person—a gun that we now know fired bullets into Duckworth’s vehicle.”

  “That’s right,” said Debbie. “Okay, so the gun was probably in the Dumpster, like the kid said. Coffee grounds and risotto, okay. But maybe the kid tossed it in there the night of the assault. Covering for his dad. Or himself. Could be a strong circumstantial case.” Debbie sighed. “But Roger is all lawyered up. He’s not cooperating at all. If I was his lawyer, I’d give him the same advice. The guy’s a real fruitcake.”

  “If only we could have held the kid!” said Lukowski. “I’d still like to know why we can’t.”

  “That property room scandal,” said Debbie. “It was a pretty big deal.”

  Lukowski looked thoughtful. “If we could find out who took that revolver from the property locker in the first place, we might be able to establish a chain to the Bensons.”

  “I’ll ask Dad,” said Debbie. “He can’t remember where he put his remote, but he remembers the old days pretty well. He knows where a lot of departmental bodies are buried.”

  Lukowski said, “But if this was a father-and-son deal, with two guns, we still don’t know how, why, and when the bullets from the .22 got into the tattoo guy. Were Benson or his son taking out Russian gangsters, too?”

  “The tattoo guy is an entirely different case,” said Debbie. “But if the Bensons are good for the Duckworth shooting, I can still make it stick.”

  “Yeah,” said Lukowski. “That’s fine for you, Debbie. But the tattoo guy is my case.”

  Debbie said, “I think maybe you guys should lean on the kid. Okay, so maybe you can’t pick him up. But you can at least lean on him. Why don’t you drop in on him at work? He can’t run away from you there, can he?”

  She hitched her purse onto her shoulder. “I’m working on a way to lean on his dad.”