“Your personal car?” I asked Guerin. He nodded. “Nice,” I said.
“Better be. I commute from Everett.”
“Where’s our commute today?”
He made a gesture that I interpreted as Wait and see. He drove to the freeway entrance on Montlake and up to I-5 and north. We caught up to the clouds, and an occasional raindrop tapped on the windshield. Tap. Tap. Too heavy to ignore. Too light for even the slowest intermittent setting on the car’s windshield wipers. Seattle water torture. Guerin satisfied himself with turning on the wipers for one beat every half mile.
He took the 85th Street exit. I could feel Kanellis’s eyes on me from the backseat. When Guerin turned onto Highway 99, I suspected where they might be taking me. On this stretch you couldn’t throw a pine-shaped air freshener without hitting a car for sale.
Guerin pulled into the lot of a business called Apex Auto. It was a very short climb to whatever summit the name aspired to. I counted eight cars on the lot with stickers in the windows. None of them were less than fifteen years old. Or washed. There were no colorful triangular flags or giant inflated gorillas around the lot as decoration. Just a cinder-block structure holding an office and two repair bays. The big metal bays were closed. The door to the office was open.
There were three official cars in the lot as well. Two pristine blue-and-white cruisers and an unmarked dark gray panel van. A man in a black and yellow CSI jacket was loading tackle boxes into the back of the van.
“This Broch’s place?” I asked Guerin.
“Have you been here before?”
“No.”
Guerin called to the man in the CSI jacket. “You set?”
The man nodded. “Harold’s finishing now. You can go.”
Kanellis popped a nugget of gum out of its foil packet and put it in his mouth. Very casual. “Let’s take a look inside.”
The two of them bookended me as we walked past the uniform minding the door. I knew what I was likely to see. Guerin and Kanellis knew that I knew it. But they wanted to watch my face when it happened.
We walked past the tiny reception area into the back. It was an ugly room. There was one large desk in the approximate center, with two chairs in front of it and four dented metal filing cabinets up against the wall. The drop ceiling was made of spongy white tiles, and the lumpy gray carpet was stained brown in places from years of coffee drips and spills.
Seated behind the desk was the body of a man. He was upright and only his balding head tilted forward, like he was glancing down for something he’d dropped something on his lap. He had been middle-aged and burly, dressed in a tie and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up partway to show thick forearm muscles. An unhealthy percentage of the shirt was no longer white. Blood had stained it rust, from what looked like two high-caliber gunshot wounds in the center of his chest.
“You know him?” said Guerin.
“No. I assume he’s Broch,” I said.
“Torrance Xavier Broch,” said Kanellis, like he was making an introduction.
“And this,” said Guerin. I followed him through the open side door into the repair bays. The overhead lights were on full, and the contrast with the clammy office was startling. Guerin led me over to one of the oil pits and looked down.
Another corpse was lying seven feet down in the pit. The bodybuilder who had braced me at the Market. He was face down but his head was turned in profile, and I could see one very blackened eye and a yellowish bruise on the side of his head where I had clubbed him with my fists during our fight. He wore a skintight black tank top. His oversized biceps looked deflated. There was a small puddle of dried blood under his head.
“Best guess, until we have an official cause of death, is that the fellow in the pit was killed with that,” Guerin said, pointing to a heavy socket wrench on the floor of the bay. One of the CSI team was picking fibers or other bits from the floor around it with tweezers. A large plastic bag was open next to him, ready for the wrench itself.
“The side door to the shop was forced,” Kannelis said. “Maybe the killer broke in early and waited for Broch. Or he busted the lock, and Mister Muscle came out to see what the noise was, and got himself clocked from behind. Then our guy went into the office and shot Broch at his desk.”
“Broch had a gun in his desk drawer, which he didn’t touch,” said Guerin. “So the first killing might have been quiet enough not to alert him.”
“You think it’s a professional hit?” I asked.
“I’m not thinking anything out loud just yet,” he said. From outside came the sound of a large vehicle pulling to a stop in front of the bay doors. “That’ll be the M.E. Let’s get out of the way.”
“They haven’t been dead long,” said Guerin once we were back outside. “Sometime late last night or very early this morning. Nobody nearby heard any shots, so far as we know. A parts delivery guy found the bodies at six A.M. Where were you since about ten last night?”
“Besides ducking an explosion?”
“Besides that.”
“I dropped Luce off at her apartment, with her friend Marcie. I visited my friend Leo Pak at Swedish. He saved us from the bomb. Then I went back.”
“Luce is the blonde?” said Kanellis. He put a little spin of appreciation on the words that made me want to feed him his gray knit tie. He noticed, and smirked.
Guerin spoke sharply enough to yank our reins back. “You went straight to the hospital? Straight back?”
“I stopped downtown. Got my head clear.”
“Downtown,” Kanellis said, like I said I’d visited Neptune.
“Lemme toss a bomb in your direction. You can see how chipper you feel after.”
“And you never saw Broch before just now,” said Guerin.
“No. And if the killer broke in here to get to him, then he knew Broch by sight.”
“Maybe,” said Kanellis. “Of course, the business is registered to Broch. And he is the guy sitting at the big-ass desk inside. Not a tough mental jump.”
“The guy lying in the pit had a tough week,” Guerin said. “Somebody tuned him up pretty good a day or two ago, judging by his face. You know anything about that?”
“I told you what I knew about Broch. And what I could guess.”
“While carefully avoiding any statements about your own actions during the past few days.”
“You’re not giving me a ton of credit. I wouldn’t tell you about Kend Haymes and Broch one day and then rush right out to put bullets in Broch the next.”
“Maybe you didn’t have a choice,” Kanellis said. “Maybe Broch was coming for you. A little preemptive strike. Who could blame you, a scumbag like that?”
I looked at Guerin. “Please tell me you’re coaching him on interrogation soon.”
“Hey,” said Kanellis.
“I’ll talk to Miss Boylan,” said Guerin, “and your friend Leo.”
“Are we done?”
“For now. But stay where I can find you, live and in person. I’m going to have more questions for you once we figure out who else had it in for Broch.”
Great. If Guerin’s call to Luce to confirm my alibi wasn’t enough, now we wouldn’t be going on that vacation I’d promised. I might talk her into going ahead without me. But I could predict how that far that conversation would get. Luce could be harder to budge than an Abrams tank once she set her mind to something.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
LEO WAS NEAR COLLAPSE when I finally got to the hospital. The pretty freckled nurse said he hadn’t slept all night, just sat and breathed and got out of bed to pace, when he thought he could get away with it.
I took him to Addy Proctor’s. My phone had been ringing all morning. One of the calls had been from Addy, letting us know that her spare bedroom was made up and ready for Leo or me or whoever needed it, while we figured out what to do next. The second important call had been from the fire department, setting a time to meet an arson inspector at the house later in the day. All of the ot
her calls were from reporters. The information that the fire had started from a bomb had leaked, and the press was ravenous for more information. I deleted their messages.
Stanley padded happily to snuffle at our hands as Leo and I entered Addy’s home. No room in her house was any larger than twelve by twelve, all of them made bright by bleached wood flooring and pea-green flowers stenciled along the top of each wall. I felt too large and clumsy whenever I visited, although the confines didn’t seem to bother Stanley.
Leo nodded mutely as Addy told him where he could find things he might need. He lay down on the spare bed while she was in midsentence about the washer and dryer.
“You made it,” I said to him. He was already asleep.
Addy and I came out to the living room.
“The doctors gave him clearance to leave?” Addy said. She sounded doubtful.
I nodded. “He just needs rest.”
“Hmph. I suppose you’ll tell me the same about you.”
“I only need the number of a good housekeeper. My place is a mess.”
“Funny.” She sat down on an overstuffed brocade armchair, which half swallowed her. Stanley plopped down to lay his head on her small foot. “All right. You can be all Irish about it. But you’ll pardon me if I show concern when houses begin exploding around people I care about. It scared me. I didn’t like that feeling one bit.”
Even Stanley looked reproachful.
“You’re right,” I said.
We sat for a moment.
“I can’t even recall what it was like, the first time a bomb went off around me,” I said. “It’s been too long. So maybe I’m too much of a wiseass about how it might feel to a civilian.”
“Which you are, technically. And so is Luce.”
“Luce is double-tough.”
“And she acts even tougher. I don’t care. Take her and leave. That, in case you didn’t know, is the civilian response to someone trying to murder you. The sensible response.”
“I have to stay in Seattle.” I told Addy the bare facts on the late T. X. Broch, and Guerin’s insistence that I remain close.
She tapped her foot impatiently. “And when have you ever given a good goddamn what the police asked you to do?”
“When running would make me the prime suspect in a double homicide.”
“Piffle.”
“Piffle?” I laughed.
“Don’t change the subject. You don’t bother about being a suspect. You just want to feel your hands around the throat of the person who threw that bomb.”
Her description was so on target I could feel my fingers clench a little at the idea.
“You do have a way of putting shit, Addy.”
“My old advice-column expertise. Cutting through horsecrap is half the job.”
“I thought you used to be a librarian.”
“I’ve been working since I was fourteen. I’ve done a lot of things. And you’re being slippery again,” Addy said.
“Okay,” I said. “I want to handle my problem myself. Not just trust the cops to do it.”
“Is that satisfaction worth Luce?”
I knew the answer Addy wanted to hear. I just wasn’t sure if that answer would be the whole truth.
“I’ll talk to her,” I said finally.
“That’s something, at least.”
I said my good-byes and left. I pointed the truck toward downtown, and Luce’s.
Would she leave with me, knowing what it meant? Addy was right. The cops weren’t the real problem. I could have Ephraim Ganz run interference with the law.
The problem was that I didn’t want to go. Luce would recognize that about two seconds after I asked her.
I was on my way up Madison when a call came from Barrett Yorke.
“Van,” she said. “Please.” She spoke as if she was forcing each syllable out of herself.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Parson,” she said. “He’s in trouble.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s been hiding at a rental house our family owns. Van, he says that he’s sure someone’s following him. Driving past the house. He thinks they want to kill him.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure if Parson knows.”
“Did he tell you exactly where he was? Over the phone?”
“Yes. God, was that bad?”
Rusk had pressured Barrett earlier. If he shared my suspicions about Parson, the ex-cop probably had her phone tapped.
“He needs to go to the cops, Barrett. Now.”
“I told him that. He won’t do it. He says he won’t be safe, even with police. You should have heard him, Van. He sounded like a little boy. He wanted me to come and get him. But if someone really is trying to kill him . . .”
“Tell me,” I said. She gave me an address in the U District, north of the campus. I found a gap in the traffic and swung the truck through an intersection. An oncoming tanker-trailer hit its brakes and horn simultaneously, even though it had a full two yards left before it would have crushed me.
“Don’t tell him I’m coming,” I said. “I’ll help him. But you call the cops. It’s safer if Parson’s in custody, no matter what he thinks.”
“Why are they doing this?” Barrett asked. I wasn’t sure if she meant the police, or whomever she believed was after Parson, or somebody else.
“Stay close to your phone,” I said, and hung up.
I made it to the University District in ten minutes by pushing the truck to its limit down 23rd over the Montlake Bridge, and hammering through every yellow light and a couple of red ones up the grade toward campus.
The address Barrett had given me was two blocks from the UW’s Greek Row. This close to the frats and sorority houses, the curbs were packed with cars. I left the truck in a random empty driveway.
The house was a bungalow, large for its type but still smaller than most of the houses around it. This neighborhood had scaled up a couple of notches since the last time I’d seen it. If it was a rental property, the Yorkes probably targeted visiting professors and other temporary university staff as tenants. I watched the house for a few moments. Nobody walked past the windows. The front porch was aggressively quaint. The door was painted a royal blue, with plants in terra-cotta tubs on either side of it, and a small garden hose to water them wound around a gnome. Bright and cheery.
The bungalow’s yard was one big rock garden. Easier to maintain rocks than a lawn. I walked around and cut through the next-door neighbor’s yard and jumped the low fence.
There was a heavy thump, from somewhere inside the house. I froze and listened. The noise didn’t repeat.
No one in the backyard. I climbed up and over the porch railing to look into the window at a dining room and part of a living room space beyond. Still no movement inside.
I tested the back door. It was unlocked. A little unusual, for this part of town. I opened the door so slowly that a tortoise could have gotten out of its way. The hinges ticked ominously but made no creak.
When the door was just wide enough for me to slip inside, a man’s voice spoke upstairs. Indistinct words, and not from a TV set. I closed the door just as slowly as I’d opened it, and as if in response, the voice spoke again. Just loud enough for me to make out the word Where.
Then another sound. A whap of impact against flesh, followed by a cry of muffled pain. A creak sounded from the room above me, and the smack of another blow.
Tell us, I caught this time.
Us. So whoever was doling out the punishment, there was more than one.
I took Dono’s Smith & Wesson out from under my coat, and stepped cautiously toward the central hallway and the stairs. Looking up, I could see a small landing with three doors leading off it. One left, one right, and one center. A game show.
“Nobody knows you’re here ’cept us,” the man said, easier to hear without a ceiling between us. “This is just for starters, Yorke.”
The first step didn
’t squeak under my weight.
I heard Rudy Rusk say, “Did you move it? Where?”
“We didn’t. We didn’t open the boxes.” Parson Yorke said. I barely recognized his voice, it was lower-pitched and watery. The last two words came out as tha bosses.
“Fuck that,” said Rusk. “You made bombs out of it. You threw one at Shaw. Is he working with you? Does he have the Tovex?”
“I didn’t know what was in them—”
“Again,” Rusk said. There was another whapping blow.
“Fuck, he’s out,” said the first voice.
“When he wakes up, use the knife on his eardrum,” said Rusk.
I had taken advantage of their conversation to climb another three steps. They were in the room to the right of the landing. A shadow moved across one doorway and into the next, and I realized that the doors all led to one larger room, across most of the upper floor. There was the tap-click sound of a spring knife opening.
Parson Yorke wasn’t my favorite person. But I couldn’t leave him to get his ear swabbed with a switchblade. And I wasn’t going to get a better opening.
I ran up the last steps in two bounds and came fast around the jamb of the right door, my gun leading the way.
The room was a master bedroom suite. Two men flanked Parson. The huge kid was slumped almost sideways in a plush linen chair, facing me. He wasn’t tied to the chair, but I wasn’t sure he would be capable of getting up. There was a lot of blood on his bruised face and triple-XL shirt. It stained the chair’s ivory linen fabric. The men were ready for a corporate meeting, in light blue dress shirts and neckties. I didn’t know the one holding the blade. He had brown feathery hair and there was more blood on his left hand.
“Hey Rude,” I said, keeping my eyes on the man with the knife. I had the S&W pointed at his chest. “Throw it away.”
He hesitated. I tightened my finger on the trigger and he quickly tossed the knife into the corner of the room. He glanced toward the bed, where their suit jackets were draped over the footboard.
“Don’t,” I said, and stepped into the room. It was a big enough space to allow me to stay well out of reach and keep a clear field of fire.
Hard Cold Winter Page 19
