Soul Survivor (A Leo Waterman Mystery Book 11)

by G. M. Ford

  Naturally, I was on the opposite side of the building from where I’d parked my car. I heaved a sigh and began to splash my way around to the front. The rain picked at my face. My body felt like I’d been threshed and baled. Everything hurt but my teeth as I shuffled across the asphalt in search of the car.

  “You look like a fuckin’ sheepdog,” Carl said with a grin. “Your chest is looking better, though,” he added. “You can’t really see it anymore.”

  I looked down at myself. He was right. Four surgeries later, the design on my chest was nearly invisible. Hell, they’d even implanted hair onto my chest, adding further camouflage. Where they got the hair from, I’d made it a point not to ask.

  Charity and Maxie had already hacked and then subsequently downloaded the CC footage from the Sound Sentinel’s digital files. We’d all watched it half a dozen times, to a mixed bag of opinions. Carl didn’t think so. Maxie neither. Charity was keeping an open mind. Gabe, however, jumped on board first time through. “You got half a hundred folks standing up at this meeting, and our guy just happens to get the only available seat. An aisle seat?” Gabe pointed at the screen. “An aisle seat right up in front of where they’re letting people stand, so’s there’s nobody to stop him once he starts up the aisle. No fuckin’ way. That was a setup.”

  I was standing in the middle of Carl’s room, amid a dazzling array of computer equipment, drying myself off with a couple of bath towels, when somebody knocked on the door. Gabe pulled out the omnipresent chrome automatic and then wandered over and got behind the door. I threw the towels on the bed, slipped a pullover on, and then padded over and opened the door a crack.

  It was my new friend Detective Shirley and a trio of uniformed officers looking all tense and official. “Yes?” I said.

  “May we come in?” he said.

  I kept it simple. “No.”

  He didn’t seem surprised. I heard Gabe slide in next to me.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked.

  “You realize, don’t you, Mr. Marks, that we don’t need a warrant to enter these premises,” he said. “Only the innkeeper’s permission.”

  I made a show of checking the hallway. “So . . . where’s the innkeeper?” I asked.

  “He’ll be here in a minute.”

  “Is there some problem?”

  “We had a complaint from Ron West over at the Sound Sentinel. Says you fraudulently represented yourself to one of his employees.”

  I shook my head. “I walked in the front door, showed the girl at the desk the same documentation I showed you, asked to see some research material, which she kindly provided me with. End o’ story.”

  “Allowing you to see that material was not within her purview,” Shirley said.

  “Giving a shit about the Sentinel’s chain of command is not within mine.”

  The muscles along Shirley’s jawline tightened.

  “Lemme know when management gets here,” I said and started to close the door.

  One of the uniforms slid forward and stuck his foot into the doorway. I straight-armed him back onto his heels and slammed the door.

  I turned back to the room. Nobody was ever going to mistake this motley crew for an accounting firm from Ohio. No doubt about it. They started checking this group for priors, things were gonna go due south in a hurry. They were gonna be all over us like ants at a picnic. I could smell powdered eggs in my future.

  “I’m guessing this is the point where we better get out our gun permits,” I said. The assembled multitude heaved a group sigh. People who carry guns on a regular basis learn to keep a copy of their carry permit on their person. Generally speaking, telling a cop you have one, but it’s not on you, tends to be wasted effort, and generally means you’re going to spend at least half a day downtown in Casa Vomit, while they drag their feet long enough to get paid by the state for your incarceration, because the State of Washington reimburses them only if you are in custody for at least six hours. So, no matter what, whether it be mawkish behavior or murder, your ass was gonna be there for the requisite six hours, unless of course you proved to be a major pain in the ass, in which case things could get Twilight Zone, time-travel slow.

  We were in the process of disarming ourselves and picturing the inside of the Snohomish County jail when a commotion in the hall stopped everybody in their tracks. Everyone held their collective breath and looked at the door. A tentative knock scraped at the door. I set the Smith & Wesson on the coffee table on top of Leon Marks’s carry permit and wandered across the room, thinking they were gonna come in and that the game was probably up. Even when all the paperwork turned out to be on the up-and-up, they were gonna impound everything we owned and then take their sweet-ass time giving it back to us, which of course would put the big-time kibosh on any further investigation. We’d just have to pack up our shit and go home.

  I swung the door guard into the locked position and opened the door an inch and a half. Young guy in a blue pin-striped suit. Red power tie matched his cheeks. Nice pocket square. The plastic name tag read: DYLAN RHODES. NIGHT MANAGER.

  The cops were milling around the hall like a lynch mob.

  The suit swallowed and said, “Mr. Marks . . . sir . . .” He looked back over his shoulder. “I’ve been on the phone to my district manager,” he said.

  I waited.

  “Ms. Nevarez wants me to assure you that nothing is more important than the comfort and safety of our guests.”

  “Nice to hear,” I said.

  “She also instructed me to tell you that since there are no official charges pending against you and because we have had no internal complaints of any kind . . . she said that whether or not these er . . . gentlemen are allowed to enter your rooms is entirely up to you.”

  “Well then . . . they’re not,” I said.

  The air hummed with adrenaline. I thought for a second the cops were going to bull-rush the door, but Detective Shirley stuck out his arm. He took a deep breath and addressed himself to the kid in the suit.

  “You tell your district supervisor that it might be better corporate policy to cooperate with local authorities.”

  “Yes sir, I will,” the kid said.

  Shirley tried to melt me with a withering glare, and then, failing that, addressed me directly. “We don’t need to be digging up the Hardaway mess all over again, Mr. Marks. Some things are just better off left alone.”

  With that, he turned and led his entourage down the hall toward the elevators. The cop I’d pushed kept his eyes riveted on me as he tromped along. I kept hoping he’d trip and fall on his face. No such luck.

  Soon as the elevator door closed, the kid in the suit spoke up. “Guys think they’re gods. Think they can push anybody they want around.”

  “I’ll tell you what, son,” I said. “Those guys carry a gun on one hip and the power of the state on the other. Makes ’em dangerous dudes as far as I’m concerned.”

  He clearly had something stuck in his throat, so I buttoned my lip and gave him a chance to spit it out.

  “That Shirley guy . . . ,” he muttered. “He doesn’t remember me, but I remember him. Back when I was in grammar school and he was just a street cop, he arrested my dad for growing pot plants in the crawl space under our house. They gave him forty months down in Salem. Ruined his life for something that’s legal now. Just doesn’t seem right to me.”

  There was a tragedy here. A suicide maybe. I could feel it. Under most other circumstances, I’d have given him a chance to unload the rest of his story, but not tonight.

  “Thank Ms. Nevarez for me,” I said.

  He grinned. “No such animal,” he said.

  “Well . . . then thank you.”

  Took an hour of ebbing tension before everybody’s blood pressure returned to normal, at which point Charity and Maxie went out in search of food and drink, while the rest of us, how shall we say, freshened up.

  Forty minutes later the reggae twins showed up with enough barbecue for a company picnic. No
bunting, though. Kinda missed the bunting.

  “Had cop company all de way,” Maxie said. “Right on our ass.”

  “Your friend Officer Shirley left some cop friends out front,” Charity chimed in.

  I walked over to the window and pulled back the curtain. Sure enough. An unmarked cruiser was parked diagonally across the street. Not even trying to be sneaky about it. Low-key intimidation at its finest.

  “Can’t see how we can have them following us around,” Gabe commented.

  “We been in this town for half a day, and we’ve already pissed off the local newspaper and the local heat. Ya gotta call that progress,” Carl said.

  “We do seem to have a gift for contention,” I allowed.

  “Engines of conflict,” Gabe piped in. “Engines of conflict.”

  Nobody disagreed. And since nobody’d eaten anything since breakfast, we decided the best course of action would be to consume everything in sight and then worry about the cop problem later.

  Didn’t take long before the five of us were spread about the room, painting our faces with Q sauce, inhaling brisket, ribs, pulled pork, coleslaw, hot links, beans, and cornbread. Sounded like feeding time at the zoo.

  Gabe was right too. There was no way we could get anything done with a pair of cops welded to our back bumper, but the hot links were too damn good to think about that sort of tripe just now, so I set about swallowing the known world. Took me about twenty minutes to induce a major food coma.

  Carl belched and asked, “Where you want to start tomorrow?”

  “Wadda you think?”

  “The victim’s wife, maybe.”

  “That’s what I was thinking too. Ease into things. Get a sense of the swamp.”

  “After that?” Carl prodded.

  “The one I really want to talk to is the kid’s shrink . . . what’s her name . . .”

  “Bradley,” Maxie said. “Suzanne Bradley.”

  “She got an office down by the marina,” Charity added.

  “That’s gonna be like pulling teeth,” I said. “Even when the client’s dead, shrinks won’t discuss the details of somebody’s treatment.”

  Maxie tapped on one of the computer screens. “She’s forty-four, single, and not de worst-lookin’ woman I ever seen needer.” He spun the monitor in my direction. He was right. Tall brunette. Good-looking woman in a green flowered dress, carrying a half-full champagne glass. Picture looked like it was taken at some sort of gala on a beautiful sunny day, assuming they had such things around here, which I was beginning to doubt.

  “You just dazzle her with your world-famous charm,” Carl sneered. “Bring her to heel. Have her panting on your shoulder like a terrier.”

  Gabe snickered and used a handful of paper napkins to swab off the Q sauce.

  “You think the father would recognize you?” Gabe asked.

  “Not looking like this,” I said.

  “The mother?”

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  “The father’s the one I don’t get.”

  “Phil,” I said.

  “He’s the loose cannon in this thing,” Gabe went on. “We need to stay away from him for as long as we can.”

  I said, “Yeah . . . we save him for last . . . if all else fails kinda thing . . .”

  “What are we gonna do about those fucking cops camped out front?” Carl asked.

  I got to my feet. “I’ve got an idea,” I said as I reached for the house phone.

  Dylan Rhodes did what I’d asked. He’d turned off the CCTV in the garage area and then met me in the guest parking garage.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Those jerks are sitting out there in the street plain as day. They don’t even care if we see ’em.” I watched as he balled his fists. “Is that what we’re paying these guys to do?”

  I wanted to keep this thing on track, so I walked over to the grated divider that separated the guest parking from the delivery garage. Gave it a little rattle. Sounded like a car wreck.

  “Does this open?” I asked.

  “Has to,” he answered. “Fire regulations. There has to be more than one way out of the garage in case of fire.”

  “We need a way to get in and out of the parking garage without those cops knowing we’re gone.”

  He thought about it. “You could park in the guest garage, then go through the door here, then out the back and into the alley.”

  “How’s it work?” I asked.

  He wandered over to the corner and pointed at a keypad mounted on the wall. Down at the far end of the overhead, a handle curved out from the wall. Dylan followed my gaze. “In case the power’s out,” he said.

  I nodded but kept my mouth shut.

  “Code’s ninety-two, sixty-four,” Dylan said. He punched it in. The door began to shake, rattle, and rise. I followed him through the opening into the delivery garage.

  “On this side you just push the button. Green to open and red to close. Same thing on the alley side overhead.” He extended his hand. “Here’s a remote to get in from the alley.”

  “Great,” I said. “We don’t need anybody tracking us. This’ll be perfect.

  Behind us in the guest garage, the door clanked and began to rise.

  “Probably be best if none of the other guests sees you going back and forth,” he said. “Might get them to wondering.”

  “Have no fear,” I assured him.

  He inclined his head toward the service elevator. “I gotta get back upstairs,” he said. “Nobody’s on the desk but Jeannie.”

  “Thanks for the help.”

  “I work six to six every night except Monday and Thursday. You need anything . . .”

  He let it ride and went loping across the concrete toward the elevators.

  Bright-blue morning skies. One of those Pacific Northwest days when it’s warm in the sun but cold in the shade. Carl and the reggae twins were back at the hotel, downloading everything available on everybody we’d decided we wanted to talk to.

  Gabe and I sneaked out the service door and drove over on the east side of Broadway to the address we had for the widow Valenzuela. Nobody was home. We got lucky when a little neighbor girl wearing purple fairy wings told us the senora was down at something called the Social Justice Project, which, when we finally found it, looked like it used to be a supermarket or maybe a bowling alley. One story, flat roof, strip mall building. Huge parking lot. They’d put butcher paper over the front windows so’s to avoid working in a fishbowl. Somebody’d worn out a whole pack of Sharpies on the handmade sign.

  Gabe and I strolled in the front door at a little after ten in the morning. They’d used sheets of unfinished plywood to create a vestibule to the main office area. Sort of a pre-entry security room. Ben Forrester’s description of the animosities among the town’s groups rang in my ears as I looked around.

  Four guys seemed to seep out of the woodwork. Big, thick guy in a yellow tank top stepped forward. Tattooed tears running down one cheek, a wooden cross on the other. He looked from Gabe to me and back.

  “I help you?” He looked over at Gabe again.

  “I’d like to speak with Annette Valenzuela.”

  “What for?”

  I showed him my empty hand and very slowly inserted it into my pocket and pulled out a Leon Marks business card. He studied it like there was going to be a test, then looked back over his shoulder at his companions. They were going to pat us down.

  “We’re both heeled,” I said.

  Everybody stopped moving. The air got thick. The guy nearest the door ducked inside and disappeared.

  “Why a writer need to be strapped?” Yellow Shirt asked.

  “We ruffle a lot of feathers. Sometimes people take it the wrong way.”

  He looked at Gabe. “You a writer too?” he asked.

  “I’m a shooter,” Gabe said. “He pisses them off. I shoot ’em. He writes about it.”

  He thought it over. “Okay,” he said after a minute. “You leave the pieces out her
e.”

  Gabe was head shaking before the words were out of the guy’s mouth.

  “Nope,” was all Gabe said.

  “I’ll be happy to leave mine here, but those two are sorta joined at the hip,” I said with a nod toward Gabe. “It’s like a fetish thing.”

  The inside door popped open with a sucking sound. A wave of voices rolled over us, the rustle and scrape of people moving, more than one crying baby. And then the door closed, and the sound receded to a whisper of innuendo.

  A sturdy Latina. Five-five or so. Fiftysomething. Looked like she hadn’t cut her hair since childhood. Jagged scar running the length of her right cheek. Everybody on the other side of the counter snapped to attention. Hadda be the widow Valenzuela.

  “Is there a problem out here?” she wanted to know.

  Yellow Shirt leaned in and whispered in her ear. Her deep eyes ran over Gabe and me like ants at a picnic. He handed her my business card. She snapped a quick look at the card and then dropped it on the counter.

  “Nestor says you’ve come here armed.”

  “Only for our own protection,” I said.

  “You think you need protection from us?” The short bitter laugh she hacked from her throat had nothing to do with humor. “We’ve had the windows shot out about five times and had two attempts to burn us out—not to mention the legal obstacles—and you think you need protection from us?”

  “No, we don’t,” I assured her. “But . . . from what we’ve seen so far, seems like there are a lot of people around here who don’t much want me looking into your husband’s murder. Kinda makes me wonder why.”

  “They want to pretend it never happened,” she snapped.

  “You know . . . on one hand I understand . . . Your husband’s murder isn’t exactly chamber of commerce promotional material, but it seems to me it’s taken on some other aura here . . . I’m not sure what it is . . . It seems to have become symbolic in some way.”