Breach of Duty (9780061739637) (5 page)

The woman stood on the porch, hands on her hips, determinedly barring our way. “If you want information,” she continued, “I suggest you try talkin' to his missus, to Mildred. But she's not here.”

“And where would we find her?” Sue asked. I was more than content to stay in the background and let Sue do the negotiating. If Andrew George's caretaker was less than friendly with my partner, I could well imagine the kind of reception I'd get.

“Work,” the woman answered gruffly. “She don't get off until three. She's usually home by three-fifteen or so. Later if she has to stop for groceries.”

By then Sue and I had both reached the far end of the sidewalk. As Sue stepped up onto the bottom step, Mr. George reappeared briefly at the side of the house then disappeared again. Seeing him plodding along like that got the better of my short-lived determination to keep quiet.

“How long does he do that?” I asked.

The woman shrugged. “An hour or two usually,” the woman answered, “depending on the weather. The man used to love walking. Must've racked up ten miles or so every single day. Problem is, nowadays, he don't remember how to get himself back home, but he still wants to walk. Every day, rain or shine.”

Sue held up her ID. “Is Mr. George suffering from Alzheimer's?” she asked.

The woman glanced briefly at the ID and then nodded. “That's what they call it—Alzheimer's. Mind's pretty much gone but he's healthy as a horse.”

“And who are you?” Sue asked. “His nurse?”

“Me a nurse?” the woman asked. “Are you kidding?” Suddenly her broad face broke into a wide, toothy grin, then she laughed, a great honking bray of a laugh that shook her whole body. “Not me. Name's Grace Tipton. I'm a neighbor helping out. Live just over there.”

She pointed across the street to another asbestos-shingled bungalow that looked like a near relation of the one belonging to the Georges. My guess was that most of the houses on the block had been built by the same builder in the late forties or early fifties. Grace Tipton's house was in somewhat better repair than Andrew and Mildred George's. It was better, but not by much.

“A real nurse do come in most mornings first thing. After the nurse leaves, either his sister looks out for him or I do. We keep an eye on him afternoons until Mildred comes home.”

“Agnes Ferman used to come watch him?” Sue asked.

“Her?” Grace Tipton huffed. “Not likely. I'm talking about his other sister. From up in Marysville. If neither one of us can come, my nephew sometimes pitches in. Or somebody from church. We make sure he eats his lunch and then we hook him up to that harness so he can walk. I expect it's good for him.”

Once again, Andrew George plodded into view, walked all the way to the end of the leash, then turned and went back the way he had come. I was close enough now so that I could see the harness was fastened with the same kind of padlock that kept the leash affixed to the clothesline wire.

“He doesn't mind being chained up like that?” I heard myself asking. “I mean, it doesn't bother him being treated like some kind of vicious dog?”

“Does he look like he minds it?” Grace Tipton demanded. “He don't seem the least bit unhappy to me. In fact, most of the time he's just like a little kid. Can't wait to finish his lunch and get his harness on so he can go outside. Afterwards he sleeps for an hour or two. What gets to him is
not
walking. That's when he gets cranky. He throws things, kicks at people, even tries to bite 'em sometimes. Most people would've put him in a home long ago, but Mildred's been holding on. It's a matter of money. Them retirement homes is really expensive. Mildred told me the only way she'd be able to afford one was to sell the house, except it didn't work. Asbestos, you know,” she added. “The real estate lady told her it wasn't worth nothing. That anybody who bought it would just have to tear it down and the EPA wouldn't even let 'em haul the rubble to the dump. Cost of tearin' it down and hauling it away is more than it's worth. Only thing most of these places is good for is livin' in until they keel over and fall down. It worries Mildred, I can tell you that. All the worry the past year or so since Mr. George got so bad has aged her—aged her something fierce.”

I looked at the dilapidated house. To someone living in that kind of poverty and disrepair, the possibility of receiving a sizable inheritance might have been tantalizing. Obviously Andrew George himself wasn't capable of any kind of independent action, but I wondered about his wife. If Mildred George had something to do with Agnes Ferman's death, it certainly wouldn't be the first time that a financially strapped heir had decided to hasten the arrival of a potential cash windfall.

“Has Mildred ever mentioned anything about Mr. George's sister having money?”

“Not Mildred,” Grace Tipton said. “But Hilda certainly did.”

“Hilda Smathers?” Sue asked. “Mr. George's sister?”

Grace nodded. “That's right, his baby sister. She's all the time hinting around that her sister Agnes has a whole bunch of money stowed away somewhere, but I don't pay no mind. Figure it's just so much idle gossip. After all, from what I understand, the woman worked as a maid all her life. Domestic service ain't usually the kind of career that allows people to lay by a fortune for their old age, if you know what I mean.”

I was tempted to tell her that three hundred thou in Agnes Ferman's garage refrigerator was there to prove her wrong, but I didn't. Instead, I glanced over at Andrew George who happened to reappear just then. I wondered if a man who had to be tethered to a clothesline to keep from being lost was capable of handling even the smallest amounts of money.

Grace Tipton must have read my mind. “Mildred got a lawyer to draw up something. I forget what it's called. Means she can handle Mr. George's affairs…”

“You mean a power of attorney?” Sue suggested.

Grace brightened. “That's right. Power of attorney. Since Mildred has that, if there is any money, she can spend it however she likes. I for one hope it's true, that there is some. Money, that is. Enough for her to put Mr. George in a home someplace. Maybe even enough beyond that to fix this place up so it'll be nice to live in. Mildred's a practical woman. I wouldn't look for her to go runnin' off on one of them round-the-world cruises, but it sure would be nice if she didn't have to work and worry quite so hard.”

“What does she do?”

“Manages a truck-rental office right down the street. Olson's it's called. Mildred never used to have to work outside the home, not until two years ago when things got so bad they had to move in here. As soon as she got Mr. George settled in, she went right out and found herself a job. She's been there ever since.”

“They haven't always lived here then?”

Grace shook her head. “Good heavens, no. They started out here, years ago, long before I moved in, as a matter of fact. After their son came along, they moved up to a larger house over near the hospital and kept this one as a rental. It's a good thing, too. When they lost the other house, they still had this one to move into as a back up. It may not look like much, but leaky or not, leastways it's a roof over their heads.”

Sue and I exchanged glances. Serious illness aside, it sounded as though the Georges had been through some kind of serious financial wringer. After a life of relative prosperity, those kinds of financial reversals and straitened circumstances might make the possibility of an early inheritance that much more tempting.

“Where did you say we'd find Mildred George?” I asked.

“Olson's Truck Rental,” Grace replied. “It's just down at the bottom of the hill here on Summit. It's close enough to be a nice walk in good weather, although, there were times last winter when Mildred had to walk because the Buick didn't start. One day it was so snowy and slippery getting down the hill that I was afraid she was going to break her neck. Think you can find it okay?”

“You say it's on Summit?” Sue asked.

Grace nodded.

“I'm sure we can find it then,” Sue told her.

“If you like, I can call ahead,” Grace offered. “That way Mildred will know you're coming.”

“Don't bother,” Sue said.

She made it sound casual enough, but we both knew it wasn't. If there was even the slightest possibility that Mildred George had something to do with her sister-in-law's death, then it would be far better for us to show up unannounced and unexpected. That way there was a better chance of our catching her with her defenses down.

Those preliminary surprise visits with possible suspects—ones with no Miranda warning anywhere within hearing distance—may not hold up in court, but that doesn't mean they're not useful. They don't always point us in the right direction, but often enough, they give us a place to start.

As we headed back down the walkway, Andrew George reappeared around the corner of the house once again.

“Seeing that happen to the person you love must be hell,” Sue said to me, nodding in his direction. “Which is worse—losing your mind like Andrew George there or losing the use of your body like Marcia Powell?”

I stopped and stood beside the car long enough to watch the man disappear once more behind the side of his house.

“Excuse me,” I told her. “But if I had my druthers, I'd rather not lose either one.”

I
t took two passes to find Olson's Truck Rental. Our search was complicated by a maze of oneway streets that wound in and out under a series of raised trestles. The process was made more difficult by the fact that Everett's Summit Avenue was somehow missing from our map book. When we finally arrived at the correct storefront in a mostly industrial area, we found the front door securely locked. A cardboard sign hanging in the window, complete with a clock face, told us they would reopen at one.

I didn't feel particularly hungry right then, but I was more than ready for a break. One of the hazards of working with Detective Danielson has to do with her cast-iron bladder. She's capable of going for hours on end without making a pitstop. In that regard the woman has me totally outclassed.

“Looks like it's time for lunch,” I said casually. “There must be someplace to eat around here. I didn't see anything promising while we were driving around, did you?”

“Not right here,” Sue agreed, consulting the map once more. “But Alligator Soul isn't far.”

“Alligator what?”

“Soul,” she replied. “It's a Cajun place. I ate there once before a Preservation Hall concert. Just go straight up Hewitt,” she added, pointing. “Now that I finally have my bearings, I know it isn't far from here.”

My mother's training kicked in. I did as I was told.

Everett started out over a hundred years ago as a booming sawmill town. The lumber and mills are pretty much gone, leaving an economic gap that's been partially filled in recent years by the arrival of a Navy home port. In the downtown area, low-rise brick construction harkens back to an earlier era. People who live and/or work in Seattle proper assume we exist in a kind of cultural mecca. It disturbed my proud Denny-Regrade neighborhood sensibilities to learn that Everett, a place we regard as little more than a lowly exurb, had constructed something that sounded suspiciously like a concert hall.

“Preservation Hall,” I muttered disparagingly. “Never heard of it. Where is it and how did Everett come up with the money to build something like that?”

Sue Danielson sighed. “Preservation Hall, Beau. It's a band, not a building. As in the French Quarter. As in New Orleans-style jazz. They were here for a concert. What kind of a rock have you been living under?”

“I've just never cared for jazz all that much,” I returned. It was the best I could manage with a size-twelve foot stuck firmly in my mouth.

I was still licking my culturally deprived wounds when we pulled up in front of the green awning of the Alligator Soul a few minutes later. We parked in an open space on a street without a single parking meter anywhere in sight—something else that sets Everett apart from downtown Seattle. Inside the restaurant, the young hostess gave us a choice of smoking or nonsmoking. Sue opted for the former. By the time we reached our booth at the back of the long narrow room, she had cigarettes out of her purse and was already lighting up.

Before sliding into the booth, I made a quick dash to the men's room. On the way I noticed that the long, narrow restaurant was clearly an old, rehabbed bar. The major decorating motif—from tablecloths to posters on the wall—was chilies of one kind or another. Bottles of chili sauce lined what was left of a carved oak bar. I couldn't tell from looking at them if they were there for sale or decoration or if they were simply optional condiments to be added to individual servings the way ordinary people might pile on needless salt and pepper.

Back in the booth, Sue and I ordered lunch. While waiting for our food, I wanted to discuss the case, but Sue, staring off into space through an isolating haze of cigarette smoke, still seemed disinclined to talk. I contented myself with watching the goings-on in the kitchen while she puffed through one cigarette and then another. The chef was a butt-sprung disreputable-looking wreck of a guy with a stubbly growth of beard and a silver front tooth. He looked like an old salt to me, a guy likely to have a ship sailing the briny sea tattooed on his chest. I wondered if he hadn't blown into town right along with other folks from the home port.

It soon became apparent why the smoking section was located next to the kitchen. That was where the help—from chef to dishwasher—came on their breaks to grab a smoke right along with the customers.

The food when it arrived at the booth—Sue's red beans and rice and my barbecued ribs—was amazingly good. Hot and spicy, from the jalapeño-laced corn salad to the mouth-and-eye-watering, sauce-slathered ribs themselves. Suddenly famished, I mowed into my lunch without noticing Sue was barely touching hers. I was busily mopping barbecue sauce off my fingers and face when I realized she had pushed her still-full dish to one side and was smoking once again.

“What's the matter with your food?” I asked. “Don't you like it?”

“He kicked me,” she said.

Two booths away a little kid in a high chair set up an ear-splitting howl making it almost impossible to hear.

“He who?” I asked, feeling as though I had somehow blundered into a conversation that was already in progress.

“Richie,” she answered in a barely audible whisper. Fortunately, someone stifled the noisy kid enough so I could make out what she was saying. “I was pregnant with Chris at the time. Richie kicked me in the stomach so hard that my water broke. I was only seven months along. We almost didn't make it, Chris and I. For years I was petrified that he'd suffered some kind of long-term damage—that he'd be retarded or something. But he isn't. He's fine.”

She finished in an offhand kind of way, ducking her head to grind the stub of her latest cigarette into the ashtray. She turned away, but not before I caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes. Detective Danielson is tough. We've done horrendous crime scenes together without her ever turning a hair. Six months into our partnership, tears were something new.

“Chris may be fine,” I said. “But you're not. What's going on?”

“I don't know.” She shook her head. “It's like living through a flashback. Maybe it's that handy old fall guy, post-traumatic stress syndrome, but just the idea of him being back in town is driving me crazy. I barely slept last night. That's probably what's really wrong with me,” she added sheepishly, “lack of sleep.”

I suspected the problem went deeper than missing a few zzzs. It also explained why she'd never talked much about either her marriage or divorce. “Is that why you split?” I asked. “Because he beat you up?”

She nodded. “He had threatened me before, but that was the first time he ever turned really violent. I underwent an emergency cesarean and was in the hospital for three days. That gave me plenty of time to think. I wondered if he'd do that to me—if he'd endanger our unborn baby's life like that—what might he do to Jared. Back then I was already working as a dispatcher at the Com Center. When I was on days, Jared went to day care, but when I pulled night shift, Jared and Richie were home alone. There in the hospital room I knew I couldn't risk doing that any more—I couldn't leave either one of the kids alone with their father. That's when I filed for a divorce. It took two years for it to be final.”

Sue paused and seemed to be waiting for me to say something. “I didn't know any of this,” I said at last. “You never mentioned it.”

She shrugged. “I was embarrassed, I guess. It's just that Richie can be so damned charming when he wants to be—at least with outsiders. He was charming with me, too, in the beginning—just as long as he had his own way. I guess I didn't want anyone to know that I had chosen so…well, so badly,” she finished lamely. “I thought I was smarter than that.”

The waitress came to clear our places. “Was something wrong with the red beans and rice?” she asked, frowning as she picked up Sue's still-heaping plate.

“No,” Sue returned. “It was fine, really. I just wasn't as hungry as I thought I was.”

“Would you like to take it home?”

“I don't think so…”

“What about the boys?” I interrupted. “Wouldn't one of them like it? I've never met a teenaged boy who didn't have at least one hollow leg.”

Smiling halfheartedly, Sue nodded at the waitress. “Okay,” she said. “You win. I'll take it with me.”

The waitress disappeared. I turned back to Sue. “Is that what's worrying you now?” I asked. “Are you afraid that Richie might turn violent with the boys while they're on this trip to California?”

Her face paled. “I've been so pissed at the whole idea that I didn't even think about the possibility—until just now, although God knows I should have. He's a big guy, Beau. Six five. Two hundred and sixty pounds the last I saw him. It's my job to protect the kids. If he were to hurt one of them, I'd never forgive myself.”

Why is it people fall for the wrong person? Then, when the inevitable happens, they spend the rest of their lives trying to get over it. That's what happened to me with Anne Corley, and this was much the same. Sue Danielson had never forgiven herself for that long-ago kick to the belly that had catapulted Christopher Danielson into the world some two months prior to his due date.

“What would you do if you were in my shoes, Beau?” Sue was asking earnestly. “Would you let the boys go with him or not?”

Having been a fatherless boy myself, I knew this territory painfully well—from the inside out. I knew how much it would have meant for me to have had the chance to spend some time with my own father just once in my life. A three-day trip to Disneyland would have been a gift beyond compare. Unfortunately, my father died long before I was even born. But I could also see the situation from Sue's point of view. Why should she let the boys go off on a trip with a worthless yahoo who didn't pay child support and who might very well turn violent if things didn't go just right? On the other hand, if she kept the boys home and Richie had somehow come to his senses in the meantime, she might very well be denying her sons their one chance of ever having any kind of workable relationship with their father.

“Did Jared witness that first beating?” I asked. Despite the fact that the truth had to be otherwise, I allowed Sue her pride-saving pretense that there had been only one serious episode of violence in her relationship with her former husband.

Blood rushed back to her pale cheeks. “Yes,” she managed.

“Does he remember it?”

“I don't know. I've never asked him.”

“He's what—thirteen?”

“Fourteen,” Sue answered. “Just turned. His birthday was last week.”

“And Chris?”

“Eight. He'll be nine in May.”

“And you moved out of the house right after Chris was born?”

Sue nodded. “When we left the hospital, I only went home long enough to pack up and leave. I took the kids and went straight from the hospital right into a temporary shelter.”

In the time Sue Danielson and I had worked together, I'd never had any quarrel with her courage under fire. I realized now, however, that nothing the street had required of her could have demanded any more raw courage than leaving a marriage with two children—a six-year-old and a newborn—especially considering Sue's parents and the rest of her family were almost a continent away from Seattle in Ohio.

“That must be about the same time you left the Communications Center,” I observed.

Sue nodded. “A representative from the EEOC came through the department and told the brass that they needed more female trainees. A recruiter from Seattle PD came to the Com Center and talked to us about the idea of an upgrade and transfer. I didn't see myself as a women's libber, but I figured if I was going to be raising a family on my own, I needed to be earning a man's wages. I jumped at the chance.”

The waitress dropped off our check. It would have been easy for me to pay for lunch each time, but Sue Danielson's pride demanded that she pay her own way. That meant today's meal was on her. I made no objection as she brought a much-folded twenty out of her purse and laid the money on top of the bill.

“You still haven't answered my question,” she said, once we were back in the Caprice with the engine running.

“I know,” I said. “I'm thinking. Before you let the boys go, talk to Tared. Ask him straight out if he remembers any of what went on between you and Richie before you divorced. He may remember or he may not. Regardless, go ahead and tell him what happened. Don't make a big deal of it. Just be matter of fact. That way he'll be prepared.”

“But…” Sue objected.

“No, wait. Let me finish. If he does remember, he may have put a little kid spin on it that has absolutely nothing to do with reality. And if he doesn't remember, he needs to be warned. Tell him that time has passed and you're hoping Richie has grown up. But if he hasn't, and the kids do go on the trip, Jared may have to be the one who's a grownup. He'll need to know how to call for help if he needs to.”

“But how…?”

“Before the kids leave town, go by one of those cellular telephone places. Get one of those little ‘go phones' so he can call you or 911 if there's any kind of a problem. You don't have to say it's because his dad might beat the crap out of him and his brother. Tell him it's for him to use to call you if there's some kind of emergency.”

“What if there is no emergency?” Sue asked. “What if Jared uses the phone to run up a big bill talking to one of his buddies?”

“That's simple,” I told her. “Tell Jared that if he does that, he won't have to worry about his dad beating him up because you'll kill him.”

Sue laughed then, and so did I. “Sounds like good advice,” she said. “So how about getting our minds back on the job and going to see Mildred George?”

“How about it,” I agreed. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”