Breach of Duty (9780061739637) (7 page)

Mildred answered anyway. “Seventy thousand dollars,” she said. “Right around that anyway.”

“And how much is your new roof going to cost?”

“Don't worry about the roof,” Olson interrupted. “You can cross that idea right off your list of possible motivations. I've already taken care of it—the roof, that is. When it started leaking after that big storm last week, I told Millie right then that I'd handle it. One of my friends—someone I've done favors for over the years—is a roofing contractor here in town. I'll pay for the work. Millie can pay me back whenever she's able.”

“That's certainly generous of you, Mr. Olson, but if you don't mind, I was addressing my question to Mrs. George.”

“It's all right, Lonnie,” she said. “I don't mind answering. I assure you, Detective Beaumont, I didn't murder Agnes Ferman in hopes of getting my roof fixed. And I didn't murder her in hopes of paying off my debt to the IRS, either. I didn't murder her at all.”

“What about Hilda?” Sue asked quietly.

“What about her?”

“What's her financial situation?”

“She's had her ups and downs,” Mildred answered. “Andy and I have helped her from time to time, but then so did Agnes and Lyle. Things were really tough for her and the girls right after the divorce. In fact they lived with Andy and me for a while back then. Of course, that was in our old house where we had lots more room than we have now.”

“I believe you called Hilda a peace broker a while ago,” Sue said. “Does that mean she managed to stay on friendly terms with both you and Agnes?”

“Hilda is Agnes and Andy's half sister. They all have the same mother, but Hilda had a different father. Hilda was much younger than either Andy or Agnes. In fact, she's a good deal closer to me in age than she is to either of them. Her father died in a logging-truck accident when she was in fifth grade and her mother died a few years after that. Hilda lived with Betty and Andy for a time while she was in high school, so she knew more about Betty's drinking problem and what else went on than anyone other than Andy. So the answer to your question is yes. She stayed on friendly terms with both Agnes and me. And let me tell you, this last year or so, I don't know what I would have done without her. She's been a huge help with Andy. She comes by and looks after him several afternoons a week.”

“What about today?”

Mildred shook her head. “Monday's her day off from work and from Andy. She saves that to do laundry and catch up on things around her own house.”

“Which is where?”

“Just north of Marysville and east of Highway 99. It's a trailer park called Green Mountain Vista Estates.”

The phone rang. Lonnie Olson had no sooner picked up one line than the other one rang. Mildred answered that one. Sue turned to me. “What do you think?”

“I say let's go talk to the sister. With Olson here bird-dogging us, we're not getting very far.”

As soon as Mildred was off the phone, Sue asked her for directions to Hilda's house. “And in case we miss her today, where does she work?”

“In the bakery at the Smoky Point Safeway. She starts at five every morning and gets off at one, except for Monday. Tuesdays she usually spends with Andy, so if you don't catch up with her today, she should be at our house most of the day tomorrow.”

We left while Lonnie Olson was still talking on the phone. “What do you think?” I asked once we were outside.

Sue rolled her eyes. “I don't believe for a minute that Lonnie Olson has made arrangements to have Mildred's roof fixed because he likes the way she writes up rental agreements.”

“You don't think so?” I asked innocently. I had come to much the same conclusion, but I was curious about Sue's rationale. “Why not?”

“I saw the look she gave him when he first walked into the office. If that was platonic, I'll eat my badge. Not only that, what she said to him about us laid it all out in a nutshell. She wanted to let him know exactly what was going on so he wouldn't say the wrong thing or make some kind of blunder. For all those phone calls, I don't think he missed a word of what we said to her.”

I nodded in agreement. “Not only that, I can't imagine that a simple employer/employee relationship would merit Olson's being willing to call his own personal attorney to come riding to the rescue. Based on all that, do you think she's lying about being home all Monday night?”

“Maybe,” Sue said. “And if Olson is that eager to leap to Mildred's defense, maybe he's in on it with her.”

Without saying anything more, we climbed back into the Caprice. As we backed out of our parking place, the license plate on Lonnie Olson's Saab was fully visible. “How about jotting it down?” I asked. “While you're at it, take down the number on Mildred's Buick, too. Just for argument's sake. Maybe we'll get lucky and someone will have spotted one or the other of those two vehicles in Agnes Ferman's neighborhood Monday night or Tuesday morning.”

Sue did as I suggested. “Where to now?” she asked, closing her notebook and sticking it back in her pocket.

“Green Mountain Vista Estates.”

“It sounds very upscale.”

“Don't worry,” I told her. “Most of the time the more pretentious the name, the less impressive the community.”

Following Mildred's directions we drove straight there. People who live in downtown Seattle tend to be a bit parochial in their attitudes toward places beyond the narrow confines of the city limits. Suburbs of any kind are frowned on. In the case of Green Mountain Vista Estates, however, those antisuburban prejudices were right on the money.

Green Mountain Vista—with nary a mountain in sight—was stuck down in a hollow that had probably been a wetland once—a wetland in the middle of someone's farm. This wasn't one of those new affordable-housing modular places where they truck in houses on wheels, put them down on concrete pads, and then drag the wheels away for good. No, these were old-fashioned mobile homes—with rotting tires still attached to wheels—in a development that had been grandfathered into the local planning and zoning codes probably because somebody was related to or a good pal of someone on the Snohomish County zoning commission.

The trailer that belonged to Hilda Smathers was no better or worse than any of its neighbors, but it was a long way from perfect. A few ruined flower beds, rank with weeds, and a scraggly sprinkling of woebegone daffodils, testified to the fact that someone had once cared about the place in a way its current occupant did not. There was no car out front, however, and when we knocked, no one came to the door.

Sue sighed. “So much for her staying home on her day off and catching up on chores. Come on. Tomorrow's another day. What say we give up for the time being and head on back to the city in hopes of beating some of the Boeing traffic.”

It didn't work. By three o'clock, southbound rush-hour traffic was in full force. For a while, from Lynn-wood south, we were able to do all right in the express lanes, but once we hit Northgate, the diamond lanes petered out and we were stuck creeping along at a snail's pace right along with everyone else. Most of the cars had lone occupants and were very clearly commuters, heading home—wherever that might be.

All the way down the freeway from Everett, Sue and I had discussed the case. My mind remained focused on Mildred George, but somewhere between Northgate and the Montlake Bridge, Sue Danielson started making the gradual transition from detective mode back into motherhood.

“If I ever decide to move to the suburbs ‘for my kids' sake,'” she said, “just haul off and shoot me. Where we live now may be a dump, but I can make it home from downtown in just a little over fifteen minutes.”

“Your place isn't a dump,” I reminded her. “You and the boys have done a great job of fixing it up. But I'll remember you said that. The first time I catch you out looking for places in the burbs, I'll land all over you.”

“Thanks,” she said.

Sue was quiet then, from there all the way to the downtown exits. We were exiting the freeway when she spoke again. “I've been thinking about what you said earlier.”

“What's that?”

“About the kids.”

“What about them?”

“You're right. I'm going to put my foot down, Beau. For a change, I'm going to make Richie Danielson play by the rules that govern everyone else. If he wants to take the kids to Disneyland, he'll have to do it next week, during spring break. I'm not letting him pull them out of school this week just because he feels like it. After all, I'm trying to teach the boys to behave responsibly. Shouldn't their father have to do the same?”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” I said.

Which only goes to show how little I know.

B
y the time we finally made it back to the office and had finished our reports, it was time to head home. I've never been your basic nine-to-five cop, but that day I made an exception. The whole fifth floor could just as well have been draped in black crepe. People were still reeling from Captain Powell's unexpected announcement, but there was little doubt the captain was gone. His fishbowl office was empty. Every personal effect had been removed leaving behind only an empty shell awaiting a new occupant.

When I stopped by Watty Watkins' desk to clock out, he was still there. I caught him staring bleakly at the empty desk a few steps away. The two of them, sergeant and captain, had been constant companions for the better part of a dozen years.

Watty looked up guiltily when I stepped into his line of vision. “Productive day?” he asked.

“Not very,” I said. “We're starting to get a handle on it, but I'm afraid my heart's not in it.”

“Mine either,” Watty returned glumly. “Captain Powell wasn't all that easy to work with at times, but you always knew where you stood with him. No head games. Know what I mean?”

I nodded. “You're right there,” I agreed. “Powell wasn't one to yank people around just for the hell of it.”

Watty turned to watch as I punched the clock. “What are you and Sue working on again?”

“The Ferman murder,” I told him. “The North-End arson. Not your basic high-profile case, just a little old lady with some relatives who maybe liked the idea of having her money a whole lot more than they liked her.”

“And who are convinced they'll get away with it,” Watty added.

“Not a chance,” I told him, and we both smiled.

Leaving the Public Safety Building, I caught a bus up 4th as far as Olive, then I got off and walked the rest of the way home to Belltown Terrace at 2nd and Broad. It was spring. The weather was balmy. After months of dark and wet, the afternoons were growing longer and lighter. The sky overhead was a fragile blue and the street ahead of me was alive with newly leafed trees.

Fifteen or so years ago, hoping to achieve the look of a Parisian boulevard, the city planted trees along the sidewalks throughout the Denny Regrade. For a long time the puny little seedlings seemed like little more than sticks—scrawny branches of nothing reaching up out of a layer of plain gray pavement and even grayer concrete. On this particular day, for some strange reason, it seemed as though they had all matured overnight. Miraculously, they had been transformed from gangly, adolescent twigs into full-fledged trees.

Maybe the reason I noticed had something to do with what was going on with me; with the realization that, in the face of some things ending, it was good to see other things beginning again—to see those trees standing there tall and straight, green and healthy.

Kevin Hotchkiss, Belltown Terrace's latest doorman, greeted me at the building's entrance with a happy grin. “Beautiful spring afternoon, isn't it, Mr. Beaumont.”

“Beautiful,” I agreed.

I stopped in the mailbox room long enough to extract that day's pound of bills and junk mail. One of the latter was an invitation to “get in touch with my family roots” by purchasing—for only $39.95, tax and shipping included—a copy of
A Cavalcade of Beaumonts.
Tossing the envelope into the recycling bin on my way past, I wondered how many of the folks who share my surname were, like me, named after a town in Texas rather than after their biological fathers. Unless that was the case, it didn't seem likely that
A Cavalcade of Beaumonts
would lead me to any long-lost relatives.

As I stepped into the apartment, my high-tech security system recognized my signal and turned on both the lights and the CD player. It wasn't exactly like having someone there waiting for me, but it made the place feel less lonely. I had just kicked off my shoes and eased into the recliner when the phone rang.

“Beau,” Ralph Ames said. “How did the Viking funeral go?”

I had to be well into middle age before I learned the difference between drinking buddies and friends. Ralph Ames and my ex-partner, Ron Peters, both qualify as the latter. Ralph, who started out as Anne Corley's aide-de-camp, is now mine. His insightful advice guides me through various legal, financial, and investment mazes. He's also someone who knew exactly why my grandmother and I were going over to Lake Chelan.

“The trip went fine,” I said.

When I first met Ralph, he was a full-time resident of Paradise Valley down in Arizona. The last year or so, due to the blandishments of his girlfriend—lovely Seattle-area restaurateur, Mary Greengo—he's been spending more and more time in the Pacific Northwest. He used to stay with me whenever he was in town. Now he stays elsewhere.

“So what are you doing this weekend?” he asked.

“Come on, Ralph. It's only Monday. How would I know what I'm doing this weekend?”

Some people hearing that comment might assume that my weekend was so packed with must-do events that I couldn't possibly pencil anything more into the calendar. Ralph, on the other hand, understood full well that my personal calendar was most likely bird-bone bare.

“How would you like to take a little cruise up to Victoria?”

Any mention of boats or boating, whether in little craft or on big ones, brings back painful memories of my ill-fated teenaged attempt at becoming a long-line fisherman. I barfed my guts out as soon as we set sail. An old-time sailor, under the guise of being helpful, offered me a chaw of tobacco. He told me if I chewed that and swallowed the juice, I'd be cured. Needless to say, I never made it as far as the Gulf of Alaska. That whole wretched and retching experience isn't something I need to relive. Boating on Lake Chelan had been stretching my luck.

“I don't do cruises,” I said at once.

“Why not?”

“We've gone over this before,” I told him. “Because most likely I'll turn pea green the moment we're out of Elliott Bay.”

“Come on,” Ralph wheedled. “Being seasick doesn't kill you.”

“You'd be surprised.”

“No, really. There are things you can take for it these days. Patches you can wear. Wrist bands. Besides, it's a perfectly good boat. An old forty-two-foot Chris-Craft. Three cabins. Blond mahogany. And the owner's a blond, too. We thought we'd do just an overnight trip…”

“Hold it right there, Ralph. Did you say blond? Is this a blind date?”

“Well, more or less,” Ralph admitted.

“End of discussion,” I growled. “No cruises and no blind dates.”

“It doesn't have to be a blind date,” Ralph said.

“She's an old friend of Mary's. They've been pals forever, since second grade. How about if you come over for dinner one evening this week and meet her. After that, you can decide whether or not you're interested in the cruise. What about Wednesday? Mary doesn't have to go into the restaurant that night.”

At the prospect of one of Mary's dinners, I could feel my resolve weakening. If Ralph Ames weren't a lawyer, he could have made a fortune in sales. Come to think of it, maybe he is in sales.

“What time Wednesday?”

“Six,” he said. “If it isn't raining, we'll sit around out in the patio for a while before we eat.”

“What's her name?” I asked.

At least Ralph had the good grace not to feign innocence. “Cassandra,” he said. “Cassandra Wolcott. Cassie for short.”

“Cassandra,” I repeated. “Wasn't she the one who caused all the trouble by letting evil out of that box?”

“No, you've got Cassandra mixed up with Pandora,” Ralph said. “Cassandra was someone who could predict the future, but no one would believe her. I don't think that's the case here, by the way, because people did listen.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Cassie Wolcott is a retired stockbroker,” Ralph replied. “She's also thirty-eight years old.”

My ideas about the age and appearance of retired stockbrokers did some downward gyrations. “Isn't she awfully young to be retired?”

“She made her money and got the hell out,” Ralph said. “I call that smart.”

“I see,” I said at last. “All right. Wednesday at six, but remember, I'm not making any promises about the weekend.”

“Fair enough,” Ralph said.

I put down the phone and then headed out to the kitchen to see if there was anything I could scare up for dinner. Without Ralph spending as much time here as he used to, I'm afraid my kitchen stores have fallen on hard times once more. There was still plenty of Seattle's Best Coffee in the fridge, but not much else. At least nothing else edible.

Giving up on the idea of eating at home, I put my shoes back on and headed outside once again.

When I first moved to the Regrade, the neighborhood turned into a deserted village as soon as it got dark. The only people who hung out there at night were the homeless bums and the almost-homeless drunks who beat paths from one sleazy tavern or greasy spoon to another. They're all pretty much gone now—the sleazy taverns and the drunks. For a while during the late eighties, drug dealers moved into the area in a big way. Finally, though, area merchants and residents went on the warpath. They fought back with an aggressive program that included a visible round-the-clock police presence of both beat and bicycle cops augmented by private security guards.

Over time, increased patrols worked their magic. Most of the drug dealers and bums moved on. Businesses that once catered to a lowlife clientele gradually died out themselves, and a whole new set of entrepreneurs came flooding into the void. Within five blocks of Belltown Terrace there are now half a dozen trendy restaurants where Seattle's movers and shakers can go to see and be seen. A beneficial side effect of all the gentrification has been that a number of highly qualified chefs have moved into the Regrade as well. That makes it possible to get a decent meal at any number of places. Not cheap—like in the old Doghouse days—but good.

Drawn by the irresistible magnetism of freshly made bread, I made my way up to Cafe Macrina on 1st and had a bowl of soup and a chunk of crusty, herb-laden bread. They close at six, but lately I've managed to become enough of a fixture around the place so that the staff lets me grab a light supper of soup and bread followed by a leisurely cup of coffee while they work at closing up for the evening.

After dinner, I sat drinking my coffee, enjoying watching people go by outside on the sidewalk, and thinking. One of the things I like about eating in restaurants is the same thing I used to appreciate about bars—they're impersonal. Not entirely. People may know you by name. They may even know something about you, but they don't know you really. They can't push your buttons or tell the world where all the bodies are buried. Unlike friends and families, the people you find in places like that can't nail your hide with all the things you want to keep hidden. That makes them handy for hiding out from feelings, which is something I've been particularly good at all my life.

On the surface, I was thinking about Mary Greengo's friend. What made some young woman want to become a stockbroker of all things? To do that, I supposed she had to be fairly tough and smart. Tough, smart, and aggressive. Even so, however, how had Cassandra Wolcott managed to retire from stockbrokering at the tender age of thirty-eight? Several possibilities presented themselves. For one Cassie might be a very slick operator. Maybe her exit from the stock-trading business had come about just the way Ralph had said—because she had made so damned much money at it that she could afford to walk away. That was the upside. The downside could have had something to do with corporate mergers or downsizing, or it could have been something altogether different. Maybe hers was an involuntary retirement that had come about as a result of some kind of financial skulduggery. The fact that the woman came with Ralph Ames' personal stamp of approval should have counted for something, but still…

“More coffee?” the waiter asked.

“Sure,” I said, nodding and pushing my cup in his direction for the promised refill.

Unfortunately, watching the coffee pour into my cup reminded me of a lunchtime conversation I'd shared with Ralph Ames in this very restaurant not three weeks earlier. We were just starting on our second cups of coffee when he had asked the tough question.

“When are you going to get over her, Beau?”

He might very well have been talking about Karen—my first wife—who had died of cancer a few months earlier, but I knew he wasn't. Ralph's “her” could only refer to Anne Corley, my second wife. Even though I hadn't added sugar or cream to my coffee, I picked up my spoon and stirred. It was a delaying tactic—a stall. Ralph wasn't deterred in the least.

“Well?” he insisted.

“Maybe never,” I said, only half joking. “Isn't that how fatal attractions are supposed to work?”

But Ralph didn't crack a smile. “You can't spend your whole life living with a legend, Beau. Remember, I knew Anne, too. She was fascinating and exasperating; troubled and troubling; smart and willful; sweet and deadly. She was all those things all at the same time.”

“So? What's the point?”

“You've created this spun-glass cocoon around that tiny fragment of time you had together,” he said. “And in the process, you've transformed Anne Corley into something she never was—perfection itself. That's it in a nutshell, Beau. Anne's presumed perfection has you stuck. It's keeping you from being able to get on with your life.”

“Come off it, Ralph. Lighten up. I haven't exactly been dying on the vine here. What about Alexis?”

“What about her? She's gone, isn't she? You managed to find something wrong with her and with every other woman who's crossed your path since then for one reason and one reason only—she wasn't Anne. Alexis hung around long enough to develop feet of clay. She probably told you to pick up your socks a few times and wanted you to put the toilet seat down. If Anne had hung around long enough to do the same thing—to turn into a flesh-and-blood woman—maybe you'd be over her by now. At least, you'd be over her enough that you could actually look at someone else.”