Fire and Ice (16 page)

Tom nodded. “But as far as I know, nothing of value was found.”

“And nothing that would have told you who she was or where she was from?”

“No,” he answered.

“What about her vehicle?”

“A 4-Runner, I think. I remember it had Arizona plates. I told her that once she had a job she would need to reregister it and get Washington plates. I don’t think she ever got around to doing it.”

“After she left, did you do any skip-chasing?” I asked.

“Look,” Tom said. “She had paid her rent up until the middle of November. When she wasn’t there to pay up on the fifteenth, we packed up her junk and got rid of it. It’s not like she owed months of back rent. She was gone, her rent wasn’t being paid, we moved her stuff out, and moved someone else in. End of story.”

“Her fiancé, a guy by the name of Mason Waters, filed a missing persons report,” I said. “I don’t think the local cop shop expended much effort on the case.”

“Waters,” Mama Rose said. “Isn’t that the name of the guy whose private eye came around asking questions about Marina a couple of months ago?”

Tom Wojeck nodded. “I think that’s the right name, but by the
time the detective showed up at Silver Pines, Marina’s stuff was long gone.”

And so was she, I thought.

With me mentally going over that previous conversation, Mel and I had been silent for quite some time. Finally I noticed that she was only picking at her chicken, which meant she was probably doing the same thing.

“What?” I asked.

Mel shook her head. “So chances are, the young woman in the morgue over in Ellensburg is the woman who claimed to be Marina Aguirre, but we have no idea who she really was. I wonder if we’ll ever figure it out.”

I wondered that myself.

“And what about Tom Wojeck and Mama Rose?” Mel asked. “They weren’t wearing rings.”

Being a man, I had somehow missed that small detail altogether.

“I wonder how long they’ve been together,” Mel continued. “I don’t think they’re married, but they seem to have a good working relationship.”

“They’re probably as close to being married as you can get,” I told her, “especially when one member of the team is HIV-positive.”

“Wake up,” Butch said. He sat down on the edge of the bed and bounced up and down until Joanna opened her eyes. “Here’s some coffee. Time to rise and shine.”

“What time is it?” Joanna mumbled groggily.

“Ten to eight,” Butch answered. “I already called in and told Kristin you’d be late.”

Joanna took a sip of the coffee. “Thank you. But it was a great
night. We were working a missing persons case. An old lady named Philippa Brinson walked away from an Alzheimer’s home out in Palominas.”

“Did you find her?” Butch asked.

“We certainly did,” Joanna answered. “They took her to the Copper Queen Hospital for observation, but I think she’s okay. Her niece was coming down from Phoenix. Once Ms. Brinson is released from the hospital here, she’ll go to Phoenix with her grandniece.”

“How about you tell me the rest of it over breakfast,” Butch said. “Otherwise you’re going to be even later.”

Showered and dressed, Joanna went out to the kitchen, where she had to weave her way through a scatter of boy, toys, and dogs to make it to the kitchen table. Dennis, as at home with the three dogs as he was with people, lay contentedly on the floor with his head propped on Lucky’s back while he chewed on the ear of a teddy bear that had originally been a dog toy.

While Butch whipped out two eggs over easy with bacon and toast, Joanna told him about the previous evening’s adventures. She edited out some parts of the story, focusing less on the appallingly filthy conditions inside Caring Friends. She failed to mention that on Alma DeLong’s watch, residents there were treated more like prisoners than patients, or how vulnerable and frail people had been left unsupervised and helpless for hours on end. Instead, Joanna told Butch about how they had successfully tracked down Philippa Brinson.

“Tom Hadlock managed to get an announcement about her being missing on the ten o’clock news from Tucson,” Joanna said. “Before the news broadcast ended, we had a tip from a man who called in and who said he had found an old woman standing beside the road in Palominas yesterday afternoon. He had stopped
and asked if she needed help. She said she needed a ride to Bisbee, that she had to get back to her office.”

“Office?” Butch said. “Isn’t she in her nineties?”

“Ninety-three,” Joanna said. “But remember, she’s an Alzheimer’s patient. Things that happened a long time ago are far more real to her than something that happened this morning. She thought she was going back to her office after a noon meeting out at Sierra Vista, and she was clear enough that she convinced the driver she was okay and should be dropped off. The problem is, she left that office for the last time over thirty years ago. Even so, that’s where we found her. Up by the old high school. She retired as the county superintendent of schools in 1973.”

“So why was she at the high school?”

Dennis abandoned the teddy bear in favor of climbing into his mother’s lap to freeload on some of Joanna’s toast.

“That’s where her office was when she was superintendent, but she had worked there even earlier than that. Back when the old high school was still in operation, she was the school librarian. She wanted to be a principal, but women didn’t become high school principals back in the forties and fifties, so she became a school librarian. Then she pole-vaulted over the principal job and became the county superintendent of schools instead.”

“Sounds like somebody else I know,” Butch said with a smile as he refilled Joanna’s coffee cup. “She’s okay then?”

“I think so. She was cold, of course. We took her down to the hospital so the ER doctors could check her out and wrap her in warm blankets. By the time we knew she was okay, her grandniece was on her way from Phoenix. The grandniece is hoping to find a facility closer to her home so she’ll be able to keep better track of Ms. Brinson’s care and caretakers.”

“That makes sense,” Butch said. “Why didn’t she do that to begin with?”

“Philippa Brinson lived in the San Pedro Valley all her life and she didn’t want to leave it. She was born there. That’s where she and her husband lived after they married, and it’s where she wanted to stay. Bad idea. Caring Friends is a joke. The only thing Alma DeLong cares about is her bottom line. And if I can figure out a way to charge her with reckless endangerment, I will.”

“You go, girl,” Butch said. “So what’s on the program today, aside from the bachelor party, that is?”

“A homicide investigation,” Joanna said, gulping the last of her coffee. “And I’d better head out, or they’ll start the briefing without me.”

IN ACTUAL FACT, MOST OF THE PLAYERS WERE ALREADY ASSEMBLED
in the conference room by the time Joanna arrived. In the old days, Frank would have started without her. Tom Hadlock kept everyone waiting.

“Sorry about my slow start this morning,” she apologized, settling into her usual chair. “It was a short night without much sleep, but it was a successful one. Good work, guys, and good work on the media contacts, Tom,” she added, addressing her chief deputy. “Without your making that ten o’clock news slot, we might have had an entirely different outcome on Philippa Brinson.”

Hadlock accepted the praise with a self-conscious nod. “Marliss Shackleford isn’t too thrilled about it,” he said with a mirthless chuckle. “She just called to give me an earful about giving a scoop to the Tucson media while ignoring the locals.”

Marliss, a reporter for the local paper the
Bisbee Bee
, had long been a fly in Joanna’s ointment. In that regard, however, she had recently learned that she wasn’t alone. It turned out Marliss was every bit as much of a pain for Alvin Bernard, Bisbee’s chief of police. Now, as Tom Hadlock learned the ropes as media spokesman for Joanna’s department, Marliss was becoming Tom’s problem as well. He would have to learn how to handle her.

“Don’t let Marliss get to you,” Joanna advised. “She’s always on someone’s case. If she mentions it again, you might point out to her that the so-called locals don’t have a ten o’clock news broadcast. If we’d had to wait until this morning’s paper to put out our missing persons announcement, Philippa Brinson might well have succumbed to hypothermia. In that case Alma DeLong would be sitting in jail and facing a possible homicide charge.”

“She may be anyway,” Deb Howell said. “I just got off the phone with a woman named Candace Welton. She’s the daughter of a woman who was a patient at Caring Friends. Her mother, Inez Fletcher, developed a severe infection that turned into sepsis. When she died, the physician who works with the facility listed the cause of death as natural causes, but the daughter thinks the infection started as a result of an untreated bedsore. Her older brother, Bob, was evidently in charge of making the mother’s final arrangements. The daughter didn’t ask for an autopsy at the time. She was told that because her mother’s death was due to natural causes, she’d have to pay for an autopsy herself. She didn’t have one done because she didn’t have the money. But she’s heard about the Brinson situation, and she’s asking for one now.”

“She’s willing to have her mother’s body exhumed?”

Deb nodded. “That’s what she said.”

“If the brother was in charge of arrangements, we’ll probably have to clear the exhumation with him as well,” Joanna said. “In
the meantime, I’ll talk to Dr. Machett about it and see what he has to say.”

Joanna had no doubt that if George Winfield were still in charge, the investigation would be given an immediate go-ahead. With Guy Machett at the helm, she wasn’t so sure.

“What else?” Joanna asked, looking around the table. Jaime Carbajal raised his hand. “I have an appointment with Chuck Savage later on this morning. He’s bringing me a copy of the surveillance tape from the Lester Attwood homicide.”

“From the camera by the gate?”

Jaime nodded. “According to Chuck, he and his brother installed that camera just recently—only a week or so ago. He also said that when Mr. Attwood found out about it, he was upset. He claimed that if they were putting in a camera, it must be because they didn’t trust him, and Chuck Savage told me confidentially that was true. They didn’t want to hurt their stepmother’s feelings, so they hadn’t let on about it to her, but they had heard Attwood was back in the chips—that he seemed to have more money than he should have had. They decided to check up on him.

“They set up the system so there was a video recorder and monitor in Attwood’s trailer. The tape from that is missing. Luckily for us, they also created a feed to a second off-site recorder, one Mr. Attwood knew nothing about. That’s the one we’ll be getting a copy of later today.”

“Great. What about the crime scene?” Joanna looked around the table and realized her crime scene investigator, Dave Hollicker, wasn’t there. “Where’s Dave?” she asked.

“His wife called in and said he didn’t get home from photographing the Caring Friends scene until after five this morning,” Tom replied. “I told her to let him sleep until he woke up.”

“So we don’t have photos from either scene?” Joanna asked.

“Not yet. We’ll have to take a look at those later, but he did tell me that he found a spot at the far corner of the Action Trail property where it looked like somebody did some pretty heavy loading and unloading. At least three vehicles were involved, along with lots of movement going back and forth.”

“A drug-smuggling operation, maybe?” Joanna asked.

“Maybe,” Jaime said. “We’ll know more once we see the tape.”

Without much more to discuss on the homicide situation, the detectives went on their way, leaving Joanna and Tom Hadlock to go over more routine matters. They had finished and were about to leave the conference room when Tom added one parting comment.

“When we were on the phone, Marliss Shackleford asked about Frank’s party tonight,” he said. “I told her no comment.”

“That’s correct,” Joanna said. “It’s a private party. No comment is the right answer.”

It was close to midnight before we finally got back home after our side trip to Black Diamond and our late-night dinner. Mel fell into bed and was out like a light. I love the woman dearly, but the truth is, she snores. Most of the time it doesn’t bother me, but it did that night, mostly because Tom Wojeck’s hairy-chested coffee, combined with indigestion from our late-night dinner, left me tossing and turning. Finally I gave up on sleeping altogether. I climbed out of bed and went into the room that’s now our combination family room/office.

I spend a lot of time there now that my recliner has been permanently banished from the living room. I don’t blame Mel for insisting that if I refused to opt for a new one, the old one would have to disappear from the living room. The furniture she bought
for the living room is stylish and surprisingly comfortable. And, much as I hate to admit it, the recliner no longer measures up.

For one thing, the poor old thing lists badly to one side these days. I had it recovered with leather a long time ago, but even good leather doesn’t last forever. It’s developed a certain sway to the cushions. And the last time the kids were here, I caught Kayla jumping on it. By the time the grandkids went back home, the recliner had lost the benefit of full motion. It no longer goes all the way up or all the way down. In other words, the recliner is a bit like me—a little butt-sprung and with a hitch in its get-along.

I sat there for a while looking at the city lights playing off the low-lying clouds and thinking about Mama Rose. Finally I picked up my laptop and logged onto the Internet, put in my LexisNexis password, and went looking for Rose Marie Brotsky. And found plenty. Her recent history wasn’t nearly as colorful as her earlier history, but as the owner of the Silver Pines Mobile Home Park, she was in the news. A lot.

Somewhere along the way, Mama Rose had missed the memo about not fighting city hall. Just as she had told us earlier that evening, she and her lawyers had taken on the local city council and city manager and had won one round after another. The city had tried to shut down Silver Pines based on the fact that the place harbored registered sex offenders—although, for the most part, former hookers are sex offenders in only the broadest sense of the word. The city next claimed that the mobile home park was too close to a local elementary school, even though the school had been built long before Mama Rose became the owner of the property. But that hadn’t worked either. A new survey, conducted at Mama Rose’s expense and using modern GPS technology, had determined her property was 2.3 inches to the good. After that, the city had tried to condemn the trailer park under eminent domain
so they could sell it to a developer. Her lawyers had succeeded in stopping that one in its tracks as well. In the process, Mama Rose had become something of an idol to property-rights-minded people everywhere.

But if articles about Mama Rose were in abundance, I found no mention of Tom Wojeck, Thomas Wojeck, or even Tommy Wojeck. It seemed he had left Seattle PD and fallen into a hole of utter obscurity. If he had taken up with Mama Rose, a lady of ill repute, it was possible there was more to his quiet exit from the force than anyone had ever let on, and that left me with one option.

When you work partners with a guy, you pretty much have to know everything about him—good, bad, and indifferent. It’s the only way you can be sure that when push comes to shove, he’ll have your back covered. Or not. And if not turns out to be the case, your very life may be at risk. It seemed reasonable to me that if Tommy Wojeck had left the department with some kind of blemish on his record, Big Al Lindstrom would know all about it. He’d also know where the bodies, if any, were buried.

In order to find out for sure, I’d have to go see Big Al in person and ask him. The big question in my mind that morning was whether or not I’d have nerve enough to do it.

Al Lindstrom had turned in his badge, pulled the plug, and retired from Seattle PD shortly after being shot in the gut while trying to protect an endangered homicide witness, a little five-year-old boy named Benjamin Harrison Weston. Ben Weston Senior, little Ben’s daddy, had also worked for the department. Senior had been about to unmask a whole gang of crooked cops when someone had broken into the family home in Rainier Valley and slaughtered the whole family—every one of them except for little Benjamin. He had fallen asleep in a closet during a long-drawn-out game of hide-and-seek. That was the only reason he was still
alive—the only reason little Benjy hadn’t died that night along with the rest of his family.

Big Al Lindstrom and Ben Senior had been friends, and Big Al took those senseless murders very personally. In trying to protect Ben Junior, he had also taken a bullet. He had recovered from his wounds enough to come back to work for a while, but something had changed for him. His heart was no longer in the job. He told me he had put in his time and now he needed to spend some time with his family. I have to confess that, once he was gone, I more or less forgot about him. Out of sight; out of mind.

I suspect I’m not alone there. Women seem to hang on to their friends with real tenacity. Men don’t. I’ve heard it claimed that’s due to our being so egotistical that we don’t care about anyone but ourselves. I still keep up with Ron Peters and Ralph Ames on a regular basis, but other than those two, most of my male friendships, which were usually job-related, have fallen by the wayside.

When it came to Big Al Lindstrom, I didn’t even know if he was still around. It was possible that he and his wife, Molly, might well have sold out and turned into snowbirds. I doubted he had corked off. If that had happened, I’m sure someone from Seattle PD would have let me know. I remembered hearing that he’d gone in for quadruple bypass surgery a while earlier—was it a year or so ago, or maybe longer?—and I’d even sent a get-well card, but I had been too caught up with my own life—with my new job and my new relationship with Mel—to pay much attention to anyone else. Now I felt guilty because I hadn’t made time to go see him—not while he was in the hospital and not later, after he got out.

Wrestling with the question of whether or not I was a worthy friend, I finally drifted off to sleep—with the laptop on my lap. I
awakened to find Mel standing over me, shaking her head in disgust. She was up, dressed, ready to go to work, and holding a cup of coffee in her hand.

“You spent the whole night in that chair?” she demanded, passing me the cup. “Are you nuts? Just you wait. By tonight your back will be killing you.”

The truth was, now that I was awake, my back was already killing me, but I wasn’t about to admit it, not to her.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

She rolled her eyes and then held up her cell phone. “I just got off the phone with Harry,” she said. “I told him what we learned last night. He wants all hands on deck and in Federal Way ASAP. Everyone else will be canvassing Silver Pines. I’m supposed to start with Denny’s, since that’s where Marina was supposedly working at the time of her disappearance. Care to join me?”

It was a fair question. And it shouldn’t have been hard to answer, but it was. During our dinner at the 13 Coins, I somehow hadn’t mentioned that Tom Wojeck and I had once shared a partner. I can see being squeamish about talking about former spouses or girlfriends with new spouses or girlfriends, but the truth was Big Al was a part of my old life, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring him into my new one.

“I’ve got something I want to check out first,” I told her. “I’ll come down in my own car.”

She gave me one of her freeze-your-balls blue-eyed stares. “Okeydokey,” she said cheerily, “but do me a favor. Don’t leave home without taking some Aleve.”

In the old days, if Karen had said those same words, I probably would have regarded them as nagging. Now I recognized them for what they are—one person looking out for another.

“Thanks,” I said. “I will. And once I get there, shall we do lunch?” I added.

She gave me a brushing kiss on her way past. “You tell me. Call me later.”

Forty-five minutes after that, I headed for Big Al’s place in Ballard’s Blue Ridge neighborhood. Despite two cups of coffee, two Aleve, a very long shower, my back was in a world of hurt.

Big Al and Molly Lindstrom’s Craftsman bungalow still looked much the same as it had back when he and I were partners, including that awful night when I had come here straight from a crime scene to tell Molly that her seriously wounded husband had been transported to Harborview Hospital. The small front yard was pristine, without a weed in sight. The azaleas on either side of a small wooden porch were awash in bright pink blossoms. They looked far more cheerful than I felt. Since I hadn’t called in advance to let Molly and Big Al know I was coming, I wasn’t sure of how I’d be received. But I put my misgivings aside and rang the bell. What was the worst that could happen? I’d either find out Big Al had died while my back was turned or he’d be so disgusted when I finally showed my face that he’d bodily throw me out of the house.