Fury (27 page)

Wednesday, September 26
3:04
P.M.
Day 6 + 4

Butler Parking Garage. All the way down to the bottom, he’d said. Five floors. As close to three o’clock as he could make it.

The oily grit on the floor caused Corso’s shoes to slip with nearly every step. The place smelled like they’d used urine instead of water to mix the concrete. The only parked car was a ’69 Pontiac convertible. Red. Ghetto sled extraordinaire. All fins and flourishes. The four flat tires and the inch and a half of dust suggested it had been a while since this baby had cruised the Malt Shoppe.

Two thirds of the way down his esophagus, the glass of milk was losing a titanic battle with the chili. Felt like he had a candle in his chest. Shoulda held the onions.

It was seven after three when a dim green bulb came on over the elevator. The door slid back with a bump, but nobody stepped out. From where he was, Corso could just make out the tip of a toe holding the door open.

The sound of his slipping shoes ricocheted around the walls as he made his way over. Wald. Standing at the front of the elevator car. Fresh from the funeral in his dress blues. Sick expression on his face.

“I want two promises from you,” he said.

“Like?”

“First I want to make damn sure I’m clean on these.” He waved a large manila envelope. “They’re clean from my end. You make sure they stay clean from yours. It gets out I had anything to do with this, I might as well just transfer to internal affairs with the rest of the rats.”

“You have my word on it. What else?”

Wald stared at Corso long and hard. “I want to hear that I won’t be seeing you again. Or hearing from you. Or anything. This needs to be the last time I ever lay eyes on you.”

Corso grinned. “You could hurt a guy’s feelings talking like that, Wald.”

The cop stiffened. “I’m not in the mood, Corso. I buried a fellow officer this afternoon. The fact that I didn’t much like him or that you didn’t much like him or that he wasn’t much of a cop…you know…somehow, when it came to putting him in the ground, none of that mattered. He still had parents and a sister and her kids sitting there. And his dying still”—he searched for a word—“diminishes…his death diminishes all of us. Individually and as a department.” He held out the brown envelope. Grimaced. “And now I’m going to contribute to this debacle,” he said disgustedly. “As if we don’t look bad enough already.”

Corso took hold of the envelope. Wald hung on. The envelope swung between them, like one of those old pictures of the Great White Father and the Indians signing a treaty and then holding it up for all to see.

“I thought about lying to you. Telling you it wasn’t there. But you’re so goddamn insistent, you’d just get somebody else to check it out for you. I thought about tearing out the pages. Burning them. Telling you to go fuck yourself.”

“So…what stopped you?”

“I don’t know,” he said after a moment. “I really don’t.”

Wald released his grip on the envelope. Corso let it fall to his side. Wald opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it. Punched the button.

She picked it up on the tenth ring.

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey yourself.”

“How you doin’?”

“Fine. You?”

“I’m a little sore,” he said. “Musta used a few muscles I haven’t used in quite a while.”

She laughed. “One in particular.”

“That one’s fine. It’s the rest of me that’s broke down.”

“Must be middle age,” she teased.

A crackle of static ran through the line and then faded to silence.

“I’ve been calling—” he began.

“I had it unplugged.”

They both spoke at once; he heard her laugh.

“About the other night…” she began.

“What night was that?”

“Don’t start with me, Corso.”

“You always say that.”

“I don’t generally drink that much.”

“Do we have to talk about it?”

“Yes, Corso…I know it’s your worst nightmare, but we do.”

“Then let’s do it in person,” Corso said. “I’d feel better about it that way.”

“I’ve got a lot to do today.”

“Dinner?”

Pause. “Where?”

“Depends on what you’re in the mood to eat.”

“Red meat,” she said. “And thick red wine.”

“Metropolitan Grill. Eight o’clock.”

“Corso…you know, just because we…we…you know…doesn’t mean we have to make like we’re going steady or anything.”

Longer pause. “Look…if you don’t want to…”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Eight o’clock.”

“Hawes.”

“Corso.”

“What—you’ve had a change of heart and want to get back into the newspaper game?”

“Maybe we get you that Pulitzer nomination after all.”

“How so?”

“Maybe help your boy Newton make his bones while we’re at it.”

“I’m all ears.”

Except for a single “holy shit,” muttered about halfway through, he stayed that way until Corso finished talking.

“Wait a second,” he said. A series of clicks came over the line. Two minutes passed. Then Hawes’s voice again. “Mrs. V.’s on with us,” he said.

“And you’ve got all this documented?” she wanted to know.

“Big as life. I’ve got copies of the evidence room sign-out sheets for both files. He signed the Mitchell woman’s file out the day after Himes was arrested. He’s checked the Doyle file nearly twice a month for over three years.”

“Will your source come forward, if necessary?” she asked.

“No. My source is untouchable. If we’re not prepared to go to the wall to protect the source, then we should drop a quarter and give the story away.”

They thought it over. “What did you have in mind for breaking the story?” she asked.

Corso told her. Hawes whistled. “You are a troublemaker, aren’t you?”

“It’s more dramatic that way. They always field questions at the end. All the local affiliates will have a team there. That way, Newton’s face ends up all over the evening news. Get his name in the lead paragraph in every paper, coast to coast.”

“And what do you get out of this?” Hawes asked.

“I get to crawl back under my rock.”

“I wish we had more,” Mrs. V. said.

“Don’t we always.”

“You’re doing that ‘we’ thing again,” Hawes said.

“I’ve got an idea, though.”

“Shoot.”

“Let me ask you a question, Hawes. If you were stepping out on your wife, how would you handle it.”

“I’d double my life insurance. Louise ever caught me—”

“Seriously. If you were conducting a little liaison on the side, where would you meet your sweetie? Would you find a little love nest, where nobody knows either of you and stick with it? Meet there all the time? Or would you move around from place to place, for a little variety?”

“I’d find a place and stick with it.”

“Me too,” said Corso.

“Wallingford.”

“That’s it. Send Newton and anybody else you can spare. Have them show pictures around. Especially the hotels and motels. She lived with her mother. He was creeping around on his girlfriend. They had to be doing the hokeypokey somewhere. Chances are that if the Ziller woman saw them together, so did somebody else.”

“You know, Mr. Corso…whether Mr. Newton or anyone else breaks the news, the smart money is going to figure the story came through you.”

“They’ll have to find me.”

Thursday, September 27
9:23
A.M.
Day 6 + 5

At the Fairway buoy, less than fifty feet of water slipped beneath the hull. He reached up and set the autopilot for 3:39. Magnetic. The twin Lehman diesels purred at two thousand RPMs. Turning into the wind at a stately twelve knots, the bow plowed contentedly into endless rows of rising green waves, which curled but did not break. Overhead, the sun looked like a tarnished nickel trying desperately to assert itself in a silver sky. The water ahead shimmered with silver light.

The depth sounder began to question itself as the bottom fell away. Sixty-five feet and then a hundred and five. One-fifty. And then suddenly the sounder lost touch. Its ultrasonic impulses no longer able to bounce off the rapidly retreating bottom.

To the east, the Magnolia Bluffs loomed white against the haze. He lifted the binoculars. Picture windows and planter boxes. Glass-topped tables and furled umbrellas. Hawaiian torches around the patio. An empty hammock hanging thick and wet between two trees.

The sounder chattered again at two hundred feet, began to spew random numbers and then slid into a sustained electronic beep. He reached up and switched it off.

“What’s that thing’s problem?” she asked.

“The bottom’s too deep to read.”

“So how do you keep track of how deep it is?”

“You read the chart.”

She sat and peered at the chart for a moment, then pointed with a long fingernail. “Is this where we are?”

He bent and looked down at the chart table. “Yeah. The depth is the black numbers.”

“Six hundred feet,” she said tentatively.

“That’s about right,” he said. “It falls away in a big hurry.”

She rolled open the starboard door and gazed out at the blots of half-million-dollar houses covering the side of the hill, half a mile away. “You think they know?” she asked. “You know, that they’re like sitting there and right out here under the water it’s like the end of the world. Like the abyss.”

“Nah,” he said. “They’re just pleased to have front-row seats for the surface of things.”

They were across the shipping channel now, pointed directly at Kingston and the Kitsap Peninsula, where a pair of ferries looped gracefully around each other. She got to her feet and put an arm around his waist, slid her hand down inside the right-hand pocket of his jeans. He moved his left hand up under her hair to the back of her neck. With his right hand, he disengaged the autopilot. Took the wheel, aiming at an imaginary point in the silver foam between the ferries.

Thursday, September 27
9:23
A.M.
Day 6 + 5

Dorothy Sheridan straightened the red-white-and-blue bunting, tapped the microphones one last time, and then stepped down from the stage. The interview with Taylor and Abrams had gone well. Monica had called Tuesday night to say T. and A., as she liked to call them, were going to make Dorothy an offer, but it was Thursday, and she hadn’t heard anything. A timid voice in her head kept saying that maybe it was all for the best.

She checked her notes. First it was the kid. Robert Boyd. He was Seifort’s baby. The mayor’s Whistle-blower’s Award. Stanley’d say a few words, hand the kid the plaque and the check, and then it was her turn with the Post guy. Good Citizen Award. That was easy. She’d seen it for herself. Been there when he’d tackled poor Mr. Nisovic. Give him the check and the medal and then hand off to Chief Kesey. Promotion for Sergeant Wald and a valor commendation for Chucky Donald. She shook her head in wonder. The only thing funnier than a
Seattle Sun
employee getting an award from the mayor was Chucky Donald getting anointed for valor.

“What if somebody see me,” he demanded, “lookin’ like a goddamn FBI agent?” Put on the pissy face right away. “Those down-at-the-heel little bums you hang out wid.” She bust up laughing. “Tommy Hutton’s mama din bring so many ‘uncles’ home, him and his sisters woulda starved years ago. None of them you hang out wid got any room to talk. Them people oughta be happy jus havin ‘somethin’ new for a change.” She laughed again.

Bitch really think she funny this morning. True about Tommy’s mama, though. Woman ought to have her one of those little red dispenser things like in the bakery. Numba nineteen. Nineteen. He put a hand over his mouth so she couldn’t see his lips. They hadn’t talked about the money yet, neither. Know she gonna want him to put it in the bank…for college or some such shit. He smiled behind his hand. Check gonna be made out to him, though, so there’s hope.

Her fingers worked at his throat.

“Daddy, we have
got
to fix that tie.”

Bill Post squinted into the bathroom mirror. “What’s the matter with it?”

“It only comes halfway down your shirt, for Pete’s sake. It’s supposed to reach the top of your belt buckle. You look like Oliver Hardy.”

“Is that the fat one or the skinny one?”

“The fat one.”

Rachael ducked between his pants legs and came up under the pedestal sink. With the three of them jammed into the tiny bathroom, all Bill Post could do was turn in a circle. Nancy slid the tie out from under his collar. Tied it around her own neck and then slipped it over his head. She turned up his stiff collar. “You look like a conductor,” she said.

“Railroad?”

“Orchestra.”

She rearranged the collar. Slipped the knot into place at Bill Post’s throat. “There,” she said, patting his jacket into place. “Now you look like a hero.”

It was going well. The police auditorium in the Alaska Building was only about a quarter full, which was fine with Dorothy. She figured the recent hurricane of excitement had kept the crowd down. No parents of survivors, either. Thank goodness.

She’d done the introductions without flubbing anything. Seifort was working his way up to handing the Boyd kid the loot. Dorothy Sheridan pulled a single blue notecard from her pocket. Bill Post. Post no Bills came to mind, and she smiled.

“What we need, ladies and gentlemen,” Hizhonor was saying, “is more young men like Robert Boyd. Young men with a sense of purpose and a sense of community.” The kid sat there scowling into his lap. “It is with great pride that I introduce the recipient of this year’s Whistle-blower Award—Mr. Robert Boyd.”

The mayor offered the plaque. The kid reached over and grabbed the check instead. He carefully stashed the check in the inside pocket of his sport coat and then accepted the plaque from Stanley. Big photo-op handshake. The kid exits stage left. His mother’s been saving a seat for him at the end of the third row. She throws an arm around his shoulder, drawing him close. He looks embarrassed. Just like Brandy.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, to present our next award, Seattle Police Department spokesperson Dorothy Sheridan.”

Seems the big old doofus tackled some guy with a gun. Same guy shot that liver-lips Himes asshole. She sayin’ he might have saved the lives of a whole room fulla people, but he can’t figure out why they make a fuss about anybody for saving that piece-of-shit Himes. Oughta give the fucker wid the gun the medal. Oughta give me the money.

She ain’t said nothin’ about the money, but that sure as hell ain’t gonna last. She kept tryin’ to talk in his ear but he’s making like he’s digging every word they say onstage and can’t listen to her right now.

The red-headed lady was saying, “On behalf of the Seattle Police Department and the people of King County, I would like to present the Good Citizen Award to Mr. Bill Post.”

Doofus bust a move up to the front, grab his loot, thank about three hundred fucking people and then, finally, they’re applauding again.

We should go now, he’s thinkin’. No reason to sit through this cop shit. He looks up at her. She’s reading his mind. Pissy look. Shit.

Bill Post hung the silver medal around Rachael’s neck. She pulled it back off and dropped it on the floor with a clang. He grunted as he bent to retrieve it. He dropped it in the breast pocket of his sport coat. She’d been sitting quietly for a long time now and was getting itchy. He pulled her into his lap, where she squirmed like a fish. Just about done. Both cops had gotten their awards. Chief Kesey was going on. “Without the efforts of dedicated professional law-enforcement officers such as these, we would no longer have a society in which we could reasonably have any hope of realizing our dreams or the dreams of our children.” Rachael slid onto the floor and began playing with her shoes. The applause rose and then faded as the police spokeslady, whose name Bill Post couldn’t, for the life of him, recall at the moment, came forward and called for questions. What was the current status of Slobodan Nisovic? Mr. Nisovic was still in Harborview Medical Center. In serious but stable condition. Charges? Charges would be decided by the district attorney’s office. What about Himes? Was either Donald or Wald being reassigned? Another half a dozen questions and then a lull. Post picked Rachael up and bounced her on his knee. Nancy grabbed her purse from the floor.

“If there are no further questions,” the woman said, “I’d like to thank you all—”

A pink-cheeked guy rose from the audience. “Blaine Newton from the
Seattle Sun
,” he said. “I have a question for Chief Kesey.”