The Deader the Better (26 page)

With a little help from his secretary, I found Emmett Polster just
as he was leaving a construction site on Fifth Avenue. He was about
sixty, thin with pointed features and rimless eyeglasses. He carried
a rolled blueprint under his left arm and wore a yellow hard hat.
“Mr. Polster,” I called. He stopped and turned, so I figured I
had the right guy.

“Yes.” His nose twitched as if he were testing the wind. I
stuck my hand out. “Leo Waterman,” I enthused. “You’re a hard
man to catch up to,” I said. Always tell public employees how hard
they’re working. It matches their inner dialogue.

“Lotta work to do,” he said. “What can I do for you, Mr.
Waterman?”

When he brought a hand up to wipe the corners of his mouth, I
noticed his fingernails were bitten to the quick. I went into my good
old boy friendly act.

“I’m staying out at the Springer place. Got a bunch of friends
coming out this weekend. Gonna do a little fishing before the run is
over, and I was wondering if you could help me out with what it is
that might be the matter with the electric and the plumbing in those
guest cabins, ’cause I went around and tried everything and damned
if it don’t all work, and I noticed your name on all those red tags
and I sure don’t want to endanger anybody if there’s something,
you know, like dangerous about them.”

“To the untrained eyes, flaws in electrical or sewage systems
are not always obvious.” He said it like he’d been rehearsing it,
so I went over the top and lied.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I enthused. “I said
to myself…I said self…what do you know about this stuff? You
better get somebody who’s expert in these matters before you go
making any accusations. That’s why I’ve got a State Building
Inspector coming Friday to have a look at the systems.”

The longer I talked, the tighter his lips got. And unless I was
mistaken, some of his color had drained out at the mention of the
name
Springer
.

“You can’t be out there,” he said. “The place has been
sold to—”

“Yeah, the city, I know, but you know, the deal don’t close
till the fifteenth and we kinda figured we’d take this last
opportunity to do a little fishing.” I gave him a lewd wink. “You
know, get away from the little women for a week or so.”

When I dug a playful elbow into his ribs, he jumped a foot and
stepped back away from me. “Those structures have been banned from
commercial use.”

“Good thing we’re just a bunch of friends, then, huh?”

I saw the light bulb go on as it dawned on him who I was. He
started to put the corner of his index finger into his mouth, but
caught himself and stuck the hand in his jacket pocket. “I don’t
have to talk to you about this,” he announced. I tried to look
hurt. “That’s not very polite,” I whined. “I was just
trying—” He walked briskly over to a new Honda Accord, got in and
locked the door.

I pulled my notepad from my pocket and wrote down his plate number
as he drove off. His face was tight as a fist in the rearview mirror.
I gave him my best smile. Time to deliver the mail. Charlie would be
proud of me. Charlie Boxer had been a part-time PI and full-time con
man around the Pacific Northwest for forty years. Whenever he was
scamming anybody and it didn’t seem like things were moving along
quick enough for Charlie’s taste, he’d turn the screw a couple of
notches. The mark would wake to find a city of Seattle assessment for
thirty-two thousand dollars for sewer repairs. Or a threatening
letter from a collection agency. Or he’d come home to find that
someone had delivered six tons of coal in his driveway, exactly as
he’d been so carefully instructed over the phone. Or all of the
above.

He tried a bunch of them, but eventually found that, pound for
pound, the IRS audit packed more stress than any of the others.
Always on a Friday. Something about coming home after a week of work
to find a notification of audit that uses the bothersome clause
“considerable amounts of undeclared income” and then quotes the
federal statute for tax evasion, which uses the even more unfortunate
phrase “for a period of three to five years in a Federal
Correctional Facility.” It’s all a mistake, of course. Silly,
really. You’ll just make a call and straighten the whole thing out.
Except it’s Friday and the line’s busy. So you sweat for the
weekend, only to call on Monday and have this supposed auditor
absolutely ream you out like the filthy criminal you are and then
give you an appointment for your audit about two weeks hence. Now
you’re nervous. So you call your accountant and your attorney. Of
course, by the time they get around to your little problem, the phone
line is set on perpetual Lennon Sisters. So they call the real IRS,
who quite naturally claim they don’t know anything about it. But
having worked with these slugs before, the attorneys and accountants
take cold comfort in this claim and demand a thorough search of IRS
records before notifying their clients. You get the picture. Lenny’s
directions started from the little park in the center of town.
Tressman and his wife filed separate returns so they got one apiece.
Weston was single. I saved Polster for last, so I could end the job
with a nice fuzzy sense of satisfaction. The number they’d all soon
be calling was that of a stolen cell phone I’d borrowed from Carl,
plugged into the wall in my kitchen back in Seattle and rigged to
forward all calls to the office in the Zoo. That way nobody was going
to be able to run a caller ID number on us. Not coincidentally, the
number was going to be busy for the rest of the afternoon. Friday,
you know. That gave them the whole weekend to stew. Starting Monday,
George was going to man the phone at the Zoo during regular business
hours. I’d given him Charlie Boxer’s script, fifty bucks in cash
and a twenty-dollara-day bar tab. Terry promised to do the best he
could to keep George sober while he was working. I was keeping my
fingers crossed.

Harold and Ralph were a couple of minutes early, juiced and
sloppy. They piled in the back together, leaving me up front like the
chauffeur. I eased along the back of the stores, out into the street,
turned left, then right onto the highway. As soon as I was up to
speed, I asked, “How’d it go?”

“Not a daughter,” Ralph slurred. “A granddaughter.”

“Put on some music, will ya, Leo?” Harold said.

“Name of Pamela,” Ralph said.

“No last name?”

“Nobody knew.”

“Find somethin’ with a beat, will ya, Leo?”

“What else?”

“None of that hip hop shit, neither.”

“Like you said, he was a regular. Come in every day about nine,
went home six or seven. Nobody knew for how long. Longer than any of
them anyway.”

“Leo, will ya please—”

“Harold,” I said sharply.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t make me come back there and kill you.”

“Sheeesh…what a grouch,” he mumbled.

“What else, Ralph?”

“Just tryin’ to have a little…”

“It’s all anybody knew. Nobody heard from him since he left.
One guy name of Swede says he heard the granddaughter don’t let him
drive no more.”

“…cause some people got no goddamned…”

The church was still closed and empty. The Steelhead Tavern open
and full.

On the surface, it wasn’t much. No help on a name or a number.
There was, however, the fact that the guy had been a daytime regular
at Freddie’s Timbertopper since before the beginning of time. Which
in this case probably meant since the mid-seventies when his wife
died. I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway. “So…Harold.”

A sullen, “What?”

“Put yourself in Ben’s place. You’re getting way along in
years and you’ve got no choice, you’re moving in with your
granddaughter.”

“Yeah?”

“What do you do next? You’re in a new town. You know nothing
about the place, and she won’t let you drive anymore.”

He thought it over. “Have I got any money?”

“Plenty.”

“Find a new gin mill,” he said.

“Someplace I can walk to,” Ralph added.

“Better be close. He’s old,” I said. “What are his other
options?”

“If I got money, I can take a cab,” Harold reasoned.

“It’s either that or get religion,” Ralph added solemnly. I
must have thought out loud. “How many gin mills can there be in
Port Townsend?” because otherwise Harold read my mind and said,
“Lots, I hope.”

“Tomorrow I’m going to send you two to Port Townsend. First
thing I want you to do is go to all the cab companies. See if
anybody’s got an old guy coming and going from some bar every day.
If that doesn’t work, start in on the taverns.”

They reckoned how it was a filthy job, but since they felt so
highly about me personally, they’d put aside a rash of objections
and muddle through the best they could. When the Malibu emerged from
the tunnel of trees into the light of the driveway, I could sense
there was a problem. Deputy Harlan Spots was standing behind the door
of the squad car, his service revolver in his right hand and pointing
straight down at the ground. From forty feet away I could see his
hand shaking. Thirty feet in front of him, Floyd and Boris lounged
against the trunk of a blue Buick. Floyd was cleaning his nails with
a pocketknife. Boris was watching Deputy Spots with a bemused
expression. The deputy heard the sound of the tires on the gravel. He
turned and his face fell. Whoever he was expecting, we weren’t it.
I parked next to the Blazer. “Get down and stay down,” I said to
Harold and Ralph and got out. “Is there a problem?”

“Damn right there’s a problem,” Spots wheezed. “I’m
arresting these two.”

“What for?”

“For not doing what I told ’em to.”

“That’s not a crime.”

“Is too. Interfering with an officer in the performance of his
duties.”

“What duties were those?”

“Patrolling this place.”

“And they interfered with you doing that?”

“They wouldn’t get in the car “That’s not a crime,
either.”

His cheek was beginning to twitch. “Maybe you ought to get over
there with those two,” he said, “until the sheriff—”

“No,” I said. “I’ll stay right where I am, thanks.”

I heard Boris chuckle. “Dat’s vhat ve told him.”

Our little party was interrupted by the sound of tires and the
roar of an engine. Nathan Hand and Bobby Russell were out of the
Sheriff’s Crown Victoria before it stopped rocking on the springs.
Russell held a black riot gun across his chest. Hand slowly surveyed
the scene and said, “Harlan, put the gun away.” Spots looked like
he was going to cry. “Sheriff, these men—”

“Put it away,” Hand said again, softly this time. Deputy Spots
did as he was told.

“What happened here?” Hand asked. He kept asking Spots
questions. “Did they give you their identification?” Spots said
yes. “Where is it now?” Turned out to be on the driver’s seat
of the patrol car. Hand picked it up and motioned to Deputy Russell,
who came over and took the driver’s licenses back to Hand’s car.
I watched as he brought the microphone to his mouth.

“And then you told them to get in the car.”

“Uh-huh.”

Spots looked around like one of us was going to help him with the
answers.

“They said they’d rather not.”

Hand looked over at me.

“He could tell ’em to paint the patrol car yellow,” I
said“…and they wouldn’t have to do that, either. He asked for
ID. They gave it to him.”

“Harlan,” the sheriff said. “Go back to the station.”

Deputy Spots wanted to argue, but restrained himself. It took him
three tries to maneuver his car between the sheriff’s and the edge
of the cabin. We stood and watched as he chugged back up the driveway
and out of sight. Deputy Russell returned from the car. “No wants
on either of them. The big one rented the car with a Visa card in his
own name.”

The sheriff motioned with his head. Deputy Russell crossed the
gravel to Floyd and Boris and returned their driver’s licenses. He
lingered for a moment, casting what he imagined to be a hard look at
the pair, who returned the favor by looking him up and down in the
manner of tolerant parents toward a precocious child. He rested his
hand on the butt of his gun as he walked back toward Sheriff Hand.
Hand again turned his attention to me. “Didn’t figure to see you
again.”

“Thought I’d do a little fishing,” I said. He looked over at
Floyd and Boris. “And these two?”

“They’re my fishing buddies,” I said.

“Don’t much look like fishermen to me,” Hand said. “What
about you, Bobby? These two look like outdoor enthusiasts to you?”

“No sir, they don’t,” he replied. “Not sure what they look
like to me, but it sure ain’t fishermen.”

“Can the fishing buddies talk?” Hand inquired.

“Yes, ve can,” said Boris.

“It’s true,” added Floyd.

Hand stuck his tongue in his cheek and looked from one to the
other.

“What say I have a look in that car,” he said.

“What say you don’t,” said Floyd.

“Are you refusing me permission?”

“Big as life,” Floyd said, without looking up from his nails.

“Probable cause ees a vonderful ting,” said Boris. Hand
stiffened his spine even more and then turned to me.

“You know Mr. Waterman, considering what happened to you the
last time you visited our fair city, I would have thought you would
have taken your vacation plans elsewhere.”

“I’m sorry, Sheriff, if I gave you the impression that I was
here on vacation,” I said. “I am planning on doing a little
fishing, but mostly I’m going to be investigating the murder of
J.D. Springer.”

“For a client?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” I said.
Nathan Hand walked around in a small circle. “I’ve been patient
with you. Hell, my deputy here probably saved your lady friend’s
life out there on West River Road last month. But…you just don’t
seem to get the message, do you?”