Damage Control (21 page)
D
ANA STARTED WITH
the most recent news articles and worked backward using a combination of different search engines that included the words “Meyers,” “Senator,” and “Elizabeth Adams.” She had no trouble finding articles in the
Post-Intelligencer
and
Seattle Times
archives—the couple had become Seattle’s darlings, and with Meyers’s announcement that he intended to run for president, he had been in the news even more than usual. The public, it seemed, could not get enough of the attractive couple. Local and national papers printed an array of articles that ranged from Meyers’s bold ideas on domestic economic policies and foreign affairs to the types of food he and his wife preferred. When the
Times
ran an article detailing the color schemes Elizabeth Meyers had chosen to decorate their home in the Highlands—an $18 million gated compound—there was a run on the wallpaper patterns and paint selections.
With long dark hair and an olive complexion, Elizabeth Meyers contrasted sharply with her husband’s beach-boy good looks. The articles described her as shy and demure in public, which also contrasted with his charismatic charm. It was no wonder she evoked memories in both appearance and demeanor to a young Jacqueline Kennedy, and the fact that she was just thirty-five encouraged the comparisons. Dana realized that Elizabeth, maybe even more than her husband, was the reason why the national publications had dubbed the campaign, “A Return to Camelot.”
Dana wasn’t sure what exactly she was searching for in the articles, but William Welles’s description of the Elizabeth Meyers he had met continued to resonate. She suspected somewhere in the articles there was a clue to her brother’s death that would lead to the man who had him killed. She made notes on a yellow legal pad, trying to find some connection, some common theme, but at the moment saw none. Saturday night Meyers and his wife would kick off his fund-raising campaign at a five-thousand--dollar-per-plate dinner at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle, but it had already been a busy week. He had campaigned in California, Oregon, and Arizona before returning to Seattle to dedicate a youth sports field that would bear his family’s name. At each event, faithfully at his side, stood his wife.
The doorbell rang. It sounded like the outdoor wind chimes. Dana recalled that Logan had sent a police officer to watch the house. She walked across a suspended bridge—which shook like her office floor when Marvin Crocket roamed the hallways—and down the spiral staircase to the entryway. The water-fall cascaded into the pond, and she saw the flick of a red-orange tail of a carp. In the entry stood something much uglier and predatory.
J
ACK
R
UBY HAD
perspired through his blue cotton dress shirt, and all the ice water in the pitcher on the table was not going to cool him down. He’d stained the collar, underarms, and sleeves. Like a leaky faucet, great globules of perspiration formed on his forehead as quickly as he wiped it with his handkerchief. Logan feared they’d have to wrap the overweight man in cold damp towels, to keep him hydrated, the way they wrapped whales that beached themselves.
It wasn’t the temperature that was making Ruby sweat. The room in the Seattle Police Department’s renovated downtown headquarters on Fifth Avenue was air-conditioned. It was the man’s nerves. Ruby wanted to do the right thing. He just didn’t want anyone to know he was doing the right thing. He apparently had convinced himself, or really wanted to believe that he could profess his sins and leave the booth as if stepping from a church confessional, completely absolved, free to go and sin no more, anonymous except in the eyes of God. Instead, he was sitting in a stiff wooden chair, fidgeting with a ballpoint pen and sweating buckets.
Logan paced an area to Ruby’s right, waiting while two uniformed officers argued about the various hookups between the television and the VCR. There was a lively discussion regarding the definition of the terms “input” and “output” and whether they referred to the cable to the VCR or the cable to the television. As the discussion lingered, Logan tried to calm Ruby with casual conversation, but he’d barely spoken a word since Logan slid from the booth at McCormick’s and told Ruby they were taking a ride together. On one level, Logan felt sorry for the man. He didn’t view Ruby as a hypocrite, as some might. He saw him as a God-fearing family man 95 percent of the time and a sinner the other 5 percent. It was the other 5 percent that usually got people in trouble. That was universal. The 5 percent was when people succumbed to human weakness or did something plain stupid. The 5 percent had put Jack Ruby in contact with a prostitute and the Emerald Inn. It should have gotten him killed. Unfortunately, in an investigation with little for Logan to hang his hat on, he couldn’t pardon the man. Ruby was the stroke of luck he needed—what every investigation eventually needed. To Logan, Ruby had been in the right place at the right time, no less a gift from the same God whose benevolence Ruby now undoubtedly sat questioning.
A uniformed officer knocked on the door and handed Logan three VCR tapes. “These are the newscasts for the major networks the past three nights. For what it’s worth, Giacoletti says he remembers the story this guy’s talking about and thought it was on a couple nights ago. Said he always watches CBS because they have the better newscasters. He thinks the story came on right before the sports.”
Logan flipped through the tapes to the one marked CBS. “Great. Now all I need to do is find someone with an IQ high enough to figure out how to work the damn VCR.”
D
ANA CONTEMPLATED RUNNING
but fought against that instinct. She couldn’t run—not with her ribs pounding a steady ache from no more physical effort than taking a breath. The man standing on Michael Logan’s entry would catch her before she reached the living room. And running would only tip him off that Dana knew he was not Detective Daniel Holmes. Logan had also told her the man who’d killed Laurence King was an excellent shot. He’d likely pick Dana off before she made it to the stairs. Her one chance was to remain calm and to remember that she possessed the one thing the man wanted—the earring. He wouldn’t kill her until he had it. And that gave Dana a chance.
“Ms. Hill, I’m Detective Holmes. We met Saturday at your brother’s. The door was unlocked.”
She did her best to force a smile. “Detective Holmes. Of course. I’m sorry. You surprised me. I was wondering how I recognized you.”
He pointed to the bandage on her forehead. “You appear to have been hurt.”
“Just a bump on the head from an accident.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Detective Logan asked that I stop by and make sure you’re doing all right.”
Dana looked past him to the dark blue American-made vehicle. “Yes, he indicated there would be an officer here at any moment. Thank you, but I’m fine. There’s no need to trouble yourself.”
“No trouble. I live out in this direction. I told Mike I’d be happy to come and get you.”
“Get me?” She tried to disguise the tension in her voice.
“Mike would like you to come with me.”
“Mike asked me to wait here.”
The man shrugged. “Change of plans, I guess.” He looked up at the sky. “You might want to bring a coat. The weather has turned. Forecast indicates a storm is moving in.”
Dark clouds had spread across the sky like a pool of spilled ink. Dana stepped back from the entry toward the staircase. “All right. Just let me get my coat—”
The man stepped in. “Beautiful place Mike has here. It’s really something to behold.” He looked at Dana with hollow dark eyes. His grin brought the image of a jack-o’-lantern. “Oh, and Mike said something about bringing an earring with you. He said you’d know what he was talking about.”
L
OGAN HELD THE
remote control, fast-forwarding through a story about a fire in Yellowstone National Park. Halfway through the first tape, Jack Ruby looked like a man with a heart condition waiting for a T-bone steak to hit the table—eager for the taste but nervous about what it could do to him. The tape hummed forward, the newscasters’ stuttered movements making them look like people in an old newsreel.
Ruby finally spoke. “You understand why this could be so embarrassing. Something like this, well, it’s bound to generate a lot of publicity, and my three girls—”
“Keep watching, Jack.” Logan pointed to the television. “I’ll do everything possible to protect your identity and your family.”
“I’ll be kicked off the PTA board for sure, and I could never show my face in church again.” Ruby looked up at him like a bassett hound, jowls sagging, eyes forlorn.
“Look on the bright side. You could very well be dead. And if not this time, maybe the next. Prostitutes aren’t the most upstanding citizens, and that motel has a history of violence.” Ruby grimaced as if in pain. To have escaped with his life didn’t appear to be much consolation to him. When the broadcast went to a commercial break, Logan handed Ruby the remote control. “If you see something familiar, pause it. I’m going to make a telephone call.”
“Do you think this guy could really work for Senator Meyers?”
Logan pulled open the door and unsnapped his cell phone from his belt. “You sure about what you saw?”
Ruby nodded. “I’m sure. Like I said, I won’t forget that face for as long as I live.”
Logan pointed at the VCR. “You’ll let me know.” He turned to leave, already punching in the number to his home.
“That’s it,” Ruby shouted. His thick fingers fumbled with the keypad of the remote control. The tape continued to spin forward. “Dammit. I can’t stop it.”
Logan retrieved the remote and pressed the play button. The newscasters’ movements slowed from cartoon-character speed to normal.
“Back it up,” Ruby said, eyes fixed on the screen.
Logan hit rewind, and together they watched Robert Meyers walk backward up steps into a building. Then the television cut back to the news studio. Logan hit play, and Meyers walked back down the steps, his wife just behind him. The camera moved in for a close-up. Meyers waved with both hands over his head to a group of enthusiastic supporters carrying signs that read M
EYERS FOR
P
RESIDENT
.
“This is it,” Ruby whispered. He slid to the edge of his chair. The back legs lifted off the linoleum, the front legs bearing the brunt of his weight. “Not yet. Not yet. There!” He lunged forward. The chair slipped out from under him, and he fell as if plunging down a slide, his backside landing hard on the floor. He teetered over, rolling to his knees. “That’s him.” He pointed at the screen, his finger touching the glass. “That’s the guy.”
D
ANA WALKED BACK
up the stairs to the kitchen. “Let me get my purse,” she said. “I’ll just be a minute.”
Her purse remained on the unfinished counter, the plywood covered with waterproof paper and chicken wire, the edges framed with metal strips that extended an inch above the counter. Logan had also left his tools there: tin snips, a hacksaw and hammer, and an assortment of screwdrivers, tile-cutting pliers, and a small crowbar.
Because the house was open, with high-pitched ceilings, Dana heard the man walking below her. She yelled over her shoulder, “Here it is.” She picked up the purse. “Give me a moment to use the bathroom.”
The telephone on the counter rang. When she answered it, Logan didn’t bother to say hello. “We have him. I think we have him.”
“No, I’m sorry. He’s not home right now.” Dana tried to maintain a flat, even tone despite her anxiety.
“What? Dana? The man I met, he’s legitimate. He was in the motel the night Laurence King was killed. He can identify the kill—”
“No, but I would be happy to take a message for him.” She looked over her shoulder.
Logan paused, but for only a second. “Dana? Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
“Yes. I’m hoping he’ll be home any minute.”
“Someone is there,” he said.
“Absolutely.”
“Is it the same man who came to your brother’s home?”
“Yes.”
“Is the police officer there?” he asked quickly.
“No. I’m a friend of Detective Logan.”
Now she heard the panic in his voice. “Can you get to my bedroom? I keep a gun in the nightstand. You have to flip off the safety.”
“Maybe, but that could be difficult. A Detective Holmes is here, however. He’s taking me to meet Mike. I could deliver—” Before she could finish, she heard a click.
Then the line went dead.
D
O YOUR BEST
to stall. Do not get in a car with him. Dana?”
Logan looked at his phone. The call had ended. “Shit.” He rushed back into the room where Ruby sat waiting to sign a sworn statement, and grabbed his coat from the back of a chair. “You’re free to go.”
“But—”
Logan rushed down the hallway, his pace quickening to a dead run, people getting out of his way. He pushed the speed dial on this phone as he slowed to take an interior stairwell to the underground garage. “Carole,” he shouted into the phone. “Where’s that patrol car you sent to my house? Why not? Have you heard from him?” Logan pushed through a heavy security door into the garage. “Then get ahold of the local police in Issaquah and the fire department. Tell them you have an emergency. I want any cars in the area, fire, ambulance, whatever you can get.” He paused to field her question. “My house! Send them to my house!”
D
ANA THREW HER
purse into the refrigerator, the only place she could think to hide it, but as she looked around the kitchen, she was struck by a sudden, seemingly incomprehensible, and incongruous memory. In her mind, she saw William Welles sitting calmly in his rocking chair, fingering the tiny earring with his rough fingertips.
“Why design it at all?”
Dana had asked him.
“Why would you create a piece like that, a piece that represents sorrow and pain?”
“Because to not create it would have made me just as blind. To see the world and those who live in it is to see the good as well as the evil. We cannot see beauty if we do not see what is ugly. We cannot feel joy if we do not feel pain. We cannot smile if we cannot cry.”
“But that wasn’t the only reason, was it?”
she had asked.
“That wall you spoke of?. It was to protect her, wasn’t it?”
“Can you believe such a thing?”
She opened the refrigerator, removed the earring from her purse, and slid it in her bra. Then she reached back into her purse until she felt a cylindrical dispenser and shoved it beneath her bra on the other side. She closed the fridge and walked back to the staircase, peering over the railing. She saw no sign of the man. She slapped at the light switch, turning off the lights. With the dark clouds, the ambient lighting paled to a dusk gray. Every movement she made echoed up to the cathedral ceiling. The man would hear every step she took. She needed to get to the gun in Logan’s bedroom, but his loft was on the other side of the house, across three bridges. And even if she was able to retrieve it, she had never fired a gun in her life. She had no idea what Logan had meant about a “safety.” Besides, if the man had been listening to their conversation, he’d also know where she was going.
She started across the suspended bridge connecting the kitchen to the office loft, felt it vibrate, and was again struck by an unmistakable image. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to see it vividly. Then she opened them and turned back to reconsider the tools on the kitchen counter.
T
HERE WAS NO
easy way to get home, not with a bridge to cross the lake and traffic on I-90 already heavy with the afternoon commute that wouldn’t let up until Logan took the exit for Cougar Mountain. He drove with one hand on the wheel, weaving in and out of traffic. With his free hand, he continued to punch the recall button on his telephone. He asked Carole for an update on the local police and fire department’s progress getting to his home.
“You have one fire truck on the way. No police.”
“No police?” he nearly screamed into the phone. “Why the hell not?”
“Issaquah has an armed robbery in progress at a Bartell drugstore. The man is threatening to kill thirty hostages. All rescue and trained medical personnel are either there or on their way there.”
He shut off the phone and dropped it on the passenger seat. The speedometer on the Austin Healey looked like a windshield wiper—accelerating one moment, downshifting and braking the next. He shot through the Mercer Island Tunnel, the yellow lights ticking past him at eye level. When the car emerged from the tunnel, Logan was still at least fifteen minutes away.
D
ANA STRUGGLED TO
control her breathing. Waves of nausea swept over her. She went over her plan again while continuing to listen for sounds below. The lofts were interconnected in a circular manner. The man could come from only one of two directions, and it was her intent to limit him to the spiral staircase.
She picked up the remote control to the stereo and started back across the bridge. Eight feet long, it was suspended by spring-loaded clips resembling robotic clamps that gripped metal poles on each side. She aimed the remote at the stereo in Logan’s den and pressed the power button. The front of the stereo burst to life in pulsating color. Guitars exploded from speakers throughout the house like the din of a shotgun blast echoing in a metal drum. An AC/DC CD had been loaded to play. As the singer’s voice screeched throughout the house, Dana dropped the remote control in the sink. Then she gathered herself, exhaled, and started down the spiral staircase. The man appeared from the shadows at the base of the stairs. Dana turned and started back up, but her injuries slowed her to an awkward hobble, and her ribs ached with each sudden movement. The staircase shook below her; the man was climbing quickly. At the top step, she felt his hand grip her ankle. She held the railing and kicked at him with her other foot, managing to pull free. Stumbling forward, off balance, she fell against the unfinished counter. The metal strip dug into the bruised flesh over her ribs, and the pain took the last of the strength from her legs. She collapsed to her knees.
Just as quickly, the man was on her.
He turned her over, sitting on her, one hand on her throat, cutting off the flow of oxygen. The room spun. The images blurred. He leaned down, screaming over the clatter of the stereo, “Where’s the earring?”
“Don’t have it.” She spit her words through clenched teeth. The pain made her more angry than scared. “Logan took it with him.”
The man’s eyes widened, indicating he hadn’t considered that possibility. Then he pulled her to her feet and pressed the barrel of a gun against the bandage on her forehead. “The earring, or you die here.”
L
OGAN DOWNSHIFTED, TAKING THE TURNS
of Cougar Mountain Road at a ridiculous speed. Thunder rumbled and shook the mountain. Dark clouds had descended upon the top, swirling into a funnel cloud and turning the sky and woods dark. Then the clouds opened, releasing a torrent of water and driving wind. Logan fought the curves in the road, the tires of the Austin Healey struggling against centrifugal force. The cell phone on the passenger seat rang. Logan flipped it open. “Carole? Hang on.”
He downshifted, slowing to make the turn onto the dirt road. The back tires spun in the loose gravel, the car nearly fishtailing out of control. Logan corrected and punched the gas, and the sports car shot forward around a blind turn. The red brake lights of the fire engine were suddenly windshield-high, flashing. Logan slammed on the brake pedal, the car skidding to a stop inches behind the truck.
“The fire truck cannot get up the road,” Carole was yelling. “It can’t make the turns. They say there is no place to turn around.”