Emerald City Blues (4 page)

"Maddie," Malloy looked heavenward. Praying for patience, likely. "
Please don't make this hard on us. We know you didn't do it. This isn't some kind of put-up. We just want your help solving a tough case. You yourself told me yesterday you knew Cooke socially, so I hope you'll do what's right for his sake even if you won't do it for ours. If you remember anything that might help us, leave a message for me down at the station. Dispatch can get it to me directly if it's urgent. Now, we're sorry to have troubled you." He cleared his throat and stepped toward the door, taking his cap out from under his arm and settling it in place with a practiced gesture. Neither mollified nor resigned, Sneer followed after him. His mouth was twisted in a sour line.

I made no move, so Malloy sighed and opened the door to let himself out. Sneer fixed me with a look of pure vitriol. "Men come to see women all the time," he said venomously, "but not to see you, Miss Sheehan. You might try being with a man once, just to see how it feels." And with that parting shot he ducked through the doorway.

My face was scarlet. With two swift steps I seized the door and slammed it shut as hard as I could. Bastard.

The sign read CLOSED. I knocked anyway.

Mary Louise came to the door, saw who it was, and let me in.
Her eyes were still noticeably red. "Oh, Miss Sheehan, it's been awful here these last two days, just awful." Her voice was wretched, hoarse and almost overwrought. "You don't know what it's been like, having to tell all the doctor's patients he was m- that had had passed on." Mary Louise put one wrinkled hand to her mouth for a moment and crossed herself with the other as we walked farther into the waiting room of Tommy Cooke's practice.

"I know," I told her simply, putting a gentle hand on the older woman's shoulder. "I remember it was like that when my father passed. It was like everyone in the city had to drop by and express their condolences when all I wanted was for the whole world to stop." I gave her a sympathetic half-smile. She had known my father.
Everyone had. "It must be so hard for you, having to deal with all this. Being Tommy's receptionist can't have been the easiest job in the best of times, and right now is hardly the best of times."

"Oh, my dear, you don't even know the half of it. As bad as it has been breaking the news to some of Doctor Cooke's older patients - some of them were with Dr. Cooke's father's practice and saw Thomas grow up, you know - I've never wanted to be someplace else so much as when the police came to ask me questions about him. I thought for a while they suspected I was the murderer!"

I shouldn't have been surprised. It was standard procedure in a murder investigation to visit the victim's place of business and interview his known associates. I imagined Lieutenant Sneer grilling poor Mary Louise and tried not to grind my teeth. "Oh, Mary Louise. I'm so sorry. That must have been terrible for you."

"Oh my, yes. So many questions, and I'm afraid I wasn't much help. Almost everything I knew they could have learned just by reading his daily logs. Dr. Cooke kept records of all his patient visits, you know. So meticulous! I wonder sometimes how I ever could have kept track the way he did, but it was just his way. His father, rest his soul, was the same w
ay." She crossed herself again.

"Mary, did the police take Tommy's patient log book?" She looked up, surprised. "Yes, I'm looking into things a bit myself. I'd like to get to the bot
tom of it if I can. For Tommy."

Mary pursed her lips. "Dear,
I don't mean to criticize, but you know I don't really hold with women being private investigators. The police are the ones to deal with this. What would you do if you found the murderer and he came after you? The very idea." She had scandalized herself, but it wasn't the first time I'd heard this from her. Not many people thought much of my choice of careers. "Besides, dear, the police took the patient log with them. Evidence, they said. I got a receipt...hmm, somewhere on the desk, I think."

So much for that angle. "It's all right, Mary, please don't mind me.
I'm just trying to help in whatever way I can." Time for the next line of questioning. "I wonder - I'm sure the police already asked you this, but did Tommy have any patients who were upset with him for some reason? Did he do anything unusual in the last few days, anything at all out of the ordinary?"

"Oh my, no. Dr. Cooke was always such a dear, he had a wonderful way with his patients. Such a nice man, it's a wonder he never married..." I held my tongue at that, but she was already prattling on. "Dear me, I can't imagine any of his patients being upset with him. He was such a good doctor, really caring about each one of his patients, not just their bodies but their lives, really... No, I can't say he did anything unusual or out of the ordinary in the last few days. He came in at the same time he always did, wore the same raincoat, left his wet umbrella to leak all over my nice floor..." She clucked her tongue. "I had to remind him every time, I did. Why just the other day when he came back from lunch at his club-"

A strange look came over her face then. I've seen it before, even caused it once or twice. Fear.

"What is it, Mary?" I probed gently.

"Well." She smoothed her skirt and raised her chin. "While Dr. Cooke was taking his lunch the day before yesterday, a man came by asking for him. I didn't think much of him, though he was polite enough. I never did manage to get used to all the
foreigners
being around the city." She was old enough to have been a young woman during the Klondike gold rush; I could just imagine what that must have been like. "As I said, he was polite enough, asking for Dr. Cooke, but he seemed more than a little put out to find Thomas was not in. I asked if he would care to leave a message. He said..." Rheumy eyes sought mine and her voice quavered. "He said he would
leave a message
. Just that. But the way he said it - it put a chill in my very soul." She looked down, hands trembling in her lap until she clasped them together. "He left, and I've never been so glad to see someone's back, may God be my witness."

I knew what she meant. I was feeling the same chill. But I had to know.
"Mary. What did he look like?"

"Ah...thin." She seemed startled, then focused on the memory. "Tall and thin, he was. He wore a black wool coat, long, past the knee. And a white shirt with a high collar. Gloves. And he
carried a silver-topped cane."

"Do you remember what color his eyes or hair were?" I held my breath.

"Blond," she said immediately. "Pale blond hair, and light colored eyes. I don't recall exactly, they could have been light green or grey but I couldn't swear to it now."

Great.
I had a lead, thanks to Mary and Markel. But what to do with it? Who was this man? "Can you remember anything else about him?"

"He was only here a few moments." Mary cast her eyes back into the waiting room as if picturing him there. "I remember he went out to a very new automobile when he left,
a black A-model Ford I think."

"Was he alone?"

"No... There was a driver. A foreigner, from that odd fur hat he was wearing. He was standing by the car and opened the rear door when the blond man walked up." Mary put her hand to her mouth in sudden realization, a touch of horror in her eyes. "You don't think they have anything to do with...?"

"I don't know anything at all, Mary." I patted her hand sympathetically and forced myself to speak calmly. She'd been through enough already. "I'm
simply being thorough, and I'm sure it's nothing. You've had a hard few days, but it will be better soon. I know the police will take care of this, I just know it." I stood and she followed me toward the door. "I'll come by in a few days and we'll go somewhere and have tea, just the two of us. How does that sound?"

"Oh, Miss Sheehan, that would be a godsend. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to it." The throb of gratitude in her voice was palpable.
It made me feel an utter cad, forcing her to relive those moments. I pressed her hand once more and bid her good morning.

Then I stepped out into the cold downtown wind and felt the cold steal through my coat an
d chill me through and through.

Markel’s blond devil had been here too, the day before Tommy died. The day Tommy had come to see me. The day he had found a note under his door with the word
Veniam
written on it.
I come.
The wind gusted and I pulled my trench coat closer.
Leave a message. Veniam.

I remembered the look of fear on Mary's face. I hoped my own didn't wear it as well.

I had an address.

Sure, it had cost me. But who wouldn't jump at the chance to pawn her dead father's Worshipful Master Mason ring to a seedy pawnbroker off Pioneer Square who had as much as accused her of stealing it?

The good news didn't end there. I might have depressingly little change in my pocket now, but I did have something to give me a cold, brittle smile as I walked down First Avenue: a 1923 Beretta. The small Italian pistol fit nicely in my palm, though I had begun to notice it had a tendency to grow freezing cold while it rode in
the pocket of my trench coat. The leering pawnbroker had not been able to come up with a holster rig suited for a female frame, and in the end I'd run out of patience with his attempts to paw at me. The weight of it against my leg was reassuring.

A short stop at Sears & Roebuck gave me enough ammunition to make the c
lerk ask if I planned to pay a call on the Capones, but I let it pass.
I had an address.

The logic was simple. If Mary Louise was right and the two men had been foreigners, I made them as likely to have arrived in Seattle by boat or train. Thus, they would need
the new automobile Mary had seen to get around the area. There was only one Ford dealership anywhere close to the port and King Street Station, and a new A-Model would certainly have come from there. After a short cab ride to the Ford dealer, it took no time at all to cadge a bill of sale out of the eager young man behind the counter. What is it about beautiful, commanding women that turns grown men into grinningly compliant boys?

Whatever it is, bless it. It save
d me a bribe I couldn’t afford.

The bill of sale was distressingly light on details like the name of the purchaser, but it did have a delivery address.
So it was that I found myself kneeling next to a shiny black A-model fresh off the lot. Hell, the tires were still clean. In rain-soaked, muddy Seattle that meant either it wasn't driven much, or it was still brand new. I'd used up most of the day with gumshoe work already, and night was settling in over the city as I peered around the corner of the A-model at the address I'd obtained.

It wasn't
exactly promising. The warehouse was off Harbor Avenue north of Riverside, not far from the West Seattle ferry terminal. The length of it jutted out into the waters of Elliott Bay like the aggressive chest of a waterfront prostitute trying to convince Harbor Island to let her show it a good time. There were a few lights here and there, but the building and much of the area around it were dark and indistinct. The only sounds were the lapping of the water against the pier pilings and the occasional backfire from a car driving up Admiral on the hill behind me. Across the water, downtown glowed in the darkness like a proverbial city on a hill. Those hills were a bit shorter nowadays since the Denny regrade, but the metaphor held well enough.

With the car there, I figured someone had to be inside. Maybe more than one someone. The thing was, I wasn't so sure I wanted to go right up to the door and knock just to see who would answer. Not until I had some idea who and what I was dealing with. The memory of Tommy's postcard was fresh in my memory. So was Markel's description of "that blond devil" and the look of fear on Mary Louise's face.

But hey, I was heap big private investigator, right? So get with the investigating already, girl. I lowered the brim of my father's fedora and forced myself to take a step beyond the corner of the A-model. Then another. See how easy this is? My brain tried to reason with the rest of me, but the rest of me wasn't having any of it. Primitive survival instincts kept telling me to run. I ignored them. Staying crouched at the waist, I moved step by slow step toward the north side of the warehouse. A wooden dock reeking of old fish and fresh creosote wrapped around that side of the building, giving tantalizing access to windows I might use to peer inside and get a glimpse of the car's owner. It would be nice to know what I was dealing with before walking in on a murderer.

I put my back to the north wall and moved slowly, trying to keep my footfalls soft. Nothing echoes like a dock at night. Not far ahead was a stack of crates covered with a canvas tarp. With luck, I could climb up and see through a nearby window. Ignoring the mournful call of the ferry's horn drifting across the bay, I approached the crates and began to look for a handhold.

The canvas tarp was loose. That suggested these crates were either recent arrivals, or departing in the very near future. What did the blond devil have entering or leaving the port? It was worth a little time to investigate, I decided. Right now any clue was useful. Lifting up a corner of the canvas and squinting, I tried to read the block print lettering on the side of the crate in the dim light. The closer I came, the stranger it looked. Then I understood. It was Cyrillic. I lifted the canvas higher and leaned in close beneath it, trying to see if there was more that might help me determine what was inside the crates.