Hangman (18 page)

Crime Cruise

Seattle

November 10

Zinc was as easy for Maddy to spot as Dr. Livingstone was for Stanley in darkest Africa. The scarlet tunic glared as red as an open wound.

“Zinc.”

“Maddy. Justin.”

“Hi,” said the reporter.

The Mountie shook hands and introduced them both to Alexis Hunt.

“Nice dress,” Maddy said.

“Thanks,” Alex replied. “Tonight’s attire harks back to when Zinc and I met.”

The two women looked each other over as if each thought the other a window onto Zinc’s libido.

He felt naked.

This meeting took place at the top of the gangway up from the dock as those Vancouver passengers who had arrived in Seattle by Amtrak were boarding the
North Star
, a mid-sized cruise ship. A long line of Canadian cops, lawyers, techs, crime writers, and PIs snaked up to join their American counterparts already aboard, so the four moved toward the Champagne Terrace to clear the way.

“What a ship,” said Maddy. “This cruise must cost a fortune. Where does a writers’ festival get the cash for this?”

“Drugs?” suggested Justin. “Bank robbery?”

“Actually,” Alex said, “money’s being made off us. This is a fund-raiser. Not a fund-spender.”

“Fooled me,” Maddy said. “That you’ll have to explain.”

“Vancouver makes millions off a U.S. law. Foreign ships cannot traffic between two American ports. That’s been the law forever. Since when, I forget. But one thing I know for sure is that whoever thought that up never cruised to Alaska. Most cruise ships are foreign, so they can’t carry passengers north to that state from southern U.S. ports. Consequently, Vancouver is the dominant port of departure and has a lock on the lucrative Alaska cruise trade.”

“Instead of Seattle,” said Maddy.

“Which should have the business. There may, however, be a loophole in American law. Can a foreign ship sneak around the ban by docking briefly in Canada along the way?”

“You mean split the cruise?”

“In law, though not in fact. One cruise sails from Seattle to Vancouver. A
separate
cruise sails from Vancouver to Alaska.”

“Will it work?”

“Who knows?” Alex said. “The cruise line that owns the ship we’re on is going to run the blockade as a test case.”

“We’re guinea pigs?” said Justin. “Let’s hope the U.S. Navy doesn’t fire on us.”

“Undoubtedly some lawyer dreamed this up,” scoffed Maddy. “Lawyers believe loopholes are the
substance
of the law. They’re willfully blind to the fact that a hole is
lack
of substance.”

“Hear! Hear!” said Zinc.

“I still don’t see how funds are raised from us?” said Maddy.

“The ship is on a dry run to acquaint the crew. We are aboard to make it seem real. Wealthy people love to support writers’ festivals. It makes them look and feel like artistic patrons. This ship was sailing anyway, so someone rich who knows the owner of the cruise line got it comped to the festival. No overhead means the ticket price and whatever we drink is profits.”

“Loopholes,” echoed Maddy. “I’ll bet they write it off.”

“Does that make them writers too?” wondered Zinc, and everybody laughed.

There is no snazzier uniform in North America than that of a Royal Canadian Mountie in full peacock plume. As egalitarians, Americans dress to impress the common folk. Canada, however, is still under the Crown, so Canadians who dress to kill dress to impress the queen.

Zinc wore the classic scarlet tunic of the Mounted Police, except that both sleeves had black-bordered cuffs to signify his rank. A stripped Sam Browne without a side arm harnessed his chest. His blue breeches had a yellow stripe down the outside of each leg and were tucked into riding boots fitted with spurs. Flashes of gold glittered from buttons and regimental badges. The Stetson known around the world crowned his noggin.

At this stage of boarding, most passengers on the Champagne Terrace were American, so Zinc drew stares when he entered with Alex on his arm. A wolf whistle from Ruth Lester made the Mountie blush. Zinc thought Ruthless Ruth was whistling at him. Maddy knew Lester the Les was whistling at Alex.

With good reason.

Alex wore the same plain cream dress complemented by basic gold jewelry that she had on Deadman’s Island. Here, like there, the occasion was a gathering of crime experts, and both invitations had stipulated “dress to kill.” That evening would have been the most romantic of Alex’s life had a real killer not embarked on a carnival of carnage. Here was an opportunity to begin again. That was the in-joke between Zinc and her. The net effect—déjà vu—was Alex looked as ravishing tonight as she had looked on the day she and the Mountie met.

Who says you can’t go back?

“I feel like a horse’s ass,” the Horseman mumbled to Maddy. “Where’s your uniform?”

“Give me a break. I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have to compare files.”

Sensible shoes, blue jeans, an open-throat blouse, and a leather jacket were her party clothes.

“Save me a dance,” said Maddy.

“Tough guys don’t dance,” said Zinc.

“Make that a minuet.”

And lose a glass slipper? thought Alex.

As you would expect from a group tied together by crime, the topic that danced on everyone’s lips was the hangman puzzle. That afternoon, KVOT had broadcast Dag Konrad’s solution, so tonight the largest cluster hung around Sue Frye. Sue looked haggard from working since before dawn. Was her camera crew aboard for late-breaking news?

“I’m in the wrong medium,” Justin complained. “Sue bled the scoop dry and I have yet to print.”

“Justin and Sue are rivals,” Maddy explained. “It goes back to the night Peter Haddon hanged.”

“Let’s grab a table before the crush,” said Zinc. “Alex and I caught the news as we rushed for the train. We didn’t have time to refresh ourselves on the Haddon case.”

“Justin’s
the
authority. That’s why I corralled him,” Maddy said.

Aft of the Champagne Terrace soared the Moby Dick Dining Room. Two deck levels high, it circled around a huge white whale diving from the ceiling. So as not to upset diners at their seafood repasts, obsessed Captain Ahab and his bloody harpoon were nowhere in sight. Beyond a wall of mammoth portholes, the lights of Seattle began to retreat astern as the
North Star
cast off for Puget Sound.

“I hope this cruise is less eventful than my last one,” Alex sighed. “A bomb blew a hole in the hull and the ship sank under me. My leg was in a cast. I nearly drowned.”

“You saved her?” Maddy asked Zinc.

“No, I was in Africa. With trouble of my own.”

The table they selected was as far away from the grand piano as they could get. The woman tickling the ivories played showbiz tunes from
The Little Mermaid.
It was enough to make Zinc swear off cruising for the rest of his life.

“So,” he said to Justin, “tell us about Haddon.”

“What do you want to know?”

“First, bring us up to speed on the crime.”

“Peter Haddon was charged in May 1983 with the rape-murder of Anna Koulelis. Nine-year-old Anna lived with her father in the house next door to the basement suite Peter had recently rented. George Koulelis owned a Greek restaurant, the Athens Taverna, in Seattle. Before going to work, George took his daughter to school each weekday morning. During the break between serving lunch and dinner, he drove home to spend time with her after school.”

“What about the mother?”

“She was somewhere in Greece. Since Anna had been born in the States, George got custody of her when his wife ran off to Europe.”

“Who stayed with the girl at night?”

“A nanny arrived at five to cook for Anna and sit with her while her dad was at work.”

“The girl was snatched?”

“Yeah, after school. The last witness to see Anna alive was a classmate named Judy. The two stopped at a local store for bubble gum and agreed to meet at four in a park to play with their Cabbage Patch dolls. That was at 3:30. Judy was in the park at four, waiting for her friend.”

“Anna didn’t show?”

Justin nodded.

“Where was she grabbed?”

“Supposedly at home. Her father returned at 4:35 to find her gone.”

“Four thirty-five?” said Zinc. “That seems rather late if he was to spend time with her.”

“Yeah,” said Justin. “But he never budged on the time after he changed it.”

“Changed it from what?”

“Four-ten,” Maddy replied. “That was the time he gave in his initial statement.”

“The time is crucial,” Justin said. “Peter worked part time at a computer store. Even if his alibi was a lie—he told police he stopped for food and gas after he got off work—it was physically impossible for him to have arrived home before 4:15. Had Anna’s dad stuck with
his
arrival time of 4:10, the case against Peter would have crumbled at the start. By changing the time he got home to find Anna gone to 4:35, George Koulelis opened a window of opportunity for Peter to have abducted his child. Instead of being eliminated, Peter became a plausible suspect.”

“Why did the father initially think the time was 4:10?”

“He glanced at the kitchen clock as he walked in the door.”

“Why did he change the time?”

“The clock, he said, was slow. He noticed it days later and threw the clock away.”

“That satisfied detectives?”

“Yes,” interjected Maddy. “Like you, the officers involved thought 4:35 was late if George drove home to spend time with Anna. They also noticed that he wore a new wristwatch. They suspected that he knew the time he got home was 4:35, but that he moved it back to 4:10 because he felt guilty about not being there when his daughter came home from school.”

“The cops were wrong?” said Alex.

“As it turned out,” said Justin. “From what we know now, it seems likely that George
did
get home at 4:10. Later, he changed the time to 4:35 so Peter would be charged. Which he was.”

“Why was Haddon a suspect?”

“Blame that on the father too. When Anna couldn’t be found after a neighborhood search, the investigators asked George if anyone had acted strangely toward her. He told them about ‘the weird kid’ next door, whose basement-suite windows faced Anna’s bedroom. The walkway to the Koulelis backyard was along that side. If Peter was home, he could have seen Anna walking her bike to the rear of the house before she went in to get her doll to go play with her friend in the park.”

“Why was he ‘weird’?” asked Alex.

“Peter Haddon was a cyber-geek. His goal in life was to become the next Bill Gates. When he wasn’t working, he was off in the Zone, seated in front of a glowing screen down in his underground hole.”

“Was he a pervert?”

“Only in George’s mind. A glance out Peter’s window would angle up under Anna’s skirt.”

The dining room was filling up with a motley crew of cruisers. The scarlet tunics of the Mounties seized the most attention, followed by the penguin getups of the Canadian barristers. It could be the set of a Sergeant Preston of the Yukon film, if only the Arctic was home to Antarctic wildlife.

“What was the detectives’ theory on how the crime occurred?” asked Zinc.

Maddy took over from Justin. “Anna brought her bike home from school. The bike was found in the back yard. Something delayed her from going to meet her friend. Peter returned home sometime between 4:15 and 4:35. He waylaid Anna when she rushed out to go to the park and locked her inside the trunk of his car which was parked out back. By the time George arrived at 4:35, they had driven off.”

“When was the abduction?”

“January 23, 1983.”

“When was the body found?”

“Three months later. April 25, to be exact.”

“Where was it discovered?”

“On the outskirts of Seattle. By a man searching a thicket of woods for his lost dog.”

“What were her remains?”

“Mostly skeletal bones. Time and the weather had rotted what animals didn’t eat. Tattered clothes covered the torso. Below the waist was bare. The way the body was sprawled suggested a savage sex assault. A broken hyoid bone indicated strangulation. Her underwear was found stuffed in her mouth.”

“The lab find any traces?”

“Yes,” said Maddy. “Two hairs, not Anna’s, caught in the chain of a locket around her neck. Numerous fibers on what remained of her clothes. And semen stains on her underwear.”

The conversation paused while vegetable soup was served, then picked up after the waiters moved to the next table. One of them almost stepped on the Stetson propped against Zinc’s chair.

Justin picked up from Maddy. “Armed with the lab report, detectives sought out Peter. On first impression, ‘the weird kid’ did seem strange. Peter’s eyes were dark and piercing. A nervous tic made him look guilty. The tic was actually a mild case of Tourette’s syndrome, genetically inherited from his mom.”

“They told him Anna was dead,” said Maddy between sips of soup. “They asked if he would provide a sample of his hair and let them vacuum his car to eliminate him as a suspect.”

“Which he did,” said Justin. “And the samples went to the lab. And the lab report that came back confirmed their suspicion.”

“Peter’s hair matched the two hairs caught on the locket,” said Maddy. “And six fibers recovered from the girl’s clothes, including two on her underwear, matched five fibers in what was vacuumed from the trunk of Peter’s car. That was 1983, so DNA tests on the semen stains weren’t available.”

“From then on,” Justin said, “Peter lived in the shadow of the gallows.”

Maddy finished her soup and set down the spoon. “Tunnel vision took over,” she said. “The lab report linking Anna to the trunk of Peter’s car, and Peter to the locket on Anna’s corpse, convinced investigators that they had the right man. So married did they become to their pursuit of Haddon that they screened out evidence that didn’t fit their only suspect. Such blind conviction meant the case put together against Peter was self-fulfilling. In effect, they made a case
after
the case.”