More Perfect Union (9780061760228) (7 page)

“I understand you wanted to see me, Mr. Goldfarb?”

Instead of climbing my frame, he clapped one arm around my shoulder. “I'm glad to see you, Detective Beaumont. You were absolutely right about that scene with the little kid. I saw the rushes late last night. It just didn't work. Too melodramatic. We're going to shoot it again today, the whole scene. Now tell me, just exactly how would you do it?”

Wonders will never cease. Sam “The Movie Man” Goldfarb's sudden change of heart left me completely bewildered, but then I don't suffer from an overdose of artistic temperament. In fact, there isn't an artistic bone in my body.

Artistic or not, we did it my way, the whole scene, from beginning to end. Derrick Parker's gun stayed in its holster. When one stuntman finally tackled the other, it was a full body blow that sent them both crashing onto the deck of one of the houseboats. They rolled under the table where the unsuspecting family was eating a picnic dinner, but no one got hurt. The little kid didn't get shot and die.

Fight scenes are incredibly complicated and time-consuming to map out. Choreographing, they call it, and I can see why. It's very much like an elaborate dance. Everything has to come together in total synchronization. We worked on that scene all morning long, first one segment and then another. For the first time, I had some inkling of how the final product would look.
Not only that, I finally felt as though I was making a contribution, doing what Captain Powell had asked me to do.

For a change, the cop didn't look stupid.

And I saved a little kid's life, even if it was only make-believe.

Protecting the lives of innocent people is what I get paid for, really. At least that's what it says in the manual.

I
left the houseboat dock about noon. As far as I could see,
Death in Drydock
was pretty much in the can, but I had still not been officially dismissed. I headed for the coffee station where I found Woody Carroll seated on a folding chair leaning back against the building. He was drinking coffee from a styrofoam cup and holding a newspaper in his lap. Several members of the Lake Union Drydock crew were gathered around and involved in a heated debate.

“I'd never let my wife work at a job like that. Never in a million years.” The comment came from a long-haired type in grubby overalls.

Several of the group nodded in agreement while another hooted with laughter. “Come on, George, admit it. You couldn't stand it if your old lady made more money than you, that's all.”

“It's not that,” George insisted. “It's too damn dangerous for everyone else on the job. Women
aren't strong enough. They got no business goin' where they're not wanted.”

I edged my way over to where Woody was sitting. “What are they talking about?” I asked.

Wordlessly, he handed me the newspaper, opened to the front page. The picture that met my eyes was a real gut-wrencher. It was one of a construction worker tumbling head over heels past the face of an unfinished building. The headline across the page told it all:
CONSTRUCTION WORKER PLUNGES
43
STORIES
.

“It was a woman?” I asked.

Woody nodded. “Read it,” he said.

I did.

“A 28-year-old Seattle-area construction worker fell to her death early yesterday during her fourth day on the job at Masters Plaza, a building under construction at Second and Union.

“Angie Dixon of Bothell, an apprentice ironworker, apparently became entangled in a welding lead and fell from the 43rd story of the new building, which is scheduled for completion late next year. Ms. Dixon was pronounced dead at the scene by King County's medical examiner, Dr. Howard Baker.

“One of the victim's fellow crew members, journeyman ironworker Harry Campbell, said he had sent Ms. Dixon to bring a welding lead. When she failed to return, he went looking for her in time to see her clinging to a welding hose
outside the building. He was attempting to reach her when she fell.

“Mr. Raymond Dixon, the dead woman's father, said his daughter had only recently decided to break into the construction trade. He said she had previously worked in the union's bookkeeping department as a secretary and was frustrated by consistently low wages and boredom.

“Masters and Rogers, the Canadian developers of Masters Plaza, have been recording the emergence of the building with a series of time-lapse photographs. One of them, released exclusively to the
Seattle Times
today, happened to capture the woman's fatal plunge.

“Darren Gibson, local spokesperson for Masters and Rogers Developers, said a crew of ironworkers and operating engineers were working overtime both Saturday and Sunday in an effort to keep the building's completion deadline on schedule.”

I didn't read any more. I threw the paper back in Woody Carroll's lap. “Those sorry bastards,” I muttered. “They'll do anything to sell newspapers.”

The debate was still swirling around me. “If she'da had more upper-body strength, she probably coulda hung onto that welding lead long enough for somebody to drag her back inside, know what I mean?” one man was saying.

“No way,” the long-haired George responded. “He would have been killed, too.”

Just then there was a sharp blast from the Lake Union Drydock whistle. To a man the workers got to their feet. “I guess that means we can get to work now,” George said. He sauntered away, leading a group that headed in the direction of the drydocked minesweeper. There weren't any women in that particular crew. It didn't surprise me a bit.

Woody Carroll had pulled out a pencil and was making a series of calculations in the margin of the newspaper. “How tall do you suppose forty-three stories are?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “I don't know. In a commercial building each story is probably ten feet or so, give or take. And the lobby level is often taller than that, say fifteen feet, somewhere around there. Why? What are you doing?”

For a moment Woody didn't answer me, but concentrated on what he was doing, his brows knit in deep furrows. Finally he glanced up at me. “She must have been doing about a hundred fourteen miles an hour when she hit the ground.”

“A hundred and fourteen?” I asked. “That's pretty damn fast. I've been a cop for a long time, and I've pulled my share of pulverized automobile victims from wrecked cars. At fifty-five it's bad enough. I'm glad I wasn't there to scrape her off the sidewalk.”

Woody nodded. “Me, too,” he said.

I poured myself another cup of coffee. Math has never been my strong suit. It took me a min
ute or two to realize that Woody Carroll, without the benefit of so much as a pocket calculator, had just solved a fairly complicated mathematical problem.

“How'd you do that, by the way? You never struck me as a mathematician.”

Woody grinned. “Snuck that one in on you, didn't I. It's simple. I thought I told you, I was a bombardier in the Pacific during World War II. I never got beyond geometry in high school, but the Air Force gave me a crash course after I enlisted. I cut my teeth on those Norden bomb sights. Did I ever tell you about that?”

“As a matter of fact, you didn't.”

Woody was just getting ready to launch into one of his long-winded stories, when someone came looking for him. “Hey, Woody, they need you to help direct trucks in and out so they can load up and get out of our way.”

Carroll got up and handed me the paper. “See you later,” he said. “It's been a pleasure working with you, Detective Beaumont.”

Left standing there alone, I didn't want to look at the newspaper in my hand, but I was drawn to it nevertheless. The picture repulsed me. The very idea repulsed me. I suspected that someone had made a nice piece of change, selling the developers' fortuitous snapshot of Angie Dixon's death to the newspapers. The editor who used it and the person who provided it were both scumbags in my book—but, inarguably, the picture would sell newspapers.

After all, look who was reading it. I was. Reluctantly. Furtively. As though hoping I wouldn't be caught. I usually make it a point not to read newspapers, especially in public.

The article went on to discuss Seattle's poor showing in the construction industry's accident statistics, how the city was tenth in the nation for number of construction deaths per billion dollars' worth of new construction. There was even a quote, attributed to Martin Green, Executive Director of Ironworkers Local 165, saying that part of the problem was due to a lack of building inspections by the state.

Martin Green. The name leaped out at me. I wondered if it wasn't the same irate Mr. Green from the lobby of Belltown Terrace. Probably.

I sat down and read the entire article again, and then, out of boredom, I read the whole paper. On the back of the front page of the last section, just before the want ads, was a much smaller article, a brief obituary about Logan Tyree, the victim of a boating accident, whose body had been pulled from Lake Union on Saturday afternoon. That one told me nothing I didn't already know.

I was almost finished with the crossword puzzle when Cassie Young came looking for me.

“There you are, Detective Beaumont. I couldn't find you anywhere.” My work on the set that morning had evidently redeemed me in her eyes and she had restored me to the rank of detective. “Are you coming to dinner tonight?”

“I don't know. This is the first I've heard anything about it. What is it, a command performance?”

“Something like that,” she replied dryly, ignoring the derision in my response. “Mr. Goldfarb said for you to meet us at Gooey's, the bar at the Sheraton. Seven o'clock. We'll all go together from there.”

Derrick Parker came up behind her just as she finished speaking. “Go where?” he asked. The miracle-working makeup had been removed. He had looked fine during the filming, but now he was a wreck.

“Dinner tonight. You're invited too, Derrick. Are you coming?”

“That depends,” Derrick waffled. “Can I bring a date?”

“Suit yourself.” Cassie turned and started away.

“Hey, wait a minute,” I called after her. “Does that mean we're dismissed? School's out for the summer?” She didn't dignify my question with a reply. I watched her walk away. “For someone her age, she doesn't have much of a sense of humor,” I remarked to Derrick Parker.

He was watching her as well. Her punk red hair looked like a rooster's comb in the glaring sunlight. “Nobody in the movie business can afford to have a sense of humor,” Derrick told me, “least of all if they're assistant to someone like Goldfarb.”

Without further discussion, he and I started
toward my car. On the way I handed him the newspaper section with the page containing the article on Logan Tyree folded out. “Thought you might be interested. That's the guy we pulled out of the water the other day,” I said.

“So you found out who he was?”

“Somebody did,” I answered.

Derrick scanned the article as we walked. “You were right about him not being a jumper. It says here his boat burned. That's funny. He didn't look burned to me.”

“It exploded first,” I explained. “He was probably blown clear by the force of the blast. I've seen people come through things like that with hardly a scratch. He must have hit his head on the cabin roof on the way out, or maybe he struck something in the water.”

“The article said he was thirty-seven,” Derrick continued. “That's only two years older than I am.”

Derrick Parker must have been feeling twinges of his own mortality. I notice symptoms of that occasionally myself, especially the morning after the night before, so I didn't have a whole lot of sympathy. “If you think that's bad, you should read what's on the front page,” I told him. “She was only twenty-eight.”

He read the construction accident article while we drove and, sure enough, he felt even worse. We went by my apartment so Derrick could retrieve his bottle of Glenlivet, then I took him back to the hotel. He said he was planning to
take a nap. That seemed like a helluva good idea to me, too. As soon as I got home, I flopped across the bed fully clothed and fell asleep.

Peters called at six. “I gave you time enough to get home before I called,” he said. “Did you see it?”

“Did I see what?”

“The article in the paper about the woman who fell off Masters Plaza yesterday morning.”

“I saw it. What about her?”

“Don't you think it's a hell of a coincidence for two ironworkers to die in separate accidents in less than a week?”

Usually I'm the one who jumps to conclusions. I wondered briefly if Peters hadn't been in bed too long and his brain was going soft. “Wait a minute here,” I cautioned. “Logan Tyree died in a boating accident. Angie Dixon fell off a building in front of God and everybody. How can the two be related?”

Peters didn't waste any time in throwing his best punch. “Tyree's ex-girlfriend left town.”

“So what?”

Peters went right on, totally ignoring my question. “I was talking to Manny a little while ago, just passing the time of day. I asked how it was going. Manny said he and Kramer talked to Mrs. Tyree and then went to Bellevue looking for the girlfriend. She's split. Gone. Moved out along with her two kids. They talked to the girlfriend's mother.”

“When did she leave?”

“This morning, I guess, not long before Manny and Kramer got there.”

“Where are you going with all this?” I asked. “Did the mother act as though there was any problem?”

“No, she says Linda always pulls stunts like this, like taking off without telling anyone where she's going.”

“So what's the point? The mother's not worried, but you are?”

“That's right.”

“How come, Peters? What's eating you?”

“Think about it for a minute, Beau. Didn't you tell me that Corbett guy said Tyree had a jealous wife?”

“That's what he said.”

“And that the girlfriend, Linda Decker, met him while she was attending an ironworking apprenticeship class?”

“That's right, too.”

“And now this Angie Dixon. She's an apprentice, too. Maybe Logan Tyree made friends with more than one of his students.”

It began to come together. I could see the pattern building in Peters' brain. It didn't take an overly active imagination. “You think maybe Linda Decker's scared that she's next? You think she's hiding out?”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“In that case, maybe somebody should check out Katherine Tyree.”

Peters breathed a sigh of relief. “Bingo,” he
said. “You're not a fast study, Beau. I thought you'd never pick up on it.”

“Is this a subtle hint?” I asked. “And is the somebody doing the checking going to be me?”

“It sure as hell can't be me,” Peters responded bleakly. “In the meantime, those other assholes are absolutely determined that the incidents aren't related in any way.”

“Did you mention your suspicions to Manny?”

There was a slight pause before Peters answered. “No,” he said reluctantly. “Not exactly.”

I laughed. I couldn't help it. “All right, all right. I'll do it. I can't today because in a few minutes I have to be down at the Sheraton, but I told Watty I'd be taking a few days off once we finished up on the movie. I'll have some time to check into it and no one will be the wiser. You're still gunning for Kramer, aren't you.”

When he answered, Peters' voice was hushed. “You'd better believe it,” he breathed. “You'd by God better believe it.”