West Seattle Blues (11 page)

I shook my head. If Kyle hadn’t talked before, he wasn’t going to now.

“I’ll go over there as soon as I can,” he insisted.

“Just leave it, Carson. You’ve done what you can. Look in the mirror, you already got yourself shot.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what? You know all there is to know now. The police up in Everett will be looking for whoever put that bullet in you. Count your blessings. You’re still alive.”

“I know.” He was shifting in his chair and looking restless. “It’s just that if I talked to this Kyle, I’d know for sure.”

“What you mean is that you want me to go over and talk to him, since you can’t.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. I wandered over to the window and stared out a Puget Sound. The water was the color of battleships, the waves low. A grey sky hid the peaks of the mountains over on the Peninsula. Underneath the clouds they’d be covered with snow, staying that way well into June. A ferry boat crossed the water, and for a moment my mind flashed on the Young Fresh Fellows’
Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest
record with the ferry on the cover.

“Well,” I asked, “isn’t that what you’re really saying?”

“I guess it is,” he admitted.

“If I do it, this will be the last thing. The very last, okay?”

“I’d be grateful,” he told me.

I was a fool. I knew I was, but I’d been pulled into this: The writer in me wanted to know and she wasn’t going to be denied. This was the final lead, anyway. If anything came out of it, I’d pass the information to the police, then stand well back.

“Right.” I pulled my keys from my jeans. “Just don’t get your hopes too high, Carson. I really don’t think there’s anything more to learn.”

“Look…”

“What?” I said. I knew I sounded angry. But it was at myself for being willing to do this after all that happened six years before. I might as well keeping hitting my head against a brick wall, for all I’d learned. And I was pissed off at Dustin for being right and knowing me better than I knew myself.

First Hill in Seattle was home to most of the hospitals and doctors’ offices. Pill Hill, we called it, and trying to find a parking space up there was like trying to find a needle in a damn haystack. The meters on the street were always full, all the other lots reserved for different buildings. It took fifteen minutes of circling and cursing before I finally found a place for the Horizon over by the Frye Museum, then another five to walk to the grey cinder-block building on Boren Avenue where Kyle Adams lived. His apartment was up on the second floor, overlooking all the loud traffic on Boren. The windows in the place were floor-to-ceiling, old brown drapes shut tight against the day.

I knocked and waited, then knocked again. Finally I heard a chain being drawn back and the door opened to show a guy in jeans and a tee shirt. It was two in the afternoon but he was barefoot, looking as if he’d just woken up and thrown on some clothes. There were tattoos on his hands and arms. Not ones from the expensive, arty studios downtown, either. These were the product of hours with a pin and ink, something to pass the time in jail.

“Are you Kyle?” I asked. “Kyle Adams?”

“Yeah.” He stared at me curiously, as if he ought to know me.

“My name’s Laura Benton. You used to know a guy called James David Clark?”

He scratched his head and tried to stifle a yawn. “James? Yeah. Why?” He sounded suspicious, one hand resting on the doorknob, ready to slam it in my face.

“It’s no biggie. I’d like to ask you a few questions about him, that’s all.” I tried to make it sound casual.

“I don’t know, man. He’s been dead for years.” The stale alcohol and cigarette smoke were strong on his breath as he spoke. He was close to forty, with ratty hair that was grey at the roots and fell greasily onto his neck. His clothes smelled musty and hung loose on a frame that was way too thin. He gave off the odor of predator.

“I know.” I paused. I wanted to sound convincing. “I’m working for his father.”

“His father?” He gave a small, disbelieving laugh. “James always said the dude had split before he was born.”

“It didn’t happen quite that way,” I told him. “There’s much more to the story. But he’s just found out his son is dead and he’s hoping for some answers.”

Kyle nodded like he understood that very well, even as his eyes took me in.

“So how’d you get my name?”

“Someone told James’s father. He’s injured at the moment, so I said I’d come and ask a few questions.” It was the Cliffs Notes version, and it was mostly true.

It seemed to satisfy him, anyway. “You want to come in?”

“Could we maybe meet and talk somewhere?” There was no chance I was going into that apartment. Not the hungry way he was now looking at me. “There’s a Starbucks down the street. How about that?” I suggested. “It’ll give you time to shower and stuff.”

“Okay,” he agreed reluctantly. I didn’t know for sure that there was a Starbucks nearby. But with all those medical people around it was a good bet.

“Thirty minutes? I’ll pay.”

“Sure.”

It took me five minutes to find the coffee shop. One thing about Seattle, there was always going to be one close by. I had time to kill, so I walked around the last old-style drugstore in the area, at Madison and Minor. It seemed like a museum piece among all the hi-tech, as if it had been deliberately left as a reminder of the old days, before medicine became big business. About the only thing missing was a soda fountain. Add that and it could have been a movie set. I picked up items and set them down again, strangely happy to see I could still buy a hot water bottle and liver salts.

The line at the Starbucks on Madison was long, but almost every order was to go. I found a seat near the window and waited with my latte, betting that Kyle wouldn’t show. But he appeared right on time, clean and shaved and in clothes that didn’t stink, almost looking like a different person.

“Hey,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”

I bought him a double shot and a refill for myself. Kyle seemed more alert, eyes sharp and focused. His face was a shade too worn to be handsome, but he probably made a few women look twice.

“You knew James Clark? Jimmy Clark?” I asked.

“It was always James,” he told me, “he never used Jim or Jimmy. That’s what he liked.” That chimed with what everyone else had called him. He sipped the coffee. “Yeah, we were buds. We’d have a drink when
he was down here.”

“How often was that?”

He shrugged. “Whenever he had something to do in Seattle. It’s not like he had a schedule for being here.” He pulled a pack of Winstons from his pocket and lit one.

“What kind of work did James do?” I was curious to see if he gave a similar answer to Rick Deal.

“This and that. He dealt a little, you know.” He paused to see if I understood what he meant. I nodded.

“What else?”

“Things.” The tentative way he said it made me smile.

“You’re safe,” I told him. “I’m not a cop.”

“I know that, honey. I can tell one of them a mile away.” The way he called me honey made my hackles rise a little. It didn’t matter who said it; it never sounded good. I waited a moment and calmed myself.

“So what was James like?” It was a good enough question to lead to others.

“A good guy,” he said after a moment. “Pretty laid-back. Liked to laugh. An eye for women.” From the way his eyes darted around, resting on the nurses and receptionists who passed through, James wasn’t the only one who liked women.

“Did you ever meet his wife or son?”

Kyle shook his head. “I knew he had a wife. They were divorced, weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And he really never mentioned the kid. But that’s not why we got together, way back. We had a good time. There was him and me and this other guy.”

“Rick,” I said.

“Yeah,” he answered, looking surprised I knew the name. “You’ve seen him?”

“Yesterday. I’ve known Rick for years, around the clubs and when he was in bands.”

“He told me about all that,” Kyle said, and started laughing. “He really was in bands?”

“Yeah, quite a few of them.” I tried to count and managed six. “Must be about ten years ago, now.”

“Damn. I always figured he was bullshitting me. He never seemed like the band type.”

“He was. Big time. He said James had started playing, too.”

“Yeah… Wow, I’d forgotten about that. He mentioned it a couple times. I never really paid attention. He always had something going on, and mostly it never came to anything.”

“He played a few gigs, I heard.”

Kyle shrugged. James had probably told Rick about that, since the two of them had similar pipe dreams. Out of curiosity I asked, “What do you do, Kyle? For work.”

He gave another eloquent shrug. The conversation was starting to go downhill. I needed to find out a few more things before he lost interest altogether.

“What happened the night James died?”

“The police already asked me all this.” Kyle said.

“I’m sure they did. But they never caught whoever did it,” I pointed out.

“Yeah,” he agreed with a slow nod. “How come James’s dad is using a chick to ask questions?”

I gave him a sweet smile and bit back what I really wanted to say. “Because he wanted someone who could find answers. I’m good at asking questions and putting the pieces together.” He could make whatever he wanted out of that. “So, what happened? Were you out with him that night?”

“Early on,” he replied after a moment. “We were down at the Mirror, by the market. Him and me and Rick. Then Rick had to head off to work and I decided to come on home. That was about nine. I don’t know what happened after that.”

It was probably exactly what he’d told the police four years before. It fitted with everything Rick had told me, but that didn’t mean it was all true. It sounded too easy; it let everyone off the hook. I stared hard at him but he didn’t blink. It was obviously pointless. Kyle wasn’t going to suddenly break down and tell me more.

“Anything else you can remember?”

“Nope,” he replied, and I still couldn’t be sure whether he was telling the truth or not.

“Thanks.” I stood up. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“That everything?”

“Pretty much.”

It took almost forty minutes to reach Beach Drive. Each time, the trip from downtown seemed to take longer, the roads always busier and busier. The Seattle I’d grown up with, where traffic flowed free and easy, was nothing more than a faint memory. Now it was all out of state license plates and people who needed to be somewhere
now
. I parked behind Carson’s El Camino, then got out and smelled the fresh air. After all the exhaust fumes it felt like freedom.

Carson was sitting out on the porch, his wounded leg extended, the guitar propped beside him.

“Been playing?” I asked

“It passes the time,” he said with a shrug. “Things move pretty slow when you can’t move around too well. Besides, I figured I’d better have a new song or two for this gig.”

“You’re still going ahead with that?” I’d hoped he would, but after the shooting I wasn’t sure.

“Why not? The leg doesn’t stop me playing.” After some enforced time at home, his features had relaxed, the lines around his eyes and mouth no longer quite so sharp.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“It hurts like a bitch,” he replied with a laugh. “But as soon as I get ready to cuss it, I think about my son. That shuts me up pretty fast. And the drugs help.”

“Kyle didn’t have too much to add.”

Carson had been gazing out at the Sound, watching it lap peacefully against the shore. He turned his head slowly to look at me. “Nothing at all?”

“Honestly, no. But it seems as if he didn’t know James had any real musical ambitions. That seemed to be just between him and Rick Deal.”

He kept staring into the distance. “I wish I could have heard him.”

“I doubt he recorded anything.”

“Yeah, but you know what it’s like.” He gave an empty smile. “You always want what you can’t have.”

“We’ve taken it as far as we can, Carson.”

“No other names?”

“No. And I’m not going to Everett. Don’t even ask.”

“That makes two of us,” he agreed, chuckling and then shaking his head. “I guess that’s it.”

“It is.”

“Those guys, were either of them around when James died?”

“They said they left him earlier in the evening.”

“Do you believe them?” Carson asked.

I considered Rick and Kyle. “I don’t know. They have their stories set. And there’s been a lot of time since then for it to seem real to them. After so long, it probably doesn’t even matter.”

He pursed his lips and nodded. “It always matters.”

“Just let it go, Carson. You’re never going to know.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“You know I am.” I leaned against a post and took one of his cigarettes. The taste of it was sharp and sent a buzz through my brain. “There’s nowhere else to look. We’re done.”

“I know. I just don’t want to admit it.”

“You need to. We’ve given it a good shot.”

“
You
have,” he corrected me. “I’m grateful to you, Laura.”

“You know that Higher Power thing?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Give it up to that. You’re not going to bring him back. You’re not going to know him. Even if you did, you probably wouldn’t like him.”

“He’s my flesh and blood.”

“He’s never been yours, Carson. That girlfriend of yours made sure of that. You’ve got your grandson now, so something good’s come out of it. Maybe better than having your son, even. Jim seems like a good kid.”

“Better than a small-time crook?”

“Pretty much.” I hadn’t wanted to say it that bluntly, and it was better coming from him. “Look, you’re never going to find whatever it is that you want to uncover. Not without maybe getting killed yourself - or me. The cops didn’t manage it, so you might do better to just let history float out on the tide. You can’t change it.”

“I know. It rips me up, that’s all.”

I reached across and put my hand on his arm. He seemed like someone who’d spent so long alone that he needed a little human contact.