Taking the Fifth(12)

“Eventually, we found this character was some kind of theater stagehand who had worked at the Fifth Avenue the day before. Anyway, we went to his house and discovered that his roommate died last night too, right there in the house. Doc Baker insists it’s just a coincidence, that the roommate died of AIDS. Since Baker says his death was expected, the medical examiner’s office refused to do an autopsy.”

“Why do you want one?”

Peters’s question startled me. Over the weeks, I had gotten used to carrying on totally one-sided conversations. Now, unexpectedly, he was showing a smidgeon of interest, a sign that he was emerging from his self-imposed isolation. I was so surprised, I almost forgot to answer his question.

“Oh, did I mention the drugs?”

“No.”

“When we got to the house, we found the nurse had called the mortuary to come pick up the body. When they moved his pillow, a half-pound brick that looked like solid coke fell out on the floor. The nurse flew into a rage and almost knocked the shit out of me. He would have too, if Al hadn’t stopped him.”

“You think the roommate was murdered too?”

“Absolutely. I don’t give a damn what Doc Baker says. I don’t believe in coincidences. One way or the other, it’s murder. I can feel it in my bones.”

“Drug dealers?”

I shook my head. “I talked to the detectives from Narcotics about that. As far as they know, Morris wasn’t a dealer.”

Peters snorted. “There are probably a few dealers here in town that Narcotics doesn’t know about.”

We both work for the same outfit, Seattle P.D., but Homicide and Narcotics aren’t always on the best of terms.

It was good to be bouncing ideas off Peters’s capable head again. I felt a sudden surge of excitement. Maybe, somehow, we were going to get him back.

“You say these guys were gay, both of them?” he asked. I nodded. “What about the nurse?”

“Riley? What about him?”

“Is he gay too?”

For a long moment I thought about Tom Riley, R.N. The question had never entered my mind until Peters brought it up. “I don’t know,” I said finally.

“I’m getting to be quite an expert on nurses,” Peters observed, with a hint of his old sense of humor. “If I were you, I’d check him out. Maybe it’s nothing more or less than an old-fashioned triangle.”

“Goddamn it, Peters, I’ll bet you’re onto something. I’ll get right on it.”

I was off the chair and out the door so fast I collided head on with a pretty young physical therapist who was coming into the room to work with Peters. I had seen her several times before. She was quick to laugh and had a ready smile.

“What’s the hurry?” she demanded, hands on her hips in mock anger once she had righted herself.

“Get that man jacked up and out of here, would you lady?” I said, wagging a finger at Peters in his bed. “I need him. If he can solve cases lying here flat on his back, Seattle P.D. can’t afford to have him out of commission.”

Her laughter was still ringing in the room behind me as I hurried down the hallway. In my excitement, I forgot to be tired or hungry. I also forgot I didn’t have a car with me.

I dashed out of the hospital and into the parking lot, groping in my pocket for my keys. They were there, all right, along with a whole collection of postcards.

Unfortunately, my Porsche was still safely tucked away in her berth in the parking garage at home. Some days are like that.

You have to take the bad with the good.





CHAPTER 5




IN TOO MUCH OF A HURRY TO WALK OR battle buses, I caught a cab for the ten-minute ride to Belltown Terrace, my new building at the corner of Second and Broad. I didn’t bother to go upstairs to my apartment. Instead, I took the elevator directly to the residential garage and raced my Porsche up the interminable stack of circles from P-4 to the garage entrance.

Tom Riley had listed his address as being in West Seattle. I took the Alaskan Way Viaduct south and drove across the soaring Spokane Street Bridge. I’ve always thought the new bridge should have been named in honor of the old Norwegian ship’s pilot who broke the old one and was later murdered. His widow was eventually convicted, but I’ve always fantasized that the killer was really some revenge-minded commuter stuck in the subsequent years of traffic jams.

Seattle is a deep-water port, and there are few places around the city that have readily accessible salt water beaches. Alki, in West Seattle, is one of those places. It resembles a California beach town far more than it does an ordinary Seattle neighborhood. It comes complete with cruising teenagers, too much traffic, and a constant feud between visitors and residents over the surplus of garbage and the critical shortage of parking places.