Taking the Fifth(39)

In the middle of the room stood a single dilapidated chair, a small table, and an ancient floor lamp with a fringed antique shade. The dim glow of the lamp’s single bulb provided the only light in the musty, darkened room.

Reverend Laura followed me into the room and closed the door behind her. She moved past me into the shadows beyond the glow of the lamp.

“He’s here, Belinda,” she said gently. “The man I told you about. You must talk to him. Come on. He won’t hurt you.”

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I noted two shapeless lumps huddled against the far wall, near a door that presumably opened into a basement corridor of the office building above us. Drawn out by Reverend Laura’s coaxing voice as well as by her guiding hand, the two lumps moved in concert, slowly emerging from the concealing shadows into the light.

The first lump turned out to be a grocery cart stacked high with a collection of bulging plastic bags. The second figure was that of a woman, bulky and shapeless under multiple layers of clothing. I would have known her on sight, even without the ever-present grocery cart. I had seen her a hundred times before, but I had had no idea her name was Belinda.

For years she’d been a fixture in the sheltered plaza under Seattle’s monorail station. Depending on the direction of the wind and the rain, she and her cart with its collection of treasures could be found huddled against the wall of Nordstrom’s downtown clothing store or under the monorail entrance ramp itself. The ragged woman in her shapeless brown coat and scarf had stood out in a stark contrast to the well-dressed career ladies hurrying to buy lunch-hour shoes or purses in trendy downtown department stores.

But construction of Seattle’s new Westlake mall had temporarily closed the monorail station. A high, impenetrable chain-link construction fence now locked her out of her favorite haunt. Driving past once, I had noticed she was no longer there, but I didn’t know what had become of her, what new territory she might have staked out for herself. Now here she was, approaching me tentatively like a gun-shy dog, keeping the grocery cart strategically positioned between us.

“This is Detective Beaumont,” Reverend Laura explained. “He’s working on that case, the one you told me about. He needs your help.”

Belinda’s age was as indeterminate as her shape. She could have been fifty-five, she could have been seventy. Weathered, wrinkled cheeks collapsed over a dentureless mouth, but her eyes, set in grimy skin, were birdlike sharp and bright. They darted nervously from Reverend Laura’s face to mine. Had the minister’s sturdy frame not been blocking the way, I’m sure Belinda would have broken and made a dash for the door.

As it was, I moved carefully and reassuringly toward her, holding out my hand over the cart. Belinda’s limp fingers were cold and damp to the touch.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m Detective Beaumont. My partner, Detective Lindstrom, and I are working this case together. If you have information that would help us, we’d appreciate whatever…”

Belinda turned away from me and fell against Reverend Laura, clutching fearfully at the younger woman’s blazer.

“But what if he doesn’t believe me?” she wailed. Her tongue tripped over toothless gums, making what she said slurred and difficult to understand. “What if he says I’m crazy, that I’m seeing things again? I don’t want to go back to that place. Please don’t let them send me back.”

“Shh. No one’s sending you anywhere, Belinda,” Reverend Laura reassured her. “I’ll see to it, but you must tell them what you saw night before last. Tell Detective Beaumont what you told me.”

Taking the old woman by her shoulders, Reverend Laura turned her around bodily until she was once more facing me.

“She was so pretty,” Belinda said.

“Who was pretty?”

“The woman. When I opened my eyes and saw her, it scared me. I thought she was a vision. An angel, maybe. I used to see angels all the time. That’s why they put me in the hospital.”

“And where did you see her, this pretty woman?” I asked, trying to keep my voice gentle so I wouldn’t frighten the bag lady further.

“I got here too late to spend the night,” Belinda went on, one hand tentatively motioning toward the redbrick wall of Reverend Laura’s monastic room. “The cots were all full, so I couldn’t stay. It wasn’t raining, so I decided to sleep down by the market.”

She paused as though searching for words. I felt my heartbeat quicken. A pretty woman. A blonde wig. The market. I kept my voice even, but it took tremendous effort. “What time was that?” I asked.