“Lucky you. Not so lucky for second cousin.”
Here it came-the reason for his soup. Her cousin. A eu-phemism for anyone of Asian descent for whom the Great Lady felt morally or physically responsible. Over the years, Boldt had learned some of the code. Not all, not by any stretch. “Do you mind if I take notes?”
She gestured for him to do so. Boldt pulled out the worn notebook, taller than it was wide. It fit into his hand like a cross to the devout.
She said, “Billy Chen. His mother sister to my cousin’s husband.” She smiled. All an invention on her part. “Work road crew, here in city. Good boy, Billy Chen.”
“And how was Billy unlucky?” Boldt said.
“Billy dead,” she said.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “How did it happen?” And then it registered, though too late. The sinkhole on Third Avenue. Interpreting “yesterday night” had left him on the wrong date, and it took him a moment to back up the calendar, to relocate himself. The sinkhole raised a red flag only because of its location. The only two reliable witnesses in the Susan Hebringer disappearance had put her last-seen nearby on Columbia Street, once on First Avenue, and a few minutes later crossing Second heading east, uphill. Randolf was believed to have been in this same area at the time of her disappearance. Shop owners had been questioned, bus drivers, pamphlets distributed-and to date, not a single other lead had come. Then that immense sinkhole. And now a dead body. He sat up, his pulse quicker, pen ready.
“Billy working broken water main. Your people say he drown fixing it-that he no good at job. Medical examiner office. Mama Lu, not think so, Mr. Both. Billy Chen no good worker? Want better job done. Much grief, Billy brings us all.
Mama Lu have no answer. Turn to good friend for answer.”
“Where exactly was the body found?” Boldt said.
“Do I ask you to do my cooking for me? Run grocery?”
Boldt grinned. She intended for him to start from the start.
This woman didn’t run a grocery, she ran Seattle’s Asian economy. Who was she kidding?
He said, “The medical examiner, Doc Dixon, is a close friend. He can be trusted. He’s very good at his job. If he says Billy Chen drowned, then I’m sure that’s right. I don’t know the particulars, but if Doc Dixon-”
“You will know particulars, yes, Mr. Both? If not accident, you investigate. Yes? As favor to good friend.”
“We-my department-are only authorized to investigate deaths ruled suspicious causes, Great Lady. I can certainly look into this … accident, or whatever it was … no problem. But unless there is a determination of suspicious causes, my hands are tied.”
“But you untie as favor to friend.”
“I can work after hours. Maybe take some lost time. I just wanted you to understand it may go a little slowly.”
“I no understand.”
“I’m very busy right now. The family might prefer a private investigator, someone who can tackle this full- time.” He couldn’t believe he was recommending they use a PI. He hoped he’d worded this carefully enough. He didn’t want to offend the likes of Mama Lu. Not now. Not ever.
“Chen family prefers you, Mr. Both.” She set her spoon down and gently pushed at the small table before her. She meant she preferred him. As she dabbed her chin with the generous linen napkin, the wisp of silk swept through the room and the bowl of soup disappeared. A magician at work.
As close to a direct order as he was going to get. The choice was now his. “Let me see what Dixie, the ME, has to say about it.” Boldt nudged his table. Same reaction: bowl gone; table dry; table removed from in front of him.
“You like fortune cookie?” she said.
“No, thank you.”
“You no like fortune cookie?”
“We make or break our own fortunes. I don’t need a cookie interfering.”
“But taste so good,” she said, crunching down on hers and raining crumbs into folds. She smiled. Thankfully she had her teeth in.
“Billy Chen,” Boldt said, making sure he had the name right.
“C-h-e-n.”
But he was thinking about both Hebringer and Randolf having last been seen in the same general area when Mama Lu said, “Little birdie tell me Cherry and Third part of old underground city. How you know what kill Billy until you look?”
“The Underground extends up there?” Boldt asked, adrenaline warming him. In the late 1800s, Seattle had been rebuilt following a colossal fire. The reconstruction, made in large part because of tidal flooding, developed a city on top of a city-enormous retaining walls built around each of twenty city blocks and streets between them built up with soil and rock sometimes as high as thirty feet. A good deal of the original city now lay underground. He’d done the tour once-it was a world unto itself down there: antique storefronts, stuff wreathed in darkness for more than a century, some of it frozen in time, some intruded upon by shop owners desperate for storage.
Boldt couldn’t have been less interested in Billy Chen. It was all Hebringer and Randolf for him at that moment. A paved-over section of the city left undisturbed for a hundred years. The Phantom of the Opera, Boldt was thinking.
“Maybe so,” she said, but with a twinkle in her eye that told him she knew more.
“Who is this ‘little birdie,’ Great Lady?”
The wide shoulders shrugged.
Boldt suddenly possessed enough energy to jog back to head-quarters. The Underground? She’d handed him a hell of a lead.
“I can look into this,” he told her, trying to hide his enthusiasm.
“You good man, Mr. Both,” she said, reading whatever was on that fortune and finding it extremely amusing. Her body shook like a mountain of jelly.
Hide and Peep
Nordstrom and the tourist thing had worn Melissa Dunkin’s legs down to a pair of aching calves that would be shinsplints by the following morning. At 7 P.M., practically stumbling into her suite in the Inn, she headed straight for the bath. With dinner scheduled for 8:30, she had no time to waste. A few minutes for a “lie-down” in front of CNBC if she hurried.
Melissa used the brass security hook-and-latch lock to ensure her privacy against a random minibar inspection or turndown service. She started the bathwater and began undressing immediately, the water steaming piping hot and making her think, for no reason at all, of home and her husband and kids, whom she missed. On reconsideration, more honestly, she was happy to have the time alone. Nothing wrong with some self-indulgence once or twice a year.
Her blouse off and hung up, she drew the living room sheers across a large window with a panoramic view of Puget Sound.
Slate-green water, densely forested islands, and the Olympic mountain range served as a backdrop. She drew the curtains in the bedroom as well, mildly annoyed that they wouldn’t close completely, but as they faced a darkened construction site, a skeleton against the slowly fading evening sky, she didn’t worry about it. She undressed fully, off to one side. Nothing mattered much at this point but that bath.
She slipped into the complimentary terry cloth robe, angled the TV to face the bathroom, angled the bathroom door’s full-length mirror, and readjusted her efforts twice so that she could see a reversed image of Market Wrap from the tub. Turned the volume way up. Toe in the water. Heaven.
She shed the robe, slipped into the foaming tub, and nearly squealed with delight it felt so damned good. A moment later, she climbed back out, ignored the robe, and sneaked into and across the suite’s living room where she snatched a beer from the minibar. She returned to the tub a conquering hero.
