— Erma Bombeck
THE BUS FOR DOWNTOWN WAS JUST LOADING AS I LEFT the restaurant so I hopped on for the long, slow ride. I checked my messages and found one from Glenn saying he’d made contact with the owner of the rental unit. He was thinking of selling; if I wanted to convert two units into one, as Glenn was doing, this was the time to make an offer. Let me think about it, I replied, then sent Edgar a text, saying problem solved. Finally, I let Sandra know I was on my way.
We rolled down Madison. On the side of an old brick building, a faded red-and-white Coca-Cola sign, in that familiar script, peeked over the top of an ancient green cigar ad. We passed Seattle University and reached the hospital district.
Wait. At the ATM, head bent, tucking bills in his wallet, was that him? Smoking Man, in his navy rain jacket. The rest of us Seattleites had left ours home. If he wanted to look like every other man, he’d picked the wrong day.
I’d never seen his face up close. An image of the thin file Maddie’s assistant had held in her lap flashed into my mind’s eye. Flyers for the Byrd’s Nest, some with photos. I’d recognized Deanna Ellingson. The other had been Jake Byrd.
It had to be him.
I popped up and waited by the back door, gripping the metal pole. When the doors opened, I jumped off, looking around wildly.
What was Byrd doing here? And where had he gone?
There, striding east on Ninth. Toward Harborview. I waited at the light, giving him a good head start, and pulled out my phone.
Tracy had said earlier that Byrd’s alibi couldn’t be proved or disproved. Since the alibi was a ticket to a movie, that made sense. Especially if the theater had closed, the staff scattered. Even a team of investigators armed with databases and search warrants might have trouble getting access to security cameras, if there were any, and employee records, then tracking down former employees who might or might not have seen one random moviegoer. And if they had, what would that prove? As Navarro noted, you could easily buy a ticket and slip away. Who would know?
But I had another approach in mind. I might not be able to break Byrd’s alibi, but I could put a good dent in it.
There were no movie theaters left on Capitol Hill, not since the Broadway became a Rite-Aid and the Harvard Exit drew its curtains for the last time. But the corner grocery was an easy shot from the University District, over the Montlake Bridge. The Varsity, the Neptune, the Seven Gables.
And one more, west of I-5, on Forty-Fifth Street.
I punched buttons on my phone and silently urged Kristen to pick up. She did and I stepped out of the flow of traffic, keeping my eye on Byrd.
“Do you remember when we saw Lady Bird, in the theater?”
“Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf. It made me terrified of the girls becoming teenagers. I loved it.”
“Remind me,” I said, and she did, summarizing it in my ear as I trailed after Byrd.
“That was at the Guild, right?” Not one of our usual haunts, but one I remembered fondly, with its bright pink stucco, Deco curves, and classic two-sided marquee.
“Yeah. On Forty-Fifth. Last movie we saw there before it closed, with no notice. That’s why we started Flick Chicks a couple months later, remember? Too many theaters were closing, and streaming was filling the gaps.”
“Perfect. Thanks. Gotta run. Love you.” I clicked off and sped toward the hospital.
One other attractive feature about the Guild was that it was easy to sneak in a side door and watch the movie without buying a ticket. I think we only did it once. We—Maddie had been with us, along with a couple of other girls—were terrified that we’d get caught and they’d throw us in jail. Or worse, call our parents.
If you could sneak in, someone else could sneak out.
In retail and in real life, it’s never okay to lie. Pretending you didn’t hear when a customer says nobody needs all these fancy salts is good business. Pasting a calm expression on your face when you’re strolling past a suspected killer, piece of cake.
Well, I may be puffing on that. But when I saw Byrd in his rain jacket standing twenty-five feet from the hospital door with a cigarette in hand, I tossed him a casual smile and walked on by. Stopped and retraced my steps back to where he stood, next to one of those trash cans encased in concrete, an ash tray on top.
“Hey, I know you, don’t I? You’re Maddie’s cousin Jake, right? Oh, gosh. You must be so relieved that she’s finely coming around.”
A whirl of panic and confusion crossed his face.
“Oh, my bad. After all that’s happened, how could you remember one more name? It’s Pepper Reece.” What had Ramon the security guard said? They had to be careful of people trying to worm their way in to see patients in the ICU. Old friends. That would be me. Distant cousins. That would be Jake.
“I hear you two are in business together,” I said as he took another puff. “That’s great. Must be so satisfying, to picture a building then bring it to life. Like giant Legos.”
“You make it sound simple. I worked construction a long time.”
“Around here? Oh, silly question. Of course you’re from here. You’re a Petrosian.”
“No, the connection goes back another generation. My grandfather was a Gregorian. His sister, Rose, married Petrosian. They were Maddie’s grandparents.”
As I well knew. Rose had lived with Maddie’s family in her later years. She made the loveliest soft molasses cookies, with sugar sprinkled on top. But she died when we were in
