Curt scrambled out of my chair as soon as I appeared in the doorway. “Didn’t mean to take over your desk,” he apologized, “but I’ve been playing phone tag with that attorney of yours. I wanted to check with you and see if we’d be able to get together some time over the weekend. The attorney sounded like he wanted to be in on the appointment.”
“Watch out for this guy,” Big Al warned. “If you ask me, he’s nothing but a goddamned ambulance chaser. He even tried to get an appointment with me.”
Curtis shrugged off Detective Lindstrom’s comment as though it was nothing more than a good-humored dig, but from the sour expression on Big Al’s face I guessed he wasn’t really kidding.
“Whatever it takes to get people to listen to reason,” Curtis said with an easy grin. “After all, there’s nothing like a couple of bullets whizzing past a guy’s ears to give him a sense of his own mortality, right, Beaumont?”
“No doubt about it,” I said, and meant it.
“So what’s this guy’s name? Your attorney?”
“Ralph Ames.”
“Yeah, him. He said we’d either have to do it sometime over this weekend, or we’d have to wait a whole month.”
“That’s right. He’s only here until Monday or Tuesday this trip. I forget which.”
“I don’t understand why he has to be included in the first place. What’s the big deal? I mean, can’t the two of us just get together and talk?”
“Believe me, if it’s got something to do with me and money, Ralph Ames is in on it from the very beginning, or it doesn’t happen. That’s what I pay him for.”
“Well okay then,” Curtis agreed reluctantly. “When?”
“Hold on,” I told him. “I’ll call Ralph and ask.”
Picking up the phone, I dialed my home number. It was shortly after one, and I wondered if Ralph might once more be entertaining his noontime lady friend. The phone rang, but instead of reaching either Ralph or my answering machine, my eardrum was pierced by a high-pitched, raucous screech. Thinking I must have dialed wrong, I tried again only to have the same thing happen.
“What’s the matter?” Big Al asked. “Nobody home?”
“My phone must be out of order.”
I dialed the operator and told her about the difficulty on my line. “Before I report the trouble to Repair, sir, let me try it for you,” the operator said.
This time, I had brains enough to hold the phone away from my head before another ear-splitting squawk came zinging through the receiver.
“You must have left your fax machine hooked up,” the operator told me.
“Fax machine?” I echoed. “I don’t even own a fax machine, so how could it be hooked up? There must be some mistake.”
The operator’s tone grew a bit testy. “Sir,” she said, “there is no mistake. If the number you gave me is correct, then, whether or not you own a machine, there is definitely one attached to your telephone outlet at the present time.”
Good old “Gadget Ralph” was obviously up to his old tricks again. “No doubt you’re right,” I told the operator. “It is hooked up, and I probably do own it. I just didn’t know I owned it.”
“That’s quite all right, sir,” she returned, sounding slightly mollified. “Glad to be of service.”
“Well?” Curtis asked when I put down the phone.
“You’ll have to wait for me to get back to you, after I get hold of Ralph and check his schedule. Until then, I can’t make any promises. And as far as I’m concerned, if this case heats up over the weekend, my own schedule may go out the window. I could end up working the whole time.”
Curtis nodded. “I understand Ben Weston’s funeral is tomorrow. It sounds like the brass are treating his death like a line of duty, so I guess the force will be out in force regardless of…” Catching sight of the expression on Big Al’s face, Curtis Bell backed away from the pun and allowed his voice to dwindle uneasily away.
“Regardless of what?” Allen Lindstrom demanded.
“You know. Everyone’s talking about it-about Ben and whatever it was he was up to.”
“Get your butt out of here,” Big Al ordered. “Who the hell are you to say it wasn’t line of duty?”
Curtis Bell looked at the other man appraisingly. “Come on, Al. Lighten up. I didn’t mean anything by it. People are talking, that’s all. Everybody down in CCI is hoping you guys will find something that will exonerate him. Ben Weston was one hell of a guy. Nobody wants to see his name dragged through the mud.”
But Big Al was in no mood to be placated. “Like hell they don’t. Get the fuck out of here, Curtis, and quit gossiping. We’ve got work to do. Besides, aren’t there rules against conducting private business on company time?”
“Hey, I’m off duty this morning,” Curtis Bell returned, but he edged toward the door all the same. “Call me, Beau. About the appointment, I mean. After you hear from Ralph Banes.”
Ralph Banes indeed!
As Curtis took off down the hallway, we heard the sounds of a slight scuffle followed by a mumbled apology. Moments later, Ron Peters and his wheelchair appeared in the doorway. He waved at Big Al and nodded to me. “What on earth did you two say to that guy?” Ron asked. “He almost ran me down.”
“I told him to get out of my face,” Big Al said morosely. “And he did.”
Ron studied Big Al for a long moment. “I probably would, too,” he said. “How are you doing, Al?”
Detective Lindstrom dropped his gaze and stared at the floor. “All right, I guess,” he said.
“They told me upstairs that you were handing out the tape. I could have gotten it from somebody up there, but I’m a fifth floor kind of guy, Al, and I wanted to wear fifth floor tape. I also wanted to tell you how sorry I was.”
Big Al nodded his thanks and reached into his pocket, where he retrieved his somewhat depleted roll of tape. He tore off a hunk and passed it to Ron, who dutifully stuck it to his own badge.
“And as for you,” Peters said, turning to me, “I’m real happy that bullet didn’t come any closer. If it had, we’d all be wearing two pieces of tape instead of just one.”
“That’s an old joke, Ron. I’ve already heard it once this morning from Captain Powell. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?”
Ron Peters looked from Big Al to me and back again. “Well, it’s certainly not sweetness and light around here, is it. I take it you two are up to your eyeballs in this Weston case?” he asked.
“Actually, we’re not,” I told him. “You’re looking at the Weston Family Task Force second string. I’m about to write a report on my interview with the mother of the one unrelated victim. That’s my part of the case, and I’m expected to stick to it. And, as you’ve already heard, Al’s assignment today is to hand out black tape. He’s locked out of the investigation because he was friends with several of the victims, and I’m sidetracked because Paul Kramer hates my guts.”
“Sounds almost as political as working in Media Relations,” Ron said with a halfhearted grin that wasn’t really funny.
Ron and I had been partners in Homicide before a permanent spinal injury put him in his chair. After long months of rehabilitation, he had come back to the department as a Media Relations officer, but I knew he longed to be back home with the detectives on the fifth floor, where the action is. I couldn’t blame him for that. For my money, working with murderers is often a whole lot less hazardous to your health than working with reporters.
“By the way,” Ron said, “that’s another reason I’m here. My job. It seems Maxwell Cole has turned over a new leaf. He says he understands the Weston Family Task Force guidelines. For a change, he’s not trying to go around them. He wants me to get a quote from you-a direct quote, if possible-about how it feels to have dodged out of the way of that stray bullet yesterday morning.”
Max is an old fraternity brother turned columnist and long-term media adversary. He went to work for the local morning rag, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, about the same time I hired on with the Seattle Police Department. We’ve been on each other’s backs and down each other’s throats ever since. He’s the least favorite practitioner of my least favorite profession.
“Max wants a direct quote?” I asked.
Ron nodded. “You know him. He wants something short and punchy, but fit for publication in a family newspaper.”
