disadvantage of being the new man…person in Homicide-all the old-timers figure they have to take you to raise.
Marian Rockwell seemed to grasp the full import of our little Homicide Squad byplay. 'My job's a lot easier than either of yours,' she said.
'Oh? How's that?'
The arson investigator smiled without humor. 'All I have to do is figure out what kind of accelerant this crazy asshole used,' she said. 'That's mostly a matter of simple chemistry. Spectrographic analysis. You two have to find whoever did it and why. When it comes down to why, I'm not so sure I want to know.'
With that Marian Rockwell walked back up the dock where she once more took up a bird-dog position overlooking Janice Morraine's progress. Meanwhile, Sue stood gazing at the boat, as if just looking at the Isolde long enough would somehow reveal all the necessary answers.
'How about some lunch before we tackle all this?' I asked. 'My treat.'
Sue Danielson looked at me as though I were speaking some strange and incomprehensible foreign language. 'Lunch?' she said blankly. 'I don't think I'm particularly hungry at the moment.'
'Maybe not,' I told her, 'but the way this case is going, we'd better grab something now while we can. It's likely to be a long day.'
Sue glanced at her watch. 'Oh, my God. You're right. It's after one. I told Jared I'd stop by and check on him during lunch. I wanted to make sure he's tending to business.'
'Let's go do it then,' I said, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt. Truth be known, I wanted to put Gunter Gebhardt out of my mind for the time being.
'In fact,' I added, 'if you'd like to, we could invite your son to come have lunch with us. How far away from here do you live?'
'Not that far,' she told me. 'Just on the other side of the Fremont Bridge.'
A few minutes later, we pulled up in front of a bare-bones duplex on Dayton in the Fremont neighborhood. The place was a long way from lavish, but it was in a decent, settled part of the city. From the way the yards had been kept up and from the number of older, sedan-type cars visible on the street, I had an idea that some of those homes still housed the original owners-little old people who were just now making plans to sell off their bungalows in order to enter retirement or nursing homes.
'It's a long way from Belltown Terrace,' Sue said defensively as she stopped the Mustang in the driveway in front of a minute garage.
'What do you mean?'
'Compared to where you live, this place must seem like almost as much of a dive as that bum's tent back there over the railroad tracks.'
I felt a momentary flash of anger. I've never made a big deal of my money, one way or the other. All I want to do is to be left alone to do my job without having to justify where I live or how. I glanced at the house. It may have been a humble little place, but a big orange, black, and brown construction-paper turkey covered the entire lower half of the front door. A lot of time and effort and love had gone into that damn turkey. Sue Danielson didn't have anything to apologize for-certainly not to me.
'You pay the freight on this place all by yourself, don't you?' I asked.
She nodded. 'Such as it is.'
'With or without child support?'
'Mostly without,' she admitted.
'So you earn this place, don't you?'
'Yes.'
'Well, where I live is a goddamned accident, Detective Danielson. I'm living in the penthouse of Belltown Terrace because God reached out and struck my life with lightning once, not because I've earned the right to be there. So don't give me any crap about it. And while you're at it, don't give me any crap about where you live, either. Got it?'
After a moment, she smiled slightly and nodded. 'The guys down at the department are right about you, aren't they? You can be a crotchety old bastard at times.'
'Damn straight! Now, are you going to go get that kid of yours, or am I?'
'I'm going, I'm going,' Sue Danielson said.
And she did.
6
The instant Jared Danielson trailed out of the duplex on his mother's heels, I knew why she wanted to brain him. In fact, so did I. On sight.
He was a gangly, scrawny kid who shuffled along in unlaced high-tops. He wore a Depeche Mode sweatshirt, the sleeves of which ended several inches below his longest finger. Although early November means legitimately winter weather in Seattle, his legs were bare. His ragged jams seemed to be several sizes too large for his narrow hips.
I know the look. The oversized clothing means only one thing to me, and I was sure it sent the same insulting message to his mother. Jared Danielson was a gang wannabe.
The drooping crotch of his pants hung down almost to his knobby knees. Had I been walking behind him, I think I would have been tempted to give them a yank. It wouldn't have taken much effort to have dropped them around his ankles.
For some unknown reason, kids who insisted on wearing their baseball caps backward six months ago have now, for no apparent reason, collectively turned them bill forward. Jared Danielson was no exception. At least the maroon-and-gray Washington State University baseball cap perched on his head was turned in the right direction. The dark brown hair sticking out beneath it fell well below his shoulders, and a small gold hoop earring pierced the lobe of one ear. He sported a spectacularly black-and-blue bruise under his right eye.
I'm old enough and old-fashioned enough so that the combination of earring and shiner jarred. When I was growing up, a boy who wore earrings wasn't likely to be hauled into the principal's office for fist-fighting. I take that back. They got in fist fights, all right, but they usually weren't the ones who started them. This punk looked as if he had mouthed off to the wrong person.
Just one look at his typical twelve-year-old-tough-guy pout as Jared Danielson slouched into the backseat of the Mustang was enough to make me regret having offered to take the little ingrate along to lunch. But then, settling back into my own seat, I managed to find something positive in the prospect. Lunch with Jared Danielson was all I was in for. He was Sue Danielson's son. She was stuck with the kid for life.
'Where to?' Sue asked me, once she resumed the driver's seat.
Attempting to play the role of polite host, I turned to Jared. 'What would you like for lunch?' I asked.
Jared glowered back at me and shrugged. 'I dunno,' he said.
'Fair enough. It's my call then. Let's try that little diner up on Forty-fifth,' I said. 'The one just across from the Guild Forty-five Theater.'
Ever since the Doghouse Restaurant closed in downtown Seattle, I've felt like a displaced person. Over the past few months, I've auditioned a few other hangouts, but so far none of them quite measures up.
I hate to admit it, but I miss the thick gray haze of secondhand smoke. I miss the butt-sprung orange plastic booths with their distinctive, triangular tears and duct-tape patching. I miss the basic 'Bob's Burger' with the onions fried into the meat. But most of all, I miss the crusty old-time waitresses who always knew how I liked my coffee and who saved me a daily collection of crossword puzzles from various abandoned newspapers.
The diner on Forty-fifth was trying hard-too hard-to achieve a 'real' 1950s look and atmosphere. Their recipe for authenticity was missing several essential ingredients. What was needed was more grime, more cigarette smoke, a few nonconforming extension cords strung along the moldings, and some hash-slinging waitresses at least one of whom would have a racing form handily tucked in her apron pocket.
Jared skulked into the far corner of a booth. Sue slid in beside him. We had no more than picked up our menus when Sue's pager went off. She headed for the pay phone in the back. 'Order me a burger with fries and a
