kind of pension income of her own. And Gunter promised my father that Mother could always live with us; that we'd take care of her for as long as she lived.
'Gunter was a man of his word. He took that promise very seriously, and he kept it. We both have. But it's cost me more than it has him. You don't know what it's like living with her day in and day out. Mother still acts like the house belongs to her, like we're only living here because she lets us. The towels have to be folded the way she likes them. Everything has to be done her way, and I don't have any say in it at all.'
Else paused again, and I thought I could see how this was all shaping up. In the age-old battle between contentious in-laws, someone is always bound to be caught in the middle.
'Let me guess,' I said. 'Gunter gave you an ultimatum. He told you that you'd have to choose between them. Either your mother was out the door or he was.'
Else shook her head. 'No,' she said. 'That wasn't it at all. I told Gunter last night that I wanted to sell the house and put my mother in a retirement home. I've found one I think she'd like down in Gig Harbor. I told him that if he didn't agree to back me up on this and sell the house, I was leaving-that I'd go live in an apartment over someone's garage if I had to.
'I tried to explain to him that sometime before I died, I wanted to live in a house of my own-a place that belonged to me more than it did to my mother. A place where I could leave the dirty dishes in the dishwasher overnight without running it and no one would ever know about it but me.'
'What did Gunter say?'
'No. Not just no, but absolutely no! He told me I was being silly and selfish. And then he left-stormed out of the house right in the middle of the fight. He just walked out the door, got in his truck, and went down to Fishermen's Terminal to spend the night. That's what's so unfair about it. Men can do that, you know. They can leave. Women can't. Somebody has to stay behind to take care of things. I had to stay here with Mother. I've had to do that my whole life.'
Else Gebhardt's blue eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. 'I feel so awful. I loved him. And I'm sorry he's dead. And I don't know what I'll do without him, but I'm mad at him, too, dammit! Because he got away, and he left me holding the bag. And because he didn't even bother to kiss me good-bye.'
Just then a door opened at the top of the stairs. 'Else?' a woman's voice called. 'Phone.'
'I can't talk to anyone right now,' Else managed, choking down a sob. 'Tell them I'll call back.'
'It's Kari.'
'Oh, of course,' Else said, wiping the tears from her face and lurching to her feet. 'Kari. Tell her I'll be right there. You'll excuse me?'
Sue and I nodded in unison. After Else left, I looked down at the notebook on the countertop in front of me. The page was blank.
'All this stream-of-consciousness stuff isn't getting us anywhere, is it?'
'Not really,' Sue agreed. 'But there's one thing I'm curious about.'
'What's that?'
'Why does she keep calling you BoBo?'
I didn't much want to discuss it, but I figured I'd be better off getting it out of the way once and for all.
'It's from back in the old days,' I answered shortly. 'Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. It's a nickname that dates from Ballard High School Beaver days, when the cheerleading squad used to give pet names to all the athletes.'
'You two knew one another back then?'
'As well as a lowly sophomore ever knows the senior movers and shakers. You know how that goes. Else and Alan Torvoldsen were a real item back then.'
'That's the guy she was going to marry? The one who knocked her up? Isn't he the same one Watty wants us to see later today?'
'That's right. In case you hadn't noticed, Ballard's really a small town stuck in the middle of a big city.'
Sue Danielson nodded. 'I'm beginning to figure that out,' she said.
I got up and prowled around Gunter Gebhardt's compulsively clean workshop. Stored in one cupboard I found the collection of carefully crafted plaster molds he had used to create his army of lead soldiers. I also found the collection of paints and delicate brushes and files he must have used to do the finish work on the soldiers once they came out of the molds. Painstakingly making those soldiers must have been the sole creative outlet for a man with considerable artistic talent and capability.
The door at the top of the stairs opened, and the stairs creaked under the weight of heavy footsteps. Soon Else Gebhardt appeared from behind the partition at the bottom of the stairs. She was still crying, but she was smiling through the tears.
'Kari's coming down from Bellingham. Michael's bringing her down. They'll be here early this evening. I can hardly believe it.' As far as I could see, it seemed reasonable that a daughter faced with news of her father's death would show up to help her mother. 'What makes that so hard to believe?' I asked.
'You don't understand,' Else replied. 'The last time Gunter and I saw Kari was the night of her high school graduation. She cut us dead-refused to speak to either one of us. I thought it would break her father's heart.'
'I heard you on the phone earlier. When all this came up, how did you know where to call her, then?'
'Kari stays in touch with her grandmother-with my mother,' Else answered.
No wonder Else wanted to be out from under her mother's thumb. Inge Didriksen was a problem. On more than one front.
The phone call from Kari seemed to have had a calming effect on Else. After that we settled down and took some more organized information from her. What time her husband had left the house the previous evening-seven. Where had he said he was going-the boat. Did Else know of anyone with whom Gunter was having difficulties-she did not. Was she aware of any business dealings that may have gone awry-not that she could think of.
The questions were straightforward, and so were the answers. That kind of basic interview may not seem like much in terms of drama or excitement, but the information gained usually forms the foundation of a murder investigation. It's like a baseline X ray on a cancer patient. It tells investigators where and when things started going haywire. It's the hub of a wagon wheel-an initial point for branching out and asking more questions.
As we walked away from the house and threaded our way through the collection of parked cars, I was struck by how commonplace and ordinary the house looked. Yet inside those sandstone walls there had been a world of multigenerational conflict-years and decades of parents and children at war with one another.
Of course, everyone tries to pretend to the outside world that his own family isn't at all like that, but maybe if you scratch the surface, most of them are just that way. Sue Danielson's family certainly wasn't absolutely smooth and trouble-free. The little lunchtime set-to with Jared had proved that.
I left the Gebhardts' home in Blue Ridge convinced that Else and Gunter's seemingly troubled existence, one filled with marital and parental strife, wasn't all that different from anyone else's.
Mine included.
8
Sue Danielson and I drove back to Fishermen's Terminal and hit the bricks, or rather the planks. We stumped up and down the separate docks, asking questions, talking to folks.
That first pass wasn't particularly productive. No one had seen anyone acting strangely the night before. No one had noticed anything out of the ordinary. When you're working a homicide investigation, those kinds of answers are to be expected, either because the various witnesses really haven't seen anything or because they don't want to become involved. It's also the reason why detectives seem to go back over the same ground, asking the same questions again and again.
Gradually, however, through the eyes of Gunter Gebhardt's peers, a complex picture began to emerge. 'That damn hardheaded Kraut,' as Gunter was referred to more than once, wasn't what you could have called Mr. Personality.
Despite thirty years spent working there, he hadn't been especially well liked in Ballard's fishing community. Grudgingly respected, yes, but not necessarily liked. A few people made wryly derogatory comments about Gunter's
