fishing capability. I wasn't able to sort out if they were just making fun of him-which in Norwegian fishing circles pretty much goes with the program-or if Gunter Gebhardt really hadn't been all the good a fisherman. Still, not even his most outspoken critics faulted Gunter's general business acumen and sense of duty.
We spent almost half an hour with Dag Rasmussen, a grizzled and opinionated old salt whose boat, The Longliner, was berthed two boats away from the charred remains of Gunter Gebhardt's Isolde. Clad in greasy coveralls, Dag was elbow-deep in overhauling the main engine on his boat when we interrupted him.
'Gunter Gebhardt was one tough son of a bitch and hell to work for, too,' Dag told us. Leaning on the rail of The Longliner, he seemed unperturbed by our dragging him away from his work.
'You have to remember that Kraut was still making money when lots of the other guys were falling by the wayside. And don't forget, either,' Dag added, shaking a gnarled finger in my face, 'after Henrik Didriksen's heart attack, Gunter was the one who held things together for Inge, and him only a son-in-law. I give him plenty of credit for that.'
'What do you mean he was hard to work for, Mr. Rasmussen?' Sue asked.
Dag laughed and sent a brown wad of spittle arcing into the water between his boat and the one alongside. Several of his teeth were missing. The ones that remained were stained brown with tobacco juice. It reminded me why the Ballard area is sometimes referred to as Snoose Junction.
'He was big on busywork; always wanted the guys on his boat to work like dogs. Behind his back, they used to call him ‘Gunter the Nazi.''
Sue and I exchanged veiled glances. Those words might have been truer than anyone speaking them could possibly have suspected. Dag continued with his garrulous recitation.
'He didn't want to pay them nothing, either. He made up his own rules and docked his guys' pay for every infraction. Years ago, he opted out of the Vessel Owners Association. Said he was sick of settling up according to the set-line agreement when he wasn't getting nothing for it. That's about the time he stopped taking union crews and started negotiating his own deals.'
'Why was that?'
Dag looked at Sue as if she must have just crawled out from under a rock. 'So he wouldn't have to pay union scale,' he answered simply.
'But people still worked for him anyway?'
'Ja, sure,' Dag said. 'You know how it is. The ones who need money bad enough don't give a damn about union wages, and the newcomers don't know the difference. They're just happy to have a job.'
The possibility of union/nonunion difficulties was something to think about-a new wrinkle in our inquiry. If it turned out that labor relations had something to do with the case at hand, it wouldn't be the first time union wrangling had ended up as part of a Seattle P.D. homicide investigation.
'Would you happen to know the names of any of these nonunion crew members?' I asked.
'Hell, no!' Dag Rasmussen answered. 'Most didn't stay with him long. They got fed up and moved on. And the last few years most of 'em didn't speak English, leastwise not good enough so as you could understand 'em.'
'They're immigrants, then?'
'Yeah, foreigners of some kind.'
'Where from?'
He shrugged. 'I dunno. Mexico maybe. Or maybe farther south. Speak Spanish mostly, and don't know nothin'.'
Dag's words meandered off, spinning long, drawn-out, and dreary tales about the good old days when most members of the fleet had been born in Norway. Meanwhile, I wandered off on a separate tack of my own. Bonnie Elgin's missing hit-and-run victim. She had told us earlier that the injured man hadn't wanted to wait around long enough for either an ambulance or a police officer to arrive on the scene. She had also told us he was Hispanic. Was it possible he would turn out to be one of Gunter's nonunion fishermen? If so, that would be an unqualified Bingo.
I caught Sue's eye. She gave me a knowing nod that let me know I wasn't the only one making that potentially important connection. On our list of persons of interest, Bonnie Elgin's missing accident victim had just shot up to the very top. He was someone we would want to locate as soon as possible.
I jotted down a couple quick notes. One was to make arrangements to have someone pick up that bloody box spring and haul it down to the crime lab for analysis. The other was to try to lay hands on whatever initial reports Bonnie Elgin's accident might have generated.
It was possible the patrol officers who had responded to her frantic 9-1-1 call might have elicited some critical piece of information that she had inadvertently neglected to tell us. Years of doing this job have taught me that often the most mundane details-ones it's easy to overlook-turn out to be vitally important.
Well after five in the afternoon, Sue and I headed back down the dock, leaving Dag Rasmussen to return to his greasy engine overhaul. As we neared the Mustang, I reached into my pocket, pulled out the glassine bag, and examined the black-enameled wrench inside it.
'I guess we'd better get this down to the crime lab right away. And we'll need to make arrangements about getting that box spring picked up.'
'Good thinking,' Sue said.
I glanced up the darkening dock. Twice in the course of the afternoon, we had dropped by One Day at a Time in response to Watty's urgent lunchtime message to see Alan Torvoldsen. No one had been aboard Alan's boat either time. Now there was a light on inside, meaning he was most likely home. 'How about paying a late-afternoon call on Alan Torvoldsen?'
Sue glanced at her watch. 'Today's my turn to drive the car pool, and soccer practice gets over at six. If I don't leave before long, the kids will be left waiting in the park after everyone else goes home.'
Such are the joys of single parenthood.
'That's okay,' I said. 'You go on and do what you have to do. I can handle the Torvoldsen interview.'
'But you rode with me,' Sue objected. 'How will you get home?'
I laughed aside her concern. 'I'm a big boy, Sue. And Al's an acquaintance of long standing. When we finish up with whatever he has in mind, I'm sure he'll drop me off at Belltown Terrace.'
She thought about that for a second. 'All right then,' she agreed reluctantly. 'Give me the wrench. I'll handle both that and the box-spring problem when I drop the Mustang down at the department. It seems like cheating, though. I don't like bailing out while you're still working. I like to carry my weight.'
I handed her the bag containing the wrench. 'Don't feel guilty. Believe me, Alan Torvoldsen and I won't be working all that hard. My guess is that he wants to shoot the breeze and talk over old times. We'll most likely sit around and reminisce about our glory days as Ballard High School Beavers. It would bore you to tears.'
'You're just afraid I'll pick up a few too many stories about BoBo Beaumont and carry them back down to the department, aren't you?'
'You wouldn't do that, would you?' I asked apprehensively.
Sue Danielson grinned. 'Not on your life. I'm a great believer in what goes around comes around. I'd be mortified if Paul Kramer or one of those other jerks on the fifth floor ever got wind of the fact that in high school people used to call me Suzy Q.'
Sue Danielson walked away and left me standing there on the end of the dock. She got in the Mustang and drove off before I realized what she had done-that she had given me the gift of trust. She was long gone before I had gathered my wits about me enough to realize I hadn't said thank you.
As I headed toward One Day at a Time, I noticed how cold it was. Once again a pall of thick fog was settling over the city. I stepped aboard Alan's boat and knocked on the galley door.
'Who is it?' he called from inside.
'Beau,' I said.
When Alan came out, he was carrying an old corduroy jacket. The baseball cap had been replaced by a worn watch cap. He emerged grumbling, in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
'What the hell took you so long?' he demanded. 'I was about to give up on you.'
With that, and clearly expecting me to follow, he strode off down the dock, back the way I had come. Old times may be old times, but I didn't like his attitude. I resented his trying to lay on some kind of guilt trip about how late I was in getting back to him, especially since Sue and I had been trying to track the man down all afternoon.
