message. Or else it gets stuck in a loop and repeats my message over and over without ever sounding the beep that would allow someone else to leave one for me. Ralph keeps telling me that I ought to get rid of it and sign up for voice mail with the phone company, but I don't want to.
I know all about voice mail. We have it on the phones down at the department. I prefer the machine. With the answering machine, if I'm home, I can screen my calls. When I hear the voice on the recorder, I get to decide whether or not I want to pick it up. With voice mail, there's no way to screen calls. It's potluck; either you answer or you don't. Voice mail may come with a lot of fancy new bells and whistles, but it doesn't come with blinking lights. My old-time machine does. I can count the number of blinks and know exactly how many calls I've had without even picking up the phone.
In this case, there had been only one. I decided arbitrarily that one message could wait, at least until after I had something to eat. By then it was a long time past my noontime burger.
I went into the kitchen and used the last two crusts of bread to make myself a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich. Reminded by a mouthful of peanut butter, I made a mental note to call my grandmother to check on how her dog, Mandy, was doing. Then I grabbed a glass of milk from the fridge and made my way to the recliner. Once I settled in, I punched the Play button on the machine.
'Detective Beaumont,' a familiar African-American voice said. 'How you doing, my man? This is Rocky Washington from down at the crime lab. Janice Morraine asked me to call you. Says to ask you how come you're hanging out with folks from the Pentagon or maybe the Joint Chiefs. Give me a call back. I'll be here until eleven.'
Rocky is a recent graduate from the University of Washington who is now serving an apprenticeship under the careful tutelage of Janice Morraine. Rocky has a quick mind and a great sense of humor. At work he speaks in perfectly articulated English, so he was clearly having fun and playing around when he left the message.
Joking is fine. We all need a little of that to lighten the load at times, but I couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about. Pentagon? Joint Chiefs?
I picked up the phone and dialed the crime lab. Rocky answered the phone himself.
'Rocky, this is Detective Beaumont. What's up? I don't know anybody who works for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.'
'We figured you did,' Rocky answered. 'If not them, maybe NASA. I mean, who else would have a solid-gold wrench? I suppose you've heard about all their two-hundred-dollar toilet seats.'
'Wait a minute. Did you say solid gold?' I demanded.
'You got it. Nine-point-one ounces. The way I figure it, at three-thirty or so an ounce, that makes it your basic three-thousand-dollar wrench. And totally useless, besides. Gold's too soft to use on anything.'
I couldn't quite believe my ears. 'You mean the wrench Bonnie Elgin found, the one Sue Danielson dropped off, is made of solid gold?'
'Didn't you hear me the first time? The whole thing is covered with a thick layer of enamel, so you couldn't tell it right off. But after I finished lifting the prints, I put it under a microscope. I found a tiny chip in the enamel that was invisible to the naked eye. But the chip I saw looked like gold to me, so I measured the specific gravity. Sure enough. It's gold all right.'
'I'll be damned,' I said.
'Me, too,' he agreed. 'There were a bunch of prints on the damn thing. Who-all handled it?'
'Bonnie Elgin. The lady who was driving the car. And maybe her husband, although I don't know for sure.'
'Find out for me, would you? If he did, we'll need both of them to come in to give us a set of elimination prints.'
'Okay,' I said. 'No problem. It's not all that late. I'll give them a call right away.'
After dropping off Rocky's call, I located the Elgins' phone number in my notebook and dialed them up. Bonnie herself answered, but there was a lot of noise in the background, as though there was a party going on. I identified myself and asked her if this was an inconvenient time to talk.
'It's fine,' she said. 'Go ahead.'
'We need you to come down to the department tomorrow morning so we can take a set of fingerprints.'
I heard a quick intake of breath. 'That sounds bad.'
'No. We're just trying to save the taxpayers a little money. It's expensive to run prints through AFIS.' I caught myself talking cop jargon and backed up. 'Sorry, that's the Automated Fingerprint Identification System,' I explained. 'By taking your fingerprints and comparing them to the ones lifted off the wrench, the print technician can tell which ones need to be processed and which ones don't. By the way, did your husband touch the wrench?'
'No. I'm pretty sure he didn't.'
'Ask him, if you can. If he did, we'll need him to come in to be printed as well. Then, in addition to the prints, while you're down at the department, I'd like to set you up with our staff artist. Maybe you can put together one of those Identi-Kit sketches so we can have a little better idea of what this guy looks like.'
Bonnie sounded doubtful. 'I don't know if I can remember all that well. Is it important?'
From my point of view, I thought having a sketch was vital, but I didn't want to spook her. 'Let's just say that we have uncovered some additional information. It's looking more likely than ever that there's a connection between the man you hit and the one who died in the fire at Fishermen's Terminal. So, yes, it could be very important.'
Bonnie Elgin paused, but only for a moment. 'What time do you want me there?'
'Is nine too early?'
'No. I'm up and out long before then. Nine will be fine.'
After we rang off, I started to put down the phone. Then I thought better of it and dialed my grandmother. She had told me that she never goes to bed before the end of the eleven o'clock news. She answered on the second ring.
'Just thought I'd check and see how you're doing tonight.'
'We're doing fine, Mandy and I,' Beverly Piedmont returned. 'She did manage to have a little something to eat. Kelly's right about the peanut butter. Mandy loved it, except for getting some stuck to the roof of her mouth. After that she ate a bite or two of her dog food as well, so she seems to be feeling better. I let her out for her walk a little while ago. Now we're sitting here waiting for the news to come on. What are you doing?'
'I just got home a few minutes ago. I'm going to kick off my shoes and unwind for a few minutes, then hit the sack early.'
'It sounds as though you work too hard, Jonas,' she chided gently, her voice full of grandmotherly concern. 'You have to remember to take time to smell the flowers every day. Life's much too short if you don't.'
'Thank you,' I said, and meant it. 'I'll try to remember that.'
When I put down the telephone receiver, I did finally kick off my shoes. Then I sat back in the creaking leather recliner and gave my grandmother's advice some serious thought.
It had been a day that had brought me face-to-face with my own mortality. It's one thing to deal with homicides on a daily basis. That's my job, and Gunter Gebhardt's death was far more work than it was personal.
The knowledge that my grandfather's ashes still waited on the entryway table brought death into much too close proximity. Not only that, hearing about what had happened to Lars Torvoldsen-someone I still saw as a kid I grew up with-hit me where I lived. Last but not least in that regard, Karen Livingston, my ex-wife, was never far from my thoughts. The two of us had been divorced for a long time, but she was still the mother of my children and the grandmother of little Kayla. Karen had also just finished up undergoing her third round of chemo in a little less than two years.
Damn.
So what if Champagne Al had developed a slight paunch and no longer had any reason to use H. A. Hair Arranger. I didn't use it anymore, either, but that was more because of my perpetual crew cut than because my hair was falling out. Still, Al and I had cause to count our blessings. The two of us were still alive and in reasonably good health. For how long? I wondered morbidly. How does that old saying go? First you get old, and then you die.
On that cheery note, I must have dozed off for a little while, lying back in the recliner and probably snoring. I'd like to believe I didn't drool, but I was sound asleep when the telephone at my elbow startled me awake.
'Hello?' I answered uncertainly.
