Walking up to the house, I paused long enough to look at the cars more closely. The older of the two, a 500 SEL, was missing glass from the right front headlight. The fender surrounding the light was bent and buckled, and the grill had a crack in it as well. In addition to that, the hood ornament was missing. From what I knew of European auto repair, Bonnie Elgin was probably looking at several thousand bucks' worth of bodywork to make her slick but disfigured Mercedes look like new again.
Sue Danielson gaped openly at the imposing mountain of house. 'I wouldn't want it,' she announced with a disinterested shrug, and headed for the front door. 'Too many bathrooms to clean.'
Better detachment than envy, I thought. As a working cop, Sue Danielson wasn't likely ever to end up living in circumstances anywhere near this kind of opulence.
She gave the doorbell an angry shove, and a man opened the door almost as soon as the bell stopped chiming. He was around fifty years old-a fit specimen of upward mobility, dressed in an impeccable gray suit that was a perfect match for his hair. The man's mane of silvery hair was combed straight back in the classic style of a 1930s movie star.
'Bonnie Elgin, please,' Sue said, opening her I.D. 'I'm Detective Danielson, and this is Detective Beaumont. We're with the Seattle Police Department.'
The man shook Sue's hand while his eyes drilled curiously into my face. 'You're kidding me. Really? Detective Beaumont?'
I nodded. 'That's the one.'
Smiling, he turned to me and offered his hand. 'Ron Elgin,' he said. 'Hang on a minute.' Then he turned back into the house.
'Bonnie,' he called over his shoulder. 'You'll never guess who they sent. Detective Beaumont. Remember? The guy who donated the Bentley to the Rep.'
I couldn't believe it. The damn Bentley again! Who was it who said that no good deed ever goes unpunished? Had a hole opened up in that columned porch, I would have been more than happy to have disappeared into it.
'Come on in,' Ron Elgin said, totally unaware of my discomfort. He led the way into a marbled entryway with a spectacular vaulted ceiling. 'Bonnie will be thrilled to meet you, Detective Beaumont,' he continued. 'And you, too, of course,' he added with a polite nod at Sue. 'My wife will be down in a minute. Would either of you care for some coffee?'
'Coffee sounds great,' I said.
Sue nodded. 'Coffee's fine,' she said.
'Just go on into the living room and make yourselves at home,' Ron Elgin directed. 'There's a new pot of coffee that should be ready by now. It won't take me a minute.' He hustled off.
As instructed, I walked into the living room and wandered over to a bank of windows that overlooked the Puget Sound shipping lanes. The fog had lifted just enough to reveal a huge grain ship moving sedately toward the grain terminal.
'Great view,' I said, in a lighthearted but vain attempt to change the subject. Sue Danielson wasn't about to be thrown off-track.
'What's this about donating a Bentley?' she demanded.
'It's nothing,' I told her. 'Nothing at all.'
I would have been fine if Bonnie Elgin could have had the common grace and decency to back me up on that story. But she didn't. In her role as a member of the board of directors of the Seattle Repertory Theater Company, she had to come smiling into the living room, give me a big hug-as though we'd known one another forever-and thank me personally for my generous donation.
In terms of my ability to get along with Sue Danielson, my new partner, that was the worst possible thing Bonnie Elgin could have done.
4
As an unwed mother with little education living in the post-World War II era, my mother supported us with her hands. We lived in a tiny two-bedroom apartment over a bakery in Ballard. Mother took in sewing. The whole time I was growing up, she slept on the living-room couch. One bedroom was mine. In the other, Mom's treadle Singer sewing machine reigned supreme.
Over the years, she became an accomplished seamstress. The word seamstress sounds almost quaint now, like something out of another century, but that's what she was. She numbered some of Seattle's best-known names among her clientele, and not a few of them found their way to our door, climbing up the rickety stairs for fitting sessions.
I remember her telling me once that some of the society matron BB's-Bottle Blondes-Mother worked for didn't seem all that thrilled with their lives. 'They may have all the money in the world, Jonas,' she counseled, 'but they're not happy. They don't appreciate the good things they have.'
Bonnie Elgin was most definitely a society matron, but she was neither a bottle blonde nor was she unhappy. Her naturally graying, shoulder-length hair was pulled away from her face and secured by a big barrette. She came bounding down the circular stairway and into the spacious living room wearing a white tennis warm-up and an expansive smile.
Bonnie's doorknob-sized diamond twinkled as she held out her hand to Sue, then she hugged me as if we were long-lost friends.
'The way this morning started off, I didn't think anything good could possibly come of it,' she said breathlessly. 'But I'm very happy to meet you in person. Thank you so much for what you've done for the Rep. That Bentley of yours was a wonderful contribution. And it looks like it'll be an auction item again this year.' Her face darkened. 'The Guy Lewis trust, you know. The trustees decided to donate the Bentley for a second time. Of course, what happened to Guy and Daphne was a real tragedy…'
I nodded, hoping to cut her off and steer the conversation into somewhat less volatile territory.
Years earlier, the Belltown Terrace Real Estate syndicate, of which I am a member, had bought a pre-owned Bentley. A chauffeur-driven Bentley on call to ferry residents around town was envisioned as a one-of-a-kind building amenity-something unusual with some real snob appeal. Unfortunately, that selfsame wonderful-sounding upscale amenity had turned into a mechanical nightmare. No amount of high-priced tinkering from a series of inept mechanics could get the damned thing running right. It broke down time and again, stranding residents in any number of inconvenient places.
In the end, and with me acting as point man, the syndicate had unloaded the British-made, decrepit albatross by donating it to a local charity auction. Months after the auction, both the unlucky purchaser and his wife had been murdered, but that's another story.
'Coffee anybody?' Ron Elgin asked cheerfully, joining us in the living room. He was carrying a beautifully inlaid wooden tray. On it was a vacuum carafe coffeepot, mugs, cream, and sugar. He set the tray down on a rosewood coffee table. 'Detective Danielson?'
She nodded. He poured a cup and passed it to her. 'Detective Beaumont?'
'Yes, please.'
'Are you and Alexis Downey still an item?' he asked with a wink as he passed me my cup.
'Not really,' I said.
'Too bad,' he said. 'She's a nice lady.'
Pouring a third cup, Ron Elgin handed that one to his wife. 'Are you going to be all right now?' he asked, regarding her solicitously.
Bonnie Elgin nodded and smiled gratefully as she took the cup from him. 'Sure,' she said. 'I'm fine now, Ron. You go on to work. It was silly of me to let it throw me like that.' She reached over and gave him a light peck on the cheek, which he returned with a husbandly hug.
'Well, you're getting good service,' he replied. 'With all the gang warfare and drive-by shootings in town, I never expected the police department to send out two whole detectives to investigate a harmless little fender bender.'
Bonnie Elgin's smile disappeared. 'It wasn't all that harmless,' she said seriously. 'That man could have been
