Poor Logan was all broke up when Katy-he called her Katy-when she told him she was actually filing for a divorce. He come creeping onto that there boat of his with his clothes in a box and his tail tucked between his legs. I felt sorry for him. He acted like it was the end of the world. I told him not to worry, that there were plenty of other fish in the sea. It didn't take him no time at all to figure out I was right, neither.'
'He found someone else?'
Corbett nodded. 'That little Linda ain't no bigger 'an a minute, but she'd make two or three of those Katherine types easy. I'd pick Linda over Katy any day of the week.'
'Linda's the girlfriend?'
He nodded.
'Do you know her last name?'
'Decker. Linda Decker. I told those other guys all about her just this morning. Don't you work together?'
For a change, a plausible lie came right to my lips. 'One of the two detectives is pretty new on the job,' I said casually.
Corbett gave me a sharp look then nodded sagely. 'And you're backstoppin' him to make sure he don't miss nothin'?'
'That's right,' I answered. My logical-sounding reply not only placated Red Corbett, it gave me some real pleasure. In actual fact, it wasn't that far from the truth, but Detective Paul Kramer would shit a brick if he ever got wind of it. 'Tell me what you can about this Linda Decker,' I urged.
Corbett eyed me uneasily. 'She's a nice girl. Don't you go gettin' no funny ideas about her. The way I understand it, Logan met her in an apprenticeship class down at his union hall. He was teaching welding. She needed to be a certified welder in order to work as an ironworker.' Corbett stopped short and looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face. 'You got any idea why a cute little gal like that would want to work at a job like ironworking? I mean it's hard work, and dangerous too, walking them beams way up in the air and such.'
'I can't imagine,' I said, although I suspected that money had something to do with it.
'Anyways,' Corbett continued. 'They met there in that class. He came by here that night to have a beer and tell me all about this lady he had met. You'da thought it was love at first sight, I swear to God. He was grinnin' from ear to ear like the cat that swallowed the canary. And it went on from there. She was real nice to him, helped him work on his boat on weekends. And he idolized those two little kids of hers. He would have been a good father. Katy refused to have any kids, you know. Just out and out refused.
'So like I was sayin', Linda and Logan got along great. My wife and I looked after the kids a few times for them when they went out. You forget how hard it is to find a baby-sitter once you don't have to use 'em anymore. The wife and I figured they'd wind up married sooner or later-I mean, as soon as the divorce was final. I was real sorry when they broke up.'
'When did that happen?'
He shrugged. 'Not long ago, I guess. Week before last maybe. Linda came over and they had a hell of a row. I heard 'em yellin' back and forth. As long as they'd been together, I'd never heard 'em exchange so much as a cross word. When they left, Linda's kids was both cryin' fit to kill.'
'Did he say what the fight was about?'
'Not really. He was real upset about it. I figured it had something to do with work, but he never said what. All he told me was that sometimes a man has to do what's right no matter what.'
'And Linda Decker hasn't come back around?'
'No. Not even after the article about the fire was in the paper. That kinda surprised me. I expected to see her. I mean, they'd had a fight and all, but I woulda swore she'd care about what happened to him. Course, she mighta been out of town and just didn't hear about it. That could be it.'
'So you haven't seen her at all?'
'Nope. Not since the night they had that fight.'
'Do you know if anyone from the department has talked to her?'
Corbett shook his head and blew a cloud of smoke into the air. 'I doubt it. You know how it is. After the fire some guys came around lookin' for the next of kin, and Linda wasn't that. I gave 'em his wife's name, and Linda's too, although I got the feeling that there wasn't much chance anybody'd be interested in talkin' to an ex-girlfriend. I was gonna give it to your detective friends this morning, but they said the same thing, that the wife's name was enough. Said they'd get Katherine to identify the body.'
'Kramer and Davis didn't bother to take Linda Decker's name?'
'Maybe they wrote it down. I don't recollect exactly, but they said that with an accident like this the wife would be all they'd need.'
An accident. Jim Harrison at Harbor Station had called it that too, but that was a Coast Guard finding made in a vacuum with no knowledge of an ex-girlfriend and an ex-wife. A jealous ex-wife.
'Somebody already mentioned that to me,' I said. 'Something about the gas-fume sensor or the blowers being out of commission. What do you think?'
Red Corbett tossed the butt of the second cigarette into the water with a contemptuous shake of his head. 'Well sir,' he said finally. 'It sure don't sound like the Logan Tyree I knew.'
I had been chatting easily with Red Corbett, but that remark put me on point. He had my undivided attention. That kind of comment is a shot in the arm for homicide detectives. It's what makes them go combing through whole catalogs of victims' friends and acquaintances. Something in the circumstances surrounding the death that doesn't fit, something that isn't quite right.
'What do you mean?' I asked.
'Logan loved that boat. He worked on her and tinkered with her every spare minute. He kept her shipshape.'
'You mean if something wasn't working right, he would have noticed right off and gotten it fixed.'
'You're damn right!'
'Did you tell Detectives Davis and Kramer that?'
Corbett laughed. 'Are you kiddin'? I didn't tell them two nothin'. They didn't ask.'
I felt like I had stumbled into something important, and I didn't want to let it loose. 'You wouldn't happen to have this Linda Decker's address and phone number, would you?' I asked.
Corbett gave me a wily toothless grin. 'I sure do. Like I said, me and the wife looked after her kids a couple of times. Linda lived with her mother and she left us her mother's name, address, and phone number just in case there was an emergency. We never had any call to use it, but it's still written down inside the cover of the phone book. You want it?'
I nodded. Corbett turned and walked unsteadily back toward his boat. In a few minutes he reappeared on deck, trailed by a woman who appeared to be several years older than he was and in equally bad shape. She stopped on the deck long enough to gather up the laundry while Red tottered over to me with a ragged phone book clutched in his hand. 'Leona Rising,' he read, gasping for breath. The phone number and address he gave me were in Bellevue, a suburb across Lake Washington from Seattle.
As I finished jotting the information into my notebook, the woman stepped forward, stopping at her husband's side. She looked at me quizzically. 'Red said you wanted Linda's number. Will you be seeing her?' she asked.
'Probably,' I said.
'Well, you tell her Doris and Red are thinking about her. Tell her we're real sorry about the way things worked out.'
'I'll be sure to do that,' I said. Turning, I walked away, leaving the two wizened old folks standing side by side. When I reached the car, I was still holding my open notebook with the scribbled name and address plainly visible. Looking down at them I knew I had stepped off the dock at the Montlake Marina and onto the horns of a dilemma.
What the hell was I going to do about that name and address? Look into them myself? Why? It wasn't my case. Turn them over to Manny and Kramer? Fat chance. They were already working on the assumption that Logan Tyree's death was an accident. I might be totally convinced that their assumption was wrong, but any contradictory suggestion from me was bound to cause trouble.
In the end, I decided to talk the whole situation over with Ron Peters. Young as he is, he's got a cool head on his shoulders. What's more, he has the ability to see several sides to any given argument.
