Instead of climbing my frame, he clapped one arm around my shoulder. 'I'm glad to see you, Detective Beaumont. You were absolutely right about that scene with the little kid. I saw the rushes late last night. It just didn't work. Too melodramatic. We're going to shoot it again today, the whole scene. Now tell me, just exactly how would you do it?'
Wonders will never cease. Sam 'The Movie Man' Goldfarb's sudden change of heart left me completely bewildered, but then I don't suffer from an overdose of artistic temperament. In fact, there isn't an artistic bone in my body.
Artistic or not, we did it my way, the whole scene, from beginning to end. Derrick Parker's gun stayed in its holster. When one stuntman finally tackled the other, it was a full body blow that sent them both crashing onto the deck of one of the houseboats. They rolled under the table where the unsuspecting family was eating a picnic dinner, but no one got hurt. The little kid didn't get shot and die.
Fight scenes are incredibly complicated and time-consuming to map out. Choreographing, they call it, and I can see why. It's very much like an elaborate dance. Everything has to come together in total synchronization. We worked on that scene all morning long, first one segment and then another. For the first time, I had some inkling of how the final product would look. Not only that, I finally felt as though I was making a contribution, doing what Captain Powell had asked me to do.
For a change, the cop didn't look stupid.
And I saved a little kid's life, even if it was only make-believe.
Protecting the lives of innocent people is what I get paid for, really. At least that's what it says in the manual.
CHAPTER 7
I left the houseboat dock about noon. As far as I could see, Death in Drydock was pretty much in the can, but I had still not been officially dismissed. I headed for the coffee station where I found Woody Carroll seated on a folding chair leaning back against the building. He was drinking coffee from a styrofoam cup and holding a newspaper in his lap. Several members of the Lake Union Drydock crew were gathered around and involved in a heated debate.
'I'd never let my wife work at a job like that. Never in a million years.' The comment came from a long-haired type in grubby overalls.
Several of the group nodded in agreement while another hooted with laughter. 'Come on, George, admit it. You couldn't stand it if your old lady made more money than you, that's all.'
'It's not that,' George insisted. 'It's too damn dangerous for everyone else on the job. Women aren't strong enough. They got no business goin' where they're not wanted.'
I edged my way over to where Woody was sitting. 'What are they talking about?' I asked.
Wordlessly, he handed me the newspaper, opened to the front page. The picture that met my eyes was a real gut-wrencher. It was one of a construction worker tumbling head over heels past the face of an unfinished building. The headline across the page told it all:
CONSTRUCTION WORKER PLUNGES 43 STORIES.
'It was a woman?' I asked.
Woody nodded. 'Read it,' he said.
I did.
'A 28-year-old Seattle-area construction worker fell to her death early yesterday during her fourth day on the job at Masters Plaza, a building under construction at Second and Union.
'Angie Dixon of Bothell, an apprentice ironworker, apparently became entangled in a welding lead and fell from the 43rd story of the new building, which is scheduled for completion late next year. Ms. Dixon was pronounced dead at the scene by King County's medical examiner, Dr. Howard Baker.
'One of the victim's fellow crew members, journeyman ironworker Harry Campbell, said he had sent Ms. Dixon to bring a welding lead. When she failed to return, he went looking for her in time to see her clinging to a welding hose outside the building. He was attempting to reach her when she fell.
'Mr. Raymond Dixon, the dead woman's father, said his daughter had only recently decided to break into the construction trade. He said she had previously worked in the union's bookkeeping department as a secretary and was frustrated by consistently low wages and boredom.
'Masters and Rogers, the Canadian developers of Masters Plaza, have been recording the emergence of the building with a series of time-lapse photographs. One of them, released exclusively to the Seattle Times today, happened to capture the woman's fatal plunge.
'Darren Gibson, local spokesperson for Masters and Rogers Developers, said a crew of ironworkers and operating engineers were working overtime both Saturday and Sunday in an effort to keep the building's completion deadline on schedule.'
I didn't read any more. I threw the paper back in Woody Carroll's lap. 'Those sorry bastards,' I muttered. 'They'll do anything to sell newspapers.'
The debate was still swirling around me. 'If she'da had more upper-body strength, she probably coulda hung onto that welding lead long enough for somebody to drag her back inside, know what I mean?' one man was saying.
'No way,' the long-haired George responded. 'He would have been killed, too.'
Just then there was a sharp blast from the Lake Union Drydock whistle. To a man the workers got to their feet. 'I guess that means we can get to work now,' George said. He sauntered away, leading a group that headed in the direction of the drydocked minesweeper. There weren't any women in that particular crew. It didn't surprise me a bit.
Woody Carroll had pulled out a pencil and was making a series of calculations in the margin of the newspaper. 'How tall do you suppose forty-three stories are?' he asked me.
I shrugged. 'I don't know. In a commercial building each story is probably ten feet or so, give or take. And the lobby level is often taller than that, say fifteen feet, somewhere around there. Why? What are you doing?'
For a moment Woody didn't answer me, but concentrated on what he was doing, his brows knit in deep furrows. Finally he glanced up at me. 'She must have been doing about a hundred fourteen miles an hour when she hit the ground.'
'A hundred and fourteen?' I asked. 'That's pretty damn fast. I've been a cop for a long time, and I've pulled my share of pulverized automobile victims from wrecked cars. At fifty-five it's bad enough. I'm glad I wasn't there to scrape her off the sidewalk.'
Woody nodded. 'Me, too,' he said.
I poured myself another cup of coffee. Math has never been my strong suit. It took me a minute or two to realize that Woody Carroll, without the benefit of so much as a pocket calculator, had just solved a fairly complicated mathematical problem.
'How'd you do that, by the way? You never struck me as a mathematician.'
Woody grinned. 'Snuck that one in on you, didn't I. It's simple. I thought I told you, I was a bombardier in the Pacific during World War II. I never got beyond geometry in high school, but the Air Force gave me a crash course after I enlisted. I cut my teeth on those Norden bomb sights. Did I ever tell you about that?'
'As a matter of fact, you didn't.'
Woody was just getting ready to launch into one of his long-winded stories, when someone came looking for him. 'Hey, Woody, they need you to help direct trucks in and out so they can load up and get out of our way.'
Carroll got up and handed me the paper. 'See you later,' he said. 'It's been a pleasure working with you, Detective Beaumont.'
Left standing there alone, I didn't want to look at the newspaper in my hand, but I was drawn to it nevertheless. The picture repulsed me. The very idea repulsed me. I suspected that someone had made a nice piece of change, selling the developers' fortuitous snapshot of Angie Dixon's death to the newspapers. The editor who used it and the person who provided it were both scumbags in my book-but, inarguably, the picture would sell newspapers.
