'Maybe you'd better tell me about it.'
'Do you know what a boomer is?'
'Not really.'
'In the trade it's a hand who knocks around the country, going from place to place, wherever there's work.'
'What kind of work?'
'Construction. Working iron. That's how Logan and I met, on the raising gang down at Columbia Center. I came up here from California as a boomer and was living on the boat. Logan was interested in boats, had always wanted one. When he offered to buy mine, I took him up on it. I was tired of banging my head on the doorway every time I needed to take a leak.
'Logan and Kate here invited me out to dinner. Christmas, Thanksgiving, summer barbecues. That sort of thing. Kate and I just hit it off, didn't we.'
Katherine Tyree gave a barely perceptible wordless nod.
'So that's how it started out, innocent like that. Once Logan had that boat, though, he wanted to spend every spare minute on it. He was gone a lot-on weekends, in the evening, after work. That's when things got out of hand with us, with Kate and me I mean. Like I said, we didn't intend for it to happen.'
The last sentence lingered in the air for several seconds. I'm not exactly sure who Fred was trying to convince most-Katherine Tyree, me, or himself.
'Where were you two last Tuesday night?' I asked.
Fred didn't flinch or try to duck the question. 'Right here,' he declared resolutely. 'Upstairs in the bedroom screwing our brains out.'
'Fred!' Katherine Tyree wailed. 'Don't!'
'Kate, honey, I've got to. Don't you see?' He let go of her hand and reached up and ran a finger tenderly along the full curve of her cheek.
'We're better off telling him right up front, hon. It would be worse if he found out later. Lots worse. Besides, we had no reason to kill Logan. In another month the divorce would have been final and we could've been married, no questions asked. I'm sick and tired of sneaking around. With Logan gone, I don't care who knows about us. It's nobody's business but our own.'
Fred's forthright narrative was pretty tough to counter. My gut reaction was that he was telling the truth, that his involvement with Katherine Tyree hadn't been planned or premeditated and that he was sincerely saddened by his former friend's death.
'Tell me about the boat,' I said.
Fred shrugged. 'There's not a lot to tell. It wasn't new. I bought it used for a song. Gasoline boats are a whole lot cheaper than diesel ones. I'd been living on it for a couple of years when I sold it to Logan.'
'What did you think about it?' I asked, turning to Katherine. 'About your husband's boat.'
'I hated it,' she said softly. 'It was the last straw. I felt like he was using it to run away from me. It was a place for him to go, to hide out, instead of doing things around here.'
'Was he hiding out?'
My question heaped salt on an open wound, but that's one way to get honest answers, to ask while people are still down for the count, before they have a chance to get up off their knees and reactivate their defenses.
'Yes,' Katherine said softly.
'Why? What from?'
'I don't know. We were just too different, I guess. We sort of drifted apart. We got married way too young. Everybody said so-his family, my family. He wanted to have kids, I didn't. I wanted to travel, he didn't. When I met Fred, I could see how wrong it had been the whole time. We were only staying together because we didn't know what else to do.'
'There are lots of marriages like that in this world,' I observed. 'Most of them end in divorce, not murder.'
Fred leaped to his feet and slammed a fist onto the table in front of me so hard the three coffee cups went skittering in all directions. 'Goddamnit! I already told you, we had nothing to do with it!'
I ignored him and once more directed my question to Katherine Tyree. 'Does the name Linda Decker mean anything to you?'
There was a flicker of recognition in her eyes, but nothing else. No hurt, no animosity. 'Yes,' she answered quietly. 'Linda was Logan's girlfriend.'
'Did you ever meet her?'
Katherine shook her head. Satisfied that I was no longer on the attack, Fred sat back down.
'When they met, he was already living on the boat. I was glad for him when we heard about it,' Katherine continued, 'glad he had found somebody.'
'But you don't know anything about her?'
Katherine shook her head. 'I do,' Fred offered. 'I saw Linda down at the union hall a few times. When she and Logan started dating, word spread like wildfire. She's a little mite of a thing, but tougher 'an nails. Understand she's a bodybuilder. According to everybody I talked to, she was doing fine. Then, a week or so ago, she walked off the job, turned in her union book, and quit.'
'She quit the apprentice program?'
Fred nodded.
'Any idea why?'
Fred shook his head. 'I thought maybe she and Logan had gotten into some kind of fight.'
I took a minute to go back over my notes, checking to see if there was anything I had forgotten to ask. I returned to the boat. 'Tell me more about Boomer. You said this was Logan's first boat, is that true?'
Fred and Katherine nodded in unison.
'Would he have started the boat without checking to make sure the blower was running?'
'No way!' Fred's response was quick, involuntary. He answered without thinking of the possible consequences. 'Logan was careful about everything he did. That's why they had him teaching that welding class. Safety first, that was his motto.'
I turned to Katherine. 'Would you agree with that?'
She nodded, tentatively this time. 'That's what I thought when they first came here to tell me about the fire, that it didn't sound like Logan, but…' The sentence faded away.
'But what?' I persisted.
'I was afraid to mention it.'
'Why, because you were afraid we'd come looking for you?'
'Yes.'
I closed my notebook.
'Is that all?' Fred asked.
'For the time being,' I answered, getting up. Everything they had told me had the ring of truth to it. Unless there was a lot more to it than I knew right now, there was no overwhelming reason for Fred and Katherine to knock off Logan Tyree, no motive to make risking a murder rap worthwhile.
Katherine Tyree stood up too. 'I'll go get dressed,' she said to Fred. 'I don't know what I'm going to wear.'
She disappeared upstairs and Fred showed me out. 'I've gotta get dressed too,' he said. 'I'm going with her today, even if people talk. Moral support. She needs to have somebody there with her. Logan's relatives have written her off completely. As far as they're concerned, it's like she doesn't even exist.'
'What time is the funeral?' I asked.
'Three o'clock. Out in Enumclaw. That's where Logan's folks are from. Are you going?'
I shook my head. 'No,' I said. 'I'll let this one pass,' not adding that since this wasn't officially my case, it would hardly be appropriate for me to show up.
When he got a glimpse of the 928, Fred followed me out to the gate. 'Nice car you've got there. What are you, working undercover?'
I nodded.
'You don't think Logan was into something illegal, do you?'
