'We're playing all the angles,' I told him. My answer was vague enough that it would help keep me out of hot water as long as Manny Davis and Paul Kramer didn't tumble to the car. The red Porsche would be a dead giveaway.
Thoughtfully, I turned my key in the ignition. Old man Corbett had been right about some things and dead wrong about others. Katherine Tyree's screaming fits hadn't exactly been jealous rages-at least his interpretation of the boat being the root cause had been somewhat wide of the mark. And that little doubt made me begin to question his assessment of Linda Decker as well. I wanted to meet Linda Decker and decide for myself.
Ron Peters had already told me that Linda Decker had moved out of her mother's house, but that was the place to start if I wanted to learn anything about her. Of course, the sensible thing would have been to drop the whole program, to stay away, leave it alone.
But when have I ever done what's sensible? I pulled out of Katherine Tyree's driveway and headed for Interstate 405 and Linda Decker's former address in Bellevue.
I figured I could just as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
CHAPTER 9
Bellevue, a suburb which started out as a bedroom community due east of Seattle, has become a city in its own right. The transformation from sleepy suburb into a high-tech center has escaped the notice of confirmed cosmopolitan snobs who derisively refer to the entire east side of Lake Washington as the 'burbs.
To hear city dwellers tell it, Bellevue is a lilywhite, bigoted, upper-middle-class sanctuary. From what I saw that day, the blush was off the rose. I wouldn't call some of the areas slums, but they certainly qualified as pockets of poverty.
To begin with, I had a tough time finding Leona Rising's address on S.E. 138th. It's always like that. Bellevue's incomprehensible street system is a cop's nightmare. While I drove around lost, wandering in ever- narrowing circles, I saw a duke's mixture of kids out skateboarding and biking their way through the last full week of summer vacation. It didn't look like a totally segregated bunch to me.
Then, when I finally did find the place, on a small dead-end street just off Newport Way, the address turned out to be in one of a series of battle-weary duplexes much older and much more worn than their single-family- dwelling neighbors.
On that particular block, a somewhat shoddy dead-end street, my red Porsche would have stuck out like a sore thumb. There was no point in advertising my presence. I drove back up Newport and parked a few blocks away in the lot of a nearby public library branch. I returned to the house on foot. The aspirin I had fed my hangover was also helping my foot. For a change, the initial stab of pain from the bone spur wasn't quite as acute as I expected.
Approaching the place, I noticed a young man sitting on the front porch. At least I thought he was young. He was dressed in a loud, orange plaid shirt. His Levis had been rolled up at the cuff to reveal a long length of white athletic sock. On the porch near his feet sat a large, old-fashioned black lunch pail as well as an expensive-looking stainless-steel thermos.
At first glance I thought maybe he was in his late teens or early twenties, but closer examination showed a slightly receding hairline with flecks of gray dotting the short brown hair. I revised my original estimate up to thirty- five or forty. He didn't look up as I neared the porch. Instead, he sat there unmoving, staring dejectedly at his feet. He was sucking his thumb.
'Hello,' I said, stopping a few feet away. 'Anybody home?'
Surprised by my unexpected intrusion, he started guiltily, pulling his hand from his mouth and shoving it under his other arm. He held it there, pressed tightly between his arm and his chest, as though by imprisoning it he could conceal it from himself as well as from me. He stared up at me for a long time before he shook his head in answer to my question.
'I'm looking for Leona Rising.'
'She's…not here.' He spoke slowly, haltingly, in a deliberate monotone.
'What about her daughter, Linda Decker?'
His lower lip trembled. He began rocking back and forth, the repetitive motion slow and hypnotic. For some reason my question had brought him dangerously close to tears. 'She's…not here either,' he answered. 'It's her fault I missed…the bus. It's all…her fault.'
With that, he did burst into tears. He bent over double and sobbed while the comforting thumb crept out from under his restraining arm and back into his mouth. I stood there feeling like someone who has just unavoidably run over a headlight-blinded rabbit on the open highway. Whoever this guy was, he was no mental giant. My question had unleashed a storm of emotion I was helpless to stop. There was nothing to do but wait it out. Eventually, he quit crying.
When the thumb was once more concealed under his arm, he stole a sly glance up at my face. 'What's…your name?' he asked ingenuously.
I stuck out my hand. 'My name's Beaumont,' I said. 'What's yours?'
He stared at my extended hand for a long time as if trying to decide what he was supposed to do with it. As if remembering, he wiped his hand on a clean pant leg and shyly held it out to me. His grip was limp and sweaty, but he grinned at me suddenly, his tearful outburst of the moment before totally forgotten. 'Beaumont…that's a… funny name,' he said. 'My name is…Jimmy.'
There were no nuances or shadings in his voice, and the long pauses between words made it clear that he spoke only at tremendous effort.
'Do you live here?' I asked, deliberately keeping my question as simple as possible.
He nodded and pointed to a curtained window to the right of the front door. 'That's my…room over there. Lindy…used to live here. She…left.'
'Lindy?' I asked. 'Who's that? Do you mean Linda Decker?'
He nodded again, once more becoming serious. 'She's my sister. My…baby sister. She's lots…smarter. She's not like me. Not…retarded.'
He spoke the words as casually as someone else might have said they were right-or left-handed or that they'd been sick with a cold. All the while he looked directly into my eyes with a disconcerting, unblinking gaze. I felt myself squirming under it.
'Do you know where your sister is?' I asked.
He went on, giving no evidence that he had heard my question. 'Lindy's good…to me. Always. I don't want her…to go away. I want her here. With me. I…need her.'
Once more his lower lip began to tremble and he fell silent, rocking slowly back and forth.
'Did she say why she had to leave?' I asked gently.
He shook his head slowly from side to side. 'She said she had to…go. That's all. And then…those men came. I didn't like them.'
'What men?'
'Big men, like on…TV. Detectives. They were asking Mama about…Lindy. They even…had guns. Real ones. Not toys. I tried to tell them. They wouldn't…listen. And Mama told me to…go sit down. To get out…of the way and be…quiet. I didn't want to. I knew the answer. That's why I…missed my bus.'
His ragged, halting delivery made it difficult to extricate meaning from what he was saying. The story was lacking several key ingredients. I struggled in vain to sort out the connections, to see through to the pieces that were missing.
'I'm afraid I don't quite understand,' I said finally.
Jimmy looked up at me determinedly. 'I'm not a k-kid, you know. I'm a grown-up. Just like…you. When I cry, sometimes people make fun of me. Kids at the…bus stop. They…call me a baby. It makes me…mad!' The last was said so vehemently that two small streams of spittle slipped unnoticed out the corners of his mouth.
The missing pieces fell into place. 'So you were crying and that's why you missed your bus?'
He nodded, no longer looking me in the eye, but relieved that he didn't have to go on explaining. His chin dropped until it disappeared into the collar of his shirt. Once more his thumb edged toward his mouth. 'I lost my…
