Black River (10 page)

Hiram Goldman thought it over. “The two largest earthquakes ever recorded happened in 1906 off the coast of Ecuador and Colombia and in 1933 off the east coast of Honshu, Japan. Both were recorded at eight point nine on the Richter scale.”

“And in California?”

“The 1906 quake was listed at a magnitude of eight point three.”

Klein spoke directly to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in order to give you some sense of the magnitude of an eight-point-three disturbance, Dr. Goldman has been kind enough to bring along an exhibit from the Library of the University of California at Berkeley.”

He turned on his heel and headed for the easel. He put one hand on the white material that covered the exhibit and whipped it off like a magician producing a rabbit.

Black-and-white photograph. A crowd of people stood along the jagged edge of a road that had been torn in two. To the right of the spectators, risen up to head level, was the continuation of the road, as if the earth had been ripped asunder by some unruly child.

“Dr. Goldman, would you tell the court what it is looking at here?”

“That’s a photo from the 1906 earthquake. You’re looking at a road that ran across the head of Tomales Bay. The road was offset nearly twenty-one feet.”

“Can you explain the forces that caused this to happen?”

“Certainly. In this case, the Pacific plate moved nearly twenty-one feet north of its original position along the North American plate. The scraping together of these two plates is what causes the seismic activity in this region.”

“And this was caused by an earthquake of a magnitude of eight point three?”

“Yes.”

“How large was the earthquake that destroyed the north wall of Fairmont Hospital?”

“Two point one,” he said immediately.

Klein made himself look surprised. “I thought you said anything under two was not noticeable by human beings.”

“I did,” the doctor said. “It was a murmur, a belch.” He waved a hand. “It was hardly noticed at all.”

“Other than to the hospital, what was the extent of damage to surrounding property?”

“None.”

Klein did his astonished routine. “How can you be sure of that?”

“Insurance companies run their claims by my department for documentation of the disturbance. As of this date, not a single insurance claim—other than those related to Fairmont Hospital, of course—not a single claim has been filed.”

“No further questions,” Klein said.

The judge checked his watch. “Cross, Mr. Elkins.”

Elkins got to his feet. “I have no questions of this witness,” he said.

Bang
. “Court’s adjourned until nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
Bang
.

Thursday, October 19

5:01 p.m.

“H
ow’d you find me anyway?” Marie Hall demanded.

Corso reached into his jacket pocket and came out with the wedding invitation. He slipped the rubber band off, unrolled the picture, and turned it her way. “I went to the church. They sent me to your parents.” He shrugged. “The rest is history.”

She lived in the top half of a duplex at the south end of Phinney Ridge: a nicely furnished one-bedroom, overlooking an elementary school playground. Everything had color-coordinated ruffles and shams, right out of some decorating book.

She shook her head disgustedly. “I thought it was so romantic to have the invitation picture taken in the Japanese Garden,” she said. “Never occurred to me for a minute that Donald picked it because it was free.”

She poured herself a cup of coffee, and offered one to Corso, who turned it down.

“Like I told you on the phone, I don’t see how I can help you. I haven’t seen or spoken to Donald since the day I walked out.”

“When was that?”

“Fourteen months ago.”

“Mind telling me why you walked out?”

“The question’s not why I left Donald, it’s how I managed to live with the guy for seven years. That’s the mystery.”

“Lotta people feel that way when it’s over.”

She stared off into space for a moment. “I just couldn’t see myself without a man. The idea that I might be something above and beyond my role in a relationship was totally beyond me.” She shrugged. “That’s why I put up with it for so long. Why I lived like that.”

She’d been pretty once: Kewpie-doll lips, nice even features, and a pair of big blue eyes. Somewhere in her mid-thirties and getting thick in the hips. Her shaggy blond hair had grown out brown at the roots and looked like she’d cut it herself.

“Was your former husband abusive?” Corso asked.

She sighed and stirred her coffee. “There’s abusive, and there’s abusive,” she said. “If you mean did he physically assault me, the answer is no.” For the first time, she made eye contact with Corso. “But if you’re asking me whether or not I’m sorry he’s gone, the answer is also no.” She waved a hand. “I know how that sounds, and I don’t much like it.” She kept her gaze locked on Corso. “But there it is.”

“If it’s any consolation, seems like you have a lot of company who felt that way.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Donald Barth dropped out of sight for the better part of three months and nobody even reported him missing.”

“Donald wasn’t the type to inspire much of anything.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because he didn’t have a life.”

“Everybody has a life.”

“He went to work; he ate; he slept; he’d screw me twice a week if I let him.” She waved a hand. “That was it. If he really wanted to push the envelope, Donald would stop at a convenience store on the way home and buy himself a pint of buttermilk. Buttermilk was Donald’s idea of a big time.” She read Corso’s face. “You think I’m making it up.”

Corso held up a hand. “I’m keeping an open mind.”

Her expression became almost wistful. “He could be very charming, when he wanted to be. He was better looking than that picture you got.” She crossed the bookcase and eased an unframed photograph out from between a tall pair of art books.

He was thinner than in the wedding-invitation picture, with the craggy face of a mountain climber. A thick head of black hair was combed straight back from his forehead. He was smiling with his mouth, while his eyes said they wished they were somewhere else. “Quite the handsome guy,” she said, in a practiced tone. “I was twenty-seven when I met Donald. I’d just run away from my first marriage. I was on my own for the first time in my life.” She shook her head sadly. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but I didn’t really have an identity of my own. I was just part of whoever I was connected to.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“In the beginning, I thought he was saving money…so we could buy a house or something like that. So for the first four years or so, I shut up about only owning three dresses. I told myself you had to suffer a little to get what you wanted. Then, when he started giving it away—”

“Giving it to who?”

“Prep schools and then colleges.”

She read Corso’s confusion and continued. “He’s got a son from his first marriage: Robert Downs. He uses his mother’s name.”

“How many…?”

“I was his third.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He had this…this…thing…about how Robert had to have it better than he did. Robert had to go to the finest schools and get the best education so he could become a doctor.”

“Lotta people feel that way about their kids.”

“Yeah, but not like Donald. With him it was like a religion. It didn’t matter that we lived in subsidized housing. It didn’t matter that he never in seven years went out to lunch with the other guys or that the people where I worked were whispering behind my back about my ragged clothes. Nothing—none of that mattered as long as he could keep the damn tuition paid.”

“You worked.”

“Same job I’ve got now—except back then I came home and gave my check to Donald, who promptly sent it off to Harvard or someplace, while we didn’t have a television. While we didn’t turn on the lights until it was too dark to see.” She jabbed at her palm with her index finger. “While we never once in seven years went out to a movie!” She heard the stridency in her voice and looked away. “I know I sound like a bitch, but it’s true.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I walked out of seven years of slavery with just over fifteen hundred bucks.”

“What happened to community property?”

“What property?” she scoffed. “We didn’t own anything but a pile of cheap furniture and that beat-up old truck he drove. I took the bus to work.” She waved her hand around the room. “This might not be the Ritz, Mr. Corso, but it’s way better than anything Donald Barth ever provided for me.”

She was right. Her apartment and its carefully chosen contents were far newer and far grander than the rubble Donald Barth had left behind. She thrust her chin at Corso. “I’m halfway to my accounting degree. I’ve been going nights to Seattle Central. Unlike my ex-husband, I’ve got plans for the future,” she said.

Corso leaned back in the chair and folded his arms across his chest. “So I guess you can’t think of any reason why somebody would want to murder your ex-husband.”

“The only person with a reason to murder Donald Barth was me.”

Corso gave her a small smile. “What finally gave you the courage to leave?”

She turned away. “No one thing. It just sort of happened. I got so I couldn’t stand being in the same room with him. About six months before we separated, I cut him off.” She fixed Corso in her gaze, as if defying him to take issue with her. “That’s the only time I ever thought he might get violent. He told me I was his wife and had an obligation to take care of his needs.” She laughed a bitter laugh. “Can you imagine that? Like we had a contract or something.” She sighed. “Next thing I know he’s not coming home after work. I start getting these phone calls that hang up.” She got to her feet and crossed the room. “I moved into a women’s shelter.” When she turned back toward Corso, her eyes were wet. “You know what?” she asked.

“What?”

“He never even came looking for me. Never tried to talk me into coming back. Not once. He just went on with his life.”

“You think he had a girlfriend while you were still married?”

“I’m sure of it. Donald wasn’t about to go without his Monday and Thursday screw.”

“If he had a regular girlfriend, you’d think she’d have noticed his absence.”

She laughed. “I said Donald liked sex; I didn’t say he was any good at it.”

A smile from Corso seemed to encourage her.

“What Donald liked best about sex was that it was free.”

Thursday, October 19

6:36 p.m.

“H
e ain’t got a clue,” Gerardo said.

“Why’s that?”

“ ’Cause he’s back here again. He had a clue, he wouldn’t be comin’ to the same place twice.”

“Hmm,” was all Ramón said.

They were parked a half mile north of the Briarwood Garden Apartments, backed out onto the dike that defined the north end of the marsh.

“He’s spinnin’ his wheels,” Gerardo insisted.

“How’d he put the girl and the truck guy together?” Gerardo shrugged. “What’s it matter?”

“It matters because we’re not clean on this thing until we figure it out. There’s something . . . some connection he’s following here we don’t understand, and as long as he’s following some trail we can’t see, we got big problems.”

“We never shoulda lied about the guy in the truck,” Gerardo said.

Ramón could feel the anger burning in his cheeks. They’d been through it fifty times. He spoke through clenched teeth. “What fucking difference did it make? We shot him; some other asshole shot him. Makes no goddamn difference. Either way, him and the truck end up in the hill and then come sliding out on their own, and we gotta pop the Ball guy. Don’t matter a rat’s ass who done the work. All that other shit happens anyway.”

“Nothin’ been right since we done it,” Gerardo said. “It’s like the whole damn world’s out of balance or something.”

“Then we better spend our time figuring out what trail he’s following, huh?” He looked over at Gerardo, who was slouched down behind the wheel with his lips pressed tight.

“Or maybe we just cut his trail and be done with it,” Gerardo offered. “I’m startin’ to think maybe that’s the way to make things right again.”

Ramón gave the smallest of nods. “Could be,” he said. “Could be.”

“I’m tellin’ you.”

“I’m listening.”

“So?”

“So tonight we don’t lose him. Tonight, we find out where he lives.”

Thursday, October 19

7:16 p.m.

T
he Briarwood consisted of eight one-story four-plexes, built in the form of a square: two buildings to a side, facing outward, away from one another, with the parking lot in the middle. Only the bedroom and bathroom windows looked out over the lot.

Figuring Barth and the truck had to have been abducted from somewhere and that the Briarwood parking lot was as good a bet as any, Corso had decided to knock on doors, hoping maybe somebody had seen or heard something useful. No such luck.

Third or fourth door, the Somali family had invited him in and let him take a look around. That’s when he knew he was screwed. The way the apartments were laid out, there was absolutely no reason to be looking out at the parking lot. Matter of fact, if you wanted to look out the bedroom window, you had to stand on the bed; if you wanted to look out the bathroom window, you had to stand on the toilet—which was where his hopes rested as he approached 2D, the apartment where Donald Barth had lived.

Probably a dozen residents hadn’t answered their doors. Some of the apartments were dark and empty. In others, the sounds of shuffling feet or labored breathing had told him someone was there but was not opening the door. On several occasions he’d been told to go away. The only real speed bump was a guy on the ground floor of F building, who’d opened the door wearing a ripped T-shirt with spaghetti stains all over the front, a pair of plaid boxer shorts, and black socks. “What?” he growled from around the unlit cigar butt wedged in the corner of his mouth. “You got business with me, pretty boy?”

Corso started to answer, but the guy cut him off.

“ ’Cause if you don’t, and if you’re trying to sell me some shit I don’t want, I just might have to kick your ass.”

He was about forty, almost as wide as he was tall, his cheeks sporting three days’ worth of stubble. His arms and shoulders were covered with a carpet of curly black hair, thick enough to hide the skin below.

Behind him, the TV was blaring what had to be a porno movie. Bad jazz and a lot of oooing and aahing. “Oh, yeah, baby; don’t stop; don’t stop…that’s it….”Corso was at an angle to the screen. From where he stood the picture looked a lot like a bilge pump operating at high speed.

“I’m not selling anything,” Corso said.

“What then?” the guy demanded.

Corso told him. The shrill TV voice was now demanding it harder and deeper.

“The guy over there?” The guy nodded toward D building.

“Yeah,” Corso said.

“Before my time,” he said. “He was gone by the time I got here. Once in a while, I talk to the old bat who lives in One-D, next door to him. I seen her yesterday. She told me all about how the cops was by and all. You talk to her yet?”

The frenzy on the TV had reached a peak. Either the room had spontaneously ignited or everybody involved was about to get their jollies at the same time.

“Talk to her. She’s got nothing to do but mind everybody’s business.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Getting to the good part now,” he said with a leer. For the first time he smiled, exhibiting a row of thick yellow teeth. “Unless maybe you want to come in for a while, pretty boy.” He hefted and then dropped the package beneath his boxers.

Corso declined, turned quickly, and began striding away.

“Don’t be shy,” the guy rasped at his back. “Ya gotta find your inner self.” Gruff laughter followed Corso up the sidewalk and around the corner, like a pack of dogs.

A plywood ramp and a low metal hand rail had been built over the stairs to 1D, rendering the apartment wheelchair-accessible. He tried the bell but didn’t hear anything, so he knocked. A little brass plate screwed to the door read
KILBURN
. Corso knocked again. From inside the apartment came the shuffle of feet and the clink of metal.

A bright white halogen light above the stairs tore a hole in the darkness and reduced Corso to squinting and shading his eyes with one hand. The door opened a crack.

“Whadda you want?” a voice said from the darkness. “We don’t allow solicitors here.”

“I’m not selling anything.”

“Does Mr. Pov know you’re here?”

“I know Mr. Pov,” Corso hedged.

“What’s his first name?”

“Nhim,” Corso answered. “Mr. Nhim Pov.”

The door closed and then, after a moment, opened all the way. She had to be ninety. Coke-bottle glasses. Thick silver hair in an old-fashioned pageboy cut. She held the doorknob in one hand and a golf club in the other.

“What do you want?”

“I’m looking into the death of Donald Barth. The man who lived in the apartment next door, up until a few months back.”

She eyed him closely. “You another cop?”

“I’m a writer.”

She peered up at Corso for a minute. “You’re the one writes those crime books.”

“Yes, ma’am. Frank Corso.”

“Seen you on the tube a couple of times.”

“That’s me,” Corso said.

She stepped aside. “Well, don’t be standing out there like an idiot, come in.”

She ushered Corso onto a threadbare green sofa. The floor was covered with twice as much furniture as the room called for, leaving nothing but plastic-covered trails winding among the furnishings. Wasn’t the decor, however, that caught Corso’s eye. It was the walls, nearly every inch of them was covered with framed photographs.

She used the golf club as a cane as she sat down in the brown recliner opposite the couch. “I lived too damn long,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“I said I lived too damn long. Had six children and outlived every damn one of them. Had sixteen grandchildren and outlived five of them too.”

Corso considered saying he was sorry to hear it but rejected the idea.

“It’s not right to outlive everybody who cares about you. It’s unnatural.” She waved the golf club in the air. “You ever see those commercials on the TV? About how one a these days everybody gonna be able to live to a hundred?”

“Yes, ma’am, I have.”

“Well you tell ’em you met Delores Kilburn and she says the whole idea’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“I will,” he assured her.

“Cops was here the other day.”

“So I hear.”

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told them. I lived next to that pair for five years and never said more that ten words to either of them.” The club waved again. “Some of the most unfriendliest people I ever met. So if you’re looking for some kind of inside dirt, I’m here to tell you, you come to the wrong place.”

She looked at her hand and realized she was still brandishing the golf club. She groaned slightly as she turned around in the chair and leaned it against the wall.

“Poor Mr. Pov’s had enough trouble for three lifetimes.”

“You mean like being in a refugee camp and all?”

“That and everything else.” She leaned forward in the chair. “Lost almost his entire family over there in Cambodia, you know.” She drew a finger across her throat. “Slaughtered by that Pol Pot guy and the Khmer Rouge. Just killed ’em all. His wife and kids, his parents, all of ’em. Just like that.”

“A terrible tragedy,” Corso offered.

“And then his sister’s death.” She waved a hand. “It’s a wonder to me the man could find the strength to go on.”

“Going on is what people do best. It’s why there’s so many of us running around the planet.”

“After all those years. After all the struggle. And to have it end like that.”

“What happened?”

“You haven’t heard?”

“No, ma’am.”

She checked the room, as if looking for eavesdroppers. “Took poor Mr. Pov nearly ten years to get his sister Lily over here from Cambodia. All kinda red tape about how they wouldn’t let her go and then how America wouldn’t let her in…and all the money he had to spend and all.”

“And?”

“And he had everything set up. Had her a husband and everything. Nice Cambodian man from Seward Park. Owns a grocery. Drives a nice new Lincoln.”

“I take it the wedding didn’t come off.”

Her eyes narrowed. “She killed herself. Hanged herself in the laundry room.”

“Any idea why?”

She thought it over. “Lily was much younger than Mr. Pov. More Americanized.” She shrugged. “Who knows why those people do things? Live in a whole other world than the rest of us. Got their own idea of right and wrong that don’t make a stick of sense to folks like you and me. They come over here to live, but they’re not like us.” A light flickered in her eyes. She stopped. “Don’t mean to come off as prejudiced or anything. I was right down there with the rest of them at the Cambodian church or whatever they call it, right there on Rainier Avenue, for the funeral.” She looked up at Corso. “Had a hell of a turnout. Mr. Pov’s a bigwig in the local Cambodian community, you know. Musta been five hundred people there.” She shook a finger at Corso. “And I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Writer. Those Asians treat an old woman like me a lot better that Americans do. Found me a seat right in the front row. Treated me like I was gold, they did.”

Corso stifled a sigh. “About Mr. and Mrs. Barth.”

“He had her buffaloed. You could see it in her face. Like a deer in the headlights. Afraid of every damn thing she saw. I’d say hello, and she’d just stammer something and turn away, like she was ashamed or something.”

Corso got to his feet. “Thanks for your trouble,” he said.

She held out a hand. Corso stepped over, took her hand, and pulled her up from the chair. “You tell ’em Delores Kilburn says old age is overrated.”

“I will,” Corso assured her.

Corso stood on the front steps and listened to the locks snap behind him. Overhead, the moon floated high in the sky, ducking in and out of a jigsaw of thick black clouds. Corso warmed his hands in his coat pockets as he walked the length of the sidewalk and turned left, back into the center of the complex.

He rang the bell. “Coming,” the voice said from inside.

A moment later, the door opened and Nhim Pov stood in his doorway.

“Ah,” he said. “Mr. Corso.”

Corso fished Donald Barth’s wedding invitation from his pants pocket.

“I wanted to return this,” he said.

“Thank you,” the little man said. “But perhaps you would like to return it yourself.” His eyes crinkled at Corso’s momentary confusion. “His son is here. He’s down at the shed right now.”