Slow Burn (16 page)

The guy was
amazing. "Very good, sir," was all he said.

Jed was staring
intently at me. I nodded my head.

Miles came on
in a rush. "You say?" he huffed.

"I
do."

"Report."

He never
interrupted for the ten minutes it took me to give him the whole ball of wax.
When I'd finished, he said. "You are indubitably correct. I'm amazed the
police have not been at my door already."

"It won't
be long," I said. "Too many people know."

I heard him
take a deep breath. "Better here than at the banquet, I suppose." he
said finally. "Yes, Mr. Waterman, by all means. We have no choice but to
cooperate fully with the authorities." Another deep breath. "I leave
the matter to your discretion." With a dick, he was gone.

Jed replaced
the receiver and unplugged the phone, allowing the cord to fall upon the
carpet.

"Tell the
cops I want to chat," I said.

He carried the
phone with him out of the room. I sat there and fiddled with the pair of handcuffs
that connected my hands to the thick leather belt around my middle. Jed
appeared in the doorway.

'They've got a
stenographer downstairs," he said.

I nodded as
someone spoke in the hall. The two cops on the door came in, took me by the
elbows and hoisted me out of the chair.

Jed still held
the phone when I was propelled out into the hall and up toward the elevators.
On the far side of the bank of elevators, a yellow police ribbon was stretched
across the hall. About five thousand dollars' worth of SPD overtime milled
about the corridor in small groups.

The underlying
buzz of conversation ground to silence as I walked up the hall with my escorts.
The county Mountie stepped away from the doors as we approached. As the cop on
my right let go of my arm and reached for the button, the light came on, the
bong sounded and the center door slid open. George Paris stood swaying in the
car, his tie loose at the neck and his new blue double-breasted suit buttoned
wrong.

His bleary eyes
took me in. He got half a step forward before the King County cop bounced off
the far wall and pounded him in the chest with a stiff arm, sending him
staggering back into the darkness at the rear of the compartment.

The county cop
turned to my keepers. "I've told this joker three times that he can't come
up here. I'm taking him in." As the two cops grunted their approval, he
reached behind him for his handcuffs.

"Officer
George," I yelled. "You and your friends better get out of here, You
hear me? Get lost, Officer George."

His hand hesitated
at the snap to his handcuff case. He looked quizzically in my direction.
"My name's not George."

I suddenly ran
toward him, dragging my escorts with me. I heard the muted bell as Jed dropped
the phone. The county cop took three quick steps in our direction, put both
hands on my chest and stopped me in my tracks. The elevator doors slid shut.

"Shit,"
he said, looking over his shoulder. I pushed hard against his hands, again
diverting his attention.

Jed was at my
side. "Don't hurt him. Don't hurt him. He's had a blow to the head. He's
delusional."

From the
doorway of eight-fourteen a short man in a blue suit hurried our way, pulling a
uniformed SPD officer in his wake.

"What's
your name?" he demanded of the county cop. "Jacobson, sir."

Blue Suit pushed
the down button several times as he spoke. "Get on your radio and tell
your boys downstairs to stop and detain that man—and anybody he's with,"
he added.

Jacobson opened
his mouth and then changed his mind, opting instead to do as he was told. Using
the radio on his shoulder, he relayed George's description to somebody named
Bobby in the lobby.

"Sixty to
sixty-five, maybe five-ten, one-fifty or so. Little skinny guy, white hair
slicked straight back. Blue suit, red tie. Yeah . . . Yeah, that's right."

The elevator
arrived with the usual fanfare and the SPD officer started down after George.
Jacobson looked pained.

"Is your
name George Jacobson?" Blue Suit asked.

"No, sir.
Jeff."

"Then what
do you suppose all that Officer George crap was about, Officer Jacobson? Got
any ideas? Take your time now."

Jacobson traced
a design in the carpet with his toe. "He was telling the old guy to get
lost, wasn't he?"

"Very
good," was all Blue Suit said to the cop. Then, he stepped close to me,
pushing his face in mine. "You think you're pretty cute, don't you?"

"I have a
fairly positive self-image."

"My client
has had an extreme trauma," Jed began.

"When we
get your little friend back up here, we'll see about your self-fucking-image,
pal."

I turned to Jed
and said in my best Bugs Bunny voice, "He said a baaaad word." Jed's
mouth twitched, but he hung in there.

"See, I
told you," Jed said to the cop.

"Tell me
about the rabbits, George. Tell me again about the rabbits," I said to
Jed. Unable to keep his face together, he stepped over and pushed the down
button. Just to make sure.

Blue Suit stood
there staring at me in stony silence, playing some sort of mind game with me,
he imagined. I think maybe I was supposed to get all mushy and then beg him to
let me kiss his ring and confess. My head hurt too badly for any more snappy
repartee, so, in an unusual show of restraint, I shut up.

Jacobson's
radio was squawking, He turned away so we couldn't hear. Blue Suit hustled
over. I watched as Jacobson filled him in. Blue Suit listened for five seconds
and then began barking orders in a strangled whisper. As he spoke, the county
cop leaned away and poured the translation into his shoulder. I couldn't hear
what was said, but one thing was sure. They didn't have George. I could tell by
their body language. George should have been in the lobby and in custody by
now, and he wasn't. The old dog was ninning.

Another
elevator arrived. The cop in charge of my left elbow put out a hand to hold the
door open and said, "Lieutenant Driscoll."

Blue Suit
glanced over disgustedly and nodded. "Tell them I'll be down
shortly," he said. The last image I captured before being led into the
elevator was that of Blue Suit whispering heatedly into the county cop's ear.
Jacobson just kept agreeing and checking the carpet for clues.

We got off on
M, for mezzanine, turned left down the deep red carpet and then up a short
flight of stairs into what the hotel called Embassy Row, a series of elegant
meeting rooms lodged between the second and third floors on the north side of
the building. With all the movable walls in place, there were three rooms on
each side of the hall. The common area between the rows of rooms was littered
with -both city and county officers, who stopped their banter to watch me go
by.

The last door on
the left held a gold plate that read SENATE ROOM. The cop on my right held my
elbow with one hand while he opened the door with the other. Jed slid by the
cops and entered first, ranting as he walked. "What kind of inquisition is
this?"

There were
three people in the room. Alone on the left side of the long table was a woman
of about fifty-five with hair more salt than pepper, done up in a kind of Lady
Bird Johnson double flip. She had a glass of water and a court stenographer's
machine in front of her.

Except for the
extreme corners, the table was covered with a spotless white linen. At the far
end, between the suits, the cloth was covered by the contents of my wallet and
card case, spread out in rows. The bare corners were occupied by a man and a
woman. Each had a neatly arranged assortment of pens, pencils, highlighters,
notebooks and pocket tape recorders laid out and ready. Looked a lot like the
first day of school.

The man was
pushing forty and already bald. Hawk-faced, he had an athletically trim figure
that, even as he sat, spoke of fitness. A gold name tag read Det. Sgt. Rob
Lobdell. One of the new breed of detectives, I guessed. Probably had a law
degree and probably would never pull his piece in anger. Kind of made me
nostalgic for thugs.

The woman was a
bit younger and rather heavyset. A redhead with one of those almost pure white
complexions prone to freckles. She wore a simple blue dress with a wide skirt.
She spoke first. "Mr. Waterman, my name is Martha Lawrence. I'm an
assistant district attorney for the City of Seattle." She gestured
slightly toward her right. "This is Detective Lobdell of the SPD."
She looked at Jed for the first time.

Jed was not
prone to wasting time on introductions.

"I trust
that since my client has offered his full cooperation, you will now be able to
see your way clear to remove these morbid manacles from his person."

Lobdell curled
his lip. "Like hell. This man is—"

Lawrence
waved him off. While the cops
disconnected me from both the belt and the cuffs, Lobdell sulked and pretended
to check his notes. I thought he was going to object again when she told the
officers to wait outside, but he settled for shaking his head in disgust.

"Mr.
James," she said with a sigh.

"Ms.
Lawrence. So nice to see you again," he said.

"You're
sure of that, are you?" she inquired

"Oh, but I
did so enjoy our last little tryst"

"Yes ...
I'll bet you did."

"It is so
much easier when one wins," he admitted.

She burned a
hole in his brain with her green eyes and then shifted her gaze to me.
"Mr. Waterman, I don't know what happened upstairs, but I'm going to
advise you of your rights. Forgive me if you've heard this before." She
did it without reading it off the card. I was impressed.

"Please
have a seat."

Jed and I sat
across from the stenographer.

"I am told
that you wish to cooperate with us in the matter of the death of Mason
Reese." She spelled out the last name.

I let Jed do
the talking. "I wish to make a statement on behalf of my client," he
said. "Then do so," Lawrence said.

"My client
wishes to state, for the record, that he has no knowledge of, and was in no way
party to, the death of Mason Reese. Like any other concerned citizen of our
republic, Mr. Waterman, of course, wishes-to cooperate with the duly appointed authorities
in any way possible and to aid in the speedy disposition of this affair."

"Is that
it?" she said when he'd finished.

Jed said it
was.

"Well,
then, please allow me also to begin with a statement." Again she
leveled
her gaze on me. "Mr. Waterman, I am given to understand that you have
become accustomed -to preferential treatment by nearly all the city
agencies." I . opened my mouth to protest, but she added, "Including
law enforcement agencies. I give you fair warning, Mr. Waterman. None
of that
is going to happen here. Both Detective Lobdell and I are fairly new to
the Seattle area. Unlike you, we have no history here, and as far as we
are concerned, neither
do you."

"Are you
threatening my client?"

She ignored
Jed. "Mr. Waterman, you are about to be charged with first-degree assault,
unlawful entry and accessory to murder. I don't have to tell you that these are
serious charges." She rambled on for another three minutes about how I was
both literally and metaphorically fucked, since all the evidence against me was
airtight and I was surely going to spend my declining years as a sperm-drenched
sex toy in a maximum-security prison. I couldn't make up my mind whether she
was trying to scare me or to show Lobdell what a hard-ass she was. Probably
both.

"You
skipped a bunch of stuff," I said.

"And what
would that be?"

"You left
out the whole part where you ask me the questions and I give you the snappy
answers."

Jed was giving
me the shut-up squeeze.

"They
always ask me dumb-ass questions before they threaten me. If s in the cop book
somewhere. First questions, then threats. Look it up. It definitely needs to be
done in that order."

"I wish to
confer privately with my client," Jed said suddenly.

Lawrence
rose. "As you wish," she
said. Lobdell walked up to the stenographer's side and helped her with her
chair.

Jed waited
until the door closed behind them before he spoke.

"It's
damage control."

"I thought
we were going to deal."

"We're in
rough company."

"The Lawrence woman?"

"We have a
history," he said. "It would be fair to say that her past dealings
with me have—how shall I say—somewhat steepened her career path. You might be
better off with different representation."

"Not a
chance."

"You may
be tarred with the same brush."

"Sounds
like I've already been tarred with my own brush. Hell, it sounds like my brush
may be worse than your brush."