Taking the Fifth (5 page)

IN TOO MUCH OF A HURRY TO WALK OR battle buses, I caught a cab for the ten-minute ride to Belltown Terrace, my new building at the corner of Second and Broad. I didn’t bother to go upstairs to my apartment. Instead, I took the elevator directly to the residential garage and raced my Porsche up the interminable stack of circles from P-4 to the garage entrance.

Tom Riley had listed his address as being in West Seattle. I took the Alaskan Way Viaduct south and drove across the soaring Spokane Street Bridge. I’ve always thought the new bridge should have been named in honor of the old Norwegian ship’s pilot who broke the old one and was later murdered. His widow was eventually convicted, but I’ve always fantasized that the killer was really some revenge-minded commuter stuck in the subsequent years of traffic jams.

Seattle is a deep-water port, and there are few places around the city that have readily accessible salt water beaches. Alki, in West Seattle, is one of those places. It resembles a California beach town far more than it does an ordinary Seattle neighborhood. It comes complete with cruising teenagers, too much traffic, and a constant feud between visitors and residents over the surplus of garbage and the critical shortage of parking places.

Driving there gave me time for reflection. According to Tom Riley, Richard Dathan Morris had been a totally reprehensible character. And by all accounts, Jonathan Thomas had been on the brink of death. So why worry about who killed someone as obnoxious as Morris? And why try to ascertain whether or not Thomas had been murdered or had simply succumbed to the inevitable outcome of his disease?

Why? Because it’s my job. Because murder victims are murder victims no matter what, even if they’re dying. It’s the principle of the thing, pure and simple. If people, no matter how well intentioned, are allowed to kill at will, to rid the land of people they deem unsuitable or to arbitrarily set a timetable to put others out of their misery, the very foundations of our civilization begin to erode.

I’ve spent most of my adult life working on the premise that murder is murder, that perpetrators must be brought to account in a court of law, and that included whoever killed Richard Dathan Morris and, possibly, Jonathan Thomas.

As I drove, I also kicked myself for not having been more observant. All Peters had to do was say it to convince me that he was right. And he hadn’t even been in Thomas’s house. Peters’s theory about Tom Riley’s sexual preference was what Sherlock Holmes would have termed a brilliant deduction. So what the hell was the matter with me?

The fact that I had missed it was unsettling enough. Had I not seen it because there were no overt signs? Or because I simply hadn’t wanted to see it? Was it a case of selective blindness or burying my head in the sand?

As a happily heterosexual male I’m uncomfortable around gays, prejudiced against them. I was propositioned a couple of times when I was younger, and those experiences left a long-term bad impression that I’m only now beginning to sort out.

Over the years, my way of handling that prejudice had been to deal with gays as little as possible. Michael Browder, the interior decorator who had just finished helping me design and furnish my new condominium, was the first gay I had worked with for any extended period of time. He was a gay without any of the exterior trappings, with none of the supposedly typical mannerisms I had come to expect. In short, Browder was a nice guy who had forced me to come face to face with some of my own deep-seated feelings of intolerance.

Now this series of encounters with Richard Morris, Jonathan Thomas, and Tom Riley was more of the same. They were ordinary people, some good and some bad, just like everybody else.

Tom Riley, if Peters and I were correct, was another homosexual minus the lisping, simpering silliness of the stereotypes. He may have been minus those things, but, I was now convinced, he was gay nonetheless. So now I tried to unravel what possible bearing Tom Riley’s sexual preference had on my case.

Had there been some kind of triangle involved? That might account for some of Tom Riley’s atypical reactions. Maybe his pronounced dislike of Richard Dathan Morris was symptomatic of old-fashioned jealousy, just as Ron Peters had suggested. Nevertheless, I had a hard time using the word “jealousy” in a male-only context.

I was so lost in thought that I drove straight by the address Tom Riley had given us. I made a U-turn and drove back to it, parking on the street in front of the house.

The place was situated on Alki Avenue itself, far enough east of the lighthouse to be out of the high-rent district. Riley’s apartment turned out to be in the basement of a wooden house, living space converted from what had once been a two-car garage. There was a tiny deck outside the sliding glass door with hardly enough room for the single deck chair that sat there in isolated splendor. Only one person at a time could sit on the minuscule deck and view the northern tip of downtown Seattle across Elliott Bay.

As I walked up to the door, I heard someone inside playing a piano. The tune was an old familiar melody, but it was too much like classical music for me to be able to identify it. When I knocked, the piano playing stopped abruptly and Tom Riley slid open the door. He was cradling his newly adopted blue-eyed cat.

“What do you want?” he asked. His tone of voice, his body language, his manner all said he was not delighted to see me, but then I’m used to that. Being a Homicide detective would never rate high in a popularity contest.

“I’ve got to talk to you, Mr. Riley. May I come in?”

“Haven’t we talked enough already?”

“No.”

Reluctantly he stepped aside far enough to let me into the room. Once I was inside and the door was closed, he carefully put the cat down on the floor. The animal crouched on all fours and began scratching his chin on Riley’s shoelaces.

“He’s not used to the neighborhood yet,” Riley explained, looking down at the cat. “I’m worried he might get out and run away.”

As I glanced around the room, my first impression was that the place was both small and crowded. It was as though a whole houseful of furniture had been summarily jammed into one or two rooms. Chairs and tables and bookshelves had been crammed together with very little organization or planning.

“You’ll have to excuse the mess,” said Riley apologetically. “I had hoped to get rid of my extra stuff after I moved here, but I haven’t had time.”

The piano, a small, beautifully finished spinet, stood just inside the door. On it sat a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a highball glass. It looked to me like Tom Riley was seriously nipping at the hard stuff. Early. It was still well before noon.

“Want a drink?” he offered.

“No thanks. Too early for me.”

He picked up the bottle and poured himself a generous drink. Motioning me toward a couch in the middle of the crowded room, Riley sank into a swivel-based rocking chair and placed the half-empty liquor bottle on a glass-topped table between us.

“So talk,” he said, downing his drink in a single swallow.

“Drowning your troubles?” I asked mildly.

Riley held up his empty glass and stared pensively through it toward the sliding glass door. The door framed a classic picture of a placid, dazzlingly blue Elliott Bay with the upper end of downtown Seattle gleaming in the background. The Space Needle hovered there like a flying saucer, its supportive tower almost invisible in the flawless sunlight.

“Maybe,” he said at last.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Mr. Riley, I get the feeling there was far more than a simple nurse-patient relationship between you and Jonathan Thomas.”

Raising his head, he looked at me intently, one eyebrow slightly arched. “Do you?”

Riley wasn’t making it easy for me. In trying to sort out what had gone on among the three of them, I was already well outside my comfort zone. I had to take better control of the situation, put things on firmer ground.

Without explanation, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small leather holder that contained both my badge and my ID. It also held the plastic-coated card with the standard Miranda warning printed on it.

Clearing my throat, I began to read: “‘You have the right to remain silent…’”

Instead of appearing upset, Riley simply poured himself another drink as he listened. Watching me intently, he settled back into his chair as though the words I was reading aloud had nothing whatsoever to do with him. His air was one of total nonchalance.

“So you think I’m the killer?” he asked when I finished. The booze gave his voice a hint of arrogance, a hard edge, that had been absent in our previous encounters.

“The thought crossed my mind,” I replied evenly. “Where did you go when you got off from work last night?”

“I came home.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“No.”

“Was there anyone here?”

“I live alone.”

“What about your landlord?”

“My landlord, as you put it, is a widow lady who’s blitzed out of her mind by six o’clock every night.”

“From what you said earlier, I take it you had a pretty low opinion of Richard Morris.”

“That seriously understates the case.”

“Why?”

“Because he was a leech and a liar and a miserable excuse for a human being.”

“How long had he and Jonathan…” I paused, groping uncomfortably for the right word.

“How long had they been lovers?” Riley supplied.

I nodded.

“I don’t know. A long time, I guess. If you ask me, Rick Morris saw a likely-looking meal ticket and hung on for dear life.”

“Jonathan Thomas had money?”

“His parents are loaded.”

“I thought you said they disowned him.”

“Jon’s grandmother left him some money separately, a trust fund, and the house.”

“So the house belonged to him?”

Riley nodded. “Free and clear.” He poured himself another drink. “Sure you don’t want one?”

“Positive,” I told him. This time he didn’t down the liquor all at once. Instead, he took a small sip and set the glass down on the table beside the bottle. I had to give him credit. Gay or not, Tom Riley could definitely hold his liquor.

“And Jonathan’s parents never came to see him during the time you worked there?”

“Never. From what he told me, that’s no surprise. His father’s one of those Bible-thumping bigots who claims that being gay is a one-way ticket to hellfire and damnation. And as far as his mother is concerned, what his father says goes.”

“What about Richard Morris’s mother?”

Riley shrugged. “She came through Seattle a couple of times. I met her. She’s a nice enough lady, I guess. A little dingy at times, but with a son like that, who wouldn’t be?”

“Tell me about Richard Morris,” I said quietly.

“Strictly delusions of grandeur. When I first met him, he was hot to be a cop, an undercover cop. A few weeks later, he dropped that idea completely. It was just as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was running with the wrong crowd.”

“Druggies?”

Riley nodded. “He worked some as a stagehand, but mostly he partied. He dragged home all kinds of undesirable characters at all hours of the day and night.”

“Even after Jonathan got so sick?”

Riley nodded grimly. “You bet.”

“Drinking? Drugs?”

“Both. Come to think of it, I never actually saw him doing drugs, but there were drugs around.”

“And he had money?”

“Always.”

“Did he bring anyone home with him last night?”

“There was no one else at the house when I left.”

“And you left at eleven?”

“That’s right.”

“Were there women in the crowd he ran with?”

“A few,” Riley answered.

“Any fancy dressers?” I asked, thinking about the bloodstained blue high-heeled shoe.

“Not that I remember.”

“What about last night? Was there anything unusual in the way Morris behaved last night?”

“I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, except maybe…”

“Except what?”

“He seemed happy.”

“Happy?”

“More like smug. Like he’d pulled off a good one on somebody.”

“But you don’t know what.”

“No.”

“And what time did you go back there this morning?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“That makes for a pretty long day, from then until eleven at night,” I observed. “Were you Jonathan Thomas’s only nurse?”

“Yes.”

“Every day for five months?”

Tom Riley picked up his glass and drained it. “Every day,” he repeated. “Every single goddamned day.”

“That many hours?”

“I didn’t turn them all in. I reported the eight I was supposed to, the five days I was supposed to. The rest was on my own time.”

“For free?”

He gave me a sardonic grin. “I didn’t have anything else to do. Besides, it kept me off the streets.”

A short silence settled between us.

“Well,” he said at last. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I did it? Why I worked all those hours without pay?”

“All right. Why did you?”

He poured one more drink. “Because I have it too,” he replied quietly.

For a moment or two I didn’t catch on. Finally, I got the message. “AIDS? You mean you have AIDS?”

“Not the disease, at least not yet. I only test positive for the antibodies so far, but I figure it’s a death sentence just the same. I’ve known for a long time. For years. I found out during that initial panic back in ’82 and ’83 when doctors and nurses were afraid to work with AIDS patients in the hospitals. Remember that?”

It wasn’t all that long ago, I thought, recalling my conversation with Doc Baker in the medical examiner’s office that very morning. I said, “Yes, I remember.”

“It’s not so bad now. People are learning that if you take proper precautions, the disease isn’t all that contagious. But it changed my life, you know. I mean I couldn’t hang around in bars anymore, I couldn’t make that scene and not give a shit about what I might be doing to other people. So I moved here and hid out in work. And I asked to work with AIDS patients. Nothing but. I’ve worked with six of them so far.”