The Angel Maker - 2 (39 page)

Homicide? Had they traced the pit bull back to Tegg that quickly? He refused to believe it! He had taken such care to wipe down the cage, wear gloves, print everything on the HP

printer, write nothing by hand, neither the collar, its batteries, or the wand had any kind of serial number. There was no paperwork with the delivery company; he had used one of those fly-by-night outfits in the International District, dropping it off with them to avoid a pickup. He has thought it through so carefully. "Salt please."

The salt was about six inches from this fool's hand! What did he want, someone to shake it for him? Losing his temper, Tegg did just that. He seized the shaker and sent salt flying all over this man's food. He caught himself, but too late. He apologized, poured the man some Pine Ridge Merlot and, empty bottle in hand, excused himself from the table. He didn't dare look at Peggy.

On his way into the kitchen, he sorted back through his brief but intense encounter with Pamela, searching for any possible mistakes he might have made.

He sat down at a stool in the kitchen. One of the kitchen help said something to him, but he waved him away. Then he thought better of it and asked for some more wine. "And the table's out too," he told no one in particular.

The Valiums were a hell of a good idea, he congratulated himself.

That dosage would knock her sideways. He decided that it might be a good idea to check up on her-to make sure she got home okay, to calm her down if the pills hadn't already done so. She wouldn't be feeling them for another few minutes; maybe she needed someone to talk to.

He took his wine with him into the garage, electing to use the cellular in the Isuzu because of his belief in the difficulty the police had listening in on such lines. He eased the seat back, dialed the number, and pushed SND. God, it felt good to be away from those hypocrites in there. He took a big swig of wine and felt his first sense of real relief in hours.

Her answering machine answered.This troubled him. His heart quickened. He thought himself stupid for forcing the Valium on her while she still had to drive home. He should have just given them to her for her to take once there. But, he recalled, he had wanted to ensure she had taken them. He didn't want her mucking about tonight, messing things up.

Had the cops gotten hold of her? He sat up and spilled some wine into his lap. In that condition she might tell them everything! What had he been thinking by giving her Valium?

Another thirty minutes, she'd be a tongue-wagging wreck. He should have stuck with his plan to sedate her! He had wanted her out, not brain-impaired!

A voice from within told him to calm down. Control! She was probably just on the can and couldn't make it to the phone.

He dialed her number again. It rang four times and the machine answered. "Shit," he said into the receiver.

Maybe, his voice of reason argued, she was high already and had simply turned the phone off. Yes, that made some sense. Lying back with headphones on, or watching a movie on the tube.

Valium behavior.

He sipped what was left of the wine, not feeling good about any of this. Slowly, his mind reconstructed a vivid memory of their final few minutes together. He could see her, could hear the conversation like a videotape playing inside his head. Had she ever spoken, ever opened her mouth after he had fed her those pills? Had she in fact swallowed them?"

What if she had not taken the Valium but tricked him into believing she had Where would she go What would she do?

The police? The farm!

A tic hit him so hard he heard his neck crack. The wineglass jumped from his hand, struck the gear shift and shattered.

The farm! He tripped the garage door automatic opener. It groaned open slowly. He couldn't believe how slowly. This thing had never run this slowly! What would he need? Had he forgotten anything?

The party! The garage door opened far enough to reveal four cars parked in the drive, more out on the road. Trapped?

The door to the kitchen opened. Peggy, in her red Japanese tea dress and her scarlet red face.

What could he say? At this point, what could he do?

Take control. There was a pretty good gap between the first parked car and the garage. Maybe just enough.

Tegg backed slowly across the wet lawn, the tires cutting deep ruts in the grass, his guests observing him through the window.

The four-wheel-drive banged out onto the street, and he was off.

To Pamela's? No, he decided. Priorities. He would keep calling.

The farm was far more important.

Indeed, the farm was everything.

Lto The Isuzu backed across the lawn, its tires spraying mud in all directions. Daphne could barely make out a bearded man's face behind the wheel. Elden Tegg.

She slumped in her seat, dropping low, placed her fingers on the key and waited. His headlights washed the interior of her car, hurting her eyes. She remained absolutely still. She thought her heart might explode.

He passed. She counted to three and started the car, lifting just high enough to watch his departure in her door mirror. The second he passed out of sight, she dropped the Honda into gear and pulled one of the quickest three-point turns she had ever made.

Only a few seconds later, she was following. Instinctively, she reached for her police radio and came up empty. Once again, the impact of her isolation from the department bore down on her.

She needed to get to a pay phone. She needed a way to alert Boldt or the department that it was going down.

It was going down! She could feel it: Sharon was at the end of this ride.

It wasn't going to be Maybeck; it was going to be Tegg. It wasn't going to be Boldt; it was going to be her.

"I appreciate this, Loraine," Lamoia said to the attractive black woman opening the James Street entrance to the administration building. Boldt guessed her to be in her mid-thirties and just shy of six feet tall. She had beautiful almond eyes and a dancer's figure. She wore jeans and a khaki windbreaker. Boldt knew her face from somewhere-maybe she had worked at one of the civilian jobs for the department a few years back. "I could get screwed for doing this. You know that, John."

"Yeah, I know."

"Don't ask me why I'm doing this, 'cause I'll be damned if I know."

"And I thought it was because you loved me," Lamoia teased.

"Don't get me thinking about it, lover, or I'll march your ass right out of here."

"We are the police, after all," Lamoia reminded. "It's not as if we're a couple of crooks or something."

"Yeah, yeah. Hey, Ernie," she greeted the security guard coming down the hall to intercept them.

Boldt and Lamoia took out their shields before the man even asked. "Hey, Lori," the former weightlifter answered. His arms were too big for the uniform he was required to wear. He'd gone a little soft around the middle. "These here are a couple of Seattle's finest homicide dicks." She introduced everyone all around. He checked their identification carefully. "They need a look-see at some of the records in the assessor's office and can't wait for nothing."

"Homicide? Sure thing," Ernie said.

He kept looking at Boldt as if he recognized him. "They got the elevators off, for inspection. You'll have to take the stairs."

On the way up the steep stairs she said, "This place gives me heebeejies with no one in it. Know what I mean?" A few steps later she added, "Nah.

"You guys probably don't know what I mean."

"The deal is," Lamoia said down to Boldt, who was slower going up the stairs than the other two, "it occured to me that the first time I asked Loraine to run a few names into the computer-what was that, yesterday?-I was a little sexist in my approach."

"You?" she said sarcastically. "I can't imagine such a thing."

"I'm talking to him, if you don't mind," Lamoia complained.

"You?" Boldt asked, mimicking the woman's sarcastic tone.

Lamoia continued, undaunted, "I didn't have the time to do the job right. I did check to see if either of the three vets owned land out near where Dixie dug up Farragot, but this was before we were tuned in to Tegg. When I got the employee lists I had Loraine try those names as well."

"And that was a bunch of names," she complained, as if he owed her something for it.

Boldt was out of shape, that's all there was to it. His legs seemed to weigh a few hundred pounds. "How much farther?"

"Seventh floor, sugar. Two more to go."

"One way to do this," Lamoia explained, "is to use the county maps, because they identify each parcel of private land by name of the taxpayer." "But that's a huge job," Loraine said. "And it's random.

There's so much land out there by the Tolt: private, public, private usage, timber lease, water district, you name it." She seemed to be floating up the stairs barely noticing them. Boldt was beginning to wonder whether he would make it.

She reached the door first. She held it open for Lamoia and waited for Boldt. "You all right?" she asked.

Boldt nodded, too winded to speak. Embarrassed. "When Matthews nailed it down that it was Tegg for sure, it occurred to me we should try-"

"His wife," Boldt answered, interrupting.

It annoyed Lamoia. Boldt explained his reasoning as they turned right, then left, and Loraine unlocked the door to room 700A for them. "We know Tegg is originally from Vancouver. He later studied here, married here, and stayed here. if he didn't buy the land, then maybe his wife bought it or inherited it."

"Exactly," Lamoia agreed. "One name?" Loraine asked. She switched on the lights. The room had a long counter and several oversized signs explaining who was properly served by the assessor's office. In the center of the space allotted to the public was a long table. Against the near wall was a slanted shelf holding three-foot-by-two-foot leather-bound tax maps of the city and King County. According to the gold lettering, they were made by the Kroll Map Co.

Along the far wall were a half-dozen computer terminals and more signs explaining how to use them. The computer screen warmed. Loraine stood ready at the keyboard. "I did this for one name?" She hit several function keys, changing the menu.

"Okay, okay. Lay it on me, and let's get out of here before I get a permanent case of the creeps. "You did this to save a woman's life, Boldt wanted to say. You did this to stop a man who has gone mad with a scalpel.

Lamoia handed her a piece of napkin with some writing on it.

"Peggy Schmidt Tegg," Loraine read off, typing it in. "just Schmidt," Lamoia corrected. "Peggy Schmidt. This is the info off of her DMV slug-her driver's license. We're hoping like hell she uses her maiden name as her middle name, otherwise we've got to dig up a marriage license."

Loraine protested, "I don't have access to any marriage licenses, John Lamoia. Don't go asking me to get that as well,

'cause that's the second floor, and I've got nothing to do with those people. You want that, you're just gonna have to come back tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's too late," Lamoia said, meeting eyes with Boldt.

"No kidding?" Loraine asked, looking up at Lamoia, the seriousness of the situation sinking in. "Schmidt," he directed her, pointing to the keyboard. "What else could that be but a maiden name?"

"Some other kind of family name," Boldt suggested, hoping he was wrong. Lamoia's face tightened. They both looked on as the woman typed in the name and issued several menu-driven commands. "Here goes," she said.

The screen went blank. Boldt felt a sickening depression overtake him. He was exhausted, hungry, and now he was stuck in a dead end. "Don't get all stinky, lover," she said to Boldt.

"This thing can be slow."

The screen filled with a long list of Schmidts, starting with Alfred. "Next page," Lamoia instructed. "I know."

Screen after screen of Schmidts. Dozens of names. "There!"

Lamoia said. He pointed to: Schmidt, Priscilla. "That could be her."

Loraine's painted nail ran across a line to a box that was a jumble of dozens of capital letters and numbers. "Legal description of the property," she said. "John, read it off for me, will you?"

She jumped out of her chair. Boldt followed her over to the row of bound maps. She selected the one for King County-North.

"Read slow now, lover," she said.

Lamoia read the first coordinates. Loraine found the corresponding latitude number on the edge of the map. She turned to page forty-two. She located the same number here.

"Next," she said.

Lamoia read off the next number. Spreading her fingers like the points of a drafting compass, Loraine found this number as well. Her fingers closed in on each other, each representing a grid coordinate. There were dozens, hundreds, of boxes representing land parcels, each with a name inside. Most read Hollybrook-one of the largest timber/paper companies in the Northwest.

Boldt heard himself say, "Come on. Come on," as he watched her fingers come together. She moved her finger out of the way, and there was the name: Schmidt. "Skykomish River quadrangle," she announced. "Snoqualmie National Forest, Tolt Reservior.

Bingo!""We're there?" Lamoia asked incredulously. "We're there?" he repeated excitedly. She answered, "I'll make you a photocopy, lover. I'll put you in her backyard."

Pamela Chase drove as if she were on her way to a fire. She reached the unpaved county road that accessed Tegg's farm, lost the back end of the car in a skid, and nearly put the car in the trees. He had tried to drug her' She couldn't get over that She had swallowed one of the Valiums, but had managed to snag the other in her teeth. It was in his front yard now. She was driving fast, not only to reach the farm quickly, but to beat the Valium. It was already taking effect: Her anxiety level had lessened noticeably in the last few minutes-her fingers were no longer welded to the steering wheel; she was no longer grinding her teeth. The more relaxed she felt, the more terrified she became. He had said that he would call her in the morning, but what for? He acted like he owned her, as if she were one of his trained dogs. She felt dirty. She felt foolish. How had she allowed herself to be carried along by him for so long? What kind of person was she?