The Rivers Run Dry (8 page)

Bookman Landrow turned out to be a wiry black man, and the blaze orange jumpsuit courtesy of the King County Sheriff's Department made his long dark arms look like burnt twigs. Indistinct tattoos swirled across his skin, looking more like bruises than ink, and when he turned to look at Felicia, the expression in his almond-shaped eyes iced my spine.

“He's going to kill me,” Felicia gasped. “I told you, he's going to kill me.”

“Don't give him the chance. Put him away for good.”

We sat directly behind the prosecutor's table, the first wooden bench from the small gate that provided the only barrier between Felicia and the man who wanted to kill her. Bookman's defense attorney was a compact, intense man named Joe Morrisson who kept pressing a manicured hand to his charcoal pin-striped suit as he conferred with Bookman, whispering asides that Bookman took for opportunities to send Felicia the dead look.

“Keep your eyes off him,” I told her. “Especially when you get on the stand. If they ask you to identify him, point, but stare at his forehead.”

Her skin was chalk white and the sores on her face glowed in contrast, aggravated by the scratchy paper towels I'd used on her in the bathroom. Combined with the outfit Jack picked out—navy rayon dress with ecru lace collar and blue pumps—Felicia looked lost and depressed, like a polygamous Mormon wife on suicide watch. In an attempt to avoid Bookman's stares, Felicia opened her purse. It was a fashion detail Jack had overlooked and she pawed through the cracked leather pouch mumbling to herself. I listened in a distracted way, watching Jack finish his conversation with the U.S. attorney on the case. My head felt weighted, the way it did just before a bad cold set in, but each time Felicia's arm brushed against mine, I felt a jolt of the anxiety coursing through her veins.

“I'm never drinking again,” she said, still digging. “I'm never having another drink so long as I live. No more drugs neither. I'm gonna get my kids back, get a job. Soon as I'm done here, that's what I'm doing.”

“Good girl,” I said. “Way to go.”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I.”

Her head dropped over the purse again, her murmured words falling into the bag. “Me and alcohol, it's as bad as me and Bookman. Me and everything is bad.” She looked up. “Hey, you want this?”

I looked over. She held a green plastic disk the size of a quarter, with white lettering embossed around the crimped edges.

“What is it?”

“It's a free token. You know that Indian casino, out I-90?”

I shook my head.

“I'm never going there again neither. I just go broke out there. The slots. What do they say? If I didn't have bad luck I'd have no luck at all. That's me.”

Before I could tell her there was no such thing as luck, the bailiff told us to rise. Felicia dropped the green disk into my hand.

chapter six

F
riday morning Allen McLeod called me into his glass box of an office. Jack Stephanson leaned against the cube's far wall, one ankle crossed over the other. A slender woman with sloe-brown eyes and dark hair like polished tiger's eye sat in one of the available chairs. I took the seat beside her.

“Harmon, meet Lucia Lutini.” McLeod dropped into the big chair behind his desk. “Lucia's our victim support coordinator. You two can talk later. Right now, we've got to deal with this other mess.” He clasped his hands, laying them on his stomach. “I don't want to go barking up a horse's mouth, but it looks like we've got a serious situation here.”

Yesterday afternoon a King County Superior Court judge sent Bookman Landrow far, far away. Felicia, relieved and joyful, asked me to drive her to the Department of Social Services. Wearing her new dress, she sat in the backseat to avoid soiling her new blue pumps, the floorboard still tacky with vomit. She did not want me to come inside when she made her appearance to the social worker handling her case, and I didn't argue. Felicia needed to stand on her own. I needed sleep.

But now I realized I should have stayed with her. One blue dress wouldn't wipe out a file as thick as my wrist.

Jack uncrossed his legs. “From the get-go, Harmon's been the point person on this. Take it up with her.”

“Jack asked me to help him,” I said, the defensiveness ruining my voice. “I followed his orders.”

“He's your training agent, Harmon. You do what he says, when he says it.” McLeod unclasped his hands, the fingers opening like falling fence rails. “But you're still expected to make decent judgment calls.”

I nodded, giving myself time to bring my anger down a notch. “I'm not aware of what went wrong.”

“Maybe down South they don't know how to talk to a victim's family,” McLeod said. “So I brought in Lutini—she'll handle it from here. Meanwhile you and Jack get to work on this missing.”

“Courtney VanAlstyne?” I said. “That's what this is about?”

Jack said, “Harmon made a rat's nest out of the VanAlstyne situation, not me. Let her clean it up.”

“Jack, this is urgent,” McLeod said.

“Urgent is a bomb strapped to an Arab's body. My counter-terrorism work trumps any alleged disappearance of a rich girl. Let Harmon work this by herself.”

“Headquarters called us, Jack. This jumps to priority,” McLeod said. “You find out what happened or you find a way to throw it back to Issaquah PD, I don't care which, but I'm tired of 4:00 a.m. calls from the ASAC asking what we're doing about this kidnapping when we don't think she was kidnapped. And the parents won't go public. The whole thing's nuts. I want write-ups on everything from this minute forward, every
t
crossed, every
i
spotted.”

“Dotted,” said Lucia Lutini.

“What?” McLeod said.

“The correct phrase is every
t
crossed, every
i
dotted.” Her voice sounded like melted butter.

“What did I say?”

“Spotted.”

“Fine,” McLeod growled. “Dot the
i
's.”

Jack leaned forward, placing his hands on the desk. I could see condensation gathering on the varnished shine, his skin hot with anger. “What am I supposed to tell counterterrorism, it's time for recess?”

“You'll figure it out, Jack.” McLeod said. “You've got a sliver tongue.”

“Silver,” Lutini said.

McLeod stared at her, his expression frozen. “Anybody else, Lutini, I'd have them transferred to Alaska.”

“I know,” she said.

Back at my desk, I called Detective Markel at the Issaquah PD, leaving a message to explain our sudden interest in the VanAlstyne case. I would be on Cougar Mountain tomorrow, I said, looking into the crime scene on behalf of the Bureau. We would not charge his department for time and tests. I hung up and ran a back-ground check on Courtney VanAlstyne's former boyfriend, the name the roommate gave me, printing out the information and copying it for McLeod.

Just after 1:30 p.m., Lucia Lutini asked me to lunch.

Cumulus clouds bumped across the mottled blue sky as we walked down First Avenue, heading south. She wore a wool cape the color of moist moss, her black boots tapering to deadly points. In the air I felt the first bite of fall.

“I spoke with the VanAlstynes this morning,” she said in her buttery voice, the words keeping a rhythm that sounded like a melody. “Separately. The wife first, then the husband.”

“What's your impression?”

She tilted her head one degree left, then one degree right. “She's hiding something.”

“About the disappearance?”

“At this point, I don't know. The only certainty is that Mrs. VanAlstyne is a lovely woman with a firm grip on her own neck.”

We crossed at Yesler Way and a man in a ragged coat with a face like a skinned plum stumbled toward Lucia. When he opened his mouth, his breath smelled like butane.

“Lucia,” he said. “How about some change?”

“Hello, Red. I'm going to tell you the same thing I always tell you. The mission is two blocks over. They serve hot meals. Why doesn't that sound good to you?”

“Lucia,” he moaned.

Her hands were tucked inside the green cape, but she took one out and wagged a finger at him. “Ah, I see. You think you can embarrass me with my companion. You're a smart guy, Red. Very smart.”

“C'mon. Give me some money.”

“You want to come to lunch with us? Best sandwich in Seattle.”

“I got a stomach virus. I can't eat nothing.”

“The mission treats that too.” She smiled, walking again. “Have a wonderful day, Red.”

“No thanks to you!” he yelled.

In Occidental Square iron grates caged the root-balls of deciduous trees. The red leaves remained on the branches, and the dead brown leaves scattered across the bricks, creating a susurrus that revealed the unpredictable wind.

“Red's been down here for years,” Lucia said, by way of explanation. “I first encountered him when his hair was blond instead of gray. How time accelerates for those people.”

“Why ‘Red'?” I asked. “His skin?”

“His eyes. Even back then.”

We walked two blocks south where a line of people waited outside a brick building. The air smelled of garlic and onions and seared meat. Lucia turned down an alley and keyed open a black door, walking into a steam-filled room. At a large sink, a young man washed pots, his dark hair curling from the moisture, one forelock dropping like a comma to his brown eyes.

“Buon Giorno, Lucia.”

“Buon Giorno, Pietro.”

She unwrapped the green cape, walking into a tight kitchen where bottles of translucent green olive oil and russet vinegars hovered above a blackened grill. A round man with a laurel of white hair stood with his back to us, the frayed strings of his apron hanging from his circular torso. With the roaring hood and sizzling meat, he didn't hear us approach. Lucia reached out, gently touching him on the shoulder. He turned, a pair of tongs in his right hand snapping like crab claws.

“Lucia!” he cried. “Why you didn't call? Mario, he was just here!”

She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders at the same time, a seamless gesture that said Mario was not for her. “Papa, I want you to meet Raleigh Harmon. Raleigh, this is my father, Danato Lutini. Raleigh works with me, Papa.”

Danato Lutini shook my hand, and my arm undulated like a rag doll.

“You a crime fighter like my daughter, yeah? I feed you any-thing you want. Anything!”

Lucia kissed his cheek and I followed her back to a storeroom no bigger than a closet. She overturned two five-gallon buckets, hanging my blazer and her cape on the door hinge. Danato appeared with sausage sandwiches on paper plates, the long roll cradling roasted pork bedded with tomato sauce and sautéed onions. My first bite exploded fennel and black pepper and garlic without a trace of bitterness and just when I caught those flavors, the roasted tomato kicked in behind it.

I swallowed. “Wow.”

Lucia wiped sauce from her lips with a paper napkin. “It's literally a hole in the wall, this place. One window on South Jackson. But that line out there? Goes around the block every day. Papa won't hire waiters, won't buy tables. He stays at the grill, my Uncle Carmine shuffles back to give him the orders. People wait forty-five minutes for a sandwich.”

“It's worth it.”

Danato appeared in the door again, this time holding two demitasse cups.

“Eh, Raleigh, you like my sandwich?” His voice had a sing-song accent.

“Loved it.”

He smiled, lifting his head with a nod, a gesture of yes and thank-you and I-knew-you-would. When he glanced at his daughter, warm light filled his face.

“Lucia, you drink the espresso. Take your time. A good lunch, yeah? None of this hurrying business. It's bad on the stomach.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

We sipped the coffee. It had the sharp challenge of bitter chocolate. I stared at the boxes along the shelves, the imports marked
Italia
, trying to find the courage to ask.

“What does McLeod want you to tell me?”

She set her cup in the saucer. “Our beloved supervisor has the idea you don't know how to handle rich people.”

I didn't respond.

“Personally, I disagree,” she said. “In fact, I believe you come from that same tribe.”

“You think I'm rich?”

“Old wealth, most of it gone. That once-upon-a-time circumstance of money.”

I sipped the espresso.

“Yes, what I thought. Gentrified poverty. Which is lovely—consider yourself doubly blessed. You received what money's mostly good for, education and high culture, but your boundaries broadened. McLeod, who is determined to rise in the ranks by playing by every rule, is fairly obtuse. The malaprops, for instance. But I noticed you never flinch when he mangles the mother tongue. That's Southern, partly. But also cultured.”