Trouble in Rooster Paradise (9 page)

Britt had known Christine for about two years,
but had never witnessed anything unusual about her. She told me
that when she hired girls her initial screening process was fairly
stringent. Christine was capable and wanted to juggle part-time
employment with the classes she was taking at the U. Eventually she
stopped juggling and began to work full-time. Britt didn’t know
much about Dirk Engstrom.

“
I’m friendly with the girls, but I
have to draw a line somewhere.”

“
And what keeps the power behind
Pearson’s throne from moving on to bigger and better?” I
asked.

She smirked. “Did Meredith call me
that?”

“
Pearson himself said as much. So
what keeps you here?”

She sighed. “It’s changing, but it’s still a
man’s world,” she said, setting her cup on the desk. “I’ll admit
that I’ve thought about finding a throne of my own a few times, to
use your phrase.”

“
I’m sure you’d make a great
king.”

She laughed. “I’ll take that as a
compliment.”

I made a courtly bow from my seated
position.

“
Like I said, it’s still a man’s
world. I was going to move to New York City to follow through on my
plans, but I’ve been kind of tethered to Seattle.”

“
Tethered? How’s that?”

“
When my mother died, I moved here
to live with her youngest sister. I was a teenager at the time. My
aunt was only in her mid-twenties then, but of course she seemed so
much older and sophisticated to a girl who’d lived her whole life
on an apple farm in Wenatchee. I idolized her. She started out
taking care of me. I ended up taking care of her.”

She saw my puzzled expression.

“
My aunt was highly sensitive. She
had a romance go bad and I’m afraid it shattered her. She never
recovered. I saw to her needs. I tried my best to take care of her
for several years. But she got progressively worse. Three years ago
I finally had to commit her. She died after a year in Steilacoom.
The ravages of alcoholic dementia, they said. But I say it was a
broken heart.”

“
I’m sorry.” Putting a loved one in
a mental hospital had to be rough. Having them die there had to be
a nightmare.

“
Thank you. It’s probably for the
best. She’s no longer suffering. Some people don’t snap
back.”

I said I understood. I knew a few guys who came
back from the war but never really returned. Not everyone has the
resilience of a Walter Pangborn.

We talked a little longer, and then I stood up
and handed her my cup. Our fingers bumped. Gunnar the Smitten. Had
she purposely touched me?

Gunnar the Gonadal, more like it.

“
I may be back to talk with one or
two of the other girls. I understand you keep a list of regular
customers—males anyway.”

She smiled. “I see Meredith told you of our
little attempt at psychological merchandising.”

“
Whatever works, I say. Would you
mind putting together a list of Christine’s regulars?”

“
Not at all. Does this mean I’ll see
you again?”

“
You sound as if you like the
idea.”

“
Maybe I do.”

K
irsti looked speculatively
at me and said, “That Britt Anderson had the hots for you.”

“
Well, you know, Blue Eyes, I wasn’t
always a wizened wheelchair jockey.”

With a teasing smile and a knowing look, she
said, “Yeah, you were probably a real hottie. And it’s pretty
obvious that that boutique was the rooster paradise you’d referred
to.”

“
Yes, but it wasn’t me who coined
that term for it.”

“
Who did, then?”

“
All in good time, young lady. I’ll
not be rushed. Besides, you’re supposed to save up your questions,
remember?”

“
Sorry,” she said. But she wasn’t in
the least.

It was probably Rikard Lundeen’s retainer along
with Britt Anderson’s bantam hint of interest that made me feel
like splurging. I put two dollars worth of regular in the Chevy
before I headed back downtown.

Everyday speech can be contradictory. Have you
ever noticed how “fat chance” and “slim chance” mean the same
thing? The word “choice” gets similar treatment. I’d rented my
choice out for the day. I rarely entered a police station by
choice. I chose to do so now because I had no choice.

Detective Sergeant Frank Milland’s working
milieu was a chaotic medley of desks, filing cabinets, ancient
typewriters and overflowing ashtrays. The real human touches were
the smell of perspiration and the mishmash of forsaken food scraps
that looked to have been grown in petri dishes—and would surely
have led to fantastic discoveries if analyzed under a microscope.
But it wasn’t my mission to bemoan this tragic loss to science. I
was looking for my friend.

I took in scenes that reminded me that a cop’s
job deals largely with policies, procedures, complaints, and
irksome details. Only a tiny fraction of their work is connected to
bloodshed and murder.

The squad room was buzzing with cops and
Seattle citizenry. I worked my way to the back, where Milland’s
partner, Bernie Hanson, sat at his hardwood desk beating out a
concerto on his typewriter. To my right was a plump, middle-aged
woman who wore a summer dress that had already seen way too many
seasons. She sobbed and beseeched two cops who had mouths that
looked sutured shut and who were about as open and friendly as that
allows. To my left was an old colored man in a drab suit who
earnestly told his story to another officer. The cop nodded as he
hunted and pecked at his typewriter.

An old Scandinavian fellow in alpaca trousers,
a flannel shirt, and a string tie remonstrated with the desk
sergeant.

“
Ja
, but how can you go
back
before you been
forth
?” he argued. The desk
sergeant shook his head and tried again. But it’s hard arguing with
that kind of logic. I know. My grandpa Sven was doggedly puzzled at
how people got “in” an automobile but got “on” a train.

Milland stood talking with Lieutenant Archibald
Lister. I slipped a clove under my tongue and walked over to them.
Lister was about forty-five, sleepy-eyed, and balding. His deceased
parents had named him Archibald, but apparently they were the only
humans who called him that. He refused to be called Archie. And no
one in his right mind called him Baldy. Not to his face anyway. So
it was either “Lieutenant” or “Lister.” I can only imagine what his
wife and kids did when they wanted his attention.

Lieutenant Lister favored funereal suits of
gray blue or inky black that helped to define him. Since he wore a
perpetual sneer, you looked for other clues as to his emotional
state. At that moment his face was the color of a toreador’s cape,
which went well with his words and gestures.

“
I don’t go for this special
consideration bullshit,” he said as he thrust his face within a few
inches of mine. His lip quivered and I could count his nose hairs.
He looked back at Milland and said, “Give him ten minutes. Tops.
Then you kick his privileged candy ass out of here.”

The sobbing woman broke off her story to gawk
at us. In fact, everyone looked our way. Everyone, that is, but the
old Swede. He knew where the universe centered and nothing was
about to disturb the confidence he felt about it.

After Lieutenant Lister stomped off, I said to
Milland, “What’s his beef? Is his wife dosing his coffee with
saltpeter again?”

“
Ah, cut the guy some slack, Gunnar.
It’s been a pressure-cooker week. You getting your well-heeled
client to start pulling strings hasn’t helped. You know the
lieutenant doesn’t like citizen interference. I figured you for
smarter than that.”

“
I didn’t ask for strings to be
pulled, Frank.”

“
Well, strings have been downright
jerked in your favor. How is it you happen to know Rikard Lundeen,
anyway?”

“
I worked for him once. Is it my
fault he likes me?”

Milland scowled. “You want to talk to the
Engstrom kid?”

“
Yeah. Lundeen was afraid he’d talk
himself into the role of prime suspect.”

“
He did more than talk himself
there.”

“
Does he look that good?”

Milland picked up on the surprise in my voice.
“Damn good,” he said smiling. “Double damn good.”

He explained that quite a few people witnessed
the scene and overheard the noise the day before when Dirk Engstrom
stormed in on Christine Johanson while she was working. However,
only three people were close enough to the fracas to see that Dirk
was enraged, and one of these three said he heard Dirk threaten to
kill Christine.

“
It doesn’t sound good,” I
said.

“
No, it gets better than that. We
found drops of blood on a pair of shoes in Engstrom’s apartment.
We’re checking on a match.”

“
It sounds
real
bad.”

“
It gets even worse. We found a gun
in the kid’s apartment that had been recently fired. His prints
were lifted from it and the ballistics boys are checking to see if
it’s the gun that killed the Johanson dame.”

“
Double damn good is right.” So
ended forty-five dollars a day.

Milland nodded. “The Engstrom kid is on the
brink of being charged, booked, sealed, and delivered. So get your
chat in while you can, Gunnar. Lundeen’s pull has got us taking
things nice and slow for now. And we’re also keeping the kid from
the press as long as possible. Lundeen must have leverage with both
the
Times
and
P.I.
, because I’ve seen no crime
reporters sniffing around. But I’m not rooting for you on this one,
Gunnar. Not if you aim to prove the kid innocent.”

“
Look, Frank, the Engstrom kid is
Lundeen’s godson. I’m rented for the day to nose into things.
That’s it. I’m not on some bleeding-heart mission, and I’m not out
to undo your hard work. Besides, it sounds to me like the kid
deserves to trade pinstripes for prison stripes.”

“
We like to think so.”

I took out a pad and pencil from my coat
pocket. “Let me at least earn my salt. It wouldn’t hurt if I talked
to the three bystanders of that fight.” My plan, if you could call
it that, was to talk to them and get some kind of reading off what
they saw and heard. I needed at least something to put in a final
report to Rikard Lundeen. “How about giving me the
names?”

“
The first one has quite the
moniker. He’s a fella named Guy de Carter. He’s got a kisser that
sort of reminds me of Smilin’ Jack from the funny papers. Mustache
and all.”

Again with the funny papers. Smilin’ Jack was a
debonair-looking comic strip character that was a caricature of the
movie star Errol Flynn—or vice versa.

“
This de Carter works for an ad
agency in the same building where the murdered girl worked. He says
his company handles their ad work. The second witness is one
Addison Darcy. He’s a longtime local about as well-heeled as
Lundeen. Darcy was a customer in the store when the lover’s spat
broke out. The third onlooker is the widow of a Dr. Henry Arnot.
Gal’s name is Blanche. She was there on business. Hell, it’s not
enough for ’em to hawk fancy toilet water. This Blanche Arnot says
she teaches the salesgirls to walk and talk straight while they do
it. Probably teaches them to piss and flush straight
too.”

Milland shook his head. “I’ll put addresses and
phone numbers to two of these names for you before you
leave.”

“
What about the third?”

“
Addison Darcy lives in The
Highlands.”

“
Oh,
rally
?”

“
Yes,
rally
. He made his
statement and referred us to his lawyer. Like I say, I’ll get you
the dope on the other two. Good luck on reaching Darcy.”

“
Thanks, Frank. I owe you
one.”

“
You owe me two. And I’m keeping
track. You just missed the Engstrom kid’s old man, but his lawyer’s
still with him.”

He led me away from the clamor of the squad
room over to a nook used for conferences.

“
He’s all yours,” said
Milland.

I heard arguing on the other side of the door.
I knocked and opened. Two men stared at me with expressions that
said
altercatio interruptus
. I entered and the older of the
two stood up and refreshed the crease in his pants. His crisp
charcoal suit gave him a prim aspect that went with a genteel
demeanor. He seemed to know who I was and why I was there. He
introduced himself as Hiram Pender, attorney for Bern Engstrom and
ipso facto for Dirk Engstrom.

“
He insists on talking to you
alone,” Pender said to me. He gave his client a parting look that
could pass for pity or disgust. “I’ll be waiting
outside.”

I closed the door behind Pender. He was polite
enough, but I consider lawyers guilty until proven innocent. So far
as I knew he was just another highbrow thimble-rigger in an
intellectual shell game, with truth as the pea. Now you see it—now
you don’t. Even if they do sink their chops into some meaty issue,
truth isn’t usually their objective. I see them as modern wizards
who conjure for cash and celebrity.