Last Ditch (9 page)

"Really
.
. . the Cascade Club . . . dear me."

For
want of an
option, I told her about Pat's call and the meeting. What followed was
a
twenty-minute ceremony, wherein I swore oaths up and down, back and
forth, sacred
and profane, that I would not lose my head and disgrace myself and
that,
furthermore, if I should be so foolish as to lose my temper and act in
an
unseemly manner, the effect of such actions on my future romantic
prospects
would be tantamount to being shipwrecked on a desert island.

I
was still
mulling over that cheery prospect when I set the e-brake on the Fiat
and hopped
out into the driveway of the Cascade Club. The valet looked at the
little car
with undisguised disdain. I dropped the keys into his palm. "My other
car
is a piece of shit too," I said.

I'd
only been
inside once before. Back in college, I'd taken an architecture class
and had
toured the building. The place may have been made from fire-flashed
clinker
brick and topped with Dutch gables, but what really constructed the
Cascade
Club was money. And not new money either. No. In these halls, the only
money
that counted was hand-me-down money. Money from so far back the family
no
longer recalled who it was had made the dough in the first place. That
kind.

That's
how I
knew to ask the ancient attendant for the Price party. While many of
the
Watermans were certainly not strapped for cash, the money was, to the
mind of
these sort of folks, not only entirely too recent, but, to an even
greater extent,
scandalously ill-gotten.

She
led me down
the long central hall of the building, past gold-framed portraits of
stern men
with chin whiskers, across a couple acres of floral carpet thick enough
to pass
for U.S. Open rough and then ushered me through the proverbial third
door on
the right.

A
small banquet
table had been set up at the back of the room. Gleaming silver urns of
coffee
and tea, plates of prepared fruit, decadent pastries and hors
d'oeuvres,
artfully arranged. Just your basic little Sunday morning meeting.

Pat
was
standing over by the leaded windows, holding a white china cup in one
hand and
a saucer in the other, making conversation with a nice-looking young
guy in a
double-breasted blue blazer. Pat had that pink-all-over, fresh-scrubbed
quality
of my father's Scandinavian roots. He kept his remaining hair extremely
short.
He was straight and trim to a degree attainable only by those who have
all day
to spend at the gym. He placed the cup in the saucer, set them on the
windowsill and crossed to my side.

He
looked me up
and down. "Glad you could make it," he said.

I
reckoned how
I was likewise thrilled.

"Fabulous
suit," he said. "Been letting Rebecca do your shopping for you,
haven't you?"

I'd
have been
less annoyed if it hadn't been true. I looked over his shoulder toward
the
linen-covered table in the center of the room, where Emily Price Morton
sat
sipping tea with her attorney H. R. McColl.

"The
suit
better be good. You neglected to tell me I'd be lunching with the
queen."

He
compressed
his lips. "Quite surprising," he admitted, then took me by the elbow.
"Come along," he whispered. "Let's get this show on the
road."

As
we
approached the table, H. R. McColl got to his feet. McColl was the
lawyer of
choice for those who could pay the freight. Just this side of sixty, he
was a
tall man. His sharp cheekbones were framed by a shock of thick white
hair,
shaved nearly bald on the sides, worn in a short Marine brush cut on
top—all
sharp angles in a gray wool suit.

He
extended his
hand. "Pat," was all he said.

With
a small
nod of the head, Pat took his hand.

"Henry.
You know Leo, I believe."

His
hand now
found its way into mine, but he kept talking to Pat.

"Oh,
yes.
Our paths have crossed before."

McColl
let me
go and turned toward his client, who sat motionless in an off-white
silk suit,
her hands in her lap, her wide-spaced blue eyes averted and unblinking.
Emily
Price Morton was the better part of seventy, but you had to get up
close to
see. Her primary care physician was probably a plastic surgeon. Amazing
what
enough money could do. Sitting there with her ash-blonde hair twisted
atop her
head in an old-fashioned knot, she could have passed for a cynical
fifty.
Except for the mouth. Her wide, dissatisfied mouth gave her away. The
series of
lines rippling out from the corners served as silent testament to the
current
limits of plastic surgery. If they pulled the rest of her face back any
tighter, she'd have been looking out to the sides like a fly.

McColl
didn't
bother with introductions. We were supposed to know who she was. He
spoke to
her. "You know Pat, of course."

She
rattled her
jewelry in assent

Pat
motioned my
way. "And my nephew, Leo Waterman."

No
rattle. She
looked at me like I was wearing a dog shit suit.

The
guy in the
blue blazer was at my elbow now. He spoke directly to Emily. "Mark
Forrester," he said, offering a hand. "I'm here representing the
Post-Intelligencer."

No
rattle. Not
even the shit suit look. I felt better.

Pat
took the
lead. "I know everyone has a busy schedule, so perhaps . . ." He
swept his hands out over the chairs.

He
waited for
everyone to get settled before he continued.

"I'd
like
to thank Mrs. Morton for arranging a space for this get-together," he
began. "And I want each of you to know I appreciate your taking time
from your
busy lives to be here with us today."

Emily
Price
Morton spoke for the first time.

"I
arranged the room merely as a courtesy. To be quite frank, I am unable
to
imagine any profitable purpose to this meeting."

"I
had
hoped—" Pat began.

She
cut him
off. "You hoped to sweep this matter under the rug is what you hoped,
Mr.
Waterman."

Pat
stayed
calm. "I had hoped . . ." he repeated, "... that perhaps we
could reach some sort of accord as to how to keep this unfortunate
incident
from affecting our lives and the lives of our loved ones any more than
is
absolutely necessary."

McColl
jumped
in. "What Mrs. Morton means to say . . ."

"Be
quiet,
Henry," she snapped. She fixed Pat with a granite stare. "Mrs. Morton
said exactly what she meant, Mr. Waterman. My family and I intend to
see blame
properly ascribed and justice administered. We have lived with the pain
and
uncertainty for nearly thirty years. We intend to see this matter
through to
its conclusion, no matter what the cost or to whom."

She
turned her
stony gaze my way. "I hold you no personal animosity, young man," she
said. "And I have no wish to foster the sins of the fathers off upon
the
children, but my family ..."

My
turn to
interrupt.

"What
sins
would those be?"

In
my
peripheral vision, I could see Pat stiffen and raise himself to his
full height
along the seat back. "What Leo means to say . . ." he began.

I
kept my eyes
locked on hers. "Leo said what he meant to say."

She
curled a
perfectly lined lip at me. "You can't be serious. My brother's remains
were
found in your father's yard. What other conclusion could possibly be
drawn?"

"I
seem to
recall something about people being innocent until proven guilty. And,
with all
due respect, Mrs. Morton, I don't recall my father even being charged
with
anything, much less convicted."

The
looks on
everyone's faces suggested that they were waiting for lightning to
strike me
dead. I figured, you know, what the hell so I jerked a thumb at Mark
Forrester
who was sitting on my right "Although I can certainly understand how
you
might have come to that conclusion if you've been reading that
sensationalist
piece of fish wrap these guys have the gall to call a newspaper."

The
kid was
smooth. "The Post-Intelligencer has complete confidence in the veracity
of
its sources and the quality of its reporting."

"That's
because you don't say anything," I said. "You imply; you infer, you
stick things that have nothing to do with one another in the same
paragraph
together and let the readers do the rest."

"I
didn't
come here to debate the merits of the press, Mr. Waterman." He began to
rise.

"Please,"
Pat entreated. He pressed down on the table with his palms as if it
were about
to take flight and then shot a glance over my way. Forrester settled
back into
his seat. "Leo and I and the rest of the Waterman family want nothing
more
than a speedy resolution to this unfortunate matter. Like everyone
else—"

H.
R. McColl
cut him off. "I'm not sure Leo is on board with you on that one,
Pat."

Pat
folded his
hands and arched an eyebrow. -
 
"How
so?"

"As
I
understand it, last night, only hours after the discovery of the
remains, your
nephew refused to cooperate with the authorities."

Being
talked
about as if I weren't in the room was beginning to chap my hide, but I
kept my
temper.

"What
do I
have to cooperate about?" I asked evenly. "I was twelve years old
when Peerless Price disappeared. Except for the past few months, I
haven't
lived in that house for over twenty years. What could I possibly know
that
would be of use?"

For
the first
time McColl addressed me directly. "So you did indeed refuse to
cooperate?" "Big as life," I answered.

Two
COPS, ONE
big, one little, one rumpled, one neat. Naturally, I knew the big
rumpled one.
Frank Wessels and I went way back. Oh yeah. We'd detested each other
for decades.
For a while, in the tenth grade, I'd dated his younger sister Jean. He
was a
big nasty bastard about ten years my senior. One of those throwbacks to
the
rubber hose days of law enforcement who liked to hurt people. I was
pleased to
see that the years had treated him badly. Since I'd seen him last, he'd
put on
thirty pounds and grown a veiny red nose with the texture of a golf
ball.

I
pulled open
the door. Before I could open my mouth, the Utile neat one stuck a gold
badge
in my face and started to step over the threshold. I wedged an arm
against the
doorjamb about chin high and let him run into it. He staggered back two
steps
and nearly sat down in the geraniums.

"Somebody
invite you in?" I asked.

He
was about
thirty-five, a good-looking little Hispanic guy with a thick head of
black hair
combed straight back. Just as neat as a pin in a blue silk suit,
matching tie
and pocket hankie and one of those custom-made shirts with the little
rounded
collars.

He
readjusted
his suit and stepped back up to me.

"What
are
you, blind?" he demanded, shaking the badge in my face. "We're
SPD."

"So
what," I said. "That doesn't give you the right to come walking into
my house without an invitation."

He
looked back
over his shoulder at Wessels.

"You
hear
this guy?"

"I
hear,"
Wessels said. "Leo's a laugh a minute." I looked out over the little
guy's head. No way these two guys worked together on a regular basis. I
figured
they sent Wessels along in case I got hostile with Little Lord
Fauntleroy here.

"Hey,
Frank. They eliminate the department height requirement or what?"

Wessels
kept a
straight face. "Affirmative action," he said.

I
already knew
the answer to the next question, because I ran into her once in a while
up at
the Coastal Kitchen on Capitol Hill, but I asked him anyway, just to
piss him
off.

"How's
Jean?" I asked.

Wessels
shrugged and shuffled his feet. "I don't have nothin' to do with her
anymore. She's a dyke. She and her gap-lapper girlfriend got them a
condo up on
the hill."

"Hope
it
wasn't something / said?"

He
showed me a
mouthful of yellow teeth.

"Probably
that little tiny dick-of yours is what did it."

Rebecca
poked
her head out from under my aim. "Why, Officer," she said in her best
Blanche DuBois drawl. "Surely that must be some other Leo you're
referring
to. I assure you, sir, this man's appointments are second to none." And
you wonder why I love this woman.

It
was hard to
tell, but I think maybe Wessels blushed.

She
grabbed me
by the belt and pulled me out of the doorway.

"Won't
you
gentlemen come in," she said.

Rebecca
and I
sat on one side of the dining room table. Detective Peter Trujillo
removed a
pencil and a small spiral-bound notepad from his suit jacket, hung the
jacket
on the back of a chair and then sat down directly across from us.
Wessels lounged
in the corner.