Slow Burn (35 page)

"What
happened?"

"The authorities
have taken him."

'Taken him
where?"

"Down to
that same room above the lobby, I believe."

"Why did
they do that?"

"Because
he would not go willingly."

Probably didn't
like the entree.

"Why
not?"

Rowcliffe told
me. At about ten this morning, a herd of SPD officers descended upon the hotel,
served their warrants and proceeded to search Sir Geoffrey's quarters, the Del
Fuego suite and the Meyerson suite. "They appear to have been here as
well/' he commented.

"They need
work on their housekeeping," I said.

"They left
a frightful mess. Sir Geoffrey was livid."

"And then
later, they asked him to come downstairs?"

"He was
practicing his speech for this evening."

"And he
refused to go."

"Yes, sir.
They threatened to load him on a baggage pram if he refused to locomote."
I'd pay Sonics ticket prices to see that one. "How long ago was
this?" "Less than ten minutes." "What can I do?"

"I fear he
is sufficiently incensed to do something unfortunate."

"And you
want me to crash the party and make sure he's not filling the air with
vitriolic oaths?" "Yes. I was hoping . . ."

"I'm on
it," I said. It was the least I could do. I'd squandered bales of his
cash, and although I had accomplished a number of significant tasks, none of
them were what I'd been hired to do. Yesterday, I had offered Lawrence a chance
at redemption. Could be it was my turn now.

When I poked my
head out of the elevator, I caught the briefest glimpse of a pair of King County
Mounties waddling up the stairs behind Dixie and Bart. They must have been
merely delivery boys, because by the time I topped the three stairs, they were
already headed back my way. I gave the boys a smile and walked around them.
"Afternoon, fellas," I said. Nothing. My timing was perfect. I pulled
open the door and stepped inside just as Detective Lobdell said, "May I
have your attention."

Apparently not.
The group went wild, erupting into a melee of curses, threats and
recriminations. At the far end of the room, Sir Geoffrey sat with his arms
folded over his chest, glowering off into space. To my immediate right, Abigail
Meyerson, Brie and Spaulding all seemed to be yelling at once. No Francona? No
Hill?

The Del Fuego
contingent was sans its namesake. Bart and Dixie, Rickey Ray and Candace
Atherton. That was it. They were all shouting, too. Detective Lobdell sensed my
presence in his peripheral vision. As he turned to Lawrence, I could hear his
voice above the din.

"What's he
doing here?"

Lawrence
said something to him that I couldn't
hear. When he began to reply, I scooted across the room, dragged a chair over
next to Sir Geoffrey and sat down. His lordship favored me with a curt nod.

Lobdell glanced
back toward my former position, noted my absence and rotated his head until he
found me with his eyes. I tried to read them. Was he going to throw me out? No.
He wanted me to see whatever was about to come down. As if in confirmation, he
sneered at me and then raised his arms. The bozo was showing off.

It took a full
two minutes to quiet the crowd. Twice during that period, just at the moment
when it seemed that order was about to prevail, a final pithy insult was
hurled, and the mob scene escalated anew.

"If you
are through . . ." Lobdell began.

"You're the
one that's through!" Spaulding shouted.

"I'm in no
hurry here, ladies and gentlemen. You want this to take all night, that's okay
with me."

Behind him on
the dais, Lawrence all but rolled her eyes at Lobdell's stirring Vice Principal
impression. Even the tall, skinny cop up there with them had to suppress a
smile by pulling himself back to rigid attention. For the first time, if you
didn't count the curses left hanging in the air, the room was silent. Lobdell
began again.

"This
afternoon, the Seattle Police Department, in conjunction with the Office of the
District Attorney, conducted a search—"

Again the room
overflowed with sound. Spaulding rose, hefted his groin with his hand and
yelled, "Search this."

If I read
Brie's hps correctly, she said, "That shouldn't take long."

Lobdell waited
it out.

"In the
course of that search, a forty-caliber automatic was discovered in the
possession of Mr. Del Fuego. A computer trace reveals the weapon to be
registered to Mason F. Reese."

Even the echoes
were quiet now. I could hear Spaulding breathing through his mouth. Lobdell had
'em right where he wanted 'em.

"Furthermore,
a copy of Mr. Reese's Best Steak House fist, dated the first of next month, was
found among his effects." He paused. Now even the breathing had stopped.
"Ms. Meyerson is number one on that list, while Del Fuego's FeedLot does
not appear at all."

I joined in on
a group "Oooh!"

Satisfied that
he had our attention, he laid the wood on us.

"Seattle police officers have, this afternoon, arrested Mr. Del Fuego and charged him with
the murder of Mason F. Reese."

Sir Geoffrey
actually smiled. Not the slight straightening of the hps that generally passed
for mirth with him, but a wide, toothy grin.

"I regret
that this meeting may have been inconvenient. The arrest of Mr. Del Fuego makes
it necessary to formalize each of your depositions. That way, if all goes well,
perhaps you can avoid the need to return to Seattle whenever this matter comes
to trial. This meeting—"

"This
meeting is an abduction, is what it is." It was Abby, who stood, clearly
pissed off. "Your Gestapo tactics with my staff—"

Lobdell cut her
off. "Messrs. Francona and Hill were interfering with an officer in the
performance of his duty and have been so charged."

"Here,
here," added Sir Geoffrey.

Abby pointed
out over the crowd. "You people are my witnesses."

Amazingly, the
whole group nodded its head as one. Political Science 101. Disparate groups can
be united against a common enemy.

Sir Geoffrey
rose and pointed at Detective Lobdell. "You, sir, are a nincompoop. You
have embarrassed both yourself and your department. First you have the temerity
to drag us down here so you can posture, and now . . . this."

Dixie
was in Lobdell's face. "Jack
wouldn't hurt a little bitty bug," she assured the detective. "That
old boy's all bark and no bite."

I stood up.
"I want to confess," I shouted.

All eyes turned
my way.

"Confess
to what?" Lobdell sounded hopeful.

"I want to
confess that I always wanted to do this."

"Do
what?"

"Have the
cops and the suspects all crowded into one room at the end of the case so I can
tell everybody what actually happened and who actually done it." Nobody
had a clue, so I tried again.

"You know,
like at the end of a Nero Wolfe novel, when everybody crowds into Wolfe's
office and he sets them straight."

The blank looks
suggested a disturbing lack of literacy.

"Detective
novels," Lobdell mocked. "This is what you get, ladies and
gentlemen"—he chuckled for effect—"when you hire one of these
so-called private investigators. Detective novels." He laughed again.
"A murder investigation isn't about fiction, folks. It's not accomplished
by amateurs or wannabes. It's about good, hard-nosed police work. It's about
knocking on all the doors. It's about motive, means and opportunity. A
competent investigator knows that when you have those three elements, you have
your perpetrator. Period. Mr. Del Fuego stood to be ruined and possibly subject
to criminal charges if Mr. Reese's rating system was adjudged to be fraudulent."
Lobdell looked right at me. "And I think you'd have to say his sudden
omission from the list makes that pretty clear." He held up one finger.

"Motive."

He reached into
the speaker's stand and pulled out a large ziplock bag. The black automatic
rested upside down in the ziplock bag. The proud papa. I could see the relief
in his face. The search had been his idea. With high rollers like these, coming
up empty might have taken a serious divot out of Lobdell's career. "Forty
calibers' worth of means," he said, checking the crowd for worshipers
before retailing the bag to its place.

"Mr. Del
Fuego signed a statement daiming that he remained at his restaurant until just
before six on Monday evening and then took a cab back to the hotel. A
statement"—Lobdell paused for effect—"which he has now
recanted." He made it sound like he was shocked. "Since his arrest,
Mr. Del Fuego has claimed that from four-fifteen that afternoon until nearly
six-thirty, he was out on an errand. Supposedly to purchase farm supplies for
his restaurant opening. In a cab." He chuckled again. "Of course, Mr.
Del Fuego is unable to provide a name for the store, or even a general
neighborhood in which it might be found. But I suppose we should take his word
for that, him being a noted restauranteur and all."

He glanced over
at me in mock surprise. 'Isn't that what your pal Nero Wolfe would do?"

'^Nah," I
said. "Nero would, send his man Saul Panzer out to find the feed store.
Then Saul would come back with a card like this."

I fished the
business card out of my wallet and brought it up to Lobdell. Lawrence stepped
forward to look.

"What's
this?" Lobdell asked.

"Just what
it says. Ifs the business card of an old guy named Orville Whitney. He works in
a feed store on old Ninety-nine, just south of Everett. He's the guy sold Jack
the-feed. Give him a call. You'll find out Jack was there casting radal
aspersions just before six o'clock Monday night. There's a delivery kid who can
corroborate."

The crowd gave
a low rumble. Lobdell turned red, then white.

Sir Geoffrey
spoke up. "And to think Mr. Waterman was, only the other day, extolling
the virtues of your department. Phooey."

Lobdell forced
a sentence out through his teeth.

"I warned
you about withholding relevant information."

His lordship
jumped to my defense. "Mr. Del Fuego's activities were in no way
germane," he said. "Until that unfortunate moment when you decided to
arrest him." "What he said," I added.

The detective
was smart enough to know I wasn't blurting, but too stubborn to let go. He said
something to Lawrence. They went back and forth a couple of times. He left the
room at a lope, holding the card in one hand, flipping open his cell phone with
the other.

Lawrence
stepped down from the dais and walked
over to me. She was looking for something in my eyes. I hate it when they do
that.

"Is that
card on the level?" she asked.

"Absolutely.
I tried to tell you about it the other night, but you weren't interested."

She massaged
her forehead. "You could have stopped him, before he made such an ass of
himself," she said.

"You're
right, I could have. What about you?"

"He went
over my head, to my boss. He claimed I was treating them with kid gloves and
the investigation was going nowhere."

"Your
colleague has most certainly remedied that, now, hasn't he?" Sir Geoffrey
remarked.

"Why don't
you rescue this whole thing right now, Lawrence?" -  "And how am I
going to do that?"

"I'll give
it to you free of charge."

"Ifs not
that 'no button for the fourteenth floor' thing again, is it?" "No.
Better."

After another
eye-searching session, she threw her hands up in the air and climbed back onto
the platform. She gestured out over the crowd.

"You were
saying, Mr. Waterman . . ."

"Lefs
start with the fact that there's no way Miss Brie Meyerson went to the movies
with Mr. Tolliver and Miss Atherton on Monday afternoon."

"Oh, I've
reached my limit. Spaulding, Brie . . ." Abby turned to Lawrence.
"You may arrest my children and me if you choose, Ms. Lawrence. But we
will no longer be subjected to this—this—"

Abby was about
to make a grand exit, so I stepped on the gas.

"She
couldn't have, because Miss Meyerson spent the afternoon ..." I searched
for a verb. "Shacked up" seemed too judgmental, so I went with,
"She was holed up in room eight fifty-nine with our friend over here . . .
Mr. Bart Yonquist."

We had a nice
freeze-tag moment where everybody stood still and ran that one through his or
her respective circuits a couple of times.

I spoke to Bart
and Brie. "Help me out here, kids. The toothpaste isn't going back in the
tube." I shrugged and looked from one to the other. "We can drag the
room-service waiter in here if we have to. Come on. Lefs get this show on the
road."