TRUDY DOBBS WAS A pretty girl. All the pictures I had seen of her online verified that. Even in the lousy snapshots, she was clearly better-looking than average. She was tall and attractive and brown-haired, and the more photos I looked at, the more I disliked her face.
Because I couldn’t get a solid handle on it. Some people had a face that immediately stuck in your mind, because they were beautiful or ugly or just damned unusual. My face fell solidly in the last category, if not the second. But Trudy’s was elusive. She had a beauty mark in a couple of the party pictures, but it seemed to be gone in others. Her nose was strong without being hooked. Her hair was always brown, but sometimes dyed either lighter or darker. She even went soft on the makeup.
If I were going to ID Trudy Dobbs on sight, I would have to get a very close look, in person.
Studio Oceania was deep into Ballard, half a block from 65th on one of the few streets that the tsunami of gentrification hadn’t touched. It occupied the upper part of a squat structure, brick on the street level and poured concrete above. An austere Brothers of Scandinavia lodge claimed the bricks. Through its window I saw a meeting in progress, a herd of old walruses in wool sweaters and chambray shirts, sitting in rigidly spaced rows as they scrutinized the speaker.
The upper two stories looked like an apartment house, except for a forest of wind chimes and mobile sculptures I could see hanging on the balconies. Some of the sculptures were interesting. Most were just trying too hard to be bizarre.
I imagined the artists crossing paths with the Swedes in the building’s entryway. It was a toss-up which group would be more serious.
One of the artists came shuffling out, focused on her tablet. I caught the door on the backswing. There were mail cubbies just inside, with the tenant names stuck underneath each in block letters from a label maker. T. D. INNOVS was on the second floor. Trudy’s cubby, like most of the others, had a few flyers stuffed inside of it advertising art events and performances, but no real mail.
I went up the stairs to look for her studio space. Passing by a couple of open doors to other studios, I got a glimpse into the little rooms. The wide building had been apartments once. Then someone with middling skill had cut new doors and torn out the kitchen fixtures and divided up the living areas into blocks. Some were like cells. Others featured large metal-framed windows. The T. D. INNOVS studio was on my right. It would have a window, I guessed, for that desirable western exposure Barrett had mentioned.
I knocked very gently. No answer, or sound of movement. I had the lockpicks ready, and opened the door before another artist poked their shaggy head out in the hallway.
Three things were instantly obvious. It was definitely Trudy’s studio, the walls and easels adorned with her now-familiar compelling abstracts. She’d been hiding out here for days, from the blankets on the floor and the piles of prepackaged foodstuffs still in their Safeway bags, and the smell of recent cigarettes. And she wasn’t here now.
I didn’t see a purse. But I did find a phone charger on a little paint-spattered table, and more packs of American Spirits in one of the grocery sacks. She was coming back.
Wait for Trudy right here? There’d be no chance of her slipping away. It would sure as hell be a surprise for her.
And I could guess how that might play out. Trudy screams. Others come running to find a big, scarred man lurking in the studio of one of their own. I wouldn’t get a chance to confront her, or con her, or even pull some citizen’s-arrest bullshit. She’d probably vanish while the others were busy watching me and calling the cops. If she even bothered escaping. Trudy Dobbs wasn’t even wanted for questioning yet, so far as I knew. I’d be more likely to leave here in handcuffs than she would.
Okay. So I’d stake out the building and watch, until she showed. If T. X. Broch was suspect number one, then Trudy Dobbs was a close second. And closing. Broch was a psychopath, but I knew Trudy had been at the cabin. Now she was on the run. And armed, if she carried the .25 from the shoe box at her house. Maybe there was a connection between the two of them. The loan shark and the artiste. An improbable pair, but Broch and Trudy had Kendrick Haymes in common, and he had held some dubious secrets himself.
I locked the door behind me and went down the back stairs. The door at the bottom was exit-only. Good. Trudy would have to come in through the front. Plenty of vantage points from the street. Or maybe I’d join the Brothers in their lodge. They could turn their doubtful glares to the window and help me keep watch.
Rounding the front corner, I saw the figure of a tall woman halfway up the block, walking quickly away from the building, her back to me. Dark brown hair under a white knit cap. Expensive-looking white leather jacket. Trudy?
I broke into a jog. The woman’s long legs had already taken her across the street and I had to dash to beat the line of traffic accelerating from the stoplight.
She was the right height for Trudy, judging by the photograph of her and Barrett Yorke. Five foot ten to Barrett’s five-four. The brown hair could be a match.
I didn’t want to just run up on her. That might have the same outcome as surprising her in her studio. I kept jogging after her on the opposite side of the street, dodging pedestrians. At least I was dressed for it.
A quick glance sideways as I ran past didn’t tell me if the woman was Trudy. That knit cap and a scarf and pair of sunglasses hid her face very effectively. I ran on for another block. Crossed the street to her side and stopped. I put my leg up on a hydrant to stretch my hamstring. And starting huffing and puffing like I’d just sprinted a mile.
As she strode toward me, I wavered and fell awkwardly on my ass, blocking her path.
She stopped. “Are you okay?”
I waved a hand vaguely, breathing so hard I couldn’t get words out.
She took off her sunglasses to take a better look at the guy having a coronary.
Pointy chin. Snub nose. Not Trudy.
Shit.
“Sorry,” I said, keeping up the heaving. “M’okay. Outta shape.” I stood up.
“Take it slow, all right?” she said.
“Yeah, thanks. Jus’ one more mile.” I started running back toward Studio Oceania. I hoped I hadn’t missed the real Ms. Dobbs.
The entrance to the building was held open by a leisurely stream of the lodge members trickling out onto the sidewalk.
Behind them, a tall brunette walked out of the building and got into a Volkswagen Jetta idling at the loading zone.
Damn it. Two possibles in as many minutes. I half-expected a bus full of lanky brunettes to pull up next. I cut through the street, running flat out. Maybe I could catch the Jetta at the first red light, and see if Trudy was inside.
An old Ford sedan lurched out of its parking space in front of me. I smacked against its front fender, my momentum almost hurling me right over the hood. I rolled off and loped unsteadily forward, eyes still on the retreating Jetta.
The Ford’s driver yelled at me. A woman’s voice. I glanced at her through the windshield as I crossed front of the car. An angry redhead, yelling an obscenity.
I stopped, one hand on the cold metal of the car’s hood, almost suspended in flight.
Her face twisted from anger into something like terror. A face with high Slavic cheekbones, framing big jade-colored eyes. A face I’d known for years.
I was looking at a dead woman.
I was looking at Elana.