Chapter Twelve

Debbie Myers was still chatting with Helene in her office about Roger Benson’s email. “So were you surprised that Mr. Benson wrote this stuff about you?” The cell phone in her pocket vibrated, and she looked at the phone and saw it was a Seattle police number. “Myers,” she said, still scanning the printed-out email message.

“Hey, Debbie, it’s MacNab, Homicide. Just wanted you to know. Today, my partner and I were down there at that Alba. We just took away a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson snub-nosed revolver from one of the valets there. Anyway, it looks like this valet’s dad was there the night of the shooting, too. While we were there, we learned he left something really weird behind. Our guy’s mom was there trying to retrieve it when we found the weapon on the kid.”

“Was it a slipper?” said Debbie.

“That’s right.”

Debbie smiled. “Can you hold the kid?”

“No problem. He’s a felon in possession of a firearm.”

“Excellent,” said Debbie.

“Lukowski’s talking to him now. The kid’s name is Benson. Tyler Benson.”

Debbie scanned the email again. “If his dad is Roger Benson, I’m really interested.”

Helene stared at her, slightly shocked. “Oh, Roger wouldn’t hurt anyone,” said Helene. “He might have been kind of a jerk, and kind of stupid, but he was really a sweet person. I always felt kind of sorry for him.”

———

In the back of the Everett auto body shop where Old Pasha had once worked, Dmytro Zelenko and Sergei Lagunov stood under a huge cherry tree that hadn’t been pruned in decades and had achieved an enormous height—presumably a leftover from when the area was somebody’s old farm.

But now, it was a weedy mud and gravel yard that looked like a mini-auto wrecking yard or an auto-parts hoarder’s lair. Fenders, hoods, and doors were leaning against the fence, and there were also boxes of jumbled hardware—mirrors, trailer hitches—and odd bits and pieces like a rusted-out old burn barrel, some sheets of corrugated siding, and paint-spattered sawhorses.

The two men were watching another man loading up a collection of Cadillacs and SUVs onto a car carrier with two decks. While most of the 2000s Japanese cars that provided a steady supply of used parts were disassembled and distributed locally, the higher-end merchandise was regularly delivered from Seattle to Southern California in a straight shot down Interstate 5 on one of these car carriers.

“So you had this place long?” said Sergei politely.

“Almost thirty years,” said Dmytro. “We used to be super busy here night and day. Stripping down those ten-year-old Camrys and Civics. Volodya and I started right out of trade school.” He sighed. “I never thought we’d end up in the export business, or that we’d be working with these high-end cars.”

“Sometimes when a business grows fast like that, it’s not a good thing,” said Sergei. “You lose control.”

Dmytro nodded. “It was a lot easier back in the day. We just waited till someone brought us a car. Then we parted it out. Or, when we got really fancy, we’d leave the hulks out in the country somewhere, then hustle over to the auto auction to buy the frames and put it all back together again, nice and legal with a real bill of sale.” He chuckled nostalgically. “Now I guess I’m a victim of my own success.”

“You gotta realize that when you get a nice operation like this, you attract attention,” said Sergei. “Hey, since I’ve been picking up cars for you, I’ve been curious about how it all works. So you’re shipping these high-end cars down to Cali, probably getting them cloned. Hell, I bet the paper on them is so good they can even end up at dealers as fine previously owned vehicles. I’m impressed.”

Dmytro waved a hand. “Actually, we got a buyer down there. Guy named Yuri. He handles all that stuff for us. They can’t get enough cars down there. I’m happy to be just a wholesaler.”

“Still, it’s a good business,” said Sergei. “You got the sourcing problem all fixed with those valets on the job. You got a good team going out picking them up. I’m proud to be part of it. But like I said, you could attract attention. And maybe you have.” He changed his tone from one of fawning congratulations to grim seriousness. “I checked out the Gelashvili kid.”

Dmytro looked alarmed. “What did you find out?”

“That guy in Tbilisi? Victor’s uncle? He is one mean son of a bitch.”

“Goddamn!” said Dmytro under his breath.

“This could be a real problem,” said Sergei sympathetically. He let that sink in and then added, “And you got one other ­problem.”

Sergei was delighted to see Dmytro kind of flinch into a hunched posture and look up at him with real fear in his eyes. “What’s that?” he said in a small voice.

“Your cousin Volodya,” said Sergei. “You may need to do something drastic about him.”

———

Tyler was really embarrassed calling his grandpa. But he didn’t trust his parents. For all he knew, they were in another interrogation room somewhere, talking about the slipper.

Gus Iversen was already agitated even before Tyler called to announce that he was being questioned by homicide detectives and that he needed a lawyer.

“What the hell is going on!” said Gus. “Your mother just called and the cops are over at your parents’ house right now! She says they hauled you off in a cop car!”

“It’s a long story,” said Tyler.

“Well, for Christ’s sake don’t talk about it on the jailhouse phone!” said Gus. “I’ll get my lawyer down there right away. Let’s hope we can get you sprung before they haul your dad in there. Your mother says the cops think he took a potshot at some millionaire.

“I’ve always known your dad was kind of a screwball,” Grandpa said matter-of-factly. “No common sense. Capable of pretty much anything.” Gus Iversen had apparently forgotten about the need to be discreet on a jailhouse phone. “Listen, Tyler. Do you think they’re going to arrest you?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“If they do arrest you, what’d it be for?”

Tyler didn’t want to say he’d be arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He’d never told his grandfather that he actually was a felon, or about that stupid incident back on the night of his twenty-first birthday outside some dive bar in Ballard. The fact that the “weapon” in the case had been a gift from Gus made him feel even worse.

“I don’t know, Grandpa,” he said. “But I want you to send a lawyer. And don’t worry. I can pay him.” Tyler had managed to save quite a bit of his tip money. It would be too bad to spend it on a lawyer, but he might have to.

“It’s a gal,” said Grandpa. “She’s a tough cookie. When I found out those tenants up in that little Crown Hill duplex were selling drugs, she put the squeeze on them and blasted them right out of there in no time flat. They didn’t wait around to be evicted.”

“That’s good,” said Tyler, beginning to feel a little impatient. Next thing he knew, Grandpa would be talking about a sagging porch at one of his other rentals. “Get her over here when you can, okay?”

“Okay,” said Gus Iversen. “I’ll hang up now and call her right away. She’s over at your parents’ house trying to keep your dad from saying anything really stupid.”

———

Debbie Myers had gone directly from the Duckworth compound to Ingrid and Roger Benson’s large and carefully decorated turn-of-the-twentieth-century, four-bedroom home on Queen Anne Hill. She sat in one of two matching wing chairs flanking a large, tiled fireplace in the Arts and Crafts style. Roger Benson sat in the other wing chair.

Roger tried to look relaxed, but it wasn’t easy, especially not with Ingrid right there in the matching loveseat that faced the fireplace alongside that disheveled-looking lawyer her dad had sent over. Veronica Kessler was an ample young woman with a cloud of frizzy hair sporting a pair of horrible overalls and dirty sneakers. Gus was always meddling. Why did he want a lawyer there? It would just make him look guilty.

“So you didn’t notice that you’d dropped the slipper?” the detective said. “Didn’t it feel weird to drive home with one bare foot?”

“I didn’t actually drive home. My wife came and got me.”

“How come?”

Roger looked pained. “I wasn’t feeling well.” His glance darted over to his wife, who was executing that annoying eye roll that was becoming a perpetual tic. Detective Myers followed his gaze, and seemed to take in Ingrid’s scorn.

“Had you maybe had too much to drink?” asked Debbie in a friendly tone.

Veronica picked at the untidy bun on top of her head. “I don’t see how that’s relevant,” she said. “The fact is, Ingrid went and picked him up.”

Debbie said, “Okay,” then turned back to Roger. “Tell me again why you were there in the first place.”

Roger Benson looked more relaxed. “I thought it would be a good opportunity to reconnect with an old business associate—Scott Duckworth.”

“Your old boss, right? And you knew he was going to be there because your son told you.”

“That’s right. I thought Scott might be interested in a little business idea I had. It was kind of an impulsive thing.”

“But before you left, you sent an email to Scott Duckworth’s website, didn’t you? Maybe that was kind of an impulsive thing, too.”

“Yes,” he said, stretching his arms and arching his back a little trying to look casual, but wondering if he actually looked vaguely simian. “Well, when Tyler mentioned that Scott was going to be there, it got me thinking. I felt kind of nostalgic. I Googled around on the Internet and I discovered a link.”

“So you thought you’d say a few words about your old friend Helene, too,” said the detective.

“Helene? Yes, I guess so.”

Just then, Veronica Kessler’s phone rang. She pulled it out of her overalls and murmured, “I have to take this,” then went out into the hall.

“Hey, Gus,” she said in a low voice. “It’s okay. His story is pretty goofy. The most it looks like he’s good for is drunk driving. But it’s too late to Breathalyze him so they can’t get him.”

“Never mind him,” said Gus. “Get down to police headquarters and see what you can do for my grandson.”

———

In the hall outside the glassed-in interrogation room where Tyler was still sitting by himself, trying not to look terrified, MacNab and Lukowski were having another conference.

“I just got a call from the kid’s lawyer. She’s on her way. She wants to know if we intend to arrest him.”

“We’d be crazy not to,” said Lukowski. “And we got him good. He’s a felon and he’s got a gun.”

“Yeah,” said MacNab. “But I just talked to the captain. The problem is the actual gun in question.”

“What?” demanded Lukowski.

“It was stolen from the Seattle Police Department evidence locker about fifteen years ago. Apparently there was a big scandal—or almost a scandal—back in the day. I kinda remember all this. There was an internal investigation and there was some stuff definitely missing. And the only possibility was that a cop was helping himself to some stuff. They never actually nailed the guy—just eased him out of there. But frankly, the captain says he wants to see if we can work around this issue. After all, the only reason we actually picked him up is because of that gun. Maybe check it out and see if there’s anything to this Dumpster story. The captain says we can always pick him up later. On something else that won’t bring unwanted attention to the department. The captain said it’s not a good time to bring this up, seeing as we’re in the middle of this federal corruption investigation and all.” The department had recently received some bad publicity, with the local press talking about “a culture of corruption that goes back decades.”

Lukowski threw up his hands. “Check out his story? We’re supposed to look for that old drunk?”

MacNab shrugged. “In a way, the kid’s story does check out. I mean we saw the old drunk down there ourselves.”

“So? There’s a million old drunks hanging around Dumpsters.”

“Yeah, but there’s more,” said MacNab. “The lab says the condition of the gun is consistent with its having been in a Dumpster behind an Italian restaurant.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Apparently it has traces of a substance they think might be,” he glanced down at the report, “Arborio rice.”

“Arborio rice?”

“They make risotto out of it.”