BY TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON, TRAFFIC ON I-5 was already bumper-to-bumper, and it didn’t improve much once I turned off toward the West Seattle Bridge. Steam from the steel plant where Peter Mayfield and Clyde Tanner had toiled for decades rolled out of the smokestacks and into the air, creating a white puff of cloud against a still-blue sky. I felt a sudden kinship to those two old guys—men I’d never met—who had formed a lifelong friendship while laboring at backbreaking work in that challenging environment. In a way finding Petey would be a resolution for Peter Mayfield and Clyde Tanner as much as it would be for Alan Dale and Athena.
During the drive to Hilda’s, and wanting to worm myself back into Lucy’s good graces, I asked Siri to direct me to a dog park in West Seattle. It turned out that Westcrest Park wasn’t all that far out of our way. I pulled in and parked. Then, with Lucy on a leash, I retrieved the spare Frisbee I’ve learned to keep in the trunk for occasions such as this. Once she relieved herself, we headed for the off-leash area and I let her rip. Lucy is such a big, gangly beast that people and most other dogs tend to give her a wide berth. In this case there was an obnoxious little dachshund who was determined to give chase. He ran after Lucy, nipping at her heels the whole time. Lucy, for her part, ignored the noisy little creature, but I was surprised that such a short-legged dog could run fast enough to keep up.
After half an hour of play and a drink from the community dog fountain, we got back into the car and headed for Hilda Tanner’s place. When I knocked on her front door, I heard the walker thumping across the living room as she came to answer.
“Who’s there?” she demanded from behind the closed door.
I appreciated the fact that she was cautious about opening the door to unidentified strangers, but I wondered if she was standing on the other side with that revolver of hers either in her hand or in her pocket.
“It’s Beaumont again,” I said, “J. P. Beaumont.”
When she opened the door, Hilda was once again wearing her apron, and the telltale bulge in her apron pocket was there as well. Hilda truly was armed and dangerous.
“What are you up to now?” she asked as a television set tuned to full volume blared in the background.
“I’m here to ask a favor,” I told her. “May I come in?”
“I suppose,” she allowed.
As I entered the house, I saw the tails of several of her precious kitties streaking off for parts unknown.
“What kind of favor?” she wanted to know.
I had decided during the Frisbee-throwing exercise that my best bet for putting Hilda Tanner on my side was to turn Lenora Harrison into the opposition. I made my way to the sagging easy chair and took a seat while Hilda settled on an equally sagging couch and used the remote to mute the TV set. I noticed the program that was playing was Forensic Files on HLN.
“You like forensics?” I asked.
Hilda shrugged. “When Clyde was alive, we watched the news constantly, hour after hour. After he died, I quit the news completely. The local news is all traffic and weather. Since I don’t drive anymore, the traffic is none of my business, and I find out what the weather report is as soon as I open my eyes in the morning. And I don’t like those network shows with all those different characters coming and going. It’s too confusing. So I watch this. What I like best about these shows is that the bad guys usually get caught.”
“Actually, that’s the reason I’m here today—forensics.”
“What do you mean?”
“I went to see Lenora Harrison a little earlier in hopes I could get her to file a missing-persons report on her nephew.”
“And?” Hilda asked.
“She refused.”
“That figures.”
“So that’s why I came to see you.”
“You want me to file a missing-persons report?”
“Not exactly,” I replied. “I seem to remember your mentioning that there’s going to be an estate sale at Agnes’s house in the near future.”
Hilda nodded. “Not this weekend but the following one—on Saturday and Sunday.”
“Does that mean that Agnes’s goods are still inside?”
“As far as I know.”
I already knew Hilda was a fan of Forensic Files, but was she actually paying attention to the content? “What do you know about mitochondrial DNA?” I asked.
She gave me a dismissive shrug. “That’s the DNA that passes from mother to child.”
“Bingo,” I replied with a grin. “And that’s what I need—something containing Agnes Mayfield’s DNA so we can establish a profile for her that might in turn lead us to her grandson, Petey.”
“So you’d use Agnes’s DNA to create a missing-persons report?”
“More or less,” I hedged.
I didn’t want to mention that as far as finding Petey was concerned, having his grandmother’s DNA profile would most likely be effective only in identifying his remains. What was important for me and for the job Alan Dale had hired me to do was the hope that Agnes Mayfield’s DNA profile would establish once and for all whether or not Petey was Athena’s father.
“What do you need from me?” Hilda asked.
“You told me yesterday that when Agnes’s mental and physical capacities began to fail her, you and other neighbors looked in on her from time to time. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did any of you report Agnes’s deteriorating condition to anyone—like Social Services, for example, or to Lenora?”
“Certainly not,” Hilda said with a shake of her head, “and why would we? We were all in the same boat. Agnes wanted to live out her days in her own house on her own terms. That goes double for me.”
“When you went to look in on her, how did you gain entry to her house?”
“How do you think?” Hilda asked in return. “With a key, of course. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly built for climbing in and out of windows.”
“Is it possible you still have access to that key?”
“Of course,” Hilda replied. “If Lenora had asked for it back, I would have given it to her, but she never gave me the time of day, and I didn’t see any reason to go chasing after her begging to return it. So that’s what you’re asking? You want me to let you into the house?”
“It would be a huge help,” I said.
“But don’t you need a search warrant?”
“Nope,” I said with a smile. “I’m a private eye, not a cop. And we’re not looking for evidence that will hold up in a court of law. Being allowed into the residence by someone who has access is good enough for my purposes.”
“All right, then,” Hilda said, rising to her feet. “Let’s do it now before it gets colder or darker. I’m pretty sure the power’s turned off there, too.”
Hilda retrieved a key ring from a kitchen drawer and then pulled on a heavy-duty sweater. Together we made our way down the wheelchair ramp and across the street to her old friend’s house.
“I haven’t been here since she left,” Hilda murmured as she limped up the sidewalk to Agnes Mayfield’s front door. “Makes me too sad to see the place going to rack and ruin.”
And it was. There was grass growing up through cracks in the concrete walkway. Here and there shake shingles were missing from the roof. Dead leaves were piled up at one end of the front porch, and a slippery coating of moss made walking treacherous. Here there was no wheelchair ramp, so I half carried Hilda up the front steps before going back down to retrieve her walker. All the curtains were drawn, so it was impossible to see inside, but behind a flimsy screen a crack in the corner of one of the front windows revealed that they were single-paned ones that had most likely been installed when the house was built.
The front door, however, was anything but flimsy. It was solid-core mahogany, covered with a layer of faded and peeling varnish. There were two locks, one in the doorknob along with a separately installed dead bolt. The key Hilda produced unlocked both, and we stepped inside. The closed curtains also allowed very little light to penetrate the room. It was like walking into something that resembled a musty mausoleum. The place stank of mold and mildew, with just a hint that probably indicated the presence of a dead critter of some kind up in the attic. Agnes tried flipping on the light switch, but nothing happened. By then, however, our eyes had adjusted to the dimness.
“Bedroom?” I asked.
Since this house was a carbon copy of Hilda’s, she led the way through the gloom without any hesitation. The bedroom was neat, with a properly made bed. Other than a pair of bedroom slippers on the carpet next to the bed, nothing was out of place.
“Wouldn’t you know!” Hilda muttered.
“What?”
“Those were Agnes’s favorite slippers. Why didn’t Lenora let her take those along?”
Why not indeed?
The flowered bedspread was eerily familiar. It was the same pattern that had been on my grandparents’ bed when I first reestablished a connection with them after a lifelong estrangement. Next to the bed on a dusty table was an arrangement of four small gold-framed photographs. I picked them up and examined them one by one. The first was a wedding photo. The World War II–vintage hairdos and clothing told me that Agnes and Peter were the smiling bride and groom. Next came what I recognized as a senior-class portrait of a much younger version of Lenora, followed by another of a boy who was presumably Lenora’s younger brother, Arthur. The last one, and the only one in faded color, showed a gangly, grinning boy wearing a Little League uniform along with a catcher’s mitt.
“That one’s Petey,” Hilda informed me. She was standing beside me as I scanned through the photos. “That was just before he got off on the wrong track—after he stopped playing baseball.”
“May I take this?” I asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Hilda said with a shrug.
I slipped the framed photo into my pocket. On the chest of drawers where I had hoped to find a hairbrush or comb, there was nothing but a crocheted doily and an old-fashioned jewelry box complete with a windup ballerina on top.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked.
Hilda gave a sigh. “This way,” she said.
The bathroom was tiny and dated. I had a feeling there was asbestos in the antiquated tile on the floor. The basin, cracked and rusty, was of the two-faucet variety that went out of fashion years ago. The claw-footed bathtub, like the single-pane windows, had obviously been part of the original design. There was no shower. A drinking glass containing a lone toothbrush sat on one corner of the basin. As far as I was concerned, that toothbrush meant pay dirt. There was a medicine chest set in the wall over the basin. The mirror on that was mottled and desilvering around the edges, but when I opened the door, I found exactly what I wanted—a hairbrush and comb. Unfortunately, that’s also when I realized that although I had come in search of evidence, I hadn’t been fully prepared to find it.
“Crap!” I exclaimed.
“What’s wrong?” Hilda wanted to know.
“These are what I need—the toothbrush and the brush and comb—but I didn’t think to bring along any evidence bags.”
“I’ll get you one,” Hilda told me. “I know where Agnes kept her Ziploc bags.” She hobbled off and returned a few moments later carrying two gallon-size plastic bags. I put the toothbrush in one and the comb and brush in the other.
“Thanks,” I told her. “That’s perfect.”
“Do you need anything else?”
“Not really,” I said. “This is great.”
“Well, there’s something I need,” she huffed under her breath. She banged her way out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. When she emerged, she was carrying the wedding picture, which she slipped into her apron pocket right next to the revolver.
“Other than Petey, nobody else is going to want this picture, and if he shows up, I’ll give it to him,” she said. “But Peter and Agnes were good friends of ours. This will give me something to remember them by.”
I nodded. “I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t want you to have it.”
I was starting to worry about timing. If I didn’t head home soon, I was going to miss my crib-assembling date with Scotty.
“We should probably go,” I said, but Hilda seemed reluctant to leave. She stood still, surveying the room as though looking at it for one last time and saying her good-byes.
“Is anything missing?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Hilda wanted to know.
“Does it look as though Lenora has gone through the place and taken anything?”
“I doubt it.” Hilda said with a shrug. “Why would she? Agnes’s stuff never would have been good enough for her snot-nosed daughter.”
With that, Hilda and I turned and left that sad little house, closing and double-locking the door behind us. For me it felt like slamming the door on someone’s life and throwing away the key. I didn’t ask Hilda, but I’m pretty sure she must have felt the same.
I had planned on dropping Lucy off before going to Scotty’s place, but in the interest of saving time she came along to Ballard with me. When Scotty and Cherisse bought their house, it had come with a room that they had intended to use as his “man cave.” Once they knew a baby was coming, the man cave space had been repurposed into a nursery.
Scotty had removed each of the crib pieces from its individual packaging and had laid all of the items out on the floor. By following the instructions, we had the crib put together in no time. Cherisse’s contribution to the project was to dress up the now-assembled crib with a mattress, a pad, and a teddy bear–decorated fitted sheet. Once the job was done, we headed out to dinner.
Cherisse’s bout with early-pregnancy morning sickness had passed. She had transformed from a gray, pinched, and starving waif into a glowingly expectant mother. At dinner the conversation seldom strayed far from talking about the upcoming baby.
“We’ve decided on a name,” she told me at last.
“You have?”
She smiled. “Jonas Pierre Beaumont,” she said, “after his two grandfathers.”
Cherisse Madrigal Beaumont came to the United States from France on a student visa. She and Scotty had met in school and had fallen in love. They’d made plans for a blow-out destination wedding, but those had been suddenly scaled back when her father, Pierre, had suffered a recurrence of prostate cancer. He passed away soon after their hurry-up wedding. So yes, their choosing his name made sense. Their choosing mine was a real honor.
“Hear, hear!” I exclaimed, raising my glass of lemonade to hers. “Sounds like there’s going to be another J. P. Beaumont in the family.”
But for me their apparent joy stood in stark contrast to Naomi’s appalling situation, and the difference between the two was enough to break my heart. Needless to say, I didn’t wreck the spell by bringing up the possible unintended consequences of my one-night stand with Jasmine Day.
It was neither the time nor the place, and I just flat couldn’t.