Located in a one-shop strip mall a few blocks east of the Tacoma waterfront, 416 Eldridge turned out to be a Mediterranean restaurant called JJ’s Taverna. Why Dana Essex would head here from the Sun King motel was a mystery. By the time we pulled into the parking lot the place was closed. Or maybe it had been closed for a while.
Along the side of the building ran a wooden staircase, painted the same dark purple as the awning out front. At the top was a small apartment. No one answered our knocking.
Sonia inspected the contents of the mailbox. At least a week’s worth of flyers. A few envelopes addressed to a J. Bezzerides.
I knocked again, peered through the dark window. “Any strong objection to forced entry?” I asked Sonia.
“Maybe let’s try phoning first—there’s a Jon Bezzerides listed in the Washington White Pages.”
She dialed. We waited, then heard from inside the faint chirp of a telephone.
I didn’t have to break down the door; it was unlocked. I stepped inside, turning on the pen light, too late to notice whatever it was under my feet that sent me lurching, colliding hard against the tiled floor.
Sonia asked if I was all right.
My knee and shoulder ached. A cloud of cheap perfume filled the apartment. Drugstore perfume, a synthetic blossom scent. Below that odors of piss, shit, burnt flesh, tobacco.
I sat up and noticed the odd shapes of glass and plastic by my feet. Nail polish, tubes of lipstick, a compact mirror crushed by my knee. All new, still bearing their price stickers. A clamshell purse with its silk innards mangled lay scrunched up under the right corner of the door. Its broken strap had curled around my heel.
Sonia stepped over the cosmetics and helped me to my feet.
We were in the tight hallway of a bachelor’s suite. To the right of the door was a narrow living space with a sofa bed wedged into the corner. An open suitcase lay on top of it.
A throw rug had been folded haphazardly and dragged away from the center of the room. In its place, a mildewed tarp lay over the tile floor. A figure writhed helplessly amid its folds.
I pulled the collar of my shirt over my nose and mouth to mute the stench, walked cautiously into the apartment.
It was a man, stripped naked and sobbing. He faced away from us, his legs and right arm bound together by zip ties, a wadded rag duct-taped into his mouth. Spiral-shaped burns covered his torso and thighs.
An extension cord snaked out from the wall, ending in a hot plate that sat near the man’s head. Its coils glowed bright orange, seared in places with a coarse black crust.
I unplugged the plate and toed it aside, held my breath and squatted next to the man. Up close I could see his face and left hand had been worked on with a knife. Segments of him lay on the bloody tarp.
“Fucking hell,” Sonia said.
The man’s eyes focused. They lingered on me, moving to Sonia, finally settling on the stump of his left wrist.
“Mr. Bezzerides.” I knelt down and spoke softly, trying to still him long enough for me to saw through the straps with my car keys. Once free, his hand groped at my arm. The tips had been cut off his forefinger and thumb. His movements were feeble, breaths shallow.
Sonia scanned the rest of the room, the bathroom and closet across from the door. “No one else here,” she said. I heard her cough and spit, heard water running, the flush of a toilet.
Bezzerides seemed eager to speak. I leaned closer, peeled off the tape that held the gag. His fragmented hand pawed clumsily at mine. Beneath the blood I could feel the soaked fabric of a crude attempt at a bandage.
He opened his mouth and retched. Coughs erupted from his chest, blood burbling out, soaking his chin. I felt something solid and moist hit my cheek and tumble down my shirt. I picked it off the fabric, dropping it when I realized it was a two-inch piece of tongue.
The retching slowed and his eyes drifted from me, off toward the ceiling.
“We need to call someone,” I said.
Sonia held the phone to her ear. “Already doing it.”
As she informed Emergency, I rifled through the contents of the suitcase on the bed. A woman’s clothing, ranging from overalls to negligees. A Greyhound stub from Seattle. A packet of twenty one-hundred-dollar bills, banking papers, a cell phone. And Dana Essex’s passport. Nothing packed neatly, which suggested someone else had already gone through it.
“They’re en route,” Sonia said. “Find anything?”
“Her money and papers are still in the case,” I said. “Might mean she couldn’t come back here—which means maybe she got out.”
“Hopefully,” Sonia said.
I knelt on the tarp, feeling the blood slosh and soak my knee. I felt under the jaw of the tortured man. Light cuts dotted the folds of his neck, as if a knife had been held there. Bezzerides’s pulse was weak but steady.
Maybe she’d rented the room from him. Thought she was safe. She’d come back from the motel, maybe, to collect her things. Seen Crowhurst or his car and told Sanjay to keep driving, to take her away. Meanwhile Crowhurst had done this, for who knows what reason. Maybe just to pass the time.
“What did he think Bezzerides could tell him?” Sonia said, echoing my thoughts. “What was worth all—all this?”
“It’s beyond me.”
“Bezzerides could’ve been in it with her. Maybe Crowhurst knew that.”
“And maybe he’s already picked her up.”
“So we pick him up,” Sonia said. No hesitation or doubt in her voice. She pointed at the slightly breathing form. “After this, Farraday has reason to hold him.”
“We should let him know. Tell him he needs to call in backup.”
She phoned Farraday but there was no answer. She texted. I ministered to Bezzerides as best I could. The first strains of an ambulance could be heard above the noise from the highway.
“Farraday needs to be warned,” I said. “If Crowhurst would do this to a bystander—”
“What about Bezzerides?”
“Ambulance is on its way. There’s nothing we could tell the EMTs that would help.”
I wiped the blood from around my eyes, looked at her. Her gaze was on the tortured man.
“You could wait here with him,” I said. “Might be best.”
“And you’d go alone? Fuck that.”
We left the door open, the light on. In the car I opened the gun case and fed cartridges into the cylinders. We drove past the ambulance as we made our way toward the warehouse.