“He quit right after graduation. Went to work for State Farm or Farmers selling car insurance.”
“But the Big Al part stuck?” Mel asked.
“Pretty much,” I said.
As far as the partnership deal was concerned, I thought I had gotten off relatively easy. What I failed to understand is that God has a sense of humor about these things, and He was about to show me an ex-partner problem that was a whole lot more complicated than Big Al Lindstrom.
“Anyway,” I continued, “from what Big Al told me, Tom Wojeck had a dark side that caused him to leave Seattle PD in a hell of a hurry. They were about to launch an Internal Affairs investigation. Then he was diagnosed with AIDS before I.A. got around to him.”
Looking thoughtful, Mel said, “And Tom Wojeck just happens to be the same guy who cleaned out Marina’s apartment where there might have been some stray drug-dealing money.”
Sometimes Mel’s uncanny ability to put things together makes me feel like she’s reading my mind, but don’t get me wrong. I love it when she does that.
“Yes, ma’am,” I told her. “Want to do a ride-along and go see him?”
“What do you think?” she returned.
So back we went to Black Diamond. This time I drove. When we cleared the trees on the driveway to Mama Rose’s house, I wondered at first if we had somehow made a wrong turn.
The night before, the house with all its lit windows had been our main focus. In the daylight it was even more impressive. It was a sprawling two-story home with a standing-seam steel roof in a gleaming copper color-a choice that made sense in a house that was in the middle of nowhere with forest all around. The outside walls were covered with neat gray siding. The many windows were trimmed out in impeccable white, and an expansive veranda covered the entire front of the house. What hadn’t been apparent on our previous visit was that this was clearly a work in progress.
Last night we had been the only visible vehicle. This time, however, when we broke through the trees it looked as though we had landed in a subdivision-in-progress. The place teemed with machinery, trucks, and workers. A dump truck was unloading an avalanche of man-sized boulders. A jigsaw puzzle of white PVC pipes was laid out in a complicated pattern indicating that a comprehensive irrigation system was being installed. There were workers everywhere. A whole group of them was laying down a flagstone walkway that led from the edge of the veranda down to where another group of workers was installing a metal trellis over a big water feature of some kind. That, too, was under construction.
Tom Wojeck, wearing muddied work boots and denim coveralls, seemed to be overseeing much of the action. He left a huddle of workmen and came over to where Mel and I were climbing out of the car.
“Patrol cars seemed to have come up in the world since I quit the force,” he said, casting an approving glance in the direction of my S550 Mercedes, which, except for the color, was very much like the one in Tommy and Mama Rose’s garage.
“It’s mine,” I said. “They let us use our own rides these days. I bought it used and got a great deal on it.”
Mel doesn’t have a lot of patience with boy/car small talk. She likes driving fast cars fast; she doesn’t like standing around discussing them.
“What’s all this?” she asked, waving toward the beehive of activity.
Wojeck shrugged. “If Mama Rose wants a rose garden, we build a rose garden. Like that old song ‘Whatever Rosie wants; Rosie gets.’ I designed it myself, with a little help from a landscape architect. We’ve got a hundred and eighty varieties of roses that should be arriving in the course of the next week or so. That’s why we’re doing a full-court construction press right now.”
“That’s a lot of roses,” I said. “Who’s going to take care of them?”
“We have a full-time gardener who’ll be doing that,” Tom said. “And you’ll notice that we’ve regraded the entire area so the walkway is wheelchair accessible coming and going.”
He was clearly proud of his project, and I couldn’t blame him for that, but we weren’t here as building inspectors. “So which is worse?” I asked. “AIDS or MS?”
Tom gave me a sharp look. “So you know about that?”
I nodded. “I talked to Big Al. And to Molly.”
“I suppose Molly is still pissed at me?” he asked.
“That’s a reasonable assumption.”
“She was good friends with Abbie, my ex. Did you know we were neighbors at one time? Big Al and I used to carpool to work.”
I hadn’t known that, but it stood to reason.
“I didn’t give it to her, thank God,” he went on. “We’d been fighting a lot, which isn’t exactly conducive to rolling in the hay. As soon as I got the diagnosis, I moved out. She took the kids and moved to Spokane, where she ended up marrying another cop. I would have thought she’d have learned her lesson after marrying me, but her second husband is more of a team player than I ever was. I believe he’s moved up to being an assistant chief.”
“Was Mama Rose one of your girls?” Mel asked.
“She wasn’t,” Tom said. “We met at a support group, several months after Abbie and I split. We were the only heterosexuals in the group, so we sort of bonded. At the time, we were both down on our luck. Rosie wasn’t doing very well, and neither was I. It was looking like we were both going to be short-timers, but that’s when Mama Rose won her Powerball prize. That changed everything-for both of us. It turns out there are things money can buy. We found doctors who got us into clinical trials. And here we are.”
“You’re married?” Mel asked.
Tom shook his head. “No point,” he said. “We’re registered domestic partners. Her AIDS strain is different from mine. If I happened to give mine to her or if she gave hers to me, it could be fatal. Actually, long-term, with all the medications we take, it’s probably fatal anyway. If the disease doesn’t get us, side effects will. If she dies first, I’m set for life. If I die first, the folks from the AIDS Partnership will dance on my grave.”
“Why’s that?” Mel asked.
“Because a big chunk of whatever I don’t get will go to them. Overnight, they’ll turn into the city’s eight-hundred-pound charitable gorilla. But somehow I don’t think you came all this way to ask about Rosie’s and my health or the state of our domestic tranquillity.”
“We had a few more questions about Marina Aguirre,” I said.
Just then one of the French doors opened, and Mama Rose wheeled her walker out onto the veranda. It was a chilly spring day, with temperatures still in the fifties. She was wrapped in a heavy-duty sweater over a maroon-and-gray Cougar sweatshirt. It made me wonder what connections a former prostitute and her best boy might have with Washington State University.
“What’s going on?” she called down to us.
“We’re just asking a few more questions,” Mel told her.
“Well, come inside to ask them,” Mama Rose ordered. “I’ve asked the cook to make more coffee. It’s cold out, Tom. If you just stand around talking, you’ll end up with pneumonia.”
With that she turned around and tottered back into the house. I was surprised Tom didn’t object to that summary summons-at least he didn’t voice an objection aloud to her. I suppose if you’re already walking around with AIDS, coming down with pneumonia isn’t a good idea. I could see that Mama Rose’s calling Tom inside was a lot like Mel telling me to take my Aleve. Only more so.
“I don’t want to discuss this in front of her,” Tom said urgently. “Ask me now and then get the hell out of here before you make things worse.”
“I take it Marina is a sore spot?” Mel asked.
Tom nodded. “But not the way you think. I never touched her. Rosie loved that girl; thought she walked on water. I think she saw a lot of herself in Marina, and she really wanted her to succeed in getting out of the life. I’ve never told her what really happened.”
“And what was that?”
“Look,” he said impatiently. “I never would have done it if I hadn’t thought Rosie’s life was in danger. She means the world to me, understand?”