“You’re a hell of a guy to reach,” he called out. “I had to call downtown to get your cell number.” He waved for Chris to get up the steps.
“I guess I like it like that. But it’s always good to hear your voice. Irv, how’s it going?”
“No complaints, considering.”
Chris winced at the thoughtlessness of his own words. Randi, Irv’s wife of forty years, had been gone such a short time. The Miata had been hers. He stepped inside the Danish modern–furnished home and Irv shut the front door. A cat scampered past. Irv motioned for Chris to follow him to the living room. The place was familiar. Chris had been there years ago for a party. The exact occasion escaped him just then.
“I’m sure it’s been hard.”
“I’m doing better. Miss her every day, you know.”
“I’m sorry. I’m glad you’re hanging in there.”
“Coffee? Beer? Soda?”
Chris passed with a smile and Irv went on, clearly glad to have company.
“Hey, you still seeing Emily Kenyon?” he asked.
“Every chance I get.”
He took a drink. “That’s what I heard. Any-who I saw a clip of the case she’s working on over there. On TV. Last night.”
“Mandy Crawford?”
“That’s the one.”
“It reminded me of the Harriman case.”
Irv had Chris’s interest. “Belinda Harriman?”
“Yeah, you remember that one?”
Chris pondered the name. Of course he did. Everyone did.
Belinda Harriman was a law student at the time of her disappearance. Anyone who lived in the Seattle area at the time could easily remember the photographs and handbills that were plastered all over the region. The mantra from her friends and family members was loud and decisive in their aim to bring her home: Leave no telephone pole without a handbill! All the way from Tacoma to Everett!
As the memories came back, Chris took a seat in the brown leather recliner that matched the one Irv commanded.
Belinda, a tall, slender, redhead with ice blue eyes and a freckle-splashed nose, was last seen playing pool at Sun Villa, a bowling alley with ten lanes and six pool tables in suburban Bellevue, east of Seattle. She’d been there with a group of friends from the UW law school. She rode home with her boyfriend, who dropped her off in front of her University of Washington district apartment building around midnight. Belinda told friends at the bowling alley that she had a big test the next week and needed to study. She waved good-bye and disappeared.
The police—both Seattle and Bellevue—investigated. Every inch of her apartment and the bowling alley was examined for evidence. But nothing turned up. Belinda’s parents packed up her belongings after Christmas, knowing in the way that parents often do that their child is dead.
In late February the following year, a girl on the hunt for evidence of early spring for a science project, found a patch of long red hair on the frozen edge of Phantom Lake, a small body of water more akin to a large pond than a real lake, a few miles north of the bowling alley. Her eyes followed the red hair to a tangle of dead cattails. Arms akimbo, faceup, was Belinda Harriman, entombed in a sodden sleeping bag.
“But Belinda Harriman’s killer was apprehended, convicted, right?” Chris asked, not really seeing the parallels that seemed so apparent to Irv.
“He was. Rick Deacon was his name—the boyfriend, remember?”
Chris scratched his head. “Sorry, Irv, guess I’m getting a little rusty. I don’t see the connection with Mandy. Was it the body dump site that caught your attention? The fact that it was a young woman killed in winter?”
Irv retrieved another beer from the mini fridge next to his chair, his TV command central, and Chris motioned “no thanks” with an outstretched palm.
“Gotta drive,” he said. “Heading over the pass to see Em.”
Irv swallowed a couple of big gulps of his beer. “Sure, a frozen pond and a strangled young girl are ringers, but for crying out loud, that’s hardly enough to get you over here.”
“Then what is it?” Chris wasn’t losing his patience. He liked Irv. He simply remembered that Irv was the kind of guy who could turn a minute into an hour. He could drag a thought out until the damn thing had nothing left anymore.
“Like I said, I saw the TV interview last night regarding the Crawford murder case.”
“So you said.”
Irv poured some more beer down his throat.
Jesus, is this guy another retired cop with a booze problem? Chris asked himself, though he knew the answer.
“When I was watching the show, it sort of hit me. Hard. I recognized someone and it got me to thinking.”
“Rick Deacon’s still in prison, Irv. He couldn’t have done it.”
Irv got up from his recliner, set down his empty green bottle, and strode over the coffee table in front of a matching leather sofa. “Oh, it wasn’t him. I know that.” He picked up the remote control and punched the button to play back the DVR. “Isn’t this cool how I can do this?”
“What’s that, Irv?”
“You know, record without a tape. I record the news—in case I’m, you know, if I’m busy or something. I can keep up.”
Irv fast-forwarded past the commercials, the story about a Seattle bus accident, layoffs from a Redmond software company, before stopping on the anchorwoman with a graphic of a yellow chalked outline of dead body with the words CHERRYSTONE MURDER behind her. The story continued with various townspeople talking about Mitch Crawford and what he might have done to his wife.
“That guy!” Irv said, freezing the image. “Right there.”
Chris was on his feet, staring at the screen. He looked back at Irv, unsure of what or who he was supposed to be seeing.
“I think that’s Rick Deacon’s best friend. In fact, I’m positive it is. I remember my buddy working the case said that Rick’s buddy had just as many good reasons to lie about the night that Belinda disappeared as Rick did. In fact, he once told me that if James had come to the police first, they might have been able to pin the murder on his pal.”
Irv pulled out a videotape and stuck it into a player with cords that snaked from the new flat screen.
“Randi was a big fan of Evening Magazine. She made me tape it for the ‘Washington Getaways’ segments that featured places to go. But on this one, there’s an update on the Harriman case…and our guy’s in the shot, putting up a poster.”
Chris extended his finger and aimed it the image on screen.
“Be careful! Don’t touch the TV. Ruins it!”
Chris pulled back his hand, but stepped closer. He could feel the blood drain from his face as the pixels grew larger and brighter. He wanted Irv to be wrong.
“What do you think?” Irv asked. “You think it’s him?”
Chris looked at Irv. “The quality’s not so good. There’s a resemblance, of course.”
“Not the TV’s fault, you know. Picture’s good.”
“I didn’t say it was, Irv. I know you love your TV. But it’s a lot of years ago, man.”
Irv took the final foamy gulp of his beer. “I think there’s something there. Could be a coincidence, but I kind of got that little chill on the back of my neck when I saw him.”
Chris didn’t say so, but he felt that little chill, too. It was like an icy finger tapping lightly at the tiny hairs on the nape of his neck…. pay attention…pay attention.
“I need to leave now,” he said. “Long drive.”
“Can’t you stay for a beer? I feel like cracking open another.”
Chris dismissed the offer out of hand, but gave the impression to his old colleague that he mulled it over. “Later. OK? Thanks, Irv.”