I was still berating myself for my failed memory as we drove past those several fateful landmarks. The whole while, Sue Danielson was talking away a mile a minute, but I wasn't listening, wasn't paying attention. Encountering memories of Anne always stirs me with a terrible sense of loss-with an inconsolable aching for what might have been.
I'm sure if I had caught a glimpse of my own face in the rearview mirror right about then, I would have seen reflected back my own J. P. Beaumont version of Alan Torvoldsen's thousand-yard stare. And maybe for many of the same reasons.
"You say this is a hit-and-run?" I asked finally, as we turned right on Emerson once more and started to get serious about finding Perkins Lane. I figured it couldn't be that hard, since I knew it was right down on the edge of the bluff, near the water.
"You haven't been listening to a word I've said, have you?" Sue Danielson chided.
"No, I guess not."
"I don't blame you," she said. "It was bad, all right. When I first saw him, I almost tossed my breakfast."
It would have been impossible and pointless to attempt explaining to Sue Danielson why Gunter Gebhardt's charred remains had been the last thing on my mind as we traveled around Magnolia's winding streets. Far better to let her continue believing that I, too, was lost in thought, haunted by that day's murder rather than by one that had taken place years in the past.
It was just after nine A. M. when we came down the steep, fallen-leaf-cluttered incline that marks the beginning of Perkins Lane. The Elgins' house-a three-story, ten-thousand-square-foot giant-couldn't be missed. Other houses on the street were clearly of Pacific Northwest origin. This one with its pale rose stucco walls and gray tile roof might have been an Italian villa that had shipped out to sea and come to rest on the wrong coast. It was so new that glass stickers still lingered on some of the upstairs windows.
Although most traces of construction rubble had been removed, the scarred earth sat naked or else covered with bales of hay placed at key spots to prevent erosion. The bare rocky ground seemed to be waiting to see what hardy trees or shrubs could be tricked or trained into clinging to that steep hillside.
Two black Mercedes, one from the mid-eighties and one newer, sat side by side in the driveway. Parked off to one side of the house was an old beater '76 Datsun station wagon that probably belonged to a housekeeper.
"That's cute," Sue Danielson said, wrinkling her nose. "His-and-her Mercedes."
"Don't be so sure about that," I said, once more unfolding my long legs out of the cramped confines of the Mustang. "For all you know, in this day and age, it could be his and his or even her and her."
Walking up to the house, I paused long enough to look at the cars more closely. The older of the two, a 500 SEL, was missing glass from the right front headlight. The fender surrounding the light was bent and buckled, and the grill had a crack in it as well. In addition to that, the hood ornament was missing. From what I knew of European auto repair, Bonnie Elgin was probably looking at several thousand bucks' worth of bodywork to make her slick but disfigured Mercedes look like new again.
Sue Danielson gaped openly at the imposing mountain of house. "I wouldn't want it," she announced with a disinterested shrug, and headed for the front door. "Too many bathrooms to clean."
Better detachment than envy, I thought. As a working cop, Sue Danielson wasn't likely ever to end up living in circumstances anywhere near this kind of opulence.
She gave the doorbell an angry shove, and a man opened the door almost as soon as the bell stopped chiming. He was around fifty years old-a fit specimen of upward mobility, dressed in an impeccable gray suit that was a perfect match for his hair. The man's mane of silvery hair was combed straight back in the classic style of a 1930s movie star.
"Bonnie Elgin, please," Sue said, opening her I.D. "I'm Detective Danielson, and this is Detective Beaumont. We're with the Seattle Police Department."
The man shook Sue's hand while his eyes drilled curiously into my face. "You're kidding me. Really? Detective Beaumont?"
I nodded. "That's the one."
Smiling, he turned to me and offered his hand. "Ron Elgin," he said. "Hang on a minute." Then he turned back into the house.
"Bonnie," he called over his shoulder. "You'll never guess who they sent. Detective Beaumont. Remember? The guy who donated the Bentley to the Rep."
I couldn't believe it. The damn Bentley again! Who was it who said that no good deed ever goes unpunished? Had a hole opened up in that columned porch, I would have been more than happy to have disappeared into it.
"Come on in," Ron Elgin said, totally unaware of my discomfort. He led the way into a marbled entryway with a spectacular vaulted ceiling. "Bonnie will be thrilled to meet you, Detective Beaumont," he continued. "And you, too, of course," he added with a polite nod at Sue. "My wife will be down in a minute. Would either of you care for some coffee?"
"Coffee sounds great," I said.
Sue nodded. "Coffee's fine," she said.
"Just go on into the living room and make yourselves at home," Ron Elgin directed. "There's a new pot of coffee that should be ready by now. It won't take me a minute." He hustled off.
As instructed, I walked into the living room and wandered over to a bank of windows that overlooked the Puget Sound shipping lanes. The fog had lifted just enough to reveal a huge grain ship moving sedately toward the grain terminal.
"Great view," I said, in a lighthearted but vain attempt to change the subject. Sue Danielson wasn't about to be thrown off-track.
"What's this about donating a Bentley?" she demanded.
"It's nothing," I told her. "Nothing at all."
I would have been fine if Bonnie Elgin could have had the common grace and decency to back me up on that story. But she didn't. In her role as a member of the board of directors of the Seattle Repertory Theater Company, she had to come smiling into the living room, give me a big hug-as though we'd known one another forever-and thank me personally for my generous donation.
In terms of my ability to get along with Sue Danielson, my new partner, that was the worst possible thing Bonnie Elgin could have done.
4
As an unwed mother with little education living in the post-World War II era, my mother supported us with her hands. We lived in a tiny two-bedroom apartment over a bakery in Ballard. Mother took in sewing. The whole time I was growing up, she slept on the living-room couch. One bedroom was mine. In the other, Mom's treadle Singer sewing machine reigned supreme.
Over the years, she became an accomplished seamstress. The word seamstress sounds almost quaint now, like something out of another century, but that's what she was. She numbered some of Seattle's best-known names among her clientele, and not a few of them found their way to our door, climbing up the rickety stairs for fitting sessions.
I remember her telling me once that some of the society matron BB's-Bottle Blondes-Mother worked for didn't seem all that thrilled with their lives. "They may have all the money in the world, Jonas," she counseled, "but they're not happy. They don't appreciate the good things they have."
Bonnie Elgin was most definitely a society matron, but she was neither a bottle blonde nor was she unhappy. Her naturally graying, shoulder-length hair was pulled away from her face and secured by a big barrette. She came bounding down the circular stairway and into the spacious living room wearing a white tennis warm-up and an expansive smile.
Bonnie's doorknob-sized diamond twinkled as she held out her hand to Sue, then she hugged me as if we were long-lost friends.