Maxwell Cole’s eyes narrowed in anger. Although there was no hint of a breeze, the drooping tips of his handlebar mustache trembled with suppressed rage. “I’m telling you, J.P., these people are friends of mine. I thought I might be able to help. Besides, Pete wasn’t home. Nobody’s there.”
“Any idea where we’d find him?”
Cole glanced surreptitiously at his watch and then shook his head. “I can’t think of any place at all,” he said. “Now, let me go before I freeze to death.”
I nodded. “Go on.”
Without hesitation, Cole clambered on down the street toward Thirteenth, leaving a dented trail of steps in the snow.
As soon as Max was out of earshot, Paul Kramer wheeled on me. “Wait just a goddamned minute here, Beaumont. How come you’re letting him go? You saw the way he looked at his watch. That guy knows something, and he’s not telling.”
“Right,” I said. “And all we have to do is follow him to find out what it is.”
Kramer looked at me speculatively for only a moment, then he nodded and got back into the car. “We’ll just see about that,” he said curtly.
It turned out I was right.
Although Crockett wasn’t posted as a one-way street, most of the residents seemed to treat it that way, entering on Thirteenth and exiting by way of Everett Avenue. When we got back to Boston, Maxwell Cole’s laboring Volvo was disappearing over the crest of the hill. Both Max and Kramer had their hands full negotiating their vehicles through the hazardous streets. I rode shotgun and had no trouble keeping the Volvo well in sight.
Cole led us back down off Capitol Hill, through the bungled I-5 interchange known locally as the Mercer Mess, then north to the Fremont Bridge. Max turned off onto Phinney North and stopped on the street next to the Trolleyman Pub, a factory outlet store for one of the city’s better-known microbreweries where they make Red Hook Ale. By then we were little more than a block behind him, but Max was oblivious to our presence. Without bothering to pause and look around, Max hurried inside.
The Trolleyman is a little too trendy for my taste. From the unexpected NO SMOKING sign on the front door to the brightly lit interior decorated with all-too-modern art, it’s hardly the kind of tavern where any self-respecting serious drinker would choose to hand out. Due to the weather, the white-formica-topped tables with their oak chairs were mostly deserted. A single couple was cuddled cozily on an old-fashioned sofa in front of the roaring corner fireplace.
Kramer and I entered the room just as Maxwell Cole was sidling confidentially up to the bartender, a craggy-faced man in his midforties, a junior Willie Nelson type whose shoulder-length, graying hair was drawn back in a scrawny, rubber-band-held ponytail.
As he caught sight of us, Maxwell Cole’s mouth dropped open in dumb amazement. Whatever words he had planned to say died on his lips.
I took the bull by the horns. “Pete Kelsey?” I asked.
The bartender looked at me appraisingly, his head cocked to one side while he absently polished the already gleaming surface of the bar.
“That’s right,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
Pulling out my ID, I tossed it to him. He caught it in midair, looked at it, and tossed it back without comment.
“We’re police officers,” I explained. “I’m Detective Beaumont and this is Detective Kramer. We’d like to have a word with you. In private, if you don’t mind.”
Kelsey glanced around the almost deserted room and grinned engagingly. “It’s already pretty private in here today. I have a feeling most of the regular lunch crowd didn’t bother to come to work, and neither did my helper, so this will have to do. Besides, Max here is an old friend of mine. What do you want to talk about?”
“This is confidential, Mr. Kelsey,” I insisted. “Really, I…”
Kelsey shrugged impatiently. “I already told you. Max is a friend of mine. Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of him.”
“It’s about your wife.”
The friendly, easygoing look on his face disappeared. In its place a hardened mask slipped over his otherwise handsome features. “What about her?”
“Two people were found dead at the school district office early this morning, Mr. Kelsey. I’m sorry to say that one of them may very well be your wife.”
Pete seemed to stagger under the weight of the news, leaning against the bar for support. For confirmation, he glanced briefly at Maxwell Cole, who nodded wordlessly and ducked his head.
My heart went out to Pete Kelsey. My guess was that this would prove to be one of those cases where the death itself would be only the tip of the iceberg. If he wasn’t already aware of it, by the time we finished uncovering all the sordid details surrounding the deaths of the two nearly naked people in the closet, I imagined Pete Kelsey would have a whole lot more to grieve about than a simple, unexpected death. He’d have to learn to live with betrayal as well.
He lurched backward and settled on a stool behind the bar. “How?” he whispered hoarsely. “How did it happen?”
“We don’t know that yet and won’t until after the autopsy.”
At that, Pete Kelsey bent over, burying his face in his hands while his wide shoulders shook with uncontrollable sobs. The gray-flecked ponytail flopped up and down like a landed fish. He was mumbling to himself through the sobs, and I strained to hear the words.
“I never should have…” was all I could make out.
Kramer and I waited patiently for a break in the emotional storm. At last there was a letup.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked hopelessly, looking up at us only after wiping his tear-stained face on the shoulders of his faded blue work shirt.
“If you could accompany us downtown, we need to have someone make a positive identification.”
He nodded. “It’ll take me a few minutes to close up. And I should call my manager…”
“I’ll do that,” Maxwell Cole offered. “I can call Nancy and let her know. You do whatever else needs to be done.”
By this time the couple in the corner had become aware of the situation. With hurried words of clumsy condolence, they paid their tab and left. Pete Kelsey seemed to have regained control of himself as he turned off coffeepots, emptied the cash register, and turned out lights.
“Nancy said to leave the change in the bottom drawer of her desk,” Max reported when he got off the phone. “She’ll be in to reopen about four. She’s waiting for someone to come put chains on her car.” Max paused for a moment before adding, “She says to tell you she’s sorry.”
Pete Kelsey nodded, but he went on with what he was doing, stopping by the window long enough to turn the orange and black CLOSED sign so it faced out. Then he opened the door to let us back out onto the street.
“Me too,” he murmured fiercely under his breath. “Me too.”
Chapter 6
Outside, standing in the snowbound and all-but-deserted street, we suggested that Pete ride with us as far as Harborview Hospital, but he declined, saying that he didn’t want to have to come all the way back across town to pick up his car from the tavern. Considering the hazardous driving conditions, I didn’t blame him. It was time for compromise.
“I’ll ride with you then,” I suggested. Pete nodded in agreement, pulling car keys from the pocket of a faded sheepskin-lined denim jacket as he started toward the cars.
Meanwhile, Maxwell Cole, who was still hovering solicitously in the background, tagged along after us. “Want me to come too?” he asked hopefully.
“No, Max,” Pete answered. “I’ll be all right.”
Max’s heavy features sagged with disappointment at the idea of being left behind. “I’ll give you a call later then,” Max added. “Just to see if there’s anything you need me to do.”
“Sure,” Pete said.
His car, parked in Seattle’s peculiar BACK-IN-ANGLE-ONLY fashion near the buried curb, was a bowlegged old Eagle station wagon. Nut brown in color, it was the kind of nondescript vehicle used-car dealers call “transportation specials,” a means of getting around rather than an extension of the owner’s ego. It also had the lived-in look of a one-person car.