Murder One (2 page)

“I love it.” Reid left the valet holding her car door and walked down the street, running her hand over the hood. “Sixty-four or sixty-five?”

“Sixty-four. You know cars?”

“I know Cadillacs.” She spoke across the hood. “My father drove a Cadillac his whole life. He would have loved this.” Sloane joined her as she bent and touched the cherry-red interior restored to mint condition. “May I?”

“Be my guest.”

She sat behind the steering wheel, running her gaze and hands over the seats and dash. “Power locks and windows.” She closed her eyes and inhaled. “I used to stand on the seat with my arm around his shoulders. I can still remember the smell of his Aqua Velva. When we’d get close to home, I’d sit in his lap and he’d let me steer. I’m sure he kept his knee on the wheel, but he still made me feel like I was doing it by myself.”

In court Reid had been businesslike-efficient, but now she looked like a teenage girl whose date had just picked her up for the prom. Before he could stop himself Sloane said, “Do you want to drive it?”

She looked up, eyes eager. “Really?”

He handed the attendant a five-dollar bill. “Can you keep her car a while longer?”

Reid took the keys and waited until Sloane slid in the passenger side to adjust the bench seat forward. Settled, she gave him a girlish smile. “Where should we go?”

Sloane shrugged. “You’re the driver.”

“No requests?”

“Surprise me,” Sloane said, though she already had.

Sunyat Chelyakov sat parked down the street from the blue-gray awning. He picked up the disposable cell phone and punched the speed dial, the only number on the phone. For ten dollars, he received eight hours of phone calls and 150 hours of standby service, after which he threw out the phone and chose another from the dozens at his disposal.

The woman stood admiring the white Cadillac.

“She just left the party, but she is not alone,” he reported.

The woman slid behind the wheel as the man accompanying her walked around the car and slipped in the passenger door. Perhaps he’d had too much to drink?

“She is getting into a car with a man. She’s driving.”

“You have the license number?” his contact asked.

He provided the letters and numbers, shut off the phone, and pulled the sedan from the curb.

“Americans and their cars,” he mused. It would not be difficult to follow such a large vehicle.

THREE

P
IONEER
S
QUARE
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

H
e stood on the sidewalk, staring up at thirteen tusked faces.

“As a girl, I called it the Walrus Building,” she said. “Apparently, everyone did.”

The walruses’ heads, carved in white marble on the exterior of the third floor of the Arctic Club Hotel, peered down at all who climbed the white marble steps and walked beneath the arched pediment. Supported on four columns, the entrance on Cherry Street resembled the entrance to an ancient Greek temple. Inside, Reid explained that the building had been constructed in 1917 by a group of men flush with gold from the Alaska Klondike. Black-and-white photographs of those original members—a men’s club when that sort of thing remained acceptable—hung in the refurbished lobby.

“You know a lot about this place,” Sloane said.

“It helps when one of your clients purchases and renovates the building.” She explained that after decades as government offices, the hotel had undergone an expensive and painstaking renovation to restore the Alaskan marble stairways and foyer, the leaded glass, and the dark wood paneling and ornate cornices. “We had a few disputes, as you can appreciate. I learned more than I or my client really wanted.”

“And here I thought you did it all from memory.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

Reid led him past the registration desk into the Polar Bar, a room with leather chairs, round tables, and lamps strategically positioned
about pillars. A fire burned in the fireplace along one wall, but the main attraction was the blue glow light emanating from beneath the bar at the front of the room—a slab of wood atop thick cracked glass made to resemble large blocks of arctic ice.

“Well?” Reid asked.

“I like it,” he said. “Very good choice.”

They took a table beneath a navy blue velvet drape hanging from a ceiling curtain rod. A waitress greeted them.

“Scotch rocks, if I recall,” Reid said.

“You do have a good memory.” Sloane had ordered the drink when the two met in the Fireside Room of the Sorrento Hotel to discuss a possible settlement of the Kendall Toy matter. “Okay, my turn.” He stared into Reid’s eyes as if trying to read her mind and was again struck by the clarity of the green. “Martini. Two olives. No onion.”

She arched her eyebrows then looked up at the waitress. “Martini. One olive. No onion.”

“I guess my memory isn’t quite as good.”

“Your memory is fine. I’m cutting back on my olive intake.”

“Nice choice,” he said. “I’ve never been here.”

“You’re not from here, are you? Was it San Francisco?”

“Very good again.” Sloane had been raised in foster homes in Los Angeles but had practiced law in San Francisco for the better part of thirteen years, until moving to Seattle with Tina and her son, Jake.

She shrugged. “You made quite a splash in the bar journal after the Kendall Toy victory.”

Sloane detected no bitterness. He recalled seeing Harvard on her résumé. “And you? Was it Boston?”

“Just for law school. I was raised in Magnolia and went to U-Dub.”

“You’re a Husky.”

She gave a half hearted fist pump. “Go Dawgs.”

The crack of what sounded like pool balls colliding drew Sloane’s attention to a man and woman standing at a vintage table in the corner of the room.

“It was very good, by the way,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Your speech tonight; it was very good.”

He nodded.

“That was a compliment. Usually, the response is ‘thank you.’”

He picked up a drink coaster imprinted with a cartoonish polar bear holding a martini glass and flipped the coaster between his fingers like he’d seen magicians do with a playing card, trying to think of the right word. “Since my wife’s death, it isn’t always easy to tell if people are being sincere.”

She winced, a look he had become all too familiar with. She touched his arm. “I’m sorry. I forgot about your wife. I’m very sorry, David.”

Sloane had become adept at redirecting conversations when others brought up the topic of Tina’s death, but no words came to mind.

“Well, it was, sincerely, very good.” She crossed her heart. “Scout’s honor.”

“You were a Girl Scout?”

“Is that so difficult to believe?”

“I see you more as a troop leader.”

She stood without warning. “Pool table is free.”

Two men seated closer looked to be making a play for next, but they were no match for Reid. She reached the table, snatched the cues, and gave the two men a coquettish wink that only an attractive woman in a black evening gown could get away with. As the two men retreated, Reid handed Sloane the longer of the two cues.

“I don’t know when I last played,” Sloane said.

“It will be fun.” She racked the balls at the far end of the table, deftly removing the wooden triangle. “Do you want to break?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Sloane said. “What are we playing?”

“Eight ball?”

“Call the pocket?”

She eyed him. “You have played.”

“A bit.”

“Care to make it interesting?”

“It already is.”

“I meant, care to make a bet?”

“Am I in the presence of a pool shark, Ms. Reid?” She smiled. “What did you have in mind?”

“Loser buys the drinks,” she said.

“You’re on.”

She squeezed her fingers inside the triangular frame to tighten the rack and centered the top ball on the blue dot on the table before slowly removing the frame. Sauntering to the opposite end, she hip-checked Sloane. “I like a little room when I break.”

Sloane had an idea he’d be buying the drinks.

She drew the cue back three times before it sprang forward and shot the white ball into the racked pack, hitting with a loud smack and sending balls scattering, three finding homes in pockets, two solids and one striped. The two men who failed to get the table gave a vocal approval. “I hope you didn’t bet the house,” one said.

Reid chose stripes and sank the 10 and 13 before missing, giving her a four-balls-to-one lead. Sloane lined up the 2, called the corner pocket, and sank the shot. Reid nodded her approval. Surveying the table, he called the opposite corner and, using more force, sank the orange 5, narrowing her lead to four to three. He missed a shot he should have made, and they alternated until each had one ball remaining in addition to the 8 ball. Reid missed, but she didn’t leave Sloane much to work with. To sink the 6, he’d have to bounce the cue ball off the side bumper and ricochet it, something he had never been good at. After a moment of contemplation, he shrugged. “What the heck. Six ball, corner pocket.”

“Not a chance,” Reid said.

Sloane bent, lined up the shot, then stood to chalk his cue.

“You’re not nervous, are you, Mr. Sloane?”

“You wish.”

He set the chalk down. Then, with a deft touch, he tapped the cue ball against the side bumper. It kicked off and hit the 6. The ball rolled the length of the table, looking as if it would run out of steam at the pocket edge, then trickled in.

The two men cheered. Sloane smiled at Reid. Only the 8 remained—an easy shot into the side pocket. He strolled to where Reid stood. “Excuse me,” he said. “I like a little room when I win.”

Reid sneered playfully and stepped to the side.

Sloane lined up the shot—a tap would be all it would take. He bent and pulled back the cue. “Eight ball . . .”

“Lunch.”

He stood. “Are you trying to distract me?”

She held the cue with both hands, head tilted, her hair brushing softly against her shoulder. Sloane felt his Adam’s apple bob.

“Lunch. Loser also buys the winner lunch at the restaurant of her choosing.”

The two men gave an “Oooh.”

“Don’t you mean of ‘his choosing’?”

“Does that mean you accept?”

“Why would I pass up a free lunch?”

Sloane rechalked the cue, bent to line up the shot, but could not resist considering her again, something that her grin told him she had expected. He forced himself to concentrate, easing back the stick and letting it slide through his fingers. He tapped the cue ball into the 8 and the 8 into the pocket.

The two men gave another cheer.

Sloane lay the cue on the felt. “I guess I’ll have to think of a place for lunch.”

Reid smiled. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”

“You’re not reneging, are you?”

“I would never renege. I won.”

Sloane laughed. “How do you figure?”

“You didn’t call the shot.”

The two men, momentarily stunned, turned to each other and yelped, “Whoa.”

“Yes, I—” Sloane started.

Reid shook her head. “No. You didn’t. I think you were . . . distracted?”

“You tricked me.”

“To the contrary, I played by the rules—your rule. ‘Call the pocket.’” She set the cue down. “Looks like our drinks have arrived.”

At their table she picked up her drink and quaffed the glass, waiting for him to reciprocate. “I think I’m going to really like the taste of mine,” she said. “I hope yours isn’t too bitter.”

FOUR

M
ONDAY,
S
EPTEMBER
5, 2011
P
IKE
P
LACE
M
ARKET
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

T
o the victor went the spoils, and Sloane presumed from the direction they walked that also meant a bite out of his wallet. But Reid continued to surprise. She turned down the Post Street alley and stopped outside Kells Irish Pub, another of Seattle’s better-known landmarks and, in summer, a tourist haven.

Kells and the other establishments in the alley had set up outdoor tables, some draped with white tablecloths, and nearly every chair was filled. It painted a quaint scene Sloane recalled from his visit to Europe, a scene he had too infrequently enjoyed in Seattle—a hazard of a profession in which time was money.

“You know, I make a decent living,” Sloane said as they settled at an outdoor table.

Reid folded her hands and leaned forward. “I consider this my continuing obligation as a Seattle native to further educate the uninformed.”

The temperature hovered in the mideighties and continued to be unseasonably humid. The air had the thick, tangy smell of the Puget Sound, blocks away. The weathermen had predicted late-evening and early-morning thundershowers, but Sloane did not see a cloud in the sky, only a thin layer of lingering marine haze.

“I love the summers here,” she said.

“If only they lasted longer,” Sloane said.

“We might not appreciate them as much.”

“Glass-is-half-full-type thing?”

“Something like that.” Reid wore blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a cream-colored blouse, but she looked as attractive—maybe even more so than—as she had Saturday night. Sloane had avoided the office and spent much of the holiday weekend in the garden—a chore Tina had enjoyed and long overdue—and thinking of Barclay Reid. The image of her beside the pool table in her black dress had lingered.

The waiter brought menus, but Reid declined. “I’ll have the Dublin coddle and a pint of Guinness.”

“You come here often?” Sloane asked.

She smiled from behind her sunglasses.

“I hate to be ignorant, but what’s a coddle?”

“Stew,” the waiter replied.

“You’ll like it,” Reid said.

Sloane handed back the menu. “Make it two . . . and a Guinness.”

After the waiter departed, Reid said, “This was a hangout in college. I tried to buy a stake in it a few years back.”

“What, running a law firm and hustling guys at pool isn’t enough to fill your time?”

“I’m a bit of a compulsive overachiever.”