Shred of Evidence

The lowlife inside the crack house nailed my partner in the chest as soon as he stepped away from our patrol car. I dragged Jack behind the car, and the second bullet grazed my forehead. By the time the SWAT team arrived, the shooter had turned the gun on himself. I got a medal for heroism and six weeks medical leave; Jack got a flag draped over his coffin.

No one said Jack died because of me; no one had to. I took early retirement and left the Seattle police force. A week later, Jack’s widow called; her voice sounded bright and artificial. “Harrison,” she said, “I want you to have the Darlene.”

“Jack’s boat? I can’t take that.”

“Why not? You spent as much time on her as he did.”

“Alright.” I paused. “Do you want to come fishing sometime, Betty?”

“No way, Harrison.” She laughed, a real laugh that was sweet to hear. “I get nauseated just thinking about fish.”

“Okay. Thanks for the boat. I’ll take good care of her.”

The next day I sailed the Darlene into the Ballard Locks, heading out to Puget Sound to drink a final toast to my partner. I rafted alongside a fiberglass cruiser; as we waited for the last boat to tie up in the locks, I settled against the transom and popped open a beer. A flock of Japanese tourists swarmed across the sidewalk chattering like sparrows. The warning bell rang and the upstream gates closed, sealing the lock like an iron box.

In front of me, three young men in a motorboat were drinking beer and stretching their torsos, preening for the tourists like tomcats. The boy at the helm reminded me of Jack twenty years ago—eager and full of juice. He reached under his seat, pulled out a yellow life jacket and zipped it tight, self-conscious and slow.

The bell rang again and the water level began to drop. The helmsman flashed a cocky smile at the linesman from the Corps of Engineers who monitored our descent. The boats rocked as we drifted down, the iron plates of the lock gliding slowly bottomward, exposing walls black with moisture and green with moss. The kid in the yellow life vest slapped the back of his neck and smeared a drop of blood, bright red against his skin.

As the tourists hung over the guardrail, waving and pointing, the bell chimed again and I scrambled into the bow. As I grabbed my line, a cry rang through the locks. The helmsman in the boat ahead of me had collapsed. A young man in neon orange trunks bent over him, then staggered backwards, his face bright with fear.

I sprang into the motorboat, knelt by the crumpled body and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one. I flipped the kid over, yanked off his life jacket and started CPR.

Above us, the linesman hollered, “Skippers, tighten your lines,” a whistle blew and the locks flooded. The boats rose on a surge of fresh water, clanking against each other like billiard balls. The young men on the motorboat steadied me as I blew into the kid’s mouth.

A few minutes later we crested, level with the concrete pier. I kept pumping and breathing, pumping and breathing, but the helmsman didn’t respond. A couple of paramedics pushed me aside, lifted him from the deck and strapped him to a stretcher. The ambulance roared away, sirens screaming. The guys from the boat stood next to me on the pier. Stupid with shock, we answered a stream of questions: name, occupation, phone number. Nothing mattered, the boy was dead.

“He was just a kid,” I said to the last policeman on the scene.

“Twenty-five,” the cop answered. The knot of tourists uncoiled as one of them leaned over the guardrail to snap a picture of the kid’s boat.

I turned to the officer. “I was a cop.”

“I know. I saw you get your medal.”

I nodded. “I never saw a guy that young die that fast. What’d the medic say?”

“Systemic shock. His whole body shut down.” The cop shook his head. “It’s a damn shame.”

“Yeah.”

I climbed into the Darlene and headed home. Something had gone wrong. The kid shouldn’t have died, not with me around.

I called the police station, but the captain didn’t have time for civilians. So I telephoned an old buddy, the crime reporter for the Seattle Times, and got the scoop on the victim. Nathan Davis had lived with his wife, Ruby, a graduate student at the University of Washington. No known occupation, but a substantial bank account and no credit problems. His father was a real estate developer worth millions. The family was as close to old money as we get in Seattle.

My next call was to the medical examiner. It turned out Nathan had been asthmatic since childhood, but Doc was hedging his bets on why the kid’s cardiovascular system had collapsed.

“You mean you can’t figure out what killed him?” I asked.

Doc Larssen snorted. “What killed him is easy. An injection of histamine, one or two cc’s at most; it caused an acute allergic reaction.” I could almost hear him shrug. “The parents say Nathan had a bad response to a bee sting last summer.”

“That’s your best guess?”

“It’s not a guess.” Larssen cleared his throat. “In my professional opinion,” he droned, “Nathan Davis was hypersensitive to histamine. I found two bee stingers in his back.”

“But he went so fast. I was in the boat behind him and he fell like rock.”

“There can be a lot of individual variation in allergic reactions.”

“I checked for a medical bracelet,” I said. “There wasn’t one.”

“I’m not surprised. Kids think they’re going to live forever. The cops found a syringe of epinephrine on the boat, loaded and ready to go. But Nathan didn’t tell his friends to jab him if he passed out.”

“Seems like a weird death for a rich kid.”

“Give it a rest, Harrison. You did your best to save the boy. He was unlucky, that’s all.” Larssen chuckled grimly. “Besides, you can’t murder someone with a bee.”

I grunted when Larssen added the examiner’s office had released the body. No one thought Nathan’s death was suspicious. No one but me.

That afternoon I drove to the locks. When I caught up with the linesman, Abby Brannon turned out to be in her mid-forties, with brown hair and brilliant blue eyes, the kind of gal who looked like she could run five miles and still have enough wind to be sassy. Abby made the connection between Nathan and me right away. “You’re the guy from the Darlene. The one who tried to revive him.”

“Yep.”

“How did you get to him so fast?”

“Habit,” I shrugged. “I used to be a cop.”

She looked interested so I offered to buy her coffee at the Danish bakery two blocks away. We sat in a wooden booth, and I ordered nonfat milk and a sprouted wheat roll that tasted like the inside of my tackle box. Abby chewed a lingonberry croissant while I told her my story. “There’s no official investigation into Nathan’s death,” I finished. “The medical examiner is satisfied.”

Abby swallowed. “You’re not?”

“No, but I’m retired. It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“It matters to me. I hate people dying on my watch.”

“Me, too.” She seemed willing to talk, so I pulled out my notebook. “Tell me what happened at the locks the morning Nathan died.”

Abby had been busy managing the boats, not watching the passengers. “You have no idea how stupid folks can be,” she said. “It’s not bad in the morning, but the evening shift—,” she shook her head. “Especially Sunday night, when all the weekend skippers come back drunk.”

“It’s bad inside the locks, too,” I said. “When the gates close, you’re trapped with a slew of sunburned people barfing over the rails. Once I saw a guy climb into the water and take a dump.”

Abby laughed, “That’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened, believe me.”

I lifted my eyebrows but she shook her head. “Next time.”

I grinned. “It’s a date.” I flipped to a new page in my notebook. “How long does it take to go through the locks? About fifteen minutes?”

“Yeah. Once the gates close, we average thirteen and a half minutes, depending on the tide.”

“But in an emergency?”

“When I saw you giving the kid mouth-to-mouth, I signaled the lockmaster. He threw the valves open and brought you up in less than five minutes. It’s SOP.”

I nodded. “Was there anything odd about this group of boats?”

Abby shook her head.

“What about the tourists?”

She said the crowd seemed pretty standard for a Labor Day weekend: a string of joggers, a couple of families and a busload of cub scouts.

“What about the boy in the orange trunks?” I asked. “Did you notice anything unusual about him?”

Abby swirled her coffee. “He dropped the bowline overboard.” She shrugged. “It may have delayed the rescue a couple of minutes.”

“Anything else?”

“Nope, but I could check with the other linesmen.”

“Great.” I sat back and took a deep breath. “Would you like to go fishing with me sometime?”

“Thanks, Harrison, but I spend my days off on dry land.” She looked at me and winked. “How about a movie?”

“Great.” Abby pulled out her wallet but I waved it away. “I’ll get the tab.” I dropped my last ten on the table.

She grinned, her cheeks flushed. “I think you’ll need another five.”

I glanced at the check. Two pastries, two drinks and the total was thirteen bucks. I don’t know if it’s the tourists or the Microsoft millionaires, but prices have exploded around here. She added a bill and we left.

I had one last question for her. “Have you had a problem with bees at the locks?”

“Bees?” Abby frowned. “No. Plenty of mosquitoes though.” She paused. “Did a bee sting kill Nathan?”

“Yeah.”

Her face crumpled. “That’s a bad way to go.”

After Abby drove off, I thought about murder: means, motive and opportunity. I knew what had killed Nathan—an injection of histamine. I didn’t care about the why—it’s usually money, sex or drugs. But opportunity? I couldn’t get a fix on the how and it bugged me.

The next morning I decided to talk to Ruby Davis, Nathan’s widow. She lived in the penthouse suite of a high-rise condominium next to the university. When Ruby answered the intercom, I told her I was the guy who tried to save her husband’s life and she buzzed me in.

Ruby was drop-dead gorgeous. Tall and elegant, she had short, black curls that hugged her head and neat ears tucked close to her skull. Her skin was smooth and golden, her lips full and red. She wore a black silk lounging suit. A crisscross of black leather straps and spiked heels cradled her feet. Her toenails glittered like the gold bracelets on her wrists and the hoops in her earlobes.

From her living room I could see a broad stretch of Puget Sound reaching west to the Olympic Mountains. Baskets of yellow pansies and white clover hung outside each window, framing the view. Inside, the condo was as barren as a ship’s galley. It was hard to believe Nathan had ever eaten here, or made love, or guzzled beer with his feet propped on the coffee table.

Ruby led me into the kitchen, filled two mugs with coffee and motioned to a glass-topped counter. As soon as I sat down, a brown and gray puppy bounded across the floor, grabbed the napkin from my lap and dived under the couch.

“Oh, Maggie! Behave.” Ruby spoke with a soft Mediterranean accent. “Maggie is why the house is empty. She chews on everything: books, clothes, chairs. The maintenance men have moved all my good furniture into storage.”

“What kind of a dog is she?”

Ruby wrinkled her elegant nose. “A mutt.”

“She’s a pretty girl.” The puppy had husky markings, but the long body of a lab. As she gnawed on my napkin, her tail thumped against the floor, its white tip flashing like a channel marker.

We chatted a minute or two before I said, “Tell me about your husband.” Ruby didn’t have to talk to an ex-cop, but she launched into her story anyway. She had met Nathan at Stanford. The daughter of immigrants, Ruby had earned a scholarship and graduated cum laude. Nathan, the only son of a wealthy alumnus, had partied hearty until graduation.

When Ruby had been accepted into the doctoral program at the University of Washington, she married Nathan and they moved to Seattle. The business side of the transaction was pretty clear: He paid for her education—she decorated his life. And Ruby was very decorative.

When Maggie finished eating my napkin, she wandered over and put her nose between my legs. I swatted her shoulder and she ambled off, toenails clicking on the wooden floor. “Do you like the university?”

Ruby’s face shone. “The anthropology department is wonderful. It has an international reputation.”

“What grade are you in?”

She grinned. “We don’t call them grades in graduate school. Do you want to know when I will get my degree?”

Yeah, that was exactly what I wanted to know. Ruby said she had finished the courses for her Ph.D. Now she needed to complete her fieldwork with a tribe of Indians living in the Amazon rain forest. She had spent the past two winters in Peru and was headed back for the final time.

“How did Nathan feel about you traveling to South America every year?”

Ruby tilted her head and sighed, sweet and sad. “Nathan understood.” A tear slid down one golden cheek.

Maggie trotted over and nudged a soggy tennis ball against my leg. I scratched her ears. “Tell me about Nathan’s allergies.”

His wife frowned. “There were so many things he should not eat, so many pills to take. His mother thinks I should play nursemaid for him.” As Ruby’s voice dripped scorn, her foreign accent grew more noticeable. “But I say to her, Nathan is a big boy now, he can cook his own food. I have my studies to attend to.”

Ruby’s graceful hands signaled indifference. “And Nathan, sometimes he is a bad boy and drinks too much beer or loses his ugly medical bracelet. And then his mother blames me. Stupid woman.”

“Stupid woman? Her son is dead.”

“Forgive me.” Ruby’s eyes flooded with tears. She pulled at the hoop in her left earlobe. “Please understand,” she whispered. “Nathan’s parents blame me because their son is dead. They say I should have been on his ship, taking care of him. But babysitting Nathan was not my job.”

“Where were you when Nathan died?” I didn’t try to soften the question.

Ruby stared at me, her eyes opaque. “I was in the library reviewing my research design. I was very brilliant to pick this tribe. They are primitive people living in harmony with their environment. They pluck fruit from the trees, spear fish in the river, shoot monkeys and birds for food. But the tropical forest is burning and the tribe will become extinct. I will capture their culture, their music, their myths. Then I shall write a book and become the most famous anthropologist in the world.”

“How did Nathan fit into your plans?”

She bowed her head and sighed, but I knew the answer. Nathan paid the bills.

“Will you keep this condominium, Ruby?”

Her chin jerked. “But, of course. It is a present from Nathan’s family and Washington is a community property state, is it not? I am his wife, I own everything.”

That was enough. I said good-by and headed for the telephone booth on the corner. I got a cell phone when I retired, but the damn thing was so small I kept losing it, so I went back to storing a roll of quarters in the glove compartment. I propped myself against the glass, pulled out my change and settled down to verify Ruby’s story. I ended up scheduling a meeting with her academic advisor.

When I checked my voice mail, I had two messages. Doc Larssen sounded as cranky as ever. “I don’t know why you called, but if it’s about the Davis kid, forget it. He was cremated yesterday.” Click.

The other message was from Ruby. “After talking to you, I have altered my plans. I will leave for Peru tonight. The housekeeper took Nathan’s puppy to the animal shelter. You seemed to like her. If you want her, you must pick her in the next seventy-two hours.”

I couldn’t abandon a puppy, so I drove to the pound. When I got there, Maggie bounced through the door, dragging the attendant behind her. The dog and I set about figuring out who was in charge. It didn’t take long. She napped in the car while I stopped at the university to talk to Ruby’s advisor.

When I called him, I had pictured an old fart with hair in his ears, but Professor Schneider looked like an ad for GQ. Yes, he confirmed, Ruby was off to Peru. His eyes lit up as he described her remarkable ability to live with the tribe while she studied them. There was even a name for it: participant observer. As I stood to go, I asked Dr. Schneider if Ruby’s husband had ever traveled with her.

“That jerk? All Nathan wanted was a gorgeous babe hanging on his arm. He was incapable of appreciating an intelligent woman like Ruby.”

“But he paid for her education.”

The professor shrugged. “She said they made a deal before they got married.”

“And after Ruby graduates?”

“Who knows? Nathan’s family wasn’t too happy with Ruby running off to Peru every year. They wanted her to stay home and have babies. Fat chance of that happening!”

I nodded and asked the professor for information about Ruby’s tribe. He handed me a photocopy from the Journal of Contemporary Anthropology. I thanked him and left.

Ruby had said the Indians shot birds and monkeys from the trees. I’m no anthropologist, but I had a hunch their traditional lifestyle did not include firearms. And I was right. They used blowpipes and poisoned darts.

I called Doc Larssen again.

“Did you look at the back of his neck?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Something pricked Nathan on his neck before he died. I saw him brush away the blood.”

“Yeah? So what?”

“His wife is an expert on a tribe of South American Indians. They hunt with blowpipes. Ruby could have shot Nathan with a poisoned dart while his boat was sitting in the lock.”

“With a blowpipe?” Larssen’s voice cracked.

“Sure. Camouflaged maybe.”

“Ridiculous. For one thing, she’d have to be an incredibly good shot.”

“It takes almost minutes to lock through. She’d have plenty of time to aim.”

“Rubbish,” Larssen growled. “No one found a dart on his boat, poisoned or otherwise.”

“It could have fallen overboard in the confusion.”

“Compared to an insect, a dart would have left a huge hole in the epidermis. A mosquito bit Nathan on the neck, that’s all. And two bees stung his back.” Larssen made a rude noise. “Look, Harrison, take up bingo or something. You’re not a cop anymore.” He slammed down the phone.

Oaky. Maybe Ruby hadn’t used a dart but something was wrong; the kid shouldn’t have died. I grabbed Jack’s boat to think it over. As I motored into the locks, Maggie sat in the cockpit, a silly puppy grin on her face. I propped my feet on the ice chest, shut my eyes and thought back to the day Nathan died, to three boys clowning around in the boat in front of me. What was wrong with that picture? I figured it out just as the linesman hollered, “Hey skipper. You in the Darlene. Wake up.”

I glanced around. A fifty-foot pleasure palace was trying to squeeze past on my port side. I shot the captain a dirty look and called up to the linesman. “I’m riding this elevator back to the top. I’ve got to talk to your boss.”

“Whatever! Get out of the way.”

I snugged my starboard as close as I could to the side of the lock and the cruiser scraped by. When the lock was clear, I turned the Darlene around and tied her up for the journey topside. As soon as we got there, Maggie and I jumped out. Abby was waiting for us.

“This better be good, Harrison.”

“Where’s the kid’s life jacket?”

“What are you talking about?”

I grabbed her hand and headed toward the lockmaster’s office. “Nathan’s life vest. Where did you put it?”

Inside the building, Abby pulled the jacket from a storage locker. “I asked the police if they wanted it, but they said no, so I stuck it here.”

“Let’s take a look.” I swept a pile of charts from the lockmaster’s desk, spread the jacket flat and remembered. A lean young man, his body rigid as I forced air down his windpipe. His chest bare, because I had ripped off his life vest and thrown it overboard. Nathan couldn’t have been stung in the back by two bees, not wearing this jacket, not unless…I lifted the net lining with my fillet knife.

No one had seen Ruby kill her husband, but the evidence was clear: the clover in her window box, the two bees trapped under the mesh of Nathan’s lifejacket and the tiny stitches, neat and precise, holding the lining in place. Ruby wanted to be the most famous anthropologist in the whole world, not a rich boy’s plaything.

Two weeks later I got a call from the captain as Maggie and I were walking out the door with our fishing tackle. The D.A. had filed extradition papers and Ruby was on her way home. “You did good work on this one, Harrison,” the captain said.

“Thanks.”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you.” He cleared his throat. “It wasn’t your fault Jack died.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I figured that out.”

“Okay, good. One problem solved. Now here’s another. There’s an opening at the police academy. They need an instructor with experience and brains. It’s a good job, full benefits. I gave them your name.”

“Thanks, Captain, but no thanks.” I scratched Maggie’s ears. “I’ve finally found a girl who likes to fish.”