“I t was a bonehead thing to do,” Jerry said for the fourth time. “You’re getting way too involved in this. You shouldn’t have even talked to him.”
“You lectured me yesterday.”
“You’re quite possibly the most thickheaded person I’ve ever known. And that’s saying a lot ’cause I know a lot of people. The idea was for him not to know we’re watching him.” Jerry’s expression was pained. “When he can’t find the cuff link, he’ll know you took it.”
“Nah, he’ll probably think he lost it. Happens to me all the time.”
“Because you’re old.”
“So are you,” Morris finally snapped. “Quit busting my balls, it’s done now. What I want to know is, why get into disguise and pretend to interview for a job? What the hell’s the point?”
“Scoping you out, probably. Ballsy, but he’s good at it, too. You wouldn’t have put it together if it weren’t for the claustrophobia thing. Jesus, he took the cuff link right off your wrist.” Jerry whistled. “And brought it to the office like it’s some kind of trophy.”
“What does it all mean?”
“We might never know, but I do know you shouldn’t have talked to him. You should have kept your distance.”
Morris kept his eyes on the building in front of them. They’d been sitting outside Ethan Wolfe’s apartment for the past four hours and both men were getting irritable. Morris was starting to wonder why he’d insisted on tagging along. He should have been at work. So far Wolfe hadn’t gone anywhere interesting-besides the university for a few hours-but, according to Jerry, that was the way it went sometimes.
Morris felt nauseated in Jerry’s tiny car. He stretched his legs out as far as they could go, longing for the roominess of his Cadillac, and complained again that his head was actually touching the roof of the Honda.
“Oh, let it go already.” Jerry’s voice was gruff. “I get it, the car’s small. But might I remind you I normally do this alone? You invited yourself.”
Morris stifled a chuckle. He enjoyed getting a rise out of the private investigator. It provided some comic relief to what had so far been a dull day.
The background check Jerry ordered had turned up some interesting information about Ethan Wolfe. He was twenty-three, born in Omaha, Nebraska. His Social Security number showed a dozen past addresses all over the United States, with not one but two current residences. The first was a rental apartment in the university district, which he co-leased with a female named Abby Maddox, also twenty-three. The other was a house in Lake Stevens, ownership in Wolfe’s name only. No mortgage. He’d paid over half a million dollars for it.
Wolfe had been a ward of the State of Nebraska from age ten onward and had lived in several foster homes before he was released at the age of eighteen. His mother, Cheryl, had died in a house fire. There was no record of his father’s current location, but the man had spent a year in prison for assault and battery when the boy was two years old. His mother had been the victim.
Wolfe had attended three other colleges in addition to Puget Sound State, two in California and one in Oregon. Aside from his TA gig at PSSU, he’d never held another job of any kind. DMV records showed two speeding tickets in the last three years-both paid on time-and the ownership of one 1968 Triumph motorcycle.
There was also a sealed juvenile criminal record. There was no way to unseal it without a subpoena, and since Wolfe wasn’t under official investigation, Jerry wouldn’t be able to get one.
Not exactly the standard record of a twenty-three-year-old graduate student.
“Where do you think the money came from to buy the house?” Morris asked.
“Inheritance would be my guess.”
“What do you think he did to get the juvenile record?”
Jerry shrugged. “Could be anything. He grew up in a violent home, bounced around in the foster care system, couldn’t have been fun. Probably assault, or drugs. Those are the most common.” The PI yawned.
Morris was learning that investigating was not nearly as interesting as people thought. It wasn’t like it was on TV. Jerry had explained to Morris that a lot of the so-called investigating happened on the phone and over the Internet, and sitting in your car in dark corners waiting for something to happen. There were few face-to-face interviews, and almost no drama. Adultery tended to be more interesting than other cases since sometimes you got to take pictures of the action. But missing persons? Nope. Morris was disappointed to see that today was no different.
They had been following Wolfe on his ultracool motorcycle and it appeared to be a day of errand-running for the graduate student. Jerry, who knew nothing about motorcycles, was shocked to learn that the vintage Triumph Wolfe was riding-perfectly maintained with custom modifications-would have cost more than Jerry’s Honda Accord… if he had bought the car new.
Morris’s eyes were getting heavy, and he finally stopped fighting and closed them.
He woke up to Jerry’s elbow in his side.
“Up and at ’em. They’re moving.”
Morris sat up and looked at his watch. It was just after 6:00 p.m. He’d slept for an hour. Wolfe and his girlfriend were climbing onto Wolfe’s motorcycle.
“You have to admit, the girl looks good on the bike.” Jerry waited ten seconds before starting the ignition. “Could her jeans be any tighter?”
Abby Maddox had her slender arms wrapped around Wolfe’s slim waist.
“You know, I don’t get it.” Morris rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “The kid gets to come home every day to her. What did he want with my Sheila?”
Jerry snorted. “You know damn well men don’t cheat because the other woman’s better looking. We cheat because we can.” He glanced sideways at Morris. “Don’t sell your fiancée short. She’s attractive, and an authority figure. That bodes well for a young man’s fantasies.”
“You ever cheat on your wife?”
“Not this one. But I’ve had my share of temptation.” A funny expression crossed Jerry’s dark face. “I love my wife. Annie’s a good woman. Been married twelve years now and she still rocks my world, as my niece Keisha would so eloquently put it.”
“This is your second marriage?”
“Third, actually. It took me that long to learn that one woman really is enough for me.” Jerry smiled ruefully.
“Kids?”
“You’re a nosy dude.”
“Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”
“She couldn’t have kids with her first husband, and it never happened with my first two wives.” Jerry’s voice held regret. “We’re too old now. It’s okay, some things aren’t meant to be.”
They followed the couple about a mile to a soup kitchen called St. Mary’s Helping Hands. Morris had read about this place in Seattle magazine. It had a great reputation, thanks to its tireless staff of volunteers who did everything from raise money and solicit food donations, to cooking, cleaning, and serving.
Wolfe left his motorcycle out front, and he and his girlfriend entered the worn building holding hands. Jerry parallel-parked on the other side of the street where they had a clear view of the entrance. It was a no-parking zone, but if Jerry noticed, he wasn’t deterred. He turned the engine off.
“What now?” Morris asked.
“We wait.”
“This is what I pay you for? To sit around in front of buildings?”
“It requires great instincts and superb observational skills.”
Morris snorted. “Hard to believe those two are volunteers.” He settled back in his seat and yawned.
“After thirty years as a cop, I’ve learned there are no rules when it comes to human behavior.” Jerry looked out the window at a group of homeless men hovering by the soup kitchen’s door. “You know those FBI shows on TV? Where they do the profiling?”
“Yeah.”
“Cops hate that stuff. While it’s all well and good to sit behind a desk and have assigned characteristics and fancy medical names for criminals,” Jerry said in a prissy voice, “at the end of the day, you just don’t know what anybody’s gonna do. You gotta prepare for everything. Human beings are unpredictable. After three decades with PD, I still get surprised.”
“Did you like being a cop?”
“Yeah.” Jerry’s voice was rueful. “Mostly I did, but the job was stressful and the money was shit. You like being a banker?”
“Yeah. Mostly I do, because the hours are good and the money’s fantastic.” Both men laughed.
Three hours later, they were still in the car, listening to sports talk on the radio and drinking the hot coffee that Morris had gotten from the street vendor down the block. Jerry wasn’t much of a football fan, and Morris was enthusiastically explaining the finer nuances of the game.
Someone rapped sharply on the driver’s-side window.
Startled midsentence, Morris jumped, splashing hot coffee into his lap. He cursed as Jerry rolled down the window slowly. A parking-enforcement officer was staring in at them through the tinted windows, her hawkish face against the glass.
Jerry got the window halfway down then stopped. “Hey there.” He reached into his breast pocket and flashed a Seattle PD detective’s badge. Morris was surprised-he didn’t think retired officers were allowed to keep their badges.
“And that means what to me?” The woman was not impressed. “Move on. You’re in a no-park zone. Or I’ll have to ticket you.” She tapped her clipboard to make a point.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Jerry snapped, but he put his badge away. “Go bug the tourists who park illegally in the shopping district.”
“So you’re saying you want me to write this up?” Her ballpoint pen was poised over a pad of yellow tickets.
Jerry finally gave a stiff nod and started up the car. He drove down First Avenue, grumbling under his breath.
“No respect,” the private investigator muttered. “If I’d been on active duty, I’d tell her where she could stick her motherfucking ticket.”
“They let you keep your badge?”
“It’s a replica.” Jerry sounded sheepish. “They let you order one when you retire, to keep as a memento. Sometimes I use it to help with this job.” He looked at Morris and put a finger over his lips as if to say, Shhh. “Like I said, most days I don’t miss being a cop. All things considered, I transitioned well from public servant into private life. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss some of the perks. Like the goddamned respect.”
Jerry drove around the block a few times, and after the fourth or fifth time-Morris had lost count-the silly little parking-enforcement vehicle was gone. Jerry edged right back into the spot where they were initially.
“The motorcycle’s gone,” Morris said.
Jerry was distracted as he straightened the wheels of the Honda. “What?”
“The motorcycle? The whole reason we’ve been sitting in this hole of a neighborhood for the past three hours listening to the radio when we could have been in a nice warm bar having a cold beer?” Morris pointed. “It’s gone.”
Jerry looked around. “Shit. We lost them.”
“You think?”
“You shut up or I’ll frigging leave you here.”
There was another tap on the car window, this time on Morris’s side. In the dark it was hard to see who it was, but Morris was guessing the damn meter maid had come back.
He rolled down his window. It was harder than it should have been because Jerry’s piece-of-crap car didn’t have power windows. The handle groaned in protest.
A face blacker than Jerry’s stared in at Morris. The man was covered in grime and he smelled like a garbage can, only much worse, because he also smelled like feces and urine. His hair, a snaked mess of dreadlocks, hung down inside the Accord’s window. He was smiling.
“We got no money. Move on now.” Jerry elbowed Morris, not bothering to lower his voice. “Roll the window back up. It stinks in here.”
“I ain’t ask for none.” The homeless man’s breath could have killed an elephant. His voice was a deep baritone.
“What do you want?” Morris asked.
“I got some information for you.”
“About?”
“About the white dude you was followin’.”
Morris and Jerry exchanged a look. “Who says we were following anyone?” Jerry said.
“Man, shee-it. I ain’t got no home, but that don’t mean I got no eyes.” The man stared at them.
Finally Morris’s curiosity got the better of him. “Okay, what information?”
“That white dude, his name is Wolfe.”
“And that means what to me?” Jerry was staring hard at the homeless man.
“He a hunter. You best watch yourself before he hunts you.”
“And you know this how?” Morris asked.
“I just know,” the man said with a shrug, backing away from the car. He lifted up his tattered shirt and scratched his stomach with soiled hands. “And his woman? The pretty white girl he with?”
“What about her?” Jerry asked.
“She the leader of the pack.”
“Hey-” Morris called out, but by the time he got out of the Honda, the man had disappeared.
Ethan rode just under the speed limit, taking comfort in Abby’s arms wrapped tight around his waist. In the bike’s side mirror, the unevenly dulled lights of the black Honda Accord finally caught up to him. His stalkers had guessed his route correctly, and knew he was heading home. Clearly the big black dude and Morris the fat fuck weren’t going to give up.
Ethan had first noticed the car idling by the curb as he and Abby were leaving for the soup kitchen. He had no idea how long they’d been following him, which bothered him. It meant he wasn’t paying attention, and that was not good. He’d been losing focus. The drive to Lake Stevens and back every day, often twice a day, was taking its toll and he wasn’t sleeping. But that was no excuse for getting sloppy.
Ethan couldn’t see their faces, but he could imagine the two men sitting inside that ugly car, talking about him, talking about Sheila, thinking they were onto something by following his every move. They were persistent fuckers, he’d give them that. It might have been flattering had it not been so completely inconvenient.
He dropped Abby off at the apartment, explaining that he had some work to finish up. She hopped off the bike and pecked him on the cheek.
She wouldn’t wait up. She never did.
On the highway, Ethan accelerated and moved into the passing lane. Sure enough, the Honda sped up behind him. There was only one place to lead them to, only one place where things could happen the way he needed them to with the least amount of risk.
Let them come.
It was what he’d built his kill room for.