"Excited? What about?
"When he saw the composite, he thought it looked familiar. He worried it all night, and this morning he finally figured out where he knew that face from. He came up with both fingerprints and a mug shot. He's sending us copies of the prints, and he's pulling strings to get the latent prints they lifted off Lions' Visa card run through Cook County's Automated Fingerprint Identification System. He'll call and let us know what happens with that.
"So who is it? Anybody we know?
"You and I don't know him from Adam, but Grant does. His name's Lorenzo Tabone. He's a small-time thug, not too bright, who's suspected of doing occasional contract work for somebody named Aldo Pappinzino.
"Never heard of him either. Who's that?
"A major Mafia don. Runs a branch of the mob that's headquartered in Chicago.
"And how exactly does this Alvin Grant propose to catch him?
"He says they've got a stakeout on the place where Tabone lives, and Grant thinks it just might work. Tabone's got no way of knowing we're on to him. It was nothing but an accident that the security guard caught the guy with the Visa card, and having Grant recognize him is more blind luck, more than we could have hoped for. By the way, Grant's got a real hard-on for these characters, for anybody connected with the Pappinzinos. Anything he can do to help, he's up for it.
"How come? I asked. If somebody volunteers and says he's covering my backside, I want to know how he got there. I've learned the hard way not to accept allies on blind faith alone.
"Grant's best buddy from high school, a guy he went through the police academy with, got taken out by a Pappinzino hit man. The guy was doing a drug surveillance for the DEA. Got shot in the back of the head execution-style while he was sitting in his car. The guy who did it got off on a technicality. You know how it works.
I did indeed.
Halvorsen sounded different somehow. He had evidently worked back East long enough that even talking to Alvin Grant on the telephone had injected a hint of Chicago accent into his eastern Washington twang.
"So what are you doing?
"Me? Like I said, I'm going to go see Pamela Kinder. After that, I'll go by Sacred Heart. I may be able to see Kimiko. The doctor said it's a possibility. How about you?
"We spent most of yesterday working on another case, but we picked up a lead to a friend of Kurobashi's who lives over in Port Angeles. If I can get away this afternoon, I'll go over there and talk to him.
"Sounds good, Halvorsen said. "Let me know if you find out anything, and I'll do the same.
Big Al came back from his ordeal in Captain Powell's office in a blue funk.
"What's Max up to this time? I asked.
"He's trying to come up with a reason why it's all our fault.
"That Hubert Jones OD'd?
"That's right.
I laughed. "If anyone can pull that one off, Maxwell Cole is it. Want to go have lunch?
Allen Lindstrom nodded. It was time. We went to the Doghouse. Big Al had lunch; I had breakfast.
"You know, Big Al said thoughtfully, chewing his way through a Bob's Burger, "you ought to try getting up a little earlier in the mornings and start having breakfast before you come to work. Molly says it's a whole lot better for you.
I smiled and nodded and ate my bacon and eggs without bothering to tell Big Al what I had been doing that morning that had caused me to miss breakfast.
I didn't figure it was any of his business.
CHAPTER 16
By the time I was ready to head across the great water to Port Angeles, it was after four. I probably should have taken a departmental car, but between driving a Porsche 928 and a Dodge Diplomat, there's really no contest. However, I did stop by Captain Powell's fishbowl long enough to get a verbal okay from him.
"If you put a dent in that little hummer of yours while you're over there, Powell warned, shaking his finger in my face, "you'd better not plan on vouchering it.
"No problem, I told him, fool that I am.
Lemmings rushing to the sea have nothing on Seattlites bent on escaping the city and going across Puget Sound on sunny Friday afternoons. With my usual finesse and timing, I managed to be stuck smack in the middle of the worst of the traffic. At the ferry terminal I bought a ticket to Winslow and maneuvered the 928 into the proper line.
The ferry Walla Walla is a huge, cavernous affair. When it was ready for loading, row after row of cars started their engines and drove onto the car decks. For a while, it looked as though I would make it, but I didn't. Loading stopped three cars away, leaving me near the head of the line for the next ferry-an hour later. The Washington State Ferry System is nothing if not implacable. No amount of whining, pleading, or dashboard pounding would fix it. And so, I sat there in my car, doing a slow burn, with nothing to do but think.
Halvorsen's report of his conversation with the detective in Illinois had had a disquieting effect on me. It had stayed in the back of my mind and nipped away at me all afternoon. Now, sitting there trapped in the ferry line, I let out all the stops and stewed about it in dead earnest.
In order to find a killer, a cop sometimes has to put himself in the place of either the victim or the killer, and sometimes both. In this case, I had thought I was coming to grips with Tadeo Kurobashi, with who he was and what made him tick. But now, Alvin Grant's talk about Lorenzo Tabone and Aldo Pappinzino showed me that there was a giant blind spot in my perception of the dead man.
Tadeo Kurobashi's connection with a Chicago-based Mafia boss was something that didn't fit and didn't make sense, something I couldn't get a handle on. Had Kurobashi been involved in the drug trade as Andy Halvorsen had suggested? Even as I asked the question, I discarded it. Nothing in Tadeo Kurobashi's life had hinted at drugs. To all appearances he had been a hardworking entrepreneur, brought to his knees by a conspiracy of less than honest competition.
And if the mob was involved, as they evidently were, what did they want? Was the Mafia branching out and going high-tech these days? Had Tadeo invented some kind of electronics wizardry valuable enough to the criminal element that they were willing to kill in order to lay hands on it? If so, what was it and had they already gotten it? Sitting there in the line with the setting sun glaring in my face, my frustration level went up yet another notch or two.
I wished I could be in two places at once. Kimiko Kurobashi, unwittingly or not, probably held the key to everything I didn't know, and by now, Detective Halvorsen should have finished interviewing her. What had she told him, and would it help us find her father's killer? As my need to know went over the top, I reached for my car phone, dialed the Whitman County sheriff's department, and asked to speak to Detective Halvorsen.
"Sorry, he's sick. He's gone home for the day, the dispatcher told me.
"Home! I yelped. "I thought he was on his way to Spokane.
"I know he was planning to, but he called in sick early this afternoon.
"Do you have his home number? I asked.
"I'm not allowed to give it out.
Of course he wasn't allowed to give it out. I had the number myself, in my jacket, in the backseat. It just wasn't easily accessible. I found it though, and a minute or so later, Halvorsen's phone was ringing. It had rung seven or eight times, and I was about to hang up when he finally answered.
"Hello? He sounded funny-distant, hesitant.
"Andy? This is Beau, in Seattle. Are you all right?
"She's gone, he managed. His words were slurred. He sounded drunk.
"Gone? My heart rose to my throat. Kimiko dead too? Had someone gotten to her in the hospital, or had she fallen victim to some unforeseen medical complication?