"You two knew one another back then?"
"As well as a lowly sophomore ever knows the senior movers and shakers. You know how that goes. Else and Alan Torvoldsen were a real item back then."
"That's the guy she was going to marry? The one who knocked her up? Isn't he the same one Watty wants us to see later today?"
"That's right. In case you hadn't noticed, Ballard's really a small town stuck in the middle of a big city."
Sue Danielson nodded. "I'm beginning to figure that out," she said.
I got up and prowled around Gunter Gebhardt's compulsively clean workshop. Stored in one cupboard I found the collection of carefully crafted plaster molds he had used to create his army of lead soldiers. I also found the collection of paints and delicate brushes and files he must have used to do the finish work on the soldiers once they came out of the molds. Painstakingly making those soldiers must have been the sole creative outlet for a man with considerable artistic talent and capability.
The door at the top of the stairs opened, and the stairs creaked under the weight of heavy footsteps. Soon Else Gebhardt appeared from behind the partition at the bottom of the stairs. She was still crying, but she was smiling through the tears.
"Kari's coming down from Bellingham. Michael's bringing her down. They'll be here early this evening. I can hardly believe it." As far as I could see, it seemed reasonable that a daughter faced with news of her father's death would show up to help her mother. "What makes that so hard to believe?" I asked.
"You don't understand," Else replied. "The last time Gunter and I saw Kari was the night of her high school graduation. She cut us dead-refused to speak to either one of us. I thought it would break her father's heart."
"I heard you on the phone earlier. When all this came up, how did you know where to call her, then?"
"Kari stays in touch with her grandmother-with my mother," Else answered.
No wonder Else wanted to be out from under her mother's thumb. Inge Didriksen was a problem. On more than one front.
The phone call from Kari seemed to have had a calming effect on Else. After that we settled down and took some more organized information from her. What time her husband had left the house the previous evening-seven. Where had he said he was going-the boat. Did Else know of anyone with whom Gunter was having difficulties-she did not. Was she aware of any business dealings that may have gone awry-not that she could think of.
The questions were straightforward, and so were the answers. That kind of basic interview may not seem like much in terms of drama or excitement, but the information gained usually forms the foundation of a murder investigation. It's like a baseline X ray on a cancer patient. It tells investigators where and when things started going haywire. It's the hub of a wagon wheel-an initial point for branching out and asking more questions.
As we walked away from the house and threaded our way through the collection of parked cars, I was struck by how commonplace and ordinary the house looked. Yet inside those sandstone walls there had been a world of multigenerational conflict-years and decades of parents and children at war with one another.
Of course, everyone tries to pretend to the outside world that his own family isn't at all like that, but maybe if you scratch the surface, most of them are just that way. Sue Danielson's family certainly wasn't absolutely smooth and trouble-free. The little lunchtime set-to with Jared had proved that.
I left the Gebhardts' home in Blue Ridge convinced that Else and Gunter's seemingly troubled existence, one filled with marital and parental strife, wasn't all that different from anyone else's.
Mine included.
8
Sue Danielson and I drove back to Fishermen's Terminal and hit the bricks, or rather the planks. We stumped up and down the separate docks, asking questions, talking to folks.
That first pass wasn't particularly productive. No one had seen anyone acting strangely the night before. No one had noticed anything out of the ordinary. When you're working a homicide investigation, those kinds of answers are to be expected, either because the various witnesses really haven't seen anything or because they don't want to become involved. It's also the reason why detectives seem to go back over the same ground, asking the same questions again and again.
Gradually, however, through the eyes of Gunter Gebhardt's peers, a complex picture began to emerge. "That damn hardheaded Kraut," as Gunter was referred to more than once, wasn't what you could have called Mr. Personality.
Despite thirty years spent working there, he hadn't been especially well liked in Ballard's fishing community. Grudgingly respected, yes, but not necessarily liked. A few people made wryly derogatory comments about Gunter's fishing capability. I wasn't able to sort out if they were just making fun of him-which in Norwegian fishing circles pretty much goes with the program-or if Gunter Gebhardt really hadn't been all the good a fisherman. Still, not even his most outspoken critics faulted Gunter's general business acumen and sense of duty.
We spent almost half an hour with Dag Rasmussen, a grizzled and opinionated old salt whose boat, The Longliner, was berthed two boats away from the charred remains of Gunter Gebhardt's Isolde. Clad in greasy coveralls, Dag was elbow-deep in overhauling the main engine on his boat when we interrupted him.
"Gunter Gebhardt was one tough son of a bitch and hell to work for, too," Dag told us. Leaning on the rail of The Longliner, he seemed unperturbed by our dragging him away from his work.
"You have to remember that Kraut was still making money when lots of the other guys were falling by the wayside. And don't forget, either," Dag added, shaking a gnarled finger in my face, "after Henrik Didriksen's heart attack, Gunter was the one who held things together for Inge, and him only a son-in-law. I give him plenty of credit for that."
"What do you mean he was hard to work for, Mr. Rasmussen?" Sue asked.
Dag laughed and sent a brown wad of spittle arcing into the water between his boat and the one alongside. Several of his teeth were missing. The ones that remained were stained brown with tobacco juice. It reminded me why the Ballard area is sometimes referred to as Snoose Junction.
"He was big on busywork; always wanted the guys on his boat to work like dogs. Behind his back, they used to call him ‘Gunter the Nazi.'"
Sue and I exchanged veiled glances. Those words might have been truer than anyone speaking them could possibly have suspected. Dag continued with his garrulous recitation.
"He didn't want to pay them nothing, either. He made up his own rules and docked his guys' pay for every infraction. Years ago, he opted out of the Vessel Owners Association. Said he was sick of settling up according to the set-line agreement when he wasn't getting nothing for it. That's about the time he stopped taking union crews and started negotiating his own deals."
"Why was that?"
Dag looked at Sue as if she must have just crawled out from under a rock. "So he wouldn't have to pay union scale," he answered simply.
"But people still worked for him anyway?"
"Ja, sure," Dag said. "You know how it is. The ones who need money bad enough don't give a damn about union wages, and the newcomers don't know the difference. They're just happy to have a job."
The possibility of union/nonunion difficulties was something to think about-a new wrinkle in our inquiry. If it turned out that labor relations had something to do with the case at hand, it wouldn't be the first time union wrangling had ended up as part of a Seattle P.D. homicide investigation.
"Would you happen to know the names of any of these nonunion crew members?" I asked.