"Her? You mean you recognize her?"
"You say you're from the police? Well, it's about time, that's all I have to say."
"What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
"I was telling Betty just the other day that somebody should see to it that girl goes to jail."
"But why?" I was sure that if I ever got Mrs. Rasmussen on track, she was going to tell me everything I needed to know and then some.
"You know, some of the patients complain about their kids, that they do stuff behind their backs, give away their things, move into their houses whether they want them there or not. But I was there the day she made her mother agree to sell the house. It was awful. It made me sick. Mrs. Scarborough cried and cried about it afterward."
"That's her name? Mrs. Scarborough?"
"Yes. Elaine Scarborough. Second room on the left. The bed by the window." Mrs. Rasmussen took off her glasses and patted them back into her pocket. "That's not all, either."
"It isn't?"
"She kept saying that at home her daughter sometimes wouldn't let her have her pain medication."
"Did anyone do anything about it?"
"The doctor said he was sure the visiting nurses made certain that kind of thing didn't happen. But you should have seen how happy she was to be in a hospital so she could get medication when she needed it. She was in such pain! What kind of a monster would do a thing like that? I just can't understand it!"
Mrs. Rasmussen stood there glaring at me with one hand on her hip as though she expected me to come up with an instant explanation. What kind of monster indeed! There's no understanding that kind of human aberration.
A hefty nurse came rustling officiously down the hall. Mrs. Rasmussen beat a hasty retreat into the nearest doorway, saying a cheerful "Good afternoon" to whomever was inside.
Uncertainly, I paused in the hallway for a moment too long. The nurse, observing my indecisiveness, stopped beside me. "May I help you?"
"Yes. I wanted to see Mrs. Scarborough."
"Are you a family member?" the nurse inquired.
"No. Not really." I stopped short of pulling out my badge and identifying myself. It didn't make any difference.
"I'm sorry. Mrs. Scarborough is gravely ill. Her doctors have limited visitors to family members only, and even those are allowed to stay for just a few minutes at a time."
"But it's important…"
The nurse took my arm and guided me firmly back toward the elevator. "There is nothing more important than our patients' well-being," she said stiffly. "If the information you have for her is so important, then it would be best if you would contact one of the family members to deliver a message."
"Could you give me the names on the approved list?"
The nurse looked at me disapprovingly and shook her head. "Now if we really were a friend of the family, we'd know those names, wouldn't we."
Yes, we certainly would.
The elevator door opened, and I got on. The nurse made sure of it. I was surprised she didn't ride all the way down to the lobby and see me out onto the street. I would have made more of an issue out of it, but I figured having the family name was enough.
I made one stop before I left the building, at the pay phone in the lobby. A frayed Seattle phone book lay on the shelf under the phone. Unfortunately, there were six Scarboroughs listed. None of them said Elaine.
Rummaging through my pockets, I dredged out a collection of quarters. I dialed the first three numbers and asked for Elaine, only to be told no one by that name lived there. On the fourth call, Candace Wynn herself answered the phone. I recognized her voice.
"Hello?"
"Wrong number," I mumbled, disguising my voice as best I could. I hung up the phone, made a note of the address, and raced toward I the hospital exit door, almost smashing into the glass when the electric door in the lobby I didn't open quite fast enough to let me I through.
Hospital doors aren't generally timed for people moving on foot at a dead run.
CHAPTER 30
It took exactly thirteen minutes to drive from Ballard Community Hospital to Thirtieth Avenue South and South Graham. Nobody stopped me for speeding. That's always the way. Where are all the traffic cops when you need one?
Had one pulled me over, I would have sent word to the department for help. As it was, I decided to go to the Scarborough house first, try to get some idea of the lay of the land, and then call the department for a backup.
Driving east after crossing Beacon Avenue, I spotted a small Mom-and-Pop grocery store with a pay phone hanging beside the ice machine outside. I figured I'd come back there to use the phone as soon as I knew what was coming down.
As plans go, it wasn't bad. Things just didn't work out that way.
At Graham and Thirtieth South, a towering electrical transmission line dissects Beacon Hill and cuts a huge green north and south swath through the city. The Scarborough address in the phone book was 6511 Thirtieth Avenue South.
The seriousness of my miscalculation became apparent the moment I saw the house. North of Graham, Thirtieth was a regular street with houses on one side facing the wide clearing under the power lines. On the south side, though, the 6500 block dead-ended in front of the only house on the block, 651-the Scarborough house.
So much for sneaking around. So much for subtlety. Guard red Porsches are pretty goddamned hard to camouflage on dead-end streets when there's only one house on the block and the rest is nothing but wide-open spaces.
Instead of turning right onto Thirtieth, I hung a left and drove north, ditching the Porsche three houses north of Graham behind a vagrant pickup truck sitting on jacks. I figured I had a better chance of getting close to the house unobserved if I moved on foot rather than in the car. All I needed to do was get close enough to have some idea of what was going on. There wasn't much cover, even for someone on foot. The Beacon Hill transmission line was built in the twenties and thirties to bring power from the Skagit Valley power plants into the city. The right-of-way was purchased from farmers along the route. Later, the city grew up around the power line.
Directly under and for twenty-five or thirty yards on either side of the long line of metal towers, emerald green grass sprang to life. It looked as though the power line had driven every other living thing but the grass out of its path.
Here and there, looking down the line, a few houses remained, almost on the right-of-way itself. These were mostly remnants of the original farmhouses, most of them still occupied and still in good repair.
The Scarborough house was one of those, a sleepy-looking relic from another era with a steeply pitched gray roof and a graceful white porch that stretched across the entire front of the house. Two matching bay windows, opening onto the porch, were carefully curtained so no one could see inside. To the right of the walkway leading up to the house stood a "For Sale" sign with a "Sold" sticker stuck across it.
I returned to Graham. Attempting to look casual, I sauntered east, hoping for a wider view of the house as it dropped behind me. A short distance up the street was a bus stop. I stopped under the sign and turned to look behind me.
I was far enough away that, for the first time, I could see the south side of the house. Parked next to it, almost totally concealed from the street, was the corner of a school bus. A van actually. A yellow team van.
As I stood watching, the front door swung open. Candace Wynn stepped outside, carrying a suitcase in either hand. With brisk, purposeful steps, she moved to the bus, opened a side door, and placed the suitcases inside.
Watching her, I had moved unconsciously into the middle of the street, drawn like a metal chip toward a powerful magnet. Too late I realized she was moving toward the door on the driver's side of the van. She vaulted into the driver's seat and slammed the door behind her. I heard the engine start and saw the backup lights come on.