He laughed ruefully. “I wish I did,” he said. “I wish to hell I did!”
We were still stuck in the Mount Baker Tunnel, and I was beginning to feel downright claustrophobic. It was early Saturday morning. Traffic shouldn’t have been that bad, but crossing Lake Washington is always a crapshoot. We inched forward, car length by slow car length. Modern-day road construction flaggers seem to have lost sight of the idea that their main job is to see to it that traffic keeps moving. For some of them, getting the chance to hold up other people’s lives offers them their only possible power trip.
While I gnashed my teeth with impatience, Captain Freeman was still focused on the case. “Have you ever had any dealings with Sam Irwin?” he asked.
“Not many,” I replied. “I’ve talked to him a couple of times when I’ve been stuck with a broken-down car. He struck me as a surly son of a bitch, and not much of a mental giant.”
Tony Freeman nodded. “Right. That’s how he struck me, too. Not that smart and not really a cop either. Everything we keep hearing about this case says real cops are involved, not some renegade mechanic from Motor Pool. My guess is that Irwin will be a minor player, but maybe we can convince him to help us nail the others.”
“How?” I asked.
“I can be pretty damn persuasive when I want to be,” Tony Freeman declared.
Suddenly the dam broke and eastbound traffic began to move again. Once we were under way, it was only a matter of minutes before we turned off I-90 onto Bellevue Way. A half mile later we headed back west toward Beaux Arts.
In the dawn’s early light, we were hard-pressed to read street signs on the twisted, barely two-lane streets that wound through the village. Beaux Arts doesn’t have its own police force. The town council rents police and fire protection from King County and the city of Bellevue. For traffic control, villagers rely on a series of car-eating speed bumps. An unwary speeder may hit one of those too fast once, but he won’t do it twice, not if he has half a brain.
Reading fine print on the map would have driven me up the wall, but Freeman directed us unerringly through the tree-lined maze. “Take this one,” he said, pointing out a twisting ribbon of rain-wet pavement that led down to the water and to what had to be, by any estimate, a million-dollar piece of real estate perched on the pricey shores of Lake Washington.
Freeman whistled when he caught sight of the impressive roofline. “If a guy from Motor Pool can afford digs like this, crime really does pay. No question.”
I had pulled into the paved driveway and was puzzling about what to do next when the front porch light snapped on, the door opened, and a sweats-clad woman trotted down the stairs. Before I could turn around and retreat out of the roadway, she jogged up to the car and motioned for me to roll down the window.
“Can I help you?”
“We’re looking for Sam Irwin,” Tony Freeman said.
“Oh,” she said. “Sam’s my renter. His house is over there.” She pointed to a much smaller house, little more than a cabin, off to the side of the main house.
“He must be up already,” she added. “His lights are on. See you later.” With a congenial wave the woman darted away from the car and jogged up the hill and out of the driveway.
I turned to Freeman. “What now, coach?”
“Block the road with your car,” he said. “Then we’ll go have a chat with the man before any other early-morning joggers are up and about. Keep your gun handy, Beaumont. Irwin’s resume says he’s a trained killer, and I for one believe it.”
Tony Freeman didn’t say shoot to kill, but that’s what he meant, and I knew it.
I didn’t like the idea of using the Porsche as a roadblock, but Freeman didn’t give me any options. With considerable misgiving, I moved my car to a spot directly in the middle of the narrow driveway, effectively cutting off the possibility of vehicular flight. I switched off both the lights and the motor. Closing the doors as quietly as possible, we started toward the house.
Halfway there, Freeman motioned frantically toward the side of the house. My heart went to my throat, but finally I understood why he was pointing. There, parked in a small lean-to, sat a white Toyota Tercel. I gave Freeman a thumbs-up acknowledgment. If either one of us had been entertaining any doubts, that was the end of them. The presence of a car that matched one of Bob Case’s suspicious vehicles pretty much corked it.
Automatic in hand, I followed Captain Freeman onto the small wooden porch. Boards creaked ominously underfoot. From inside came the sound of a radio station playing soft rock music. The door itself stood partially ajar. There was no doorbell.
Freeman stepped to the door and pounded on the casing. “Sam,” he called. “Sam Irwin. Are you in there?”
There was no answer. None. But the radio continued to play. Freeman knocked again. Still no answer.
Cautiously, moving the door aside with his foot, Freeman shoved it open. Across the room a man sat in front of a glowing computer screen.
“Sam?” Freeman asked again tentatively.
There was no answering movement, no sound. The man’s hands hung down limply on either side of the straight-backed chair. His head lolled crazily to one side.
With two long, quick strides, Tony Freeman covered the distance between the door and the chair. I stood in the doorway with automatic at the ready, just in case, but that wasn’t necessary.
“You’d better go call nine-one-one on that cute little cellular phone of yours,” Tony Freeman told me. “This one’s already dead.”
Summoned by 911 dispatchers, cops from the King County Police Department arrived within minutes, followed by a pair of longtime homicide detectives named Edwin Hammer and Tom Crowe. Over the years, passing in and out of courtrooms, we’ve all developed something of a nodding acquaintance. I stayed with them while Tony Freeman hustled off to talk with the commander in charge of the arriving contingent of officers.
For a change, I was shuttled into the background, answering questions only when called upon to do so, giving information that would show up in other people’s reports as well as in my own, eventually. When they put me on hold while awaiting the appearance of someone from the Medical Examiner’s Office, lack of sleep caught up with me. I was sitting on the couch dozing when Detective Crowe happened to read the words written on the computer screen.
“Get a load of this!” he gloated to his cohort Detective Hammer. “We’ve got this one sacked and bagged, and we’ve barely been here twenty minutes. Hey, J.P. What’ll you give us if we solve your case for you?”
Far too worn-out to get a kick out of their teasing, I willed my tired legs to move and forced my butt off the couch to go see what they were talking about. I had already seen the selection of drug paraphernalia on the table next to the computer, had already observed the bandage on Sam Irwin’s wrist which I assumed probably concealed a set of Spot Weston’s teeth marks, but I hadn’t spent a whole lot of time examining the body. In my business, if you’ve seen one drug overdose, you’ve seen ‘em all. It doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to fill in the blanks.
Detective Hammer pointed me toward the computer. The screen itself was filled with text. I had glanced at it briefly in the beginning, and it seemed to be some kind of building fund report, but in the ensuing hubbub, neither Tony nor I had finished reading it.
I did so now, however, starting from the beginning, squinting down at the amber letters, and wondering if it was time to have my eyes checked. Halfway through the screen, layered in with the other text, was the following: “To Whom It May Concern: I can’t live with what I’ve done. Tell my mother I’m sorry. Sam.”
I wasn’t particularly impressed. “That doesn’t say much,” I said to the two King County cops. “So it was a deliberate overdose rather than an accidental one. What’s the big deal?”
Hammer grinned at Crowe and jabbed him in the ribs. “He still hasn’t seen it. Not this case, stupid. Yours. The one that’s got the whole city of Seattle turned inside out. Look again.”