“I did the same thing,” she said. “Like Mom, I blamed you. As far as we were concerned, you were the reason Daddy died because you were also the reason he stayed on the job. This week, I found this and discovered we were wrong.”
She opened her purse and pulled out a manila envelope. When she handed it over, I could tell from the heft of it that the envelope contained several sheets of paper.
“What is it?” I asked.
“These are some of Daddy’s papers. He always said that after he retired, he was going to write a book. Since he never retired, he never completed the book, either, but on his days off, he was always down in the basement, pounding away on an old Smith Corona typewriter. This is the chapter he wrote about you. I thought you might want to see it.
“It was while I was reading this that I finally realized you weren’t the reason Daddy kept working. He did it because he was worried about money and about what would happen to Mother if he died. It turns out he had been working a case where some old guy murdered his ailing wife and then took his own life for the same reason—because he didn’t think there would be enough money to take care of his widow after he was gone. Daddy wanted to work as long as he could so he could be sure Mother and I wouldn’t be left stranded.”
I vaguely remembered the case Anne Marie had mentioned, but at that very moment I couldn’t recall the exact details or even the names of either victim. What I did remember was that case was the first combination murder-suicide I ever worked. Unfortunately it wasn’t the last.
A few minutes later, Anne Marie finished her coffee and abruptly took her leave. After showing her out, I returned to the window seat in the living room, with a brand-new cup of coffee in hand. That’s when I finally opened the envelope and removed the yellowing stack of onionskin paper. The keys on the typewriter Pickles had used had been worn and/or broken. Some of the letters in the old-fashioned font had empty spots in them. The ribbon had most likely been far beyond its recommended usage limits as well. The result was something so faded and blurry that it was almost impossible to read.
I expected the piece would focus on the murder-suicide Anne Marie had mentioned earlier. To my surprise, it began with the day Pickles and I first became partners.
IT WAS A big shock to my system to come back from my wife’s family reunion in Wisconsin to find out that a new partner had been dropped in my lap. As soon as I clocked in, Captain Tompkins dragged me into the Fishbowl, the glass-plated Public Safety Building’s fifth-floor office from which he rules his fiefdom, Seattle PD’s Homicide Unit, with a bull-nosed attitude and an iron fist. The powers-that-be are trying to discourage smoking inside the building, but Tommy isn’t taking that edict lying down. He smokes thick, evil-smelling cigars that stink to the high heavens. For my money, pipe smoke isn’t nearly as bad, but Tommy says pipes are too damned prissy. Prissy is one thing Captain Tompkins is not.
Because he smokes constantly and usually keeps the door to the Fishbowl tightly closed, stepping inside his office is like walking into the kind of smoke-filled room where political wheeling and dealing supposedly gets done. Come to think of it, as far as his office is concerned, that’s not as far off the beam as you might think.
As soon as I took a seat in front of Tommy’s desk, he slid a file folder across the surface in my direction. There was enough force behind his shove that the file spun off the edge of the desk, spilling the contents and sending loose papers flying six ways to Sunday.
“What’s this?” I asked, leaning down to retrieve the scattered bits and pieces. I didn’t look at the file folder itself again until I straightened up and had stuffed everything back inside. That’s when I saw the name on the outside: Beaumont, Jonas Piedmont.
“Your new partner,” Tommy said, leaning back in his chair and blowing a series of smoke rings into the air.
He’s a hefty kind of guy, with a wide, flushed face and a bulging, vein-marked nose that hints of too much booze. Sitting there with his jacket off and his tie open at the base of a thick neck, he gazed at me appraisingly through a pair of beady eyes. Looking at him, you might think he’d be clumsy and slow on his feet. You’d be wrong. After years of working for the man, I’m smart enough not to make that mistake. Guys who do don’t last long.
“What’s this about a new partner?” I asked. “What happened to Eddy?”