all the while Peerless Price had been resting
comfortably
in my backyard. Dude.
Chapter 6
If
What I did
Saturday night could be called sleeping, then I guess what I did Sunday
morning
could be called waking up. After six hours of watching horror movies on
the
inside of my eyelids, I stumbled downstairs, feeling far worse than
when I'd
gone to bed. Instead of making my usual beeline for the kitchen, I
crossed the
living room and peeked out through the drapes. We were down to two TV
trucks. I
figured the other guys were off visiting the Hair Club for Men.
I'll
admit it.
I smiled when I saw the hairpiece on the kitchen counter. As a matter
of fact I
smiled all the way through my first cup of coffee. Right up until I
opened the
morning paper.
HOLY
CH**ST,
IT'S PEERLESS PRICE
Biggest
typeface since Princess Di. I sailed the front page over into the comer
of the
room and concentrated on the sports section. The Sonics were about to
open
training camp. After an entire year of listening to Shawn Kemp
complaining about
his contract, George Karl was now bitching about his own contract. Go
figure. I
read the article three times and still had no idea exactly what Karl's
problem
was. I heaved a sigh and then waddled over and retrieved the front page.
The
most
enduring mystery in the history of the Pacific Northwest
was solved yesterday when the body of Peerless Price—
The
story went
on and on, covering half the front page and all of page two. There was
even a little
box directing readers to other related articles throughout the paper.
Pictures
of the bones, of the front of the house, of me, of the old man, of
Peerless and
of course of our beloved medical examiner Jeff Byrne. I followed the
various
articles around the paper. They had it all. They'd even dug up that old
AP
photo of Peerless Price after he duked it out with the old man. The one
where
his left 'eye was completely swollen shut and his nose was over by his
ear.
They
never came
right out and said that Peerless Price had been offed by former city
councilman
Bill Waterman, or that well-known politico Waterman buried the reporter
in his
backyard, but they sure didn't leave their readers many other choices.
The way
I read the articles, either my old man was guilty, or we had us a case
of alien
abduction. I could feel the blood rising to my face.
I
thumbed my
way back to the front page. The lead article was by somebody named
Brian
Swanson. I followed directions back to page eighteen, and as I
suspected, there
at the end of the article were both an E-mail address and a phone
number for
this Swanson dweeb. What the hell. Why not start the day by screaming
into
somebody's voice mail.
Fortunately,
where cold reason failed, technology intervened. When I plugged the
phone back
in, I got that pulsing dial tone that meant I had messages. I dialed
the access
number
and then
my secret code. Bong de de bing. "You have forty-three new messages. To
listen to new messages, push one. First message . . . recorded last
evening
at.. ."
It
took the
better part of an hour to work through all the messages. I knew better
than to
move on to the next message before the prior caller hung up. All that
did was
transfer the damn things to the Saved Messages folder where they would
remain
until Armageddon. All but two were from the media. As the night wore
on, the
messages got shorter and shorter. The last few were hang-ups.
At
seven-thirty
this morning, Tommy Matsukawa had called for Rebecca. A preliminary
check of
dental records confirmed the identity of the bones. Rebecca had been
right. The
slug was a thirty-two. Tommy acknowledged his lunch debt. The other
call was
from my uncle Pat.
Patrick
S.
Waterman was the youngest of the three Waterman brothers, my father the
oldest
In between were Edward, who died when I was a child, and the four
sisters
Karen, Hildy, May and Rochelle. Like everybody else in the family, Pat
had
lined his pockets buying real estate on my old man's
comfortably
in my backyard. Dude.
Chapter 6
If
What I did
Saturday night could be called sleeping, then I guess what I did Sunday
morning
could be called waking up. After six hours of watching horror movies on
the
inside of my eyelids, I stumbled downstairs, feeling far worse than
when I'd
gone to bed. Instead of making my usual beeline for the kitchen, I
crossed the
living room and peeked out through the drapes. We were down to two TV
trucks. I
figured the other guys were off visiting the Hair Club for Men.
I'll
admit it.
I smiled when I saw the hairpiece on the kitchen counter. As a matter
of fact I
smiled all the way through my first cup of coffee. Right up until I
opened the
morning paper.
HOLY
CH**ST,
IT'S PEERLESS PRICE
Biggest
typeface since Princess Di. I sailed the front page over into the comer
of the
room and concentrated on the sports section. The Sonics were about to
open
training camp. After an entire year of listening to Shawn Kemp
complaining about
his contract, George Karl was now bitching about his own contract. Go
figure. I
read the article three times and still had no idea exactly what Karl's
problem
was. I heaved a sigh and then waddled over and retrieved the front page.
The
most
enduring mystery in the history of the Pacific Northwest
was solved yesterday when the body of Peerless Price—
The
story went
on and on, covering half the front page and all of page two. There was
even a little
box directing readers to other related articles throughout the paper.
Pictures
of the bones, of the front of the house, of me, of the old man, of
Peerless and
of course of our beloved medical examiner Jeff Byrne. I followed the
various
articles around the paper. They had it all. They'd even dug up that old
AP
photo of Peerless Price after he duked it out with the old man. The one
where
his left 'eye was completely swollen shut and his nose was over by his
ear.
They
never came
right out and said that Peerless Price had been offed by former city
councilman
Bill Waterman, or that well-known politico Waterman buried the reporter
in his
backyard, but they sure didn't leave their readers many other choices.
The way
I read the articles, either my old man was guilty, or we had us a case
of alien
abduction. I could feel the blood rising to my face.
I
thumbed my
way back to the front page. The lead article was by somebody named
Brian
Swanson. I followed directions back to page eighteen, and as I
suspected, there
at the end of the article were both an E-mail address and a phone
number for
this Swanson dweeb. What the hell. Why not start the day by screaming
into
somebody's voice mail.
Fortunately,
where cold reason failed, technology intervened. When I plugged the
phone back
in, I got that pulsing dial tone that meant I had messages. I dialed
the access
number
and then
my secret code. Bong de de bing. "You have forty-three new messages. To
listen to new messages, push one. First message . . . recorded last
evening
at.. ."
It
took the
better part of an hour to work through all the messages. I knew better
than to
move on to the next message before the prior caller hung up. All that
did was
transfer the damn things to the Saved Messages folder where they would
remain
until Armageddon. All but two were from the media. As the night wore
on, the
messages got shorter and shorter. The last few were hang-ups.
At
seven-thirty
this morning, Tommy Matsukawa had called for Rebecca. A preliminary
check of
dental records confirmed the identity of the bones. Rebecca had been
right. The
slug was a thirty-two. Tommy acknowledged his lunch debt. The other
call was
from my uncle Pat.
Patrick
S.
Waterman was the youngest of the three Waterman brothers, my father the
oldest
In between were Edward, who died when I was a child, and the four
sisters
Karen, Hildy, May and Rochelle. Like everybody else in the family, Pat
had
lined his pockets buying real estate on my old man's
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