Read Online More Perfect Union (9780061760228) by Judith A. Jance - Free Book Online Page A

After the fire some guys came around lookin’ for the next of kin, and Linda wasn’t that. I gave ’em his wife’s name, and Linda’s too, although I got the feeling that there wasn’t much chance anybody’d be interested in talkin’ to an ex-girlfriend. I was gonna give it to your detective friends this morning, but they said the same thing, that the wife’s name was enough. Said they’d get Katherine to identify the body.”
    â€œKramer and Davis didn’t bother to take Linda Decker’s name?”
    â€œMaybe they wrote it down. I don’t recollect exactly, but they said that with an accident likethis the wife would be all they’d need.”
    An accident. Jim Harrison at Harbor Station had called it that too, but that was a Coast Guard finding made in a vacuum with no knowledge of an ex-girlfriend and an ex-wife. A jealous ex-wife.
    â€œSomebody already mentioned that to me,” I said. “Something about the gas-fume sensor or the blowers being out of commission. What do you think?”
    Red Corbett tossed the butt of the second cigarette into the water with a contemptuous shake of his head. “Well sir,” he said finally. “It sure don’t sound like the Logan Tyree I knew.”
    I had been chatting easily with Red Corbett, but that remark put me on point. He had my undivided attention. That kind of comment is a shot in the arm for homicide detectives. It’s what makes them go combing through whole catalogs of victims’ friends and acquaintances. Something in the circumstances surrounding the death that doesn’t fit, something that isn’t quite right.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I asked.
    â€œLogan loved that boat. He worked on her and tinkered with her every spare minute. He kept her shipshape.”
    â€œYou mean if something wasn’t working right, he would have noticed right off and gotten it fixed.”
    â€œYou’re damn right!”
    â€œDid you tell Detectives Davis and Kramer that?”
    Corbett laughed. “Are you kiddin’? I didn’t tell them two nothin’. They didn’t ask.”
    I felt like I had stumbled into something important, and I didn’t want to let it loose. “You wouldn’t happen to have this Linda Decker’s address and phone number, would you?” I asked.
    Corbett gave me a wily toothless grin. “I sure do. Like I said, me and the wife looked after her kids a couple of times. Linda lived with her mother and she left us her mother’s name, address, and phone number just in case there was an emergency. We never had any call to use it, but it’s still written down inside the cover of the phone book. You want it?”
    I nodded. Corbett turned and walked unsteadily back toward his boat. In a few minutes he reappeared on deck, trailed by a woman who appeared to be several years older than he was and in equally bad shape. She stopped on the deck long enough to gather up the laundry while Red tottered over to me with a ragged phone book clutched in his hand. “Leona Rising,” he read, gasping for breath. The phone number and address he gave me were in Bellevue, a suburb across Lake Washington from Seattle.
    As I finished jotting the information into my notebook, the woman stepped forward, stopping at her husband’s side. She looked at mequizzically. “Red said you wanted Linda’s number. Will you be seeing her?” she asked.
    â€œProbably,” I said.
    â€œWell, you tell her Doris and Red are thinking about her. Tell her we’re real sorry about the way things worked out.”
    â€œI’ll be sure to do that,” I said. Turning, I walked away, leaving the two wizened old folks standing side by side. When I reached the car, I was still holding my open notebook with the scribbled name and address plainly visible. Looking down at them I knew I had stepped off the dock at the Montlake Marina and onto the