Lying in Wait (9780061747168) by Judith A. Jance Read Free Book Online Page B

disfigured Mercedes look like new again.
    Sue Danielson gaped openly at the imposing mountain of house. “I wouldn’t want it,” she announced with a disinterested shrug, and headed for the front door. “Too many bathrooms to clean.”
    Better detachment than envy, I thought. As a working cop, Sue Danielson wasn’t likely ever to end up living in circumstances anywhere near this kind of opulence.
    She gave the doorbell an angry shove, and a man opened the door almost as soon as the bell stopped chiming. He was around fifty years old—a fit specimen of upward mobility, dressed in an impeccable gray suit that was a perfect match forhis hair. The man’s mane of silvery hair was combed straight back in the classic style of a 1930s movie star.
    â€œBonnie Elgin, please,” Sue said, opening her I.D. “I’m Detective Danielson, and this is Detective Beaumont. We’re with the Seattle Police Department.”
    The man shook Sue’s hand while his eyes drilled curiously into my face. “You’re kidding me. Really? Detective Beaumont?”
    I nodded. “That’s the one.”
    Smiling, he turned to me and offered his hand. “Ron Elgin,” he said. “Hang on a minute.” Then he turned back into the house.
    â€œBonnie,” he called over his shoulder. “You’ll never guess who they sent. Detective Beaumont. Remember? The guy who donated the Bentley to the Rep.”
    I couldn’t believe it. The damn Bentley again! Who was it who said that no good deed ever goes unpunished? Had a hole opened up in that columned porch, I would have been more than happy to have disappeared into it.
    â€œCome on in,” Ron Elgin said, totally unaware of my discomfort. He led the way into a marbled entryway with a spectacular vaulted ceiling. “Bonnie will be thrilled to meet you, Detective Beaumont,” he continued. “And you, too, of course,” he added with a polite nod at Sue. “My wife will be down in a minute. Would either of you care for some coffee?”
    â€œCoffee sounds great,” I said.
    Sue nodded. “Coffee’s fine,” she said.
    â€œJust go on into the living room and makeyourselves at home,” Ron Elgin directed. “There’s a new pot of coffee that should be ready by now. It won’t take me a minute.” He hustled off.
    As instructed, I walked into the living room and wandered over to a bank of windows that overlooked the Puget Sound shipping lanes. The fog had lifted just enough to reveal a huge grain ship moving sedately toward the grain terminal.
    â€œGreat view,” I said, in a lighthearted but vain attempt to change the subject. Sue Danielson wasn’t about to be thrown off-track.
    â€œWhat’s this about donating a Bentley?” she demanded.
    â€œIt’s nothing,” I told her. “Nothing at all.”
    I would have been fine if Bonnie Elgin could have had the common grace and decency to back me up on that story. But she didn’t. In her role as a member of the board of directors of the Seattle Repertory Theater Company, she had to come smiling into the living room, give me a big hug—as though we’d known one another forever—and thank me personally for my generous donation.
    In terms of my ability to get along with Sue Danielson, my new partner, that was the worst possible thing Bonnie Elgin could have done.

4
    As an unwed mother with little education living in the post-World War II era, my mother supported us with her hands. We lived in a tiny two-bedroom apartment over a bakery in Ballard. Mother took in sewing. The whole time I was growing up, she slept on the living-room couch. One bedroom was mine. In the other, Mom’s treadle Singer sewing machine reigned supreme.
    Over the years, she became an accomplished seamstress. The word seamstress sounds almost quaint now, like something out of another century, but that’s what she was.