Trouble in Rooster Paradise by T.W. Emory Read Free Book Online

“Come from a big family, son?”
    I shook my head as I wiped my mouth with a
paper napkin. “My folks were killed in an auto crash when I was
six. I was raised by my grandparents.”
    “ Ah, then you know something about
enduring familial ties.”
    I didn’t tell him that my grandparents had died
when I was in my late teens. Instead, I gave an affirming
smile.
    “ My beloved mother was one of the
Mercer girls, did you know that?”
    “ Daughter of Asa Mercer?” I asked.
Mercer was one of Seattle’s founding fathers and first president of
the University of Washington.
    “ No, no. I’m not related to that
fool schoolteacher. The only smart thing he did was to bring a
number of single women West after the Civil War to help balance out
Seattle’s man-to-woman ratio. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. My
father Guttorm married one of the girls from Mercer’s second trip.
I was the youngest of their five children—and their only
boy.”
    Which made him heir apparent.
    “ You name it, my father did it. He
showed the way in Seattle’s early boom. Hell, he was the
boom. He started off as a shopkeeper’s helper, became a partner in
a printing firm, a banker, a hotel-builder and an investor in land
and local industry. And believe me, son, I could go on.”
    I believed him. Guttorm Lundeen was also an
avaricious taskmaster, a strike-buster, and a payer of bribes and
graft. And believe me, I could go on.
    “ Did you know that ours was one of
the original families to move to First Hill?”
    I confessed my ignorance.
    “ Well we were. Over the years I’ve
merely enlarged upon and managed my father’s holdings. Yet, I’m
considered one of the barons of the Northwest. But it was my
father’s commitment to family that made it all possible. Do you
know the maxim he lived by, son?” he asked solemnly.
    Compound interest is your best friend seemed a
reasonable guess, but I told him I didn’t have a clue.
    “ ‘ Rikky,’ my father would say,
‘blood is tikker dan sweat. Work hard, boy, but stand by your
family, or all the sweat is vert-less.’”
    I had no idea where this conversation was
headed. But he was paying for lunch, so I sipped my coffee and
waited patiently for the punch line.
    It was a short wait.
    “ I understand you knew Christine
Johanson—the girl who was killed over in Ballard last
night.”
    That surprised me. He noticed.
    “ Is my source wrong?”
    “ Yes and no,” I said. “I met her
briefly the night before last. But I didn’t really know her. Was
she related to you?”
    “ No, son. No relation. But the girl
had a connection to my family. My godson was her
boyfriend.”
    “ I see.”
    “ Not as clearly as I want you to,
Gunnar. The murdered girl worked for one of my son’s commercial
brainchilds. It’s an adjunct venture of Darlund Apparels. It’s one
of those projects where Rod can toy with being a businessman.
Frankly, it’s a dog. And it’s a costly dog at that,” he said, with
a shake of his head. “But it keeps Rod occupied and provides us
with a tax shelter. He doesn’t even actually head the fiasco. One
of his favor-begging college chums manages things for
him.”
    Rod Lundeen’s fame-claim had been his prowess
as a University of Washington athlete in the mid ’20s. He’d turned
into a flabby middle-aged man whose strengths lay more in the high
life than in the life of commerce.
    “ And your concern is for Rod ?” I asked.
    “ Not at all, son. At this moment Rod
and wife number three are on a luxury liner mindlessly cruising the
inland waters of Canada. As usual, I’m left to tend to business.
This time, some rather unfortunate business. So much for
semi-retirement.”
    I heard a complaint in there, but it was a
hollow one. I knew that Rikard Lundeen would be ship captain till
the day they carried his corpse from the pilothouse. And even then
they’d have to pry his hands from the wheel. I continued to look at
him between forkfuls of apple pie.
    “ But since young