Floating
A Seattle Mystery
By John Poetzel
Copyright 2011 John Poetzel
Smashwords Edition
This is a work of fiction.
CHAPTER ONE
Nestled in between the cold, gray waters of Puget Sound and the dark green wrinkles in the earth, Seattle is often shrouded in mist and rain. All that moisture has a way of getting under your skin, or invading your thoughts. Some people can take it, some folks can’t. The short, dark days and long nights of the rainy season push those folks too far. The perfect summers beneath the bluest skies you’ve ever seen can even help tilt a mind past the point of no return.
Of course when you’re normal, you don’t think about the weather like that, but who’s normal anyway? With all the bluffs and high rise condo towers in the city, lots of people think that all that rain looks pretty good when it finally pools into the lakes and runs into Puget Sound. When you’re floating face down in the ship canal, you don’t get to continue the debate about where normal stops and crazy starts.
“I don’t think that Ted Bundy ever drove a Super Beetle,” Steven said as he looked through the mini blinds of his basement apartment at the tan VW parked inches from his window.
“What?” asked Marie, as she walked over to the window to peer out of the blinds.
“That’s a Super Beetle. Like a 1974?” asked Steven.
“Uh, OK, so it’s a Super Beetle. We agreed that we were going to buy this VW Bug from my aunt Doris,” Marie said as she pointed at the car through the mini blinds. “The title says it’s a 1973.”
“It’s supposed to be a ’68 Bug, not a Super Beetle,” Steven said, shaking his head.
“Super, schmuper! Who can even tell the difference?”
“I can! I just did!”
“How was I supposed to know? They all look the same to me,” Marie said, plopping down on the couch and tossing the title on the coffee table.
“The windshield is wrong. The hood is wrong. We were supposed to be going for creepy accuracy with the car,” Steven said as he turned back from the window. “Just like that rusted out Dodge pickup that we bought for the Green River Killer gig.”
“Well, you were so specific when we were looking for the truck,” she said with a shrug.
“When you told me she had a tan Beetle I thought it would be perfect for the Seattle Serials tour,” Steven said, slouching into the couch.
CHAPTER TWO
Steven wasn’t even alive when Ted Bundy roamed Seattle, but now he lived in an apartment building next door to the house where Ted stayed while he attended the University of Washington. The apartment manager had brought up that little tidbit when he was signing the move in paperwork, apparently in an attempt to make the building seem more interesting. The manager even volunteered the fact that the oldest tenant in the building had lived in unit 401 for the last thirty nine years, and that the guy actually hung out with Bundy in 1969.
“Talk to the old guy with the headphones if you want any more information about the serial killer,” the manager told him as he closed his door.
Steven didn’t usually try to chat up the other tenants in his cinder block hive, but he had seen this character skulking around the building several times and was curious about the older gentleman. This guy always had headphones on, listening to something more important than the white noise of the concrete hallways, and that night it was no different. As Steven walked into the laundry room, there he was, sitting on the counter, staring at the wall, listening to his headphones.
“Hey,” Steven said with a nod.
No response.
“Hey!” he said, waving.
The older man nodded back, still staring at a particularly interesting cinder block in the opposite wall.
Steven raised his eyebrows and then turned around to deal with the washing machine. As he was putting the quarters into the slide, he hesitated to push them in when he heard the man making a noise.
“Errrrr.”
“What’s that?” Steven asked turning his head so he could see the man out of the corner of his eye.
“Errrrr, don’t.”
Steven took his hand off the coin slide and turned around.
“There’s a trick, ehhhh,” said the older man.
“My name’s Steven. What’s the trick?”
“I’ll tell you, but don’t tell anyone else. They’ll fix it.”
“Mum’s the word. Your secret is safe with me.”
“They fixed it once, but it broke again. You can use that machine with just one quarter in the second slot from the left,” the man said, pointing at the grimiest washer in the row of six machines.
“That one? I already put everything in this machine, but if it saves me a dollar, I’ll switch,” Steven said as he started to pull his clothes out of the washer he had originally chosen.
“Steven, what?”
“Steven Munchausen, and you are?”
“Mr. Willis, and I’m not related,” making sure to cut off any more questions about his last name.
“Well, I’m not afflicted,” Steven joked, but he wasn’t sure if Mr. Willis understood, as his gaze never wandered from the same point on the beige wall.
“Afflicted with what?”
“Never mind. It was a joke.”
“Oh, HA,” said Mr. Willis, holding his head still as his eyes moved to stare right at Steven, then moved back to stare at the wall.
“Uh, thanks for the tip. It’s nice to meet you Mr. Willis.”
Steven pulled the five quarters out of the coin slide and then put one into the second slot from the left of the new machine. He pushed slowly and the slide just stopped.
“You have to push it really fast. Really hard. And really fast,” said the older man.
Steven coaxed the slide back out and popped it into the mechanism with the heel of his palm. It slid right in and the machine started to fill with water.
“Wow, thanks again,” Steven said as he grabbed his laundry basket to leave.
“Keep it quiet, Mr. Munchausen.”
“Will do, Mr. W.”
“Please, call me Mr. Willis,” the older man said as his eyes darted to look directly into Steven’s face.
“Pardon me, Mr. Willis. Good night.”
Steven turned and walked out of the laundry room. When he got half way down the hall to his apartment, he realized that none of the machines in the laundry room were going when he went in even though Mr. Willis had obviously been sitting there for a while. He thought about going back in to see if his clothes were going to be alright, but decided just to go to his apartment and watch TV. If Mr. Willis needed some old socks or a t-shirt, he could have them.
Steven decided to make some dinner while he waited for the washing machine to do its duty. His apartment wasn’t much more than a large closet, only 295 square feet of luxurious subterranean living in the heart of the University District in Seattle, but it was cheap. His galley kitchen was along the wall where the door of the apartment let out into the hallway and he heard someone tap on the door while he was cleaning up his dinner plate. He looked out of the peephole to see Mr. Willis standing in the hallway.
“Hey, hi,” said Steven after he opened the door.
“Mr. Munchausen, your washing machine has completed its cycle.”
“Oh, thanks, I’ll go get them in the dryer.”
“Your prompt attention to your laundry will be appreciated by your neighbors,” Mr. Willis said as he turned and walked down the hallway to the stairwell.
“Thank you, I’ll remember that,” Steven said as he closed the door.
Steven had to scrounge around for two more quarters to put in the dryer. Then he put his shoes back on and trotted back to the laundry room. As he pushed the door open, the automatic lights turned on and he was startled when he saw that Mr. Willis had returned to his seat on the counter and was apparently meditating in the dark room. The older man was still observing the wall but his finger was pointed up at a sign above his shoulder which read, “Your prompt attention to your laundry will be appreciated by your neighbors.”
“Got it,” said Steven as he opened one of the dryers to make sure it was empty before he grabbed his wet clothes from the washer. “I appreciate you telling me that my clothes were ready for the dryer, Mr. Willis.”
“No problem. Are you familiar with the author, Ann Rule?”
“She’s a true crime writer, right?”
“Yes, that is correct. She interviewed me once. She interviewed me a long time ago.”
“Oh, I heard something from the apartment manager about that,” Steven said as he transferred his clothes into the dryer.
“He lies. He is a liar. You should not trust John the manager,” Mr. Willis said with a glare.
“OK. He just said that you lived here when Ted Bundy lived next door.”
“I did.”
“That’s all I heard. Nothing else,” Steven said as he turned around, trying not to chuckle.
“Someone died in the building.”
“When? Did Ted Bundy kill someone here?” Steven asked, getting a little excited.
“Mr. Franklin died in the building, on the first day that John the manager was here.”
“So, you think the manager had something to do with it?”
“John became the manager after the previous manager left in disgrace,” Mr. Willis said with his eyes closed, shaking his head.
“So, John killed Mr. Franklin?”
“Mr. Franklin drowned himself in his bathtub. John denies the facts of his death to anyone who wants to rent unit 206. He is a liar,” Mr. Willis said, with his fists tightened, and his head still shaking.
“Oh, OK, you were getting me a little worried there Mr. Willis. You know, I live in the apartment next to the manager and I didn’t want to get tangled up in any crazy stuff.”
“Mr. Franklin was the only other person besides myself that had lived here since the building opened. We both knew things. Things that will be lost when I am gone.”
“Like the trick with the washing machine?”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Willis, opening his eyes and relaxing his hands.
“It’s a good thing that you’re still here then. You already saved me a dollar!”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Munchausen.”
Steven put six quarters in the dryer and started the machine. He looked up at the clock to make sure he was back here to get his clothes out when they were finished so Mr Willis wouldn’t have to remind him.
“Have you read the book that Ann Rule wrote about Ted Bundy?” Mr. Willis asked Steven as he was turning to leave.
“No I haven’t. I’ll have to see if it’s at the library and check it out. See you later,” Steven said, leaving the laundry room.
As Steven walked down the hallway, he just wanted to forget the whole evening. He had figured that anyone that lived in a tiny apartment in the U-District for almost forty years would have to be a little whacked, but this guy was starting to worry him. Steven finished cleaning up his dishes and then got engrossed in some web surfing. When he looked up at the clock on his menu bar he saw that his clothes had been done for over a half an hour.
“I wonder why Mr. Willis hasn’t dropped by yet,” he said to himself.
CHAPTER THREE
Steven walked back down to the laundry room and heard someone shuffling around behind the door.
“Here we go again,” he said.
As he opened the door, he saw John, the apartment manager, cleaning the machines. From the amount of dust and lint he had seen earlier, this must have a been a monthly task at best. John just looked up and smiled as Steven walked into the room. There was a book on the dryer that Steven had put his clothes into. He walked up to the machine and saw that it was an old copy of “The Stranger Beside Me,” a book about Ted Bundy. There were several pink post it notes sticking out of the book.
“Is this yours?” Steven asked the manager.
“No, it was in here when I came in. The guy in 401 might have left it here, he’s always hanging out in the laundry room. I think it’s warmer than his apartment,” John said, going back to poking lint out of the door hinges.
“Yeah, I saw him earlier. He mentioned something about Ann Rule,” Steven said as he picked the book up and read the sticky note on the inside cover.
“It’s from Mr. Willis. I guess he thought I would find it interesting,” Steven told John.
“He’s the one that told me about Ted Bundy living next door. I’ve only lived here for a couple of years,” John said collecting his cleaning supplies.
“He doesn’t like you very much,” Steven said.
“I know. He won’t talk to me, and I only see glimpses of him scurrying down the hallway.”
John had not only taken the building over from Billy Trehorn, the previous manager, he had uncovered evidence that there was several thousand dollars of rent missing from the building’s deposits. The books were so mixed up that John wrote a letter to everyone, asking that they turn in copies of the last six months’ rent check and receipts. Mr. Willis had decided that the matter was some kind of personal attack on his privacy by the management company, so he refused to comply. When Jim Franklin committed suicide the day that John moved into the building, Willis made up his mind that John was up to no good.
“Did someone really die in the building when you moved in?” Steven asked as he put his clothes in his basket.
“Eh, sort of. The police weren’t really able to determine his time of death, but I had just finished unloading my stuff when one of his friends wanted me to let him into his apartment for a welfare check.”
“And this guy was a friend of Mr. Willis?”
“Hard to tell really. Both of them had lived here for many years. But the guy that died seemed like kind of a loner, just like Willis does. Maybe they were alone together,” John said laughing.
“I chatted him up when he was in here earlier, but now I’m kind of regretting it.”
“I don’t think he’s dangerous. Don’t worry about it. Just get his book back to him soon.”
Steven picked up the book and his basket of clothes and left. When he got back to his apartment, he started leafing through the book about Ted Bundy. He hit all the flagged pages first and then began to read from the beginning. He had been reading for an hour or so when the phone rang and startled him.
“Hello?”
“Hey cowboy, it’s Marie.”
“Hi there, whatcha doin?”
“I just got back from a run, so I’m sweating. What are you doing?”
“I’m reading a book about Ted Bundy, trying not to worry about the weirdo that lent it to me.”
Steven and Marie were both 26 years old, and trying their best to remain financially afloat without getting tied down to a “real“ job. Marie worked at several different coffee houses around town, filling in whenever a regular barista got sick. She could always rely on an infusion of cash from her mother who lived across the country and still felt guilty for leaving Marie home alone for the majority of her childhood. She also had a fairly new Subaru wagon and a regularly updated laptop thanks to Mom.
Steven knew a lot of people who needed things done from time to time and were willing to pay cash for it. If you needed some windows washed, he was there. Did your band have a paying gig where you needed to impress some A&R types? Steven was your sound man. His most regular gig was working the door at a dive bar in Georgetown, a grungy little part of Seattle, south of Downtown.
“Do you want to go hang out at the Cleaver?” Marie asked, hopefully.
The Six Pound Cleaver was that dive bar. It was Marie’s favorite watering hole, not only because Steven was there three nights out of the week, but it was only one hundred and sixty three steps from her apartment in Georgetown.
“The Cleaver. Let’s see, I going to be working there tomorrow and Saturday, so OK,” Steven said, putting the book down on the coffee table. “I’m sure you’ll be there before I will.”
“You are correct, sir. Au revoir,” Marie said as she hung up.
CHAPTER FOUR
Steven got his coat on and pushed some things around the kitchen counter to find his keys. He briefly forgot which vehicle he was driving this month, and then he remembered, The Kidnapper Van. Since he wasn’t tied down to a nine to five desk job, Steven was free to follow his muse in an attempt to garner fame and fortune. His most recent project involved a website about keeping children safe from strangers who might just be driving a windowless, maroon, Chevy van.
He put up a website that had a few pictures and tips for people to peruse, but Steven was really trying to sell his services as a deterrent to child abduction. For forty bucks, cash, he would drive up to your kid’s party and scare the pants off of them so as to make them deathly afraid of anyone they had not spent at least half their life with. He got this idea from some parents at the mall who seemed to try to shield their children from him when he walked by. He had already done three birthday parties since he put the website up, so he had earned one hundred and twenty bucks. A raging success as far as Steven was concerned.
He had purchased the van from one of the car dealers up on Lake City Way in North Seattle. The pickup truck that he had driven all summer had spun a ring bearing and he knew it was going to die an imminent, painful death. He drove the pickup to the gates of the last junkyard in North Seattle and asked the guys for fifty bucks.
“You want me to give you fifty bucks?” the junkman said.
“Sure, look at these tires. This canopy is practically middle aged. I’ll even leave the tape deck in it,” Steven said with a flourish.
“I’ll give you thirty, if you have the title.”
“I do have it, and it is yours for thirty dollars,” Steven said, brandishing the title, already signed.
Steven walked to the nearest arterial and caught the crosstown bus. He knew he could find something else to drive over on Lake City Way since there were at least forty car dealers on that strip. The bus drove past Northgate Mall and turned left mere blocks from Auto Row. He stayed on the bus until it got to 123rd and hopped off to grab something to eat at Dick’s Drive In. Dick’s was a Seattle institution, serving burgers, fries and shakes the old fashioned way, hot, greasy and creamy. Two cheeseburgers, fries and a chocolate shake set him back a little over six dollars, but it was money well spent.
So, left with twenty four dollars from the remains of his pickup truck, Steven went on his hunt for a new chariot. When he saw The Kidnapper Van, he knew that he must have it. It wasn’t on display, seeing as it was parked behind the auto dealership, but it was the only thing Steven could see over the sea of shiny new Kias and Hyundais. Even though he was dressed in dirty jeans and an old VW shop jacket, the salesmen still worked themselves into a lather, seeing an actual human walking onto the lot.
“Hey guy, I’m Jason,” the salesman said, extending his hand.
“Hey,” Steven replied, keeping his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He still had some chocolate shake and mustard on his fingers and didn’t want to gross the salesman out. “I want that van.”
“Where? Do we have a van?”
“It’s in the back, behind the fence.”
“Oh, that van,” Jason said rolling his eyes.
“I have, let’s see, twenty four dollars in cash,” Steven said with a smile.
“Heh. How about three hundred?”
“Do you take Visa?” Steven said, whipping his credit card out of his pocket.
“We do. Let me make sure it’s running,” Jason said as he trotted off to find the used car buyer.
After they swapped a battery from another junker behind the building, the mechanics got the van to roar to life. Someone had traded the van in on a new subcompact the last time they ran the “Push, Pull or Drag your Trade In” promotion and it was only days away from being sent to the crusher. Steven had saved another classic American car, and he felt good about it.
As he made his way down the streets of Seattle from the U-District to Georgetown, he got the usual dirty looks. He was used to them, and he should be, it was his own fault. When he started thinking about offering The Kidnapper Van service he scrawled “FREE CANDY” on the side of the van with fluorescent spray paint. Every mom in a Volvo station wagon or minivan sped past while giving him the evil eye, and every stoner in an old Volkswagen van flashed him a peace sign. He saw Marie give him the thumbs up as he parked across the street from the Six Pound Cleaver, and it made him feel warm and fuzzy.
“That always makes me laugh,” Marie said, pointing at the side of the van.
“When you have children, it will make you cringe,” Steven said as he sat down and waved to the bartender.
“Children? My biological clock hasn’t even been completely assembled yet.”
As usual, Gretchen was tending bar at the Six Pound Cleaver. Gretchen Maxwell was another refugee from the rat race that preceded the Great Recession. Somehow she had managed to pay off her small 1940’s house with money she had earned as a contractor for Microsoft and now she only worked hard enough to keep up with her real estate taxes and her wardrobe needs. She dressed like she had raided someone’s closet from 1988, all flannel and denim, so that didn’t require a vast fortune.
“Steven, do you want the graffiti crew to paint that heap?” Gretchen asked when she walked over to the table.
“No, I need it to be scary and dark. It’s perfect,” he said, twirling a coaster.
“He’s doing child abduction prevention seminars with it,” Marie said.
“Nice. I’m sure you can find plenty of scared white people up in Ballard for that kind of thing,” Gretchen said to Marie.
“There are scared white people all over Seattle. It’s kind of the vibe around here, haven’t you noticed?” Steven said.
“I guess,” Gretchen said as she looked around the bar. There were five white guys, three white girls and one Native American guy playing darts. “We’re kind of low on cultural diversity in here tonight. What would you two like to drink?”
“I’ll have a Rainier Stubby,” Steven said.
“Do you still have RC on tap?” Marie asked.
“Yes, Dennis won’t serve anything else,” Gretchen said as she went back to the bar.
“So, you’re reading up on another serial killer?” Marie asked Steven.
“Another tenant in the apartment building gave me a book about Ted Bundy so I started reading it. He was kind of a strange bird.”
“Birds of a feather...”
“Funny. If I’m still living in that apartment when I’m sixty years old, shoot me.”
“He’s that old?”
“I’m guessing, but he has lived there for forty years.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Cecil Willis didn’t start life as a strange little hermit. He was born in Swedish Hospital in Seattle in 1947. He spent the majority of his childhood alone in his bedroom. He never really knew his father even though they lived in the same house for over twenty years. His mother took him to school, to the zoo and kept him in sensible outfits from Nordstroms.
Back in 1969 he had dreams, small dreams, but they were bigger than his three hundred square foot apartment. He had just finished his degree in chemistry, and was getting ready to start on his Master’s Degree, so he celebrated by moving out of the dorm and getting his own place. The building was brand new. Beige paint on the cinder block, beige carpet, beige mini blinds, it all screamed, “Welcome to your future!” Then things, let’s call them life, kept getting in the way.
After he settled into his apartment, his father presented him with a check. There was a trust fund that he never knew about and getting out on his own had triggered the payout.
“Cecil, I didn’t want to steer your life in any way, so I never told you about the family trust fund that has been waiting patiently for you to spread your wings,” his father, Horatio Willis, told him on that August day.
Cecil just stared at the blue slip of paper in his hands. He had never earned more than a thousand dollars during the previous four summers and now his father was handing him a check for three hundred thousand.
“Cecil, if you invest this wisely, it will be a huge help to you, now and in the future,” his father said, putting his hand on Cecil’s shoulder.
“Wow. I don’t know what to say,” he said, looking up into his father’s eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
“He even told me that there is one tenant that’s lived in the same studio apartment for over forty years!” Steven said.
“That’s just crazy,” Marie said to Steven.
“I know. He shall be a constant reminder to me that I need to get a nicer place to live,” Steven said looking to see if his beer was on its way.
Gretchen brought their drinks and went back to her bar without saying anything.
“You can always come and shack up with me,” Marie said, smiling.
Even though Marie’s apartment had several advantages over Steven’s, it was only a little bit bigger than his studio in the U-District and he wasn’t sure that the two of them could cohabitate in such a small space.
“You say that now, but you’d get tired of me hanging out there all the time,” Steven said, taking a swig of his Rainier.
“I’m only there when I sleep, and it’s so cold when I’m all by lonesome.”
“This is true. But, you have no parking. Where would I put the van?” Steven said, pointing his thumb in the direction of the maroon vehicle.
“Rent a parking space somewhere. If we split my rent and you pay a hundred bucks to park that thing, you’ll still be ahead,” Marie said, convinced that this plan would work, but she knew that she would need to keep up the pressure on Steven if she really wanted him to move in.
“But you don’t have a TV!”
“I don’t have a TV because I don’t hang out at home. I watch it here, or at the cafe.”
“I’m not ready to give up my apartment yet. I’ve been doing pretty well as far as money goes.”
As far as reality went, Steven was just a little disconnected. As long as he saw some cash going into his wallet, he figured he was doing good. The fact that the balance in his savings account kept declining was something he would need to address some time in the future. Marie could never figure out if Steven was keeping up with his lifestyle, as unextravagant as it was, but she wasn’t in any position to give out financial advice either.
“Well, I’m willing to give it a try whenever you are. I sure hope you’re staying over tonight.”
“I am yours for the evening, my lady. I will entertain you as you desire.”
“Can we go drive the van around the parking lot at Southcenter and scare the white people?” Marie asked, clapping her hands together.
“Sure, but I better not keep drinking this beer. I don’t want to run afoul of the law,” Steven said, pushing the bottle away.
Steven pulled out a five dollar bill and put it under his beer bottle. He stood up and offered to pull Marie’s chair out for her, but she just punched him in the gut and laughed. The two of them walked across the street and drove off in the van, setting out to terrorize some young mothers at the mall.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Seattle is practically surrounded by water, with Puget Sound to the west and Lake Washington to the east. The Ship Canal and Lake Union fill parts of the city with even more water. It’s only natural with this abundance of liquid that there would be trucks that float.
Actually they are DUKW’s, amphibious landing craft that were used in World War II and the Korean War to ferry supplies and troops. It looks like a big open boat with truck tires sticking out of the hull and a propellor hanging off the back. Now they just carried tourists on tours around the city, hoping to get them whipped into a frenzy.
During the summer, it’s not unusual to get surrounded by these vehicles if you happen to be driving Downtown, or near the stadiums, or around Lake Union. The drivers do the usual jokes and noise making to entertain the tourists that are eager for this type of thrill. Since these old beasts of war are fairly large vehicles to maneuver, most of the drivers are men, but there were a couple of women determined enough to tame a DUKW. Sheila Jackson was just this type of woman.
Sheila had lived in Seattle all of her life and was always ready to show someone around. Even though she had seen it at least thirty thousand times in her twenty nine years, she always smiled when the Space Needle came into view. Her job driving a DUKW around the city during the summer was a perfect complement to her family’s real business, catching crabs in Alaska.
She would head to the frigid waters of Bristol Bay for a few weeks in the fall and winter and make enough money to pay the rent for the rest of the year, so the driving gig was gravy and a whole lot of fun. Sheila was always on the lookout for new jokes for the Quack City rides and she wasn’t scared to drive down a few side streets to get a laugh.
One of the best parts of the ride for the tourists was when the DUKW would enter Lake Union. There are several streets that end in ersatz boat ramps around the lake and the drivers were able to pick and choose the ones they wanted to use. Sheila liked to take the big amphibious vehicle through the University District so the patrons could get a look at the local wildlife.
“Please remember to keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle. We wouldn’t want anyone to lose a limb here on University Way. The panhandlers can get very aggressive,” Sheila shouted through the loudspeakers on her boat.
She had spotted a funny van the other day near her apartment in Georgetown, and today she saw it parked down 12th Ave, so she turned down the narrow street and slowed the vehicle to a crawl.
“Mothers, please hold tight to your children. We’ve already seen the Troll, but we are now passing an even more sinister monster. Don’t let your girls and boys be tempted by The Kidnapper Van!”
Most of the passengers laughed at the words “FREE CANDY” scrawled on the side of the windowless van, but there was bound to be someone who would complain about the joke. The guys that ran Quack City didn’t really care, they encouraged their drivers to be a little edgy. Sheila thought that she might even put a pin on the map in the office so the other drivers could use the van as a joke.
“Now bear with me as we continue down this narrow street, we will be entering Lake Union in mere minutes. Passenger 14 has a patch kit under their seat if the boat happens to spring a leak!”
The rest of the tour went as planned and the happy tourists wandered off in search of food and beverages after reaching the parking lot. For some reason Sheila was the only driver back at the station and the sliding glass door of the office was open and unlocked. She went back into her boat and realized that her radio was off. She flipped it back on to see what she was missing.
“Boat 4 to Rambler,” the radio squawked.
Sheila decided to jump into the fray, “This is Number 7, what’s the dealio?”
“Hey Sheila, it’s Jimmy. I’m having a technical issue. Do you know where The Padre is?”
“I have no idea, the office is empty.”
“Rambler to Boat 7, we’ve been trying to find you for the last half hour!” The Padre yelled through the radio.
“I was on the lake and I just got back to the store. I guess I kicked the radio off,” Sheila replied.
“Bad Sheila,” Jimmy joked over the radio.
“Jimmy, get off the radio. Sheila, meet me at The Center for Wooden Boats! Boat 4 went tits up and we need to get these people back on schedule!” The Padre screamed.
Sheila started her DUKW and took off down Dexter. It was only 8 blocks or so to the south end of Lake Union. As she approached the shoreline, she saw Boat 4 with its bow in the water and smoke pouring out of the engine compartment. The passengers were all milling around the parking lot while Jimmy tried to keep them in a group.
“Here comes another Quacker to the rescue! We’ll have you out on the lake in no time!” he yelled to the crowd.
As she hit the brakes and the boat squealed to a stop, The Padre hopped out of his SUV and jumped on board. “Can you toodle around with this crowd for another hour?” he asked Sheila.
“Sure, no problem. Sorry about the radio,” she said with a shrug.
“You couldn’t have helped until you unloaded everyone anyway. No big deal. I just don’t want these people crying for their money back,” The Padre said, jumping back down to get the passengers ready to board.
“Come on everyone, this boat is at least two years newer than that other one. I guarantee that it will float!” The Padre yelled, waving everyone to get on board. “This is your new captain, Sheila Backwater!”
“Quack, quack,” Sheila said through the loudspeakers.
The Padre ran around to the port side of Sheila’s boat to talk to her, “Head down to the marina and put in over there. We need to get the big tow truck to pull QC 4 back to the garage. Then I want you to drive these people around Ballard, they are all from a group the Swedish Club put together.”
“Will do sir,” Sheila replied.
She turned around and watched the passengers climb up into their seats. They sure looked like a group from Sweden, lots of gray hair and bright blue eyes.
“Is anyone ready for some Lutefisk?” she asked through the loudspeakers.
There was a subdued groan from the old folks.
“How about some coffee and gingerbread?”
This seemed a bit more popular with the group so she planned to see if they wanted to stop at the Swedish Bakery on Market Street. Sheila backed the boat out of the parking lot and headed for the marina. The rest of the journey went on without a hitch, and fun, coffee and pastries were had by all.
“Thanks for coming. Bye. Thanks. You’re welcome. No problem. Those were good cookies. Buh-bye. Bye now. Thanks. And, thank you sir,” Sheila said as the elderly disembarked.
Sheila pulled the boat around the back of the office and hopped out to see if The Padre was back. The office door was open, but she didn’t see anyone inside. The office looked like someone had been looking for something in a hurry. The Padre usually kept his desk tidy, but there checks and papers all over the place.
The computer was still there, and the TV and the radio. The door to the safe was open a crack, but she didn’t want touch it and add her fingerprints to it. After she tried to look into the safe she walked around the desk and picked up the radio microphone.
“Base Monkey to Boats,” she said.
“Rambler here, rounding the corner,” The Padre said as his SUV careened into the parking lot, then he jumped out and trotted over to the office.
“QC 3 to Base Monkey,” the radio squawked as Sheila was hustling out from behind The Padre’s desk.
The Padre rushed into the office, reached over the desk and hit the radio bar, “Just park that thing Doug.”
“Sure thing boss. Over and out,” was the reply
“So the swedes are all hopped up on caffeine and powdered sugar, roaming Seattle Center, I’m sure,” Sheila said to The Padre.
“Here’s fifty bucks for the extra trip,” he said, handing her a bill and trying to shoo her out of the messy office.
“Wow, cool. Call me anytime mister,” she said stuffing the fifty into her pocket.
“OK, anytime, Can you fill up your rig with fuel on the way to the garage?”
“It’s gonna take more than fifty bucks to fill up that beast!” Sheila joked. They all had cards for the fleet fueling station down in SODO, a couple blocks from the garage.
“Funny girl. That’s why we keep you around here,” he said, turning around.
The Padre started pushing things around on his desk, so Sheila went into the break room to see if any of the other drivers had any new jokes on the chalkboard. Jimmy was hanging out, milking an extra large cup of coffee.
“Where did you come from?” She asked him.
“I’ve been up here for a while. I took a cab up,” he told her.
Sheila looked around the room for a closet. She didn’t see him when she walked in and the office was so small, she didn’t know where he would have been hiding.
“I figured that you’d just ride up with The Padre,” she said.
“Nope,” he said, going back to his coffee.
She couldn’t tell if he looked guilty or if she was being paranoid so she just shook her head and poured herself a cup of stale coffee. There wasn’t anything new on the map or the message board, so she took a blue pin and put it on the intersection of 12th and 42nd. Then she grabbed a blue marker and wrote, “Amber Alert” on the white board.
“What’s that mean?” Jimmy asked, only slightly interested in the answer.
“Just keep all the children in their seats when you go past that one,” she said. She’d let the other drivers try to figure that one out for themselves.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“That’s the last straw,” the skinny bicyclist said out loud after the gray Volvo almost ran him over when it crossed Stone Way.
Earlier in the day, he had been forced off the road by a large, white, amphibious vehicle up on Capitol Hill. The rolling boat was barely able to fit down the narrow street and the driver was too busy making jokes on his PA system to notice the man riding down the cobblestone street. The man looked right at the driver before he ditched himself into a bush to avoid being crushed by the oversized vehicle. Now that same asshole had almost killed him again, using a beat up station wagon.
In his defense, Jimmy Grant was in a hurry and didn’t see the biker because of the setting sun that was shining in his eyes. He parked his car in a three minute loading zone above the Sunnyside boat ramp on Lake Union and left it running with the hazards on. He was still wearing his white uniform since he hadn’t had a chance to get back to his houseboat in Fremont after work. Someone from the marina office had called to say that his dad’s boat was taking on water, so he ran down the dock hoping it was just a problem with the bilge pump.
The cyclist watched Jimmy trot down the dock and disappear into an old cabin cruiser. He decided to wait until the guy came back to his car so he could give him a piece of his mind. After five minutes of waiting, he got impatient and looked around to see if anyone was watching. There weren’t any obvious surveillance cameras nearby and the traffic was almost non-existent.
“Screw it,” he said, reaching through the open window to release the emergency brake.
The guy almost fell down trying to get his arm out of the moving car. He watched it roll into the lake, just like the amphibious vehicle had done earlier in the day. Unfortunately for Jimmy, the Volvo wasn’t designed for this level of weatherproofing and it sank quickly as the ramp angled into the water. The skinny man didn’t think he should stick around in case anyone in the surrounding apartment buildings actually saw what happened. It was getting dark, so he rode off towards the University District.
After he got into his father’s boat, Jimmy switched the bilge pumps on and listened to them churn to life. As far as he could tell, the circuit breaker had been thrown when his dad was moving things around. The power panel’s cover was on the floor and there were boxes everywhere.
He couldn’t find the old man on board, so he hopped off the boat and watched the water spray out of the stern for a couple of minutes before he walked back up the dock. He pulled out a cigarette and strolled slowly through the marina’s parking lot. His dad’s car was gone so the old man must have been on a liquor run.
Jimmy rounded the corner and saw the empty street where he had left his station wagon. The old Volvo was only a couple of inches below the surface of the lake, but it was invisible under the dark water. He patted his pockets for his keys and remembered that he left it running.
“That really blows,” he said, imagining that someone had driven it off.
His only hope was that one of his buddies from the marina had taken it for a joyride. He shook his head and headed down the shoreline of the lake. When he walked into the parking lot of his run down marina, his car was nowhere in sight. He had left his cell phone in the car, and the paperwork he had grabbed from the office.
He didn’t want to call the police, his tabs were expired and he had let his insurance lapse. He made a silent wish that it still might be a practical joke. As he walked down the rickety old dock he looked in the windows of each boat as he passed. Everyone he knew was already home, working their way to some form of inebriation.
Jimmy crawled into the cabin of his old sailboat and surfed through the TV channels for a while. He thought about getting drunk, but he wanted to get an early start the next morning. If his Volvo didn’t show up in the parking lot, he’d have to walk over to Seattle Center or take a bus down to the garage.
His plan didn’t work out too well. He starting watching an episode of The Rockford Files which was part three of an all night marathon. He didn’t fall asleep when he had planned. He heard a boat motoring through the marina and stuck his head out of the hatch.
“Hey Grant!” The Padre yelled from his speedboat, The Hail Mary.
“Oh, hey boss,” Jimmy replied, trying to recover from the surprise..
“The cops are pulling your car out of lake on the other side of the cut!”
Jimmy looked down at his wrinkled clothes and his dirty socks and tried to make sense of what he had just heard.
“Can you give me a ride over there?” he yelled back.
The Padre swung the boat around and slid right up to the dock. It took a few seconds to locate his shoes and climb up on deck, but then Jimmy vaulted over the gunwale and landed on the padded bench seat in back of the driver’s seat.
“You been drinking again?” The Padre asked while he inspected his work uniform which Jimmy has obviously never taken off.
“Not a drop,” Jimmy replied.
CHAPTER NINE
Sheila gassed up her DUKW at the commercial filling station on Airport Way. She pulled into the unmarked driveway and squeezed the vehicle into the last open spot in the massive garage that held eight of these behemoths when they weren’t driving or floating around. Someone had already taken the nose of Boat 4 apart in an attempt to diagnose its illness. Her boat was the last one in for the evening so she made sure to turn off all the lights and check the alarm.
When she tried to arm the system, a fault code kept flashing on the panel. One of the doors was open, so she had to go around the building and check them all. The two roll-up doors were latched and she had closed the front door herself. She walked between the trucks towards the back of the building and heard a wrench fall on the concrete floor.
“Hello?” she said, looking for something she could use as a weapon.
She stood in silence for a few seconds, then started walking towards the rear door. The door was ajar and she opened it slowly. As soon as she looked outside the building she heard someone run across the concrete floor and push open the small door on the front of the building.
“Oh, crap,” she groaned, pulling the rear door closed.
She ran to the front of the building, still at the ready with the crowbar she had picked up. It wasn’t the first time Sheila had chased a homeless person out of the garage, but she wanted to be ready in case it was something else. She walked through the building as quietly as she could and didn’t hear any more noise.
She stopped just before she reached the open door and flipped on the lights. She poked her head out and saw the empty driveway. Sheila stood in the doorway, listening for more footfalls, but the street was empty.
After about thirty seconds she gave up and closed the door. She turned off the interior lights, but left the lights on in the front of the building. The alarm system had no complaints when she keyed in the code, and gave the signal that she had ten seconds to get out. She walked out of the door and slammed the door closed.
Standing out in the lights, she wondered why she never thought about leaving them on before tonight. One of the fixtures pointed right down at the spot where she locked up her bicycle. Her apartment was only a mile south in Georgetown so she always rode her bike to work.
Sheila put the rusty crowbar up against the chain link fence and unlocked the bike. She was stopping and listening every few seconds, trying to decide if the coast was clear.
“Might as well take this with me,” she said to herself as she twisted the cable lock around the crowbar and the top tube of the mountain bike.
As she was out in front of the garage putting on her helmet she heard a couple of backfires and then saw an old van sputtering its way up the street. When she saw the words “FREE CANDY” on the side, she waved and give the driver a big thumbs up. Steven saw her waving and waved back.
“Hmmph,” he said to himself as he watched the girl disappear in the rear view mirror. He wasn’t used to such a rousing endorsement for his ride.
CHAPTER TEN
Cecil Willis put the check from his father into his account at Seattle First Bank and thought about what he should do with this windfall. After being assured by his father’s accountant that the income taxes had already been taken care of, he asked the CPA to give him some options. He didn’t want to blow this money, but he didn’t want to squirrel it away in bonds or some other boring investment. He wanted this money to make his life easier.
“I’d recommend another trust. Something set up to pay you on a regular basis, but leaving the bulk of the money to work for itself, preferably in a tax free way,” the CPA told him.
“How about if I keep twenty thousand for mad money and you set something up for me with the rest?” Cecil asked.
“That’s sounds prudent. How rigid do you want the trust to be?”
“What do you mean?”
“There are several ways to lock the money up. Some ways are harder than others to change later. It’s all legal details, but it depends on how much you trust yourself to keep the capital intact.”
Cecil sat back for a minute and thought about money. It always seemed that there had been money around when he needed it, whether he had to work for it or not. The topic never came up at the dinner table. Neither of his parents ever complained about money and there was always plenty of food and new clothes for school.
His father put on a suit in the morning and came back at six o’clock every day and got hammered while his mother made supper in heels and a dress. It was like he lived in a twisted reflection of an old television show. No one ever wondered where Ozzie and Harriet were going to get their next meal.
“I don’t trust myself at all,” Cecil told the accountant.
Cecil had never had a job, save for tutoring some fellow students as an undergrad and the TA position he held now.
“I can understand why. I’m guessing that you don’t even know what your father does for a living, do you?” the accountant said.
“He’s an attorney?”
“No Cecil, he’s the President of Plastiform Industries Incorporated, the company that your grandfather started during the war.”
“Really? The President? Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that?”
“I’m not sure Cecil. Your father seems to be the hands off type. He took the company public after your grandfather was killed in an freak industrial accident. I think he has always wanted to protect you from the thing that consumed his life.”
“Well, lock the money up Mr. Simpson. Give it to me a little every month and I’ll learn to live within my means.”
“I’ll get something down on paper and let you give it the once over before I send it to the attorney,” Simpson told him.
“Great! Just call me when you want to see me again.”
“Will do Cecil. Tell your father I said hello,” the CPA said as he stood up to shake Cecil’s hand.
Cecil walked out of the accountant’s office even more confused than he had been about the trust fund money. Where had he been all this time? Who didn’t know what their father did for a living? He decided to head to his parents’ house and see if he could get some answers. He took the bus back uptown from the accountant’s office to see his mother.
Darlene Willis still dressed like she might have walked off the runway of a fashion show from the fifties. She loved her blonde beehive hairdo and colorful print dresses and she still had the body to pull it off. Her son was twenty two years old and she loved it when people thought he was her beau. Her life had been almost as sheltered as Cecil’s, but at least she understood how her bread got buttered.
“Now Cecil, settle down,” Darlene said to her son, getting up to pour him a glass of milk.
“Mother, I don’t know anything about our family!” Cecil said, trying to choke back his emotions.
Darlene knew this day was coming. She had known all along that they had sheltered Cecil too much. One way or another he would get thrown head first into his own life. Cecil’s father had grown up poor and he sacrificed the chance to be a father to make money.
“Your father hasn’t had an easy life. He wanted to keep all the worries he had out of your way,” Darlene said as she set the milk down on a napkin in front of her son.
“I just feel so stunted. I didn’t know what father did for a living when Mr. Simpson asked me. I guessed that he was an attorney!”
“Well, he was an attorney when you were a child, maybe you’re remembering that.”
“So, today I found out that he runs Plastiform Industries. What if I had applied for a job there? I do have a degree in chemistry!”
“I’m sure you would have gotten the job if you really wanted it,” Darlene said smiling.
Cecil sat back and tried to think of how he had gotten to this point in his life. He couldn’t remember a time when he had asked his father what his job was or where he went during the day. His time had always been occupied by the things that he wanted to do, alone for the most part.
“What are you thinking about Honey?” his mother asked as she rested her chin on her hand.
“I was just thinking about all the time I spent alone.”
“You were always happiest when we left you to your own devices.”
Devices was an understatement. The entire basement was full of scientific toys, musical instruments and electronic parts. Cecil would spend hours in the basement every day after school while his mother and father occupied their separate domains in the house. He only had one friend from school who had ever come over for a visit and now he couldn’t even remember that boy’s name.
“How do you think I should spend the money that father gave me?”
“Take a trip. Buy a car. Start a business. Continue with your education,” she said, ticking things off in the air between them. “How about a cruise around the world?”
“Oh, no, I’d never want to spend that much time in a boat. I told Mr. Simpson that I wanted to blow twenty thousand dollars and that he could set up an account for the remainder to pay me over time. It would be fun to buy a new car,” Cecil said, nodding his head.
“See, you already have a plan. You’ve got your own apartment, a college degree and a nice nest egg. The girls will start chasing you down if you buy a shiny new car.”
Cecil finished his milk and said goodbye to his mother. He didn’t really want to be at the house when his father came home from work. He still needed to figure out what he would talk about with his father, and the time just didn’t seem right. He took the bus back down the hill to the U-District and got off across the street from University Volkswagen.
The new crop of Beetles and Karmann Ghias were in the lot, pushed in tight liked shiny jelly beans. There were blue ones, red ones and black ones, but Cecil had his eye on a beige Beetle sitting behind the low slung Ghias. He walked over to the car to see how much it cost. With all the dealer add-ons, tax and license fees, he figured he have to come back with two thousand dollars to drive it away.
He scurried out of the parking lot when he saw a salesman come out of the showroom. He didn’t really want to talk to anyone else that day, his conversation with his mother had been enough. He did walk over to Seattle First National Bank and withdrew three thousand dollars in cash so he could buy the car the next morning.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sheila Jackson rode her mountain bike southbound on Airport Way. Every night after she got off work she would ride down this street and zone out, listening to some music on her iPod. This night she was still wearing her work uniform, which looked very nautical, dark blue slacks, a white shirt with epaulets and a captain’s hat. When she stopped at the AM/PM for a Pepsi, the clerk asked her where she parked her boat. She told him it was already in its garage behind Safeco Field.
She tried to call The Padre to tell about the incident at the garage, but his phone must have been out of service. She didn’t even get a chance to leave message on the voicemail.
“It’ll have to wait until tomorrow I guess,” she said to herself, opening her soda.
While she was leaning against the wall of the gas station and enjoying her cold beverage, The Kidnapper Van pulled into the parking lot and drove up to the gas pumps. She just laughed when she saw the driver get out. He was wearing a purple and silver bowling shirt, black jeans and fluorescent shoes that were obviously stolen from a bowling alley.
“Hey pervert!” she yelled.
Steven looked around and then pointed his finger at his chest and shrugged. Sheila just nodded and gave him another thumbs up.
“Was that you earlier?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’ve seen your van three times today already. Pretty funny.”
“It’s not just a joke. I teach seminars.”