Part 20 (1/2)
It was an envelope with a handwritten address. The tabby cat circled my legs, then wandered off to the garbage cans. The writing on the envelope was somewhat blurred by damp, but I could see that it was addressed merely to Addison. The printed return sticker, which featured tiny red hearts, was more legible. It read Maybeth Swafford, with the apartment address off Greenwood.
The envelope was empty. Tucking it into my jacket pocket, I got back into the car and checked my watch: five minutes to go. The cat had disappeared, leaving the alley eerily quiet.
Just as I was about to drive off, a car entered the alley from behind me. All I could see was headlights, moving slowly toward my car. Could it be the Taurus? Should I wait to find out? Or should I launch the Lexus like a bottle rocket?
I did neither. The other car stopped two doors down and turned in to a garage. Letting out a big breath of relief, I started the engine and crept away.
Somewhat to my surprise, Vida was waiting for me on the first pa.s.s. ”Did she throw you out?” I asked.
”Certainly not,” Vida said, adjusting her hat, where the birds seemed to droop in exhaustion. I didn't much blame them. It had been a very long day. ”I just got here,” she went on. ”We had a pleasant visit until Kathy was interrupted by a phone call she had to take in private.”
I was taken aback. ”So you left?”
”I really had no choice, but,” she added with a sly glance, ”I may have heard enough.”
”Such as?” I braked at the arterial before heading onto Green Lake Way.
”She took the call in the living room,” Vida explained, swerving around to look behind us. I was sure she hoped we were being followed again, but the side street was empty. ”Kathy seemed rather astonished,” she continued, giving up and facing front. ”There was a long pause on her end, and then she said in a rather strained voice, and I quote, *Excuse me, Darryl. I'm just saying goodbye to a visitor.' ”
”Darryl?” My foot slipped off the brake and we almost collided with a fast-moving sports car. ”As in Darryl Lindholm?”
”I think it's likely. Kathy seemed puzzled at first, then agitated. That was when she turned her back to me and finally got a word in edgewise with Darryl. Then she put her hand over the receiver, looked at me to apologize, and said goodbye. Kathy had turned quite pale.”
”Darryl, huh?” I mused, finally getting an opportunity to enter traffic on the busy street. ”Why would he call Kathy Addison?”
”It must have to do with Kendra,” Vida said.
I thought about that for a minute or so, then told Vida to reach into my pocket. Somewhat clumsily, she retrieved the empty envelope.
”My, my!” she exclaimed. ”Where did you get this?”
I told her how I'd spotted it by the recycling baskets. ”It must have fallen out when the recycling gang threw the stuff into their Dumpster. The envelope ended up under the basket. Can you read the postmark?”
”Not in the semidark,” Vida admitted. ”Should I?” She gestured to the overhead light.
”Go ahead.” We had crossed the Aurora Bridge and were heading for our motel by Seattle Center. ”I can manage.”
”It's either March fifteenth or eighteenth,” Vida said. ”Let me think-the fifteenth was Billy Blatt's birthday, which was a Sunday. Do they postmark on Sundays in Seattle? They don't in Alpine.”
I didn't know. ”Either way, it was before the murder. Now, why would Maybeth Swafford write to the Addisons?”
”It wasn't good news,” Vida responded, after a momentary lull. ”What do you do when you get an ordinary letter or note? You answer it, if necessary, and then discard the whole thing. I suspect that Kathy-or Sam- ripped up the letter, then threw out the envelope later.”
”Maybe,” I allowed. ”But that doesn't tell us much about what was in it.”
”Perhaps Maybeth was getting even with Carol by telling the Addisons that her birth mother wasn't fit company for Kendra,” Vida suggested.
”That's possible,” I said, pulling off Aurora at the sign for the center. ”But maybe it was more self-serving than that.”
”Such as what?” Vida asked.
I turned as we stopped for a red light. ”How about blackmail?”
”To what purpose?” Vida asked.
”I don't know,” I admitted, easing the car into a parking stall. The motel was beginning to feel like home in some weird, impersonal kind of way.
I waited until we were inside the room to get the details of the visit with Kathy. Vida removed her hat and coat, plopped down on the bed, and tipped her head to one side.
”I'm not sure I learned much except for some family history,” Vida said. ”Kathy and Sam met at the University of Was.h.i.+ngton. She was from Seattle, but he grew up in Port Orchard. Sam was in engineering school, and Kathy was a domestic-sciences major. I believe they used to call it home economics. Anyway, they didn't meet in the cla.s.sroom but at a sorority-fraternity party. Sam was a year older, but it took him an extra year or two to finish the engineering program. They married a few months after he finished school.”
”You're right,” I put in. ”So far, no help.”
”It gets marginally better,” Vida said without enthusiasm. ”Sam got a job with a security alarm company. Kathy worked at Frederick & Nelson in the home-furnis.h.i.+ngs department. She hoped to move up into interior decorating, but she got pregnant. They decided to buy a small house in the Fremont district. They'd just gotten the loan approved when Kathy miscarried, but they went ahead with the move anyway. It's not uncommon, of course, for first pregnancies to end in a miscarriage.”
”True,” I allowed. Mine hadn't, thank G.o.d.
”Less than a year later Kathy had another miscarriage, then a third,” Vida continued. ”Sam had gotten on with Boeing by then and was making decent money. They felt that if Kathy quit her job, she'd have a better chance of carrying a baby to term. Kathy agreed, but she thought the house in Fremont was bad luck. That's when they bought their present home by Green Lake.”
”Her present home,” I remarked. ”I wonder where Sam is staying.”
Vida shrugged before taking up her tale. ”The next pregnancy also ended in a miscarriage. The Addisons went to a specialist, who told them that she could never carry a baby to term, though Kathy didn't explain the medical reasons, and I never pry. Anyway, that's when they decided to adopt.”
I'd sat down in one of the motel room's two wooden chairs. ”How did they go about it?”
”Privately,” Vida responded, then made an impatient gesture. ”I should have asked Olive when we called on her. The Nerstads used the family OB-GYN who was treating Carol after she moved from Alpine. A Dr. Mc-Farland in Ballard. He retired some years ago, however. In fact, Kathy thought he'd died recently.”
”So everything was on the up-and-up?” I asked.
”It seems that way,” Vida said. ”Private adoptions are expensive, but highly respectable. Both young Doc Dewey and old Doc Dewey have done them over the years.”
”What else did Kathy say?”
Vida made a face. ”Not much. She'd gone on at length about the sorrow and disappointment and frustration of miscarrying four times. Then, after the Addisons got Kendra-the name means knowledge and understanding, which may or may not fit her-Kathy expressed great joy. Endlessly. She'd just begun to discuss Kendra's move into the apartment-in a rather defensive manner, as you might guess-when the phone rang.”
”Kathy didn't talk about Carol?” Frankly, I was disappointed in Vida.
Apparently, she sensed my reaction. Drawing herself up on the bed, Vida scowled. ”There wasn't time. You might know I was going in that direction.”
I smiled weakly. ”Yes, of course.” I got out of the chair and began pacing around the small room. ”The problem is, we seem to be going off in all directions and not getting anywhere.”
Vida was very solemn. ”We cannot fail.”
I gave her a droll look. ”Yes, we can.”
I was beginning to think we already had.
YEARS AGO I'D read in a cla.s.sic murder mystery that no so-called clue could be overlooked. Every piece of evidence, no matter how small, had to fit in order to solve the puzzle. It made sense at the time, because the author had plotted the story so craftily that by the last page, everything had come together in perfect, homicidal harmony.
But that was fiction, and I was living in reality. While Vida was in the shower I made a list of our meager shards of evidence before we headed to the nearby Denny's for breakfast.