Emerald City Read Free Page A

who was pure ice behind the surface charm. Eventrying a little sisterly solidarity couldn’t move her. The only thing she offered was to fax over the department’s statement on the case. It was essentially what had been in the paper; the only bonus was Craig’s address. A quick check in the Thomas guide showed that SW Kenyon Place was a tiny dead-end street just across from Lincoln Park, about as deep into West Seattle as it was possible to go. For most things it was the middle of nowhere, but the beach and Puget Sound were just two minutes’ walk away. Craig must have thought the trade-off was worthwhile. Or the house price had been too good to turn down.
    Over at the King County Medical Examiner’s office at Harborview Hospital a secretary confirmed that an autopsy had been carried out. For a fee I could have a copy of the investigator’s report. All the private information on Craig would be blacked out, but it would still be useful. Right now anything, everything, would be useful.
    Inside, I felt sure that the truth behind the death would probably turn out to be simple and sordid, the way most things in life were. A junkie gone back to smack. Still, even that left a story to be told. A bleak, sad one, another hopeful lost to drugs and haziness. One more name to add to the list of musicians who’d died too early, a list going all the way back to jazz and blues.
    It was barely one o’clock and I already felt as ragged as if I’d put in a full day. But the typewriter with a fresh ribbon was waiting accusingly for me on the table, a pile of clean white paper next to it, reminding me that I had a review to write and money to earn. I sat down, pulled out the album I’d been listening to the day before, and started to type.
    If musicians were paid by the melody, Crowded House’s Neil Finn would be a rich man...
    An hour later it was complete. Several drafts lay crumpled and discarded in the garbage can, leaving me with a clean copy and a head full of mist as my mind kept twisting back to Craig. I picked up the car keys and headed out.
    For once, the old Pinto caught at the first try. It had been a gift a year before; a friend had planned on junking it. My car had died so I took it, spent forty dollars on a tune-up and now it ran pretty well most of the time, with a little coaxing in the cold and damp. I followed the Mercer corridor, climbing up the winding road to Capitol Hill and cutting across to Harborview, its daunting 1930s bulk perched on the hill above downtown like a dark reminder of mortality.
    In the coroner’s office the air was chilly and sterile as if to keep the stench of decay away, and the fluorescent lights were frighteningly bright and intense.
    â€œI’m Laura Benton,” I explained to the receptionist, a woman with a smile like a pageant doll and a name tag that read Barbara. “I called earlier. They said I could buy a copy of the investigator’s report on Craig Adler.”
    â€œWhen did he die?” she asked absently, and riffled through a pile of files on top of a cabinet. “I’ve got it. The report’s ten dollars,” she explained apologetically.
    That was it. So simple, so straightforward that it seemed impossible.
    I slipped the Pinto through the downtown streets, the sidewalks clogged with purposeful afternoon pedestrians, none of them smiling, and joined on to the Alaskan Way viaduct at Columbia. The road fanned out past the container port with its strange, futuristic cranes that looked like something out of Star Wars, and funneled me on to the West Seattle Bridge, running high overHarbor Island and the Duwamish river. From there it was a straight, easy run to Fauntleroy Avenue and all the way out to Lincoln Park.
    It was nearly four when I parked. Kids and their moms were loud on the swings and teeter-totters, and the cars were beginning to line up on the street outside the ferry terminal, anxious to scuttle back to