Chapter 16

The three of us followed the shoreline to a point of land sticking out into the lake a little way, and then crossed abandoned railroad tracks paralleling the lake. At one time, the tracks serviced all sorts of industries that once surrounded the entire lake. Now most of the businesses are gone but the tracks remain, reminding one of how industrial the lake had been at one time in Seattle’s history. Today there are only two things left from all the bygone industry: the abandoned tracks and the poisonous lakebed due to all of the contaminants being dropped into the lake over the decades. The businesses are all gone, but the city still has to deal with the dangerous mud under the lake.

We crossed over the street to a small greasy spoon restaurant set back in the hill on the far side of the street from the lake. It looked old and it had been in its location for as long as I could remember.

The waitress took our orders and left. I proceeded to tell both of them about my two phone calls. I talked about how weird I thought it was the daughter would call me, and not the lawyer. I almost believed her when she said the reason she was calling was because she wanted to return to Europe as soon as possible and wanted to make sure the houseboat situation was resolved. But was her true reason she was trying to screw the Bottomsley bitch or exactly what?

I continued, telling them how I was having a hard time believing neither one knew about the other. It was easy enough for me to understand how the daughter might not know about the stepsister. On the other hand, I sure as hell didn’t buy Bottomsley not knowing about the daughter. That just didn’t fly. Sakol smiled at me and nodded, giving me his wise old owl look. I wondered what he was trying to tell me. Finally, I had to ask, “OK, what gives?”

“Finally think proper, grasshopper.” He tapped his forehead with his finger and smiled. “Stepsister say her lawyer talk to deceased’s lawyer,” I nodded my head. “You say Mr. Slim’s estate discussed between two lawyers,” I nodded again. “Seem logical Rockingham lawyer mention sometime payment to a Jennifer Rockingham. Everyone know wife dead. Slim never marry again? Who Jennifer Rockingham?” We both grinned at each other. It was exactly what I’d been thinking, but up to now, I hadn’t put it that logically.

“Do you think the stepsister and her lawyer are trying to pull a fast one and have the estate settled before the daughter has a chance to come forward?” I asked, totally befuddled.

Jeff commented, “It still wouldn’t make sense. I’m no lawyer, but I’d think, as soon as the money stopped coming from Slim, the daughter would try and find out the reason why. Once she found out dear old dad had shuffled off the planet, I think she’d demand her share of the loot. I also think she has a good case to collect some of the dough. I don’t see how the stepsister thought she could get away with it.”

A flash hit me, “Is there any way you guys can demand to see financial records to see if Bottomsley was somehow getting money from Slim? Maybe her lawyer had some way of getting to the money. Maybe they needed time to cover something up. I know I might be reaching, but it all seems so confusing.” Jeff shook his head. “Besides, is this helping you catch a murderer? Speaking of that, has anyone found out who was in my pad last night?”

Jeff leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest and from the way he looked at me, I could see something was not right. I didn’t know what he was going to tell me, but something told me I wasn’t going to like it. Jeff looked at Sakol, cleared his throat and spoke slowly, “That’s why we wanted to have coffee with you. Matt, they found an interesting tattoo on your late-night caller during the autopsy.” I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Jeff continued, “And, it matches the tattoo you have on your upper arm.”

My right hand jumped to my left shoulder, and I wrapped it around the place where I have the tattoo as if it would somehow make the thing disappear.

Do you remember the Uncle Sam part I mentioned earlier, and my involvement in the rice paddy land wars? One night a bunch of us got rather drunk and had our special insignia tattooed on our left upper arm. Most of the guys did it, the tattoo I mean. I don’t know about the drunken part. Back then, we belonged to a very elite group. Even though we weren’t allowed to discuss it, several of the guys wanted to commemorate a kindred spirit with a tattoo. I’ve always wondered if it was due to how drunk I was that night, or if I truly wanted to belong to some type of special club like from when we were all kids. The tattoo is rather faded, and the lines aren’t very distinct, but if you look at it closely, you can still make out the design. Nowadays I usually wear a T-shirt and not a tank top, because over the years, I’ve become rather self-conscious about it.