Avenging Grace: A Kenneth Sheridan Mystery

By Donald Barlow

Paul Thornton, millionaire CEO of Thornton Precision Instruments, hires down-on-his-luck private detective, Seattles Kenneth Sheridan, to find his missing son Dennywho failed to show up for work eight days ago. Sheridan follows the trail to the abandoned summer home belonging to the millionaire and finds the decaying body of the son, with a handwritten suicide note attached to it.

Believing the case is closed, Sheridan returns to his practice. After several months, the father returns to Sheridan with new evidence the young man did not commit suicide, but was murdered. He promises Sheridan a small fortune if the detective can set the record straight and see that the murderer is properly brought to justice.

Sheridan reopens the case, and through a series of exciting and humorously drawn clue-driven events, finds not only is there a murder, but a small child, Grace, was molested. A devotee to the Japanese admonition, The wise falcon conceals his talons, Sheridan disarms wary opponents by hiding himself behind a veneer of soft-spoken ineptitude. Taking advantage of the circumstances at hand, in the role of Avenging Angel, he resolves the case with murderous efficiency.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Sep 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480810396

Donald Barlow

Donald Barlow earned a bachelor’s degree in Japanese language from the University of Washington. He resides in Mountlake Terrace, Washington.

Book preview

Chapter 1

N aturally, I’m just one of many investors.

Is that why the construction crew tug at their forelocks, call you Mr. Thornton, and bow?

Ha! Thornton gave another bark that passed for the laugh of a man with things to do. You sound just like one of those jealous bastards at city hall.

I looked down to the distant, sunny streets of Seattle feeling like an acrophobic Howard Roark, clinging to the cement floor with my toes and wondering how well the yellow plastic helmet they made me wear would protect me if I landed on my head after twenty-two stories. I was at least thirty feet from the edge and still scared. The ferry from Bainbridge Island lolled in its slip at Colman Dock like a big white sow as it gave birth to a couple hundred cars, trucks, and vacationing RVs. Behind, Elliott Bay sparkled as it always did under sunny conditions, and water traffic of all shapes, races, and sizes swept by in every direction, wisely adhering only to the No Collision rule. The report of a cannon salute slowly rolled its way across the waters from a reproduction eighteenth century warship. Off on the horizon, the Olympic Mountains put up a pastel blue and white barrier to keep the waters of Puget Sound from spilling over the edge of the world.

A bevy of suits—four or five—in their midtwenties to low thirties, were standing discreetly aside, freshly scrubbed and blow-dried under their yellow plastic helmets, self-consciously avoiding eye contact with the construction workers by examining burnt orange girders as if each was a masterpiece in the Louvré. The noise of construction was almost bearable.

Jealous bastards?

Paul Thornton, CEO of Thornton Precision Instruments, peeled off the cellophane from a Churchill-size cigar. "Yeah, the quote planning commission unquote. It’s really a bunch of the mayor’s cronies appointed to hold up construction and find new ways to shake down the builders." At sixty-five, he had twenty-five years on me, coarse silver-black hair, and a vigorous outdoor tan that Cary Grant would kill for. Being the boss, he didn’t have to wear a yellow plastic helmet. He was about four inches shorter than my six feet, heavy but with muscle only. As he talked, he would nervously jab a stubby forefinger into the air to emphasize some point or other.

He thumbed viciously on the old army-issue Ronson lighter.

I said helpfully, "You’re supposed to hold the flame below, not touching the cigar."

Thornton’s eyebrows pushed hard at the bridge of his nose, and he pinned me in the crosshairs of a deep Caribbean-blue gaze. Sheridan, I’m hiring you to find my son for me; if I need advice on lighting cigars, I’ll consult Emily Post. With that, he blew smoke in my face.

I could take him. Possibly even without a baseball bat. But with a $1,500 retainer warming my wallet, he could blow smoke up my sleeves, and I’d thank him while tugging on my forelock.

For this interview, I was power-dressed in my dark-blue shiny-seat, and the double Windsor on the pale blue tie was too tight. My black shoes were Wal-Mart plastic with the perpetual shine that saved me the trouble of polishing my brown loafers. Okay, Mr. Thornton, tell me what happened.

Thornton was a fellow trendsetter—faded blue jeans, dirty white running shoes, white short-sleeved shirt with a narrow black tie. "Not much to tell; Denny—Dennis—is a good kid, works part-time at the QuickPrint in the U District, on the Ave. Could have worked for me for a lot more. Good student at that damn university. Eight days ago—on a Thursday—he didn’t show up for work or class. Just suddenly disappeared."

Signs of depression?

Nope.

Love problems?

Nope … hell, I don’t know. Lives with a girl.

How’s he get along with you? Do you communicate well?

Hell, fine, I guess. What the hell is this? Doctor Phil time? When they head off to college, you don’t hear all that much from them, especially if they find a place to rent. You know how it is. Of course, he has had trouble with Gwendolyn.

That would be his mother, your ex-wife.

He pinned me again with the hard look, the one that was supposed to turn a subordinate into a mass of quivering Jell-O. You always read up on your clients before you take a job?

Just ones too important to come to my office. I gave him a slow smile I like to call cavalier. I practice cavalier twenty minutes a day in front of the mirror. Fifteen hundred is nice, but I had to show him who was the detective, and I don’t need hyperkinetic big shots to start running the show when they don’t get results yesterday. Besides, he’s the rugged individualistic type who hates toadies.

Thrusting his hands deep into his jeans’ back pockets, he marched a quick five paces, turned again and came back, the cigar thrusting up at a jaunty angle. Ha! he barked. That’s rich. You’re the first one not to toady up to me. I like that.

I said, I’ll need to know where he lives in the U District, where he works, the names of friends, and so forth. And a recent picture. Time to be businesslike; no point in pushing cavalier.

He signaled one of the suits. Way ahead of you. I threw some stuff together before I came here.

The suit was a big-muscled lad, six-three, thirtyish, about two hundred pounds, in a tailored suit of light brown, yellow shirt with a tie and pocket handkerchief, both the color of burnished copper. A real crowd pleaser. Three-hundred-dollar brown Guccis. He was underwear-catalog handsome with dark skin that came from twenty minutes a day on a tanning bed. He pulled off his yellow plastic helmet for a moment and ran his fingers through his short, bouncy brown hair. Well disciplined, it jumped right back to its former perfection. He had bemused green eyes that tended to puffiness around the edges if you looked carefully. And the tan couldn’t quite hide the roadwork on his nose and cheeks. A high liver. He flashed me that killer white smile, and the hand he held out was big—powerful, but skin rather soft. Workout-station hands. He greeted me in a measuring, tomcat sort of way, gauging my fitness and wardrobe, but was all charm. I was with the boss. Nonetheless, he squeezed my hand until the bones rubbed together, just to let me know he didn’t like me. Thornton, rather tersely I thought, introduced him as Jason Babcock. He looked like a Jason.

Jason smiled engagingly, handing over a thick manila envelope. This should be enough to get you started, Mr. Sherman. He filled my soul with another Pepsodent flash and strolled back to the other, lesser, peacocks. A fat construction worker with a long-sleeved plaid shirt and grimy hands was leaning on a girder. After Jason walked by, he got out of his lean and spat over his beer belly at the ground. I smiled at him to show solidarity. His surly eyes glowered from beneath bushy eyebrows, and he spat in my direction. Then he turned his back on me and sauntered off with a proletarian haughtiness, hands high in his back pockets, just like the boss. Some of the other workers laughed.

I opened the envelope to find the usual sort of photos and documents a parent would throw together on short notice. A cap and gown graduation photo—the type that would make Mephisto look angelic—showed a rather handsome young man, deep blue eyes like his father but with blond hair, smiling with expensive pearly whites at nothing at all, stage right.

Sherman.

What? I tucked the envelope under my arm before noticing that Thornton was looking testily back at Jason Babcock.

He called you Sherman.

So?

Thornton turned back to me, the cigar in the center of his mouth puffing rapidly like the Little Engine That Could. Doesn’t it bother you that that little snot got your name wrong two seconds after I introduced you?

No, of course not. Why should a little snot get me going? Confucius say: ‘Smart falcon conceal craw.’

What’s that mean?

Means that we grow up trying to impress people; trying to make them think we’re badder than we really are. All that does is put them on their guard. Wouldn’t it be better to have them underestimate you?

His forefinger tapped my chest emphatically. "Jason Babcock doesn’t care anything about Confucius, craws, or even claws; in his world, he scored on you by getting your name wrong, as if you’re so unimportant he hadn’t bothered to learn your name. He’s mocking you in front of his friends, like counting coup; you should have at least corrected him. That’s what I would do. Thornton screwed up his eyes, giving me a long appraising look. Maybe he hired the wrong PI. Do you know why I hired you?"

Nope.

Aren’t you interested to know why?

Sure.

Well, it was because of the job you did on the Lundquist murder.

Oh, yeah, the Lundquists. It seems I remember having something of a personality difference with him.

That’s true, but you found that stupid gold piece—

Nineteen-oh-seven Saint Gaudens high-relief double-eagle with Roman numerals—

Whatever. The point is you proved it was a suicide.

The guy got on my nerves; that’s why I went after it as hard as I could.

I knew the Lundquists; they lived near me in Edmonds. Before he killed himself—died—Charles told me about you and said you had a way of getting under people’s skin. He paused, turning the cigar in his hand, watching it as if to find its most appealing angle. After admiring it long enough, he added, I didn’t like Charles.

I think I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Thornton, but I wouldn’t worry about whether or not I can handle the rough stuff. It’s just that I decided a long time ago that there is no percentage in being offended by the little snots of the world. As long as they aren’t a threat, what do I care what they think?

Thornton seemed to file away his doubts for the time being, shrugging. I suppose you’re right; I guess that twerp gets on my nerves too much.

"That’s interesting, but I would have thought that you wouldn’t be the type who’d have problems firing those little twerps."

He gave me a sharp glance. I’m not; it’s just that he’s an item with my daughter.

That would be Kathleen.

Ha! You’re doing it again. What do you know about Kate?

A lot more than about your wife. Let’s see … she’s thirty-three, never married, and a professional conscience.

What’s that mean? ‘Professional conscience’?

She’s a whiner, a bitcher. Gay marriage, unions, nukes, animal rights, environment … attends all the marches and rallies. All the while Daddy has to sit back embarrassed by it all and say nothing, lest he appear to have no societal concerns.

Thornton said irritably, You don’t approve of wanting to make societal changes for the better, Sheridan?

Oh, I sure do! First thing I’d do is try to help people with too much time on their hands.

Well, I’ll be damned. Ha!

He puffed rapidly on the cigar again. He liked to do that while he was thinking. Thornton looked impatiently back at the peacocks. You a college boy, Sheridan?

Nope. Did less than a quarter at Edmonds Community College after I got out of the service … didn’t take. It was spring and I spent my time looking out the window at the plum blossoms—

What’d you do in the service?

Military police; actually air police; had a coupla tours on Okinawa—loved the place. Great waters for scuba diving.

Enlisted swine?

After two hitches, I made it all the way to staff sergeant.

Good. I was a newsreel cameraman in the army. Did a tour in Korea, after the war, just me and my little Eyemo … how’d you get into this racket?

I saw how the MPs and Intelligence guys went about it, and I like the idea of being my own boss … beats working.

Thornton was still watching the peacocks, who were growing noticeably uneasy. Don’t like college boys, he said, and blew smoke in their direction.

I put the stuff back in the manila envelope. As I turned to leave, I said, One other thing, Mr. Thornton.

What’s that?

Do I get to keep the helmet?

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I do my best thinking walking, so I declined the use of Thornton’s limo back to my office. Pioneer Square is downhill and only about seven blocks if you cut across diagonally, which I did, first through the gleaming glass and steel buildings all the way down to their squat stone grandparents.

The noonish July sun was alone in the sky, but Seattle hadn’t begun to bake yet; that wouldn’t happen—if it happened at all this summer—for another three weeks or so: the heat traditionally having to sort of make an end run past the cooling influences from the waters of Puget Sound.

Fourth Avenue was packed with the lunch crowd, and so, to fit in better with the office set, I kept my tie tight and my jacket buttoned: Just another exec on the way to a power lunch of a tofu burger and a double latté on ice. Yes, waiter, organic greens on the side—and to hell with the diet—double the bean sprouts!

Daggers of sunlight reflected off the chrome and glass of the packed traffic as it inched by in the complacently eerie Legion of the Doomed silence that out-of-towners—particularly those from New York and Los Angeles—find so maddening. I kept thinking of lava flow.

After depositing the fifteen hundred in a branch office of my bank, I was feeling mellow enough to catch up on my stalking skills.

A snooty woman walked ahead of me. With my longer strides, I was able to pace her prissy, rapid steps. She was NordicTrack trim, middle-aged, and after a perfunctory appraisal, I would have described her as handsome. Her makeup was sparingly applied, suggesting naturalness, yet the gray-streaked blonde hair that swept up and away from her face and would have looked gravity defying if it hadn’t been sprayed to the tensility of casehardened steel. Her set, prim mouth tolerated no judgmentalism, while at the same time the little radar eyes above the longish nose peevishly scanned the sidewalk ahead. She was dressed conservatively in an expensive office-approved, cream-colored pantsuit, but the earrings and half-dozen finger rings were at-one-with-Native-American topaz and silver. She was trying to make a statement but wasn’t too sure what the statement was.

Seattle!

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According to the inscription carved below the granite cornice, my office is in the DVLWICH BVILDING, ANNO DOMINI MCMXV. Being an experienced detective, I was quickly able to deduce that it was actually the Dulwich (pronounced Dull Itch according to an English client) Building and was constructed on or about the year 1915, which made it a city landmark, and therefore unrazable. I was stumped because the date was in Roman numerals, but the Internet confirmed the date in human years. It was wide and deep and had all of four floors and sixteen paying tenants. The rats were on welfare and lived there for free.

Several years ago, by dint of having a semi solvent bank account, I had won the lottery and moved down to the coveted corner office on the second floor, directly above a deli.

My office was a single room, much too large for my practice, but I was able to provide it the Victorian clutter that the wainscoting, the faded silk wallpaper, and cranky iron steam heating demanded. Portraits of sea captains and seascapes hung below the elaborate furbelows and curlicues of the wall’s paneling, and brass-potted ferns were suspended from the ornate, crumbling plaster ceiling or covered frayed patches on a faded oriental rug. A broken-back couch kept up a brave front against the wall catty-corner to my desk in front of the windows. Behind the desk was a smaller desk holding my Macintosh desktop. The computer desk sat in front of the largest windows, so when people saw me at it, they’d be fooled into thinking I was working. Natural lighting (as much as you can get in Seattle) entered through the oversized windows—on the north side—now more-or-less cemented closed by too much indifferently applied white paint. The two windows with wavy glass panes were met by two corner windows fronting a faux stone balcony just wide enough for a cat to walk on, provided he was sober.

Early on, in a fit of optimistic extravagance, I was able to hire a sign painter who applied to all windows the legend in black-edged gilt, Kenneth Sheridan, Private and Discreet Investigations, with a telephone number. Bathroom’s down the hall.

Next door to the office is an elderly watch repairman who has numbers tattooed on a forearm and spends most of his time dozing to classical music from his radio. On the other side, double rooms with an Office for Lease sign draw nearly as much business and dust as old Loeb. The rickety elevator had one of those sliding iron gates with the scissor action that has you counting your fingers when you get off at your floor. The old elevator also serves a guy who occasionally fixes dentures, a notary public, and a numismatist who never seems to come in. You can bet I cut a pretty wide swath on the second floor of the Dulwich Building.

I unlocked my office door, peeked to see if any messages had fallen through the slot along with the mail and then went over and shook my neighbor’s door until the pebbled glass rattled. The rattle instead of the knock is our secret code in case of international assassins.

Come in, Kenny; it’s open.

Joe Loeb was just reaching with one hand to turn down the radio and wiping tears from his eyes with the other. I could tell he was in one of his moods. He’s a craggy old guy with thick glasses, thick white hair at the temples, swept back, and none on top. His little office was half the size of mine and cluttered. A glass case was on one wall with gold pocket watches mounted like butterflies. Pictures of JFK and Bobby and Martin Luther King were on the other. A black-haired, younger Joe was in one black-and-white shaking hands with Hubert Humphrey at a long-ago Seattle rally. On the desk was one of those magnifying mirrors with a light around it and various shiny little tools of the watchmaker’s trade. Behind the desk was a large window with an exclusive view of another old building that sold things such as flags and colorful windsocks.

What’s new, Joe?

Joe has expressive shoulders. He expressed them. What’s new, you ask. I’ll tell you. Nothing’s new, not for me, not for you. I sit here all day and nothing happens but the radio. He paused for a second, listening to the soft music, then asked: Do you like this song, Kenny?

Real pretty, Joe.

‘Real pretty’ he says. It’s called ‘Träumerei,’ by Schumann, Kenny, and tears your heart out, and you say ‘real pretty.’

I think I heard it in an old cartoon on TV once.

"Cartoons—on television!—he hears this great music. Kenny, sometimes you’re such a schlimazel. His shoulders expressed themselves again. By the way, did you bring the horseradish?"

I fished a small bottle out of my coat pocket and put it on his desk. Buck-fifty, Joe.

He smiled and lifted his glasses off his nose to make sure the label said it was supervised by some rabbi. Thank you. I hope it was not out of your way, to pick up the bottle.

No problem, but you still can go downstairs to the delicatessen and get horseradish, for crying out loud.

"To those Greeks? What do Greeks know about kosher, I ask you. Wops, sure. Krauts, Polacks even, for God’s sake, but Greeks! Better they were Koreans!"

I didn’t know horseradish was supposed to be kosher.

You wouldn’t understand.

I guess it’s how they slaughter the horse, then.

That’s right, Kenny.

He pulled his little snap-top coin purse out of his vest pocket. How much you say it was?

Buck-fifty.

Oh, that’s right, he said, rummaging about a bit before taking out a worn bill. It had a picture of Franklin’s grandmother. He smiled. Got change for a hundred?

Probably not, I said. Guess you’ll have to owe me.

You’re such a good boy, Kenny. An even better son than that worthless daughter of mine who marries a proctologist, moves to Arizona and doesn’t give me a ‘howdy do’ for six whole months.

Joe wasn’t done. He raised a hand holding one of those tiny magnifying glasses that you screw into your eye socket: "And what’s worse, she names her daughter—my granddaughter—Tracy Ruth! Tracy yet! It tears out my heart!"

I started toward the door. See you later, Joe.

’Bye—oh, wait!

Yeah?

This one thing I forgot: I was talking to Mr. Erickson down the hall, you know, the noted republican.

What’d he want? I asked, not really interested in second-floor intrigues.

Mr. Erickson talked to Dr. Burke—the one who fixes the choppers?

I know who Mr. Burke is, Joe.

"Anyway, Dr.—I mean Mr.—Burke told Mr. Erickson that the landlord, what’s his name? That schwartze big shot?"

Lincoln?

That’s right, Mr. Lincoln—he should be ashamed with a name such as that—is raising again our leases, three times in five years! And Mr. Erickson said that we should do something about it.

Joe Loeb gave me the up-from-under look that said I should do something about it. I was at least twenty years younger than the youngest of the others on the second floor, paid my bills more-or less-on time, and got stuck every time something like this came up. I said, I’ll look into it, Joe, but I really don’t know if there’s much to do about it. If Lincoln wants to raise the leases, it is his building.

Joe smiled, way ahead of me. Sometimes you stay late nights, and you’re friends with his old man. Put it to him, about what a ungrateful young schmuck his son is.

I was finally on a case, and these old geezers had me worn out already. On the way out, I said, "Okay, I’ll talk to the old man first chance I get. But we’re definitely not friends."

Joe said, just loud enough for me to hear behind the closed door, "Such a good boy, unlike my ungrateful daughter! And smart, too!"

Right. Shake hands with the real schmuck.

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It took me only a few minutes at my old computer, loading the data Thornton had given me about Dennis. It looked to me to be a pretty routine missing person case, and all I would need to do was a little legwork; perhaps make some calls. It’s something I’ve always done on my own; I’m not like those fictional detectives with a buddy in the police department, so I’m pretty much stuck with my own resources. At least I’m not on the Seattle Police Department’s Hey, Don’t I Know You from Somewhere? list either.

I went over the stuff Thornton gave me. I printed out names and addresses and telephone numbers on the computer: home, work, and school; friends, teachers, and family. Thornton didn’t call the police, so who am I to start my own palaver? Police tend to get bureaucratic and heavy-handed and eventually want to take over, anyway. If anyone gets his name in the paper, it’ll be me.

I reached into the bottom drawer of the desk and comforted my hand as it wrapped around the neck of my Canadian Nerve Tonic. Not exactly Crown Royal, it’s still 750 milliliters of 80 proof Great White North acid rain that takes the bite out of a bad day and puts a spring into your step. I keep it in the bottom drawer because it’s harder to get to. Deciding it was too early in the day to soothe my furrowed brow, I let it go.

Dennis had an address over in the Wellington section, west of the U District. Looked to be as good a place to start as any. Wellington is away from downtown and actually has a certain neat, elderly charm. I couldn’t remember exactly where in Wellington, but I had once seen a pair of rather vigorous-looking palm trees in front of one of the homes. Because of its proximity to the university, many of the residences have turned into rentals for students.

There’s also the QuickPrint on the Ave, where he worked. And I had the names of his advisor and his current professors at the Are U.

I swiveled my squeak-chair to look out east