J. Jance - Payment in kind

“He can’t be any relation to…” I began, but Peters cut me off.

“He is,” Ron said. “He’s fifteen years old and Her Honor’s only son.”

I whistled under my breath. “No wonder the case was under wraps. Let me guess. He was doing the threats. When mama-san figured it out, everybody down the line got their marching orders to keep it quiet, and everybody played ball, right?”

Peters nodded. “That’s right, everybody, up to and including the media. But then, Natalie Farraday’s been a media darling since she first ran for city council. If this had been her opponent’s kid, you can bet it would have been a different story.

“The way I heard it was that once Her Honor found out what he was up to, she was so pissed that she’s kept him under virtual house arrest ever since.”

“How did you find all this out?”

“I’ve told you over and over, Beau, it doesn’t hurt to become friends with a reporter every once in a while. There are times when they really can help.”

“Why did he make the threats, and how?”

“How is the easy part,” Peters replied. “They live up on Kinnear, just a few blocks west of Queen Anne Avenue. So it was no trouble at all to scoot down to the school district office, do the dirty deed, and then make tracks for home again. As to why, I wouldn’t even hazard a guess.”

“What you’re saying is that this was done just for the hell of it by some stupid punk who can’t even spell?”

“Actually, that’s the funny part. According to what I can find out, Todd Farraday is now and always has been an honors student. That’s one of the reasons his mother was able to convince everybody that, except for the glass breakage, it was nothing more than an innocent prank. She’s already paid for the broken windows, by the way.”

“False reporting of crimes is a crime, not a prank,” I said.

“Unless your mama’s the mayor,” Peters returned.

We sat there silently for several moments, watching two slow-moving ferries lumber past each other as they approached the Coleman dock.

“Chances are he has nothing whatever to do with my homicides, then.”

The idea that the bomb threats and the murders were somehow connected had always been a long shot, but it had been my long shot and it hurt to have to give it up.

“Probably not,” Peters agreed.

Again we were silent for a time. “But wouldn’t you like to tweak him a little?” I asked. “Just for the hell of it?”

In the gloom of the darkened room, I saw Peters’ ghostly face turn in my direction. “What do you mean tweak?”

“Actually, I mean scare the living shit right out of him, make him think we’ve connected him to something that his mother won’t be able to hush up or fix. Having a homicide detective turn up on his doorstep might light a fire under that little jerk’s privileged ass.”

“Now, Beau,” Peters cautioned. “Let me remind you, his mother is the mayor, duly elected by the people of this city.”

I grinned back at him through the darkness. “That in itself will make the look on his face worth the price of admission.”

“It could also get you fired.”

“That’s all right. Think about it. There’s a certain justice here, Ron. You know as well as I do that some of the guys go down to the Central District and bust kids for a hell of a lot less than false reporting. The way I see it, if I scare the shit out of this spoiled creepy kid over something he didn’t do, it’ll even the score a little. What do you think?”

“Is my answer on or off the record?” Peters asked.

“Jeez, they’ve already taught you the finer points of PR double-speak, haven’t they? It’s off the record, Ron; now, tell me.”

“I think it’s a hell of a fine idea. I only wish I could be there to see it.”

“Want to ride along? Maybe I’ll go right now. You said he lives just up the hill.” I started to get up and then stopped. “Wait a minute. I can’t do that, not without having his actual address.”

“I just happen to have it right here,” said Ron Peters with a grin. “What are we waiting for?”

Down in the garage, Peters heaved himself into the rider’s side of the low-slung 928. Once he was inside, I loaded his chair into the hatch. It stuck out some, but I fastened it in with a collection of bungee cords. With the hatch open, however, it was going to be a mighty cool ride.

The engine roared to life as soon as I turned the key in the ignition. It was none the worse for all its storm-enforced rest. By now the streets were pretty much clear. We drove up Queen Anne to Kinnear with no difficulty.

Had the Farradays’ house been on the north side of Kinnear, it would have been impossible for Peters to be in on the interview, because all of those houses seemed to have a minimum of fifteen to twenty steps leading up to their front doors. The Farraday house, however, was on the downhill side of the street.

It was a huge, old-fashioned brick place with four white columns lining the front porch. With the exception of a single step leading up onto the porch, it was a straight shot from the street into the house.

I brought the chair around from the back and helped Peters back into it. Once settled, he looked at the house appraisingly. “I don’t think Natalie Farraday ran for office because she needed a job,” he said. “Now tell me this. What do we do if the mayor happens to be at home?”

“Punt,” I declared with a grin. “Punt and run like hell. Every man for himself.”

As it turned out, the mayor wasn’t home after all. Todd Farraday himself-a bespectacled, pimply-faced, sallow-skinned, long-legged kid-answered the door. He opened it only a cautious crack and peered outside.

“Who are you?” he asked.

One look at this nerdy wimp, standing there in his ratty T-shirt and jeans and his equally ratty and untied high-tops, told me that he wasn’t exactly what his mother had in mind when she brought her supposed bundle of joy home from the hospital fifteen years earlier.

“We’re police officers. Are you Todd Farraday?” I asked, holding out my card.

“Yeah. Whaddya want?”

“I’m with Homicide, Todd. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

“Homicide. What do you want to talk to me about?”

“A case I’m working on.”

He backed away from the door, and a breeze pushed it open in front of us. “Wait a minute, I don’t know anything at all about that.”

My statement had been innocuously general, but his immediate denial was damagingly specific. I was instantly on the alert. “You don’t know anything about what?” I demanded.

Realizing too late that he had inadvertently let something slip and trying to hedge his bets, Todd Farraday shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said miserably in an unconvincing whimper. “I mean, I wasn’t even there.”

“You weren’t where?”

“At the school district; that’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it? You think I’m connected to those school district murders because of what happened last fall, but I’m not. I swear to God. My mother doesn’t let me out of the house at night now, and I don’t sneak out anymore, either.”

“Is your mother home?” I asked.

Todd Farraday shook his head. “No. She’s at a meeting down in Olympia. She won’t be home until tomorrow afternoon. But don’t talk to her about this, please. She’ll kill me. She really will. She said that if I got into any more trouble of any kind, she’d send me to a military school in New Mexico. In Roswell. I was in New Mexico once,” he added mournfully. “I hated it.”

We were still standing on the porch. Todd had backed away from us across the polished hard-wood floor of the vestibule.