J. Jance - A more perfect union

"That's a thought with a whole lot of appeal," Derrick Parker replied. "This has been a hell of a day."

He didn't get any argument from me about that. We had put in a good, solid eighteen hours, and although I was tired, I wasn't the least bit sleepy. Neither was Derrick. I drove us straight to the Doghouse at Seventh and Bell.

In all of Seattle, it's my home away from home. The place has changed little over the years. The walls are still a dingy, faded yellow. Stray electrical cords still meander up the corners of the rooms. The duct-taped patch in the carpet has yet to be replaced. It's the kind of place where a guy can really relax. You can sit there and see what work needs to be done and revel in the fact that you personally don't have to do any of it.

Parker and I went directly into the bar. The only pleasant part of my moviemaking experience had resulted from Cassie Young asking me, half seriously and half in jest, to keep an eye on Derrick Parker. Her thought was that I would keep him out of trouble, make sure he showed up on the set on time, that sort of thing. The whole thing was a joke. Leaving J. P. Beaumont in charge of Derrick Parker was like the blind leading the blind. We were either very good for one another or very bad, depending on your point of view.

From a strictly business view, the Doghouse loved it. Not that many people in their lowbrow clientele of drinkers consume Glenlivet on the rocks, and certainly not in Derrick Parker's prodigious quantities.

The night waitress in the bar was a seasoned veteran named Donna. It was late in her shift and her feet hurt, so she was moderately surly. On that score, she had my heartfelt sympathy. When my feet hurt, it's hard for me to be civil, let alone cheerful.

Donna took our dinner order at the same time she delivered our drinks. Derrick blessed her with one of his engaging, boyish grins, but Donna wasn't impressed. Derrick Parker might be a household name all across America, but not in Donna's household, and not in the Doghouse, either.

Whenever that happened, whenever a waitress didn't recognize him or throw herself at his feet, Derrick acted both pleased and mystified. He liked to experience that rare sensation of anonymity, but it bothered him too, made him uneasy.

Derrick picked up his drink and took a long pull of Scotch. When he put down the glass and turned to look at me, the smile he had used on Donna was gone. "Do you know that's the first time I've ever seen a real dead body?"

"Is that so?" I responded. I was surprised. I think people hold the idea that movie stars have been everywhere, done everything. Derrick's comment was remarkably ingenuous.

He nodded. "I've just never been around when someone died. My grandmother passed away years ago, but my family's into cremation. We don't do funerals with open caskets and all that jazz." He shuddered. "Do they all look that way?"

"What way?"

"That…" he paused, looking for a word. "…gross," he added finally.

Gross did pretty much cover it.

"The floaters usually look like that," I told him. "Sometimes better, sometimes worse."

He seemed shocked. "And that's what you guys call them? Floaters?"

I nodded.

"That's terrible. I thought that was just in scripts." Derrick sat quietly for a few minutes letting that soak in. "How do you think he died?" he asked eventually. It was as though the dead man held a terrible fascination for Derrick Parker, as though he wanted to know all about him and yet, at the same time, he wanted to think about something else. I have a more than nodding acquaintance with that compulsion myself. It's what makes me a detective instead of a stockbroker.

"I can tell you one thing. He didn't jump," I said.

"He didn't? How do you know that?"

"The jumpers end up with their clothes all screwed up. Either they're torn to shreds or wrapped around their necks, depending on how they hit the water. If they go off one of the high bridges, the Freeway or Aurora, their clothes are usually torn to pieces on impact."

Derrick signaled Donna and ordered another round. With the drink in hand, he stared moodily into it, shaking his head. "Jesus. That's what you call them really, jumpers and floaters?"

"You got any better ideas?"

"No."

There was another pause when Donna brought our food. For late on a Saturday night, the place was practically deserted except for a few sing-along types gathered around the organ at the far end of the room. Derrick waited until Donna walked away.

"So what happens next when you find a body like that?"

"We try to determine how he died and get a positive identification. Then we notify the next of kin."

"You have to do that?"

I nodded.

"How old do you think he was?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Thirtyish. Somewhere around there."

"And how do you go about finding next of kin?"

"What's with all the questions, Derrick? Have you decided you want to be a cop when you grow up?"

Derrick shook his head. "Nothing like that. I don't know what it is. I can't seem to get him out of my mind. It must be awful, having to talk to families like that, having to find them and tell them."

"It's no picnic," I said. "You're certainly right about that."

The conversation had set me to thinking about the dead man too. I remembered the sunlight glinting off his brass belt buckle. "He was an ironworker," I remarked offhandedly.

Derrick looked thunderstruck. "One of those guys who builds tall buildings? The ones who walk out on those high beams? How in the hell did you figure that out-his build maybe?"

I laughed. "His belt buckle," I said. "He was wearing one that said ‘Ironworker' on it."

"Oh." Derrick sounded disappointed, as though he had wanted my answer to be more exotic or complex, something brilliant out of Sherlock Holmes. It occurred to me then that Parker was getting his eyes opened about the reality of being a cop the same way I was learning about the reality of movies and movie stars. The lesson was clear: nobody has life completely sewed up. Not even Derrick Parker.

There was another lull in the conversation. I was thinking about Paul Kramer and about what an arrogant bastard he was, when Derrick interrupted my train of thought.

"You must really like it," he said.

"Like what?" I asked, puzzled. He had lost me.

"What you do. I mean, I've seen your place, your car. You're not stuck being a cop because you have to be. You must get a kick out of tracking things down, out of figuring out what really happened."

His comment made me laugh out loud. It was the other side of the coin, the same thing Kramer had said only turned around so it was a compliment instead of an insult. I had never given the matter much thought, but Derrick was right.

"I do like it," I told him. "When I finally break the code and know who did what to who, when I figure out how all the pieces fit together, I'm on top of the world. Not even a screw-up prosecutor losing the case later in court can take that away from me."

Derrick got up abruptly and signaled for the waitress. "I'm paying tonight," he said.

Donna brought the check and Derrick Parker paid for both our meals. He left a sizable tip on the table when we walked out. "It's nice to go someplace and not be hounded for autographs," he said.

The cast for Death in Drydock was staying in the Sheraton at Sixth and Pike. I dropped Derrick there and went home to Belltown Terrace. I was alone in the elevator all the way from P-4, the lowest level of the parking garage, to the twenty-fifth floor. Late at night, riding alone in the elevator is like being in a decompression chamber. I could feel the residue of the day's hassles dropping away from me. By the time I opened the door to my apartment, I was home. And glad to be there.

The red light on my answering machine showed there had been a number of messages while I was out, but it was after one in the morning, far too late to return any calls, so I didn't even bother to play them back. Instead, I poured myself a nightcap and settled into my recliner.