J. Jance: Trial By Fury

Lincoln Towing actually sits directly in front of traffic exiting Interstate 5 and coming into the city. At the Fairview stoplight, Lincoln Towing’s Toe Truck, a tow truck fitted out as a gigantic foot complete with bright pink toes four feet tall, may very well be the first sight some visitors see as they drop off the freeway to enter Seattle.

Lincoln ’s Toe Truck lends a whimsical bit of humor. As long as you’re not one of Lincoln Towing’s unwilling customers. Then it’s no laughing matter.

The man who got out of a taxi and stomped his way into the Lincoln Towing office directly ahead of us wasn’t laughing. He was ready to knock heads.

"What the hell do you mean towing me from a church parking lot! It isn’t Sunday. I was just having breakfast down the street."

A girl with a wholesome, scrubbed appearance greeted his tirade with a sympathetic smile. "The lot is clearly marked, sir. It’s private property. We’ve been directed to tow all unauthorized vehicles."

He blustered and fumed, but he paid. By the time he got his keys back, it was probably one of the most expensive breakfasts of his life. He stormed out of the office. The clerk, who had continued to be perfectly polite and noncommittally sympathetic the whole time she was taking his money, turned to us. "May I help you?"

I opened my ID and placed it on the counter in front of her along with the list of license plate numbers from our surly parking lot attendant. "We understand you towed these cars over the weekend. They’re all from the Bailey’s Foods lot on Queen Anne Hill."

She picked up the list and looked it over. "What about them?"

"Could you check them against your records. See if there was anything unusual about any of them?"

She went to a computer terminal and typed the license numbers into it. A few minutes later she returned to the counter, shaking her head. "Nothing out of the ordinary about any of them, except one."

"Which one?"

"A Buick. It came in early Saturday morning."

"What about it?"

"It’s still here."

"That’s unusual?"

She smiled. "Sure. Most of them are like that guy who just left. They get here by taxi half an hour to an hour after the car. They can’t wait to bail it out."

"But the Buick’s still here, and that’s unusual?"

"Not that unusual," she replied. "Sometimes you run into a drunk who takes a couple of days to sober up and figure out where he left the car. That’s probably what happened here."

"Which Buick?" I asked.

She pointed. "The blue one. The Century. Over in the corner."

"Mind if we take a look?"

"I don’t know why not." She shrugged and called over the intercom for someone to escort us. A young fellow in green Lincoln Towing coveralls led us to the car. We peered in through the windows. An athletic bag sat on the floor of the backseat. An airline identification tag was still attached to the handle. It was turned in the wrong direction for us to read it.

"Would it be possible for you to open it up so we could see the name on that tag?"

"Well…" The young man hesitated.

"It could be important," I urged. "Something may have happened to the driver."

He glanced from me to the window of the office over my shoulder. "Okay by me," he said.

He opened the front car door, reached in, and unlocked the back. Using a pen rather than a finger, and careful to touch only the smallest corner of the name tag, I flipped it over. The name Darwin Ridley was written in heavy felt-tipped pen along with an address and telephone number in Seattle ’s south end.

I read them to Peters, who jotted them down. Nothing in the car appeared to have been disturbed.

"Thanks," I said to the Lincoln Towing guy and backed out of the car.

"No problem," he said, then hurried away.

Peters scowled at the name and address. "So what now? Motor Vehicles?"

I nodded. "And check Missing Persons."

Peters shook his head. "I still think you’re way out in left field. Dead men don’t drive. Remember? Why would the car turn up in the same parking place as the corpse? It doesn’t make sense."

"The car’s been here since Saturday morning. Nobody’s come to claim it. Something may have happened to the owner, even if it isn’t our victim."

"All right, all right. No use arguing."

"Besides," I said, "you’ve got nothing better to do this afternoon."

We returned to Lincoln Towing’s office and dropped off a card, asking the clerk to please notify us if anyone came to pick up the Buick. Then we headed for the Public Safety Building, where Peters went to check with Missing Persons while I dialed the S.P.D. communications center for a registration check from the Department of Motor Vehicles. I also put through an inquiry to the Department of Licensing on a driver’s license issued to Darwin Ridley.

I’ve reluctantly come to appreciate the value of computers in police work. By the time Peters finished with Missing Persons, I knew via computer link that the Buick was registered to Darwin T. Ridley and his wife Joanna. The address on the name tag and the address on the vehicle registration were the same.

Peters, shaking his head, came to sit on the edge of my desk, his arms folded obstinately across his chest. "Missing Persons’s got nothing. What a surprise!"

Margie, our clerk, appeared from nowhere. "Did you guys pick up your messages?"

She had us dead to rights. We shook our heads in silent, sheepish unison. "So what else is new? The medical examiner’s office called and said they’ve finished the autopsy. You can go by and pick up preliminary results if you want."

"Or even if we don’t want, right?" Peters asked.

"Right," she answered.

We headed out for the medical examiner’s office. It’s located at the base of Harborview Medical Center, one of several medical facilities in the neighborhood that have caused Seattle locals to unofficially revise First Hill’s name to Pill Hill.

Doc Baker’s receptionist led us into his office. As usual, we found him tossing paper clips into his battered vase. He paused long enough to push a file across his desk.

Peters picked it up and thumbed through it. "Death by hanging?"

Baker nodded. "Rope burns around his wrists and ankles. I’d say somebody hog-tied that poor son of a bitch and lynched him. Hanged by the neck until dead."

"You make it sound like an execution."

Baker tossed another paper clip into the vase. "It was, with someone other than the state of Washington doing the job-judge, jury, and executioner."

"Time of death?"

"Two o’clock Saturday morning, give or take."

"Any identifying marks?"

He sent another paper clip flying. This one bounced off the side of the vase and fell to the floor. "Shit!" Baker bent over to retrieve it. "Not so as you’d notice," he continued. He tried again. This time it landed in the vase with a satisfying clink. "Surgical scar on his left knee that would be consistent with a sports injury of some kind."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing. Not even dental work. Didn’t have a single filling in his head."

"Got good checkups, right up until he died."

Baker glowered at Peters. "That’s pretty unusual for a man his age."

"And what’s that?" I asked.

"How old? Oh, thirty-nine, forty. Right around there."

"Anything else?"

"Last meal must have been about noon. We’re working on stomach contents."

"Drugs?"

"Morphine, as a matter of fact. Not a lethal dose, but enough to knock him colder than a wedge."

"A junkie, then?"

Baker shook his head. "No way. We found only the one puncture, in his buttocks. Very difficult to self-administer, if you ask me. No other needle marks."

"How much did he weigh?" I asked, thinking of the driver’s license information in the notebook I carried in my pocket. I didn’t pull it out and look at it though, for fear of tipping my hand prematurely.