Earnest Pace, because murder is bad for business

Chapter 7

The phone message in his hand was an address in Downtown Tacoma he didn't recognize. Reaching into the console between the seats of his truck he dug out the Thomas Guide and soon saw why. The street was only two blocks long on. He saw it was on one of the steepest parts of the city, very close to the famous Stadium High School with its sweeping views of Commencement Bay. The gothic masterpiece had been recognized for decades as one of the most magnificent works of its kind on the West Coast.

Driving West on the viaduct he soon saw the spires of the High School and was within site of the massive front door when he reached his turn. The quiet side street would have been impassable on a snowy day with its treacherous slope toward the Cliffside over the bay. So steep it was that engineers had put stepped risers in the poured concrete sidewalk to make it passable on a rainy day but the accumulated leaves and moss from years of neglect. His destination was at the end of the block where a rotted wooden barricade gave the false impression it might stop a runaway car from going over the cliff.

As it so often happened he could pick out his destination long before he was close enough to read the address. Nature is always working hard to reclaim its territory. First there is a general shagginess to the landscape that might be written off as a busy homeowner who plans to catch up on the first sunny weekend but soon the Clematis and Wisteria are climbing off the trellises and over the building. The corners of the porches fill with leaves the first year and when those leaves turn to earth the big leaf maple seedlings put down roots. One home he was called to had a sapling rooted thru the plywood porch decking and grown so tall it had exceeded the space to the roof and turned 90 degrees to reach freedom 4 feet away.

Usually this kind of place was hopeless because antiques pickers and drug addicts could read the signs too. It was never surprising to go in the front door with the key from the trustee only to find the back door stranding wide open with a smashed window pane above the door handle. Still even that was valuable work he provided for the trustees who were loath to get their loafers dirty. Like he always said, it's a numbers game and you have to go on a lot of calls to get the goods.

This call was different though because there was supposed to be someone living at the address. The attorney said that he had to ascertain which things belonged to the estate and which belonged to the person there because the person there was legally little more than a squatter. Although living there with permission of the former owner, there was no legal relationship between the two. That's why the trustee was involved, because there were no legal heirs.

After pulling up to the curb and locking his truck, walking across the street was like crossing the deck of a ship canted hard to one side. Of course this deck would never swing the opposite way, it was always pitched toward Puget Sound. The porch treads bore the wear marks of many years of foot traffic down the middle with the moss, algae and lichen of disuse on their boundaries. He carefully inspected each one before testing it with his weight they looked so unreliable. They were tougher stuff than modern stairs though, hardwood, maybe even Madrona if the color could be trusted. The porch was another story though. Around the edged he could see the same wood as the stairs but sheets of plywood had been layered on many years prior. Probably holes rotted through. The plywood was delaminated right in front of the door so he stood with feet spread wide as he knocked on the old oak door.

Presently a face appeared wavy and watery behind the old slag glass peep. It didn't reach to the top of the small window and was mostly dark bushy hair shapes with dark eyes rheumy in the middle. A moment later the face disappeared and swung inward. Before him stood a very small man, no more than 5ft 4.

He took the initiative as was his custom by smiling and introducing himself before the other man could speak. He learned long ago and taught his protoges to grab the mantle of respectability and official business by offering your full name immediately followed by the proper name of the unsuspecting person you wanted cooperation from. It was just one of his many tricks to manipulate human nature and it always worked like a charm.