Sketch of a Murder

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sergeant Nita Slowater stared from her fifth floor office window at the busy, late-morning sidewalk along Third Avenue. Private office, not as large as the lieutenant's, still damn nice, and it even has a window. Should feel like a promotion, but it's really just a short step from being fired.

Smartest political move the Governor has ever made, though. Create a special unit to solve these murders and very neatly get out of the line of fire if they can't be solved. Worst-case scenario: I get fired. I can always get a PI license. Who the hell am I kidding? I wouldn't know what to be if I wasn't a cop.

At 1100 hours a bus rumbled to the curb. Nita's musings were interrupted as Molly the Pack Lady-dressed in a man's long-sleeved, blue dress shirt that was tucked neatly into baggy, gray sweat pants-hobbled off. Unlike other homeless women in Seattle, Molly didn't haul around bulging, black plastic garbage bags, nor did she push a stolen grocery cart. Instead, a bulky, aluminum-framed backpack rode her stooped shoulders. The backpack had earned Molly the title of Pack Lady from the city's bus drivers. Nita tried guessing the backpack's original color, but the material was so worn and stained that her best guess was charcoal gray or midnight blue. Most likely, it was neither.

As the crowded bus bulled its way back into the morning's snarling traffic, she watched Molly dodge and slide a path around the suited men and women who scurried along like cockroaches caught in sudden light. When she went down later she would find the elderly woman perched on the building's concrete window ledge above the air grate in the sidewalk. The old woman would exude a faint hint of lavender shampoo and Dove soap. Sometimes she wondered how a homeless woman could afford such luxuries, but then Molly wasn't a typical homeless person.

Molly had reached out to her. To her! She hadn't been in the city much more than two, godawful weeks but had already been wondering how she would survive this assignment until she could get transferred out. It'd happened on the day she'd finally decided to let go, let go and walk away. It was her own damn fault she'd wound up in the Siberia of law enforcement, but she couldn't hack it.

That day as she hustled along the sidewalk, head down, Molly had called to her. Her head had popped up, surprised at the interruption to her thoughts. With a thin brown hand, Molly waved her over to the wide window ledge where she sat.

Not in a mood to be sociable, but she'd been brought up to respect elderly people, she had walked over and stared at the sketchpad in Molly's hands. Then she'd begun laughing. That was the first day she asked Molly out to breakfast. Now she would hate to imagine having to give up that bit of time with the elderly artist.

She turned away from the window. They would be going for breakfast before long. Right now there were reports to finish.

Promptly at 1130 hours she strode from the cool lobby of the government building. The swaying blanket of acrid exhaust fumes that lay over the corridor of the street slapped her across the face. A dry cough tickled the back of her throat. Oh, the joys of city living. I've always been a small town girl. I hate this place! If it wasn't for Molly, I'd feel so damn disconnected that I'd be like a helium balloon floating around in the stratosphere. She rubbed stinging eyes, swerved to the right, and walked over to Molly.

Legs bent, the hardboard back of the sketchpad propped against her bony knees, Molly's hand danced across the page, leaving a trail of meticulous pencil strokes. The elderly artist glanced up and flipped her pad closed. "Miz Nita, how air ye?"

"I'm starving and, really, when are you going to call me Nita?"

She ducked her head. "Ol' Molly wouldn' feel right."

"Okay. I'll quit messing with you. Maybe in another six months or so it'll happen. You ready to hit the road?"

Molly clambered stiffly off the ledge, stowed the pad in her backpack, and smiled. Yellowish-white teeth, with surprisingly few gaps, gleamed in a kind face the color of walnuts. "Ol' Molly's surely hungry, too." Skinny arm slipped through the padded strap, she lifted, grunting at the weight.

"Sure you don't want me to carry that for you?" She caught herself reaching for the pack, as she had done every morning for almost four weeks now. For a moment, she wondered what she'd do when the team could actually go on a five-day rather than a seven-day schedule. Would she still come down here on the weekends to have breakfast with Molly? No sense worrying about the troubles that aren't here yet when there's trouble aplenty sitting there begging for attention, Chelsea's grandmother used to say. When Chelsea died, she'd not only lost her best friend, but she'd also lost the only grandmother she'd ever known. She pushed those thoughts away as Molly shook her cap of frizzy gray hair and gave her standard reply. "Thank ye kindly, but ol' Molly can manage."

Nita took the lead, cleaving a path through the surge of pedestrians flowing around them. A couple of blocks down the street she clicked the keypad to unlock her 1998 Subaru Forester. By the time she slid under the car's steering wheel, Molly had deposited her pack on the backseat, climbed in the front, and clicked her seatbelt around her thin body.

She nosed out of the Pay 'N Park's driveway, slipping between the rear bumper of a silver Jaguar and the front bumper of a brown UPS van. "What were you working on this morning?" The right-turn signal click-clicked as she angled the car up the steep grade of James Street and towards the I-5 on-ramp.

The old woman stared out the windshield. "Ol' Molly's been drawin' a vision of Hell."

She merged onto I-5. "Doesn't sound like a fun project."

"No, ma'am, it ain't. But it gots to be done."

The low roar of too many vehicles straining in too small a space filled the car as Nita blended into the northbound traffic. A white Sprinter, its boxy shape painted with the goofy grins of retrievers and labs below the words 'Doggy Bus,' crept along in front of them. "How do you feel about pancakes?"

Molly's grin crinkled the corners of her dark eyes. "They's be mighty fine."

"Thought we'd take off on 85th and go over to that IHOP on Highway 99." She eased her speed up, anxious to get to the restaurant.

***

It was close to 1230 hours when she swerved the car smoothly to the curb. Molly struggled out, groaning a bit as she unbent from the passenger seat. "You still having trouble with the arthritis in your knees, Molly?"

The older woman grimaced. "Um-hm. They ain't bad as they was, though."

"I'll pick up some Aspercreme or Bengay and bring it tomorrow morning."

Molly shut the front door of the vehicle and pulled open the rear door. She wrestled her pack out and shouldered it before she bent over, looking in the open window. "No, thank ye. Ol' Molly's been takin' a pine needle tonic Granny use to make."

Hand braced on the seat back, she leaned across towards the window. "Why won't you let me help you a little?" Exasperation sharpened her words.

Molly smiled. "Ol' Molly 'preciates the time ye give 'er."

She shoved herself upright. "Okay, Molly. I have to respect your wishes. Meet the same time tomorrow? I found a little restaurant up on Capitol Hill. They have the best grits and gravy I have ever tasted. Want to try that?"

"They be real grits an' bacon grease gravy?"

"You bet."

"Ol' Molly be likin' that. Now doncha forget what ol' Molly said."

She rubbed the back of her neck and gave a heavy sigh. "I'll try to remember, but I'm telling you, Lieutenant Williams is a sexist asshole. He won't listen to a thing I say."

"Ol' Molly's been knowin' the lieutenant from the streets. He be a good man who's had some sorrows. Ye keep on doin' yer job an' it be all right."

"I'll give it my best."

The old woman gave her a radiant smile. "Yer best be plenty good 'nuf. See ye in the mornin'." She stepped up onto the sidewalk.

She watched Molly shuffle along Third Avenue, the sun brightening even the dirty concrete. How in God's name did that poor old woman ever wind up on the streets of Seattle? She reminds me so much of Chelsea's grandma. I should go see her one of these days, but I just can't face her knowing it's my fault what happened to Chelsea. Forcefully pushing such thoughts from her mind, she slid into traffic.