05 Improbable Cause by J A Jance

Author:J A Jance [Jance, J A]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

13

Something that always amuses me whenever I watch television or movie police dramas is the Hollywood version of the car chase scene. They make it look so easy. Traffic melts out of the hero’s way, letting him ride to the rescue just in time. Whatever doesn’t move is either crashed through or jumped over.

In real life, traffic doesn’t magically disappear, and municipalities frown on having their vehicles used in demolition derbies. That’s just not the way it works in real life. And it’s not the way it worked on Aurora Avenue that afternoon, either.

By the time I neared Green Lake, Aurora Avenue was stopped dead. One inattentive driver had rear-ended another, snarling the flow in both directions. So much for Big Al Lindstrom’s impromptu traffic advisory.

The City of Seattle is separated into sections by a string of interconnected lakes and channels—Lake Washington, the Montlake Cut, Lake Union, the Lake Washington Ship Canal, and Salmon Bay.

Damm Fine Carpets was on one side of the water. Naturally, I was on the other. With the Fremont Bridge closed to all traffic, I had no choice but to cut all the way across to Fifteenth in Ballard and cross the Ship Canal on the Ballard Bridge. Then I headed back toward Fremont on Nickerson.

And all the time I drove, my mind was racing. My justifiable homicide theory was pretty much out the window. Innocent people don’t panic and take hostages. LeAnn Nielsen had warned Larry Martin, and he had snapped. That meant the two of them were in it together. I knew where Larry Martin was. All of Seattle knew where Larry Martin was, but what about LeAnn?

Damn. I had let her walk out of the Hi-Spot Cafe with Alice Fields without getting so much as an address or phone number. If Sergeant Watkins was pissed now, it would be worse when I gave him that bit of information.

Just past Seattle Pacific University I ran into a roadblock. A uniformed police officer told me that a command post had been set up at the top of the hill on Dexter, just above the intersection where Dexter, Westlake, Fremont, and Nickerson converge. Now I was on the wrong side of Damm Fine Carpets from the command post. Some days are like that.

The patrolman let me pass. I eased my vehicle through a crowd of dismayed people. Some of them were from small neighboring businesses, including the beer-drinking late-lunch crowd from the 318 Tavern across the street, who mingled with stunned evacuees from a service in progress at the funeral home half a block away. It was certain to be one of the most memorable memorial services any of those people ever attended.

I inched around on steep, North Queen Anne side streets, trying to reach the command post. Finally, I gave up on driving altogether, parked on Fulton, and walked the last few blocks. There was the usual collection of news media types and curiosity seekers. They stood congregated just outside yet another set of barricades. I dashed through the gauntlet as fast as I could, looking neither right nor left.

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