At Rope's End (A Dr. James Verraday Mystery #1)(4)

“That is not my intention. I—”

“Good,” snapped Verraday, cutting her off, “because I don’t appreciate being pepper-sprayed, then having some two-hundred-pound lunkhead throw me facedown onto a sidewalk, crack my ribs, and then wrongfully detain me.”

Six months earlier, Verraday had been working on a research project about the psychology of crowd behavior. He had been legally video recording an Occupy Seattle demonstration when a riot cop by the name of Bosko had blindsided him. Bosko had tackled him from behind, knocking Verraday to the pavement, then handcuffing and arresting him. The refusal by the city or the police department to offer any sort of explanation or apology had prompted Verraday to file a suit to get their attention.

Before she could speak, he continued indignantly. “Know what? Maybe I should just call my lawyer right now.” He reached into the lower right-hand pocket of his blazer for his cell phone. It wasn’t there. Then he checked his left pocket. It wasn’t there either, and he was annoyed to realize he couldn’t remember where he’d put it.

Flustered, he noticed that she seemed to be suppressing a smile.

“Look,” she said, “I know about the Occupy thing, and I can see that you’re very upset about it. But I didn’t come to get you to drop any lawsuit.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I need your help.”

“You need my help?” he asked incredulously. He raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Okay, I’m listening.”

Maclean glanced out into the hall and noticed a few students lounging on benches nearby.

“Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”

“My office. The department secretary will be just outside the door. But don’t worry—she won’t hear anything we say . . . unless I call for help, which she’ll be able to hear just fine.”





CHAPTER 2


His office was small and crowded, just the way Maclean imagined a professor’s office would be. It smelled like books. He gestured to a visitor’s chair facing his desk.

“Have a seat.”

He squeezed past the desk, brushing up against the books and papers that were bursting out of the shelves, and sat down in what she observed was an old-fashioned oak office chair with a padded leather seat and backrest. She also noticed that on the shelf next to him was a brass Buddha. Not a fat, smiling, happy Buddha, but rather one of the serious, spiritual-looking versions, a serene expression on his face, right hand raised to chest level with the thumb and index finger touching to form a circle. People who kept statues of the Buddha near to them, in her experience, fell into one of two categories: those who were so full of loving kindness that they just had to share it with everyone and those who needed to be reminded to exercise loving kindness instead of taking a swing at somebody. She was beginning to get a strong sense of which category Verraday fit into.

He noticed her looking at the statue.

“A gift from my sister. She thinks I need it.”

“And do you?”

Verraday smiled faintly. “Probably. So what can I help you with?”

“Can we talk in confidence? Nothing I say can leave this room.”

He hesitated. “Fine, but if anything comes up that’s related in any way to my case, then we have to stop immediately.”

“Fair enough,” replied Maclean, leaning forward.

“Two days ago, a young woman’s body was found in a cranberry bog down in Buckley.”

“I heard about it on the news. A Jane Doe.”

“We’ve ID’d her now. Her name is Rachel Friesen, and she lived in Seattle. We’re treating it as a homicide, and I’ve been assigned as lead investigator. She was beaten and strangled. The MO is extremely similar to another homicide that happened in Seattle six months ago. The Alana Carmichael case.”

“I thought you had a suspect in custody for that?”

“The department has a suspect in custody.”

“But?”

“But I don’t think he did it. The lead investigator on that case is a guy named Bob Fowler. I believe you’re familiar with him.”

“I know who he is,” said Verraday. “Some of the Somali refugees I worked with a few years ago said that he planted dope on them when he was on the drug squad, told them he’d get them deported if they didn’t give him information about criminals higher up the food chain. I saw his name in the papers after he was charged with corruption.”

“That’s him,” responded Maclean. “There were four of them named in that case: Fowler, Garson, Babitch, and Perreira. Fowler was the ringleader. The charges against them were conspiracy, assault, extortion, and theft. These drug dealers claimed that Fowler and the other three entered their homes without warrants, beat them up even though they didn’t put up any resistance, and then stole their dope, jewelry, and cash. A week before trial, the key witness was found floating by Harbor Island with a couple of nasty exit wounds in the back of his head. Some of the surviving dealers suddenly retracted their statements. The trial went ahead without the key witness, and in the end, Fowler and most of the others were acquitted. Only the junior officer, Perreira, was convicted on a reduced charge and got forty-five days’ house arrest. Guess the jury was just glad to hear some drug dealers got slapped around.”