The Devil to Pay Read online

  The city had an interesting, Old West history. The first settlement was made by white pioneers in 1851 following the California Gold Rush and later moved to what is now the Pioneer Square area of downtown. The pioneers named the city after a friendly Native American chief named Sealth. Its early claim to fame was as a sawmill center. In fact, the expression “skid row” came from lumbering—the road that the logs were skidded down was called “skid road,” which later evolved into “skid row” as it became lined with the homes of poor logging families.

  In those early days there were few women, so a brave soul went east and persuaded eleven proper young women from New England to sail with him around the Horn to Seattle to take husbands among the pioneers. He went back again and recruited one hundred Civil War widows. Many families today proudly trace their lineage to these women.

  Built of wood, the city was destroyed in 1889 when a painter’s glue pot boiled over and started the Great Fire. Along with fire, flood, and famine, the city survived Indian attacks, hard-drinking lumberjacks, and anti-Chinese riots.

  The town’s development was slow until the transcontinental railroad reached Seattle. When a ship arrived from Alaska with a “ton of gold” in 1897, the great Klondike Gold Rush was on, converting Seattle into a boomtown. Seattle’s harbor developed into one of the world’s great seaports. Boeing and the aerospace industry stimulated its growth. By the 1980s, Microsoft and other computer companies arrived in the area and the town saw another economic boom.

  I thought I was going to be part of the Great Seattle Coffee Boom, but my dream was now ashes.

  After burning my bridges at the think tank, I sold my condo, emptied my bank account, and did the proverbial beg, borrow, and steal routine to open Café de Oro. To give it a little “coffee plantation” look, I had real-looking coffee trees with shiny green leaves and clusters of red coffee “cherries” and burlap coffee sacks of unroasted green coffee beans from growers around the world scattered around the café.

  I also bought a small roaster that was modern but reminded me of those old train steam engines that the Indians called “iron horses.” An exhaust fan blew the aromatic smell of roasting beans onto the sidewalk in front of the store.

  An antique espresso machine came from Milan and I even had an old sock stained with coffee on display, along with a battered pot—in the Old West, to make coffee out on the range, cowboys put coffee grinds into a sock and put the sock in boiling water over a campfire.

  Hopefully they used a clean sock.

  I figured what Mrs. Fields did with cookies I could do with coffee and muffins. I gave up eating out, going to movies, and male companionship, my three favorite pastimes—not necessarily in that order—to devote myself to the business. It took over a year to get the business plan down pat, open my flagship store, and watch people line up for lattes, cappuccinos, and muffins. Based on the success of the store, I was in negotiations with a venture capitalist to open six more stores over the next three years.

  It took less than two months to bring it all crashing down. Nothing in my university training or experience advising big businesses prepared me for dealing with city health inspectors over bacteria-tainted milk, cockroaches that seemed to have materialized out of thin air, and mugged employees.

  I had put everything I had into an interesting store layout and expensive heart-of-the-city location. When my customers fled, along with my venture capitalist, I suddenly found myself in a cash pinch. And bounced checks.

  The most important one was my fire insurance payment.

  What a piece of bad luck—and bad timing—that was.

  Lamenting my losses and poor Johnny Woo, I went to the front door to answer a knock. The Valium had taken effect now, and I was a little groggy and out of sorts as I shuffled to the door in bare feet and opened it. And immediately regretted it as I stared at a tall man with a scar across his neck.

  At my own height of five-seven, when I looked up at him the most prominent feature was the scar. His complexion was shaded, his hair and thin mustache black, I took him to be Hispanic, and the scar stood out, darker than his olive skin. It wasn’t a jagged wound, but a thin scar, in my movie-polluted mind the result of being garroted by piano wire.

  I immediately realized this was the man who had run for the cab. Only it must have been me he was running after.

  “I have an offer for the plantation.”

  “The plantation? My store—you mean that other thing?”

  “The coffee plantation, you are to sell it to me.”

  “I am?” It was the second time that day that I had been reduced to a dim-witted response.

  “You have no use for it. You need the money.”

  His accent was thick and definitely Hispanic. His tone was not a statement, but a command. It raised my ire.

  “Excuse me, but who do you think you are? What—”

  He jabbed his index finger in my face and I took a step backward. “Ten thousand dollars. I will have the money for you tomorrow. Comprende?”

  Voices and the sound of heavy feet came from the stairwell.

  He glanced to the rear and back to me. His eyes were dark, the shade of mud. “Mañana.” Tomorrow.

  He turned on his heel and walked away, going down the steps as a man and woman came up. I had started to close the door when the man saw me and said, “Miss Novak?”

  “Yes.”

  “Detective Evans.” He flashed a badge as he approached. He was short, had a beer belly, pale skin, and dirty blond hair cut in a 1950s flattop style. His tie hung loose from the open collar of his shirt; his shiny gray suit was wrinkled polyester. He indicated the woman with him. “My partner, Detective Stacy.”

  Stacy was of African descent, also short, no belly.

  I was relieved that Scar had left, but the body language of the two officers wasn’t encouraging.

  “Did you see that man that passed you?” I asked.

  “It was kind of hard not to,” Evans said. “We almost rubbed shoulders. Why? He bother you?”

  “I…” What could I say? He didn’t really do anything offensive; he just offered me money. But his tone scared me. “Nothing, I just didn’t like him. Did you need to see me about the store?”

  “Need to talk about the fire. Can we come in?”

  It wasn’t really a question. I backed up and they came in without waiting for an invite.

  “Are you with the fire department?” I had been told a fire department investigator would be contacting me.

  “Seattle PD. Where were you when your business went up?”

  “At my accountant’s. He’s only a few minutes from the shop.”

  “Can I have his name, address, and phone number, please.”

  “Sure. I’ll give you his card.” Getting his card from my desk gave me a chance to gather my wits. I handed it to Evans and asked, “Is there something wrong?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Should there be?”

  No, dummy, I have cops pushing their way into my apartment all the time. Jesus. I tried to control the irritation in my voice. “My business has burned down; an employee is dead; I’m being questioned by the police; I’m having the worst bad-hair day in my life. I just hope you’re not here to add to it.”

  “Why do you think we’ll be adding to your problems?”

  I realized this was some sort of police questioning method, maybe to get a suspect angry enough to blurt out something, but I had no idea why the officer was playing games with me. “Why are you here? What do you want to know?” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice.

  “How long did you know Ho Lung?”

  “Ho Lung?”

  “The man killed in the explosion at your shop.”

  “Johnny Woo—”

  “His real name is Ho Lung. How long did you know him?”

  “A couple weeks; he started on the twelfth. Why do you say ‘his real name’? Why did he need an alias?”

  “Why’d you hire him?”

 
; “I needed help; he washed dishes, cleaned up the place,” I shrugged, “that sort of thing.”

  “Was torching your business part of his duties?”

  That from Detective Stacy.

  I gaped at her. “Torching the place? There was a gas leak—”

  “Created by Ho Lung when he set out to torch the place,” Evans said. “Let’s stop beating around the bush; this can go easy on you—or hard. Why don’t you just tell us about it?”

  The whole world is going nuts.

  “Tell you about what? The firemen said there was a gas leak, an explosion—”

  “Lung is a member of Vancouver, BC’s toughest gang. He didn’t come across the border to wash dishes and sweep your floor. They call him the Torch. His specialty is arson.”

  “Ar—arson? You mean setting fires? He’s a firebug?”

  “No, I don’t mean he’s a firebug; he’s a professional arsonist. Sometimes he’s hired out by the gang; sometimes he freelances; in any case, he torches places for money.”

  “Torches places for money.” I repeated the words because they were making no sense. The pounding started again in my head. “Why would he burn my place?”

  “That’s what we came to ask you.” He grinned. “Obviously, we can’t ask Ho Lung.”

  “Why are you asking me?” I realized the stupidity of the question as soon as the words left my mouth. “You think I had something to do with it? That I hired this man to burn my own business?”

  The enormity of the question made me gasp.

  “Why don’t you just tell us about it?” Detective Stacy’s voice was warm, comforting. “Let us help you; we know how difficult things have been, that you only did what you thought you had to. Your back was to the wall, wasn’t it?”

  If I’d had a guilty conscience, I would have sat down with her and emptied my soul.

  “This is insane. Why would you think I hired an arsonist?”

  Evans began counting off on his fingers. “You hired him; that’s a given. He doesn’t do dishes; he does fires. He’s a pro from across the border—hard to track because he’s here today, gone tomorrow. Looks like he started a gas leak in the basement, one that would blow after he blew.

  “Something went wrong—dead wrong, for him. The place went up before he made it out of the building. We know from your Pike Place neighbors that your business is in deep shit; you’ve been operating off of a wing and a prayer. Your landlord says you’re behind in the rent and that your hope for financial backing flew the coop when the health department shut you down. The fire and explosion were no accident. Going out of business with a fire sale is a long tradition with failing business owners.”

  By the time he ran out of fingers, I ran out of strength. I sat down and stared up at them. “This is completely insane. You just made an ironclad case, but the problem is, none of it’s true.”

  “We checked with your insurance agent. Three months ago you increased your insurance.”

  “It was a requirement of an investor who planned to come into the business.” I kept my voice under control, but more of the thread of my sanity was unraveling. I wanted to scream. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even have insurance; the check went up with the building.”

  “Tough break, but if a gas pipe hadn’t broken when Lung was rigging it, it would have taken a couple hours for the place to go up. And you would have had plenty of time to get the check to your agent.”

  “You think I tried to destroy my own business? This was my dream; everything I had was—”

  “You know it’s murder, don’t you?”

  That from Detective Stacy.

  I stared at her. “Murder?”

  “When a co-conspirator is killed committing a crime, the other conspirator is guilty of murder.” The woman sat down on the couch next to me. “Detective Evans, why don’t you go get a cup of coffee and a donut while Nash and I have a talk.”

  I leaped off the couch. “No, no, no, no good-cop, bad-cop. I’m not a criminal; I’m not talking about anything. I’m calling my lawyer. Thank you; you can leave now.”

  Stacy went out first and Evans paused to toss his card on a stand next to the door. He looked back at me, raising his eyebrows. “It appears Lung had accidentally created a big gas leak while trying to create a small leak. He was trying to get out of the place when the thermostat came on and sent a signal to the electric starter in the furnace, igniting the furnace. Looks like someone had tampered with the thermostat.”

  “The thermostat didn’t work right; every morning I had to … to…”

  He grinned at me. “Like I said, someone tampered with the thermostat. Lucky break for you, wasn’t it.” He threw his hands into the air. “Boom! All the evidence and an arsonist who can blackmail you go up when the thermostat suddenly goes on.”

  I slammed the door.

  Evans’s boom! echoed in my head as I staggered to my phone and dialed my friend Christen’s number by memory. Christen was a lawyer, the friend who explained lawyers’ shoes to me. Her boyfriend was my former fiancé’s best friend and we had double-dated a number of times. She was something more than an acquaintance but not really a close friend, not the kind I’d share intimacies with. I was something of a loner and didn’t have running-buddy-type friends. She worked for a business law firm and had checked out my lease when I rented the shop. For a fee of twenty-five hundred dollars.

  I pressed buttons to navigate through her firm’s “automated” telephone system. Her voice-mail recording said she was either on the phone or away from the office and would get back to me. I left her a long message, taking a deep breath and trying to keep my voice from shaking as I explained that my business had gone up in smoke and the police had accused me of hiring—and murdering—an arsonist.

  That dirty little bastard. I’d been lamenting his death all morning. I hoped the little shit burned in the everlasting fires of hell.

  I staggered to the bathroom and gulped down the other half of the Valium.

  4

  Not even the Valium could relax me or put me to sleep. I lay atop the bed and vibrated, my right foot shaking, as I tried to piece together a day in which all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had ridden into my life.

  The sedative made my mind wander, but it didn’t go far. Each time it slipped out of my head, it would snap back like a rubber band as I made one revelation after another.

  Contaminated milk. Health inspectors conveniently showing up as cockroaches did the Dance of the Troubadours across my shop floor. My store being destroyed by a professional.

  Johnny Woo, Ho Lung, whatever his name was, had been a small, thin, taciturn man who claimed his age as thirty-five. He spoke with a thick Chinese accent. Neither a Chinese heritage nor accent was unusual in Seattle—the city had a large Chinese population, dating back to the last century. Added to that, immigrants who spoke little English were part of the norm.

  But why he would come across the Canadian border to destroy my place was not part of the norm. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, wasn’t far. It also had a large Chinese population. Someone had reached across the border to hire a Canadian because he could slip back across after the fire.

  But who would want to destroy my business?

  Add in a lawyer telling me I had inherited a coffee plantation, and a Colombian with a scar and a threatening attitude who wants to buy it … my mind tried to escape my head on a path greased by Valium. I pulled it back in, but my head pounded.

  The phone rang and my jangled nerves almost sent me to the ceiling.

  “Ms. Novak? This is Steve Berger; I’m an associate of Christen Levine. She referred your call to me because I do criminal defense work.”

  I started a blow-by-blow account of my discussion with the two police officers. He cut me short.

  “I know Evans; I gave him a call after Christen called me. His theory is that you could be a poster girl for the going-out-of-business fire-sale racket. Insurance upped, professional arson
ist on the payroll—”

  “This is all insane; someone is doing this to me.”

  “Right, we’ll talk about that, but right now you need to get prepared.”

  “Prepared for what?”

  “To get arrested.”

  Oh my God!

  “You have one lucky break; these arson things with a body are weighed heavy with evidence—police and fire department paperwork, coroner reports, and lab results. It’ll take Evans several days to get his ducks in line, maybe even a week, but I don’t think he’ll wait that long. It’s the kind of case he’d take to the grand jury for an indictment rather than a contested probable cause hearing before a judge.”

  “What does this mean for me?”

  “It means you didn’t get arrested today, but you’re looking at cuffs in the near future. Today is Thursday; he’ll probably get an indictment sometime next week.”

  Oh my God!

  I was breathless. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak.

  “Don’t worry; that’s why you’re hiring me: I do the worrying and the winning. Money is the salvation in these cases.”

  “How much?” I couldn’t get the quiver out of my voice.

  “My retainer is a hundred thousand; that’s up to trial. If we go to trial, it’s another five per court day, minimum of another hundred up front.”

  I tried to add up what he was talking about, but my brain wouldn’t function.

  “That’s two hundred thousand dollars if it goes to trial, nonrefundable. These cases are top-heavy with expensive expert testimony, too. We’ll need an arson expert to show how you couldn’t have been involved in setting it. I know a guy we can use, Bob Rees, an insurance arson expert, but he’s not cheap. Also a CPA to counter the DA’s expert who will claim your business was failing. Figure twenty-five for each of them. We’ll use a psychiatrist to prove that Lung was crazy because he was under drugs at the time.”

  “Was he?”

  “If we pay an expert, that’s what he’ll say. In this business, you get what you pay for. Most experts who testify regularly in court have the same ethics as the world’s oldest profession. But that’s to your advantage; the prosecution doesn’t have the big bucks to hire top people.”