Breach of Duty (9780061739637) Read Online Free PDF Page B

asked. “The police or the fire department?”
    â€œWe’re with the Seattle PD,” I told him.
    â€œGood,” he said, nodding and puffing on the cigar and then holding it up in the air between two stubby, nicotine-stained fingers. “If you ask me, that girl they sent out here from the fire department last week didn’t have much on the ball. Wouldn’t tell us nothing about what was going on. We had to read in the paper that the fire weren’t no accident. Poor Agnes. Who’d’ve ever thought somebody’d want to do her like that?”
    Behind Lawrence’s back, Sue raised one questioning eyebrow. I knew what she was thinking. So was I. If Lt. Marian Rockwell didn’t have much on the ball, I’d hate to see someone who did.
    â€œAs I recall, you’re the one who reported the fire.”
    â€œRight,” Malcolm said. “I sure was. The flames was just shooting up into the air something awful. Right through the roof. I couldn’t hardly believe my eyes. After I called 911, I ran over and pounded on the front door trying to wake Agnes up. She didn’t hear me though. At least, she didn’t answer. Maybe she was already dead, for all I know. I tried the door, but it was locked. About then the fire truck showed up and they made me get out of the way. I came back over here and stood on the porch. I watched until my legs gave out and I had to go inside to sit down. It’s a crying shame getting old. Just wait, Detective. You’ll see. It’ll happen to you before you know it.”
    There were times I thought it already had. “How well did you know Agnes Ferman?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “Pretty well, I guess. We’ve been neighbors a long time—twenty years or so. She and her husband—Lyle was his name—bought this place musta been in the early to midseventies, I suppose, when old Mrs. Twitty finally croaked out. They bought this because it was close to where Agnes worked. Lyle was a painter—a house painter, not an artist. He worked out of his van so it didn’t much matter to him where he lived, but Agnes was still working for them rich people on the other side of the bluff.
    â€œIf you ask me, for somebody being married, it’s a funny kind of arrangement. At least it was back then. Agnes lived-in except for her days off, while Lyle was here baching it by himself most of the time—doing his own cooking and laundry. Like I said, he was a house painter. That’s what got him, by the way—lead-based paint wrecked his liver. So, up until Agnes retired a few years back, she was only here on her days off.”
    â€œHow long ago was that?”
    â€œWhen she retired? Six years, maybe seven,” Malcolm said. “She finally quit when Lyle got so bad that he couldn’t be left here by himself. He’s been gone for a while, now, but I forget exactly how long.”
    Today not too many people have live-in help anymore, but Wingard Court was within spitting distance of one of Seattle’s most high-brow neighborhoods—the Highlands. An exclusive community that lies just north of the Seattle city limits. There, buffered from the rest of the world by the green expanses of the Seattle Golf and Country Club and protected by a series of manned security gates, people with enough money can do what they want without the lower classes being able to see how the other half lives.
    In the old days—when I was growing up in Ballard—having live-in servants in the Highlands was the rule rather than the exception. That’s probably reversed now, but since the Ferman residence was physically nearby, that was my first guess.
    â€œShe worked for someone in the Highlands?” I asked.
    Malcolm shook his head. “Nope. Not in the Highlands, but real close by. Below it. Somewhere down the hill from there, although I can’t say exactly where.”
    â€œDo you happen to know the