Underground Read Online Free PDF Page A

on the train that came through or any accidents in the tunnel?”
     
     
    “I can’t say. Yours was the first report we’ve had.” He raised his head to look toward the opening. Then he glanced around the gravel and tracks nearby, seeming to take a quick survey of the situation.
     
     
    The large-sized gravel wouldn’t show any footprints, and it hadn’t developed much of an ice coating to trap fibers and blood on the surface. There wouldn’t be much physical evidence out here. If Solis was going to get anything useful, he’d get it from the hole in the wall or the slab-cold tunnel floor. I doubted he’d find much, and there would be pressure to close the file quickly once they realized the victim wasn’t a taxpayer—unless he turned up as a missing person, which would change everything.
     
     
    Solis looked back at me and sighed. “This has been an ill season. Like the weather, it seems people have gone mad. I could wish for less of this kind of thing to go with all the rest.” He shook his head. “You can go, Ms. Blaine. I know where to contact you. Unless there’s anything else you want to say now?”
     
     
    I resisted an urge to be flippant and shook my own head. “No. I just want to get inside where it’s warm and thaw out.”
     
     
    A little scowl and a flare of orange annoyance prefaced his nod of dismissal. I wasn’t too proud to scurry for the nearest heated room and leave Solis and his minions to the cold work of scouring for evidence. I knew he’d take my hint and go into the tunnel to find the body—he’s thorough and he probably would have done it anyway. I was glad I wouldn’t have to look at it again and see whatever grisly damage the train had added to what was already there.
     
     
    This time, I didn’t take the stairs but went through the lobby of King Street Station. Outside, I glanced back toward the tunnel and saw Solis standing at the mouth of the hole bored through the hill. He was talking to one of the train yard men, and their conversation sent ripples of red fear or anger through the layers of the Grey around them. At my distance, I didn’t know which one of them was causing the disturbance. Solis was usually contained and quiet, but I’d seen his bright orange frustration earlier, and this wasn’t the right color. Maybe the yard man was obstructing him, or perhaps it was the yard man who was angry.
     
     
    Before I could speculate further, I heard the hoot of a train and saw one of the Sounder commuters edging forward to begin its afternoon run north. It must have been after three, and I realized that Solis might not be able to secure the scene much longer. In the collective mind of the railroad and Sound Transit, I imagined, dead bums took a backseat to middle-class working stiffs at rush hour, and even the SPD doesn’t tangle with the transit system— and its politically powerful management—if they can avoid it. Even cops have to pick their battles at times.
     
     
    I turned my back and walked west, squinting into a sudden beam of the early sunset that cut between the buildings. Standing in the cold had made my knee stiff and I found myself limping as I walked the six blocks back to my office.
     
     
    I didn’t feel like dodging the first-round drunks on Second, so I walked over to Occidental and went up the broad, car-free boulevard that had once been the heart of Seattle’s vice district. Now it housed quaint galleries and shops and overpriced “pubs” whose “bangers and mash” were actually CasCioppo Brothers Italian sausages with a side of skin-on red potatoes mashed with garlic. The last bastion of Seattle’s original sin on Occidental was Temple Billiards, where lately the coat racks had begun to sprout leather jackets with designer labels more often than those with studs and chains. I was tired, and although it’s not the safest street in Seattle, “Oxy” was one place it was safe to let the Grey come upon me as it would, so I could relax