Red House Blues Read online

  The aftermath:

  When Palmer was sufficiently recovered from his injuries he was transferred to Western State Mental Hospital in Tacoma for evaluation, where he was committed and where he spent the remainder of his short life.

  Clay’s hands were so badly burned two fingers had to be amputated. He moved to his parent’s house in Kent where he suffered years of depression. The day before his thirtieth birthday he walked in front of a train at the crossing in downtown Kent.

  After Clay moved to Kent Donna went back to California. She couldn’t watch Clay suffer and he didn’t want her to nurse him. Better to break clean he told her. She later joined a commune north of San Francisco and became a skilled potter. She fell in love with an organic gardener there and a year later they had twin daughters. Donna tried to forget Seattle.

  Walt was drafted a year after he graduated from Cornish. He was killed in Viet Nam.

  Ferlin stayed on in the Red House, and even though he had his choice of bedrooms as housemates came and went over the years, he kept his room off the kitchen. How he avoided the draft is unknown but he was active in the antiwar movement during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. In the mid ‘80s he bought a small auto repair shop off Jackson Street with, it is rumored, the proceeds of a drug smuggling operation he had been running for some time. In his seventies he is something of a legend in the Central District.

  The kid stayed in the army only long enough to avoid jail. He changed his name and launched his career as a guitar player. He died of an overdose a few weeks shy of his thirtieth birthday. One signature element of his performances - an act he repeated on many occasions - was that of squirting lighter fluid on his guitar and burning it in the middle of the stage.

  Chapter 12

  Text of a notice copied from Craig’s List web site, sent as an attachment to the e-mail following:

  Room available in great house for short stay or ? Pretty room overlooking big yard. Plenty of parking, washer/dryer, kitchen. Close to shopping and bus lines. Near Garfield H.S. and Seattle U. High speed DSL internet. No dogs/cats, no smoking (inside) no drugs/no heavy drinkers. Prefer female (20s - 30s). $150 per week, two-week minimum. Call Linda @ 206-555-2032.

  E-mail to [email protected]:

  Hi Claire! I’m going to have to stay down here longer than I thought at first so I’ve taken a room for a few weeks in a house near Seattle University (see attachment). I hate to ask but could you check on the apartment and ask Mrs. Bloomquist to water the ficus tree?

  The house I’ll be staying in is only a few blocks from where Sean lived (“lived”- the past tense still makes me feel sick when I write it). Marla had to go back to Portland but before she did she gave me a tour of the neighborhood. If I imagined this area at all I thought it might be like Fairhaven or Bellingham since a major university dominates the center of it. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The Central District, or the C.D. as the locals call it, is one of the oldest Seattle neighborhoods - diverse, artsy and eclectic but there the similarity with Fairhaven ends. It’s been pretty much a ghetto since the fifties, only recently seeing the effects of escalating real estate prices, with yuppies snapping up every other house - “gentrification is a creeping fungus robbing the funky old C.D. of it’s last fuckin’ scrap of character” - or so Marla colorfully put it.

  Anyway, Marla paraded me through tiny soul food cafes, Tai noodle shops, African boutiques, Asian markets, and of course (so she can deduct the expenses, I suspect) tattoo parlors. She showed me the place on 24th (just up the hill from the house on Fir Street, by the way) where the punk singer Kiki Zell was found murdered in the ‘90s. Zell was apparently walking from a club in the early morning hours to a house close by were she was going to see a friend. Marla was lavish in the ghoulish details complete with the positioning of the strangled body. Gave me the creeps - but that was what she intended, I could tell. She wanted to underscore her opinion that I “go back to the north woods like a good little girl and forget about hanging out in the ‘hood looking for trouble” (her words again). She means well. At least I think she does. You’d probably agree with her. But I have learned so little thus far that I can’t quit now, despite a few unsettling events.

  I moved out of the hostel when Marla left for Portland. We’d had a lunch at a pho place on Jackson before she caught her train. While I was gone I think someone may have rummaged through my locker. I can’t be sure. It kind of seemed like things weren’t how I left them. (Not that anything was missing. Can’t imagine what anybody would steal from someone so poor they had to stay in a hostel! Pretty pathetic pickings I’d say.) Still, I had a kind of exposed feeling at the hostel. So I thought I’d find somewhere more private, and as you see from the ad the house has a DSL connection! Great improvement over having to go to the library to e-mail you. I’m going to send a quick note off to Marla to tell her I got settled in new digs. Talk to you soon. Love to Tony (not that he wants it, but I keep trying). Love - Suzan

  E-mail to [email protected]:

  Suze, are you totally out of your frickin’ mind!!!!??? You are starting to validate every dumb blond cliché ever created. I realize that’s an illusion you enjoy cultivating, you creep. At least that’s what I thought until just now! Now I’m not so sure it’s an affectation.

  It was my idea in the first place that you go down there so I feel somewhat responsible but my idea was that you go to Seattle for a few days or a week, not an additional two weeks! Where are you going to get the money to stay down there? You were flat broke last I heard. So, what are you going to do, live on cash advances from the credit card? That sounds more like something I’d do, not that stuffy, practical compulsive person I thought you were.

  You’re right, I agree with Marla. I wish you’d give this up and come home. And not just because of the money. Something just doesn’t feel right about this whole thing. You know I’m not the paranoid type but you think somebody might have messed with your stuff!!?? And you don’t think that’s weird, considering you’re trying to dig up info on your murdered husband? And you were practically adopted by a total stranger who just coincidentally knows lots about the neighborhood where your husband died? I tell you what, if I were in your place I’d be seeing red flags everywhere! At the least I’d think I was getting a bit stressed. You said you went to the police first thing - do you think they might have someone watching you?

  Anyway I’d feel a whole lot better if you’d get out of there - even e-mail seems risky to me. How secure is that DSL thing down there?? I don’t trust all that password shit. I know from what Tony tells me that if someone wants to read this bad enough they’ll find a way.

  You be careful down there. Sean had his reasons for what he did and maybe we’ll never know what they were. Maybe we just need to get on with our lives. Stay safe.

  Love - Claire

  E-mail to [email protected]:

  Claire, you’re evolving into a mother hen! It’s not a good look on you. I shouldn’t have told you about the locker. It wasn’t fair to worry you. I’m sure it was nothing though I appreciate your concern - really I do. Try not to worry (but I know you will). Everything is fine. (How many more ways do I need to say it?) So forget I told you about the locker thing. It was probably my nerves getting slightly frayed. I hadn’t been sleeping well. You try sleeping on a swayback army issue iron bed! Not pleasant.

  As much as you would like me to give this up, you know I have to at least try to find those notebooks. I owe him at least that much - but more than that, I owe it to myself. You and I have been over this endlessly! I can’t come home until I can say I have done absolutely everything I can do - only then will I be able to maybe let him go. Sounds like the worst psyco-babble but it’s true.

  As to the money, I’ve taken a cashier job at a small market a few blocks from here. It’s just part-time and something I can do. (Bet I never told you I used to work after school at Safeway back on the island. Can’t believe I’m glad now for that experience. It was a terrible job!) />
  The i.d. Tony sent me came in handy for the job application (thank him again). Nobody ever checks too closely into part-timers. I will not only make some money but I’ll get to know the neighborhood and maybe some of the people. Don’t worry, it will be okay. Okay, I said that before but I MEAN it! Stop freaking out on me. I promise I’ll keep you posted on my every move and I’ll come home right away if it looks like I’ve gotten in over my head. Satisfied? Love - Dumb Blond

  E-mail to [email protected]:

  Dear Dumb Blond - promise all you want, you won’t come home at the first sign of trouble. I know you better than that, girlfriend. And I’m sorry for the mother hen number. I know you can take care of yourself. But if you need any kind of help just yell and we’ll be down there in a heartbeat. Yes, even Tony. The other night he asked how you were doing. That’s a good sign, don’t you think? Someday maybe he’ll realize that losing one friend is enough. You guys were friends once and will be again. I’m sure of it. He’s just stubborn and sometimes a pain in the rear. As are we all I suppose. I’ve got to go and fix some dinner for that gloomy rooster of mine so I’ll let you go for tonight, sweetie. Take care, and let me know how the project is going.

  Love - Mommy Hen

  P.S. I checked on your apartment and watered the ficus.

  Claire clicked send. I shouldn’t have lied to her, shouldn’t have led her to think everything is the same as when she left. At least not everything was a lie - Tony did ask about her. And whether I was running off to be with her. Not that he wanted me to stay. He didn’t say that. “Time alone”, was what he said. Time to think. He’d get a room in the dorm. I couldn’t have felt more guilty if he had said it deliberately to hurt me - couldn’t stand the thought of him camping out in some musty dorm room - so I pack up a case and go to Suzan’s. Where else would I go?

  She’d come back if I told her - if she knew I needed her. She’d be coming back for the wrong reason though. Two more weeks. Maybe by that time I’ll know what‘s going to happen with Tony. I’ll have to tell her before she comes back. Just not now. She has enough to deal with without that.

  Chapter 13

  West from 23rd, Fir Street resembled a roller coaster, dipping a block down to a Pentecostal church at the corner of 22nd, where it climbed steeply from the intersection, cresting and disappearing over the rise toward the water. Silhouetted against a vermillion sunset at the summit was a monster of a house. Massive and lumpy. Suzan wanted to say ornate, but that would imply some attempt at ornamentation. The impression it made was of a conglomeration, a collection of bay windows and gables stuck on with no particular design in mind. Less a construction than an excretion.

  With the waning light behind it she couldn’t determine its color. Something dark. Dreary. But it might have been the deepening twilight that gave it an ominous air. That and her own state of mind.

  Her second venture to Jax’s with Marla had come to nothing. The drummer had brushed past them out of the bar leaving his band mates to put away the instruments, the manager yelling at him all the way to the door. There had been no time for Marla to go into her routine, no time to talk to anyone at all about Sean.

  “Never mind, Suzan. Just wasn’t our night,” she said. “Seems the guys have a few issues. We’ll catch them another time.”

  Having come so far, to get that close to someone who had known Sean, only to leave empty handed was almost too frustrating to bear. Suzan thought there must be something more they could have done but Marla said she’d had enough for one night. Another lost opportunity, another day with zip to show for the effort. Suzan knew she was missing crucial information, a void that nagged her like spinach caught between her teeth. A feeling that info was being deliberately hidden from herBy the time she got off work the next day she was half dead after a numbing afternoon scanning frozen pizzas and keying produce. But it would take more than swollen feet to prevent her from finally paying a visit to the house on Fir Street.

  That morning she had been tempted to swing by on her way to work but the timing hadn’t felt right. She wanted to scope out the lay of the land before she approached. Once she knew better what she was getting into she would go when the residents were home from work and had a few minutes to talk. If no one was home she could always try the next day. It was a well-reasoned argument but spoke of a spinelessness that embarrassed her. It was as if she were dragging her feet, coming up with excuses not to act, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense since she’d put in a lot of effort and come quite a distance for the express purpose of talking to people in that house.

  Could have been a mistake renting Linda’s spare room. If I were still camping out at the hostel I’d be feeling more pressure to push ahead. As it is, I’ve got way too much room in which to procrastinate.

  Suzan decided she’d have to watch that before she talked herself out of doing anything at all.

  She did rather like the room, though it was aggressively cute. Way too feminine and pink for her tastes but with its proximity to Fir Street and the inexpensive price tag she thought she should maybe stop being so critical and count her blessings.

  At least Linda seemed to be a nice woman. Suzan pegged her as an Earthshoe type, given to substituting tofu for everything actually edible. She and the other two women in residence were students at Seattle University. Linda was studying comparative religion. Note to self: don’t talk religion. The others seemed to be majoring in a nebulous variety of humanities studies. Given different circumstances Suzan might have been glad to make a few new friends. As it was she would mind her own business and let them mind theirs. She wouldn’t be in town long enough to bond.

  Her first full day in the “’hood” had been packed with revelations, mostly relating to her own insular (literally) upbringing. On Whidbey Island and later in Bellingham she was one of a vast majority of white inhabitants. Standing at her register in the Apple Market, she was a spectral blond who found herself empathizing with the odd flounder in an ocean filled with salmon. The market employees and customers, mostly African American and Asian, were stringently polite. Almost overdoing the friendliness to make her feel welcome.

  Tia, the senior checker hugged her as she timed out. “You did just fine, honey,” she said. Suzan wasn’t used to being hugged and it was unsettling being hugged by someone she had just met.

  “Thanks very much,” she replied with what she hoped would be seen as a sincere smile.

  Selling groceries - something so routine and ordinary - was oddly comforting even in this unfamiliar setting. Suzan greeted the sticky toddlers dangling from rusty shopping carts, sent Leon off to the canned soup aisle for a price check, sold a Lotto ticket to a shriveled little man with wide hopeful eyes. It was business as usual and she was pleasantly surprised she remembered the drill. The experience wasn’t remotely comparable to cashiering at Safeway back home, where everyone knew her and her whole family. Where she was Suzan Sullivan Pike, no nonsense and serious beyond her years. Here her nametag read Ann not Suzan and she elicited hugs. It was a sort of rebirth.

  As she retrieved her jacket and purse from the break room locker she hummed a tune Sean wrote the first year they were married. Just a simple happy melody. She longed for the smallest scrap of normalcy. Claire would say that was a good omen. Omen or no, she took it to mean she was on the right track as she set off up 23rd toward Fir Street humming with optimism.

  Just before Fir rose cliff-like to the west, Suzan came to a sort of pocket park carved out of a vacant lot. It was no more than a strip of worn grass, a few swing sets, and a bench under an aging weeping willow. Likely the handy work of parishioners of the church across the street, an example of a neighborhood providing for its own the best way it could. And, as an unintended byproduct, it provided Suzan the perfect vantage point from which to scope out the house at the top of the hill. The park was situated directly catty-cornered from the house. No need now to stand gawking from the sidewalk, drawing attention to herself.

  A pair of l
eggy girls sat in a couple of swings, giggling, no doubt about boys. At that age it’s always about boys. It was tempting to envy them. With luck things won’t get complicated for them for a few more years. Suzan walked to the rickety bench under the willow and sat. Miraculously it held her weight. It was stronger than it looked. So many things were. She hoped she was one of them.

  Daylight was fading rapidly as it does in early spring, the temperature dropping with the sun. Soon the two girls will decide to head home for dinner and I’ll be alone in the park. Both Claire and Marla would have told her she had no business being out at night in an unfamiliar part of town. Especially this part of town. But no part of town is without its dangers for women alone. No town, even Bellingham. Even little Oak Harbor. Marla considers me an innocent babe, and it’s true I’m not street smart but I’m not stupid either.

  Across the street in that big ugly house lived people Sean had chosen over her. That knowledge was inescapable and hurtful. Who were they? Suzan could have unknowingly seen any or all of them today at the market. For two years Sean might have been buying groceries from Tia, Suzan’s new supervisor.

  Even without the chill evening breeze ruffling the willow leaves she shivered. On many levels this was going to be a pretty uncomfortable surveillance.

  A trickle of cars came down the hill, a few turning the corner toward Jackson, their headlights glancing away. There was a hint of wood smoke on the air laced with something that smelled like baking bread. Strange how peaceful it could be on a scrap of city tucked into the lee of a hill, almost as if it were encapsulated in some invisible globe set apart from the gritty dirt and urban turmoil.