Chapter One

It had started only three days earlier, although now that seemed a lifetime ago. It began with. a ringing telephone and with me cursing the noisy instrument that I regard as technology's worst blight on the human race. Telephones follow me everywhere, Even in my car. There is no escape.

The blaring phone jarred me to my senses sometime around seven o'clock on a drizzly Saturday morning toward the end of June. Friday night had been a late one. I wasn't nearly ready to. rise and shine, but homicide cops at Seattle P.D. are used to unscheduled, early-morning wake-up calls.,

Around what locals call the Emerald City, people tend to knock each other off in the middle. of the night or in the wee small hours of the morning, especially right after the bars, close on weekends. If I the work load -- gets too heavy for the regular night-duty squad to handle, they start calling for reinforcements. Being off-duty doesn't, mean you're home free. When your name comes up on the rotation, you're called and you go in, regardless of what you may or may not have been doing the night before. Having a personal life is no excuse.

I figured my early morning phone call meant it had been another one of those busy Saturday-night-special Friday nights around Seattle P.D.

"Beaumont here," I grumbled into the phone, wishing we could somehow convince the city's crooks -- the gangs, the thugs, and the variously affiliated, drug dealers -- to use each other for target practice during regular day time eight-hour shifts. "What up?"

"This is Dave," an unfamiliar male voice replied. "You know, David Livingston?"

I was still muffled in a warm, sleep-induced cocoon, and this joker had me stump