Elliott Bay

By Lee Capp

She was young, she was blond, and she was beautiful--and she was dead. Crumpled in a pool of her own blood and gore, her stunning looks were gone. She wasn't very pretty anymore--but then, murder is never very pretty either.
When retired homicide detective and newly minted private-eye Johnny "Jack-Ass" O'Brien gets the call to investigate this long forgotten and very cold case, he discovers an entire universe of intrigue and deception, and a far greater and more perilous puzzle than he ever bargained for--one that extends down through the decades and histories of two prominent Seattle are families.
Once more teaming up with partner and best friend, watchmaker Matt McCabe, Johnny and Matt delve into a dark., sordid and mysterious world of shadows, charades, lies and danger, and discover more players than a sandlot baseball team--along with a most worthy, and most deadly opponent--a madman who may ultimately prove to be the end of all and everything Johnny holds dear.
Can Matt and Johnny unravel this web of crime, murder and mayhem and save innocent lives before it's too late? Join the action and fun of ELLIOTT BAY: The Watchmaker - Book Two, and find out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lee Capp
• Release date: Oct 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310647352

Lee Capp

Lee Capp (Larry Lee Caplin) was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1949, back when the Motor City was the crown jewel of the Midwest, and the center of the manufacturing might of America. Raised on motors and Motown and brought up in a tiny suburb called Walled Lake, he had a very misspent youth focused on rock and roll music, amusement parks, good friends (some of which were even girls) movies, golden age television shows and fortunately lots of really good books. Personal favorites among them were the popular anthologies of Alfred Hitchcock and Dorothy Sayers and the crime novels of Ellery Queen and Mickey Spillane. In addition to being a life-long writer of what he calls "Unsold and unsellable dumb stupid stuff" Capp has worked in many fields during his long career, including a short but very interesting stint as an apprentice embalmer in a Tucson, Arizona funeral home and a fish monger in Seattle, Washington. The fish selling he has said was equivalent to an advanced college degree in the study of human nature. Johnny O'Brien is a compilation of Capp himself, who descends from Irish, Scottish and English farmers, fishermen and lumberjack immigrants, and he says, a number of other (verbally at least) bad-assed friends of his youth. Capp says that "if we all were even a tenth as tough as we thought we were, we could have ruled the world." Lee Capp and his wife Bea, retired at last from the workaday world, now reside among the pines, ponds and streams outside Seattle, Washington, where he continues to see just how much trouble he can get Johnny O'Brien and Matt McCabe into the next time around. Contact the author at [e-mail], On Facebook as Larry Lee Caplin (Lee Capp) and [e-mail]

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PROLOGUE

Present day, late December,

Glasnevin Cemetery

Dublin, Ireland

In the dead of winter, darkness comes early to the extreme northern climes. In Dublin Ireland this December day, not only the inky blackness of night, but bone-numbing cold crept across the expansive cemetery yard nearly as soon as the feeble sun gave up its losing battle and sank beneath the misty blue horizon. Stark ebony tree branches silhouetted against a ghostly grey sky as the last light of day faded and a weak moon rose. Cold pulsated in the stone forest with a heartbeat of its own.

Withered leaves rustled and frozen twigs snapped as a solitary figure dressed entirely in black slowly made its way along the southern limestone wall, passing a wishing-tree—its entreating clouti still hanging, but nearing ready to fall—beckoning the dead to rise. Above, a silent and dark watchtower arched toward the vacant sky, guarding against body-snatchers that no longer threatened.

Approaching a smallish grey stone family vault, the figure stopped moving—his aging eyes probing the darkness for the flicker of candlelight he knew would soon appear inside the structure. Almost at once, and as if on cue, a candle was lighted and the soft warm eerie glow emanated from the doorway of the vault. Above the archway could barely still be seen in the deepening shadows the family name—McCabe.

The old man moved quietly toward the vault, stopping at its side, just to the left of the entranceway. From there he could plainly hear the person within. At first was silence as the figure inside read and pondered the family names inscribed on the walls of the vault. Then, the old man could hear the tapping of a hammer and chisel as century old mortar was chipped away and removed from the death chamber’s seal. When that sound ended, the scraping began, working the stone grave cover away from the burial cavity. The old man knew that task would be easy, as the grave that was the object of the intruder’s attention was on the bottom, and the cover need only be slid along the stone floor.

Now, the casket within exposed, he could hear the intruder’s sharp intake of breath as he began to pull and tug at the resisting object. Smiling, the old man thought—even after all these years, the casket was heavy. Heavy indeed. Dark, rich and well-figured mahogany—plus the weight of its contents. Suppressing another smile, the old man listened further as the casket was dragged into the relatively open area of the crypt floor. The straining man inside was panting a bit. Still, considering all, the old man knew he must be in decent shape to have been able to get it out so quickly single-handed.

Soon, after a short pause for breath, the same chisel went to work again, prying the lid from the body of the coffin. This time the work went faster and much easier. The resistance was far less. In less than a minute the man inside broke the last remaining impediment and began to lift the lid. It creaked considerably as it went up. Good thing, the old man thought, that the ancient watchtowers were now empty. The moaning and grinding sound of the rising lid would surely have brought the guards running, rifles in hand.

Finally, the noise of the ascending lid abruptly ceased as the man inside lifted his candle high to peer into the box. It cast flickering shadows against the bare stone of the structure much like the last embers of a dying fire. Another sharp intake of breath, and then a faintly muttered Dear God, escaped the vault. A long silence followed as the man considered the contents of the casket.

After perhaps another minute the man arose and sharply blew out the candle. He turned and half ran from the vault, throwing the candle stub aside as he exited the structure. The old man in black watched him go—a much younger and taller man, similarly dressed in black and wearing a watch cap. He strode perhaps a dozen paces from the crypt and stopped, turning back for a final look. The old man wished he could have seen the young man’s face, but the darkness was too complete. By the same token, the young man could not see him, crouched as he was in the deepening embrace of the night.

The young man turned away again and took three more steps, disappearing into the night as he did so. The air seemed to swirl just a bit in the space where he had been, and then there was nothing but the bitter cold.

With some difficultly the old man arose from his hiding place and entered the crypt. He certainly wasn’t a youngster anymore and it would not be easy for him to push the heavy casket back into the wall and replace the cover, but he would do so, stopping to rest often. It would have been nice if the young man had replaced it himself before he left, but that was often not the way with the younger generations. They did not know respect. The old man did however. It had been taught him in a thousand ways—as if by a thousand cuts of a knife. A thousand cuts to his saddened and broken heart.

Pausing before he lowered the lid however, he placed his wizened hand inside the coffin and ran it over the rough and uneven surface of the contents. Hello again old friend, he said, speaking into the box—addressing an occupant that he could not see in the near total darkness. No matter, he thought. He had seen it before. He traced a single finger along the names carved into the nearest two stones. Lillian—and Rhoda. There were more, but he did not continue. The bodies in this place may be well dead and gone, he thought—but the memories were very much alive. He could feel them, as surely as he could feel the corpse’s sightless eyes boring through the stones at him. Even though a house of the dead, this structure throbbed and pulsated with spectral life. Another man might have been afraid, but why should he? He was, after all, he thought—in many ways, just as dead as they.

At last, perhaps twenty minutes later, he finished his work and exited the vault. Just in time. There seemed to be little air left inside. Carefully he closed the heavy door behind him. Oddly, it made little noise as it shut and the latch clicked into place. The last time he had been here, many long years before, the door had been secured by a massive padlock—gone now. Again, no matter. No thief would break through here to steal and rob, and no accursed resurrectionists either to take bodies for their damned so-called medical schools. They after all, were after fresh meat—and the yellowed bones of the McCabe’s were old and very, very brittle. No smell of blood here any longer to call in the vultures, thought the old man.

A bitter cold night wind was picking up, along with a light snow. It swirled the browned and fallen leaves. He raised his black hood. Good timing, the old man pondered. By morning, even if a sexton did happen by this place, all evidence of trespass would be covered by the elements. As for the inside—well, maybe things did not look exactly as they did before this visit, but again, what of it? It had been nearly a hundred years since anyone had ventured inside and it could well be a century more. This family in Ireland? Well—they simply didn’t exist anymore.

With that sullen and somber thought, the old man followed in the footsteps of his younger predecessor, and in much the same way, and in nearly the same place—likewise vanished into the night.

Silence—and near total darkness returned to Glasnevin Cemetery. The snow continued to fall, while the increasingly cold wind rustled through the treetops.

And the dead slept once more.

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

Elliott Bay,

The Port of Seattle,

Thursday, January 17, 1889

As a blood-red wolf moon rose over the black and frigid waters of Puget Sound, a low wind began to blow and work its way between the dreary and faded clapboard buildings that comprised the bulk of the waterfront structures, wafting the stench of dead and decaying fish guts toward the solitary figure working its way along the line of dark and shuttered warehouses.

Billy Kelly’s greatcoat did little to protect him from the icy blast that worked its way down the back of his neck. Turning up the collar and shoving his hands into the pockets of the coat, he wished he had remembered to bring his scarf, gloves and watch-cap along when he had left for work this day. It had seemed a cheery enough morning at the time, with a bright sun poking through some high clouds, but as the day wore on it faded and disappeared, and a more typical Pacific Northwest rainy day had materialized. Now, it was becoming un-typical again as the mercury dropped further and the possibility of snow threatened.

The pint of beer and cold sandwich consumed at O’Reilly’s bar did little either to warm him. He wished he’d had a bowl of O’Reilly’s thick hot oyster stew and an Irish coffee instead. The coffee was good there. It was said that you could stand a spoon on end in it and it would stay there. An exaggeration perhaps, but O’Reilly’s brew would not only put hair on your chest, but part it down the middle as well, he thought with amusement. Billy jammed his hands deeper into his pockets and pushed forward, trying to forget the cold and his shivering body.

Nearing Pike Street, Billy intended to turn to the right and head east to Mamie’s Boarding House, the establishment where he had lived for the past several months. It was a run-down old house with small rooms. Pleasant enough though. Overcrowded at the best of times, it was more so lately, with the recent influx of sailors, fishermen and lumberjacks. Seattle was after all, becoming a world-class city and seaport. That was where he worked—on the Elliott Bay waterfront, loading and unloading the ships coming in and out of port on a daily basis. Soon, it was estimated, the port would be serving a hundred ships a day. No small feat. So Mamie’s was full and was likely to stay that way. There was little to recommend it, except for the cheap rent and the absolutely terrific food that Mamie served every day. From the size of the old girl, it was plain that she regularly took part in the abundance. A person needed a pretty well-developed boarding house reach to successfully compete for meals at Mamie’s. Billy was too late for dinner tonight however—hence the sandwich and beer.

The other thing that kept Billy at Mamie’s was proximity of his recent girlfriend Nancy Treadwell. Everyone just called her Brandy, spelled the same way as the beverage, the drink she most often served at the local bar, The Bull and Barrel, where she worked. It was a traditional favorite of the sailors—that and rum. A recent immigrant from England, she too had signed on at Mamie’s, and there she and Billy had begun their relationship. She was a great girl, and Billy knew that one day she would expect him to ask her to marry him. That was something that he had no intention of doing of course. His life was the sea, and no harbor was his home. He considered himself at the present moment to be only in dry dock so to speak. Hurt during a storm at sea a little over a year before, he had gone to work on the docks to strengthen his injured back and legs.

But his love was the water, not the land. When the right situation presented itself, on the right ship and for the right pay, he would be gone. He had always been honest with her about the future. He didn’t believe in lying. No percentage in it, he always thought. But he was pretty sure that she didn’t really believe that day would ever really come. They were a great couple. She would be a good wife he knew. Everyone just sort of assumed that one day they would be husband and wife. The engraved and expensive silver locket and chain necklace that he had given her bore mute testimony to it in the eyes of others. Rarely did they sleep each in their own rooms. Much more often he would stay in hers, or vice-versa. Physically, they were made for each other—their sexual appetites completely compatible. After intercourse, they would lie naked, intertwined with each other, trading small talk until the small hours of the morning. It was a comfortable arrangement, for the time being, and he hurried home to it at this moment.

He would never make it.

As Billy cleared the last of warehouse row and turned the corner onto Pike, he could see two men, standing against a building, up the street a fair distance. He could not make out their faces, as they watched his forward progress. Turning his attention to the other side of the road, for a split-second he thought he caught the glimpse of a large figure, someone dressed in dark clothes and moving just across the sidewalk and at the mouth of a dark alley. Billy squinted into the darkness. Was someone really there—or was it just a trick of the shadows? Oh well, he thought—no business of his anyhow, and way too cold to go chasing shadows. The drunks could sleep where they wanted to, and as cold as they wanted to. He was home to a pretty girl, and a warm bed. The two men had disappeared now, he noticed.

Then he heard the sound. At first he thought it might be the low moan of the wind. It was picking-up rapidly. But then he recognized it for what it was—a long low wail of an injured person. Billy had heard that sound often enough. There were always injuries on the docks. Most were minor, but some were very bad. A couple had resulted in death. It was not a sight that Billy relished. He did not like death, and he did not welcome the thought of a person lying within that dark alley injured, unable to move and dying a slow painful death in the freezing cold—and worse, all alone. Billy felt his feet moving toward the alley. They could not seem to do otherwise.

Reaching the opening, Billy peered into it, not able to make anything out in the dim light emanating from the one feeble distant lamp post. He then took a tentative step into the darkness, and as he did so was aware that the light from the lamp behind him was momentarily blocked off, as a huge and hulking figure of a man loomed over him from behind. Before Billy could react however, the man’s bare hands were around his neck, both squeezing his neck and lifting his chin. Billy was able to see the six-inch knife blade in the man’s hand as it came forward toward his throat. It was a doubled edged stiletto rather than a fishing knife he saw. He realized in this moment that he had been had, and this robber had every intention of slitting his throat and taking his wallet and leaving him to die in a wet pool of his own blood.

Billy was a wiry and strong young man, just twenty-two years old. Although not very large, he had especially well-developed arm muscles, working as he did throwing freight all day. But even at that he realized that he was no match for this hulking giant of a man. The way the brute was towering over Billy’s five foot ten inch frame, he thought his attacker must be six and a half feet tall—and possibly even a little more than that. Billy was fighting a losing battle as he tried to pull the much larger man’s hands away from his neck. He knew he could not hold out for long and was about to die.

In the final seconds before his air ran completely out, Billy realized he had to do something to throw his attacker off balance and break the grip on his neck—so he simply kicked his own legs out from under himself and dropped like a rock to the ground. His attacker, taken off guard by this movement, loosened his grip on Billy’s neck and lost control of his victim. Quickly he leaned groping forward to locate Billy again in the blackness of the alley and when he did so was shocked to find that Billy had recovered almost instantly, spun around, and now brought his right foot up and delivered a glancing blow to the groin of the bigger man. Dressed in black himself, Billy was now on an equal footing with his opponent in the dark alley. Neither could see the other well.

Although it was not a fight-ending move, a smaller person might still have been taken completely out of the fight, but it didn’t seem to have that much effect on the giant, who stumbled forward again in his attempt to get hold of Billy with his large hands. Again the dim light from the lamp post was blocked off as the frame of the monster came between it and Billy. Because of this Billy was able to aim his next kick slightly better and landed a very solid blow to the very same part of his attacker’s anatomy. This time the giant not only stopped moving forward, but bellowed in pain as well. Suddenly he stood up straight, and turned slightly toward the street and the lamp post. In that moment Billy was able to see the large, lantern-shaped jaw and disfigured face of his opponent. It almost took Billy’s breath away in the brutality of that expression. Once again the attacker’s knife flashed in the faint light, and once more Billy realized he had only seconds to live.

Scrambling to his feet as his attacker moved forward again relentlessly, Billy aimed his third and final kick at the advancing man. He knew his fists would have no effect, so Billy put everything he had into that last kick and delivered it to the wrist of the hand holding the knife. The knife flew out of the big man’s hand and clattered to the ground, striking some rocks that had been piled there. Billy lurched forward, grabbing both the fallen knife and one of the fist-sized rocks. Odds now much more even and the tables turned, Billy closed the distance between him and the thug, fully intending to bury all six-inches of that knife into the big man’s chest, and attend his funeral three days later just for good measure. Instead of standing to the fight however, the large man simply turned and ran, his huge frame lumbering off. Billy would have followed to end it there, for surely he could have caught such a large and relatively slow-moving target, but the faint moan that he again heard directly behind him in the alley stopped him cold. As Billy hesitated, the large man made his hasty retreat and disappeared.

Billy gathered together his ragged breath and moved again deeper into the alley to find the source of that horrible sound. As the dim illumination from the street lamp behind him faded, he forged forward, almost groping in the inky blackness. For a moment, Billy stopped and listened hard, sure he had heard the faint scurrying sound of footsteps. And then suddenly, turning a corner, a pinpoint of light appeared before him. Billy stopped moving and focused on the eerie, dim light ahead. He was puzzled. He had never seen anything quite like it. In a few seconds, the pin-point of light widened to a pool. Billy could see movement at the edges of the pool, and the sound of whispered voices. As Billy took a few more steps, the voices ended and the faint light disappeared entirely. Again, there was the sound of footsteps—although Billy could not tell their direction—in the impenetrable darkness of the alley. Suddenly violence erupted in the alley ahead of Billy. The sound of a fight—and struggling bodies. The sound continued on for nearly a full minute as Billy halted in the alley and listened. Finally it was over—the sound of running footsteps disappearing. Billy could hear the sound of a man standing up slowly from the cobblestones, and then gingerly making his way out of the darkness and into the street.

Now almost entirely without illumination of any kind, Billy moved forward. He reached and nearly stumbled over the smallish human body lying on the ground. Even in the total blackness Billy could sense that this person was no threat to him, so he simply reached down and picked the surprisingly light weight and wet bundle and threw it over his shoulder and made his way out of the alley and to the relatively good light of the street lamp. There he carefully place the person on the ground and began his examination.

He could see at a glance that there was nothing to be done for this person, although still barely alive. He could also tell that the person was actually a smallish woman of perhaps twenty or so years old. She had once been very beautiful and had blond hair, now streaked and clotted with crimson blood. Her neck was twisted at an odd angle. She had been stabbed several times in the upper chest, and the genital area as well. But the worst of her injuries was the fact that she had been nearly eviscerated—her guts and blood spilling out onto the ground. That was the wound that was going to kill her, and even as Billy watched, the lingering light in her eyes went out, and she breathed her last.

Billy was still cradling the dead woman in his arms when the police swarmed the area, alerted by a passerby who had seen him carry the woman out from the alley. Holding lanterns, they descended upon him and the grisly scene. Billy was happy to see them, thinking help had finally arrived, and was completely shocked and dismayed when they placed him under arrest for her murder. Despite his many protests, which fell completely on deaf ears, the police never seriously considered the possibility of another individual being present at the time. They had no interest in searching for an imaginary giant in the streets of Seattle. After all, they had discovered Billy crouched over the dead woman, covered in her blood and holding the knife that had killed her. The bruises on Billy’s neck? To their minds, they had been inflicted by the woman as she tried to defend herself from his attack.

It was an open and shut case. The trial was held about one month later. It took the jury less than ten minutes to reach a verdict, from which no one asked appeal. No one had come forward to offer an alternate explanation or valid defense for young Billy. He was alone—completely, utterly and totally alone. No one save his girl Brandy ever believed him, and no one but her, ever faithful to the end, sat in the courtroom, to offer support.

And no one, save Brandy, her face stained with bitter tears, was present on the day, one month after that, when a shackled and black-hooded Billy Kelly was led to the gallows outside the jail, and on a drizzly cold slate-grey morning, hanged by the neck until he was dead. His executioners would always claim that Billy had asked for a final drink—but that was not the case. Only God in Heaven above and one broken-hearted and shattered girl, would ever know for certain the last word to escape Billy’s lips.

CHAPTER TWO

Pioneer Building

Seattle, Washington

Monday—December 22, 2014

The bloodcurdling shriek began slowly, and then rapidly built in both volume and intensity. For a moment or two at its apex, it seemed as though the Pioneer Buildings aging windows would surely rattle themselves to death and break. The office window behind my back was opened slightly, even though the last feeble afternoon sunlight was fading fast, and the late December mercury was hovering at just a tiny bit north of freezing. It had been nice to air out the office a little. At first I thought that downtown Seattle must be experiencing an earthquake, and the terrified wail that was assaulting my ears was coming from Pioneer Square, in the street just below my second floor office. It was not so. In another second I realized that this hideous sound was emanating from inside, namely the office foyer, just outside my own door.

My secretary was out for the day and the foyer was empty except for little Pee Wee Zhou, as I liked to call him. His real name was Melvin Yang and he was a cute little tyke. Just a bit under four years old, he was the nephew of friend and Bellevue Police Department Officer Linh Zhou- McCabe. Melvin was her sister’s kid and sis had left him in Linh’s care for the day while she was off doing grown-up stuff. Linh, as it turned out, also had grown-up stuff to do and palmed the little guy off on me for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Although I’d never be voted baby-sitter of the year, I liked the little guy well enough and was happy to have him. There was nothing going on either in the office, or in my life right at the moment. Melvin was always remarkably well-behaved, and when he was here, usually entertained himself rather nicely out in the foyer with an assorted of small toys we kept there for him and other children that inevitably came along with their parents on their appointments.

I had been speaking on the land line phone with Matt McCabe, another good friend and the husband of Linh, when the screaming began. I don’t know if Matt heard the racket over the phone or not, as I basically threw the receiver on the desk and plunged into the foyer to see what sort of mayhem had occurred there. I almost knocked little Melvin over as he was standing so close to the partially closed door. He was drawing a deep breath and readying himself for another scream when the outer door opened and in walked Linh, back from her dental appointment. Melvin’s blast caught us both at the same time, but I was a whole lot nearer and wondered vaguely what the decibel level threshold was for permanent hearing loss. Melvin’s little mug was contorted with an expression of total and abject fear as copious tears streamed down his chubby reddened cheeks.

Linh covered the short distance from the outer door to Mel in a single step or two and gathered the little fellow up into her arms. Once there, he obviously felt safe and immediately clammed-up. It was as though a shrieking ambulance had suddenly turned off its siren. The silence was deafening, as Linh shot me a scorching and accusing look.

What did you do to him? she nearly shouted at me accusatorially.

Nothing, I replied. I was just on the phone with your husband when Pee Wee started in. I don’t have any idea what’s going on. He’s never done anything like this before when he’s been here.

Stop calling him Pee Wee, Johnny. His name’s Melvin.

Melvin then, I quickly corrected myself. I may have been born only yesterday, but I had sure been around long enough to know you don’t throw gasoline on a raging fire. Linh was not a woman to get cross-wise with, especially when she was defending family or someone she loved. I had seen this Judo black-belt in action before, and her opposition generally came in a distant and dismal second.

Is Matt still on the line? she asked.

"I’m sure he is. I