Hyatt Hotel. To get there from my Eastgate office, I had two choices. Get on I-90 and I-405 or stay on surface streets. With the cross-lake freeway mayhem still fresh in mind, I opted for the surface streets and that decision turned out to be on the money. I later learned that a garbage truck had jackknifed at Southeast Eighth, blocking all northbound lanes on 405.
I may not have known about the garbage truck at the time, but I did notice that traffic on Bellevue Way was bumper-to-bumper and slow as mud. It gave me plenty of time to anticipate my upcoming meeting with Bonnie Jean Dunleavy. I had no doubt she would have changed over the years every bit as much as Freddy Mac. I expected that LASIK surgery would have corrected her vision problems and so she would have ditched the glasses. And if she had hooked up with one of the movers and shakers in state government, she’d probably be wearing a size 3 dress and dripping in diamonds. I have a natural aversion to women like that.
I pulled into the Hyatt’s entry drive and was glad to see it had been thoroughly sanded. I always worry when I hand over the keys to my 928 to a valet parking attendant. Anne Corley gave me my first Porsche, and I wouldn’t have one now if it hadn’t been for her. For the valet car jockeys it’s just another high-powered car. For me the 928 is pretty much the only memento I have to remember Anne. I watched until my Guards’ Red baby disappeared around the corner of the building, then I went inside.
Midmorning is an odd time to show up at hotel restaurants. Breakfast service is generally over. The waitstaff, setting up for lunch, can be less than hospitable. I looked around for Freddy. He had left my office a good ten minutes before I had, so I expected him to be there first. That wasn’t the case. The restaurant’s sole diner was a woman sitting near the fireplace in the far corner of the room. As I walked in her direction, she stood and beckoned me toward her.
One glance made it clear that Bonnie Jean Dunleavy was definitely no fashion plate. I had expected designer duds. Instead, she wore a plain white blouse and a simple gray skirt topped by a matching gray cardigan. Instead of killer high heels, she was comfortably shod in Birkenstocks and heavy black stockings. And she wasn’t dripping in diamonds, either. Her only visible piece of jewelry was a gold crucifix that hung on a thin gold chain around her neck. She still wore glasses. The lenses were even thicker now than they had been in high school, but the once popular cat’s-eye style had given way to a simple wire frame. What set her apart from the girl in Freddy Mac’s yearbook was the expression on her face.
In high school Bonnie Jean Dunleavy had looked as though she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her eyes had seemed haunted somehow. The corners of her lips had turned down. This woman was totally at ease with herself. She approached me with a relaxed smile, an air of breezy confidence, and a hand outstretched in greeting. Something had worried Bonnie Jean as a teenager, but it no longer seemed to trouble her as an adult.
“Hello, Mr. Beaumont,” she said. “I don’t believe we officially ever met back in high school. After all, you were a senior when I was a lowly sophomore, but I certainly remember seeing you back then, and I’d still know you anywhere. It’s so good of you to come.”
She led me back to the table. I glanced over my shoulder at the entrance. “Fred will be here eventually,” she said. “He called a few minutes ago. He’s stuck in some kind of traffic tie-up on the freeway. Can I get you something, coffee or tea? It’s a little too early to order lunch.”
“Coffee would be fine,” I said.
She waved down a waiter and I ordered coffee. As soon as the waiter had left, she sat up straight, folded her hands on the edge of the table, and studied my face. “How much did Fred tell you?” she asked.
“Not much,” I admitted,