Act of God (16 page)

“I can’t believe you’re working on this case,” Louise Jessup told her husband when he came home with the Latham file in his
briefcase. “Why would anyone want to help that animal?”

“My job isn’t to judge,” he reminded her, “it’s to investigate.”

“But I know people who died in that bombing,” she argued. “Innocent people, friends.”

“I know you did,” he allowed. “But I still have a job to do.”

They ate dinner in silence. It was better than his trying to explain to her, for the millionth time, how important what he
did was to the proper outcome of a trial. He had no trouble explaining it to himself. Holding the state to the highest standard
of evidence was what made the system work. Checks and balances were what kept it honest. After all his years on the police
force, Jessup knew that as well as anyone.

As soon as dinner was over, he retired to his office with a steaming mug of tea, and picked up the material Dana had given
him. First, he scanned the pages to get the gist of what they contained. Then he went back to the beginning and read the file,
word for word. This time, alongside Dana’s notations, he added some of his own. When he was finished, he sat back in his chair,
a shabby recliner that his wife hated, but where he did some of his best thinking, and sipped his now tepid tea. After a while,
he picked up a yellow pad, and began to write, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed as thoughts came to him. Every
once in a while, he would stop and refer back to something in the file, and then he would continue his writing. After two
hours of this, he read over what he had written, made
a few changes, placed the pad and the file on top of his desk, and went to bed.

“What you find out,” Louise asked in the darkness. “Will it help convict Corey Latham or acquit him?”

“I don’t know yet,” he replied softly.

M
argaret Ethridge’s home in Bothell, just north of Seattle, was immaculate and filled with an assortment of overstuffed furniture
and framed photographs that spoke of years of continuity.

Craig Jessup was welcomed into the living room and sat in a huge wing chair by the fire with a cup of fresh-brewed coffee.

“We told Elise, you know, right from the beginning, that it was a mistake,” Margaret said.

“What was a mistake?” Jessup asked.

“Marrying him, of course,” she replied. “To begin with, he wasn’t Catholic. What chance did she have of making a marriage
work with a Methodist? And as if that wasn’t bad enough, it all happened too fast. A matter of months, a few weeks, really.
But would she listen? Not to a word of it. Oh, she knew exactly what she was doing, she said. We shouldn’t worry. We shouldn’t
try to interfere. But of course, she
didn’t
know what she was doing, and now look what’s happened. She’s ruined her life, and not just here on earth. Her soul is going
to burn in hell for all eternity.”

“You mean, because of the abortion?”

The woman, an older, heavier, faded version of her daughter, wagged her head in obvious distress. “This whole thing had disaster
written across it from the start.”

“You didn’t approve of Corey Latham?”

“It had nothing to do with him, personally,” Margaret said. “The truth is, it was all so fast, we hardily had a chance to
get to know him. He seemed nice enough, I guess, for a Methodist. No, it was
her.
You see, he didn’t know, she wouldn’t let us breathe a word to him about it. But my daughter was on the rebound.”

Much of what Craig Jessup did when he worked a case, and what made him so valuable, involved sifting through countless perceptions
and impressions to reach reliable conclusions, and it helped clarify his thinking to be able to bounce his ideas off another
person. The only person in the world he trusted enough to be his sounding board was his wife of twenty-eight years. She had
a sharp mind and a simple way of cutting right to the chase.

“Can you put aside your personal feelings about this case,” he asked her, “and just consider the possibility that Latham might
be innocent?”

“I’m not going to tell you it will be easy,” Louise replied. “But since you’ve gone and gotten yourself involved in it now,
I’ll do my best.”

He told her the salient points about his visit with Margaret Ethridge.

“I can understand the family’s disappointment,” she said. “The Catholic thing, and all that. But to cut her daughter off at
a time like this, that seems pretty heartless to me.”

Jessup nodded. “I can’t decide whether the mother is a woman who’s trying to cope, or a woman who’s trying to control.”

“Or someone who’s afraid to get too close to what might really be there.”

“I’ve been renting rooms to naval officers for twenty years,” Evelyn Biggs confided on the front porch of her boarding house
in Bremerton. “Corey Latham was one of my favorites. He used to come in for cocoa and conversation in the evenings, especially
when he had a problem he needed to work out. He called me his surrogate mom. I was proud to have him and that nice Zach Miller
rooming together in my house. Why, he couldn’t possibly have done what they say he did. You think I would have rented to a
monster? Now that wife of his, that’s another story. You ask me, she’s the monster.”

“Why do you say that, Mrs. Biggs?” Jessup inquired of the gray-haired landlady who was every bit as wide as she was tall.

“Because it was so obvious. Right from the beginning. She snared him like a piece of fish for her dinner. Got her hooks in
so deep, he didn’t know up from down. How could he, him being so young and inexperienced, like he was? All the poor boy could
do was wriggle, while she dragged him here and dangled him there. And then to kill his baby without a second thought? A long
cold drink of water, that one.”

“Did you know her well?”

Evelyn shook her head. “Never really got much chance. Right from the get-go, she started alienating him from everyone who
cared about him, or anyone who might try to talk some reason into him.”

“And did you try to talk some reason into him?”

“Of course I tried. Zach and I both tried. What was the rush? we asked him. If this was right, it would still be right in
a year or two, after they’d had a chance to get to know each other, and could separate the love from the hunger. But her exotic
perfume must have been a lot stronger than our common sense. She led him around on a very short leash, and he followed right
along after her just like a puppy. And of course, him being such a fine young gentleman, he didn’t know what to do with all
those hormones except marry her. And wasn’t that a disaster?”

“What?”

“Why the wedding, of course. That boy came to me in tears. Seems he and the girl had their hearts set on this lovely affair
up at the Kiana Lodge. It’s such a beautiful place, sitting right out there on the water. Do you know it?”

“No,” Jessup murmured, “can’t say as I do.”

“Well, anyway, her parents refused to pay for it. Told Corey flat out, if he wanted a fancy wedding, he’d have to pay for
it himself. Can you imagine that? Well, he came home all upset, of course, and he asked me what he should do. I should have
told him to get out of that whole relationship as fast as he could. To my regret, I didn’t. I told him, the groom pays for
the ring, the rehearsal dinner, and the honeymoon, period. And if her parents wouldn’t pay for the wedding, well then they
could just march themselves on down to city hall and say ’I do’ right there.”

“What happened?”

Evelyn shrugged. “The parents finally agreed to shell out for a peanut affair at the family church in Bothell.”

“A peanut affair?”

Evelyn Biggs rolled her eyes. “That’s what I call it when all they serve is a glass of sparkling wine and a few nuts in a
bowl.”

“It sounds like there was trouble with that marriage before there even was a marriage,” Jessup told his wife.

“Yes,” she agreed. “But where was it coming from—inside or out?”

“There are five of us,” Ronna Ethridge Keough, short and chubby and looking nothing at all like her spectacular sibling, told
the investigator. “Two brothers and three sisters. Elise is the oldest. I never thought much about it before, but looking
back,
I guess it really bothered her that she was the only one of us who wasn’t married.”

“Your mother said something about Elise marrying Corey on the rebound,” Jessup prompted.

“Yeah,” Ronna said with a nod. “She’d been dating this other guy, Steve—Dr. Steven Bonner, to be exact—for about two years,
and was totally crazy about him. Never mind Cloud Nine, she was on Cloud Ninety. He was some kind of surgeon, really smart,
really good-looking, really high on himself, with this mansion on Mercer Island, no less. It was obvious to me, anyway, that
he had a roving eye for anything in a skirt, but Elise either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. She had dreams of where she wanted
to go in life, and I guess she figured sleeping with Steve for two years gave her more than a leg up. It entitled her to a
first-class ticket.”

“That sounds rather calculating, doesn’t it?”

Ronna shrugged. “Elise is nothing if not practical. She’s bright enough for most men, but she always thought her way to the
top was going to be through her looks. My mother was beautiful when she was young, and it didn’t take a genius to see how
long good looks last. I guess, at twenty-seven, Elise got scared. So one day she told Steve it was time to fish or cut bait.”

“Don’t tell me. He cut bait, didn’t he?”

“Well, that’s what we all were sure he’d do. But the next thing we knew, they’d set a date, and she was floating around, wearing
this three-carat rock on her finger. You could’ve knocked us over. My folks weren’t exactly thrilled, I don’t think they liked
him much, but they didn’t want to rain on Elise’s parade. So they planned this really elegant wedding for her. Spent a small
fortune they couldn’t afford. I guess simple wasn’t good enough for a surgeon from Mercer Island.”

“Let me guess,” Jessup suggested. “He called it off at the eleventh hour?”

“Worse,” Ronna said with a sigh. “He just never showed up.
Left her standing at the altar in front of two hundred guests and melting ice sculptures. He didn’t even have the courtesy
to phone. He sent her a telegram, can you believe it? She cried for a month, and then she went out and found Corey.”

“I see what your mother meant,’ Jessup said. “It was kind of quick, wasn’t it?”

“And then there was that awful abortion thing,” Ronna said with a sigh. “My parents don’t know it, but I went with her.”

“You went to Hill House with Elise when she had the abortion?”

Ronna nodded. “She needed someone to be with her. To get her home afterward, and all. We were always the closest.”

“So you knew she lied to Corey when she said she had miscarried.”

“Yes, but what went on between them was none of my business.”

“What do you think of Corey?” Jessup inquired.

Ronna shrugged. “I’ve met him exactly three times: at the engagement party, at the wedding, and last Christmas,” she replied.
“Elise didn’t bring him around much. He seemed nice enough, a little immature for her maybe. But if you’re asking me whether
or not I think he bombed Hill House, I’ll tell you the same thing I told the police when they asked me. I have absolutely
no idea.”

“Naive,” Zach Miller said. “I think that’s the word I’d use to describe Corey Latham. That and idealistic, too.”

“How so?” Jessup asked the former roommate.

“Well, he’s a real decent guy, but it’s kind of like he lives in this world that just doesn’t exist anymore,” the lieutenant
said. “He’s like right out of
Ozzie and Harriet
, if you know what I mean. The American flag, mom, and apple pie. I think he honestly sees himself as a knight on a white
horse with right on his side, chosen by God to defend his country and protect the honor
of women. Not that this is necessarily bad, mind you. It’s just that he takes himself so seriously.”

“And what about his relationship with Elise?”

“Well, that was bound to happen, him being who he is, and all. He fell for her like a ton of bricks, right off the bat. Put
her up on a pedestal so high, I doubt he could even see her.”

“Do you like her?”

“Barely know her. Met her at the bar the same night Corey did. As I recall, he met her first, but she made a play for both
of us. He bit, I didn’t. After that, she seemed pretty intent on the two of them not spending much time around the people
he used to hang with. I think she saw us as a major threat.”

“To what?”

“To ruining things for her, I guess,” Zach replied. “Corey might have been too smitten to see it, but desperation literally
oozed out of her. The package might have been okay, but women who are that desperate always set my, alarm bells off.”

“Any idea what she was desperate about?”

“God knows,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe it had something to do with being twenty-seven years old and unmarried, although
in this day and age there’s no disgrace in that. A few of us tried to talk him out of tying the knot so soon. After all, what
was the rush? But she was pushing hard, and he was so innocent. I think maybe he was afraid if he hesitated, he’d lose her.”