Trial by Fury (9780061754715) (18 page)

I
started the engine in the Porsche. Instantly, a mantle of terrible weariness fell over me. It was as though all my strength had been sapped away, all the stamina had drained out of me and into the machine. Gripping the wheel, I felt my hands tremble. I was chilled, cold from the inside out.

It was well after ten. I understood why I had hit a wall of fatigue. The days preceding it, to say nothing of that day itself, had taken their toll.

Common sense ruled out hurrying to Peters' house to tell his girls. It was long past their bedtime. They were no doubt already in bed and fast asleep. Let them sleep. The bad news could wait.

I decided to go home, shower, and change clothes before driving to Kirkland. Mentally
and physically, I needed it. Besides, a detour to my apartment gave me a little longer to consider what I'd say, what I'd tell Heather and Tracie when I woke them.

When I got to the Royal Crest, it was all I could do to stay awake and upright in the elevator. I staggered down the hallway, opened the door to my apartment, and almost fell over what I found there. My newly recovered recliner had been returned and placed just inside the door. How Browder had gotten it done that fast I couldn't imagine. But he had.

Unable to walk through the vestibule, I turned into the kitchen. There on the counter sat my new answering machine with its message light blinking furiously.

I counted the blinks, ten of them in all. Ames had told me that each blink indicated a separate message. I pressed rewind and play.

The first two were hang-ups.

The third was a voice I recognized as that of Michael Browder, my interior designer, telling me he was on his way to downtown Seattle. He was bringing the chair in hopes of dropping it off on his way.

The fourth call was Browder again, calling from the security phone downstairs this time, asking to be let into the building.

The fifth call was from the building manager, explaining that he was letting someone
deliver a chair and that he hoped it was all right with me.

The sixth was someone calling to see if I was interested in carpet cleaning.

The seventh was from Ned Browning. He didn't say what day or time he was calling. He said he had just discovered that the keys to the Mercer Island team van were missing from his desk. Checking in the district garage, he had discovered that the van was gone as well. He had reported it missing, but did I think it possible that Candace Wynn had taken the keys from his desk while he was down in the locker room?

I stopped the answering machine and replayed Browning's message. Possible? It was more than possible. You could count on it. So that was why she had insisted on meeting Browning at school, why she had pretended to have just learned about the names in the locker the night before. She had lured Browning there so she could get the keys and steal the van.

But why? That still didn't give me the whole answer. Parts of it, yes, but not the whole story. Maybe she had known we were getting close and had wanted to use another vehicle in case we were already looking for her truck. But why a school van? Surely she must have known that by Monday at the latest someone would have noticed and reported it missing.

Unless, by then, she no longer cared whether she got caught. I remembered the fearless, single-minded way she had crashed through the barriers onto the exit ramp. Maybe she had reached a point where being caught was no longer the issue. Now, with Candace Wynn dead, hope faded that I would ever learn the answers to those questions.

I turned back to my answering machine to play the next message. The eighth one was from Joanna Ridley, asking me to call her as soon as I could. She left her number.

The ninth and tenth messages were both from Ames, looking for me, wondering what was going on, and had I learned anything.

The machine clicked off. I dialed Joanna's number, but there was no answer. I poured myself a tumbler full of MacNaughton's and dialed Peters' number in Kirkland. Ames answered on the second ring.

“It's Beau,” I said.

“It's about time. Did you find him?”

“Yes.”

“It sounds bad. Is it?”

“He's in the hospital, Ralph. The doctors don't know whether or not he'll make it…”

“And…?” Ames prompted.

“Even if he does, he may be paralyzed. His neck's broken.”

There was a stricken silence on the other end of the line.

“Are the girls in bed?” I asked eventually.

“Mrs. Edwards put them down a little while ago. I told them we'd wake them up if we heard any news.”

“Don't get them up yet. Wait until I get there,” I said. “I'm at home now. I need to shower. I'll come prepared to spend the night.”

“Good,” Ames said. “That sounds like a plan.”

“I'll be there in about an hour,” I told him. “Captain Powell was to give the hospital that number in case they need to reach us. Is there anything you need over there?” I asked as an afterthought.

“As a matter of fact, bring along some MacNaughton's.”

“In addition to what's in my glass?”

“Bring me some that hasn't been used,” he replied.

The shower helped some. At least it gave me enough energy to gather up a shaving kit and some clean clothes. I drove to Kirkland in the teeth of the roaring gale. Waves from Lake Washington lashed onto the bridge and across my windshield, mixing with sheets of rain and making it almost impossible to see the road ahead of me.

The storm's fury matched my own. J. P. Beaumont was in the process of beating himself up and doing one hell of a good job. What if I had called for help before I ever left Bal
lard? Was it possible that a patrol car could have reached the Scarborough house in time to keep Candace Wynn from getting away, from making it to the freeway? What could I have done differently so Peters' life wouldn't be hanging in the balance?

In the end, I couldn't ditch the singular conclusion that it was my fault. All my fault.

Ames met me at the door. He looked almost as worn and haggard as I felt. “Tell me,” he commanded, taking the bottle of MacNaughton's from my hand and leading me into the kitchen.

Ames poured, and I talked. Off and on I tried Joanna Ridley's number, but there was still no answer. Between calls, I told Ames every detail of what had happened that day, down to the doctor's last words as I left the hospital. When I finished, Ames ran his hands through his hair, shaking his head.

“God what a mess! What are we going to do?”

“About what?”

“The kids.”

“What do you mean? What'll happen to them?” I asked.

“That depends,” Ames said quietly. “If Peters lives long enough to make his wishes known, he might have some say in it. Otherwise, with their mother out of the country, the
state may very well step into the picture and decide what's best.”

“You mean hand the girls over to Child Protective Services or to a foster home?”

“Precisely.”

“Shit!” I had seen the grim results of some foster home arrangements. They weren't very pretty.

“Has Peters ever mentioned any plan to you? A relative of some kind. Grandparents maybe? An aunt?”

“No. Never.”

Ames poured us both another drink. He looked at me appraisingly when he handed it to me. “What about you, Beau?”

“Me?” I echoed. I was thunderstruck.

“Yes, you. God knows you've got plenty of money. You could afford to take them on without any hardship.”

“'You're serious, aren't you!”

“Dead serious. We've got to have some kind of reasonable plan to offer Peters at the first available moment, before the state drops down on him and grabs Heather and Tracie away. And we've got to have something to tell the girls in the morning.”

“But, Ames, I'm not married.”

“Neither is Peters, remember? But you've raised kids before, two of them. And from what I've seen of them, you did a pretty commendable job of it. You could do it again.”

“I've just bought a place downtown,” I protested. “No grass. No yard. No swings.”

“Children have grown up in cities for as long as there have been cities. Besides, if they don't like it, you can move somewhere else.”

Ames was talking about my taking on Peters' kids with the kind of casual aplomb that comes from never having raised kids of his own. People talk that way about kids and puppies, about how cute they are and how little trouble, only when they've never pulled a six-year-old's baby tooth or housebroken an eight-week-old golden retriever.

Ames spoke with the full knowledge and benefit of never having been in the trenches. His naiveté was almost laughable, but he's one hell of a poker player. He had an unbeatable wild card—my sense of responsibility for what had happened. And the son of a bitch wasn't above using it.

“So what do we do?” I asked. He read my question correctly as total capitulation.

“I'll draw up a temporary custody agreement,” he replied. “As soon as Peters is lucid enough for us to talk to him about it, we'll get it signed and notarized.”

“Signed?” I asked.

“Witnessed,” he corrected.

“And what if that's not possible? What if he never is lucid enough to agree to it?”

“We use the same agreement. It just costs
more money to put it in force, that's all,” Ames replied grimly.

I knew from experience that Ralph Ames had the moxie to grease the wheels of bureaucracy when the occasion required it.

It was one-thirty in the morning when we finally called it quits. The decision had long since been made to wait until morning to tell the girls. There was no sense in waking them up to tell them in the middle of the night.

For a long time after Ames went to bed, I lay awake on the floor mulling our conversation. Ames was right, of course. I was the only acceptable choice for taking care of Heather and Tracie. I had the most to offer. And the most to gain.

It was probably just a sign of fatigue, but by five-thirty, when I finally fell asleep, it was beginning to seem like a perfectly reasonable idea.

Heather bounded into my room an hour later. “Unca Beau,” she squealed, climbing gleefully on top of me. “Did you find him? Did you?”

It was a rude awakening. Tracie, more reticent than her younger sister, hung back by the door. I motioned to her. With a kind of delicate dignity, she sat down beside me.

I swallowed hard before I answered Heather's question. “Yes, I did,” I said slowly.

“Well, where is he, then? Why isn't he in
his bed?” Heather's six-year-old inquisitiveness sought answers for only the most obvious questions.

“He's in the hospital, girls.”

Tracie swung around and looked up at me. “He's hurt?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“Will he die?”

“I don't know. Neither do the doctors.”

“I don't want him to die,” Heather wailed.

“He can't. I won't let him.”

Tracie continued to look up at me, her eyes wide and unblinking. “What will happen to us?” she asked.

Bless Ames for asking the question first, for coming up with a plan. “We talked about that last night,” I assured them. “If your father approves, maybe you can stay with me for a while. Downtown.”

“But you're moving.”

“To a bigger place. There'd be more room.”

My heart went out to Tracie. She was very young to be so old, to carry so much responsibility for what was happening around her.

Heather's sudden outburst quieted as suddenly as it had come. “Would we ride in a elevator?”

“Every day.”

I reached over and tousled Tracie's long brown hair. “We'll take care of things, Tracie.
Ames and Mrs. Edwards and I will do the worrying. You don't have to.”

Tears welled in her big brown eyes. She turned around and launched herself at my neck, clinging to me like a burr.

I'm glad she didn't look up at me right then. I was busy wiping my own eyes.

A
mes had talked to Mrs. Edwards while I was telling Heather and Tracie. By the time we came out to the kitchen, the housekeeper, red-eyed but under control, was busy making breakfast. She dished out huge bowls of oatmeal. “You've got to eat and keep up your strength so your daddy won't have to worry about you,” she said. Then she went over to the sink and ran water to cover her sniffles.

None of us ate the oatmeal.

I was pushing my chair back from the table when the phone rang. It was Margie, Peters' and my clerk from the department. She sounded pretty ragged, too.

“Sorry to bother you, Beau, but there's a message here I thought you should know about. It's been here since last night. From Harborview.”

“From Harborview! Why didn't they call me here?” I demanded. “Powell was supposed to tell them.”

“I don't know what happened, but here's the number.”

I took it down and dialed it as soon as I heard the dial tone.

“Emergency,” a woman answered.

“My name is Beaumont. I had a message to call this number.”

“One moment. Here it is. You're to call 5451616.”

My frustration level was rising. I dialed the next number. “Maternity,” someone said.

“Maternity? Why am I calling Maternity?”

“I wouldn't know, sir. This is the maternity wing at University Hospital. Is someone in your family expecting a baby?”

“No, I can't imagine…”

“What is your name, sir? I may have a message here for you.”

“Beaumont. J. P. Beaumont.”

“That's right. Here it is. Hold on. It's early, but I can connect you.”

Ames, who had heard the entire conversation, looked at me questioningly. I shrugged my shoulders. Why the hell would Maternity at University Hospital have a message for me?

“Hello.” At first I didn't recognize the voice.

“This is J. P. Beaumont. I had a message to call.”

“Oh, Beau. Thank you for calling.”

“Joanna?”

“…tried to get hold of you yesterday, but then my water broke, and they took me to the hospital.”

I was so relieved it wasn't bad news about Peters that it was all I could do to make sense of what she was saying.

“You had the baby, then? What is it? A boy or a girl?”

She didn't answer. “I've got to talk to you. Right away. Can you come down here?”

“To University Hospital? Sure, I guess so.” I held the phone away from my mouth and spoke to Ames. “She wants to see me.”

“Go ahead. Mrs. Edwards and I will hold down the fort.”

I drove to Harborview first. I went directly to the intensive-care-unit waiting room. Big Al Lindstrom, one of the night-shift homicide detectives, was sitting upright on a couch, his massive arms folded across his chest, apparently sound asleep. His eyes opened, though, as soon as I stepped into the room.

“Hi, there, Beau. Me and Manny are spelling one another. We'll be here all day.”

I was glad to see him. “Any word?”

“It's touch and go. He's still heavily sedated. Understand you're looking after his kids.” I nodded. “You handle that end of it. We'll take care of this.”

“Thanks, Al.” I didn't say anything more. I couldn't.

Leaving Harborview, I drove north to University Hospital. Joanna Ridley was in a private room at the end of the maternity wing. Her door stood partially open. I knocked on it softly.

“Come in.”

I entered the room. Joanna was not in her bed. Wearing a white, gauzelike nightgown, she sat in a chair near the window, gazing across a still green, stormy Lake Washington.

“Hello, Joanna,” I said quietly.

She didn't look up. “I read about your partner in the paper,” she said. “Is he going to be all right?”

“His neck's broken,” I told her. “If he lives, he'll probably be paralyzed.”

“I'm sorry,” Joanna murmured. She looked up at me. “I met her, you know. She had the nerve to stand right there and invite me to Darwin's memorial service.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I'm glad she's dead,” she added.

I stood there awkwardly, not knowing quite what to say. “Why did you want to see me?”

She pointed toward the closet. “There's a box over there, in my suitcase. Would you bring it here?”

The box was a shoe box, a red Nike basketball shoe box, size thirteen. I handed the box
to her and she motioned for me to sit on the bed. She remained in the chair.

For a time after I handed it to her, she sat looking down at the box in her lap, her hands resting on the cover. When she finally raised her face to look at me, she met my gaze without wavering.

“I never knew it was the same woman,” she said softly.

“Who was the same woman? I don't understand.”

“Candace Wynn and Andi Scarborough. Darwin never wanted me near school. I thought that was just his way. It was one of those little peculiarities. I never questioned it. I never knew it was because of her.”

“Joanna, I still don't understand.”

“Darwin and Andi Scarborough went together in high school. Actually, they were in grade school when it started, back in those days when blacks and whites didn't mix at all, not socially. Their mothers broke it up, both of them. Darwin wrangled a scholarship to UCLA, a basketball scholarship. That's where I met him.”

Slowly, the light began to dawn. “Darwin and Candace Wynn were childhood sweethearts?”

Joanna nodded. “I knew about her, at least I knew about a white girl named Andi Scarborough. His mother told me about her when
Darwin and I were just going together. But I never knew her married name was Wynn. And I never knew she worked with him at school.”

The lights came on. I began to fill in some of the blanks. “So they met years later and reestablished their relationship.”

Joanna patted the box in her lap. “He kept her letters, locked in his desk at school. I found them yesterday when I started to sort through the big box the principal sent home.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

She drew her chin up and squared her shoulders. “Don't be,” she answered. “I'm glad I found them and read them. It makes it easier to go on. I didn't lose anything. It never existed.”

A nurse poked her head in the door. She saw me sitting on the edge of the bed and frowned in disapproval. “You'll have to leave now. We're bringing the babies to nurse.”

I started to my feet. Joanna caught my hand. “Don't go,” she said.

The nurse glared at me. “Are you the baby's father? Fathers can stay.”

“He's a father,” Joanna said evasively. “I want him to stay.”

The nurse clicked her tongue and shook her head, but eventually she gave in, led Joanna back to bed, helped her get ready for the baby, and then brought a tiny bundle into the room.
I sat self-consciously on the chair by the window, unsure what to do or say.

I couldn't help remembering those first few tentative times when Karen had nursed Scott when neither of them had known what they were doing. That wasn't the case here.

When I glanced up at Joanna, she was leaning back against the bed looking down contentedly at the bundle nestled in her arms. “I've decided to name him Peter,” she told me.

Without her having to explain, I knew why and was touched. It was a nice gesture toward Peters, one I hoped he'd appreciate someday.

“It's a good name,” I said.

It was quiet in the room after that. The only sounds came from the lustily sucking infant. This part of parenthood made sense to me. It seemed straightforward and uncomplicated. Joanna Ridley made it look deceptively easy.

But still there was an undercurrent beneath her placid, motherly surface. I sensed there was more to the story, more she hadn't told me. I didn't know if now was a good time to ask her about it. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

“What was in the letters?” My question broke the long silence between us.

Joanna answered my question with one of her own. “Do you remember when Detective Peters asked me if Darwin had a separate checking account or credit cards?”

I nodded. “You told us no.”

“I was wrong. There was a lot I didn't know, including an account at the credit union, a joint account with her, with Candace Wynn. I never saw the money. It was deducted from his paycheck before it ever came home, and he had all the statements sent to him at school. Between them they must have had quite a sum of money. Part of it came from Darwin, and part came from her. According to the letters, she had been systematically gutting her parents' estate for years. They used the money to buy a boat.”

“A boat?”

“A sailboat. It was supposedly a partnership made up of several people. In actual fact, there were only two partners, Candace and Darwin. They planned to run away together until I found out something was going on. Then, even after she knew I was expecting a baby, she still kept talking about it in her letters, that eventually it would be just the two of them together.”

Joanna paused and took a deep breath before she continued. “From the letters, it sounded like she understood about me, about the baby, but when she found out about the cheerleader, that Bambi whatever-her-name-was, she snapped.”

The quote came unbidden to my mind. I repeated it aloud. “‘Hell hath no fury like a
woman scorned.' Isn't that what they say?”

Joanna didn't answer me. I watched as she took the baby from one breast, held the child, patted his back until he burped, then gently moved him to the other breast. Once more I was struck by her beauty, by the sudden contrasts of black and white, skin and gown, sheet and blanket, mother and child. Sitting there in a splash of morning sunlight, Joanna Ridley was the epitome of every Madonna I had ever seen.

Beautiful and serene, yet she, too, had been scorned, betrayed. Where was her anger, her fury?

“What about you, Joanna?”

She looked up at me and gave me a wry grin. “I wasn't scorned, honey,” she drawled with a thick, southern accent I had never heard her use before. “I was suckered. There's a big difference.”