Trial by Fury

by J. A. Jance

  There were long, brilliantly colored fingernails on the hand that took my ID into the house and then passed it back to me without opening the door further. “What do you want?”

  “I was hoping to speak to your husband.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “No.”

  She wasn’t exactly brimming over with spontaneous information. “Could I speak with you then, Mrs. Ridley?”

  Reluctantly, she inched the door open a little wider. In the glow from the porch light, she looked up at me defiantly, her full lips pursed, eyes smouldering. Her hair was pulled back from a high, delicately curved forehead. I was struck by her resemblance to that classic bust of Nefertiti I had seen when it came through Seattle with the King Tut exhibit years ago.

  Joanna Ridley was an exotic beauty, with wide-set eyes glowing under magenta-shaded lids. Her look of absolute disdain brought me back to earth in a hurry.

  “Why do you want to talk to me?” Her arch tone was almost a physical slap in the face.

  “We’re conducting an investigation, Mrs. Ridley. It’s important that I talk to you.”

  “I suppose you want to come in?”

  “Yes.”

  She stepped aside to allow me inside. My gaze had been riveted to her face. It was only when I looked down to gauge the step from the porch up into the house that I realized one of her hands rested on a wildly protruding tummy. Joanna Ridley was more than slightly pregnant. She was very pregnant.

  She wore a huge pink sweatshirt that hung almost to her knees. An arrow pointed downward from the neck, and the word Baby was emblazoned across the appropriate spot. Her legs, what I could see of them, were well-shaped and encased in a pair of shiny, royal blue leotards. Joanna Ridley was the complete technicolor lady.

  Padding barefoot ahead of me, she led the way into the living room. A rubber exercise mat lay in the middle of the floor. On the VCR a group of blurred aerobic exercisers were frozen in midair. She switched off the VCR and the screen went blank. I wondered if unborn babies liked aerobics, if they were willing or unwilling participants in America’s latest health-nut fad.

  Joanna Ridley spun around to face me. Her question was terse. “What do you want?”

  “Do you have any idea how we could reach your husband?”

  “No.”

  “Has he been gone long?”

  Some of the defiance left her face. Awkwardly, she squatted down beside the exercise mat, folded it, picked it up, and wrestled it behind the couch. Once more her hand returned unconsciously, protectively to the swell of baby in her abdomen. I got the distinct impression she was avoiding the question.

  “A couple of days,” she said evasively.

  “How long?” I insisted.

  “I saw him last Friday morning, at breakfast, before he left for school. He’s a teacher. A coach for Mercer Island High School.”

  “He’s been gone since Friday and you haven’t reported him missing?”

  She shrugged. “He lost.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The game. The Islanders lost Friday night. The first round of the championship. He’ll come home when he’s good and ready.”

  “He does that? Just disappears?”

  She nodded. “When they win, he celebrates. When they lose, it’s gloom and doom. He hides out afterward. He usually doesn’t miss school, though,” she added.

  “He did today?”

  Joanna Ridley turned her back on me and walked to the couch. She sat down, curling her legs under her in a way that should have been impossible for someone in such an advanced stage of pregnancy. Maybe doing aerobics does make a difference. Uninvited, I helped myself to a chair.

  She took a deep breath. “They called looking for him. Left a message on the machine. I didn’t return the call.”

  There was a brief silence between us while I wondered exactly how pregnant she was and whether the female reproductive system would withstand the shock my intuition told me was coming. If Darwin Ridley was missing, had been since Friday, I had a feeling I knew where he was, and I didn’t know how she’d take it.

  Looking for a way to delay or soften the blow, I cleared my throat. “As I said, Mrs. Ridley, we’re conducting an investigation. Would you happen to have a recent photograph of your husband?”

  Despite her bulging center of gravity, Joanna Ridley gracefully eased her way off the couch. She left the room and returned a few moments later carrying an eight-by-ten gilt-framed photograph, which she handed to me. Staring back at me was a good-looking middle-aged man with a sprinkle of gray in his curly hair. His mouth was set in a wide grin. With perfect teeth.

  “It’s a good picture,” I said.

  She took it back from me and examined it closely herself, as though she hadn’t looked at it for a long time. “It is, isn’t it.”

  “Did your husband ever have any kind of surgery?”

  She looked at me thoughtfully, considering before she answered. “On his knee,” she said at last. “An old football injury.”

  “Right or left?”

  “Left.” Suddenly, she seemed to lose all patience with me and my apparently inane questions. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Mrs. Ridley, I’m sorry to have to say this, and at this point let me stress that we’re not sure, but we have reason to believe your husband may be the homicide victim who was found on Queen Anne Hill early this morning.”

  Her slender fingers tightened around the picture frame, gripping it until the knuckles showed light against the darker skin. She stepped backward, sinking heavily onto the couch.

  I hurried on. “We need someone to make a positive identification. This afternoon we discovered that over the weekend your husband’s car was towed away from the same parking lot in which the victim was found.”

  “You think he’s dead?” She choked over the last word.

  “As I said, Mrs. Ridley. We’re not sure. From looking at the picture, I’d say it was the same man, but that doesn’t constitute a positive identification. There’s certainly a strong resemblance.”

  She leaned back against the couch, resting her head on the wall behind her, closing her eyes. Her breathing quickened. I was afraid she was going to faint. Alarmed, I got up and went to her.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Ridley? Can I get you something? A glass of water? Something stronger?”

  She looked up at me through eyes bright with tears. “Where is he?”

  “The medical examiner’s office. Harborview Medical Center.”

  “And you came to take me there?”

  I nodded. “If you’re up to going. You could send someone else—a relative, a close friend. A person in your condition…”

  She stood up abruptly. “I’ll go.”

  “You’re sure it won’t be too hard on you?”

  “I said I’ll go,” she repeated.

  She paused by the door long enough to pull on a pair of leg warmers and some short boots. She draped a long yellow wool shawl over her shoulders. “I’m ready,” she said.

  Outside, I helped her into my car. Sports cars are not built with pregnant ladies in mind, whether or not they do aerobics. There was absolute silence between us during the drive to Harborview. She asked no questions; I offered no information. What could I say?

  A brand new, peach-fuzzed night tech in Doc Baker’s office came out of the back as we entered. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Detective Beaumont. Seattle P.D. I believe we have a tentative identification on the Queen Anne victim.”

  “Great!” He glanced at Joanna Ridley’s somber face. She stood there silently, biting her lower lip. He curbed some of his youthful enthusiasm. “Sure thing,” he said. “If you’ll wait here for a couple of minutes…”

  He disappeared down a short hallway. I offered Joanna a chair, which she refused. Instead, she walked over to the doorway and stood peering out. Harborview Medical Center
sits on the flank of First Hill. Even from the ground floor she could look down at the city spread out below and beyond the early evening hazy glow of parking lot lights. Eventually, the tech came back for us.

  “Right this way, miss,” he said. I winced. He wasn’t going to win any prizes for diplomacy, or for observation either, for that matter.

  He led us down the same hallway and stopped in front of a swinging laboratory door. He pushed it open and held it for her to enter. Joanna seemed to falter. I didn’t blame her. Eventually, she got a grip on herself and went inside. I followed her, with the tech bringing up the rear.

  A sheet-draped figure lay on a gurney in the far corner of the room. “This way, please,” the tech said.

  Joanna Ridley didn’t move. She seemed frozen to the spot. I stepped to her side and took hold of an arm, just above the elbow. Gently, I led her forward.

  The tech moved to the head of the gurney and held up a corner of the sheet far enough to expose the still face beneath it. In the quiet room, Joanna gave a sudden, sharp intake of breath and turned away.

  “I need to lie down,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  4

  I led Joanna Ridley into a small, private waiting room and helped her lie down on a dilapidated couch. The tech brought a glass of water. “Is she going to be all right?” he asked nervously. “I can call somebody down from Emergency.”

  Glancing back at her, I saw tears streaming down her face. She didn’t need a doctor or a whole roomful of people. “No,” I told him. “She’ll be okay. I’ll let you know if she needs help.”

  The tech backed out of the room. I set the water down on a table without offering any to her. She didn’t need plain water, either.

  For several long minutes, I waited for her sobs to become quiet. Eventually, they did, a little. “Mrs. Ridley,” I asked gently, “is there anything I can do to help? Someone I can call?”

  Her sobs intensified into an anguished wail. “How could this happen when the baby…”

  She broke off suddenly, and my adrenaline started pumping. “The baby! Is it coming now? Should I call a doctor?”

  Joanna shook her head. “My baby’s not even born yet, and his father’s…” She stopped again, unable to continue.

  My own relief was so great, I walked to the table and helped myself to her glass of water, all of it, before I spoke, offering what comfort I could. “It’ll be all right. You’ll see. Really, isn’t there someone I can call?”

  Her sobbing ceased abruptly. Raising herself up on one elbow, she glared at me angrily. In her eyes I was something less than an unfeeling clod. “You don’t understand. My baby’s father is dead.”

  Unfortunately, I did understand, all too well. I knew far better than she did what was ahead for both her and her baby. From personal experience. Except my mother hadn’t had so much as a marriage certificate to back her up when I was born. Society was a hell of a lot less permissive back in the forties.

  “My mother did it,” I said quietly. “You can, too.”

  She looked at me silently for a long moment, assimilating what I had said. Then, before she could respond, the technician burst into the room. “Dr. Baker’s on the phone. He wants to talk to you, Detective Beaumont.” The tech bounded back out of the room with me right behind him. “He wants to know who it was,” he said over his shoulder.

  “How the hell did he find out?”

  “He told me to call if we came up with something.”

  “What do you mean we?” I fumed.

  He led me into another office, picked up a telephone receiver, and held it toward me. I snatched it from his hand.

  “Beaumont,” I growled into the phone.

  “Understand you’ve got a positive ID. Good work, Beau. That was quick. What have you got?”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are, calling me to the phone like this? I just barely found out myself. All I know so far is a name and address.”

  “Well, get on with it for chrissakes.”

  “Look, Baker. That poor woman just learned her husband’s dead. I’ll start asking questions when I’m damn good and ready.”

  “Don’t be a prima donna, Beau. Give me what you have.”

  “Like hell!”

  I flung the receiver at the startled tech, who stared at me dumbfounded. I hurried back down the hall to the room where Joanna Ridley waited. The phone rang again, but I didn’t pause long enough to hear what the tech said to his irate boss. Besides, I was sure Baker’s next phone call would be to either Captain Powell or Sergeant Watkins.

  Hustling back into the waiting room, I startled Joanna Ridley, who was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. There was no time to waste in idle explanations. “Come on,” I said, helping her up. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’ll take you home. We’ve got to go now, before we’re overrun with cops and reporters.”

  The tech had followed me. We ran into him head-on in the doorway. He was carrying a metal clipboard and had a pen poised to take down information. “Detective Beaumont, you can’t leave.”

  “Oh, yeah? Watch me!”

  “But I need some information…”

  “You’ll have it when I’m damn good and ready.”

  “What’s going on?” Joanna managed as I hurried her, half-resisting, out the door and down the hallway.

  “This place is going to be crawling with officers and reporters in about two minutes flat.”

  The technician trailed behind us, whimpering like a scolded puppy. “But Dr. Baker says…”

  “Piss on Doc Baker. You had no business calling him! Now get out of here.”

  I helped Joanna into the car and slammed the door behind her for emphasis. The technician was still standing with his mouth open and clipboard in hand when I fishtailed the Porsche out of the parking lot and onto the street.

  Dodging through a series of side streets, I paused at a stop sign on Boren, signaling for a right-hand turn, planning to drive Joanna Ridley back down to her home in Rainier Valley to talk to her there.

  “I don’t want to go home,” she said.

  Surprised, I glanced in her direction. She seemed under control. “Are you sure? I’m going to have to ask you some questions. It might be easier.”

  A marked patrol car, red lights flashing, raced past us on Boren. Obviously, Baker had sounded the alarm and troops were out in force to pull J. P. Beaumont back into line. I waited until the car turned off toward Harborview before I eased the Porsche out into the intersection and turned left.

  “I understand what you did back there,” Joanna said quietly. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  I wondered where to take her. Obviously, we couldn’t go to the department, and my own apartment was a bad idea as well. I settled on the only logical answer, the Dog House.

  The Dog House is actually a Seattle institution. It’s a twenty-four-hour restaurant three blocks from my apartment that’s been in business for more than fifty years. I’ve needed. almost daily help from both McDonald’s and the Dog House kitchen to survive my reluctant return to bachelorhood.

  You’ll notice I said the kitchen. The bar at the Dog House is a different story.

  Steering clear of the scene of my previous night’s solo performance, I took Joanna Ridley through the main part of the restaurant and into the back dining room. It was closed, but I knew Wanda would let us sit there undisturbed.

  She brought two cups of coffee at the same time she brought menus. Joanna accepted coffee without comment, but she refused my offer of food. Groping for a way to start the conversation, I asked what I hoped was an innocuous question. “When’s the baby due?”

  It wasn’t nearly innocuous enough. Just that quickly tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. “Two weeks,” she managed. She wiped the tears away and then sat looking at me, her luminous dark eyes searching my face. “Is it true what you said, that your mother raised you alone?”

&
nbsp; I nodded. “My father died before I was born. My parents weren’t married.”

  She lowered her gaze and bit her lip. Her voice was almost a whisper. “Are you saying that’ll make it easier, that we were married?”

  “It’ll be better for the baby,” I returned. “Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

  Wanda poked her head in the doorway to see if we were going to order anything besides coffee. I waved her away. I decided I’d offer Joanna Ridley food again later, if either of us had the stomach for it, but now was the time to ask questions, to begin assembling the pieces of the puzzle.

  “Mrs. Ridley,” I began.

  “Joanna,” she corrected.

  “Joanna, this will probably be painful, but I have to start somewhere. Do you know if your husband was in any kind of difficulty?”

  “Difficulty? What do you mean?”

  “Gambling, maybe?” Even high school teams and coaches get dragged into gambling scams on occasion.

  Joanna shook her head, and I continued. “Drugs? One way or another, most crimes in this country are connected to the drug trade.”

  “No,” she replied tersely, her face stony.

  “Was he under any kind of medical treatment?”

  “No. He was perfectly healthy.”

  “You’re sure he wasn’t taking any medication?”

  Again she shook her head. “Darwin never used drugs of any kind. He was opposed to them.”

  “The medical examiner found morphine in his bloodstream. You’ve no idea where it could have come from?”

  “I told you. He didn’t use drugs, not even aspirin. Is that what killed him, the morphine?”

  It was my turn to shake my head while I considered how to tell her. “He died of a broken neck,” I said softly. “Somebody tied a rope around his neck and hung him.”

  Joanna’s eyes widened. “Dear God!” She pushed her chair back so hard it clattered against the wall. Dodging her way through empty chairs and tables, she stopped only when she reached the far corner of the room. She leaned against the two walls, sobbing incoherently.

  I followed, standing helplessly behind her, not knowing if I should leave her alone or reach out to comfort her. Finally, I placed one hand on her shoulder. She shuddered as if my hand had burned her and shrugged it away.