Trial by Fury

by J. A. Jance

“Oh yes I would. I wouldn’t hesitate a minute. I want to talk to that girl, and I want to talk to her tonight. Now.”

  Sister Marie Regina wasn’t used to being outmaneuvered. She stared wordlessly at me for a long time before she reached for a phone, picked it up, and dialed a two-digit number. She tapped her finger anxiously on the phone while she waited for it to be answered.

  “Would you please have Sister Eunice bring the new student to my office?” There was a pause. “Yes, I mean now,” she added crossly. “Tell her to get dressed.”

  She got up from her chair, smoothed her jacket, and walked to the door. Sister Marie Regina was a fairly tall woman in exceedingly sensible shoes whose crepe soles squeaked on the glossy surface of the tile floor. “Follow me, please.”

  With her stiff blue skirt rustling against her nylons, she led me out of her office and down a long hall with a series of unmarked doors lining either side. Toward the end, she stopped, opened a door, and showed me into a tiny room.

  “These are our visiting rooms,” she announced curtly. “Sister Eunice will bring Miss Barker here shortly.” With that she went out, closing the door behind her.

  The room was actually a sitting room in the old-fashioned-parlor sense of the word. The furnishings consisted of two dainty, ladylike chairs, a loveseat, and a couch—all of it suitably uncomfortable. A matched set of end tables and a coffee table completed the room’s furnishings.

  The only light came from an old hanging glass fixture that hung down in the middle of the room. Every flat surface was supplied with identical boxes of industrial strength tissue. Evidently, tears, lots of them, were not unexpected phenomena in St. Agnes’ visiting rooms.

  Having met Sister Marie Regina O’Dea, I could understand the need for tears, especially if the other nuns turned out to be anything like their stiff-backed leader.

  I tried both chairs and the loveseat before I settled uneasily on the couch. It seemed to me the couch had been purposely designed to be unsuitable for human male anatomy. Despite the couch’s discomfort, however, I nodded off briefly before the door opened again.

  I sat up with a start. At first, in the dim light, I thought Sister Marie Regina had returned. Instead, a woman who looked very much like the headmistress ushered Bambi Barker into the room.

  The sister held out her hand to me. Her grip was cool and firm. “I’m Sister Eunice,” she said. “And this is Miss Barker.”

  From the moment I saw her, I could almost understand Tex Barker’s desire to lock his daughter in a convent. Maybe even a bank vault. She was a voluptuous little twit. My mother would have called her a floozy. Even in the ill-fitting plaid schoolgirl uniform she wore, her well-built figure showed through plain as day. Her long blonde hair was cut short around her face in the latest heavy-metal style, and she wore plenty of makeup. I was a little surprised the nuns let her get away with that.

  Bambi Barker had evidently been crying. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her nose was shiny, and enough mascara had run down her face to make two long, ink black rivulets.

  Sister Eunice motioned Bambi Barker onto one of the dainty chairs and seated herself primly on the other.

  “Excuse me, Sister,” I said, “but I’d like to speak to Miss Barker alone.”

  “That’s not possible,” Sister Eunice replied firmly, folding her hands in her lap and settling in. “As senior proctor, I am required to be in attendance when any of my girls speak to an unaccompanied male.”

  “But, Sister…” I objected.

  “Now see here, Detective Beaumont.” She smiled evenly, showing a set of dentures. She straightened her skirt carefully. “I was instructed not to interfere, but this is the only way you’ll be able to talk to her.”

  She turned to Bambi, reached out, and patted the girl’s knee reassuringly. “It’s all right, Bambi. I’ll stay here with you. All you need to do is tell this man the truth.”

  Keeping her head ducked into her shoulders, Bambi Barker peered up at me, her full lips gathered in a sullen pout. It was difficult to know where to begin. I hadn’t anticipated asking intimate questions of a randy teenager in the presence of a straitlaced, aging nun.

  “Did they tell you why I wanted to talk to you, Miss Barker?” I asked.

  She shook her head, keeping her eyes averted.

  “You’ve heard about Coach Ridley, haven’t you?”

  Her head jerked up as if someone had pulled a string. “What about him?”

  “He’s dead,” I answered. “He died sometime Saturday morning.”

  For a moment her eyes widened in horror, then she shook her head, her blonde mane shifting from side to side. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, Bambi. I’m not kidding. He’s dead. I’m here investigating his murder.”

  With no warning, Bambi Barker slipped soundlessly from the chair to the floor like a marionette with severed strings. Sister Eunice reached out and succeeded in breaking her fall.

  “Oh, no,” Bambi sobbed over and over as Sister Eunice caught her and rocked her against a flat, unyielding breast. “It can’t be.”

  I slipped to the floor as well, lifting Bambi’s chin so I could look into the shocked blue depths of her eyes. “What can’t be, Bambi?” I asked. “Tell me.”

  She twisted away from my hand and once again buried her face against Sister Eunice. “Oh, Daddy,” I heard her sob. “How could you!”

  How could he indeed?

  CHAPTER

  14

  Sister Eunice spent the next half hour on her knees on the floor of that visiting room, pasting the pieces of Bambi Barker back together and forever putting an end to my lean/mean stereotyping of Catholic nuns. Sister Eunice may have been every bit as angular as Sister Marie Regina, but she was anything but heartless. She held Bambi close, rocking her gently like a baby and murmuring small words of comfort in her ear.

  There was nothing for me to do but sit and wait for the storm of emotion to blow over. Sister Eunice must have gotten tired of my just hanging around, because finally she ordered me out of the room, sending me on a mission to bring back a glass of water. When I returned, Sister Eunice had engineered Bambi back onto a chair.

  “Here now,” she urged soothingly, taking the glass from my hand and holding it to Bambi’s lips. “Try some of this.”

  Bambi took a small sip, choked, and pushed the glass away. “I’m all right.”

  “Are you sure?” Sister Eunice asked.

  “I’m sure,” Bambi mumbled.

  It was time to start, but I approached Bambi warily. “I have to ask you some questions, Miss Barker.”

  She nodded numbly, without looking up. “So ask.”

  “Do you know anything about what happened to Darwin Ridley?”

  Bambi Barker raised her head then and looked at me. “It was just a game,” she said.

  “A game?” I asked, not comprehending. “What do you mean, a game?”

  “A game, a contest.”

  I felt really lost. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What was a contest?”

  She shot a quick glance in the direction of Sister Eunice, who sat with her hands clasped in her lap, nodding encouragingly. “Don’t pay any attention to me, Bambi,” Sister Eunice said. “You go right ahead and tell the man what he needs to know.”

  Bambi took a deep breath and looked back at me. “Each year the cheerleaders have a contest to see…” She paused and looked at Sister Eunice again.

  “To see what?” I urged impatiently.

  “To see who can get one of the teachers in bed. It’s, you know, a tradition.”

  My jaw must have dropped about three feet. At first I didn’t think I’d heard her right. But I had. A tradition! The last time I had heard the word tradition, Bob Payson was telling me about the basketball team and Girl Scout cookies. So while the boys were worrying about nice little civilized traditions of the tea and crumpet variety, the cheerleaders were busy balling their favorite teacher. Jesus!

  My mother once to
ld me that girls are born knowing what it takes boys fifteen years to figure out. About then I figured fifteen years wasn’t nearly long enough.

  “The same teacher?” I asked, finding my voice. “Or a different one each year?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes the same. Usually not.”

  “Somebody keeps track from year to year?”

  She nodded. “It’s in one of the lockers in the girls’ dressing room. Written on the ceiling. But it was just a game. Nothing like this ever…” She broke off and was quiet.

  “Now let me get this straight. Each year somebody on the cheerleading squad seduces one of the teachers, and then you write his name down on a list?”

  She nodded.

  “Was there a prize for this game?”

  “At the beginning of the year, everybody puts fifty dollars into a pot. When the winner brings proof, she gets the money.”

  “Proof? What do you mean, proof?”

  “I mean, like you couldn’t just say you did it, you know? You had to have proof. A picture, a tape, or something.”

  Fifteen years? Hell, forty-three years wasn’t enough. I glanced at Sister Eunice. She continued sitting with her hands serenely clasped, her eyes never leaving Bambi’s face. Maybe living in a convent with high school kids had taught Sister Eunice a whole lot more about the world than I had given her credit for.

  It was all I could do to keep from grabbing Bambi Barker by the shoulders and shaking her until the braces flew off her teeth. “I take it you won this year?” I asked dryly.

  “Yes.” When she answered, her voice dropped almost to a whisper. My question had brought back the reality of the consequences of that nasty little game, as well as a little reticence.

  “And the proof?”

  “A picture. One of my friends took it.”

  “So how did your father get it?”

  “I don’t know, I swear to God.”

  “And who sent one to Joanna Ridley? Your father?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve never seen him so mad. He was crazy.”

  “When did he find out?”

  “Friday. Friday morning. He came to school to get me. I thought he was going to kill me right there in the car.”

  “He threatened you?”

  “He hit me.” One hand strayed to her lip as if in unconscious remembrance of that slap across the face. Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. Deftly, Sister Eunice reached out and wiped them away with a lacy handkerchief.

  “Did he threaten Mr. Ridley?”

  “I think so.”

  “You think?”

  “He said he was going to do something, but I didn’t know what it was. It sounded bad.”

  “Do you remember what it was?”

  She rubbed her eyes and more mascara flaked off and landed on her face. “It was something like…It ended with ate. Something ate.”

  You don’t have to work The New York Times crossword puzzle every day to be able to figure that one out.

  “Castrate?” I asked. “Was that it?”

  She nodded. “That’s it. What does it mean?”

  “Cut his balls off,” I growled. I was in no mood to pull any punches or mince any words for Bambi Barker. She didn’t deserve it, but I was aware of an uncomfortable shifting in Sister Eunice’s otherwise tranquil presence.

  Bambi Barker gulped and swallowed hard.

  “That didn’t happen,” I added. “If that’s what you’re worried about. Somebody just strung Darwin Ridley up on the end of a rope.”

  Bambi dissolved into tears once again. When Sister Eunice reached out as if to comfort her, I stopped her hand. The nun looked me in the face for a long moment, then nodded in acquiescence and allowed her hand to drop back into her lap.

  Suddenly, I realized Sister Eunice and I were coconspirators in the process. She wasn’t merely observing. Sister Eunice was actively helping. What her motives were wasn’t clear to me at the time, although it occurred to me that maybe she was bent on saving Bambi Barker’s immortal soul.

  We waited together until Bambi’s sobbing quieted and eventually died away altogether. Only then did Sister Eunice reach out again, this time to take Bambi’s hand. “Is it possible that your father did this terrible thing?” she asked.

  You could have knocked me over with a feather. I don’t suppose genteel Catholic nuns routinely conduct homicide interrogations, but Sister Eunice was a down-home killer at asking questions. She put the screws to Bambi directly, holding her eyes in an unblinking gaze, offering the girl no opportunity to look away or avoid the issue.

  “He could have,” Bambi whispered finally.

  “All right, then,” Sister Eunice said. Her voice was calm and firm. “You must tell Detective Beaumont here everything you know that could possibly be helpful.”

  “But I don’t know for sure,” Bambi protested.

  “Tell us exactly what went on Friday,” Sister Eunice urged quietly.

  “After I left school?”

  “Where did you go, home?”

  Bambi nodded. “We went to the house. Mom was home, waiting.”

  That prompted a question from me. “Your mother knew about it, before you got there?”

  “Everybody knew about it. There was a huge hassle, and Dad locked me in my room.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Until Saturday morning. Then they woke me up and told me to pack because I was coming here.”

  “They both brought you down?” I asked.

  “We had to bring two cars. Mom drove one. They left it here.” Bambi Barker’s pout returned.

  “For you?”

  “No. It was, you know, like a gift to the school.”

  I get a little ego hit every time one of my hunches turns out to be correct, even when it’s not particularly important. It’s good for my overall batting average. Sister Marie Regina O’Dea’s shiny new Taurus station wagon bribe gave me a little rush of satisfaction.

  I said, “How nice. So they drove you down and checked you in. I take it you weren’t especially thrilled to come here.”

  Bambi glanced in Sister Eunice’s direction. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Why not?”

  “He said he’d disown me.”

  “Would he?”

  “He did Faline.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “She used to be my sister.”

  Faline. Bambi. Obviously somebody in the Barker family was a Walt Disney fan. “Used to be your sister?” I asked. “What do you mean by that?”

  “He threw her out three years ago. No one’s heard from her since.”

  “Why did they send you here? Why this school?”

  “My mother’s sister is a member of the Order of St. Agnes in Texas. She’s the one who suggested it.”

  I changed the subject abruptly, hoping to throw her off guard. “Tell me about Coach Ridley.”

  “What about him?”

  “How long had it been going on, between the two of you?”

  “There was nothing going on, really. I, like, pretended, but it was just a game. I already told you.”

  “But when did it happen?”

  “You mean when did we take the picture?” I nodded, and she shrugged. “Only last week.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a place up on Aurora, in Seattle. A motel.”

  “How come he didn’t see the flash?”

  “Molly was outside, using her dad’s camera. It doesn’t need a flash.”

  I didn’t have nerve enough to look at Sister Eunice right then. I probably could have, though. She deals with teenage kids all the time. She’s probably used to it. Me, I’m just a homicide cop. Right then, homicide seemed a hell of a lot more straightforward. The whole scenario of Darwin Ridley being led like a lamb to the slaughter because of some stupid adolescent game shocked me, offended me.

  And I thought I’d seen everything.

  “Who’s Molly?” I asked.

  “A friend
of mine. My best friend. Molly Blackburn.”

  “Also a cheerleader?”

  Bambi nodded. “She lives right up the street from us. Will she get in trouble, too?”

  I made a note of Molly Blackburn’s name and address. Molly Blackburn, the budding photographer. Or maybe Molly Blackburn, the budding blackmailer—whichever.

  “I can’t say one way or the other,” I told her.

  It was almost midnight when Sister Eunice led Bambi Barker back to her room. Bambi had started down the hall when Sister Eunice poked her head back in the door of the visiting room and asked me to wait long enough for her to return.

  When she did, she ushered me out of the visiting room and down the long, empty corridor to a tiny kitchen and lounge. There she poured me a cup of acrid coffee that tasted like it had been in the pot for three weeks.

  “Will you be returning to Seattle tonight, Detective Beaumont?” she asked.

  I scratched my head and glanced at the movable cat’s-eye clock above an equally dated turquoise refrigerator. It was well after eleven. We had spent a long, long evening with Bambi Barker. “It’s late, but I suppose so.”

  “And you’re a man of honor?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you won’t be talking to The Oregonian before you leave Portland, will you?”

  “I told Sister Marie Regina that as long as you helped me, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

  Sister Eunice looked enormously relieved. “Good,” she said. “I’m very happy to hear it.”

  So much for Bambi Barker’s immortal soul. Sister Eunice had become my ally for far more worldly reasons than to keep Bambi’s soul safe from hell and damnation. She had done it to keep Sister Marie Regina’s Taurus station wagon off the editorial page. Situational ethics in action.

  I took the rest of the coffee to drink in the car, remembering the old Bible verse about judging not and being without sin and all that jazz. After all, I had fired the first shot. And I couldn’t argue with the results. I had gotten what I wanted from Bambi Barker.

  As I started the Porsche, I realized how hungry I was. When I reached downtown Portland, I stopped off at a little joint on S.W. First, a place called the Veritable Quandary. I remembered it from the mid-seventies as a little tavern where they made great roast beef sandwiches and you could play pickup chess while you ate. Unfortunately, the eighties had caught up with it. The easygoing tavern atmosphere had evolved into a full-scale bar scene. The chessboards and magazines had long since disappeared. The sandwich was good, though, and it helped counteract Sister Eunice’s bitter coffee.