Trial by Fury

by J. A. Jance

  Wrong.

  The man who, a few minutes later, stopped in front of our table and held out his hand was almost as tall as I am. Broad shoulders filled out a well-cut, immaculate, three-piece gray suit. He had neatly trimmed short brown hair. The solid handshake he offered me was accompanied by a ready smile.

  “Mr. Beaumont?” he said to me with a polite nod in Ralph Ames’ direction. “Michael Browder. Glad to meet you, finally.”

  No limp wrist. No lisp. No earrings.

  Old prejudices die hard.

  Settling comfortably back into a chair, Browder ordered a glass of Perrier. “Mr. Ames has been a big help,” he continued. “He’s given me as much information about you as he could, but it’s very difficult to design a home for someone I don’t know personally, Mr. Beaumont. I’ve been told, for instance, that you’re sentimentally attached to an old recliner, but that’s secondhand information. I told Mr. Ames that unless I talked to you, in person, I was leaving the project.”

  That didn’t sound to me like much of a threat. I didn’t care much one way or the other, and Michael Browder’s speech didn’t particularly endear him to me. In fact, I was downright insulted. On the one hand, he accused me of sentimentality. On the other, I was offended by what I viewed as his personal attack on my old recliner.

  What he had said was true, as far as it went. I had indeed sent word through Ames that my recliner was going with me no matter what, and that it was moving to the new place as active-duty furniture, not as a relic destined for the storage unit in the basement.

  “So do you have drawings along to show me or not?” I demanded impatiently.

  Browder leaned down and opened a large leather portfolio he had placed beside his feet. By the time he had finished showing me the sketch of the living room, he had my undivided attention. By the second drawing, he had me in the palm of his hand. My previous experience with an interior designer had achieved somewhat mixed results. Michael Browder, however, without our ever having met in person, seemed to know me like a book.

  The furnishings, the swatches of material, the colors, were all straightforward and attractive, functional and practical. They were the kinds of things I would have picked for myself, if I’d had either the brains or the time to do it. Throughout his presentation, Browder kept asking me pointed questions and making brief notes about color preferences, wood grains, and stains. His enthusiasm was contagious. By the time he was finished, I was pretty excited myself.

  “So when do you start?” I asked.

  “As soon as you say so,” Browder replied.

  “So start,” I told him. “ASAP.”

  “And when can I pick up the recliner to have it recovered?”

  I had been happy to see that he had included my recliner in his drawings for the den, but Browder had negotiated my consent to have the old warhorse reupholstered. It was a small concession on my part.

  “You can pick it up whenever you want,” I answered.

  He nodded. “Good. What about now? I have my van along. We might as well get started.”

  Which is how we ended up caravanning over to the Royal Crest, all three of us. We went up to my apartment and straight into the living room, picked up the recliner, and hauled it downstairs in the elevator.

  By then my opinion of Michael Browder had come a long way from my preconceived notion of what he’d be like, but once the recliner was loaded, he declined an invitation to come back up to the apartment for a drink.

  “I’ve got to get home,” he said.

  It was a good thing. I was out of booze. Ames and I had to walk over to the liquor store at Sixth and Lenora for provisions before we could make drinks.

  When I went into the kitchen to serve as bartender, I discovered the answering machine in a place of honor, sitting in state on the kitchen counter. In the intervening hours of paper signing and apartment designing, I had forgotten about the answering machine and how I had fully intended to wrap the electrical cord around Ralph Ames’ neck.

  Next to it on the counter sat not one, but two boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Mints.

  Ames, from the doorway, saw me encounter the cookies and the machine. My dismay he read as a combination of pleasure and surprise. “I figured living in a secured high-rise there’s no way you’d have a chance to buy any Girl Scout cookies on your own,” Ames said proudly. “I bought some at the airport and brought them along on the plane.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him I had already single-handedly bought and given away a whole mountain of Girl Scout cookies. As far as the answering machine was concerned, it was easier to accept it with good grace than to be a pinhead about it.

  Ames eagerly explained all the little bells and whistles on the machine, including the blinking light that both signaled and counted waiting messages and the battery-operated remote device that would allow me to retrieve my messages from all over the world. Great! I gritted my teeth into a semblance of a smile and kept my mouth shut.

  We had one drink in my apartment, then walked over to Mama’s Mexican Kitchen on Second and Bell for dinner. Despite the fact that he lives in Phoenix, Ames claims Mama’s taquitos are the best he can get anywhere.

  Myself, I’m partial to margaritas.

  Mama’s has those, too.

  CHAPTER

  23

  I don’t know why I bother having a clock in my bedroom. It isn’t necessary. The phone usually wakes me up, even when I don’t need to be up.

  That’s what happened that Saturday morning, a Saturday when I had planned to sleep late, stay home, and do nothing but work a week’s worth of crossword puzzles. The best laid plans, someone once said. The phone rang at five after seven.

  “Detective Beaumont?”

  “Yes,” I responded, fighting the surplus of tequila cobwebs in my brain and trying to place the woman’s voice. No luck.

  “This is Maxine. Maxine Edwards.”

  Maxine? I could have sworn I didn’t know a single Maxine in the world. I still didn’t have the foggiest idea who owned the insistent voice on the phone demanding that I wake up.

  “Have you heard from Ron?”

  I started to ask “Ron who?” when my brain finally kicked into gear. Maxine Edwards, the older woman Ames had hired to be Ron Peters’ live-in housekeeper/babysitter.

  “Not since yesterday. Why? Isn’t he home?”

  “No, he’s not. He never came home at all.

  Heather and Tracie are upset.” From her tone of voice, it was clear Peters’ girls weren’t the only ones who were upset. So was Maxine Edwards. “He called yesterday afternoon,” she continued. “He said he was going to a funeral, that he’d be home late. That’s the last I’ve heard from him.”

  I sat up in bed. The headache started pounding the moment I lifted my head off the pillow. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

  “I know. That’s what’s got me worried.”

  “Where are the girls?”

  “They’re in watching cartoons. I didn’t want them to know I was calling you. I told them you two were probably busy working and just didn’t have time to call.”

  “We’re not working,” I said.

  “I can’t imagine him not calling,” Mrs. Edwards continued. “For as long as I’ve been here, he’s never done anything like this.”

  I had to agree it didn’t sound like something Peters would pull, but then eating spaghetti didn’t sound like him, either. My first thought was that Candace Wynn had something to do with Peters being AWOL, but I didn’t mention that to Mrs. Edwards.

  “Did he say if he was going anywhere after the funeral?” I asked.

  “He said something about a memorial service afterward.”

  “That would be at the school. Don’t worry. Let me do some checking. I’ll call you with whatever I find out.”

  Bringing the bottle of aspirin from the bathroom with me, I ventured out into the living room. Ames was still on the Hide-A-Bed. He wasn’t in any better shape than I was. “Who was tha
t calling so early?” he groaned.

  I went on into the kitchen to make coffee. “Mrs. Edwards,” I told him. “Peters’ babysitter. She’s looking for him.”

  “He didn’t come home?”

  “No.”

  “Stayed out all night? That doesn’t sound like him.”

  “That’s what I told her.”

  When I went back into the living room, Ames was sitting on the side of the bed with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, holding his head with both hands. I tossed him the aspirin bottle.

  “Hung over?” I asked.

  “A little,” he admitted. He opened the bottle, shook out a couple of white pills, and popped them into his mouth. “What do you think happened?”

  I shrugged. “Got lucky,” I said. “He’s probably screwing his brains out and is too busy to call Mrs. Edwards and ask for permission.”

  Ames chuckled at that. “I didn’t know Ron had a girlfriend,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t call her a girlfriend exactly. It’s someone he just met this week. A teacher.”

  “What’d he do, start hanging out in singles’ bars?”

  “When would he have time for singles’ bars? He met her at work.”

  “Really?”

  “Where else? You don’t find single women hanging out at Brownie meetings or in the grocery store.”

  “I heard otherwise,” Ames commented. “Someone told me the best place for meeting singles is in the deli sections of supermarkets.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t tried it. Do you want coffee or not?”

  “Please,” Ames said.

  Despite what I had told Mrs. Edwards, I didn’t try calling anybody. Ames and I each drank a cup of coffee. I expected the phone to ring any minute. I figured Peters had ended up spending the night with Andi Wynn and had planned to sneak back into the house early before anyone woke up. He had probably reckoned without the Saturday morning cartoons, however, which start the minute “The Star-Spangled Banner” ends. Even kids who have to be dragged out of bed by the heels during the week manage to rise and shine in time for their Saturday morning favorites.

  Two cups of coffee later I dialed Ron Peters’ number again. Maxine Edwards answered. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, sounding disappointed when she recognized my voice. In the background, I heard a whining child.

  “No, Heather, it’s not your daddy,” Mrs. Edwards scolded. “Now go away and let me talk to Detective Beaumont.”

  At that Heather pitched such a fit that eventually Mrs. Edwards gave in and put the girl on the line.

  “Unca Beau,” Heather said in her breathless, toothless six-year-old lisp. “Do you know where my daddy is?”

  “No, Heather, I don’t. But I can probably find him. Have you eaten breakfast?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, you go eat. I’ll make some phone calls.”

  “Do you think he’s okay?”

  “Of course he’s okay. You just go eat your breakfast and do what Mrs. Edwards tells you, all right?”

  “All right,” she agreed reluctantly. It was clear Maxine Edwards had her hands full.

  “Put Mrs. Edwards back on the phone,” I ordered. In a moment the baby-sitter’s voice came on the line. “I still haven’t found out anything,” I told her. “But I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”

  When I hung up, I dialed the department. The motor pool told me Peters had turned his vehicle back in at nine the previous evening. That didn’t help much.

  I headed for the shower. “What are you going to do?” Ames asked me on my way past.

  “Go and see if his car is still in the parking garage down on James.”

  “Wait for me. I’ll go along.”

  It turned out the Datsun was there. It sat, waiting patiently, in a tiny parking place up on the second floor of the parking garage. So much for that. Wherever Peters was, he wasn’t driving his own car.

  I walked back down the ramp of the garage to where Ames waited in the Porsche.

  “It’s here,” I told him.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Check in with the department and see if he stopped by his desk when he dropped off the car.”

  He hadn’t. Or, if he had, he had left nothing showing on his desk that gave me a clue about his next destination. I paused long enough to try checking with a couple of night-shift detectives to see if they had seen Peters.

  To begin with, you don’t call guys who work night shift at ten o’clock in the morning unless you have a pretty damn good reason. I got my butt reamed out good by the first two detectives who told me in no uncertain terms that they hadn’t seen anything and wouldn’t tell me if they had and why the hell was I calling them at this ungodly hour of the morning.

  The third one, a black guy named Andy Taylor, is one of the most easygoing people I’ve ever met. Nothing rattles him, not even being awakened out of a sound sleep.

  “Ron Peters?” he asked once he was really awake. “Sure, I saw him last night. He came in around nine, maybe a little later.”

  “Was he alone?” I asked.

  Andy laughed. “Are you kiddin’? He most certainly was not.”

  “He wasn’t?”

  “Hell no. Had some little ol’ gal in tow. Looked like the two of them were havin’ a great time.”

  “Auburn hair? Short?” I asked.

  “You got it.”

  “And did Peters say if they were going anywhere in particular?”

  Again Andy laughed. “He didn’t say, but I sort of figured it out, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I guess I do.”

  “How come you’re checkin’ on him, Beau? You afraid he’s gettin’ some and you’re not?”

  “Up yours, Taylor,” I said, then hung up.

  While I was using the phone at Peters’ desk, Ames had been sitting at mine, listening with some interest to my side of the conversation. “So where’s our little lost sheep?” he asked when I put the phone down.

  “Being led around by his balls,” I replied.

  “Is that what you’re going to tell Maxine Edwards?” I looked at Ames. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  “No, God damn it. That’s not what I’m going to tell Mrs. Edwards.”

  “What then?”

  “That he’s working and he’ll call as soon as he can.”

  I did just that, punching Peters’ telephone number into the receiver like I was killing bugs. Mrs. Edwards answered after only one ring. She must have been sitting on top of the phone. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Edwards. Beau here. I haven’t located Peters yet, but I understand he’s working. He’ll call home as soon as he can.”

  “And I should just stay here with the kids?”

  “Why not take them to a movie. It’ll get their minds off their father.”

  “That’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll do just that.”

  As I stood up to leave, Ames handed me a yellow message sheet that he had plucked off my desk. “Did you see this?” he asked.

  The message was from Don Yamamoto in the crime lab, asking me to call. I did. Naturally, on Saturday morning, Don himself wasn’t in. The State Patrol answered and tried to give me the runaround. When I insisted, they agreed to have Don Yamamoto call me back.

  “It’s about the flour container,” he said when we finally made the connection.

  “What about it?”

  “We got a good set of prints off Ridley’s belt and also off the inside of the flour container. We’re sending them to D.C. to see if we can get any kind of match.”

  “Great,” I told him. “That’s good news.”

  When I hung up the phone the second time, I told Ames what the crime lab had said as we marched out of the office.

  Despite the good news from Yamamoto, I was still mad enough to chew nails. It was one thing if Peters wanted to get his rocks off with someone
he had just met. I didn’t have any quarrel with that. Peters’ sex life was none of my concern, one way or the other. What burned me was that he had been so irresponsible about it. If not irresponsible, then certainly inconsiderate. Mrs. Edwards was upset. His kids were upset. So was I for that matter.

  The least he could have done was call home, give some lame excuse or another, and then go screw his brains out. That way I wouldn’t have been dragged out of a sound sleep and neither would Andy Taylor.

  “So where are we going,” Ames asked me once he caught up with me on the street. “Back to your place?”

  “Not on your life. I’m not going to spend all day sitting there fielding phone calls for some wandering Romeo. And I’m not going to try calling his girlfriend’s house, either.”

  “Why not?” Ames asked.

  “Because I don’t feel like it. Want to go whack a few golf balls around a golf course?”

  Ames stopped in his tracks. “You really are pissed, aren’t you? I’ve never once heard you threaten to play golf before.”

  “Nobody said anything about playing golf,” I muttered. “I want to hit something. Hitting golf balls happens to be socially acceptable.”

  “As opposed to hitting someone over the head?” Ames asked. “Ron Peters in particular?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Golf it is,” said Ames. “Lead the way.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  The Foster Golf Course in Tukwila was the only place a couple of rank amateurs could get a toehold and a tee time on a sunny Saturday afternoon in March. We chased balls for eighteen holes’ worth and were more than happy to call it quits. Ames wanted a hamburger. Just to be mean, I dragged him to what used to be Harry and Honey’s Dinky Diner, until Honey ran Harry off and removed his name from the establishment. We had cheap hamburgers before returning to my apartment late in the afternoon.

  On the kitchen counter, the little red light on my new answering machine was blinking cheerfully, announcing a message. Grudgingly, I punched the play button and waited to see what would happen. The machine blinked again, then burped, whirred, and beeped.