Until Proven Guilty jpb-1

by J. A. Jance

  “Yes,” I said. There was nothing else. I knew far more than I wanted to.

  “Let’s finish this outside, Beau. It’s too crowded in here.”

  With catlike grace, she picked up the Adidas bag and walked outside.

  Chapter 25

  I know how Pharoah felt trying to catch Moses as he disappeared into the Red Sea. Anne Corley Beaumont melted through the vestibule crowd the same way, leaving me pushing and shoving, trying to catch up. When I finally hit the outside door, I made a dash for the Porsche, expecting to see her speeding away. The Porsche sat empty, untouched.

  The roar of the falls filled my head. I kept my hand on the gun without drawing it. This could be a trap, I reminded myself. I was dealing with Anne Corley the enemy. She had enough of a head start that she could easily have hidden herself away and be lying in wait. Even then I could have gone back inside and called for help, for a backup, but I didn’t. Stubborn, stupid, I thought I could talk to her, persuade her to turn herself in.

  Cautiously I made my way around the restaurant. In a heap near one corner of the building I found the blouse, suit, shoes, and discarded Adidas bag. Up the path, heading toward the observation area, I caught a glimpse of red. She had changed into the jogging suit. Any advantage I had because of dress was instantly nullified. With me in my suit and slick-bottomed shoes, she now had an edge. I started running too.

  I didn’t try for speed. I don’t do wind sprints, but I can keep a steady pace for a fair distance. She was running up the path, away from the lodge, toward the hordes of tourists filling the viewpoint and picnic area. I kept my hand on the concealed.357 as I passed a group of picnickers. I didn’t want them to raise an alarm, to cause a panic.

  I saw her turn down a trail, one that veers steeply down the basalt canyon wall to the pool at the bottom of the falls. I had never been on it. I was sure it was the only way back up. Three different times I pushed my way around huffing sets of climbers. Two of them were large groups. The last was a couple, a retired couple, walking by themselves.

  “Did you see a woman?” I gasped. “A woman in a red jogging suit?”

  “She almost knocked Mabel here down,” he said.

  I stopped, trying to catch my breath. “Are there any other people down there?”

  The man shook his head. “There weren’t when we left.”

  I reached in my pocket and pulled out my badge. “Stand at the head of the trail,” I said to him. “Don’t let anyone else come down.” He looked at me questioningly. I wanted to shock him, galvanize him to action. “She’s dangerous, armed and dangerous.” I took the.357 from my pocket then, for emphasis, to get his attention. It worked. He grabbed his wife’s arm and they hurried up the trail.

  I stood for a few moments after they left, slowing my breathing, steadying my nerves. It was more than I could have hoped. We were isolated from the crowd above. I had bought some time. Maybe I could lay hands on her, shake some sense into her, talk her into surrendering. Before reinforcements arrived. Before someone called in a SWAT team.

  I stood immobile, listening. Except for the roar of the water, the forest was silent. It was the eye of the hurricane. I was standing like that when the bullet hit me. It caught me full in the left shoulder and spun me into a tree.

  The tree kept me from plunging headlong down the side of the canyon. I clung to it for support, my left side numb from shock. The.357 had fallen from my hand. Desperately I looked for it, expecting the next bullet to hit before I could find it. I saw it finally, lying out of reach to one side of the trail.

  I looked up to see if I should make a grab for it. Anne was standing in the trail, my short-barreled.38 still pointing in my direction. We looked at one another, both lives hanging in the balance. It couldn’t have been more than a second or two in time, but I aged an eternity. Then, with agonizing slowness, she lowered the gun, turned, and disappeared around a curve in the trail.

  I let myself slip to the ground. I hoped shock would last a little longer, staving off the pain. I crawled to where the gun had fallen. Once my fingers closed over the butt, I dared breathe again. Slowly I pulled myself to my feet, the world spinning crazily as I did so. I took a tentative step. The movement jarred me, starting shocks of pain pulsing through my body. I gritted my teeth and took another step.

  Each movement was excruciating. The bullet, lodged against my broken collarbone, scraped along a nerve at every step. I walked. Slowly and painfully, but I walked. The descent was steep and slippery, the ground wet with slick green moss. Mist from the falls swirled around me like thickening fog. I strained to see. How much of the difficulty in vision was mist? How much was losing consciousness?

  My subconscious framed the questions. I answered them aloud. “No. If I pass out, she’ll kill me.” Pain of realization dulled the pain in my body. I struggled through the last of the trees. There in a clearing, a flat, perpetually wet clearing on the bank of the river, stood Anne Corley Beaumont, her back to the water. The gun was still in her hand, aimed straight at me. She was waiting.

  “Drop it,” I yelled.

  She didn’t move. I heard the explosion. A bullet smacked into a tree behind me. I don’t know if she thought she heard something off to her left or if some movement caught her eye. She turned slightly, pointing the.38 in that direction. I raised the.357, aimed it, and fired.

  I’m a crack shot. I aimed at the.38. I should have hit it, but just as I fired, she lost her footing on the slick moss and fell. I saw the look of surprise and hurt as the slug crashed into her body. The force of the bullet lifted her and spun her to the left, sending her sprawling into the turbulent water. I dropped the.357 and raced toward her, my own pain forgotten.

  I reached the bank and saw the torrent fling her against a rock, then pull her away, sending her toward the bank, toward me. I had one chance to catch her before the water dragged her under. I threw myself lengthwise on the bank and grabbed. I caught one leg of the jogging suit. Barely. The force of the current, the deadweight, should have swept her from my grasp. There should have been no strength in my injured shoulder, but fueled by adrenaline, I worked her toward the bank. Inch by inch. At last, shaking with exertion, I dragged her out of the water.

  She was coughing and gasping. Blood foamed in the water that erupted from her mouth. I cradled her head in my lap, willing her to live. The coppery smell of death was all around her. I tried to wipe the hair from her mouth, from her eyes. I was crying by then. “Anne, Anne, why?”

  She tried to say something. I could barely hear her; the roaring of the water was too loud, the roaring in my ears. I leaned toward her, her lips brushing my ear. “You said…” she whispered, “…said given the same…the same circumstances…” And that was all.

  I was still holding her when a Snoqualmie City officer charged into the clearing from the bottom of the path. He was young but his instincts were good. He came on strong, ready to haul me in single-handed. He held his.38 Colt on me and picked up my.357 with his other hand. I tossed him my I.D., letting it fall at his feet.

  “Call Captain Powell at homicide, Seattle P.D.,” I told him. “Tell him I got her. Don’t let anyone who isn’t a cop come down that trail.”

  He left without argument. I lay Anne Corley Beaumont down, closing her eyes, stroking the hair from her forehead one last time. I stood up, feeling the aching chill from my sodden clothes. It was nothing compared to the glacial chill inside. Sudden weakness robbed my legs of strength, forcing me to sit once more. I didn’t sit next to Anne. There was nothing more I could do for her.

  The officer returned with a couple of blankets. He wrapped one around my shoulders and covered Anne with the other. “Powell says to tell you he’s on his way.” He looked at me closely. “You need an ambulance.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll wait.”

  I have no idea how much time passed before I heard the wail of sirens. Peters loped down the trail ahead of Powell and Watkins. How he managed to make connections back from Arizona that
fast I’ll never know. I was glad to see him. Powell and Watty went to the blanket-covered figure on the edge of the river. Peters came to me. “I’m sorry, Beau,” he said.

  I felt a sob rising in my throat. It took me by surprise. Peters put his arm on my good shoulder and left it there.

  “A week,” I said when I could talk again. “I only knew her a week.”

  “I know,” he said.

  Powell came over to me then. “The officer says you’re hurt.” He lifted the blanket and looked for himself, then turned to Watkins.

  “Get those ambulance people down here now,” he ordered. “Have ‘em bring a stretcher.”

  Peters came with me. I was glad to be taken away. I didn’t want to be there for the ritual pictures and the measurements. I didn’t want to watch as the search for evidence started, as people who knew nothing about Anne Corley or J. P. Beaumont started trying to learn everything about us. They would. That’s a homicide detective’s job.

  Peters pretty much took over. He directed the ambulance to Harborview. The doctors put me under while they removed the slug. When I came back around, Peters was there. I thought he had been there the whole time. It turned out he had gone back to Snoqualmie in the meantime and picked up the Datsun. The city of Snoqualmie had impounded the Porsche, pending completion of its investigation.

  The doctor wanted to keep me overnight. I wouldn’t hear of it. I wanted to be home. Like an old snakebit hound wanting his own cave under a house, I wanted to go home to lick my wounds. The doctor finally relented only because Peters assured him he would stay with me.

  Watkins was waiting in the lobby of the Royal Crest. The building manager had let him in along with someone I didn’t know, an eager young man Watty identified as the Snoqualmie homicide detective, Detective Means. Means could hardly restrain himself. He wanted to get started. This was his moment of glory, his first big case. He almost panted with enthusiasm. The whole idea made me weary beyond words.

  The doctor had given me the slug. I handed it to Watty, who in turn gave it to Detective Means. “It’ll match the ones from Brodie, Suzanne Barstogi, and Kincaid,” I said. “It’s from my departmental-issue thirty-eight.”

  We went up to the apartment. I was thirsty. I went to the refrigerator for something to drink. That was how I found the leftover wedding cake, neatly covered in plastic wrap, sitting on the bottom shelf. Peters saw me sag against the cupboard for support. He came and peered over my shoulder. “Jesus,” he said.

  He scraped it off the plate and ran the garbage disposal. Everybody needs a friend like Ron Peters, especially at a time like that.

  We went back into the living room. Means asked the questions. Watkins was there to handle administrative procedures. I was a little surprised Means let Peters and Watkins stay. I expected him to throw his weight around.

  He turned on a recorder and read me my rights. “I understand the deceased, Anne Corley, was your fiancée?” he asked.

  “No,” I said softly. “She was my wife.”

  Chapter 26

  Watkins and Means left hours later. I don’t know when. Peters walked them down to their cars. He came back and poured a MacNaughton’s for me and a gin and tonic for himself. He handed me my drink and an envelope.

  “I found it under the front seat of the Datsun.”

  I held the envelope up and looked at it. My name was written in bold letters on the outside. A small piece of paper fluttered out of it. I caught it in midair. “You’ll have to write the last chapter yourself,” it said.

  I crushed the paper in my fist. “Goddamn her! She knew! She forced my hand!” Peters sat on the couch. “Did you look at it?” I asked.

  He nodded. “You probably shouldn’t have read it right now.” Peters had pulled the plug on both phones in the house, effectively shutting out all unwanted intruders.

  I gazed at Seattle’s downtown skyline, the golden lights Anne Corley had loved. Or at least seemed to have loved — but then, she seemed to have loved me too. That showed how much I knew. Peters waited quietly, not prying, ready to listen when I was ready to talk. He had gotten a hell of a lot older and wiser in the last few days.

  I tossed the wad of paper to Peters. He opened it and reread it.

  “We talked about it once, you know,” I told him. “She asked me if, given the same circumstances, I’d do it again. When I got her out of the water, that was the last thing she said to me. She repeated what I said, that I’d do it again.”

  “Do what?”

  “Kill. Kill someone in self-defense. I told her I thought I would.” My voice broke, tears blurred my vision. Peters got up and took my empty glass to the kitchen. He returned with a full one.

  “You were right,” he said. “Don’t you think Anne knew you would? Don’t you think she counted on it?”

  “But why? And if she knew, knew it was coming, why the fuck did she marry me?”

  Peters shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

  For the first time I thought of Ralph Ames. I closed my eyes and shook my head. “What?” Peters asked.

  “Ames, her attorney. He’ll be back in Phoenix by now. Someone should call him, I guess.”

  Peters stood up. “What’s his number? I’ll call.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’d better do it myself.” The bandage on my chest made it difficult for me to move. Peters reattached the cord to the wall plug and handed me the phone. I got Ames’ home number from information. I dialed direct, hoping like hell he wouldn’t answer. He did, on the third ring.

  “Ralph Ames speaking,” he said in his best three-piece-suit diction.

  I cleared my throat. “It’s Beau, J. P. Beaumont, calling from Seattle. It’s about Anne.”

  “Thank God, I’ve been trying to call—”

  “She’s dead, Ralph, I…” I interrupted, but I couldn’t go on. There was stark silence on the other end of the line.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  I could hear sympathy in his voice, sympathy and concern. “It wasn’t a car wreck, Ralph, nothing like that. I shot her. She was trying to kill me.”

  “There’s a plane from Phoenix that gets into Sea-Tac tomorrow morning at ten. Have someone out there to meet me.”

  “But…” I started to object. He didn’t hear me. The receiver clicked in my ear.

  I put down the phone. “He’s coming up,” I told Peters. “He wants someone to meet him at the airport at ten in the morning.”

  Peters took my glass and gave me a mock salute. “Aye aye, sir,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

  The phone rang. I had forgotten to unplug the cord. It was Karen, calling from Cucamonga. “Katy Powell called me an hour ago. I’m sorry, Beau. Are you all right?”

  Surprised to hear her voice, I mumbled something unintelligible. I was touched that she had bothered to call.

  “The kids don’t know what to say. They’re sorry too. Do you have someone there with you?”

  I looked at Peters. “Yes, I do. My partner. He’s staying over.”

  The conversation fumbled along for another minute or two. When I hung up, Peters looked at me quizzically. “Your ex?”

  I nodded.

  “It was nice of her to call.”

  We pulled the plug on the phone before it had a chance to ring again. Peters and I proceeded to get shit-faced drunk. We ran out of gin and MacNaughton’s about the same time. I passed out in the leather chair. When I woke up the next morning, there was nothing left in the liquor cabinet but a half jug of vermouth. I had a terrible hangover. Anne Corley Beaumont was still dead.

  Peters went down to stuff some money in the Datsun’s parking meter. I told him I’d break his face if he brought up a newspaper.

  I didn’t want to see what they’d print about Anne and me. Talk is cheap, though, and I don’t know if I would have been able to carry out my threat. I was in a good deal of pain. I was grateful the doctor had insisted on giving me a prescription of painkillers. I helped myself to a genero
us dosage, not only for my shoulder but also for my head. Nothing helped the ache in my heart.

  Peters called in sick for the day. It wasn’t a lie. Neither of us is a very capable drinker. Without the haze of bourbon, I worried about Ames’ arrival. I was sure he meant trouble, that he was flying in to bird-dog the investigation. If the coroner called it justifiable homicide, Ames would still try to see to it that I lost my job. After all, Anne had been one of his prime clients. It was the least he could do.

  Peters tried to talk me out of going to the airport, but I insisted. I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible, like a kid who’d rather have his licking sooner than later. We went down to the lobby. The Datsun was parked across the street. Behind it sat a rust-colored Volvo.

  “Goddamn! What the hell is he doing here?”

  “Come on, Peters, you didn’t expect Max to miss a sideshow like this, did you? I’m surprised he didn’t turn up in the emergency room yesterday.”

  Max crawled out of the Volvo as we crossed the street. “Did you marry her so you wouldn’t have to testify against her?”

  My fist caught him full in the mouth. A front tooth gave way under my knuckle. Cole fell like a stunned ox. He lay partially on the curb and partially in the street. Hitting him was pure gut reflex. I couldn’t help myself. Then I stepped on his glasses. That was deliberate malice. We left him lying there without a second glance.

  “Drive like hell,” I told Peters. He did. My knuckles bled. I could feel a warm ooze under the bandage on my shoulder.

  “You landed a pretty good punch for an invalid,” Peters commented. “Remind me not to make you mad when you’re not all shot up.”

  The United flight got in early. We met Ames at the baggage carousel in the basement. He hurried up to me, hand outstretched. “Did you read the last chapter?” he asked without greeting.

  “No,” I said. “There is no last chapter. She said I’d have to write it myself.”

  Ames noticed Peters, realizing we weren’t alone. His manner changed abruptly, stiffened, withdrew. “I brought the rest of the manuscript back with me,” he said. “You’d better read it first. Then we’ll talk.”