Failure to appear jpb-11

by J. A. Jance

  Cop instinct said that Fraymore would have made a move prior to this. For a murder suspect, Tanya Dunseth put on a hell of a show. To a casual observer, she might have seemed at ease, totally in control, but I am first and foremost a detective. My life and the lives of my fellow officers often depend on how good I am at reading people, at deciphering their actions and motives, at predicting behavior. Beneath Tanya's animated facade of forced gaiety, I sensed a brittleness that hadn't been there Saturday night in the Members' Lounge. Fraymore had talked to her, all right, and Tanya Dunseth was scared to death.

  As I stood back and observed her, it was strange to compare her smooth portrayal of the doomed Juliet to this other role, a real-life one that didn't suit her nearly as well. I don't suppose that's surprising. After all, a play's just that-a play. Romeo and Juliet, the actors, had laughed and joked with one another within minutes of the final curtain. Martin Shore's murder had occurred in real life; Gordon Fraymore's hulking presence was no laughing matter.

  Questions of guilt or innocence aside, I had to salute Tanya for her valiant effort at not letting her personal problems interfere with Kelly and Jeremy's prenuptial celebration. She wasn't big, and she didn't appear to be particularly strong, but Tanya Dunseth was one tough cookie.

  Gradually, I was drawn away from observing her and back into the ebb and flow of the party. With all the laughter and easy conversation, it seemed more like a post-wedding reception than a pre-ceremony buffet. Since I wasn't paying for any of it, I kept quiet, opening my mouth only when spoken to or to chow down on the plentiful food.

  Heavily laden tables decorated with red-checkered tablecloths dotted the entire back deck. Someone had spread garlands of flowers along the tops of the deck's newly framed handrails. Jeremy had warned us that Marjorie Connors didn't approve of weddings and wouldn't be a part of this one, but I wondered about that. Although she wasn't physically present, I felt Marjorie's handiwork-and her capable touch-everywhere.

  The food was festive and delicious-cold fried chicken, various kinds of pasta, Jell-O and potato salads, sliced cheeses, baked beans, fresh fruit pies, and hunks of still-warm, freshly made, round-shaped bread that Ralph insisted had to have come from a DAK automatic bread-maker, whatever that was. The bread looked funny, but dabbed with sweet butter, it tasted fine.

  Jeremy showed up wearing a pair of neat new chinos, a clean white shirt, and regular shoes. I was relieved to see he had ditched the Birkenstocks in honor of the occasion. He seemed appropriately nervous as he was introduced to Dave and Karen, then he backed off, leaving them to visit with Kelly. When it came time to eat, he ended up sitting with Alex and me at one of the smaller tables.

  "You're probably wondering about all this," he said, glancing around at the milling people while I worried about whether or not he was somehow able to read my mind.

  "Since we only have the one night for our honeymoon, we don't want to stay at the reception very long, but two-thirty was the earliest we could have the park. After the ceremony, we'll head over to Salishan, on the coast, just as soon as we can get away. This gives us a chance to visit with some of our friends. And relatives," he added lamely after a pause.

  Damn. I was starting to like the kid in spite of myself.

  It must have been about one or so when the party started to break up. For one thing, we all had to go somewhere else and change into our wedding clothes. Everyone was busy-clearing away dishes, taking care of food, folding up tables and chairs. And with the adults all occupied, Amber Dunseth managed to slip away.

  Losing a child is every parent's worst nightmare, but little kids get lost all the time. One second they're where they're supposed to be. The next minute they're gone completely. Tanya was first to raise the alarm. Before long all the party goers were drafted into the search. We spread out in every direction, beating the bushes, looking, and calling.

  Thinking Amber might have toddled off down the road, I went that way, and I was the one who happened to luck out and find her. She had somehow made her way out to that battered hulk of a wrecked Chrysler and had climbed up on the moldering old bench seat. I found her there, sound asleep in the warm sun. Careful not to frighten her, I woke her gently and was carrying her back to the house when Scott came racing down the road toward us, yelling.

  "Dad! Dad, come quick!"

  I had heard that terrible note of panic in Scott's voice only once before in his whole life. He had been teaching Kelly to ride his bike, even though we'd warned him repeatedly that she was too little and couldn't handle a two-wheeler. When the bike wrecked, she'd gone ass-over-teakettle on a patch of newly graveled pavement. She was lying in the road scraped and bleeding when Scott came running to me for help.

  "What is it?" I called back, quickening my pace. "What's wrong?"

  "It's Kelly," he managed. "She fell."

  I ran then. When we met, I thrust Amber at him like a quarterback handing off a football. "Where?" I demanded.

  "Around the side of the house. There's a door with steps leading down to the basement. I think it's real bad," he added. "Go quick."

  After that I ran, as fast as I ever remember running in my life. I had to push my way through a milling knot of people clustered around the basement door. A slash of dust-filled sunlight glinted down into semidarkness, lighting a set of heavy plank stairs. At the bottom, another clutch of people crouched on their knees in a tight circle.

  "Is she all right?" I heard myself asking as I scrambled down the stairs. "Is she okay? Somebody tell me what happened."

  Kelly lay in a rag-doll heap at the bottom of the stairs, her feet still on the next-to-last step. The force of her fall had knocked the pins loose from the French twist, letting her blond hair spill around her head like pooling water on the hard, packed-dirt floor. Dave Livingston knelt beside her while a stricken Jeremy stood over them, staring off into the middle distance with his hands dangling uselessly at his sides.

  "What happened, for God's sake?" I repeated when nobody answered me. "Did she faint or what?"

  "At least she's breathing," Dave said. "Pulse is rapid but weak. Where's that blanket? Dammit, I told somebody to get me a blanket."

  "Here!" I looked up in time to see a white-faced Karen thrust a blanket in my direction. I handed it down to Dave, and the two of us struggled clumsily in our hurry to cover Kelly's appallingly still body.

  "Did someone call nine-one-one?" I asked.

  "Alex said she would," Dave answered grimly. "I hope to God they hurry."

  Behind me on the stairs I heard the unmistakable sound of someone starting to retch. Jesus Christ! Was somebody going to throw up? Why the hell didn't he just go back outside and stay out of the way?

  I looked up then, hoping to dodge out of the path of flying puke, and that's when I saw the spectral figure that held Jeremy Todd Cartwright's eyes captive.

  In the far corner of the room, a human form dangled heavily at the end of a rope. I was still squinting through the semidarkness and trying to make out exactly who and what it was when someone switched on the light.

  There, caught in the frail yellow glow of a single bulb, was Daphne Lewis, still wearing the Icelandic sweater she had worn in the Members' Lounge. The farmhouse was old-fashioned post-and-beam construction. In the course of refurbishing the place, new lumber had been sistered onto old to provide bracing for some of the sagging originals holding up the floor joists. The rope, complete with a professional-looking hangman's noose, had been strung through the intersection of two of those braces.

  As soon as I saw the deadly hangman's noose, I knew it was something I had seen before-on-stage at the Black Swan Theater. It was one of the props from The Majestic Kid.

  There was no point in running over to Daphne. Obviously dead, she was far beyond help. Kelly was the one who needed all our attention.

  I clung to the stubborn hope that she wouldn't die. And that the baby wouldn't either.

  CHAPTER 9

  Tires crunched in the gravel beside me, jarr
ing me out of my torpor and back into the present, back to an awareness of the world around me. I had no idea how long I'd been walking, nor did I care. Since I'd left Ashland Community Hospital, time had ceased to exist.

  "Get in, Mr. Beaumont. I'll take you back to the hospital." Gordon Fraymore reached across the front seat of his Chevrolet Lumina and opened the door.

  "I'd rather walk."

  "Don't be stubborn. Do you want to see your granddaughter or not?"

  Granddaughter. Granddaughter? It took a moment to assimilate the word. "Kelly's baby? A girl. She's all right then?"

  "The baby's fine."

  Without another word, I climbed in the car. "And Kelly?" I asked, buckling my seat belt. "My daughter. How's she?"

  Fraymore shrugged and shook his head while he wrenched the car into a sharp U-turn and accelerated in the opposite direction.

  "Couldn't say. All I know is, they said the baby's fine and asked me to find you and bring you back."

  "Thanks," I said.

  "Nothing to it. After you see the baby, we have to talk."

  "Sure, sure. No problem."

  Eager to be back at the hospital, I was surprised to see how far I'd walked and how long it took to drive there. I had covered a distance of several miles without even noticing. Given the kind of mindless daze I was in, it's a wonder a car hadn't hit me.

  We drove for some time in silence. Finally, Fraymore cleared his throat. "The way I figure it, your daughter must have fainted when she saw the body there in the basement."

  "Must have," I agreed.

  "You knew her, didn't you?"

  "Knew who?"

  "The dead woman."

  "Daphne Lewis? Yes. Vaguely."

  "You're a regular walking, talking crime wave all by your little lonesome, aren't you, Detective Beaumont? Seems like everyone you know who's here in Ashland is either getting hurt or murdered or both."

  Most police officers would have taken the situation with Kelly into consideration and cut me a little slack. Not Gordon Fraymore. His capacity for civility seemed remarkably limited, even for a cop. A few grunted sentences had totally depleted his supply of congeniality.

  With my impaired mental faculties, we pulled into the hospital parking lot before I could phrase an appropriately malicious response. Indignant, I hopped from the car and marched off toward the building. When my feet touched the ground, I bit back a yelp of torment. I had been in the car for only a few minutes. As soon as I put weight on my feet, a spike of pain from my bone spurs shot up both legs from heel to hip. So much for signing up for one of those Volkswalks.

  Limping toward the door as best I could, I was met by a somber Alexis Downey, who hurried outside to greet me. "How's Kelly?" I asked.

  Alex shook her head. "Still touch and go. The doctors are doing a craniotomy to relieve the pressure."

  Her words struck terror in my soul. With Kelly suffering a concussion, a fractured skull, and possible swelling on the brain, the options for prognosis included everything from total recovery to permanent brain damage. Informed by a lifetime of having seen too much, I prepared myself for the worst.

  "They're afraid Kelly's going to die, aren't they?" I said. "That's why they went ahead and took the baby."

  "No, that's not it at all," Alex replied. "She went into premature labor. With her unconscious, a C-section was the only thing they could do."

  "How's Jeremy holding up?"

  "Not very well. He's been down by the nursery staring in the window ever since they brought the baby up from the operating room. I feel sorry for him. He doesn't have anyone."

  "Is that a hint?" Alex said nothing, but I got the message.

  Inside the waiting room, I was faced with two distinct types of emotional quicksand. I could venture into the emotion-charged mire with Karen, Dave, and Scott, who were seated on a couch and love seat and huddled in hushed conversation, or I could go talk to Jeremy. He was visible in the hallway outside the nursery window, leaning forlornly against the glass. I chose Jeremy.

  He barely glanced up when I stopped behind him. "How's it going?" I asked.

  He shook his head and didn't answer. Then, after a deep breath, he said, "Karen's fine."

  "Well, of course she is," I returned impatiently. What kind of goofball comment was that? I wondered.

  "Why wouldn't she be? She's right out there in the lobby. I saw her just a minute ago."

  I looked over his shoulder and peered into the nursery window. Inside, only one baby-a tiny, red-faced, pink-swathed gnome-lay on her back in a movable incubator. Her face was

  screwed up in a full-volume screech that sliced through the intervening window. A handwritten three-by-five card attached to the incubator's plastic hood read, KAREN LOUISE BEAUMONT.

  So that's who Jeremy meant. This Karen was indeed all right. Pissed off, same as her grandmother, but all right just the same.

  "It was the tetracycline," Jeremy said despairingly while I gazed with rapt attention at the squalling infant.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "The tetracycline," he repeated. "Kelly was taking it for a strep throat. Nobody told her the medication would neutralize her birth-control pills. Believe me, Mr. Beaumont, we didn't want it to be this way. We both wanted a big church wedding with all the trimmings, but…"

  He broke off, sobbing and disconsolate, and slumped against the gray wall. I wanted to hold him, to offer him comfort, but my feet were welded to the floor, my hands Superglued to my hips. I didn't know what to do or say.

  "I love her," Jeremy went on hopelessly. "What'll I do if she dies? Oh God, what'll Karen and I do then?"

  It was a despairing, gut-wrenching plea for help, for answers. I wanted to say, "Snap out of it, Jeremy. Pull yourself together. Don't even think such a thing." I'm superstitious enough to believe that giving way to such thoughts can open the door for potential disaster.

  At last my hands moved, almost of their own volition. I reached out and put one arm across Jeremy Todd Cartwright's quaking shoulder.

  "You make do," I said slowly. "You take it one day at a time and do the very best you can for you and for your child."

  Jeremy shuddered in a herculean effort to pull himself together. "Is that what you did after your second wife died?"

  So Kelly had told him about Anne Corley, about what had happened between us. Anne wasn't exactly a deep-dark family secret, but it startled me to hear Jeremy mention her. It felt strange to be discussing her with a young man I hardly knew, but then I realized that the pain of what had happened to me then uniquely qualified me to help Jeremy now.

  "Pretty much," I said.

  He was silent for a time. "Do you think she'll die?"

  "I don't know. What do the doctors say?"

  "The doctors don't talk to me," he snorted bitterly. "They talk to your wife-excuse me, to your ex-wife, to Kelly's mother, but not to me. I'm only the father here, not the husband."

  Once more he dissolved in anguished tears. Jeremy Cartwright was a boy in man's clothing. My heart went out to him. This time, I wrapped both arms around his broad shoulders and held him close. He clung to me desperately, like a small frightened child, even though he stood a good two inches taller than I am. Hot tears coursed down the back of my shirt, leaking under my collar and trickling in tiny rivulets between my shoulder blades. At last he quieted and pulled away.

  "Come on," I said, taking his arm. "Let's go outside."

  "I can't leave," he objected. "She's still in the O.R."

  "Just outside to get some air," I told him. "It'll do you good. Someone will come find you if you're needed."

  I led him out to the same concrete bench where I had sat some hours earlier. The sun had moved far to the west and was headed down behind the line of encircling hills. Despite sitting in the hot afternoon air where the temperature still hovered in the high 90s, Jeremy shivered uncontrollably.

  "Cold?" I asked.

  He nodded. "How can that be?" He stared down at the film of gooseflesh
covering his arms.

  "A kind of delayed shock, maybe," I suggested.

  He balled his hands into fists, watching them open and close with puzzled interest, as though they were unfamiliar appendages attached to some alien body.

  "I called the hotel and canceled our reservation," he said huskily. "Since we can't use the room, I didn't want to pay for it. We can't afford it. I don't know how we're going to pay the hospital bill. We had budgeted enough for the baby, but this…" He broke off, shaking his head.

  "You don't have hospitalization?"

  "For me," he answered, "but not for Kelly and the baby. I couldn't add dependent coverage because we weren't married."

  "It'll be all right," I said. "Don't worry about that."

  Gordon Fraymore came out through the hospital doors just then, looked around, spotted us, and then started in our direction. "They want you inside," he said when he reached us.

  "Both of us?" I asked.

  "No, him." Fraymore nodded curtly toward Jeremy, who rose at once and rabbited away. Uninvited, the detective took Jeremy's vacated spot on the bench. First he popped a Tums, then he lit a cigarette.

  "I'm pissed at you, Beaumont," he said evenly enough. "So's the county sheriff, for that matter. I just thought you should know."

  The word "mister" had evidently disappeared from Gordon Fraymore's lexicon.

  "The sheriff? How come he's mad at me? I don't even know him."

  "Believe me, he knows you," Fraymore said. "I gave him the full scoop. Live Oak Farm's in the county, so Daphne Lewis is theirs same as Martin Shore is mine. We figure the two homicides are related, so we're conducting a joint operation."

  Great. Complete stranger or not, whoever the sheriff of Jackson County was, he already hated my guts. Gordon Fraymore had seen to it.

  "So why are you bent out of shape?"