by J. A. Jance
She paused in the lobby long enough to remove a pair of battered Nikes from an Adidas carryall. Her navy pumps disappeared into the cavernous bag.
“Where to?” I asked as she stood up.
“Let’s just walk,” she replied, and we did. It’s unusual for someone with a car to get out and walk like that. We covered the whole of downtown, from Freeway Park to the waterfront. She set a brisk pace and maintained it regardless of the steeply pitched inclines. We walked and talked. She asked nothing about Angela Barstogi, nor did we delve into matters personal. The conversation ranged over a world of topics, from politics to religion, from economics to music. Anne Corley was well read and could hold her own on any number of subjects.
Her mood wasn’t as mercurial as it had been the day before. She told wry jokes and laughed at her own punch lines. We wound up at a small Greek restaurant halfway up Queen Anne Hill. We finished dinner about ten-thirty. I bought. My ego needed that hit.
As we left the restaurant, we paused outside to admire a full moon rising behind the Space Needle. She slipped her hand under my arm, her touch both casual and electrifying. “What now?” she asked.
“A nightcap at my place?” I suggested.
“I’d like that,” she replied.
We cut through Seattle Center and walked the seven or eight blocks to my building with her hand still resting on my arm. My mind was doing an inventory of my apartment. How much of a mess was it? Had I picked up the scatter of dirty socks and shirts that often litters the living room? For sure the bed wasn’t made. It never is.
The Royal Crest isn’t quite as luxurious as its name would imply. We entered the lobby. I tried to look at it through the eyes of a lady with a Porsche. Not that bad, I decided, but it could be better. I was grateful none of my lavender-haired cronies were still in the lobby. Some of them watched the closed-circuit channel twenty-four hours a day, however, and they consider it a sacred charge to know who comes and goes. My bringing home a female visitor would keep the gossip mills running for days.
I pushed open the door and let Anne lead the way into 1106. I didn’t turn on the lights. She went straight to the window to look at the downtown skyline. I came to the window and stood beside her. A delicate perfume lingered around her, the same scent that had entranced me the day before at the cemetery. She was as transfixed by the view as I was by her. Her skin reflected back the golden glow of the city lights. The play of light and shadow gave her beauty a haunting quality.
The impulse was more than I could resist. I reached up and ran my finger along her jawline. Her skin was smooth and cool. She made no move away from me. Instead, she turned toward the touch, allowing my finger to retrace its path down her cheek. I felt my throat constrict. “Hello there,” I said huskily.
“Hello yourself,” she replied. I took her in my arms and kissed her, feeling her mouth moist and welcoming on mine. I crushed her to me, awed by her response, her willingness.
Self-imposed celibacy is fine as far as it goes, but once you break training, months of deprivation take over. Every sensation is heightened. We were frantic for release. Each kiss was more demanding than the one before. Anne didn’t shrink before my onslaught. She matched me move for move, her need as deep and overwhelming as my own.
My hands were trembling with urgency as I fumbled with the top button on her blouse. The ruffled material fell away, revealing the deep hollow of her throat. I kissed her there and felt her response in a sharp intake of breath. Two more buttons revealed her breasts, firm and tense with excitement beneath a lacy bra. She pushed my hands away. “Let me do that,” she whispered. With swift, deft movements she undid the remaining buttons and slipped off the jacket, blouse, skirt, and bra. She returned to my arms clothed only in the glow from the downtown skyline.
I had removed my tie and jacket, but not the regulation .38 I carry in a shoulder holster under my left arm. She nestled against my chest. Most women, encountering the pistol for the first time, express something-surprise mostly, dismay sometimes, sometimes repulsion. Anne showed none of these. Her fingers strayed easily across the metal handle, then settled on the small of my back. This time her lips sought mine, sought them, found them, made them her own.
I put my hand on her chin and pushed her away from me. “I thought you said your intentions were honorable.”
“I thought you said not to play games,” she replied matter-of-factly.
I wasn’t prepared to argue the point. I kissed her again, letting my tongue explore at will, learning each corner of her, each curve and crevice. I could probably get away with saying I took her there in the living room on the floor, but it wouldn’t be the truth. She took me every bit as much as I took her, maybe more. Her body arched to meet mine, her fingers in my back spurred me, goaded me. My need and her need melded into one, and when the climax came, I heard an aching sob escape her lips. I kissed her cheek. It was wet with tears.
I moved away from her and lay on my side, watching her, “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” I said.
She snuggled against me, nestling her back into the curve of my body, placing my hand so it rested on the sloping fullness of her breast. “I didn’t expect it to be that good. It hasn’t been that good in a long time.”
We lay like that together, letting the aftermath of our lovemaking slowly dissolve around us. She lay so still, I thought she had dozed off. My arm went to sleep. When I tried to move her to one side, she rolled away from me and stood up. “Do you have a robe I could wear?” she asked.
I dragged two of them out of the closet, one for her and one for me. Considering we had just made love, it was silly to be self-conscious, but we both were. The one I gave her was huge when she tied it around her slender frame. She rolled the sleeves up a turn or two so her hands showed. “I offered you a drink,” I said. “You want one now?”
All trace of tears was gone. She smiled mischievously. “No thanks, I already have what I came for.”
I grabbed her arm and swung her toward me. “Why, you little vixen,” I said. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“I’m not,” she said. She gave me a glancing kiss, slipping away from me at the same time. I poured a drink for myself and turned on the lights. I watched with some amusement as she padded barefoot around the room, examining my decorator-dictated knickknacks as well as the pictures of Kelly and Scott on the wall in the entryway.
“Your kids?” she asked.
I nodded. “They’re both in high school now. They live in California with their mother.”
“How long have you been divorced?” she asked.
“Long time. Five years.”
“Girlfriends?”
“I’d like to think I’ve got one now,” I said. “What about you?”
She settled cross-legged on the couch, pulling the robe demurely around her. “I’m a widow. My husband died ten years ago.” She regarded me seriously. “I’ve had too much money to be able to tell who my friends are, to say nothing of lovers.”
“You’re a little young to be a widow.”
“I was a lot younger ten years ago.” She didn’t offer to divulge her age and I didn’t ask, although she couldn’t have been more than thirty, thirty-two at the outside. She sat there looking off into space. She had a way of mentally going off by herself that I found disconcerting. When she came back to the present she was looking directly into my eyes. “Are you going to ask me to spend the night, or do I have to get dressed and go home?”
I almost choked on a very small sip of MacNaughton’s. “Would you like to spend the night?”
“Yes,” she replied. She waited for me to finish my drink; then I led her into the bedroom. I squirmed that the bed wasn’t made, but she wasn’t paying attention to the furniture. She loosened the tie of the robe, letting it fall open. She pulled my hands inside it, wrapping them around her until I could feel the smooth swell of her breasts against my chest.
“Please,” she whispered.
We did.
Chapter 12<
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Through a sleepy haze, I sensed someone touching me. It was soft and teasing. I thought I was having one of my famous Beaumont dreams. Then I smelled her hair and felt warm lips on mine.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled.
“I’m getting you up,” she whispered softly, her lips nibbling my ear.
“I think I am up.”
“Ooh. So you are,” she smiled.
I pulled her onto my chest, settled her on me, our bodies blending comfortably. My hands closed on her slender waist. I watched her face, her lips parting as her body caught fire. Her hunger was almost frightening in its intensity. We each made love as we had never made love before. In the quiet that followed, she wept. This time I didn’t question her tears. I was grateful for them. This time I thought I knew what they meant.
She was resting on my chest, our heartbeats just then slowing, when the phone rang. It was Captain Powell. He was frantic. “Get your ass down here.”
I struggled to see the clock. It was a little before five. “What’s up?” I asked. The phone cord tangled in Anne’s hair, and I struggled to untangle it and listen at the same time.
“They’re dead. Brodie and the woman are dead! Somebody found them both at the church.”
I eased away from Anne. “Both of them? Have you called Peters?”
“Yeah. He’s on his way.”
“Tell him to meet me at the Warwick. I’ll go there to check on Carstogi.”
“You’d better have him under wraps, Beaumont.”
I looked out the bedroom window and could see the silhouette of the Warwick against a gradually graying sky. “Snug as a bug,” I said lightly.
“I hope to God you’re right,” Powell muttered, “for your sake and mine.”
Anne Corley was wide awake by the time I hung up the telephone. Wrapped in the voluminous robe, she looked wonderful, with that special glow a woman’s skin has after lovemaking. “Good morning,” she said, smiling.
I kissed her on the forehead, barely pausing in my headlong rush to the shower. “I’ve got to hurry.”
“Trouble?” she asked.
I nodded. “Emergency call. I need to be out of here in about ten minutes.” I left her standing in the bedroom and hurried into the bathroom. By the time I finished showering and shaving I could smell coffee. A steaming cup was waiting for me on the dresser. Anne Corley was back in bed, propped on a pillow, coffee mug in hand. She watched me thoughtfully as I dressed.
“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked.
“No.” I planted a quick kiss on her forehead as I sat on the bed to pull on my shoes. “Thanks for the coffee,” I added.
“Consider it payment in kind for services rendered.” I looked at her, gray eyes alive with laughter over the top of her cup. She had evidently taken no offense at my not telling her what was going on. I appreciated that. “Do you mind if I stay for a while, or do you want me to leave when you do?” she asked.
“Make yourself at home,” I said. “Stay as long as you like.”
She lay back on the pillows, luxuriating. “Thanks. Any idea when you’ll be done?”
“None whatsoever.” I shrugged my way into the shoulder holster and pulled on a jacket. I bent over her. She pulled me down on the bed beside her and gave me a lingering kiss. I wanted to crawl back into bed with her and forget the world, the department, everything.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re more than welcome.” Reluctantly I pulled myself away. There was no mistaking that what had passed between us had been good for both of us. “You’re a very special lady,” I said as I straightened up to leave.
Euphoria lasted for a little over three minutes. I rode down the elevator in my building, walked the half block to the Warwick, and rode that elevator up to the seventh floor. I knocked on Carstogi’s door to no avail. When he didn’t answer the third barrage of hammering, I went looking for a night clerk, who used his passkey to let me into the room. Carstogi wasn’t there. The bedspread was rumpled, as though someone had lain on top of it to watch TV for a while, but the bed had not been slept in.
I left the room as I found it and returned to the hall, where the night clerk hovered nervously, wringing his hands. He was anxious about adverse publicity. I assured him that whatever had happened was no reflection on the Warwick. Asking him to keep me informed of any developments, I went downstairs to wait for Peters. I had the sickening feeling that we’d been suckered, that Carstogi had played us for a couple of fools. Peters’ Datsun screeched to a stop about the time I hit the plate glass door. He hadn’t taken time to go by the department for another car. I gave him a couple of points for that.
“Carstogi’s not here,” I said, folding my legs into the cramped front seat. “We’d better go straight to Faith Tabernacle.”
Two uniformed cops were standing guard when we got there, holding off a horde of media ambulance chasers, to say nothing of neighborhood curiosity seekers. We hadn’t discussed it during the drive to Ballard, but I knew that getting the recorder out of Faith Tabernacle undetected was imperative. Whatever was on it would be totally inadmissible as evidence, but it might provide vital information. Information that would lead us to the killer.
We found Suzanne Barstogi near the pulpit at the front of the church. She lay on her left side with one leg half curled beneath her, as though she had been rising and turning toward her assailant when the bullet felled her. She was still wearing the same dowdy dress she had been wearing earlier in the day. It had been ripped from neck to waist. Her bra had been torn in two, exposing overripe breasts. In addition to the bullet hole that punctured her left breast, her upper torso was covered with bloody welts. Before she died, Suzanne Barstogi had been the victim of a brutal beating.
There was little visible impact damage. The bullet had entered cleanly enough, but behind her, where the emerging slug had crashed out of her body, Suzanne Barstogi’s lifeblood was splattered and pooled on the pulpit and altar of the Faith Tabernacle.
Peters looked at her for a long time. “He didn’t nickel-dime-around, did he?”
No one was in the church with us right then, but they would be soon. Peters quickly retrieved the recorder and put it in his pocket. We found Pastor Michael Brodie in the middle of his study. He was sprawled facedown and naked on the blood-soaked carpet. Peters and I theorized that he had heard noises in the church and come to investigate. Again there was only one bullet hole.
Shooting at such close range doesn’t require a tremendous amount of marksmanship, but you’ve got to be tough. Tough and ruthless. A hand shaking out of control can cause a missed target at even the shortest distance. Then there’s always the chance that the victim will make a desperate lunge for the gun and turn it on his attacker. And then there’s the mess.
“I would have bet even money that Carstogi wouldn’t pull something like this,” I said.
“I hate to be the one to break this to you, Beau, but you did bet money. We both did. Our asses are on the line on this one. Your friend Max will see to it. You just hide and watch.”
There’s an almost religious ceremony in approaching a crime scene. First is the establishment of the scene parameters. In this case, to be on the safe side, we included the entire church. Then come the evidence technicians with their cameras and measurements. They ascertain distances, angles, trajectories. They look for trace evidence that may be helpful later. The secret, of course, is approaching the scene with a slow deliberation that disturbs nothing. This is one place where peons take precedence over rank. Sergeant Watkins paced in the background, observing the technicians’ careful, unhurried efforts.
The medical examiner himself, the white-haired Dr. Baker, arrived before the technicians were finished. He made the official pronouncement of death. A double homicide was worthy of his visible, personal touch. Considering the accumulation of people, I was grateful Peters had gotten the chance to stash the recorder when he did.
A uniformed officer told Wat
kins that the church members were gathering outside and wanted to come in. What should he tell them? The sergeant directed him to assemble them in the fellowship hall, where we could once more begin the interviewing process.
I was a little puzzled when I saw the whole Faith Tabernacle group, as much as I remembered them, file into the room. After all, it was Tuesday morning and presumably some of them should have gone to work. It turned out that they had been scheduled to be there at five o’clock for a celebration breakfast. It was the traditional ending to a successful Purification Ceremony, and would have marked the end of Suzanne Barstogi’s ordeal of silence, fasting, and prayer.
Without Brodie’s looming presence in the background to enforce silence, it was easier to get people to talk. It was plain that they were shocked by what had happened, and talking seemed to help. They were getting better at it.