Until Proven Guilty

by J. A. Jance

The cook, a True Believer named Sarah Morris, had come to church at four to start preparing breakfast, which was due after a prayer session at five. Before early-morning services, she had been in the habit of taking a cup of coffee to Brodie in his study. It was when she took him his coffee that she had found first his body and then Suzanne’s.

  We were about finished with Sarah when the front-door cop came hurrying into the room. “You’d better come quick. Powell said to call him on a telephone, not the radio, and to make it snappy.”

  The only phone available at the church was in the study. If Powell didn’t want us to use the radio for privacy reasons, the study was no better. We got in Peters’ car and drove to the first available pay phone.

  “What’s up?” I asked as soon as Powell came on the line.

  “The night clerk from the Warwick, that’s what. He says Carstogi came back and tried to go to his room. He’s got him down in the restaurant eating breakfast and wonders what he should do.”

  “Get a couple of uniformed officers over there to keep him there for as long as it takes us to drive from Ballard.”

  “They’re on their way, but why do I have this sneaking suspicion that you’ve screwed up, Beaumont?”

  “Experience,” I told him, and slammed the phone receiver down in his ear. I turned back to the car to see Maxwell Cole’s rust-colored Volvo idling behind Peters’ Datsun. “Shit.”

  I climbed into the car. “Sorry,” Peters said. “He must have tailed us when we left the church. I didn’t see him.”

  “It’s too late now. Drive like hell to the Warwick. Carstogi’s in the restaurant having breakfast.”

  Peters’ jaw dropped in surprise. “No shit! Why would he go back there?”

  “Beats me, but he did, and we’d better nab him before he gets away. Thank God the night clerk had brains enough to call and let us know.” I glanced at Peters, who was looking in the rearview mirror. “Max still on our butt?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll just have to lump it. We don’t have time to try to throw him off the trail. I don’t want Carstogi to slip through our fingers.”

  “The gun has a way of equalizing things, doesn’t it? Yesterday Carstogi was no match for Brodie when they were dealing with fists.”

  “You’ve already decided he’s our man?”

  “Haven’t you?” Peters asked.

  “No, I haven’t. I like to think I’m a better judge of character than that. Carstogi wanted to kill Brodie, but he would have taken Suzanne back in a minute. You heard him yesterday.”

  “Well, who did it then?” Peters asked. It was a good question. We didn’t have an answer by the time we stopped in front of the Warwick. Two patrol cars with flashing lights were outside the hotel, one parked in front of the garage on Fourth and the other at the front door on Lenora. We stopped by the front door.

  The clerk met us at the car, the story bubbling out before Peters turned off the engine. “He came up to the desk, said he needed a wake-up call at ten. I didn’t want him to go up to his room, so I told him we had a problem with the plumbing and that we’d buy his breakfast in the restaurant while we cleaned up the mess. I didn’t know what else to do. I called right away, because you said it was important.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “That was good thinking.”

  “Where is he now?” Peters asked.

  The Volvo stopped across the street. I went back to an officer who was standing near the front door. “Don’t let that yahoo in here,” I said, pointing at Cole, who was just climbing out of the car.

  The dining room at the Warwick is small and intimate. At that hour of the morning it was just filling up with tables of visiting businessmen and conventioneers. Andrew Carstogi had been placed at a small corner table. The hostess watched him nervously from her desk. Peters pulled his gun and put it in his jacket pocket. We approached the table warily.

  Carstogi looked up and saw us coming toward him. He grinned and waved at us with an empty fork. “Hi, guys,” he said.

  “Where have you been?” Peters asked.

  Carstogi’s grin faded. “Out. Just got back. They told me there’s a problem with the room and they’re buying me breakfast while they fix it. Good deal.”

  “Out to where?” Peters continued.

  “What is this?” Carstogi asked. “I went to a movie, and I met a girl. There’s nothing the matter with that.”

  “What’s her name?” I put in. “Where did you take her?”

  “We went to her place. Jesus, how am I supposed to know where it is? What’s going on? Why all the questions?”

  “How did you get back here?”

  “I caught a cab.”

  “Which one?”

  Carstogi stood up. “Okay, I’m not saying another word until you tell me what’s going on.”

  People around us were staring. We were creating a disturbance. “Sit,” Peters hissed. We sat.

  “We have two brand-new murders,” Peters said. “Two homicides at Faith Tabernacle.”

  The color drained from Andrew Carstogi’s face. “Not Suzanne,” he whispered.

  I nodded. “Suzanne and Brodie both. Sometime during the night. Now tell us, how’d you get back here from wherever you were.”

  Carstogi opened his mouth to say something and then shut it. Two gigantic tears rolled down his face. He brushed them away with his sleeve. “I caught a cab,” he said.

  “What kind? Yellow? Graytop?”

  “I don’t know. Just a cab. It picked me up at her house. I think it was the same cab as last night, but I’m not sure.” He looked back and forth from one of us to the other. “It’s not true, is it? Tell me it’s not true.”

  “It’s true,” I said.

  “Do you mind if we go through your room?” Peters asked.

  Carstogi shook his head mutely. Peters signaled to an officer who had stationed himself next to the hostess’s desk. “Have the desk clerk let you into his room to check it out,” he instructed. “Let me know if you find anything.” The officer hurried away. Carstogi’s shoulders heaved with noisy sobs. Peters and I watched, saying nothing. Eventually, he regained control.

  “Am I under arrest?” he asked.

  “No, but as of now I’m afraid you’re the sole suspect.”

  “But I never went near the church after we left there yesterday. I wouldn’t know how to get there.”

  The officer returned to say that the room was clean. Carstogi looked from one of us to the other. “What’s going to happen?” he asked.

  I pushed back my chair. “Let’s go up to your room and get a statement from you. Do you want an attorney present?”

  “I don’t need one,” he said. “I didn’t do it.”

  I believed him. I just wished that things were always that simple. We led him upstairs and took his statement. Carstogi answered all our questions willingly enough. According to him he had gone to a porno house and had been picked up by a prostitute after the movie.

  I don’t think Carstogi really grasped that the only thing between him and a first-degree murder charge was a prostitute whose name was Gloria, most assuredly not the name her mommy gave her. He couldn’t remember her address, and the description he gave us would have fit half the females in the U.S. Average height, kind of light brown hair, lightish eyes, slim. Carstogi’s life was hanging by a slender thread.

  We turned off the recorder and stood up to leave. “Are you arresting me?” he asked.

  “No, not now, but don’t leave here. Stay in the room and don’t talk to anyone.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I just can’t believe she’s dead.”

  “Believe it,” Peters said.

  We left the room. “We should book him, Beau,” Peters said to me in the hall. “Motive, opportunity. It all adds up. What if he splits?”

  “Come on, Peters. We don’t have a shred of solid evidence. Nothing more than the fact that he doesn’t have an alibi for last night. The girl was probably some hooker off Aurora. You
know how easy finding her will be.”

  “But you intend to look?” Peters regarded me wearily, shaking his head.

  “That’s right,” I answered. We rode down in the elevator without saying anything more.

  Maxwell Cole was in the lobby, arguing with the officer stationed at the registration desk, his walruslike face twitching with exasperation. “What’s going on, J. P.? This asshole wouldn’t spring with any information.”

  “Good,” I said. “Neither will I. Pass the word.”

  Peters directed one of the uniformed officers to keep an eye on the seventh floor. He nodded and waved.

  Cole blustered out of the lobby after us. “I want to know what’s going on. Two innocent people have been slaughtered in cold blood. You owe the people of Seattle an explanation.”

  I turned on him. “I owe the people of Seattle a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. I don’t owe you a fucking thing.” The other cop heard this exchange with a poorly concealed grin. “If he gives you any trouble, lock him up,” I said as I stalked away.

  Peters moved his car to a parking meter and plugged it. We had decided to go up to my apartment and see what kind of fish our hidden recorder might have hooked.

  Chapter 13

  It was only as we rounded the corner of Lenora onto Third that I remembered Anne was in my apartment. My mind had switched tracks completely, and now I didn’t know what to do. I decided I’d better call her from the lobby and give her some warning of her impending company.

  She seemed pleased to hear my voice. “I’m downstairs,” I said. “I’m bringing Peters up with me.”

  “Who was that?” Peters asked with a conspiratorial grin as we got on the elevator. “Anybody I know?”

  “As a matter of fact, you do know her. It’s Anne, Anne Corley.”

  “Why you closemouthed son-of-a-bitch! I got the impression at lunch yesterday that you and she had just met. How long have you been holding out on me?”

  The elevator door opened on eight. “Can it!” I snapped as Wanda Jamison got on, coffee cup in hand. She was on her way for a morning coffee klatch with Ida, my next-door neighbor. Wanda and I exchanged idle pleasantries while Peters continued to leer at me over her head.

  If I thought Anne would have used the lead time to change out of my robe, I was sadly mistaken. She didn’t. I was glad I waited until Ida’s door was safely closed before I knocked on my own. Anne opened the door and gave Peters a gracious welcome, as though her being there in a state of relative undress were the most natural thing in the world. She was totally at ease, and Peters was getting a real charge out of my discomfort.

  Peters made himself some tea while I paced the confines of my tiny kitchen. “What do you suggest we do with her while we listen to the tape?” he asked.

  “I give up.” I was long on embarrassment and short on ideas right then. I had told Anne she could stay as long as she liked, but I couldn’t have her in the room while Peters and I listened to our illicit tape.

  Peters carried his cup into the living room. He took my chair. I sat on the couch next to a cross-legged Anne. It disturbed me to be next to her. I wanted to touch her, but not in front of Peters. I didn’t want to soften my image—whatever was left of it.

  Peters looked at Anne. “Do you mind if we play a tape?”

  Anne contemplated Peters with her direct, gray gaze. “Do you want me to leave? I can go in the other room.”

  Peters glanced in my direction, then nodded. “I’d appreciate it.”

  Obligingly, Anne rose. “I’ll go get dressed then,” she said. Much to my dismay, she leaned over and gave me a familiar peck on the cheek as she went by. The robe fell open, allowing me a fleeting glimpse of flesh and curve.

  Once she was out of the room, Peters pointed an accusing finger at me. “You assole,” he said. “If you’d told me yesterday, I never would have tagged along with you to lunch.”

  I didn’t feel like explaining that, yesterday at lunch, I hadn’t known either. “Play the tape, Peters,” I said wearily. “Just play the tape.”

  He did.

  At first there were indistinguishable noises, openings and closings of doors that weren’t followed by sufficient noise to keep the recorder running. Eventually, however, there was a murmur of voices punctuated by coughs and clearings of throats, the sounds of a fitful crowd settling itself. Then Pastor Michael Brodie’s voice, stentorian and clear, filled my tiny living room.

  “Brethren, we come together this evening as Believers in the one True Faith, as Partakers of the one True Life. We are the chosen generation, a royal priesthood. Are there any here who doubt that we are the People of God?” There was a pause with no answer. Brodie’s voice was that of a born orator sounding a call to arms.

  “We have come to this place as strangers and pilgrims. There are none of us here who did not once walk in lasciviousness and lust. Our Lord did not come to call the righteous. He came to call the sinners, and those of us who have seen and heard are here, Brothers and Sisters. We are here! Praise God.” A chorus of amens echoed on the tape.

  “Are we going to have to listen to the whole fucking sermon?” Peters asked.

  “Looks that way,” I told him.

  “We have spoken many times how, in the early days, the Romans were the law of the land. In Romans 7:4 it says, ‘Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ.’ Let there be no mistake about it. That means that once we are in Christ, once we have set ourselves firmly on His path, we are dead to the law of the land. We are apart from it. It has nothing to do with us. And when we return to the law of the Romans, the law of the flesh, we turn our backs on The Way, for it is impossible to live in the world of the flesh and the world of the spirit at the same time.

  “The scripture goes on to say, ‘For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.’

  “Did you hear that, Brothers and Sisters? Did you hear that? It says we are delivered from the law. Delivered! Cut loose! Living under the Roman law shackles us, delivers us to death. It is only by living completely and totally in our newness of spirit that we find Life, Life Everlasting.” Again we heard the echoing amens.

  “He’s really tuning up now. Getting into his act.”

  “Shut up, Peters. I’m trying to listen.”

  “…was in this newness of spirit that we made the leap of faith that brought us here to this city. It took courage for each of us to leave the old ways behind. Each of us left friends and family and possessions. We all made sacrifices to be here, trusting that we had found the True Pathway to Christ. In doing so, each of us has taken a vow to lean not on our own understanding. We have sworn to be subject one to another, to submit ourselves to the elders, to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt us in due time.

  “We have found that there are those who would revile us for mortifying our members, who falsely accuse us of evil when in fact we who suffer for righteousness’ sake are content and unafraid. There is one of our number here tonight who has brought herself to be purged of sin. In her hour of trial she turned from the teaching and cast herself back into the old ways, turning away from the Law of the Spirit to the carnal law. Sister Suzanne, will you rise and stand before the Brethren.”

  There was a pause and some audible shuffling in the congregation. “Last night, Sister Suzanne stood before you and confessed her sin, that when Angel, her worldly daughter, was missing, she secretly called the police, bringing the power of the Romans back into our midst.

  “We know Jehovah has punished her for this act by taking Angel from her. We know, too, that for breaking her vows she could be Disavowed, cast away from the True Believers in disgrace. Last night she humbled herself before the elders and begged to be allowed to remain. Since yesterd
ay morning at sunrise she has taken no food. She has prostrated herself in prayer at the altar of our Lord, begging His forgiveness, and ours as well.

  “Last night, even as she prayed and wept, the elders met to consider her fate. I would like at this time for the elders to come forward.” There was a shuffling noise and then quiet. “…elders stand before you. Brother Benjamin? Sister Suzanne has submitted herself to the elders for punishment. Have you made a decision?”

  I remembered Benjamin’s work-hardened muscles. “We have, Pastor Michael.” I remembered his voice. It was Jeremiah’s stepfather.

  “And how do you judge?”

  “By the stripes she shall be healed.” The people in the room voiced their approval.