Until Proven Guilty Read online

  “Are you threatening me?”

  Peters shook his head. “You can call it that if you like. I call it a friendly suggestion.”

  With that Peters ambled out of the room. I followed, wishing Peters’ little recording device had a remote listening capability, because I was sure all hell was going to break loose the moment we were out of earshot.

  We made it into the office by one forty-five and found stacks of messages. Tom Stahl had called again. I had left the phone bill payment envelope with the outgoing mail before I left the Royal Crest that morning. I resented his calling me at the office about it, but then, I never was available at home during business hours. I gave the yellow message sheet a toss.

  There was a call from Maxwell Cole. I wadded that one up and threw it in the trash along with the first one. Cole had more nerve than a bad tooth to call me for anything. Detectives don’t speak to the press. That dubious privilege belongs to the supervisors.

  Captain Powell and Sergeant Watkins wanted to talk to Peters or me. We drew straws. Peters lost and took off for Powell’s fishbowl. There was one more message, one that intrigued me. It was from a woman who said she would call back around two. There was no name on the message, nor was there a number I could call.

  I looked at the clock, drummed my fingers on my desk, then reached for the phone. I had made a mental note of the number on the slip of paper in Anne Corley’s back window. I called Motor Vehicles and asked them to get me some information on the Porsche.

  Two o’clock was just around the corner. I hauled out a form and started working on a report. I can deal with the creeps. It’s the bureaucratic garbage I can’t stand. I dictated a brief summary of our activities for the day and put Michael Brodie’s and Benjamin Mason/Clinton Jason’s names into the FBI hopper. There was an off chance they had a record somewhere, maybe even an outstanding warrant or two. I phoned Hammond, Indiana, to see if Brodie was still under active investigation in the case Carstogi had mentioned.

  My phone did not ring at two o’clock. At two-fifteen, though, I looked up to find Anne Corley being led to my desk by Arlo Hamilton, the public information officer, who was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Look what I found, his face seemed to say. Visitors on the fifth floor are kept to a minimum. I think Anne Corley’s looks had a whole lot to do with the visitor’s badge that was clipped on her jacket. Heads turned in her wake. If there was a grin on Hamilton’s face, I’m sure mine mirrored it. No way could I disguise the pleasure and surprise I felt at seeing her again.

  “Here you are, Miss Corley,” Hamilton was saying as he led her to my desk.

  “Thank you very much, Arlo,” Anne responded graciously. “I appreciate your help.”

  “Think nothing of it. The pleasure was all mine.” Hamilton looked at me. “I was giving her some information for her book,” he explained. “Of course, you know all about that.”

  “Yes,” I said. I did know about the book. “How’s it going?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Fine. Arlo here has been a world of help.”

  Anne sat down on a chair beside my desk. For a few moments Hamilton wavered, uncertain whether to go or stay. Finally he made the right choice and left. Anne was wearing a navy blue suit with an innocently ruffled blouse and a daring slit up one side of the skirt. When she crossed her legs, the skirt fell away, revealing a length of well-formed thigh. A few more heads waggled in our direction. The boots she had worn the day before had obscured two of Anne Corley’s most notable assets.

  “Hello, Beau,” she said. Elbows propped on the arms of the chair, she rested her chin on clasped fingers and regarded me with a level, gray-eyed appraisal. “You’ve been busy.”

  “Peters and I have had our hands full,” I admitted. “Have you had lunch yet?”

  She shook her head. I hurried to my feet in hopes I could spirit her out of the building before Peters returned from his debriefing. It didn’t work. He caught us in the elevator lobby. There wasn’t much I could do but invite him to join us. I’d as soon have bit my tongue, and I could have belted him for not saying a polite no-thank-you. Now I owed him two.

  It was still misting out. We walked to a little Italian place in Pioneer Square. Anne was able to talk enzymes knowledgeably enough even though she didn’t seem particularly prone to eat them. As a dedicated processor of junk food, I couldn’t hold my own in that conversation. She and Peters hit it off, making me more than a little resentful. I was also painfully aware that he was much closer in age to Anne than I was. They chatted amiably and laughed, while I did a slow burn through lunch that had nothing to do with indigestion. Peters was the life of the party. I wanted to choke him.

  Toward the end of the meal, he leaned back in his chair and said, “Beau says you’re working on a book?” I had made the mistake of mentioning it to him.

  Anne gave Peters a clear-eyed look that nonetheless put distance between them. “I come at this through the eyes of the victims. That’s the name of my book, Victims. How do children become victims, and what happens to them or their families afterward? I had some personal experiences with that sort of thing in my own family. I’ve made a lifelong study of it.”

  “You make it sound as though you’ve been working on this book for quite a while.”

  “I have,” Anne said. “All over the country.”

  “Making any money at it?” Peters asked. There was a classic cut to her clothing, elegant and expensive. They spoke of style as well as money.

  Anne laughed, easily, comfortably. “If I were in it for the money, I’d have quit a long time ago. No, it’s strictly a labor of love.” The laughter disappeared from her face. She regarded Peters seriously. “Why do you think Angela Barstogi is dead?”

  Peters shrugged. “No logical reason; she just is.”

  The light dawned slowly. I’m not a fast learner. Hearing Anne questioning Peters about the case, I realized that I had been nothing more to Anne Corely than part of her pet research project. It was an ego-bruising realization. I reached for the check, ignoring the fact that neither Anne’s nor Peters’ coffee cup was empty.

  I walked too fast, making it difficult for Anne to keep up. Let her dawdle along with Peters, I fumed. She probably had a whole string of questions to ask him. As for me, I had better things to do with my time than answer questions for some half-baked author. I felt suckered, used. I squirmed a little too. I remembered the previous evening’s dinnertime topic. I had shot my mouth off royally, all the time thinking Anne Corley was interested in me when in fact she had only been fishing for information. It would have been easier for me to handle if I had been a rookie. No veteran cop should have been so stupid.

  Peters and Anne caught up with me in the elevator lobby on the first floor. Peters excused himself because he had to run an errand. I waited for the notoriously slow elevators, fervently wishing one would come quickly so I could escape Anne Corley’s quizzical look.

  “Are you angry?” she asked, her question unnervingly direct.

  “No,” I said quickly, defensively. “Of course not. Why should I be?”

  “But you are,” she replied.

  A bell rang and a door opened. People filed into an elevator, but I didn’t. “Yes,” I admitted at last. “You’re right. I am angry.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “It’s a long story,” I answered. “I thought you were…Well, I mean I…”

  “Why aren’t you listed in the phone book?” she asked. “I changed my mind about the drink after I dropped you off, but there was no way to call you.”

  “I’m a homicide detective. We don’t have listed numbers.” I felt a momentary flash of pleasure that she had tried to call me, but then I remembered her subterfuge and was angry all over again. Another elevator showed up, and I made as if to get on it. She put one hand on my wrist. Her touch nailed my feet to the lobby floor.

  “I’m not here about the Barstogi case, Beau,” she said. “I came because I wanted to see you.”

  “Come on,
Anne, there’s no fool like an old fool. I’ve been saying that to myself all day. If you want to ask questions, do it aboveboard. Don’t play games.”

  “Will you meet me after work?” she asked.

  “Do you want me to bring Peters? We’re both working the case.” I couldn’t resist a dig.

  She responded in kind. “Bring a chaperone if you want, but that wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  I swallowed the bait like a starving mackerel. “Where?” I asked.

  “Meet me in the lobby of the Four Seasons,” she said. “We can have a drink there. About five-thirty.”

  She turned and walked away. I missed the next elevator fair and square. In fact, I might have stood in the lobby for the rest of the afternoon if Peters hadn’t come through and dragged me back to the fifth floor.

  The phone on my desk was ringing. “Hello, J. P.” Maxwell Cole said. “You didn’t return my call.”

  “You noticed,” I observed dryly. “You know I can’t talk to you directly. Lay off it.”

  “Who is she? The car is owned by a law firm in Phoenix, Arizona, and they won’t tell me anything.”

  “I won’t tell you anything either, Max. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Come on, give. You left with her.”

  “It was stricly social, I can assure you. Had nothing to do with the case, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “If it was strictly social as you say, tell me who she is.”

  “Go piss up a rope, Maxey,” I told him, and I hung up.

  The sole advantage of going to lunch at two-fifteen is there’s not a whole hell of a lot of day left when you get back. Maxwell Cole had good sources. The Department of Motor Vehicles gave me the same information he had, the name of a law firm in Phoenix. I called and got a chilly reception from the lady who answered the phone. “Mr. Ames handles Mrs. Corley’s affairs,” she said, “but I have been instructed to give out no information.”

  “This is a very serious matter,” I said. “I’m investigating a homicide.”

  “Give me your name, then, and Mr. Ames will get back to you.”

  “Don’t you want the number?”

  “No. If you really work for the Seattle Police Department, we’ll be able to get your number through information.

  My phone rang a few minutes later, and a Ralph Ames introduced himself as Anne Corley’s attorney. “You’ll have to forgive my receptionist, Detective Beaumont,” he said. “Yours was the second call on Mrs. Corley we’ve had this afternoon. The first one didn’t check out.”

  “Was his name Maxwell Cole?”

  “As a matter of fact, it was.”

  “And he tried to pass himself off as a cop?”

  “Well, as an investigator of some kind.”

  “He’s a member of the local press.”

  “I figured as much,” Ralph Ames laughed. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  “As I told your receptionist, I’m working on a homicide and—”

  “Excuse me for interrupting, Detective Beaumont, but let me guess. You’re working on the murder of a young child, and you’re trying to figure out why Anne Corley came to the funeral, right?”

  “That’s exactly right, Mr. Ames.”

  “She’s working on a book. She’s been working on it for several years. I get calls like this all the time.”

  “Yes, she told me about the book,” I said, relieved. “Still, I have to check things out. It’s my job.”

  “That’s quite all right, Detective Beaumont. This is my job too. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “No. Nothing I can think of. Thanks.”

  “Anytime,” he said. He hung up.

  I waited while Peters finished taking a call from Hammond, Indiana. Yes, Brodie had been investigated in the bludgeoning death of one of his parishioners two years earlier, but he had never been indicted. The case was still open.

  There wasn’t a whole lot more we could do then, so we took off about four-thirty and went by the Warwick to check on Carstogi. He told us he had made plane reservations for the following morning. Peters went down to the lobby for a telephone huddle with Watkins to see what he thought about Carstogi returning to Chicago. While Peters was out of the room, Carstogi told me he planned to go to a movie that night. There are at least six theaters within walking distance of the Warwick, not counting the porno flicks. I didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t go.

  As I opened the door to let Peters back into the room, he signaled everything was okay. “You’ll keep us posted on how to get in touch with you once you get home?” Peters asked.

  “Sure thing,” Carstogi said agreeably. He seemed to be in good spirits, all things considered; We left him to his own devices. His close encounter with Michael Brodie’s fist had pretty much taken the wind out of his sails.

  Peters drove off in his Datsun. I hurried to my apartment and put on a clean shirt; then I caught the free bus back up to the Four Seasons. I didn’t tell Peters I was going to meet Anne Corley. I was afraid he’d want to tag along.

  Chapter 11

  Walking into the Four Seasons was like walking into a foreign country. Each marbled floor, gleaming chandelier, polished brass rail, and overstuffed chair belonged to another time and place. It all spelled money. The best Italian marble. The best Irish wool for the carpet. “Anne must be quite at home here,” I said to myself.

  I wandered through the spacious lobby into the Garden Court. The tables were occupied either by takers of tea in the English tradition or drinkers of booze in the American tradition. Some tables included both. Late-afternoon sun had breached the cloud cover and sparkled through an expanse of arched windows that formed one entire wall of the massive room. Anne Corley was seated at a tiny table in a far corner, her face framed by a halo of sunlight shining through her hair.

  Her eyes met mine as I entered the room. I declined the services of the maître d’ and made my way to the table. So what if she only wanted to pump me for information? I was willing to trade information for the chance to be with Anne Corley. On the table before her sat two glasses, one with white wine and ice and the other with MacNaughton’s and water. Pump away.

  “Been here long?” I asked, taking a seat.

  She shook her head. The room was crowded. There was a line of people waiting to be seated. “Did you have reservations here too?”

  She smiled and nodded. “Reservations make things simpler.” She examined my face. “Have you cooled off?”

  “I guess. I’m here.”

  She laughed. “You don’t look too happy about it.”

  I sipped my drink, disturbingly aware of her eyes studying my face. I had the strange sensation that she was burrowing into my mind and decoding the romantic delusions I had manufactured around her. It was at once both pleasant and uncomfortable.

  “You didn’t bring Peters,” she observed.

  “No, I decided I could handle the assignment on my own. I’m a big boy now.”

  “What does a girl have to do to show you that she’s interested? Hit you over the head? I find you very attractive, Detective J. P. Beaumont. Is that so hard to believe?”

  “Look,” I said impatiently. “I told you this afternoon, I don’t play games. I’ll talk to you about the case as long as what I tell you in no way jeopardizes the investigation. You don’t have to pretend I’m some latter-day heart-throb to do it.”

  She smiled again. “Actually, you sound like a maiden aunt who has just been invited up to see some nonexistent etchings. Let me assure you, my intentions are entirely honorable.”

  I didn’t mean to sound quite so self-righteous. I laughed. “That bad, eh?”

  She nodded. The waitress came by with offers of fresh drinks, but Anne waved her away. “I’ve thought about you all day,” she said quietly. “You’re really quite pleasant to be with. I realized that after I dropped you off last night.”

  I could feel a flush creeping up the back of my neck. “That was a compl
iment,” she added. “You’re supposed to say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured.

  “You’re welcome.” Her eyes sparkled with humor. For a time we sat without speaking, listening to the sound of talk and laughter, to the tinkling of leaded glassware that filled the room. It was a companionable silence. I appreciated the fact that neither of us grilled the other about their past. It was enough to be together right then. Eventually she emptied her glass and stood up. “Let’s go,” she said. “I can only sit around for so long without doing something.”

  I reached for my wallet, but Anne shook her head. “I already took care of it.”