Until Proven Guilty

Chapter 14

Peters, still intent on the tape, was playing it again as I came back into the room. “So much of what Brodie says sounds like he’s quoting directly from the Bible.”

“Probably was. Taken out of context and given a forty-degree twist, you can use the Bible to justify almost anything.”

Peters’ tea was gone. I brought him another cup. We listened to the tape, not once but several times. “There’s a clue in here somewhere, if we could just put our fingers on it,” Peters said as he switched off the recorder for the last time. He stood up. “I guess we’d better get back over to Faith Tabernacle. The place is probably still crawling with people. Watty will be climbing the walls.”

“What about Carstogi?” I asked.

“What about him? I’m sure the trail leads back to him one way or the other.”

I remained unconvinced. I said, “Let’s get a description of the hooker and put vice on it. Or maybe we could track down that cab.”

“You’re determined he didn’t do it, aren’t you? But you’re right; we should check it out.” Peters glanced down at the tiny machine in his hand. “What about this? Erase it?”

“No, don’t. We’ll want to listen to it again. If there’s something in there that we’re missing, maybe we’ll catch it next time. Leave it here.” I took the recorder from him and placed it in the top drawer of the occasional table beside my leather chair. “That way it won’t leak into Cole’s hands.”

Back at Faith Tabernacle Sergeant Watkins was running the show, directing a small army of officers who scrutinized every inch of the church and took statements from anyone who looked remotely related to the case. At the moment we drove up, Watty was standing next to the front door, supervising a kneeling lab technician who was making a plaster cast of something behind a row of decorative bushes.

“What’s up?” Peters asked him.

Watkins glowered at us. “Where the hell have you been?” He went on without waiting for an answer. “We found some tracks here. The footprints have been obliterated, but we should get good casts of the bicycle tires. Someone parked a bike here during the night.”

“You think the killer used a bike for his getaway?” I asked, shaking my head.

“You have a better suggestion?” Watty snapped.

I had to admit I didn’t have one. “Where’s the father?” the sergeant asked.

“He’s back at the Warwick. We’ve got a guard on him.”

“A guard!” Watkins exploded. “What I want on him are cuffs and orange coveralls. We’ve got three people dead so far. We’d better arrest someone pretty goddamned soon.”

“Carstogi didn’t do it,” I said.

“What? Are you his goddamned character witness? I understand he was out all night. Where was he?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know!”

“He went to the Palace for a sleazy, X-rated movie and got himself picked up by a hooker. He doesn’t know where they went. He’s from out of town.”

Watkins examined my face as though he thought I was a raving lunatic. “That’s the shakiest goddamned alibi I’ve heard this week!” He turned to Peters. “You agree with him, Detective Peters?”

Peters shifted uneasily under his gaze. “No,” he said at last. “Beau and I differ on that score. I think Carstogi is our prime suspect.”

Watty turned back to me, a look of smug satisfaction spreading over his face. “I’m glad somebody around here has some sense. Majority rules. Now I suggest you get off your ass and nail it down.” He walked away.

Peters looked at me for a reaction. “He asked my opinion, Beau.” It was part apology and part justification.

“That’s why they have two detectives on this case, remember?” We went inside.

The bodies were gone and the crime lab folks were pretty much finished. One of them tossed Peters a bulging manila envelope. “You can cross robbery off the list of motives,” he said. “There’s seventeen thousand dollars in cash in that baby. It was in a bottom drawer in the study. We’re taking it down to the department for safekeeping.”

I went into the study. A well-thumbed and much-marked Bible lay open on the desk. I turned some of the pages. The marked passages were all of a vein similar to what we had heard on the tape. Nothing in Brodie’s selections spoke of forgiveness or loving one’s neighbor, to say nothing of one’s enemies. Faith Tabernacle’s leader had demanded retribution from his followers, had turned a blind eye on adultery. Someone had learned the lessons well and had given Brodie a taste of his own medicine. “Vengeance is mine” was the message. The Lord was excluded from the equation.

A halfhearted prayer service was continuing in the fellowship hall. The few True Believers who held jobs had not gone to work. Like bewildered sheep they huddled together for warmth, locked in a cell of interminable prayer, waiting for direction. Brodie had told them what to do and when to do it for a long time. Without him they had no idea how to function. I felt sorry for them. At the same time I felt repulsed. They had turned their lives and minds over to a monster masquerading as a messiah.

I saw Jeremiah. I tried to catch his eye in hopes I could get him to come talk to me. I think he saw me, but he studiously ignored me. Already someone had taken up Brodie’s mantle and was pulling the strings.

Peters and I hit the street. We went back to Gay Avenue. Like the evidence techs before us, we found nothing. It looked as though no one had been in the house since we had come with Carstogi the day before. As we stepped off the porch to leave, Sophie Czirski hailed us from the concealed gate in her fence.

“Is it true?” she demanded as we approached. “They’re both dead?”

“Yes,” Peters responded.

“Serves ‘em right,” she muttered, “both of ’em.” Her loose dentures clicked in satisfaction.

“You didn’t do it, did you, Sophie?” Peters’ question was a joke more than anything, but Sophie’s face brightened.

“I didn’t,” she said. “Wish I had, though. I was right there in the house from ”Little House on the Prairie‘ to the eleven o’clock news. Then I went to bed. No way to prove it, though. Nobody saw me. You want to take me in?“

Peters grinned. “That won’t be necessary, but you call us if you see anything strange around here, will you?”

Her red hair bobbed up and down. “I will,” she assured us, and we both knew it was true.

We questioned some of the other neighbors and then returned to Faith Tabernacle to canvass that area, looking for leads the whole time. We kept after it all day. For a while it looked as though we were going to come up empty-handed. We were still at it when yellow school buses started discharging passengers in late afternoon. Shortly after that a kid on a bike, probably junior high or so, rode up to where Peters and I were standing.

“You guys detectives?” he asked.

“That’s right.”

“I saw someone on a bike this morning when I was on my paper route. I usually cut through the church parking lot to get to the house across the street. It’s the last one on my route. Someone was just leaving the front of the church. He was in a hurry.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

He shook his head. “It was too dark. I only saw the reflectors on the bike’s wheels.”

“What time was it?”

Again he shook his head. “I don’t know. My dad gets home from work about two — he’s a janitor — and he wakes me up. I deliver my papers and go back to bed. That way I can have breakfast with everybody else in the morning. I usually get home around three. This is my last house.”

He couldn’t give us much more than that. We took his name, address, and phone number and thanked him.

“Nice kid,” Peters said as we watched him wheel his bike back down the street.

“He came within an inch of getting himself killed this morning. If he’d seen him, I don’t think our killer would’ve hesitated pulling the trigger again.”

About six-thirty we went back to the department to dictate our reports. We finished about an hour later. Peters offered me a ride home, and I accepted. It had been a long day.

The lights were off in the apartment when I came in. I felt a jab of disappointment. I had hoped all day that Anne would be there when I came home. It had been years since someone had been at home waiting to welcome me. I fixed a drink and went to the bedroom to hang up my jacket. Anne was there in my bed, curled up and sound asleep. I beat a hasty retreat to the shower, overwhelmed with gratitude for my good fortune.

Clean-shaven and showered, I slipped into bed beside her. She snuggled against me. When I nuzzled her neck, she stirred. “Good evening, Sleeping Beauty.”

She smiled contentedly as my fingers caressed her breast. “Does that make you Prince Charming?”

“Or his grandfather.”

She laughed. “You’re not that old, are you?”

“I feel that old,” I replied. I studied her. She had to be over thirty, but she looked as young as twenty-five. I could feel my body hardening, wanting her, yet I held back, too. Her fingers trailed through the hair on my chest, drumming a tattoo that reverberated through my head.

“You don’t feel old to me,” she said. The texture of her nipple changed beneath my hand. She pulled her hair to one side, exposing the smooth skin of her bare neck. I kissed her there, feeling her body go taut, her response immediate and palpable. There was an urgency in her kisses, a hungry need that overtook us both. In responding to that need, age was no longer an issue.

Her lovemaking taxed my skill and knowledge, taking me far beyond the gradual experiments Karen and I had evolved together. Anne required nothing less than full satisfaction and gave it as well, her body an exquisitely tuned instrument responding vibrantly to the slightest touch.

It pains me to admit that in things sexual, Anne just flat knew more than I did. Later, as she lay in my arms, satiated and content, I remembered how much she knew and it began to bother me. I began to wonder how she had come to know so much. I began to want to piece together Anne’s romantic past. I was rational enough to know it was none of my business, but that didn’t stop me. It’s a kind of inquisitor mentality that makes me think I’ve been in this business too long. It also makes me realize what a prude I am. I guess deep down, like most men, I wanted the woman I loved to be a virgin. An adept virgin.

Eventually Anne slipped out of bed. “What do you eat around here?” she asked. “I’ve seen better-stocked refrigerators in motel rooms.”

“I don’t cook. I eat out.”

“When? I’m starved.”

“For what?”

“For food. Any kind.”

I thought about the Porsche and the fur jacket. I thought about the Doghouse. I thought about age and sex and money. We were worlds apart, yet I wanted us to end up in the same orbit. “Well, if you’re tough enough, I’ll introduce you to one of my favorite hangouts. Believe me, reservations won’t be necessary.”

She took a red sweatsuit out of her Adidas bag. I watched her pull it on, marveling at her sleek, firm body. I drew her to me and zipped up the top. “How do you do that?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“Stay in shape.”

“Oh, that,” she said laughing. “I jog, I ride, do aerobics, lift weights. Anything else you’d like to know? Measurements, weight?”

“As a matter of fact, I want to know everything.”

“For instance,” she teased.

“I wrapped my arms around her. ”For instance, tell me about your sister, Patty. What happened to her?“

She stiffened in my arms. “No,” she said quietly. She moved away. I caught a glimpse of her face as she turned. A curtain had come down over her gray eyes. They were suddenly solemn and distant. “Don’t ask me that again.” It was a statement, not a request.

I had blundered onto dangerous ground, and I would do well to be more wary in the future. I see that in cops all the time, had seen it in Peters and myself. We can talk about crime in the abstract; just don’t bring it too close to home.

Anne reached into her bag, pulling out a brand-new pair of jogging shoes. She held them up for my approval. “I went shopping today,” she said in a halfhearted attempt at gaiety. It didn’t take.

We walked to dinner. I tried to recapture the evening’s earlier, lighter mood without success. Anne had crossed over her solitary bridge and left me alone on the other side. What exactly had she told me about Patty? I wondered. That she had died when Anne was eight? Why, then, did the mere mention of Patty more than twenty years later cause such a reaction?

Connie welcomed us with a knowing wink that set my teeth on edge. It got worse when she brought the menus. She gave Anne an appraising once-over. “I heard you were pretty, honey, but that don’t hardly do you justice.”

I bit. “How’d you hear that?”

She grinned. “I’ve got me some confidential sources. The clam strips are good tonight, and we’ve got liver and onions on the special.”

I watched for any hint of disdain as Anne perused the menu. There was none, no hint of snobbishness. She ordered the special, then waited, oblivious to her surroundings, still far removed from me and from the present.

“Hello,” I said at length, trying to get her attention. “Where are you?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you’d take me along when you go.”

She gave me a searching look. “How did you know I was somewhere else?”

“For one thing, I asked you twice if you wanted a glass of wine.”

Connie slung a cup of coffee in my direction and returned with one for Anne when I gave her the high sign. We were halfway through dinner when Maxwell Cole showed up. I thought it was an unfortunate coincidence. I found out later he had been in and out three times earlier in the evening looking for me.

He favored Anne with a deep bow. “What a pleasure to see you again,” he oozed, as his cigarette smoke invaded the end of our booth.

Connie came over with an ashtray, which she held out to Max. “This is the no-smoking section, Mr. Cole. If you want to keep that cigarette, you’ll have to go over to the next section.” Cole ground out the stub.

“I’ve been on a wild-goose chase,” Max said, addressing Anne. “That little Porsche of yours shouldn’t be so hard to find, but it seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.”

“Why are you looking for my car?” Anne asked.

“I’m not, actually. I’ve been looking for you. I wanted to ask you some questions about Angela Barstogi’s funeral. Are you a relative of hers?”

“Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cole.” She said it in such a sweet-tempered tone that at first Max didn’t believe his ears. He flushed as he tried to recover his dignity.

“I don’t think I said anything offensive,” he said.

“Your very presence offends me, Mr. Cole. If you can’t stand the heat, you know where they say you can go.”

“I could offer a suggestion or two,” I added helpfully.

The tips of his walrus mustache shook with rage. “You’re going to regret this, J. P. Beaumont. That’s the second time today you’ve taken a hunk out of my skin. I’m gunning for you.”

“Sounds like business as usual to me.”

Max would have taken a swing at me, but the bartender, who doubles as bouncer, turned up right then. Connie had summoned him soon enough for him to be there when the trouble started. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mr. Cole. I think maybe you’d better go in the other room to cool off.” The bartender didn’t brook any arguments. He took Cole’s upper arm and bodily led him away.

“What’s the problem?” Anne asked when they were out of earshot.

“He doesn’t like me.”

“That’s pretty obvious. It’s also obvious the feeling’s mutual. Why does he call you J. P.?”

I sighed. If we were going to end up in the same orbit, it was time to drag out some of the old war stories, the stuff that made me what I am, and let her take a look at it, warts and all. If that didn’t drive her away, maybe she’d return the favor.

“Which do you want first, J. P. or Maxwell Cole?”

“Let’s try for J. P.”

“I’ll have to tell you about my mother first. She was a beauty growing up, but headstrong as they come. She would sneak out of the house at night to date my father. He was a sailor, the first man who asked her out. She was only sixteen. They planned to run away and get married, but he was killed in a motorcycle accident on the navy base over in Bremerton. She didn’t know she was pregnant until after he was dead.

“Her parents threw her out, told her they no longer had a daughter. My mother went to the Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers in Portland and signed in under the name of Beaumont, my father’s hometown in Texas. My first names are Jonas Piedmont, after her two grandfathers. None of her family ever lifted a finger to help us. When she told me where my first and middle names came from, I hated them. I still do. I’ve gone by Beau most of my life. The initials came up during college. Some of my fraternity brothers figured out it bugged me to be called that. Max never got over it.”

“Where’s your mother now?”

“She died of breast cancer when I was twenty. She never made up with her parents. They lived here in Seattle the whole time, but I never met them. Didn’t want to.”

“You loved her very much, didn’t you?” Anne commented gently.

It was becoming a very personal conversation. Anne seemed to bring out the lonely side of me, the part that needed to chew over my life with another human being.

“Yes,” I said at last, meeting Anne’s steady, level gaze. “I loved her. She could have taken an easy way out, given me up for adoption or had an abortion. She didn’t though. She never married, either. She said that being in love once was enough for her.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Is once enough for you?”

“Maybe not,” I said. It was more a declaration of susceptibility than one of intent.

Anne looked away. “Tell me about Maxwell Cole.”

I wasn’t quite ready to talk about Karen, but Maxwell Cole led inevitably in that direction. “As I said, we were fraternity brothers together. He started out being Karen’s boyfriend. We met at a dance he brought her to, a Christmas formal, and the sparks flew. She broke up with him right after New Year’s and started dating me.”

“He’s a pretty sore loser. Is that the only grudge he’s got against you?”

“It’s gone beyond the grudge stage,” I said grimly. “He’s deliberately torpedoed me. When I was a rookie, he almost got me thrown off the force.”

“How?”

“There was a kid, a young crazy up on Capitol Hill. He was up there taking potshots at people with a gun. I was the first on the scene. I called to him and told him I was coming in. I thought we could talk it out. As soon as I came around the corner into the alley, he fired at me, hit me in the arm, my left one. The bullet knocked me to the ground. He evidently thought I was dead, because he got up and started walking toward me. I shot him, killed him on the spot.

“Max was just starting on the P.I. then. He was a cub reporter, so he wasn’t assigned to front-page stuff, but he did a feature on the kid and his family, how the kid had been an emotionally troubled boy who had been shot down in cold blood by a trigger-happy cop with a bullet in his arm. I’m still a killer cop as far as Max is concerned. He brings it up again whenever he has a chance.”

“And are you a killer cop?”

“I don’t think so. It took months to come to terms with it. I’ve never had to do it again.”

“Would you?”

“Would I what?” I had gotten carried away with the story. Her question brought me back to earth in a hurry. Her eyes were fixed on mine, searching, questioning.

“Would you do it again, given the same circumstance?”

Her gray eyes were serious, her face still and waiting. Here it comes, I thought. The answer to this question is going to blow it. There was no sense in lying. If we were going to be together, I would have to be able to be the real J. P. Beaumont.

“Yes,” I said. “Given the same circumstance, where it was either him or me, I would kill again.”

Anne stood up abruptly. “Let’s go,” she said.