Until Proven Guilty

Chapter 18

We went down to F. X. McRory’s on Occidental Street. Peters got off on the right foot by buying a bottle of champagne. “All right, you closemouthed bastard,” he said, raising his glass, “now that I’m a party to this little romance, you’d better tell me about her.”

I didn’t need to be asked twice. I hadn’t had a chance to tell anyone about Anne. I’m afraid I waxed eloquent. I told him how she had looked at the funeral and about our first dinner at Snoqualmie Falls afterward. I told him about the Porsche and the fur jacket and the Doghouse and the depth and the laughter and the wit and the sudden darknesses, all the things that seemed so contradictory in Anne, and all the things that made me love her.

About that time Captain Powell showed up and, uninvited, took a chair at our table. “What’s this I hear about you getting married?”

I looked to Peters for help, but he stared off into space, as innocent as the day is long. “Who is she?” Powell continued.

Taking a deep breath, I said, “her name’s Anne Corley. She’s the Lady in Red from Maxwell Cole’s column.”

“Are you shitting me? You said you met her at Angela Barstogi’s funeral, last Sunday. What is this, love at first sight? That only happens in the movies.”

“It’s a shotgun wedding,” Peters interjected snidely. I aimed a swift kick at him under the table, but I missed. He grinned at me and motioned to the waitress for what I thought would be our bill. Instead, a second bottle of champagne was delivered, Eastern Onion Style.

It consisted of a singing telegram complete with a down-and-dirty stripper. Only afterward, amid hoots of laughter, did I realize that while we’d been talking, the bar had quietly filled with people from the department. They were all there. Not only Powell, whose frown of disapproval had been replaced by a wide grin, but also the rest of the guys from homicide, Hamilton from public information, and the women from word-processing.

They had a wild assortment of off-color cards, congratulating me for lechery despite my advanced years. It was a rowdy party by any standards. I don’t know how Peters managed to arrange it. He must have done it while Anne and I were having lunch.

I had a good time. It was getting late, though, and no one seemed to be in any hurry to leave. I was trying to think of a polite way to abandon ship, when there was a flurry of activity near the front door. My reason for going home early strode toward me, a dazzling smile on her lips. Anne’s very presence brightened the room, and it became an engagement party to remember.

Captain Powell came up to be introduced. “Now that I see the lady in question,” he grinned, “maybe love at first sight isn’t out of the question after all.”

Well-wishers came forward for introductions and congratulations. The guests milled around for some time before they gradually began to disappear. At last only the three of us remained — Anne, Peters, and me. Peters looked enormously pleased with himself.

“You sure put one over on me,” I said to him. “Thanks.”

Anne added her thanks to mine and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“You’re welcome,” Peters replied.

We left Pioneer Square on foot. Peters said he was going back to the department, while Anne, after producing her pair of Nikes from the ubiquitous Adidas bag, set a swift pace up First Avenue. I found myself hurrying to keep up, wanting to shield her from the human debris around us. “Couldn’t we take our constitutional in a better part of town?” I suggested. “First Avenue tends to get a little rough.”

“The bums don’t bother me,” she said, and they didn’t. Panhandlers pick out soft touches from blocks away. It’s as if they have a radar connection. None of them approached Anne as she marched through them. Something in her carriage, her bearing, moved them away from her. Like the crush of people in Snoqualmie Lodge, the groups of bums opened before and shut behind her while she moved forward unimpeded.

Driving in a car you’re not as aware of it, but from Pioneer Square to Seattle Center there’s a long, steep grade that tops out at Stewart Street. By the time we reached that point, I was about half winded. Anne set a stiff pace.

“I didn’t know I was so far out of shape,” I grunted.

Anne was clearly enjoying herself. “You’ll just have to get out and walk more,” she said.

We walked in silence for a block or two. “Is Ron coming to the wedding?” she asked suddenly.

“Ron? Oh, you mean Peters? I don’t know. I invited him.”

“I don’t think he likes me particularly.”

“What makes you say that?”

“During the party I caught him staring at me several times.”

“I think he’d like to believe you’re after my money, although seeing your car should have taken care of any suspicions on that score. I guess he thinks we’re rushing into something. Leaping without looking, that kind of thing.”

I caught her by the hand and pulled her back to me. “Why are you marrying me? Everybody knows cops make lousy husbands.”

She reached up and kissed me on the cheek. “But great lovers. I’m marrying you for your body.”

“Anne, you could have any body you wanted. Why me?”

Her eyes, which had been bright and teasing a moment before, softened. “Because you made me remember what it’s like to be a woman, Beau. I had forgotten.”

I pulled her to me, and we stood clasped in an embrace for a long moment at the corner of First and Virginia. Her answer may not have been good enough for Peters or Powell, but it was for me. At last we resumed walking, both of us quiet and lost in our own private thoughts.

We ran into Ida Newell, my neighbor, in the lobby. It was a moment I had been dreading. I was sure by now Ida had monitored Anne’s comings and goings on the closed-circuit channel. It was time to make an honest woman of her, I decided. “I’d like you to meet my fiancée, Ida. This is Anne Corley. Ida Newell.”

“Fiancée,” Ida sniffed. “I’m surprised. I haven’t met you before.”

“I’m from Arizona,” Anne said with an easy smile. “It’s been one of those long-distance affairs. I’m very happy to meet you.”

That seemed to satisfy Ida. At least she entered her own apartment without further comment. “That was masterful,” I murmured gratefully. “You saved my bacon on that one.”

Anne smiled. “It’ll cost you,” she said.

Safety deposit boxes have never been high on my list of priorities. What few trinkets I’ve kept over the years, I’ve stowed in various nooks and crannies around my house. I left Anne in the living room and rummaged in my bottom dresser drawer. I found the faded velvet box in its place in the left-hand corner. I felt a lump in my throat as I opened it.

My father was a sailor, a wartime enlistee who probably hadn’t learned one end of a ship from the other before he died. The ring he had given to my mother wasn’t much, but I’m sure it was the most he could offer his sixteen-year-old sweetheart. I could imagine him proudly making the purchase at some low-life pawnshop in Bremerton. My mother had kept the ring, treasured it. It came to me when she died, and I kept it too. It was my only link with a father whose face I never saw.

I slipped the tiny box into my pocket and returned to Anne. She was sitting on the couch, her head resting on the back of it. “Tired?” I asked.

“A little,” she said.

I sat down next to her with my hand on her shoulder, rubbing a knot of stiffness from between her shoulder blades. I cleared my throat. “You know, we had a wonderful engagement party. It’s a shame we didn’t have a ring.”

“We don’t need a ring—” she began.

I lay my finger across her lips and silenced her. “Then as we walked, or rather, as we ran home, I remembered that I did have a ring buried among my treasures.” I pulled the box from my pocket and opened it. The tiny chip of diamond caught the light and sparkled gamely. “My mother was never married,” I explained; “she was always engaged. And now, from one of the longest engagements in history, this ring is going to be part of one of the shortest.”

Anne took the ring from the box and held it up to the light. “This was your mother’s?”

“Yes.”

She gave the ring back to me and held out her hand so I could place it on her finger. It slipped on as easily as if it had been made for her. “Thank you,” she said. “You couldn’t have given me anything I would have liked more.”

We sat on the couch for a long time without speaking or moving. It was enough to be together, my arm around her shoulder, her hand touching mine. That night there was no need in the touching, no desire. We sat side by side, together and content.

“Happy?” I asked.

“Ummmhm,” was the answer.

“Let’s go to bed,” I said, “before we both fall asleep on the couch.”

“But it’s early,” she objected. It was a mild protest, easily overruled.

We undressed quickly but without urgency. Our bodies met beneath the sheets, her skin cool against my greater warmth. I eased her onto her side so her body nestled like a stacked saucer in my own, my hand resting comfortably on the curve of her breast. “Just let me hold you,” I murmured into her hair.

It couldn’t have been more than eight o’clock, but the previous days of frenetic activity had worn us, fatigued us. Within minutes we both slept. For all the ease of it, we might have been sleeping together like that for years.