Failure to appear

CHAPTER 18

Fortunately, the medics reached Tanya Dunseth before I did. They carted her off to the relative safety of the hospital. For a while, I was part of a small crowd that stood around gaping and watching the fire and the fire fighters who were dealing with it.

Even though there was no point in trying to save the house itself, there was still plenty for the overworked fire fighters to do. For one thing, they set up a safety perimeter and kept everyone well on the other side of it.

Since no one knew how much propane remained in the tank, there was still some danger of another BLEVE. A Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion, the fire fighter's worst nightmare. When BLEVEs happen, they are eruptive killers that take out both fire personnel and unsuspecting bystanders.

The farmhouse itself was clearly a total loss, so they let that burn to a cinder while attempting to keep the flames confined to that one building. Because of the tinder-dry conditions in the surrounding grasslands and forests, they didn't want the fire to get away from them; to spread to outbuildings or to that collection of junked cars with its supply of highly combustible dead tires.

Being careful to stay out of the way, I nonetheless spoke to several police officers-Jackson County sheriff's deputies this time. This may have been rural Pacific Northwest, timber-and-wine country, but they let me know that a professional arson investigator from Medford, a guy by the name of Darryl Dandridge, was already en route to the scene. Although it would be days before the ashes cooled enough for sifting, the investigator would be taking statements from any and all eyewitnesses.

Soon after Dandridge arrived, one of the deputies took it upon himself to introduce us. As a consequence, he started his investigation with me. In the course of answering the series of questions, I soon realized that Darryl Dandridge was working on a theory about how the fire might have been ignited by someone who was outside the house at the time. When I happened to mention the presence of that old-fashioned telephone, I thought the guy was going to haul off and kiss me. Darryl acted as though I had handed him an outright gift.

Once he explained the mechanics of it, we both realized that someone who wasn't Tanya Dunseth must have been involved. There was no way to tell for sure about Tanya's possible involvement. If she was part of it, whoever placed the call couldn't have known that Tanya had been overcome by the gas and was about to become a victim of her own fire. If she wasn't, then she, too, had been an intended victim.

I spent almost an hour talking with the arson investigator. About the time we finished, a 1967 Mercury Montego convertible pulled into the yard. Gordon Fraymore, dressed in khaki shirt and pants and wearing both a fishing hat and vest, climbed out of the car. He spoke to several people-fire and police personnel both-before sauntering over to me.

He raised his head to peer closely at my face through thick bifocals. "We'd better get you into town to have that hole in your cheek stitched back together," he said.

I remembered noticing blood much earlier, but bleeding is one of those curious things. If it isn't too serious and if you ignore it long enough, it eventually goes away.

"I understand you need a ride," he added.

I nodded. I didn't want to talk about the loss of my Porsche. Compared to the loss of a life-compared to Guy Lewis' death-losing a car is nothing. Yet it hurt. Because of all the 928's connections to my past, it hurt far more than I wanted to acknowledge.

Without a word, I followed Fraymore back to his car, and we both got in. The Montego was a classic car in cherry condition with a flawless, cream-colored convertible top and an ink-blue body that was polished to a mirror shine. It takes time and effort to keep a car up that way for twenty-five or thirty years. I chalked one up for Gordon Fraymore.

"Your day off?" I asked.

"Was," Fraymore answered gruffly. "Isn't anymore."

The engine turned over responsively as soon as he started it. Driving carefully, gingerly, he threaded his way back out through the gradually diminishing collection of emergency vehicles.

"She did it again, didn't she?" he said with a grim shake of his head. "I hope you and that fancy lawyer friend of yours are proud of yourselves."

"Can it, Fraymore," I returned wearily, too tired to argue or put up much of a fight. There was no point in bringing up the arson investigator's theories. "The judge is the one who let her out on bail. The possibility was offered. All Ralph Ames did was take advantage of it."

"Right," Fraymore said. "It may have worked the first time, but let me assure you, it won't again. Her bond guarantee is a pile of ashes. I've submitted a request to the judge and prosecutor that he revoke Tanya Dunseth's bail and that we take her back into custody as of right now. I've posted a round-the-clock guard at her room in the hospital. When she gets out of there, she goes straight back to jail on the original charges-to say nothing of a whole brand-new set. You got that?"

"Got it," I said. No argument there.

A police barricade had been set up at the turnoff to Live Oak Lane. Ralph Ames' Lincoln Town Car was the first vehicle stuck on the other side. I wanted to stop and talk to him-bring him up-to-date-but Gordon Fraymore wouldn't hear of it.

"He'll find out where you are soon enough," the detective said to me. "Right now, I want to talk to you. I want you to tell me what you know and what went on. From the very beginning."

It wasn't a simple assignment. There was lots to tell, and it took a while, especially since I began with my trip to Medford and Walla Walla the day before. I believe in the anonymity of A.A., but once someone is dead, I don't think it makes that much difference. Besides, I didn't think Guy Lewis would mind. So I told Gordon Fraymore about my conversation with Guy. I also told him in detail of my meeting with Roger and Willy Tompkins.

I confess there's one thing I avoided telling him. It was a deliberate oversight. I told him about how Guy Lewis was caught in the explosion because he was standing beside my car, but I failed to mention that I had asked him to use my cellular phone to make a call. I already blamed myself for it. Why add an official inquiry into the mix? It wouldn't have done any good.

We were interrupted by the arrival of a young ER physician. It took almost an hour for that beardless youth of a doctor-the same one who had sewed up my wrist-to clean and stitch shut the jagged cut along the top of my jawbone. It wasn't until after that when I finished telling my story to Detective Gordon Fraymore.

As I gradually ran down and shut up, I discovered that Fraymore was sitting there, staring down at the floor and spinning his hat in his hands while the brightly colored lures on his hatband whirled into a kaleidoscope of colors.

"So we still don't know much of anything more than we did before, do we?" he grumbled.

"About why she did it?"

"That's right."

"Nope. Not much. And if we ask her, most likely she'll spin us another set of yarns."

"That's my guess, too." Fraymore sighed and rubbed his forehead. For a man who had planned to spend the day fishing, he wasn't having much fun. He still wasn't catching anything.

Fraymore stood up. "I'm going to go talk to her all the same. By the way, your daughter came through the lobby in a wheelchair while you were in with the doc. She wants you to stop by her room and see her before you leave. Do you need a ride?"

"No," I said. "I can call. Someone will come get me."

He walked as far as the door. "I suppose those kids of yours lost everything in the fire?"

"Pretty much," I said.

He clicked his tongue. "Too bad," he said sympathetically, sounding as though he meant it.

When I got to Kelly's room a Nursing-No Visitors sign was posted on her closed door, so I went to the nearest public rest room and cleaned up as best I could. The ER folks had scrubbed my face clean, but the rest of me was a mess. I could easily have passed for one of the homeless, down-on-their-luck vagabonds who line up daily under the Alaskan Way Viaduct back home in Seattle, waiting for a handout of food and a place to spend the night. My clothing was sooty and dirty and reeked of smoke and sweat. The sleeves of my jacket had protected my arms from the incredible heat, but some of the hair had singed off my head and the backs of my hands. I literally stank.

After washing up, I went back to the lobby and found a chair. That's where I was sitting, almost half-asleep, when Ralph Ames walked in a few minutes later. He looked brisk and dapper. His clothes were unwrinkled, and there wasn't a hair out of place. I'm surprised sometimes that the two of us manage to remain friends.

"There you are," he said. "They told me you wouldn't be done until about now, so I spent the time working. I've notified the insurance company about the Porsche. They're making arrangements to have a temporary rental brought down for you to use."

"Good." I sat back and relaxed. I should have known Ralph would be hard at work sorting things out.

"And I've found an apartment for Kelly and Jeremy," he added. "It's over in the little town of Phoenix-not the most convenient location in the world; it means a twenty-minute commute to Ashland, but that's the best I could do on such short notice. A couple of the other kids from the farm will be within blocks of the same place, so at least they'll be able to carpool.

"From what she said, I believe Marjorie's going to go ahead and let them continue using her van for the time being. It's not worth much, but Jeremy seems capable of keeping it running. That's what they need more than anything else-a running vehicle."

"You've talked to Marjorie?"

"Several times. In fact, I met with her this morning. The two of us were having a late breakfast at the Mark Anthony when the explosion went off. We were talking about your visit to the Tompkins family and the patchwork of lies that came out as a result of your visit there. We were trying to decide if it would be wise for Marjorie to rescind her part of the bail-bond guarantee, especially since it would seem Tanya has avoided telling the truth whenever it suited her."

"How's Marjorie Connors holding up?"

"About how you'd expect for someone who's just lost everything. She's in shock, I think."

"I can't say that I blame her," I said. "So am I. Have you talked to our friend Tanya?"

Ames shook his head gravely. "I haven't had a chance. I've been too busy. She's back in custody, of course, although so far she's just here in the hospital under guard. Fraymore tells me she's claiming amnesia. Says she doesn't remember anything at all from the time she was in her room getting ready to go to work until she woke up in the hospital."

"How very convenient," I said, making no attempt to mute the full effect of my intended sarcasm.

"At the moment, Alex is still looking after Amber, but that will probably change. I expect the state will step in any minute. Since we've found no responsible relatives to designate as guardians, it will be out of our hands."

Maybe Ames was hoping I'd come up with some bright suggestion to the contrary. Admittedly, Amber was a cute kid, a great kid, and I personally have very little faith in the ability of the state-any state-to step in and provide even the most rudimentary of parenting. But I had reached the end of my rope when it came to trying to save the whole damn world. If Amber Dunseth was destined to become a ward of the state, so be it.

The longer I kept quiet, the more aware I was that Ames' eyes were watching me closely, searching my face. "What's going on, Beau?" he asked finally. "What's really going on?"

Isn't that what friends are for? I broke down and spilled my guts, told Ralph what I hadn't been able to tell Gordon Fraymore, about asking Guy Lewis to make that fatal call.

"So you're blaming yourself?" Ralph asked when I finished.

"Wouldn't you?"

"Guy Lewis did make the call," Ames replied slowly. "If he hadn't, the fire crews wouldn't have responded nearly as fast as they did. Had that fire escaped the house itself, it could have gone for miles, exploded into an ecological disaster."

"What are you saying?"

Ralph Ames shrugged. "Guy Lewis died a hero, Beau. Let it go at that."

That's one of the things I like about Ralph. He's pretty damn perceptive, and he hadn't even talked to Guy Lewis the way I had. Maybe the king of chemical toilets, that brokenhearted court jester with his murdered trophy wife, was indeed glad to die a hero's death and be done with it.

Down the hall, a bustling nurse emerged from Kelly's room carrying an armful of pink that she toted back to the nursery. With baby-feeding done for the time being, I could go into the room to see my daughter-a daughter who was, surprisingly enough, also a mother.

When I stood up and tried to walk, my heel spurs raged at me. I should have thought to ask the doctor for some anti-inflammatories, but I had forgotten, and by then it was too late. "I'm going to visit with Kelly for a few minutes," I said, limping away.

Ralph nodded and waved. "Sure," he said. "Go ahead. I'll wait here and take you back home when you finish." He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. "You could use a shower."

Kelly had heard all about the fire and knew about the cut on my face as well. Relieved to see me, she looked altogether better. "My doctor says I'll probably be able to go home day after tomorrow. After what happened today, with the fire and everything, I didn't see how I could. But Jeremy says Mr. Ames has already found us another place to live. He's pretty wonderful, isn't he?"

"Who's wonderful, Jeremy or Ralph Ames?"

Kelly looked at me and smiled. "Both, actually," she said.

I knew then that looks weren't deceiving. She really was getting better.

We didn't talk long, just enough to touch base, for each of us to assure the other that we were both all right. Then I went back out, and Ralph Ames gave me a ride to Oak Hill B amp; B. A somewhat familiar-looking Lincoln Town Car was pulled up next to the house.

"Isn't that the same one Dave and Karen used?" I asked.

Ralph shrugged. "Could be," he said. "I don't know how many Lincolns they have at the airport in Medford, but it's probably not an unlimited number."

A man from Budget was waiting for me to sign off on the paperwork on the car. Afterward, he and Ralph left together. Alex stood in line until I finished up with the car-rental business before she had her crack at me.

Women are funny that way. When something bad happens, they can't seem to decide whether to hug your neck because they're glad to see you or chew your ass because you're a stupid jerk who never should have pulled such a dumb stunt in the first place. She took the ass-chewing option, but it was probably the nicest bawling-out I've ever had.

When it was time for me to go take my bath, Alex disappeared into the kitchen to finish feeding Amber. I didn't want to talk about Amber or what was going to happen to the child within the next day or two. Some things are better left unsaid.

Out of habit, I undressed the same way I always do-emptying my pockets one by one onto the dresser and bedside table. The last thing I took out were the faxes from Ron Peters that I'd been carrying around with me all day long.

I filled the tub as full as I dared and dumped in a handful of bath gel. I felt a little silly crawling into a tub full of bubbles, but silly gave way to luxury as the hot-water soak relaxed the muscles I'd strained and pulled trying to drag Guy Lewis and Tanya Dunseth out of harm's way. In the end, I lay there with my eyes closed, enjoying every moment of it. Finally, though, when my skin was wrinkled and shriveled and when the water grew too tepid, I climbed out and toweled myself dry.

Then, with the towel still draped around me, I sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the faxes. My intention was simply to glance through them. Before I came upstairs, Alex had made it clear that she was still holding me to the promised dinner. She had even located a substitute baby-sitter. At that point, I didn't have a thought in my head of standing her up.

Ron Peters had said he was sending ten or twelve pages. In actual fact, there were eleven. Seven of them were strictly text, with several articles from various sources pasted together on the same page. Because of the nature of fax machines, particularly gray-scale resolution, the reproduction on the four photos wasn't high quality. The print in the various articles and in the captions under the photos was legible enough, but the pictures themselves were primarily unrecognizable blobs of light and dark.

So I settled for scanning the articles and reading the captions on the pictures-Daphne and Guy Lewis at a benefit for the Bagley Wright Theater, Daphne and Guy picking up the keys to the Bentley, and Guy mugging with actors from the Rep at some special event for Children's Hospital. The last picture in the batch was of Margaret Lewis at a Humane Society auction holding a puppy named Sunshine, the high-priced golden Lab she had just adopted.

My eyes stopped moving. So did my brain. Sunshine? The caption said "Sunshine"! I read it again, and the name hit me like a swift slap in the face! Another dog named Sunshine? Or could this be the same Sunshine I knew-the cataract-blinded, stiff old dog who formerly held sway on Marjorie Connors' front porch? If so, what the hell was she doing in a newspaper photo with Maggie Lewis?

I held the paper up to the bedside lamp and tried to squint some details into the fax-generated globs of light and dark. The woman in the picture was very heavyset and wearing a dark-colored dress, probably an evening dress of some kind, but there was no way to discern a single detail about the woman herself. The specific features of her face had been scrubbed away by a technology that allows for amazing speed at the expense of detail. The puppy was a vaguely dog-shaped blob superimposed on the much darker surface of the woman's clothing.

A wave of gooseflesh ran down my leg. If Sunshine was Live Oak Farm's Sunshine, then was Marjorie Connors also Maggie Lewis? For the second time that day, I felt as if I couldn't quite gather a lungful of air. This time the disability had nothing to do with liquid-propane gas displacing oxygen.

Dropping the towel, I scrambled into my skivvies, pants, socks, and shoes. I was still buttoning my shirt as I scurried downstairs. I raced into the family room and commandeered Florence's telephone and phone book both. Luckily, Ashland is a small town. In Seattle, homicide cops can't afford to have listed telephone numbers. In Ashland they do.

Gordon Fraymore's wife answered the phone and made it quite clear that she didn't appreciate having her husband called away from his evening meal, especially on his day off.

"What's up?" Fraymore asked, when he learned who I was.

"How well do you know Marjorie Connors?"

"Some," he said guardedly. "Why?"

"I think you'd better come over here right away," I said. "I believe we have a problem."

Alex came through the room and asked me what was going on. "I'll tell you in a minute," I said. "First I need to call Ralph."

The Ashland Hills operator told me Ralph was in the dining room. Someone would have to go find him. While I waited, I could hardly contain myself. Was that what this was all about, then? Was Marjorie Connors nothing more than a woman scorned who had enlisted Tanya Dunseth in a long-term, complex, and exceedingly lethal form of revenge? It was hard to believe, but I was beginning to believe it was true.

I took the picture out of my pocket and examined it again. The news photo wasn't dated, but if it was from late in her marriage to Guy Lewis, that meant Sunshine would be twelve to fourteen years old. And it also meant that Sunshine was Maggie Lewis' Achilles' heel. The woman might have changed everything else about herself-her name, her friends, her past-but she had cared too much to leave the dog behind. Or to change the old dog's name. Or to put Sunshine down.

And then I finally understood why, on that particular day, Sunshine had been missing from her customary place on the front porch at Live Oak Farm. Marjorie Connors had taken Sunshine along to meet Ames in order to save the old dog's life.

Ralph Ames came on the line. "What's happening?" he asked cheerfully.

"Three questions," I said. "Who initiated the meeting between you and Marjorie Connors this morning?"

"She did. She called early, right around seven. She asked if we could get together later on, sometime between ten and noon at the Mark Anthony. Why?"

"Next question. Did she have her old dog with her?"

"Sunshine? As a matter of fact, she did. She talked to the desk clerk about it. He agreed that the dog could sit with us as long as we stayed in the lobby. Beau, what's going on?"

"One last thing. When the house blew up, they say people heard it for miles. Did you?"

"Well, of course."

"Was Marjorie with you-at the time of the blast, I mean?"

Ralph Ames paused for a moment. "Why no, now that you mention it, I don't believe she was. I believe she had just excused herself to go to the ladies' room."

"Bingo!" I said. "I've gotta go, Ralph. Gordon Fraymore is just now driving into the yard."