Trial By Fury

CHAPTER 4

I led Joanna Ridley into a small, private waiting room and helped her lie down on a dilapidated couch. The tech brought a glass of water. "Is she going to be all right?" he asked nervously. "I can call somebody down from Emergency."

Glancing back at her, I saw tears streaming down her face. She didn’t need a doctor or a whole roomful of people. "No," I told him. "She’ll be okay. I’ll let you know if she needs help."

The tech backed out of the room. I set the water down on a table without offering any to her. She didn’t need plain water, either.

For several long minutes, I waited for her sobs to become quiet. Eventually, they did, a little. "Mrs. Ridley," I asked gently, "is there anything I can do to help? Someone I can call?"

Her sobs intensified into an anguished wail. "How could this happen when the baby…"

She broke off suddenly, and my adrenaline started pumping. "The baby! Is it coming now? Should I call a doctor?"

Joanna shook her head. "My baby’s not even born yet, and his father’s…" She stopped again, unable to continue.

My own relief was so great, I walked to the table and helped myself to her glass of water, all of it, before I spoke, offering what comfort I could. "It’ll be all right. You’ll see. Really, isn’t there someone I can call?"

Her sobbing ceased abruptly. Raising herself up on one elbow, she glared at me angrily. In her eyes I was something less than an unfeeling clod. "You don’t understand. My baby’s father is dead."

Unfortunately, I did understand, all too well. I knew far better than she did what was ahead for both her and her baby. From personal experience. Except my mother hadn’t had so much as a marriage certificate to back her up when I was born. Society was a hell of a lot less permissive back in the forties.

"My mother did it," I said quietly. "You can, too."

She looked at me silently for a long moment, assimilating what I had said. Then, before she could respond, the technician burst into the room. "Dr. Baker’s on the phone. He wants to talk to you, Detective Beaumont." The tech bounded back out of the room with me right behind him. "He wants to know who it was," he said over his shoulder.

"How the hell did he find out?"

"He told me to call if we came up with something."

"What do you mean we?" I fumed.

He led me into another office, picked up a telephone receiver, and held it toward me. I snatched it from his hand.

" Beaumont," I growled into the phone.

"Understand you’ve got a positive ID. Good work, Beau. That was quick. What have you got?"

"Who the fuck do you think you are, calling me to the phone like this? I just barely found out myself. All I know so far is a name and address."

"Well, get on with it for chrissakes."

"Look, Baker. That poor woman just learned her husband’s dead. I’ll start asking questions when I’m damn good and ready."

"Don’t be a prima donna, Beau. Give me what you have."

"Like hell!"

I flung the receiver at the startled tech, who stared at me dumbfounded. I hurried back down the hall to the room where Joanna Ridley waited. The phone rang again, but I didn’t pause long enough to hear what the tech said to his irate boss. Besides, I was sure Baker’s next phone call would be to either Captain Powell or Sergeant Watkins.

Hustling back into the waiting room, I startled Joanna Ridley, who was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. There was no time to waste in idle explanations. "Come on," I said, helping her up. "Let’s get out of here."

"Where are we going?"

"I’ll take you home. We’ve got to go now, before we’re overrun with cops and reporters."

The tech had followed me. We ran into him head-on in the doorway. He was carrying a metal clipboard and had a pen poised to take down information. "Detective Beaumont, you can’t leave."

"Oh, yeah? Watch me!"

"But I need some information…"

"You’ll have it when I’m damn good and ready."

"What’s going on?" Joanna managed as I hurried her, half-resisting, out the door and down the hallway.

"This place is going to be crawling with officers and reporters in about two minutes flat."

The technician trailed behind us, whimpering like a scolded puppy. " But Dr. Baker says…"

"Piss on Doc Baker. You had no business calling him! Now get out of here."

I helped Joanna into the car and slammed the door behind her for emphasis. The technician was still standing with his mouth open and clipboard in hand when I fishtailed the Porsche out of the parking lot and onto the street.

Dodging through a series of side streets, I paused at a stop sign on Boren, signaling for a right-hand turn, planning to drive Joanna Ridley back down to her home in Rainier Valley to talk to her there.

"I don’t want to go home," she said.

Surprised, I glanced in her direction. She seemed under control. "Are you sure? I’m going to have to ask you some questions. It might be easier."

A marked patrol car, red lights flashing, raced past us on Boren. Obviously, Baker had sounded the alarm and troops were out in force to pull J. P. Beaumont back into line. I waited until the car turned off toward Harborview before I eased the Porsche out into the intersection and turned left.

"I understand what you did back there," Joanna said quietly. "Thanks."

"No problem."

I wondered where to take her. Obviously, we couldn’t go to the department, and my own apartment was a bad idea as well. I settled on the only logical answer, the Dog House.

The Dog House is actually a Seattle institution. It’s a twenty-four-hour restaurant three blocks from my apartment that’s been in business for more than fifty years. I’ve needed. almost daily help from both McDonald’s and the Dog House kitchen to survive my reluctant return to bachelorhood.

You’ll notice I said the kitchen. The bar at the Dog House is a different story.

Steering clear of the scene of my previous night’s solo performance, I took Joanna Ridley through the main part of the restaurant and into the back dining room. It was closed, but I knew Wanda would let us sit there undisturbed.

She brought two cups of coffee at the same time she brought menus. Joanna accepted coffee without comment, but she refused my offer of food. Groping for a way to start the conversation, I asked what I hoped was an innocuous question. "When’s the baby due?"

It wasn’t nearly innocuous enough. Just that quickly tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. "Two weeks," she managed. She wiped the tears away and then sat looking at me, her luminous dark eyes searching my face. "Is it true what you said, that your mother raised you alone?"

I nodded. "My father died before I was born. My parents weren’t married."

She lowered her gaze and bit her lip. Her voice was almost a whisper. "Are you saying that’ll make it easier, that we were married?"

"It’ll be better for the baby," I returned. "Believe me, I know what I’m talking about."

Wanda poked her head in the doorway to see if we were going to order anything besides coffee. I waved her away. I decided I’d offer Joanna Ridley food again later, if either of us had the stomach for it, but now was the time to ask questions, to begin assembling the pieces of the puzzle.

"Mrs. Ridley," I began.

"Joanna," she corrected.

"Joanna, this will probably be painful, but I have to start somewhere. Do you know if your husband was in any kind of difficulty?"

"Difficulty? What do you mean?"

"Gambling, maybe?" Even high school teams and coaches get dragged into gambling scams on occasion.

Joanna shook her head, and I continued. "Drugs? One way or another, most crimes in this country are connected to the drug trade."

"No," she replied tersely, her face stony.

"Was he under any kind of medical treatment?"

"No. He was perfectly healthy."

"You’re sure he wasn’t taking any medication?"

Again she shook her head. " Darwin never used drugs of any kind. He was opposed to them."

"The medical examiner found morphine in his bloodstream. You’ve no idea where it could have come from?"

"I told you. He didn’t use drugs, not even aspirin. Is that what killed him, the morphine?"

It was my turn to shake my head while I considered how to tell her. "He died of a broken neck," I said softly. "Somebody tied a rope around his neck and hung him."

Joanna’s eyes widened. "Dear God!" She pushed her chair back so hard it clattered against the wall. Dodging her way through empty chairs and tables, she stopped only when she reached the far corner of the room. She leaned against the two walls, sobbing incoherently.

I followed, standing helplessly behind her, not knowing if I should leave her alone or reach out to comfort her. Finally, I placed one hand on her shoulder. She shuddered as if my hand had burned her and shrugged it away.

She turned on me then like a wounded animal, eyes blazing. "It’ll always be like that, won’t it! We’re accepted as long as we’re smart enough to know our place, but cross that line, and niggers are only good for hanging!"

"Joanna, I…"

She pushed her way past me, returned to our table, and grabbed up her shawl. Just as suddenly as the outburst had come, it subsided. Her face went slack. "Take me home," she said wearily. "There are people I need to call."

I dropped money on the table for the coffee and trailed her outside. When I caught up, Joanna was standing by the Porsche, fingering the door handle. "Since when do cops drive Porsches," she asked when I walked up to open her car door.

"When they inherit them," I replied. I helped her into the car and closed the door behind her.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, I glanced in her direction before I started the engine. She sat with her head resting against the carseat, her long, slender neck stretched taut, eyes closed, her face impassive. That unconscious pose elicited once more the striking similarity between Joanna Ridley and that ancient Egyptian queen, but this was no time to tell her how beautiful she was. Joanna Ridley was in no condition to hear it.

"I didn’t finish asking all my questions," I said, starting the car and putting it in gear.

"Ask them tomorrow. I’m worn out."

"Somebody will come stay with you? You shouldn’t be alone."

She nodded. "I’ll call someone."

We drove through the city. It was early, not more than eight o’clock or so, but it seemed much later. I felt incredibly tired. Joanna Ridley wasn’t the only one who was worn out. She just had a hell of a lot better reason.

I drove back to her place and pulled up in front of her house. "Would you like me to come in with you?" I asked. "I could stay until someone comes over."

"Don’t bother," she said. "I can take care of myself."

I started to get out to open the door for her, but she opened it herself, struggled out of the low-slung seat, and was inside the house before I knew what had hit me. I sat there like a jerk and watched her go.

It wasn’t until I turned the car around that I noticed the light in the carport was out. I couldn’t remember her switching it off when we left the house, but she must have. As a precaution, I waited in the car with my hand on the door handle long enough to see her pick up a phone, dial, and begin talking.

She’ll be all right, I said to myself as I put the car in gear and drove up the street. What Joanna Ridley needed right then was family and friends, people who cared about her and would give her the strength and courage to pick up the pieces and go on with her life. What she didn’t need was an aging police watchdog with a penchant for finding bogeymen under every light switch.

Right that minute Joanna Ridley needed J. P. Beaumont like she needed a hole in her head.