Until Proven Guilty jpb-1

by J. A. Jance

  Peters offered to drive me over to Kirkland and back, to take me to a wonderful health food restaurant he knew. I appreciated the offer, but I was beat. I wanted to be home in my own little apartment with my own little stereo and my own little self. “I’ll take a rain check,” I told him.

  I declined the offer of a ride, too. I didn’t want Peters to know that I was going to stop and pick up a Big Mac and an order of fries at the McDonald’s at Third and Pine. He had made enough sarcastic remarks about junk food while we were gathering the mustard. I wasn’t about to let him know that I am a regular customer at the local Big Mac outlet, that the clerks know me by name and order. It’s not that I’m ashamed. It’s just that I didn’t want to give Peters any more ammunition.

  As I stood waiting for my order, I looked around at the stray slice of humanity sitting in those four walls munching Big Macs. There was a genuine bag lady with her multilayered coats. There was a group of young toughs arguing loudly in one corner. In another a couple of long-legged hookers daintily dipped Chicken McNuggets under the watchful eye of a well-dressed pimp.

  The clerks took the orders and the money, shoving the food back across the counter with studied disinterest. It was business as usual as far as they were concerned. With all the weirdos hanging around, it was hardly surprising no one had noticed a kid in a nightgown eating a hamburger for breakfast at eight o’clock in the morning.

  I went home and let myself into the peace and quiet of my apartment. I mixed myself a generous MacNaughton’s. Then I set the table with a place mat and a matching linen napkin. I may like McDonald’s, but I won’t eat on paper plates in my own home, either. I arranged the hamburger and fries tastefully on the brown-bordered stoneware plate the decorator had assured me was very chic and very masculine. Then I dragged a Tupperware container of radishes and celery out of the fridge.

  Those mealtime amenities may seem silly at times, but for three months after I moved out of the house, I ate on nothing but paper plates with plastic forks, knives, and spoons. I was sure Karen would come to her senses and take me back. I was living in a world of miserable, not blissful, ignorance. I kept thinking Karen had divorced me on my own merits, believed that what she said about being a cop’s wife was the truth. I hadn’t known about the accountant then, the accountant for an egg conglomerate who had come to town looking for an egg-ranch site near Kent or Puyallup. I hadn’t known this jerk had walked into the real estate office where Karen had just started working and swept her off her feet.

  The day after the divorce was final she married him, and I hired an interior decorator. That’s almost five years ago now. He moved Karen, Kelly, and Scott to Cucamonga, California. I guess he’s an all-right guy. The kids have never complained to me, and Kelly told me last Christmas that he (his name is Dave) has them put the child support money I send in a special savings account for college. He may be all right, but I hate him, and I eat on real plates with real napkins because I want Karen to know my world didn’t end just because she left. At least, it didn’t end completely.

  I ate, cleared the table, and put the dishes in the dishwasher. I run the dishwasher once a week on Sunday morning whether I need to or not. I made a fresh drink and went to stand on the balcony. It was a chill spring evening, tending more toward winter than summer. Across the street at the Cinerama the ticket holders’ line for the nine o’clock show disappeared behind the Fourth and Blanchard Building, a tall, pointed, black glass monstrosity called the Darth Vader Building by locals. For a while I stood there watching and listening, hearing little snatches of conversation and laughter that wafted up to my eleventh-floor perch. Periodically a juggler appeared to entertain those waiting in line. Some people will do anything for money.

  I was tempted to mix another drink and stay home to lick my wounds, to bring up all that old family stuff and beat myself over the head with it. It occurred to me, however, that it wouldn’t be healthy. At eight fifty-five I put my glass in the sink and rode the elevator downstairs. The ride down was longer than the walk across the street. The last of the line had entered the theater by the time I bought my ticket. I didn’t bother to ask what was showing.

  It wasn’t a good decision. The wife in the movie was getting it on with every Tom, Dick, and Harry in town. Instead of cheering me up, the story rekindled my anger over losing my family.

  When I came home, I took myself and a bottle of MacNaughton’s to the recliner in my darkened living room, and I didn’t quit until we were both gone.

  Chapter 6

  Sunday morning dawned clear and cold. I woke up, still sitting in my chair, nursing a terrific hangover.

  Friday and Saturday’s storm had blown itself out. The cloud cover that usually keeps Seattle temperatures moderate was missing. The sun had barely come up when banks of fog rolled in. Once the fog burned off, the sun’s rays offered no warmth.

  Hindsight is so simple. I should have had some premonition my life would change that day. If I had called old Dave, Karen’s new husband, and asked him to spare me a few chicken entrails, maybe I could have gotten a seer to give me some advance warning. I wouldn’t have been caught quite so off guard. Unfortunately — or perhaps fortunately — Dave and I don’t have that kind of relationship. As it was, the morning appeared routine, ordinary, once I’d swallowed enough aspirin to quiet the pounding in my head.

  I made breakfast, hoping that food would help. I have mastered the art of microwave bacon and soft-boiled eggs. Then I ran my weekly load of dishes and washed my weekly load of clothes. Anything that has to be ironed goes across the street to the cleaners and laundry. By then I was feeling half human.

  After I finished my chores, the week’s collection of crossword puzzles was waiting in the hall outside my door. Ida, my next-door neighbor, knows I hate newspapers and love crossword puzzles. She saves them for me all week. On Sunday morning she leaves a little stack outside my door after she finishes with her own paper. I’ve come to regard the weekly stack of puzzles as a variation on the Easter Bunny theme. It’s almost as magical.

  Peters has season tickets to the Mariners’ games. That particular Sunday, the Yankees were in town. We had decided the day before that I would pull the funeral duty. It’s a part of the job that I don’t relish, but season tickets are season tickets.

  I suppose I should explain why cops go to murder victims’ funerals. They go to see who shows up and who doesn’t. Statistically most people are murdered by someone they know. Oftentimes a murderer will attend the funeral for fear his not being there will throw suspicion in his direction. Sometimes it works the other way too. The killer is a complete stranger who goes to the funeral because it gives him a feeling of power to be there without anyone knowing who he is, so homicide detectives go to funerals. It comes with the territory.

  Brodie had told me that Angela’s Thanksgiving Service would be held at Mount Pleasant Cemetery on top of Queen Anne Hill. It struck me as being a little odd. I would have expected them to have a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon in Faith Tabernacle itself. It seemed self-effacing, as though they didn’t want to draw attention to the church itself.

  I decided to walk to the cemetery. I suppose I could have gone down to the department and checked out a car, but I didn’t feel like going anywhere near the department, not even as close as the motor pool.

  I got over being a suburban type all at once. I sold my car when I moved to the city. I got my apartment cheap because it didn’t come with a parking place. Later I found out why it was cheap. Parking in downtown Seattle costs a fortune. I did the only sensible thing — I learned to love the bus.

  Gone were the days of the fifty-five-minute commute. All commuting ever got me was an ulcer, hemorrhoids, and a divorce. Walking isn’t all that bad except that having dates without a car has proved to be something of a challenge. The upshot is that I’ve virtually given up dating except for those rare cliff-dwelling creatures like myself who aren’t insulted by an offer of dinner or a movie contingent upon walking to and
from. There aren’t too many women like that, so my sex life has dwindled. I chum around with some of the lavender-haired ladies from the Royal Crest who are glad to have my friendship but don’t make demands on my body or my schedule. Like me, they mostly don’t have cars. It’s a lifestyle that suits me.

  The two-and-a-half-mile trek to Mount Pleasant Cemetery, much of it almost perpendicular, felt good. It finished the job of clearing my head. A chill wind was blowing off Puget Sound, and a few clouds scudded across the sky ahead of the wind. Seattle wouldn’t be the Emerald City if it didn’t rain on a fairly regular basis.

  It wasn’t necessary to stop and ask directions at the cemetery office. I could see a little knot of people gathering just over the crest of the bluff. I stationed myself a little apart with my back to a suddenly gray Lake Union. I checked off the arriving players against Brodie’s roster.

  The True Believers arrived first. It was clear they had been instructed to speak to no one. They came as a group, huddled together near the coffin as a group, and knelt to pray as a group. Suzanne Barstogi, kneeling stoically in the middle of the second row, was accorded no special recognition or position of honor as the mother of the slain child. This was a group Thanksgiving Service, I reminded myself, and Pastor Michael Brodie would not tolerate any individual outpourings of grief that might crack the shell of his little facade.

  I had called Brodie earlier and jotted down the names of those he expected to be in attendance. Looking at his flock now, I was able to put some names with faces. Jeremiah, of course, Benjamin Mason/Jason, Ezra, Thomas. There was one more man, but I couldn’t recall his name. Other than Suzanne, the women eluded me. They were so drab and so alike, it was impossible to sort them out.

  Sophie Czirski was there, her ramrod thinness totally at odds with the pudgy Faith Tabernacle women. She planted herself firmly at the foot of the coffin and glared at the kneeling pastor with open defiance, daring him to question her right to be there. The wind, blowing at her back, periodically made her red hair stand on end. It gave her a wild appearance. If I had been Brodie, I would have thought twice about picking a fight with her.

  Maxwell Cole turned up with a long-haired photographer in tow. At Cole’s insistence, pictures of the kneeling congregation were taken from every possible angle. His taste is all in his mouth. Sophie watched the proceedings with a malevolent glare. When Cole unwisely asked her to move over so they could get one more picture, she told him in no uncertain words and with considerable volume what he could do with both the photographer and his camera. She didn’t budge an inch.

  Scattered here and there were a few hangers-on, people who make a habit out of going to funerals, ones who get a kick out of watching as other people’s emotions go through a wringer. I looked at them closely, wondering if any of them were named Charlie. After the service I would request a copy of the guest register.

  The service itself was just getting under way. The Faith Tabernacle group began singing a tuneless little hymn that no one else seemed to recognize. I moved closer so I could hear what was being said, taking up a position just to Sophie’s right at the end of the coffin.

  I don’t know why I looked up, probably nothing more than good old-fashioned male instinct. Had I paid attention, I would have seen every man in the group staring unabashedly in the same direction. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen stepped over the crest of the hill and strode without hesitation toward Angela Barstogi’s coffin.

  Even now, thinking about that moment is enough to take my breath away. She was a slender woman, of indeterminate age, wearing a brilliant red dress topped by a short but magnificent fur jacket. Her hair fell in dark, lustrous waves that flowed and blended into the dark fur on her shoulders. Her finely chisled features might have been carved from tawny marble. Her eyes, gray in the changing sunlight, flashed with an interior storm. For all her beauty, it was plain to see she was very angry. She walked quickly, covering the ground with a long, well-booted gait. She stopped less than two feet from Sophie and bowed her head.

  If she was aware of the sensation her appearance caused, she gave no indication of it. She seemed to lose herself completely in the proceedings. Unchecked tears rolled down her cheeks and lost themselves in the deep pile of her coat. In one hand she held a single red rose, not a dark red one, but a bright red one that matched the striking hue of her dress.

  I noticed Maxwell Cole sidling toward her. When she raised her head and opened her eyes, he would be at her side. That offended me but I didn’t have much room to talk. I was fighting the urge to follow suit. Instead I contented myself with observing her from a distance of several feet. The sun had slipped behind a cloud. When it moved away, her hair came alive with burnished highlights. She was exquisite, beautiful beyond anything I had ever imagined.

  Pastor Michael Brodie was just getting into the swing of his message. I looked at him, only to find he too was riveted, his mouth moving mechanically as his eyes devoured every inch and curve of the newcomer’s body. I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to leap in front of her and shield her from his gaze. For him to be able to look at her seemed an unbearable violation. The impulse startled me even as it occurred. I am not someone who imagines bedding every piece of desirable flesh that passes in my direction. I’m a healthy, middle-aged, well-adjusted, reasonably disciplined, heterosexual male. This woman’s presence rang all my bells.

  Brodie droned on and on without my hearing a word of what he said. I thought he would never finish. On the other hand I dreaded the service coming to an end. That would mean she would leave, march back up over the hill and out of my life. My mind scrambled wildly, trying to think of what I could say to delay her, to make her stop so I could at least hear the sound of her voice.

  Suddenly there was a chorus of amens. The casket began sinking slowly from view. With the fluid grace of a dancer, the slender woman glided forward and tossed her single rose onto the descending casket. Only then did she brush away the tears that had fallen silently throughout the service.

  She turned to find Maxwell Cole directly in her path. The photographer hovered at his elbow. “Excuse me,” Max said, “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

  “No,” she replied coldly, looking at his press badge. “I’m sure we haven’t. I see no reason to remedy that now.”

  She stepped to one side as if to walk past him, but he placed himself in her way once more. “I’m a columnist for the Post-Intelligencer,” he said lamely. “Would you mind telling me what brought you here?”

  “I would mind very much.” Her voice was sharp, impatient. Uninvited, I moved swiftly to her side.

  “I believe the lady has made it quite clear that she doesn’t want to talk to you, Maxey. If I were you I’d beat it.” Maxwell Cole looked as though he wanted to throttle me, not only for interfering, but also for bringing up a long-despised college nickname. He looked around, checking to see if anyone else had heard. There was too much potential for ridicule in the situation for him to want to hang around. He backed away, taking the photographer with him. Finally, he turned and followed the True Believers, who were trudging up the hill in a dreary single file that somehow reminded me of the seven dwarfs. All they needed were picks on their shoulders to complete the air of joyless drudgery.

  The woman turned to me then. “Thank you,” she said, extending her hand. “We certainly haven’t been introduced. My name is Anne Corley.” She smiled. I was entranced by the sound of her voice, low and vibrant. I almost forgot to take her hand. When I remembered myself and did, I was startled to find her grip surprisingly firm and sure.

  “My name is Beaumont, Detective J. P. Beaumont. My friends call me Beau.”

  “I’m glad to meet you, Detective Beaumont.”

  “I’m assigned to this case.” I continued motioning vaguely in the direction of Angela Barstogi’s grave. Some people are repulsed when they find out you’re a homicide detective. I more than half expected her to turn away from me in disgust. Instead she gave me a
glorious smile.

  Sophie Czirski appeared at my elbow. She allowed herself to examine Anne Corley in minute detail before she spoke. “I certainly gave that Maxwell Cole fellow a piece of my mind.”

  “That you did,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Another smile played around the corners of Anne Corley’s lips. “Who, Maxey? I gave him a piece of my mind too. Don’t I get any thanks?”

  “Yes, of course you do,” I said. “Thank you.” And then the three of us stood there laughing uproariously as though we had just shared some outrageous joke. When we stopped laughing, Anne Corley introduced herself to Sophie.

  “Were you a friend of Angela’s too?” Sophie asked, her eyes suddenly filling with tears.

  “No,” Anne replied. “I never met her. I had a sister who died when I was eight. My mother wouldn’t let me attend the funeral. She thought it would upset me. To this day I go to the services whenever I hear of a child dying under unusual circumstances. I always cry. Part of me cries for the child who’s gone now, and part of me still cries for Patty.”

  Sophie took Anne’s hand and held it for a moment, her rheumy old eyes behind cat’s-eye glasses studying Anne Corley’s young gray ones. “There were so few flowers.” Sophie said. “Your rose was beautiful and so are you.” Sophie turned and walked away with surprising speed for someone her age, her back stiffly unbowed as she climbed the steep hillside.

  Anne Corley moved slightly downwind. For the first time I was aware of the delicate scent of her perfume, expensive and intoxicating. She stood next to me, saying nothing but driving my heightened senses into overload.

  “Are you still on duty, Mr. Beaumont?” she asked.

  I glanced around, dumbfounded to find that the entire funeral party had disappeared. Only Anne Corley and I remained on the windswept hillside. “I guess not, except I need to stop by the cemetery office to pick up a copy of the guest register.”