Until Proven Guilty jpb-1

by J. A. Jance

  “I’m a very determined lady,” she said softly. “Anybody else would have thrown in the towel after this morning. You didn’t want me to go, did you?”

  I sat down on the couch cautiously, tentatively. I tested my drink. “No, I didn’t want you to go.”

  She took a sip of her wine. “You asked me this morning if I’d had anything to do with Angel’s death. Does that mean I’m under suspicion?” I nodded. “And I’m being investigated?” I nodded again.

  “That first afternoon we were together you said something that made me think Brodie was responsible. Yesterday the newspaper mentioned a man in a black van. Today you seem to think I did it. It reminds me of a game of tag with you standing in the center of a circle and pointing at people, telling them they’re it.”

  “I have to prove they’re it,” I interjected. “In a court of law, beyond a shadow of doubt. That’s a little different from pointing a finger.”

  “What if you make a mistake?”

  “The court decides if they’re guilty or innocent. That’s not up to me. Where’s all this going, Anne?”

  She held up a hand to silence me. She was working her way toward something, gradually, circuitously. “How do you feel about those people afterward?”

  I laughed, not a laugh so much as a mirthless chuckle. “In the best of all possible worlds, the innocent would go free and the guilty would be punished. In the real world, it doesn’t always work that way.”

  “Supposing…” she started. She paused as if weighing her words. For the first time I noticed a tightness around her mouth. Whatever she was working up to, it was costing her. She had been looking out the window as she spoke, uncharacteristically avoiding my eyes. Now, she turned away from the window, settling her gaze on my face. “Supposing someone was guilty of something but the court set them free. How would you feel about that?”

  “If the court sets them free, I have no choice but to respect the court’s decision. My feelings have nothing to do with it.”

  “That’s not true, they do!” She jumped up quickly and hurried to the kitchen to replenish the drinks. I watched in fascination. Her movements were jerky, as though she changed her mind several times in the course of the smallest gesture. Where was her purposeful manner, her fluid grace? She came back with the drinks.

  “Have you ever been around someone who’s retarded?” she asked?

  The question was from way out in left field. “No,” I replied, “I never have.”

  “Patty was retarded. I loved her and I didn’t mind taking care of her, but she didn’t have any control over her bowels. My father hated her for it.” Anne stopped abruptly and stood by the coffee table, staring at me as though she expected me to say something. I didn’t know what. I reached out and took her hand, drawing her toward the couch.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Her body was like a strung bow. I pulled her down beside me, a question formulating itself as I did so. “Who killed Patty?” I asked. I expected her to rebel, to shy away from my hand.

  “My father,” she whispered. “I saw him do it, but no one would believe me. The coroner ruled it an accident. I tried to tell people, but that’s when they started saying I was crazy.”

  “Who said that, the people you told?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “My mother, her friends.”

  “And that’s when they wouldn’t let you go to the funeral?”

  A single tear brimmed over the top of her lower lash and started down her cheek. “Yes,” she answered. “She wouldn’t let me go.”

  She turned to me for comfort from an old but open wound, burying her head in my chest. Wracking sobs filled the room, the kind of sobs that leave you exhausted without bringing relief. I held her, imagining a helpless eight- or nine-year-old battling alone against injustices perpetrated by adults. Injustice is hard enough to handle as a full-grown man, as a homicide detective. To a child it must have been overwhelming.

  I let her cry. There was no point in my saying anything or in attempting to stop her tears before the pent-up emotion had run its course.

  At last the sobs subsided and she pulled herself away from me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I never can talk about it without that happening.”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s not necessary.”

  She leaned her head back against my arm and closed her eyes. “I wanted to tell you this morning, but I couldn’t. It took me all afternoon to work up to it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and meant it. I looked at her as she lay with her head thrown back, the strain of the last few hours and moments still painfully etched on her face. She had opened the door a crack and let me see what was inside. It helped me understand her complexity a little and her reticence. I leaned down and kissed away a smudge of tear-stained mascara from her cheek. “Stick with me, kid. We’ll make it.”

  She lifted her head and looked at me. “What makes you say that?”

  “I love you, Anne. That’s what makes me say it.”

  The kiss I gave her then was not a brotherly, comforting kind of kiss. I felt the exhilaration you feel after you step off a roller coaster and know you haven’t died of it. I wanted to affirm our loving and our living. I wanted to put the ghosts from her past to rest once and for all, and she did too. She responded willingly, hungrily.

  The gown was fastened by a single tie. She was naked beneath it, naked, supple, and ready. I slipped out of my own clothes and fell to my knees before her, letting my hands roam freely across her body, letting my tongue pleasure her with promise and torment her with denial. I reveled in the power of control, the feel of her body’s aching need awakened at my touch. Several times I brought her to the brink, only to back off, pulling away before she crossed the edge, leaving her writhing, pleading for satisfaction.

  “Please, Beau,” she begged. “Please.”

  I drew her to the floor and onto me, my own need no longer held at bay. Her body folded around me and I was home. She gave a muffled moan of pleasure and release. I was complete and so was she.

  Chapter 21

  We napped. There on the floor. Much later, nearly ten, she stirred and awakened me. She snuggled close to me for warmth.

  “Hungry?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Where would you like to go?” I asked. “I have Peters’ car parked downstairs. For a change, wheels come with the invitation.”

  She laughed. “Uptown, huh?”

  “Not exactly, it’s a Datsun.” She laughed again and got up, picking up the gown from where it had fallen on the couch and tying it deftly around her. It was lovely, but I preferred her without it. I too scrambled to my feet. She stood looking up at me, her eyes momentarily uncertain. I held her close, hoping to stifle all doubt. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “It’ll be all right.”

  That seemed to give her the reassurance she needed. I followed her into the bedroom. A set of suitcases sat in one corner. She lifted one onto the bed and opened it. “I didn’t know if I was moving in or moving out.”

  The suitcase was filled with clothes on hangers. I picked them up, all of them, and swept them into one end of the closet.

  “Moving in,” I said.

  She unpacked quickly with the practiced hand of one who has done it many times. I had never learned to use all the drawers in the obligatory six-drawer dresser, so there was room for her to unpack without my having to shove things around. It seemed as though I had been saving a place for her in my life.

  While she showered, I took a lesson from the lady and called for a dinner reservation. Most people who live in Seattle regard the Space Needle as a place visited only by tourists. Not me. It’s special enough for a meal there to be an occasion, and it has the added attraction of being within walking distance. I take my kids there for Christmas dinner when they’re home for the holidays. The Emerald Suite, the gourmet part of the restaurant on top of the Space Needle, had a last-minute cancellation, so they were able to take us.

  When Anne emerged fro
m the shower, I was tying my tie and humming a little tune. I was starting to feel as though the two of us might be on somewhat equal footing. I was conscious of being terrifically happy, and for right then, at least, I was wise enough not to question it.

  I had dressed while she unpacked. Now it was my turn to lie on the bed and watch her. She stood indecisively at the closet door for a moment. “What should I wear?”

  “We’re not going to the Doghouse,” I replied.

  She chose a muted red dress of delicate silk. Red was her color on any occasion, in any light. Before I met her I had no idea red came in so many different shades. Maxwell Cole had been more correct than he knew when he called her the Lady in Red.

  Carefully she selected underwear and put it on. It was a quiet, intimate time together, with her doing things she would usually do alone. She didn’t seem disturbed by my presence or by my watching her. In the short period we had been together a bonding had occurred. I had experienced that bonding only once before, with Karen, and then I’d lost it. I was grateful to have it back. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it.

  Anne came to me to zip the dress and to fasten the diamond pendant. “From Milton?” I asked, surprised that there was no pang of jealousy as I asked the question.

  “Yes,” she said, turning to kiss me. “Thanks.”

  “Where’s your car?” I asked. “Did you bring it along with your clothes?”

  She nodded. “It’s down on the street.”

  “We’ll have to move it to a lot in the morning, or we’ll spend all day feeding parking meters.”

  “Would you like to take it?” she asked.

  I tossed Peters’ Datsun keys into the air. “Not on a bet. I don’t think I’d better press my luck. I’m just barely qualified for a Datsun. A Porsche would be overkill.”

  Of course we could have walked, but I drove up to the valet parking attendant. He opened the door with a slight bow in Anne’s direction, diplomatically concealing most of his disdain for the battered Datsun.

  The old Anne Corley was back. She was delighted and delightful. Everything about the evening pleased her. As the restaurant rotated she asked questions about various landmarks. She ate like a famished puppy and joked with the waiter, who regarded her with a certain awe. We drank champagne and toasted our future. It was a festive, joyous occasion.

  The conversation was light, fun-filled nonsense. It was only when the coffee came and we were working our way through two final glasses of wine that she turned serious on me. I knew enough to be wary by now, to tread softly and not force her beyond her own speed.

  “Do you want me to tell you about Milton?” she asked softly.

  “Only if you want to, only if you think I need to know.”

  “It’s the same version they wrote years ago. He sounds like a monster who took advantage of a young female patient, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s why he lost his job, isn’t it?”

  “People were only interested in how things looked. No one cared how things really were. It’s too much trouble to look beneath the surface.”

  “But he committed suicide.”

  “He didn’t do it because of his job,” she said “He was dying of cancer. He didn’t want to go on. He didn’t want to face what was coming. I understand that a lot more now than I did then.” She paused. “How old are you, Beau?”

  “Forty-two, going on sixty.”

  “Milton was sixty-three when I married him.” She made the statement quietly and waited for my reaction.

  “Sixty-three!” I choked on a sip of coffee.

  Anne smiled. “I’ve always gone for older men,” she teased. The smile faded from her face, her eyes. “He was the first person who believed me.”

  I struggled to follow her train of thought. “You mean about Patty?”

  She nodded. “I had been locked up in that place for five years when I met him, and he was the very first person who believed me.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “You told me yourself. This isn’t the best of all possible worlds, remember? I stayed because my mother had enough money to pay to keep me there. I’d have been pronounced cured and turned loose if we’d been poor.”

  She watched in silence as the waiter refilled her cup with coffee. “Doctors became omnipotent in places like that. They have the power of life and death over you. The smallest kindness becomes an incredible gift. He took an interest in me. He promised he’d take care of me if I’d have sex with him.”

  Outrage came boiling to the surface. “When you were thirteen and he was fifty-seven?”

  “No. I said I met him then. I was seventeen when it started.” She was holding her cup in both hands, looking at me through the steam, using it as a screen to protect her from my sudden flare of anger. “There’s no need to be angry,” she said. “He kept his part of the bargain, and I kept mine. He saw to it that I got an education, that I had books to read, that I learned things. On weekends he would get me a pass and take me places. He bought me clothes, taught me how to dress, how to wear my hair. I don’t have any complaints.”

  “But Anne…”

  “When my mother died, I was nineteen. He hired Ancell Ames, Ralph’s father, to lay hands on the moneys left in trust for me, money my mother had been appropriating over the years. He got me out of the hospital, and we got married. Everyone believed he married me because of the money. Nobody cared that he had plenty himself. It made a better scandal the other way around.” For the first time I heard a trace of bitterness in her voice.

  “Did you love him when you married him?”

  She shook her head. “That came later. I loved him when he died.”

  She set down her coffee cup, gray eyes searching mine. “Do you want to know about the money?”

  I reached across the table and took her hand. “No,” I said, laughing. “I don’t want to know about the money. Maybe you should get Ralph to draw up a prenuptial agreement. Would that make you feel better?”

  “What’s mine is yours,” she said.

  “Me too,” I grinned, “but I think you’re getting the short end of the stick.”

  She sat there looking beautiful and troubled. A lifetime of tragedy had swirled around her and brought her to me. I wanted to free her from all that had gone before, to set her feet firmly on present, solid ground. I took her hand and held it with both my massive paws around her slender fingers. “Considering what you’ve been through, you have every right to be totally screwed up.”

  “Maybe you haven’t noticed,” she replied. “I am totally screwed up.”

  “So where does all this leave us?” I asked.

  “I’ve talked to Ralph. He’s coming back up tomorrow night. I want him to be a witness. What about Peters?”

  “He’s out of town,” I told her, guiltily remembering that I had assured Peters the wedding would be postponed. It was too late to do anything about that, however.

  Anne must have seen my hesitation. “You do still want to get married, don’t you?”

  She sat waiting for my answer; both pain and doubt visible in her face, her eyes. I succumbed.

  “I think all my objections have just been overruled,” I said. “Would you like to dance?”

  She nodded. There was a piano player in the bar, the music soft, old and danceable. I’m a reasonably capable dancer, and Anne flowed with my body. The admiration of those watching was obvious, and I enjoyed it. I wanted to be seen with her; I wanted to be the one who brought Anne Corley to Seattle and kept her there.

  We danced until one. I was sleepy when we got back to the apartment. Anne said she was wide-awake and wanted to stay up and rework the last chapter. She wanted to send it with Ralph on Sunday. She also said she planned to jog early in the morning. I kissed her good night in the living room.

  “Thanks for a wonderful evening, Anne. All of it.”

  “It was good, wasn’t it?” she agreed.

  “Promise we’ll have a lifetime of evenings lik
e this.”

  She didn’t answer; she kissed me. “Good night,” she murmured with her lips still on mine.

  “Good night yourself.”

  I went to bed and slept the sleep of the just. Peters wouldn’t be bringing me any surprises when he came back from Arizona. Anne had finally told me everything.

  Chapter 22

  Freshly shampooed hair, newly dried and fragrant, awakened me on Saturday morning. Anne slipped into bed beside me, her body still warm from a steamy bathroom. “Been out running?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  She rested her head in the curve of my neck and ran her fingers along the stiff stubble on my jaw.

  “What time is it?” I asked, not wanting to turn to see the clock.

  “Six,” she replied.

  “In the morning?” I groaned. “On Saturday? You get up and run at this ungodly hour on Saturday?”

  She closed her teeth gently over the muscle on the side of my neck, sending involuntary chills through my body. “What’s the matter with being up at this hour?”

  “Nothing at all,” I said, “now that you put it that way. ”I rolled over on top of her, pinning her beneath me.“ You shouldn’t start something you can’t finish.”

  “I can finish it,” she replied, placing her hands around the back of my neck and pulling my lips to hers.

  What she said actually turned out to be a gross understatement. She was a wild woman, frenzied in her demands for gratification. Had I not known better, firsthand, I might have thought she had gone without for years. She crouched naked astraddle me, plunging herself down on my body with wild abandon, her head thrown back, her face reflecting a fleeting mixture of pain and pleasure. I held back as long as I could, wanting to prolong her enjoyment, but that wasn’t enough.

  She came back again for more, kissing me, touching me, renewing me until I was able once more to probe inside her, to touch that part of her that had gone for far too long untouched. This time she collapsed on my chest afterward, breath coming in short gasps, her heart thumping wildly from exertion. “Not bad for an old man,” I managed.