Until Proven Guilty jpb-1

by J. A. Jance

  “Anyway, I called one morning to talk to the mother, Mrs. Barstogi. She was asleep, so I ended up talking to Angela. I told her she shouldn’t call him anymore, that her mother would have to pay the bill. She said she liked talking to Uncle Charlie on the phone, so when—”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Did you say Uncle Charlie?”

  He nodded. “So after I heard she was dead, I tried to call you and tell you, just in case it was important. I only wanted to give you his name and phone number. It’s illegal for me to do that, you know. I could be fined and lose my job, but I didn’t want to go through security when it was probably nothing. The guys in security don’t like me.”

  “You work for the phone company?” The name came back to me, the messages I had ignored and thrown away. He nodded again.

  “When I couldn’t reach you at the office, I finally got your unlisted number and called your house. I could be fired for that too.”

  “My house?”

  “Yeah. I called Friday morning. I went to a two-day training session out in Bellevue on Wednesday and Thursday, so I didn’t try calling again until I got back to the office on Friday. The woman I talked to said she was your wife, said she’d give you the message. I left Kincaid’s name and address with her.”

  My stomach turned to lead. Just then Powell tapped on the door. “A detective from Auburn is here with their preliminary report. I thought you’d like to talk to him. He says Kincaid drove a black van. You think maybe there’s a connection?”

  “I’d bet money on it,” I said grimly. “Where’s the detective?”

  “He’s taking some stuff down to the crime lab.”

  I picked up the phone in Powell’s office. Some numbers you know by heart. I dialed the crime lab. Janice Morraine answered. I recognized her voice. “Hi, Jan,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Beaumont here. Did they bring you a slug from that Auburn case?”

  “I think so,” she replied.

  “Run a comparison with the Faith Tabernacle slugs and call me back.” I put down the phone, fighting the urge to heave it across the room.

  Powell was looking at me, puzzled. “What have you got, Beaumont?”

  “Just a hunch, nothing more.”

  Tom Stahl came to the door of the interview room. “What next? Protective custody? Do I go, or stay, or what?”

  “First we’ll need to get a statement. Hang on a minute. You want a cup of coffee?” I couldn’t handle being locked up in a small room taking a statement, not when my mind was flying in a dozen different directions.

  “Coffee would be fine,” he said. “Black.”

  I walked past my desk on the way to the coffeepot. I stopped and dialed my home number. I got a busy signal. There was a stack of messages on the desk, too. The top one was from Peters, clocked in at seven-twenty that morning. The number was different from the hotel I had tried the previous day.

  I dialed and was connected to Peters’ room. “Thank God you caught me. I was just heading out to catch a plane. I’ve booked an earlier flight from Tucson. Where’d they find you?” he asked. “When the operator said your phone was out of order, I took a chance and called the department. They were looking for you. I told them you might be driving the Datsun.”

  “It worked,” I said. “They found me. What have you got?”

  There was a distinct pause. “It’s not pretty, Beau,” he began. “I hope it’s not too late. Has she told you about her father?”

  “Some,” I replied.

  “Coroner ruled it a suicide, but Anne swore she’d shot him for killing her sister. That’s when her mother had her committed.”

  My mind scrambled to make sense from what Peters was saying. “Shot him? Anne said she shot her father?” I felt like I was stumbling in the dark.

  Peters heard my disbelief. “I came down to Bisbee to check it out. According to records here, Anne’s father fell carrying Patty down some stairs. He felt so bad about it he put a bullet in his head two weeks later. Anne insisted she shot him, and she claimed that Patty’s death was no accident, that her father had murdered her. Her mother had Anne committed. That’s why she spent eleven years in the state hospital.”

  I could hear the sound of Peters’ breathing on the other end of the phone. For the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Beau, are you all right?”

  After being in the dark, sudden light blinded me. “I’ve gotta go, Peters,” I said. I slammed the phone down in his ear. Powell was coming toward me. I almost knocked him over. “Get somebody to take Stahl’s statement,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Hey, wait a minute. Janice Morraine from the lab tried to get you while you were on your phone,” he called after me. “Says to tell you it’s a match.”

  And the rest of my world tumbled down around my ears.

  Chapter 24

  My hands were shaking so badly I could hardly get the key in the ignition. Truths and half-truths chased each other in dizzying circles in my head. Milton Corley had been the first to believe her. That’s what she had said. So he was the first to understand that Anne had told the truth about killing her father. The realization sickened me, but I feared the past far less than I did the present.

  It was not yet ten o’clock on Sunday morning, and downtown Seattle was virtually deserted. I made short work of the trip to the Royal Crest. She wasn’t there. I knew she wouldn’t be. The telephone in the bedroom was slightly off the hook. When I hung it up properly, it started working again. How long had the phone been disabled? I wondered. Since last night?

  I looked in the closets, in the drawers. The clothes were there; nothing was missing. Then I checked the corner on the other side of the dresser. The Adidas bag was gone. I poured myself a shot of MacNaughton’s and sat down in my leather chair. I needed to think.

  I tried to remember Friday night. When had we gotten home? What had been said? I remembered going to bed, her saying she wanted to stay up and work on the last chapter so she could send it down to Phoenix with Ralph.

  The next thing I remembered was her crawling into bed with me Saturday morning, telling me she had been out for a jog. I had no way of knowing whether or not she had come to bed before that. It had seemed reasonable to assume she had. There had been no cause to question it, but there was no way to prove it, either. There would have been plenty of time for her to drive to Auburn and back between the time I went to sleep and the time I woke up. When had she moved the Porsche to a parking lot?

  I waited for the phone to ring, knowing it was unreasonable, knowing she wouldn’t call. Where could she be? What was she thinking? Didn’t she know I loved her, that I’d find help for her whatever the cost? I waited.

  I thought about Pastor Michael Brodie and Suzanne Barstogi blown away in Faith Tabernacle by the same weapon that had killed Charles Murray Kincaid. The same.38. Christ. She must have done that, too. What night was that? Monday? I tried to remember Monday night. She had been here; we had made love. We had made love Saturday morning, too. My stomach rebelled at the thought of her excitement, her need for satisfaction. Had she come to me on the crest of murderous heat that I had misread as passion? I battled to keep breakfast and the MacNaughton’s in place. The breakfast, the liquor, and the wedding cake. Jesus.

  Had she thought she could get away with it forever, that I would never find out? Or was I next on her list? How long was the list, for that matter? Her father, Brodie, Suzanne, Kincaid? How many more were there? What about Corley? Had Milton Corley really committed suicide, or had he been given a helping hand along the way?

  I waited. Peters would be home by four or so. At that point Powell would know and Watkins and the world. An all-points bulletin would go out for Anne Corley Beaumont, wanted for murder, beautiful and highly dangerous. I had to find her before then. I had to be the one to bring her in. The thought of Anne in handcuffs, tossed in the back of a patrol car, was anathema to me.

  I waited, watching the time slip by, watching the min
ute hand move inexorably. I sat for a long, long time, letting my mind wander through the last few days, searching for some hope, some consolation. There was none. I watched the clock without thinking about it, without internalizing the information it was trying to give me. It was two o’clock when I got the message, two o’clock when I realized that at that time one week ago, Angela Barstogi’s funeral was just getting under way, and Anne Corley was about to walk into my life.

  I jumped to my feet, remembering. She had said she intended to have a standing reservation for Sunday dinner at Snoqualmie Lodge. My nerves were too shot to tackle the phone book myself. I placed a call to the lodge and a hostess answered. “Does Anne Corley have a reservation there for this afternoon?”

  There was a pause while she looked. “Yes she does, a reservation for two at three o’clock.” I had been holding my breath. I let it out in a long sigh.

  “Would you like to leave a message? I’ll be glad to give it to her.”

  “No. No, thank you. I’ll catch her later.”

  I put down the phone. Either she wouldn’t show or she was expecting me. It was one or the other. The hostess had said the reservation was for two, not one. I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I buried my face in a towel, a soft new towel Anne Corley herself had chosen. I flung it away from me, sending it sailing down the hall. How dare she buy me towels!

  I went to the hall closet for my shoulder hoister and.38. The holster was there. The gun wasn’t.

  There was no point in searching the apartment. I knew I had put it away. I always put it away. Anne had taken it. Anne Corley Beaumont, armed, beautiful, and exceedingly dangerous.

  I’m qualified to carry a.357 magnum. You get qualified by being an excellent shot. It’s a macho symbol I don’t need to pack around the department. I keep one, though, in the same bottom drawer where I had kept my mother’s engagement ring all those years. I got it out and checked it to make sure it was loaded. I put it in my jacket pocket. A.357 is only good for one thing — killing. I prayed I wouldn’t have to use it.

  My body ran on automatic pilot. I don’t remember getting into the car or driving up Interstate 90 to Fall City. I was doing what I had to do, what was inevitable. It was too painful to do it consciously, so I did it like a sleepwalker. It was like that last night with my mother, wanting her to die and not wanting her to die, wishing her suffering over yet not wanting to lose her. I didn’t know whether I should hope for the red Porsche to be there or not. It would hurt either way.

  I was trying to readjust my thinking, to turn Anne Corley Beaumont my love into Anne Corley Beaumont my enemy. She would have to be that if I was going to confront her and win. Afterward I could try to salvage what could be salvaged, once she was safe. Locked up and safe.

  As it turned out, the Porsche was there, parked directly in front of the restaurant. There was no attempt to conceal her presence. She wanted me to know where she was. I was expected.

  I grappled with the realization that Anne had called every shot since I met her. This was no exception. My hand dropped unconsciously to my pocket, checking the.357, making sure it was available. She had outwitted me at every turn. I would have to be wary. She was Mrs. J. P. Beaumont in name only. She was also a ruthless, savvy killer.

  The vestibule was crowded. Of course it would be. This was Sunday afternoon. For the first time I realized how foolhardy I had been to attempt this without calling for help, without having a backup. The restaurant was full of innocent bystanders, any one of whom could suffer dire consequences for my going off half-cocked. I eased my way through the crowd to the hostess desk and peered through the dining room.

  Anne was there, at a corner table. Our eyes met and held above the heads of the other diners. She motioned for me to come to her.

  The hostess appeared then. “Oh,” she said, “are you Mr. Beaumont? Mrs. Corley has been expecting you.”

  “I see her,” I said stiffly. “I can find my way.”

  There was a glass of wine on the table in front of her, and a MacNaughton’s and water at the place on the other side of the table. She was still wearing the blue suit. The Adidas bag lay in her lap. A lump rose in my throat. It was all I could do to speak. “Hello,” I managed.

  “Hello, Beau. I’m glad you came.”

  A thousand questions should have tumbled out one after another. Instead I looked around the room, J. P. Beaumont, the cop, looking over the lay of the land, looking for cover, for trajectories, for who would be hurt in a hail of bullets. “Let me help you, Anne,” I pleaded.

  “You already have.”

  My anger blazed to the surface. “I’ve helped you, all right, led you to three more victims.”

  She had held my gaze steadily. For the first time she looked down. My hand sought the safety of the.357 in case she reached into the bag. She raised her eyes. “I made a mistake with Brodie and the woman. Even so, they deserved to die.”

  “Annie! You had no right to judge them. You’re not a jury. They were innocent of a capital crime. Child abuse is a felony but it’s not premeditated murder.”

  “I was evening the score, an eye for an eye.” She looked at me defiantly, daring me to take exception to what she said. “I listened to the tape,” she continued. “I found it in the table drawer after you and Peters left. It was strange hearing it. Athletes must feel that way when they see an instant replay. I thought there would be something in it that would point to me.”

  “We’d have been better off if there had been,” I said.

  It was all coming together now, all the missing pieces. “And the phone call I overheard was from Tom Stahl at the phone company? That’s when you discovered your mistake?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sorry I killed them, if that’s what you mean.” There was no hint of remorse about her.

  “What did you put in the last chapter, Anne? You told me I couldn’t read the book because you had given it to Ralph, but he didn’t get the manuscript until this morning. He was planning to read it on the plane.”

  “I wasn’t sure how it would end. I wasn’t sure until I saw you walk through the door. I didn’t know if you’d come.”

  “And now you know?”

  “Yes, don’t you?”

  It was like we were playing a game, some private guessing game that had nothing to do with life and death. The people sitting around us had no idea that the attractive couple chatting earnestly in the corner near the window had enough firepower between them to lay waste a roomful of people.

  I knew how I was afraid it would end. She was absolutely without fear or compunction. I couldn’t let that happen, not at such close quarters, not in a crowd of defenseless Sunday afternoon diners. “Come with me, Anne. Let me take you in. No jury in the country would convict you.”

  “An insanity plea?” Her voice was full of bitter derision. “You know where they’d send me, don’t you? Have you ever been in one of those places? Do you know what goes on?”

  “Anne, I’ll stick by you. I’ll see that you get the help you need. In sickness and in health, remember? That’s what we said. This is sickness.” I was pleading for my life as well as hers.

  “You wouldn’t be there at night when the orderlies came. Even Milton couldn’t stop that. I had to have an abortion, you know. He paid for it. He didn’t cause it, but he couldn’t prevent it either.”

  “What about Milton, Anne? Did he commit suicide?”

  “He was scared of what the cancer was doing to him.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “No,” she said softly. “He didn’t commit suicide.”

  I heard the words and knew they were the truth. “My God, Anne, you told me you loved him.”

  “I did.”

  The toll kept rising. I didn’t want to know any more, but I was unable to stop the questions. They are too much a part of me, waking and sleeping. “Why your father?”

  “The things he did to Patty were terrible, not once, but over and ove
r. I tried to stop him, but my mother wouldn’t let me. I should have killed her too, but I never got a chance. I think she knew it. That’s why she never let me out. It was only after she died that Milton was able to get me released.”

  “What about the book?”

  “It’s a collection. Until now, I was the only one who knew the rest of the story, things that happened after the fact.”

  “All over the country?”

  She nodded. “It happens everywhere,” she said.

  “How long have you been doing this, Anne? How long have you been a one-woman avenger? How many J. P. Beaumont suckers are there in this world?”

  “I’ve been a widow for ten years,” she said.

  “And no one’s ever caught you?”

  “I never wanted to be caught.”

  The waitress came to take our order. “The gentleman isn’t feeling well. We won’t be eating after all. If I could just have the bill.” She laid a twenty on the table as a tip.

  Until she saw the size of the tip, I think the waitress was prepared to be upset. She pocketed the twenty. “Thank you very much,” she said, smiling.

  The interruption allowed a new train of thought. “Where’d you get the bike? The owner left town in March.”

  “St. Vincent de Paul’s over on Fairview.”

  “Where’d you keep it?”

  “In the parking garage of the building right behind the Royal Crest. It was just one night.”

  “And you got it out after I fell asleep?”

  She nodded.

  “What about Kincaid?”

  “After the man from the phone company called, I went to Auburn and found his house. He had a black van.”

  “It could have been the wrong man.”

  “He wasn’t. He confessed. I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.” She paused. “Is that all you wanted to know?” she asked.