The one good thing about lying awake most of the night was that it gave me lots of uninterrupted thinking time. Since Tanya Dunseth was already in jail, it would seem I should have focused on her, but for some reason my thoughts turned again and again to Guy Lewis. Why had he suddenly checked out of the Mark Anthony? Was it before or after Daphne Lewis died in the basement at Live Oak Farm?
Between five and seven, I finally slept. At seven, Amber landed squarely on my chest and giggled uncontrollably at my startled "Oomph!" Alex and I were both still groggy, but Amber was wide awake and ready to play. She missed her mother, but she was willing to accept these two slow-moving folks as tolerable substitutes.
The child struck me as a happy-go-lucky, well-adjusted little kid who had no fear of strangers. What that said to me was that Tanya-despite her straitened circumstances and her own ill-used childhood-had somehow provided her child with a world peopled by a collection of trustworthy adult care-givers. Alexis Downey and me included.
It was a considerable challenge corralling Amber and bathing her before we were all due to go downstairs for breakfast. When Alex, kneeling wet-handed beside the bathtub, passed me an armload of squirming, towel-wrapped toddler, I forgot how short the bathroom ceiling was and rapped the top of my head a good one in the process of taking her. I whacked myself hard enough that I saw stars, but I didn't drop the baby.
Minutes later I carried a fully dressed child downstairs while Alex grabbed a quick bath for herself. In order to avoid complicating breakfast preparations, I took Amber out on the porch to play. We were there when Live Oak Farm's decrepit Econoline van turned into the yard and stopped. Jeremy Cartwright climbed out.
After returning Amber's gleeful greeting, he went around to the back of the van and emerged carrying a high chair, which he set on the porch beside me.
"It's Amber's," he said. "It'll make mealtimes easier."
Bless Jeremy's thoughtfulness and consistent good sense. For someone who wore Birkenstocks, he wasn't bad.
"Thanks," I said. He turned down an invitation to breakfast, saying that Kelly was awake and he was headed to the hospital to see her.
"You actually talked to her? How'd she sound?"
"Much better," he said. "But I want to see for myself."
I was trying to decipher the workings of the unfamiliar high chair when Florence appeared at the front door saying I was wanted on the phone. "Who is it?" I asked. "Kelly?"
"It's a man," she answered. "I think he said his name is Peters."
Ron Peters was my partner in Homicide before an on-duty accident robbed him of most of the use of his legs. A less stubborn man might have taken his disability pension and run, but Ron had fought his way back onto the force and into full-time active duty, first with a long, boring stint in the Media-Affairs Division and now, much more happily, as a special assistant to Captain Anthony Freeman, head of I.I.D., Seattle P.D.'s Internal Investigations Division.
"Hey, Ron," I said. "How's it going?" I had taken the call with Amber balanced gingerly on one hip the way I had seen Tanya hold her. Except my hips aren't shaped quite the same way. As soon as I tried to talk, Amber slid down my leg.
"Why don't you tell me what's going on?" Peters demanded.
Where to start? I wondered. With Kelly and Jeremy and their almost-but-not-quite wedding? With the brand-new granddaughter I had barely seen? With Tanya Dunseth and a double homicide? With Kelly's serious fall that had landed her in a hospital?
"Not too much," I said. "Just enjoying a little R and R."
"That's not what I heard," Peters replied pointedly.
Right about then Florence's Natasha made an appearance. Amber greeted the animal with a delighted squeal. "Dog! Dog! Dog!"
The ungodly racket in my ear meant she was also screeching directly into the telephone's mouthpiece. "What's that?" Ron demanded. "Where are you-a day-care center? Sounds like you're locked in a room with a whole tribe of ankle-biters."
"There's only one child here at the moment," I answered, hoisting Amber again. "Hang on." Alex appeared just then and took charge of the wiggling Amber, carting her off to breakfast.
"That's better," I said with a relieved sigh. "Now that I can actually hear you, what were you saying?"
"I said it sounds as though you've been busy."
"Not really. How are things up there?"
"Interesting," Peters replied. "Captain Freeman dropped a bomb on my desk a little while ago. He suggested I handle it first thing."
A tiny stab of anxiety flickered through my mind. Peters didn't sound quite his usual self. "Maybe you'd better call in the bomb squad," I quipped uneasily.
It was a joke, but Peters didn't laugh. "It's not that kind of bomb," he said. "What I have in my hand is an official interdepartmental complaint, actually two-in-one. It's from both the Jackson County Sheriff's Department and from the Department of Public Safety in the city of Ashland, Oregon."
"An official complaint? You're kidding! What does it say?"
"According to one Detective Gordon Fraymore, you are hereby requested to cease and desist from interfering with him and his counterpart at the Sheriff's Department in their common pursuit of their official duties in the investigation of a recent double homicide, blah, blah, blah. How does that grab you?"
"Why that ungrateful…"
"He goes on to say that you have been obstructing justice in that you have failed to promptly report meaningful information to him in connection with those same two above-named cases. Is that true?"
"Well…" I hedged.
"Tony says cut it out. He says you're on vacation, so act like it. All right?"
"All right," I returned, taken aback and properly chastened.
"Good," Peters said, sounding more himself. "Now, with that out of the way, why don't you tell me what's really going on?"
I told him more or less the whole story while Oak Hill's breakfast went forward without me. It's fair to say Ron was astounded when he learned that the chief suspect's daughter was the "ankle-biter" who had screamed in his ear at the beginning of our conversation.
"No wonder Detective Fraymore thinks you're interfering. I can see where he might pick up such a crazy, unreasonable idea." Actually, so could I.
"Well," Peters said finally, "are you going to follow orders and stay out of it or not?"
"Most likely not," I answered. Since I was talking to Ron Peters, I could just as well be honest. "And neither will Ralph Ames," I added. "He's volunteered to be her defense attorney."
"Great," Peters said. "The brass is going to love that."
"I don't see what any of this has to do with them. After all, I am on vacation. Not only that, Ashland is a good eight hours away from the Public Safety Building."
"You're forgetting the power of the press," Ron said. "The papers are full of it. ‘Prominent Seattlelite Murdered in Ashland.' Guy and Daphne Lewis are big news here in Seattle. The murder made the front page of this morning's Northwest section. Tony is serious when he says you're to butt out."
I didn't like Tony Freeman or anyone else issuing orders to me while I was on vacation. My hackles stood on end. "Freeman's got a hell of a lot of nerve," I said, sounding surly even to me.
"He's going by what Gordon Fraymore said," Peters reasoned.
"Oh, him. Fraymore's had it in for me from the moment I set foot in this town. I haven't done anything wrong, so far. For that matter, I'm beginning to wonder if Tanya Dunseth has, either. Gordon Fraymore thinks he's built himself an airtight case, and I think Fraymore's a jackass."
"You always did keep your opinions to yourself," Ron observed.
He may have been making fun of me, but I was thinking on my feet. Fraymore's letter, one way or another, had brought the situation in Ashland to the attention of Seattle P.D. Now, with Ron on the phone, I had a chance at some semi-official lines of inquiry-if I could manage to reel him in.