Expecting to waken Tracy, I ventured as far as the guest-room door. Before I could knock, I heard a toilet flush and the shower come on. With my houseguest already up and about, I returned to the kitchen and poured another cup of coffee.
The showers in my condo are equipped with demand heaters, which means you can shower until hell freezes over without ever running out of hot water. Tracy, being a typical teenager, was nonetheless prepared to try exhausting the inexhaustible supply of hot water. The shower was still running sometime later when the phone rang again. This time Amy Peters was calling from the security phone on the first level of the parking garage.
“Tracy’s still in the shower,” I told her.
“That’s okay,” she returned. “I wanted to talk to you. Can I come up for a minute?”
“Sure,” I said and buzzed her into the elevator lobby.
After a car accident had left Ron Peters paralyzed from the waist down, he was pretty much lying in a bed of pain and wallowing in self-pity until Amy Fitzgerald walked into his hospital room and into his life. She was there to do physical therapy, but it turned out she performed mental therapy as well.
In the years I had known her, I had never seen Amy Peters upset. She has always struck me as someone with a permanently positive attitude, and she’s mostly unflappable. When she stepped off the elevator that morning, though, I could see she was flapped. Clearly she’d been crying, and she wasn’t over it yet. Was it possible she was this upset over Rosemary’s death?
No, I reasoned silently. More likely she and Ron have had some kind of quarrel.
“Amy,” I said aloud. “What’s wrong?”
She looked around. “Where’s Tracy?”
“Still in the shower.”
“Thank God!” She spoke in an urgent whisper and then took a deep breath. “While I was putting the chains on my car, I got grease on my hands and needed a towel. Ron usually keeps a supply of washrags in the back of his Camry. I opened the trunk and-” Amy stopped speaking. Her face crumpled, letting loose a fresh spate of tears.
“And what?” I demanded.
“There was dried blood inside Ron’s trunk, Beau. Lots of it. Like somebody or something bled out in there.”
I felt like I was in free fall with no parachute. Tracy’s concerns were one thing. Incriminating bloodstains were something else. “Are you sure about that?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve worked in hospitals all my adult life, Beau. I know dried blood when I see it. What should I do?”
“You have to report it,” I said at once. “It’s as simple as that.”
“But I can’t,” she wailed. “How can I? Ron’s my husband, Beau. I love him. I can’t be the one to turn him in.”
“Then I’ll have to do it,” I said. “I’m a sworn police officer-an officer of the court. I don’t have a choice. Do you have an attorney? Ron should have someone there with him when the detectives arrive.”
“The only attorney we have right now is the guy who was representing us in the custody case against Rosemary. It turns out he was the next best thing to useless.”
Amy and I had been standing in the elevator lobby talking. Tracy came out to where we were. Her light brown hair was still damp from the shower, and she was wearing the jogging suit and tennis shoes she had worn the night before.
“Mom!” she said. “What are you doing here?”
Amy Peters wiped away her tears. Then, with extraordinary effort, she somehow marshaled a semblance of composure onto her face. “Dad sent me to pick you up,” she said calmly.
No wonder men never know what to expect from women. They can change courses like that in a matter of seconds and never miss a beat. And girls can do the same thing. I couldn’t tell if Tracy bought into her stepmother’s “everything’s okay” act. If not, she certainly pretended to.
“How mad is he?” Tracy asked.
Amy shrugged. “Medium.”
Tracy stood for a moment, looking back and forth between Amy and me. I imagine Tracy was expecting a bawling-out. When one wasn’t forthcoming, Tracy tackled the issue head-on. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I did it?”
“I’m sure you had a good reason,” Amy said. Then she added, “Come on. Let’s go. I’m already late for work.”
As the elevator doors closed behind them, I went back into my condo, shut the door, and went straight to the telephone. I picked up the receiver and then stood staring at it as though I’d never encountered one before-as though the telephone were some alien instrument I had no idea how to operate.
Never before in my life have I faced such a clear division between friendship and duty. What I had told Amy was true. As an officer of the court I had no alternative. I had to report what she had told me about the dried blood in the trunk of Ron’s car. But as his friend, I wanted him to have some kind of qualified legal representation available the next time an investigating officer rang his doorbell, search warrant in hand.
Friendship won out. I dialed Ralph Ames’s home number in West Seattle. “Glad to hear you’re in town,” I said when he answered.
“I’m not,” he returned. “With all this snow on the ground, why aren’t I down in Scottsdale playing golf?”
“There’s no explaining some people,” I told him.
“This doesn’t sound like a social call,” Ralph said. “Is something wrong?”
My words may have been normal enough, but my voice must have been off. Ralph Ames is better at reading subtext than almost anybody I know.
“I think Ron Peters may be in trouble.” It was a gross understatement, and Ralph picked up on it immediately.
“What kind of trouble?” he asked.
“His former wife died over the weekend,” I told him. “She was murdered. Ron found out about it yesterday. He and Rosemary had been involved in a custody dispute that had turned ugly. He admitted to having said some things that might have been interpreted as threatening.”
“That’s troublesome,” Ralph said. “But those things happen all the time in disputed custody cases.”
“But there’s more,” I added. “And it gets worse. Amy stopped by here just a few minutes ago. This morning she was looking for something in the trunk of Ron’s car and came across what she’s sure is dried blood. Lots of dried blood.”
“Has anybody questioned him about this or taken him into custody?” Ralph asked.
“Not officially. He said the Tacoma PD cops who came to do the next-of-kin notification yesterday afternoon asked him a lot of questions. They’ll be asking more as soon as I tell them about the blood.”
“And you are going to tell them?”
“Of course I’m going to tell them,” I said. “I’ve got to. And it’s going to put me in a hell of a bind. A homicide involving officer-related domestic violence? The case will come straight to Special Homicide. It’s official state law. I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t end up being assigned to Squad B.”
“Assigned to Squad B, but not to you personally, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“What do you want me to do?” Ralph asked.
“Call Ron up. Tell him a little birdie suggested you stop by. Or tell him straight out that I asked you to touch bases with him. Tell him I wanted him to have an attorney waiting in the wings in case one was needed. And believe me, one will be needed. I’m guessing someone will show up at his place with a search warrant within the next couple of hours.”
“You’re going to call in the report right now?” Ralph asked.
“As soon as I’m off the phone with you.”
And that’s what I did-called my office. When Harry I. Ball answered the main number, I knew Barbara Galvin hadn’t made it in.
“I suppose you’re calling to tell me you’re snowbound,” Harry observed once he knew who was calling. “That little ‘Porsh’ of yours may be cute as all get-out, but it isn’t worth beans in the snow. If a few more people around here had four-wheel drive, I wouldn’t be here holding down the fort all by myself.”