At first I thought Molly Wright was going to tell me to get lost, and slam the door in my face. Finally she shrugged and emitted a resigned sigh. “Tracy’s here, but Amy’s not.” She stood aside and reluctantly motioned me inside.
“Tracy’s the one I came to see,” I told her. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs in the family room with her brother, watching TV.”
“Good,” I said. “Don’t bother showing me. I know the way.”
CHAPTER 7
As soon as little Jared saw me in the doorway, he launched himself off the couch and clobbered me in the testicles. “Uncle Beau!” he exclaimed as I struggled to catch my breath. “Are you here to help my daddy? That’s what Tracy said-that you’d come help.”
My eyes stopped watering as I wrapped Jared in a tight bear hug and then shifted him onto my hip. “I don’t know how much I can help,” I said. “But I’ll do what I can. How’s your sister doing?”
Tracy was sitting on the couch with a box of tissues in her lap and a pile of used Kleenex on the cushion beside her. She looked at me bleakly and shook her head. “Not very well,” she said.
“You should have seen it,” Jared continued excitedly. “It was just like Cops on TV. They came and put handcuffs on him and everything. Did they take him to jail, do you think? Will they let him out so he can come back home? I want him here. I don’t want him to sleep over.”
Jared’s five-year-old version of the unfolding family tragedy reminded me of Bonnie Jean’s remembrances of that long-ago murder, and it wrenched my heart. This was far more serious than a simple sleepover. Thank God it wasn’t up to me to tell him so. That tough job would fall to Amy.
Tracy cleared away the wad of used tissues so Jared and I could sit down beside her on the couch. “Where’s your mom?” I asked.
“As he was leaving, Dad told me to call Mom and have her get in touch with Ralph Ames. I called her and she called back a little later to say she was meeting him. She didn’t say where.”
“How long ago was that?” I asked.
“A long time,” Tracy said. “Hours.”
I was delighted to hear that Ron had come to his senses as far as calling Ralph Ames was concerned. As for where Mel and Brad had taken him for questioning? My best guess was that they would conduct their interview in the Squad B conference room. They sure as hell couldn’t question the second in command of the Seattle PD Internal Affairs Division in a cop shop interview room in downtown Seattle.
“That’s good news,” I said. “About your mom contacting Ralph, that is. He’s about the best there is.”
The front door slammed. “Tracy?” Heather called. “Where are you?”
“Up here,” Tracy called down. “In the family room.”
Heather was still talking as she pounded up the stairs. “Do you know the front yard is full of reporters? What are they doing out there? Why doesn’t Mom make them leave?” She rounded the corner and stopped just inside the doorway. “Where’s Dad? Some jerk outside told me they’d arrested him. I told him he was a stupid liar.”
I looked at Heather Peters and could barely believe my eyes. Her long blond tresses had been bobbed off. Her natural golden blond had been replaced by a hideously incandescent shade of red. Her shirt ended a good six inches above the dropped waistband of a pair of faded ragtag jeans. Something brilliant winked out at me from her belly button. And she had a nose ring, an honest-to-God nose ring! For all I knew, she probably had a tattoo as well. It just wasn’t visible. What the hell had happened to my sweet little Heather?
Behind her, hanging back in the doorway as if unsure of his welcome, stood a scruffy teenage boy. His hair was dyed the same appalling shade of red as Heather’s, and he wore a matching nose ring. Maybe this was how kids showed the world they were going steady these days-matching hair color and nose rings. In that moment the idea of letting a girl wear a class ring or a letterman’s sweater seemed incredibly old-fashioned and quaint. I was grateful the kid was wearing a knee-length T-shirt. If he had a bauble in his belly button, I didn’t want to see it.
I remembered Tracy saying Heather had a steady boyfriend. And I remembered her mentioning that their parents didn’t like him. No wonder. I couldn’t recall the kid’s name, and we hadn’t yet been introduced, but I didn’t like him either. His appearance didn’t make for a favorable first impression. I’ve had plenty of sensitivity training over the years, complete with talks about not judging people by appearances. That’s fine when appearance issues aren’t ones that come by choice, but defacing your body by adding optional accessories changes the whole equation.
“It’s possible your dad isn’t actually under arrest,” I said, answering in Tracy’s stead. “But they did take him in for questioning.”
Heather came over to the couch and gave me a hug. “Hi, Uncle Beau,” she said, plopping down on the couch and snuggling up next to me. “I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t see your car.”
I would have appreciated the hug more if it hadn’t been accompanied by the distinctively sweetish odor of marijuana smoke. It clung to her clothes and hair. My heart constricted. What had become of my Heather Peters? Halfheartedly returning her hug, I somehow didn’t mention that the reason she hadn’t seen my car was that I had snuck in the back way in order to avoid the very reporters she had just brazened her way through.
“But this is, like, so stupid,” Heather continued. “They think Daddy killed my mother? He wouldn’t do something like that, never in a million years. Can’t you make them understand that?”
If Heather was grieving about the death of her biological mother, it wasn’t apparent in her demeanor. High or not, her main concern was for her father. So was mine.
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
Jared turned to me, his eyes wide. “They think Daddy killed Mom?”
“No, Jared,” Heather answered. “Not Mom, my mother. You don’t even know her.”
Jared looked mystified. “We don’t have the same mother?” he asked.
Obviously, all of this was unwelcome news to poor little Jared. His innocent question meant Amy Peters would have even more difficult explaining to do.
“Oh,” Heather added as an afterthought. She tilted her head in the direction of the boy lingering in the doorway. “By the way, this is Dillon, my boyfriend. And this is my Uncle Beau. He’s a cop, too. Like my dad.”
Dillon nodded at me and shambled a few steps into the room. His hands were buried in pockets that hung so low on his hips he could barely reach them. He sank into an easy chair across from the couch. Heather immediately abandoned me in favor of perching on the arm of Dillon’s chair.
“Where’s Mom, still at work?”
Tracy answered. “She found an attorney for Dad. Remember Mr. Ames?”
Heather nodded.
“She and Mr. Ames went to be with Daddy while they’re questioning him.”
“Just like on TV,” Jared marveled.
“This isn’t like on TV,” I corrected. “It’s a lot more serious than that.”
“But you and Mr. Ames will be able to get him out, won’t you?” Heather asked. Her blue eyes searched my face. I tried to glimpse her pupils, to ascertain whether or not she was using. From across the room, I couldn’t tell, and she certainly sounded lucid enough.
“That’s the problem,” I said. “Your mother’s homicide is being treated as a possible case of officer-related domestic violence. By law, that has to be investigated by the attorney general’s Special Homicide Investigation Team, which happens to be where I work.”
Tracy brightened. “Good,” she said. “That means you’ll be working on Daddy’s case then.”
I shook my head. “No, it means exactly the opposite. Since your father and I are friends, my involvement in the investigation would constitute a conflict of interest. I’ve been ordered to stay out of it completely. I came by here today, against my boss’s direct orders, because we’re friends and because Tracy called and asked for my help. But after this-until this case is settled-I’m going to have to keep my distance.”