Peters wasn't in the locker room, and neither was Candace Wynn. They had been there, though. At least someone had.
The locker, the one with the list in it, the Mercer Island High School cheerleader trophy list, had been smashed to pieces by someone wielding a heavy object. I could make out only one or two letters from the battered piece of metal that had once been the inscribed ceiling.
"All clear in here, Chief," the leader said into his walkie-talkie. He put the microphone into his pocket, then walked up closer to the damaged locker.
"What do you suppose went on here?" he asked.
"Beats me," I told him. Quickly, I moved away to the other side of the room, out of casual conversation range but close enough to hear him give the all-clear to Chief Sykes via his walkie-talkie. I tried my best to become invisible. Just because Chief Sykes had been kind enough to include me in the operation didn't necessarily obligate me to full disclosure. I didn't want to tell them everything I knew. That locker list might somehow still be useful.
Marilyn Sykes strode into the locker room about that time. She glanced in my direction, then walked up to join the man by the locker. "Vandalism?" I heard her ask.
The man shrugged. "I give up. It's funny, but it looks like this is the only locker that was damaged." For a moment, Chief Sykes gazed at the mangled pile of sheet metal.
"Somebody went to a hell of a lot of trouble to destroy this one," she said. Then she turned to me. "What do you think, Detective Beaumont?" she asked.
Whether or not I wanted to be, she had pulled me back into the conversation. "Do you think this has anything to do with your partner's disappearance?"
By aiming her question directly at me, Chief Marilyn Sykes created an instant moral dilemma. I owed her, goddamnit! She had let me through the barricades onto her turf, and I owed her.
"I'd have the crime lab take a look at it if I were you," I suggested. That let me off the hook without my having to give up too much.
She nodded. "All right."
Wanting to get away quick, before she could ask me anything more, I turned and walked out of the locker room. Halfway down the walkway, I ran headlong into Ned Browning rushing toward the gym. "Hello there, Ned," I said.
He stopped cold when he saw me. He was uncharacteristically agitated. "Oh, yes, Detective…Detective…I'm sorry, I don't remember your name."
" Beaumont," I supplied. "Detective Beaumont."
"You'll have to excuse me. I understand there's been some difficulty in the gym. I'd been trying to get through, but they wouldn't let me until just now. Somebody called me at home when I came back from church."
"Church," I grunted with contempt. "That figures."
Browning started forward again, but I stopped him. "I'm going to want to talk to you, too," I said. "As soon as they finish with you."
"I don't have time, Detective Beaumont. My family is waiting for me. We're having guests."
"I don't give a shit if it's the pope himself, Ned. I want to talk to you alone. About the cheerleading squad, remember them? I'm sure you remember one or two of them fairly well."
An almost audible spark of recognition passed over his face. He paled and stepped back a pace or two. "What do you mean?"
"Don't play dumb. You know what I mean," I said menacingly. "I'll wait for you at Denny's, here on the island."
"All right," he said, crumbling. "I'll meet you as soon as I'm finished here."
You're finished, all right, pal, I thought to myself, but I didn't say it aloud. I didn't have to. And I wouldn't have to lift a finger to make it happen, either. Chief Marilyn Sykes and the Washington State Patrol's crime lab would take care of all those little details.
Meanwhile, while Ned Browning still thought there was a way he could wiggle off the hook, while he still thought there was a way to save his worthless ass and his career, I'd play him for all he was worth, see if I could wrangle any helpful information out of his scared little hide.
That's one thing I've learned over the years. If you have the slightest advantage, use it. And don't worry about it after you do.
Creeps don't have any scruples.
Cops can't afford them.
CHAPTER 28
When I walked back to the Porsche, old man trouble himself, Maxwell Cole, stood slouching against the door on the driver's side.
"Get away, Max. You'll scratch the paint," I told him.
He didn't move. "Hey, there, J. P. How's it going?"
"Get out of the way. I don't have time to screw around with you." Bodily, I shoved him aside far enough so I could put my key in the lock.
"I'll bet it is Peters, isn't it? That's the rumor, anyway," he said, grinning slyly under his handlebar mustache. "I mean, he's not here, and you are. Same thing happened last night, over in Fremont, or so I hear."
"Will you get the fuck out of my way?"
"And what's the teacher's name? Candace Wynn, isn't that it?"
"I'm not talking. Leave me alone, Max."
"I won't leave you alone. I want to know what's going on. Why won't they release any names? All Arlo Hamilton does is read prepared speeches that have nothing to do with what's going on. I want the scoop, J. P., the real scoop."
"You won't get it from me, asshole. Besides, it sounds to me like Hamilton is giving you guys just what you deserve."
"What do you mean?"
"What Arlo tells you is bullshit. What you write is bullshit. Sounds like an even trade to me."
Max took an angry step toward me, but thought better of it and stayed out of reach. He glared at me for a long moment before dropping his gaze, his eyes watery and pale behind the thick lenses of his glasses. "You're not going to tell me about Peters, then?"
"You're damn right."
I flung the Porsche's door open, bouncing it off Cole's ample hip for good measure. Just to make the point. He finally moved aside.
The problem with Max is that I'm so used to avoiding him that in the crush of worrying about Peters I had forgotten I needed to talk to him. Instead of starting the car, I got back out. Max moved away from me.
"You leave me alone, J. P."
"Where'd you get the picture, Max?"
"The picture? What picture?"
"The one you wrote about but didn't print. The one of Darwin Ridley and the cheerleader."
He smirked then. "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."
I didn't have time to mess around with him. I turned on my heel and got back in the car.
"All I want to know is if it's Peters or not."
"Fuck you, Max."
He looked offended. "I have other ways of confirming this, you know," he whined.
"So use 'em," I told him. "Be my guest, but you'd damn well better keep your facts straight, because I'll cram 'em down your throat if you don't!"
With that, I started the engine and laid down a layer of rubber squealing out of the parking lot.
I took a meandering route to the Mercer Island Denny's through the maze of interminable road construction that has screwed up traffic there for years. Surprisingly, lots of other people had evidently done the same thing.
The restaurant was busy, jammed with the after-church/Sunday-brunch crowd. I waited almost fifteen minutes before they finally cleared out the line and showed me to a table, a short-legged two-person booth in the center of the room.
During the few minutes I was there alone, I couldn't help reflecting. The last time I had been in the room I was with Peters and Andi Wynn together, that afternoon when we finished questioning the students. That time seemed years ago, not days. Since then, my life had been run through a Waring blender. Fatigue and worry weighed me down, threatening to suck me under and drown me.
Then Ned Browning entered. He rushed through the door and stopped abruptly by the cash register to look for me. Now, starting forward again, he slowed his pace, walking deliberately and with some outward show of dignity, but nothing masked the agitation that remained clearly visible on his face.