We had turned around and were heading back to the department when we met Joanna Ridley's Mustang GT halfway down the block. She was alone in the car.
"We're in luck," I said.
I made a U-turn and parked in the driveway behind the Mustang. When we stepped onto Joanna's front porch, she greeted us with what could hardly be called a cordial welcome. "What do you want?"
"We need to talk."
She stood looking up at us questioningly, one hand resting on the small of her back as though it was bothering her. "What about?"
"About last Friday."
"I've told you everything I know."
"No, you didn't, Joanna. You didn't tell us you had gone to the Coliseum and talked to your husband. In fact, you told us you never went near his games."
Defiance crept across her face. "So I went there to talk to him. What difference does that make?"
"Why did you lie to us? You said the last time you saw him was at breakfast."
She dropped her gaze. With eyes averted, Joanna turned to the front door. She unlocked it, opened it, and went inside, leaving us standing on the porch. Peters and I exchanged glances, unsure whether or not we were expected to follow.
"After you," Peters said.
We found Joanna Ridley sitting on the couch. Her face was set, full lips compressed into a thin line, but there was no sign of tears. Peters sidled into a chair facing her, while I sat next to her on the couch.
"How did you find out?" she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"It doesn't matter. The point is, we know you were there. We have a witness who saw you there. You signed a piece of paper."
She looked at me for a long minute. "The cookies," she said. "I forgot about the cookies. I wrote a check."
Putting her hand to her mouth, she started to laugh, the semihysterical giggle of one whose life has been strung so tight that the ends are beginning to unravel. The giggle evolved into hysterical weeping before she finally quieted and took a deep, shuddering breath.
"I don't know why I'm laughing. I went to tell him I wanted a divorce, and I didn't even do that right," she said finally. "I ended up paying for all those damn cookies."
"You didn't mention a divorce to us before."
"I didn't tell anyone. Why tell? If Darwin was dead, what did it matter?"
"But it could have some bearing on how he died, Mrs. Ridley. Do you mind if I ask why you wanted a divorce?"
"Mind? Yes, I mind."
"But we need to know," Peters insisted. "It could be important."
She sat silently for what seemed like a long time, looking first at Peters then at me. At last she shook her head. " Darwin was screwing around," she whispered. Once more Joanna Ridley began to cry.
Suddenly, I felt old and jaded. It didn't seem like that big a deal. Husbands screw around all the time. And wives put up with it or not, divorce them or not. And life goes on. In most cases.
Darwin Ridley had not survived his indiscretion, however. I wondered if we might not be treading on very thin Miranda ice. We had not read Joanna Ridley her rights. I was beginning to think maybe we should have.
Peters and I waited patiently, neither of us saying a word. Eventually, she quieted, got control of herself.
"Does it have to come out? About the divorce, I mean."
I did my best to reassure her. "We'll try. If it has nothing to do with the murder itself, then there's no reason for it to go any further than this room."
She got up and walked away from us. She stood by a window, pulling the curtain to one side to look out. I knew what she was doing-distancing herself from us while she waged some ferocious internal war. Finally, she turned to face us.
"I guess I could just as well tell you," she said softly. "You'll probably find out anyway. I had a phone call that afternoon, about three-thirty or a quarter to four. From a man. He said I'd better keep that motherfucking son of a bitch away from his daughter."
"Talking about Darwin?"
She nodded.
"That's all he said?"
"No, he said I could tell that black bastard that his daughter wouldn't be at the Coliseum to meet him, that she wouldn't be at the game, and that if Darwin even so much as spoke to her again, he was a dead man."
Stopping, Joanna looked at me, her eyes hollow. "That's the other reason I went to the Coliseum. To warn him."
"I don't suppose the caller left his name and number," I said.
Joanna shook her head. "This came yesterday." Like a sleepwalker, she rose, crossed the room into the little study, opened a desk drawer, and extracted a large manila envelope, which she brought back to me. Her name and address were typed neatly on the outside. There was no return address in the upper left-hand corner. The postmark was illegible.
When I opened it, a single photograph fell out.
At first glance, it seemed to be a picture of a man embracing a woman in what appeared to be a motel room. Closer examination revealed the man to be Darwin Ridley, but the woman wasn't a woman at all. She was a girl. A blonde girl. She was still wearing a bra, but the camera had caught her in the act of slipping out of her skirt. A short, gored, two-toned skirt.
A cheerleader's skirt.
I shook my head and handed the picture over to Peters. He looked at it and dropped the picture on the coffee table like it was too hot to handle.
Captain Powell's sensitive case had just turned into Maxwell Cole's dynamite. I wondered briefly if it was too late to get the captain to put two other detectives on the case instead of us. I didn't think I wanted to be anywhere within range when this particular shit started hitting the fan.
I looked at Joanna Ridley then, standing there with her pregnant silhouette framed against the curtained window, with the muted sunlight filtering through her backlit hair. She was a picture of totally vulnerable, abject despair.
And in that instant, I knew what she was feeling.
She had lost the man she loved, and now even her memories of him were being shredded and torn from her. I knew all too well that sense of absolute loss.
I got up and went to her. Somebody needed to do it, and Peters wasn't going to. He didn't understand what was happening. I reached out for her and held her. She fell against my chest, letting my arms support her, keep her from slipping to the floor. Everything that stood between us, every conceivable barrier, disintegrated as I cradled her against me.
"Did you kill him, Joanna?" I asked, murmuring the question through her hair.
"No, I didn't."
From that moment on, I never doubted for a minute that she was telling the truth.
CHAPTER 11
By the time Joanna drew away from me and I led her from the window back to the couch, Peters was ready to go straight up and turn left. He was there to investigate a homicide, not to offer emotional support and comfort to a bereaved widow, one he considered to be a prime suspect. I couldn't have explained to him what had just happened. I couldn't explain it to myself.
With an impatient frown that was far more exasperation than concentration, he picked up the picture once more and examined it closely. His brows knit.
"Can you tell which cheerleader it is?" I asked him. After all, Peters had been the one who had spent the afternoon interviewing the Mercer Island cheerleaders the day before.
He shook his head. "Not for sure." He glanced at Joanna, who was gradually pulling herself together. "Do you know?" he asked Joanna.
"No." Her voice was flat, her face devoid of expression.
Peters, reluctant to give up that line of questioning, took another tack. "Your husband never mentioned any of the cheerleaders to you by name?"