"Never."
Peters passed me the picture again. I examined it more carefully this time, looking at it less for its shock value than as an integral part of the puzzle that marked the end of Darwin Ridley's life.
I studied the background of the picture. Definitely a motel, and not a particularly classy one at that. The picture had evidently been taken through a window from outside the room. I don't know a lot about cameras, but I recognized this was no Kodak Instamatic. The clarity of detail, the finite focusing even through glass said the picture had been taken with topflight equipment. Scrutinizing the background of the picture, I wondered if someone in the crime lab could blow the photo up large enough to read the checkout information in a framed holder on the room door behind the fondly embracing twosome.
"Could we take the picture, Joanna? It would help if we knew where and when this was taken. And by whom."
All the fight had been taken out of her, all her strength. She nodded in agreement.
"Did you have separate checking accounts?" Peters asked suddenly. "Checking accounts or charge cards, either one?"
"No." Joanna looked genuinely puzzled. "Why?"
"He had to pay for motel rooms some way or other. Do you mind if I look through his desk?"
"Go ahead."
Peters went to the little study, leaving Joanna and me alone. "Had you been planning to divorce your husband before the phone call?" I asked.
Joanna shot a darting look in my direction. "We were having a baby," she replied, leaving me to draw my own conclusions.
"But you believed the man who called you. Instantly. Even before he sent you the photograph."
"It wasn't the first time," she said quietly.
"Another cheerleader?" I asked.
"I don't know. I don't care. Maybe the same one. It doesn't matter. The marriage counselor said Darwin was going through a mid-life crisis, that he'd get over it eventually if I was patient."
A part of me objected to the term mid-life crisis. It's a handy rationalization that covers a multitude of sins. I've used it myself on occasions, some of them not very defensible. "Counselor?" I asked.
"We went to the counselor together, last year, a lady family therapist. I could tell something was wrong, but I didn't know what it was. All I knew was that I wanted to stay married. Being married was important to me."
"And in the course of counseling you found out your husband was having an affair." It's an old story.
She nodded. "He promised he'd break it off. He said it was over, and I believed him."
"And you decided to have a baby to celebrate," I added.
"We both wanted one," she said. "We had been trying for years. It was an accident that I turned up pregnant right then. Besides," she added, "I thought a baby would bring us closer together."
The look on her face, far more than what she said, told me exactly how badly Joanna Ridley had been taken in by the old saw that babies fix bad marriages. It certainly hadn't worked in this case. My heart went out to the lady who would be raising her child alone.
Sometimes, life isn't fair. Make that usually.
The doorbell rang, and Joanna hurried to answer it. Meanwhile, Peters returned from his examination of the desk. "Nothing there," he said.
Joanna ushered a heavy-set woman into the room. She was evidently a neighbor. In one hand she held a huge pot that contained an aromatic stew of some kind. In her other hand she carried a napkin-covered plate heaped high with some kind of baked goods. She glared at us, making it clear that we were unwelcome interlopers.
"You have anything to eat today, Joanna, honey?" she asked, still glowering at us, but speaking to Joanna.
"No, I…" Joanna trailed off.
"Now you listen to Fannie Mae, girl. You got to keep up your strength, for you and that baby. I'll just put this food in the kitchen." She bustled out of the room. Joanna returned to the couch.
"What did you do after you left the Coliseum?" Peters asked as soon as she sat back down.
Joanna regarded him coolly. "I drove to Portland," she replied.
" Portland, Oregon? Why?"
"To see my father."
"And did you?"
Joanna's eyes never strayed from Peters' face. "No. I drove past the house, but I didn't go in."
"Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You left the Coliseum after talking to your husband, drove all the way to Portland to talk to your father, and then didn't go in to see him once you got there?"
"That's right."
"Why not?"
"Because I changed my mind. I realized I'd never go through with it, the divorce, I mean."
If I had been trying to sell Peters Fuller Brushes right then, I would have known I'd blown the sale. He lay his finger next to his nose, the palm of his hand covering his mouth. He wasn't buying Joanna's story. Not any of it.
"What time did you get back?" I asked, stepping into the conversation.
"Midnight. Maybe later."
"Did you see anyone along the way? Someone who would be able to say that they saw you there during that time?"
She shrugged. "I stopped for gas in Vancouver, but I don't know if anyone there would remember me."
"What kind of station, Joanna?" I prompted. "Can you remember?"
"A Texaco. On Mill Plain Road."
"How did you pay? Credit card? Cash?"
"Credit card. I think I used my VISA."
"Could you give us that number?"
Joanna retrieved her purse from a table near the front door where she had left it when she first entered the house. As we had talked, there had been sounds of activity in the kitchen. Now Fannie Mae reappeared, carrying a tray of coffee cups, a pot of coffee, and a plate of homemade biscuits. Joanna dictated the number to Peters while I helped myself to coffee, biscuits, and honey. Naturally, Peters abstained. Health-food nuts piss me off sometimes.
Within minutes several other visitors showed up, and it seemed best for us to eave. I wasn't looking forward to being alone with Peters. I figured he'd land on me with all fours. I wasn't wrong.
"You've really done it this time!"
"Done what?" I made a stab at playing innocent.
"Jesus, Beau. We never even read her her rights."
"We didn't need to. She didn't do it."
"What? How can you be so sure?"
"Instinct, Peters. Pure gut instinct."
"I can quote you chapter and verse when your instincts haven't been absolutely, one hundred percent accurate."
I could, too, but I didn't tell Peters that. Instead, I said, "Ridley was too big. With the morphine, he would have been all dead weight. She couldn't have strung him up, certainly not in her condition."
"She could have had help."
"She didn't."
Peters wasn't about to give up his pet suspect. "What about her father? The two of them could have done it together. She said she got back around midnight. The coroner said he died about two A.M. Portland doesn't give her an alibi, if you ask me."
I thought about Joanna's father, the kindly, stoop-shouldered old man who had let us in the house the day before. "No way," I said. "It's got to be somebody else."
We let it go at that. Neither of us was going to change the other's mind.
Before leaving Joanna's house, we had decided to stop by Mercer Island High School in hopes of determining the identity of Darwin Ridley's cheerleader. With that in mind, I turned off Rainier Avenue onto an on-ramp for I-90. Unfortunately, I had been too busy talking to notice that traffic on the ramp was stopped cold, three car lengths from the entrance.
Unable to go forward or back, we spent the next hour stuck in traffic while workers building the new floating bridge across Lake Washington escorted traffic through the construction, one snail-paced lane at a time.