"I wouldn't call her a girlfriend exactly. It's someone he just met this week. A teacher."
"What'd he do, start hanging out in singles' bars?"
"When would he have time for singles' bars? He met her at work."
"Really?"
"Where else? You don't find single women hanging out at Brownie meetings or in the grocery store."
"I heard otherwise," Ames commented. "Someone told me the best place for meeting singles is in the deli sections of supermarkets."
"I wouldn't know. I haven't tried it. Do you want coffee or not?"
"Please," Ames said.
Despite what I had told Mrs. Edwards, I didn't try calling anybody. Ames and I each drank a cup of coffee. I expected the phone to ring any minute. I figured Peters had ended up spending the night with Andi Wynn and had planned to sneak back into the house early before anyone woke up. He had probably reckoned without the Saturday morning cartoons, however, which start the minute "The Star-Spangled Banner" ends. Even kids who have to be dragged out of bed by the heels during the week manage to rise and shine in time for their Saturday morning favorites.
Two cups of coffee later I dialed Ron Peters' number again. Maxine Edwards answered. "Oh, it's you," she said, sounding disappointed when she recognized my voice. In the background, I heard a whining child.
"No, Heather, it's not your daddy," Mrs. Edwards scolded. "Now go away and let me talk to Detective Beaumont."
At that Heather pitched such a fit that eventually Mrs. Edwards gave in and put the girl on the line.
"Unca Beau," Heather said in her breathless, toothless six-year-old lisp. "Do you know where my daddy is?"
"No, Heather, I don't. But I can probably find him. Have you eaten breakfast?"
"Not yet."
"Well, you go eat. I'll make some phone calls."
"Do you think he's okay?"
"Of course he's okay. You just go eat your breakfast and do what Mrs. Edwards tells you, all right?"
"All right," she agreed reluctantly. It was clear Maxine Edwards had her hands full.
"Put Mrs. Edwards back on the phone," I ordered. In a moment the baby-sitter's voice came on the line. "I still haven't found out anything," I told her. "But I'll let you know as soon as I do."
When I hung up, I dialed the department. The motor pool told me Peters had turned his vehicle back in at nine the previous evening. That didn't help much.
I headed for the shower. "What are you going to do?" Ames asked me on my way past.
"Go and see if his car is still in the parking garage down on James."
"Wait for me. I'll go along."
It turned out the Datsun was there. It sat, waiting patiently, in a tiny parking place up on the second floor of the parking garage. So much for that. Wherever Peters was, he wasn't driving his own car.
I walked back down the ramp of the garage to where Ames waited in the Porsche.
"It's here," I told him.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know."
"What are you going to do now?"
"Check in with the department and see if he stopped by his desk when he dropped off the car."
He hadn't. Or, if he had, he had left nothing showing on his desk that gave me a clue about his next destination. I paused long enough to try checking with a couple of night-shift detectives to see if they had seen Peters.
To begin with, you don't call guys who work night shift at ten o'clock in the morning unless you have a pretty damn good reason. I got my butt reamed out good by the first two detectives who told me in no uncertain terms that they hadn't seen anything and wouldn't tell me if they had and why the hell was I calling them at this ungodly hour of the morning.
The third one, a black guy named Andy Taylor, is one of the most easygoing people I've ever met. Nothing rattles him, not even being awakened out of a sound sleep.
"Ron Peters?" he asked once he was really awake. "Sure, I saw him last night. He came in around nine, maybe a little later."
"Was he alone?" I asked.
Andy laughed. "Are you kiddin'? He most certainly was not."
"He wasn't?"
"Hell no. Had some little ol' gal in tow. Looked like the two of them were havin' a great time."
"Auburn hair? Short?" I asked.
"You got it."
"And did Peters say if they were going anywhere in particular?"
Again Andy laughed. "He didn't say, but I sort of figured it out, if you know what I mean."
"Yes," I said. "I guess I do."
"How come you're checkin' on him, Beau? You afraid he's gettin' some and you're not?"
"Up yours, Taylor," I said, then hung up.
While I was using the phone at Peters' desk, Ames had been sitting at mine, listening with some interest to my side of the conversation. "So where's our little lost sheep?" he asked when I put the phone down.
"Being led around by his balls," I replied.
"Is that what you're going to tell Maxine Edwards?" I looked at Ames. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"No, God damn it. That's not what I'm going to tell Mrs. Edwards."
"What then?"
"That he's working and he'll call as soon as he can."
I did just that, punching Peters' telephone number into the receiver like I was killing bugs. Mrs. Edwards answered after only one ring. She must have been sitting on top of the phone. "Hello."
"Hi, Mrs. Edwards. Beau here. I haven't located Peters yet, but I understand he's working. He'll call home as soon as he can."
"And I should just stay here with the kids?"
"Why not take them to a movie. It'll get their minds off their father."
"That's a good idea. Maybe I'll do just that."
As I stood up to leave, Ames handed me a yellow message sheet that he had plucked off my desk. "Did you see this?" he asked.
The message was from Don Yamamoto in the crime lab, asking me to call. I did. Naturally, on Saturday morning, Don himself wasn't in. The State Patrol answered and tried to give me the runaround. When I insisted, they agreed to have Don Yamamoto call me back.
"It's about the flour container," he said when we finally made the connection.
"What about it?"
"We got a good set of prints off Ridley's belt and also off the inside of the flour container. We're sending them to D.C. to see if we can get any kind of match."
"Great," I told him. "That's good news."
When I hung up the phone the second time, I told Ames what the crime lab had said as we marched out of the office.
Despite the good news from Yamamoto, I was still mad enough to chew nails. It was one thing if Peters wanted to get his rocks off with someone he had just met. I didn't have any quarrel with that. Peters' sex life was none of my concern, one way or the other. What burned me was that he had been so irresponsible about it. If not irresponsible, then certainly inconsiderate. Mrs. Edwards was upset. His kids were upset. So was I for that matter.
The least he could have done was call home, give some lame excuse or another, and then go screw his brains out. That way I wouldn't have been dragged out of a sound sleep and neither would Andy Taylor.
"So where are we going," Ames asked me once he caught up with me on the street. "Back to your place?"
"Not on your life. I'm not going to spend all day sitting there fielding phone calls for some wandering Romeo. And I'm not going to try calling his girlfriend's house, either."
"Why not?" Ames asked.
"Because I don't feel like it. Want to go whack a few golf balls around a golf course?"
Ames stopped in his tracks. "You really are pissed, aren't you? I've never once heard you threaten to play golf before."