J. Jance - Failure to appear

"You maybe, not me," Ralph asserted with a dangerously quiet but determined edge to his voice. His tone more than anything should have alerted me, but I kept after him.

"How'd she do it, Ralph? Hold a gun to your head? What kind of weapon does it take to convince an otherwise intelligent, usually reasonable man to run around tilting at windmills?"

Ames came back and sank down heavily onto the bench beside me. "The woman's a born salesman," he answered forlornly. "Alexis Downey doesn't have a qualm in the world about going straight for the jugular. She used the only argument that was guaranteed to work."

In a pathetic way, he was still trying to joke around about it, but something about his dejected appearance betrayed the fact that he was genuinely disturbed. What was going on?

"Such as?" I pressed. "Tell me. I want to know."

Ralph shook his head. "Forget it. You're not involved. Can't be-not with Fraymore breathing down your neck. It was wrong of me to even bring it up."

And that's when I knew exactly how Alex had done it-as soon as Ralph refused to tell me. The look on his face gave him away.

"Anne Corley?" I asked. "Is that it?" Several years later, my heart still stumbles at the sound of her name. "Alex hit you with Anne?"

Ralph nodded. "She said, ‘You would have defended Anne Corley if they'd arrested her, wouldn't you?' And it's true. I would have. In a minute. You and I both know Anne was guilty. On the face of it, Tanya Dunseth's case is almost the same thing. I'd be a complete hypocrite if I didn't do everything in my power to help. I owe Anne Corley that much."

Ralph didn't add the words "We both do" to the end of his sentence. It wasn't necessary. I supplied them myself. With unerring instinct, Alex had hit on the one sensitive issue guaranteed to grab both Ralph Ames and J.P. Beaumont by the short hairs and haul them into line. Neither one of us had been able to save Anne Corley. I wondered if Ralph really believed he could salvage Tanya Dunseth.

That's when I realized Ralph didn't actually believe Tanya Dunseth was innocent, either. "What do you go for, temporary insanity?"

Ralph frowned. "That might work for Martin Shore because of the movie connection. I'm not so sure about Daphne Lewis. That's one reason I need to talk to Tanya."

We sat without speaking for several long minutes. The door to the hospital lobby opened, and a family of visitors emerged. There was an elderly woman-a grandmother, I suppose-a middle-aged couple, and two adolescent children. They came out wearing the saddened faces and speaking the subdued talk of people who have not received good news. Seeing them reminded me of why I was there.

"What's going on inside?" I asked. "Any word?"

The change of subject helped a little, and Ralph smiled slightly when he answered. "I thought we were going to see some real fireworks."

"Fireworks? Why? What happened?"

"Alex and Karen almost got into it."

"How come?"

"The doctor came out and said that one person could go into the recovery room and sit with Kelly, to be there with her when she started coming out of the anesthetic. Karen got up to go, but Alex suggested maybe Jeremy should. And he did."

I shook my head in disbelief. "You mean Karen actually backed down?"

"That's right," Ralph answered.

I was thankful not to have been caught in the cross fire of that particular skirmish. Sitting on the bench and talking with Gordon Fraymore was grueling enough and not anywhere near my idea of a good time, but being sucked into the brewing power play between Alexis Downey and Karen Beaumont Livingston would have been far worse. For me, anyway.

"Has anyone actually talked to the doctor?"

"He ventured into the waiting room far enough to deliver a prepared-speech-type update to the entire assembly. He seemed aware of the fact that Kelly's visitors come from two entirely separate camps. He talked about a depressed skull fracture and said things were ‘hopeful.' That's a direct quote."

"‘Hopeful' doesn't sound all that good to me," I said gloomily.

"Don't complain," Ralph responded. "It's a whole lot better than ‘hopeless.'"

Point taken and noted. "Hopeless" was a hell of a lot worse, as anyone but a complete jackass would realize.

"Thanks for reminding me," I said. And meant it.

We stayed on the bench a while longer. I didn't say what I was thinking, but Ralph had left me enough room to make up my own mind. Finally, I stood up and started toward the car. Ralph got up to follow. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"I thought you wanted to drive out to Live Oak Farm and see your client," I told him. "If she's home, you'll be better off seeing her there before Gordon Fraymore locks her up in jail."

We reached the Porsche together, but on opposite sides of the vehicle. Ralph caught my eye across the sunroof.

"Thanks for not hassling me about all this," he said. "It doesn't make much sense, but this is something I have to do."

"Don't worry," I said. "I understand."

And I did. Of course the idea of dropping everything to defend Tanya Dunseth was crazy as hell, but Anne Corley still haunted Ralph Ames almost as much as she did me, so I, of all people, was in no position to argue. My mother always warned me about stones and glass houses.

With that we both climbed into the car and slammed our respective doors. Only when we were well down Siskiyou Boulevard did we speak again. "When Fraymore finds out what we're up to, he's going to shit a brick. I probably will end up in jail."

Ralph grinned. "Don't worry," he said, laying on his best lawyerly charm. "If that happens, I'll make you the same deal I'm giving Tanya. Strictly pro bono. I won't charge a dime to bail you out."

"Gee, thanks, Ralph," I told him. "I knew I could count on you." And then we both laughed.

The tension in the car dissipated a little, but not very much, and not for very long. By the time we reached Live Oak Farm, it was back, as strong or stronger than before.

In the first cooling of evening, we stopped beside the uncompleted front steps leading up to the farmhouse. A pair of worn sawhorses stood nearby. An array of power tools lay scattered on the porch. Someone had spent the afternoon actively working on the reconstruction project, although now it was apparently break time. Several new eight-by-twelve support posts were visible underneath the flooring, but the jack still stood in place; the steps remained an unusable skeleton.

Although I could detect no distinct cooking aromas, dining-room-type noises emanated from the open windows as soon as I turned off the car engine. Ralph and I piled out of the Porsche and walked up to the edge of the front porch. Sunshine heaved herself to her feet and walked over to examine us through cloudy, cataract-obscured eyes. From the looks and sound of her, I figured Sunshine wasn't long for this world. The old dog managed only one croaking, halfhearted bark before Marjorie Connors stepped outside.

"Hello, Mr. Beaumont," Marjorie Connors said quite civilly for her. "How's Kelly?"

The woman didn't act as though all was forgiven, but at least she didn't threaten to call the sheriff. That was some small progress.

"Better," I said. "She's out of surgery."

Marjorie nodded. "Good. What can I do for you?"

"We'd like to see Tanya Dunseth, if you don't mind."

Marjorie raised one questioning eyebrow, but she voiced no objections. "We're just now picking up after dinner," she said. "It's cooler out on the back deck. Why don't you wait there? I'll send Tanya out as soon as we finish."

Halfway around the house, we walked past the entrance to that fateful basement. The wooden door was padlocked shut and sealed with strips of yellow crime-scene tape. I kept my eyes straight ahead.

On the back deck, all evidence of the late-morning buffet had been totally erased. Some more or less permanent deck furniture remained, but most of the tables and chairs and all the food, tablecloths, and garlands had disappeared from the face of the earth. It was as though everyone at Live Oak Farm wanted to forget we were all supposed to be down in Lithia Park celebrating a wedding.