J. Jance - Long Time Gone

“In the other room and still asleep, if the phone didn’t wake her, that is,” I said.

“Wake her up,” Ron told me. “I want to talk to her.”

“I told her you wouldn’t be mad.”

“Well, you were wrong,” he grumbled. “I am mad. With everything else going to hell around here, the last thing I needed was for her to go AWOL.”

“She was scared,” I said.

“Of what?”

“She’s afraid you did it.”

“Did what?”

“She’s afraid you’re responsible for Rosemary’s death.”

This stopped Ron cold. “Tracy thinks I killed her mother?” he asked after a long pause.

“Evidently,” I responded.

It was one thing for homicide detectives from Tacoma to hint around that they suspected Ron Peters of being a killer. Ron already understood that, as far as the investigation was concerned, he, as the ex-husband, was bound to be a prime suspect. I understood that, too. It was quite another thing for him to realize that his own daughter was drawing that same conclusion. The realization did nothing to improve Ron’s frame of mind.

“Let her sleep then,” he said finally. “She isn’t going to school today anyway, but when she wakes up, tell her from me that since she got herself down to your place, she can jolly well get herself home.”

“That’s not going to work,” I said. “The snow accumulation wasn’t that bad when she got here, but she showed up dressed in a jogging suit and tennis shoes. She can’t walk home in that outfit in several inches of snow. I’d be glad to give her a ride, but I put off changing to winter tires too long, which makes my 928 pretty much worthless for driving in snow.”

“Okay,” Ron said. “I guess you’d better wake Tracy up after all. Amy’s outside now, putting chains on the Volvo. I’ll ask her to stop by your place before she goes to work.”

“You’re not going in today?” I asked.

“As of yesterday I’m on bereavement leave,” he answered. His tone was grim.

We both knew that would change. If and when Ron became an acknowledged suspect in the homicide investigation, bereavement leave would become a thing of the past. Paid administrative leave would be more like it-if he was lucky. Unpaid if he wasn’t.

“And it’s just as well,” he added. “I guess I need to start planning Rosemary’s funeral. She’s been estranged from her family for years, so there’s nobody else to do it. But with no way of knowing when the body will be released…Wait a sec. There’s another call coming in. Gotta go.”

Expecting to waken Tracy, I ventured as far as the guest-room door. Before I could knock, I heard a toilet flush and the shower come on. With my houseguest already up and about, I returned to the kitchen and poured another cup of coffee.

The showers in my condo are equipped with demand heaters, which means you can shower until hell freezes over without ever running out of hot water. Tracy, being a typical teenager, was nonetheless prepared to try exhausting the inexhaustible supply of hot water. The shower was still running sometime later when the phone rang again. This time Amy Peters was calling from the security phone on the first level of the parking garage.

“Tracy’s still in the shower,” I told her.

“That’s okay,” she returned. “I wanted to talk to you. Can I come up for a minute?”

“Sure,” I said and buzzed her into the elevator lobby.

After a car accident had left Ron Peters paralyzed from the waist down, he was pretty much lying in a bed of pain and wallowing in self-pity until Amy Fitzgerald walked into his hospital room and into his life. She was there to do physical therapy, but it turned out she performed mental therapy as well.

In the years I had known her, I had never seen Amy Peters upset. She has always struck me as someone with a permanently positive attitude, and she’s mostly unflappable. When she stepped off the elevator that morning, though, I could see she was flapped. Clearly she’d been crying, and she wasn’t over it yet. Was it possible she was this upset over Rosemary’s death?

No, I reasoned silently. More likely she and Ron have had some kind of quarrel .

“Amy,” I said aloud. “What’s wrong?”

She looked around. “Where’s Tracy?”

“Still in the shower.”

“Thank God!” She spoke in an urgent whisper and then took a deep breath. “While I was putting the chains on my car, I got grease on my hands and needed a towel. Ron usually keeps a supply of washrags in the back of his Camry. I opened the trunk and-” Amy stopped speaking. Her face crumpled, letting loose a fresh spate of tears.

“And what?” I demanded.

“There was dried blood inside Ron’s trunk, Beau. Lots of it. Like somebody or something bled out in there.”

I felt like I was in free fall with no parachute. Tracy’s concerns were one thing. Incriminating bloodstains were something else. “Are you sure about that?”

She nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve worked in hospitals all my adult life, Beau. I know dried blood when I see it. What should I do?”

“You have to report it,” I said at once. “It’s as simple as that.”

“But I can’t,” she wailed. “How can I? Ron’s my husband, Beau. I love him. I can’t be the one to turn him in.”

“Then I’ll have to do it,” I said. “I’m a sworn police officer-an officer of the court. I don’t have a choice. Do you have an attorney? Ron should have someone there with him when the detectives arrive.”

“The only attorney we have right now is the guy who was representing us in the custody case against Rosemary. It turns out he was the next best thing to useless.”

Amy and I had been standing in the elevator lobby talking. Tracy came out to where we were. Her light brown hair was still damp from the shower, and she was wearing the jogging suit and tennis shoes she had worn the night before.

“Mom!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Amy Peters wiped away her tears. Then, with extraordinary effort, she somehow marshaled a semblance of composure onto her face. “Dad sent me to pick you up,” she said calmly.

No wonder men never know what to expect from women. They can change courses like that in a matter of seconds and never miss a beat. And girls can do the same thing. I couldn’t tell if Tracy bought into her stepmother’s “everything’s okay” act. If not, she certainly pretended to.

“How mad is he?” Tracy asked.

Amy shrugged. “Medium.”

Tracy stood for a moment, looking back and forth between Amy and me. I imagine Tracy was expecting a bawling-out. When one wasn’t forthcoming, Tracy tackled the issue head-on. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I did it?”

“I’m sure you had a good reason,” Amy said. Then she added, “Come on. Let’s go. I’m already late for work.”

As the elevator doors closed behind them, I went back into my condo, shut the door, and went straight to the telephone. I picked up the receiver and then stood staring at it as though I’d never encountered one before-as though the telephone were some alien instrument I had no idea how to operate.

Never before in my life have I faced such a clear division between friendship and duty. What I had told Amy was true. As an officer of the court I had no alternative. I had to report what she had told me about the dried blood in the trunk of Ron’s car. But as his friend, I wanted him to have some kind of qualified legal representation available the next time an investigating officer rang his doorbell, search warrant in hand.

Friendship won out. I dialed Ralph Ames’s home number in West Seattle. “Glad to hear you’re in town,” I said when he answered.

“I’m not,” he returned. “With all this snow on the ground, why aren’t I down in Scottsdale playing golf?”