J. Jance - Trial By Fury

Throughout the year, concerned citizens and frustrated artists make additions and corrections by adding seasonal touches to the statues' costumes. That day, they all wore emerald green full-length scarves.

I expected Candace Wynn to drive up in her red pickup. Instead, she arrived on foot, walking the wrong way up a one-way street. The Fremont Bridge, a drawbridge, was open. Candace darted through stopped vehicles to cross the street to the restaurant.

Her outfit wasn't well suited for visiting invalid relatives. She wore frayed jeans, a ragged sweatshirt, and holey tennis shoes. Sitting down, she ordered coffee.

"I'm in the process of moving," she explained, glancing down at her clothes. "The house is a mess, or I'd have invited you there."

"You live around here?" Peters asked.

She pointed north toward the Ship Canal. "Up there a few blocks, in an old watchman's quarters. View's not much, but I couldn't beat the rent. I'm moving back home, though, at the end of the month."

"Back home with your mother?"

She nodded.

"How is your mother?" I asked. "I understand she's very ill." Sometimes it surprises me when the niceties my own mother drilled into my head surface unconsciously in polite company.

Candace Wynn's freckled face grew serious. "So, so," she said. "It comes and goes. She's got cancer. She's back in the hospital right now. I'll be home to help her when she gets out. I was up with her all last night and couldn't face going to school this morning. Once I woke up, though, I decided to tackle packing. It was too nice a day to waste."

I had to agree with her there. If you've ever spent time with a cancer patient, you should know better than to squander a perfect day being miserable over little things like stalled traffic.

Somehow I had forgotten. I had spent the day blind to blossoming cherry trees and newly leafing trees. It took Andi Wynn's casual remark to bring me up short, to make me remember.

We had yet to ask her a single question, but already I was prepared to mark the interview down as an unqualified success. Whether or not she identified Mercer Island 's precociously amorous cheerleader.

After the waiter set down her coffee, Candace Wynn took one demure sip and then looked expectantly from Peters to me and back again. "You said you needed to talk to me."

I gave Peters the old take-it-away high sign. After all, Candace Wynn knew Peters somewhat better than she knew me. Besides, Peters' earnest, engaging manner encouraged people to spill their guts. I had seen it happen.

"That's right; we do," Peters said. "How long have you been at Mercer Island?"

"Ten years."

"All that time as counselor?"

"No. I've only been in the counseling department for the last year and a half. Before that, I taught math."

"And what about the cheerleaders?"

"I've had them the whole time. I was a cheerleader at Washington State in Pullman." She stopped and gave Peters an inquiring look. "I thought this was going to be about Darwin."

"It is, really, in a roundabout way," Peters said. "You told us yesterday that you were a friend of his. How good a friend, Mrs. Wynn?"

"Andi," she reminded him. She shrugged. "Fairly good friends. When I started teaching there, a bunch of us used to play crazy eights in the teachers' lounge in the morning-Coach Altman, Darwin, and a couple of others. You get to be friends that way."

"Playing cards?"

"That's right. And in the afternoons, some of us would stop by the Roanoke and play a few games of pool."

"Including Darwin Ridley and yourself?" Peters asked.

Andi nodded. "Yes."

"Did you know anything about his personal life?" Peters continued.

"Some, but not very much."

"Have you ever met his wife, Joanna?"

"No. I never even saw her. She didn't come to school, and she never showed up at any of the faculty functions, at least not any of the ones I went to."

"And she never came to the Roanoke?"

"No."

"Did you know she's pregnant?"

Andi looked at Peters. She seemed a little surprised. "Is she? I didn't know. That's too bad," she said.

Peters nodded in agreement. "Yes, it is. Did Darwin ever indicate to you that his marriage was in trouble?"

Andi Wynn sipped her coffee and considered the question before she answered. "I remember him mentioning that they were going for marriage counseling. That was some time back. A year ago, maybe a year and a half. He never said anything more about it. Whatever the problem was, they must have straightened it out."

I was growing restless, sitting on the sidelines. "Tell us about your cheerleading squad," I said.

"The cheerleaders? What about them?"

"Give us an idea of who they are, what they're like."

"They're mostly juniors and seniors…" she began. Then she stopped and looked at Peters. "You talked to most of them yesterday. What more do you need to know?"

"Most?" Peters focused in on the important issue. "I only met most of them? Where were the others?"

"Two were missing. One was home sick. She has mono. The other quit, transferred to a different school."

Peters had gotten out his notebook and flipped through several pages. "What are their names?" he asked, his pen poised above the paper.

"Those who weren't there yesterday?" Peters nodded in reply. "Amy Kendrick and Bambi Barker."

"Bambi? As in Walt Disney?"

"That's right."

"Which one has mono?" Peters asked.

"Amy."

"So Bambi transferred to another school," I said. "Recently?"

"Monday of this week."

"What is she, a junior?"

Andi Wynn shook her head. "A senior."

"And she's transferring this late in her last year? What's her problem? Flunking out? Having trouble with grades?"

"No, nothing like that. Her father just up and shipped her off to a private school in Portland, a boarding school."

"Which one?" Peters asked, still holding his pen.

Andi frowned. "St. Agnes of the Hills. I think that's the name of it."

Peters wrote it down. "Do you have any idea why she was sent away?" he asked.

"Not really. Her father's Tex Barker, though."

Peters dropped his pen on the table. The name meant nothing to me, but I saw the spark of recognition flash in Peters' eyes. "Wheeler-Dealer Barker?"

"That's the one."

I was tired of sitting on my hands. "Who the hell is Wheeler-Dealer Barker?"

"Beau here doesn't watch TV, Andi," Peters explained with a smile. Andi Wynn smiled back.

"Okay, you two. Stop making fun of me. Who's this Barker character?"

"He runs Tex Barker Ford in Bellevue," Peters told me. "His commercials are reputed to be some of the worst in the country."

"That bad?"

Peters and Andi nodded in unison. "Somebody gives out awards for the worst television commercials. It's like Mr. Blackwell's worstdressed list. Barker won one last year, hands down."

"What else do you know about him?" I asked. Because of Peters' voracious reading, he always seemed to know something about practically everything. Wheeler-Dealer Barker was no exception.

"He came up here from Texas four, maybe five, years ago and bought up a failing Ford dealership on auto row in Bellevue. Within months, he had moved it from the bottom of the heap to one of the top dealerships."

"So the commercials haven't hurt him."

"Are you kidding? He's like that character with his dog Spot, one of those guys people love to hate, but they do business with him right and left. I understand he's made offers on two more dealerships, one in Lynnwood and the other down in Burien."

"And he lives on Mercer Island?" I asked, turning once more to Candace Wynn. "How did the daughter of someone like that fit in on Mercer Island?"

"Bambi landed in the in-crowd and stayed there. She never had any problem."