J. Jance - Trial By Fury

"Here? To the house?"

She nodded. "It was addressed to both of us, so I opened it. I couldn't believe my eyes. Bambi's always been such a good girl."

"Was there anything else in the envelope besides the picture?" I asked. "A note maybe? A demand for money?"

"No. Nothing. Just the picture. That awful picture."

"Where is it now?" Peters inquired.

"It's gone," she replied.

"Gone?"

" Tex told me to get rid of it. I burned it."

"And the envelope?"

"That, too. In the kitchen sink. I ran the ashes down the garbage disposal. That's what it was," she added. "Garbage."

"Let's go back to when you opened the envelope," I put in. "What happened then?"

Madeline Barker took a deep breath. "I was so upset, I didn't know what to do. So I called Tex. At work."

"And what did he do?"

"He came right home."

"To look at the picture?"

"Yes."

"And then what?"

"He went to school to get Bambi. To bring her home."

"He was angry?"

"Angry! He was crazy. Bambi wasn't like Faline. Bambi was never a problem. She was always a good student, always popular, easy to get along with. And then this. I was afraid Tex would have a heart attack over it. He already has high blood pressure, you know."

"What happened when he brought her here?"

"There was a fight, a terrible fight. She said she was going to the game no matter what we said, that we couldn't stop her."

"And that's when he locked her in her room?"

Madeline nodded, then turned an appraising look on me. For the first time I think she realized that we had already heard the story once from Bambi, that we were simply verifying information we already knew.

"Who came up with the idea of sending her to Portland?" I asked.

"I did," Madeline answered firmly. "We've fallen away from the church, but I wanted her away from that man. I wanted her out of town. I called my sister. She's in a convent in Texas. She helped us arrange it."

We didn't stay much longer after that. Madeline Barker had told us as much as she could, or at least as much as she would. There was no need to pressure her any more than we already had.

Once back in the car, Peters turned on the engine, then paused with his hand on the gearshift. "She still thinks Darwin Ridley seduced her daughter." Neither one of us had bothered to mention that it was the other way around.

I shrugged. "It won't be long before she finds out differently, especially with the likes of Maxwell Cole hanging around."

Peters drove us away from the Barker house. "That raises another question, doesn't it?"

"What does?"

"The picture. Why wasn't there a note? That bothers me. Blackmail requires communication-two-way communication. According to what Joanna Ridley told us, there wasn't a note with her picture, either. How can it be blackmail?"

"How should I know? These are a bunch of school kids. Maybe they don't know all the ropes yet. They're just talented amateurs trying to break into the big time."

"They've broken into it, all right," Peters commented grimly. "Murder's pretty big time."

I allowed as how that was true.

Peters drove us to Wheeler-Dealer Barker's Bellevue Ford, which sits on a sprawling piece of real estate smack in the middle of Bellevue 's auto row. The place was actually a total contradiction, a state-of-the-art auto dealership made up to look like an old-time, flagstone ranch house. The lot was lined with log-rail fences, and the salespeople were all decked out in cowboy boots and ten-gallon hats.

Obviously, Tex Barker had brought along the spirit of the Lone Star state as well as his name when he migrated to Washington.

The lady at the receptionist's desk wore a blue gingham outfit that would have been a lot more at home in a square dance convention than in an office. "Can I help you find someone?" she asked in the thick drawl I had expected from Madeline Barker.

"We're looking for Mr. Barker."

"He's on the phone just now, if you care to wait. Can I get you coffee, tea?"

"No, nothing. We're fine."

The waiting area had two genuine brown leather sofas with wheel spokes in the armrests. I hadn't seen one of those since the mid-fifties. I didn't know anybody still made them. The ashtray had a dead scorpion encased in it. I thought those were museum pieces as well.

"You've never seen any of his commercials?" Peters asked as we waited in the showroom full of cars.

"Never," I replied.

"It's interesting," Peters added.

"What is?"

"Now that I've met his wife. He's always offering to throw her in with the deal, if what they've got isn't good enough."

"Are you serious?" I thought about Madeline Barker. She didn't seem like someone who would enjoy that sort of thing, especially living among some of the more rarefied Mercer Island types. With a husband and a father like that, she and Bambi both must have had a lot to live down.

Not one but three hungry salesmen came by to pitch cars to us while we sat there. It was clear this was the good-ol'-boy, let's-go-out-and-kick-tires school of automobile salesmanship. They were particularly interested in pitching a T-bird Turbo Coupe that they all insisted was a "hot little number." I couldn't help wishing we had been driving my Porsche instead of the department's lukewarm Dodge.

Eventually, a door opened and Old Wheeler-Dealer himself sauntered out of his private office onto the showroom floor. He was a tall, handsome man in an aging cowboy way. He wore a dove gray western-style Ultrasuede jacket with a complex pattern embroidered on the front of the shoulders in flashy silver thread and a silver and turquoise bolo tie. His huge ten-gallon hat with its snakeskin band was tipped back on his head. I'm no fashion expert, but I guessed the alligator boots were of the real, rather than imitation, variety.

"How'do, boys. Understand y'all are waitin' for me?" Peters and I nodded. "Interested in one of our fine automobiles, here? We've got some sweet deals, I'll tell you, some really sweet deals."

"We're with Seattle P.D.," I said, handing him my identification. "Homicide. We're investigating Darwin Ridley's murder."

"What's that got to do with me?" Barker stuck out his chin and thrust my ID back into my hand.

"Plenty," I told him. "Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"

"Mind? I most certainly do. I got a business to run here. I can't waste my time answerin' no-account questions." He turned and started back into his office. I reached out and grasped the sleeve of his jacket.

"We've talked to Bambi," I said.

He turned and swung around toward me. "You what?"

"I said, we talked to Bambi. Down in Portland."

"Why, you worthless creep. I'll beat the holy shit out of you." He took a wild swing at me, but Peters caught his fist while it was still in transit. It was the second time that day someone had swung at me and missed. My nose was grateful. So were my front teeth.

"I think we'd be better off discussing this privately, Mr. Barker," Peters suggested.

Barker shook Peters' restraining hand off his arm. "Oh you do, do you? What makes you think I want to talk to you in private or otherwise?"

"It's not a matter of wanting," I told him evenly. "We've seen the picture," I added.

A look of barely controlled fury crossed Tex Barker's face. "Oh" was all he said. He turned away and stalked into his office. Peters and I exchanged glances before we followed him. He stopped at the door, let us into the room, then snarled at the gingham-clad receptionist outside, "I'm not to be disturbed!"

He slammed the door and pushed his way past us into his small but sumptuous office, taking a seat behind a large, imposing desk. He made no suggestion that we be seated. We sat uninvited.