J. Jance - Trial By Fury

It was rush hour by the time we were back in traffic. I-90 westbound was reduced to a single lane going into the city. It took us twenty minutes to get off the access road and onto the freeway. Rush hour is a helluva funny word for it. We spent most of the next hour parked on the bridge. I would make a poor commuter. I don't have the patience for it anymore.

Joanna was subdued as we drove. "The funeral's tomorrow," she said finally. "Will you be there?"

"What time?"

"Four," she replied.

"I don't know if I'll make it," I said. "What about the memorial service at school. Will you be going to that?"

"No. I don't think I could face those kids. Not after what happened."

I didn't blame her for that. I would have felt the same way. "If I were you, I don't think I could, either," I told her.

The entire cheerleading squad would probably be there.

Except for one. Bambi Barker.

Joanna Ridley dropped me back at Mercer Island High School a little after seven. It wasn't quite dusk. The only car visible in the school lot was our departmental Dodge. A note from Peters was stuck under the windshield wiper. "See the custodian."

I went looking for one. It took a while, but I finally found him polishing a long hallway with a machine that sounded like a Boeing 747 preparing for takeoff. I shouted to him a couple of times before he heard me and shut off the noise.

"I'm supposed to talk to you."

"Your name Beaumont?" he asked. I nodded, and he reached in his pocket and extracted the keys to the car in the parking lot. "Your partner said you should pick him up at the Roanoke."

It didn't make sense to me. If Peters had gotten a ride all the way to the Roanoke in Seattle, why hadn't he asked Andi Wynn to drop him off at the department so he could have picked up his own car? I was operating on too little sleep to want to play cab driver, but I grudgingly convinced myself it had been thoughtful of him to leave the car. At least that way I'd have access to transportation back downtown.

None too graciously, I thanked the custodian for his help and set off for Seattle. Something big must have been happening at Seattle Center that night. Traffic was backed up on both the bridge and I-5. I finally got to the Roanoke Exit on the freeway and made my way to the restaurant by the same name on Eastlake at the bottom of the hill.

Andi Wynn's red pickup wasn't outside, and when I went into the bar, there was no trace of Peters and Andi inside, either.

"Can I help you?" the bartender asked.

"I'm looking for some friends of mine. Both of them have red hair. A man, thirty-five, six two. A woman about the same age. Both pretty good-looking. They were driving a red pickup."

"Nobody like that's been in here tonight," the bartender reported. "Been pretty slow as a matter of fact."

"How long have you been here? Maybe they left before you came on duty."

The bartender shook his head. "I came to work at three o'clock this afternoon."

I scratched my head. "I'm sure he said the Roanoke," I mumbled aloud to myself.

"Which one?" the bartender asked.

"Which one? You mean there's more than one?"

"Sure. This is the Roanoke Exit. There's the Roanoke Inn over on Mercer Island."

"I'll be a son of a bitch! You got a phone I can use?"

He pointed to a pay phone by the rest room. "Don't feel like the Lone Ranger," he said. "The number's written on the top of the phone, right under the coin deposit. It happens all the time."

Sure enough, the name Roanoke Inn and its number were taped just under the coin deposit. Knowing that I had lots of company didn't make me feel any better. I shoved a quarter into the phone and dialed the number. When someone answered, I had to shout to be heard over the background racket.

"I'm looking for someone named Peters," I repeated for the fourth time.

"You say Peters? Okay, hang on." My ear rattled as the telephone receiver was tossed onto some hard surface. The paging system at the Roanoke was hardly upscale. "Hey," whoever had answered the phone shouted above the din, "anybody here named Peters? You got a phone call."

I waited. Eventually, the phone was picked back up. "He's coming," someone said, then promptly dropped the receiver again.

"Hey, Beau!" Peters' voice came across like Cheerful Charlie. "Where you been? We've been waitin'."

It didn't sound like Peters. "Andi and I just had spaghetti. It's great. Want us to order you some?"

Spaghetti? Vegetarian, no-red-meat Peters pushing spaghetti? I figured I was hearing things. "Are you feeling all right?" I asked.

"Me?" Peters laughed. "Never better. Where the hell are you, buddy? It's late."

Peters is always accusing me of being a downtown isolationist, of not knowing anything about what's on the other side of I-5, of regarding the suburbs as a vast wasteland. I wasn't about to 'fess up to my mistake.

"I've been delayed," I muttered. "I'll be there in a little while."

It was actually quite a bit longer than a little while. I drove and cussed and took one wrong turn after another. The thing I've learned about Mercer Island is that no address is straightforward. The Roanoke Inn is an in-crowd joke, set off in the dingleberries at the end of a road that winds through a seemingly residential area. By the time I got there, it was almost nine o'clock. I was ready to wring Peters' neck.

The building itself is actually an old house, complete with a white-railed front porch. Inside, it was wall-to-wall people. The decorations, from the plastic scenic lamp shades with holes burned in them to the ancient jukebox blaring modern, incomprehensible rock, were straight out of the forties and fifties. I had the feeling this wasn't stuff assembled by some yuppies trying to make a "fifties statement." This place was authentic. It had always been like that.

In one corner came a steady jackhammer racket that was actually a low-tech popcorn popper. I finally spotted Peters and Andi Wynn, seated cozily on one side of a booth at the far end of the room. A pitcher of beer and two glasses sat in front of them. Peters, with his arm draped casually around Andi's shoulder, was laughing uproariously.

I had known Peters for almost two years. I had never heard him laugh like that, with his head thrown back and mirth shaking his whole body. He had always kept himself on a tight rein. It was so good to see him having a good time that I forgot about being pissed, about it being late, and about my getting lost.

I walked up to the booth and slid into the seat across from them. "All right, you two. What's so funny?"

Peters managed to pull himself together. He wiped tears from his eyes. "Hi, Beau. She is." He ruffled Andi Wynn's short auburn hair. "I swear to God, this is the funniest woman I ever met."

Andi Wynn ducked her head and gave me a shy smile. "He's lying," she said. "I'm perfectly serious."

That set him off again. While he was convulsed once more, Andi signaled for the bartender. "Want a beer?"

I looked at Peters, trying to assess if he was smashed or just having one hell of a good time. "No thanks," I said. "Somebody in this crowd better stay sober enough to drive."

The bartender fought his way over to us. I ordered coffee and, at Peters' insistence, a plate of the special Thursday night Roanoke spaghetti. The spaghetti was all right, but not great enough to justify Peters' rave review. I wondered once more exactly how much beer he had swallowed.

"What's going on?" Peters asked, getting serious finally. "It took you long enough."

"We found something in Joanna's car," I said. "I took it down to the crime lab."

Peters frowned. "What was it?"

I didn't feel comfortable discussing the case in front of Andi Wynn. "Just some stuff," I told him offhandedly. "Maybe it's important, maybe not."