J. Jance: Trial By Fury

"Two twenty. Six foot four. Big guy."

"Anything else?" I asked.

Baker lobbed another paper clip into the vase. "The killer took his time. Hanging victims don’t come out squeaky clean. This guy was hosed down before somebody wrapped him up in the tarp."

"Any identification on the tarp?"

"Sure, Beau, the tarp had a goddamned serial number on it! What do you think?"

I shrugged. "It could happen."

"One more thing," Baker added. "We found some flakes in his hair."

"Dandruff?" Peters asked.

Baker glowered. "Blue flakes. We’re sending them down to the crime lab. It could be from whatever the noose was tied off to."

We’d pretty much worn out our welcome with Baker. "Great," I said, getting up. "Let us know if you find out anything more. We’ll do the same."

I led the way. Once outside the building I paused long enough to take the notebook out of my jacket pocket and check my notes. Darwin Ridley’s weight was listed as two ten and his height was listed as six four.

"Well?" Peters asked.

"It’s possible. Weight is off by ten pounds, but lots of folks fudge on weight by a pound or two."

"So what do we do?" Peters glanced at his watch. "We can either go by that address down in Rainier Valley, or we can go back up to Queen Anne and see if any of the residents are home now. Can’t do both. Tracie and Heather have a dental appointment right after work."

"Cavities?" I asked.

"Two each. No perfect checkups in our family. I’ll need to be on the Evergreen Point Bridge by four-thirty to beat the worst of the rush."

By working in Seattle and living on the east side of Lake Washington in Kirkland, Peters seemed to spend the better part of half his life parked on the floating bridges, going in one direction or the other. It was almost three o’clock.

"Let’s go back to Queen Anne and see if we can find out anything more. I can check Ridley out by myself after you leave."

Peters scratched his head. "You know, every time you say that name, it seems like it’s one I should recognize, but I just can’t place it."

"Ridley?"

He nodded. "It’ll come to me eventually."

We walked back to the car. Little patches of midafternoon sun had broken through the clouds and rain. It felt almost like spring as we once more tackled the questioning process on Queen Anne Hill. A few more people were home, but it didn’t do us much good. They hadn’t heard or seen anything unusual, either.

It was frustrating but certainly not unexpected. I decided a long time ago that only people with a very high tolerance for frustration survive as homicide detectives.

I’ve worked Homicide the better part of twenty years. I must qualify.

Peters bailed out of the office at about four-fifteen. Taking kids to dentists was one part of parenthood I had brains enough not to envy. I completed our share of paperwork and handed it over to Margie for typing.

I decided to walk back to my apartment and take my own car down to Rainier Valley to check on Darwin Ridley. People who know Seattle only from television weather reports assume we live under unfailingly gray and dreary skies. The network weather reports never mention that our clouds often burn off during the day, giving us balmy, springlike afternoons, while the rest of the country remains frozen in the grip of winter.

This was one of those afternoons. If it hadn’t been for the departmental issue.38 in my shoulder holster, I would have stripped off my jacket and slung it over my arm as I sauntered down a noisy Third Avenue. From either side of the street and from below it as well came the rumbling sounds of construction, the jackhammer racket of a city changing and growing. Harried pedestrians bustled past, blind and deaf to the process.

I entered the lobby of the Royal Crest and experienced a twinge of regret. Within weeks I’d be moving into a new place at Second and Broad, leaving behind the apartment that had been my haven ever since the divorce. Maybe being over forty makes the prospect of change, even change for the better, extremely uncomfortable.

It was rush hour. Honking horns told me that traffic was heavy everywhere, including the usually free-moving Fourth Avenue. It didn’t make sense for me to leave my apartment and jump into the fray. I wasn’t in that much of a hurry.

Instead, I made a pot of coffee and flopped into my ancient leather recliner, a relic from my first marriage, and the only stick of furniture I had managed to salvage from the house in Sumner when Karen threw me out. The recliner was brown and stained and scarred with years of use-ugly but honest. I had served notice to the interior designer working with me on the new place that where I went, so did the recliner.

With a steaming mug of coffee for company, I settled back to mull the Bailey’s Foods case and try to get a handle on it. Being a detective with Homicide is very much like playing chess with a dozen opponents. The game requires anticipating all the moves, yours and the other players’ as well, without ever getting a clear look at the board or knowing exactly who all the players are.

Was Darwin Ridley the dead man? A routine check of police records had turned up nothing but a couple of unpaid parking tickets. Ridley appeared to be a fairly law-abiding man. The name and address in Rainier Valley provided a very slender lead. Only the slimmest circumstantial evidence suggested we were on the right track. My first move was simple: Ascertain whether or not Darwin Ridley was alive. If he was, that was that, and we could go barking up another tree.

If lightning did strike, however, and it turned out Ridley was our victim, then the game would become infinitely more complicated.

Grieving families must be handled with utmost care, for two reasons. First, the sudden violent death of a loved one is possibly the worst shock a family ever withstands. Survivors are faced with a totally unanticipated death that leaves them with a lifetime of unresolved feelings and unsaid good-byes.

The second reason isn’t nearly as poignant. The killer may very well be lurking among those grieving relatives and friends. Most homicide victims are murdered by someone they know rather than by a total stranger. Separating real grief from phony grief is an art form in its own right.

So I sat there waiting for the traffic to die down and puzzling about an unidentified man by a grocery store dumpster who would never get the chance to flaunt his set of perfect teeth in some old folks’ home. And about a towed Buick Century, sitting forgotten in a corner of the Lincoln Towing lot. And about a man named Darwin Ridley, who was either dead or alive. By six o’clock, I was ready to find out which.

My Porsche was happy to be let out of the garage, but it protested being held to city speed limits. Or maybe it only seemed that way because I was hearing the call of the open road myself and wanted to be on a freeway going somewhere. Anywhere.

I found Ridley’s house with no trouble, a neat, old-fashioned brick Tudor, situated near Lake Washington but minus the high-priced view. There was a two-car carport attached to the house. In it, shining in the glow of an outdoor light, sat a sporty bronze-and-cream Mustang GT. The other half of the carport was empty. Early evening dusk revealed a well-tended front yard, trimmed by a manicured hedge. Several lighted windows in the house indicated someone was home. Pulling into the carport, I parked behind the Mustang.

The house looked peaceful enough, so much so that I almost dreaded ringing the bell. Whatever the outcome, having a homicide detective pay a call tends to disrupt a family’s ordinary evening routine. I more than half wished Darwin Ridley himself would open the door.

He didn’t.