J. Jance: Trial By Fury

Instead, an attractive black woman, still puffing with exertion, came to the door. Her hair was held back by a purple sweatband. A fine film of perspiration beaded her upper lip.

She flung open the door angrily, as if expecting someone she knew but wasn’t too happy with. Then, seeing a stranger, she slammed it almost shut.

"Yes?" she asked guardedly through the crack.

"I’m Detective Beaumont, Seattle P.D." I held my ID up to the open slit of the door. "Are you Joanna Ridley?"

There were long, brilliantly colored fingernails on the hand that took my ID into the house and then passed it back to me without opening the door further. "What do you want?"

"I was hoping to speak to your husband."

"He’s not here."

"Do you know when he’ll be back?"

"No."

She wasn’t exactly brimming over with spontaneous information. "Could I speak with you then, Mrs. Ridley?"

Reluctantly, she inched the door open a little wider. In the glow from the porch light, she looked up at me defiantly, her full lips pursed, eyes smouldering. Her hair was pulled back from a high, delicately curved forehead. I was struck by her resemblance to that classic bust of Nefertiti I had seen when it came through Seattle with the King Tut exhibit years ago.

Joanna Ridley was an exotic beauty, with wide-set eyes glowing under magenta-shaded lids. Her look of absolute disdain brought me back to earth in a hurry.

"Why do you want to talk to me?" Her arch tone was almost a physical slap in the face.

"We’re conducting an investigation, Mrs. Ridley. It’s important that I talk to you."

"I suppose you want to come in?"

"Yes."

She stepped aside to allow me inside. My gaze had been riveted to her face. It was only when I looked down to gauge the step from the porch up into the house that I realized one of her hands rested on a wildly protruding tummy. Joanna Ridley was more than slightly pregnant. She was very pregnant.

She wore a huge pink sweatshirt that hung almost to her knees. An arrow pointed downward from the neck, and the word Baby was emblazoned across the appropriate spot. Her legs, what I could see of them, were well-shaped and encased in a pair of shiny, royal blue leotards. Joanna Ridley was the complete technicolor lady.

Padding barefoot ahead of me, she led the way into the living room. A rubber exercise mat lay in the middle of the floor. On the VCR a group of blurred aerobic exercisers were frozen in midair. She switched off the VCR and the screen went blank. I wondered if unborn babies liked aerobics, if they were willing or unwilling participants in America ’s latest health-nut fad.

Joanna Ridley spun around to face me. Her question was terse. "What do you want?"

"Do you have any idea how we could reach your husband?"

"No."

"Has he been gone long?"

Some of the defiance left her face. Awkwardly, she squatted down beside the exercise mat, folded it, picked it up, and wrestled it behind the couch. Once more her hand returned unconsciously, protectively to the swell of baby in her abdomen. I got the distinct impression she was avoiding the question.

"A couple of days," she said evasively.

"How long?" I insisted.

"I saw him last Friday morning, at breakfast, before he left for school. He’s a teacher. A coach for Mercer Island High School."

"He’s been gone since Friday and you haven’t reported him missing?"

She shrugged. "He lost."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The game. The Islanders lost Friday night. The first round of the championship. He’ll come home when he’s good and ready."

"He does that? Just disappears?"

She nodded. "When they win, he celebrates. When they lose, it’s gloom and doom. He hides out afterward. He usually doesn’t miss school, though," she added.

"He did today?"

Joanna Ridley turned her back on me and walked to the couch. She sat down, curling her legs under her in a way that should have been impossible for someone in such an advanced stage of pregnancy. Maybe doing aerobics does make a difference. Uninvited, I helped myself to a chair.

She took a deep breath. "They called looking for him. Left a message on the machine. I didn’t return the call."

There was a brief silence between us while I wondered exactly how pregnant she was and whether the female reproductive system would withstand the shock my intuition told me was coming. If Darwin Ridley was missing, had been since Friday, I had a feeling I knew where he was, and I didn’t know how she’d take it.

Looking for a way to delay or soften the blow, I cleared my throat. "As I said, Mrs. Ridley, we’re conducting an investigation. Would you happen to have a recent photograph of your husband?"

Despite her bulging center of gravity, Joanna Ridley gracefully eased her way off the couch. She left the room and returned a few moments later carrying an eight-by-ten gilt-framed photograph, which she handed to me. Staring back at me was a good-looking middle-aged man with a sprinkle of gray in his curly hair. His mouth was set in a wide grin. With perfect teeth.

"It’s a good picture," I said.

She took it back from me and examined it closely herself, as though she hadn’t looked at it for a long time. "It is, isn’t it."

"Did your husband ever have any kind of surgery?"

She looked at me thoughtfully, considering before she answered. "On his knee," she said at last. "An old football injury."

"Right or left?"

"Left." Suddenly, she seemed to lose all patience with me and my apparently inane questions. "Are you going to tell me what’s going on?"

"Mrs. Ridley, I’m sorry to have to say this, and at this point let me stress that we’re not sure, but we have reason to believe your husband may be the homicide victim who was found on Queen Anne Hill early this morning."

Her slender fingers tightened around the picture frame, gripping it until the knuckles showed light against the darker skin. She stepped backward, sinking heavily onto the couch.

I hurried on. "We need someone to make a positive identification. This afternoon we discovered that over the weekend your husband’s car was towed away from the same parking lot in which the victim was found."

"You think he’s dead?" She choked over the last word.

"As I said, Mrs. Ridley. We’re not sure. From looking at the picture, I’d say it was the same man, but that doesn’t constitute a positive identification. There’s certainly a strong resemblance."

She leaned back against the couch, resting her head on the wall behind her, closing her eyes. Her breathing quickened. I was afraid she was going to faint. Alarmed, I got up and went to her.

"Are you all right, Mrs. Ridley? Can I get you something? A glass of water? Something stronger?"

She looked up at me through eyes bright with tears. "Where is he?"

"The medical examiner’s office. Harborview Medical Center."

"And you came to take me there?"

I nodded. "If you’re up to going. You could send someone else-a relative, a close friend. A person in your condition…"

She stood up abruptly. "I’ll go."

"You’re sure it won’t be too hard on you?"

"I said I’ll go," she repeated.

She paused by the door long enough to pull on a pair of leg warmers and some short boots. She draped a long yellow wool shawl over her shoulders. "I’m ready," she said.

Outside, I helped her into my car. Sports cars are not built with pregnant ladies in mind, whether or not they do aerobics. There was absolute silence between us during the drive to Harborview. She asked no questions; I offered no information. What could I say?

A brand new, peach-fuzzed night tech in Doc Baker’s office came out of the back as we entered. "What can I do for you?"

"I’m Detective Beaumont. Seattle P.D. I believe we have a tentative identification on the Queen Anne victim."