Injustice for All (8 page)

“Meaning me?” From someone else, that question might have sounded cynical, but not from Ginger.

I nodded. “Today is the first I’ve felt like my old self. Peters attributed it to my getting enough sleep.”

“That shows how much he knows.”

“He’s young. What can I tell you?”

“And I’m the first, since Anne Corley?”

“Yes. “

“And I was good?” It was a pathetic question. She was looking for the kind of reassurance most women don’t need after age eighteen or so. We were alone in the park. I came around the table and sat behind her, my hands massaging her tight shoulders, rubbing the rigid muscles of her neck. Her body moved under the pressure of my kneading fingers, relaxing as stiffness succumbed to the balm of human touch. “You were terrific,” I whispered in her ear.

She turned to me, two huge teardrops welling in her eyes. “That was stupid. I shouldn’t have asked.”

She leaned against me, and I continued to rub her neck, feeling her tension soften and disappear.

“No one’s ever done that to me before,” she said. “Done what?”

“Rubbed my neck like that.”

I kissed her forehead. “All I can say, sweetheart, is you’ve been married to a first-class bastard.”

Unexpectedly, she burst out laughing. I don’t think anyone had ever referred to Darrell Watkins in quite those terms in her presence. She turned her neck languidly from side to side like a cat stretching in the sun. “That felt good,” she murmured.

We repacked the picnic basket. “Could I stop by your room for a little while before I go? The meeting doesn’t start until eight. ” “Sure,” I said. “By the way, how do you plan to get to that meeting?” She clapped .her hand over her mouth. “I forgot.I don’t have my car. I can probably catch a ride with the van that goes to the ferry.”

“Don’t be silly. Take the Porsche,” I said.

“I couldn’t do that. “

“Oh yes you can.”

It was almost our first quarrel, but finally she knuckled under to my superior intellect and judgment. Besides, I had the clinching argument: by taking my car, she wouldn’t have to leave nearly so early. She capitulated. Who says women can’t be swayed by logic?

And hormones. And expensive toys.

Chapter 11

We took a meandering route. back to Rosario. At one point we paused, laughing, at a large hand-painted sign on a ninety-degree curve that said, “Slow Duck Crossing.”

“Does that mean the ducks are dumb, or are you supposed to slow down?” Ginger asked.

“Possibly a little of both,” I observed, braking to negotiate the narrow corner.

A flurry of yellow slips of paper awaited us at the desk. The first, a message from Huggins, was jubilant. A ticket-seller at the Anacortes ferry terminal remembered Don Wilson as a mid-afternoon walk-on passenger. The evidence was speculative and purely circumstantial, but that gave Wilson opportunity. He already had motive.

Huggins’ second note was more ominous. Results of the autopsy were in. Larson’s cause of death was a blow to the base of the skull with a blunt object. He was dead before he hit the water. The cut on his forehead had occurred after he was dead. The news hit Ginger pretty hard. In addition, her room key had not been found among Sig Larson’s personal effects. A message from Peters said he and Ames were skipping dinner in order to make it back to Orcas. Since the food on the ferries wasn’t fit to eat, he advised me to make dinner reservations for after their arrival. Ginger passed me her own fan-fold of messages, enough to form a formidable canasta hand. Darrell Watkins had called every half-hour. Homer Watkins had called several times. All of the messages, with increasing urgency, said for Ginger to call back.

She returned the calls from my room. I think she wanted the moral support of my presence.

She spoke with Darrell first. He had learned of the impending column in the P.1 and wanted her to retract it. She was adamant. She would stand by every word of the story as written. He threatened to come up. She told him not to bother, that nothing he could say would make her change her mind. The call to Homer was much the same. His attempts at browbeating also came to nothing. I wondered if either of them recognized a subtle shift in her from the day before, an undercurrent of gritty determination.

J. P. Beaumont, posing as Professor Henry Higgins, heard the difference and gave himself a little credit.

Nonetheless, the phone calls had a subduing effect on our high spirits. I think we had intended to take advantage of each other’s bodies before Ginger left, to recapture the magic of commingled enjoyment to last us until she returned from her meeting.

Instead, we sat in my room without even holding hands, talking quietly as the sun went down. I can’t remember now what we talked about. We ranged over a wide variety of topics, finding surprising areas of common interest and knowledge. For someone with little formal education, Ginger was a widely read, challenging conversationalist.

I invited her to join Peters, Ames, and me for dinner after the meeting. She waited until the very last minute to leave for Eastsound, delaying her departure so long that she finally decided to change clothes after the meeting. She was clearly tom between wanting to go to the meeting and wanting to stay with me. I could probably have talked her out of going had I half tried. Out of respect to Sig Larson, I didn’t make the attempt. I walked her to my car. “Be careful,” I said. “That’s a hot little number.”

She smiled. “I’ve driven one before.”

“What time will you be back?”

“Ten. At the latest.”

“I’ll make reservations for then,” I told her. “Kiss me good-bye?” she asked.

I looked around. The parking lot was deserted. As near as I could tell, all the media types, including Maxwell Cole, had abandoned Rosario on the heels of the rest of the parole board, but years of being a cop have made me paranoid about reporters.

I gave her a quick, surreptitious kiss. “Give old Sig a hail and farewell for me too,” I said huskily. I had a lot to thank him for.

“I will,” she whispered and was gone. I went into the bar. Barney smiled when he saw me. “Find that calendar yet?” he asked, bringing me a McNaughton’s and water. “Not yet.”

“You get what you needed from that fat slob last night?” “Yeah,” I answered. “Thanks.”

“All those yahoos went home this morning,” he continued. “They were a bunch of animals, especially that creep, what’shis-name c Dole?” “Cole,” I corrected. “And yes, he is a creep.”

I drank my drink, aware of how much better I felt. Unburdening myself to Ginger had somehow lifted the pall that had paralyzed me since Anne Corley’s death. I set down my empty glass and pushed back the stool. “Only one?” Barney asked, surprised.

“Later,” I told him. “I’ve got places to go, people to meet. ” In actual fact, I went back to my room for the second shower and shave of the day. I dressed carefully.

I wanted Ginger to see me at my best, wearing one of the hand-tailored suits Ames had insisted I purchase. At nine forty-five I went back to the lobby. “Oh there you are,” the desk clerk said. “I just this minute had a call for you.” He handed me a slip of paper with Homer Watkins’ name and number on it. “He called for me, not Mrs. Watkins?” I asked. “He was very specific,” the clerk assured me. I walked to the pay phone and dialed the number. He answered on the second ring. “This is Detective Beaumont,” I said curtly into the phone. “It’s good of you to call,” he said. His voice was smooth as glass, with the resonance of an old-fashioned radio announcer.

It was a long way from our first telephone conversation. “I talked to a friend of yours today, a Maxwell Cole. He’s under the impression that you have some influence with my daughter-inlaw. “

“That’s correct,” I replied. It was also something of an understatement. “I thought you should be advised that Ginger has been somewhat unstable of late.”

“Ginger Watkins’ mental health is none of my business,” I said. “I couldn’t be happier to hear you say that. She’s been under a great deal of stress and can’t be held responsible for her actions. ” “What are you driving at?” I demanded.

“That’s all I wanted to discuss,” he said. “I have another call.” Having another call on a second or third line constitutes a high-tech version of the brush-off.

I put down the phone.

I went into the Moran Room to wait for Ames and Peters. The ferry was due in at nine-thirty, so I expected them at Rosario right around ten. I waited in front of the massive marble fireplace with its cheerful fire. Ralph Ames was laughing as he came into the lobby. He and Peters were having a good time. I met them at the door. We left word for Ginger, and the three of us went on into the dining room. It was late, and the room was almost empty. We sat at a candlelit table and had a drink. “You breaking training?” I asked as the waiter handed Peters a gin and tonic.

He raised his glass. “Just this once.” He grinned. We were so busy talking and catching up that I didn’t notice the time. At ten-thirty the waiter suggested that if we wanted to eat before the kitchen closed, we’d better place our order. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry. I told Peters and Ames to go ahead and order, that I’d wait for Ginger. I excused myself and went to the lobby, where I had the desk clerk call Ginger’s room.

No answer.

When Fred shook his head, I felt a sickening crunch in my stomach. “Something may have happened to her,” I said. “Would you let me check her room?”

After the roll-away bed escapade, he could hardly say I had no business doing so.

He put a Back in a Minute sign on the desk, and we hurried to Ginger’s room. It was empty, undisturbed.

Back in the Mansion, I checked the dining room. Ames and Peters were happily working their way through salads, but Ginger was nowhere in sight. I went to the pay phone and dialed the sheriff’s substation at Eastsound. The dispatcher answered eventually, her response to my question short and to the point. There had been no reports of any traffic accidents. I tried to fend off rising panic. “Do you know any of the people who go to the Saturday-night A.A. meeting in Eastsound?” I asked.

“Yes, but I can’t give out those names. It’s confidential.” “Get one of them to call me back, then. It’s urgent.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I paced the floor in tight circles, trying to hold panic in check. When the phone rang, I pounced on it like a cat attacking a paralyzed mouse. “My name is James,” the voice on the phone drawled. “You wanted to talk to someone from A.A.?”

“Yes, I did. Did you go the meeting tonight?” ” ‘Course I did. I was one of the speakers.”

“Was there a woman there, a woman in a pale orange blouse and Levi’s?” “Sorry, mister, I can’t give out that information. Whoever joins our fellowship is strictly confidential.

That’s why people feel safe in coming.”

“You don’t understand,” I said desperately. “She left here at twenty to eight, going to the meeting. She hasn’t come back. All I want to know is whether she made it that far.”

There was a long pause. “No,” he said.

“No what? No, you won’t tell me?” I wanted to reach through the phone line and throttle him.

“No, she wasn’t there. I woulda remembered someone like that. It was only locals tonight. No visitors.”

Cold fear rose in my stomach, my throat. “Thank you,” I managed, depressing the switch on the phone. I released it and redialed the substation. The dispatcher was annoyed.

“You’d better get ahold of Huggins over in Friday Harbor. Tell him to call Detective Beaumont. We’ve got trouble.”

Hal called me back within minutes. “What’s up?” “It’s Ginger. She’s disappeared.

She went to a meeting tonight and never got there. I’ve checked. The meeting was over at nine. She’s still not back.”

“It’s almost eleven!”

“I know,” I responded bleakly.

“What kind of car?” he asked.

“A Porsche 928. Red.”

He whistled. “No shit? A Porsche? What’s the license number?” I gave it to him. “Okay,” he added, “I’ll be there in half an hour,” he said.

“Where are you-Rosario?”

“Yes. “

“I’ll come straight to the docks. I’ll call the dispatcher and have her send Pomeroy.

I think he’s on duty tonight.” He paused. “Why’d you let,her go by herself, Beau?”

I winced at his implied accusation. I had already asked myself the same question.

“She wanted to.”

“Oh,” he said.

It wasn’t a very convincing reason, not then, not now. With leaden steps I walked back to the dining room to let Ames and Peters know that Ginger Watkins wouldn’t be joining us for dinner. Not then. Not ever.

Chapter 12

THEY found the Porsche at seven Sunday morning in the pond by the Slow Duck Crossing sign. I stood to one side, watching the tow truck drag my 928 from the muck. Ginger, still wearing her apricot blouse, lay dead inside. Huggins opened the door, and water cascaded out, leaving her body slumped over the steering wheel. Pomeroy gave me a halfsmirk as I walked over to look inside and make positive identification. I nodded to Hal and walked away as the lab crew surrounded the car.

Peters was down the road, pacing the blacktop. “From the looks of it, she ploughed into the water full throttle and never tried to stop.” He was voicing my own thoughts.

I said nothing. “Is there a chance she passed out?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Absolutely not.”

Peters eyed me questioningly. “Why not?”

“She didn’t drink.”

Huggins left the car and came over to where we were standing.

“Watkins is on his way,” he said. “It’ll be a madhouse when he gets here. I understand he’s got a whole press entourage.”

“Great,” I muttered.

“Did you see anything along the road?” Huggins’ question was addressed to both Peters and me. Peters pointed. “There’s a place back there where she laid down a layer of rubber. Looks like she floorboarded it from a dead stop.” The three of us walked back to the place Peters had indicated. Huggins examined the mark, then nodded in agreement. He looked at me. “Suicide, you think?”

“No way!” I declared vehemently. Huggins and Peters exchanged glances. “We were going to have dinner,” I continued. “She was looking forward to it.” My rationale landed with a resounding thud. convincing no one, not even me.