Trial By Fury

"Did you talk to her, the mother?"

Andi nodded. "Briefly. Tried to anyway. I tried to explain how tough it would be for Bambi to change schools this close to graduation, but she said it was too late, that they had taken Bambi down to Portland over the weekend."

"And this school…" Peters paused and consulted his notes. "St. Agnes of the Hills, you said. Where is it?"

"Somewhere in Beaverton, I guess." Andi paused, thoughtfully. "I still don't understand. What exactly does all this have to do with Darwin? I thought he was the main reason you wanted to talk to me."

I took the plunge. Peters would have walked around it all day. "Did you ever hear any rumors about Bambi Barker and Darwin Ridley?" It was the most delicate way I could think of to phrase a most indelicate question.

For a moment or two Andi Wy

Peters cleared his throat. "We've been informed by a reliable source that there's a possibility that Bambi and Darwin Ridley were having an affair."

Shock waves registered on Andi's face. "That's a lie!"

"It's not a lie, unfortunately," I said. "We've seen proof. We just didn't know who the girl was. Now we do."

Candace Wy

"Andi, it's not a matter of disrespect…" I began, but she didn't wait long enough to hear me out. Instead, Candace Wy

"I won't listen to this! Not a word of it!" With that, she turned on her heel and stamped out of the restaurant.

"Nice going, Beau," Peters said. "What do you do for an encore?"

I watched Candace Wy

Peters leaped to Candace Wy

I have to confess, I didn't have a pat answer for that question. Why should Candace Wy

"What else do you know about this what's-his-name, Wheeler-Dealer? Would he really mail a copy of that picture to Joa

Peters agreed and offered an alternate suggestion. "Maybe somebody else sent pictures to both of them."

I gave that idea some thought. It seemed somewhat more plausible. "But who?" I asked.

Peters shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. What now?"

"We'd better drag our butts down to Portland and talk to Bambi Barker."

"Today?" Peters asked in surprise, glancing at his watch. It was already well after three.

"Why not today? If we left right now, we could just beat the traffic out of town. Besides, we wouldn't have to cross any bridges."

Peters shook his head. "It would be midnight before we got back. I don't like to come home that late. Heather and Tracie still get upset if I'm not home before they go to bed."

After the divorce, Peters' two girls had spent some time in a flaky religious commune with their equally flaky mother. With the help of my attorney, Ralph Ames, we had managed to get them back home and in Peters' custody late the previous fall. Kids are pretty resilient, but the two girls still hadn't adjusted to all the abrupt changes that had disrupted their young lives. They were still basically insecure. So was Peters.

"Why don't I drive down by myself, then?" I suggested. "It's no big deal for me to come home late. Nobody's there waiting. Besides, it's important that we talk to Bambi before her dear old dad has any idea we know what's been going on."

"You've got yourself a deal," Peters told me. "You drive to Portland, and I'll handle the paperwork."

Talk about getting the best of the bargain! I headed for my apartment. No way was I going to drive one of the departmental crates to Portland when my bright red Porsche was longing for the open road.

By four, I was cruising down Interstate 5, headed south. Once I passed the worst of the Seattle/Tacoma traffic, I set the cruise control to a sedate sixty-two. Red Porsches draw radar guns like shit draws flies. Sergeant Watkins had given me a long lecture in community relations on the occasion of my second speeding ticket. I had slowed down some since then.

As I drove, I was conscious of springtime blossoming around me. Spindly blackberry clumps were green with a thin covering of new leaves. Here and there, hillsides were graced with farmhouses surrounded by blooming fruit trees.

Between Seattle and Portland, I-5 bypasses dozens of little western Washington towns-Lacy, Maytown, Tenino, Kelso-places travelers never see in actual life. They're nothing more than signs on the freeway and names and dots in a road atlas. Nevertheless, bits and pieces of small-town life leaked into my consciousness. There was the ever-present message from an eccentric Centralia dairy farmer whose private billboard still wanted to get us out of the UN, and the new chain-link fence surrounding the juvenile detention center in Chehalis that said we don't want our town contaminated by these kids. Further south, another billboard proclaimed the Winlock Egg Days.

I had never attended an egg festival. Or wanted to.

The day was flawlessly clear and bright. To the left across the freeway, Mount Rainier majestically reflected back fragile spring sunlight. It was too dark to catch sight of the shattered, still-steaming profile of Mount St. Helens.

I savored every moment of that drive south, from the thick papermill-flavored air of Longview to the cheerful lights on the grain elevator at Kalama. With every mile, the case receded into the far reaches of my mind. For those three quiet hours, I forgot about Darwin and Joa

As a homicide cop, that's a luxury I don't give myself very often, but Candace Wy

I owed Candace Wy