Trial By Fury

"Plenty," I told him. "Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"

"Mind? I most certainly do. I got a business to run here. I can't waste my time answerin' no-account questions." He turned and started back into his office. I reached out and grasped the sleeve of his jacket.

"We've talked to Bambi," I said.

He turned and swung around toward me. "You what?"

"I said, we talked to Bambi. Down in Portland."

"Why, you worthless creep. I'll beat the holy shit out of you." He took a wild swing at me, but Peters caught his fist while it was still in transit. It was the second time that day someone had swung at me and missed. My nose was grateful. So were my front teeth.

"I think we'd be better off discussing this privately, Mr. Barker," Peters suggested.

Barker shook Peters' restraining hand off his arm. "Oh you do, do you? What makes you think I want to talk to you in private or otherwise?"

"It's not a matter of wanting," I told him evenly. "We've seen the picture," I added.

A look of barely controlled fury crossed Tex Barker's face. "Oh" was all he said. He turned away and stalked into his office. Peters and I exchanged glances before we followed him. He stopped at the door, let us into the room, then snarled at the gingham-clad receptionist outside, "I'm not to be disturbed!"

He slammed the door and pushed his way past us into his small but sumptuous office, taking a seat behind a large, imposing desk. He made no suggestion that we be seated. We sat uninvited.

"Bambi had nothin' to do with that man's death," he declared, speaking slowly, attempting to keep his voice carefully modulated, making a visible effort to maintain control. Despite his efforts, the words virtually exploded into the room as they left his lips.

"Did you see Darwin Ridley last Friday?" I asked. "Did you talk to him after you saw the picture that came in the mail that morning?"

He glared at me. "I did not!"

I knew he was lying. I can't say for sure how I knew. I just did. Maybe it was the momentary flicker in his eyes. "Where were you Friday night, Mr. Barker?"

"Home."

I shook my head. "No. Not all night. Someone came to the Coliseum and spoke to Darwin Ridley just at the end of halftime. Were you that person?"

Tex Barker's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "And what if I was?" he demanded. "What if I stopped by long enough to tell that son of a bitch that if I ever caught him near my daughter again I'd cut his black balls off?"

"Did you?" I asked.

He slammed his fist on the desk, sending a coffee cup skittering dangerously close to the edge. "No, sir, God damn it! I didn't. Never got a chance. Some SOB beat me to it. It ain't often somebody catches Wheeler-Dealer flat-footed, but someone sure as hell outdrew me on this one."

"So you're saying you'd have killed him yourself if you'd had the chance?"

"Damn right."

Peters had been observing this exchange from the sidelines. "What did you say to him when you saw him?"

"That he was a dead mother if I ever caught him within fifty miles of Bambi."

"I'd be willing to bet that wasn't news to him"

A self-satisfied grimace touched the corners of Barker's mouth. "No it wasn't. He'd gotten my message."

"What message? From his wife?"

Barker nodded. "That's right."

"And when did you tell him that?"

"Just at the end of halftime. I caught up with him after the team went on the floor."

"Let me get this straight," I said. "You came to the Coliseum, tracked him down during halftime, and told him that if he ever came near your daughter again, you'd kill him. Where'd you go after that?"

"Home."

"Straight home?"

Barker shrugged noncommittally.

"What time did you get there?"

"Ten. Eleven. I don't know, don't remember. I didn't look at the clock."

"I'd suggest you try to remember, Mr. Barker," I warned him. "We're dealing with homicide here. You have motive and you have opportunity. Within hours of the time of the victim's death you threatened to kill him. If I were you, I'd go looking for an alibi. Someone besides your wife," I added.

Barker glared back at me. "I don't need no fuckin' alibi. If I'd killed the son of a bitch, I'd be down at police headquarters braggin' about it."

That could have been the truth. Wheeler-Dealer didn't strike me as a man who would hide his light under a bushel, even if that light happened to be murder.

We were there a while longer. When we left and were making our way back to the car, Peters asked, "What do you think?"

"I don't think it was him."

Peters sounded shocked. "You don't? Why not?"

"His ego's all bound up in this. He's pissed because someone beat him out of getting even. Believe me, had he done it, he'd be yelling it to high heaven."

"Beau, he's suckering you. That's exactly what he wants us to believe."

"We'll see," I said. "What say we drive over to the school and check out the names in the locker?"

"Sure? Why not?"

It was early afternoon when we got to Mercer Island High School. The clerk told us that the principal, Ned Browning, was busy. We asked for Candace Wy

"Are you here about the memorial service?" she asked.

"Memorial service?"

"For Darwin. Tomorrow evening, after the funeral. Mr. Browning asked me to be in charge of pla

"I'm sure that's a good idea, Mrs. Wy

"What, then?"

"Do you have keys to the lockers in the girls' locker room?"

"Pardon me?"

"I had a long talk with Bambi Barker in Portland last night," I said. "There's something on one of the locker ceilings we need to see."

Andi Wy

Peters sighed. "We probably should, but we're not searching for evidence per se. It's a matter of our simply corroborating something Bambi told us. I can assure you, we won't be looking for anything but that one thing."

Andi Wy

The three of us waited in her office chatting about inconsequentials until the final bell rang and school was dismissed. Then Andi left us to go to the office for the key. When she returned, she led us to the girls' locker room. While Andi stood to one side and waited, Peters and I spent twenty minutes opening lockers, glancing up at the top to see if anything was written there, and then closing them again, being careful to disturb nothing else in the process. We were almost finished when we opened locker number 211.

Peters was the one who saw the names written there. "Bingo! Holy shit! Look at this."

Peters isn't the excitable type. He stepped aside, and I moved quickly to the locker, craning my neck to see what was written there, scratched with a sharp object into the gray paint on the locker's metal top.

Just as Bambi had said, Darwin Ridley's name was the last one on the list, printed in awkwardly scrawled letters.

The name that caught my eye, though, was that of Ned Browning. The principal.

His name was on the list, too.

Twice.