Trial By Fury

"What's going to happen to me?" she asked, looking up red-eyed and frightened.

"That depends on you, doesn't it. Are you going to help us or not?"

She nodded. "I'll help."

"All right. Try to think back to when the negatives could have disappeared. Can you remember any times when the bag was left un-attended?"

"No. I always have it with me." She motioned toward a shiny green bag on the floor. "See?"

"Did anyone else know the negatives were there? Did you tell any of your friends?"

"No. Not even Bambi. Nobody knew."

"And what were the negatives in? One of those envelopes from a fast photo-developing place?"

"No. A plain white envelope. I developed them myself. At home."

"It must be nice to be so talented," I commented sarcastically. "Do your parents have any idea what you've been doing?"

"Don't tell them. Please. They'd kill me."

I had been sitting behind the assistant principal's desk. I got up then and walked to the window. "They probably wouldn't," I said. "But I don't think I'd blame them if they did." I turned to Peters. "Do you have any other questions?"

He shook his head. "Not right now. You've pretty well covered it."

I looked back at Molly. She was staring at me, eyes wide and frightened. "Get out of here," I ordered. "You make me sick." She scurried out of the room as fast as she could go.

"You were pretty tough on her," Peters remarked after the door closed.

"Not nearly as tough as I should have been."

Glancing down at my watch, I realized it was after two, and I didn't have the location for my closing. "I'd better call Ames and find out where I'm supposed to be and when. If we're going to be stuck in traffic, it might be nice if we were at least going in the right direction."

I picked up the assistant principal's phone and dialed my own number. It rang twice. When a woman's voice answered, I hung up, convinced I had dialed a wrong number. I tried again. That time my line was busy.

Peters stood up. "While you're playing with the phone, I need to go check on something." He walked out of the office, and I tried dialing one more time. This time, when the woman's voice answered, I stayed on the line to listen. The recorded voice was soft and sultry.

"Hello, my name is Susan. Beau is unable to come to the phone right now, but he doesn't want to miss your call. Please leave your name, number, time of day, and a brief message at the sound of the tone, and Beau will call you back just as soon as he can. Thanks for calling. Bye-bye." Then there was a beep.

"What the fuck!"

I held the receiver away from my mouth and ear and looked at it like it was some strange apparition I'd never seen before. I felt like somebody had just clunked me over the head with a baseball bat. What the hell was an answering machine doing on my phone?

Just then, I heard Ames ' voice, shouting at me from the receiver. "Hey, Beau. Is that you? Are you there? What do you think? Do you like it?"

"Ralph Ames, you son of a bitch. No, I don't like it. I told you before, I don't want an answering machine."

"Come on, Beau. It's great. In three days you'll love it. It's a present, an early housewarming present."

"You jerk! When I get home, I'll tear it out of the wall and wrap it around your neck!" I slammed down the phone just as Peters came back into the room. He was gri

"Hey, Beau. What's up?"

"That damn Ames went and installed a stupid answering machine in my house while my back was turned, without even asking me."

"So? It's probably a good idea. You're not the easiest person in the world to catch. Where's the closing? Did you find out?"

I had been so disturbed by the answering machine that I had forgotten the reason I had called. Chagrined, I picked up the phone and redialed. The answering machine clicked on after the second ring. "Hello. My name is Susan…"

"Damn it, Ames!" I shouted into the phone. "I know you're there. If you can hear me, turn this goddamned thing off and talk to me."

The woman's voice was stifled. Ames ' voice came on the line.

"Here I am, Beau. What do you need?"

"The closing. I know when it is, but I don't know where."

"Downtown in Columbia Center. Up on the seventieth floor. Ellis and Wheeler. It's getting pretty late. Want to meet me there? I can bring your car."

"Fine," I answered curtly. "See you there." I hung up again.

"You don't have to be such a hard-ass about it," Peters chided me as I stood up to leave. "I'm sure Ames thought he was helping you out. There are times I'd like to have one of those gadgets myself."

"Great," I grumbled. "I've got a terrific idea. We'll unplug it from my house and plug it back in in yours."

Peters smiled. "When are you going to give up and accept the inevitable? Automation and microchips are here to stay."

"Not in my house they aren't," I replied, then stalked from the room with Peters right behind me.

I'm one of those people they'll have to pull kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century, if I live to be that old.

I have no intention of going quietly.

CHAPTER 22

On Friday afternoon, traffic in Seattle is a nightmare. We made it back across the bridge with barely enough time for Peters to make it to Darwin Ridley's funeral at the Mount Baker Baptist Church. Peters dropped me off at a bus stop on Rainier Avenue South. I grabbed a Metro bus jammed with rowdy schoolkids for a snail's-pace ride downtown. If I were into jogging and physical fitness, I probably could have beaten the bus on foot.

Once downtown however, Columbia Center isn't hard to find. It's the tallest building west of the Mississippi, to say nothing of being the tallest building in Seattle. The lobby is a maze, however, and it took a while to locate the proper bank of elevators for an ear-popping ride to the seventieth floor.

Stepping out of the elevator, the carpet beneath my feet was so new and thick that it caught the soles of my shoes and sent me flying. I came within inches of tumbling into the lap of a startled, brunette receptionist, who managed to scramble out of the way.

There's nothing like making a suave and elegant grand entrance.

"J. P. Beaumont," I said archly, once I was upright again, hoping somehow to regain my shattered dignity. "I'm supposed to meet Ralph Ames here."

It didn't work. Dignity was irretrievable. The receptionist had to stifle a giggle before she answered me. "Mr. Ames is already inside," she said. "This way, please."

Rising, she turned and led me down a short, book-lined hallway. As she looked away, the corners of her mouth continued to crinkle in a vain attempt to keep a straight face.

At the end of the hallway we came to another desk. There, the receptionist handed me off to another sweet young thing, a blonde with incredibly long eyelashes and matching legs. It was clear the perso

"Mr. Rogers told me to show you right in," the blonde said. She opened a door into a spacious office with a spectacular view of Seattle 's humming waterfront on Elliot Bay. In one corner of the room sat Ralph Ames and another man hunched over a conference table piled high with a formidable stack of legal documents.

"So there you are," Ames said, glancing up as I entered the room. "It's about time you got here. I'd like to introduce Dale Rogers. He's representing the syndicate. This whole transaction is complicated by the fact that you're both buyer and seller."

Ames has a penchant for understatment. The process of buying my new condominium was actually far more than complicated. It was downright mystifying.