Trial By Fury

"Good."

Over a thick tuna sandwich, I finished the story, including all the minute details I could remember, from the paint samples and the morphine bottle to Peters' ID holder hidden in the couch.

Me and my big mouth.

When I ended my story, the room got quiet. It was then I heard the sound of a muted whimper coming from the other room.

Hurrying to the pocket door between the kitchen and the dining room, I slid it open. There, crouched on the floor, I discovered Tracie, her whole body shaken by partially muffled sobs.

"Tracie, what is it? What's the matter?"

I picked her up and held her against my chest. "You didn't find my daddy. You promised you would and you didn't."

I touched her brown hair, smoothing it away from her tearstained cheeks. "Shhh, sweetie," I whispered. "It's all right."

She pulled away and looked at me reproachfully. "It's not all right. He's dead," she declared. "I know he's dead."

"No, Tracie. Your daddy's not dead. He's lost, and we're going to find him. You wait and see."

"But what if he is," she insisted stubbornly. "That's what happens on TV. The bad guys and the good guys shoot each other. Usually, the bad guys die. But sometimes the good guys die, too."

Ames came over and gave Tracie's head a comforting pat. "This isn't TV, Tracie. Everything's going to be all right. You'll see."

"But what if?"

"Don't you worry. You go back to bed and let Uncle Beau and me handle it. It's late. Mrs. Edwards said you have to go to Sunday school in the morning."

"I don't want to go to Sunday school."

"Too bad." Ames reached out and took Tracie from my arms. She went without objection. He carried her out of the room and down the hall. When he returned to the kitchen, he was alone.

"Will she stay in bed?" I asked.

"We'll see," he answered.

"Goddamned television," I muttered.

Ames sat down across the kitchen table from me, a small, tight frown on his face. He rubbed his forehead wearily. "What would happen to the girls?" he asked.

"You mean if something happened to Peters?"

Ames nodded again. "Has he made any arrangements? Do you have any idea?"

I shrugged. "We've never talked about it."

"Somebody should have talked about it long before this," he said grimly. "And that somebody should have been me. It's my job."

"Come on now, Ralph. Don't blame yourself. We're all doing the best we can."

Unconvinced, Ames shook his head. "In a custody case like this, especially one where the mother is out of the country, I should have taken care of it."

I had come to Kirkland hoping Ames would make me feel better. Instead, he succeeded in doing just the reverse. The two of us sat there conferring miserably until fatigue finally caught up with us.

It was starting to get light outside when I bailed out and told him I had to get some sleep. Neither one of us went near Peters' bed. We rummaged around in a linen closet and found blankets and pillows. Ames took the couch. Stripped down to my T-shirt and shorts, I settled down on the floor.

I must have fallen asleep the instant my head touched the pillow. I was dead to the world when thirty-five pounds of kid did a belly flop onto my chest, knocking the wind out of me.

"Unca Beau, Unca Beau," Heather lisped. "Can I use the blanket, too?"

Unable to speak, I held up the blanket. A chilly, pajama-clad kid wormed her way into my arms, snuggling contentedly against my chest.

"Is Daddy still asleep?" she asked.

"I don't know, Heather. He's not here."

She sat up and looked at me accusingly. "He isn't? You said you were going to find him."

"I'm trying, but I haven't been able to yet."

"When will you?"

"I don't know. I can't say."

She got up and stood glaring scornfully down at me, both hands on her hips. "I want him home now," she a

"Sounds like ‘Unca Beau' is in deep shit," Ames observed dryly from the couch.

I struggled clumsily off the floor with my bad back screaming at me. I'm too old to sleep on floors. "‘Unca Beau' is going to get the hell downtown and find out what the fuck is going on," I growled, throwing the wad of bedding onto a nearby chair.

I glanced at the couch, where Ames still lay with the blanket pulled up to his chin. "Are you coming or not?"

"Not. I'll stay here," he said. "I think it's best."

I had to agree. When I finally got moving, I discovered the hour or so of sleep had done me a world of good. I was awake and alert as I started toward the city. I drove with my mind racing off in a dozen different directions at once: Why? And how? And where? Those were the basic questions, but where was the most important.

Where could they be? With every passing hour, that question became more critical. I was convinced Peters was being held somewhere against his will. As time passed, Andi Wy

Through a series of mental gymnastics I had managed to keep my mind from touching on the bottom-line question, the question I had fought to avoid all night long. But as I crossed the bridge to return to Seattle, the question asserted itself, surging full-blown to the surface: Was Detective Ron Peters still alive?

Yes, he was alive, I decided, feeling my grip tighten involuntarily on the steering wheel. He couldn't be dead. No way. Like Heather, I wanted him home and alive. Now.

Fighting for control, I took a deep breath. In the twenty-four hours since Mrs. Edwards had first called me, I had worked my way through a whole progression of feelings, from being pissed because Peters was out screwing his brains out to being worried sick that he was being held someplace with a gun to his head.

But once the idea of death caught hold of me, I couldn't shake it. It filled up the car until I could barely breathe.

The badge and ID told me Peters wasn't in control when he left Candace Wy

And if Andi Wy

Downtown Seattle was a ghost town at seven-fifteen on Sunday morning. I parked the Porsche in front of the Public Safety Building and hurried inside. There were only two people visible in the crime lab when I was led into the room. One of them was my friend, Janice Morraine. She reached into her lab coat pocket, removed a package of cigarettes, and nodded toward the door. "Let's go outside," she said.

As soon as we were out in the elevator lobby, she lit up. "Did you find Peters?" she asked, blowing a long plume of smoke toward the ceiling.

I shook my head. "Not yet. What's the scoop on the stuff we brought in?"

She shrugged. "We've got matches everywhere-the prints from Ridley's clothes, from the flour container, from the Fremont apartment, and from Joa

I felt the cold grip of fear in my gut. Looking at Janice's somber face, I could see she felt it, too.

"What does that say to you?" I asked.

"That the killer doesn't give a damn whether you catch him or not."

The knot in my gut got a little tighter, a little colder. I pushed the call button on the elevator.

"That's what I was afraid you'd say, but it's a her," I added.

Janice blew another plume of smoke and ground out the remains of her barely smoked cigarette in the sand-filled ashtray in the hall. "Good luck," she said softly.

I stepped into the elevator. "Thanks," I told her. "We'll need it."