Trial By Fury

"I did. About eleven-thirty or so. She said she needed to pick up something from her office. She was still at the school when I drove away."

"And there was no one with her?"

"I didn't see anybody. There wasn't anyone in the truck when I got the hammer out or when I took it back, either. I didn't see anyone else on the grounds the whole time we were there."

"Any other cars parked in the area?"

"No, just her pickup and my Olds."

"How did she leave there, then?"

Browning shrugged. "I don't know."

I stirred my coffee again, trying to make sense of what he had told me. It didn't work. Finally, I said, "Candace Wy

Again he shrugged. "Nothing much. She was divorced. Her father died a year or so back. Her mother's been sick for several years."

"I remember seeing a bumper sticker on her truck. Something about sailing. Do you know anything about that?"

"She's supposed to be part owner of a boat over on Shilshole. I don't know the name of it or the names of any of the co-owners."

"And her mother's sick."

"She has cancer."

"I already knew that. Do you know where she is?"

"A hospital somewhere around here. A cancer unit, I believe."

"What's her mother's name? Any idea?"

"No."

I paused for a moment, wondering if there was any easier way to track down Candace Wy

Browning shook his head. "No."

"What about the group insurance form? If she wasn't married and didn't have any children, she might have listed her mother as beneficiary."

"That's possible, but all that information is confidential. It's in the district office."

"Can you get it for me or not?"

"Not on a weekend. I could probably get it tomorrow morning. Why do you need it?"

"Because I've got to find Candace Wy

I pushed my plate aside, picked up the bill, and stood up. Ned Browning sat motionless, shocked by my words. He stared up at me. "Kills?" he repeated.

Obviously, none of the Mercer Island Police Force had chosen to clue him in on what was happening.

"And because tomorrow may be too late," I added.

I left him sitting there in De

As I started the car, I didn't feel sorry for Ned Browning. Whatever disgrace was coming to him wasn't undeserved. After all, he had been on the list twice, not once. Once was once, but twice was twice.

I did feel sorry for Mrs. Browning, however. She was probably a nice enough lady, one I would never meet even though I was changing her life forever. Whoever she was, wherever she was, her world, like Joa

It was just as well we would never meet.

CHAPTER 29

The only thing to do was to find Candace Wy

I was sitting in my car with the engine ru

"Do you have a picture of Candace Wy

"No."

"Maybe not a separate picture, but wouldn't she be in a yearbook? Do you have any?"

He nodded. "I do have one of those, at school, in my office."

"Good. Let's go get it."

He started to object but thought better of it. He led the way back to the school, where a tow truck was just hooking on to Candace Wy

"Thanks," I said. "I'll bring it back."

"Don't bother," Ned Browning told me.

If I had been in his shoes, I wouldn't have wanted to keep a copy of that particular yearbook, either.

When I left him, he was standing in the middle of his office, looking at it the way someone looks when they're getting ready to pack up and move on. Ned Browning was a man who had worn out his welcome.

The next three hours were hard on me. They shouldn't have been, I suppose. After all, I'm a homicide detective. We're supposed to be tough, right?

But tracking through those hospitals, trying to locate Candace Wy

Maybe part of it is that you never get over your mother's death, no matter how long you live. Being in those polished corridors with their antiseptic odors and their stainless steel trays made it seem like yesterday, not half a lifetime ago.

Pain was all around. The patients had help for theirs, however fleeting the hazy comfort of drugs might be, but my heart went out to the empty-eyed visitors I found walking the halls, lingering in the rooms. There was no prescribed medication available to lessen their hurt.

I remembered only too well when I had stumbled blindly among them, holding tightly, stubbornly, to each grim crumb of hope. And then, eventually, the day had come when all hope was gone. I had resigned myself to my mother's loss, knowing the how. That was inevitable. But for three long years I had spent every resource at my disposal, delaying as long as possible the unpredictable when.

Walking the hospital halls that bright spring afternoon, knowing the difference between the budding promise outside and the burgeoning grief inside, I could relate to Candace Wy

I started with the obvious, the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center on First Hill. A lady at the front desk cheerily told me they had a master list of all the cancer patients in Seattle, but without a name, she couldn't help me. She did, however, point me in the direction of the hospitals with known cancer units-Swedish, Providence, Cabrini, and Virginia Mason on Pill Hill-and later, University Hospital, Overlake, and Northgate.

I drove like a maniac from place to place, speeding on the way, leaving the Porsche in patient-loading zones with the hazard lights flashing when I went inside.

And all the while I was driving, I kept coming back to the same question: Why had Candace lied about the locker? Why had she pretended to have heard about it only the night before, and why had she encouraged Ned Browning to destroy it? She knew we knew about it. The list wasn't something that could simply be swept under the rug and forgotten. There was some reason for her telling Browning on that particular day in that particular place. I drove and wished I had the answer.

At each hospital, it wasn't a matter of waltzing up to the head nurse, showing her Candace Wy

Straight answers aren't to be had from either doctors or head nurses. They're usually too close to God to talk to mere mortals. I went looking for orderlies, for hospital volunteers, for candy stripers-little people who might feel some sense of importance in being asked to help.

And help me they did. They were happy to look at the picture of Candace Wy