Trial By Fury

CHAPTER 30

It took exactly thirteen minutes to drive from Ballard Community Hospital to Thirtieth Avenue South and South Graham. Nobody stopped me for speeding. That's always the way. Where are all the traffic cops when you need one?

Had one pulled me over, I would have sent word to the department for help. As it was, I decided to go to the Scarborough house first, try to get some idea of the lay of the land, and then call the department for a backup.

Driving east after crossing Beacon Avenue, I spotted a small Mom-and-Pop grocery store with a pay phone hanging beside the ice machine outside. I figured I'd come back there to use the phone as soon as I knew what was coming down.

As plans go, it wasn't bad. Things just didn't work out that way.

At Graham and Thirtieth South, a towering electrical transmission line dissects Beacon Hill and cuts a huge green north and south swath through the city. The Scarborough address in the phone book was 6511 Thirtieth Avenue South.

The seriousness of my miscalculation became apparent the moment I saw the house. North of Graham, Thirtieth was a regular street with houses on one side facing the wide clearing under the power lines. On the south side, though, the 6500 block dead-ended in front of the only house on the block, 651-the Scarborough house.

So much for sneaking around. So much for subtlety. Guard red Porsches are pretty goddamned hard to camouflage on dead-end streets when there's only one house on the block and the rest is nothing but wide-open spaces.

Instead of turning right onto Thirtieth, I hung a left and drove north, ditching the Porsche three houses north of Graham behind a vagrant pickup truck sitting on jacks. I figured I had a better chance of getting close to the house unobserved if I moved on foot rather than in the car. All I needed to do was get close enough to have some idea of what was going on. There wasn't much cover, even for someone on foot. The Beacon Hill transmission line was built in the twenties and thirties to bring power from the Skagit Valley power plants into the city. The right-of-way was purchased from farmers along the route. Later, the city grew up around the power line.

Directly under and for twenty-five or thirty yards on either side of the long line of metal towers, emerald green grass sprang to life. It looked as though the power line had driven every other living thing but the grass out of its path.

Here and there, looking down the line, a few houses remained, almost on the right-of-way itself. These were mostly remnants of the original farmhouses, most of them still occupied and still in good repair.

The Scarborough house was one of those, a sleepy-looking relic from another era with a steeply pitched gray roof and a graceful white porch that stretched across the entire front of the house. Two matching bay windows, opening onto the porch, were carefully curtained so no one could see inside. To the right of the walkway leading up to the house stood a "For Sale" sign with a "Sold" sticker stuck across it.

I returned to Graham. Attempting to look casual, I sauntered east, hoping for a wider view of the house as it dropped behind me. A short distance up the street was a bus stop. I stopped under the sign and turned to look behind me.

I was far enough away that, for the first time, I could see the south side of the house. Parked next to it, almost totally concealed from the street, was the corner of a school bus. A van actually. A yellow team van.

As I stood watching, the front door swung open. Candace Wy

Watching her, I had moved unconsciously into the middle of the street, drawn like a metal chip toward a powerful magnet. Too late I realized she was moving toward the door on the driver's side of the van. She vaulted into the driver's seat and slammed the door behind her. I heard the engine start and saw the backup lights come on.

Suddenly, behind me, squealing brakes and a blaring horn brought me to my senses as a car skidded to a stop a few feet from me. I scrambled out of the way only to dash into the path of another car. Blind to everything but the moving bus. I charged toward it.

It was only when the bus backed out and swung around to turn toward the street that I saw Candace Wy

"Stop! Police!" I shouted, drawing my.38 from its shoulder holster. I saw Candace glance across Peters in my direction. Our eyes met briefly across the narrowing distance in a flash of recognition. She saw me, heard me, recognized me, but she didn't stop. She didn't even pause. Instead, the van leaped forward like a startled rabbit as she hit the accelerator. I saw, rather than heard, the side of Peters' head smack against the window.

What's the matter with him, I wondered. Is he asleep? Why doesn't he do something? "Peters!" I shouted, but there was no response.

I ran straight down Graham toward Thirtieth, hoping to intercept the van where the two streets met. As I charged forward, Candace must have read my mind. As she approached the intersection, she gave the steering wheel a sharp turn to the left. The van shuddered and arched off the rutted roadway, tottering clumsily onto the grass.

Good, I thought. She's losing it. But she didn't. Somehow she regained control. The van pulled onto Graham, skidding and sliding, a good ten feet in front of me. She gu

The Porsche, three houses up the street behind me, was too far away to be of any use. There was only one chance.

The drawn.38 was in my hand. I was tempted to use it. God was I tempted. But just then, just as I was ready to squeeze the trigger, another car met the van on the street. It was a station wagon loaded with people, two women with a bunch of kids.

I couldn't risk it, not even for Peters. I couldn't risk hitting a tire and sending the van spi

A second car stopped behind me with a screech of brakes. Horns blared. One driver rolled down his window. "What the hell's going on here?"

I rammed the.38 back into its holster and turned to race toward the Porsche in the same motion only to stumble over a little black kid on a tiny bicycle who had pedaled, u

"Hey, man, you a cop?" he demanded.

I sidestepped him without knocking him down and ran up the street with the kid trailing behind. When I reached the Porsche, I struggled to unlock the door, unable to fit the key in the lock.

"Hey, man," the kid repeated. "I axed if you was a cop. How come you don't answer me?"

Finally, the key slipped home. I glanced at the kid as I flung the door open. He wasn't more than five or six years old.

"Yes, I am," I answered. I fumbled in my pocket, located a loose business card with my name on it, and tossed it to him. Deftly, he plucked it out of the air.

"Do you know how to dial 9-1-1?" I asked.

He nodded, his black eyes huge and serious. "Sure;"

"Call them," I ordered. "Tell them there's trouble. Serious trouble. I need help. My name's on that card."

The Porsche's engine roared to life. I wheeled the car around and drove into the confusion of cars still stopped to sort out the excitement. As I swung onto Graham, the boy was hightailing it up the street on his bicycle, pumping furiously.

I'd have given anything for flashing lights about then, or for a siren that would have forced people out of my way. As it was, I had to make do with the horn, laying into it at every intersection, raging up behind people and sweeping them off the road in front of me.