remained on the windswept hillside. “I guess not, except I need to stop by the cemetery office to pick up a copy of the guest register.”
“Do you mind if I tag along? I have a feeling that Maxey may very well be waiting for me in the parking lot.”
I looked down at her in absolute amazement. “No,” I managed. “I don’t mind at all.” She took my arm with the calm assurance of someone used to getting whatever she wants. I’d like to pretend that I had the presence of mind to offer my arm to her, but that’s not the case. She reached out and rested a featherweight hand on my forearm; then the two of us walked up the hill through the Mount Pleasant Cemetery as though it were the most natural thing in the whole world.
It’s ironic to think that Maxwell Cole, a man who had been the bane of my existence for some twenty-odd years, was the catalyst that caused her hand to take my arm. I have a lot to thank Maxwell Cole for. Maybe someday I’ll get around to telling him.
Chapter 7
Anne Corley stood quietly near the door while an attendant photocopied the guest register for me. I tried not to stare at her while I waited. She smiled as I returned with the copy in hand. “Should I have signed that too?” she asked.
“Shouldn’t be necessary,” I told her. “I already know you were here.”
“What about you? Why are you here?” she demanded.
I explained briefly how killers often present themselves at the funerals of their victims.
“And do you think that’s true in this case?”
I shrugged. I thought of Pastor Michael Brodie piously intoning biblical passages over a small casket, of Benjamin Mason/Jason kneeling with his hands clasped in prayer under the flowing beard. “It could be,” I answered.
“Oh,” she said under her breath. Quickly I folded the piece of paper the attendant had given me and stuffed it into an inside jacket pocket. Out of sight is out of mind.
Back outside, walking toward the tiny parking lot. I noticed a rust-colored Volvo still very much in evidence. Maxwell Cole was observing us over the roof of it. I couldn’t help but feel just a little smug. “Where’s your car?” I asked Anne.
She nodded in the direction of a bright red Porsche parked at the far end of the lot. “What about yours?”
“I don’t have a car,” I said, suddenly feeling embarrassed about it. “I walked.”
“I probably should have,” she said unexpectedly, “but these boots aren’t built for walking. Why don’t I give you a lift?” The invitation caught me off guard, but not so much that I didn’t accept.
We reached her car. She unlocked the door, and I opened it for her. Maxwell Cole followed us at a wary distance. He was approaching the driver’s side, jotting down the numbers from the temporary license in the back window. The Porsche was evidently brand-new.
Anne saw him out of the corner of her eye as she turned to ease her way into the leather interior. She smiled again. “Well? Are you coming or not?”
I closed the door behind her and hurried to the rider’s side. I came around behind the car, walking directly in front of Maxwell Cole, and climbed into the rider’s seat. Max was still standing there, a little to one side, when Anne fired up the powerful engine and rammed the car into reverse. He must have executed a pretty quick sidestep to be sure he was out of the way. I didn’t wave to him as we drove by, but I sure as hell wanted to.
I liked this lady, liked her instincts about people and her ability to handle them. She was a lot more than a pretty box of candy.
Anne Corley held the powerful Porsche well in check as she maneuvered the grades, curves, and angles that make Queen Anne Hill an incomprehensible maze for most outsiders. It’s a course lots of sports car drivers regard as a Grand Prix training ground. She drove with a confident skill that was careful but hardly sedate.
The fire that had made her gray eyes smolder as she approached Angela Barstogi’s grave site had been banked. When she paused at a stop sign and looked at me, they sparkled with intelligence and humor. “Where to?” she asked.
“I live downtown,” I said. “Corner of Third and Lenora. How about you?”
“I’m just visiting. I’m staying at the Four Seasons Olympic.” That put me in my place. The Four Seasons is absolutely first-class, but then so was the lady.
“Do you have to go home?” she asked after a pause. “Wife and kiddies, or major league baseball on television?”
“Wrong on all counts,” I replied. “No wife and kiddies at home. I’ve got a twelve-inch black and white that I only use to keep tabs on how the media gets things ass-backward. I don’t like baseball. I wouldn’t go to a live game, to say nothing of watching one on TV.”
“You sound like an endangered species to me,” she grinned, and we both laughed. “Then what you’re saying is that you don’t have any pressing reason to go straight home?”
“No.”
Her face darkened slightly. I might not have noticed it if my eyes hadn’t been glued to her face, drinking in her finely carved profile that could easily have graced the cover of any fashion magazine. A slight frown creased her forehead, then disappeared in far less time than it takes to tell.
“They had a huge potluck after Patty’s funeral,” she said somberly. “I couldn’t go to that, either, so whenever I attend a funeral in Patty’s honor, I always treat myself afterward. Care to join me?”
“Sure.”
“Where, then?” she asked.
How do you answer that question when you’ve just met someone and haven’t the slightest idea of their likes or dislikes?
“I don’t know. Where do you want to go?”
She looked at me and laughed. I felt stupid, inadequate, as though I had somehow failed to measure up to her expectations. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I’ll choose this time and you choose next time, deal?”
I nodded but I didn’t feel any better. My wires were all crossed. I was a gawky kid on his first blind date, which turns out to be with the head cheerleader. I wanted to impress her, although there was nothing to indicate she was in need of being impressed. Like someone who has always lusted after fine china, once he is faced with a Wedgwood plate, does he eat off it or put it away on a shelf? Here I was in a Porsche with the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and I didn’t know what to say or what to do with my hands and feet. I hadn’t been that ill at ease in a long time.
She hit Lower Queen Anne, turned left at Mercer, and headed for the freeway, driving easily but purposefully. I didn’t ask where we were going. She bypassed downtown and took the exit that put us on Interstate 90. There had been a long silence in the car. I was content to leave it at that.
She had tossed her jacket carelessly in the half-baked backseat they put in Porsches to evade sports car insurance premiums. Her dress was made from some soft fabric that clung to the gentle curves of her body. The neckline, a long V, accentuated her slenderness. In the hollow of her throat lay a pendant, a single jewel suspended on a delicate gold chain. I’m not much of an expert, but real diamonds, especially ones that size, have a way of letting you know they’re not fake.
Despite the diamond, despite the fur jacket, despite the car, gradually I stopped being so self-conscious and started enjoying myself.
First Seattle, then the suburban sprawl of Bellevue disappeared behind us. Forested hills rolled by as we climbed toward the Cascades. “Washington is really beautiful,” she said while the car sped effortlessly up the wide, curving roadway. We had been quiet for so many minutes that the sound of her voice startled me.
“Have you been here long?” I queried.
“No,” she answered. “Not long at all. I just flew into town yesterday.”
“I’m not surprised,” I laughed. “You couldn’t have been around Seattle very long without my knowing it.”
