hostess watched him nervously from her desk. Peters pulled his gun and put it in his jacket pocket. We approached the table warily.
Carstogi looked up and saw us coming toward him. He grinned and waved at us with an empty fork. “Hi, guys,” he said.
“Where have you been?” Peters asked.
Carstogi’s grin faded. “Out. Just got back. They told me there’s a problem with the room and they’re buying me breakfast while they fix it. Good deal.”
“Out to where?” Peters continued.
“What is this?” Carstogi asked. “I went to a movie, and I met a girl. There’s nothing the matter with that.”
“What’s her name?” I put in. “Where did you take her?”
“We went to her place. Jesus, how am I supposed to know where it is? What’s going on? Why all the questions?”
“How did you get back here?”
“I caught a cab.”
“Which one?”
Carstogi stood up. “Okay, I’m not saying another word until you tell me what’s going on.”
People around us were staring. We were creating a disturbance. “Sit,” Peters hissed. We sat.
“We have two brand-new murders,” Peters said. “Two homicides at Faith Tabernacle.”
The color drained from Andrew Carstogi’s face. “Not Suzanne,” he whispered.
I nodded. “Suzanne and Brodie both. Sometime during the night. Now tell us, how’d you get back here from wherever you were.”
Carstogi opened his mouth to say something and then shut it. Two gigantic tears rolled down his face. He brushed them away with his sleeve. “I caught a cab,” he said.
“What kind? Yellow? Graytop?”
“I don’t know. Just a cab. It picked me up at her house. I think it was the same cab as last night, but I’m not sure.” He looked back and forth from one of us to the other. “It’s not true, is it? Tell me it’s not true.”
“It’s true,” I said.
“Do you mind if we go through your room?” Peters asked.
Carstogi shook his head mutely. Peters signaled to an officer who had stationed himself next to the hostess’s desk. “Have the desk clerk let you into his room to check it out,” he instructed. “Let me know if you find anything.” The officer hurried away. Carstogi’s shoulders heaved with noisy sobs. Peters and I watched, saying nothing. Eventually, he regained control.
“Am I under arrest?” he asked.
“No, but as of now I’m afraid you’re the sole suspect.”
“But I never went near the church after we left there yesterday. I wouldn’t know how to get there.”
The officer returned to say that the room was clean. Carstogi looked from one of us to the other. “What’s going to happen?” he asked.
I pushed back my chair. “Let’s go up to your room and get a statement from you. Do you want an attorney present?”
“I don’t need one,” he said. “I didn’t do it.”
I believed him. I just wished that things were always that simple. We led him upstairs and took his statement. Carstogi answered all our questions willingly enough. According to him he had gone to a porno house and had been picked up by a prostitute after the movie.
I don’t think Carstogi really grasped that the only thing between him and a first-degree murder charge was a prostitute whose name was Gloria, most assuredly not the name her mommy gave her. He couldn’t remember her address, and the description he gave us would have fit half the females in the U.S. Average height, kind of light brown hair, lightish eyes, slim. Carstogi’s life was hanging by a slender thread.
We turned off the recorder and stood up to leave. “Are you arresting me?” he asked.
“No, not now, but don’t leave here. Stay in the room and don’t talk to anyone.”
“Okay,” he said. “I just can’t believe she’s dead.”
“Believe it,” Peters said.
We left the room. “We should book him, Beau,” Peters said to me in the hall. “Motive, opportunity. It all adds up. What if he splits?”
“Come on, Peters. We don’t have a shred of solid evidence. Nothing more than the fact that he doesn’t have an alibi for last night. The girl was probably some hooker off Aurora. You know how easy finding her will be.”
“But you intend to look?” Peters regarded me wearily, shaking his head.
“That’s right,” I answered. We rode down in the elevator without saying anything more.
Maxwell Cole was in the lobby, arguing with the officer stationed at the registration desk, his walruslike face twitching with exasperation. “What’s going on, J. P.? This asshole wouldn’t spring with any information.”
“Good,” I said. “Neither will I. Pass the word.”
Peters directed one of the uniformed officers to keep an eye on the seventh floor. He nodded and waved.
Cole blustered out of the lobby after us. “I want to know what’s going on. Two innocent people have been slaughtered in cold blood. You owe the people of Seattle an explanation.”
I turned on him. “I owe the people of Seattle a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. I don’t owe you a fucking thing.” The other cop heard this exchange with a poorly concealed grin. “If he gives you any trouble, lock him up,” I said as I stalked away.
Peters moved his car to a parking meter and plugged it. We had decided to go up to my apartment and see what kind of fish our hidden recorder might have hooked.
Chapter 13
It was only as we rounded the corner of Lenora onto Third that I remembered Anne was in my apartment. My mind had switched tracks completely, and now I didn’t know what to do. I decided I’d better call her from the lobby and give her some warning of her impending company.
She seemed pleased to hear my voice. “I’m downstairs,” I said. “I’m bringing Peters up with me.”
“Who was that?” Peters asked with a conspiratorial grin as we got on the elevator. “Anybody I know?”
“As a matter of fact, you do know her. It’s Anne, Anne Corley.”
“Why you closemouthed son-of-a-bitch! I got the impression at lunch yesterday that you and she had just met. How long have you been holding out on me?”
The elevator door opened on eight. “Can it!” I snapped as Wanda Jamison got on, coffee cup in hand. She was on her way for a morning coffee klatch with Ida, my next-door neighbor. Wanda and I exchanged idle pleasantries while Peters continued to leer at me over her head.
If I thought Anne would have used the lead time to change out of my robe, I was sadly mistaken. She didn’t. I was glad I waited until Ida’s door was safely closed before I knocked on my own. Anne opened the door and gave Peters a gracious welcome, as though her being there in a state of relative undress were the most natural thing in the world. She was totally at ease, and Peters was getting a real charge out of my discomfort.
Peters made himself some tea while I paced the confines of my tiny kitchen. “What do you suggest we do with her while we listen to the tape?” he asked.
“I give up.” I was long on embarrassment and short on ideas right then. I had told Anne she could stay as long as she liked, but I couldn’t have her in the room while Peters and I listened to our illicit tape.
Peters carried his cup into the living room. He took my chair. I sat on the couch next to a cross-legged Anne. It disturbed me to be next to her. I wanted to touch her, but not in front of Peters. I didn’t want to soften my image — whatever was left of it.
Peters looked at Anne. “Do you mind if we play a tape?”
