She took a red sweatsuit out of her Adidas bag. I watched her pull it on, marveling at her sleek, firm body. I drew her to me and zipped up the top. “How do you do that?” I asked.
“Do what?”
“Stay in shape.”
“Oh, that,” she said laughing. “I jog, I ride, do aerobics, lift weights. Anything else you’d like to know? Measurements, weight?”
“As a matter of fact, I want to know everything.”
“For instance,” she teased.
“I wrapped my arms around her. ”For instance, tell me about your sister, Patty. What happened to her?“
She stiffened in my arms. “No,” she said quietly. She moved away. I caught a glimpse of her face as she turned. A curtain had come down over her gray eyes. They were suddenly solemn and distant. “Don’t ask me that again.” It was a statement, not a request.
I had blundered onto dangerous ground, and I would do well to be more wary in the future. I see that in cops all the time, had seen it in Peters and myself. We can talk about crime in the abstract; just don’t bring it too close to home.
Anne reached into her bag, pulling out a brand-new pair of jogging shoes. She held them up for my approval. “I went shopping today,” she said in a halfhearted attempt at gaiety. It didn’t take.
We walked to dinner. I tried to recapture the evening’s earlier, lighter mood without success. Anne had crossed over her solitary bridge and left me alone on the other side. What exactly had she told me about Patty? I wondered. That she had died when Anne was eight? Why, then, did the mere mention of Patty more than twenty years later cause such a reaction?
Connie welcomed us with a knowing wink that set my teeth on edge. It got worse when she brought the menus. She gave Anne an appraising once-over. “I heard you were pretty, honey, but that don’t hardly do you justice.”
I bit. “How’d you hear that?”
She grinned. “I’ve got me some confidential sources. The clam strips are good tonight, and we’ve got liver and onions on the special.”
I watched for any hint of disdain as Anne perused the menu. There was none, no hint of snobbishness. She ordered the special, then waited, oblivious to her surroundings, still far removed from me and from the present.
“Hello,” I said at length, trying to get her attention. “Where are you?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if you’d take me along when you go.”
She gave me a searching look. “How did you know I was somewhere else?”
“For one thing, I asked you twice if you wanted a glass of wine.”
Connie slung a cup of coffee in my direction and returned with one for Anne when I gave her the high sign. We were halfway through dinner when Maxwell Cole showed up. I thought it was an unfortunate coincidence. I found out later he had been in and out three times earlier in the evening looking for me.
He favored Anne with a deep bow. “What a pleasure to see you again,” he oozed, as his cigarette smoke invaded the end of our booth.
Connie came over with an ashtray, which she held out to Max. “This is the no-smoking section, Mr. Cole. If you want to keep that cigarette, you’ll have to go over to the next section.” Cole ground out the stub.
“I’ve been on a wild-goose chase,” Max said, addressing Anne. “That little Porsche of yours shouldn’t be so hard to find, but it seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.”
“Why are you looking for my car?” Anne asked.
“I’m not, actually. I’ve been looking for you. I wanted to ask you some questions about Angela Barstogi’s funeral. Are you a relative of hers?”
“Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cole.” She said it in such a sweet-tempered tone that at first Max didn’t believe his ears. He flushed as he tried to recover his dignity.
“I don’t think I said anything offensive,” he said.
“Your very presence offends me, Mr. Cole. If you can’t stand the heat, you know where they say you can go.”
“I could offer a suggestion or two,” I added helpfully.
The tips of his walrus mustache shook with rage. “You’re going to regret this, J. P. Beaumont. That’s the second time today you’ve taken a hunk out of my skin. I’m gunning for you.”
“Sounds like business as usual to me.”
Max would have taken a swing at me, but the bartender, who doubles as bouncer, turned up right then. Connie had summoned him soon enough for him to be there when the trouble started. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mr. Cole. I think maybe you’d better go in the other room to cool off.” The bartender didn’t brook any arguments. He took Cole’s upper arm and bodily led him away.
“What’s the problem?” Anne asked when they were out of earshot.
“He doesn’t like me.”
“That’s pretty obvious. It’s also obvious the feeling’s mutual. Why does he call you J. P.?”
I sighed. If we were going to end up in the same orbit, it was time to drag out some of the old war stories, the stuff that made me what I am, and let her take a look at it, warts and all. If that didn’t drive her away, maybe she’d return the favor.
“Which do you want first, J. P. or Maxwell Cole?”
“Let’s try for J. P.”
“I’ll have to tell you about my mother first. She was a beauty growing up, but headstrong as they come. She would sneak out of the house at night to date my father. He was a sailor, the first man who asked her out. She was only sixteen. They planned to run away and get married, but he was killed in a motorcycle accident on the navy base over in Bremerton. She didn’t know she was pregnant until after he was dead.
“Her parents threw her out, told her they no longer had a daughter. My mother went to the Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers in Portland and signed in under the name of Beaumont, my father’s hometown in Texas. My first names are Jonas Piedmont, after her two grandfathers. None of her family ever lifted a finger to help us. When she told me where my first and middle names came from, I hated them. I still do. I’ve gone by Beau most of my life. The initials came up during college. Some of my fraternity brothers figured out it bugged me to be called that. Max never got over it.”
“Where’s your mother now?”
“She died of breast cancer when I was twenty. She never made up with her parents. They lived here in Seattle the whole time, but I never met them. Didn’t want to.”
“You loved her very much, didn’t you?” Anne commented gently.
It was becoming a very personal conversation. Anne seemed to bring out the lonely side of me, the part that needed to chew over my life with another human being.
“Yes,” I said at last, meeting Anne’s steady, level gaze. “I loved her. She could have taken an easy way out, given me up for adoption or had an abortion. She didn’t though. She never married, either. She said that being in love once was enough for her.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Is once enough for you?”
“Maybe not,” I said. It was more a declaration of susceptibility than one of intent.
Anne looked away. “Tell me about Maxwell Cole.”
I wasn’t quite ready to talk about Karen, but Maxwell Cole led inevitably in that direction. “As I said, we were fraternity brothers together. He started out being Karen’s boyfriend. We met at a dance he brought her to, a Christmas formal, and the sparks flew. She broke up with him right after New Year’s and started dating me.”
“He’s a pretty sore loser. Is that the only grudge he’s got against you?”
“It’s gone beyond the grudge stage,” I said grimly. “He’s deliberately torpedoed me. When I was a rookie, he almost got me thrown off the force.”
“How?”
