“Used him first, loved him later.”
Maybe she was being honest with me after all. “What about J. P. Beaumont? Is it the same with him?”
She raised her hands in a helpless gesture, then dropped them back in her lap. She nodded slowly. “At first I only wanted information.”
I felt my heart constrict. “And now?”
“I love you.” They were the words I wanted to hear, but I couldn’t afford to believe them.
“Why?” The word exploded in the room. “Why do you love me?”
“Because you found the part of me that died when Milton did. I told you that last night.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes. It’s the truth.”
My gaze faltered under her unblinking one. “Tell me about your book. I want to read it.”
“All right,” she said. “After I get it back from Ralph. I sent it to Phoenix with him. He’s having it typed for me. I have to revise the last chapter.”
“Why?”
“I made a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?”
She looked at me as if puzzled. “The kind that shouldn’t be made if you’re any kind of writer. Why all the questions?”
“I wanted to hear this from you, Anne. You should have told me. I shouldn’t have had to read it in the newspaper. It makes you look suspicious.”
For several long minutes we sat without speaking. “What about us?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to give it some thought.” I got up to leave. I had touched the personal issue and skirted the basic one. I had to ask. I had to have the answer from Anne Corley’s own lips. “Did you have anything to do with Angela Barstogi’s death?”
She heard the question without flinching. “So that’s what’s bothering you,” she said in a monotone. She dropped her head in her hands. “No, Beau, I didn’t. I was in Arizona. Check with United. Check with anybody.”
“Do you know someone named Uncle Charlie?”
She shook her head. I went to the door and stood there uncertainly, my hand on the door-knob. I didn’t know whether to leave or apologize. “I didn’t think you did, but I’m getting some heat thanks to Maxey. I’d better go back to the office,” I said at last. “I’ve got work to do.”
Chapter 20
Work was a tonic for me that day. I worked like a fiend. I dove into every statement and every file with absolute concentration, finding comfort in the necessary discipline. Anne had said she had nothing to do with Angela Barstogi. I wanted to prove it to the world and to myself. There was nothing I wanted more than for Peters’ suspicions to be dead wrong.
I put in a call to United. They said they’d call back with the information I needed. They did eventually, confirming Anne’s arrival in Seattle. It proved the point as far as I was concerned, but the rest of the world needed more convincing. I had to lay hands on Angela Barstogi’s killer. That was the only way to clear Anne once and for all. Who the hell was Uncle Charlie, and where was he? How could I find him?
It had been just over a week, but already Angela Barstogi’s file was voluminous. I read through it all — statements, medical examiner’s report, crime lab report — searching for some key piece that would pull the entire puzzle into focus. I had moved on to the Faith Tabernacle file when Peters came back about four o’clock.
“How’s it going?” I asked. It was a natural enough question, but I felt strange after I asked it. I didn’t know whether or not Peters would answer me. I didn’t know if I wanted him to.
“Maxwell Cole is a jerk,” he said. That was no surprise. It was something that found us in wholehearted agreement. Peters peered over my shoulder at the files. “Any luck?”
“Yeah. All bad.”
He waited, expectantly, but I didn’t volunteer any information. I wanted to see if he would ask. “What did she say?” he inquired finally.
“That she didn’t have anything to do with it.”
He shook his head. “And that’s good enough for you, I suppose?”
“As a matter of fact, it isn’t. If it were, I wouldn’t be going blind reading these reports, and I wouldn’t have called the airlines.”
Peters settled on the corner of my desk. “Did you say you met Ralph Ames?” he asked.
“The attorney. Yes, I met him.”
“How did he strike you, hotheaded maybe? Prone to fly off the handle?”
“No, just the opposite. Of course, he could be schizo. Who knows?”
“I put a little pressure on Cole. He gave me the name of the girl he talked to in Ames’ office. I called right after I left Cole. Ames fired her fifteen minutes before that, for talking to Cole. That surprise you?”
“No. When I tried calling there I went through a screening process. It strikes me that Anne is a valued client.”
“Valuable, certainly. The lady’s loaded.” He paused. “I’m going down there, Beau, to Arizona.”
“Why?”
“I’ve picked up some information, enough to warrant the trip.”
I stifled the desire to demand the information, to get Peters in a hammerlock until he came clean. But I knew he was doing his job, holding out on me until he had something concrete. He was right, of course.
“You’ve told Watty, then?” I could feel my heart pounding in my chest.
“No. I’m going on my own nickel. It’s the weekend, and I want to get away from this drizzle. I’m feeling a yen for sunshine.”
It took a second or two for me to understand the implication behind what he was saying. Gratitude washed over me like a flood. “Peters, I—”
“Don’t thank me, Beau. You may not like what I find.”
There was more than a hint of warning in his tone, but I ignored it. I chose to ignore it because I didn’t want to hear it. “When’s your plane?”
He glanced at his watch. “A little over an hour and a half. Want to take me down and keep the car?” He thought better of it. “Wait a minute. My plane gets in late Sunday evening. That’s probably a bad time for you to come pick me up.”
“If you’re thinking about the wedding, we may go for a stay of execution.”
He grinned and tossed me the keys. “Good,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Late Friday afternoon traffic taxed my limited current driving skills. I had gotten out of the habit of fighting the freeway jungle. I had forgotten what it was like. Living downtown had liberated me from the tyranny of Detroit and Japan as well, to say nothing of Standard Oil. Peters winced at a tentative lane change.
“I don’t get much practice driving anymore,” I explained.
“That’s obvious.”
I dropped Peters in the departing-passenger lane and drove straight back to town. I didn’t know what to think. There was no way to anticipate what I might find at the Royal Crest. My best possible guess was an empty apartment with or without a note.
If Anne Corley did nothing else, she consistently surprised me. She was waiting in the leather chair. A glass of wine was in her hand. A MacNaughton’s and water sat on the coffee table awaiting my arrival. Anne was wearing a gown, a filmy red gown.
“Hello,” she said. “You look surprised to see me.”
“I am,” I admitted. I examined the gown. I was sure I had seen it before, but I couldn’t imagine where. At last it came to me — the hallway dream with Anne disappearing in a maze of corridors. I had dreamed the gown exactly, I realized, as the odd sensation of deja vu settled around me.
