'We both wanted one,' she said. 'We had been trying for years. It was an accident that I turned up pregnant right then. Besides,' she added, 'I thought a baby would bring us closer together.'
The look on her face, far more than what she said, told me exactly how badly Joanna Ridley had been taken in by the old saw that babies fix bad marriages. It certainly hadn't worked in this case. My heart went out to the lady who would be raising her child alone.
Sometimes, life isn't fair. Make that usually.
The doorbell rang, and Joanna hurried to answer it. Meanwhile, Peters returned from his examination of the desk. 'Nothing there,' he said.
Joanna ushered a heavy-set woman into the room. She was evidently a neighbor. In one hand she held a huge pot that contained an aromatic stew of some kind. In her other hand she carried a napkin-covered plate heaped high with some kind of baked goods. She glared at us, making it clear that we were unwelcome interlopers.
'You have anything to eat today, Joanna, honey?' she asked, still glowering at us, but speaking to Joanna.
'No, I…' Joanna trailed off.
'Now you listen to Fannie Mae, girl. You got to keep up your strength, for you and that baby. I'll just put this food in the kitchen.' She bustled out of the room. Joanna returned to the couch.
'What did you do after you left the Coliseum?' Peters asked as soon as she sat back down.
Joanna regarded him coolly. 'I drove to Portland,' she replied.
' Portland, Oregon? Why?'
'To see my father.'
'And did you?'
Joanna's eyes never strayed from Peters' face. 'No. I drove past the house, but I didn't go in.'
'Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You left the Coliseum after talking to your husband, drove all the way to Portland to talk to your father, and then didn't go in to see him once you got there?'
'That's right.'
'Why not?'
'Because I changed my mind. I realized I'd never go through with it, the divorce, I mean.'
If I had been trying to sell Peters Fuller Brushes right then, I would have known I'd blown the sale. He lay his finger next to his nose, the palm of his hand covering his mouth. He wasn't buying Joanna's story. Not any of it.
'What time did you get back?' I asked, stepping into the conversation.
'Midnight. Maybe later.'
'Did you see anyone along the way? Someone who would be able to say that they saw you there during that time?'
She shrugged. 'I stopped for gas in Vancouver, but I don't know if anyone there would remember me.'
'What kind of station, Joanna?' I prompted. 'Can you remember?'
'A Texaco. On Mill Plain Road.'
'How did you pay? Credit card? Cash?'
'Credit card. I think I used my VISA.'
'Could you give us that number?'
Joanna retrieved her purse from a table near the front door where she had left it when she first entered the house. As we had talked, there had been sounds of activity in the kitchen. Now Fannie Mae reappeared, carrying a tray of coffee cups, a pot of coffee, and a plate of homemade biscuits. Joanna dictated the number to Peters while I helped myself to coffee, biscuits, and honey. Naturally, Peters abstained. Health-food nuts piss me off sometimes.
Within minutes several other visitors showed up, and it seemed best for us to eave. I wasn't looking forward to being alone with Peters. I figured he'd land on me with all fours. I wasn't wrong.
'You've really done it this time!'
'Done what?' I made a stab at playing innocent.
'Jesus, Beau. We never even read her her rights.'
'We didn't need to. She didn't do it.'
'What? How can you be so sure?'
'Instinct, Peters. Pure gut instinct.'
'I can quote you chapter and verse when your instincts haven't been absolutely, one hundred percent accurate.'
I could, too, but I didn't tell Peters that. Instead, I said, 'Ridley was too big. With the morphine, he would have been all dead weight. She couldn't have strung him up, certainly not in her condition.'
'She could have had help.'
'She didn't.'
Peters wasn't about to give up his pet suspect. 'What about her father? The two of them could have done it together. She said she got back around midnight. The coroner said he died about two A.M. Portland doesn't give her an alibi, if you ask me.'
I thought about Joanna's father, the kindly, stoop-shouldered old man who had let us in the house the day before. 'No way,' I said. 'It's got to be somebody else.'
We let it go at that. Neither of us was going to change the other's mind.
Before leaving Joanna's house, we had decided to stop by Mercer Island High School in hopes of determining the identity of Darwin Ridley's cheerleader. With that in mind, I turned off Rainier Avenue onto an on-ramp for I-90. Unfortunately, I had been too busy talking to notice that traffic on the ramp was stopped cold, three car lengths from the entrance.
Unable to go forward or back, we spent the next hour stuck in traffic while workers building the new floating bridge across Lake Washington escorted traffic through the construction, one snail-paced lane at a time.
We should have phoned first. We got to the school about twelve-fifteen, only to discover that Candace Wynn wasn't there. Her mother was gravely ill, and Mrs. Wynn had taken the day off.
Ned Browning's clerk wasn't exactly cordial, but she was somewhat more helpful than she had been the previous day. She gave us Mrs. Wynn's telephone number in Seattle. We tried calling before we left the school, but there was no answer.
Back in the car, we started toward Seattle. Thinking the other bridge might be faster, we avoided I-90 and circled around through Bellevue. Unfortunately, a lot of other people had the same idea, including two drivers who managed to smack into one another head-on in the middle of the Evergreen Point span. It wasn't a serious accident, but it was enough to tie us up in traffic for another hour, along with several thousand other hapless souls.
It was a flawless spring day, without a cloud in the sky, with Lake Washington glassy and smooth beneath us, and with Mount Rainier a snow-covered vision to our left. Unfortunately, Peters was still ripped about Joanna Ridley, and I was pissed about the traffic, so we weren't particularly good company, and we didn't spend that hour admiring the scenery.
We finally got back to the department around two. I took Joanna's photograph and envelope down to the crime lab to see if they could lift prints or magnify the photo enough to read the print in the notice on the motel room door. Meanwhile, Peters settled down in our cubicle to try to track down Candace Wynn. By the time I got back to the fifth floor, he had reached her and made arrangements for us to meet her at a Greek restaurant in Fremont in half an hour.
Fremont is a Seattle neighborhood where aging hippies who've grown up and gone relatively straight try to sell goods and services to whatever brand of flower children is currently in vogue. Costas Opa, a Greek restaurant right across from the Fremont Bridge, is quite a bit more upscale than some of its funky neighbors. It was late afternoon by then. The place was long on tables and short on customers when we got there.
We sat at a corner window table where we could see traffic coming in all directions. Across the street, Seattle 's favorite piece of public art was still wearing the green two days after St. Patrick's day. Waiting For The Interurban is a homey piece of statuary made up of seven life-size figures, including a dog, whose face is rumored to bear a remarkable resemblance to one of the sculptor's sworn enemies. They stand under what seems to be a train station platform, waiting for an old Seattle/Tacoma commuter that has long since quit running.
Throughout the year, concerned citizens and frustrated artists make additions and corrections by adding
