you in half an hour at the tennis courts in Seward Park '
'I'm still in bed, Al. I can't meet her in half an hour. Tell her I'll call her later.'
'It's too late.'
'Why?'
'She hung up.'
'Shit!' I rolled out of bed. 'Thanks a whole hell of a lot,' I growled.
'Don't chew my ass,' Al returned. 'I'm just doing my job.'
He slammed the phone down in my ear. I grabbed my nightstand telephone book and located Joanna's number, but when I finally dialed it, the line was busy. I tried several more times, but the line remained busy, leaving me to conclude that Joanna was serious about my not calling her back She had evidently left the phone off the hook.
I gave my pillow a reluctant farewell pat and headed for the shower. Exactly eleven minutes later, the Porsche and I shot out through the building garage entrance onto Lenora.
Morning fog was thick as velvet as I drove up Boren and out Rainier Avenue. At six twenty-five traffic coming into the city was already picking up, but I was driving against it. I wondered as I drove why Joanna had refused to see me at her house, and why she had picked such an early hour in a deserted city park for our meeting.
Seward Park sits on a point that juts out into Lake Washington. On a clear day, Mount Rainier sits majestically above the water, framed on either side by the house-covered ridges of South Seattle and Mercer Island. That particular morning, however, there was no hint that a mountain lay hidden out there. Invisible behind the fog, it lurked in a blanket of silence that was broken only by the occasional huffing of an early morning jogger.
I saw Joanna Ridley's Mustang right away, tucked into a parking place against the tennis court fence. The driver of the Mustang, however, was nowhere in sight. Parking the Porsche next to Joanna's car, I set out looking for her.
Blooming dogwood and daffodils lined the park's entrance. I walked along a hedge of Photinia, its new growth crimson above the older green leaves. The startling spring colors stood out in sharp relief against the shifting gray fog. The grass was heavy with dew, sponging down beneath my feet as I walked along the breakwater.
The park seemed a lonely, desolate place for a new widow. The idea of suicide fleetingly crossed my mind. I wondered if Joanna had decided to end her own life. The thought had no more than entered my mind, however, when I spotted her near the water.
Wearing a huge sweater, she stood on the rock breakwater, profiled against the gray of both the fog and water behind her. A light breeze blowing off the lake pressed the sweater's soft material around the bulge in her middle, accentuating her pregnant figure. Unaware of my approach, she peered down from her perch at something in the water below her, something I couldn't see. When I finally got close enough to look below the breakwater, I found she was watching a flock of hungry ducks out bumming for handouts.
'You wanted to see me?' I asked.
Without warning, she whirled and sprang at me, clenching both fists as she did so. She moved so fast I was surprised she didn't lose her footing on the slippery, wet grass. Just in time I realized she was bringing a haymaker up from her knees, putting the full force of her body behind it. If she had landed that blow, it would have sent me flying.
My reflexes may not be what they used to be, but they were still good enough to save my bacon. I dodged back, away from her doubled fist, which whizzed past my face within an inch of my nose. She came scrambling after me, her face a mask of hard, cold fury.
I had seen a similar version of that look once, that night in the Dog House after we left the medical examiner's office. That look was mild compared to this. Right then, Joanna Ridley appeared to be entirely capable of murder.
'It's about time you got here, you son of a bitch!'
I had expected our encounter to begin on a somewhat more cordial note. After all, I wasn't even late. I stepped back again, just to be on the safe side, staying well out of reach.
'What the hell's going on, Joanna? What's wrong?'
Her right hand shot toward the pocket of the voluminous sweater. My first thought was that she was going for a gun.
Once burned, twice shy. The last time I got burned by a lady with a gun, I came within inches of checking out for good.
With adrenaline pumping from every pore, I bounded forward and grabbed her wrists, pinning them to her sides before she had a chance to draw. Like a desperate, captive bird she struggled to escape my grasp. We must have stood like that for half a minute or so before I realized that what she had in the pocket of her sweater was nothing more than a rolled-up section of newspaper.
She was still pulling against me with all her might when I let go of her wrists. She fell away from me toward the breakwater and would have fallen backward into the lake if I hadn't caught her. We fell to the ground together in a tumbled heap.
The fall knocked the wind out of her. For a moment she was silent, her dark eyes staring up at me in mute rage. When she caught her breath, she screamed. 'Get away from me, you bastard. Get away!'
'Are you all right? Are you hurt?' I tried to break through her anger, but she didn't hear me. She kept right on screaming.
Suddenly, I was lifted off the ground. Someone grabbed me by the back of my shirt the way a mother dog grabs a puppy to carry it. Except puppies don't wear ties with knots that block their windpipes. I dangled in midair, coughing and choking.
From behind me, I heard someone say, 'Hey, lady. This guy botherin' you?'
Joanna Ridley didn't answer him. I swung around, trying to break his hold, but the guy had arms like a gorilla. I couldn't lay a hand on him. I was about to black out when he dropped me to the ground like a sack of potatoes. I lay there for a moment, stunned and gasping, trying to force air back into my lungs. When I looked up, a giant of a man was gently helping Joanna to her feet.
'I'm a police officer,' I sputtered. I reached for my ID, but my pocket was empty. The leather case had evidently fallen out in the course of the struggle.
'Yeah, and I'm Sylvester Stallone,' he returned. Joanna Ridley was on her feet and mercifully quiet. 'You all right, lady?' he asked. 'You want somebody to take you home?'
I crawled around on my hands and knees in the grass, searching for my ID. Finally, I located it, resting against a rock, just below where Joanna and I had fallen. I clambered to my feet and staggered over to where they stood. At six three, I'm no piker when it comes to size, but this guy made me look like a midget. Muscles bulged under his oversized T-shirt and rippled down his legs from under the skimpy running shorts he wore.
I tried to show him my ID, but he brushed me aside. 'Get away from her before I call the cops.'
'Goddamn it, I am a cop. Detective J. P. Beaumont, Seattle P.D. Homicide.'
'No shit? Since when do cops go around beating up pregnant ladies in parks?'
I wouldn't have convinced him, not in a million years, but right then Joanna Ridley stopped her silent sobbing and, surprisingly, spoke in my defense. 'It's all right. I fell down. He caught me.'
The man bent down and looked her full in the face. 'You sure, now? I can throw his ass in the water if you want. You say the word and I'll drown this sucker.'
'No. Really. It's all right.'
He stepped away then, reluctantly, looking from one of us to the other as if trying to figure out what was really going on. 'Okay, then, if you say so.' Without another word, he turned on his heel and jogged away from us, running shoes squeaking on the wet grass.
Warily, I approached Joanna. 'What's wrong? Tell me.'
Once again, she reached into the pocket. When her hand emerged, she was holding the newspaper. She was under control now, but her eyes still struck sparks of fury as she slapped the newspaper into my outstretched hand.
'I thought you said you'd keep it quiet.'
'Keep what quiet?'
'About what happened. I thought I could trust you, but you took it straight to the newspaper.'
'Joanna, what are you talking about?'
'The picture.'
