one endless minute. We waited two.
'Come on out, Mrs. Wynn. Come out before we have to come in after you.'
Still there was nothing. No sound. Images of bloody carnage raced through my mind. Too many years on homicide had left my imagination with too much fuel for the fire. I pictured Peters lying facedown in a pool of blood or dangling on the end of a rope with his head flopped limply to one side. In the silence I heard an imaginary hail of bullets slice into the door when we attempted to push it open.
'On the count of three, we're coming in. One…Two…Three…' One of the members of the team on the other side of the door reached out and tried to open it. Nothing happened. It was locked.
The leader, the man beside me, nodded to the guy on the other side. 'Big Bertha it is.'
The third man came forward carrying a handheld battering ram. He popped the door twice before the lock crumbled. As the door swung open, the silence was deafening.
Crouching low, weapon in hand, I followed the leader into the darkened locker room. We switched on the lights. Inside, we wormed our way around first one bank of lockers and then another. The place was empty.
Peters wasn't in the locker room, and neither was Candace Wynn. They had been there, though. At least someone had.
The locker, the one with the list in it, the Mercer Island High School cheerleader trophy list, had been smashed to pieces by someone wielding a heavy object. I could make out only one or two letters from the battered piece of metal that had once been the inscribed ceiling.
'All clear in here, Chief,' the leader said into his walkie-talkie. He put the microphone into his pocket, then walked up closer to the damaged locker.
'What do you suppose went on here?' he asked.
'Beats me,' I told him. Quickly, I moved away to the other side of the room, out of casual conversation range but close enough to hear him give the all-clear to Chief Sykes via his walkie-talkie. I tried my best to become invisible. Just because Chief Sykes had been kind enough to include me in the operation didn't necessarily obligate me to full disclosure. I didn't want to tell them everything I knew. That locker list might somehow still be useful.
Marilyn Sykes strode into the locker room about that time. She glanced in my direction, then walked up to join the man by the locker. 'Vandalism?' I heard her ask.
The man shrugged. 'I give up. It's funny, but it looks like this is the only locker that was damaged.' For a moment, Chief Sykes gazed at the mangled pile of sheet metal.
'Somebody went to a hell of a lot of trouble to destroy this one,' she said. Then she turned to me. 'What do you think, Detective Beaumont?' she asked.
Whether or not I wanted to be, she had pulled me back into the conversation. 'Do you think this has anything to do with your partner's disappearance?'
By aiming her question directly at me, Chief Marilyn Sykes created an instant moral dilemma. I owed her, goddamnit! She had let me through the barricades onto her turf, and I owed her.
'I'd have the crime lab take a look at it if I were you,' I suggested. That let me off the hook without my having to give up too much.
She nodded. 'All right.'
Wanting to get away quick, before she could ask me anything more, I turned and walked out of the locker room. Halfway down the walkway, I ran headlong into Ned Browning rushing toward the gym. 'Hello there, Ned,' I said.
He stopped cold when he saw me. He was uncharacteristically agitated. 'Oh, yes, Detective…Detective…I'm sorry, I don't remember your name.'
' Beaumont,' I supplied. 'Detective Beaumont.'
'You'll have to excuse me. I understand there's been some difficulty in the gym. I'd been trying to get through, but they wouldn't let me until just now. Somebody called me at home when I came back from church.'
'Church,' I grunted with contempt. 'That figures.'
Browning started forward again, but I stopped him. 'I'm going to want to talk to you, too,' I said. 'As soon as they finish with you.'
'I don't have time, Detective Beaumont. My family is waiting for me. We're having guests.'
'I don't give a shit if it's the pope himself, Ned. I want to talk to you alone. About the cheerleading squad, remember them? I'm sure you remember one or two of them fairly well.'
An almost audible spark of recognition passed over his face. He paled and stepped back a pace or two. 'What do you mean?'
'Don't play dumb. You know what I mean,' I said menacingly. 'I'll wait for you at Denny's, here on the island.'
'All right,' he said, crumbling. 'I'll meet you as soon as I'm finished here.'
You're finished, all right, pal, I thought to myself, but I didn't say it aloud. I didn't have to. And I wouldn't have to lift a finger to make it happen, either. Chief Marilyn Sykes and the Washington State Patrol's crime lab would take care of all those little details.
Meanwhile, while Ned Browning still thought there was a way he could wiggle off the hook, while he still thought there was a way to save his worthless ass and his career, I'd play him for all he was worth, see if I could wrangle any helpful information out of his scared little hide.
That's one thing I've learned over the years. If you have the slightest advantage, use it. And don't worry about it after you do.
Creeps don't have any scruples.
Cops can't afford them.
CHAPTER 28
When I walked back to the Porsche, old man trouble himself, Maxwell Cole, stood slouching against the door on the driver's side.
'Get away, Max. You'll scratch the paint,' I told him.
He didn't move. 'Hey, there, J. P. How's it going?'
'Get out of the way. I don't have time to screw around with you.' Bodily, I shoved him aside far enough so I could put my key in the lock.
'I'll bet it is Peters, isn't it? That's the rumor, anyway,' he said, grinning slyly under his handlebar mustache. 'I mean, he's not here, and you are. Same thing happened last night, over in Fremont, or so I hear.'
'Will you get the fuck out of my way?'
'And what's the teacher's name? Candace Wynn, isn't that it?'
'I'm not talking. Leave me alone, Max.'
'I won't leave you alone. I want to know what's going on. Why won't they release any names? All Arlo Hamilton does is read prepared speeches that have nothing to do with what's going on. I want the scoop, J. P., the real scoop.'
'You won't get it from me, asshole. Besides, it sounds to me like Hamilton is giving you guys just what you deserve.'
'What do you mean?'
'What Arlo tells you is bullshit. What you write is bullshit. Sounds like an even trade to me.'
Max took an angry step toward me, but thought better of it and stayed out of reach. He glared at me for a long moment before dropping his gaze, his eyes watery and pale behind the thick lenses of his glasses. 'You're not going to tell me about Peters, then?'
'You're damn right.'
I flung the Porsche's door open, bouncing it off Cole's ample hip for good measure. Just to make the point. He finally moved aside.
The problem with Max is that I'm so used to avoiding him that in the crush of worrying about Peters I had forgotten I needed to talk to him. Instead of starting the car, I got back out. Max moved away from me.
