reasonably good terms now,” she added, “as long as he stays on his side of the country and I stay on mine.”
“That what caused the divorce?” I asked. “Drinking?”
“Booze was only a part of the problem,” she said. “He’s a liberal and I’m not. I think I thought I could fix that, too, but I couldn’t. We called it irreconcilable differences. Fortunately, we didn’t have any kids, so there wasn’t anyone else for us to screw up.”
In a matter of a few minutes I learned more about Mel Soames than I had picked up in months of working with her, and her lighthearted way of chatting about things put me at ease in a way I hadn’t expected. While I busied myself with uncorking the wine she made herself at home, searching through cupboards and drawers until she found enough dishes and silverware to set the table. She had transferred the food to serving dishes and was surveying her handiwork when I handed her a glass of wine.
“Thanks,” she said. “Now what are you going to drink?”
“Coffee,” I answered. “I made a new pot just before you got here.”
“You can drink coffee at night and it doesn’t bother you?”
“I can drink coffee round the clock,” I said. That wasn’t entirely true, but I thought the comment hit the right notes of casual macho-dudeness.
“You’re lucky,” she said. “The other night I hardly slept at all after you filled me full of caffeine.”
“Sorry about that,” I told her.
“Don’t apologize. Staying awake late at night is good for me sometimes. Gives me a chance to think about stuff I usually manage to ignore during the day.”
I like to think of the Mediterranean Kitchen’s shish tawouk as garlic squared. The fluffy saffron rice is infused with garlic and then the grilled hunks of chicken are covered with a milky crushed-garlic sauce and it comes with lentil soup and salad. The first savory bites were nothing short of glorious.
“You like it?” she asked.
“Love it,” I returned.
She grinned. “My ex didn’t like garlic, either. Now maybe you’d better tell me how come you called. I have a feeling something happened.”
There it was again, that sudden switching of topics and moods that women do so effortlessly and, in the process, drive men nuts. Because I knew I was about to breach Ron’s confidence, it took me a moment to answer.
“Ron Peters fired his attorney today,” I said for starters.
Mel nodded. “I know. I met him-Ralph Ames. Didn’t expect to like him, but he seems like a pretty squared- away guy.”
“Ralph is squared away,” I told her. “And he would have done a good job for Ron. The problem is, I believe Ron is getting ready to plead guilty to a murder he didn’t commit.”
“I think you’re right,” Mel Soames said.
That stopped me. I hadn’t expected the two of us to be on the same side of this question. “But the other night I thought you said…”
“I wouldn’t be much of a cop if I let my personal experience get in the way of an investigation, would I?” she asked.
“No, but what changed your mind?”
“Facts, mostly,” she said. “Like the fact that someone had wiped down Ron’s Camry for fingerprints, but they left all the blood in the trunk. Brad and I think someone’s trying to frame Ron Peters for his ex-wife’s murder, and we’re thinking whoever did it is likely one of his own family members.”
“Heather,” I said at once.
“The younger daughter,” Mel confirmed with a nod. “The one who was the subject of the custody battle and who didn’t want to go live with her mother.”
I felt a sudden wave of relief. If Mel and Brad had already reached many of the same conclusions, that let me off the hook.
“Have you spoken to her directly?”
“No. For the moment, it’s easier for us to play along and act like Ron’s the only game in town. In the meantime, we’re talking to everyone else and gathering what additional information we can. We’re hoping to have what we need so we can question Heather either before tomorrow’s funeral or after it.”
“Ron isn’t going to want you anywhere near her.”
“What Ron Peters wants and what he gets are two entirely different things,” Mel said.
“Are you looking at anyone else for this?”
Mel looked at me sharply. “Any suggestions?”
“What about Michael Lujan? He was at Ron and Amy’s this afternoon, raising hell about the funeral tomorrow, throwing his considerable weight around, and insisting Bread of Life be part of it.”
“Ah,” Mel said. “Rosemary’s attorney. Now there’s a guy who’s completely convinced Ron did it no matter what the evidence may say. What happened?”
“Ron told him to take a hike, and he did, running his Escalade over my 928 in the process.”
“Ouch,” Mel said. “Hope he didn’t hurt it.”
“Smashed it flat is more like it, but getting back to Rosemary, I’m worried about having tunnel vision here. Lujan is certainly more involved than I’d expect. And what about the clients who show up at Bread of Life? Did any of them have some kind of beef with the victim?”
“You don’t want us to look at Heather any more than her father does,” Mel observed with a smile.
“I suppose you’re right about that.”
“But think about it. She lives there. She’d have access to her father’s car keys, and my guess is that she also knows how to gain access to his weapons. According to Tracy, Heather went to her room right after dinner that night and stayed there.”
“That’s not what I heard,” I told her. “That may be the story she and Tracy told Ron and Amy, but I have it on good authority that Tracy and Heather let themselves in and out of the house overnight with complete impunity.”
“That’s pretty typical,” Mel said. “When I was in junior high and high school, I pulled that same stunt.”
“Maybe not quite,” I said. “According to a kid named Dillon, Heather Peters spent most of Friday night at his house.”
“Dillon would be Dillon Middleton,” Mel said. “Tracy told us about him. He’s the boyfriend, isn’t he?”
I nodded.
“How do you know him?”
“I never heard his last name, but the little creep gave me a ride down the hill in his garbage-heap Ford Focus.” I retrieved my notebook from the entryway table, tore out the page with Dillon’s plate number written on it, and handed the paper over to Mel.
“He’s Canadian, then?” Mel asked after studying it for a moment.
“Maybe,” I said. “But whatever nationality he is, he’s also a worm who ought to be brought up on charges of statutory rape. Heather’s still not sixteen.”
“Not old enough to screw around,” Mel said, “but she’s old enough to be a homicide suspect. There’s something wrong with that picture.”
“What about the security video?” I asked. “Can you tell whether or not she’s the one driving the car?”
“It’s grainy. You can see the vehicle but not the driver. We’ve sent it off to the FBI in hopes their people can enhance it. And Brad has been collecting security tapes from Friday night and early Saturday morning on every route we can think of from here to Tacoma and back in hopes of coming up with a video that might give us a clearer shot of the Camry and its occupant or maybe even occupants.”
“As in more than one?”
“Rosemary wasn’t a tiny person,” Mel said. “If Heather actually did it, she might have needed help.”
“Heather and Dillon together?” I suggested.
“Maybe. The crime lab folks are going over the car looking for anything and everything. One way or the other, we will find out who was driving the car.”
“And break Ron Peters’s heart,” I said.
“That, too,” she agreed.
