“Beats me,” I said, and Pete Kelsey lapsed into silence. “By the way,” I added, “before we get there, I want to establish some ground rules. You don’t go anywhere without me and vice versa. Understand?”
“Yes,” Pete replied. “I understand.”
Overnight Lars Jenssen’s promised blanket of warm, moist air had moved in from the ocean, breaking the cold snap’s icy grip. Now, as we stopped in front of the church, heavy rain began to pelt the ground around us, visibly melting the snow as it did so.
I had never attended a Mormon funeral before, and I didn’t know quite what to expect. Clearly it was going to be very well attended. Although we got there a good two hours before the funeral was scheduled to start, the church’s parking lot was already full of cars, with the overflow spilling up and down both McGraw and Condon.
I was searching in vain for a parking place when Erin Kelsey came dashing out from under the protection of the entryway and motioned for me to pull up directly behind the hearse.
As soon as the car stopped, she wrenched open the passenger-side door and pulled Pete Kelsey out. Once he was upright, she fell crying into his arms. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” she whimpered. “The house is gone. Completely gone. I’ve been so scared. I’ve missed you.”
So much for her not ever wanting to see him again.
Over the back of Erin’s head, I saw tears of gratitude well up in Pete Kelsey’s eyes. This wasn’t the time for him to tell Erin that the man whose real name she didn’t know wasn’t her father either. That would have to come later, much later, and I hoped to God I wouldn’t have to be around to see it.
“Come on,” Erin said suddenly, pulling away from Pete’s embrace and leading us determinedly toward the church. “We’re in the Relief Society room. Grandma and Grandpa are already there. So’s the Bishop.”
Belle Riggs came to the door to greet us. Like Erin, Belle drew Pete Kelsey to her and held him close. There were tears in her eyes as well, but a brave smile warmed her lips.
“Remember,” she said to Pete. “She’s just gone on ahead. We’ll all meet again. Come on.” She took Pete by the hand and led him into the room. “Let me introduce you to the Bishop.”
That left me little choice but to follow along behind. The visitation and funeral that followed were unlike any I’d ever attended before. The music was stirring, uplifting, and the eulogy made it sound as though Marcia Kelsey was waiting on the other side of a door somewhere, marking time and waiting for everyone else to show up.
Maxwell Cole, serving as one of the pallbearers, listened to that, shook his head, and sniffled noisily. I don’t think the idea of meeting Marcia Kelsey somewhere in the Great Beyond offered him much consolation.
When the graveside portion of the service was over, everyone returned to the church, where a women’s group called the Relief Society served lunch. Standing with the family throughout the afternoon, I was introduced to everyone. I met JoAnne McGuire, Erin’s roommate from Tacoma, and saw most of the school district people I’d met during the course of the investigation.
By four, it was beginning to get dark and things were winding down. It was almost time to take Pete Kelsey back to the King County Jail. I looked around the room for Erin, intending to tell her good-bye, but I didn’t see her.
“Where’s Erin?” I asked Pete.
He too glanced around the gradually emptying room. “I don’t know. She was here a little while ago.”
JoAnne McGuire overheard our exchange. “She’s in the rest room, with her cousin,” Erin’s roommate told us lightly.
Pete’s eyes met mine. “Erin doesn’t have a cousin,” he said warily.
JoAnne looked startled. “Why, of course she does. I left them there together just a minute or two ago.”
“Where?” I demanded.
“Look,” JoAnne said, pointing. “There they are now, just going out the door.”
Sure enough, I turned just in time to see two women, arms linked together, slip out the front door.
“Erin, come back,” Pete called, panic edging into his voice. If they heard him, they didn’t stop.
I headed after them, racing for the door at a dead run. I didn’t have to look back over my shoulder to know that Pete Kelsey was right on my heels.
Chapter 28
We reached the outside entryway just in time to see the taillights of a small, foreign-made car speed away from the curb half a block away. Rubber tires squealed on the rain-slicked street. It was them, had to be.
Without a word, I dashed for the 928, with Pete pounding behind me.
There are only two ways off Magnolia Bluff-one to the north, near Ballard, and one to the south, heading back toward downtown Seattle. The Magnolia Bridge soars high above Piers 90 and 91, stocked with multicolored ranks of newly imported Japanese cars.
Our quarry was headed south. I told Pete how to call for help on my cellular phone while I drove like hell.
I careened up Condon, hoping I could manage to hit Garfield before they did. Wonder of wonders, it worked! We were already stopped at the corner of Thorndyke and Galer when a yellow Datsun B-210 came skidding around the curve on Galer. I was pretty sure it was the right car, but I didn’t dare ram them for fear it wasn’t. Instead, I waited at the intersection until they went past.
Their faces were caught in the light from a street lamp, and I could see it was them. Erin was driving, with someone else leaning close beside her, watching for pursuers in the rearview mirror. Only after they flew past did I realize who the other person was, Jennifer Lafflyn, Ms. Jennifer Lafflyn, the antagonistic school district receptionist.
“I’ll be damned,” I muttered, swinging into the lane behind them, nearly forcing an oncoming driver off the road. “So that’s who it is!” The other driver leaned on his horn.
“That’s somebody you know?” Pete Kelsey demanded.
I was too busy driving to answer, afraid that if they once crossed the bridge, they’d lose us in the snarl of rush-hour traffic. I thought they’d hit the bridge and floorboard the gas pedal. Instead, just as they gained the entrance to the bridge, the brake lights came on, and the car skidded to a stop.
I was right behind them. It took every bit of skill I could muster to keep from rear-ending them. I did, but the guy behind, an old man in a Buick Regal, wasn’t so lucky. He crashed into the back of my poor little Porsche. Metal crumpled and glass shattered. We were shoved in a smoking heap against the concrete rail of the bridge. Fortunately the rail held.
A quick glance in Pete Kelsey’s direction told me we were both all right-stunned maybe, but not broken. The bent doors wouldn’t open, but one of the windows had shattered and disappeared. We wiggled out through the empty opening.
I expected them to be long gone. Instead, the Datsun was still there, parked haphazardly on the shoulder of the bridge, lights still on and doors flung wide open. In the glare of the headlights, we could see two figures making for midspan of the bridge, lumbering awkwardly along together like Siamese twins joined at the shoulder.
“Stop!” I shouted after them, but they didn’t pause, didn’t even slow down.
Pete Kelsey tried his luck. “Erin!”
One of the runners seemed to stumble and stopped, pulling herself free.
“Daddy!” Erin screamed back. “Help me. Please. She’s got a knife.”
But just then Jennifer grabbed Erin from behind and spun her around. For a moment they struggled together, then Erin was once more being yanked forward, and once more we gave chase.
In midspan, the girls stopped again and swung around to face us. Jennifer was holding Erin with one arm across her neck while the other held a knife near her throat. Orange light from the sodium vapor lamps glinted off the blade.
“Don’t come any closer,” Jennifer warned, her voice tight and shrill.
An alert driver, coming from downtown, had seen the trouble and had stopped his car on an angle, effectively blocking both lanes. Behind him and behind us on the Magnolia side, honking horns blared from the building tie-up. A traffic helicopter circled far overhead. But the middle of the bridge was a rain-drenched, eerily lit no-man’s-land with four people locked in a life-and-death struggle.
