Until Proven Guilty
She was probably a cute kid once, four maybe five years old. It was hard to tell that now. She was dead. The murder weapon was a pink Holly Hobbie gown. What little was left of it was still twisted around her neck. It wasn't pretty, but murder never is.
Her body had rolled thirty feet down a steep embankment from the roadway, tossed out like so much garbage. She was still tangled in a clump of blackberry bushes when we got there. As far as I could see, there was no sign of a struggle. It looked to me as though she had been dead several hours, but a final determination on that would have to wait for the experts.
My name is Beaumont. I've been around homicide for fifteen years, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to puke. I was careful not to think about my own kids right then. You can't afford to. If you do, you crack up.
My partner, Ron Peters, was the new man on the squad. He had only been up from burglary a couple of months. He was still at the stage where he was long on homicide theory and short on homicide practice. This was his first dead kid, and he wasn't taking it too well. He hadn't come to terms with the idea of a dead child as evidence. That takes time and experience. His face was a pasty shade of gray. I sent him up to the road to talk to the truck driver who had called 911, while I prowled the crime scene along with a small army of arriving officers.
After the pictures, after the measurements, it took the boys from the medical examiner's office a good little while to drag her loose from the blackberry bushes. If you've ever tried picking blackberries, you know it's easy enough to get in but hell on wheels to get back out. By the time they brought out the body bag, I was convinced we weren't going to find anything. We slipped and slid on the steep hillside, without finding so much as a gum wrapper or an old beer can.
I climbed back up and found to my relief that I had waited long enough. The swam of killer bees that calls itself Seattle's press corps had disappeared with the coroner's wagon. I like reporters almost as much as I like killers, and the less I have to do with them, the better off I am.
Peters' color was a little better than it had been. He was talking with a man named Otis Walker, who was built like an Alaskan grizzly. In the old days people would have said Walker drove a sewage truck. These are the days of sanitary engineers and environmentalists, so Walker told us he drove a sludge truck for the Westside Treatment Center. That may sound like a high-class detox joint, but it isn't. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but if it looks like a sewage plant and smells like a sewage plant, that's what I call it.
However, Otis Walker had a heavy, square jaw and a nose that showed signs of more than one serious break. His biceps resembled half-grown trees. I chose not to debate his job title. Despite his fearsome appearance, he was having a tough time talking to Peters. The words stuck in his throat, threatening to choke him.
"You gonna catch that SOB?" he asked me when I appeared over Peters' shoulder. I nodded. "I got a kid of my own at home, you know," he continued, "almost her age. Wears the same kind of gown. Shit!" He stopped and swiped at his face with the back of one meaty paw.
"That's our job," I told him. I wondered what kind of murder this was. The easiest ones to solve are the hardest ones to understand, the husbands and lovers and wives and parents who murder people they ought to cherish instead of kill. The random killers, the ones who pick out a victim at a football game or a grocery store, are easier to comprehend and harder to catch. That's the problem with homicide.
No one was in the church with us right then, but they would be soon. Peters quickly retrieved the recorder and put it in his pocket. We found Pastor Michael Brodie in the middle of his study. He was sprawled facedown and naked on the blood-soaked carpet. Peters and I theorized that he had heard noises in the church and come to investigate. Again there was only one bullet hole.
Shooting at such close range doesn't require a tremendous amount of marksmanship, but you've got to be tough. Tough and ruthless. A hand shaking out of control can cause a missed target at even the shortest distance. Then there's always the chance that the victim will make a desperate lunge for the gun and turn it on his attacker. And then there's the mess.
"I would have bet even money that Carstogi wouldn't pull something like this," I said.
"I hate to be the one to break this to you, Beau, but you did bet money. We both did. Our asses are on the line on this one. Your friend Max will see to it. You just hide and watch."
There's an almost religious ceremony in approaching a crime scene. First is the establishment of the scene parameters. In this case, to be on the safe side, we included the entire church. Then come the evidence technicians with their cameras and measurements. They ascertain distances, angles, trajectories. They look for trace evidence that may be helpful later. The secret, of course, is approaching the scene with a slow deliberation that disturbs nothing. This is one place where peons take precedence over rank. Sergeant Watkins paced in the background, observing the technicians' careful, unhurried efforts.
The medical examiner himself, the white-haired Dr. Baker, arrived before the technicians were finished. He made the official pronouncement of death. A double homicide was worthy of his visible, personal touch. Considering the accumulation of people, I was grateful Peters had gotten the chance to stash the recorder when he did.
A uniformed officer told Watkins that the church members were gathering outside and wanted to come in. What should he tell them? The sergeant directed him to assemble them in the fellowship hall, where we could once more begin the interviewing process. I was a little puzzled when I saw the whole Faith Tabernacle group, as much as I remembered them, file into the room. After all, it was Tuesday morning and presumably some of them should have gone to work. It turned out that they had been scheduled to be there at five o'clock for a celebration breakfast. It was the traditional ending to a successful Purification Ceremony, and would have marked the end of Suzanne Barstogi's ordeal of silence, fasting, and prayer.
Without Brodie's looming presence in the background to enforce silence, it was easier to get people to talk. It was plain that they were shocked by what had happened, and talking seemed to help. They were getting better at it.
The cook, a True Believer named Sarah Morris, had come to church at four to start preparing breakfast, which was due after a prayer session at five. Before early-morning services, she had been in the habit of taking a cup of coffee to Brodie in his study. It was when she took him his coffee that she had found first his body and then Suzanne's.
We were about finished with Sarah when the front-door cop came hurrying into the room. "You'd better come quick. Powell said to call him on a telephone, not the radio, and to make it snappy."
The only phone available at the church was in the study. If Powell didn't want us to use the radio for privacy reasons, the study was no better. We got in Peters' car and drove to the first available pay phone.
"What's up?" I asked as soon as Powell came on the line.
"The night clerk from the Warwick, that's what. He says Carstogi came back and tried to go to his room.
She was coughing and gasping. Blood foamed in the water that erupted from her mouth. I cradled her head in my lap, willing her to live. The coppery smell of death was all around her. I tried to wipe the hair from her mouth, from her eyes. I was crying by then. "Anne, Anne, why?"She tried to say something. I could barely hear her; the roaring of the water was too loud, the roaring in my ears. I leaned toward her, her lips brushing my ear. "You said &hellip; " she whispered, " &hellip; said given the same &hellip; the same circumstances &hellip; " And that was all.
I was still holding her when a Snoqualmie City officer charged into the clearing from the bottom of the path. He was young but his instincts were good. He came on strong, ready to haul me in single-handed. He held his .38 Colt on me and picked up my .357 with his other hand. I tossed him my I.D., letting it fall at his feet.
"Call Captain Powell at homicide, Seattle P.D.," I told him. "Tell him I got her. Don't let anyone who isn't a cop come down that trail."
He left without argument. I lay Anne Corley Beaumont down, closing her eyes, stroking the hair from her forehead one last time. I stood up, feeling the aching chill from my sodden clothes. It was nothing compared to the glacial chill inside. Sudden weakness robbed my legs of strength, forcing me to sit once more. I didn't sit next to Anne. There was nothing more I could do for her.
The officer returned with a couple of blankets. He wrapped one around my shoulders and covered Anne with the other. "Powell says to tell you he's on his way." He looked at me closely. "You need an ambulance.""No," I said. "I'll wait."
I have no idea how much time passed before I heard the wail of sirens. Peters loped down the trail ahead of Powell and Watkins. How he managed to make connections back from Arizona that fast I'll never know. I was glad to see him. Powell and Watty went to the blanket-covered figure on the edge of the river. Peters came to me. "I'm sorry, Beau," he said.
I felt a sob rising in my throat. It took me by surprise. Peters put his arm on my good shoulder and left it there.
"A week," I said when I could talk again. "I only knew her a week.""I know," he said.
Powell came over to me then. "The officer says you're hurt." He lifted the blanket and looked for himself, then turned to Watkins."Get those ambulance people down here now," he ordered. "Have 'em bring a stretcher."
Peters came with me. I was glad to be taken away. I didn't want to be there for the ritual pictures and the measurements. I didn't want to watch as the search for evidence started, as people who knew nothing about Anne Corley or J. P. Beaumont started trying to learn everything about us. They would. That's a homicide detective's job.