Until Proven Guilty - J. A. Jance [17]
That jarred him out of his introspection. He sat up and glared at me. “If you so much as try to get me pulled, I’ll kick your ass till Sunday, J. P. Beaumont.”
“That’s fair enough.” I could handle him pissed a whole lot better than I could handle him grieving. “Now let’s get the hell out of here. I want to go take a look at Faith Tabernacle.”
Peters straightened his shoulders and started the car. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not about the time we started being real partners. At least we had taken the gloves off. It was about time.
Chapter 5
It was still raining Saturday morning, so I grabbed a bus to the Public Safety Building. The lady Metro driver winked at me. I don’t think getting hit on by a lady bus driver is exactly dignified. Besides, I spent too many years with a ring around my finger to know how to handle a pass when I meet one. I consider myself a relatively cool customer. That’s why I got off the bus by the back door.
There was a whole stack of messages on my desk. I returned what calls I could. One was from a Tom Stahl. When I tried his number, I discovered it was the telephone company business office. It was closed until Monday. I’ve had calls from Ma Bell before. It usually means I’ve neglected to pay my phone bill. I looked in my checkbook. Sure enough, no check showed in April for the March bill. It was nice of Mr. Stahl to remind me! Karen used to handle that. I wadded up the message and pitched it, making a mental note to pay all my bills.
I went over the Sophie material. Who was Uncle Charlie? I pored over the list of Faith Tabernacle members. No Charles or Charlie there, only those quaint biblical names that sounded like they’d just stepped out of the Old Testament. I fed the names into the computer, looking for driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations, unpaid traffic fines. There was nothing on any of the names in the state of Washington, except for Brodie. He was the registered owner of a total of five vehicles. Not finding any information is enough to arouse any good detective’s suspicions. Who the hell were these people? I fired off another inquiry, this one to Illinois.
Afterward I waited, drumming my fingers on the desk, wondering about Uncle Charlie. No one in Faith Tabernacle had mentioned him. Whoever he was, in or out of the group, he had been important to Angela Barstogi. She had mentioned him to Sophie Czirski when she hadn’t mentioned her own father.
I looked up to find Captain Powell perched on the corner of my desk. “How’s it going?” he asked.
I guess Powell’s all right. He’s probably thirty-seven or thirty-eight. He’s what I call a young Turk, one of those guys who’s on a fast track and plans to make it all the way to the top in a hurry. The best way to handle people like that is to stay out of their way. Their ambition has a way of clobbering anyone who isn’t pushing and shoving in the same direction.
“We’re plugging,” I replied noncommittally.
“What are you finding?”
“We spent a good part of yesterday afternoon around Faith Tabernacle over in Ballard. We didn’t get inside. No one was there. The doors were locked, but we spent lots of time with the neighbors.”
“And?”
“Pastor Michael Brodie is not well thought of in that neck of the woods. People say odd things go on in Faith Tabernacle, that they sometimes hear children crying.”
“Have there been complaints?”
“Peters is checking that out right now. No one has ever been able to get close enough to the kids to talk to them.”
Powell rubbed his chin. I’m always about half-suspicious of chin rubbers. It’s the same way with deliberate tappers and cleaners of expensive, hand-carved pipes. The gestures are calculated distractions, serving to divert attention from the current topic of discussion.
“Speaking of Peters, how’s he working out?”
“He’s okay.”
“You knew there was some difficulty downstairs. We had to shift him out of property. It was either send him to homicide or bounce him back to walking a beat.”
“No, I didn’t know that.” I might have added that I was outside the departmental gossip mills, but I let