Until Proven Guilty - J. A. Jance [39]
“I’m not here about the Barstogi case, Beau,” she said. “I came because I wanted to see you.”
“Come on, Anne, there’s no fool like an old fool. I’ve been saying that to myself all day. If you want to ask questions, do it aboveboard. Don’t play games.”
“Will you meet me after work?” she asked.
“Do you want me to bring Peters? We’re both working the case.” I couldn’t resist a dig.
She responded in kind. “Bring a chaperone if you want, but that wasn’t what I had in mind.”
I swallowed the bait like a starving mackerel. “Where?” I asked.
“Meet me in the lobby of the Four Seasons,” she said. “We can have a drink there. About five-thirty.”
She turned and walked away. I missed the next elevator fair and square. In fact, I might have stood in the lobby for the rest of the afternoon if Peters hadn’t come through and dragged me back to the fifth floor.
The phone on my desk was ringing. “Hello, J. P.” Maxwell Cole said. “You didn’t return my call.”
“You noticed,” I observed dryly. “You know I can’t talk to you directly. Lay off it.”
“Who is she? The car is owned by a law firm in Phoenix, Arizona, and they won’t tell me anything.”
“I won’t tell you anything either, Max. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Come on, give. You left with her.”
“It was stricly social, I can assure you. Had nothing to do with the case, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“If it was strictly social as you say, tell me who she is.”
“Go piss up a rope, Maxey,” I told him, and I hung up.
The sole advantage of going to lunch at two-fifteen is there’s not a whole hell of a lot of day left when you get back. Maxwell Cole had good sources. The Department of Motor Vehicles gave me the same information he had, the name of a law firm in Phoenix. I called and got a chilly reception from the lady who answered the phone. “Mr. Ames handles Mrs. Corley’s affairs,” she said, “but I have been instructed to give out no information.”
“This is a very serious matter,” I said. “I’m investigating a homicide.”
“Give me your name, then, and Mr. Ames will get back to you.”
“Don’t you want the number?”
“No. If you really work for the Seattle Police Department, we’ll be able to get your number through information.
My phone rang a few minutes later, and a Ralph Ames introduced himself as Anne Corley’s attorney. “You’ll have to forgive my receptionist, Detective Beaumont,” he said. “Yours was the second call on Mrs. Corley we’ve had this afternoon. The first one didn’t check out.”
“Was his name Maxwell Cole?”
“As a matter of fact, it was.”
“And he tried to pass himself off as a cop?”
“Well, as an investigator of some kind.”
“He’s a member of the local press.”
“I figured as much,” Ralph Ames laughed. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“As I told your receptionist, I’m working on a homicide and—”
“Excuse me for interrupting, Detective Beaumont, but let me guess. You’re working on the murder of a young child, and you’re trying to figure out why Anne Corley came to the funeral, right?”
“That’s exactly right, Mr. Ames.”
“She’s working on a book. She’s been working on it for several years. I get calls like this all the time.”
“Yes, she told me about the book,” I said, relieved. “Still, I have to check things out. It’s my job.”
“That’s quite all right, Detective Beaumont. This is my job too. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No. Nothing I can think of. Thanks.”
“Anytime,” he said. He hung up.
I waited while Peters finished taking a call from Hammond, Indiana. Yes, Brodie had been investigated in the bludgeoning death of one of his parishioners two years earlier, but he had never been indicted. The case was still open.
There wasn’t a whole lot more we could do then, so we took off about four-thirty and went by the Warwick to check on Carstogi. He told us he