Until Proven Guilty - J. A. Jance [68]
“The bums don’t bother me,” she said, and they didn’t. Panhandlers pick out soft touches from blocks away. It’s as if they have a radar connection. None of them approached Anne as she marched through them. Something in her carriage, her bearing, moved them away from her. Like the crush of people in Snoqualmie Lodge, the groups of bums opened before and shut behind her while she moved forward unimpeded.
Driving in a car you’re not as aware of it, but from Pioneer Square to Seattle Center there’s a long, steep grade that tops out at Stewart Street. By the time we reached that point, I was about half winded. Anne set a stiff pace.
“I didn’t know I was so far out of shape,” I grunted.
Anne was clearly enjoying herself. “You’ll just have to get out and walk more,” she said.
We walked in silence for a block or two. “Is Ron coming to the wedding?” she asked suddenly.
“Ron? Oh, you mean Peters? I don’t know. I invited him.”
“I don’t think he likes me particularly.”
“What makes you say that?”
“During the party I caught him staring at me several times.”
“I think he’d like to believe you’re after my money, although seeing your car should have taken care of any suspicions on that score. I guess he thinks we’re rushing into something. Leaping without looking, that kind of thing.”
I caught her by the hand and pulled her back to me. “Why are you marrying me? Everybody knows cops make lousy husbands.”
She reached up and kissed me on the cheek. “But great lovers. I’m marrying you for your body.”
“Anne, you could have any body you wanted. Why me?”
Her eyes, which had been bright and teasing a moment before, softened. “Because you made me remember what it’s like to be a woman, Beau. I had forgotten.”
I pulled her to me, and we stood clasped in an embrace for a long moment at the corner of First and Virginia. Her answer may not have been good enough for Peters or Powell, but it was for me. At last we resumed walking, both of us quiet and lost in our own private thoughts.
We ran into Ida Newell, my neighbor, in the lobby. It was a moment I had been dreading. I was sure by now Ida had monitored Anne’s comings and goings on the closed-circuit channel. It was time to make an honest woman of her, I decided. “I’d like you to meet my fiancée, Ida. This is Anne Corley. Ida Newell.”
“Fiancée,” Ida sniffed. “I’m surprised. I haven’t met you before.”
“I’m from Arizona,” Anne said with an easy smile. “It’s been one of those long-distance affairs. I’m very happy to meet you.”
That seemed to satisfy Ida. At least she entered her own apartment without further comment. “That was masterful,” I murmured gratefully. “You saved my bacon on that one.”
Anne smiled. “It’ll cost you,” she said.
Safety deposit boxes have never been high on my list of priorities. What few trinkets I’ve kept over the years, I’ve stowed in various nooks and crannies around my house. I left Anne in the living room and rummaged in my bottom dresser drawer. I found the faded velvet box in its place in the left-hand corner. I felt a lump in my throat as I opened it.
My father was a sailor, a wartime enlistee who probably hadn’t learned one end of a ship from the other before he died. The ring he had given to my mother wasn’t much, but I’m sure it was the most he could offer his sixteen-year-old sweetheart. I could imagine him proudly making the purchase at some low-life pawnshop in Bremerton. My mother had kept the ring, treasured it. It came to me when she died, and I kept it too. It was my only link with a father whose face I never saw.
I slipped the tiny box into my pocket and returned to Anne. She was sitting on the couch, her head resting on the back of it. “Tired?” I asked.
“A little,” she said.
I sat down next to her with my hand on her shoulder, rubbing a knot of stiffness from between her shoulder blades. I cleared my throat. “You know, we had a wonderful engagement party. It’s a shame we didn’t have a ring.”
“We don’t need a ring