I looked up and down the hall, embarrassed that she had caught me off guard. No one was there. Luckily, no one had witnessed my humiliation. That was some small comfort anyway.
What would happen now? I wondered. I had blown it, told her she was under suspicion. Now what would she do? Would she run or not? There was no way to tell.
Just then the door opened and Alan Dale stepped back into the hall.
“I told you to get the hell out of here,” he said.
“Tell her not to leave town,” I said.
“Tell her yourself,” he retorted. “If you’re tough enough.”
Dale turned away from me and walked down the hall. Making no move toward Jasmine’s door, I stood there watching him go as I tried to assess the damage to my ego.
At least it wasn’t fatal. I’d probably get over it. Eventually.
CHAPTER 17
I DROVE BACK TO THE DEPARTMENT, FEELING uneasy. Something was eating at me, nagging away at the back of my mind. I was so lost in thought that when I saw the familiar face across the crowded lobby of the Public Safety Building, I didn’t move quickly enough to duck out of sight.
The face belonged to none other than my old nemesis, Maxwell Cole.
Max is an ex-boyfriend of my ex-wife, which is the nicest thing I can say about him. We were in college together, in the same fraternity. He’s nursed a grudge against me ever since I waltzed Karen, my first wife, out from under his nose and straight down the aisle.
Usually, once those teenage romantic rivalries are over, they’re over. It’s kid stuff, and it goes away. Unfortunately, Max and I run in the same circles. His work as a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and mine as a police officer continually throw us together. We get in each other’s way, on each other’s nerves. Besides which, I don’t like him. I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.
I wasn’t happy to see his overstuffed, walruslike form thumping through the crowded rush-hour lobby. He hailed me from across the room.
“Hey there, J. P. How’s it going? I was just coming upstairs to look for you.”
“I’m busy,” I returned. I punched the button and watched impatiently as the light showed the building’s sluggish elevator stopping on every floor on its way to the lobby.
“All I want is the answer to one question. Who’s the blonde?”
“What blonde?”
“That’s not nice, J. P. Here I am, coming to you to do my civic duty, and you hold out on me. Is that any way to treat an old pal?”
“What civic duty?” I asked. “And what blonde?”
“Come on now. You dicks aren’t the only guys with sources on the streets. I happen to have some informants of my own. You tell me what you know, I’ll tell you what I know.”
The elevator door opened. I waited while the crowd drained out; then I got on and pushed the button for floor two. I wanted to stop by the crime lab and talk to Janice Morraine before I went on up to my cubicle on the fifth floor.
Max followed me onto the elevator without pushing any buttons of his own. He was evidently going wherever I went. “You’re working the Burlington Northern homicide, aren’t you?” he asked.
I gave a noncommittal shrug. When we reached the second floor, I got out and Max tagged along.
“Somebody told me you were the one screaming for an autopsy on that queer up on Bellevue, the one who died of an overdose instead of AIDS.”
“So?”
Max grinned, a knowing smirk that waggled the ends of his drooping handlebar mustache. “I’ve been doing a little detective work of my own, J. P. I heard through the grapevine that you interviewed a bag lady about that shoe-wielding killer, a blonde in a long blue dress.”
That got me good. I don’t like it when newspaper reporters tell me things about my cases that they’re not supposed to know. “How’d you find out about that?”
“The bag lady’s got more than a couple of screws loose, J. P. She blabbed her story to anyone who’d listen before you and Reverend Beardsly managed to lock her up in the Pike Street Mission.”
I moved toward him menacingly. “Max, if you so much as breathe a word…”
The remainder of my threat went unfinished. Max sprang backwards, holding up one soft, white hand to protect his equally soft, flabby face. “So she was real.”
“If you know what’s good for you, Max, you’d by God better not leak word of this. You’ll jeopardize the entire investigation.”
“Who said anything about leaking? I came here to give you some information.”
“What kind of information?”
“About the blonde.”
“What about her?”