Mel’s and my unspoken agreement did mean that Mel hadn’t ever asked me about the whys and wherefores of my going to AA, although, come to think of it, that’s pretty obvious. It also meant that I hadn’t ever delved into her involvement with SASAC, although I have to admit to a certain amount of curiosity. My hands-off attitude on that score ended the night of the dinner at the Sheraton.
There was a lot about the evening that made me uncomfortable. For one thing, there was a whole “Male Evil; Woman Poor Victim” theme to the event that rankled. Yes, I know that most victims of sexual assault are women, the major exception, of course, being generations of traumatized and equally victimized altar boys. But it turns out the villains there are also male, so being a nonabusing heterosexual male in that particular Sheraton ballroom was not a comfortable fit.
Still, I was expected to sit there and share the guilt and blame while a lineup of women revealed a litany of abuse that was enough to curl your hair. As a man, I was automatically under indictment. Whatever had happened to those women was somehow my fault. I was also expected to haul out my wallet and make a sizable donation to the cause, which included the funding of a twenty-four-hour rape hotline and Internet site, funding for victim advocates and victim counseling, as well as continuing to fund the rape-kit examination project that was, it turned out, Anita Bowdin’s special focus.
That rankled even more. It was bad enough that Ross Connors was now passing off police work to underemployed economists. But to find out that the crime lab was outsourcing DNA profiling as well was enough to make this old cop feel like a member of an endangered species-an exceedingly cranky endangered species.
So I handed over my credit card number, kept my mouth shut, and just tried to make it through.
“What’s the matter?” Mel asked.
We had finally escaped the overheated ballroom and were standing outside the hotel in a crush of people waiting for an outnumbered and overwhelmed crew of parking valets to retrieve the Mercedes from the garage.
“How did you ever get mixed up with that bunch of women?” I asked, thinking most particularly of the good professor of women’s studies who had given me an earful of invective over the dessert course.
Okay, my comment was more of a growl than anything else. And it could have been phrased far more diplomatically. But I didn’t expect what happened next. Mel simply turned and walked away. Make that stalked away. The manner in which she took off was far more definitive than mere walking.
“Where are you going?” I asked, trailing after her.
“To catch a cab,” she said over her shoulder.
“But…” I objected.
“I’m going home,” she added. “To Bellevue.”
I guess our voices were somewhat raised, and people started to gawk. Just then the valet showed up with my car and honked twice from the curb. By the time I tipped him and retrieved the Mercedes, Mel was nowhere in sight.
So, since she had said she was going to Bellevue, I drove there, too. There were no lights on in her apartment, so I parked outside and waited. And waited. Finally, forty-five minutes later, and needing to use the facilities, I headed back to Seattle. When I drove down into the underground garage I realized the error in my thinking. Her BMW was gone. So she had ridden the cab back to Belltown Terrace to pick up her car so she could drive herself across the lake to Bellevue. No wonder I had missed her.
Up in the apartment I soon discovered that her briefcase and her computer, along with Todd Hatcher’s stack of abstracts, were all among the missing. So were her nightgown, bathrobe, and makeup. I glanced in her closet. I’m sure some of her clothing was gone as well, but I couldn’t tell how much. If I could have sorted that out, it might have told me if I was dead or really dead. By then it was too late to consider driving back to Bellevue. I tried calling both her cell and her landline, but she didn’t answer. Finally I gave up. I removed my newly purchased tuxedo, which hadn’t exactly done me a hell of a lot of good, and took myself to bed.
When the phone rang bright and early the next morning, I grabbed for it eagerly, hoping Mel would be on the other end of the line. She wasn’t.
“Hi, Dad,” Scott said. “How’s it going?”
Medium, I thought. “Fine,” I said. “How was your day yesterday?”
“Great!” he said. “I took Cherisse out to Lake Tapps and showed her our old stomping grounds. Geez, there are lots of houses out there now. I mean, our house used to be way out in the country. And the lake’s a lot smaller than I remembered.”
“But it was fun?” I asked.
“Sure. We had a blast. This morning we’re going to pick Lars up and take him to breakfast at the Mecca. Do you and Mel want to come along?”
I looked at Mel’s empty pillow. “I think we’ll take a pass on that,” I said.
“And then we’re going to go on playing tourist,” he said. “The Arboretum, Snoqualmie Falls, the aquarium. Care to join us for any of that?”
If I ever go back to Snoqualmie Falls, the place where Anne Corley died, it will be way too soon. “No,” I said. “I’m working on a case. I should probably spend some time on that, but a man’s got to eat. What are your plans for dinner?”
“Don’t really have any,” Scott said, sounding a bit abashed. “We’ve pretty much blown our budget.”
I remembered what it was like to be young and broke and wanting to impress your new wife but worrying about whether or not you’d be able to pay next month’s bills if you did so. Thanks to Anne Corley, my financial situation had taken an amazing turn for the better since those tough old days.
“Dinner’s on me, then,” I said. “What sounds good?”
“Steak?” Scott asked hopefully.
“We’ll go to El Gaucho, then,” I said. “They have some of the best steaks in town, and it’s only a couple of blocks from here. Say around seven or so. I’ll call for a reservation.”
“What happened to Kelly and Jeremy?” Scott asked. “I called to invite them to breakfast. The guy at the front desk said they’d checked out.”
“I guess Kelly wanted to go home.”
“She was acting weird,” Scott said. “Even for Kelly. I mean, if this is all because of Mel, it’s ridiculous. You do get to live your own life, don’t you?”
My sentiments exactly, I thought, although looking at Mel’s empty pillow made me wonder if her presence in my life was still an issue.
“Seems like I should,” I said.
“See you this evening,” Scott returned. “Where’s the restaurant, by the way?”
“Just come to the house,” I said. “We can walk from here.”
Missing Mel, I rolled out of bed and went out into the kitchen to make my own coffee. Then, while the coffee brewed, I called Nick down at El Gaucho. Mel and I go there enough that I have the number programmed into my cell phone. No one answered that early on a Saturday morning, but I left my name and a message. I brought in the newspapers from the front door, but I didn’t bother opening them. For some reason I didn’t feel up to working a crossword puzzle.
Instead, I sat in my recliner, sipping coffee and brooding. Finally I threw caution to the winds and dialed Mel’s cell.
Much to my surprise, she answered. “I’m not speaking to you, remember?”
This seemed like an egregious overreaction to whatever I had or hadn’t done, so I decided to ignore it. “If you were speaking to me,” I countered, “what would you say?”
“‘Those women’!” she said, repeating my ill-chosen words with an inflection I recognized all too well. “How did I get hooked up with ‘those women’?”
“Mel, look. I’m sorry. I’m sure I was out of line, but you’re not seeing this from my point of view. I spent dinner stuck next to that dreadful professor, who really does hate men, by the way, and listening to all of those awful stories. It seemed like every story and every single one of the women there said pretty much the same thing-that whatever had happened to them was all my fault. That I was somehow responsible. I’ll bet even Anita Bowdin’s husband…”