Dead Float (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

I called Hiram to get a ride home and waited outside the sheriff's station, gulping in the fresh afternoon air to dilute Dorn's secondhand smoke. Hiram rolled up in his Saab with Archie sitting upright in the backseat like he was being chauffeured. I hopped in, tousled the fur on Archie's head, and said, “Want to show off your car in Portland?”

“Portland?”

“Right. Southeast. I've got some things to check out, and I could use some company.”

A squall blew in, and rain began to spatter us as we approached the I-5. We pulled over and put the top up. We'd been talking about my interrogation. As we got underway again, Hiram said, “So, they're trying to cast you as the jealous lover. Can they make it stick?”

I thought for a moment. “I don't think so. What I heard today was mainly Escalante's spin on what Alexis allegedly told them about me. She didn't really give them anything incriminating, at least not yet. They were just fishing around to see if I would rise to the bait and make some kind of stupid mistake.”

“Cunning bastards.”

“Oh yeah. What I'm worried about now is how they might spin
my
interview to try to put the heat back on her. It's pretty easy to escalate the mistrust in a situation like this.” I shook my head. “Been there, done that.”

Hiram chuckled. “Ah, yes, I'm sure you used similar tactics down in Los Angeles. The irony is rich. But, at least one of the detectives let you lay out your theory of the crime. That's a good sign, isn't it?”

“Yeah, I think so. I mean I thought I saw a flicker in Escalante's eyes when I asked him to think about it. But it was probably just wishful thinking. Dorn's never going to agree to their looking seriously at anyone else but me. The guy's a real head case.”

My friend shook his head. “I hope you're not letting him provoke you. That's exactly what he wants.”

“I know. You're right. But the man has no right to carry a badge. Hell, he was ready to shoot Archie this morning. Arch had him pegged in a heartbeat. He knows an idiot when he sees one.”

“Indeed.”

We took the Sellwood Bridge across the Willamette. The river was high from the spring rains, a broad gray-green sheet ruffled by a stiff northerly breeze that buffeted the Saab. We took a left on Milwaukie, and parked a half block beyond the Knapp Street intersection. This put us in the middle of the Westmoreland neighborhood, a mostly blue-collar area in the early stages of gentrification, meaning there was at least one Starbucks and an artisanal pizza shop.

I left Hiram and Archie in the car to take a quick look around. A small market and a Thai carryout shared the northeast corner of the intersection where Barnes' car had been abandoned. A used bookstore stood on the northwest corner. I tried the market first, then the carryout, but got nothing but blank looks to my questions. As I exited the carryout, I saw a young man with a heavy beard dressed in jeans, sandals, and gray socks locking up the bookstore for the day.

I hurried across the street. “Excuse me. Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.” He turned his back on me to set the lock.

Unfazed, I waited for him to turn back around. “I'm investigating a crime and was wondering if you saw the person who parked a dark green Jeep Grand Cherokee over there last Friday morning?” I pointed across the street.

“What kind of crime?”

“Uh, a murder, actually.” His eyes widened just a little. I knew I had him.

“When did you say?”

“Last Friday. Probably mid-morning or later.”

“The Jeep? Oh, yeah. The cops towed it yesterday. I saw this dude park it on Friday around, oh, eleven, I guess. I was sitting at my desk having a coffee when he pulled up. Thought maybe he was a customer.”

“Could you describe him?”

He scratched his cheek through his beard and scowled in concentration. “Didn't get much of a look at him. Let's see. He was wearing a black hoodie and dark glasses. Tall and thin, maybe carrying a backpack.”

The description matched the one Oliver Dan had given me. “How tall?”

“Your height, maybe a little taller.”

“Race?”

“Uh, looked like a white guy to me, maybe Hispanic.

“Anything else? The backpack—anything unusual about it?”

He scratched his other cheek and grimaced. “No. That's all I can tell you.”

“You see which direction he headed?”

He pointed north. “Up Milwaukie. Toward Bybee.”

“Thanks. This has been helpful. Oh, one more thing. Did you notice if he was smoking?”

“Smoking? Uh, yeah, as a matter of fact. He flicked a cigarette on the sidewalk when he got out. Cretin.”

I got the man's name and phone number and gave him a card. I scanned the wet sidewalk for cigarette butts with no success before heading back to the car. The sky had cleared, and Hiram had taken the top back down on the Saab.

“That guy at the bookstore actually saw the perp park the stolen Jeep last Friday,” I said, trying to contain my excitement. “Bring Arch. Let's go for a walk.”

We walked up Milwaukie toward Bybee, pausing at the Starbucks. “So, he pops in for a coffee after a long drive from Madras. That's what I'd do.” I went inside. One of the servers had been on duty last Friday morning, but she didn't recall seeing anyone fitting the description.

I came back out and shrugged. Hiram pointed to a neighborhood bar across the street. “If it were
me
, and I'd just driven two hundred miles in a stolen car after murdering a couple of people, I think I would indulge myself with an adult beverage, a strong one.”

“Good point.” We crossed the street, and I went in to check it out while Hiram and Archie window-shopped an antique store. The bartender explained she hadn't been working the previous Friday, and the three customers in the place didn't know anything. It was the same story with a cafe and a bakery—nothing.

When I came out of the bakery, Hiram and Archie had turned back in the direction of the car. “Wait a minute. Our guy didn't just drop the Jeep here arbitrarily. He must've had a reason.” That's when I spotted a sign up on the next block that read Moreland Mixed Martial Arts. Looking back, I think I subconsciously associated the man I was looking for with, fairly or not, the sport of MMA, which struck me as needlessly violent. In any case, I headed for the studio, saying over my shoulder, “Come on. Maybe he needed a workout rather than a drink.”

The martial arts studio had been carved out of a large retail space, a pharmacy, maybe, or a mom-and-pop grocery. I hesitated out front until Arch and Hiram caught up to me. “This could cut either way. If they know him in there, I might get a name. On the other hand, if I go in there asking questions, I run the risk of tipping him off.”

Hiram stroked his chin. “
Audentes Fortuna Iuvat
.”

I shot him a puzzled look.

“Fortune favors the bold. One of Virgil's better quotes.”

How could I argue with Virgil? The studio was warm inside, and the humid air carried the smell of sweat, wet leather, and something medicinal—liniment, probably. The lobby had racks of sparring gear and clothing—not just workout attire but casual wear for the MMW fan, as well. A cooler offered energy drinks, and posters on the wall captured the essence of the sport. One poster in the style of LeRoy Neiman depicted a fighter dispatching his opponent with a vicious knee to the face. Another pictured a fighter with his fist raised in triumph, blood streaming down his gap-toothed face. Between the posters, a sign said, Ask About Our Family Plan.

There was nobody behind the counter, and I began to feel silly. I mean, what were the chances I'd learn anything at this place? I was about to walk out when a voice called to me from the back of the studio. “Hello out there. We're back here.” I worked my way through the exercise machines and racks of free weights to a large matted area. To my left two tattooed fighters were thumping heavy bags with punches and high kicks, their bodies glistening in the overhead lights. A third was on his back, grunting through a set of crunches.

In front of me, two men were sparring. They stopped when I approached. The man catching the punches said, “What can I do for you?” He appraised me through small, reptilian eyes, his chin dimpled like a crack in a block of cement, his dirty blond hair spiked up in front like he'd been electrocuted. Even in loose-fitting sweats, it was clear he had a powerful body.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt you folks. I'm trying to get in touch with someone. Thought maybe you could help me.”

Spiky Hair gave me a blank look and didn't respond. The two hammering the bags stopped to listen. I rattled off the description, adding he might have dropped in the previous Friday around midday, and scanned the group for their reactions. I thought the eyes of one of the two working the bags, a woman, might have enlarged slightly, as if she might speak, but Spiky Hair cut her off. “Nobody like that workin' out here,” he said, shooting me a smile draped with icicles. “Sorry. We can't help you.” The tone rang with finality.

I smiled affably, watching the woman. “No biggie. Might have been the first time he'd come in. He smokes really foul-smelling cigarettes.” The woman had a body sculpted by hard workouts and a head-turning face framed in jet-black hair. Her eyes flicked from me to Spiky and back before she lowered them to study her bare feet.

Resisting an urge to push it, I swung my gaze back to Spiky, and we looked at each for a moment. His arctic smile dissolved into a thin, straight line. He said, “You can go out the way you came in.” As I turned to leave, I could feel his beady eyes boring into my back.

Joining Hiram and Archie down the street, I said, “They know him in there—at least a woman in there does. But she wasn't about to talk in front of the others.” I shook my head and frowned. “Man, I didn't like the way that went down.”

Hiram arched his brows. “You didn't use your name, did you?”

“Not on your life.”

Chapter Thirty

The next day Claire called from Khartoum. Her leg was doing splendidly, she told me, and she would be arriving in L.A. the following Wednesday. “Look Claire,” I said, “I'm, uh, afraid I can't make it down to meet you, but Philip Lone Deer will be there in my stead.”

“Oh. Why can't you come, Dad?” Her voice had gone from enthusiastic to guarded.

“I've got a legal situation I can't duck.” I sighed, long and deep. “God, Claire, there's nothing I'd rather do than meet you next week, but I can't do it.”

“What's the problem?”

I laughed, trying to keep it light. “It's a long story. I'll fill you in when you get here.”

I was hoping she would drop it, and she did. I listened for traces of disappointment in her voice but heard none. My little girl was all grown up now. After Claire signed off, I sat in front of the computer thinking about our lives since her mother's death. I looked over at the one picture of Nancy I had left out. The rest were in a box in the attic. Why that particular picture? I'd asked myself that many times and still didn't know the answer.

Certainly it had to do with the fact that Claire was in the photo, too. I couldn't look at any image of my wife without seeing my daughter, who was still with me, young, strong, and vibrant. They were standing together at Newport Beach framed against the Pacific, a brilliant blue gashed white by breaking waves. Claire was thirteen, wearing her first bikini and looking straight at the camera, unflinching. Nancy had a hand on Claire's shoulder with her head turned slightly toward her face. Her expression was carefree yet full of pride for her daughter, whose womanhood was blooming like a rose. Nancy had just beaten a three-month bout of depression. Things were on the upswing, or so it seemed at the time. We're all hopeless founts of optimism, aren't we?

I pushed away from the desk and went into the kitchen to scare up some lunch. I watched a big Northern flicker jackhammering a chunk of suet I'd hung in a wire basket next to the feeder, scattering the chickadees and goldfinches. For no particular reason, my mind flashed on the scene of the campsite on the Deschutes the night of the murder, the group socializing around the fire, the frenetic cell phone calls before dinner, the confrontation over the direction of the company. There was something about that scene that bothered me, some little detail that didn't seem to fit. But I couldn't for the life of me put my finger on what it was.

The news at my law office that day wasn't cheery. Two prospective clients phoned in and abruptly cancelled their appointments, and another left a voice mail saying he no longer required my services. The
Oregonian
article was extracting a toll already. On top of that, Daina called with bad news. The illicit scan of Hannon's and Streeter's e-mail correspondence over the last three months hadn't turned up anything suspicious.

On the bright side, I was forced to knock off early, which was fine with Archie. He'd been lobbying hard for a jog, but he had to settle for a walk through the grocery store where I did a week's worth of shopping in just under ten minutes. I love to cook, and I love to eat, but shopping doesn't rise above the level of necessary evil.

When we got back home, Arch surprised me by heading straight down the hall to the study, rather than checking out his food dish for a steak bone the dog fairy might have left him in our absence.

“What is it, big guy?” I asked when I caught up with him. He was standing in front of the sliding glass door that opened onto the back porch. His ears were up, and he was sniffing the floor and whimpering softly. The latch securing the door was in the unlocked position. I usually kept the door locked, but I wasn't religious about it. Arch looked at me, then back at the door, and took the whimper to a whine.

I slid the door open, and like a bloodhound he worked his way across the porch and down the steps. But when he reached the patchy, weed-infested grass, he moved first to the left, then right, then left again before turning to me and barking twice, sharp notes of frustration.

I joined him, and we walked together down to a narrow gap in the fence separating my property from an abandoned rock quarry. I stood surveying the strip-mined rubble and stunted misshapen cedars below me. Nothing moved. I patted Arch on the head. “So, big guy, what got you so upset? You think someone paid us a visit?”

We went back to the house, and I went through each room carefully. I'm not the greatest housekeeper, but everything looked more or less like I'd left it until I got to the study. The wastebasket seemed slightly out of place. I noticed this because I kept it positioned to catch my three-pointers. In fact, two of my basketballs—in the form of wadded-up paper—lay on the floor beside the basket. But the basket was now tucked in too close to the far end of the library table, making it impossible to launch a shot from my desk chair.

Anyone searching the place would look in the wastebasket.

I had nothing related to the Bruckner case except the files I'd hidden out in the yard. My computer was on, and it would have been simple to access my e-mail. I checked my messages. Nothing sensitive from Daina.

I couldn't be certain someone had been in the house. After all, Archie could have bumped the wastebasket, and he could have been reacting to a skunk or a raccoon that had been nosing around outside. Still, I locked all the doors and first-floor windows, then retrieved the Glock 19 I kept in a shoebox in my bedroom closet. The gun was on permanent loan from Nando Mendoza. He'd become concerned about my personal safety while we worked a particularly dicey case together a while back. I sat on the bed, loaded the clip, and snapped it into the handle of the weapon. I set the safety and put the gun on the nightstand. It was a ritual that was supposed to make me feel safer. But in my untrained hands? Not so much.

I had to chuckle. A person with such a conflicted view of guns should probably not own one.

But I took the Glock with me later that night when Archie and I took our customary walk before going to bed. The clouds moved across the waning moon like gray smoke, and the southerly wind carried the smell of rain. The only sound was the barred owl's
who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-youuuu.

I found myself wishing I could ask the owl what he'd seen that afternoon from high in his perch.