Not Dead Enough (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

I crept down the back hall and let myself out through the kitchen door onto the side porch and slowly circled around to the front. There wasn't much light, but outlined against the white wall I could see the shape of someone at my front door. I extended the .357 Magnum out with both hands and wincing at the pain in my left arm and scarcely believing what I was preparing to do, tightened my finger on the trigger.

I cleared my throat. “Can I help you?”

The figure froze. Even in the weak light I sensed something familiar about the silhouette.

“Cal? It's me. Winona.” She peered at me through the darkness. “Jesus, don't shoot me!”

I lowered the revolver and expelled a breath. “Winona? Sorry. I was asleep. Heard you on the steps. I'm a little jumpy.”

“I just drove up from Eugene. Thought I'd pop in and see how you're doing.” She managed a laugh. “You blew it, you know.”

“I did?”

“You could have said, ‘Go ahead, make my day.'”

We sat in the kitchen with a bottle of pinot between us. Archie was under the table, sleeping against my foot. He liked Winona well enough, but he was still sticking close to me. At her insistence, I was taking her through what'd happened. It wasn't a story I was particularly anxious to repeat. After all, it's embarrassing to be caught in your own trap.

When we'd finished discussing the latest attempt on my life, Winona said, “I've got some news. Timothy Wiiks is dead. He died on March 9, 1957. That's the day before the falls were flooded, the day before Grandfather disappeared at Celilo. He went off the road into the Deschutes River late that night. Of course, the police found a couple of whiskey bottles in his car.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Just another drunken Indian.”

I sat up straight in my chair. “How do you know this?”

“I talked to his mother, Sarah Morning Owl, over at the Umatilla Rez. She's in failing heath, but her mind's sharp as a razor.” She exhaled. “Timothy was her only son. She was the one who told him to talk to Grandfather about the thievery going on at the dam. Timothy didn't drink, Cal. Just like Grandmother, she knew her son had been murdered.”

“Let me guess. No one would listen to her.”

“Of course not. The police blew her off. There was a cursory investigation. No one, not even the tribal elders could help. An Indian woman had no voice at all in those days.”

“Does she have evidence to back this up? A diary, letters, anything that might help us?”

“No. Nothing.”

“How did she make the link between her son's death and your grandfather's disappearance?”

“She told me he worked for Cecil Ferguson, kind of a personal assistant. Ferguson wasn't that good with numbers, so Timothy started helping him with the books. That's when he found it—a second set of figures Ferguson was keeping. Timothy was a bright kid and figured out something illegal was going on.”

“I see. What did she do after his death?”

She said she tried to contact Grandmother, who was still in the TB ward at Warm Springs. She finally gave up in despair, but she never forgot.”

“Did she say anything else?”

Winona picked at the label on the wine bottle and then looked up at me. “She said she had a dream not too long ago that a woman would come to set Timothy's spirit free.”

“That would be you?”

The dimples appeared, but the smile was tentative. “Apparently. She said she wasn't surprised that I'd come to see her. In our culture a dream like that is considered a big deal.”

“By you?”

She exhaled and stripped a piece of the label off with her fingernails. The nails were painted blood red. “I don't know. I suppose so. It feels like I've set something in motion. Something I can't really control.”

I laughed. “Tell me about it. Did she mention seeing a white guy in her dream? I need to know if I'm going to survive this.”

She looked up from the wine bottle and met my eyes. “Cal, I'm so—”

I put a hand up. “Don't, Winona. We've already been through this. This is personal for me, too. I'm in for the duration.”

We sat in silence for a long time. She shifted in her seat. “Where do we go from here?”

I scratched my eyebrow with the little finger of my good hand while I gathered my thoughts. There was something I needed to get off my chest. “Uh, look Winona, I called Jason Townsend and offered to help in his campaign—”

“I know. He told me. He was pleased. He's very taken by you.”

I frowned and shook my head. “I think he's a good man, too, but my motives here aren't pure. I need him to introduce me to his father, Royce. I've got some questions I want to ask him about the construction project at the dam. I need him to cooperate.”

“Oh. Well, I guess you have to do that. I'm sure Jason can make it happen.”

“I hope so. I don't necessarily want Jason to pass anything on to his dad, you know, about the things we've discovered about your grandfather's disappearance.”

“You don't suspect Royce Townsend, do you?”

“I don't know who to suspect at the moment. I just wouldn't want the information to influence his thinking in any way. Memory's a funny thing. Have you told Jason anything?”

Winona brushed a strand of hair from her forehead and widened her eyes. “I told him about the murders of Watlamet and Ferguson. I left out the part about my going to see Ferguson and my brush with the Portland cops. I was too embarrassed to tell him that.”

I was disappointed but didn't show it. “That's all?”

She wrinkled her brow and thought for a moment. “Yes. That's all. And you don't have to worry, Cal. I won't say anything else.”

“Good.”

Winona told me she'd come to cook dinner. The only problem was she couldn't cook. The pain was re-emerging in my arm, so I sat at the kitchen table and gave directions. Soon she had a couple of Chinook salmon steaks sizzling on the grill and red potatoes brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt baking in a hot oven. “Do you want a salad?” she asked.

“Sure.” I pointed to a bowl on the counter, relieved that I had actually done a bit of shopping two days earlier. “Uh, there're tomatoes and a ripe avocado in that bowl, a cucumber and some carrots in the fridge. Just slice ‘em up. Simple's good. Oh, and there are some Kalamata olives in the fridge as well.” I went on to describe the one dressing I knew how to make—a mixture of olive oil, red wine vinegar, and Dijon.

She smiled and shook her head. “You know your way around a kitchen. How did that come about?”

“I'm a work in progress. If you love food, cooking kind of follows naturally.”

She laughed. “Oh yeah? Well, I'm living proof that's not so.”

The dinner came together beautifully. We ate with a patter of small talk in unspoken agreement that her grandfather's disappearance was out of bounds during such a meal. Afterwards, she nodded at the bandage on my arm. “That's going to need changing. When're you going back to the doctor?”

In my escape from the hospital, I'd failed to think about that. “I'll deal with it tomorrow,” I answered vaguely.

She wrinkled her brow. “Did they give you a sling for your arm?”

“No. I checked out kind of fast.”

“I think you need one. I can't believe they let you leave without one.”

The sling Winona fashioned from a piece of an old bed sheet fit snugly and relieved a lot of the pressure on my wound. When she finished helping me into it, her dimples appeared and she leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. I placed my good arm on her shoulder and gently held her in front of me. Her breath was warm on my face, and I suddenly ached to taste her mouth, to hold her in my arms. I pulled her forward, and when our lips touched she opened her mouth and our tongues came together for one white hot instant.

She pulled back. “God, I've got to go, Cal. This isn't a good idea.”

“I think you're right.”

“I'm not good at juggling men.”

I thought of Jason Townsend, picturing his boyish, handsome face. “No problem. I'm the one who's out of line here.”

After Winona left, I sat in the study with a book, desperate for distraction. My arm throbbed with pain, but I resisted taking another pain pill. After reading the same sentence for the fourth time, I set the book aside. Not because of the pain, but because of what that flubbed kiss dredged up in me. It wasn't Winona's rejection, either. Hell, she'd done me a favor. Like I told Philip, the last thing I needed was more emotional baggage. I had enough to handle, with a motherless daughter and memories of my dead wife hovering over me, memories that were stubbornly fade resistant. I'd clawed and scratched my way out of depression, and by coming to Oregon, to this ridge, I'd been able to sustain a semblance of normalcy.

Stay with what works, I told myself. Don't rock the boat.

But that night, before drifting off, that fleeting kiss with Winona replayed in my head. I felt the jolt again. It was like touching a downed power line, and as my conscious mind closed down I saw the vaguest outline of new possibilities.

Chapter Twenty-seven

The following Friday I awoke to a thick cloud cover and the smell of approaching rain. Somber light muted the spring colors in the valley but didn't slow a group of rowdy swifts that darted and swooped in my yard after a hatch of insects so tiny I couldn't see them. I'd spent the intervening time getting my strength back after what Philip dubbed “the spring swim in Lake Claxton.” I got my arm checked out and redressed at an urgent care center in Newberg and drove on into to Wilsonville to have the back window in my car replaced.

I was having a second cup of coffee when Archie's squeals and yelps marked the arrival of Santos Araya, who'd come on his spring vacation. He was dressed for work this time—faded jeans, beat-up sneakers, and a paint-spattered sweatshirt. Maturity had begun to sculpt his body, but innocence still clung stubbornly to his face. His dark eyes were wary, although perhaps less so than the first time we met. I poured him a glass of orange juice and told him how lucky he was that I was injured. “Otherwise, I'd thrash you on the basketball court.”

“I'll play with my left hand in my pocket,” he said with the first hint of a smile he'd allowed himself in my presence.

Relieved that he didn't ask me how I got hurt, I threw my head back and laughed. “When I get the stitches out. Now come on, I have some weeds that are dying to meet you.”

After lunch, the rain that had threatened all morning finally cut loose, strafing the house with drops the size of quarters and swaying the big firs in the yard. The wind through the trees made a sifting sound, like waves receding on a pebbly beach. I called Santos in out of the downpour and gave him a cold apple out of the refrigerator. He followed me into the study, slouched into my big leather chair and began eating.

“You like to read?” I asked.

He shrugged and used his full mouth as an excuse not to answer.

I pulled a book from the bookcase and tossed it to him. A favorite of Claire's back when she was an early teen, it was the best I could come up with on short notice. He caught it adroitly with one hand, glanced at the cover, and then looked up with a wrinkled brow. “Hatchet?”

“It's about a kid who has to survive on his own up in Alaska after a plane crash. You might like it.”

His brow stayed wrinkled. “Alaska? The dude's an Eskimo?”

“No. A white kid. You still might like it.”

Santos shrugged again but took the book, read the dust cover, and then settled back and began to read the first chapter. The rain continued unabated, and I went back to plunking on my computer with my good hand. The phone rang twenty minutes later.

“Claxton? It's Fletcher Dunn. I read what happened. Been meaning to call you.”

I was surprised to hear from Dunn. “Yes, Fletch.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. The case I told you about sort of blew up in my face.”

Laughter. “I'll say. I read about your mishap. Do the cops have any leads?”

“Not many at this point.” I paused for a moment. “Uh, I thought I was persona non grata with you.”

“Oh, that. I'm sorry I went off at you the other day. I was three sheets to the wind. You know what they say, ‘never wreck a drunk's pity party.'” He laughed uproariously. “Hell, I'm half in the bag now. But listen, I've talked to some folks about the singer I told you about. You know, Royce Townsend's mistress. Found a couple of things that might interest you.”

“Shoot.”

“Her name's Sheri North. Don't know whether that's her real name or a stage name.”

“She still around?”

“My source didn't know. But I've got more. She left Portland abruptly while The Dalles Dam was being built. Rumor had it she was pregnant. Most people figured Townsend was the father. But get this, my sources tell me she also had a dalliance with Braxton Gage. Apparently, both Townsend and Gage lusted after this woman.”

“Did she have the baby?”

“The story was she left to get an abortion. In any case, she just dropped out of sight. A real shame, too.”

“How's that?”

“The woman had a real set of pipes, I'm told. Never heard her sing myself.”

“So, she never resurfaced?” I asked, becoming curious. “I wouldn't mind talking to her.”

“Not that I know of.” Dunn chuckled. “In those days, women who got knocked up were supposed to disappear.”

There was a pause, and I heard the clink of ice on glass. “I also picked up another tidbit on Braxton Gage that might interest you. The old boy's still up to his money-making tricks.”

I waited for him to continue.

“He has a growing parcel of land east of Cascade Locks in the Gorge. Rumor has it he's working behind the scenes with the Confederated Tribes at Warm Springs to put a gambling casino there.”

“A casino in the Gorge? You're kidding me.”

Dunn erupted in laughter. “Afraid not. Word on the street is that the Governor's listening to Gage. And the city fathers in Cascade Locks are salivating. A casino would be a bonanza to them as well as the Confederated Tribes.”

“And to Gage, too.”

“Oh, yeah. I'm told Gage wants a piece of the gambling action as an inducement to sell the land. Could be huge for him. The cunning old fox.”

“A casino in the Gorge. What the hell next?”

Dunn chuckled. “I'm sure Gage's loving this—a sharp stick in the eye of every Gorge loving, tree-hugging environmentalist in Oregon.”

I pressed Dunn for details, but that's pretty much all he had. I thanked him again for the information, adding, “So, how are things going with you?”

He sighed into the phone, and I heard the clink of ice against glass again. “Oh, you know, same old demons. I can handle the injury most days. Matter of fact, I find a certain solace in being a cripple. Seems only right since I lived and she didn't.” His voice cracked. “But the loss of her, that's what I can't get past.”

A wave of emotion blindsided me. I sighed and heard myself say, “Yeah, I know the feeling. I lost my wife a year ago. Suicide.”

The line went silent for so long I thought the call had dropped. Finally, I heard a slurp and then Dunn. “I know that, Cal. I did some research on you. Sorry for your loss.” More clinking of ice. “Your wound's fresher than mine. It's me who should be giving the advice here. Trouble is, I don't have a clue what to tell you.”

I had to chuckle. “No need, Fletch. I'm muddling through,” I lied.

“Say,” he continued in a bright tone that made it clear we were done with this maudlin topic, “I noticed you had a fine record as a prosecutor in L.A. Reading between the lines, I'd say you had a shot at heading up the whole shebang down there.”

I winced inwardly. I wanted to tell him that the price of my lust for success was my wife's death, but I never seemed to have enough breath in my lungs to say that out loud. “Well, it didn't work out that way.”