Not Dead Enough (27 page)

Chapter Fifty-six

No brief squall, the front that moved in unleashed a pelting downpour. I fed Arch and left him pouting at the front door. “Guard the castle, big boy,” I told him, and he did the doggie equivalent of rolling his eyes. I took the Pacific Highway to Newberg and then the 219 across the St. Paul Bridge and south through the heart of the Willamette Valley. Even in the rain and low light, the spring fields pulsed with more shades of green than there were names for. I pulled into Silverton fifty minutes later, a prosperous looking little burg named, I guessed, after Silver Creek, which cut through the west side of town.

It took one lap around town to find the Starbucks, and I scored a parking place right in front. Winona wasn't there. I called, and her phone went to voice mail. “Damn it, Winona, pick up,” I said in a tone that caused a couple at a table to look up at me. I turned to the barista. “This is the only Starbucks in town, right?”

She smiled. “The one and only.”

I had to assume the worst—that Winona had gone without me. “Uh, do you know a big estate around here? It would be on the road that goes down to Silver Falls State Park?

She smiled again. “You mean the Townsend estate?”

“Yes. That's it.”

“It's about twelve miles straight south on Silver Falls Highway, left-hand side. My brother used to do landscape work out there. You'll see a humongous iron gate and a freaking mansion set way back. Can't miss it.”

I thanked her, put five dollars in the tip jar, and tried Winona's cell again. She answered this time. “Where the hell are you?”

“I'm in the guesthouse,” she said, with an edge of excitement in her voice. Norma got back to me on the key. Sorry, but I couldn't wait. I figured I had a pretty good excuse to be in here, anyway. Listen, Cal, I've found something important. Are you in Silverton yet?”

“Yes. I'm standing in front of the Starbucks.”

“Come straight sou—”

“I know where it is, Winona. Don't touch a goddamn thing. I'll be there in five minutes.”

I got in my car and headed out of town, muttering all the way. My odometer just clicked past eleven miles when I saw her car pulled off on the right side of the road. I pulled in behind it. The Townsend estate was a bit further down the road. I hadn't bothered with a raincoat, and by the time I got to the gate I was wet, starting to get cold, and feeling very grouchy.

The main house was set back and I could barely see its outlines in the failing light. I let myself in the side gate, stopped, and took a breath. This wouldn't constitute breaking and entering, I told myself. Winona had permission to enter the guesthouse to look for her earrings, and I'm just popping in to assist her. A shaky rationale but defendable.

A light burned at the front of the two story structure to my left, which had to be the guesthouse. I followed a path lined with boxwoods to the front porch and knocked softly. Winona came to the door wearing the latex gloves I'd given her and holding a small white garbage bag in one hand.

She held the bag up, her eyes wide with excitement. “He was here for sure, Cal. Wait till you see this. I searched the bedrooms first. There's three of them. They were clean as far as I could tell. I was getting set to leave, and then it occurred to me to look in the trash out back.”

“Good thinking.” I was starting to get excited myself.

“Anyway, I found this bag.” She led me into the dining room, opened the bag, and spread the contents on the table—an empty fifth of IW Harper whiskey, four cigarette butts, a paperback—Shame the Devil—written by George Pelecanos, and a squeezed-flat tube of toothpaste. She picked up the paperback, which was stained and swollen. Clearly enjoying this, she smelled it and smiled. “He spilled whiskey on the book, so he left it behind.” She held up one of the cigarette butts. “Camels.” She pointed at the filter. “See? The little camel's right here on the filter. Probably got his DNA plastered all over it.”

I looked at her and smiled. “This will do nicely. The bag was in the trash, right?”

“Yes. It was loosely tied off. I—”

The front door clicked open and we both swung around. David Hanson walked in, looking dapper in a blue blazer, gray slacks, and tassel loafers. “Oh, hi guys.” He smiled broadly. “I heard you needed the key and drove over. Any luck with the earrings, Win?”

Winona casually stepped in front of the table to block his view. “Nice to see you, David. Yeah, we're good.” I nodded in agreement. She said, “Uh, Norma must have called you.”

He laughed. “Yeah, she did. I was the last to use the place. Misplaced the key. My mistake.” He stepped forward, leaned to one side, and peered past Winona. “What's all the mess on the table?”

“Oh, nothing,” Winona said, swinging her hand in a dismissive gesture. “We were just sifting through some trash, you know, to find the earrings.”

He took another step, his eyes fixed on the table. I think it was the IW Harper bottle and the book that tipped him. He straightened up. “Oh, good grief, what a slob. I told him to clean up after himself.” He rolled his eyes dramatically. “I should have known.” Then he brushed his blazer back, pulled an automatic from his waistband, and shook his head. “Damn, I was hoping it wouldn't come to this.”

Hanson? I said to myself. Didn't see that coming.

Chapter Fifty-seven

Winona put her hands on her hips and glared at Hanson. “David, what are you doing? Put that gun down, now.”

He raised the gun a little higher. “Shut up, Winona.” He swung his eyes to me. His face had grown taut, and a muscle twitched below his right eye. “No heroics, Claxton. I'm very proficient with this weapon, and I will shoot you if you try anything.”

I extended my hands in a calming gesture. “Take a breath, David. We were just leaving. We found the earrings. The rest of this stuff means nothing to us.”

He waved us away from the table with the barrel of his gun and moved in for a closer look. He shook his head and said more to himself than us, “Oh, Jake. I never should have trusted you with this. You were in over your head.”

I said, “Look, David. All you have to do is destroy this stuff we found and it'll be our word against yours. No one can prove you killed Norquist, either. You got away with it clean, man.” A flicker of something, not quite a smile, crossed his face. And besides,” I went on, “most of the evidence points to Royce Townsend, not you.”

He exhaled a loud breath. The eye twitched again. “Royce had nothing to do with this. I'm freelancing here. When Ferguson called that day to warn about Watlamet, Sam wasn't in and I happened to pick up. I'd helped Ferguson out of a couple of legal scrapes as a favor to Royce, so he opened up to me.” He shook his head again. “Sam thinks he's a hard ass, but I knew he wouldn't have the guts to shut Watlamet up, so I took care of it myself. It was simple, really. All I had to do was tell Norquist the Old Man needed a favor. And pay him well, of course. The bastard son would do anything to please his father.”

Winona took a half step forward. “David, why? What were you thinking? Jason would never, ever have wanted you to do something like this.”

He glared back at her. “Jason doesn't always know what's best for Jason. His election bid would have been toast. And listen to you,” he sneered. “You wanted to go to Washington as much as I did.” He raised his chin slightly, his face beaming with self-righteousness. “You had an agenda—your pitiful people, your precious salmon—but I did it for love, Winona. Love. Something you wouldn't understand.” His smiled bitterly. “But I was betrayed by Sam and Royce.” He swung his eyes back to me and opened the palm of his free hand. “What could I do?” He pleaded. “By the time they sacked me, everything was in play. I had no choice. I had to see it through.”

“You're wrong, David.”

I saw something stir in him, the tremor of a face muscle, a flaring of his nostrils. But a breath later it was gone. His face grew rigid, and his eye twitched, twice this time. “I, I need time to think this through. He drew a breath and wagged the barrel of the gun. “The wine cellar's off the kitchen. There's no way out, so don't even try. And don't drink any of the wine. It'll piss Royce off.” He stopped us at the cellar door. “Give me your cell phones and your car keys, please. Just drop them on the floor.” He swept them aside with a foot and opened the door. “Inside.”

He clicked the door shut and locked it with a key that must have been resting on top of the door frame. The cellar was pitch black and reeked of wine—that smell of mold the French call pourriture noble—noble rot. I found the light switch and after descending the steep steps, we hugged each other, and I felt Winona shudder.

She said, “Oh, Cal, I think you got to him. Do you think he'll relent?”

I pushed her away gently and looked her straight in the eye. “No, I don't. When he comes back, it'll be to kill us. He won't do it here. Too messy. He'll take us somewhere down the road, probably in his car.

She nodded. Her eyes narrowed, and she got that warrior look. “Well, we need a plan, then.”

We spent a couple of minutes scouring the place for anything we could conceal as a weapon. One wall held a wine rack nearly full of bottles of well-known vintages from Oregon, California, and France. A rich man's wine cellar. There were cases of wine stacked here and there, too, and a utility sink on the wall opposite the wine rack. We found a corkscrew in no time, the kind with a fold-out screw. I tucked it in the small of my back, under my belt.

Winona frowned. “He'll find that in a heartbeat.”

“I know.” I took a bottle from the rack, walked over to the sink, and tapped the neck on the bottom of the sink. Chunk. The neck broke off, and the wine glugged into the sink.

In a hushed voice, Winona said, “Cal, what are you doing?”

“You'll see.” I held the jagged neck up and examined it. “Not quite.”

“Oh,” she said with a knowing look.

I broke six more bottles of 1986 Romanee Conti, probably the most expensive wine Townsend had in the cellar. Might as well really piss him off, I figured. I finally found what I was looking for. I held the neck of the seventh bottle up. It was maybe five inches long with a sharp, dagger-like blade.

“He might not be looking for this,” I said.

Winona looked at me, her face as hard as marble. “Cal. Give it to me. My blouse's untucked. He might miss it. He underestimates me.” I handed the weapon to her and she tucked it gingerly into her waistband, under her blouse. She turned in a circle with her hands up. “What do you think?”

“Could you use it on him?” I asked the question, but I knew the answer.

Chapter Fifty-eight

We talked through various scenarios and how we might use our weapons against Hanson. We agreed on the simplest of plans. It was laughable, really, but it was all we had, and the act of making it gave us a shred of hope. Now there was nothing to do but wait at the base of the steps for our would-be executioner.

I put my arms around her and pulled her gently to me. She said, “Oh, Cal, how can you ever—”

“Shhhh,” I said. “This was nobody's fault but Hanson's. We've still got a shot.”

She looked at me, her eyes laced with a tenderness that made me want to weep. “I'm glad I bummed a ride from you last night.”

“Me too. It was worth the wait.”

“I'm sorry I've been so conflicted, I—”

“Don't. I understand. Conflicted? Hell, that's my middle name.”

She hugged me and chuckled softly. “The walking wounded, both of us.”

The trapped, fetid air hung heavy in the cellar. Time passed like the movement of a glacier. An hour in, Winona said, “Maybe he took off, Cal. Maybe he doesn't have the courage to go through with it.”

A flicker of hope stirred in my chest. “He'd kill me with no compunction. Maybe your presence has given him a moral dilemma.”

She puffed a derisive breath. “Doubt it.”

I nodded. “He's probably moving our cars further down the highway, maybe to the park. That could take a lot of time.”

We fell silent, straining our ears for any sounds coming from above, and at the same time, trying not to dwell on what those footsteps would bring.

Winona sighed deeply. “This reminds me of when I was living with my mother. I used to lock myself in my bedroom with the lights out.”

“Why?”

She sighed. “My way of trying to disappear, I guess. Mom used to get drunk and bring men home. One night she passed out, but she must've said something about me to the guy she'd picked up. Anyway, he knocks on my bedroom door and tries to sweet-talk his way in. Then he starts to force the door. I got behind it with our big old iron. When he came in, I hit him with it, hard, and then ran to my cousin's house.”

I waited, but she didn't continue. “What happened then?” I finally asked.

“The next day I moved in with Grandmother. Mom went into rehab for a month, the first of many. Grandmother told me later that the man had to be hospitalized.”

“A warrior, like your grandfather, huh?”

“Funny. That's what Grandmother said.”

“Where's your mother now?”

“Last I heard, Spokane. She calls and leaves messages, but I don't return her calls.”

It was my turn to sigh. “She probably feels guilty for the way she treated you. She wants your forgiveness.”

Winona stiffened visibly. “You don't know that.”

“I think I know what she feels like.”

We lapsed into another long silence. Winona began sobbing softly, and I did my best to console her. Finally, she stirred against me. “If we get out of here alive, maybe I'll call her. What do you think?”

I took her hand and kissed it. “I think you should.”

She looked at me and smiled demurely. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Anything.”

She shook her head. “You'll probably think this is dumb.”

“Try me.”

“In October, they're going to breach Marmot Dam on the Sandy River. Will you hike in with me to watch it go?”

I squeezed her hand. “I wouldn't miss it.” I hesitated for a moment, then added, “I, uh, have a question for you—”

“Anything.”

“Did you kill Cecil Ferguson?”

She withdrew her hand from my grasp. “No. I didn't kill him.”

“I know you lied to me about what happened.”

She smiled and dropped her eyes. “Okay. After that staff member questioned me outside the center, I left. But I came back and got in the second time. Ferguson's door was ajar, so I went into his room. He was dead on the floor.” She raised her eyes. “Maybe I would have killed him, I don't know. But that's what happened.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. I believe you, Winona.”

It wasn't long after that exchange that we heard the front door slam and the sound of approaching footsteps. She took my hand, and we stood up to face the cellar door.