As if death summoned, p.26
As If Death Summoned, page 26
But I was feeling too desperate to be apologetic. “It’s after one,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“In the afternoon.”
“Huh?” He blinked, squinting over my shoulder into the dull daylight.
“Look, I’m really sorry to wake you, but I need to speak to Leo. It’s urgent.”
I had clearly not made a new friend. He grumbled, “Wait here,” and closed the door. I watched as he went up the stairs.
He was back in a minute. “He’s not there.”
“Are you sure? Maybe he didn’t hear you knock. He might have suffered a concussion last night.”
“I looked in his room,” he said wearily. “Leo doesn’t lock his door. He wasn’t in the john. He’s not here, okay?”
I left a note with him, along with a ten-dollar bill for his troubles, asking Leo to call me as soon as he got the message. Next I called Sandy, trying to keep my own fears tamped down and not alarm her. I returned to Pioneer Square and waited through the afternoon, hoping maybe he had first gone to check on Danny. Sandy kept trying his phone. When he didn’t show up for work on Monday morning, we spoke with Steve, and the three of us decided to call the police. We thought it would carry more weight if we reported a missing employee rather than just as “concerned friends.”
Sandy made the call as Steve and I listened. The person on the line suggested we wait. People sometimes don’t show up for work, she said, especially on Monday mornings. But Sandy wouldn’t take no for an answer. “We are very, very concerned”— enunciating each word— “and we don’t want to wait.” The person acquiesced, saying an officer would come to our office that morning. Two hours later, a policewoman, Officer Herndon, was sitting in Steve’s office, writing in her notepad.
“When did you last see Mr. Saavedra?” she asked.
“Saturday night, around nine-thirty,” I said. “I dropped him off at his apartment. We were to meet the next day at noon, and he never showed up. I went to his apartment building, but he wasn’t there.”
“Do you have any idea what might have happened to him?”
Bad apples, I thought, but said, “No.”
“Has he ever disappeared before?”
“Yes,” admitted Sandy. “At times, he needs to get away for a while. But he’s always let me know he’d be gone.”
After a few more questions, she recapped her pen and closed her notepad. “We normally recommend waiting. You’d be surprised at the number of reports of missing people we get each month. Most show up. There’s no law against people disappearing if they choose. Maybe he’s just sleeping off a bender somewhere.”
“Leo doesn’t drink or use drugs,” said Sandy.
“You’re sure of that?”
“Hasn’t in over two years.”
Steve interjected, “How long do we need to wait before you consider him officially missing?”
“Typically, two or three days.”
She must have seen our alarm, adding, “Unless there’s suspicious circumstances.”
“There could be,” I said. She looked at me. “He had a run-in with two police officers the night before he disappeared.”
“What kind of run-in?”
“They got into an argument— a fight, actually.”
“Over?”
“He’s our street outreach worker, and he doesn’t always see eye to eye with the police on how to work with street people.” I decided not to tell her about the file. “A third officer came by and broke up the fight. Leo left while the three officers were still . . . discussing it.”
She reopened her notepad. “What time did this happen, and where?”
“Probably around eight. Near Burnside and Third Avenue.”
“And you believe Mr. Saavedra’s story?”
“I saw him afterward. He was in pretty bad shape— swollen eye, split lip, purple bruises on his face.”
“Then I’d also suggest you check the area hospitals. When I get back to the office, I’ll review the incident reports for Saturday night. Did he get the names of the officers?”
“Probably. But he didn’t tell me.”
Sandy was clearly anxious, edging on anger. I hoped she could keep it together. “When you finally determine that Leo’s missing, what can you do?”
“We’ll check his car registration.”
“He doesn’t own a car. He uses public transportation and walks everywhere.”
“We can check his cell phone records.”
“He doesn’t have one.”
“Then recent credit card transactions.”
“He doesn’t use credit cards.”
Officer Herndon looked exasperated. “Bank account?”
“Yes, he has a bank account.”
“Then we can check to see if there’s been any activity. If necessary, we can get his dental records for possible identification. But for now, we’ll hold off on filing an official report until it’s certain Mr. Saavedra is missing. He’s only been gone about a day.” She gave each of us her card. “Be sure to let us know if he calls you or if you hear anything about him.”
“Thanks for coming over,” said Steve with a smile, which was good since neither Sandy nor I was smiling. “We appreciate it.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful at this time.”
I sensed we were racing against time, and feared we were already too late.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Looking for Leo
[Portland, Oregon, October 1994]
Officer Herndon called Steve later in the day. She’d found no reports of any interaction between police officers and Leo on Saturday night. But I already knew she wouldn’t.
Tuesday morning Sandy and I drove to Leo’s apartment in Northwest Portland. The leafy streets were clogged with parked cars, and we kept circling around, trying to find a place to park until she swung into an empty space.
“You can’t park here,” I told her. “It’s disabled parking.”
She switched off the engine. “So, limp when you get out.”
We went up the steps and knocked on the door. There was no answer, but we knew at least one of the tenants was there. The pungent odor of marijuana wafted from an open window on the second floor. There was an “APT FOR RENT” sign next to the door with the manager’s phone number and Sandy called it on her cell phone. She got a voice recording and left a message, saying she was at the apartment building and wanted to speak to the manager. We resumed knocking on the door, hoping to rouse the happy smoker upstairs. After five more minutes of intermittent knocking, we concluded the smoker was too happy and gave up. As we turned to leave, a man came down the sidewalk. “You the people who phoned?” He was of that indeterminate age called “old,” somewhere between sixty and eighty, wearing rumpled gray slacks and a green cardigan sweater over a loud Hawaiian print shirt, a sartorial ensemble causing one to shield one’s eyes.
“Yes,” said Sandy. “We work with Leo Saavedra. We’re concerned that he’s not shown up for two days now. We’d like to check his room.”
“Nah, I got no authority to let you in his room.”
We stood on the covered porch as it began to rain.
“We’ve filed a missing person report with the police,” said Sandy. “Would you rather they come and search his room?”
“They were already here.”
Both of us looked at him with surprise. “The police?”
“Yeah, two cops yesterday morning. I’m not sure I should be letting people in his room.”
Alarm bells that had been ringing in my head since Sunday just got louder. We hadn’t met with Officer Herndon until 11:00 a.m. I doubted the police worked that fast.
Sandy made a show of sniffing the air, the pungent smell from the second-story window still strong. “Would you like the police to visit again?” she asked, smiling at the man. No need to be unpleasant when threatening someone.
He smelled the illegal scent, too. “I guess it’d be okay for you to look around, you being Leo’s friends and all.” It must have been Sandy’s smile.
He unlocked the front door, and we followed him up the stairs to the second floor and Leo’s apartment. It was a shambles. “The cops did this,” he said. “Leo’s very neat. Likes things clean and orderly.”
“He was always neat when he lived with me, too,” murmured Sandy.
It was your basic college student décor. Mattress on the floor, table, two chairs, small kitchenette with microwave, mismatched furniture from Goodwill, an old beat-up sofa, chest of drawers, jerry-rigged bookcase of wooden boards and concrete blocks. The police had definitely been looking for something: The mattress and bedding were turned over, drawers of the dresser open, clothes lying on the floor, books pulled off the shelves. I went directly to his desk, its drawers already open, papers and folders on the floor. The third drawer had a false bottom, where Leo had told me he hid the file. I lifted out the panel, revealing the hidden compartment, then looked at Sandy, shaking my head. It’s not here.
“Did the police officers take anything?” I asked.
“They were in here by themselves, but I didn’t see them take anything when they left.”
“Could you describe them?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “They were cops. What’s to describe?”
“Badge numbers? Did they leave cards?”
“Nah. They were just cops.”
“Did they have a search warrant?” asked Sandy.
“Hey, cops say they wanna search, I let ’em search. Don’t want no problems with the cops.”
“Did they say why they were searching or what they were searching for?”
“Didn’t ask. None of my business.”
I squatted before the bookcase, studying the titles on the floor— college texts, several paperback novels, five well-thumbed books by Krishnamurti— while Sandy went through the closet. The manager stood at the door, watching. “Leo pays his rent two, three months in advance. Keeps his room clean. Seems like a good kid.”
I went to the open chest of drawers. The usual: underwear, socks, T-shirts. The second drawer had several pairs of jeans. I pulled out a pair, holding them up and stared at them . . .
Something knocking at the back door of my mind.
Sandy noticed. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” I refolded and returned the jeans to the drawer. Whatever it was, it should have used the front door.
“Like I told the cops, Leo takes off from time to time,” said the manager. “I wouldn’t worry. Haven’t seen the other one, neither.”
Sandy and I both turned to him. “The other one?” I asked.
“His roommate or whatever. I don’t inquire too closely. None of my business.”
“Do you know the other fellow’s name? Or how we could contact him?”
“Nah. He comes and goes. Probably went with Leo. Maybe they took a vacation, you know?”
“Is he a cosigner on the lease agreement?” asked Sandy.
He shook his head. “Just Leo. They’re both quiet. Keep to themselves. Never no problems. Wish all my tenants were like them.”
“Okay. Well, thank you for letting us look,” I said, and the three of us went downstairs.
Once we were back inside Sandy’s illegally parked car, I said, “He wasn’t very forthcoming, was he?”
“None of his business.”
“Did Leo say anything to you about having a roommate?”
“No, but he’s always been private. I respected that.”
• • •
Before returning to the office, we stopped at a coffee shop on Northwest Twenty-Third Avenue to discuss next steps. Sandy was clearly anxious as her hands gripped the cup. “It’s not looking good, is it?”
“I think it’s too early to lose hope,” I said quietly.
“He could be badly injured. He could be lying somewhere.”
I didn’t meet her eyes.
“You think he’s already dead, don’t you?” she said.
“I don’t know what to think.” I was trying to be rational, calm, trying not to let my own fears seep out. “Let’s assume he’s alive until we learn otherwise, okay?”
“If the cops were searching his apartment for the file, it must mean he took the file with him, and that they didn’t get him.” She was reaching for any hope. I couldn’t blame her, but I also could think of different, less hopeful scenarios.
“Or maybe they did get the file,” I said, “and they went to his apartment, looking for the registry.”
“What registry?”
“Leo recorded the different incidents in his file, but he coded them so there were no names. The street kids, the pimps and prostitutes, the bar and flophouse owners— they were each given a code. You need the registry to identify those people. If the police got the file, they know they need the registry as well.”
“Where’s the registry?”
I lowered my voice. “At my house. We decided to not keep the file and registry in the same location.”
Sandy was quiet. “If the cops did get Leo and the file, they’d have realized they needed the registry, too. And if they hadn’t killed him already, they could have made him tell where the registry is, and who has it.”
I shrugged. “That’s a lot of ifs.”
“I’m saying, watch your back.”
“I know. I know.”
It seemed both of us wanted to change the topic, so I asked, “How did he wind up living with you, anyway? I didn’t know that.”
“Two years ago. Father Paul found Leo on the streets and brought him to me.”
“Father Paul?”
“Yeah, he was doing his own street outreach, trying to get the young people into treatment or safe homes. He’d talked with Leo a number of times, convinced him to turn his life around. When Leo reached that point, Paul asked if he could stay with me. He knew I’d taken in several foster kids. Leo was in pretty bad shape. Hooked on heroin. I normally don’t accept addicts. Too much heartache and disappointment. But Leo was determined to get clean. That’s what he had going for him, that and Father Paul’s commitment to him, so I gave him a chance and a room. Told him he could stay as long as he worked to get clean. And he did.”
“That was amazingly generous of you.”
“I knew he was a good kid. Just really messed up. Ever see someone going through withdrawal?”
I shook my head.
“Not pleasant to witness. It was a rough two months. He’d lie on his bed, curled up in a fetal position for hours, sweating, feverish, shaking. And silent. I never heard him cry or whimper. He’d learned to tough it out on the streets. Father Paul came and sat with Leo everyday of those two months, talking him through the withdrawal.” Sandy’s cup sat steaming in her hands. “I’d bring him food, water, juice— leaving them in his room— but they were usually untouched. He lost so much weight, I became concerned. When he was going through the worst of it, he closed even me and Paul out. Didn’t want anyone to see him like that. The only one he’d let in was Fernando. He’d leap up onto the bed and curl himself next to Leo for hours, through the sweats, the shaking, just lying next to him, purring softly. I think it had a calming effect on Leo. He seemed to rest more easily when Fernando was lying next to him.” She took a drink of her coffee. “Maybe Fernando sensed they were kindred spirits. Both were abandoned when young.”
“I take back every mean thing I’ve ever said about Fernando.”
I was glad to see her smile. We talked about what to do next. Sandy would contact Officer Herndon, ask if she knew about police officers searching Leo’s apartment. We’d already contacted area hospitals as Herndon suggested. I would go to the Sexual Minorities Roundtable that afternoon to tell Jake what had happened and seek his help in getting the police to investigate.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Who’s President?
[Portland, Oregon, October 1994]
I arrived late to the Sexual Minorities Roundtable, coming from a meeting with Arthur and Tork. We were making final preparations to launch the counseling and testing program in the bathhouse in November. I slipped into a back row, relieved to see that Jake was there. I had tried to call him several times Monday but only got his answering machine. I left messages, saying it was urgent, but never heard back. We hadn’t talked in a couple of months. I usually worked out at the Princeton mid-afternoon, while he preferred the busier times “when the voyeurism is better.”
He was addressing the roundtable in his usual jovial manner, the discussion about enhanced police patrols around the downtown area where a number of gay bars were clustered. I knew there’d been several incidents of bar patrons followed and attacked by young thugs. Jake was summing up. “In the interest of public safety, it would be helpful for police cars to be seen in the vicinity when the bars close around 2:00 a.m.”
“That’s a matter of scheduling and, of course, available manpower at that hour,” said the police chief, “but I’ll have my staff look into what’s possible and we’ll get back to you at the next roundtable. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”
“That’s our porpoise,” Jake said affably.
Porpoise? I leaned forward in my seat, wondering if I’d heard correctly. Or was he making a joke? Then I noticed the chief and a number of people in the room were looking at Jake with quizzical expressions.
The chief spoke again. “You said porpoise. I think you meant purpose.”
Jake grinned at him. “Hiram, I think you need to have your heart checked.”
“My heart?”
Jake stopped, momentarily flustered. “Well, no, not your heart. I meant your hearing. Nothing wrong with your heart, I’m sure.”
“Are you feeling all right, Jake?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I feel all right?”
“You just haven’t seemed yourself lately.”
“Well, I don’t know who else I would be.” He now appeared uncomfortable and made an attempt to return to the matter at hand. “So, I believe we were discussing accommodations for transgender persons at the county jail.”
