Fatal flaw, p.19
Fatal Flaw, page 19
“Where are you?” Gertie asked when I answered my cell phone.
“Heading home from Portland. Why? What’s up?”
“Can you meet me at the Newberg Medical Center?”
My heart froze. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s okay. My nurse friend Julia just called. They’re moving Zoe from the isolation ward to the PCU in—”
“PCU? What the hell is that?”
“It’s a progressive care unit, not the ICU. They’re better equipped to treat her there. It’s precautionary, Cal. We can see her during the transfer.”
“They’ll let us do that?”
“Only from outside the building. They’ll bring her down a corridor that’s adjacent to an outside garden area. Julia will be with Zoe and will make sure she knows we’re outside looking in. It’s worth it, a show of support…”
“Meet you in the Med Center parking lot,” I said without hesitation.
“The garden area is on the east side,” Gertie said ten minutes later as Archie and I followed her around the medical building on a flagstone path. “There’s a set of glass double doors there.” We located the doors, which provided access to a small rose garden with a couple of cement benches, a bubbling fountain, and a canister for cigarette butts. She looked at her watch. “They should come by here in five minutes or so.” As we stood peering into the narrow hallway, Gertie took my hand and squeezed it, something she’d never done before.
While we waited, Gertie came back to my ravaged face, which I’d explained away when we met. She gave me an appraising look. “Okay, you’re way too coordinated to fall while jogging. What the hell really happened?”
I heaved a sigh and told her the truth. When I finished, she said, “Good God, you’ve got a target on your back again?”
“I wasn’t looking for trouble, believe me.”
She rolled her eyes. “When’s Nando getting back from Cuba?”
“End of the month, provided Covid-19 doesn’t interfere.”
“Well, keep your head down until then. You need backup.”
“I’ll try, but—”
“I see a gurney,” Gertie cut in. We both fell silent, and I turned slightly, hoping Zoe would see mostly the undamaged side of my face.
A jumble of corrugated tubing, wires, digital screens, and swaying IV drips, the gurney was surrounded by four attendants dressed in blue scrubs and wearing masks. An oxygen mask covered most of the patient’s face, but the ash blond hair was instantly recognizable. My heart swelled in my chest. One of the attendants—whom I assumed was Julia—put a hand up and the gurney stopped. She gently raised Zoe’s head and turned it toward us. Zoe’s and my eyes found each other. More was said in that moment than in all our previous conversations put together.
Gertie said with exaggerated expression, “We love you, Zoe,” and I blew her a kiss before putting both my hands over my heart. Archie whimpered softly and wagged his butt, a clear indication he recognized Zoe.
Zoe managed a thumbs-up before Julia lowered her head back on the pillow. She was gone a moment later.
I’m not sure how long Gertie and I stood there before she said, “Well, that felt like a kick in the head, but seeing her recognize us was worth it. Thanks for coming, Cal.”
“You’re right. It was worth it,” I responded reflexively. “Thanks for including me, Gertie.” And it was, indeed, worth it, I said to myself. That look Zoe and I shared, that brief encounter, answered a nagging question. For the first time I felt her feelings about me might run as deeply as mine about her. At the same time, I knew that image of her strapped in a gurney ladened with medical devices would haunt me. Was all that technology enough to save her from the virus?
—/ /—
Gertie offered to fix us dinner, but I begged off. I really didn’t want any company and didn’t have much of an appetite in any case. Although it was nearly dark when we got back to the Aerie, Archie and I managed a good fifteen minutes of slobber ball, a game in which I chucked a tennis ball as far as I could and he raced after it, often catching it on the bounce with more grace and elan than a major league center fielder. It was a joy for him and good therapy for me.
After feeding him and downing a quick scramble of eggs with some smoked salmon tossed in, I poured myself three fingers of Remy and went into the study. With Diana Krall’s Wallflower on the sound system, I began reading The Oregonian. The news concerning the virus wasn’t encouraging. The Oregon Legislature approved five million in emergency funding for Covid-19 response, and although no new cases were identified that day, fifty-two people still awaited testing. Down in California, a cruise ship was held at sea after twenty-one passengers tested positive. And in Washington DC, the CDC stated that two of the three factors—illness resulting in death and person-to-person spread—had been met for a pandemic. Frightening.
The words began to swim on the screen, and my eyelids were turning to lead when Timoteo called. “I started following Donny when he left work,” he began. “He went home, and two hours later he drove over to Gloria’s, parked in the shadows on a side street, and is still in his car. I figure he’s watching her place. He chuckled. “I’m watching him, and he’s watching her. You want me to hang in?”
“Yeah. Give it some time. See what happens. By the way, what’s Donny driving?”
Timoteo caught my drift immediately. “A silver Ford F-150. That tends to clear him for the attack on you and Archie.”
“It would seem so.”
When Timoteo called back, the Wallflower playlist must have cycled through a couple of times as I dozed with my chin slumped on my chest. “Hey, something’s up. Trenton, the young scientist came calling, I think. I wasn’t sure it was him from my distance, but I recognized his Lexus. He went in and came out an hour and ten minutes later. Must have been a quickie.”
I waited for Timoteo to continue, my head clearing rapidly.
“So when Trenton leaves, Donny gets out of his car, slams the door, and stomps over to Gloria’s place, a jealous lover if there ever was one. He pounds on the door. She finally opens it. Words are exchanged there on the porch, then she lets him in.”
“Catch any of what was said?”
“Nah, I was too far away. I figured letting him in wasn’t such a good idea on her part. The dude looked pissed, even from a distance. Anyway, the porch light goes off, and he slinks out of there twenty minutes later. He stays in the shadows all the way to his car and takes off like a bat out of hell.”
“Uh-oh,” I said. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Yeah, it looked like he was running from something. You want me to check on her? She doesn’t know me. I could make some excu—”
“No. I want you to leave right now. I’ll take it from here.” Although Timoteo was a DACA recipient, he was still undocumented, and brushes with the law were best avoided no matter what the circumstances.
After we disconnected, I called Gloria’s cell phone, and when she didn’t answer I became even more concerned. After all, I’d been trying to provoke Donny. Had his violent temper gotten the better of him? I couldn’t chance it, so I left Archie snoozing in the study and reluctantly headed back into Portland, arriving in front of her place in Multnomah Village thirty-five minutes later. The porch light was still off, and I found the door slightly ajar, as if Donny had left in a hurry. I knocked softly first, then louder. Nothing.
I eased the door open and called out. “Gloria? It’s Cal Claxton.” Nothing. I repeated the call, and that’s when I heard a low moan. I found her in a back bedroom sitting on the edge of a bed holding a towel to her face. Her thin negligee was ripped in the front and dappled with blood. She looked up at me and placed a hand on her chest to obscure her half-revealed breasts.
“What are you doing here?” she said, lowering the towel. Her left eye was nearly swollen shut, and she had an abrasion on her right cheek and a swollen, bloody lower lip.
“Are you okay?” I asked, ignoring her question.
“Do I look okay?” she snapped back, glaring at me.
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No. I don’t need any help.”
“Who did this to you, Gloria?”
She lowered her eyes and didn’t answer as blood dripped slowly into the towel.
“Was it Donny?”
Her eyes came back up, the surprise they registered answering my question. “Why do you say that?”
I closed the distance between us. “Just a guess. I know you were lovers once, that it broke up your marriage to Malcolm. And I’ve seen his temper firsthand.”
“Well, it’s none of your business,” she answered in a weary voice. “And for the second time, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I happened to be in the neighborhood and had a couple of things to run by you, but I won’t bother you with—”
“Like what?” she said, fixing me with the gaze of her good eye.
I paused for a moment, not expecting her to call my bluff. What the hell, I decided, push her some more, see where it goes. “Look, Gloria, we both know Donny stole the Ansel Adams photographs. I don’t know if you’re in on the theft or not, but I’m here to tell you that it’s not too late to get out from under. If the photographs suddenly reappeared at Malcolm’s house, I don’t think the cops would—”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know anything about those stupid photographs.” Strong words but she’d broken eye contact. “What else is on your mind?”
I paused again. Despite her injuries, she seemed forthcoming. “I understand you used to be a mixed martial arts instructor,” I began. “In the past, say, six months or so, have you taught anyone how to execute a blood chokehold?
Her brow furrowed in what looked like genuine perplexity. “No. What the hell kind of question is that?”
“Just curious. What about Bradley Nielsen? Does he know the move?”
“Of course,” she snapped. “I taught him years ago. He’s a good martial artist.”
“What about Donny?”
She rolled her good eye. “Yeah, we used to spar around some. He’s better than Nielsen. So what?”
“He got the better of you, tonight, huh?”
She glared at me again. “Size matters, even in MMA.”
“How about Eric Trenton? Ever ‘spar around’ with him?”
Her mouth dropped open, then her good eye blazed at me. “You bastard. Have you been spying on me?”
“It’s no secret, Gloria,” I lied. “The rumors are all over Spectro Vision. I guess Trenton’s been doing a little bragging.” I stopped there, hoping she’d buy it.
She forced her swollen lip into a bitter smile. “Men. You can never trust ‘em.” Then, seeming to notice my face for the first time, she abruptly changed the subject. “Looks like I’m not the only one who got beat up today. What happened to you?”
The question caught me off guard, stirring the latent rage I felt about the attack on Archie and me. “Someone tried to run my dog and me over this morning. I wound up in a ditch lined with blackberries.” My face grew hot. “Do you know anything about that, Gloria?”
She winced at my words, and I thought I saw a flicker of fear in her eyes, but if I did it was fleeting. “No, of course not.”
A couple more drops of blood from her lip found the towel. “Let me drive you to the ER,” I said. “Your eye should be looked at, and that lip probably needs a stitch or two.”
“No, just leave.” She exhaled a deep, weary sigh. “Maybe I deserved this.”
I cringed at her words. “Don’t let Donny get away with this, Gloria. Don’t make excuses for him.”
Her face hardened. “I said leave, get the hell out of my house.”
I let myself out, noting that the car parked in her garage was a fire-engine red Miata convertible. By the time I reached my car I was practically shaking with anger. I still harbored suspicions about how deeply involved Gloria was in the murders, but she seemed trapped somehow, maybe even fearful, and I felt, if not sorry for her, a sense of pity for the emptiness I sensed in her life.
But I felt certain she was lying about the photographs. She was in on the deal, which is why she was letting Donny off the hook. Sure, she seemed unruffled by the chokehold questions, but why wouldn’t she be? She had to know by now that I did my homework, that lying would have been obvious. And I reminded myself that behind it all for Gloria was the insurance money. She coveted the big payoff above all else, and that kind of greed was always dangerous.
Still, that flicker of fear I thought I saw in her eyes stuck with me. What or who was she afraid of?
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sleep that night was what I guessed death might be, a descent into a black, featureless void with the suspension of all consciousness and sense of time. But as morning light gradually filled the bedroom, I clawed my way back, and when Archie licked the wound on my ear, I became fully awake. I got dressed, and after feeding Archie and letting him out the kitchen door, I ground some dark roast coffee beans and brewed a cappuccino. The birds were all over the feeders in the backyard—finches on the Niger seed and nuthatches, chickadees, and sparrows on the sunflower seeds. Behind them on the south fence line, a thick hedge of forsythia had exploded in brilliant yellow, always the first thing, aside from the crocuses, to bloom at the Aerie.
My face stung a little, and my ear had bled on my pillow the night before, but as I sipped my coffee and watched the intricate dance of the birds at the feeders, I felt, if not at peace, at least a sense of hope. There was, after all, beauty and maybe even some order in the universe.
But was there any mercy? That was an open question.
The first thing I did that morning was contact the hospital to inquire about Zoe. She remained in serious condition. Phoebe Tyson, my divorce-obsessed client, called next, and after we played twenty questions and guess-what-he-did-next, I was able to convince her we were on schedule to sever her marital knot as quickly as the law would allow.
Harmon Scott called midmorning. “Heard from Detective Tate from Newberg-Dundee,” he began. “She told me you had a close call.”
“You could say that.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Sore and pissed off. The same person who ran down Wanda Jenkins took a shot at me and my dog. I’m sure of it.”
“Jesus Christ, Cal. Why?”
“Someone thinks I know too much—which I don’t—but the fundamental driver is probably garden-variety greed. Turns out the death of Malcolm Bainbridge is making several people rich to varying degrees.” I went on to list the growing number of suspects and my theory of how Bainbridge’s suicide was faked, including the role I suspected Benny Boykin played in providing the gun.
“Some kind of chokehold, huh?” Scott said when I finished. “Sounds kind of out there to me, and the problem is you still don’t have any physical evidence to back it up.”
“I’ve got the bruise found on Bainbridge’s left bicep,” I offered up, “and the gap between the gun and his head, and the fact that the gun was so near his hand.”
“Come on, that’s not enough. I’ll need a crowbar to open this case back up, and you know it. But tell you what, if Boykin survives the virus and you can get him to talk, then I might be able to do something.”
“I hear you,” I said. He was right and I knew it.
“Meanwhile,” Scott went on, “I’m going to put the team working on the Jenkins hit-and-run in close touch with Detective Tate. I agree there could be a connection.”
“Yep,” I said, “and if you and Tate crack those, you’ll have Bainbridge’s killer, too, or at least who’s behind it all.”
“We’ll see, won’t we?” Scott said.
“You sound mellower,” I said in a half-tease before we disconnected. “The meditation must be working.”
“Shit. I just heard I have a new nickname around here—the Zen Master. If I hear any of my detectives call me that, I’ll bust them down to patrolman.”
I had to laugh. “But you’ll do it with newly acquired sensitivity, right?”
—/ /—
On Thursday of that week, I was informed that my second Covid test was negative. I admit it was a relief to know that every throat tickle, sneeze, or momentary bit of congestion didn’t foretell a trip to the ICU. Zoe’s condition remained unchanged, as well. Was she holding her own, or was this a plateau before a precipitous decline? I didn’t know, and Gertie’s friend wouldn’t speculate beyond saying her blood oxygen level hadn’t gotten any lower.
“No news is good news,” was as far as she would go.
A subsequent chat with Semyon Lebedev brought more good news—he’d located a source, a former girlfriend, who confirmed that a Grand Cherokee with a grill guard was delivered to Dundee on the indicated time and date of the attempt on my life.
“Is there any way to find out who let the contract?” I knew the answer, but I asked the question anyway.
A soft chuckle. “I was lucky to get this, but she still has feelings for me. It cost me a bottle of Black Opium perfume, by the way.”
“How much was that?”
“One hundred and forty.”
“I think her feelings were for the perfume, Semyon. I’ll send you a check.”
“You’re a cruel man, Calvin, but thank you.”
After we disconnected, I crumpled up a piece of paper and took a shot at the wastebasket. It fell short, an apt metaphor. Archie eyed the crumpled ball but didn’t bother to get up. The information confirmed my suspicion that the Jeep was supplied by another contract theft, but without a name or description, there wasn’t much to go on. “Hey,” I said to ease the sting, “Every scrap of information helps.”
—/ /—
Later that morning, Archie’s low, irritated bark announced the arrival of a visitor. It was Clete Bower, and as he was letting himself in the front door I sprang up and said, “I was just going to take my dog for a walk. Join me and we can talk outside.” I really didn’t want to swap air with him and have the lingering smell of cigars in my office the rest of the morning. He shot me an irritated look but backed out of the doorway.
