Never Look Down Read online

  She moved to a back table, and removed Spencer from the backpack. “Shhh,” she told him as she pulled him into her lap. Then she teased the ham from the croissant and fed the dog, one small bite at a time. “Ouch,” she said after the first bite. “Don’t you dare nip me, you little fart.” He seemed to get the idea, and after he was fed and watered, sat quietly as Kelly ate her sandwich and drank her hot chocolate.

  At the army surplus store on SE Grand, Kelly bought a cheap sleeping bag, plastic rain poncho, a small tarp, and a flashlight. At the Goodwill on SE Sixth, she found another hoodie like the one she had on and a second pair of jeans that fit her. She also bought a leash for the dog, a bowl to feed him with, and a small bag of kibbles at a market.

  At the end of her shopping spree, Kelly had $64.37 left. But that was okay. She didn’t plan on being homeless all that long. She had to find a way out of this mess and put her life back together. The sooner the better.

  The sky was low and gray and laden with moisture, but the rain held back. She decided to walk the thirty some blocks to the county library on SE Cesar Chavez. It would be much safer than the one she’d been using in Old Town, where she was known to hang out. Spencer seemed relieved to be out of the backpack and trotted in front of her on the leash like a circus pony. She worried some the dog might give her away and hoped Macho Dude hadn’t heard him as they made their escape. If that were the case, the dog would be good cover as was the hood on her sweatshirt that she vowed to keep up and tight at all times. Just another kid on the street with a backpack and a dog.

  She was almost there when she realized she couldn’t take the dog into the library. Maybe she could claim he was a service dog, but the thought only made her smile and shake her head. Spencer’s lineage was unknown, but he definitely had some Chihuahua in him as evidenced by his short hair, sharp ears, and bulbous, liquid eyes. But the trouble was his features came together in a way that made him look more like a bat than a dog. What service could he provide besides making people laugh?

  A thin young man with a dark beard stood near the steps of the library strumming an acoustic guitar and singing Dylan’s Idiot Wind. A large white Malamud with pale blue eyes lay next to an open guitar case meant for contributions. By the time the man finished the song, Kelly knew she could trust the singer and his dog. She tossed a five dollar bill in the case. The man smiled and nodded. Kelly said, “Are you going to be here for a while?”

  He looked up at the sky. “Long as it doesn’t rain.”

  “Will you watch my dog? I need to use the computer in the library.”

  He agreed. Kelly tethered the leash, and Spencer lay down next to the Malamud like he’d known him forever. That dog was full of surprises.

  The wait for a computer at the library in Southeast was shorter than what Kelly experienced across the river. She sat for a long time thinking of what to say, and when she finally got her turn sent an e-mail to Cal Claxton.

  Hello Mr. Claxton. I saw the guy who shot Claudia Borrego yesterday. I am sure of it. Unless that guy in jail escaped or something, he didn’t kill her! I wanted you to know this. I’m not sure what to do now.

  Kelly chewed down the cuticles on both thumbs. Three or four minutes later a message came back.

  Hi K209. Thanks for contacting me with this important information! Anthony Cardenas is the man charged with the murder. He is still in jail. Where did you see this other man? Can you identify him? Did he see you?

  She sat for a while trying to think how to respond. She was scared but knew instinctively that if she let him know that, he’d just up the pressure for her to reveal herself.

  It doesn’t matter where I saw him. It was him for sure. Nobody walks like that. Like some cowboy in a movie or something. I’m sorry but I ran before I got a look at his face. Dumb me. Maybe he’s the partner of that guy in jail, Cardenas. A friend or something. This should be a big clue for finding him, right?

  An e-mail came right back.

  Are you in a safe place? I know you must have good reasons for hiding your identity, but you are in terrible danger. Please come to my office or tell me where to meet you and I’ll come immediately. I’m a lawyer. I can represent you and help make a deal that protects your interests. Please trust me and come in.

  As Kelly read the message her eyes brimmed, and an urge go to Claxton surged through her, an urge so powerful that it took all her willpower to beat it back. No, she told herself, no, no, no. Finally, she blinked the tears out of her eyes and started typing again.

  Don’t worry about me. I know how to take care of myself. Please just catch the killer, Mr. Claxton. He’s a terrible man.

  She would stay hidden for the time being and hope for the best. It was all she could think to do.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Cal

  Earlier that same morning

  The next morning broke dark and cloudy. Arch and I took a quick run along the Willamette and returned for a call with a client from Dundee whose son had been arrested for stealing a dirt bike—an expensive one. When I finished up I called Roz Jenkins to tell her how impressed I was with her talk at the gun rally and to mention I planned to drop by the Arsenal that afternoon with my Glock for some target practice. “That’s great, hon,” she told me. “You be sure to pop in and say hello.” My thought exactly.

  It was somewhere around ten when the next batch of e-mails came in from K209 telling me about her encounter with the man she claimed shot Claudia, the man who was not Anthony Cardenas. Oh, man, I thought, this case just gets more and more dicey.

  When it was clear that K209 had broken off communication, I leaned back in my chair and thought things through once again. Was it time to go to Harmon Scott and the PPB with what I had? I still didn’t have proof positive the contact was genuine, and K209’s new allegations rested once again on recognizing a man’s walk. Damn, why hadn’t she gotten a look at his face? I sure as hell didn’t want to make a fool out of myself in front of Scott and the Portland Police Bureau, who were obviously invested in the arrest of Cardenas. On the other hand, the whole sequence had a ring of authenticity I simply couldn’t ignore. Of course, if I went to the police K209 had vowed to “disappear.” There was that, too.

  I pushed myself away from my desk and got up. It felt like I was playing a big steelhead on an eight pound test leader. Pull up too hard and the line snaps. Let the fish take some line and you have a shot. I picked the latter.

  There was one thing I didn’t debate—I needed another set of eyes on the newest set of e-mails. I called Tay and plied her with the offer of another home-cooked meal. She readily accepted.

  Early that afternoon I drove Nando to the airport. He was going to Cancún by way of Houston and then on to Cuba to visit his mother. “One can travel freely from Mexico to Cuba,” he explained. “It is the best way for Americans to go to my country.” He managed a smile and added, “I am not sure who is sadder about Claudia’s passing, my mother or me.”

  Things had moved fast, and I hadn’t even brought him up-to-date on the “Where is man—” utterance K209 heard Claudia make just before she was shot. It was a touchy subject, since it was the last thing his fiancée said before she died, and I proceeded cautiously. When I finished, he remained silent for a long time. Finally, he sighed deeply and said, “I suppose that is significant, although the young spray can vandal could have misheard what Claudia said, or worse yet, could be making this up for reasons you do not yet understand.”

  “That’s possible, I suppose, but I doubt it. K209 seemed pretty sure of what she heard.”

  Nando laughed. “The word of some teenage delinquent who will not reveal her identity should be believed so readily?”

  My turn to sigh. “Look, Nando, I don’t think there’s any doubt that Claudia was killed trying to protect Manny Bonilla, and that Bonilla was going to join some kind of illegal operation at the Arsenal that he decided to back
out of.” I took him through my logic, adding what I’d learned about the drop-in triggers from my survivalist contact. I also felt Bonilla’s knowledge of Anthony Cardenas could have been used to set the gambler up. For example, he might have known where Cardenas kept the T-Bird, where the silencer had been planted. I left that part out, because proof of it died with Bonilla.

  He listened without interrupting. “Okay. I commend you for being so persistent, Calvin. I would expect nothing less from you. But you still have not established a connection between all this and the killer, Anthony Cardenas, which for me is the bottom of the line.”

  “The connection’s the silencer the cops found in his car.”

  His head tilted back slightly, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. “How do you know this?”

  I shrugged. “My gut.” It was the truth. I felt like the silencer was the key link between Cardenas and the Arsenal but had no idea how to prove it.

  He smiled. “I see. Well, I need this week away from Portland and all that has happened. When I return we will talk again. Perhaps by then you will have found this tagger who climbs buildings like a monkey.”

  I nodded, holding back the bombshell that, according to K209, Cardenas wasn’t the man who shot Claudia. That news would have hemorrhaged him. Let my friend go to Cuba in peace, I decided. Hell, I didn’t have any proof anyway.

  ***

  It must have been a good day for target shooting and weapon shopping because the Bridgetown Arsenal parking lot was nearly full when I pulled in. Maybe the gun rally had piqued new interest in the Portland citizenry. Who knows? I signed in with the sexy salesgirl, paid my fee, and made my way downrange to Lane 16, accompanied by the merry popping of firearms and the smell of freshly exploded gunpowder. I loaded the clip of my Glock, cranked the target out to fifty feet, and began squeezing off rounds just the way Roz Jenkins had taught me.

  I was pleased with the reasonably tight pattern. I reloaded the gun, attached another target, and emptied another clip. This time I imagined pumping rounds into the man who’d shot Claudia Borrego and was now terrorizing a young girl who reminded me a lot of my own daughter. The pattern was tighter still, and I couldn’t help but smile when I saw it was very close to what Roz’s son-in-law, Arthur, had accomplished the last time I was here.

  I finished up after firing off three more clips and felt a lot better. Shooting a high-powered handgun was cathartic, if nothing else. I told the salesgirl that I wanted to see Roz Jenkins. She nodded, saying Roz had told her to buzz me in. I felt like an insider. Nothing like being known at your neighborhood gun range.

  I took the stairs and leaned into the open doorway to her office. “Hello there, Cal,” she said. “How was the shooting today?”

  I returned the smile. “Great. Tell Arthur I’m ready for a rematch.”

  We shared a good laugh at that and then chatted about the rally. Sensing I wasn’t yet a true believer, I suppose, she told me again how ridiculous it was for a city to try and layer on additional gun restrictions. “My God,” she said, “We’ve already got enough federal and state laws to choke a horse.”

  I said, “I read somewhere that the idea behind the requirement to report lost or stolen guns is to cut down on straw buyers.” It wasn’t a fib. I’d done some research on the topic of straw buyers after visiting the survivalist, Hunter Barlow.

  “Oh, right, some guy being paid to buy a gun is gonna tell on himself. It’s against the law to murder someone, too, but it happens every day, Cal.”

  I nodded and smiled with a kind of you-got-me look but said, “If someone wants to generate a volume of illegal weapons, aren’t straw buyers the way to do it? I mean each purchase of a firearm has to be registered to someone, but once a gun is supposedly lost or stolen and the serial number ground off, that’s the end of the trail, right?”

  She smiled and gave me the look teachers reserve for slow students. “Of course, hon. Criminals use straw buyers all the time or just steal what they need. Either way they’re gonna arm themselves. Some stupid new law won’t stop them.”

  Why bother with any laws? I thought but didn’t say. “Do you keep an eye out for straw buyers in your operation, you know, people who make multiple purchases?”

  “What, and invade their privacy? How do I tell the difference between a straw buyer and a collector? I say live and let live, Cal. The vast majority of people who buy guns are law-abiding citizens.”

  I nodded again and then asked about Arthur. “Oh, he’s down in California looking at a possible new acquisition—a private gun club near Bakersfield,” she told me.

  “His gun collection’s impressive. It must take real expertise to put something like that together.”

  She smiled with obvious pride. “Oh, he’s an expert, alright. Designed our machine shop, too. There’s nothing we can’t fix on a gun in any of our shops. You know, we’re so busy here that Arthur has put on a night shift.”

  “You don’t say. That son-in-law of yours is a real entrepreneur.”

  Roz smiled, but it came out slightly strained. “Oh, he’s that, alright.” Her face clouded over, she sighed, and met my eyes. “I wish Raleigh were still alive.”

  “Raleigh?”

  “My husband. The love of my life. He passed away eight years ago this December.” She sighed again. “Sometimes I think Arthur’s too ambitious. I, uh, worry we’re growing too damn fast.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “Emulating Starbucks is a tall order.”

  She seemed to catch herself. “Well, I think he’s trying to prove something. Arthur grew up poor as a church mouse. Went through Stanford on scholarships. His dream’s to build something, uh, monumental, I guess you could say.” She pushed out another smile and sat up a little straighter. “I’ve got a good man at the helm. And, besides, he treats my daughter like a princess.”

  We chatted some more, and then I left. As I walked to my car out in the parking lot, a familiar looking Chevy Silverado with an extended cab swung in and parked between me and my car. Farnell Timmons climbed out on the driver’s side, opened the second door and extracted a leather rifle case. Two men who had gotten out on the passenger side came around the truck, each carrying rifle cases as well. I recognized them as my friends Mutt and Jeff. I kept walking, and they turned in unison to face me, looking a little surprised.

  I stopped in front of them. “Gentlemen. Out for a bit of target practice, I see. You’ve come to the right place.”

  Mutt and Jeff cradled their weapons as Timmons stepped forward. “Yep, the Arsenal’s a fine facility.” His eyes narrowed. “I’m surprised to see you here, Claxton. You don’t strike me as the kind of man who appreciates a good gun range.”

  I held my briefcase up. “Oh, but I do. I’ve been brushing up with my Glock 17, you know, getting the cobwebs out.”

  Timmons pushed his lip up and nodded. “Impressive. Nice weapon, the seventeen.” He showed a thin smile. “You always carry your gun in your briefcase?” The comment caused Mutt and Jeff to snicker. He opened his coat revealing a chrome plated pistol resting in a hand-tooled shoulder holster. “You need to get yourself a decent holster for your Glock. Stop by the shop and I’ll custom fit one for you.”

  I flashed an appreciative smile. “Well, thanks. I’ll do that just as soon as I get my concealed carry permit.” I tossed that last comment in just for effect. I really had no plans to start packing.

  Timmons nodded, and the three of them headed for the Armory. Then he turned back and said, “Did the situation with that murdered woman get cleared up?”

  “It sure did. Her ex-husband’s in jail as we speak.” I gave them another smile. “Happy ending.”

  Timmons gave me a thumbs-up. “Glad to hear it.”

  I stood there as they walked away, wondering why I got the nice guy treatment this time around. Maybe these guys were just less aggressive off their home turf. I wondered, too, why
they were back at the Arsenal so soon after their previous visit. Was it just the sheer pleasure of blasting away with your bros or were there other, perhaps more compelling, reasons?

  I watched for a macho strut, too, but realized I probably wouldn’t know one if I saw it.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Cal

  I was in the middle of cooking dinner that night when Tay arrived. After she finished making a big fuss over Archie—which he loved, of course—I poured her a chilled glass of Sancere and handed her a printout of the latest exchange of e-mails between me and K209. As she read I busied myself with the meal, simple fare consisting of red snapper, sautéed fresh spinach with ginger, and Thai jasmine rice. I made a wine and lemon reduction sauce to give the fish a little extra snap.

  When she finished reading the e-mails she stood up with the papers in her hand. “My God, Cal, if this is true, then Cardenas didn’t do it. He didn’t shoot Claudia.”

  I was wilting the spinach in a wok with fresh ginger and hot oil, the last step in the meal preparation. “The operative word is if. What do you think?”

  “I believe her, Cal. The murder of Youngblood seems to dovetail into this narrative. Why would anyone make something like that up? Especially a teen who would have no apparent reason to carry out such an elaborate hoax.”

  I nodded as I set about plating our food. “I hear you. Still convinced she’s a she?”

  Tay glanced down at the printout. “More than ever. Those ‘dumb me’ and ‘terrible man’ comments are all girl.” She smiled. “I’m sticking by my opinion.”