Matters of Doubt Page 4

  He paused for a moment, as if he were considering his answer with some care. “I used to think drugs expanded my mind, but then I figured out art did that all by itself. But people like you shouldn’t judge. Most people I know using drugs do it because they’re in pain, not because they’re bad people. Every kid on the street has a story, man, and none of the stories are good.”

  I nodded. “Just wanted to know. No judgment.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t take a puff of weed now and then. You know, there’s social pressure sometimes, like it’s rude to turn down a toke.” He took a sip of his tea and laughed. “Where was I? Oh, yeah, I wound up with a single foster parent next. Addie Jacobs was her name. What a trip. She was a big woman with a heart of gold and a gonzo cook. But she tried to force me to go to school. Finally I said, fuck it and ran away. I think I really hurt her, but I had to get out of there. I’d just turned fifteen.”

  “You’ve been on the street ever since?”

  “More or less. I’d couch surf with friends sometimes, you know, mix it up. Never one place very long. When I turned eighteen, I got control of the money from my mom’s estate. I don’t want anyone to know about that. I’m saving up so I can go to art school.” He looked around with a self-satisfied smile. “This place, the wood for the foundation—all donated, man.”

  “You’ll need a high school diploma to get into art school.”

  “Not a problem. Got my GED. I studied online. The tests were a snap.”

  We talked some more about his life on the street, and then I changed directions. “You told me your mother and Mitchell Conyers fought a lot. Tell me about their relationship.”

  His face tightened. He got up and started to pace. “Conyers started showing up about a year before mom disappeared. She was a great mom, but she had lousy taste in men. He drank a lot and wasn’t a happy drunk, man. He’d get wasted and then start accusing her of all kinds of things.” He stopped pacing, smiled bitterly and shook his head. “He was a jealous little shit.”

  “Did he ever hit her?”

  “Yeah. A couple of times, at least. Then he’d come crawling back.”

  “What about you?”

  “He knew that if he touched a hair on my head, my mom would kill him.”

  “He’s still in Portland?”

  “Oh yeah. He owns a high-end steak joint downtown, on Second, I think.”

  “The Happy Angus?”

  “That’s it, I think. I’m not a regular there.”

  I smiled. “I’ve heard of the place. It’s a Portland landmark.” I drained my tea and waived off a second cup. Antioxidants aside, next to a cup of coffee, drinking tea’s like kissing your sister. “Do you have any idea why your mom’s remains wound up in a reservoir on the Deschutes River?”

  He shrugged as a cloud of pain crossed his face. “No. I tried to find a connection between Conyers and the person who owns that property over there. His name was in the paper. But I didn’t get anywhere.”

  “What about the woman you tried to confront. What’s her name?”

  “Jessica Armandy. I think she’s a high-class hooker or something.”

  “A hooker?”

  “Yeah, you know the look, right? Tits on display, too much makeup, and lots of sparkly jewelry.”

  “How does she fit in?”

  “All I know is that Conyers trotted her out when he needed an alibi. Very convenient.”

  As our talk wound down, the lamp began to run out of propane. It started hissing, casting the room in a flickering white light. Standing at the door with the briefcase in my hand, I said, “I’ll find my way out. I got what I need, at least for now. I’ll look this stuff over and get back to you—by email, I guess. We don’t have a lot to go on yet, so I need you to stay patient.”

  Picasso rolled his eyes. “We know who the fuck did it, man. All we need is a little proof.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I responded. As I started up the path, I saw the shadowy outline of Joey. I told him good night but he didn’t answer.

  It had been a long day, and I wasn’t looking forward to the long drive back to Dundee. I worked my way over to the I-5, and when I’d cleared Portland heading south, I called Nando on my Bluetooth. “Calvin, my friend, what can I do for you?” he answered.

  “I talked to Stout.”

  “So quickly? Thank you.”

  I laughed. “Don’t thank me yet. It was brief. He’s heard of you, Nando. He said you need to clean up your act, that the cops tell him your agency has a reputation for cutting corners.”

  Nando blew a loud breath into the phone. “I am not cutting the corners. I am running a business, and for a business to make money, it must get results.”

  “The police don’t care about your results. They just care about how you go about getting them. There’s a difference.”

  “So, is my license in jeopardy?”

  “I don’t think so. Stout said he’d look into the situation and get back to me.” Nando grumbled something in Spanish I didn’t catch, and I changed the subject. “Listen, I’m going to need your help on something.” I filled him in on the murder of Nicole Baxter and answered his questions.

  When I finished, Nando said, “Is this homeless artist able to pay you your usual fee?”

  “Uh, yeah. His mother left him some money.” I didn’t tell him Picasso was saving that money for art school. “We’ll work it out.”

  “Good. I know your weakness for charity cases, my friend. And you know my unwillingness to work for nothing. I do not wish to see you get hurt financially on this.”

  “Not a problem,” I said, trying to convey more conviction than I felt.

  “It sounds like you will be spending more time than usual in Portland on this case. Where are you going to stay?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Haven’t really thought about it.”

  “I have a small office building on Couch that is awaiting the funds to renovate it. It has a small apartment on the second floor. The former owner lived there. You could stay there, cut down on your overhead.”

  “That’s a great idea. Thanks for the offer.”

  “We will call it even for your efforts with Mr. Stout.”

  Nando was right, of course. I couldn’t afford to take a financial hit on this case. Not to worry, I told myself, chances are it won’t go anywhere.

  Chapter Six

  When I drove up to the gate that night, my dog Archie greeted me with a fusillade of high-pitched yelps while jumping up and down and spinning madly in circles. You really can’t beat the greeting an Aussie gives you, especially a hungry one. I fed him first, then took out a nice slab of Chinook salmon I had defrosting in the fridge and slapped it on the grill. That, together with some greens from the garden, roasted red potatoes, and a glass of Sancerre, made a fine meal.

  After dinner I cleared the table in the kitchen and placed the contents of Picasso’s briefcase in front of me—a three-inch-thick file folder and two thumb drives. It felt good to have something substantive to focus on, and I found myself wondering how much my decision to help Picasso was influenced by the sheer distractive power of a cold case. I read through the printed material first, taking a few notes and marking interesting items in her appointment book with sticky notes. When I came to the thumb drives containing his mother’s back-up computer files, I groaned out loud. Each drive had dozens of pages of documents and emails. What did I expect from a reporter?

  It would take hours to read through everything, so I decided to focus only on the most recent thumb drive. It wasn’t full like the other one, covering from early February of 2005 up to the day she disappeared, May 18. I printed out everything that looked relevant to her disappearance.

  The entire task took a little better than two hours, at which point I made myself a cappuccino and gave Archie a bone to gnaw on before sitting b
ack down. I’d put the promising items into a stack and tossed the rest aside. The good news was that the stack was short, but that was the bad news, too. It contained Nicole Baxter’s appointment book, printouts of four emails she had sent before disappearing, and in what I assumed was Picasso’s handwriting, a note that gave the names and addresses of two of his mother’s friends and three of her colleagues at work. That was it.

  Furthermore, I didn’t see anything pointing to a connection between the boyfriend, Conyers, and Weiman, the fishing cabin owner, nor was there any obvious connection between Nicole Baxter and Weiman. This didn’t particularly surprise me—the fruit is seldom on the low branches.

  From the news articles covering the disappearance, I learned Baxter had gone missing on a Friday night, after having a drink with a woman named Cynthia Duncan, one of the friends Picasso had listed. The article stated Baxter did not tell her friend where she was going that night and that she seemed in an unusually good mood. Her car was found abandoned in a SmartPark on SW Tenth in downtown Portland the following Monday, the day the investigation into her disappearance formally began. Mitchell Conyers was mentioned frequently in the articles, but he never rose to the level of a person of interest in the investigation. However, The Oregonian did report leaks from within the Portland Police Bureau to the effect that Conyers and Baxter had a “stormy” relationship, and that Conyers had refused a lie detector test.

  Several entries in her appointment book caught my eye. Nicole Baxter was a busy woman who met with lots of people, and on several occasions she met or had a phone conversation with the same person—someone called, mysteriously enough, X-Man. Each meeting was at 8:00 p.m., and the last was just a week before she disappeared. I jotted the name down followed by a question mark. On three separate dates, one in April and two in May, she had written down phone numbers with no references to names or places, and on May 13 she had entered an address—5318 SW Macadam, along with the initials LV—in the 2:00 o’clock time slot. I would follow up on these, as well.

  The three emails I printed out were all sent to Hank McCauley from Nicole Baxter, with no one copied. Judging from the context, McCauley must have been Baxter’s boss at The Oregonian.

  March 24, 2005

  Hank,

  I’ve got a potentially big story that’s going to take a lot of time and energy to complete. I can’t discuss any details now, and this email must be just between you and me. I have only talked to my source by phone and he has not revealed his name to me yet. I need you to cut me some slack on the Columbia dredging story. I think I’m the only reporter looking at it, so a little slippage won’t hurt. What say?

  Nicky

  April 15, 2005

  Hank,

  My source is still talking but is nervous as a cat. He went to the police first, but apparently nothing came of it. He wants to remain anonymous and I’m still working to gain trust. I’m forbidden to discuss any of this with anyone (including you) until I’m given the “complete picture.” I’ll fill you in when the time is right. This story is a beaut. You’re gonna love it.

  Thanks for easing up my workload! You won’t regret it.

  Nicky

  May 12, 2005

  Hank,

  Blockbuster alert! This story is huge. My source is flowing like a river now. I’ve got to check several things out, and then I’ll be ready to sit down with you. Thanks for the patience. You’re a saint!

  Nicky

  It wasn’t until I’d read the emails through again that I noticed something else. The date of each one was the day after Baxter had met with X-Man. The meetings were in the late evening, so it would follow that Baxter would brief her boss the next day. “Of course, X-Man must be Baxter’s source!” I called to Archie, who stood up and wagged his tail in apparent agreement. I turned this over in my mind, wondering if Baxter or the source had selected the name. I also wondered if the Portland police had made the same connection. If they had, then they’d have focused a lot of attention on identifying X-Man. Had they succeeded?

  Then there was the question of the nature of the “blockbuster” story Baxter was working on. What was it? And what had happened to her notes?

  It was 1:20 a.m., and I was high on adrenaline and caffeine. I pulled up a reverse phone directory on the net and tapped in the first of the three phone numbers I’d copied from her appointment book. It belonged to a psychologist in Lake Oswego specializing in adolescent therapy. Thinking of the rings, snakes, and tattoos now decorating Picasso’s body, I had to chuckle. He’d been a handful at twelve, I guessed. The second number was for an auto repair shop specializing in Volvos, the make of car Baxter owned. The third was for a bed and breakfast in Carlton, a small town surrounded by vineyards that lay out my way, on the north side of the Dundee Hills. I jotted down the date and the name of the B&B.

  I tapped the address on Macadam into a reverse address website next. It came up as the KPOC radio station, a Portland based AM station. I logged onto their website and scanned it for some hint of who the initials LV might stand for. There it was—their headliner was a man named Larry Vincent, who hosted a daily talk show called Vincent’s View. Of course, I said to myself, I’ve heard of this guy. He’s Portland’s right-wing shock jock. But was he working there eight years ago? It only took a few more clicks on Google to verify that, in fact, he was.

  I leaned back in my chair and stretched. Not a bad night’s work, I decided. Of course, the first thing I should do is talk with the Portland Cold Case Unit, I told myself. The information I’d developed should be of interest to them and Jefferson County. At the same time, I felt more than a little protective of what I’d uncovered. Maybe I should hold off. Talk to Picasso and a couple of the key players first. Check a few things out. That’s what I decided to do.

  I took the back stairs to my bedroom and stood at the open bedroom window drinking in the cool night air. A few lights still flickered in the valley. They looked like a reflection of the stars in the night sky. An owl hooted way up in a Douglas fir next to the house, and a family of coyotes was chorusing merrily down in the quarry.

  I was back in the hunt.

  Chapter Seven

  At seven the next morning I was roused from a deep sleep by Archie’s barking and someone banging on the front door. As I staggered down the stairs cursing under my breath, I remembered it was the day the guy who’d agreed to repair my fence in exchange for a divorce was due to start work. He’d brought the materials we discussed and some beat-up tools, but it didn’t take long for me to see he’d never fixed a fence before in his life. I wound up spending the day at the Aerie making sure the job got done. I was tired of skunks and coyotes wandering in at night through the holes in the fence, and Archie was, too.

  This wasn’t exactly the bargain the man and I had struck, but I decided not to make a big deal out of it. Plus, he was out of work and like so many people I represented, shattered by the failure of his marriage. Besides, he may not have known much about fence repair, but he put his back into the work.

  When we broke for lunch, I sent Picasso the following email:

  Hello Picasso,

  I’ve read through your evidence book and have a couple of questions. I’m tied up today, but plan to come to Portland tomorrow. Let me know best time, place for us to talk. Meanwhile, think about the following.

  1.Do you know or have you ever heard of someone using the nickname X-Man? Your mom met or talked with him several times and I’d like to know his name.

  2.Do you know anything about a story your mom was working on when she disappeared? She might have described it as something big, a “blockbuster,” maybe.

  3.Did your mom mention someone named Larry Vincent around the time she disappeared? He’s a DJ at KPOC radio station. I think she had an appointment to meet with him a few days after she disappeared. Just wondering if you remember hearing the name…

  Re
gards,

  Cal

  It was close to noon the next day when I cleared the Terwilliger curves on the I-5 and Portland’s skyline burst into view, wounded as it was by the new high rise condos built on the river. To the east, Mt. Hood levitated above a sea of low clouds and to the north I could just make out Mt. St. Helens’ decapitated profile. On the way up, the odometer of my three series BMW clicked past 200,000 miles, a milestone that gave me more than a little satisfaction. I’d bought it used at 50,000 miles and was getting my money’s worth. I found a parking space on Couch and walked over to Nando’s building. I was meeting him to check out the place he had offered me.

  Nando showed up five minutes later, impeccably dressed as usual, in a silk tie, finely tailored blazer, sharply creased chinos, and hand-tooled Italian loafers. He opened the front door with a key and waved me in. “Welcome to your new home away from home. I hope you like it.”

  By the sign still hanging above the door—Caffeine Central—I knew it had been a neighborhood coffee shop that had almost certainly been put out of business by the Starbucks perched at the end of the block. “I hope they left the espresso machine hooked up,” I said as I followed him into the building. The bottom half of the place was empty except for a huge, overstuffed couch that looked too heavy to move. A set of wide double doors through a dividing wall led to a rear area which housed a bathroom, kitchen, and storage areas, and a flight of stairs leading up to a small landing.

  We took the stairs and Nando used a second key to open the door to the apartment. A narrow hall with a bath on one side and small bedroom on the other opened to a large room where light streamed in from three windows with slanted venetian blinds. A galley kitchen on the left and dining room/living room on the right completed the space.

  Nando made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “I bought the place as is, furniture, TV, refrigerator, everything. The poor man who sold it was desperate, I think. What do you think?”