Never Look Down Read online

  Nando poured without speaking, neat, no ice. His face was drawn tight, eyes dull as lampblack, his body somehow shrunken in grief. He let out a deep sigh. “I waited my whole life for Claudia. Other women? Oh, they were nice enough. But when I met Claudia…” He shook his head slowly, his voice tailing away as his eyes filled.

  I knew from experience that shedding grief is a marathon, not a sprint, and that talking is the best first step. We drank and I let my friend talk until he’d poured out the contents of his heart. Well into our second glass, the room fell silent except for the hum of traffic out on Ninety-second and the occasional shard of a guitar chord from a busker playing on the corner. I finally spoke into the silence. “So, I got the impression Scott likes Cardenas for this more than he likes you.”

  “Well, I am sure they checked my whereabouts last night. If the killing took place before fout-thirty a.m., then I am cleared. If not the boyfriend, then the ex-husband. It is only logical. Besides, I told them he threatened Claudia.”

  “Had he?”

  He shrugged. “She said she was not afraid of him. Those words imply a threat, do they not?”

  “Sometimes. What else did Claudia say about him?”

  “She didn’t say anything until a couple of weeks ago. Apparently the ball of slime had moved back to Portland from Las Vegas, where he had supposedly made a great deal of money.”

  “Doing what, exactly?”

  “Poker, I am told. I don’t understand this American obsession with gambling. A stupid way to use your money, unless you are the house, of course. Anyway, he came back to Portland and pledged to Claudia that he was finished with the gambling. He expected her to come crawling back to him. When she told him about me, he flew into a rage.”

  “Did you confront him?”

  “I wanted to, I should have, but Claudia insisted on handling it herself. That’s when she told me she was not afraid of him.” Shaking his head, he stared past me, mumbling, “No debí haber escuchado a ella.”

  “Any idea why she would meet him, or anyone, for that matter, in a vacant lot in Old Town in the middle of the night?”

  Nando sighed and ran a hand through his thick, black hair. “Maybe she was killed somewhere else.”

  I shook my head. “Not likely.”

  “If she did go there to meet someone, I am missing the clues, Calvin. He must have tricked her somehow. It seems very strange to me.”

  “Strange, for sure,” I said, shifting in my seat.

  The room fell silent again. A Clapton-esque fragment drifted in from the guitar player. Nando drained his glass and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “It was Cardenas who killed my Claudia, Calvin. I can feel it in my body.”

  I nodded. Not in agreement, but simply to acknowledge his comment. I wasn’t there yet but knew better than to say so.

  Chapter Seven

  Kelly

  To keep things looking normal to the outside world, Kelly decided she’d better go to class before buying the phone for Rupert. She took the bus back across the river and despite the pain in her ankle and calf, gritted her teeth and walked without a limp. The first thing she heard after being buzzed into New Directions Alternative High School was, “You’re late, Sprout.”

  “So what, Zook?” she shot back. “And my name’s not Sprout, you retard.”

  The kid answering to “Zook” loosed a goofy, lopsided grin and raised his arms in mock surrender. “My name’s James Bradford, not Zook, but do I get all pissy? Nooo.”

  Zook was a tall kid with a thatch of dirty blond hair, inquisitive eyes, and a pair of arms giving new meaning to the term rangy. Under her breath she said, “Jesus, Zook, it’s not even nine-thirty and you’re baked. What’s up with that?”

  He shrugged and flashed the off-kilter grin again. “A little weed to take the edge off. No big deal.”

  “Idiot,” she hissed before stomping off to join a knot of students across the room. They were huddled around a printing frame, where a local artist was demonstrating the fundamentals of silk-screen printing. It was the part of the week when the school brought in volunteers to turn the kids on to the arts, a break from the grind of juggling academics with their lives on the street.

  A year earlier a local artist had taught the class the basics of stencil art. That’s when the idea hit Kelly—maybe she could combine climbing and stenciling to leave graffiti in places that would really piss the city off and make them wonder how she’d gotten there in the first place. She hadn’t tagged since she got busted, and the terms of her probation forbade it. But this was too sweet. A step up from being a scribble monkey. And a challenge. Rupert had told her the idea was reckless and a waste of her energy, but she didn’t care. Putting a sharp stick in the Man’s eye would feel good.

  Her first pieces were modest and tentative, and she hid her identity more out of fear of being ridiculed than anything else. But as her confidence grew so did her resolve to stay anonymous. Her best friend, Kiyana, had her suspicions, but the rest of the world assumed K209 was a guy. This gave her good cover and provided a ton of motivation, too.

  “Leave some of that energy for the part of the day that counts toward your diploma,” one of her instructors chided Kelly after she complained about having to wrap up her first stencil project to begin studying math. The academic subjects left her, if not cold, certainly cool. But that was more out of interest than ability. Kelly was a voracious reader, a whiz in math, and on track to graduate from high school early.

  But that morning the art of silk-screening held no interest for Kelly. Her calf, ankle, and elbow ached, and her anxiety about postponing the cell phone purchase built like steam in a pressure cooker. She’d seen enough cop shows to know the first twenty-four hours of a murder investigation were critical, and although what she had to tell the cops seemed inconsequential, she wanted to help put away the monster who’d shot that poor woman.

  Kiyana caught her chewing her lip. Six feet tall with broad shoulders and lustrous, dark skin, she had intimidating eyes and a set of dreads that gave her a badass look. “What’s with you, baby girl?” She nodded at Kelly’s elbow. “What’d you do to your arm?”

  This was dangerous territory. It was hard to keep anything from Kiyana. “I tripped getting off the bus, and I feel a little whoozy.” Kelly forced a smile. “Just call me Grace.” Might as well go for all of it, she thought. “And I, uh, took my backpack off when I sat down to check out my leg. I looked around and the pack was gone. Some A-hole just picked it up and walked off with it. In all the confusion, I didn’t see a thing.”

  Kiyana’s eyes got huge. “No! They ripped off your backpack? What’s the matter with people? That really sucks. Well, get outta here then. You ain’t gonna miss nothin’.”

  Around ten-thirty, Kelly took Kiyana’s advice, telling the instructor she had cramps and had to leave.

  She had to ask around and finally found Henny Duzan over by the Salmon Fountain talking to two hipster dudes straddling their bicycles. Kelly backed off, waiting until goods and cash were exchanged before approaching Duzan. A short man with a shaved head and little snake eyes, he wore a long coat too heavy for the weather.

  “Rupert told me you have cell phones.”

  Avoiding eye contact, he said, “I got smartphones. Eighty bucks.”

  “I want a burner. No GPS chip.”

  “I got a TracFone. Fifty.

  “I’ll give you ten.”

  He barked a short, derisive laugh. “Fuck off, kid.”

  “Fine.” Kelly turned to leave, saying over her shoulder, “See you around.”

  She hadn’t taken more than three steps when Duzan answered. “Twenty.”

  Kelly turned to face him. “Fifteen.”

  Duzan blew a breath and shook his head. “Okay. Fifteen. Sheeze.”

  She found Rupert in Tom McCall Park, near the battleship monument. He
was sitting on a bench facing the river, eyes closed, lips moving, the breeze off the water gently stirring his silver hair. She knew better than to disturb him when he was meditating, so she sat down cross-legged on the grass next to him. Workers on their lunch hours were starting to filter into the park, and the walkway along the river was already thrumming with walkers, joggers, and people on non-motorized conveyances of every possible description.

  “Why aren’t you in school, Kelly?” The sun warm on her face, Rupert’s voice brought her out of a drowse that was sliding into deep sleep. She wondered how long she’d been dozing there.

  “Um, I wanted to give you the phone. It’s cool. I have an excuse.” She handed him the TracFone and a piece of notepaper folded into quarters. “I wrote down everything I saw. It’s hardly anything, but maybe it’ll help.”

  Rupert opened the folded paper and read the notes she’d written. “You told me the other night that you didn’t think you could recognize this man if you saw him again. Do you still feel that way?”

  Kelly hesitated, pursed her lips, and nodded slowly. “Yeah. He was facing away from me most of the time.”

  “Okay. This man wore a jacket, a ball cap, and boots. What kind of boots?”

  Kelly hesitated for a moment. “Uh, you know, cowboy boots, sort of pointy-toed.”

  “How big was he?”

  Kelly shrugged.

  “Taller than the woman?”

  She shook her head. “Yeah. Kind of a medium build. It was hard to tell from where I was.”

  “What else? Did he have a limp? A hump back?”

  Kelly didn’t laugh because Rupert jogged something, a vivid impression. “When he got out of the car, he had this strut, you know? Like he thought he was some kind of macho dude or something.” The memory caused her to shudder visibly. Rupert waited while she recovered. Uh, there’s something else. The woman started to say something just before she got shot, ‘Where’s man,’ or something like that.”

  “Man?”

  Kelly shrugged. “That’s all I heard.”

  Rupert nodded. “Good, Kelly. Anything on the cap or the jacket?”

  “No. Nothing I could see.”

  “Okay. What about the gun. In his right hand or left?”

  She closed her eyes again. “I didn’t see him shoot her, but when I looked back, he held the gun in his right hand, I’m sure. The gun had a really long barrel. I think he used a silencer, Rupert. The gun shots didn’t sound loud, you know? Just a kind of chuck, chuck.”

  Rupert nodded. “Good, Kel. What about his car?”

  “Like I said in the note—big, dark color. I didn’t see the plates. It happened so fast.”

  “Squared-off in the back like an SUV?”

  Kelly tapped her forehead with the heel of her hand and smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, now that you mention it, maybe it was an SUV. Wow, I saw more than I thought. Were you a cop, Rupert?”

  He laughed. “Let’s just say I have experience with the criminal justice system. Now, how’s the leg?”

  “Okay. I put some antiseptic on the cut and rebandaged it like you told me.”

  “Good. Let me see that elbow.”

  She gingerly slid the sleeve of her sweatshirt up and turned the elbow toward him. “It’s sore is all.”

  He took her arm in his big, rough hands and gently flexed it. “Hurt?”

  “No,” she lied, and just for an instant she yearned for her dad with such intensity she thought it might burst her chest. She fought off an urge to crumple into Rupert’s arms and cry.

  “Okay. Now go on about your business like nothin’ has happened, Kelly. I’ll let you know how the call goes.”

  Class was over, so Kelly ambled along the river toward the Skidmore Fountain in Ankeny Plaza, gossip central for the kids who hung out in Old Town. When she saw a group gathered at the fountain, some sitting, some standing, but all with backpacks, she was suddenly reminded of the loss of hers. She might as well have lost a limb. She wondered what she could get with the fifty-three bucks she had left. Probably not much.

  They were talking about the murder and hardly noticed when Kelly walked up.

  “…yeah, so me and Mickey walked over there this morning to check it out, you know,” a tall kid everyone called Twig was saying. “The body was gone but the cops had one of those bucket trucks up alongside the building. Looked like they were checking out some piece a tagger had done.”

  “Hey, I heard about that,” a girl named Mellow chimed in. “Heard some dudes were asking around about who painted that shit.”

  “Some guy asked me, man,” a young man using his backpack as a pillow piped in. “He acted like he didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t know. Like I go around studying all the graffiti in this town.”

  Kelly’s stomach dove like a roller coaster. “Was he a cop?” she managed to ask.

  The young man smiled. “Doubt it, man. He said he’d hook me up if I would tell him. Anything I wanted.”

  Kelly’s stomach kept diving. The cops were bad enough, but the thought of the killer looking for her was like a stab in the heart with an icicle. She listened for a while longer, taking some solace in the fact that the moniker K209 wasn’t mentioned. Maybe the killer, and the cops for that matter, won’t make the connection between the piece she left unsigned and her other work. That would mean they’d be looking for other taggers, too.

  Then an even worse thought occurred to her, if that was possible. What if the killer mistakes some other tagger in Portland for her? There was no doubt in her mind what would happen in that case, just like there was no doubt what would happen if the killer caught up with her.

  She slunk away from the group without being noticed, fear and anxiety weighing on her every step. Suddenly Old Town seemed like a dangerous place, and she wanted to go home in the worst way. But she had her weekly appointment with her case manager at three. You better show, she told herself. Like Rupert said, act like nothing’s happened.

  Monica Sayles looked up and smiled as Kelly entered her office at New Directions. Kelly was assigned to Monica when she came to the school eighteen months earlier as a runaway and “habitual truant” with one tagging bust. Monica was demanding at first, but at least she cared. Except for the tagging, Kelly had straightened out, but even with Monica’s influence, she still felt angry and defiant for reasons that were difficult for her to understand, let alone explain. But this much she knew—some girls cut themselves, others threw up, starved themselves, or took drugs. Kelly climbed and tagged.

  “Are you limping?” Monica asked as Kelly sat down.

  Crap, Kelly thought, didn’t think she’d notice. “Not really. Just banged up my ankle a little.”

  “Your elbow, too. Did you fall?”

  She notices everything. “I, uh, tripped getting off the bus, but it’s fine.”

  Monica drew her face into a familiar look of concern. “My goodness. Maybe you should go to the infirmary.”

  Sheeze. The last thing I need is some nurse poking around. “Nah. It’s okay.” Kelly forced a smile. “Really.”

  In the middle of their chat, which was what Monica always called their discussions, Kelly almost blew it. Monica leaned back and seemed to trap Kelly with her eyes. “Are you sure everything’s okay? She asked. “You seem upset. Are things okay at the apartment?”

  An urge to tell Monica everything crashed over her like a sneaker wave. Telling Rupert had helped, but telling Monica would mean she could put the burden down completely. Kelly opened her mouth to speak but resisted the urge. Stubborn like her dad. “I, I, uh, I’m okay. Everything’s good, Monica.”

  She could tell Monica didn’t buy it, but it got her out of there unscathed.

  Kelly took the TriMet bus across the river and found a used backpack for forty bucks at a consignment shop on Sandy. It wasn’t identical to the one she’d l
ost, but it was dark blue, matching the color. She stopped next at a food cart where she wolfed down two pieces of pizza before heading home. Veronica was out, which was a relief. Kelly dutifully fed the ungrateful mutt and made a beeline for her bed.

  She managed to get both some math homework and an essay done before Veronica came home and stuck her head in to say goodnight, something she very seldom did. Kelly wondered what was up with her. After showering and putting on the last of the bandages and antiseptic, she slipped beneath the covers. But sleep didn’t come, so she put on her sweatshirt, jeans, and climbing shoes, slid her window open, and used the drainpipe to climb down into the dark alley. She walked three blocks to a turn of the century, four-story brick building with cornerstones like the ones she encountered the night before.

  The southeast corner of the building stood in deep shadow. Her ankle and elbow screamed out, but the exhilaration of a sixty-foot free-climb was worth the pain. It was a climb she’d done many times before. An old friend. A refuge.

  At the top she sat on the edge of the flat roof, hung her legs over, and breathed in the night air. As the sweat cooled her body she watched the traffic down on Sandy and began to relax.

  Trouble waited for her down there on the street, but up in her domain Kelly ruled.

  Chapter Eight

  Cal

  I love the city of Portland, but I always look forward to getting back to my Aerie in Dundee. Except for the crows, the odd coyote, and the wind in the Doug firs, it’s quiet up there, and after a couple of hectic days in the city I’m ready for quiet. But that Friday night I stayed at Caffeine Central as a show of support for Nando. We were both anxiously awaiting news from Picasso. If he could tell me who K209 was, maybe we had a shot at helping find Claudia’s murderer.