Never Look Down Read online

  I ordered up another cappuccino and got Tay a latte with a double shot. A woman after my own heart. “When did you last see Claudia?” I said as I sat back down and slid her cup across the table.

  She winced and exhaled a breath. “Last Thursday at work. She left around five.”

  “How did she seem? Upset at anything? Nervous?”

  “No. She seemed fine. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “What can you tell me about Anthony Cardenas?”

  Her face hardened and her eyes narrowed down, revealing a toughness I already sensed might be there. “She didn’t tell me much. Said he’d come back to Portland and was trying to get her back. She shut him down in no uncertain terms. Told him their marriage was the biggest mistake she ever made, that she didn’t give a damn how much money he had.”

  “So they argued?”

  She laughed, a gleam of white teeth. “A bunch. Mostly Claudia telling him to get lost.”

  “Did he ever threaten her?”

  Her eyes flashed at me like brown lasers. “Oh, yeah. Plenty of times. Hell, he was practically stalking her. She told me he used to park near her place and wait for her to get home from work. She told me he said he was going to get her back no matter what it took.”

  “You told the police about that?”

  “Of course I told them.”

  “Ever meet Cardenas?”

  “No, never had the pleasure.”

  “So, you think he killed her.”

  She shot me an incredulous look. “Who else? Claudia didn’t have an enemy on the planet. Everyone loved her.”

  A young couple sat down at the table next to us and immediately dropped their heads to study the tiny screens on their cell phones. I lowered my voice anyway. “Tell me a little about work, Tay.”

  “I work at a Federal Re-entry Center, a fancy name for a halfway house. Federal prisoners, men who have a release date six to twelve months out, come to the FRC. The residents—we don’t call them inmates—come from federal prisons all over the country, but mainly the two in the Northwest, Lompoc and Sheridan. It takes good behavior to earn a slot at an FRC. It’s a sweet deal because residents can leave prison six to twelve months early and look for work or go to school while they serve out their term.”

  “What do you do at the FRC?”

  “I’m a mental health counselor. My job’s to assess a resident’s mental condition when he arrives at the site. If there are psychological issues—and there usually are—I work with him and make sure he’s got a treatment strategy before he leaves us.” She smiled. “It’s my dream job.”

  “What about Claudia?”

  “She’s, uh, she was a caseworker. Caseworkers have overall responsibility for the residents, you know, making sure they have a re-entry plan, helping them make contacts outside, write résumés, apply to college, that sort of thing.”

  “How did she go about this?”

  “One-on-one counseling. Her residents met with her on a regular basis. She was very busy and damn good at her job.”

  “Did she have any conflicts with any of the residents, anyone who would want to hurt her?”

  Tay took a sip of her latte, then stared into the cup. “There’re always plenty of issues, but she never felt threatened by anyone as far as I know. The residents adored her.

  “What kind of issues did she deal with?”

  “Oh, God, you name it—hostile family members, prior criminal affiliations, problems finding work or qualifying for school, the gamut. A caseworker has to be a jack-of-all-trades.

  “Would anything about Claudia’s work lead her to meet someone in Old Town at three a.m.?

  Tay closed her eyes as if she’d asked herself that question a thousand times. “I can’t imagine why she did that.” A faint, wistful smile crossed her face and she shook her head. “But it was Claudia, you know? If she had one flaw it was that she could become emotionally attached to her clients. She was just so committed.”

  We finished our coffees and I thanked Tay, gave her my card, and told her to call if she thought of anything else. As we were leaving, she put a hand on my arm and rested her eyes on me. “Good luck, Cal. I hope you catch the bastard.”

  Like I needed any more motivation.

  I drove back to Caffeine Central, leashed up Arch, and walked over to the food carts on Ninth for a quick bite. I was halfway through a fava bean falafel when Nando called. “How did it go with Tayshia?”

  “Didn’t get much. She’s down on Cardenas like everyone else.”

  “Yes. Well, the name of his alibi provider is Sheri Daniels. She dances at the Lucky Dragon on Broadway and turns the tricks to augment her income. She has been seen with Cardenas, which gives his story some credibility. However, she would be easy to buy. She has a strong affinity for oxycodone, an expensive habit.”

  “You can bet Scott’s going to look hard at her.”

  “No question. But another set of eyes cannot hurt. We are checking to see if she just happened to be with someone other than Cardenas last Thursday night.”

  “Tayshia told me Claudia wouldn’t meet Cardenas anywhere at high noon let alone three in the morning. If Cardenas was the shooter, I’d like to know how he pulled it off.”

  Nando went silent so long I thought the call had dropped. Finally, he said, “If he was the shooter?”

  I shook my head and smiled. I understood why he was so invested in Cardenas, but, damn it, Nando knew better than that. I settled for, “You’re running on emotion, not evidence, right now, my friend.”

  Another silence. “Can I count on your support, Calvin?”

  “Of course you can.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Cal

  I drove back to Caffeine Central with the intention of taking Archie for a jog along the river before spending the afternoon interviewing more of Claudia’s friends. But a front moved in, and by the time I got back to the building rain was dancing on the streets. I’d left my rain gear at the Aerie, so the run was off, which was fine by Archie, who was no fan of water of any kind.

  The first person on my afternoon list was Robert Vargas, executive director of a Portland immigration rights organization called Justicia. Claudia was a member of his board, which had met the previous Wednesday night. Vargas told me Claudia was her usual self, cheerful and full of energy, and hadn’t mentioned anything out of the ordinary when he spoke to her briefly prior to the meeting. Anita Perez, with whom she had organized the popular salsa club, Salsa Libre, met with her the previous Thursday night to go over details of the Friday night dance. If Claudia was bothered about something or had something on her mind, she hadn’t shown it, Perez told me. Another friend, a neighbor and mother of four, told me Claudia was at her apartment that Thursday evening. If she left early Friday morning to meet someone in Old Town, the friend hadn’t heard it.

  On my way out of Portland that evening I parked down from Claudia’s apartment, an old, asbestos-sided duplex on SE Holgate, near Lents Park. Nando had called earlier to ask if I could stop there and pick up a photo album, explaining he couldn’t bear to enter the apartment where his beloved Claudia had lived. “The album is a collection of pictures of us that I gave her,” he explained. “I’m afraid it will become lost. I have secured permission for you to enter the apartment from the landlord, a friend of mine.” He went on to describe where the apartment key would be hidden and where I might find the album.

  “A crime scene notice might still be on the door,” I warned.

  “The album is of no evidential value, Calvin.”

  “I’m not going in if the notice is still up.”

  A long sigh. “Must you always be the boy scout?”

  I swallowed a comeback as was often the case when talking with my friend. “I value my law practice, Nando. It’s the only one I have.”

  The streetlights in Clau
dia’s neighborhood came on as Arch and I sat in the car checking things out. Although I had permission to enter, I didn’t particularly want anyone to see me. The last thing I needed was to have it get back to Harmon Scott and his partner that I was snooping around in their case. Cops are touchy like that.

  The street was quiet, so after cracking the car windows for Arch, I approached the apartment. I brought along a penlight I kept in the glove compartment, which, remarkably, still had working batteries.

  Scott and his partner had apparently finished with Claudia’s apartment. I could see a few remnants of the fluorescent-orange crime-scene notice that had been stripped from the front door. I found the key and tried the lock, which was sticky but finally released with a loud click. The door creaked open into a small vestibule containing a brass umbrella stand next to an old church pew polished by years of use in another setting. A Calder print hung above the pew. I stopped to straighten it.

  After locking the front door behind me, I moved into the living room and my heart rate ticked up a notch. I was legal, but there was something a bit unsettling about the mission I was on. The ambient light was low but still sufficient for me to navigate the space without the penlight. My nostrils balked at the musty air, and I heard nothing except a faint whir as the refrigerator compressor came on in the kitchen.

  A compact leather couch and matching easy chair dominated the right side of the living room. When I glanced left I stopped. Papers and magazines were scattered around an antique desk that stood with its roll top up and its drawers emptied out. I used the penlight to quickly scan the papers, an uninteresting tangle of receipts, utility bills, and the like.

  I moved quickly to the dining room, which sported a round mahogany table, an old china cabinet with doors inset with wavy glass, and an antique sideboard that spanned most of one wall. The top and bottom drawers of the sideboard were open, and a few papers littered the floor. Expensive-looking silverware and silver serving trays were visible within the sideboard. Maybe just a careless job of searching, I decided. My tax dollars at work.

  A framed set of two photos of Claudia and Nando salsa dancing lay face up on the sideboard. Nando hadn’t mentioned the photos, so I set it back up and left it there.

  The kitchen was small and painted a shade of yellow that appeared to match van Gogh’s Sunflowers, a copy of which hung in a tiny breakfast nook. The kitchen looked more orderly except for a scattering of cookbooks on the countertop, which must have been stripped from a nearby shelf. I found the photo album among the cookbooks. “She kept the album in the kitchen, her favorite room,” Nando had told me. “She loved to cook.”

  The album—a handsome tome bound in thick, expensive leather—was filled with pictures of the happy couple. The picture on page one was a selfie taken somewhere on the coast. Nando and Claudia smiled back at me, the thrill of new love so evident in their faces. I had to swallow a lump in my throat.

  The bedroom was only a few steps down the hall. I was curious to see if it was left in disarray like the rest of the apartment. I tucked the album into the front of my pants to give myself a free hand and used the penlight to navigate down the dark hallway. The doors to the bathroom and hall closet were open, but the bedroom door was shut, which struck me as a bit odd. I stopped and listened. Nothing. I pushed the door open without stepping in. At this point, adrenaline began to trickle into my bloodstream.

  Still nothing, so I entered the room.

  A closet door to my left flew open and a figure rushed me. I dropped the penlight but not before seeing a glint of steel. I twisted instinctively, and the knife blade grazed the album tucked in my belt and snagged on my windbreaker. That gave me just enough time to grab the wrist of my attacker’s gloved knife hand with both of my hands. Realizing I was defenseless, he swatted at me with his free fist.

  We danced like that for several steps, him trying to punch me, me slipping his blows and forcing his knife hand up and away from my exposed body, and both of us grunting like hogs in a feed yard. Once I had his knife hand above my head, I pulled him closer. He responded by swinging wildly with his free hand, the blows ripping at my ear. When I finally worked him close enough that I could smell his breath—a thick fog of garlic and whiskey—I kneed him hard in the groin, once, twice. He groaned, his legs buckled, and I felt the strength go out of his right arm. I twisted his wrist with everything I had. The knife came loose, falling to the floor between us.

  I let go of his wrist and dropped to the floor to retrieve the knife. But he recovered much quicker than I anticipated and kicked me hard in the ribs, knocking most of the air from my lungs and sending a shock wave of pain through my body. When he tried to kick me a second time, I grabbed his foot with both arms, folded my body around it, and twisted his leg with every ounce of my strength. He let out a guttural cry and fell backward through the open doorway into the dark hall. I rolled in the opposite direction with nothing but his smelly boot in my hands.

  By the time I located his knife on the floor, I heard the back door in the kitchen slam shut.

  I stayed down and took stock while my breathing came back to normal, my ribs screaming in pain. “Damn, I said, forcing myself to my feet, “could have skipped the bedroom.”

  I went into the kitchen, locked the back door, and called the Portland Police Bureau. Scott and Ludlow had left for the day, but Scott called back in less than five minutes and told me to sit tight. I went out to check on Archie, carrying a butcher knife from the kitchen in case the one-booted cowboy was still in the neighborhood. Arch was okay but disappointed when I told him to stay in the car. I put the album in the trunk to prevent it from becoming part of the new crime scene and hobbled back to the apartment, every step greeting me with a fusillade of pain.

  Scott arrived first. Wearing faded jeans and a knit shirt, his shoulder holster visible under a light jacket, he’d obviously come straight from home and wasn’t happy about it. “Jesus Christ, Claxton, why the hell do you keep turning up in my crime scenes? You’re like a piece of gum on my shoe.”

  “I’m a lawyer, not a gumshoe,” I reminded him. My attempt at levity went unappreciated.

  Then he noticed I was listing about twenty degrees to port. “You need an ambulance?”

  I waved off the question and began detailing an account of what happened, which I had to begin again when his partner, Aaron Ludlow, arrived a couple of minutes later. When I finished, Scott said, “So, you really didn’t get a look at the guy?”

  I shook my head. “It was dark. He was my size, maybe a little shorter, with breath that could wilt flowers. That’s about all I got, except for the knife and boot. You might find some prints, but he was wearing gloves.”

  Scott smiled thinly, but Ludlow continued to frown. With a square jaw and pale blue eyes below short-cropped hair, I figured Ludlow for ex-military based on the way he carried himself. He said, “Why were you in here, anyway?”

  Best not to mention the album now residing in my car’s trunk. I turned to the sideboard and pointed to the set of photos of the couple salsa dancing. “Mendoza wanted these pictures back. They’re his.”

  “You just walked in?” Ludlow said.

  “No. Nando cleared it with the landlord.” I stopped for a moment, swung my gaze from Ludlow to Scott, and back to Ludlow. “Uh, I’m the victim of an attempted murder here, guys.”

  Scott nodded, but Ludlow continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “Why didn’t he get the pictures himself?”

  I shrugged. “Sensitive, I guess.”

  We continued in that vein for a while, Ludlow asking more annoying questions and me trying to control my temper. By this time, a couple of crime scene techs had arrived and were busy dusting for prints, particularly around a broken bathroom window, clearly the point of entry. I gave the detectives the cowboy boot and the switchblade and then followed them downtown, where I made a formal statement. When they finally cut me loose, it appeared
they’d concluded I’d barged in on a routine burglary. At least, that’s where Ludlow seemed to be. “People read the newspapers, Claxton,” he said at one point. “An unmarried woman is murdered. The bad guys figure that once the cops leave, her place is easy pickings.” I wasn’t so sure about Scott. He was an old pro not likely to jump to conclusions.

  As I was leaving, Scott followed me into the hall of the nearly deserted building. He took off his glasses, polished them on his shirt, and put them back on. His forehead looked like a ploughed field. “You hear from your artist friend about that tagger?”

  “Yeah, but he hasn’t come up with a name. Still has some feelers out. You’re probably looking for a teen who’s pretty athletic. Ever hear of buildering?”

  Scott’s forehead grew a few more furrows. “What the hell’s that?” I explained what Picasso had told me, then added, “So, that red middle finger way up on the Police Bureau building—that was K209’s work.”

  “Damn, we hadn’t made that connection.” He chuckled despite himself. “The powers that be got that finger scrubbed off in a hurry.” He let out a long breath and shook his head. “Thanks for the tip, Cal. We probably shouldn’t expect a lot of cooperation from this K209. Uh, you’ll stay close to Picasso on this, right?”

  I nodded. There was another reason Scott wanted to keep me between him and Picasso. I won’t say there was bad blood between them, but the truth was Scott had arrested Picasso in an incident that nearly cost Picasso his life. “If Picasso comes up with a name, you’ll be the first to know,” I told him.

  “Thanks.” I turned to leave, and he added, “Look, Claxton, I know Mendoza’s a friend of yours, but we both know he’s a fucking loose cannon. Don’t let him do anything stupid, okay?”

  Without looking back, I wagged a raised index finger to let him know I’d heard him.

  After letting Arch stretch his legs for a couple of minutes, I retrieved the photo album from the trunk. It was only then that I noticed that the thick leather cover had been nearly slashed in two by the attacker’s knife. A vision of what that blade, undeflected, would have done to me flashed in my mind like a crime scene photo, and a cold shiver rattled through me. A random burglary? I doubted it, but the only way to know for sure was to find the one-boot cowboy with bad breath. That would be a worthy goal, I decided. I owed him.