The Color-Blind Detective
 

words

I was just starting Ivan Doig’s English Creek when I came across the line, "Trouble never travels lonesome." He was right.

Chapter 1- Saturday, 10 am, early June

I was reliving yesterday. It was one of those unexpected moments that captures the essence of a thing. It was almost extraordinary, to me.

The black woman filled my coffee cup. "You know, CB, you’re not natural?"

"How’s that?"

"You see too much."

"How would you know?"

"I watch you. You eat here five years, once a week." She pushed me over and sat down on the warm spot. She turned her black eyes on me. "I know you."

Marta had never done that before, gotten into my space. "You care, all of a sudden?"

She smiled big flat white teeth in her crooked black smile. "I’ve always cared. Me and my husband, talk about you all the time."

"What’s to talk about?"

As is it explained something, "He don’t believe you’re color-blind."

Gee, it hadn’t occurred to me Marta knew, but who’s to know what women know? Not me. "So when did you figure it out?"

"First day I saw you." She grabbed onto my shirt collar, turned it inside out. "Yeah, I saw this and I knew."

No great mystery there. "So what else do you know?"

Matter of fact, "I know you see evil."

I pulled down the corners of my mouth, shrugged my ignorance.

She shook her head. "Oh no, you don’t fool me. I watch you, see what you see, know what you know, who the bad guys are."

"It’s that obvious?"

A short vigorous nod. "Me, I know some of them, but I watch you. Then I watch them, see what happens to them, and I know you’re right."

"Like?"

"Like that guy just left. You know him?"

I figured she meant the man with the seventy-five dollar haircut, dark glasses, and neat little quick hands. I’d never seen him before. I shook my head.

"Name’s Gabby Gundrel. He’s a pickpocket. I know his brother." She waited for me to say something. I didn’t. "So I was testing you?"

Ever the man with the insightful one word question, "And?"

She tapped her head between the eyebrows. "You knew. I saw it in your eyes, like you do, you know, not quite interested, but still watching. It’s proof. I tell Derwood, that’s my husband, I tell him you see stuff nobody else sees."

I made light of her revelation, "I only see what’s there."

She waved a two-toned black finger in my face. "No you don’t. You got a gift, some kind of x-ray vision, CB. You probably know what’s in my soul."

That was getting into areas I don’t know a thing about. "No, Marta, I don’t know anybody’s soul."

As if that answered something, she got up and took my twenty to the cash register. The night manager was looking hard at her, as if she was shirking her job, but I was the only customer in the place. He was a mean man, but I didn’t need any special sixth sight to know that. Then again, maybe I did. Sometimes I think everyone sees what I see, because it’s so clear to me. Anyway, I think he’s a crime waiting to happen. I wonder if I should tell Marta. Maybe next week.

Marta’s right, it’s a gift. Problem is, though, I can’t turn it off. I can’t be like her, or you. I’m color-blind, and you can’t see what I see. I see the truth ...

On cue, hard truth entered my Portland office that cold, rainy Saturday morning. She tapped her umbrella, shaking the water onto the roughed black and white tile floor, hung her dark raincoat on the gray metal coatrack, and let her eyes travel around the room before settling on me. When the eyes stopped, she smiled. It wasn’t a kind smile. It was one of those ‘yeah, this’ll do’ smiles.

She was dressed in a dark gray jacket and a light gray skirt. Her sheer white silk blouse had the top three buttons undone. The white silver necklace that hung in the vee of her blouse was dominated by a black onyx with a cameo face cut in the surface. It was her face. Fine ears sported matching studs, tiny, with no face. There was an indentation on her left ring finger. A remembered event? Her hair was that gray only the young can have, pulsing with light, a white shining gray, not the flat gray of old age. The thin line of black roots stood out against her pale complexion, making her look a little mean, and dangerous.

She took a chair, then reached to the corner of my desk for the box of Kleenex. She dried her shoes, thoroughly, as if I wasn’t there. Maybe she’d introduce herself. I waited.

The woman tossed the Kleenex towards a waste basket, missed, shrugged her shoulders. She gave me her attention, "I’m Jane Wye. Maybe you’ve heard of me."

I shook my head. "C. B. Green. They call me CB," I said.

She pointed her chin at the pot on the edge of my credenza. "How about some coffee?"

I poured her the coffee. "Sugar? Cream?"

A sharp shake of her head. "Black is fine."

Jane Wye was a just short of a beautiful woman, maybe twenty-eight, five-nine, a hundred-and-thirty well distributed pounds. An upturned nose offset well spaced features on seemingly china smooth poreless skin. Neatly plucked brows topped nearly transparent gray eyes, with the irises fading into the whites without an apparent edge. The whites were perfectly clear, same as a child’s. She had a little hollow in her throat, above the necklace.

Most people who enter my office are nervous, for a lot of good reasons. It’s the nature of the business. Not Jane Wye. She sat there as if she owned the place. Her body language said she was a woman who was used to getting what she wanted.

She arched her brows and re-scanned my office, as if confirming her initial impression. "You could use a decorator," she said. "Don’t think much of color, do you?"

A decorator did it for me, to make sure it had no color, only black, and white, and gray. I only shrugged. I could tell right away she wasn’t someone I wanted to tell the story of my life.

She laughed, a pleasant throaty sound, and pointed at the wall. "Even the photographs. Ansel Adams." She met my eyes and proved more prescient than I’d have guessed, "The truth in black and white, eh, Mr. Green?" Maybe I’d become a little too obvious. First Marta, now a woman I’d never met before.

I said, "What you see is what I see," but I didn’t believe that for a second. I levered myself into my black swivel chair. "How can I help you, Ms. Wye?"

"Maybe you’ve heard of my husband, Jack Wye?"

Him I knew. "Sure. Big shot lawyer for pond scum. Didn’t I read in the paper he was being investigated for money laundering?"

She didn’t move.

My next words came out reluctantly. "What’s he done that you need me?"

She pursed her lips, thinking. So was I. Peeping into Jack Wye’s life was no way to make a living.

But there was no reason to wonder. I mean, it wasn’t like she wasn’t going to tell me. "He’s got himself dead."

"When?" I asked.

She shook her head. "The cops found him eight hours ago. Shot in the head. I just came from the morgue."

It was a reflex, "Couldn’t happen to a meaner guy." I’m not usually that callous. Anyway, I know meaner guys.

She didn’t disagree with me, instead choosing to look at the brighter side, "Hey, he knew how to treat a girl." Her look was somewhere between wistful and angry.

"So, I’m sure he left you well fixed?" Keep out of it, I told myself. Still, he was dead. I heard the words again, as if from someone else, "So what can I do to help you?"

She waved her hand dismissively, answering my first question, "Well fixed, my ass. I have to split it with four ex-wives and seven ex-kids. That’s what his will says."

She responded to the question on my face, "I got a copy as part of the pre-nupt agreement. Twelve ways. It’s barely six digits. I can’t live a year on that."

I repeated myself, "So, how can I help you, Mrs. Wye?"

She made an ugly face. "Don’t call me Mrs. I hate that word."

"Okay, Jane, so how can I help you?"

She smiled, as if she liked that.

I waited.

She tugged at a puffy collagen filled upper lip with her teeth, scanning the room again. She stared out the window for a real world mooring, but the dark rain didn’t inspire her any. She said without feeling, "The police acted like I murdered my husband."

I figured she was mistaken, or she wouldn’t be sitting here. I shrugged my question.

She batted her baby grays at me. "I didn’t. I’ve got an alibi. I told them, so they probably already know it wasn’t me."

I let my black and white logic lead me, "So what do you need me for?"

Jane Wye put her palms on my table and leaned towards me. Another two inches and I’d be looking at her gray tipped breasts, separated by the black onyx necklace, but she stopped short, lifted one hand and jabbed her manicured black nail at me. "My husband was a thief. He worked for the top end of the pond scum, as you call them, was a member of the pond scum union. Jack Wye wasn’t some small time crook, though, he was the real thing. He moved a lot of money for the heavy hitters in the northwest drug trade. I was watching real close, you know what I mean?"

I thought I did. "Sure."

She slapped her palm on my desk. "I figure he’s put away twenty million in the last two years alone. I want it."

I was right, hard truth. "You know where it is?" I asked.

I concentrated on her black painted lips, keeping my eyes away from the hard gray of her nipples, now in sight, like an exclamation point to the coming offer. I could see the facial muscles flatten out and harden her smile. Her meanness took my breath away, as if time had stopped in the wonder of it.

A picture of the handsome Jack Wye formed in my mind. I’d seen him a couple times, actually met him once at a party. They must have made a stunning couple, carnivorous and sleek. He’d met his match in her.

The lips moved, "His girlfriend." She made it a dirty word. "The bitch stole his safe deposit key. He kept it on a chain around his neck." Then, as if it had nothing to do with her, she said, "He liked to tell the girls how much he was worth while that key dangled in their faces. He liked them to suck on that key." She slid back into the chair. "When I saw his body in the morgue, it was gone."

I wondered if that was the extent of her feeling, that she’d been robbed. I didn’t really want to know. "Maybe the cops got it?"

She made it obvious, though, "No. I asked."

Yes, no wasted sentimentality there, Jane Wye was one hard woman. I wouldn’t want to be on her enemies list. The dark lips moved again, and I could see the pale gray where her teeth had scraped away the lipstick. I had one of those ‘don’t look at the man behind the screen’ moments as I realized she might be even meaner one level down.

Finally, she said what she wanted, "She killed him and stole the key. I want it back." The last words had a finality to them. It wasn’t open to discussion.

My stomach heaved. A recovery case. Some people, but especially criminals, think possession is nine tenths of the law, or some such thing. No grays there. They fight real hard for what they’ve stolen. Twenty million was a lot of possession, the kind of possession that could earn an erstwhile public servant, me, that is, an early obituary.

She read my doubt. "Twenty thousand if you get me the key." She pushed to close the sale, "We’ve got until Monday, when the banks open." She couldn’t know money had nothing to do with my decision. Jack Wye being dead helped.

Those transparent grays held my eyes. She leaned forward again, diddling her necklace, trying to force my eyes down. There was an obviousness that I’m sure eluded her. I figured she was just being demurely coy.

I thought, lady, there’s nothing you got there that I want.

"You in?" she asked.

"What bank?" I asked.

She shrugged those thin shoulders. "Don’t know. If I did, I maybe wouldn’t need you."

I voiced a concern, "Maybe she’s already been to the bank today?"

"I gotta hope not. A lot of downtown banks aren’t open on Saturdays. Anyway, the cops said his license wasn’t in his wallet. I figure she’s got to doctor that up. I expect that might take a day."

I nodded my agreement. "Two grand up front for expenses."

She reached for her purse. She was a cash kind of girl. Then she gave me the particulars. I took notes.

Before she left, I asked, "So what makes me the lucky guy, Ms. Wye." Jane just didn’t feel comfortable on my lips. It was more familiar than I wanted to be.

She smiled that first smile again. "I talked to a District Attorney friend of mine this morning. He said you never lie, you never cheat, you never steal. He lies and cheats and steals all the time. I figured he’d know."

* * *

Before Jane Wye’s arrival, I was thinking about closing the office for the weekend to put my detective wiles into the search for the elusive layered gray rainbow, or a black slashed cutthroat, or a speckled gray worm backed brookie, or even a dark spotted brown. But the late spring rains had raised all the good fishing water, and the idea of sitting in a tube on a lake in the endless drizzle didn’t hold that much appeal either. Still, if I’d closed up on Friday when I saw the first sanguine, but totally wrong forecast, I’d have missed out on all the death. Such is fate, or whatever.

A minute after the door closed behind the shapely Jane Wye, it opened again to more curves. She stood there with a quizzical look on her face, her hip against the frame, then rapped on the door.

"You in?" she asked.

Denise Richards is the queen secretary for the lawyers of Whitman, Howard, Ormand, Masters and Edmonds, or, as we in the know affectionately call them, WHO-ME?, with the question mark in the pronunciation. All the women they hire are good looking, as if they were casting for a television show. One of the partners said that if he’s got a choice between an ugly applicant, and a cute one, he takes the cute one. It appeared to me they always had a choice.

Denise is real pretty, but in a ‘rode hard put away wet’ way. She’s been married two times in the four years she’s worked for the firm, everything before that is rumor. They won’t give her presents the next time. The girl oozes sexual come-on. She even puts the moves on me, once hard, just for kicks ever since. I like Denise, but even our minimal contact showed me she could wear on a guy.

I tried to look like I wasn’t really working. Maybe she’d go away. I mean, it was Saturday, and I could have been anywhere.

She just waited me out. She knew my routines.

I emptied a box of white and gray elk hair caddis on my desk. I looked up, acted irritated, "Yes. Why?"

She strolled over to my credenza and put my phone on the hook. "Walter wants to see you."

I shuffled an index finger through the flies, slowly, but there was no escaping it. "I’ll be over in a couple minutes."

She cupped the flies in her hands and put them back in the box. "Don’t be too long, okay?"

Denise turned her head to look back the way she came, then returned her attention to me. "You working for the mob these days?"

I gave her the breaking news, "Hey, she’s not part of the underworld any longer. Her old man’s dead."

Credulous skepticism, "Since when?"

I looked at my watch. "Since about eight-and-a-half hours ago."

She jerked her head at the door again. Disdain tinged her voice, "You don’t have anything going with that, do you?"

I shrugged. "Why?"

"Which why?"

With my incisive mind, I wasn’t even a little confused. "The question why."

She frowned inwardly, at a recalled slight? "She’s trouble on two legs looking for a place to land. That’s why."

There’s information everywhere. Sometimes you just have to ask for it. "How do you know that, Denise?"

She spat out the words, "Went to high school with her," a pause, "They could have named it blow job central after her. Later we were both freshmen at Portland State. She had her own special study methods, if you catch my drift. She screwed teachers for grades. She’s got no morals at all, like some kind of alley cat."

Her anger was intriguing, something between women that I don’t understand. It’s part of that Mars and Venus thing. "So, are you following her career or something?"

She shrugged. "Some people you just can’t escape. We’re in the same business, loosely defined, that is. If Jack Wye’s dead, then justice maybe won one."

I agreed, but I was feeling a bit contrary. "I thought about that. My guess, it wasn’t justice, just someone more evil than Jack won this one."

She shook her head. "There isn’t anybody more evil."

I smiled. "You gotta get out more, Denise."

She took that as a segue away from the Wyes, "If I get out any more, I’ll be arrested ..."

I cut off the soft move. "So tell me more about how pretty Jane ended up with handsome Jack."

She made a face as if I’d said something distasteful. "You make it sound like a ‘made for the movies’ thing."

I held my tongue. Pretty soon she took a chair, crossing fine legs which rode her short skirt up high. She tugged the hem down with a sudden unexpected modesty.

"Jane Andrews was her maiden name. God, what a poor choice of words, her unmarried name. She married some up and comer in Wye’s law firm. Nice kid, Bob Roberts, naive guy, thought he was in criminal law to protect the rights of the downtrodden from those awful jack-booted thugs in the police, as if his job was to make this a better world. You know the type?"

I nodded, sadly. It doesn’t last, unless they’ve got an agenda that blinds them to what’s really going on, but that wouldn’t happen in Jack Wye’s firm.

"Well, she marries him, but ..." Denise paused, lowered her voice, turned her head to talk at my shoulder, but kept her eyes on me, "This is all scuttlebutt, you know. No facts, just gossip."

If I worked only with facts, I’d never know anything. I waved her on.

"Well, she marries poor Bob, and they get with the corporate parties thing. Jane keeps putting the moves on Jack who’s already on his fourth wife. Well, lo and behold, two years ago at the Christmas party, she gets boob Bob drunk and finesses him into humping poor Jack’s wife, in Jack’s office." She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe the gall of some people. "Well, the two of them, Jack and Jane, walk in on it, you know, an accident, and Bob’s gone, in more ways than one. Rumor had them doing the nasty right after the doors closed, but I think they were getting it on before that. My guess, it was all a setup."

She’d stopped talking, but I could see she wasn’t done yet. "So, what else?"

Denise acted put upon, but it was only part of the game. "You want more? Let me think." She pursed her lips, steepled her fingers, then spoke through them, "Jack’s got a new squeeze, but that’s almost redundant. He’s always working on a new one."

I should have mined that vein then, but I thought I knew who it was already.

She continued, "Jane, she’s doing the wife bit, joining a few organizations, getting involved in the arts, spreading Jack’s money around. She wants to move up in the world, but most people see right through her."

As if the typical butt-heads among the movers and shakers had any qualms about dirty money and pretentiousness, "Yeah, right."

She shrugged. "Okay, so she’s making a big splash among the glitterati. I’m jealous even."

The moralist in me broke through, "Don’t be. You don’t want it."

It was her turn to smile. "Easy for you to say. You got more money than Midas."

With more of an edge than I’d intended, "Don’t you go spreading that crap, Denise."

She took that as her cue, "You coming, or what?"

I waved her out the door. "I told you I’d be right there. Run along now and be a good girl."

She couldn’t help herself, "I’m always a good girl."

* * *

I pulled a piece of scrap paper from the wastebasket, then clicked on my phone messages. The voice that came out was blurred by the years. Still it was the same. I wondered what I’d ever seen in the woman. Even eighteen years after the divorce, she was such an obvious mistake. Wrong person, wrong reason, wrong, wrong, wrong.

She started with my name, followed by "It’s Danielle," then a pause as her brain caught up with her mouth, "you know, your ex-wife ..."

I hadn’t talked to her in sixteen years, and I seldom thought about her except once in a while when talking to my at times estranged son, Robin. Last I heard, she’d left her husband, a very rich stockbroker for a carpenter, to find her repressed inner sexual self. It was a continuing story line for her.

"... I’ve fallen on some hard times and I was hoping you could find some way to send me a little money to get me out of this scrape I’m in. Could you call me at 203-555-4321. When you call, tell the front desk you’re looking for Sun Flower. They’ll find me. Thanks ahead of time."

I wasn’t ready to talk to Danielle, or for that matter, Sun Flower. I mean, after eighteen years, thirteen with an unnecessary, onerous divorce settlement she didn’t need, and which I couldn’t at the time afford, what did I owe her? Per Robin, she’d gotten a big settlement from the broker. I’d met him, he was a nice guy. She’d blown a good gig exercising some sexual fantasy she believed she’d inherited from her dead father. It must have been phantom genes, since the girl was adopted. But that’s a story too long for the telling. For countless reasons, Danielle was a poster child for adoption gone bad. No, I didn’t owe her anything, never loved her, but I didn’t wish her any ill either.

I called Denise to say I was really on the way over. She’s an anal retentive girl and needs to on top of everything. I asked her to find me a detective agency in Hartford. She got her curiosity up, but I told her it was private. She said, so what? I said it was personal. I, for one, am never going to end up in the legal system rumor mill. I like to think it’s because I’m discrete, but really, I’m just boring. And I want to keep it that way.

I left a message for the kid who does my lawn in Washington. I told him he’d better be away from the phone because he was mowing my lawn, now, a week late. I gave it my best angry tone, but he knows me pretty well. I locked the door behind me.

* * *

Hearing from Danielle brought back fonder, sadder memories of Rhonda, and how private detecting found me. I’ve learned that nothing fades quicker than the past, from the vivid black and white of today to the muted, indistinguishable grays of yesterday. Sometimes I remember all the facts but none of the reasons. Other times only the reasons survive. Rhonda isn’t like that. It’s been five years, and the facts are etched in my brain, and the reasons, well, they drive everything I’ve done since.

Rhonda was murdered, maybe by accident, maybe not. She was at the street corner, her day-timer was on the sidewalk, so she was checking her schedule. When the alarm at the jewelry store sounded, she probably turned her head to see what was going on. The policeman was approaching from behind her with his gun drawn. A witness in the building across the way said the robber pulled the hood from his head, turned, shot at the cop, missed, and killed the love of my life. His second shot killed the cop. He got the patrolman at sixty feet with a handgun, so I figured he meant to kill Rhonda too, even if there wasn’t a reason.

As expected when a cop is murdered, the police turned over heaven and earth to find the killer. But in three months the case was dead, relegated to the back burner. They had a palm print and two partial fingerprints because the witness saw the killer put his hand on a metal lamppost. But it wasn’t enough to get a match. Dead, but open, waiting for the prints to make a more full appearance, or another bullet from the same gun with its mis-grooved bore. It was my introduction to justice. No, it was my introduction to justice delayed.

When the cops deep six-ed the case, I tried to pick it up, to find Rhonda’s killer. But I didn’t know the first thing about the cop business. So I taught myself, the hows and the whats, trained myself to look deep, to see the realities that made up the swellings and bumps in my previous world view. I thought I’d see the tracks of her killer. But I didn’t. So, like the cops, I put her on the back burner, waiting for the evidence. Sometimes I hope the man is dead, but then not. Death is not enough justice for me.

Still, serendipity works in strange ways. I was born to be a private investigator. I feel like Superman, able to see through the walls people construct to hide their most evil secrets. They think they can lie, cheat, steal, rape, pillage and kill, and the system will let them off. Too often they’re right, but when I’m the shadow dogging their steps, justice isn’t far behind. I’ve got to hope I’m not the only one. Then again, maybe it’s better if I am. I try to make justice happen. It’s what I do. It’s why I do it.

Justice can happen, but it’s hard work. My work. If a man steals a fortune, I create a situation where he loses it. If a man rapes a woman, maybe I destroy his life. Some people might say I’m acting out the job of judge and jury and executioner. I don’t look at it that way. I mean, I don’t do anything. I just set the scene, bait a trap, that is, then I let the bad guy cook his own goose. It might not be absolutely legal, but it is justice.

So, my life, it’s all Rhonda’s fault. I don’t think of her more than five times a day, but not by name. It’s more putting a face on justice, the woman with the scales. Rhonda, she’s still waiting for justice. She’s the first picture on my screen saver, where every case goes until justice happens. I’ve made justice happen. I make justice happen. I will make justice happen.

 

 

 

Chapter 2 - Saturday, 11:30 am

I took a cab to WHO-ME’s offices in one of the towers overlooking downtown. There were two guys wearing white coveralls in the lobby servicing the elevators. They had the panel off the big metal board displaying the floor locations. They were fiddling with a cable harness with hundreds of multi-gray wires. It was very Rube Goldberg-ian, and I couldn’t imagine them getting it back together right. Only one of the eight elevators was working. I waited for it to come down from the top.

In the reception area on the thirtieth floor I twiddled my thumbs while I waited for Denise. There was no one at the switchboard, though there was lawyer spoor, a notepad, a pen and a billing log. I had the place to myself. The windows offered a panoramic view of the waterfront, the bridges, downtown, and, on a clear day, Mt. Hood. It was the ‘at a distance’ beauty of the city one might expect in moving postcards.

In fact, it’s how most people know a city, out of focus. Don’t look too closely, don’t see too deeply. From my aerie it was so antiseptic, a level removed from the filth that moves openly through any large city. I saw the numbers on the tops of two cop cars converging at a street corner, blocking traffic. They resembled specific white cells targeting some human germ or virus. But, probably, the damage was already done, and the pathogens were dividing their loot and fading into the woodwork. Too often the cops are a day late and a dollar short, but of course, that’s not even the half of it.

Normal citizens brave the increasing threats, because the odds are still in their favor, sort of. Their erstwhile protectors, the cops, want to fix things, but usually they just salve the pain, and not so well at that. Eventually these guardians of the public weal become habituated to the suffering, less shocked by it than even the perpetrators. I haven’t reached that point yet. I’m still appalled by it.

My life brings me close to the city’s dark underbelly. I’m hired by both the winners and losers of life’s lottery, generally to hold onto, or get back, what was theirs. Too often the chattel is children. It used to be the kids of divorce just had a lousy home life. Those were the good old days. Now they are expected to bear witness, often false witness, against one of their parents, almost always the father, for sexual depravities that will mark the man for life. Then the courts wield the Sword of Solomon with all the restraint of Attila the Hun. And society, through this perversion of the law, extracts a last ounce of pain, a final poisonous mix that festers until its spawn resurrect the story line to destroy families still unborn.

"A penny for your thoughts." Denise’s voice burst the bubble on my little world.

Without turning my head, "They’re not worth that much." Suddenly the pain I’d seen so much of lately washed over me. There was no reason, it just happens sometimes; maybe it was seeing the ineffectualness of the cops below. I slammed my fist against the window sill, but nothing happened, the system was unmoved. I put my feelings away for the day.

I looked her in the eyes. "No, Denise, that’s not true. They’re just too dear for money."

She looked confused. "I’ve always wondered what goes on in that big head of yours."

I chuckled. "It’d scare you. Take my word for it."

She nodded as if she believed me. "Come on Atlas, it’s time to shrug."

I moved my shoulders. I was back. The memory of other people’s pain was fading. By the time I got to Walt Edmonds’s office, it was gone.

* * *

When Walt first saw my office, his only word was, "Cool," the same way kids, or people with kids, say it. I found out how cool when I was back in his office a month later. Something had changed. I’m color-blind, but my office still looks different than the real world. It has an intentional black and white look about it, staged, not natural. Well, that’s how Walt’s office looked, staged. He asked me what I thought? I said, what do you mean? He said, hey, I liked your interior design, it was so great, the use of gray. How did you think of it? I realized then that Walt didn’t know I was color-blind, he thought it was some kind of retro design thing, the forties noir look. It told me something important, about lawyers.

Walt’s a lawyer, but that doesn’t make him smart, not even observant. He a perfect example of what teaching a vocabulary to animals might produce. Maybe he lacks the wiring to be a complete human being. I’ve been at this a while, and I sort of think it’s a necessary attribute to being a good criminal lawyer. No introspective deconstructionism there. Criminal lawyers need a blind spot, too bad it’s got to be justice. For them, it’s about winning and losing, and money. Crimes, ruined lives, victims, perpetrators, they’re just pieces on the board, morally the same. Putting a crook back on the street of the family he’s victimized doesn’t keep them up at night. It’s as if they had nothing to do with it. It’s not their fault, it’s the law. Just ask them.

Every time I walk into Walt’s office, I have these same thoughts, like I’m stuck in a Twilight Zone episode. They evanesce as soon as Walt speaks.

He used his formal voice, "Denise, close the door please."

Denise did as she was told. Like Della Street in an old Perry Mason episode, she flipped open her steno pad and licked the tip of her pencil. Per Denise, Walt never did anything without it being recorded. I’d asked ‘What about his home life?’ and she said there was nothing worth writing up there. I figured that was true. Still, someday Walt would review his life, that is, his work life, in detail and blow his brains out.

We shook hands as always and I took the seat closest to Denise. I kicked her foot, but she didn’t smile. Around Walt she was all business, all the time.

Walt smiled, professionally. "My mom called me today."

I opened my hands and put a question on my face. "For that we’ve got to close the door?"

He ignored me. "Said she hadn’t seen you in a couple of weeks?"

I told the truth, "My Fridays have been a mess lately." One of the messy cases was his. "As if you didn’t know."

His face darkened, as if he was embarrassed. "Yes, well, she says she needs your talents."

I lifted my shoulders. "Marion’s got my home number."

The son mouthed his mother’s words, but he didn’t understand them. "She didn’t want to impose on your friendship."

I shaped my hand into a gun and pointed it. "You, Walt, calling me at home is an imposition. Not your mother."

It slid right off him. "Well, she was bending my ear about some guy who died in Ridgefield. Someone she met at the library. She says there’s something fishy about the death."

Perceptive old lady talking to an oblivious son. I asked a stupid question, "What?"

He shrugged massive shoulders whose most important job these days was keeping his sixty pound belly off the floor. "Hey, you know my mom, it all went right by my head." He whizzed his left hand by his ear. "But, I don’t like her having thoughts like that. What I want you to do is go see her, see what’s bugging her, and put it to rest."

Yes, he didn’t care about truth, just divert the old lady. Sometimes I wonder how the children can be so different from the parents. Who the hell knows? Not me.

I asked, "What if she’s right? What if it is suspicious?"

His eyes froze on me. "Hey, I don’t care. That’s not why I’m hiring you, CB. I just don’t want her bothered by whatever it is. She can be such a nudge. You don’t know."

She must have called Walt twice in a week.

I laughed to dispel some of the tension. "Okay, taking care of your mom is no big deal."

Oblivious, Walt turned to Denise. "Write CB a check for a thousand."

I shook my head. "Hey, I said it was no big deal, Walt. If I have any expenses, I’ll bill you."

His words were more prescient than I expected, "No, this is professional. I’m giving you the job of clearing my mother’s mind of this. The grand is to make sure you don’t do more than that. Is that understood?"

Yes, don’t follow the evidence. "You mean a bribe?"

He put a gotcha smile on his face. "No, I mean an order. You always do what you’re paid to do. I can trust that." He pointed a thumb at his chest. "I’m obligating you to me, not my mother."

As if that was possible. Still, I raised both hands in a mock surrender. "Okay, boss, you’re paying the bills."

Denise pulled the big leather bound checkbook from Walt’s drawer, made all the necessary notations, wrote out the check and handed it to him.

Walt signed it with a complicated but practiced flourish, then held it between his nicotine grayed fingers. "No more, no less."

I took it, without a word. That’s my version of noncommittal.

As I folded it into my pocket, he said, "What’s this I hear about you doing some work for Jane Wye?"

I glared at Denise who grayed guiltily. To Walt, "Wye?"

"Yeah, Wye, Jane Wye, wife of recently dead Jack Wye." He slapped the front page of the Oregonian on the desk. It was the late city edition. The headline read, ‘Prominent Lawyer Murdered Gangland Style." The conclusion seemed a bit rash, but then journalism has fallen on hard times these days. But, no, that’s not true, it’s always been that way.

I picked up the paper, unfolded it and read the article. I looked hard at each word, making the lawyer wait. It was all fluff stuff out of the files. They didn’t want to risk calling him the crook everyone knew he was. You can’t say what you know anymore. I didn’t learn anything new, more or less what I already knew. Jack Wye was thirty-eight, a home-town boy who started his own firm fourteen years ago. His first wife was a Giacco, the daughter of a big mafia guy in Las Vegas. Jack dumped the wife, but the old man still loved him as the son he’d never had. Of late, Jack had followed the new money by representing drug kingpins. He was good at keeping the scum out of jail. He was married, but he still had a way with the girls. They didn’t really say any of that, but you could read between the lines. Newspapers are printed in black and white, but they only say things in an irksome gray legal-safe speak.

I repeated Denise’s earlier comment, "Looks like justice won one."

Walt’s face went blank. "What the hell does that mean?" No, Walt wouldn’t know justice if she came in the door and beat him to death with her scales.

I didn’t elaborate.

Walt put a concerned look on his face. It didn’t fit him well. "You know, I worry about you. This could be really dangerous." He searched my eyes, then told the truth, "I don’t want you getting killed on me. I couldn’t replace you with five men." Two years and that was as close as he’d ever come to a real compliment.

I sent another one by his ear, "Thanks for your concern."

Irony and sarcasm were lost on Walt. He smiled as if it was a compliment. "Well, I think Jack Wye is a rock better left unturned. Don’t you?"

Deep down, somewhere in my subconscious, I probably agreed with him, but the external me isn’t made that way. "You know me, Walt. I’ll sniff around a while and see what’s up. I don’t plan on doing anything that might imperil your business."

He got flustered. "Hey, I didn’t mean ..."

I cut him off with a dismissive wave. "No, I know what you didn’t mean."

Denise couldn’t help herself, she winked with the eye away from Walt. I think he saw it, because he suddenly frowned in her direction.

I took his mind off it, "So, Walt, what do you know about the Wyes?"

He rubbed a finger over his lips, as if he was zipping it up. He knew that in the law business the truth was often best left unknown, unsaid, unheard. But I think he really liked me, in his own unstated way, so he broke the rules. When his mouth opened, real surprise marked Denise’s face.

He moved his belly against the desk, shortening the distance between us. "I’ve been head to head with Jack Wye twice, representing co-defendants. He pushed me out both times. I could have brought him up before the bar, but a visit from a couple of mean dudes convinced me the first time to keep it to myself. The second time, I knew better from the git go."

I was sympathetic. "Hey, Walt, we do what we can. What about the wife, Jane?"

More talk out of school, "She’s a bimbo, but the brightest of the four, no make that five. Met them all at various legal type functions over the last fifteen years. The others, they were dumb as rocks, IQs right down there with their bra sizes. Jane, well she had a bit of a reputation, you know?"

I shook my head. I looked to Denise.

She shrugged. She didn’t know where Walt was going with it.

Even Walt was thinking twice, but the decision crossed his face just before the words crossed his lips. "There’s competition, you know, even among the scumbags. Wye wasn’t the only one offering special services, if you know what I mean, but he was the only one using his wife to seal the deal. I mean, not just some two-hundred dollar hooker, anyone can do that. No, his wife. Now there’s a lawyer a criminal can trust."

I put on a look of incredulity. "And she went for that?"

"Yeah, from what I heard. She just made sure they had a blood test first."

I was still skeptical. "So how do you know this? And why tell me?"

He acted surprised. "It’s in the rumor mill. Christ, Denise could have told you that."

I looked at her. She shook her head. Different circle of friends, different rumors.

The professional concern returned, "Anyway, you should know the kind of people you’re working for, that’s all." His smile said, hey, I’ve done my good deed for the day. As if to prove it, he turned his palms up to show his hands were clean.

* * *

Denise led me out to the reception area. One of the legal eagles in training, Amy Blasdel was at the front desk. She was manning the phones as she put in overtime at some ungodly number of hundred billable dollars an hour. Denise handed me a slip of paper with the number of the Hartford agency, Law Trek. She went back to Walt’s office. She didn’t say hi to Amy.

As soon as the door closed, Amy stopped her fingers. She turned to me, propping a plump but very pretty face on her interlaced fingers. Amy was twenty-three, wispy dark gray hair, too young for me, by a lot. Still, she had the hots for me, in a big way. I don’t know why. I don’t understand women, but I know trouble when I see it. Amy was trouble.

She opened innocently enough, "How did you get in here without me seeing you?"

I answered, "Must have been when you were doing something unbillable."

She laughed at me. "I don’t do anything unbillable when I’m here."

I’ve paid for lawyers, so I didn’t see the real humor in that, but I let it pass.

She went on, "Don’t see much of you around here on weekends."

I smiled, real noncommittal.

She put a toe in the water. "This working weekends will kill you." She ran an index finger along her lower lip, smudging the light gray gloss. "I’m dog tired, but I wouldn’t mind catching a bite for lunch. What about you?"

I frowned to display my broken heart. "No can do, Amy. I’m up to my ass in alligators."

She decided to go for it all. "Maybe a little drink later then. Who knows, show a girl a good time ..." Mercifully, she left the rest unsaid.

"I’ll take a rain check."

Did I say she was good looking? Yes, well, she’s not used to being shot down when she’s doing the asking.

She started to get indignant, but I cut her off, "Really, Amy, I’ve got big problems that can’t wait. Next time." But I didn’t say, ‘When you’re older. Much older.’

She flipped it off as only the young can do and returned to her notes. By the time her fingers were moving again, I figured she’d forgotten all about me. I know, I sound stupid for not taking what’s offered, but I’ve been around the track a couple of times, and the territory’s not new to me. I’m looking for something with a bit more mileage, a little less apt to hurt, or be hurt.

I pulled a chair up to a table in the far corner of the room. I dialed the Hartford number. It was a big agency, they had someone taking calls on a Saturday. Technology being what it is, she was most likely at home. She listened, then connected me with an operative, probably at his home. We talked a while. He said he’d follow up on Danielle-Sun Flower right away. We agreed to a fee, the complementary rate for a fellow PI. I told him the particulars, and he said he’d get back to me.

Denise came back out the office door and sat down before I could make a graceful exit. She motioned with her head to her boss’s office. "What’s with Walt? I’ve never seen him so talkative, so concerned."

"Maybe he’s just worried about me."

She started laughing. She was still laughing as the door closed behind me.

* * *

Walt once told me there was no room for morals in his job. It was the same thing his mother had told me a year earlier. He described it as a positive attribute. She did not. That was more because they didn’t share the same definition for the word. For Walt morals were rules unencumbered by judgment. For Marion, they were the same as for the rest of us.

* * *

The skies darkened as I made my way on foot back towards the Northwest. Thicker clouds were moving in from the east even though the system was coming from the west. That put the low south of us, so it would probably stall just south of Mount Hood and be here for a while. I’m a guy who loves the northwest weather, but it’s June, and winter’s been going a little too long this year, even for me.

My good friend, homicide detective Dennis Doyle, tells me the dark days bleed the color out of everything, making objects just blend together. He thinks that’s what my world looks like. He’s wrong. All my rods are functioning fine. In fact, I sometimes think my cones have been confused into acting like extra rods, or maybe, like a cat, the light reflects off the back of my retina and I get to see it all over again. I just know I see better in the dark than Doyle or anyone else I know.

There’s more to my sight than that though. From the top of the building, I saw the white cells of the police cars, but I couldn’t see the germs. Down at ground zero I don’t have that problem, they’re everywhere. I see the drug transaction in the dark entryway, the high class hooker leaving the Hilton, the nonchalant walker checking discretely the parked cars, the kid eyeing the unlocked bike, the cyclist watching for a loosely held purse, the homeless person on the edge of doing something stupid.

A friend of mine, a crime writer, said to me, "It’s Portland, Oregon, for Christ’s sake. How many criminals can there be? I mean, it’s not New York, you know."

I told her the god of statistics had pretty evenly distributed his criminals. If you don’t see them, then they aren’t there, for you. But they’re still there.

I’ve developed a feel for it, one of those senses more common to women, especially those who instinctively watch out for a dangerous world. Rhonda had it. I don’t know where she got it, it can’t be trained. That is, anyone can become watchful, but it’s a full level removed from that, some atavistic animal trait that picks up on body language and scent. Still, one day I was oblivious, the next day I was surrounded by these perceptions as if they’d always been there. And, it’s more than a rods and cones thing.

 

 

Chapter 3 - Saturday, 1 pm

People ask what it’s like being color-blind, whether I miss seeing red or green. And of course I don’t miss what I can’t see, have never seen. That said, some people won’t believe me, even try to explain colors to me as if I’m just stupid.

Still, being color-blind in a color enabled world is a defining trait. It invests everything I do, from my youthful attempts to pass, to my thinking about life, people, pain and death. You see, I’m not the same as everybody else. I’m special. Not good special. Not bad special. Just different special. I focus on different things. I am never overcome by the wonder of things. Never. A black and white world is by definition less wonderful, bleaker, sharper, more defined. There is more knowledge available to the eyes once the wonder is stripped away.

Think about it, it’s true. Ansel Adams’ pictures present a reality stripped of the distraction of color. It’s how mountains look, even when there is no person to see them. All the great revealing photographs are in black and white. How do I know that? I don’t, but I feel it. If it wasn’t true, why have black and white photography at all? It’s the colored world’s statement of fact, unintended, unadmitted.

And, my color-blindness is more special, more different than anyone else’s, so I have no idea what other color-blind people see. Mine may be a singular view of the world. Or not.

* * *

When the skies opened up, I hailed a cab for the last half-mile to my office which occupies the lower floor of the three flat I bought in Northwest Portland. It’s in the yuppie - do they still use that word - center of the city. In fact, it’s the yuppie center of a yuppie city. That’s fine with me. In five minutes I can walk from my office slash apartment to ten bars, fourteen coffee joints, about twenty touristy gift type places, and one hospital. Like most of the stores and residences, I have the lower windows barred and a big gate protecting the front entry area.

I paid a lot for the gray Victorian with the out-sized turrets four years ago, and the value keeps going up. Some people see that as a good thing, but to me it just says housing’s getting less affordable for the average working stiff. What with the growth constraints on building, the monied young are gobbling up more and more of the poorer areas with their giant gentrification assaults, maiming with beauty. It’s as if the city is having its body invaded by a good cancer, the cleansing kind. The recent crash of the tech stocks slowed down this unplanned urban renewal for awhile, but Portland hasn’t figured out how to stop attracting people with money, yet. Still, the city’s always trying. It’s almost too expensive for the scum to live here, but not quite. And that’s got the city fathers really worried.

There’s always a couple of homeless wandering through my area, even though I’m more than a mile from deadbeat central. It’s got something to do with the methadone clinic four blocks away, and another three blocks to the hospital after they’ve OD-ed on the methadone. Every so often I have to roust someone who thinks my wrought iron fence is an air conditioned wall to hang one edge of a tarpaulin mobile home over, then hose down the sidewalk they used as a urinal. Is it any wonder they’re homeless? They’re people even their parents won’t take in, which says more than I ever could. The transients, they don’t like me so much, but I don’t particularly care. Just because garbage walks on two legs, doesn’t mean I’ve got to respect it.

I don’t have a garage, which is the norm for my neighborhood, but I do have a little four car parking area behind the building, in lieu of a yard. I lease three of the spots out after five each night and weekends. I had been thinking seriously about taking half the office area and converting it to a garage, but that means dealing with the authorities. As soon as they know it’s me, guaranteed nothing’s going to happen. I am persona non grata with the pols, for a lot of reasons. I don’t see that situation changing soon.

I took the back stairs to the apartment. I washed up, combed my hair, brushed my teeth, and traveled the inner passage down to the office. I listened to my messages. I called my barber to cancel my Monday haircut. I got on the computer and made a few notes, then closed up the office. I had this feeling I’d forgotten something. I used the key hidden in the potted plant by the rear door to get inside and retrieve my car keys. I’d call it a senior moment, but I’ve had them since I could remember. No pun intended.

I drove the ten blocks east towards the river, still in the Northwest corridor. Jack Wye’s girlfriend, Lola May Carter, had a flat in a recently gentrified building. It didn’t look so hot from the outside, a dirty stone gray, but it was real stone, the woodwork was freshly painted, and the windows were a gray vinyl, new, multi-paned. There were three stories, subdivided into just three flats, so I figured a minimum of two grand a month for each. Her bottom flat opened up to a small porch on the street level, the others were accessed by a side entrance. She porch was just large enough for a weathered chair and a table. I peeked through the blinds on the front window. The lights were out, but I could see the flat was well furnished, lots of leather, and dark wood, maybe mahogany. I made out someone moving in the back. She was dark chocolate toned. Her entire frontage flashed me as she turned into her robe. I looked away. I’m not into peeping.

Lola May Carter greeted me at the door. She stood with her hip against the door. She made no move to invite me inside. Lola May was knock down beautiful. I might see only three on a par with her in a year, and not this close up. She was in another league, but still, looks last only so long, maybe a week, and the really beautiful ones don’t seem to have anything else to offer. I tell myself it’s not their fault. When everyone notices how lovely they are all the time, it’s what they focus on, it becomes them. It’s their work, being beautiful. Sometimes, though, they mature late, from ugly ducklings, and it’s different. I didn’t know about Lola May, probably never would.

Lola May had dark gray lips, stiff black curlicued hair, jet black clear skin, and surprisingly soft grayish eyes, not black. She was wrapped in the thick gray terrycloth robe. She was tall, with a not too thin body, and right sized curves in all the right places. Her short fingernails were painted blood black, and there wasn’t a chip on them. The veins in the bright whites of her eyes stood out, thin black river deltas, maybe the remnants of a vicious hangover. The swelling under the eyes looked to be from crying. She squinted to the light, what little the clouds let pass.

It was one in the afternoon and her hair, I picked up highlights of a dark gray, was squashed on one side as if she’d just gotten out of bed. She pulled the robe tighter around her, like she needed the protection, though I don’t think I scared her any. The toenails matched the fingers, and not a chip on them either. There were cotton balls between the toes on the left foot, and the cuticles on two toes were pushed back, lining the black polish with a dark gray border. It made her seem almost real.

I figured she was a girl who could take the truth. I introduced myself, then, still standing in the doorway, I took the direct route, "Jane Wye wants her money back."

Lola May was no less direct, "Yeah, well I want Jack Wye back. The bitch killed him, and I hope she rots in Hell for it." Just when I was starting to like her, she spoiled it. She waved her arm to take in the flat, then caught the robe before it fell open. "Who’s going to pay for this? You want to tell me that?"

It was an opening. "Jane Wye might, and then some?" I made it a question.

She was suddenly all ears, and beautiful ears they were. Then she chipped away again at the lovely black facade to a darker schemer within. "How much?"

I started spreading some of Jane Wye’s future wealth around. "If she gets the money, you’ll get a reward. It’ll be enough. Maybe pay for this place of a year. You got nothing to lose, Lola May."

She pulled a CB-ism, "And?"

"I want the key?"

A pale gray of confusion suffused the lined whites of her eyes. "You mean the one around his neck?"

I nodded.

She puckered her lips and made a face. Maybe it was the taste of metal.

I continued the silent routine.

She filled the void, matter of fact, "It was just a sexual thing with him. A toy. You know, he wasn’t into kissing, that’s all."

I thought that was maybe more than I wanted to know. I explained, "It was his safe deposit key. I need that key. The killer got the key."

She was quick to counter. "Hey, I didn’t kill him. The police were here. They wanted to take me downtown."

I put a question on my face.

She explained, "My name was in his wallet."

"And?"

"I had an alibi."

I shifted on my feet.

She smiled for the first time. It was a really pretty smile, something you’d wait for if you knew it was there. "It was a cop, a captain, their captain. Married too, you know." She bobbed her head a little. It was cute. "They thought discretion was the better part of valor."

I returned her to the topic, "What about the key? We can make it worth your while."

She dead panned, "Check with his girlfriend."

I must be some kind of naive prude. "You’re his girlfriend?"

She lowered her voice, "I was his weekday girl. He had a weekender." Her black skin took on an impossibly darker shade with a look of distasteful embarrassment. "He paid them by the hour."

She was losing me. "Them?"

Lola May described a world darker than her own, darker than my imagination, and that’s already pretty dark. "Yes, Mona Martin and that fag brother of hers, John."

I shook my head. "No, not Jack Wye."

A different kind of smile, world-wise beyond her years. "Yes, Jack, poor Jack, swung both ways, but he exercised his perversions only on weekends. Said it proved he was in control."

I rolled my eyes.

She laughed at my discomfort before continuing, "He met John first, at some fou fou party we crashed. John was a dead ringer for Jack. Jack told me they’d pretend they were a big happy family, a sister and twin brothers. He said he liked watching them do it, that it was even better than watching a movie of himself with Mona. It was as close as he could get to incest."

I couldn’t control my tongue, "People do that?"

As if it was an explanation, she excused him, "He was an only child. It really got him off, if you know what I mean."

I didn’t. "Mona and John, are they the only ones?" I asked.

"As far as I know. Jack would have told me." She said it like she believed it. Maybe she was right.

I tried again, "He didn’t tell you about the key, about the money?"

She was pensive, then she chose the truth. "Yeah, I knew about the key. I don’t know which bank though." A little more thought. "I didn’t have the guts to kill him for it."

I watched her eyes. "It takes a lot of guts to kill a Jack Wye."

She met my gaze. "Just being the girlfriend of a Jack Wye takes a lot of guts."

I believed her. I waited.

She shrugged pretty shoulders. "Anyway, I don’t want money badly enough to kill for it."

Despite her first outburst, I believed that too. It made me feel better about her.

Lola May told me where to find the Martin’s world. I never got past her door jamb.

* * *

I got onto the interstate heading north to Washington. I’m one of those guys who can’t drive and change the radio station at the same time. It must be some kind of attention deficit disorder. Women don’t have that problem, if you can believe them. Well, with a car and a phone, I’m a negligent homicide waiting to happen. Then this new phone came out, fully voice activated. Now I can keep my eyes on the road while I talk. I’m still dangerous, but less so.

I said, "Phone, Doyle," and there was a series of beeps.

The brusque cigarette scarred voice filled the car, "Doyle. Who’s this?"

I would have said his interpersonal skills were deficient, but he knows that. It’s just part of being Dennis Doyle. Instead, I turned down the volume and said, "Green."

He grunted, like he’d seen something distasteful, but he was probably only clearing his nicotine phlegm-ed throat. "So, shamus, what do you want?"

Dennis Doyle is a homicide cop. He’s a personal friend, or as much of a friend as someone like him can be. He looks out for me. As I said, I’m persona non grata with the political powers that be in the city. Seems I didn’t let the police hide some facts disparaging to some of the top city types. These politicos have been out for my hide ever since. But some of the cops were pleased at the turn of events. They took their lumps, but grinned as soon as the door closed. It didn’t percolate down to the lower levels though, that would be too public, but some of the guys watch out for me. Some of them, they think I don’t know. Maybe they think I’m stupid.

Well, Doyle was the cop who took the most bruising from the pols. He’s a six-five, two-hundred-and-fifty pound Irishman with a stubborn streak. He doesn’t want to be told how to do, or more specifically, how not to do his job. He thinks he owes me. He’s right.

I only found this out a year ago when I got rousted by a couple of flatfoots while I was on a stakeout. Doyle happened by, told them to beat it. He called me shamus for the first time. The name stuck. It’s a title of respect between us, but he’d never admit to it.

Still, we’re guys, so we don’t engage in much small talk type warmup. "I need to know about a murdered man."

Warning tinged his voice, "Hey, shamus, murder’s not private cop business. You know?"

I put a little whine in my voice, "I’m just fishing for information, detective. No big deal. I don’t care who killed him."

I imagined him thinking about it, scanning the room to see who was listening in.

His voice dropped a notch, "So, who is it?"

"Jack Wye."

He whistled. "Keep my nose clean if you. Too many friends in low places, know?"

"Sure, detective, I understand. I just want to know if he had a chain around his neck when they found him. With a key on it." Maybe they took it off him before the loving wife saw the body. Maybe she asked the wrong person about it.

Matter of fact, "Treasure?"

I played dumb, "Hey, got me."

I heard him say, "Hey, Maureen, you find a key around Wye’s neck."

There was a silence, then a muffled ‘who wants to know’, some low talking, then the detective returned to me, "Okay, shamus, here’s the scoop. There was a scab on the scumbag’s neck. Maybe a chain was pulled til it broke."

I said, "Thanks."

Doyle said, "McMartin’s not going to be happy with any meddling in her case."

I could hear his smile. "Tell her I love her too."

Doyle chuckled. I heard his hand cover the phone.

Then a soft alto voice, "Oh, that’ll make my day."

Detective Maureen McMartin, now there’s a woman I could go for, but she’s taken. She hung up before I could respond.

I called Bob Denver, an operative who works for me on and off. I gave him the address of the Martin house and asked him to keep an eye on them. I told him to follow Mona if they split up, that I’d pick up John if I was back in town.

Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance was playing. I recalled Gershwin, and Bizet, and Copeland from the previous day. It had to be pledge week as they threw all the heavy hitters at the listeners, instead of the usual mixed bag of esoteric works no one really cares about. Oh, for the prescient insights of your average private investigator.

* * *

The traffic came to a sudden stop. I saw the uprights of the interstate bridge in the distance. The heavy counter weights were coming up as the bridge deck dropped back into place. I heard the sound of a fender bender behind me. I didn’t turn my head. I’m not the rubber necker type. Anyway, I’ve got enough real crime in my life without getting involved in the accidental kind.

I told the phone, "Robin," and again it rang.

He’s got one of those caller id things. "Hi, dad. What’s up?"

We started with some meaningless chit chat. He’d passed the bar exam in New York, and he and his live in lawyer girlfriend were going to get married in a year. I said all the appropriate things. She’s a nice girl and I like her a lot. Anyway, he seemed happy enough. I asked if he was going to get west for any fishing during the summer. He said that as a junior member of the law firm, they didn’t really expect him to take the five weeks vacation they’d offered to lure him in. The perks of slave labor, he called them. He couldn’t commit to anything longer than a four day weekend for the next couple of years. Excuses come in all sorts of disguises. But I’m probably reading too much into it.

I asked, "So, when did you see your mom last?"

There was silence at the other end of the line.

"You still there?"

He chuckled. "Yes, I’m just thinking of a good answer."

"Hey, just give it to me straight."

"Well, you know how she’s so busy finding herself?"

I grunted. "Only what you told me, and Barry called me once." His step-dad wanted any insight I might have into a woman I barely remembered. He told me more than I wanted to know, but he had to tell someone, so I let him use my shoulder to cry on, at a distance, that is. I did say it was very Danielle, and that I wasn’t surprised.

Robin got more serious, "Seems while she was finding herself, this conman she ran off with took her for every penny. I mean, every penny, seven figures. The cops are still looking for the guy. Well, dad won’t give her another cent. Can’t really say I blame him. I mean, twenty years growing the business, she ups and leaves him for some out of work artist slash carpenter wannabe. He had to sell his soul to keep the firm together. Mom was ruthless. He got the mortgage on the business, she got the bucks."

I recalled a similar scenario a little more clearly than I thought I should. I squeezed the sympathetic anger from my voice before speaking. "Been there, done that."

Incredulousness tinged his voice, "Yes, well she hasn’t learned anything new since then. She keeps spouting some kind of psycho babble about finding her inner self, that it’s her manifest destiny."

I gave Danielle a brief moment of sympathy, "You had to know her mother."

The kid had never met her. "Yeah, well, she didn’t think the old lady was ready for prime time, you know what I mean?"

I did, she wasn’t. Still, I didn’t detect any bitterness in his voice, just complaining. "Yes, Robin, I do. But back to your mom. She left me a message. She said she needs money. Calls herself Sun Flower. Is she for real?"

The kid laughed. "Dad, was she ever for real?"

I didn’t respond to that, already knew the answer.

He filled the space, "She’s into birkenstocks and earth mother dresses, always has a knapsack on her back. If it wasn’t for the vanity, I’d say she was a new person. Some things never change."

Yes, Danielle was one of those knock down beautiful girls, with nothing else to offer. It was a long time ago, and I was naive. I try not to make the same mistakes twice. "So where’s she now?"

I heard a Doppler effect as he shook his head, "Don’t know. She wouldn’t tell dad. He told her to drop dead. I figured she’d get to you one day."

"Okay, son. I’ve got a detective on her trail. I don’t know if I can do anything for her, or if I want to."

A note of concern entered his voice, "Well, someone’s going to have to help her. Dad’s wounds haven’t healed any yet. He’d probably let her starve. I can’t do anything. I mean, I’m barely living on tomorrow’s pay check."

I’d been there too, but never with so large a pay check. Still, "I understand that. So, I can call you if I need you?"

"Sure, dad. I’ll do what I can." I heard the reticence.

The traffic started to move. I was over the bridge in five minutes.

Flirting with a potential accident, I turned on the radio. The weatherman called the day gray, as if it was something bad. The whole language seems to be anti-gray, but so is life. Getting old is graying; your hair grays, your skin grays, your memories gray. Before you fade to black, you’ve got to fade to gray. Gray is the lack of color. Gray’s what you get when you mix black and white, evil and good. Gray is the color of everything in-between.

Gray is the mental state from which I view life. Still, I’m an upbeat kind of guy. Go figure.

 

 

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