Chapter Fifteen
“If you love her, Dad, set her free. It sounds corny, but I think you have no choice. What happened at Standing Rock was so soul-sucking. She’s trying to heal the best way she knows how.” It was my daughter, Claire, checking in from Harvard later that day. I’d just finished telling her about the rocky state of my relationship with Winona.
“I know that,” I shot back, sounding more irritated than I meant to. “It’s just, you know, it hurts to be shut out like this. I want to help her heal.”
“Give it some time, Dad.” She paused. “Why don’t you call Philip? After all, he’s her cousin. Maybe he can give you more of a Native American perspective.”
“Good idea.” Philip Lone Deer was my good friend and fishing buddy, and was, like Winona, a member of the Warm Springs Confederated tribes. “I’ll give him a call.”
Knowing Claire’s propensity to worry, I held back the news about the gravel mining at the Aerie, even though it was weighing heavily on me. Instead I told her about feisty, metal-sculpting Angela Wingate and the case I was working on her behalf, playing down my suspicion that it was murder and leaving out the part about the Russian Mafia. When I finished Claire said, “She’s lucky to have you, Dad. I’m really proud of the work you do.”
After we signed off, I sat for a while basking in the glow of those words. Every dad wants the approval of his daughter, but it was especially important to me. I always worried that Claire held me responsible for her mom’s suicide. She hadn’t, and I was eternally grateful for that.
I scrolled down to Philip’s number, started to punch it in, then thought better of it. Better to let it ride for a while, I decided. Winona will come to her senses. I wasn’t shying away from an intimate conversation with my male friend, a conversation that would reveal my emotional vulnerability, was I? Of course not.
My stomach had just reminded me that it was close to dinnertime when I heard someone knocking at the downstairs door, which set Arch off in a couple of obligatory barks. A window facing the street in the studio apartment was open. I leaned out of it. “Can I help you?”
City Councilor Tracey Thomas looked up. “Oh, hi, Cal. I was out jogging and saw your sign. Can we talk?”
I took the stairs with Archie following, let her in, and introduced her to my dog. She wore a pair of light sweats, an iridescent tank top, and a length of purple yarn that tied off a thick, auburn pony tail. I showed her into my office and took a seat next to her. After looking around, she said, “So this is the famous Caffeine Central. I like the Arthur Ashe quote.”
I laughed. “Yep, this is where the magic happens,” then waited for her to tell me why she was here.
She smiled a bit conspiratorially. “I didn’t just happen by. I checked with my source. The investor for the North Waterfront Project is an outfit called Arrowhead Investments LLC. And you were right. It looks like they’re lining up to buy Wingate Properties as well as invest in the project.”
“Where are they located?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s the price tag?”
“Something north of five-hundred million dollars, including the purchase price. That’s all I know at this point.”
I whistled. “There are going to be some very happy charities out there.” She looked at me below scrunched eyebrows. I saw no reason not to tell her. “The will directs the executor to give the proceeds from the sale to Margaret Wingate’s favorite charities.” I fixed her eyes. “That’s not public yet, so I’d—”
“My lips are sealed.” She cut off my concern. “Is that why her daughter hired you?”
“No. Other than the choice of charities, Angela Wingate’s fine with that provision. She’s a sculptor and doesn’t aspire to wealth, at least inherited wealth.”
Tracey shot me another puzzled look. “So, what’s the problem?’
“There are other provisions we’re concerned about,” I fibbed. She didn’t need to know I was actually interested in the will as motive for Margaret Wingate’s death. “This source of yours must be well placed.” I changed the subject. “What’s the motivation for the leak, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Well, you know, sometimes it’s the only way people on the inside can get the truth out in the open. As a rule, Oregonians don’t trust outside money. But my source values his job, so I can’t press too hard.”
“What do you plan to do with this information?”
“Not sure yet, but it might give me an edge when the North Waterfront Project gets to Council.” Her eyes narrowed down a fraction. “Maybe we can work together on this, Cal. For example, I wasn’t able to find anything on Arrowhead. I was hoping you could help me with that.”
I nodded, but cautiously. “That could work, but I’d have to know that I can trust you won’t go public with information unless I agree.” I brought my eyes up to hers. “I know how strong the political winds can blow.”
She met my gaze and held it. “You can trust me, Cal. You have my word.”
“What about the press? I need to know you won’t go to Cynthia Duncan, for example, without my knowing it. She’s a great reporter, but she marches to a different drummer.”
“Agreed. The press is out unless we’re both on board.”
So, I agreed to work with Councilwoman Tracey Thomas. After answering some questions about what I actually did at Caffeine Central, Arch and I showed her out. I offered my hand. “I’ll be back to you on Arrowhead. I owe you.”
She took my hand. Her nutmeg eyes showed tiny flecks of gold in the sunlight. “I’ll think of something for repayment,” she said with a playful smile. With that she headed toward the river on Couch with the strong, even strides of an experienced runner.
After she left, I turned to Arch, who stood looking at me with his head cocked. “What?” But I knew what it was. I’d felt a nudge of attraction to Tracey Thomas, and that triggered a vague feeling of guilt.
Damn, I didn’t see that coming.
I spent some time on the computer that afternoon trying to find information on Arrowhead Investments LLC, but like Tracey, I found absolutely nothing.
At three-forty-five that afternoon I headed out on foot for Ringlers Annex to meet Semyon Lebedev. Archie didn’t like being left behind on a sunny afternoon, but I made the usual bargain—a run when I returned. Semyon was already there, hunched over a beer at a corner table like a bear guarding a pot of honey. He nodded, and I went to the bar and brought back a mug of the dark amber on tap that day, not as well balanced as a Mirror Pond but serviceable.
“How does the investigation go?” he asked when I sat down. His smile was thin and his eyes wary, maybe even troubled.
I shrugged. “Some smoke, perhaps, but I’ve yet to find any fire.” I took his cue and skipped the small talk. “Do you have information for me?”
He took a pull on his beer, glanced around the room, and nodded. “I am told the Lexus you inquired about was treated in an unusual way.”
“How so?”
“It was towed directly to the crusher facility without being stripped.”
“How often does this happen?”
The corner of Semyon’s mouth curled in a smirk. “A first, my friend. The Boyarchenko operation does not like to waste money. A car like that has many valuable parts. And I can tell you this was not done without orders from the top.”
My spine tingled a little. “Does your friend know why this was done?”
“Nyet.”
“And your friend did not see what damage was done to the Lexus?”
“If he did, he would not tell me. And I asked him again.”
I nodded. “Okay. He told you Lenny the Fox dropped the car off at the shop. Was someone with Lenny?”
Semyon drank some more beer. “Yes. Another man. He got out of the car on the street and Lenny went inside to handle the drop.”
Semyon lifted his eyes to mine, anticipating my next question. “I’m sorry, Cal, but my friend didn’t know this man, and he didn’t get a look at him.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing.”
I leaned back in my chair and blew a breath in frustration. “I know very little about Boyarchenko and his operation. What can you tell me?”
The curled lip of a smirk reappeared. “Ilya Boyarchenko came here a few years after me—1995, I think. The Soviet Union was gone, Russia in ruins, but Ilya got out with some family money, which he used to open a small restaurant, The Russia House, on Southeast Foster. His mother still runs it.”
I nodded. “I’ve seen the place but never eaten there.”
“It’s nothing fancy, but they have good borscht and Odessa sausages, and you can watch Moscow TV live. Anyway, Boyarchenko got into the car theft business early, working for a man named Misko Osmalov. Osmalov was murdered in a car-bombing. Boyarchenko took his operation over after that.”
“When was that?”
Semyon stroked his chin. “Sometime in 2006.”
“Who killed Osmalov?”
He laughed, a short bark. “It was never solved, but it is common knowledge Boyarchenko did it. He was clever and went on to open a string of legitimate businesses while he branched out into drugs, prostitution, staged auto accidents, bootleg cigarettes, even food stamp fraud, anything that turns a high profit off the backs of working people, many of them honest Russians.”
I nodded. “So, he launders his profits through his legit businesses.”
“Exactly. He’s a rich man now with a pretty American wife and two kids. I think he wants to play the good citizen. There’s an article about him in Dlya Vsekh, the Russian newspaper, this month. They sing his praises, because he is donating half a million dollars toward a new cultural center in southeast Portland. There’s a photo of him with his family, standing in front of the Slavic Emmanuel Church.” The smirk again. “The upstanding Russian-American citizen.”
“Is his operation strictly local?”
Semyon shrugged. “I think yes. But it is always said that Boyarchenko has ties back to the mob in Russia.” He laughed derisively. “That is bullshit, I think.”
I looped back through the information, asking more questions, but didn’t learn anything further. As our conversation drifted off the subject of Boyarchenko, Semyon announced he was teaching a mixed-martial arts course at the Russian Boy’s Club. I was no fan of MMA and he knew it. “It beats having our young boys sit around playing video games, no?” he summed up. I couldn’t argue with that.
Semyon left first, but before he did, he fixed his dark eyes on me. “The Portland cops and the Feds have been trying to get something on Boyarchenko for twenty years. He is like a spider at the center of a web. Touch it, and he will know it. I will say it again, be careful. And Cal, my contact said this is the last time he will talk to me.”
That evening was clear and crisp. As Arch and I jogged along the Parkway, the arching white suspension cables of the Tilikum Bridge looked rose-colored in the setting sun. My spirits were buoyed by the beauty of the city and by what I’d learned from my Russian friend. The Lexus looked like a potential murder weapon, Lenny the Fox could have been behind the wheel, and the man with him an accessory. With Lenny dead, the only direct link to the murder was the mystery man.
I needed to find this guy.
I also needed to understand the Boyarchenko connection. Why did he green light the destruction of the Lexus, and how could I find that out? I was getting a David-versus-Goliath feeling. The odds were long and the resources short, but I felt like, with a little more digging, I just might find a couple of rocks for my sling.
Chapter Sixteen
I ran out of clean clothes on Sunday. I was tempted to ask Winona to watch Archie while I made a run to the Aerie, but hell, I didn’t even know if she was back from the Warm Springs Reservation and her sweat lodge cleansing. No, I would take Claire’s advice and not press things. Instead, I called another of my dog’s fans, Angela Wingate. “I’m sorry I didn’t check in with you yesterday, Cal,” she said after I greeted her. “I started a new piece and worked straight through till midnight last night.” I teasingly said I’d forgive her if she could do me a favor and watch Arch. “That’s totally cool. I’m back at my studio. Drop him by and we’ll hang out.”
I didn’t hear the rock crushing noise until I got to the gate at the Aerie. From that distance, the sound took me back to L.A., where the steady drone of cars on the freeway was never far away. Instead of horns honking, I heard an accompaniment of front-end loader beeps. I watered the outside flowers and my small collection of houseplants, made a coffee, and carried it outside to wait while a load of dirty clothes sloshed in the washer. The black, wrought-iron table and matching chairs on the porch looked like they’d been spray-painted beige. I ran a finger along the meshed table top, disturbing a layer of fine quarry dust. I sat down after dusting off a chair and was halfway through my coffee when the deck rocked, and even though I knew it was a quarry blast, I felt a split second of panic. It took me back to the Northridge Earthquake, which scared the hell out of a lot of Angelinos, including me.
I looked at the dust again, took out my phone, and after writing “Quarry Dust” with my finger, took a photograph. That got me wondering what was in that dust. I fetched a brush and an envelope from the house and collected a sample for analysis. You never know.
I was glad I hadn’t brought Archie along, but my heart sank at the realization that if I couldn’t stop this operation I would have no choice but to move. Suddenly my coffee tasted bitter. I tossed it over the porch rail and sat there trying to picture leaving the Aerie. I couldn’t.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to find who’s behind Arrowhead Investments, and you also want me to look for any ties between Wingate Properties and the Russian mafioso, Ilya Boyarchenko?” Nando Mendoza repeated back to me. “Those are tall orders, Calvin.” I had called him earlier, caught him at his PI office in Lents on a Sunday, and stopped by after leaving the Aerie with a supply of clean clothes. He looked flashy in an electric-blue workout suit and a pair of Nike cross-trainers, but I knew it was more about looking good than working out with Nando. “Your Russian friend cannot help you with Boyarchenko? My contacts in that community are very limited.”
“I’ve pushed him about as hard as I can. I was hoping you could take a fresh look, come at it from the Boyarchenko side. I’ll work it from the Wingate side,” I said, thinking of Tracey Thomas’ contact.
“I will give it the shot, my friend. Now, finding information on the investment company might be even more difficult. If it is a shell company, as you suggest, it was probably set up to obscure ownership. Such is the way of high finance these days.”
“I know that. But you have access to data I can only dream about. I’m hoping you’ll get lucky.”
After we finished up our business, Nando asked about Claire, whom he was very fond of. I filled him in on her Harvard postdoctoral appointment and the research she was doing. When the conversation turned to Winona, I kept it neutral, saying she was back from Standing Rock and spending some time with family at the Rez. Gifted with intuitive powers, my friend raised an eyebrow as he listened. He sensed something was amiss, but to his credit and my relief he didn’t press me.
As I was leaving, I pointed to a spot on the wall behind his desk where a picture of the sitting President usually hung—first Bush, then Obama—placed with care next to a similar portrait of first Fidel, then Raúl Castro. Nando was an avowed capitalist, but he still loved his communist homeland as much as he did his adopted country. He saw no contradiction in this, and I envied the way he dealt with ambiguity. I pointed to the empty spot. “You’re missing a President.”
“We are all missing a President,” he shot back.
Ten minutes later I was searching for a parking spa
ce on North Williams when I spotted Angela and Archie out for a walk up ahead of me. I found a slot, and caught up with them. “You two get along okay?”
They both whirled around to greet me. His butt in full wag, Archie came up and licked my hand, and Angela beamed a smile. She wore her signature boots, randomly ventilated jeans, and tee-shirt with Goldman Sucks written across the front in gold letters. “Of course. We’re best buds now. Great timing, Cal. We’re just finishing up a long walk.”
We made our way back to the Bridgetown Artists’ Co-op and up to her studio. Archie lay down in the only free corner on a mat I’d supplied. After I turned down her offer of tea, Angela gestured toward the beginnings of a sketch on a large piece of paper taped on one wall. It looked like a stickman out for a jog. “I’m, um, working up a full-scale drawing for a piece I’m planning.”
As I stepped closer, I noticed a sketchbook lying open on her workbench, the book I’d seen her working on at her house earlier. It was open to a drawing of a woman jogging. Using a patchwork of fine, interconnecting lines, Angela had captured the woman’s lean body, flexing muscles, and long, graceful stride, even a suggestion of facial features. The form seemed to be moving right out of the plane of the paper, and the anatomical accuracy reminded me of some of Michelangelo’s sketches. I pointed at the book. “I love that figure. You’re going to transfer that drawing to the large sheet?”
“That’s right. I’m just starting that process. I’ll use it for a kind of blueprint for the sculpture I’m planning.”
“You’re going to reproduce that detail in a sculpture?”
“Yep, the whole thing will be made of interconnected steel wire, welded in place. Just like what’s suggested in the drawing.”
I whistled softly. “Sounds challenging.”
She nodded, and her eyes suddenly glistened in the overhead lights. “It will be challenging, but it’s a labor of love.” I thought she might cry, but she caught herself by changing the subject. “You won’t believe who called this morning. Melvin. He said that he and Brice wanted to meet with me. He told me not to tell you, that you were a hick lawyer, and I was wasting my money on you.”
Moving Targets Page 10