No Witness

by Warren C Easley

  “Describe what you saw.”

  Carlos flinched, causing his eyes to close momentarily. A sheen of sweat coated his forehead. “He was on the sofa. Shears in his chest,” he said, thumping his chest with his fist. “His eyes were open and like those of a bug. There was much blood.”

  “Shears? What kind of shears?”

  “The shears we use to cut the grapes from the vines at harvesttime.”

  “You mentioned the blood. Did it seem fresh?”

  He grimaced again, shaking his head. “It was not fresh. It looked thick and dark.”

  “How dark?”

  “Casi negra, almost black. He had been dead, I think, many hours.”

  “Did you disturb or touch anything in the house?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I had”—he seemed to struggle at not finding the English word—“el pánico.”

  “You were afraid. You panicked.”

  “Sí. I got out of there fast.” He opened a hand and made a gesture. “But then I think, this is not right. I stopped here and called my son.”

  “Did anyone see you enter or leave the house?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I shook my head with a mix of frustration and anger. “You should have called me when you received the drawing, Carlos. Now we have a potential problem. The police will suspect you because you have a motive to kill this man.”

  His lined and weathered face remained impassive, the face of a man who’d encountered many existential threats in his life. “I am sorry, I—”

  I waved him off. “Look, Carlos, you have two options here. You can leave now and let someone else find Plácido’s body. The problem is, you’ll be in a hell of spot when the cops come calling, and they almost certainly will. Lying to them would be inadvisable, to say the least, and I would have nothing to do with that. The second option is to call them right now and tell them exactly what you found and what you did. It’s your choice.”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “You might. We’ll see.”

  The car became silent except for the rasping sound of Carlos stroking his chin. “If I go to the police, La Migra will know I have no papers?”

  I shook my head. “The police would have no reason to involve ICE in a homicide investigation. The same detective who’s investigating your daughter’s death would probably be involved. She and her partner have no interest in your immigration status.”

  He paused as three people on bicycles passed by. “We will call the police, then.”

  “A good choice.” I paused for a moment. “Have you told me everything?”

  Carlos nodded.

  ***

  “Jesus, Cal, your timing’s impeccable,” Darci Tate said when I called her and explained what I’d just learned. “I’m at the Bistro Maison with a date, and we just ordered lunch. It’s my first day off in couple of weeks.”

  “Sorry about that, Darci. We called 911, and we’re waiting at the scene. I wanted to give you a heads-up.”

  She sighed heavily into the phone. “My mom told me to become a teacher. Should’ve listened to her.”

  While the ME examined Plácido Ballesteros’s body and a forensic team worked the scene, Carlos gave a preliminary statement to Detective Tate. An awkward moment occurred when I offered to sit in on the interview. Tate looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Are you acting as his attorney on this?”

  “He may need an interpreter,” I said, a bit disingenuously. Tate shot me a yeah-right look but went along with it. The interview wasn’t particularly adversarial, and I saw no need to warn Carlos off any of Tate’s questions. However, the formality of the detective’s tone when she took a brief statement from me made it clear our cooperation agreement was, at best, suspended. It was a smart move, and I expected nothing less from a good cop like Darci Tate.

  After Plácido’s body was removed, I followed Carlos down to the police station in Newberg, where he answered a few more questions, signed a formal statement, and submitted to a physical examination. When he reappeared forty minutes later, his boots were gone, replaced by powder blue hospital booties.

  He looked down at the booties when he saw me. “They took my boots,” he said with an incredulous look. “They looked at my hands and face and my hair, too. Even my fingernails and inside my mouth.”

  “It’s normal. They’re just eliminating you as a suspect. They may have found some blood on your shoes. You could have easily stepped in some that wasn’t completely dry.”

  I headed back to the Aerie after parting ways with Carlos and mulled the situation over. Plácido Ballesteros’s murder dealt the case a severe blow. He was a man who could’ve identified or at least provided a description of the shooter. Was this the work of El Solitario? Nando’s intelligence made it clear the cartel assassin didn’t always use a gun. But a pair of shears used in the vineyards? That was odd, although that may have been the intent—a murder seemingly committed by another field hand, unrelated to the Olivia Fuentes case. And then Carlos blunders onto the scene. The timing was interesting as well, occurring at it did on the heels of the attempt to kill Luis.

  Was someone meticulous about tying up loose ends?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The rain let up by the next morning, although the mottled, unsettled sky promised more. While Archie conducted his morning sweep of the acreage, I downed a breakfast of granola and blueberries and two double cappuccinos. Archie reappeared at the kitchen door and dutifully lifted each mud-coated paw for me for me to clean with a towel. I went to my study and was absorbed in the morning news when I heard whimpering behind me. I turned to find him standing in the doorway with one of my jogging shoes in his mouth.

  I chuckled. “Not now, Big Boy. I’ve got work to do.”

  He whimpered again and gave me his patented doleful look, but when I turned back to my computer screen, I heard the shoe drop and his nails clicking down the oak flooring in the hallway. I could just see the pouty look on his face.

  Claims and counterclaims, tweets and retweets, the news offered little to rejoice about that morning. An item on the fate of the Dreamers caught my eye. The Supreme Court finally agreed to hear arguments on whether DACA would survive the current administration’s attempt to terminate the program. We’re coming into an election year, I mused. A ruling one way or the other might force Congress to do something. But what?

  My thoughts eventually turned to the case, specifically Diego Vargas, who seemed in the middle of this thing, despite his alibis. That brought me to his boss, Gavin Whittaker. Would Whittaker know something important about Vargas, perhaps unwittingly? On a whim, I typed Whittaker’s name into my browser and hit search.

  A handful of articles came up.

  A brief item in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer described a wedding reception held at the Chilean consulate four years earlier for Whittaker and a woman named Isabel Torres, daughter of a prominent family in Chile. The article mentioned that the financier and the former Miss Chile met on a cruise and that the wedding, held in Santiago, was a major social event. A photograph of the couple cutting their wedding cake showed a tall, heavyset man smiling next to a slim, dark-haired woman of exceptional beauty.

  Another reference to Whittaker popped up in a three-year-old article about the rush to invest in the burgeoning cannabis industry in Oregon. The story featured Whittaker, who had redirected the focus of his private investment firm from high-tech start-ups to cannabis production and sales. “Oregon will be a leader in this industry, and I’m positioning Whittaker Investments to participate in that growth in a major way,” he was quoted. The article went on to describe the six large farms and the string of retail outlets he bought for a sum rumored to be well north of two hundred million dollars. I whistled when I read the amount.

  Two short articles attesting to Whittaker’s civic mindedness popped up in the News-Registe
r—one highlighting his sponsorship of a local rugby team playing for a state title, and a second announcing his joining the board of a local nonprofit. When I read the headline of the second article, I sloshed my coffee on the desk as I snapped to attention:

  Whittaker to Join Prosperar Board of Directors.

  In a press release today, Dr. Sofia Leon, Director of Prosperar, a nonprofit medical organization headquartered in McMinnville, announced that Gavin Whittaker, president of Whittaker Investments, would join Prosperar’s Board of Directors. “We’re thrilled to have Gavin join us,” Ms. Leon remarked. “His business expertise and his generous heart will bolster Prosperar’s mission of providing medical services to workers and their families who lack adequate health insurance. When citizens like Gavin step up, it reminds us all of the need to show compassion for the less fortunate among us.”

  After mopping up the spilled coffee, I stood and turned to Archie, who had slunk back into the room and taken up his customary spot in the corner. “Well, how about that? A connection between Diego Vargas and Prosperar once removed. What do you think?” He looked at me but barely lifted his chin from his paws. Not much, apparently.

  I immediately dug Sofia Leon’s card out and called her, hoping she’d pick up, despite it being a Sunday morning. I reached her voicemail and left a message. Next, I went on Facebook and tapped in Diego Vargas’s name, and up came his home page complete with a nice headshot, which I copied, pasted, and printed out. Vargas’s page was spare, showing only a few photographs and postings revolving around family events. One photo caught my eye—a picture of him and a young boy, with the caption “So proud of my son on his 10th birthday.” Dangerously thin looking, the boy smiled bravely into the camera from a wheelchair.

  “Huh.”

  I was headed for the kitchen to make another cappuccino when Leon called back. Twenty minutes later I pulled into Prosperar’s parking lot, cracked the windows, and told Archie to chill. A car ride was no substitute for a jog, but he took the trade-off in stride. As I traversed the parking lot, I noticed Robert Harris’s BMW in the employee section of the lot. Inside, the waiting room was crowded and rang with a chorus of coughs. Flu season.

  “Ms. Leon’s expecting you,” I was told when I announced myself. “Last office on the right.” This time I was allowed to find my own way.

  Wearing jeans, a faded denim shirt with rolled sleeves, and a multicolored scarf covering her hair, Sofia Leon looked up from a handful of papers when I knocked at her open door. “Caught me working on a Sunday,” she said with the look of someone in the midst of pressing tasks. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, and her look grew serious. “How’s the investigation going?”

  “Slow but sure. Thanks for taking the time, Ms. Le—”

  “Sofia, please. I talked to Detective Tate about Olivia’s possible interest in Robert like you suggested. She came back to talk to Robert a second time, but I don’t know what came of it.”

  “Robert didn’t say anything about the second interview?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “How’s he holding up?”

  She absently laid the papers on the desk. “Not very well. And I think being questioned a second time only upset him more. We’re all struggling with this, of course, but Robert seems to be a lot more sensitive than I realized.” She paused for a moment and looked a little sheepish. “I did think of one other thing about Olivia and Robert.” I waited. “Late one afternoon, maybe a month ago, I went to Robert’s office to get a budget update he’d printed out for me. Olivia was sitting at his computer when I burst in. We were both startled, but she seemed, well, I don’t know, pretty flustered, maybe a little guilty, like I’d caught her in the act of something.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she was looking for a spreadsheet Robert had promised her.” Leon smiled wistfully. “That was just like Olivia, such a go-getter. And Robert always promises more than he delivers.”

  “But you think she might have been looking for something else?”

  Leon shrugged. “I don’t know what it could have been. We don’t have any secrets around here. It only seemed odd to me after all this mess happened.” She shook her head. “It’s probably nothing.”

  I thanked her for mentioning it and then fished the photograph of Diego Vargas from my shirt pocket and handed it to her. “I’m wondering if you know this man or have seen him around your facility.”

  She adjusted her glasses again and scrutinized the photo. “No. I’ve never seen him before. Who is he?”

  “His name’s Diego Vargas. He’s the driver for one of your board members, Gavin Whittaker.”

  Her eyes flared slightly behind her glasses. “Oh, that’s right. Gavin does have a driver.” She made a face, indicating she didn’t approve of such a show of wealth. “And why are you interested in this man?”

  “Vargas is doing some great counseling work with young Latino men. I thought maybe Whittaker had mentioned it to you or members of your staff.”

  “No, but I could ask around, show the photo, but I don’t understand—”

  “That’s not necessary at this juncture,” I cut in, “but I’m wondering if you could help connect me with Whittaker. I’d like to ask him a few questions.”

  She handed the photo back to me, her expression remaining quizzical. “Sure, I could give him your cell number and ask him to call you. I’m not sure how he’ll respond. The subject’s this man, Vargas?”

  I smiled hesitantly before deciding to disclose more information than I wished. “Yes. The police have already talked to Whittaker about him. One of the men Vargas counseled was Olivia’s brother, Luis. There’s been an attempt on his life.” I was stretching the truth a bit on the counseling part, but I wanted to get her attention.

  Leon sucked a breath. “No. What happened?”

  I gave her a brief description, leaving out many of the details. “I’m just trying to fill in a few blanks. Whittaker can say no, of course.”

  “Of course,” Leon said absently, her face twisted in anguish over my revelation. She looked at me. “Who in the world would want to harm the Fuentes family?” She removed her glasses and dabbed the corners of her eyes. “What’s gotten into this world? I just don’t understand.”

  A kindred soul. I nodded but then changed the subject. “Gavin Whittaker was quite an addition to your board.”

  “He’s been a real asset.” She paused for a moment as if deciding what to say next. “The truth is, we can thank his wife, Isabel, for pushing him into it. She’s been a generous supporter for some time.” A thin smile. “I asked Isabel to join the board first, but she demurred and suggested her husband might consider it. I doubt Gavin would’ve done it on his own.”

  “Did you get any blowback because of Whittaker’s involvement in the cannabis industry?”

  “I did, even from some of my own board members. But health care’s expensive and our clinic has a high burn rate. Gavin wrote us a big check when he joined the board, and he has a lot of connections in the business world. And, besides, the cannabis business is legal now.” She straightened in her seat. “My focus is on the families we serve, Cal. I’ll take help from wherever I can get it.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “I, uh, noticed Robert Harris is here today. Do you think he’d mind if I popped in and asked him a few more questions?”

  “Like me, he’s working on next year’s budget, so he’s swamped. I’m sure you’ll be respectful of his time.”

  I left Leon’s office hoping Harris was still around. I was in luck. I saw him come down the hall from the opposite direction and go into his office. I don’t think he recognized me. I followed him in and shut the door behind me with a sharp click.

  He spun around, and I said, “Hello, Robert. It’s me again, Cal Claxton. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  He froze with the l
ook of a trapped animal on his face. “I’ve got a long day ahead of me. Why don’t you—”

  I didn’t feel like dancing around with him again. “Cut the crap, Robert,” I snapped. “If you care as much about Olivia Fuentes as everyone says you do, you’ll make some time. Sit down, this won’t take long.”

  He sat, folded his arms across his chest, and scowled back at me. “I’ve talked to the police twice. Why should I talk to you?”

  “Because you want to help bring Olivia’s killer to justice, right?” He nodded somewhat reluctantly. “You and Olivia were close, is that correct?”

  “We were friends, that’s all.” His face clouded over. “Olivia was very outgoing.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about her behavior in, say, the month leading up to her death? Was she upset about anything?”

  “How many times do I have to answer that question?”

  “One more time. Indulge me.”

  “No, I didn’t notice anything. We were busy, adding patients right and left. She was her usual, energetic self.”

  “Did she ever mention a job-counseling activity being held at a bar on the Pacific Highway called the Tequila Cantina? Young Latino men? Her brother, Luis, attended a couple of times at her request.”

  His gaze dropped to the surface of the desk separating us, and when he swallowed, the Adam’s apple below his missing chin did a little jig. “No, not that I recall.” He looked up. “It doesn’t surprise me, though. Olivia was plugged into a number of migrant causes in the valley.”

  I produced the picture of Diego Vargas. “Do you know this man?”

  He leaned forward and rubbed a hand on his pant leg absently. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Just filling in background information.”

  His Adam’s apple did another jig, and he glanced at his watch. “I got a budget to get out. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  I told him no and thanked him for his time. At the door I turned back and met his eyes. “I hope you haven’t forgotten something important, Robert, something that could help the investigation. Last Thursday night, Olivia’s brother was nearly killed, probably by the same man who killed Olivia. Think about it.”