Mercury Rising (Tin Can Mysteries Book 1)

by Jerusha Jones

  Yes, indeed. Bettina finished her signature with what appeared to be a big curlicue and an emphatic stab of the pen. Yes, indeed. At some point—I’d missed it earlier—she’d fished her checkbook out of her purse, and it lay on the table beside the signed document. Now she held the cover open with the pen poised to add her signature on that bottom line too.

  Over at Detective Jett’s table, her man friend was also signing something—in a whisking, cramped scrawl. I could imagine the sound of the pen grating across the paper on the hard surface of the table as he hurried. And then Detective Jett was on her feet and muscling in on Norman’s ill-concealed celebration.

  She didn’t say much—just a few terse commands from the look of it—but he shot out of his seat as though he’d just realized it was infested with lice. Just as quickly, Detective Jett reached up, twisted a handful of his collar, and tapped the back of his knee with the toe of her spit-shined, lace-up shoe. He dropped onto the booth bench, squirming and flushed, but pinned firmly in place. Detective Jett was a sturdy woman with a low center of gravity, and she wasn’t budging.

  My phone rang. Talk about inconvenient timing. I dug it out of my purse and answered it quickly before the ringing annoyed our fellow diners. Fortunately, most of the customers in our section of the restaurant were only just becoming aware—in a vague, irritated sort of way—of the minor scuffle in the corner.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Lila breathed into my ear. “Frank’s been arrested!”

  I blinked and frowned at the cluster of people at Bettina’s booth. I could just barely see a bit of her orange hair behind the broad backs of Detective Jett and her date. Then a couple uniformed cops entered on a blast of scorched-grease-scented air and strode past our table. Willow’s eyes were huge.

  “Um, well, I guess that’s expected,” I mumbled into the phone, even though I was rather surprised. Vaughn had given every indication that he was going to let Frank Cox dangle while waiting to see what other evidence might turn up. “Standard procedure,” I added for good measure while craning my neck to keep track of the happenings in the corner. It was a regular party back there.

  “I mean, I thought he was so aboveboard, so pristine,” Lila continued. “Frank’s terribly conscientious about the environment; it’s just that he has business interests to attend to as well. He and Ian didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but murder? I didn’t really believe it,” she said in a hushed, dramatic stage whisper. “And I slept with him.”

  Ahh, so that was the problem. I could see how it would be. “Innocent until proven guilty.” The words tumbled out of my mouth automatically—just for something to say while I scooted to the end of the bench and tried to figure out what was going on with Bettina and Norman. Everyone in the corner, cops included, was standing in a tight huddle with their backs to us, and while they had to be discussing something, I couldn’t gather any hints as to the content of the conversation.

  “Yes, of course,” Lila agreed. “Just have to carry on, right? Speaking of which, I have another job for you. Interested?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I mumbled. One of the cops had just removed a pair of handcuffs from his belt. Willow was bouncing on the bench opposite me, emitting little squeaks and pointing. I flapped a hand at her to indicate that, yes, I’d seen that flash of silvery metal too.

  “Can you meet me at Peregrine Pointe in the morning? At nine?”

  “Yeah.” I fumbled in my purse for something to write with.

  “Looks like one of Frank’s contractors is going to take over the operation since Frank’s preoccupied at the moment. They’re almost ready to draw up pre-lease agreements with future tenants. Just up your alley—lining up the right mix of retail and service businesses, promoting the property, et cetera. I’m very impressed with how you’re handling the launch of the Wicked Bean Annex. Everyone was talking about the soft opening at the office yesterday.” Lila was rambling now, in a forced, upbeat tone.

  “Right,” I muttered, but my eyes were glued to the satisfying sight of Norman being placed in handcuffs.

  His face was livid—the shade of a fresh, nasty bruise—and his jaw muscles were bulging. One of the cops recited his Miranda rights in a monotone. I couldn’t hear all the words, but the cadence was unmistakable.

  Norman appeared to be taking his right to remain silent seriously, but everything else about his demeanor screamed fury. To be bested by a tiny, orange-haired lady was an outrageous comeuppance he hadn’t anticipated.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered again to Lila in case I hadn’t been making the appropriate comments at the appropriate times. She seemed satisfied and said good-bye.

  I dropped my phone back in my purse just as Norman was frog-marched past our table. He wasn’t making eye contact with anyone, though, so I’m afraid Willow and I gaped openly, along with all of the other patrons. Who knew rubbery salads and all-day biscuits and gravy would come with a cops-and-robbers floor show?

  “Oh, girls. Oh, my.” Bettina arrived breathless, with a hand pressed against the layers of necklaces strung across her sternum. “Whew.” She slid onto the bench beside Willow.

  Plan A had been that we were her ride home. I was so pleased we hadn’t needed to explore Plan B or C or more.

  I shoved my sandwich out of the way and leaned forward. “Who’s that man with Detective Jett?”

  Bettina chuckled. “Judge Riker. He’s on arrest warrant duty this week. He likes to get in on the action once in a while.” She rolled her eyes. “He’ll recuse himself if the case happens to go to court and it happens to get assigned to him. To each his own, but I guess he gets bored sitting behind his bench all the time. Goodness knows, that was an excitement I could well do without, but Karleen puts up with his quirks. Anyway, he got to witness firsthand that scoundrel trying to bilk me out of my retirement money.”

  “You were awesome.” Willow flung an arm around Bettina’s shoulders and squeezed.

  “Here, here.” I lifted my water glass in salute. “The contract’s not enforceable, is it?”

  “Nope. It’s now safely in Karleen’s possession. She’ll log it in as evidence.” Bettina patted her purse. “And my nest egg’s safe too.” She exhaled and relaxed against the seat, a wide smile lightening her face for the first time in days.

  But there was an inkling of something else in her warm brown eyes—a glint that tweaked a little bolt of worry through my chest cavity and left me panting. I got the distinct impression that Bettina had enjoyed herself immensely, her protestations otherwise notwithstanding, that she might have just become addicted to a certain type of adrenaline surge.

  This did not bode well. Especially not if she expected me to continue being the holder of her secrets.

  CHAPTER 20

  The sound of rain splattering on the tin roof woke me early the next morning. It was a fabulous sound, especially since I knew the exterior of my house was freshly up to snuff. I had just snuggled down deeper under the duvet for a few more minutes of shut-eye when I remembered what day it was—Wednesday.

  I flew out of bed, pulled on a sweat suit, and dashed through the rain to a newspaper box that was chained to a post outside a convenience store down the road and picked up a free copy of Willamette Week. I stuffed it under my jacket and trotted home, along the way also refreshing my memory about the reasons why I rarely (never) jog. I splashed through puddles the size of kiddie pools. From the looks of things, it had been raining all night, and there were no signs that the heavy, pewter-gray cloud cover was going to dissipate anytime soon.

  Josie hadn’t been exaggerating about the amount of space the editor had deemed necessary to dedicate to Ian Thorpe’s life, passing, and manner of death. Someone on the newspaper’s staff had dredged up a collection of pictures, assembling what amounted to a centerfold of Ian Thorpe’s greatest accomplishments.

  And I had to admit that particular staff member was really good at her job. She (or he?—but why did I have a suspicion that anyone who so lovingly curated a pictorial history
of Ian was a she?) certainly hadn’t taken the path of least resistance since more than half of the photos were new to me—pictures which had not been available on the various websites I’d visited while doing my own research on the activist. I settled, cross-legged and with my hair still dripping, on the yoga mat, ignored my usual exercise regimen, and read the captions.

  In the bottom left corner, among the most recently dated photos, I spotted a familiar face. Lila Halton, her blonde hair flying loose around her shoulders while she huddled against Ian in a group shot. Everyone was bundled for inclement weather, and they were posed on the edge of a cliff or something, because the scenery behind them was distant and probably would have been spectacular if the picture had been printed in four-color instead of the more economical black ink only. They were a happy bunch, celebrating a trust fund purchase of a chunk of Columbia River frontage property and thereby saving it from the evils of a proposed oil terminal, according to the caption.

  It wouldn’t surprise me if a crop of parks, funds, scholarships, and greenways sprung up in the near future, all bearing, in memorial, the name of our illustrious Ian Thorpe. He sure looked good on promotional materials.

  Having completed that rabbit trail, I flipped through the entertainment section to my real reason for rushing out to the get the paper—to see what kind of write-up Josie had done for the Wicked Bean Annex. I nodded appreciatively as I read. The girl had an extensive vocabulary at her disposal and used it to masterful effect. I mentally bumped her up in my Rolodex list. She could get the job done, with style.

  And then I had to hurry. I was getting slack in my entrepreneurialism. But wasn’t nine a.m. kind of early for a business meeting?

  oOo

  I’d had to search for Peregrine Pointe online to find out where it was. Took me forever to figure out there was an e on the end of Pointe, too. I could have called Lila to double-check, but that would have appeared as though I hadn’t been paying attention during her phone call—during Norman’s arrest—which was exactly the case. I just didn’t want to admit it.

  Turned out I didn’t have to drive far. And that Peregrine Pointe was a very long way from living up to its name. It was the former Cox and Associates development just south, and upriver, from the wildlife refuge. I could have walked there, but I’d expended all my aerobic effort for the day, and I was running late. I slowed the Volvo to a crawl and gripped the steering wheel tighter as my old battleship slid on the muddy track leading into the property. The windshield wipers sounded like someone was trying to tune up a washtub bass.

  The pre-lease agreements for Peregrine Pointe must have been based on blueprints, because there was a whole lot of nothing except mud, a few concrete pillars, and slipshod rows of black silt fencing at the site. All the earthmoving equipment I’d seen on my brief kayak tour was gone. I parked next to the only shelter, a construction trailer, and alongside the only other car on the property, a sporty little Subaru.

  Lila had the door of the construction trailer open by the time I’d slogged over to the steps. “Welcome,” she said with a wry laugh. “Now that you’re having an up-close-and-personal experience with the notorious Pacific Northwest rain, are you sure you’re glad you moved here?”

  I chuckled and tried to scrape the mud off my heels on the top stair tread before entering. It was not the sort of facility that had a welcome mat on the doorstep.

  “It only gets worse,” she added. “Fall, winter, and spring are all equally wet.”

  “I’ll survive.” I plunked my tote bag on a spare metal folding chair and fished out the supplies I’d need.

  The office was in a state of disarray that might or might not have been normal. I imagined whoever usually worked in this space didn’t have the time or inclination for general housekeeping and paperwork management. But the trailer had the basic necessities—a few flat surfaces to spread out on, a bunch of chairs, a space heater, a coffeemaker perched on a low bookcase, and a bottled-water stand in the corner.

  Lila had already set up on a plastic-topped, folding conference table that was decorated with dried coffee rings and blue ink marks. “Feels eerie, huh?” She perched on the edge of her chair and crossed her legs, her manner all business. “Usually can’t hear yourself think around here for all the back-up beeping and big machinery shoving dirt around. But Joe Vanderpoole will be on it in no time. Of course, he has to work through an extra layer of lawyers now that Frank’s in jail. That makes signing contracts tricky, but this place will be buzzing again by the end of next week at the latest.” She tapped the touchpad on her laptop, and her eyes roved back and forth across whatever appeared on the screen as she continued talking as only an experienced multitasker can do. The stylishly-retro, teal-framed glasses were not in attendance this morning, but that didn’t seem to affect her ability to read. “So he doesn’t want to waste any time in signing up potential tenants. The bank wants to see future income projections that have something to back them up.”

  I nodded and scribbled notes. Banks were picky that way. “Seems fast,” I commented, thinking aloud about all the legal and financial hoops a rapid ownership change for a property currently under development would require.

  “Ross is going to lean on the county commissioners, get the permits moving on this place. Shouldn’t be a problem.” Lila was pecking at her keyboard, still absorbed by the information on her screen.

  My own hands froze, hovering over my notepad. The city councilman’s name alone gave me the chills—the creepy, bad-omen kind. “Wait. Ross Perkins is involved in this? We’re not inside Portland city limits here.”

  Lila peered at me over her laptop’s monitor, her hazel eyes wide. “Since when did those kinds of boundaries stop Ross? His brother-in-law is one of the subcontractors on this project. I don’t love his involvement either, but he’s anxious to provide jobs and improve the economic health of the region, even beyond the city.” She was so smooth, so matter-of-fact, so ready with the good-intentions veneer. “You have to pick your priorities, and right now a prime development that’s stuck in a quagmire of bureaucracy is far worse than one that is proceeding on schedule and destined to add to the county’s tax coffers.”

  This revelation made my entire digestive tract shrivel into sinewy knots. My revulsion probably also showed on my face.

  “No.” I snapped my notebook shut. I’d assumed this new job would be Frank Cox- and Ross Perkins-free because of the new ownership. Unfortunately, the sleazy connection tendrils were pervasive and unrelenting. I pushed my chair back and stood.

  “No?” Lila’s forehead was lined with confusion.

  I thought I’d explained clearly when I’d quit the last time. Why should she be surprised that I quit before I started this time since the circumstances were ethically similar? Unless she’d told me about the murky provenance of this job last night and I’d been too distracted to catch the full meaning while watching Norman’s demise.

  “No,” I said again, more emphatically. “I would rather starve. I should never have spread my business cards around City Hall. If you ever have a job that doesn’t include a politician or someone on a politician’s undeclared payroll, then I’d be interested.”

  “Don’t you understand?” Lila stood now too, and slowly closed her laptop. Her fingertips rested lightly on the table on either side of the computer, but her gaze was solidly on me, her hazel eyes hard and appraising. “Sometimes you have to join them to beat them.”

  Something was pinging around in the back of my brain. Neurons were flirting with each other—they hadn’t hooked up yet, but they would. I closed my eyes for just a moment and inhaled. It was best if I didn’t get in my brain’s way at moments like this. So I took the tactical step of silence. Patience always pays off.

  Lila was studying me, her body tense all except for those fingertips which were still resting lightly. Her lips twitched—no sound—but I could tell that it was a warm-up movement, and that I was going to win this particular out-silencing bout in record time
.

  But she didn’t say anything. Her eyes grew flinty, narrower. Her nostrils flared, just the tiniest bit. And then the fingertips pressed into the table until they were white.

  It hit me with all the subtlety of a wallop. I might have even flinched. Amazing how a thought can have a physical impact.

  If Lila had been telling the truth last night and Frank had been arrested, then Vaughn had a really good reason to do so. And that would have meant that the timing—placing Frank and Ian together at some point near Ian’s estimated time of death—worked, which would also mean that Frank’s alibi didn’t hold up. And since Lila had been Frank’s alibi, then she had to be in question now too. Had she been sleeping on both sides of the fence?

  I was no longer certain silence was the best option.

  I slipped my notebook into my tote bag and casually slung the bag over my shoulder. “You know,” I said, “I read the Willamette Week this morning. They printed a really good picture of you and Ian all cozy-like at a function earlier this year. A party, really. A celebration. You two were an item. Did he dump you too, once your usefulness wore out?” It was an allegation—a stretch, but not a very big one, considering.

  Lila maintained her speechlessness, but her response was more than enough answer. I’d thought maybe she’d burst into tears. Wasn’t that what women did when they were heartbroken? Given our history of late-night girl-talk sessions, I was expecting more of the same maudlin melodrama.

  But not little Lila, not when confronted in the flesh. She launched herself over the table and was clawing at me before I had a chance to realize that what I was seeing was reality and not some bizarre hallucination.

  I raised my tote bag just in time and shoved it against her chest. It weighs a ton, but as a shield it’s not terribly effective. I dropped it, and it landed on her foot.

  While she was hopping and screaming, “You don’t understand!” I pulled open the door to the trailer and skidded out onto the top step.