"I towered over everyone. In elementary school, I walked around with my eyes down and my shoulders hunched, wishing I could disappear. In junior high, it got worse, because I had these Coke-bottle glasses and braces.
I looked like Frankenstein."
"when did you start to feel self-confident?"
"I don't know if I ever feel that way. I mean, I know I do a good job, but I always worry I'm not doing enough.
But I guess it was my senior year in high school that I started believing in myself I was near the top of my class, the braces were gone, my folks got me contacts and boys started noticing me. By the time I graduated Berkeley I was much more outgoing."
"You met your husband in law school, didn't you?"
Betsy nodded. "We're separated, now."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
Betsy shrugged. "I really don't want to talk about my personal life.
Will that be necessary?"
"Not if you don't want to. I'm not writing this for the Enquirer.
"Okay, because I don't want to discuss Rick."
"I understand you one hundred percent. I went through the same thing in Phoenix. I know bow difficult it can be. So, let's move on to something else."
The waiter arrived with their food and Sloane asked Betsy some more questions about her childhood while they ate.
"You didn't go into private practice right out of law school, did you?"
Sloane asked after the waiter cleared their plates.
"No."
"Why not? You've done so well at it."
"That's been all luck," Betsy answered, blushing slightly. "I never thought of going out on my own, back then. My law school grades were all right, but not good enough for a big firm. I worked for the attorney general doing environmental law for four years. I liked the job, but I quit when I became pregnant with Kathy."
"How old is she?"
"Six.
"How did you get back into law?"
"I was bored sitting home when Kathy started preschool. Rick and I talked it over and we decided I would practice out of our home, so I would be there for Kathy.
Margaret McKinnon, a friend of mine from law school, let me use her conference room to meet clients. I didn't have much of a caseload. A few court-appointed misdemeanors, some simple divorces. just enough to keep me busy.
"Then Margaret offered me a windowless office about the size of a broom closet, rent free, in exchange for twenty hours of free legal work each month. I agonized over that, but Rick said it was okay. He thought it would be good for me to get out of the house, as long as I kept my caseload low enough to pick up Kathy at day care and stay home with her if she got sick. You know, still be a mom. Anyway, it worked out fine and I started picking up some felonies and a few contested divorces that paid better."
"The Peterson case was your big break, right?"
"Yeah. One day I was sitting around without much to do and the clerk who assigns court-appointed cases asked me if I'd represent Grace Peterson.
I didn't know much about the battered woman's syndrome, but I remembered seeing Dr. Lenore Walker on a TV talk show. She's the expert in this area. The court authorized the money and Lenore came out from Denver and evaluated Grace. It was pretty horrible, what her husband did. I'd led a sheltered life, I guess. No one where I grew up did things like that."
"No one you knew about."
Betsy nodded sadly. "No one I knew about. Anyway, the case attracted a lot of publicity. We had the support of some women's groups and the press was behind us. After the acquittal, my business really picked up.
Then Andrea hired me because of the verdict in Grace's case."
The waiter arrived with their coffee. Sloane looked at her watch. "You said you had a one-thirty appointment, didn't you?"
Betsy glanced at her own watch. "Is it one-ten already? I really got wrapped up in this."
"Good. I was hoping you'd be as excited about the project as I am."
"I am. Why don't you call me and we can talk again soon.
"Great. I'll do that. And thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it."
Randy Highsmith shook the rain off his umbrella and laid it on the floor under the dashboard as Alan Page drove out of the parking garage. The umbrella hadn't helped much in the gusting rain and Highsmith was cold and wet.
Highsmith was slightly overweight, studious-looking, a staunch conservative and the best prosecutor in the office, Page included. While earning a law degree from Georgetown he'd fallen in love with Patty Archer, a congressional aide. He then fell in love with Portland when he traveled there to meet Patty's family. When her congressman decided not to run for reelection, the newlyweds moved west, where Patty opened a political consulting firm and Randy was snapped up by the office of the Multnomah County district attorney.
"Tell me about Darius," Page said as they got on the freeway.
"He moved to Portland eight years ago. He had money to start with and borrowed on his assets. Darius made his name, and increased his fortune, by gambling on the revitalization of downtown Portland. His first big success was the Couch Street Boutique. He bought a block of dilapidated buildings for a song, converted them to an indoor mall, then changed the area surrounding the boutique into the trendiest section in Portland by leasing renovated buildings to upscale shops and restaurants at low rents. As business increased, so did the rents. The upper floors of a lot of the buildings were converted to condos. That's been his pattern.
Buy up all the buildings in a slum area, set up a core attraction, then build around it. Recently he's branched out into suburban malls, apartment complexes, and so on.
"Two years ago, Darius married Lisa Ryder, the daughter of Oregon Supreme Court justice Victor Ryder.
Ryder's old firm, Parish, Marquette and Reeves, handles his legal work.
I talked to a few friends over there in confidence. Darius is brilliant and unscrupulous. Half the firm's energy is spent keeping him honest.
The other half is spent defending lawsuits when they fail."
"What's 'unscrupulous' mean? Law violations, ethics, what?"
"Nothing illegal. But he has his own set of rules and a total disregard for the feelings of others. For instance, earlier this year he bought up a street of historically significant houses over in the Northwest, so he could tear them down and build town houses. There were several citizen groups up in arms. They got a temporary injunction and were trying to get the houses landmark status. A smart young lawyer at Parish, Marquette convinced the judge to drop the injunction. Darius moved bulldozers in at night and leveled the block before anyone knew what was going on.
"A guy like that must have done something illegal."
"The closest I've got is a rumor that he's friendly with Manuel Ochoa, a Mexican businessman who the D.E.A. thinks is laundering money for a South American drug cartel. Ochoa may be lending Darius money for a big project downstate that was risky enough to scare off some of the banks."
"What about his past?" Page asked as they drove the parking lot of the Lakeview Motel. into "Doesn't have one, which makes sense if he's Lake."
"Did you check newspaper stories, profiles?"
"I did better than that. I spoke to the Oregonian's top business reporter. Darius does not give interviews about his private life. For all anyone knows, he was born eight years ago."
Page pulled into a parking spot in front of the motel office. The dashboard clock read five twenty-six.
"Stay here. I'll see if Gordon's back."
"Okay. But there's one other thing you should know." Page waited with the car door half-open. "We've got a link between our missing women and Darius."
Page closed the door. Highsmith smiled.
"I saved the best for last. Tom Reiser, the husband of Wendy Reiser, works for Parish, Marquette. He's the lawyer who convinced the judge to drop the injunction. Last Christmas, the Reisers attended a party at the Darius estate. This summer, they were invited to a bash to celebrate the opening of a ma
ll, two weeks before the disappearances started. Reiser has had numerous business dealings with Darius.
"Larry Farrar's accounting firm has Darius Construction for a client. He and Laura Farrar were at the party for the mall opening too. He's done a lot of work for Darius.
"Finally, there's Victoria Miller. Her husband, Russell, works for Brand, Gates and Valcroft. That's the advertising firm. that represents Darius Construction.
Russell was just put in charge of the account. They've been on Darius's yacht and to his house. They were also at the mall opening party."
"That's unbelievable. Look, I want a list of the women at that party.
We've got to alert Bill Tobias and Barrow."
"I already have. They're putting a second team on Darius."
"Good work. Gordon could be the key to wrapping this up."
Highsmith watched Page duck into the manager's office. A chubby man in a plaid shirt was standing behind the counter. Page showed the manager his i.d. and asked him a question. Highsmith saw the manager shake his head.
Page said something else. The manager disappeared into a back room and reappeared in a raincoat. He grabbed a key from a book on the wall.
Page followed the manager outside and gestured to Highsmith.
Highsmith slammed the car door and raced under the protection afforded by the second-floor landing.
Gordon's room was around the side of the motel on the ground floor. He arrived just as the manager knocked on the door and called out Gordon's name. There was no answer. A window faced into the parking lot. The green drapes were closed. There was a "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging from the doorknob.
"Miss. Gordon," the manager called again. They waited a minute and he shrugged. "She hasn't been in all day, as far as I know."
"Okay," Page said, 'let us in."
The manager opened the door with his key and stood aside. The room was dark, but someone had left the bathroom light on and it cast a pale glow over the empty room. Page flipped the light switch and looked around the room. The bed was undisturbed. Gordon's tan valise lay open on a baggage stand next to the dresser.
Page walked into the bathroom. A toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste and makeup were set out on the bathroom counter. Page pulled back the shower curtain. A bottle of shampoo rested on a ledge. Page stepped out of the bathroom.
"She unpacked in here. There's a shampoo bottle in the bathtub. It's not a motel sample. Looks like she was planning to take a shower."
"Someone interrupted her," Highsmith said, pointing at a half-opened dresser drawer. Some of Gordon's clothes lay in it, while others remained in the valise.
"she had a briefcase with her when we talked at my place. Do you see it?"
The two men searched the room, but they did not find the briefcase.
"Look at this," Highsmith said. He was standing next to the night table.
Page looked at a notepad with the motel logo that was next to the phone.
"Looks like directions. An address."
"Let's not touch it. I want a lab tech to dust the room. Treat it as a crime scene, until we know better."
"There's no sign of a struggle."
"There wasn't any at the homes of the missing women, either."
Highsmith nodded. "I'll call from the manager's office, in case there are prints on the phone."
"Do you have any idea where this is?" Page asked, as he reread the notes on the' pad.
Highsmith's brow furrowed for a moment, then he frowned. "As a matter of fact, I do. Remember I told you about the houses Darius bulldozed?
This sounds like the address."
"What's there now?"
"A block-wide empty lot. As soon as the neighbors saw what Darius did, they went nuts. There have been protests, lawsuits. Darius went — ahead with construction anyway and had three units built, but someone torched them. Construction's been halted ever since."
"I don't like this. How would anyone know where Where Gordon was? I'm the one who suggested the Lakeview "She could have phoned someone."
"No. I asked the manager. There weren't any outgoing calls. Besides, she doesn't know anyone in Portland.
That's why she came to my place. She 'assumed the person who sent her the anonymous letter would meet her at the airport, but no one showed. A clipping about me and my address were in with the note. If she knew anyone else, she would have spent the night with them."
"Then someone must have followed her from the airport to your place and from your place here."
"That's possible."
"What if that person waited until she was in the room, then phoned Gordon and asked her to come to the construction site."
"Or came here and talked Gordon into going with him or took her by force."
"Gordon's a detective," Highsmith said. "I mean, you'd think she would have enough sense to be careful."
Page thought about Gordon. Her edge, the tension in her body.
"she's driven, Randy. Gordon told me she stayed a cop so she could track down Lake. She's been on this case for ten years and she dreams about it. Gordon's smart, but she might not be smart where this case is concerned.
The building site was larger than Page imagined. The houses Darius had destroyed were built along a bluff overlooking the Columbia River. The land included a steep wooded hill that angled down toward the water. A high, chain link fence surrounded the property. A "Darius Construction-Absolutely No Trespassing" sign was fastened to the fence.
Page and Highsmith huddled under their umbrellas, the collars of their raincoats turned up around their cheeks, and studied the padlock on the gate.
The moon was full, but storm clouds scudded across it with great frequency. The heavy rain made the night as dark as it would have been with no moon.
"What do you think?" Highsmith asked.
"Let's walk along the fence to see if there's another entrance. There's no sign she came in here."
"These are new shoes," Highsmith complained.
Page started off along the periphery without answering. The ground had been stripped bare of grass during construction. Page felt the mud oozing around his shoes.
He peered through the fence as he walked, occasionally shining his flashlight inside the site. Most of the land was empty and flat where the bulldozers had done their work.
"Al, bring your- light here," Highsmith shouted.
He was pointing at a section of fence that had been cut and folded back.
Page ran over. He turned away for a second and clutched his collar closer to his neck.
"Look at this," Page said. He was standing under an ancient oak tree pointing the flashlight beam toward the ground. Tire tracks had gouged out the ground where they were standing. The canopy formed by the leaves covered the tracks. Page and Highsmith followed them away from the fence.
"Someone drove off the road across the field in this mud," Page said.
"Not necessarily tonight, though."
The tracks stopped at the street and disappeared.
The rain would have washed away the mud from the asphalt.
"I think the driver backed up to the fence, Al.
There's no sign that he turned around."
"Why back up? Why drive over to the fence at all and risk getting stuck in the mud?"
"What's in the back of a car?"
Page nodded, imagining Nancy Gordon folded in the confined space of a car trunk.
"Let's go," he said, heading back toward the hole in the fence. In his heart, Page knew she was down there, buried in the soft earth.
Highsmith followed him through. As he ducked, he snagged his coat on a jagged piece of wire. By the time he freed himself, Page was well ahead, obscured by the darkness, only the wavering beam of the flashlight showing his location.
"Do you see any tracks?" Highsmith asked when he caught up.
"Look out!" Page cried, grabbing Highsmith by his coat. Highsmith pulled up. Page shone his light down.
They were on the edge of a deep p
it that had been gouged out of the earth for a foundation. Muddy walls sloped down toward the bottom, which was lost in darkness. Suddenly the moon appeared, bathing the bottom of the pit in a pale glow. The uneven surface cast shadows over rocks and mounds of dirt.
"I'm going down," Page said, as he went over the rim. He edged along the wall of the pit sideways, leaning into the slope and digging in with the sides of his shoes.
Halfway down, he slipped to one knee and slid along the smooth mud, stopping his descent by grabbing a protruding root. The root had been severed by a bulldozer blade.
The end came free of the mud, but Page slowed enough to dig in and stop his slide.
"You okay?" Highsmith called into the wind.
"yeah. Randy, get down here. Someone's been digging recently."
Highsmith swore, then started edging down the slope. When he reached the bottom, Page was wandering slowly over the muddy ground, studying everything that entered the beam of his flashlight. The ground looked as if it had been turned over recently. He examined it as closely as he could in the dark.
The wind died suddenly and Page thought he heard a sound. Something slithering in the shadows just out of his line of sight. He tensed, trying to hear above the wind, peering helplessly into the darkness.
When he convinced himself he was the victim of his imagination, he turned around and shone the light near the base of a steel girder. Page straightened suddenly and took a step back, catching his heel on a timber half-concealed in the mud.
He stumbled and the flashlight fell, its I)earn fanning out over the rain-soaked earth, catching something white in the light. A rock or a paper cup. Page knelt quickly and recovered the flashlight. He walked over to the object and squatted next to it. His breath caught in his chest.
Protruding from the earth was a human hand.
The sun was just coming up when they dug the last body out of the ground. The horizon took on a scarlet tinge as two officers lifted the corpse onto a stretcher. Around them, other officers walked slowly over the muddy floor of the construction site in search of more graves, but the area had been scoured so thoroughly that no one expected to find one.
A prowl car perched on the edge of the pit. The door on the driver's side was open. Alan Page sat in the front seat with one foot on the ground, holding a paper cup filled with scalding, black coffee, trying not to think about Nancy Gordon and thinking of nothing else.
Gone ,but not forgotten Page 10