by Don Weston
“I’m deputy medical examiner, Cheryl Hanson,” she said. Her brown hair was tucked in a bun under a blue scrub type bonnet and she had thin black-framed glasses perched on the tip of her nose.
“You can come as close at that yellow line on the floor, but no closer to the body. Okay?”
We nodded.
“I’m going to unzip the shroud to reveal the upper half of the body. If we need to, I will reveal more. I hope that won’t be necessary because the condition of the body isn’t good.”
Without waiting she unzipped the shroud and revealed a bluish male figure. Its face was bloated and on its chest tread marks in an upside-down V-shape were sown in a hurried fashion. The man was a mess. I couldn’t make out any facial features or other recognizable features on the body.
“He’s been in the water for a month or longer,” Jackson said. There’s not much left of who he was I’m afraid.”
Stella Fleming’s face went white, but she forced herself to view the body.
“It’s him,” she said finally. ‘I can tell by the hair. He was balding on top and turning gray at the temples.”
“A lot of men fit that profile,” I said. “How about his size. Is that about the same?”
She nodded. “Can I see the ring you said he had on his finger?”
“Certainly,” Hanson said. She opened a zip lock bag and removed a gold ring. Mrs. Fleming took the ring and examined it carefully.
“It’s his ring. See the inscription inside, Together always? We had that engraved on each of our rings. I guess we won’t be together anymore, Art.”
Stella faltered and Jackson guided her expertly to a chair. She sobbed, the ring still in her hand.
“Not anymore,” she mumbled.
Chapter 16
After returning from the morgue, I made my excuses to my brothers and went to my room to lie down for an hour before I planned to slip out and meet Chris at the Two Tarts Bakery. I couldn’t sleep so I lay in my bed and tried to imagine how Chris found The Jet.
It occurred to me to be more than a coincidence that a friend of his saw The Jet at the hospital and then they both saw him again at City Hall. Another sighting in a city the size of Portland blew away any chance of a meaningful statistic as far as coincidence.
The only logical conclusion? Chris had hired The Jet and his leading me to him meant it was a trap. Was his offer of withdrawing his lawsuit the bait? A chill shot up my spine as I tossed onto my side.
If Chris had hired The Jet, maybe I had been right to accuse him of putting out a contract on me, even though I really didn’t think so at the time. I was only trying to get him to withdraw his lawsuit. Although unlikely, I had hoped fear might motivate him to do something noble. How stupid was that? Not only did he want the money from the city, but he was going for the Daily Double, meaning he wanted me dead too.
I arrived at Two Tarts Bakery twenty minutes early with a .25 caliber backup piece stashed inside one of my new brown leather boots. I wore jeans and a denim coat, over a light blue blouse, to conceal a holstered revolver.
A few people sipped coffee and munched cookies inside the bakery, but business was slow in the tiny shop. It would be easy to spot someone who didn’t belong if Chris had set up an ambush.
He was twenty minutes late, and I was about to head home when a slick olive-colored Jaguar slipped into an open spot in front. I watched through the window as Chris hopped out. He stopped twice to admire the car.
“Sorry I’m late.” He took a seat across from me on a lacquered wooden bench and grinned. “I was shopping for a new car. Stopped at my P.O. Box after I talked to you and found I’d gotten my settlement check from the city.”
“So, you went out and bought a new car?”
“Not yet. I’m trying it on approval. It’ll take a while for my bank to release the funds and the guys at the dealership didn’t mind. They told me to take this beauty out and drive it for a few days and we’d talk when I brought it back.”
“What’s this about you knowing where The Jet is?” Inside my brain I rolled my eyes at this yahoo, but I didn’t want to piss him off so I kept my cool.
“Yeah, I can lead you to him, but first I got a few conditions. You see, my life might be in danger here, and I want you to protect me until they catch this psycho killer. Do that and I’ll release you from your obligation to pay me on the lawsuit. Of course, you’ll still have to give my lawyer his cut.”
“Why would you want to be so generous?” I asked.
“It’s not like you’re going to be able to come up with a million dollars. I’d be garnishing your paycheck into my great-grandchildren’s lifetime. Even the house you live in is untouchable. My lawyer says it’s set up in some kind of trust. I only sued you for revenge anyway.”
He offered me 70 percent of a good deal since his attorney wasn’t about to give up his fee. Of course, if I was going to be dead he wouldn’t be getting any money anyway. Could Chris hate me bad enough to kiss off so much money?
“Why do you feel you need protection?” I asked.
He glimpsed over his shoulder through the café window. “Somebody is trying to kill me. I think it’s because of my friend, Jeff, seeing The Jet in the hospital the day he tried to kill you on the wrong floor. Or maybe because we spotted him at City Hall. Anyway, The Jet told me someone wants to kill him now because he’s a liability, having failed, and the cops have his description and are hunting him.”
“How did you happen to find him?”
“He found me. I was playing pool with a guy over at The Matador on Burnside and he walks up behind me and taps me on the back. I just about had a heart attack. But he started talking like we were old friends. He said I was in danger and he was too. He was going to get out of town, but he had to talk to you first.”
Chris rested his elbows on the table and cradled his chin with his fists, watching me expectantly, like I must know why The Jet wanted to see me. But I didn’t know why, other than he wanted to get up close when he put a bullet into me.
“So how did he find you?” I asked.
“Well, that’s a funny story,” he said. “He spotted me and Jeff tailing him at City Hall. He snuck out a side entrance and waited for us to leave. Then he followed us. I guess he trailed me home and was watching me when I went to see you at the hospital, and I guess he put two and two together. He said he met your brother’s killer and if you want to know who it is, you’re supposed to come with me to see him.”
“The Jet shot my brother!” I yelled. “And you just put him on the scene when it happened if he followed you the day you came to see me.”
“He said he didn’t do it.” Chris directed his eyes around the bakery to see if my yelling attracted any attention. “He says he tried to kill you at the warehouse and inside the hospital and in the car. But he swears it was the other guy who shot your brother. He didn’t know you would be there.”
“And why would he want to tell me who killed Darrin? It’s just a lame excuse to lure me into a trap.”
“You think so?” Chris’s face flushed. “Oh my God. He’s probably going to kill me too. You know. No witnesses.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.”
“He said because he messed up trying to kill you that his higher-ups want him dead. They’re afraid he’ll talk. He told them about me following him and they were real upset.”
“Who are these higher-ups?”
“I don’t know. He talked to a handler and whoever it is tells him, ‘great now they got two witnesses to dispose of’ and hangs up. Oh my God. The witnesses are me and you.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe they are going to get rid of The Jet. Maybe he knows who hired him and now they want him dead.”
“Billie? Where are you?”
“I’m on my way to meet a witness. What’s going on?”
It was Dan on the phone and he sounded worried. We were riding in Chris’s Jaguar westbound on Lombard Street in North Portland heading toward Cathedral Park, th
e meeting place The Jet had picked. I had spent fifteen minutes talking Chris into taking me to meet him.
He acted scared now, and I knew he wanted to rabbit again. He kept checking his rear-view mirror to make sure we weren’t being followed. I felt a bit edgy too. I thought I spotted a plain clothes cop down the block when we left the bakery. It looked like McGraw.
My telling him to take various turns and double back routes made him even more nervous. I explained it was better to be safe at this point, but I didn’t tell him there might be a cop following us.
“Well you better get home fast,” Dan said. “Steve’s coming this way, and I’m sure he’s coming to the house to check on you. If you can sneak in the back door, I’ll keep him distracted in the front room.”
There was no way I could ever get back in time, and I didn’t want to miss this chance at The Jet. I also didn’t want to tell Dan because he’d have a fit and probably haul all my brothers over to Cathedral Park. I knew going in alone without backup wasn’t smart, but if I brought reinforcements The Jet would be scared off.
“Can’t make it, Dan. We’re too far away. You’re going to have to think of something.”
“Jeez, you’ve got to try. If Steve finds you aren’t here, he’ll blow a gasket, and I’ll be pounding a beat in the ‘burbs.”
Chris turned down a side street just before the entrance to the St. John’s Bridge and coasted downhill toward the park.
“I can’t help it. You guys will have to think of something.”
“Cripes, we don’t have much time. The GPS tracker shows he’s almost here. What am I going to do?”
“Tell him I’m with my client consoling her after she identified her dead husband.”
“But we’re not supposed to let you out of our sight.”
“Shit, Dan. Have Dag disappear and tell Steve he’s with me.”
“That’s not going to work. You’re supposed to be here.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t possibly get there in time. You’ll have to think of something on your own.”
Chris grinned at me as I turned off my cell phone. He had parked a block away from the park on a side street and we were lucky to get that close. Cars cluttered the streets for several blocks in each direction.
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
“Some kind of Pirate Festival, according to a sign,” he said.
A banner on a fence with skull and crossbones and the words Portland Pirate Festival announced the festivities. We stood in a line of about twenty people and eventually got to a cashier.
“Fifteen bucks for the two of us to get in?” I said. I fished in my purse and came up with thirteen dollars, including change. “You got any money.”
“Nah,” Chris said. “I’m still waiting for my bank card.”
A plump teenage girl, wearing a serving wench’s dress and a black and white checkered bandana, looked at us sympathetically.
“Arrrrr, we take credit and debit cards as treasure at that thar table,” she said.
I went to that thar table, pulled my debit card out, waited as she put a blue wristband on my wrist, and we walked into a world of pirates. I thought at least The Jet would be easy to spot in a crowd. Then I saw six giant blowup pirate slides, kid bouncers, and obstacle courses being pursued by hundreds of miniature pirates. They were children actually, but many were in some sort of pirate garb.
They wore black pirate hats, eye patches, swords and sabers, toy pirate pistols, and plastic hooks dangled from hands. Scores of roaming adult pirates roamed the grounds, dressed to the hilt with authentic swords and holstered antique firearms. One of them wore a faux parrot attached to his shoulder.
I closed my eyes when a middle-aged bearded man walked in front of me carrying a spear, his huge pot-belly sticking out from an unbuttoned toga-like robe. Another sheet was wrapped around his waist. It was like watching a fat, old man parade around in diapers.
“Where are we supposed to meet him?” I asked.
“He said down by the river at two-thirty. We better get going or we’ll be late.”
We weaved around various pirate games in an open field and past tents with pirates and wenches selling costumes, eye patches, swords and food. I almost got run over by two kids racing back and forth carrying gunny sacks of pirate cargo as a crowd cheered them on. A loud gun blast bellowed throughout the festival. It came from the river and I started to run without thinking, instinctively reaching inside my jacket for the handle of my gun.
Chris caught up to me, and I could see he was scared too. A thunderous boom shook everything, and I felt the compression in the air. I thought bomb at first and remembered where we were. A crowd gathered behind ropes along the river and a huge smoke ring floated out above the Willamette River from cannon on a sailing pirate ship.
We found a spot on the edge of the crowd with a good view of the battle and not too many bystanders. A small cannon fired toward the pirate ship from shore. The boom was as loud as the ship’s gun and was followed by more explosions as buccaneers touched off five miniature land cannons near a boat landing. When the cannons went silent, a female pirate hoisted a French-style flintlock pistol and fired it into the sky.
“Ahoy there,” a shrill voice said over the din. “It’s only fitting a Bly be attending a pirate festival, don’t ya’ think?”
I turned and faced a short pirate holding a derringer on me.
“Aye, it’s a pirate gun,” he said. “Only this one doesn’t shoot blanks. It’s loaded for real so keep it in mind if you’re thinkin’ of reachin’ for yur gun.”
When I saw The Jet, adorned in the full regalia of a pirate costume, complete with authentic miniature sword threaded through his belt, I realized why I was fooled on the day he first shot me. He was young, maybe 30, and his face was thin and youthful. He stood less than four and a half feet tall.
“You’re pretty clever,” I said, realizing at first glance people would think he was a child. “I thought you’d be easy to spot, but you blend right in.”
“Aye,” he said, staying in character. “I saw an advertisement for this and figured it was a great way to meet an old seadog friend of mine.”
“Friend? You tried to kill me.” Another cannon blast clipped off whatever response he made. “What do you want? To finish the job in front of all these witnesses?”
“That would be sweet. But it doesn’t get me what I want. Even if I kill you now, I’m a marked man. I’m here for some revenge, and then I’m skipping town to leave you to untangle this mess.”
“You mean, you’re going to kill me?” Chris sputtered.
“He’s not too bright, is he?” The Jet smiled. “I’m here to tell you who wants you dead, Billie. They’ve decided I’m a liability now and already tried to dispose of me once, just yesterday. I doubt if I killed you now, they’d forgive me my failures. They want to be rid of any witnesses.”
I waited for him to continue. I learned a long time ago that when a perp starts talking, you just have to let him unwind the story in his own way. If you interrupt, you usually don’t learn as much.
“They were to pay me half up-front, and I was to get the rest when I finished the job. But they stalled me on the up-front part and I never saw a dime. They made me wait to see if you were going to die. I’m pretty sure they never meant to pay me. When you got better, they wanted me to go in the hospital and finish you off. I screwed that up because they gave me the wrong room number, and I became expendable then probably. It didn’t help when this moron, here, spotted me at City Hall.”
The cannon fire started again as the pirates on land fired land cannons toward over the river at a replica pirate ship with 40-foot masts and full sails in full battle, and we struggled to hear each other.
“My handler is a cop with a tattoo on his arm. His name is . . .”
Another cannon erupted, jarring me, and I didn’t hear what he said.
“What?” I asked.
“I said you probably kn
ow him. After my last meeting with him, I followed him to City Hall. He went upstairs where the Mayor and city councilors are. But I didn’t see which office he went into.”
“What is his name?” I asked, over another boom. The Jet cupped a hand to his ear, indicating he hadn’t heard me.
“That’s why later I went back to City Hall. I went in through the clerk’s offices and snuck into a couple of offices, trying to get a lead on who hired me.”
“Did you find out who the dude was wants her dead?” Chris said.
“Man, you can’t trust anyone these days, you know.” The Jet grinned. “You’d better watch your sweet backside, Honey. These people will skin you alive.”
“Who?” I hollered over more cannon fire, my hands outstretched as I pleaded for an answer. “Who was the cop and who gave the orders?”
A cannon boomed from the ship. I shuddered because it shook he air so. The rotten smell of sulfur drifted over us in a cloud of smoke. When I noticed The Jet again, he had a startled countenance on his face. I’d seen that surprised expression on my brother’s face.
“Oh no,” I cried.
The Jet sank to his knees and grimaced. His body lurched forward as another bullet sailed into him. I wanted to shake him to get him to tell me who set me up, but my instincts prevailed. I faded back, found Chris, and pushed him to the ground, stumbling over him.
We rolled down a sandy slope. “Stay put!” I yelled. “Sniper!”
Pings of dirt chirped up from the ground, spitting sand into my eyes, as a high-powered rifle searched for us. The smell of dirt replaced the sulfur as I buried my face in the ground. I counted eight slugs either whistling over my head or digging into the sandy slope above us. If there was a sound from the gun, it was muffled by the cannon fire and resulting echoes.
When the cannons ceased, and I was sure the other shooting was done, I raised my head to see The Jet lying on his side with blood trickling from his mouth and a maroon pool gushing from under his body. I crawled over to him, staying low in case the sniper lurked nearby waiting for another chance to kill me.