by Don Weston
As I considered this, I sensed movement behind me. I twirled with my gun in hand and saw someone walking in the opposite direction about a hundred yards away. I blinked at the apparition in disbelief. The man walking away from me on the boardwalk along the river looked like Steve. Had he tried to shoot me? I started toward him using the food tents for cover.
He walked slowly, more like he was deep in thought than stalking me. I was 30 steps from him before I could get a good look at his face. It was Steve. He turned toward the seawall and looked over the edge for a moment. I was hidden behind part of a band’s sound stage nearest the water.
He turned back and at the same time I heard a rustling noise from behind me. My view of whoever made the noise was cut off by a wall of stage partitions and tents. I’d have to walk around the maze to find the source of the noise and Steve was approaching. I crouched between two wooden boxes trying not to breathe while footsteps scuffed through the grass, coming closer and closer.
The footsteps stopped a few paces away. “Come on out, Billie,” Steve’s voice thundered. “I know you’re back there. I saw you.”
My gun greeted him first and the rest of me followed. I waved the gun motioning for him to move to my left out of the line of sight of a passerby.
“I got you now, Steve. You won’t get another chance.”
“Chance at what?”
“Killing me, of course.” I motioned for him to turn away and patted him down. “Where’s your gun?”
“I don’t have one. I just got out of jail.”
I backed away and he turned toward me again. “How did you manage that? I heard they had a solid case.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “One minute they claimed to have me dead-to-rights and the next minute the D.A. drops the case because of insufficient evidence. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
I shook my head. “Maybe they let you out so you could finish the job. And you almost did. Where’d you drop the gun?”
“I told you, I don’t have a gun.”
“Don’t give me that. You took a shot at me over by the Max line ten minutes ago with a silencer.”
“Bull. I’ve only been out of jail for half-an-hour, and I didn’t have time to go home and get my gun. I’ve been wandering back and forth down here trying to make some sense of all this. Why did they arrest me? Who framed me? Why did they let me go?”
I had that familiar feeling of being watched again. But Steve’s face showed defeat and frustration. I knew then what had to be done.
“Have you got a cell phone?”
He dug one out of his coat pocket. “Battery’s getting low. I wasn’t able to charge it in jail.”
I glanced at it, hoping it would work long enough for my needs and put it in my pocket. The park was vacant, and we seemed to be completely alone.
“I’m sorry, Steve. One of us has to die. And the other has to disappear.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
I told him what I meant, and he went for my gun. We wrestled for control and it went off. We both fell behind the sound stage and the gun fired again.
If a casual observer happened to be watching they might have seen a long heavy bundle of canvass being hoisted over the seawall, possibly by a volunteer worker, or they might not have seen anything at all because of the structures in the park. A bicyclist speeding by on the sidewalk along the seawall could have heard the splash.
Chapter 28
My gun has no silencer and the two retorts echoed through the empty park as the drizzle continued. After the disposal of the body, I went to a metal plate I’d noticed near the sidewalk.
A newly constructed stage, festooned with white nylon banners advertising a local band, protected me from view in case someone watched. Under the plate was a dirty hole with electrical plugs apparently used to provide power for the music shows.
The hole was damp, but the rain had not turned it to mud and although I checked for bugs and black widows, I was sure they would crawl up to me when darkness was restored. The opening was just large enough to hold a child or a flexible woman. Flexible I wasn’t, because of post-surgical shooting pains, but I climbed inside anyway and contorted my body. The sun made an appearance as I pulled the metal plate over me.
I left a two-inch gap facing the seawall so I could spy on anyone with an unnatural fondness for murder. I was sure the person who shot at me earlier must be lurking nearby, and I hoped I might get a first glimpse of my brother’s killer. I didn’t have long to wait. A man loped up to the seawall and gazed over the edge where Steve’s bundle went over.
The now harsh sunlight spilled through the gap and blinded me a bit, but when the husky man in a polo shirt turned away from the river and dialed a number on his mobile phone, I have to admit I was surprised. Just when I thought I had a handle on this case, I was looking at a suspect I had recently eliminated. Earl spoke earnestly into the phone and peered back over his shoulder where the body plummeted.
I opened Steve’s phone and sat in the dark, punching in Angel’s phone number and typing in a text message: “Don’t believe anything you hear about my death, but don’t tell anyone you’ve heard from me—especially Earl.” I also instructed Angel to call the city clerk I’d interviewed in Pocatello and ask a question.
It was three o’clock and it promised to be a long day. I took another peek and saw four people standing at the seawall now—Earl, two civilians and Officer McGraw. Within minutes more cops showed up and established a perimeter, pushing people away from the crime scene.
I could imagine what would happen next as I tried to realign my body into a more comfortable position.
Crime techs would go over the scene looking for blood or other clues—they would find none—and surmise all of the evidence was in the canvass bundle tossed into the Willamette River. Likely the Multnomah County River Patrol would be called in and divers would start looking for a body.
As I waited for nightfall I reviewed my two cases. One involved the attempts on my life, Darrin’s murder, and the termination of The Jet. The other case started out with the disappearance of Art Fleming, an unknown from Pocatello, who eventually turned up dead in the Willamette River near the industrial area of the Port of Portland. This was followed by his wife’s death within days of her arriving to identify her husband’s body.
I tried to think of a connection between the two cases because my gut told me they had to be related. I also felt Earl had been involved somehow because he was working for Tuttle and Tuttle worked for the city. Art Fleming worked for the city in Pocatello. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t find any connection between anyone working for the City of Portland and Art Fleming.
And yet, the only way I could make sense of any of this was if somebody who was out of the picture, wasn’t. What was it Honest Hal had said about the widow who missed her husband? She said: It was a pity people can’t be given new life like cars.
And that’s what got me thinking—maybe they can.
An hour passed. Then another, and another. I fell asleep for maybe twenty minutes and was startled awake by voices directly over me. I hadn’t been able to hear any conversations earlier, but now I heard Officer McGraw talking to someone.
“I’m sure it was Billie who got tossed into the River,” he said. “How do I know? At least two people saw Thomas drop her body over the seawall. She was wrapped in a canvass tent.”
I realized the conversation was one-way. McGraw was talking on the phone to someone.
“We’ll find her. . . I know—I know. Don’t rag on me. The divers showed up two hours ago and they’re looking for her now. . . They have to deal with the outgoing tide and currents. She could be a mile down the river.”
I hoped the bundle was a mile down the river. I didn’t want anyone to know I was still alive yet. I had an important appointment to keep without being hassled by the police and their arrest warrants. As long as they thought I swam with the fish, they wouldn’t be looking for me on land.
&n
bsp; “I gotta go. It’s going to be dark in an hour.” McGraw signed off and apparently walked away. I realized I’d been holding my breath. He’d been close enough to spit on me if the angle was right and I had been afraid to move. I adjusted my legs to try and get some feeling in them and my head hit the steel plate.
The bump created a metallic echo, and I felt footsteps tromping toward me. I held my breath again.
“Did you hear that?” someone said. “Something’s in there.”
“Probably a rat,” another voice said.
“Maybe we should check.”
“You want a rat should jump out at you?”
“I got my gun. Just lift that lid up slowly and I’ll blast the son-of-a-bitch.”
“You want to fill out the report on why you discharged your firearm at a rat during a criminal investigation? Get over there and push those TV cameras back. This ain’t any reality show.”
Footsteps on the sod above me faded, and I breathed softly in case the other cop decided to sneak a peek at the rat. He didn’t. I sat for another hour as dark cumulus clouds crowded in to usher darkness in early. It was seven-fifteen when I heard a voice shout to clear out until morning. Thirty minutes later I dared to sneak a better look in the night and pushed the steel plate up about a foot. Two dim figures hovered at the far edge of the police tape.
I climbed out of my hiding spot and gingerly crossed through the tents, holding my aching side and chest. I noticed a lone boat on the river chugging along and the two people at the wall watching intently. I guessed the divers were still at work.
Minutes later, still aching from sitting so long, I struggled to climb into my MGB, which had accumulated two parking tickets. I crossed the Morrison Bridge and took I-5 to the Swan Island exit. A few minutes later I pulled into Finnegan’s’ parking lot. It was eight-fifteen and I was supposed to meet Gloria at eight, but I took a minute to call Angel at home on Steve’s barely charged cell phone.
“Thank God you are all right,” she said. “The TV news said a woman had been thrown into the river downtown. We all thought it was you, but I told your brothers you said not to believe anything about your death.”
“You can tell them I’m still alive. Did you contact the clerk in Idaho?”
“I did and she identified two pictures,” Angel said, and told me who they were. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you later. I have an appointment with Gloria now.”
Finnegan’s was once a desirable restaurant especially for Sunday brunch, but with the increase of trendy eateries in Portland in the last ten years, it has suffered. Now it’s dated, the hotel style carpet is faded and the lighting is dim and gloomy. The only draw these days is the view of the Willamette River and a fair bar.
The bar is where I found Gloria, chain smoking outside on a patio and looking over her shoulder every few moments. I sat in a corner inside the bar and watched as she pulled a cell phone out of her purse and hit the speed dial. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she was animated enough for me to see she was upset. I got up and stepped out onto the patio.
“Hello, Gloria. Sorry I’m late. Traffic was murder.”
“Oh My God,” she huffed into the phone. “I have to go. She’s here . . . I don’t know. Why don’t you find out? I’ll take care of things here.”
“Am I interrupting?” I asked.
She turned off the phone. She took a final drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out on a patio table.
“No, Honey. I was afraid you weren’t going to make it, and Bob cancelled on me too. Thought I was going to spend the evening drinking alone. Why don’t we go for a walk on the sidewalk along the riverfront? I’ve been sitting all day, and I could use the exercise.”
She had changed out of the blue miniskirt and high heels I’d seen her in earlier and wore a black low-cut evening dress with more sensible heels. When we entered the lounge again, two business men leered at Gloria. She left a twenty-dollar bill on the bar, gathered her purse and smiled at the men on her way out.
After we strolled a fair distance from the restaurant, she slowed to look at the river. The sidewalk took us within about ten paces of it for a stretch.
“You know, some people think you were dumped into this river,” she said flatly.
“Really?” I said. “What would give them that idea?”
“I wonder?” She paused for a minute. “Witnesses identified a man matching your ex-partner’s description dumping what looked like a body over the seawall downtown. The news media filmed divers combing the river at Waterfront Park looking for the body of a young woman. The police think it’s you.”
“I’m tougher than most people realize.”
“You certainly must be. After all the attempts—-and failures—on your life.”
She stopped and gazed over the black water. “Isn’t the view here breathtaking? It would be more so if it wasn’t so dark. Still, you can catch glimpses of the river as the moonlight reflects off it.”
“Was it like this the night Art Fleming was killed?” I asked.
She stopped and turned to face me. “How would I know?” The moon hit her face and I could see she wasn’t surprised. She looked placid and confident.
“Okay,” she said at last. “You figured it out. I knew you would eventually. I’ve been told you’re a bit of a bulldog once you get the scent.”
“You shouldn’t have killed my brother.”
“Oh, I didn’t kill your brother. But I did kill Art.” She pulled a small handgun from her stylish black Coach purse and pointed it at me. “Would you like to know how?”
“I think I know enough.”
“Humor me,” she said, waving me toward the beach with the gun.
I stepped off the sidewalk onto the sand.
“It was a night like this only a bit warmer,” Gloria said. “The weather has turned decidedly cooler, don’t you think? Art called me earlier in the day to tell me he had figured out how Bob framed him for a bit of embezzlement in Pocatello. You know about that, I assume.”
I nodded.
“I thought so. He called me at home while Bob was working. He made his accusations and I played along with him. I told him I married Robert Paul after Ben died and knew nothing about it.”
We were along the edge of the river now and I could hear the swift current. I needed to keep her talking until I could get some kind of advantage.
“Ben Miller was your husband in Pocatello.”
“That’s right,” she said. “We’d moved to New York City because he had a job opportunity. He died of a heart attack almost before we got unpacked.”
I shook my head. “I’m guessing after you left town you murdered your husband, maybe with Paul’s help, and then dropped into Pocatello to announce he had a heart attack. The perfect way to commit a murder. New to the city, no identification, possibly no address because you were probably staying at a hotel until the supposed job came through. And Ben Miller was just another John Doe without an address and I’m guessing no fingerprints on file.”
“A new start,” she agreed. “You’re right. I had to stop in Pocatello about a month later and announce his heart attack to keep anyone from looking for him.”
“Why did you two change your names?”
“That was Bob’s idea. He and I were having an affair back in Pocatello. We decided then it was time for a change and planned how to get rid of my husband.
“Robert changed his name to Bob Blaney and I became Gloria Blaney. He’s really good at manipulating figures and it turns out he’s a good forger as well. He established new identities, a complete resume and he enlisted references at the various places he was supposed to have worked—paying for a few references along the way. It was my job to schmooze Mayor Clemons to get Bob appointed. Tuttle’s the only one who followed through on references outside the Mayor’s office, but he didn’t find anything. It was so easy.”
“But Art Fleming found you.”
Gloria shook her head, frow
ning. “It was a stupid photograph taken at a charity event. Somehow it appeared on the wire service—one of those goofy photos—three Portland city figures, Mayor Clemons, Bob and me, coaxing our rubber ducks down the river in a Ducky Derby. It was picked up by a weekly newspaper in American Falls, Idaho. Fleming stumbled across the picture and recognized us.”
That explained why I couldn’t find it. I was looking in the wrong newspaper.
“He must have been pretty angry,” I said.
“He screamed at me over the phone. He and Robert had been friends until Robert and I started our little affair. I calmed him down and agreed to meet him at Finnegan’s to discuss it. When he arrived, I told him I wasn’t hungry and suggested we take a walk to help me work up an appetite. We talked until we were just about where we are now. I wanted to look at the water. He skipped a couple of rocks. When he looked back at me I shot him with gun very similar to this one, which I then planted in Stella’s purse to incriminate her. Art just fell over. I removed his wallet and identification and rolled him out into the water. It was so easy.”
“Is that what’s going to happen to me?”
“If it worked once, it should work again.”
“But it didn’t work. I figured it out. Someone will guess how my death happened too.”
“I doubt it,” she said, aiming the gun at me. “I don’t think anyone else is as stubborn as you are.”
“I can think of one person, because it looks like my help just arrived.”
“Come on, Dear. Not the old ‘look behind you’ gag. I thought you’d come up with something more original.”
“Billie? Is that you?”
Gloria turned toward Chris as he lumbered down the sidewalk waving at us. She turned and fired at him, and I went for my gun. I heard Chris swear and saw him dive to the sidewalk. Gloria wheeled back and fired at me and I shot back. I felt the bullet tear into my shoulder and fired again.
“You bitch,” she said, “I knew you were trouble.”
She slumped and as she fell to her knees the moonlight captured an ironic smile on her face before she rolled into the shallow water. I checked for a pulse but her heart had stopped. Chris hopped up like a scared rabbit and ran in the opposite direction.