Bleeding Blue

by Don Weston

  “Chris, it’s okay.” I shouted. “She’s dead.”

  He stopped. “Was it her or you who shot at me?”

  “It was Gloria.”

  “Why’d she shoot at me?” he asked, hesitantly walking back.

  I could see he was watching my gun so I put it in my purse. “She was going to kill me and you interrupted her.”

  “Really? Then I guess I saved your life.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “How did you find me?”

  “I heard on the news you had been killed, but I didn’t believe it. I talked with Angel earlier today, and she told me you were meeting someone here tonight. I thought I’d come down and see if you kept your appointment.”

  “You were worried about me. How sweet.”

  “Yeah, well I saw Earl on TV. He was down by where your body was supposed to have been dumped in the river. I figured if he killed you then he would come after me next. He showed up at your place an hour ago to see Angel. I was scared so I cleared out and drove around for a while. Then I remembered this appointment. If I couldn’t find you, I thought I’d visit my sister in Reno for a while.”

  I looked down at Gloria’s lifeless body, the waves lapping at her face. Her beauty seemed to fade now in the dim light.

  “We’d better call the police, and I need to figure a way to explain why I killed the wife of Portland’s city auditor.”

  “You’re bleeding,” Chris said.

  I got a hankie from my purse and put pressure against my shoulder. It’s just a flesh wound. I’ll be all right.”

  “Did you hear something?” Chris chirped. There was movement in some brush a hundred feet above the sidewalk. Gun shots erupted and Chris and I danced like the cowboys in the old TV westerns.

  “This way,” I called, running behind an oversized tree stump. Chris dove behind me in the sand as I retrieved my gun and returned fire. “You stay here. I’m tired of being shot at. I’m going after him.”

  “It must be Earl,” Chris said. “He must have followed me.”

  “Shit. How am I going to explain this to Angel? Especially if I have to shoot him.”

  I moved silently through the shadows and worked my way across the sidewalk, angling to try to get around behind the shooter. Two shots came at me and I flattened behind some brush. I hit the ground wrong and the pain in my shoulder was fierce.

  I lay prone, ignoring the pain and fired three rounds at the approximate position the gunman had shown himself. There was a yelp and a groan. I must have hit him, I thought. I struggled laboriously to get up and waddled up the hill. By the time I reached the spot where the shots originated, the shooter was gone. I heard a distant roar of a car racing out of the parking lot above.

  “Shit,” I said to myself. “At least I got him. Maybe he’ll bleed to death.”

  I stepped carefully down the hillside among the dirt, sand, and brush and gradually caught up to Chris, still lurking behind the tree stump.

  “You’re supposed to be protecting me,” he complained. “But every time I’m out in public with you, someone shoots at me.”

  I coughed for a minute, the running and the bullet in my shoulder affecting me.

  “Let’s call the police and let them sort this out,” I said, walking back toward Gloria.

  But Gloria wasn’t there. We looked around to make sure we were at the right spot, then to see if there was any trace of someone carrying the body off.

  “Are you sure she was dead?” Chris said. “Maybe she got up and left.” He looked back up the sidewalk toward Finnegan’s.

  “If she did, she forgot her handbag.”

  I opened it and searched for anything helpful. I found a newspaper clipping and unfolded it. My penlight flashlight revealed a photo taken at the Ducky Derby Gloria had referred to earlier. I guessed she’d retrieved it from Stella’s purse, because I also found Stella’s picture of Art. Stella had been holding out on me

  I scanned the river and started to doubt my medical acumen about what causes a death, when I noticed a figure drifting among the ripples in the moonlight 50 yards downstream. It was Gloria, floating toward the ship terminals. I swore and scanned the light across the ground and water around me.

  “What are you looking for?” Chris asked.

  “Her gun.”

  “I don’t see it,” he said.”

  “Neither do I. The tramp took it with her.”

  “What do we tell the cops now?” he said. “No body. No gun. How do you claim self-defense?”

  “Well, I do have this gunshot wound. And a witness.”

  He looked at me puzzled-like. “What witness?”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’m in big trouble.”

  Chapter 29

  My first thought was to run again. Make an anonymous call to the police about a woman floating down the river and take my chances. But I knew if I did, all forensic evidence would be lost and it might take a year to find Gloria’s body—if ever. And I could still be charged with murder if the district attorney’s office portrayed Chris as an unreliable witness.

  I called Dan, reassured him I was okay, and asked who I could call at the Central Precinct and get a fair shake. I knew the Mayor would try to use his influence to railroad me, we being such good friends.

  “I think Detective Schmautz is working tonight,” he said. “He’s honest and he goes by the book. He won’t let anyone influence his investigation. I could call him, but it would carry more weight if you made the call. I’ll try to get over there after my shift.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “Stay away. I don’t want you, Dag or Jason brought in on any of this. I’m sure Internal Affairs has better things to do.”

  I called Schmautz and explained what had happened. He listened to the whole story without interruption.

  “You know you’re supposed to be at the bottom of the river,” he said.

  I explained why I wasn’t at the bottom of the river.

  “Someone’s in the river. We have witnesses,” he said. At that point Steve’s phone beeped twice and went dead. The battery was gone.

  I walked over to the tree stump and sat and wondered why it was suddenly so quiet. Chris wasn’t one for leaving large gaps in conversation. He liked to fill in the gaps. I surveyed the area for him. Where in the Hell did he go? I dared hope he went for a drink or maybe to guide police down to the crime scene.

  But in my heart, I knew Chris was no hero. He wanted to be, but he always disappeared when trouble reared its head. He was a hero to me, but an accidental one. I knew his heart was in the right place, but at the moment it wasn’t enough.

  “Damn it, Chris. I need you.” Strong words from someone who likes to believe she doesn’t need help from anyone.

  It was a long night. I was weary, hungry, and in pain. Not just from the gunshot wound, but from my irritated chest wounds. My pain pills had gone up with my purse in the garage explosion and the Ibuprofen I substituted wasn’t making it. An ambulance arrived on the scene within twenty minutes, but I wouldn’t let them treat me until I was sure Detective Schmautz heard my account of the shooting. An hour lapsed before an EMT radioed the hospital about my shoulder wound and gave me an IV designed to reduce the pain.

  Lights blazed through every area of the crime scene and portable generators hummed in the background as technicians crawled on the outskirts of the crime scene toward the spot where Gloria and I shot each other. Downriver two police boats chugged methodically, their spotlights bounced back and forth on the water’s surface.

  Eventually a radio cracked: “We found her. We’re heading back.” A chorus of cheers drowned out the generators.

  Dan appeared a few minutes later and pulled me aside. I was too tired to admonish him for coming. In truth, I was glad to see my big brother. He hugged me and I cried a bit against his shoulder where no one could see.

  “I’m told you think the city auditor’s wife killed Darrin,” Dan said.

  “She may be responsible, but she’s not the
one who pulled the trigger.”

  “Who did?” Dan asked.

  “I don’t know. She died before I could find out.”

  “They said your principal witness ran off.”

  “He’s probably headed for Reno. He’s got a ninety-minute head start and he’s driving his beat-up red Ford Ranger.”

  “I’ll make a couple of calls to see if we can head him off,” he said.

  “Make sure they know they’re looking for a material witness who can help find a cop killer. He’s unarmed and scared. I don’t want him shot.”

  “Got it,” Dan said. “Now here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to the hospital tonight for your gunshot wound. You’ll be under armed guard because you are under arrest for breaking into Bob Blaney’s office, and you are also a suspect in a possible murder.”

  “Murder? But I told Schmautz what happened.”

  “He’s just doing his job. He won’t be able to verify your story until after ballistics can match the bullet in you to her gun.”

  “Which is somewhere at the bottom of the river,” I said.

  “Maybe. Maybe they’ll find it tomorrow morning. If you’re lucky, they’ll keep you in the hospital overnight. If you can talk the doctor into hospitalizing you for a day or two it might keep you out of jail long enough that maybe we could make some sense of all of this.”

  “I don’t want to stay in the hospital. I’ve got to find Darrin’s killer.”

  Dan raised his hand for me to stop. “Bob Blaney was notified about his wife’s death about an hour ago. He’s up at the bar being interviewed by two detectives, and I heard he’s trying very hard to implicate you in every crime that’s happened in Portland during the last ten years. The Mayor is being updated every thirty minutes and he’s reportedly agitated as hell.”

  “I’ll bet he can see his governorship floating down the river with Gloria’s body.” It hurt to smile but thinking about the Mayor’s predicament made me feel much better.

  It was about three a.m. in the morning when I finally fell asleep in my hospital bed after convincing the ER doctor I would recover faster in the hospital than I would in a jail cell. Angel, Earl, Eileen, Dan, Jason and Dag waited patiently while I was diagnosed and delivered to my room.

  I thanked them for coming and Angel left me a new cell phone programmed with my database of phone numbers of clients, contacts and even a few suspects.

  They left about two a.m. and still restless, I went over the facts of the case in my mind. There was only one way things made sense, I thought. I decided I shouldn’t be the only one still awake so I called Mayor Clemons at his home. It rang for a long time and went to message phone. I waited for a few moments and tried again a second and a third time. I was about to try his cell phone when the line clicked.

  “Hullo? What is it?”

  “Marshall?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s Billie. Were you asleep?”

  “I still am. What do you want? What time is it?”

  “It’s time for you to face the music.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about murder, Mayor. Do you know what you’ve gotten yourself into?”

  “Me? Yeah. I’m going to make sure you’re locked up so long you’ll be drawing social security in jail.”

  “And I’m going to call my reporter friend tomorrow and tell her all about the affair you’ve been having with Gloria the past couple of years.”

  “Oh shit, don’t do that!”

  “Also, I’m going to tell about how she led you around by the nose, implicating you as an accessory in four murders and a slew of attempted murders.”

  “Oh my God. I swear I didn’t have any idea what she was involved in. All we had was a little innocent hanky-panky. You can’t make these accusations. It’s slander.”

  “It would be liable if it’s printed in the paper, but you should know the truth is the best defense against slander or liable. And I can prove it.”

  “Oh shit!” He was quiet for a minute and then he said: “What do you want?”

  I told him what I wanted and hung up. Only one of us was going to get some sleep tonight, I thought, and rolled onto my good side.

  Chapter 30

  I had given Mayor Clemons a list of the people I wanted brought to the hospital to visit me the following morning. He reluctantly agreed and promised to have them rounded up by ten a.m. I called the hospital’s administration office and they agreed to let us use a conference room on the floor below my room.

  Angel, Earl and Jason arrived at nine and helped me get dressed and locate a wheelchair. Dan told me the state police intercepted Chris on I-5, 150 miles south of Portland, and he was already in the conference room under police guard. He was cited for driving ninety-five miles-per-hour.

  I was pushed by Jason into the conference room in a wheelchair only to face cold stares from a group of people who wanted to be anywhere but with me. Jason parked me in the middle of an oversized elongated table finished in rich cherry wood. Chris sat sulking at the far end. Mayor Clemons positioned himself at the head of the table nearest the door. Bob Blaney, sporting a black armband, sat next to him. Commissioner Tuttle was seated across from me. Earl and Angel filled in chairs to my left and Dan stood as a uniformed police guard near the door. Detective Schmautz, in plain clothes, sat next to Tuttle, and McGraw, also in uniform, stood behind them.

  “I understand you’re the one in charge of this get together,” said an impatient man wearing a black Armani suit with a faded pink dress shirt and silk tie, sitting next to Mayor Clemons.

  “Are you from the D.A.’s office?” I asked.

  “I am Rex Stone, the Assistant District Attorney, and I don’t appreciate being dragged over here on the whim of a civilian. My time is too important for such chicanery.”

  “Would you call finding the man who murdered my brother a waste of time?”

  “Well no, but—this is highly irregular. We have trained investigators working on this and a suspect. How do you think you can find the truth when we’ve had hundreds of officers combing the streets for your brother’s murderer?”

  “If you will sit down and shut up for a few minutes, I’ll tell you.”

  Mayor Clemens put his hand Stone’s shoulder to stop him from standing up. “Go ahead, Billie. We’re all ears.”

  I think we have two more guests,” I said, motioning to the door. In walked Steve in his rumpled brown sport coat with a uniformed Dag bringing up the rear. Steve looked around the room at the cast of suspects.

  “That man is wanted by the police,” Detective Schmautz said.

  “He’s been in custody since yesterday afternoon, under the care and guard of my brother, Dag Bly,” I said.

  Schmautz started to say something, but stopped himself, rapping his knuckles nervously against the table top. “Go on,” he said, as Steve and Dag sat next to Earl and Angel.

  “We’ll have to start with some history,” I began. “A few months ago I got a visit from Stella Fleming from Pocatello, Idaho. Her husband had attended a convention here a few weeks prior and never came home. He never called his wife. He never checked out of his hotel room. He seemed to disappear from the face of the earth. The police couldn’t find him and one of them referred Mrs. Fleming to me.

  “I didn’t have any better luck as hard as I tried. I visited the coroner, and I checked death records, missing persons, hospitals, followed his itinerary when he was at the convention, talked to his colleagues, checked for credit card usage—nothing.

  “Until a friend of mine made an innocent remark to me the other day about it was too bad people couldn’t be given new life like cars. And I began to think maybe they could. Maybe that’s what Art Fleming stumbled upon. An old friend with a new identity. A new life.

  “Fleming had been unlucky in the last years of his life. He was framed for embezzlement of city funds and sentenced to five years in the Idaho State Penitentiary. Then one day a few years a
fter he was released, he spotted two old friends, Robert Paul and the former Gloria Miller, in a newspaper photo and realized both were living in Portland and had changed their names to Blaney. Fleming had ended his friendship with Paul because of Paul’s affair with Gloria, who at the time was married to Ben Miller, Art’s supervisor. Paul repaid him by setting him up as the patsy in his little embezzlement scam against the city of Pocatello.

  “Fleming became suspicious Paul might be responsible for the city’s missing $500,000 for which he was convicted. He came to Portland on the pretense of attending an insurance convention and called Gloria at home. She agreed to meet with him at the same place she met with me last night.”

  Blaney jumped from his chair and slammed his fist on the table. “You better be careful what you say.” Officer McGraw grabbed Blaney by the shoulders and pushed him back into his chair. “She’d better not defame my wife. I’ll sue her.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Blaney, but your wife told me she killed Art Fleming, and she killed Mrs. Fleming too. Both of them made the mistake of trying to contact you through her. I think Stella Fleming found the clipping of Gloria, you and Mayor Clemons and meant to blackmail you. Gloria killed Stella in her hotel room and took the news clipping with the incriminating picture of you from the room. I found it in Gloria’s purse along with a picture of Art Fleming Stella had shown me earlier.”

  “I don’t get it,” Jason said. “How did Mrs. Fleming get the news clipping, and if she had it why didn’t she tell you?”

  “Maybe Art’s mother found it and gave it to her or maybe she had it all along and didn’t know what to make of it,” I said. “After Art’s death, she put two and two together, and I guess she decided to handle the Blaneys herself.”

  “It does sound like she was going to follow her husband’s path and try blackmail,” Dan said.

  “I felt she was holding something back from me when we talked last,” I said. “She and her husband made the fatal mistake of thinking Gloria harmless when, in fact, she would have done anything to protect herself and Bob.”