Never Look Down

by Warren C Easley

  It was late when I got back to Caffeine Central, but I wasn’t sleepy. I leashed up Arch and started off toward the river. We hadn’t gone more than a block when a light rain began to fall. As I pulled my hood up, Arch turned his head and gave me a look. “You’ve got a thick coat, big boy,” I told him. “You can do this.” He turned and plodded on ahead of me. At the river, a thin mist had formed, and the city lights were a smear on the water like an abstract painting.

  I stopped at the Morrison Bridge and tried to clear my head. I should have felt some closure, too, but I didn’t. The case against Cardenas wasn’t that impressive. He had a motive and threatened the victim, had lied about his whereabouts, and at least a part of the weapon used to kill his ex-wife was found in his possession. As a prosecutor I would have preferred the gun, of course. But from what Nando told me, the silencer was strong physical evidence—enough for an indictment, for sure—but no slam dunk for a conviction because nothing put him at the scene. No surprise that Scott was still interested in the only apparent witness to the shooting—the tagger, K209.

  But the tagger was nowhere to be found. Let it go, I told myself. If it’s good enough for Nando and for the Portland Police it should be good enough for you.

  But there were enough loose ends in this case to weave a rug. And I hated loose ends.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Kelly

  Kelly found out about the arrest of Anthony Cardenas as she rode the bus on the way to Granite Works. Someone had left a newspaper on the seat, and there it was—a headline—“Suspect Arrested in Old Town Murder.” She was numb for a few moments, then felt an overwhelming sense of relief. She must have made some kind of squealing noise because a man and woman sitting across the aisle both looked at her with concern. Kelly turned away to hide her eyes, which were brimming with tears. She soaked up every detail of the article and studied the head shot of Cardenas. His long, angular face was a bit unsettling for reasons she couldn’t quite explain. Don’t be stupid, she told herself, you never saw Macho Dude’s face.

  But her relief was short-lived when she realized there was no mention of Rupert’s murder or of a second suspect. Macho Dude acted alone in Claudia Borrego’s murder, but Kelly knew that a second person—the one she’d dubbed The Voice—was involved in Rupert’s death. Give it some time, she told herself. Maybe this guy, Cardenas, will finger The Voice. If that didn’t happen, she knew she’d have to find a way to come forward, some way that wouldn’t screw everything up. She owed that to Rupert.

  Despite the uncertainty Kelly whizzed through her work at the gym that morning and walked into school feeling better than she had in a long time. Class hadn’t started yet, and Kelly spotted Kiyana in a corner of the room talking to the pretty Roma girl named Jaelle, who was clutching her violin case and crying. “Look, Jaelle,” Kiyana was saying, “they can’t just kick you out. You have rights, girl.”

  Jaelle caught a tear with her index finger. “They said we have to be out in seven days.”

  Kiyana stiffened. “That’s bullshit. You signed a lease, right?”

  The girl, who had an olive complexion and long, flowing hair Kelly could only dream of, nodded.

  “You need to go over to Caffeine Central and get some legal help,” Kiyana continued. “Dude over there named Claxton helps people like us and doesn’t charge much, if anything.” When Jaelle looked hesitant Kiyana said, “Hey, I know about this guy. Trust me.” A look of pride flickered across her face. “He’s helping me divorce my parents, man. Caffeine Central. It’s over on Couch.”

  The sun managed a showing that day just as break time came around. Kelly and Kiyana wandered over to O’Bryant Square for something to do. An old dude with long gray hair stood in the center of the square playing classical music on an acoustic guitar as an admiring crowd began to gather. Kelly said, “So you’re going to do it, the divorce thing?” Kiyana had told her about her plans, but Kelly hadn’t taken it too seriously. I mean, divorce your parents?

  “Yeah. The lawyer says I have a shot. It just means they can’t boss me around anymore or take my money.”

  Kelly knew Caffeine Central had street cred. After all, she’d tagged the building a few weeks earlier, figuring the lawyer there might get the message about the city’s stupid zero-tolerance policy on graffiti. “Uh, this guy Claxton, he’s cool?”

  “Seems like it. We’ll see.”

  As they were heading back Kelly glanced around hoping to see Zook coming to class, late as usual. But he didn’t show. “Know where Zook is?” she finally asked her friend.

  Kiyana shook her head, and her face seemed to cloud over. “I heard he’s been hanging with Sprague and those jerkwads. Thought he was playin’ ball at PSU?”

  “He is,” Kelly shot back as Kiyana’s words gripped her heart like a cold hand. A known black-tar dealer who bragged about rolling spangers and newcomers just for the fun of it, Johnny Sprague was bad news in every possible way. Digger was in and out of that group, too. Kelly pursed her lips and shook her head. “No way he’s hanging out with Sprague and his wannabes. That can’t be!”

  Kiyana gave her a look but didn’t comment. Shortly after that, as if on cue, Digger cruised past on his longboard. He didn’t say anything either, but Kelly found the look he shot her unnerving. It was the kind of look a snake might give a cornered mouse, or so it seemed to Kelly at the time.

  Zook didn’t show at school that day. A driving rain pocked the river as the bus carried Kelly back across the Burnside Bridge that afternoon. Well, at least I don’t have to worry about watching that damn gun shop anymore, she told herself. They’ve got one of the killers now. Surely they’ll get the second one.

  She wanted to believe that about as much as she wanted to believe that Digger’s look didn’t mean anything and that Zook hadn’t fallen in with the wrong people.

  Things had to start looking up, didn’t they?

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Cal

  Anthony Cardenas was immediately arraigned for the murder of Claudia Borrego. He entered a plea of not guilty and was remanded to custody at the Multnomah County Jail. Bail was denied, which was typical for a murder charge, particularly when the defendant was a rich, itinerant gambler. The chess game between the prosecution and the defense would now begin.

  Nando went to the arraignment and called me afterwards with a blow-by-blow description of the brief proceedings. You’d have thought it was the actual trial the way he carried on. It seemed my friend had regained his footing, although I worried that perhaps he was trying too hard. Grief is a tricky emotion. It has to run its course. I wasn’t sure my friend understood that yet. He wanted it done with. Now.

  Tay Jefferson called me shortly after the news broke. “So, that bastard Cardenas did it, huh?”

  “Looks that way, yeah.” I described the case against Claudia’s ex-husband and answered her questions as best I could.

  “What about Manny Bonilla?” she asked when I finished. “Did Cardenas kill him, too?”

  “I don’t really know. I’m sure Scott and Ludlow are trying to link the two deaths. Having Cardenas in custody should help.”

  “What about you? What are you going to do now?”

  The question caught me off-balance. I paused. “Nando’s happy. I guess I need to move on.”

  She didn’t respond, giving me the impression she was somehow expecting more from me, but I left it at that. After the call ended I sat there thinking about what I just said. I wanted to move on, but the fact that I hadn’t found the tagger or understood what really happened to Manny Bonilla still nagged at me. I decided to do what I normally do to clear my head—go fly fishing. Steelhead weren’t running in the coastal rivers, so Archie and I packed up the next day and headed for the McKenzie River, whose upper reaches abounded in wild rainbow trout year-round.

  I knew a stretch of river high in the Cascades between mileposts 1
3 and 16 on the McKenzie River Highway that alternated between roiling whitewater and the pools and eddies preferred by the feisty native rainbows. Framed by steep hillsides of old growth Douglas fir and western hemlock, the McKenzie ran a deep turquoise in the autumn sun that day. The first sight of the river always got to me, and I had to swallow to relieve the catch in my throat. It was the same catch I got from certain riffs by Coltrane or an achingly pure soprano note from Callas or Baez. Closer in there was the sound of the river, too—the happy noise of water striking rock that never failed to relax me.

  Trout or no trout I would’ve fished the McKenzie that day just for the beauty of the river.

  The caddis fly hatch I expected to see that afternoon didn’t materialize, and the fish I hoped to coax up from the bottom of the river stayed put. I switched over to a fly called a Chubby Chernobyl—a big, leggy-looking bug tied by a fly designer with a sense of humor—and immediately hooked into a half dozen nice fish. This turn of events delighted Archie, who was shadowing me along the bank. He barked and spun in circles every time I hooked a fish. And, of course, I had to show him each fish before I released it.

  I was just releasing an eighteen-incher when my cell pinged with an incoming text. Surprised that there was any reception at all, I waded back to the bank and retrieved my phone from the waterproof pouch in my waders. A single signal dot showed on the phone, apparently enough for the text to make it through. It read: “Hello, Mr. Claxton. You’re not picking up, so I decided to try a text. Could you please call me? It’s important. Brent Gunderson.”

  I stood there weighing my options. You came here to fish, I reminded myself. The man said important, not urgent. I tried calling and texting him back, but both attempts failed. I fished until it was nearly dark and tried Gunderson when we got back to our campsite downriver, where the cell signal was much stronger.

  He answered the first ring. “I, uh, found some things today that Manny left behind,” he began after we exchanged greetings.

  “What kind of things?”

  “A gun. And some other stuff.”

  I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. “A gun?”

  “Yeah. It was in a bucket in the window seat along with a brush and some rubber gloves. Those were mine. The gun was wrapped in a tee-shirt. There was a box of bullets and some diagrams of some kind, too.” I thought he chuckled. “I guess Manny figured I’d never look in a bucket filled with cleaning supplies. He knew I hated housework. But my sister’s coming. I had to clean up.”

  “Did you touch the gun or any of the rest of it?

  “God, no. When I saw what it was I just recoiled, you know?”

  “You said diagrams—of what?”

  “Uh, they were of rifles, you know, showing how all the parts go together. They looked like instructions, maybe. Probably something to do with the job he was going to take.”

  “Okay. Look, Brent, leave everything right where you found it and call the police and tell them about this.”

  He paused for several beats. “Yeah, well, last time you told me to call the police, they sent some homophobe named Ludlow to interview me. Turns out he’s Mormon, like me. Let’s just say he made no effort to hide his contempt for my sexual orientation. That’s why I called you. Any way you could help me handle this?”

  That little voice—the one I should listen to but hardly ever do—told me to say no. But it was too late. My curiosity had already trumped my sense of caution. I heaved a long sigh. “Tell you what…I’m up in the Cascades right now. Sit tight. I’ll be there around nine. We’ll get this sorted out.”

  Damn, I thought as I began taking down my tent. Tomorrow morning was going to be primo fishing. But I was as hooked as some of those rainbows I caught earlier.

  I fed Arch before we broke camp but I didn’t bother to eat. Hunger finally got the better of me, and I pulled off the I-5 at the Carmen Drive exit for a black bean burger and sweet potato fries at a Burgerville. I called Gunderson to tell him I was running late. “No problem,” he told me. “I have to go to class tonight. If I’m not back when you get here, just go on in. There’s a pair of keys under a ceramic frog on the left side of the front steps.”

  I found a parking space directly in front of his apartment building at a little after ten. His lights were on, but no one answered the doorbell. I found the hidden set of keys and let myself in. The apartment was done in primary colors with black leather and chrome furniture and plush Oriental rugs. The only problem was it had been thoroughly tossed. A couch in the living room was stripped of its cushions, an end table lay on its side, and I could see a rifled desk in the next room. I stopped dead in the doorframe and called out for Gunderson. Nothing. I listened intently for couple of seconds. Not a sound. “I’ve seen this movie,” I said as I backed out of there.

  Keeping to the shadows, I moved quickly to the back of the building to see if I’d flushed anyone. The back door was ajar and a side window smashed, but no one came out. After calling 911, I returned to the front of the building and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Gunderson walking across the 405 overpass toward me.

  A patrol car arrived next, and it took an hour and a half for them to complete an investigation. You guessed it—the bucket in the window seat was gone, along with the items belonging to Manny Bonilla. Nothing else in the apartment had been taken. I put a call into Harmon Scott’s cell phone and left a message. Gunderson looked pretty shaken, so I offered to put him up at my place.

  Later that night we sat at the kitchen table going over what had happened. Sensing a certain vulnerability in Gunderson, Arch curled up at his feet as a show of support. My dog was like that. Gunderson’s cherub cheeks were darkened by a day’s growth, and he looked tired, so I made him a cup of Darjeeling tea I kept around for guests. I was having a Rémy Martin that I kept around for me. No, he hadn’t noticed anyone watching his apartment, and no, he hadn’t told anyone else about the items he found. There didn’t seem to be any explanation for the timing of the break-in, either. Gunderson discovered the items in the bucket that morning, and the burglary occurred that night. His phone or mine could have been tapped, but that seemed highly improbable. A lucky coincidence for the intruder, and unlucky for me, I decided.

  “I know you didn’t get a good look at the gun or the box of shells, but what about the drawings?” I probed. “What else do you remember about them?”

  He sipped his tea and wrinkled his forehead. “Like I told the police, they looked like some kind of engineering drawings, you know, exploded views, showing how the parts of rifles go together.”

  “Which parts?”

  He paused and stroked his chin. “The triggers and the thingies that hold the bullets.”

  “Ammunition clips.”

  “Yeah, those and the trigger mechanisms mostly.”

  I probed some more, but that’s all he could remember. “That’s it? Nothing else in the bucket, right?”

  Gunderson dropped his eyes and studied the nicked surface of the table for a while, then sighed deeply. “Well, there was something else, something I didn’t mention.”

  I almost spilled my Rémy. “What the hell was it?”

  He brought his eyes back up but evaded my gaze. “There was a notebook, too, but I, um, took it out after I called you.”

  By this time I was standing. “Why?” Archie got up, too.

  Gunderson’s cheeks burned red through his dark beard. “Manny had written some mushy stuff in it about us. I, I didn’t want it to get out, you know, be part of evidence that’s made public or something.” He rolled his eyes. “I could just imagine that cretin Ludlow’s reaction.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “That’s why I called you instead.” He reached down and extracted a small spiral notebook from his backpack and slid it across the table. “Here.”

  Oh, great, I thought. There’s nothing like being given evide
nce that’s been tampered with.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Cal

  I let the notebook lie there on the table between us. “Is there anything else in this besides the mushy stuff?”

  “Yeah, some notes and dates and weird stuff I really didn’t understand.” He smiled and nodded toward the notebook. “Manny’s handwriting’s almost indecipherable. I spent most of the time on the entry to me. It was, um, a draft, I think, of a note he was going to send to me.” Gunderson’s eyes filled but he held back the tears. “He didn’t finish it.”

  “You realize you’re going to have to turn this over to the police.”

  “Do I have to give them everything?”

  “Yes.” I sighed and drained my Rémy. “But let me read it. All of it.”

  He was right about the handwriting—it looked like the scratchings of a drunken chicken. I skipped over the other entries and went straight to the unfinished love letter. With Gunderson’s help I finally got through what turned out to be a sweet, almost poignant declaration of love, which included some details that no one would want made public. I could certainly understand his reluctance to part with it. When I finished, he eyed me expectantly. I exhaled a long breath and ran a hand through my hair. “Tomorrow, you need to call Harmon Scott and tell him you found the notebook when you were straightening up. I advise you to give him everything, but if a couple of pages are torn out, I can’t control that and don’t want to know anything about it.”

  Exhausted but obviously much relieved, Gunderson slept on my threadbare couch that night. After taking Arch for a quick walk, I used my cell phone to photograph everything in the notebook except for the unfinished love letter. But any attempt to decipher what Bonilla had written would have to wait. I was exhausted, too.