Dead in the Rose City: A Dean Drake Mystery

by Flowers, R. Barri

  “This is my husband, Gregory Sinclair.” The photo was a headshot. The man in it was in his early fifties with grayish thinning hair. His dark eyes were smudged underneath. An aquiline nose seemed misplaced on a jowly face.

  “What does Sinclair do for a living?” I asked. “Or is he too rich to have to work?”

  “He owns an investment consulting firm,” she said without apology. “Stocks, bonds, real estate. It seems like he’s into everything to one degree or another. Our home and his office addresses are on the back of the photo.”

  I had the feeling Catherine didn’t really know what the hell her husband was into. It seemed, more often than not, women knew far less about their husband’s financial wheeling and dealing than they should. Especially if the woman hoped to realistically get her fair share of the pie, should it come to that.

  Another thought entered my head. “Catherine, has it occurred to you that your husband might be arming himself with incriminating evidence against you?” The mere suggestion prompted me to go to the window and peek out. All I could see was the darkness of the night. That didn’t mean someone wasn’t out there with a high-powered zoom lens, waiting and watching.

  “I’ve given him no reason to suspect me of being unfaithful,” she suggested with an exaggerated sense of confidence.

  I turned my eyes on her, half amused. “Where the hell does he think you are right now, midnight Mass?”

  Her mouth tightened. “He’s out of town and won’t be back till Friday.”

  “There is such a thing as a phone.”

  “I never answer the phone,” she said with a flip of the hand. “He just leaves messages on the machine and I call him back whenever—”

  “I should have guessed that,” I intoned foolishly.

  She counted out thirty one hundred dollar bills and placed them in my hand. “Here’s an advance. I hope it’s enough for now—”

  “I think it will suffice.” I put the bills and photo on the table. “How do I get in touch with you?” I always made it the client’s prerogative. After all, it was usually their neck on the line when all was said and done. Discretion was a private eye’s constant companion, if not friend.

  “It’s better if I get in touch with you,” replied Catherine with a nervous catch to her voice. “Either here or at your office.”

  “My office,” I said tersely. Something told me that it was best all the way around if this was our last meeting at the place I called home.

  She regarded me with what looked to be a displeased frown, and said: “I think I should go now—”

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” I offered. It seemed the least I could do to end the night on a proper note.

  “Don’t!” She said sharply as if she had just been pinched on the ass. “I think it’s better if I go alone.”

  Who was I to argue? “Anything you say, Mrs. Sinclair.”

  I watched her advance to the door with a walk that seemed like it had plenty of practice. She stopped on a dime, turned to look at me, and said, sounding sincere: “I don’t regret what happened here tonight.” Then she left.

  I stood there for a moment longer, recalling our time in bed, and had to admit to myself: Neither do I. But I had a feeling I would.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  By the following morning, I had managed to chalk up the one-night stand as something to remember and forget. It was business as usual otherwise. I had cereal, toast, and coffee to start my day. Then came the stretching exercises and warm up.

  Wearing a dark gray jogging suit, I left the apartment at 9:45 a.m., sprinted down three flights of steps, and was on my way. As I passed the mailboxes, I couldn’t help but wonder what Vanessa King was doing at this very moment.

  Why couldn’t I have spent the night with her? I wondered wistfully, a touch of guilt lighting my soul like a torch. The very notion of being with one woman, but longing for another, seemed to increase my adrenaline tenfold.

  After getting off to a slow start, I found a nice groove and jogged spiritedly to the building that housed my office. No sooner had I reached the door that read: Dean J. Drake, Private Investigations, when two beefy men seemed to come from nowhere. They surrounded me like polar bears looking for food. One had a brown flattop, the other shaggy red hair. Neither seemed as if they were in the mood for friendly chitchat.

  I pursed my lips and said. “If you boys are looking for the weight loss clinic, it’s two floors down.” My humor went unappreciated. They remained stone-faced.

  “We came to pay you a visit, wise ass,” said the red-haired brute.

  “Is that right?” I looked from one to the other and decided they weren’t there to hire me. Nevertheless, I said in my best professional voice: “Why don’t we step into my office?”

  “Forget the office,” said the flattop. “You comin’ with us.”

  That was news to me. “Just where are we supposed to be going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Those sound like lousy odds,” I said. “I think I’ll pass.” I didn’t really expect it to end there. And it didn’t.

  “Maybe we can convince you to change your mind, dickhead,” said the gorilla with the red shag. He opened his jacket and removed a piece that would have made Dirty Harry proud.

  My first instinct was to go for my Glock, which I carried even when jogging just in case I needed it if accosted by overgrown assholes. Then I decided if these goons had wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead and on my way to the morgue.

  I might as well see what this was all about. “Lead the way boys.”

  I was driven to an Italian restaurant called Alfonzo’s on the south side of town. My escorts walked me inside and led me to a table. A slender, well-dressed white man of about thirty was sitting there, stuffing lasagna in his mouth like it was an aphrodisiac.

  He stopped long enough to look up at me with bulging black eyes underneath thick brows. “You’re Drake, the P.I., right?”

  “So you know who I am,” I said, unimpressed. “What the hell is this about?”

  The two goons had remained mute to the question throughout the drive, as if sworn to silence. A reasonable guess or two as to the answer had crossed my mind.

  “How about joining me, Drake?” the man at the table asked. His hair was light brown, thinning, and combed forward as if to cover up his receding hairline. A gold earring dangled from his left earlobe. He stuffed more pasta in his mouth.

  “No thanks. I already had breakfast.”

  He frowned. “Too bad.” A coarse chuckle erupted from his mouth. “This isn’t breakfast, my friend. You see, in my business I work mostly at night. So I have my dinner in the morning. Better, I think, on the digestive system.”

  “Look, man,” I said impatiently, “I have more important things to do with my time than watch you eat your dinner. So, if you don’t mind—” I started to walk away, but found my path blocked by the behemoth with the dirty, shaggy hair.

  “Actually, I do mind,” said the man at the table, his voice elevated to accentuate his point. As if his two Sumos hadn’t already conveyed the message. “Why don’t you have a seat, Drake? I’ll try not to keep you too long.”

  Under the circumstances, it seemed best to oblige. I sank into the chair nearest me.

  “That’s better.” The man used a cloth napkin to wipe his mouth. “My name’s Ben Vincente. You can call me Vinny.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or what. “So what’s this all about, Vinny?”

  Ignoring the question, he glanced at his blubbery enforcers. “You’ve already met Dirk and Clarence.”

  More or less. I looked at the flattop behemoth. For some reason, I assumed he was Clarence. He snarled at me.

  Vincente continued: “I understand you’ve been looking for my cousin.”

  “You’ve obviously got me mixed up with another private investigator,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” he said coolly. “You’ve been asking around about The Worm, am I right
?”

  I raised a brow. “I doubt The Worm I’m looking for is the same Worm that’s your cousin.”

  Vincente chuckled humorlessly. “Cousins come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. You should know that as well as anyone. The Worm and I may look very different, but he’s still my cousin.”

  “If you say so,” I muttered, conceding that appearances could be very deceiving or, at the very least, insufficient to tell the whole story.

  Vincente’s face became rigid. “When someone tries to hurt my cuz, they try to hurt me. You follow what I’m sayin’, Drake?”

  I got his meaning loud and clear. “I don’t want to hurt anybody, Vinny,” I tried to say in the nicest manner. “Not you or your cousin. But Jessie Wylson does happen to be a fugitive from justice. I’ve been hired to find him. That’s all.” I flashed a hard, frank look at the man. “And if I don’t bring him in, someone else will—”

  “There is no justice in the world today,” Vincente grumbled, filling his mouth with more lasagna. “Least of all, not from the district attorney’s office. That Deputy D.A. is the son of a bitch who hired you, is he not?”

  How did he know Frank Sherman had hired me? I wondered. Probably the same way he knew where to send his thugs to find me. Evading the question, I said: “If Jessie Wylson is your cousin, then you probably know he’s far from being a choir boy who’s been unjustly accused.”

  Vincente glared at me, setting his fork down with a thud. “Let’s not waste my time or yours quibbling over whether The Worm’s been a good or bad boy. I’d rather talk about you.”

  “There isn’t much to talk about,” I insisted, shifting uneasily in the chair.

  “You’re an ex-cop, Drake,” Vincente said, as if it were common knowledge. “I’ve always had respect for the men on the force who do an honest job for an honest day’s pay. It’s for that reason that I invited you here to give you a friendly warning: erase The Worm from your memory! Tell your client—Frank Sherman—he’s nowhere to be found. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “What if my client doesn’t believe me?” I was still neither confirming nor denying that Sherman was my client, though it was obvious that Vincente’s source was someone inside the D.A.’s office. Perhaps even Sherman himself.

  “Convince him!”

  “I’ve never been very good at lying,” I said truthfully.

  “Maybe you’re better at dying.” Vincente met my eyes forcefully. “I suggest you think about it, Drake!”

  “I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” I glanced at his cronies, who had taken a seat at another table. They seemed more than ready and willing to take me out if he gave the word.

  “Oh, but you do have a choice,” Vincente said. “For your sake, I hope you make the right one.”

  I stood. “If that’s it then, I’ll be on my way.”

  Vincente eyed his henchmen. “Dirk and Clarence will drive you back to your office.”

  “Don’t do me any favors.” I sneered at the two male mountains who stood when I did, like they had springs on their asses. “I think I’ll catch a cab.”

  Once again, Dirk formed a wall between my freedom and me. Fortunately for him, Vincente said: “Let him go.”

  Outside, I calmed my nerves and wondered what other barriers I would face in tracking down The Worm. It seemed as if Jessie Wylson either had powerful friends and relatives or enemies. I wondered exactly where Frank Sherman stood.

  * * *

  That afternoon I took a break from my search for The Worm to spy on Gregory Sinclair. If he was cheating on Catherine, it shouldn’t take long to find out.

  They lived in the Forest Park area of the city, where money seemed to almost grow from trees. Through an electronic gate, I spotted Catherine’s red Porsche in the driveway of a house that I couldn’t even dream of owning. It was two large stories of red brick and seemed to have more windows than St. Vincent Hospital. I could see why Catherine Ashley Sinclair wasn’t in any hurry to give it up, if she could help it.

  Next to her car was a silver Mercedes. The driver’s door was partially ajar as if someone had left it that way for a moment to return to the house.

  Gregory Sinclair exited the house just after 2:00 p.m. He was wearing a crisp navy suit and carrying a briefcase. The man was taller and thinner than I had guessed him to be based on the photo, but definitely the same person. He got into the Mercedes.

  I made myself inconspicuous as the gate opened and he drove out past my modest transportation—a brown Ford Bronco that had seen its better days.

  I followed Sinclair seemingly through the entire city of Portland, giving me a chance to check my messages and leave one before refocusing on the matter at hand. At first I figured he was on to me, since he seemed in no hurry to get anywhere fast. About ten minutes after leaving downtown, we went across the Interstate Bridge to Vancouver, Washington—just on the other side of the Columbia River that separated Oregon from Washington.

  Sinclair drove into a motel lot and I suddenly felt that something was about to go down. I parked on the opposite side of the lot between two other cars and waited while Gregory Sinclair went inside the motel lobby. This gave me time to get out my camera. It had cost me more than a grand, along with the lenses. The money had been well spent. I put on a zoom lens and practiced my technique with the surrounding landscape.

  Sinclair emerged from the lobby and went back to his car, evidently waiting for someone. Ten minutes passed before a dark blue Ford Taurus drove into the lot and parked next to Sinclair’s Mercedes.

  A white woman, wearing shades on this cloudy day, got out. Looking through the zoom lens from the rear window, I focused on her. Sunglasses came off once she met Sinclair halfway. She was casually dressed and not as good looking as his wife, but nice nevertheless. The woman in question was short, blonde, tanned, and slender. She looked to be in her late thirties.

  I watched as the two wasted no time displaying their affection for one another. This was almost too simple, I considered, while snapping some wonderfully incriminating shots of a married man doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a woman other than his wife. But the proof was in the pudding.

  Sinclair and the mystery woman stopped kissing long enough to walk towards a first floor room, all the while arm in arm like two teenage lovebirds. I found it odd that Sinclair—a man who admitted almost flauntingly to his wife that he cheated on her—should have to go well out of his way to have an affair. Was the mistress also married?

  I followed them partly on foot and mostly through the camera as they entered the room, shutting the door behind them.

  Given that they were going to be occupied for a while, I took the liberty of taking a closer look at the blonde’s car. It was a rental. Figured. Always a convenient way to avoid being identified through your license plate number. I looked through the window for anything that might give me more to report to Catherine. Seeing nothing unusual, I used a dirty trick I learned as a cop to engage the door lock with the help of a little metal pick I kept especially for such occasions.

  Upon opening the door, I could smell perfume saturating the car as if air freshener. The scent was familiar to me. It was the same perfume Catherine had worn when we were together. Coincidence? Or was this Sinclair’s personal favorite for all his women?

  I looked in the glove compartment. The car was rented to Gregory Sinclair. This seemed to rule out that his mistress was married. A kept woman sounded more like it. If she drove his rented car, he probably provided for her living expenses as well. But why not meet at her place for their rendezvous? And why not rent a more upscale car for her?

  The questions were always easier to conjure up than the answers. I had answered the one big question. Sinclair was definitely involved with at least one other woman. I decided that was enough for now. Sinclair obviously had underestimated his wife—in more ways than one.

  If she played her cards right, Catherine Ashley Sinclair could well turn this into a small fortune. And I would ha
ve to settle for pleasant memories and a private investigator’s fees.

  CHAPTER SIX

  If dog was man’s best friend, then the personal computer must be his electronic wife. Ever since I’d gone to computerized record keeping three years ago, it had probably extended my career as a private eye by ten years. Keeping track of my clients and cases had suddenly become much more efficient and less time consuming and frustrating.

  I typed in all the data I had on Gregory Sinclair and labeled the file C&G Sinclair. For a moment, I was lost in reverie thinking about my one-nighter with Catherine.

  Lunch was two McDonald’s cheeseburgers, large fries, and a Coke. I was eating while going over my bills for the month, when the phone rang.

  “Dean Drake, Private Investigations.”

  “It’s me, D.J.” A ragged breath. “Nate.”

  “What’s up, Nate?” I took another bite from the burger.

  “I’ve got something I think you might wanna hear.”

  “I’m listening—”

  “Word is The Worm is hiding out at a dive on Brook Street called Rest Rooms.”

  I put the burger down and asked bluntly: “Who did you get the word from?”

  “Don’t ask me that,” moaned Nate. “You know I can’t say. I got to live in this town just like you, man.”

  “Okay, okay,” I conceded. It was worth a try. “You have a room number?”

  “202.”

  “Thanks, Nate. I owe you—”

  I hung up. By nature, I was a suspicious fellow. The bells always rang a little louder when I feared I could be walking into some type of trap. I trusted Nate, up to a point, but it was his shadier acquaintances that I had to worry about.

  I finished off lunch.

  After checking to see that my Glock was fully loaded, I vacated the office for Rest Rooms.

  * * *

  The motel I arrived at seemed worse than sleazy and hardly the place to look forward to a good night’s rest. If The Worm wasn’t worming away here, I could well imagine some other lowlife’s taking up sanctuary amongst the hookers, gang bangers, and drug pushers who ruled the area.