Dead in the Rose City: A Dean Drake Mystery

by Flowers, R. Barri

  In any event, as I began picking up items strewn about the floor like a cyclone had hit, I now knew what I had to look forward to for the rest of the afternoon.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ned Manchester was one of the few friends I still had on the force. He was also probably the best fingerprint technician they had. That combination meant I had to call in a marker for past favors.

  We met at a secluded spot in the Columbia River Gorge, away from inquiring eyes and ears.

  Ned was one of those people who looked as intelligent as he was. Horn-rimmed glasses. Mousy brown hair. Tall, thin, pale, and extremely conservative in his attire. At thirty-six, he was already at the head of his class as far as techs go and class individuals.

  “Thanks for coming, man,” I told him.

  “My off day,” he said, downplaying his presence. “I don’t get out as much as I should to see the river we’ve polluted more than I care to think about.” He stared at it disgustedly, then looked at me. “Looks like you’ve outdone yourself this time, D.J. Murder. Strangulation. Kinky sex. Lies.” He flashed his eyes at me whimsically. “Please don’t tell me there are videotapes out there, too?”

  I smiled without laughter. “Not that I know of,” I muttered. “But nothing would surprise me at this point.”

  “So how can I help?”

  I removed a plastic bag from my jacket containing a glass. “I don’t wash my dishes as often as I should,” I told him shamelessly. “If I’m not mistaken, my blonde lady friend had her hands all over this, even though she left most of the wine behind. I’d be real curious to know if her prints are on file. Not to mention her name and address...interesting stuff like that—”

  Ned took the glass, frowning. “I could be putting my ass on the line for you,” he said as if I wasn’t aware of this.

  “And you could also be saving my ass,” I told him soberly.

  He sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. Whatever I find out, even if it’s nothing, this makes us even. Okay?”

  “Absolutely.” I squeezed out a smile.

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Make it soon, Ned,” I prodded with a sense of urgency. “Whoever she really is, she owes me something. My good name for starters.”

  He nodded. “Like I said, I’ll be in touch—”

  * * *

  “You ought to be more careful who you take your pants off for, D.J.,” Gus was saying over the rim of a mug of beer. He had read about my arrest before I could give my account, which I did anyway. “That white bitch had you pegged all the way and you went for the bait between her legs.”

  “Guilty as charged,” I admitted regretfully, and took a large gulp of beer. “Unfortunately, that admission won’t change the fact that one woman is dead and another is out there somewhere licking her chops for a sucker job well done.”

  “And you think she’s in cahoots with the husband?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” I said. “Sinclair stands to gain the most from his wife’s death. It only figures that they’re in this together.”

  Gus leaned his huge frame forward. “I’ll ask around. Maybe someone knows something about your blonde Jezebel that can help you track her down.”

  “Thanks, Gus.” I finished the beer. “I can use all the help I can get.”

  “Coming from you,” he said, “that’s a major concession.”

  “Hey, when we’re talking about my life, it’s easy to be humble.”

  Gus scooped up some peanuts. “Are your old cronies on the force backing you on this one?” He stuffed the nuts in his mouth.

  I shook my head. “Nope. It’s cop politics. The family that stays together plays together. Once you decide to do your own thing, it’s open season on your ass. I think most of the Portland P.D. has already dedicated itself to seeing my hide go down one way or another,” I said glumly.

  Gus looked over my head, back to me, and said indignantly: “No one who knows you believes for one minute that you wasted that lady. You ain’t that crazy. No woman, no matter what she’s putting out, is worth going to prison for.”

  If I didn’t appreciate his friendship before, I did now.

  Then I heard a voice from the past, and occasionally the present, say: “Mind if I sit down?”

  I looked up at Lew O’Malley. Once upon a time we used to come to Jasmine’s together. That was before I moved from professional to private detective. Since then, I could probably count on one finger the number of times I’d seen O’Malley there. I often wondered if it had something to do with the company.

  “I don’t own the table,” I muttered, and glanced at Gus. “This man does.”

  “Sit down,” Gus said in a gruff voice as he stood. “Don’t let me come between friends. What’s your pleasure, O’Malley?”

  “Beer,” he responded tersely, easing onto a chair.

  Gus eyed me whimsically. “Coming right up—” he swallowed, and walked toward the bar.

  “Thought I’d find you here,” said O’Malley, dreariness in his tone.

  “So you found me,” I said frostily. “Are you here to arrest me?” I couldn’t rule it out.

  O’Malley looked uncomfortable as he lit a cigarette. “It’s never been anything personal, D.J.”

  “Of course not,” I said wanly. “Just the way it is. Right, man?”

  I didn’t expect an answer.

  He gave one. “I haven’t changed, Drake. You have.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I granted. Being independently employed had given me new insight into things. “I see people for what they are now, not what I want them to be.”

  He frowned. “And what do you want them to be, clones of yourself? That’s not the way it works.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of asking you to be like me, O’Malley,” I snorted, “heaven forbid. But it wouldn’t be bad if you lightened up a little...gave a bit more credit where credit’s due.”

  He chewed on that one while sucking in nicotine.

  Gus brought a pitcher and filled two mugs before disappearing. In a way it almost seemed like old times for O’Malley and me. But in my heart I knew those good old days were gone forever.

  When O’Malley seemed reticent in being forthright, I asked bluntly: “Did you come here for old times’ sake or to read me my rights?”

  He put foam between his lips before getting to the root of his visit to Jasmine’s on this warm night. “You can’t go around harassing Gregory Sinclair,” he said laboriously. “Not when you’re the chief suspect in his wife’s death.”

  So Sinclair had gone crying to the cops. There weren’t enough police in the city to protect his ass if he was guilty of his wife’s murder and trying to pin it on me. My voice rose an octave as I said to O’Malley: “The man knows more than he’s letting on. Like who the mystery blonde is and probably where she is. If I don’t harass him, who the hell will?”

  O’Malley frowned. “Believe it or not, Drake, I still know how to do my job.”

  “You have a strange way of showing it.” I started for my drink, but changed my mind. “Maybe you ought to be trying to find Catherine Sinclair’s killer instead of telling me to lay off her guilty husband.” I knew I was pushing it, but decided to go as far as I could. “If nothing else, the bastard is definitely guilty of lying his ass off, O’Malley—”

  “Aren’t we all?” O’Malley turned his blue eyes on me accusingly. “That doesn’t make Sinclair a murderer, especially when he has a solid alibi. Two people at his office claim he was there around the time his wife was killed.”

  “And what time was that?”

  “Between three and four a.m., according to the M.E.,” said O’Malley.

  “Doesn’t it seem strange to you that Sinclair would be working at that hour?”

  O’Malley shrugged, sucking on the cigarette. “Some people work odd hours,” he suggested weakly. “You should be able to relate to that, Drake.”

  I could, but not legitimate business at a consulting firm
. Of course, illegitimate business was another matter.

  I still wasn’t buying Sinclair’s solid alibi. I’d learned long ago that alibis were a dime a dozen. Any halfway clever killer would make sure he/she was seen elsewhere, if only for a cursory appearance. In my book, that wasn’t sufficient enough to let Sinclair off the hook in his wife’s untimely demise.

  My stubbornness and instincts for self-survival continued to force my tongue. I told O’Malley passionately: “Don’t ask me to turn my back on an investigation in which you yourself say I’m the chief suspect. You see, there’s only one small problem with that—I’m innocent!”

  O’Malley seemed to reserve comment on that last sentence. Smoke streamed from his nostrils. “Sinclair has connections all the way to the mayor’s office. If you press him, he can make things difficult for you.”

  I laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, right. I don’t think it can get much more difficult for me.” I suddenly felt the need for a drink, lifted the mug and took a big swallow. “Let Sinclair try,” I slurred with rancor. “I sure as hell intend to make it difficult for him!” Not to mention the woman who led me to believe she was his wife.

  “By the way,” O’Malley broke into my thoughts, “the autopsy on Catherine Sinclair came in today.” His face darkened as if there was more bad news on the horizon. “According to the M.E., she was raped. There was semen in her vagina and a preliminary DNA test shows it matches your blood type—”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Catherine Ashley Sinclair was a woman who had the better part of her life snuffed out violently for a reason we may never know...” said the minister contritely at the gravesite.

  Not if I could help it. Wearing my brown business suit, I stood out like a tall, half-Jamaican man at a white midget convention. Amidst a sea of white faces, I counted only two of minority descent. And I was one of them.

  The funeral was held at the Evergreen Cemetery on a gloomy day. The dirty looks I received from some mourners made it clear that they considered my presence inappropriate. I considered it very appropriate. Whether I liked it or not, I had become forever linked to Catherine Ashley Sinclair.

  I had been made a pawn in her death. She’d been beaten, raped, and strangled, and I’d remained the number one suspect, for lack of evidence to point toward others. Though no charges had been filed yet, I had a bad feeling that when the complete DNA tests came in they would point towards me conclusively as Catherine Ashley Sinclair’s rapist and, by implication, murderer.

  If someone truly wanted me to take the rap for Catherine’s death, it wasn’t too far-fetched to think that my sperm could have been extracted and injected in her while I was unconscious. The real rapist and murderer probably used a condom.

  It left me in a very precarious and uncomfortable position. Even from the grave, I could almost hear Catherine Ashley Sinclair telling me to fight like hell for justice for both of us.

  Gregory Sinclair looked for all the world like a grieving widower. There was no sign of the woman I believed he was having an affair with and who had manipulated me into spending time in my bed. I was somehow hoping that if she was clever enough to masquerade as Catherine Sinclair, she just might be bold and calculating enough to attend her funeral. Apparently she wasn’t foolish enough to risk running into me again.

  I noted a red-haired woman who seemed overwrought with emotion. A man not far from where Sinclair stood comforted her. Was she a relative of the deceased?

  “. . . Catherine Ashley will now know peace in a place where no more harm can come to her,” the minister crooned dramatically.

  I seriously doubted that Catherine Sinclair could ever be at peace so long as her killer or killers remained at large.

  Following the service, I waited along a stretch of moss-green grass for Gregory Sinclair to go to his limousine. He seemed in no hurry to do so, almost basking in the spotlight.

  Then our eyes met. He excused himself long enough from a woman young enough to be his daughter—but old enough to be more than merely a friend to him—to approach me.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he barked in a low voice.

  “I came to pay my respects,” I said, which was partially true.

  Sinclair twisted his mouth into a sneer. “Have you no sense of decency after what you did to her?”

  “I tried to save her life,” I told him acridly, “or at least the life I thought was hers—”

  He shook his head dismissively. “How long is this going to go on?”

  “As long as it takes to find out who killed your wife,” I said, “and whoever set me up!” Standing a good three inches above Sinclair, I angled my eyes forcefully at his. “If it wasn’t you, then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”

  He fixed me with silent edginess. If Sinclair thought I was simply going to step into the background and watch myself be charged with a rape and murder I didn’t commit, he was greatly mistaken.

  With a smirk, I said: “See you around, man.”

  It was only a matter of time before he slipped up. And I intended to be there when he did. I hoped his lady friend would make it a threesome.

  * * *

  When all else failed, and lately it seemed to, the one thing I could count on was the contentment of running. I made it five miles along the river, admiring boats making gentle waves, before going to the office.

  I washed up, changed clothes, and was in the process of playing with possible leads in the hunt for the phony Catherine Sinclair when the phone rang.

  “Dean Drake, Private Investigations—”

  The voice sounded like sandpaper might if it could talk. “If you wanna find Jessie Wylson, go to a trailer on Willouby Street.”

  “Who is this?” I asked, straining to recognize the voice that seemed equally determined to remain anonymous.

  “Never mind,” the caller said. “You want him or not?”

  More than he knew. That didn’t stop warning sirens from sounding in my head, as was often the case when someone I didn’t know volunteered “useful” information. I asked warily: “How do I know this isn’t a set up?”

  “I’m risking my life calling you,” the sandpaper voice said with trepidation. “What you do with the information is up to you.”

  The chance to nab The Worm was almost too good to pass up. I took the location from the caller. Since my Glock had been confiscated by the police, I had replaced it in my waistband with a backup Glock 9 millimeter. I made sure it was loaded before leaving the office.

  In the Bronco, I phoned Frank Sherman’s office. I recalled him saying he wanted to be there to personally slap the cuffs on The Worm. If he really wanted Jessie Wylson, he could have him.

  Sherman’s secretary must have put me on hold for five minutes before he came to the phone. “Sherman,” he said lazily.

  “Thought you should know that your boy is hiding out in a trailer on Willouby Street,” I informed him. “I’m on my way over there right now.”

  “Where did you get your information?” Sherman asked skeptically.

  “Does it matter?” I responded for lack of a more credible answer. “I’m just telling you what I heard. If you want the man, I suggest you be there—and bring anyone else you want to ride on your coattails. I have a feeling Wylson may not give up quietly.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” he said tersely. Then added, almost as a prophetic afterthought: “And be careful, Drake—”

  * * *

  Finding the trailer had proven to be more difficult than I thought. It was isolated and surrounded by overgrown grass and weeds. It was the perfect place for a Worm to hide or an unsuspecting private investigator to fall right into a deadly trap.

  Rather than go it alone, I waited in my car for Sherman and the calvary. When they failed to show up after nearly an hour, I wondered if there had been a mix-up in the location. Or had Sherman never intended to come?

  A number of thoughts rotated through my head. None of them good. Was I somehow being set up by
the D.A.’s office? Who was the caller? Could he have been working for Sherman? None of this made any sense to me, except for the fact that it all seemed too damned convenient.

  After ten more minutes of no-shows of Sherman or anyone else on behalf of the D.A.’s office, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to happen. I refused to waste the time contemplating why. If Jessie Wylson was in the trailer, I owed it to myself to earn my pay and some payback by bringing his ass in. Even if it meant going it on my own.

  I left the Bronco and carefully made my way through the grass and weeds, mindful of hidden dangers. My Glock was held low as I approached the trailer. Rap music was blaring as if the person inside was almost deaf.

  It was broad daylight, which meant I could see and be seen easier in a direct approach. I doubled back and came up behind the trailer. There was an old beat up Isuzu Trooper behind it parked on a dirt path.

  No sign of anyone inside.

  Once more, I converged on the trailer. It occurred to me that there was a good possibility The Worm might not be in there alone, if at all. I had to be prepared to take out anyone who came within my eyesight if this turned into the gun battle from hell.

  I could hear nothing but the loud rap music. Guardedly and quietly, I rounded the trailer until I got to the door. After a moment or two of gearing myself up, I knocked once. There was no response.

  I knocked again, this time harder. Again, no response or indication of human movement. Was The Worm inside?

  My instincts told me this was probably a mistake that I wanted no part of. Had Jessie Wylson been staying here, but tipped off that I was coming? Or worse, could The Worm be dead, leaving me to find his body?

  I psyched myself up, as all P.I.’s inevitably have to do when danger lurks and there is no backup. Throwing caution and perhaps common sense to the wind, I clutched the doorknob and turned it with the ease of a door that was unlocked.