Dead in the Rose City: A Dean Drake Mystery

by Flowers, R. Barri

  Turned out Sinclair’s alarm was not as sophisticated as I thought. I managed to disengage the system and not be the worse for wear. I was amused that the man was apparently moving around millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs, yet he couldn’t afford a private investigator-proof alarm system.

  The office was larger than it looked from the outside, spreading out in two directions. Low-beamed ceiling lights apparently stayed on all night.

  I found an inner office labeled: Personnel. Using a flashlight, I went through a file cabinet. One drawer contained information on employee names, ages, and duties. I saw nothing out of the ordinary or unexpected.

  No one seemed to match the description or cunning of my blonde seductress. Going through other drawers that included information on clients also failed to provide a clue as to who she was.

  In Gregory Sinclair’s private office, I turned on the desk lamp. There was a picture on the desk of him and Catherine Sinclair in a loving embrace. This bastard is really a piece of work.

  Whatever role he had played in her death, Sinclair did not strike me as a man who loved his wife. Or even liked her very much.

  I studied his appointment calendar for the past couple of months. It seemed he’d had a number of contacts with chemical laboratories and pharmaceutical firms. If Sinclair was mixing consulting with crime, then it was a good bet there was more here than purely legitimate business interests.

  The name Michael Touchas caught my eye. It was his trailer overloaded with chemicals that had nearly incinerated me. According to the calendar, Sinclair had phoned Touchas the night before the explosion. I felt knots turn inside me.

  Sinclair had tried to kill me!

  He had used Touchas to lure me to the trailer. Then Sinclair must have killed him—or had him killed—so he couldn’t talk.

  Suddenly things were beginning to fit together and I didn’t like the configuration of the puzzle. If Sinclair was out to get Jessie Wylson, why wouldn’t he also want me out of the picture?

  He would eliminate The Worm’s testimony against him. And eliminate me, possibly causing the investigation into Catherine Sinclair’s death to simply disappear like she did.

  Were Cornwell and Muncie on Sinclair’s payroll? If they were, the same was probably true of Vincente and his thugs.

  That still left Catherine Sinclair’s death and the mystery woman’s role in it unaccounted for.

  I went through Sinclair’s desk looking for something, though I didn’t know what.

  Then I found it—maybe.

  In the bottom drawer between some papers was the crumpled card of a P.I. named Tony Agnoski. He gave new meaning to the words “sleaze” and “private investigator” when combined.

  What business did Sinclair have with Agnoski?

  I had a feeling Tony Agnoski might be the key to finding the woman I was looking for.

  * * *

  I found Tony Agnoski chomping on a chicken sandwich in his dingy office. A radio was playing some big band era music, as though I had stepped back in time. The stubby detective was in his early fifties and wore his receding, dyed, black hair combed back into a ponytail. He looked up at me while his tongue gathered in mustard that was smeared on the corner of his mouth.

  “Yeah? What can I do you for?”

  I came closer out of the shadows. “Long time no see, Agnoski.” Probably the last time was when I was a cop.

  His puffy dark eyes squinted. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Dean Drake.” I met his gaze. “You knew me as Homicide Detective Drake—”

  Familiarity crept into his chubby face. “Drake, my man,” he perked up. “Didn’t recognize you. Thought you were darker than that. You must not be spending enough time out in the sun.”

  I almost took that as a compliment. “Haven’t you heard that the sun and too much exposure to it don’t mix very well?”

  “I try not to pay too much attention to that stuff,” he said, and took another swipe at the sandwich. “My philosophy is go for it if it makes you happy and is legal—or so’s you don’t get caught—and let the chips fall where they may.”

  My eyes scanned his cramped office before resting on his face. “Doesn’t look like the chips have fallen your way very often, Agnoski.”

  He frowned. “I ain’t complainin’—” He drank something dark from a paper cup. “Heard you became a private dick, Drake. What happened? They throw you off the force?”

  “I was looking for a sleazier way of life,” I said sarcastically. “I think you know something about that.”

  He curled his lip thoughtfully. “So what brings you here?”

  “Does the name Gregory Sinclair ring a bell?”

  His eyes betrayed such, but he said: “Should it?”

  I put Agnoski’s crumpled card in front of his face. “I found this in Sinclair’s desk drawer.”

  “So what?” He glanced at it like yesterday’s news. “I give those out to anyone who’ll take ‘em. That don’t prove nothin’—except maybe that you’re guilty of breaking and entering.”

  I fixed him with a straight gaze. “Did Sinclair hire you?”

  “I already told you—”

  I grabbed him from behind his desk, knocking the sandwich from his hands and spilling his drink. “You haven’t told me what I want to know. To tell you the truth,” I said dishonestly, “they kicked my ass off the force because of excessive police brutality—” I released him. “Let’s try this again. Did you work for Sinclair?”

  “All right, all right,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Sinclair hired me to spy on his wife.”

  “Why?”

  “He thought she was seeing another man.”

  “Was she?”

  “No.” He paused. “She was seeing a woman—”

  I stared at his red face. “Catherine Sinclair was involved in a lesbian relationship?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Ain’t that something to wet the palate?”

  “And you told Sinclair?”

  “Yeah, I told him. That’s what he paid me for.”

  “How did he react?”

  Agnoski squirmed. “How would you react if you found out your wife was carrying on with another broad? He didn’t like it.”

  “Enough to kill her?”

  His eyes widened. “How would I know how far a jealous husband is willing to go?”

  I couldn’t tell how much he knew about Sinclair, but suspected it was more than he was letting on.

  “Did you know that Gregory Sinclair’s wife was found beaten, raped, and strangled to death last month?” I asked.

  Agnoski looked at me innocently. “Hey, I don’t read the papers or watch the news,” he said like it was somehow commendable. “I’m sorry to hear about the wife, but I can’t be responsible for what happens in the world. I collect evidence and information—just like you—to make a living. The rest is outta my hands.”

  “It’s never out of your hands,” I growled, “as long as there’s blood on them—”

  He looked at his hands, as if to verify this. “You got what you wanted, Drake. I wish you’d get the hell outta my office!”

  “Gladly. Just one other thing... What did the woman Catherine Sinclair was having an affair with look like?”

  He shrugged. “My memory ain’t what it used to be.”

  I slammed my palms onto his desk, causing him to shiver. “Look, Agnoski, I’m in no mood for games. A lowlife voyeur like you can’t help but have those two women making love forever etched in your perverted memory.”

  A lascivious glint came into his eyes. “All right, I remember,” he confessed. “What do you want, a play by play description?”

  “Just a description of the other woman will do,” I told him.

  I expected Agnoski to describe the blonde woman who had pretended to be Catherine Ashley Sinclair and made love just as skillfully to men.

  He did not, at least not as I remembered her.

  “She was only so tall,” he said. “Like bar
ely over five feet. Late thirties. Nice looking broad. Nice tits, though a bit on the small side for me. Thin, green eyes, red hair...”

  “Do you have a picture of Catherine and this woman?”

  He began to perspire. “Sinclair wanted all the pictures and the negatives.”

  “And you gave them to him,” I said pithily. “Only you kept a copy of the photos for your own private lewd viewing. Isn’t that right?” I leaned into his disgusting face. “Isn’t it—?”

  He lowered his head. “What he don’t know won’t hurt him.”

  “But he did know and he hurt his wife in a way not even you can imagine!” My voice flattened out. “I need to borrow the photos.”

  “For how long?” he asked, as if he couldn’t fathom the thought of departing with them.

  “As long as it takes!” I roared. I suspected it would be for as long as they were needed as circumstantial evidence in the murder of Catherine Ashley Sinclair.

  The pictures were explicit, detailed, and, in all likelihood, had cost Catherine Sinclair her life. But it was the other woman who most interested me, and confirmed my second choice as Catherine Sinclair’s lover.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The doorbell chimed outside the fashionable home on Pickford Street. Someone looked at me through the peephole, and then the door opened.

  I gazed down into the tense green eyes of Nancy Mackenzie.

  “What do you want?” she clamored.

  “Information,” I said succinctly.

  “I told you everything I had to say at the health club.”

  “But you didn’t tell me everything you know,” I said with a distinct edge to my voice. “Did you, Mrs. Mackenzie?”

  Her face colored. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I countered. “Try Catherine Sinclair and you as lovers—”

  She shook visibly and her knees buckled.

  “Give me five minutes of your time,” I told her, “and I’ll be out of your hair forever.”

  But I couldn’t guarantee that the police wouldn’t be in her hair like lice.

  The inside of the house was just as nice as the outside and seemed to epitomize the American dream: upper-middle income, middle class values. Somewhere in the equation, idealism had clashed with reality.

  “My husband will be home soon—” Nancy informed me nervously from the sunken living room, as if this admission was cause for alarm.

  I handed her the photos Agnoski had taken.

  They spoke for themselves.

  “Where did you get these?” Nancy’s mouth dropped in disbelief, embarrassment, perhaps even shame.

  “From a private investigator Gregory Sinclair hired to see if his wife was cheating.” She glanced at a photo of her in bed with Catherine Sinclair. Both women were naked and posing in a way that left nothing to the imagination and made it clear they were not together in platonic camaraderie. “This was all the proof he needed—”

  Nancy dropped the photographs face down on the coffee table, as if suddenly too hot to handle.

  “I loved Catherine,” she admitted. “She loved me. We were planning to live together.”

  “So you were going to leave your husband?”

  “Yes,” she gulped. “We both were—”

  “But someone beat, raped, and murdered Catherine before that could happen,” I said sadly. “In my mind, that someone boils down to either Gregory Sinclair or your husband.” She suddenly looked very pale. “Did your husband know about the affair with Catherine?”

  “No,” Nancy insisted.

  I wished I could be as certain. “If Sinclair had the information, he could have easily given it to your husband.”

  Her eyes glazed over. “Roger couldn’t have killed Catherine. He didn’t have it in him.”

  “Maybe you don’t know your husband as well as you think you do.” My eyes studied her face doubtfully. “In my business, I’ve found people do things you wouldn’t believe when it concerns matters of the heart. If your husband thought he was going to lose you, he may have done anything to prevent it.”

  She wept. “He doesn’t love me—”

  I read into her words. “Are you saying your husband is having an affair, too?”

  She nodded painfully.

  “With a tall, buxom blonde?” I was picturing the cool, sexy, insatiable woman I had let into my bed.

  Nancy raised her face and hesitated for a moment. “My husband is gay and has been HIV-positive for three years now,” she revealed quietly. “We haven’t slept together in five years. I’ve stayed with him out of compassion and respect, but not love. He understands that—”

  She paused while I tried to hide my dejection that once more I’d come up empty-handed where it concerned my mystery two-timing blonde lover.

  “So you see, he wouldn’t have killed Catherine to hold onto me when he knows he hasn’t got that long to live himself,” Nancy finished, her voice cracking.

  That seemed plausible enough, even if the rest sounded like a bad soap opera.

  “You said that you and Catherine loved each other.” I looked at her. “Does that mean you don’t believe Catherine was seeing someone else at the time she was killed?”

  Nancy stared at me as if in a trance. “The man she was in bed with the night she died...” Her voice quaked. “I’m not sure what to believe anymore—”

  I sought to allay her fears and shed my own sense of guilt in being indirectly made a pawn in her lover’s death.

  “I think we both know who that man was,” I said woefully. “And, just for the record, I was set up. I didn’t even know Catherine Sinclair, much less sleep with her—”

  “I know,” she said, as if absolving me of any culpability. “I knew from the beginning it was only made to look that way. If there had been anyone else, I would have known about it. That was the type of relationship we had. Neither of us had a leash around the other’s neck.”

  If they had, it would have to have been a very long leash—and probably included a notch or two reserved for Gregory Sinclair’s bed.

  “Were you aware that Catherine was meeting her husband at shady motels?” I had to ask. “And, believe me, they weren’t in separate rooms.”

  Nancy didn’t flinch. “It was all play acting to please Gregory,” she stated knowingly, “and satisfy her own sexual appetite. Even though they had separate bedrooms, Catherine still made love to Gregory. But she didn’t love him,” she stressed. “She enjoyed their clandestine meetings in unusual locations. It was all part of her desire to be free of the mold she felt trapped in.” Her mind seemed to wander before returning to the tragic situation at hand. “We would have been happy together...I know it.”

  I wanted to comfort her, but something told me it wasn’t my comfort she wanted.

  After a moment of silence, I asked: “Did Catherine tell Sinclair she was planning to leave him?”

  “Yes.” She looked up at me. “About a week before she was killed.”

  “I take it he wasn’t exactly thrilled with her plans?”

  Nancy blinked back tears. “She said he understood and wasn’t going to stand in her way.”

  Had Catherine Sinclair really been so naive as to believe Sinclair would let his meal ticket and drug money laundress simply walk away with his blessing and her money?

  How much did she know about his illicit activities?

  A wife couldn’t be forced to testify against her husband.

  But an ex-wife could.

  Unless she was six feet under.

  I asked Nancy: “Do you know if Gregory Sinclair was having an affair when Catherine was killed?”

  “Gregory was always involved with other women,” she said. “He even tried to come on to me once. But I wasn’t exactly his type. Catherine knew about his infidelity, but accepted it as part of their arrangement. He could have his and she could have hers—”

  Almost sounded like the best of all worlds. Except that Si
nclair apparently decided to renege on the deal.

  “Did Catherine know who Sinclair was having the affair with at the time she told him she wanted out?” I zoomed in on Nancy’s watered eyes.

  She wiped away the tears with her hand. “Yes. Some bimbo who worked for him.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know the name of the bimbo, would you?”

  “I would,” she said, as if only too happy to share this and lessen her own burden.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  It looked like Nancy Mackenzie had given me my best lead in tracking down the blonde-haired vixen who must have taken great pleasure in playing me for the world’s tallest fool. The way I saw it, she and lover boy decided to get rid of Catherine Sinclair before she got rid of them. They found the perfect scapegoat in me who just happened to be searching for the man who could put Sinclair away forever.

  With The Worm, Catherine, and me dead, all of Sinclair’s and his mistress’s troubles would be over.

  Think again. As far as I was concerned, their troubles hadn’t even begun yet!

  If the phone directory was correct, there was only one Brooke Carmichael in the city of Portland. I didn’t recall seeing her name in Sinclair’s personnel file. But she probably didn’t need to work anymore.

  Brooke Carmichael lived in an apartment near Laurelhurst Park, one of many parks sprinkled throughout the Rose City. If she was who I thought she was, the woman owed me plenty. And I intended to collect one way or another.

  When the door opened, the woman standing there was not who I had hoped for, but she had a face I recognized. It was the young woman I had seen offering emotional support to Gregory Sinclair at Catherine Sinclair’s funeral. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. Twenty-three tops.

  “Are you Brooke Carmichael?” I asked, actually hoping I had the wrong person.

  She placed her hands on small hips and regarded me with suspicious blue-green eyes. “Who’s askin’?”

  “The name’s Drake.” Her hair was brunette and feathered with thin bangs. She was barefoot, wearing tight jeans and a tight blouse. I flashed my I.D. and said unceremoniously: “I’m a private investigator. I’d like to talk to you—”