I just finished cleaning up the kitchen when Archie broke into a chorus of sharp barks, letting me know we had a visitor. He led me to the front door, I switched on the porch light, and we both stepped out on the porch. A truck had pulled past a big rhododendron that blocked my view. I heard a door shut and then a figure emerged out of the darkness and stopped at the foot of the steps.
“Hello, Cal. It’s Sean McKnight. Remember me?”
After telling Arch to hush, I said, “Of course, Sean. What can I do for you?”
He clutched a thick, legal size envelope in both hands and squinted up at me. “I realize it’s late, and I apologize for barging in on you like this, but I’m wondering if I could, ah, discuss something confidential with you.”
“Now?”
“Yes, if you can spare the time.”
Chapter Fifteen
I think it was Bettie James who quipped once that the biggest draw at the Joyous Word Christian Center, Sean McKnight’s church, wasn’t Jesus but the Reverend himself. He was an inch or two taller than me, trim and athletic looking, with long hair that had silvered prematurely and was pulled into a tight ponytail. He had a squared-off, resolute chin but soft brown eyes that rested below a set of dark, yet-to-gray eyebrows. I led him into the front room, switched on a light, and offered him a seat. I sat down across from him and Archie lay down next to me, his eyes on the stranger.
McKnight was still clutching the envelope with both hands when he spoke. “I, ah, stopped by your office this afternoon but you weren’t in, and I felt like this couldn’t wait another day. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I was in court. What’s on your mind?”
His eyes were cast down on the Oriental rug between us and when he looked up I saw anguish and something else, possibly shame, on his face. “You have a reputation for helping people out. I’ve, ah, I’ve made a terrible mistake. I need some advice.”
Welcome to the human race, I thought. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
He opened the envelope, withdrew a single sheet of paper, and handed it to me. “I received this package at my church office yesterday with this note in it.”
Without knowing what it was but out of habit, I pinched the sheet between my thumb and forefinger in one corner and held it in front of me like a piece of evidence. By the looks of it, the note had been written by a right-handed person using his or her left hand.
These photos are set to be e-mailed to all members of the Joyous Word Christian Center and plastered across social media. If you wish to buy them back, the price is $300,000 cash. We will contact you for your answer in three days. We’ll know if you go to the cops. Don’t even think about it.
I nodded at the envelope, which he still clutched in his lap. “The photos must be very embarrassing.”
He swallowed hard, withdrew three color prints, and handed them to me. They were stills taken off a video clip with date and time stamps on them. The first photo showed a couple locked in a deep kiss inside a car parked in a lot. The low profile of a motel loomed behind the car. The next shot showed the couple getting out of the car. McKnight was in profile, and the woman was looking dead-on at the camera. She was tall and shapely with long, auburn hair and a rivetingly beautiful face. I studied her expression for a moment and thought I saw sadness there, like she knew what she was doing to this man. The third shot showed them going into one of the motel rooms.
I said, “Are there shots of you two inside the motel?”
McKnight nodded.
“In bed together?”
He nodded again. “They’re, ah, very explicit. There must have been a camera in the room.”
I handed the photos back to him. “I advise you to go to the police. They know how to handle extortion.”
He leaned forward, a look of sheer panic on his face. “I can’t do that. I want those pictures back, but I don’t have that kind of money. I thought maybe you could negotiate with them, I don’t know, get the price down somehow.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do, Sean.”
He locked his eyes on me. They burned with equal amounts of urgency and earnestness. “Look, Cal. I’m not asking this because I want to duck the responsibility. I’ve never done anything like this before. It was a terrible mistake, and I’ve fully owned up to God for it. I’m going to do the same to my wife and family and the church.” He exhaled a long, plaintive sigh and leaned back. “I don’t expect to be forgiven, don’t want to be, but if those photos get out, it’s my family that’ll be hurt, and the church will be destroyed. I can’t let that happen.”
Of course I should have said no. I had every reason to. My plate was full, and, come on, a man of the cloth, a married man, screwing around? What hypocrisy, right? Deserves what he gets. But there was something about Sean McKnight I liked, and who was I to judge this man, anyway? And nobody deserved to be hung out to dry by some bottom-feeding blackmailer in any case.
As for the full plate, well, like Warren Zevon said, I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
“Okay,” I said, “we’ll need time. When they contact you, stall them as long as you can.”
“What reason do I give?”
“You said you didn’t have that kind of money, so what would you do if push came to shove?”
He grimaced like I’d shot him in the gut. “I’d, ah, have to sell Stone Gate, I guess. I—”
“That’s perfect,” I cut in. “Tell them you’ll have to put your farm on the market. That’ll take time.”
Pure anguish washed across his face, and he cast his eyes down. “My God, what have I done?” he said.
“It won’t come to that,” I said, sounding more positive than I felt. “It’s the best way to buy us some time. They might threaten you and demand a shorter time, but hold firm. Meanwhile, I know a PI in Portland who’s good at finding people. If we can find this woman, maybe we can apply some back-pressure. I have a feeling she was a pawn in this thing, too.”
“You won’t hurt her.” It wasn’t a question.
I looked at him, shocked. “Of course not. But I might threaten her with hard jail time. The PI won’t be cheap. I’ll need a three-thousand-dollar retainer to get started.”
McKnight readily agreed and wrote me a check on the spot. I went to my study and brought back a notebook and pen and had him take me over the whole, sordid tale. The woman’s name was Amanda Burke, which probably wasn’t her real name. She started attending Joyous Word about ten weeks earlier. McKnight had an open door policy, he explained, and she started dropping in for spiritual counseling. “She told me she was looking for a fresh start with God and with life,” he said. “She seemed stiff and nervous at first, but after a while she began to open up.” He hesitated and I thought he was going to tear up. “She was so sincere, almost child-like. We had these long, intimate conversations, and I found myself opening up as much to her as she was to me.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I turned my back on everything I knew was right just to be with her. But I never felt seduced. It just happened.”
I nodded. The truth was, I’d gotten involved with a married woman after my wife died, but I didn’t think sharing that would help the good Reverend. When I pressed him on where Burke lived he said, “She was vague about that, said she lived out in the valley, but I figured she lived in Portland.”
“Why is that?”
His look turned wistful. “Oh, we met there a couple of times, and she seemed to know too much about the city, the names of the bridges, that kind of thing.” A smile creased his lips. “She wasn’t a very good liar. She told me she worked as a receptionist in a medical office, but I didn’t believe that either.”
“Why not?”
“She seemed way too sharp to be a receptionist. It just didn’t fit.”
I shook my head. “So, all we’ve got are photographs of her and the fact that
she might live and probably work in Portland. My PI’s good but not that good. What else did she tell you during these long conversations? Did she mention friends, relatives, places she frequented, her dentist, anything?”
McKnight started shaking his head, then stopped. “Well, there is one thing,” he said, looking, of all things, embarrassed. “She has some tattoos—a Chinese dragon about the size of my hand on the small of her back and a matching fu dog on either shoulder blade. They’re very intricate. Beautiful pieces of art, actually. She told me they were recent.”
I nodded. “Good. That might help.”
We finished up, and as McKnight was descending the front steps, he turned back to me. “One thing I don’t get about this. Amanda brought up finances a couple of times, you know, very cleverly, by talking about her situation first. I remember telling her the only thing I had was my property. So, they must know I don’t have the kind of cash they’re asking for.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it’s not cash they’re after.” The comment registered, but he didn’t respond. “Let’s wait to see what happens next,” I added. “Let me know the minute they contact you. Better do it in person, not by phone. They’re probably watching you, so make sure you’re not being followed.”
He looked at me, shame and bewilderment vying for dominance on his face. “How could I have sunk this low?” he said more to himself than me.
I had no answer to that.
I took Arch out for a walk after Sean McKnight left. A mist of rain seemed to hang in the air as if there were no gravity, and every now and then the moon would light up between gaps in the fast-moving cloud cover. We were nearly down to the mailbox when a recent arrival in the neighborhood—a great horned owl—announced himself with a hoot-hoot, hoot, hoot territorial call from high in a Douglas fir. Arch replied with two soft barks without looking up.
I worried that Sean McKnight left with more hope than was warranted and wondered if the PI I used would have the time and resources to put this on the front burner on short notice. We turned around at the mailbox just as the moon broke free and cast our shadows on the drive. McKnight had gotten himself into a hell of a mess, but what struck me most was that this blackmail threat could potentially put into play another large tract of land in the Red Hills.
Coincidence? I didn’t think so. That triggered another thought—was I now representing two clients whose cases were interrelated? If that turned out to be true, and if their interests began to conflict, I would be confronted with an ethical dilemma. I’d cross that bridge if and when I came to it, I decided.
There was something else, too. The Reverend still seemed to have feelings for the woman who had swung a wrecking ball into the center of his life. I said to Archie in a voice loud enough for the owl to hear, “The workings of the human heart. A mystery I’ll never understand.”
Neither my dog nor the owl cared to comment.
Chapter Sixteen
“So, you want me to find two young women. One could live here in Portland. The other could be anywhere.” It was the next day, and I was having lunch with my friend and private investigator, Hernando Mendoza. I’d spent the morning doing pro bono work at my Portland office and had arranged this lunch at our favorite Cuban restaurant, Pambiche.
“That’s right,” I said. “Isabel Rufino’s on my dime for the murder case I’m working. I, uh, don’t want to run up a big bill because I haven’t even gotten a retainer yet. Just run her through your databases and see if anything comes up. She’s probably undocumented.” I gave him a copy of her photograph with her last address in Dundee written on the back.
Nando popped a shrimp in his mouth, licked some orange and garlic mojo sauce off his thumb, and chewed for a moment. “This winemaker friend, he is good for your fee?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but it might be a little slow in coming. He makes world-class pinot noir, but his cash flow’s a little anemic.”
Nando chewed some more and gave me that skeptical look that always annoyed me. “Time is money, Calvin.” My friend had rowed himself from Castro’s communist island in a homemade boat and was now an avowed, free-market capitalist who shared his philosophy of economics freely.
Not wishing to hear the lecture that was going to be repeated by my accountant, I said, “The other woman’s for another client.” I explained the extortion plot against Sean McKnight, gave him the photographs of Amanda Burke, and described the tattoos on her back. “Maybe you could have one of your guys cover the tat parlors in town,” I suggested. “McKnight said she told him she had the tattoos done fairly recently. The artist might remember her. As you can see, she’s very attractive.”
Nando glanced down at the photos of Burke. “Yes, I would remember her. She has great beauty.” He shook his head. “A woman like that puts ink on her body to what, make herself more beautiful? It is craziness.” He swung his gaze back to me. “There are many such tattoo shops in Portland. Such a job will be expensive.”
“The tats are supposedly high art, so start at the high-end parlors. I need results yesterday.” Nando frowned but took the job. I wrote him a check for two thousand.
We finished lunch, and Nando had me follow him out to where his new car was parked, a metallic silver Lexus GS. “Wow,” I said, “this must’ve set you back.”
He shrugged his thick shoulders and smiled broadly. “My real estate business is thriving, Calvin. Everyone wants to live in Portland these days, particularly those moving up from California. Refugees of the global heating.”
“It looks that way. I spent the morning counseling folks who are being forced out of their apartments by landlords anxious to jack up the rents.” I smiled to lighten the moment. “Don’t evict anybody without cause, or you might see me in court one of these days.”
He shrugged again. “I took the risk by investing my money. Should I not reap the reward?”
“You’re a Portlander, Nando. Do you want your city to become another L.A. or San Francisco? Rents are skyrocketing here.”
He gave me a blank look. “Are these not prosperous cities?”
My friend didn’t get it, and I didn’t feel like arguing the point, at least not at this juncture. He had a heart as big as his island homeland, but when it came to money, not so much. “Stay in touch,” I told him. “I’m on a tight time line.”
I went back to my Portland office, which still had a faded sign above the door that read Caffeine Central, the name of the coffee shop that used to rent the first floor space. The shop closed shortly after a large Starbucks opened a few blocks further down on Couch Street. The landlord, by the way, was Nando Mendoza. He allowed me to set up a practice there at greatly reduced rent, and now Caffeine Central was a go-to place for pro bono legal advice in the city.
After seeing several clients, I locked up at four and swung over to the Pearl District to pick up Winona Cloud. I’d taken Jim at his word, that she would be welcomed at Richard Amis’ party that night. Winona lived on the second floor of a trendy, converted warehouse that used to store bourbon, a smell that still lingered faintly in the walls. She buzzed me in, opened the door, and hugged me. Her raven hair was pulled back tightly, accentuating big, hazel verging to green eyes resting above perfectly sculpted cheeks. When she smiled, dimples drilled her cheeks like tiny whirlpools. Damn, what a beautiful woman. Wearing a turquoise silk blouse, a dark skirt, and black boots, she gestured at the striking squash blossom necklace adorning her chest. “Since I’m going into the white-man’s territory, I decided to make my ancestry clear.”
“Good idea. Maybe you can dance for them or sing some tribal songs in Sahaptin.”
She cocked her head and smiled with sarcasm, but that didn’t stop the dimples from forming. “Very funny, white man.”
We crept our way south on the I-5, the dense, rush hour traffic another reminder of the southern invasion. It was as if one car too many had arrived, putting Portland’s ninete
en-fifties infrastructure on overload. I filled her in on Jim Kavanaugh’s situation and the plight of the good Reverend Sean McKnight. When I finished, she said, “So you’re thinking these two situations are related?”
“The thought crossed my mind. Candice Roberts told me the broad swath of land encompassing Le Petit Truc and McKnight’s farm is ideal for growing pinot noir grapes. Both parcels are potentially up for grabs, and the combined land would be exceedingly valuable. Makes you wonder.”
She nodded. “The niece and her husband, what do you know about them?”
“Not much. Nice folks. Well off. Very supportive of Jim. They’re both into their investment business. If Jim’s business falters, they’d have a decision to make.”
Winona sighed and leaned back in her seat. I glanced over at her, her eyes shading to green in the afternoon light. Her face darkened, and a muscle flexed on the line of her jaw. “Whoever the killer is, he’s a cold blooded bastard who’s probably killed two people already, and you’re out there asking questions and poking around. Whoever it is won’t like that.” Winona sighed again, and I could feel the heat of her gaze on the side of my face. “I don’t have a good feeling about this, Cal.”
I felt an involuntary ripple of discomfort. I’d learned to pay attention to Winona’s intuition, which bordered on the psychic. But what I’d uncovered so far didn’t amount to much, and besides, we were on our way to drink some good wine.
“Hey,” I said, “lighten up. The wine’s free tonight.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Holy shit, looks like the mother ship,” Winona said as we crested a rise in the long drive leading to Richard Amis’ house. We came from The Aerie, where I fed Archie and let him out with a warning not to get skunked. I’d changed into my newest pair of jeans, a button-down shirt, and a lightweight leather jacket. With the exception of court appearances, weddings, and funerals, this was about as dressed up as I ever got.
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