The Book of Judges

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  Will, the young Muslim trying to change the country’s perspective of his faith.

  Bruce, the nice guy.

  Mac, whose work was most impacted by the committee.

  Linda, the mother of the group who just wanted to keep her work safe.

  Or did she?

  I paused to consider Linda. Her stated motive for this job was so flimsy. With all her years of life in public service how could she believe I could keep salacious information about a murdered government employee out of the news?

  Why hadn’t she just openly asked me to find the killer?

  I stared at her name. Linda Smith.

  Linda Smith?

  Her name could only be more generic if it had been Jennifer Smith. There had to be millions of women in their fifties named Linda Smith. It was the perfect name to hide behind.

  What if it wasn’t her real name?

  What if the only person she was trying to protect right now was herself?

  If Linda was a new name, then her hair color was also new. She was clearly a woman who enjoyed Botox, and I had been suspicious of a nose job since I first met her. Also, there was the issue of her being pleasantly plump. Not that plenty of women weren’t, but with her careful attention to her hair, nails, face she would seemingly also have access to luxury weight loss options. What if she wanted to be plump now because she used to be skinny? She wouldn’t have been the first person to gain weight as a way to keep people at a distance. Rick told me us ladies did that all the time.

  If Linda Smith wasn’t her name, and the mug I was used to talking to wasn’t her real face, then I would lay money that she wasn’t from around here, either.

  I pulled out my notebook and turned to our first meeting. My shorthand was strong and my memory excellent. I had notes on everything we had discussed both at the coffee shop and in Adam’s office. I read through them three times, and then the notes from the committee meeting.

  Nobody was perfect. Everybody slipped up. If she wasn’t from here, she had to have said something that could clue me in on her background. Some small, verbal tic that she had never been able to rid herself of.

  The fourth time through I spotted it.

  “Thanks much.”

  Linda, though she’d been around Portland government life for the last twenty years, spoke like a Midwesterner.

  However, that wasn’t a crime.

  I looked up the Metro website and found Linda’s biography. Only her current professional life was mentioned. None of the quirky tid-bits Portlanders love to share, or the background about how and where she had grown up. Just the various positions she’d filled in government and her job in human resources at Columbia Sportswear.

  I shut the notebook and decided to let this problem simmer.

  It might be nothing.

  It might be everything.

  There was chatter in the hall, and I could use company.

  Ethan, the building super, had mopped and polished the hall floors like he had to make them last another hundred years. “Why don’t you let yourself slow down a little?” I stood in the doorway, eager for a distraction.

  He leaned on his mop. “I follow orders.”

  Becky from the insurance office popped out of her door. “I could hear that cat through the walls, Maura. You got rid of her just in time.”

  “Because a cat was going to do so much damage to a building slated for demo.” I rolled my eyes. I had gotten the cat out in a timely manner. And then I had moved back in with her, my respite at Christine’s had been short, as I had promised. Rhoda was asleep on my love seat at the moment. But I didn’t need to correct Becky on that issue.

  “Do you guys know how old this building is?” Becky had a glimmer in her eye.

  “Sure.” Ethan said. “It’s a Whidden and Lewis terra cotta from 1910.”

  “Wow. You’re good.” I was impressed.

  “I like to know what I’m in charge of.”

  “It’s had a lot of bad restoration and repair through the years.” Becky went on, “But it’s got enough original left, most of it hidden, that I think we can get the building declared a historic landmark.”

  “What for?” I leaned on my not-historic seeming door frame.

  “Because it’s worth it.” She looked up at the acoustic tile drop ceiling. “Hidden under that monstrosity from the eighties is history.”

  “The eighties are history.” I looked up but didn’t see what she saw. Sure, moving was a pain, but whatever she had in mind would involve city permits and grant applications and making Everly mad. It couldn’t be worth it.

  “I’m going to try.” She squared up her shoulders. “This building should be saved. It’s been housing Portland businesses for almost 110 years. Everly Brown’s not even from here. She shouldn’t get to tear down our history.”

  “She’s not. She’s just selling it. Some other yahoo is tearing it down.”

  “I would love to see it saved.” Ethan’s eyes were trained to the ceiling. “If I had the money, I’d buy it myself, then you wouldn’t have to worry about landmark status.”

  “But you don’t, so I do have to worry. Someone has to worry, or we will lose everything that makes us Portland and just be whatever the television wants to say we are. We’re more than that. You know? We’re historic. Important. We stand for something.”

  “Let me know how it gets on.” I scooted back into my office. Historic? Important? Laughable. We were just a smallish city, like hundreds of others in the country. What did one old building matter? People had been wanting to make more of Portland than it was since it first sprung up. It was such a waste. The more attention we drew to ourselves, the more people moved here. No one wanted that.

  Perhaps I should have been thankful for a high-profile murder case. I’d rather be on the map as a place full of crazy murderers than as a great place to raise families. Murders kept property values down, and what I needed right now was a cheap place to live.

  And to catch the murderer.

  Why had he left the body at Crown Point? Considering it as a message, what did the location say?

  I googled it. I had been there more times in my life than I could count, but what did I really know about it? Not much.

  The building itself was called The Vista House. Was it reasonable to consider this a stand in for a Bible location?

  It was pretty, that’s for sure. The octagonal concrete building looked like the top of a castle, and its location on the pinnacle of Crown Point, a cliff that jutted into the Columbia River Gorge had sweeping views of an area that rivaled the beauty of the fjords of Norway or Alaska. It was designed, according to its own website—www.vistahouse.com—as a memorial to the “Trials and hardships of those who had come into the Oregon Country.” There had been no limit to the trials and hardships. My own people had had to walk from Salt Lake City into Oregon after being attacked by rowdies on the trail.

  That’s a long walk with everything you own tied to your back. I didn’t know how they made it.

  I suppose it was nice of Samuel Lancaster to think of them with his super nice highway rest stop. It was funny to note that the Vista House was finished in 1918, just around the time the building I was sitting in was built. But I was headquartered in a working office building originally built to keep the machine of the city running.

  Vista House at Crown Point was built to impress people as they drove through what was, at the time, the big fancy highway into town. It was meant to impress, intimidate, and honor those who went before. Not exactly the Capitol building, but at the same time, it had a similar kind of symbolic power that a great big old castle has. Impress the travelers and make sure they know what they are coming up to.

  But what did castles have to do with anything?

  Adam had been chopped up like the enemy king from the book of Judges, and every Sunday school kid knew that during the days of the judges there was no king in Israel and everyone did whatever they wanted to.

  I said it again, this t
ime out loud. I had heard something very similar, very recently.

  Rafe Winters and his Universal Temple. They were dedicated to freeing people from “masters” so they could do whatever they wanted to do.

  Had Adam gotten too bossy for Rafe’s taste? Had he needed to be made an example of so that Rafe’s “Seekers” could go on doing whatever they wanted to do?

  I sent Rafe a quick text: Adam still served masters. But did he also boss people around?

  The answer came almost before I set my phone down: Adam wanted to be king.

  I stared at the answer.

  It was like Rafe had been reading my mind—of course, if he had, he would not have implicated himself in the murder like that.

  But.

  Rafe sent the one word which was like a splash of cold water.

  Breakthrough was coming. Soon. He was about to understand.

  Hmmm...convenient that Rafe’s text would cover his tracks.

  Did he get cut down like an enemy king? I stared at my words for a moment before I hit send. It was a bit strong, so I deleted it and started over. Did he have an enemy king? A rival?

  Again, the answer was quick to come. Each man is a king unto himself.

  So, Adam had many enemies?

  Rafe’s response was quick again. This is the inner war of all. To serve or be served is constant push and pull. To be free of the desire for both is the way to eternity.

  I loved that Rafe was in the mood to text. I loved that Rafe texted in full sentences—and suspected he used voice to text—but I did not love that he was texting incoherent philosophical nonsense. Do you need to die to self to reach eternity? I threw out a little of my own mumbo jumbo, just to see how he responded.

  Never. The only death worse than physical death is death to self.

  I wondered, as I read it, why Rick hadn’t converted yet. This sounded like exactly the philosophy for him.

  I didn’t respond. I had heard enough. Not enough to make a decision about Rafe, but enough to not want to hear any more from him at the moment.

  I wondered if Adam had been trying to convert members of Rafe’s Universal Temple, and if so, what on earth would he want to convert them to? Secular humanism? Do-Good-erism? Cultural Judeo-Christianity? I had no idea what Adam believed on a personal level, but I bet his ex-girlfriend Trisha did.

  I called her that second, but the phone went to voicemail, which annoyed me out of proportion. Trisha had no reason to answer my call on the first ring, or at all. I left a simple message asking her to call me and exhaled. I could wait. It’s not like Adam was getting any deader.

  I pushed Rafe out of my mind for now and turned back to the problem of Linda Smith’s identity.

  Mac was a man I could trust. A straight shooter with a gruff voice and a storied past. He didn’t hold with gossip or secrets. If he knew something about Linda’s past, he’d tell me. For the sake of the investigation. I called, and he agreed to meet me the next morning.

  * * *

  I met him in his cramped office at the back of the shelter. The drop ceiling was yellow from the years he had been allowed to smoke indoors, and the little window was barred. This was not the safest address for a room with a cash box.

  I took the metal folding chair and paper cup of coffee that he offered me. “How well do you know Linda?”

  He settled into his chair. “I know her pretty well.”

  “Do you know where she came from?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I am going to get anywhere with this, I need a lot of real information, and I need it now. Linda came to Portland over twenty years ago from somewhere in the Midwest. She has clearly changed her look, and her name is as generic as possible without being Jennifer Jones. Who was she before she came here?”

  “I knew it was going to come to this eventually. I told her she needed to play straight with you.”

  “And I’m telling you the same thing. I don’t have the patience for a quippy exchange. If I wanted that I’d watch the Gilmore Girls.”

  “She came from Indiana. She’s had a nose job, and of course the Botox and fillers. I think Linda is her real name, or at least very similar to her real name. Before politics she was in HR, but she got that degree after she came here.”

  “And?” My pencil hovered above the last line of my notes. “Don’t stop now, we’re on a roll.”

  “That’s it. That’s all I know.” He crossed his arms.

  “Mac…”

  “Maura…”

  I chuckled. “Indiana, you say?”

  “Yup.” He stood up. “Good luck with that. Linda is a cagey one. I told her whatever she’s been hiding would come to light if she hired you, and she’d better just tell you, but she didn’t break.”

  “All right, all right. I believe you.”

  Mac opened the door for me, so I took the hint and left.

  I spotted my new friend Jez in the corner of the dining room and figured now was as good a time as any to chat her up again.

  “Hey there.” I sat down next to her.

  “Hey yourself.” She finished laying a game of solitaire out on the table.

  “I’ve been thinking about Adam.”

  “You and every other lonely heart in town.” Her bushy eyebrows were pulled in concentration.

  “And I’ve been thinking about you all.”

  “Humph.” She turned over three cards and found nothing to use.

  “Where can you get an aspirin when you get a headache, with Adam gone?”

  She turned over three more cards. “I don’t get headaches.” She discarded, missing a good move, and pulled out three more.

  “What about Ansel?” The skinny, angry man was here today. He sat in a corner, alone.

  “He doesn’t get headaches either.” She found a move and made it. A five of hearts on the six of spades. It let her turn over two more in her stacks.

  “Somebody gets headaches though, or Adam wouldn’t have been so popular.”

  “Then they’re just out of luck.” She scratched her nose, and then turned over more cards.

  “If I wanted to get some pot, who would I ask?” I leaned in close, my voice as quiet as possible.

  She looked up, and let out a loud, gut laugh. “Is that all you’re after? Good Lord, you talked like you wanted crack cocaine. Pot’s legal, pretty lady. Go get it two blocks down at Mr. Happy’s Pot Shop.” She kept laughing, and turning cards, ignoring me.

  As I tried to think of something to get her to open up a little, Ansel joined us.

  She looked at him with a lip curl of disgust and swept her cards into her hand.

  “Hi.” He greeted me with a shy voice that I now knew was just one of his extremes.

  Jez left without another word.

  “I can get you what you want.” He sat down.

  “You can?” I smiled warmly. Clues had a way of coming from the least likely places.

  He reached into the front pocket of his threadbare windbreaker and pulled out a joint. “They don’t let you smoke it here, though. Wanna go away with me a little? Get outside.”

  I didn’t let my disappointment show. “Maybe later. I’ve got to get back to the office.”

  He followed me out, staying about a half a block behind me.

  I glanced back every now and then. I had parked several blocks away, and he tailed me the whole distance. I was curious how far he’d take it, so I passed by my car and kept walking.

  I saw the light rail coming so I stopped for it. Ansel didn’t join me but waited at the far end of the stop.

  I got on a front car and watched from the window as he got on the back.

  While I considered which stop to take, I got a text.

  This is Izzy. Rick is here. Needs to see you.

  I stared at it and wondered how best to torment her. Reply or ignore? Probably ignore. I pocketed the phone. The next stop would get me to the library, so I took it. I hustled up the block and watched the crowd—Ansel was still following me at a somewh
at discreet distance.

  The phone with the unanswered message was burning a hole in my psyche. I pulled it out again and responded. Why?

  Must resolve this. She responded immediately, like she didn’t have anything better to do.

  I turned into the library, climbed the steps and entered the imposing wood doors. Fine. I’m downtown at library. How soon can you be here?

  20 min

  Come alone

  If I was going to claw her eyes out, I didn’t need Rick to see it.

  I took the etched granite stairs up three flights. The upholstered seats in the mezzanine looked welcoming, so I took a seat. I had twenty minutes to kill.

  Ansel was at the top of the stairs now. When he saw me, he froze. I pretended not to notice. I hadn’t yet guessed what his game was, so I let it play out.

  He sidled along the edges of the mezzanine and entered the law book room. I figured he would hover by the door, one eye on me, but I was content to sit here with my phone, using library Wi-Fi to google Indiana news from twenty-five years ago. I didn’t have much to work with, so I’d have to be determined if I wanted to root out Linda’s secret.

  I rested my phone on my knee. Linda was hiding from something or someone, but it probably had nothing to do with Adam Demarcus’ death. I was a private investigator because I was essentially nosey. That question “But why?” that hovered in my brain at all times didn’t always help me get my job done efficiently.

  I forced myself to check out John Deere’s recent haikus, but they weren’t very revealing. A few more clipped thoughts on death, and one about strobe lights and fire. Boring. If only Gina would call me, then we could get something done.

  And then Izzy was there.

  She was standing in front of me, her red hair shiny and thick. Her face clean of make-up, fresh, and freckled. Her hazel eyes round and innocent. Her jeans were too tight, and her shirt was of thin material that let the lines of her dark bra show through.

  “Where can we go to talk?” Her voice was a low murmur, the seductive kind at odds with her childish appearance.

  “Here works for me.” I remained a picture of calm, leaning back against the wall, legs crossed, phone resting on my knee. But inside I was a volcano, restless, hot, and ready to erupt.