Not Dead Enough

by Warren C Easley

  His looked up at me, and his eyes had gone hard as flint. “What do you want with her? You got what you need, don’t you?”

  “What you’ve told me is useful, but I’d like to know what she remembers, if she’ll talk to me. She was right in the middle of this thing.”

  Gage gazed out the window for so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. When he finally turned to face me, his eyes had softened again. He sighed. “Well, if this’ll help bring that bastard Townsend down, I guess it’s worth it. Sheri North’s her stage name. Her real name’s Shirley Norquist. She lives down around the Salem area.”

  Jerome brought the Hummer back around to my mailbox and stopped, the motor idling silently. Gage tossed his cigar butt out the window into the weeds. I started to thank him, but he waved me off. “Listen, Claxton, I don’t want to be associated with this in any way. If you try to quote me I’ll deny we ever had this little talk, and you’ll have more trouble than you ever dreamed of. Are we clear?”

  “We’re clear,” I said and got out.

  “One more thing,” he said through the open window. “Sheri North’s a fine lady. If you talk to her, treat her with respect. Got that?” I nodded, and he tapped Jerome on the shoulder. The big black Hummer pulled out and headed back toward the Pacific Highway.

  I jogged up my driveway, grateful to pump some clean air into my lungs. Archie met me at the gate with a tennis ball in his mouth. I threw and he fetched for ten or fifteen minutes, and then I took him inside and fed him. While Arch ate, I opened a cold bottle of beer and went out on the side porch to think. The sun was out, but a bank of dark clouds was heading up the valley, towing a band of rain that hung below them like smoke.

  I finished the beer but not my thought process. I had either been given an incredible gift of information or had been lied to by a master. I couldn’t decide which.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Jake

  Staying out of sight at the beach cabin was boring as hell, but Jake managed it. Don’t even think about doing anything for at least a week, he told himself. Deep cover, just like a spy movie, man. His luck was holding, too. Okay, the piece of shit TV didn’t work, and there was no beer in the fridge or I W Harper in the cupboard, but there were plenty of staples in the pantry. He wouldn’t starve. He’d wavered a couple of times, thinking about how easy it would be to slip on his shades and ball cap and go out for a couple of bottles and a carton of Camels. But he stuck to his vow and even began rationing his cigarettes.

  He had quit sending texts. He wasn’t sure why. It just seemed like the smart thing to do until he got his head straight. Maybe he’d just slip out when the dust settled and never contact them again. Fuck ‘em. He had his fifteen thousand dollars. The incoming texts arrived every couple of hours for the first two days, then stopped. They probably thought he was dead or had lost his phone. He could only imagine what they were saying about him, how he’d screwed up a simple, well-paying job, made a mess of it. But he saw it differently. He had made it out of eastern Oregon—no easy task with every cop in the state looking for him—and his truck was hidden, the car he stole was out of sight, and he was in a safe house.

  Not a bad piece of work.

  But on the eighth day, he woke up with the Old Man on his mind. He’d had a vague dream about camping with him, and that brought to mind a trip to the Sawtooths they’d taken when Jake was fifteen. It was just the two of them. And it wasn’t just the hunt. Hell, they both got an elk on that trip. No, it was those nights around the campfire. Jake cooking, the stars so low you could touch them, and the Old Man stretched out, telling stories like only he could. It was the closest he ever felt to having a father, and the thought of it now caused him to blink away stinging tears.

  Time to break the silence, he decided. He sent the following text:

  In a good place now. Would like to talk.

  He was microwaving the last package of instant oatmeal when his phone pinged:

  Where are you? The Old Man wants a face to face.

  He knew he would have to give up his address, but when it came down to it, he hesitated. No one knew where he was, and he liked that. Just do it, he finally told himself. The Old Man knows what he’s doing. The link they’re using must be secure. He sent a text with his address and directions for where to park and how to approach the cabin without being seen.

  Ten minutes later this response came back:

  See you late tonight. We will park and approach per your instructions and knock on the back door.

  The hours dragged by that day. There was a stash of books in the bedroom, mostly romance novels but some mysteries, too. He had read all the mysteries by then, so he tried one of the romance novels, a steamy one by the looks of the cover. But it was useless. He couldn’t focus. Not even a good George Pelecanos would have held his attention. He was about to reenter the world, and that stirred up thoughts about what he’d done. He had kept those thoughts at bay for a while, but now they were back like big, ugly ants crawling around in his head.

  He had killed two people, one was a woman, and he’d forced a third off a cliff. Could he ever put that behind him? Or is there a point at which you can’t go back, when things you’ve done are just too terrible? He wasn’t a religious man, and he wasn’t worried about burning in hell. It was the hell inside his head he was afraid of. He was sorry for what he had done, and if he had it to do over again, he would have left that fucking money sitting on the table at the guesthouse. Was that enough? To be sorry and to promise yourself never to kill again?

  He had no answers to these questions, just the incessant churning of his guilty conscience. Time will quiet your mind, he told himself. Somehow he knew that. And maybe the Old Man will give you some credit. After all, you may have fucked up, but you pulled it out.

  Amy will get her back alimony, too. I’ll deliver the payment in person so I can see the look on her face.

  He managed a nap and ate another crappy dinner, Hormel beef chili and creamed corn. A front blew in and rain drummed on the roof of the cabin the rest of the evening. At 11:53 p.m., he heard a knock on the kitchen door.

  He went to the door, opened it, and stepped back in surprise. “Oh, it’s you. Where’s the Old Man?”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Archie lobbied hard to come with me the next morning, but I left him standing at the gate with his ears back. I found two Shirley Norquists in a computer search the night before. One listing was for a woman living on the coast. I ruled that one out. The second was in Independence. I had to look it up on a map. Another small town like Dundee, it was located just southwest of the state capitol, Salem. From what Gage had told me, that had to be the one.

  Independence was straight south of Dundee, and I got there in less than an hour. I pulled up to the curb a few houses down and across from the place at eight-twenty. It was a modest, ranch-style house with a couple of comfortable looking wicker chairs on the front porch. I’d fretted all the way from Dundee that she wouldn’t be home, but a Honda Civic in the driveway and a couple of lights on in the interior gave me hope. I waited until nine and rang the bell.

  A woman opened the door but left a screen door in place between us. She had a book in her hand and looked at me a bit warily, fearing, no doubt, that I was selling something. I recognized her immediately. Her hair was gray now, but the fine sculpting of her face was still evident below pale skin that had yet to show its age. She wore a black, cable-knit sweater and a pair of jeans that probably would have fit her equally well twenty years earlier.

  “My name’s Cal Claxton,” I said, holding up a business card and smiling affably. “Are you Shirley Norquist?”

  “Yes I am.”

  “The jazz singer who used the stage name Sheri North back in the fifties?”

  She hesitated for a couple of beats. “Uh, yes, but—”

  “I was hoping I might speak to you about your
singing career in Portland and some of the people you knew back then.”

  She put on a pair of glasses that hung on a cord around her neck and read my card through the screen door. “You’re an attorney?”

  “Uh, yes. It’s a cross I bear every day.”

  She tried to contain a smile but failed.

  “I represent a Native American woman who’s trying to find out what happened to her grandfather. He disappeared fifty years ago at The Dalles Dam. I have reason to believe you might be able to help us.”

  “Fifty years ago? You can’t be serious. I can’t help you with something like that. I don’t even know any Native Americans.”

  “I realize you don’t know my client or her family. It’s a fascinating story. Give me a chance to explain. Your help would mean a great deal to her.”

  She looked down at my card again and then back at me. “What’s your client’s name?”

  “Winona Cloud. She’s the first Wasco Indian PhD ever. She’s doing great work for her tribe and for the Columbia River.”

  She hesitated while seeming to ponder something weighty. My guess was she didn’t necessarily want to revisit that time in her life. I waited, knowing her willingness to talk hung in the balance. Finally, she unlocked the screen door, stepped out on the porch, and shut the door behind her. “I doubt if I can help you, Mr. Claxton, but I guess I could try to answer a few questions.”

  I sat down next to her in one of the wicker chairs. After I’d outlined the story of Nelson Queah’s disappearance, I said, “We know from letters Mr. Queah wrote to his wife during this time that he had learned of a plot at the dam to steal money from the Corps of Engineers by using deceptive accounting procedures. We think he was killed to keep him from going public with the story.”

  What I was about to say next would show my hand completely, but I was convinced it was worth the risk. “The construction project for The Dalles dam was being run by a man named Royce Townsend.” I paused again and met her eyes. “I know that you were seeing him during this time.”

  Her eyes registered surprise. “My, you’ve done your homework.” Then she looked down at her hands in her lap and added, “I’m a very private person, Mr. Claxton. I’m not comfortable at all talking about my past.”

  “I know it’s difficult, and I respect that. But what if you could help rectify a great injustice? Mr. Queah was a tribal leader and a decorated war hero. The police who investigated his disappearance concluded that he got drunk and either fell into the Columbia River accidentally or killed himself. This has brought great shame to his granddaughter and his tribe. And of course, the person who murdered him has gone free all these years.”

  She avoided my eyes and remained silent.

  Fearing I was losing her, I quickly added, “This is a just cause, Ms. Norquist. And of course, what you tell me will be held in the strictest confidence.”

  “Are you suggesting Royce Townsend had something to do with this man’s disappearance?

  “Let’s just say I have reason to suspect him. Nothing’s been proven, however.”

  She stared out at a spot on her front lawn for a while. Finally, she sighed deeply. “The singing was good. But the life wasn’t. Smoky bars, lecherous drunks, patrons who didn’t know blues from opera. God, I hated it. Yeah, I had a fling with Royce Townsend. I’m not proud of it. He was married.” She returned her eyes to me and smiled. “I was young, self-absorbed, and very naïve.”

  “Weren’t we all,” I replied, and we shared a laugh together. “I know it was a long time ago, but do you remember Townsend saying anything about an illegal scheme at the dam, or about keeping two sets of books, anything like that?”

  She rolled her eyes and laughed. “You’re not kidding about it being a long time. No, I don’t remember anything about any scam. Royce never talked shop with me.” She fell silent. I could only imagine the avalanche of memories that had been triggered by my questions. When she came out of her reverie, she said, “You know, what you’re implying doesn’t really surprise me, at least the stealing part. Royce was always looking for the easy way, and he had a gift for getting people to do his bidding. But killing someone’s a different matter. I don’t think he would’ve gone that far.”

  “What if he had someone else do the killing?”

  She considered the question for a moment. “Maybe, if the stakes were high enough.”

  “Did you know anything about Townsend being blackmailed over his affair with you?

  Her eyes enlarged, and she put her hand to her mouth. “You’re not serious.”

  “It happened. Does the name Braxton Gage ring a bell?”

  The question hit her like a body blow. Her face drained of what little color it had, and her eyes narrowed down. “He was blackmailing Royce over me? You’re kidding.”

  “Afraid not. He used pictures of you and Townsend together to get a fat contract at the dam and to avoid paying the kickbacks Townsend was demanding of all the other contractors.”

  She blew a breath out and shook her head. “I told you I was naïve. I was swimming with sharks and didn’t even know it.”

  “How did you know Gage?”

  She clenched her jaw and drew her mouth into a thin line. Her eyes smoldered. “I didn’t, really. He came to several shows, seemed to like my stuff. Royce and I were having a spat at the time, so I was on the rebound. I only went out with him a couple of times.”

  I knew there was more. I waited.

  Looking down at the table, she said in a voice I could barely hear, “That was a mistake. Braxton Gage was not a gentleman.”

  There was a long pause broken only by the whir of a neighbor’s lawnmower and the cawing of a crow in the backyard. “I’m sorry,” was all I could think to say. There was little doubt in my mind about what she was implying. A disgusting image of Braxton Gage forcing himself on a young and beautiful Sheri North flitted across my mind like an ugly porno clip. I wondered why Gage had put me in contact with her in the first place. Apparently, he never dreamed she’d reveal his dirty little secret.

  At this point she offered me coffee, which I readily accepted. When she returned with a tray, I could see that, like a passing cloud, her anger was gone. I found myself admiring this woman. I said, “Why did you leave Portland?”

  She took a sip of coffee and shrugged her shoulders. “I got pregnant. I didn’t want to bring my kid up in the life, so I moved here, had the baby and got a real job.” She laughed. “The rumor was I left to have an abortion, but that never entered my mind. I stayed out of the limelight and never bothered correcting the rumor. I didn’t care what Portland thought of me.”

  She didn’t mention who the father was, and something told me not to press my luck. She told me how she became a paralegal secretary and about the struggles she had bringing up a son as a single mom. She wasn’t forthcoming about her son, and I saw no need to press her on that, either.

  By this time I was feeling pretty disappointed. She had more or less reinforced what Gage had told me, but she sure as hell hadn’t given me the smoking gun I was hoping for.

  She seemed to read my mood. “I’m afraid I haven’t helped you very much, have I.”

  “Of course you have. And I appreciate your being so candid. Remember, the confidentiality works both ways. I’m counting on your not discussing this with anyone, even your son or closest friends. Okay?”

  “I was a paralegal secretary, Mr. Claxton. I understand the importance of confidentiality.”

  She stood, and I took my cue that it was time to leave. In the vein of small talk, I said, “Any grandchildren?”

  She frowned. “No. My son was married once, but it didn’t work out.” Her looked turned wistful. “He lives in Idaho, and I don’t get to see him nearly enough.”

  “Beautiful state, Idaho. Where’s he located?”

  “Boise, mainly, but he moves around a l
ot. He’s a hunting guide.”

  I arrested a double take just in time. “Really,” I said as casually as I could while I frantically tried to remember the name of the guide service Townsend had used. “I’ve hunted in Idaho. Used one of the guide services out of Boise, but I can’t remember the name. Does he guide for one of them?”

  She eyed me for an instant, and I thought maybe I’d telegraphed something. Then her look turned embarrassed. “He used to work for the Idaho Wilderness Guide Service, but they went under a while back. I’ve forgotten the name of his new outfit.”

  Her answers were vague, either because she was withholding information or she simply didn’t know. I felt it was the latter, but I wasn’t sure. I risked another question. “What’s his name?”

  “Jacob, after my father.

  I gave her my broadest smile. “Well, I’ll ask for him the next time I’m hunting in Idaho.” I left it there, fearing that if I kept probing she’d get suspicious, if she wasn’t already. I had a name and a state. That should be enough.

  I thanked her again, got into my car, and as I drove away there was only one thought in my mind—Jacob Norquist. Could he be the sniper?

  Chapter Forty-eight

  When I got out of sight of Norquist’s place, I pulled over and called the Wasco County Sheriff’s Office in Shaniko, Oregon. Sheriff Bailey would be the right man to contact first since both Sherman Watlamet and his own deputy, Cleta Grooms, were gunned down in his jurisdiction. The other reason I called him first is that I knew he wanted the man who shot Grooms as badly as I did. Bailey wasn’t there, and I left a message for him to call me. “Tell him it’s urgent,” I told the dispatcher at the other end.

  I had a child custody hearing at the Yamhill County Courthouse that morning. I took the 99W straight north to McMinnville, and by the time I found a parking space in the courthouse lot I was wound pretty tight. Bailey hadn’t returned my call. I tried him again and left a lengthy voice message this time.