Not Dead Enough

by Warren C Easley

  Afterwards, there were few words. We slept deeply, pressed against each other. In the morning we made love again, this time more slowly.

  While I made breakfast, Winona began pouring her heart out about Jason Townsend and the decision they’d finally come to. To me, it was something personal between them, and I wasn’t sure how much I really wanted to hear, although I listened without protest. At one point, though, curiosity got the better of me. I said, “If he hadn’t come out, would you have gone through with the marriage?”

  She was sitting at the breakfast table, looking fresh and beautiful. The valley pulsed with color, and highlights from the morning sun rippled in her hair. She paused for a moment. “I don’t really know. I loved Jason in an admiring kind of way—not romantically—and I thought he loved me. I figured that might be enough, that it would be something to build on. But when you and I talked after David left, I began to look at the situation differently, although I think on some level I already knew. There was something about David, you know? He and I agreed on the issues, but I always got this vibe from him. He was so, so protective of Jason.” She paused again, wrinkled her brow, then chuckled. “At the time, I chalked it to loyalty, but it was jealousy, wasn’t it.”

  I nodded. “It went way beyond loyalty.”

  She smiled, shaking her head. “You were carrying quite a secret around. How did you find out about Jason and David in the first place?”

  “I happened to overhear a conversation between them that made me wonder. Then when I took David home after his fight with Sam, I got him to admit he and Jason were lovers.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I struggled with that. Part of me wanted to, you know, maybe break you two up. But I couldn’t do it. It just wasn’t any of my business. Hell, for all I knew, Jason was being perfectly open with you.”

  Winona came over to the stove and hugged me. “Well, thanks for the discretion. I’m afraid I might have shot the messenger.”

  I laughed. “That possibility certainly crossed my mind. At the very least, I wanted to keep you as a friend.”

  We polished off two batches of pancakes while managing to keep the banter light. Afterwards, Winona went to the window and gazed out at the valley. Not one to shrink from delicate subjects, she said, “This place is beautiful but so isolated, like you’ve been exiled or something.” She turned around and faced me. “But I can understand wanting to be alone after what happened down in Los Angeles.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded. “I had to get away from myself. At least the self I used to be.” I made a sweeping gesture with my arm. “This seemed to be the best way to do that. Arch and I have everything we need up here.”

  She smiled and met my eyes. “Is this the new Cal speaking?”

  I thought for a moment. “You’ll have to be the judge of that.” Then I asked, “What caused Jason’s epiphany, anyway?”

  She hesitated for a moment, considering, no doubt, whether to let me get away with changing the subject. She shrugged. “I began to see how he was being manipulated by his father and Sam. The last straw for me was when he caved on the dam removal plank. We had a long talk after that. I told him if he didn’t start standing up to them, I’d break the engagement and quit the campaign.”

  “I’ll bet you didn’t expect him to go as far as he did.”

  “Oh, my God, no! I was shocked when he told me. But now I’m so proud of him. He’s determined to find out who he really is.” She hesitated and then added, “And I’m relieved, too.”

  I hoped she might elaborate on the last part, and I knew she was like me, so I waited. Matters of the heart didn’t come easily for either of us.

  Reading my mind again, she made a face at me and sighed. “Of course, things got complicated after I met you. I tried really hard to shut you out, but it didn’t seem to work.”

  “I have that effect on women.”

  Her laughter put to flight two towhees at the feeder out on the deck. “In your dreams, Cal Claxton.” Then she tossed a wet dishrag at me.

  We were out on the porch having coffee when my cell phone rang.

  “Mr. Claxton? This is Shirley Norquist. I hope I didn’t call too early.”

  “Not at all,” I told her, my mind snapping to attention. Why was Jacob Norquist’s mother calling me?

  “I wanted to thank you again for your kind words after I lost Jacob. You had every reason to be angry, I suppose, but you showed forgiveness, and I appreciate that.”

  “If what I said comforted you, I’m glad.”

  She paused before going on. “But that’s not why I called. I just received two boxes from the guide service my son worked for over in Boise. They contain some of his belongings from the last camp he stayed at before he came to Oregon. There’re some papers, too. I opened the boxes but couldn’t bring myself to sort through it all, but I figured someone should. They might shed light on what really happened to Jacob.”

  “Have the police gone through the stuff?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Have you talked to the State Police about this?”

  “No. And I don’t intend to, at least right now. They’ve made up their minds about my son. Besides, if they find anything embarrassing, it’ll wind up in the papers.” She paused again, and I knew what was coming. “I was hoping you’d be willing to take a look at the boxes, Mr. Claxton. Maybe advise me about what to do.”

  I agreed to have a look and told her I’d drive over that morning. I could imagine the Idaho guide service wanting to shed themselves of any and all things associated with Jacob Norquist and wasn’t that surprised that the belongings had apparently been overlooked by the Idaho police. Shirley Norquist was mired in deep denial, too.

  I snapped my cell shut and turned to Winona. “Want to take a ride?”

  Chapter Fifty-four

  On the way down to Independence I began filling Winona in on what I’d learned just before finding Norquist’s body. “Thanks to Philip’s father, Braxton Gage met with me to discuss the events at the dam fifty years ago. Gage’s a crusty old bastard, but he managed to convince me that Royce Townsend was the most likely person behind the money skimming operation.”

  Winona sucked in a quick breath. The significance of what I just said wasn’t lost on her. “My God, you mean Royce could have been the one who ordered Ferguson to kill my grandfather?”

  “That’s my best theory. But the trouble is, it rests on my believing what Gage told me, and that’s not exactly a safe bet. Gage’s version gets byzantine, too. He hired a private detective, because Townsend was rumored to be sleeping with Shirley Norquist, who was a very hot blues singer at the time. He used some juicy photos of the two of them to get the major cement supply contract at the dam.” I had to chuckle. “Gage bragged about it to me. But Townsend apparently outsmarted him and talked Ferguson into keeping a double set of books on Gage’s accounts. Gage thinks it almost had to have been Townsend who turned Ferguson.”

  We rode in silence for a considerable distance. I could only imagine what was going through her head. She said, “All this time, I’ve focused my hatred on Cecil Ferguson. But he was just a pawn in this deal. Is there other evidence pointing to Royce?”

  “He used Norquist as a hunting guide back in the day, but he denies any recent connection. There’s a good chance Norquist is his illegitimate son.”

  “Oh, my God. That can be checked, right?”

  “They certainly have Norquist’s DNA, but they’d have to compel Townsend, and there’s no probable cause at this point. And it’s a link, not a smoking gun.”

  “What about his mother? She must know who the father is?”

  I exhaled a breath in frustration. “I told her to tell the police about the affair and all, but she’s frozen right now, doesn’t want anything coming out about her past. Hell, she hasn’t really accepted the fact that her
son was a cold-blooded killer.”

  Winona leaned back in her seat, her face suddenly pale and drawn. “How many times has Royce Townsend hugged me and called me dear? And, you know, his touch always felt strange, almost creepy.” A noticeable shiver coursed through her body. “I just chalked it up to him being a fading lady’s man. Should have gone with my gut.”

  “Nothing’s proven,” I reminded her.

  The color returned to her face along with that warrior look of resolve that I’d seen before. “Yeah, well, not everything needs to be proved.”

  ***

  I was shocked when Shirley Norquist opened the door. Sad-eyed, pale, and wan, she’d aged a dozen years. Burying your son after having his picture plastered across the newspapers with headlines screaming that he was the “Oregon Sniper” will do that to you. She led us to a back bedroom that had obviously been her son’s when he was growing up. Instead of athletes and rock stars on the wall, there were pictures of big horn sheep, grizzlies, and elk. The trophies on a shelf above the bed had rifles and targets on them, not balls and bats. She waved at two large boxes on the bed. “It’s all there.” Then she excused herself. I didn’t blame her. The room must have been haunted with memories.

  I shut the bedroom door, relieved that she had left the room. I didn’t want her witnessing us handling her son’s possessions, which could turn out to be state’s evidence. My intent was to look things over without disturbing anything. If I saw something of potential interest, I’d advise her to call in the police, despite her misgivings.

  I pulled two pairs of latex gloves from my briefcase and handed Winona a pair. “Better wear these.”

  She gave me a conspiratorial smile. “Gee, this is getting exciting.”

  I opened the top of the box on my left and nodded toward the other box. “Take that one. Remove everything gently and lay the contents on the bed. When we finish, we’ll put everything back the way we found it.” I winked at her. “This never happened.”

  My box contained a pile of scruffy clothes that needed laundering, an assortment of camping gear—including a propane stove, day pack and small espresso coffee pot—and a half empty carton of Camel cigarettes. There was a large collection of creased and dog-eared paperbacks, some Hemingway and Clancy, but mostly George Pelecanos. Norquist’s name was scrawled in each of them. Jake Norquist. I thumbed through the books and found a couple of snapshots of him with a woman I took to be his former wife. In one, he knelt next to a five-point buck, and she stood on the other side of the dead animal cradling a rifle. They looked very happy.

  “Not much here,” Winona said, looking over the items she’d unpacked—a heavy jacket, a pair of mud-encrusted boots, and an assortment of toiletries. She fished out a bulging, legal-sized envelope, opened it, and removed the papers. “Looks like bills and correspondence.” She peeled off half the stack, handed it to me, and began leafing through the other half. “What am I looking for?”

  “Any connection between Norquist and the outside world, especially Oregon. Names, dates, anything unusual. Bear in mind that he shot Sherman Watlamet on March 16th. That’s when it all started. Whoever hired him to hit Watlamet had to have contacted him just a few days earlier, because that’s when Watlamet called Ferguson, which set the whole thing off.”

  She nodded and started sorting through her stack. I sat down in a chair in the corner and began going through mine, a collection of bills, receipts, and lists of things that needed doing around the campsite. The lists were in Norquist’s handwriting, and most of the items were dutifully checked off. I scanned his credit card and cell phone bills carefully but saw nothing that caught my attention. “Nothing here,” I finally said.

  Winona looked up and frowned. “I’m not finding anything either. This is all local stuff. He was close to the edge financially. His checking account shows a balance of $108.52 at the end of February. There’s a letter from his ex-wife, too, complaining that he’s four months behind in his alimony.”

  “Sounds like a man who could use a good payday.”

  She nodded. “I’ll bet they knew he needed money.” She sifted through the last of the papers and found a folded piece of notepaper on the bottom of the stack. She unfolded it, and her eyebrows went up as she read it. “It’s dated March 14th.” She handed it to me. “Look at this.”

  In the now familiar scrawl, I read—

  1.Clean rifle and pack ammo

  2.Tell Jimmy to feed horses

  3.Pack light camp gear

  4.Guesthouse 9 pm

  “Huh,” I said, “the last entry says he planned to meet someone at a guesthouse on the night of the fourteenth. That’s probably where he got his marching orders on Watlamet.”

  Winona looked up, her eyes suddenly larger. “Guesthouse? Oh, my God, Cal.”

  I looked at her. “What?”

  “There’s a guesthouse on the Townsend’s estate in Silverton. I know. I stayed there once.”

  I put the slip of paper down. “Silverton? Near the park with all the waterfalls?”

  “Yes, the Townsends have acreage there, on the road between the town and the park. Their country estate,” she said, enclosing the last phrase in air quotes.

  “They refer to it as ‘the guesthouse’?”

  “Yes. That’s what Jason called it. The guesthouse.”

  I nodded. “Could be the place. Norquist didn’t jot down an address, which implies he knew the location. He’d worked for Townsend. He could have known where it was.”

  Her eyes flashed with excitement. “Yes, and he probably stayed there for at least one night. The police should search it. Maybe Norquist left something behind—a fingerprint, DNA, something. That would prove the connection between Townsend and him right before the killings started, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would make him a prime suspect, for sure. But I doubt there’s a judge in Oregon who would issue a search warrant on the basis of that one reference. Besides, if he was there, it’s been a while. They may have cleaned up the place.”

  We finished our search a few minutes later without finding anything else that looked even remotely interesting. I showed Shirley Norquist the note and told her it could be important because of the date. She read it, then looked up with a furrowed brow. “This is all you found?”

  I nodded. “But the reference to the guesthouse might mean something to someone, you know, a useful lead.” I didn’t want her to know anything more than that.

  She looked at me, a flicker of hope stirring in her eyes. “So I should tell the police.”

  “Definitely.”

  She glanced at Winona, then back at me. “Should I mention you?”

  “Tell them you found the note and showed it to me and asked my advice. Better not to say we found it.”

  She sighed. The hope in her eyes faded as fast as it had appeared. Deep down she must have known the truth, that her son was a murderer, and that this scrap of evidence would do nothing to alter that harsh fact. But she seemed to hope against hope for some kind of miracle. The duty of a mother, I suppose.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Norquist, but that’s all we found.”

  As we were leaving, she placed a hand on my arm and met my eyes. “Jacob was a good man, Mr. Claxton. I just can’t believe he did something like this.” Winona squeezed her hand, and I hugged her. I liked this woman, even though her son had nearly killed me twice.

  ***

  We rode in silence for a while, and then Winona turned to me. “That’s it? That’s all we’re going to do?”

  “Look, let’s give her some time to report this. I’ll call the police this afternoon and tell them I asked you about the note, and you came up with the guesthouse connection. That’ll close the loop. Maybe it’s enough to motivate them to go for a search warrant.” My response felt frustratingly weak, but I couldn’t think of a better course of action.

&nb
sp; Winona didn’t respond, but I could feel her glare on the side of my face as I watched the oncoming traffic. I knew damn well she wasn’t the type to let the grass grow under her feet, and I should have known she’d take matters into her own hands.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  I dropped Winona at her place in the Pearl. “I’ll call you just as soon as I talk to the police,” I told her. She kissed me and got out, then looked back at me after she’d climbed the steps leading to her loft. Her look made it clear she was disappointed. Who did she think I was, some kind of Rambo private eye? Jeez

  When I arrived at the farm, Archie was up on the north fence line with Santos. Not one to sit around and wait for instructions in my absence, Santos was busy trimming a row of unruly forsythia bushes. My dog made a beeline for my car and when I got out and knelt down to greet him, nearly knocked me over before slathering me with kisses. He was getting big and strong, that pup of mine. I greeted Santos and told him about the employment opportunity with Fletcher Dunn. “Lake Oswego?” he said. “Uh, how would I get there?”

  “If you want the job, we’ll work something out. It’s not that far from where you live in Newberg.” He said he could use the money, and I even got a smile out of him.

  I called Sheriff Bailey that afternoon and explained the situation surrounding the discovered scrap of paper dated March 14th. He listened quietly until I finished. “We sure as hell know that Norquist didn’t act on his own, and I know you think this fella Townsend’s behind it. But what you got here’s pretty thin, Cal. Tell you what, I’ll call the State Police and see what they think. They’d have to generate the warrant to search that guesthouse. By the way, they asked Townsend for a cheek swab, and his lawyer told them to pack sand.”

  I thanked him and signed off. It was pretty much what I expected. Winona didn’t pick up, so I left a message. I tried to sound optimistic that something would get done, but I doubt if I did. Spin was not one of my strong suits.