Natural Selection

by Liz Wolfe

  “Anybody have a key to your place? To water plants, take care of pets while you’re gone?”

  “Nope. The super has a key, but he wouldn’t leave the light on. Hell, he wouldn’t be up there for any reason.”

  “Maybe he’s fixing something.”

  “He hasn’t fixed anything since he rolled his first joint twenty years ago.”

  “Sounds like a real go-getter. You sure you didn’t leave the light on?”

  “I never leave lights on. Let’s go in here for a minute.” Paige pushed open the door of the little grocery tucked into the corner of the building, picked up a red plastic basket, and shoved it into Connor’s hand. “Go get us something for dinner. I’m going to keep an eye on the apartment building.”

  Paige had expected an objection, but Connor shrugged, took the basket, and headed down an aisle.

  “How about breakfast?” he asked from the end of the aisle.

  “Yeah, sure. Bacon, eggs, and toast?” Connor nodded and headed down another aisle. “Oh, get some coffee, too,” she called after him.

  Paige watched the lobby door while Connor threaded his way around the aisles. No one had come or gone by the time Connor piled his purchases on the counter. A few minutes later she saw Mr. and Mrs. Beiderman walking down the block. As usual they were dressed in matching cardigans in spite of the sultry summer night. Mr. Beiderman opened the door and held it for his wife. Then Wade Culver came out of the building, nodding to the Beidermans like he had every right to be there.

  “Son of a bitch!” Paige yelled, dropping her backpack to the floor. “Stay here!” she yelled at Connor and took off in a hard run. She heard Connor run after her, but with his injury he didn’t make it more than twenty yards down the block.

  Wade was almost to the corner when he must have heard her footsteps because he looked back at her, then started to run. He sprinted across the intersection and turned right. Paige cut the corner as much as she could and bolted across the street, ignoring the blaring horns of drivers who had to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting her.

  Wade ducked into an alley and Paige followed, trying to avoid the dumpsters, trash, and winos. When he reached the end of the alley, he turned, pulled out a handgun and squeezed off a shot. A cat screeched, and the winos scampered to huddle behind the safety of the dumpster.

  “Son of a bitch!” She wished she had her Kevlar vest and Glock 9mm, which were both locked in the trunk of her car. Wade took off again, and she ran after him. This street was more deserted, and she could see Wade less than a block ahead of her. Paige pushed herself to run harder, sucking in the carbon monoxide laden air, lengthening her stride, pumping her arms. She was gaining on him. By the end of the next block, she would have him.

  Wade glanced over his shoulder, startled to see how much distance she’d made up, and ducked into a Chinese restaurant. Paige put on a burst of speed she didn’t even know she had in her. She was not letting the bastard get away. She pushed through the restaurant just seconds behind him. Diners and waiters were both shouting and pointing.

  “Police!” she yelled, and shot through the swinging doors that led to the kitchen. Two tiny Asian women and a plump man were waving spoons, spatulas, and a cleaver, all talking at the same time. Paige couldn’t have understood them even if she knew whatever dialect they were speaking. One woman kept pointing to the back door so she headed that way, knocking over a few pots as she went. She flew out the back door, her foot hit something slippery, and she landed face down in the alley.

  Paige looked around but there was no sign of Wade and plenty of back doors he could have run through. She pulled herself up and grunted when she saw that she had landed in a slimy puddle of something brown and sticky. The three cooks had gathered at the back door and were still waving their utensils and fussing at her.

  “Sorry about the mess,” she said. That didn’t seem to have any effect on them so she turned and headed back to her apartment building.

  “What happened to you?” Connor asked, wrinkling his nose when she got closer.

  “He got away.” She brushed at her stained shirt. “What the hell was Wade doing in my apartment?”

  “Looking for something?” he suggested.

  “Looking for what? More likely he was waiting for me to show up so he could kill me. Which means we won’t be staying here. We’ll have to get a hotel.”

  “I doubt he’ll be back any time soon. Come on, I’ll make dinner while you take a shower.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “I’ve smelled worse, but I won’t tell you where.” Connor shuffled the bag of groceries to one arm and opened the door for her.

  “The elevator takes forever.” Turning toward the stairs, Paige led him up the three flights to her floor. Connor must have been feeling better because he didn’t look pale or sweaty when they arrived at her door.

  The elevator door opened, and Paige fished her house key out of her backpack and handed it to Conner when she saw her elderly neighbor toddle off the elevator with a basket of laundry.

  “Let me help you, Mrs. Hoffmeyer.” She jogged over and took the basket from the woman. Mrs. Hoffmeyer was in her eighties, and suffered from arthritis. Paige always tried to help when the tiny woman was hauling her groceries or laundry.

  “Oh, aren’t you sweet?” Mrs. Hoffmeyer patted Paige’s cheek then wrinkled her nose. “Oh, dear, what’s that smell?”

  “I fell in something,” Paige explained and rolled her eyes at Connor.

  “Well, you should get cleaned up right away,” Mrs. Hoffmeyer suggested, nodding at Conner. “He’s a looker,” she whispered to Paige. “Put on something nice after you clean up.”

  “I will,” Paige assured her and waved a hand at Connor to go on in the apartment.

  Connor opened the door, set the grocery bag on a chair, and popped back out to pick up Paige’s backpack.

  The explosion was deafening.

  Paige pushed Mrs. Hoffmeyer to the floor and fell on top of her, trying to not crush the frail woman. In seconds, doors had opened, heads sticking out to look down the hallway. Connor lay on the floor with Paige’s splintered door on top of him.

  Paige got off Mrs. Hoffmeyer and let one of the other tenants pick her up and gather her laundry.

  “Connor?” Paige lifted the door off him.

  “Yeah, I’m all right. What the hell happened?”

  “My apartment exploded.”

  Connor got to his feet and followed her into the apartment. “Must have been a nice place at one time.”

  Paige walked to the kitchen, pulled the screeching smoke alarm off the wall, and pressed the reset button. “Is anything on fire?”

  “Not that I can see,” Connor said.

  “Looks like this is where he put it.” Connor pointed to a smoldering heap that used to be a small, upholstered chair next to her front door.

  “Good choice. I usually dump my bag there when I come home.”

  “Probably pressure detonated.” Connor shrugged. “That’s where I put our dinner.”

  “I guess we’ll be eating out then.”

  “Whoa, what happened here?” The super stood in the doorway, one hand tucked inside the front of his pants, the other scratching his head of frizzy hair.

  “Hi, Steve.” Paige waved at the building superintendent. “Evidently there was an explosion. The place isn’t on fire.”

  “Oh, that’s good.” Steve walked in and looked around. “Man, this is going to take a lot of work.”

  The smoke alarm started to screech again. Steve picked it up and looked at it like he’d never seen one before. Paige grabbed it out of his hand, pressed the reset button, and threw it in a drawer.

  “You know, I can’t fix any of this until it’s cleaned up,” Steve said. “I fix, but I don’t clean.”

  It was easy to believe he didn’t clean from the looks of his clothes. Paige had never seen much evidence of him fixing anything either. “No problem, Steve. Can you have the cleaning service co
me in?”

  “Sure. It’ll cost you, though.”

  “Just let me know how much.”

  “Cool. See ya.” Steve sauntered through the doorway and leaned against the elevator.

  “Hey, Steve, think you could get a door up some time tonight?”

  “Yeah, probably. I’ll see what I can do.” Steve waved and got on the elevator.

  Paige tossed some clean underwear, T-shirts and jeans into her ratty backpack. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where to?” Connor asked as they descended the stairs.

  “First we get my truck, then we find a place to stay.” Out on the street, Paige signaled a cab and gave the cabbie directions to the garage where she had left her truck while she was gone.

  “Not very convenient, is it?” Connor asked.

  “What? Having my apartment blown up?”

  Connor shook his head. “Parking your truck several miles from where you live.”

  “Oh, that.” She shrugged. “I left it in a garage while I was gone. I usually park on the street, but I thought that probably wasn’t such a good idea for several weeks.” The cab pulled over and Paige handed him some bills. He grunted, which was universal cabby-speak for thanks.

  Paige banged on the door of the building, and after a few minutes it opened. “Wait here.”

  Ten minutes later, she drove her truck out of the side of the building, pulled over and beeped for Connor. “We still haven’t eaten anything,” she said.

  “That must be why my stomach is making those sounds.”

  “And I still have on these clothes with whatever this stuff is.” Paige picked at her shirt but that caused the odor to waft up to her nose.

  “We need a bath and a meal. And a bed.”

  “Sounds like a hotel to me. I know the perfect place.”

  Paige headed to the downtown area and pulled up to valet parking at the Portland Arms Hotel. It would cost a small fortune to stay there but the food would be excellent, the bath would be luxurious, and the bed would be comfortable. And Paige was most definitely in the mood for some pampering.

  The hotel clerk must have thought they were a couple of rock stars in disguise because he didn’t say a word about how she and Connor looked or the fact that their only luggage consisted of a ratty backpack and a briefcase. Paige tossed the room service menu to Connor and headed for the bathroom.

  She heard Connor on the phone as she ran water in the tub and added some of the complimentary bubbling bath salts. She lolled in the water for a while, then used the complimentary razor to scrape two weeks of hair off her legs, and the complimentary shampoo to wash her hair. Paige felt like a million bucks when she wrapped the thick, complimentary robe around herself, until she looked in the mirror.

  Her hair was sticking up in all directions. She slicked it back with a comb, which made her look like an effeminate boy. Finally, she just rumpled it with her fingers and called it done. Connor was watching the late news on television when she walked into the room.

  “Good, my turn. Food should be here soon.”

  Paige watched the news until there was a knock on the door. Food. Was she ready to eat, or what? She instructed the room service waiter to put the food on the table, tipped him, and wished Connor would get done so they could eat. He must have heard her wishes because he came out right away, wrapped in the other complimentary robe. If Paige hadn’t been so hungry, she might have done something about how ridiculously good he looked in that robe.

  They checked out of the Portland Arms after having a luxurious breakfast the next morning, and drove to a much less expensive hotel in the northwest area of Portland after a quick stop to buy more clothes for Connor, and some toiletries.

  The hotel was adequate, although it lacked a lot of the niceties of the Portland Arms. Paige almost sighed at the memory of the luscious dinner Connor had ordered, along with a bottle of champagne. As it happened, she’d had an opportunity to do something about how good he looked in that robe after all.

  “You got a plan yet?” Connor asked as they dumped their stuff on the dresser.

  “Not really. Just doing what comes next.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Finding out who those men really are. We know they have something to do with Eastland Industries. We know they have plenty of money. I’m betting they work for Eastland and that they’re pretty high up on the corporate food chain.”

  “A quick trip to the library should tell us something.” Connor put his hand around her waist and opened the door.

  “Exactly what I was thinking.” Half an hour later Connor and Paige plunked a stack of books onto a scarred wooden table in the main Portland library.

  “I’m going to look at some newspapers while you do this.”

  Connor nodded and pulled a book off the stack.

  Paige headed to the bank of computers at the rear of the room and logged on as a guest user and searched The Oregonian database for Eastland Industries. She clicked on the links, scanning articles, then moving on to others. Mostly they were about sales figures or import/export laws. Nothing to do with the people who worked at Eastland Industries.

  After an hour, she got a little closer when she found an article that listed the names of the Board of Directors of Eastland Industries, as well as the top management. Paige remembered the names Connor had given her. Martin, Dennis, and Nathan. She ran down the list of names and finally had them. Martin Scoresby, CEO, Dennis Rutger, Vice President of Operations, and Nathan Hauer, Treasurer and Vice President of Finance.

  Still, she needed to see pictures of them. She ran a search on the social section and started looking at pictures, then realized she needed to read the captions. Hell. She backed up and started over again. On the third page she found the caption she’d been hoping for. All three of them were listed under a picture of four men. The two men in the middle were grinning and shaking hands, the two on either side of them smiling like cats that had caught the canary. Martin Scoresby, President and CEO of Eastland Industries, was shaking hands with Mario Hernandez, Vice President of Operations in Eastland Industries’ Columbia office, and Nathan Hauer and Dennis Rutger were standing on either side of them.

  “I think I found them!” Connor held out a book.

  “They look anything like these guys?”

  Connor peered over her shoulder. “That’s them. Maybe a couple years older now, but it’s definitely them.”

  The men were younger than Paige had expected. In the photo they didn’t look much out of their mid-forties. Even if they were older now, she’d bet none of them were much past their mid-fifties. Paige clicked the icon to print out the page she had been looking at, while Connor photocopied the information he’d found on Eastland.

  “Come on, we’re going to visit a friend of mine.” Paige stuffed the copies into her backpack.

  “What friend?” Connor asked.

  “One who can help us nail these bastards.”

  They paid for the copies, walked to her truck, and a few minutes later pulled up outside the station house. The one-five-eight, where her dad had worked. Ten minutes later they were talking to her father’s former partner.

  “Hey, kid, how you been? Haven’t seen much of you lately.” Robby Malloy gave her a hug and motioned them into his tiny office.

  Robby was short and pudgy and hard of hearing so that he talked louder than was necessary. He’d been her father’s partner for the last five years. He and her dad had been training Ellie Sullivan when they were killed. Robby had assured Paige that he’d find their killers if it took him the rest of his life. She believed him.

  “Hi, Robby. This is Connor McKinnon. You got a minute?”

  “For you, kid, I got all the time in the world.”

  Connor and Paige told him the whole story of being on the island and the connection to Eastland Industries.

  “Bizarre. That’s what it is.” Robby waved a hand. “Not that I don’t believe you. I’ve known you long enough to know you woul
dn’t make anything like this up.”

  “I’m sure these are the men who killed Dad and Ellie Sullivan.”

  “I think your instincts are good, kid. But we’ve got to check it all out, you know?”

  “I understand, Robby. I just wanted to bring it to you because I know you want Dad’s killers as much as I do.”

  “Hell, kid, every cop around wants them. You know how it is when a cop gets taken out.”

  “I know.” Paige nodded. It had always been that way. Any time a fellow officer was killed they pulled out all the stops to find the murderer. Some things never changed.

  “Tell you what. Let me do some checking, see what I can find out.” Robby sipped his coffee. “Damn, it’d feel good to nail those bastards.”

  “Thanks, Robby. I really appreciate it.”

  “I’ll give you a call when I get something.”

  Connor and Paige said their goodbyes and left. They were almost to her truck when Paige remembered Robby would try to call her at home.

  “I’m going back to give Robby my cell phone number. Be right back.” Paige ran up the steps and down the hall. Robby’s door was closed but she could hear him talking on the phone.

  “We’ve got a problem, Martin. I don’t know what the hell you’ve been up to down in the Caribbean, but it’s come around to bite us all in the ass.”

  Her hand froze before she could knock on his door. Paige didn’t want to believe what she was hearing.

  “Sam’s daughter was here a few minutes ago,” Robby continued. “Told me she and some others were being hunted by you three. I thought you had that all taken care of down there.” He paused and Paige strained to hear him. “Yeah, well, I also told you it was a stupid idea. No one can trace those murders to you. So, what now?”

  Robbie Malloy, her dad’s partner for five years, was a total scumbag.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

  “YEAH,” ROBBY SAID IN HIS TOO-LOUD voice. “We need to talk. Listen, I covered up everything to do with it, didn’t I? Stopped the investigation dead in its tracks, didn’t I? It would have been fine. No one would have ever figured it out. But you guys have opened it up again.”