Ice on the Grapevine

by R. E. Donald

  "I don't know that, Sharon," she said softly. "You tell me."

  "Okay. I will. Write this down or tape record it or whatever you do. I'm going to tell you what really happened." She sighed two or three times, chewing on her lips in concentration, then took a deep drag on her cigarette, letting the smoke out as she talked. "I thought Greg Williams was my friend. He played the bar where I worked a couple times a month, and we used to talk. This was up in Canada, eh? So, there was this guy used to come in to the bar. He was married and had a pretty fancy job so he had money, but he liked a different kind of good time, something he couldn't do with his wife. We got to talking, and he said he liked me. He said he'd treat me to some good blow if I'd party with him, you know? Cocaine. I was really hooked on it at the time, couldn't afford as much as I needed to keep happy. After the first couple of times with this guy, I knew I was in for trouble. Turned out he was a real asshole who liked to hurt women. He'd pull my hair, twist my arm, anything to make me scream and cry. It turned him on. He did worse stuff. One night he came to the bar, said he'd be back for me after I got off work. When I went outside on my break to have a smoke, I was so scared and ashamed I started to cry. I wanted the coke so bad, but I hated what that creep did to me. Greg was on his break, too, and he saw me crying, asked me what was the matter. He seemed to care so I told him all about it."

  Sharon closed her eyes, remembering. "Greg said he could help. He said he'd loan me this little tape recorder he used to write songs, and I could tape Jake saying stuff that he wouldn't want his wife to know, or his boss. Stuff that might even get him in trouble with the law. I was to get him to say that he'd bought cocaine, and the kind of things he liked to do in bed, whatever I could get him to talk about. And I had to find out where he lived and stuff. It was easy. I just looked at his driver's license while he was in the shower. I made the tape and gave it back to Greg, like he said. A couple of days later, Greg talked to Jake, played him the tape, said if he ever hurt me bad, he'd be in big trouble. So Jake was pissed off. We saw each other a few more times, but he wasn't having fun anymore. I could tell he really wanted to hurt me, but he didn't. Then he just stopped coming around. But by then I had two or three other guys buying me coke." She looked up at Alora. "I know what you're thinking."

  Alora didn't respond, other than to smile sympathetically. She'd been jotting down notes as Sharon talked, intending to fill in the blanks later, before she forgot.

  "You're thinking I'm nothing but a whore." She sighed. "Well, you're right. I was selling my body for drugs. I used to tell myself I was just partying, that I never did it for money. Hah! If I'd had the money, I would've bought the drugs with it, so it was really just a shortcut, wasn't it? I was still just a whore."

  She looked at the short stub of her cigarette, and Alora passed the package across the table. Sharon lit a third cigarette before she continued. "Greg said I should tape some stuff on all the guys I went with, just for insurance. He'd hold onto them for me, and if anything happened to me, he could take the tapes to the police. Or if the guys started getting nasty, he could do what he did with Jake. I said, okay. Of course, I still thought Greg was doing this for my sake, just to help me out, keep me safe."

  Alora looked up from her writing and nodded, encouraging Sharon to continue.

  "I found out a few months later he was doing it for Greg. He was hitting them up for money, but I didn't know, eh? One of the guys told me about it, said he couldn't see me anymore because of it, that he had to pay Greg a thousand bucks to get the tape back and he sure as hell wasn't going to let it happen again, and was I happy now. He was pissed off with me because he thought I was in on it. When I talked to Greg about it, he offered me a cut." Sharon paused, took a deep breath and rubbed her forehead with her palm. "You know, I actually thought about it, started working out what kind of money I would make if I slept with two new guys a week. Christ! What a wake up call! While I was just sleeping with these guys for coke, I could pretend I was still a half decent girl. A bar waitress who happened to be a party girl. But when I found myself actually thinking about blackmailing these guys … What did that make me? It was about that time that I got drunk at work a couple of times, and they told me I had to get treatment or I'd lose my job. That and the blackmail thing scared the piss out of me, so I went to treatment. I'd been sober for four months when I met Ray." She leaned back, her eyes wandered to the corner of the ceiling and she was lost in her thoughts for a while. Alora scribbled furiously, taking down as much as she could remember.

  "Being sober, being with Ray, I almost forgot about Greg's tapes. We still talked some when he played the bar, and he seemed happy for me when I told him how well it was working out with Ray, but we never mentioned that other stuff. Well, after me and Ray got married, and we needed to get a green card for me so I could work with him on U.S. runs, I started to think about those tapes. There must've been at least half a dozen, probably more. I couldn't take a risk of somebody getting hold of those tapes and going to the police, because if I had a criminal record, it would make it an awful lot harder to get my green card. In fact, I might not even be able to cross the border into the United States. I'd quit my job by then, but I went back to the Blackburn to talk to Greg." She looked up at Alora, snorted softly and shook her head. "Guess what happened?"

  Alora shrugged. "He wouldn't give them back?"

  "Worse than that. He said I could have them all - all the ones he had left, because I think he just hit some of the guys up for a hundred bucks every month or so, and others he handed over the tape for a bigger amount, so some of the tapes were gone. So he said I could have them all back if I wanted to buy them out. Five thousand dollars, he said. I said, You know me, Greg. I don't have that kind of money. And he said, but that's a pretty nice looking truck your husband has. He must make pretty good money. Why don't you ask him for it?" She grunted, looked like she wanted to spit. "He knew I wouldn't want Ray to hear those tapes. It wasn't like Ray didn't know I'd had some problems. I told him I was an addict and did some things I was ashamed of. Hell, he's even been to a couple of AA meetings with me, just to keep me company. But that's not the same as hearing your wife making out with some asshole on tape. It makes me shudder to even think about Ray hearing some of the things I said to those guys. And the blackmail part. It would've just killed Ray to think I was in on stuff like that."

  Sharon was silent for so long, lighting up and smoking another cigarette, staring down at her hands on the table, that Alora prompted her gently. "That was the night the witnesses saw you arguing?"

  Sharon nodded. "I guess. It was just a few days before our last trip out of Vancouver. I got mad and yelled at him. Asshole. I don't remember what I said. Next day, I figured I didn't have any choice, so I called him up and said I'd meet him, pay him off. I didn't know where else to get the money, so I had to ask Ray. I said it was money I'd borrowed from Greg when I was using, that he was threatening to make trouble for me unless I paid it back. I told Ray I'd work it off, like a loan, and he just laughed. He said it was his gift to me, and would just mean he couldn't get me diamond earrings for Christmas this year." She smiled sadly.

  "He's a special man, Sharon."

  "Yeah. And now because of me he's in jail and I'm in jail and I just about killed that crazy woman they stuck me in here with. No. Not because of me. Because of that bastard, Greg Williams. I'm glad he's dead."

  "How did it happen?"

  "Ray couldn’t get the money from any of the banks in Canada, because he keeps his money in a U.S. bank. I told Greg to meet us on Friday at the Wells Fargo bank in Ferndale, so Ray could get the cash. I don’t know what went wrong, but Greg never showed up." Sharon paused, twisting a strand of hair around her index finger and frowning.

  “Did Ray lock him in the trailer outside the bank?”

  “I told you, he never showed up.”

  "Then how did Greg get into your trailer?"

  "I don’t know.”

  “What did Ray do with the mo
ney?”

  “He never got the money. We were waiting for Greg and he didn’t show.”

  Alora leaned back thoughtfully. She hadn't heard anything about money being found on the victim, but she didn't know. “Well, I guess Ray has explained it all in his confession,” she said.

  “No,” said Sharon. “Ray couldn’t have confessed to anything. He was lying.”

  “How would you know if he was lying? He said you didn’t know anything about how Greg got into your trailer.”

  Sharon swallowed hard. “I’m really thirsty. Can I have a Coke?”

  Alora went to the door, asked the guard if it would be possible to get Sharon a Coke. The guard motioned to a pop machine at the end of the hall, said she’d stay with Sharon but Alora had to get the Coke herself. When Alora returned, Sharon popped the top on the Coke can and took a long swallow, then asked for another cigarette.

  “Go ahead,” said Alora. “Why did you say Ray was lying?”

  “Because Ray doesn’t know what happened. Okay?” She took a deep breath. “He wasn’t even there when Greg showed up. When I saw Greg’s car stop at the red light at the intersection closest to the bank, I sent Ray to the gas station across the street to get me a Coke and some cigarettes, and told him to meet me back at the bank. I ran to the intersection and waved Greg over to our truck, on the other side of the bank. Ray didn’t even see.”

  "So how did you get Greg into the trailer?"

  "I told him that was where I'd hidden the money."

  "And he just climbed in?"

  "I unlocked it and climbed in first, then I helped him in. I pointed back into the trailer and said, look over there, and while he was looking around, I jumped out and locked the door."

  "Didn't Ray hear him screaming and pounding on the door?"

  "He didn't make any noise. I must have knocked him out first."

  "How did you do that?"

  "Shoved him and he fell and hit his head." She made a shoving motion with her two hands, tilted her head defiantly. "Just like that poor crazy woman did this morning."

  "What happened to the money?"

  "I told you, we never got the money. I just told Ray that we should go, that Greg hadn’t shown up."

  “Kind of hard to believe Greg would just jump into the trailer to look for the money.”

  “Well, he did." Sharon looked away.

  “Where was his car parked? On the street? In the lot?”

  “I don’t remember. I was upset. I wasn’t paying attention. I just can’t remember.”

  Alora snorted softly. Sharon had to be lying to protect Ray. Alora didn't think this was the time to confront her about it, however. The wrong word now could destroy the relationship that had been so difficult to forge. "Sharon," she said softly. "This is a lot of information for me for one day. You've had a rough day yourself. Let's both sleep on this tonight, and get together tomorrow again. Okay?"

  "What about Ray?"

  "What about him?"

  "You said he's confessed. I want everyone to know that he's innocent, that he was just trying to protect me."

  "Nothing will happen overnight," said Alora, checking her watch. "I'll find out more about what Ray said before we get together again." She reached across the table and took her client's hand. "Look. I've got to rush back to my office for some appointments. If we weren't both so tired, I'd suggest coming back tonight, but I think it would be better if we both got a good night's sleep before we continued. Nothing will happen to Ray. Trust me."

  Alora suspected that her client's willingness to quit for the day was due to the fact that she needed more time to think out her story. As she packed up her briefcase and Sharon was escorted from the room, Alora mused that her client would probably remember the story much better, or a much better story, twenty four hours from now.

  Hunter was at the Watson Transportation office, pacing up and down in front of the reception counter. Because of the holiday weekend, the phone calls were few and far between and mostly from the United States, so every time El answered the phone with a sharp "Watson", Hunter glanced at her to see if it was the call he was waiting for. If the call didn't come in soon, he'd have to leave. He was scheduled to pick up a load for Portland, Oregon, before five o'clock and the longer he waited, the worse the traffic would be.

  "Christ, Hunter! You're driving me nuts. Sit down or go wash your truck or something." El pointed a thick finger at him. "What're you so nervous for? You'd think you were waiting for a call from a new girlfriend."

  "I'm impatient to get out of here," he answered, sounding more irritated than he'd meant to.

  "Is she pretty?"

  "Huh?"

  "Alora Magee. The one you're waiting for. Is she attractive?"

  He shrugged. "I guess maybe." The phone started to ring.

  "You guess maybe. Either she is or she isn't."

  "Answer the phone."

  "Tell me first if you find her attractive."

  "Sheesh, El."

  She smiled wickedly, let her hand hover eight inches above the receiver.

  Hunter rolled his eyes. "Yes, she's attractive."

  "Watson!" El started to write something, and Hunter had already turned away to resume his pacing when she said, "Hunter, it's for you."

  "Now what?" said the voice on the other end of the line.

  "I beg your pardon," said Hunter.

  "First my client almost kills her cell mate, next I get caught by a TV news camera being surprised with the information that her husband has confessed to the murder, and then my client tells me her husband's lying, and that it was really her who locked Greg Williams in the trailer. I don't think I could take any more news on the Ice Man case today, thank you."

  "Sharon confessed, too?" Hunter and El exchanged glances. "Do you believe her?"

  "Why shouldn't I believe her?"

  "I don't know. He won't admit it, but I believe that Ray confessed just to get Sharon out of jail. I want to know if he had reason to. Did she do it?"

  "Either she's a rotten liar, or a brilliant strategist. I believe the story she tells me about knowing Williams, but then it turns sour. I don't think she killed him. I think she's lying to protect her husband."

  "Does the story involve Williams blackmailing her... uh ... dates?"

  "Her johns? Yes, it does. You've heard about the tapes."

  "We found them. We've listened to them. As far as I'm concerned, the tapes have put at least a dozen more people on the suspect list, from Williams' own brother to a local politician. It didn't end with Sharon. There was another woman who took her place, a woman named Ruby, and she could be the key to solving this case."

  "But the tapes also give the Nillsons a pretty strong motive." Alora's voice was somber. "Sharon talked about needing her green card."

  Hunter couldn't disagree. "Detective Kupka let me talk to Ray on the phone this morning, and I believe he's lying, you've talked to Sharon and you believe she's lying, so the truth has to be somewhere between their two versions of events. Tell me what she's told you." He looked at his watch. "Just the nuts and bolts."

  After Alora gave him a recap of Sharon's story, he said, "They're both lying about the location. That could mean they think there could be evidence or witnesses at the actual scene."

  "What is the actual scene?"

  "The victim's car was found in a restaurant parking lot near Mount Vernon, Washington. They’re both talking about a bank in Ferndale. Why doesn't either one of them mention Mount Vernon?"

  "Is there a Wells Fargo branch in Mount Vernon? Maybe they’re mixed up.”

  “No bank where the car was found.”

  “Like you said, maybe they think there could be evidence there. Or could the car have been stolen and moved?"

  "Possible. Or maybe neither of them knows where it happened."

  "Well, that would be impossible. One of them has to know."

  "Not if they were framed."

  They were both silent for a moment, then Hunter said,
"I thought I'd pay a visit to the Blackburn pub tonight. It's a good starting point to try to track down the other woman who made tapes for Williams. Could you ask Sharon if she knows someone named Ruby? Meanwhile, I've been trying to convince Ray to find a new lawyer. Do you know anyone maybe a little older and more homespun than Mr. Feldman?"

  "I'll see what I can do."

  Hunter hesitated. El was still sitting at his elbow, pretending to work. He felt he owed Alora an apology for the awkward way their dinner had ended the week before, but he didn't know what to say. "What time do you go to bed?" he asked. El glanced up at him, her eyebrows disappeared under her bangs. "Do you want me to call you tonight if I find out anything at the Blackburn?" he added.

  El winked, signaled that she was going out to the warehouse, and rose from her chair.

  Instead of answering his question, Alora said, "Do you remember saying that you'd make a poor lawyer because you could never defend a client you believed was guilty?"

  "Yes," he said. He wondered if she was about to tell him she could no longer represent Ray's wife.

  "Well, if you were me, you'd have no trouble defending Sharon Nillson."

  Hunter smiled, but said nothing.

  "Oh, and Hunter, call me anytime," she added softly.

  Hunter said goodbye, put down the phone and was out the door before El could see him blush.

  El insisted on coming with Hunter to the Blackburn, but she promised to stay in the background unless he asked for her help. She sat nursing a pint of pale ale and working her way through a basketful of timber-sized fried potatoes while he canvassed the staff. None of the servers knew anyone named Ruby. The bartender shrugged his shoulders. "Ask Pat," he said. "She's in her office."

  Hunter tapped on the open door of the tiny office and a breezy voice said, "Hello again! How are you?" A familiar sounding breezy voice.