by Paul Spencer
“Yeah, big deal. He got two years and served half of it. For all we know, he’s out there burning crosses as we speak. And look at you.”
He was right. My plan, if you could call it that, had done the square root of fuck all to benefit society. But it’s not like I was thinking straight at the time. I’d gone to law school with visions of fighting for the underdog dancing in my head. After I graduated I did a stint as a corporate associate at one of the big firms in town, so I could pay back my student loans. I hated every single day of it. Finally I got to the point where I couldn’t take any more of spending sixty hours a week helping rich people move money from one set of deep pockets to another. I wrote a polite letter to the student loan company informing them that repayments might be thin on the ground for a while, then I quit and started my own practice as a defense attorney.
Before I knew it I was drowning under a tide of clients going to jail for lengthy mandatory minimum sentences. Most of them were drug cases, small quantities blown up into dealing charges by District Attorneys chasing promotion. They were usually decent people caught in bad situations, and I never seemed to be able to do anything to help. On the rare occasions I did win an acquittal, it always seemed to be some piece of trash like Larsen. Meanwhile the people I really wanted to help were rotting in jail because politicians and DAs had to appear tough on crime to get reelected. I started drinking just so I could sleep at night, and after Ciaran died I was doing it to get through the days too. To make matters worse, Sarah left me for my best friend from law school, who was making millions as a partner at Miller Nash, helping insurance companies screw accident victims. Later I found out she’d been fucking him for a year before she ditched me.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Tony.” I swallowed the rest of my bourbon. “Not my finest hour.”
“Yeah, right.” Tony refilled our glasses. He didn’t look happy.
“I’m serious. That’s why I did it. And every lawyer in town hates me for violating my sacred duty to my client. You know what? I can live with that.”
“All right, man. Take it easy.”
“Yeah, I know. Sore point, okay?”
“I get it.”
“Anyway, enough of that shit for tonight. What have you been up to?”
“It’s a long story, man.”
“Tell me. I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
We caught up on each other’s lives for a while, and we put a good dent in the bottle of Pappy too. We called it quits sometime after midnight. Tony threw some sheets and a towel in the spare room, and I headed off to bed. I had no idea how the fuck I could sleep.
Chapter 10 – Working the Plan
I woke the next morning to the smell of bacon and coffee. The room was surprisingly light. I looked at my watch. Eight o’clock. I hadn’t slept that late in a while. My head was pounding and I was dying for a piss. I got up and went to the bathroom to take care of one of my problems.
I came back and put my clothes on. Despite the headache, I felt good. As I’d expected, it had taken me a while to get to sleep. I remembered getting through two iterations of a Buddhist tranquility meditation my work buddy had taught me, and staring at the ceiling for a while after that. I must have dropped off eventually, and I don’t think I woke up in the night. I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
I headed out to the kitchen. Tony had his back to me, busy at the stove.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, without turning around. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Yeah, coffee would be great.”
“The pot’s on the counter. Mugs are in the cupboard above the sink. Pour me one too.”
I filled a couple of mugs, put Tony’s by the stove, and sat at the kitchen table.
“Smells delicious,” I said. “You’ll make someone a great wife.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Tony was one of the best cooks I knew. Back when we were working together regularly, he’d cooked me a lot of great meals, usually while we brainstormed whatever case we were working on at the time. He had a broad repertoire, too. Everything from fancy French food to the best curry I’d ever had. You name it, he cooked it, with one exception. He never made Mexican food. I asked him why once, and he said that he’d eaten enough of that shit as a kid. I didn’t push him, but I always held out hope that he’d reconsider. I loved Mexican food.
Tony brought our plates to the table. Bacon, scrambled eggs, sautéed mushrooms, fried tomatoes, and toast. He grabbed his coffee and sat down opposite me.
“Dig in.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. The food really hit the spot. “Thanks, Tony. This is great.”
“You’re welcome, man. Glad you like it.”
We ate for a while longer. I cleared my plate and mopped it clean with the last of the toast, then went for more coffee.
“Do you want some?” I waved the pot at Tony.
“Nah, I’m good.”
I refilled my mug and sat back down. “Listen, Tony, I really appreciate what you’ve done.”
“Don’t mention it. It’s been too long, man. Besides, we’re just getting started. I’m not going to just toss you out in the cold. We’ll figure out what’s going on.”
“Tony, you don’t need to –”
“Forget it Mick, we go back too far. Now here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to make a list of names. Your workmates, everyone you can remember who was in Holman’s Friday night, any ex-clients with a reason to hate you. I’ll run them through OJIN, see what I can find. Then we’ll talk some about what you can do to stay safe. We’ll start by installing a webcam in your door, so we can get a shot of your secret admirer if he comes back.”
This was why I always used to call Tony when I needed an investigator. Once he got the bit between his teeth, you couldn’t get him to let go.
“How are you going to access OJIN?” OJIN was the Oregon Justice Information Network, an online database of all Oregon court cases and criminal records. It was a pay service, restricted to attorneys.
“I did some work for a personal injury firm last year, and they let me use one of the attorneys’ logins. Dumb prick hasn’t changed his password since.”
I wasn’t surprised. Most older attorneys were clueless with computers. It never ceased to amaze me how many solo practitioners still ran offices with paper filing systems. Needless to say, most of them weren’t very savvy about online security.
“Okay. While you run the checks, I’m going to go buy a new cell phone. The cops have got mine, and I doubt that I’ll be getting it back any time soon.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, I’ll be fine. I don’t think I was followed over here yesterday, and I’ll go to Lloyd Center Mall. I figure I’ll be safe if I stick to nice crowded public places.”
“Yeah, sounds good.” Tony picked up our plates and put them in the sink. “Do you need anything else before we get started?”
“I wouldn’t mind a couple of aspirin.”
He laughed. “There’s a bottle in the cabinet in your bathroom. Go grab a couple, and we’ll start on that list.”
I went to the bathroom for aspirin, and when I got back Tony had cleared the table and fired up a laptop. I gave him all the names I could think of: the work crew, everyone I remembered seeing at Holman’s on Friday night, and ex-clients whose cases had gone particularly badly. I wasn’t sure who to include in the last group. I’d lost plenty of cases in my time. Not because I was a bad lawyer. Before I lost the plot, I was a damn good one. But it’s a simple fact of life for defense attorneys – most of your clients have done bad things, and they know they aren’t going to get away with it. Being convicted wasn’t enough to put me on the enemies list. Besides, most of my clients whose cases ended badly were still inside, and would be for a while. Eventually, I settled on those few clients who had been so pissed at me that they either fired me or refused to pay my bill.
All in all, the list cam
e to about thirty names. Tony would be busy. While he got started, I took a quick shower and went out to buy a new phone. Outside it was raining again, but the clouds were thinning to the west. Maybe we’d get a break later in the day. I drove over to Lloyd Center Mall, keeping an eye out for anything strange. My car stereo stopped working a month back, and I had been too busy at work to fix it yet, so all I got for a soundtrack was the hiss of tires on the wet road.
I parked in the upstairs lot and went inside. The mall was crowded. Suddenly being in a busy public place didn’t seem like such a good idea after all. I kept my head down and made a beeline for the cell phone store.
I chose the same model iPhone I already had. It took a while for the guy to configure it for me, especially since I wanted it restored from my cloud backup, so I’d still have all my old contacts and messages. The whole time, I stood in the back corner of the store, pretending to look at the phone cases and ear buds. From there I could keep an eye on people walking past the glass store front, but it would be hard for anyone outside to see my face. When my phone was done, I left the mall and drove back to Tony’s place.
Tony was almost through the list of names when I got back. He gave me another laptop and told me to start doing general Google searches on the names on the list, to see if anything interesting turned up. I’d made it through about five names without finding anything useful when he interrupted me.
“Whoa, Mick,” he said. “Check this out.”
I got up and looked over his shoulder. The screen showed someone’s arrest and conviction details, and it wasn’t pretty. Two counts of sexual corruption of a minor, two counts of encouraging child sex abuse, and one count of luring a minor. Then I saw the name at the top of the screen. Aaron Edward Jones.
“Holy shit! Aaron was a pedophile?”
“Sure looks like it.”
“What the hell did he do?”
“I don’t know, man, I just found this stuff now. Let’s check it out.”
Tony pulled up the full police complaint, and we read it together. Aaron had been working as a summer camp counselor for some church group called Servants of Christ about five years ago. The charge sheet alleged that he’d shown explicit images of child pornography to a couple of the kids one night, and asked them if they wanted to give it a try. The kids had told their parents, who went straight to the police. Aaron denied it all, but the cops found hundreds of kiddie porn videos on his computer at the camp. He took a plea deal, served a year of jail time, and he was now registered as a sex offender.
Tony looked up at me. “Did you know about any of this?”
“No, it’s all new to me. Jesus. Maybe he wasn’t so harmless after all.”
“If he did what this complaint says he did, odds are it wasn’t the first time.”
“No kidding.” I pulled out my new phone. “I’ve got to tell Buchanan about this.”
I got through to Buchanan in his office. He didn’t sound surprised to hear from me.
“What do you want this time, Wray? Has your secret admirer been leaving you more love notes?”
“Look, Detective Buchanan, I’ve been doing some research.” I decided to leave Tony’s name out of it for now. “Did you know Aaron Jones was a registered sex offender?”
“You’ve got to be shitting me. You called me to tell me how to do my job? Un-fucking-believable.”
“Look, I’m just trying to help.”
“Just trying to throw us off your trail, more likely.”
“I’m serious! You need to be talking to his victims.”
“We are, Sherlock. And unlike you, they’re all coming up clean.”
“Okay, what about the coaster? Did you get anything off that?”
“I can’t believe I’m discussing an ongoing investigation with one of the prime suspects,” Buchanan said. I was about to protest, but he hung up on me.
I shook my head. Of course the police had pulled Aaron’s records. It would have been the first thing they did. Stupid of me.
“That didn’t sound like it went well,” Tony said.
“Yeah, not really. They knew about Aaron, of course. He says it hasn’t led anywhere.” I tossed my phone on the table.
“So they say. We need to keep riding this. There’s something there, Mick. I know it.”
I looked up. “Wait, did you say ‘riding’?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“There’s another name that should be on the list.”
Chapter 11 – Friends Old and New
Tony frowned. “What are you talking about?”
I closed my laptop and rubbed my face. “This whole thing might be related to one of my ex-clients after all. Guy named Tom Gradzinski. He used to ride with a motorcycle gang called Speed Brothers. Thanks in part to my brilliant legal skills, he was sentenced to ten years for dealing Meth. Around the same time I was defending him, two of his fellow gang members were on trial for murder. Apparently another gang member was suspected of messing with little girls. They beat him to death with a tire iron. Rumor had it Tom was swinging away with the other two, but no-one talked, so the cops couldn’t pin it on him. If I remember right, he should have got out sometime last year.”
“Okay, that might explain Aaron, but why you?”
“Tom wasn’t exactly thrilled with my work. I tried to explain to him that ten years was the mandatory minimum sentence, but he didn’t care. Last conversation we had, right before they took him to jail, he swore he was going to come for me when he got out.”
“Jesus, why didn’t you say so before?”
“To be honest, I’d forgotten about it. Tom used to say a lot of crazy shit, especially when he got mad. At the time I figured it was just him mouthing off again. But when you said ‘riding,’ it came back to me. Here’s a guy who doesn’t like pedophiles, and he doesn’t like me.”
“Shit,” Tony said. “What do you want to do about it?”
I stood up and stretched. “Good question. I’d love to call Buchanan again, but he’d just think I’m feeding him bullshit. Maybe we should go check him out ourselves.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Tony said. “If this guy wants you dead, you might want to stay away from him.”
“It’s broad daylight. There’s two of us.”
“I don’t know, man.”
I shrugged. “What else can we do?”
Tony was silent for a while. Finally, he shook his head.
“All right. How do we find this guy?”
“He used to live in Felony Flats. Been there forever. The place used to be his father’s. I doubt he’ll be anywhere else.” Felony Flats was a Southeast Portland neighborhood known for its high incidence of crime, especially methamphetamine-related offenses. It was also home to at least three motorcycle clubs classified as “outlaw gangs” by the Oregon Department of Justice, including Speed Brothers. When I represented him, Tom lived in a small bungalow about a mile from the club’s chapter house.
Tony shook his head again. “I still don’t like it, but we’ll go. I’m bringing a gun. You want one too?”
“No guns for me,” I said. I hated guns. In my experience, nothing good ever happened when people went around carrying firearms. I had never owned one, and I’d only ever fired one a few times. Still, given the circumstances, I wasn’t going to stop Tony bringing his.
Tony went into his room, and came out with a pistol in a black leather holster on his belt. He pulled on his jacket, but left it open, so that the gun was still visible. “Now I’m ready. Come on.”
We got in my car and drove out along Powell to Foster, then down into Felony Flats. I hadn’t been down here since Tom Gradzinski’s case. The neighborhood still looked like a dump. Most of the houses were in a state of disrepair: peeling paint, moss on roofs, old wood fences missing posts. I turned onto 62nd Avenue.
“It’s up here on the left,” I said. I drove slowly, peering out at the houses across the street.
“That’s it,” I said, pointing out th
e window. Gradzinski’s house fit the neighborhood perfectly. The paint would have been light blue at some point, but it had faded close to grey. One of the front windows had been broken and boarded up.
I drove slowly, past Gradzinski’s house, then took the first right.
“Let’s go around the block a couple of times,” I said. “See what we can see.”
I drove us around the block again, slowing down as we passed Gradzinski’s house.
“What do you see?” I said.
“Looks like a shithole. Apart from that, not much.”
“Okay, let’s find a spot to take a closer look.”
I drove us around the block again, then parked across the street a couple of doors down. I shut off the car and focused on the front of the house. It had a narrow porch, with an old couch on one end of it, its fabric ruined by years of rain and mold. Something didn’t look right. Then I realized what it was. The front door was ajar. It had been shut the last time we drove by.
I was about to say something to Tony when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Then something slammed into the window right by my ear. A shower of broken glass rained down on me. I raised my hands in self-defense. Tom Gradzinski glared at me through the hole in the window, eyes bulging.
“Get out of the fucking car!” he yelled. “Now!”
I was too startled to move.
“I said get out, Wray,” he said, stepping back from the door. “And your beaner bitch too.”
“Okay, Tom, take it easy,” I said. I opened the door and slowly got out, hands up in front of me. Tony climbed out the other side. Gradzinski had a baseball bat in one hand, and the other held a snarling black pit bull on a chain leash. His heavily tattooed arms bulged out from under a black T shirt, and his grey hair had been cropped into a buzz cut.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Morning, Gradzinski,” I said. “Nice dog.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. Why are you here? You cruise by my place a couple of times real slow, I want to know why.”
He hefted the baseball bat, and Tony pushed his jacket open so his gun was visible. I put my hands out to each of them.