by E J Kindred
He leaned his bike against the door frame and came into the shop. “Got another one of those?”
I handed him a bottle of water.
“What are you doing?” He opened the bottle and drank half of the contents. “You keep this up, you’ll be as dark as I am.” He gave me a playful wink.
“I’m cleaning up.”
“I can see that. But why? You know we have to tear the place down. Why waste your time?”
“It’s something I have to do. I don’t really know why. But look,” I ran my hand along the counter top, “Dad built this, and I think we can save it. And some of the shelves in the back are salvageable, too.”
He paused for a long moment without speaking. “Okay, I guess I get it. Save what we can, right? But I’m not sure what we’d do with it.”
“Me, neither, but it’s all that’s left of his shop. He started it with nothing and made a lot of people happy.”
“Including yours truly,” Joe said. “Can I help?”
“Yes, but not dressed like a ninja cyclist.” I thought for a moment. “Tell you what, let me work on clearing the floor. I’m having a portable storage unit delivered later on, so if you have time, maybe you can help me move this”—I put my hand on the checkout counter—“and other stuff into it.”
Joe whistled. “Wow, you’ve thought about this, haven’t you? Dumpster outside. Storage container.” He scanned the room with an appraising eye. “Sure, how about this weekend?”
My shop cleaning project came along slowly. The more time I spent there, the closer I felt to my dad. People in the neighborhood stopped in to see what I was doing. The man who owned the body shop next door also came by. The fire had damaged his business as well, and he was rebuilding. With a lump in my throat, I acknowledged that though my dad was gone and his store ruined, the community was still here.
While we saved what we could and cleared almost all of the charred debris out, Joe asked a friend to examine the building. Brad was one of Joe’s cycling buddies from Team Three and a Half. He was also a structural engineer with his own construction company.
“You have two options,” he said after he’d inspected the charred shell. “The first one, the obvious one, is to tear it down. The worst of the damage is the back, of course, and I don’t know how it’s still standing. Your dad must have really beefed up the structure.”
“He did,” I said. “The building was old and creaky when he bought it.”
“I can see that. Your second option is to save what’s good and replace the rest. From what I can see, the front half is probably salvageable, but the rest is about to collapse.” He looked at Joe and me. “What have you thought about doing with it?”
My brother and I exchanged glances. “We haven’t talked about it yet. It’s been too hard—” My throat constricted suddenly and I blinked tears away.
“I understand. Your dad was a good man. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you. As for this,” he scanned the room again, “which option you choose will depend on whether you want to save it and how much money you want to spend. The least expensive option is to tear it down, but we can rebuild. If you think you’ll want to try to save some of it, we should shore up the back where the structure is weakest. Don’t want it falling in on anyone.”
The three of us walked out to the parking lot and into the fresh air.
Brad paused by his truck. “I hope this helps. Whatever you decide, I’m happy to help.”
After he drove away, Joe and I opened bottles of cold water from the cooler. We didn’t speak for a few minutes and then we spoke at the same time.
“Joe—”
“Annie—”
“You go ahead.”
“No,” he said, “you go.”
We’d done this routine many times growing up, and it usually made us laugh. Today’s conversation, however, didn’t allow for minor amusements.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go. What should we do with it?”
“Yeah, we can’t avoid this forever, can we?” He took a drink of water. “We could tear it down and sell the lot. It’s a good business location.”
“That would be easiest, wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe.”
“Dad never did anything the easy way.”
“That’s where you got your bullheadedness.”
“I am not bullheaded.”
“Annie, you are the most stubborn person I know.”
“What about Grandma Natalie?”
“Okay, you’re second, but not by much.” He gazed at the front of the battered little store again. “I can’t think about letting this go. Dad turned my life around after my mother died, and this shop was a big part of that. Selling it would be like cutting off my other leg.”
“I know, but what would we do with it?”
“I suppose we could lease it out or something. Talk with Brad about rebuilding and find a tenant?”
We discussed possibilities for another few minutes, but left without making a decision. At least we’d talked about it, and that was progress.
Over the next several days, I finished what cleaning I could at the shop and had the dumpster taken away. On the last day I made sure to lock the storage container securely. Until we decided what to do with the remnants of the shop, little was left for me to do. Brad had come back and he and Joe added two-by-fours and sheets of plywood to strengthen the walls. With the structure solidly enclosed, it looked more like my dad’s old store, and I felt nostalgic and sad.
During the days I’d worked on the shop, Lupe kept me notified about Number Four’s escapades. Without the cleaning project to keep me occupied, I again found myself obsessing about Doctor Wentworth’s murder. After multiple failures tracking Elise, Sally and Rachel had lost interest.
Since I was fresh out of co-conspirators, I stalked Elise on my own. Every other day, Lupe texted me that the red rocket was on its way, so I’d go downtown and try to spot her. Twice I saw a red car but was disappointed each time. I never would have guessed that so many people in Portland drove bright red sports cars. Walking around downtown Portland may have been good exercise, but I was getting tired of the futility of the chase.
About a week later, I was downtown again and finally got disgusted with myself. I stopped at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with tables on the sidewalk and called Joe.
“Can you meet me for lunch?”
He appeared within minutes and sank into the chair opposite me. “It’s about time. How often have you been down here lately?”
“A couple times this week. It’s a total waste of effort. I don’t know what made me think I could find her, or if I did see her, how it would help. I’m so frustrated.”
“You could put a GPS tracker on her car.”
“What?” I stared at him. “Can I do that? Is it legal?”
“It’s better than wasting your time wandering the streets. You need to find a way to stop obsessing, and if a little electronic surveillance will do the job, then go for it.” He paused. “You might not want to tell Patrick, though.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said with a low chuckle. “He might like it. He hasn’t had a reason to yell at me for a couple of days.”
We ordered lunch and talked about how Grandma Natalie was doing, where I might find a job, just brother and sister stuff. He told me his accounting firm had an opening for a receptionist. Through it all, though, part of my mind dwelled on Joe’s other suggestion.
At home that afternoon, I grabbed my laptop and did some research. Sure enough, I could buy a GPS tracker online. Many websites shared instructions for installing them. I thought about it and called Lupe. She was hesitant at first, but then agreed to help, so I ordered one of the gadgets.
“I am losing my mind,” I muttered, and closed the laptop.
“Done.”
Lupe’s text gave me the news I’d been waiting for. I had no idea how she’d managed to get the electronic tracker onto Elise’s car. I’d find out later. In the meantime
, I could follow Number Four—or at least her car—from the comfort of my home or my car, with a snack and a cold drink nearby. Much better.
For the first couple of days, she didn’t go out, or if she did, she drove a different car. Lupe didn’t work at the Wentworth home every day, so she couldn’t tell me if Elise left the house with someone else.
On the third day, Lupe texted me. “Red rocket on the way.” She had become an excellent informant, and I had a hunch she enjoyed it.
Monitoring my phone as best I could, I drove downtown and parked at one of the centrally located surface lots. I wanted to avoid having to exit a garage quickly if she cut through town and headed across the river. I didn’t think she’d done it before; getting across Portland would be more efficient by staying on the freeway, but since I’d been unable to find her previously, I was guessing that her destination was downtown. Sure enough, the tracking unit on Elise’s car showed that she got off the freeway and was driving north on Fourth Street, one of downtown Portland’s one-way streets. She wasn’t leaving the central city, at least not immediately.
I double-timed it toward Fourth, keeping an eye on my phone. The red dot showing the location of her car went west on Morrison Street and stopped mid-block.
The Finley Hotel. Had to be.
I arrived at the corner across from the hotel in time to see Elise hand her keys to the valet and walk into the hotel lobby.
Around the corner from the Finley, I proceeded cautiously to a good vantage point of the hotel’s door. A waist-high sandwich board advertising cell phones concealed my bottom half, and I was ready to duck behind a telephone pole in case she came back out. The last thing I wanted was for her to see me.
After several minutes in the chilly breeze, I noticed a diner directly across from the hotel, its entryway and side windows affording a wide-open view of the hotel entrance. I slipped inside and got a table near the window, ordered a sandwich, and waited.
While I ate, I theorized about why Elise would visit a hotel. The Finley had a restaurant, so she could be meeting someone for lunch.
On the other hand, hotels have rooms, which have beds. I was amused at my own imagination. The Finley was a Portland landmark, in business for over a century, an elegant building, and definitely not a “by the hour” kind of place.
After almost two hours, my sandwich and patience were both long gone. The employees at the busy diner were giving me looks that said “go away, we need the table.” I paid my bill, left a big tip, and went outside.
Just as I stepped through the door, Elise came out of the hotel. The valet brought her car and she left. Two hours of boredom, and what did I have for my trouble?
The next eight days provided the same result. Into the Finley in the late morning and out in the early afternoon. One of the servers at the diner commented that I needed a “reserved” sign on my little table. I didn’t know if she was joking, but I supposed there were worse fates than becoming a regular at a local eatery that served up excellent sandwiches and soup. Still, watching the front of the Finley was getting boring.
Sally and Rachel suggested I was wasting my time. Even someone as disagreeable as Elise Wentworth had to have friends she might be meeting.
“Yeah,” I said, “but who eats at a posh place like the Finley Hotel twice a week?”
“A woman with money and time on her hands,” Sally said. “You need a new hobby.”
“What I need,” I said with some heat, “is to know who killed the doctor and what happened to my friend.”
She and Rachel made gentle attempts to help me accept that Mo was most likely dead, but I refused to listen. She’d been missing for over three months. In truth, I’d already reached that painful conclusion, but I couldn’t let it go. Natalie Lindberg’s legendary stubbornness was indeed hereditary.
Everything changed on my seventh attempt to see what Number Four was up to.
I was sitting at my usual table at the diner. I’d finished a bowl of split pea soup and was trying in vain to wheedle the recipe out of the cook when Elise came out of the Finley.
She wasn’t alone.
She stood on the sidewalk outside the lobby of the venerable old hotel immersed in an embrace and deep kiss with Carlton Wentworth the Third.
I grabbed my phone, took three photos as quickly as I could, and sent a text to Dean. He could be mad at me all he wanted, give me the silent treatment for years, but I wasn’t letting that stop me. I typed: Thought you should see this, attached one of the photos, and pressed the send button. I left the diner and headed to my car.
I barely had time to buckle my seat belt when the phone rang.
“Where did you get this picture?” He did not sound grateful at all.
“I took it.”
“You took it? You just happened to be at the Finley Hotel? And what a coincidence, look who’s there.” He couldn’t have injected more sarcasm into his voice if he’d tried.
“Of course not. I followed her.”
The silence on the phone went on long enough to let me ponder how silence could sound so pissed off.
“You followed her?” His voice was low and strained, and I was glad he wasn’t nearby. “And you’re still there?”
“Yes.” It seemed prudent not to embellish.
“Why, if I may ask?”
“Well, we thought—”
“We?”
Damnation. So much for omitting details.
“I thought,” I said, trying to emphasize the first person pronoun, “I thought she might know more about what happened than she let on. I don’t have a job right now—”
“I could give a fuck about your work situation.” He sounded as if he might be gritting his teeth. “So you’ve been following Elise Wentworth like a two-bit amateur detective. Do you want me to charge you with obstruction, is that it? Or stalking?”
“No, of course not. All I want to know is where Mo is and who killed the doc. The last I knew, you thought Mo did it and hopped a plane to Zanzibar. I’ve tried to tell you Mo isn’t a killer, but you don’t listen.”
“I have to follow the evidence, Annie.” He was sounding more normal, if still angry. “You know that. Who else is in your little gang?”
“No way,” I said. I gave up pretending I’d done this alone. “If you want to charge me with something, that’s up to you, but my friends are off limits.” I hoped that would protect Rachel and Sally, at least a little. “What matters most right now is what’s in that picture. Or should I say who.”
He was quiet again. “You really know how to piss me off, you know that?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry.”
“I doubt that.” At least I heard some humor back in his voice. “Okay, yes, this is important information. I need to think about it. Are there any more photos I should know about?”
“No. This is the first time we—I’ve seen where she went. You know about that new sports car she got? She drives like the proverbial bat, and she kept losing us—me.” I clearly had no future as a spy.
“Okay, good. Now I want you to stop interfering. Today. Right now. No more stalking Elise Wentworth. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said, but mentally crossed my fingers. He had to know I wouldn’t give up until I knew who’d killed the kind doctor and what had happened to my friend.
At dinner that night, Rachel and Sally couldn’t get information fast enough. They passed my phone back and forth so many times I wondered if I’d get it back.
“Damn, girl, you did it.” Sally shook her head in wonderment.
“Joe helped,” I said. “He suggested the tracking device. Otherwise, I don’t think I’d have ever figured out where she was going. Or why.”
“Or who with.” Rachel looked at the photo again. “He’s a hunk. What I can tell from this angle, anyway.”
“He’s also married and has a two kids and lives in Seattle.”
Rachel turned the phone toward me and said, “He doesn’t seem very married to me.”
; “Yeah,” Sally said. “If they hadn’t just come out of the hotel, I’d be inclined to tell them to get a room. They’re acting like over-heated teenagers.”
I raised an eyebrow at her words. “Oh?”
“Not,” she said unconvincingly, “that I’d ever know about stuff like that. I am impressed, though. I never had a girlfriend brave enough to do that with me in public.”
“Me, neither,” I said.
“Didn’t you say she’s been going downtown at least twice a week?”
“Yes, pretty much.”
“If he lives in Seattle, what’s he doing in Portland so often?” Rachel asked.
Disgusted, I put the phone away. “I sent the picture to Dean, the detective in Charbonneau. He threatened to arrest me for stalking.”
“It has been a few days since you were threatened with legal action,” Sally said thoughtfully. “Maybe he doesn’t want you to feel neglected.”
I laughed. “You’re incorrigible.” I paused for a moment, feeling a more somber mood coming on. “There’s no way to know if there’s a connection between these two and the doc’s murder, so I hope Dean can figure it out. He seems like a good guy, a good cop, at least when he’s not yelling at me.”
Rachel said, “Maybe now you can stop obsessing about whatever she’s up to. She’s getting laid on a regular basis, which is more than either of you can say.”
“Either of us?” I raised an eyebrow in Rachel’s direction, now completely distracted from my brooding. “The last I knew, you were as single as Kraft slices.”
“As single as Sister Mary Francis.”
“Nuns are married to Jesus, aren’t they?” Rachel said.
“Maybe so, but they’re not getting laid.”
We all stopped talking, processing an unlikely mental image, until I realized what Rachel had said.
“You finally did it, didn’t you?” I grabbed her hand and refused to let go. “You called Patrick?”
She blushed, which is all the answer I needed.
“And how long has this been going on?”
