by Harper Lin
John obviously didn’t know Dan was there when he launched into a tirade of accusations and name-calling. Amelia’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment as Dan overheard what John said. He criticized everything about her, from her mothering to her cooking and everything in between. Had Amelia been alone, it would have been water off a duck’s back. But Dan was standing there. He looked so handsome in his gray suit with his tie loose around his throat. He was early for their date. Normally, Amelia would have loved that. But right now, she wished he could have been late.
“Give me the phone,” Dan said quietly to Amelia.
“You don’t want to hear all this,” she whispered, shaking her head. But when Dan took two slow, long strides up to her, put his right hand gently on her shoulder, and took the phone away from her ear with his left hand, she didn’t protest.
Dan held the phone up to his ear, and his eyes narrowed.
“John. This is Detective Dan Walishovsky. We’ve met before. John, I’m afraid that the things you’ve said to Amelia constitute threats to her physical, mental, and emotional well-being.” He cleared his throat. “Now, I’ve been a witness at hundreds of court cases, and I can tell you this, although I’m sure you already know. The testimony of a detective is worth its weight in gold. And I have been a direct witness to more than one of your little tantrums.”
Amelia heard John start yelling, but Dan, as always, remained calm.
“You can do whatever you see fit, John. But ask yourself if you want to test the validity of my words against yours. Word gets around in courthouses. We both know that.”
John gave one last outburst before he hung up, and Dan handed Amelia her phone back.
“Amelia, does he call you and talk to you like that often?”
“No,” she said truthfully. “He’s got some serious problems. I’m just a convenient bad guy.” She went on to explain what she suspected was the root of all John’s problems. His money was being spent faster than it was being earned. And she also mentioned Tonya.
“He’s trying to stay in some kind of control, and in his mind, having a mistress makes him feel more like the boss, I guess. I don’t know, Dan.” Amelia shrugged. “He was never a nice guy, but he could at least be decent. He could be charming at times. But that’s all gone now. He’s…”
“He’s realizing what he’s lost,” Dan said without hesitating. Amelia looked at him with a grateful smile.
“You always know what to say,” she said while blinking back tears. Dan took her in his arms. She smelled his spicy cologne and felt his strong arms and flat stomach through the material of his clothes. This was where she wanted to be. She tightly hugged him back until she could blink her tears away.
“Hey, I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“Why, Dan, you devil,” Amelia teased as she looked up into his handsome face.
“What do you say we pick up some pizzas for the kids and hang around your place for a little while? Then you and I sneak out for a late dinner tonight.”
“I think the kids would love that. Meg is dying to hear the stories about the younger Detective Walishovsky. But I thought we were going for a late dinner anyway.”
“I’m thinking a little later than eight or nine,” Dan said.
“Okay. How much later?”
“I know a great place that’s open until three in the morning,” Dan said.
“You want to eat dinner at three in the morning?”
“No. I figured we’d eat around twelve-thirty or one o’clock.”
“Oh, that’s much more reasonable.” Amelia tilted her head.
“Just say yes,” Dan said.
“Yes.”
Chapter Nine
“You certainly made the kids happy,” Amelia said, patting Dan’s shoulder from the passenger seat as he drove. “I think Meg is going to have a tough time deciding if she wants to go into the cupcake business or criminal justice. Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum.”
“I hope it’s the cupcake business.” Dan smiled.
“So, where are we going?”
“Bucktown.” Dan looked at Amelia to gauge her reaction.
“Bucktown? Are you crazy? At this hour? Dan, what in the world are we going there for?”
“I need your help.”
“You need my help? We are going to need the help of the entire Portland police department if we go walking around there at this hour. I’ve heard it’s so dangerous that if you slip and fall, the sidewalk will kill you. There are so many needles on the ground.”
“Yeah. It’s pretty bad on some streets,” Dan said, “but that’s where three of my four victims were seen before their bodies were found. I’m hoping that someone might have seen something.”
“And where do I fit in to this?”
“I know some of the girls out there. It’s the nature of the job. But they don’t always want to talk. If they see you with me, you’re a mother, and you have that motherly instinct, they might open up a little.”
“I think it might have been prudent to consult me on this one, Dan.”
“Look, if you want, I can take you home. Like I said, I know some of the girls, and they might talk to me.”
“No. I didn’t say that. I’m just saying I would have liked a little heads-up, that’s all. And maybe I’d have brought a can of bug spray with me.”
“Bug spray?”
Amelia repeated Beatrice’s claim and was surprised when Dan started to chuckle and nod.
“It is true. It does work like pepper spray, only a thousand times worse.”
After taking a couple of turns and speeding down a stretch of highway, they came to the area known as Bucktown. It was like they’d driven into an alternate universe. Bars and liquor stores boasting paycheck cashing services stood alongside the loosest slots in town. Currency exchanges and payday loan businesses appeared in ample supply as well.
Amelia was shocked to see so many people on the street on a late weeknight. As Dan slowed his car, some working girls appeared from dark doorways and alleys like moths flitting toward a flame. But as soon as he parked, several of them scurried back to where they’d come from.
“How come they are leaving?” Amelia asked.
“Some of them know I’m a cop, and they’ve probably got drugs on them. They might think I’m on vice looking to shake them down or something.”
“Shake them down? Do you know cops who do that?” Amelia whispered before she got out of the car.
“Vice is a different animal all together. They’ve got it rough, and the good guys don’t always win in the traditional sense of the word,” Dan said sadly.
They started walking down the sidewalk when suddenly a woman emerged from a dark alley.
“Is that you, Detective Dan?” She was about five feet tall, wearing a red pair of hot pants and matching halter top that left very little to the imagination. Her legs were as bowed as a lifelong cattle rustler’s, and her hair was piled high up on her head.
“Louise,” Dan said. “How have you been?”
“I’m still here, ain’t I?” She looked Amelia up and down.
“Louise, this is Amelia. She’s helping me out. Louise, tell me, have you seen this girl before?”
Dan held out a smaller picture of the dead girl Melissa.
“Oh, that’s Missy. I haven’t seen her for a while. But I never paid her too much attention. She hung out on Travis.” Louise pointed a dangerously long manicured nail straight ahead.
“Thanks, Louise,” Dan said as he reached into his pocket, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, and handed it to the girl. She took it and stuffed it snugly between her breasts.
“Anytime.” She winked. “It was nice to have made your acquaintance, Amelia.”
“Yours, too, Louise,” Amelia replied with a genuine smile.
“She’s pretty, Dan. Could make a nice living out here.”
Without uttering another word, Dan nodded and took Amelia by the hand, pulling her close to him as they
continued to walk up the sidewalk.
Along the way, Dan showed Melissa’s picture to a couple of girls who shook their heads or shrugged. One man who wore a corset and cut-off jeans told Dan that Missy picked up most of her regulars on Travis but had started merging over on Blive Street because she had a friend there.
“Her name is Shoots or Chooks or something like that,” the man said with a soft, tender voice as he twirled the ends of the wig he was wearing.
“Thanks.” Dan pulled another twenty from his pocket and handed it to the man, who blew them both a kiss and sashayed back down the sidewalk.
“Are you doing okay?” Dan asked, looking down at Amelia as they walked a couple paces without anyone in earshot.
“Yeah,” Amelia said. “But I’ve got to stand out like a sore thumb. I feel like I put a target on our backs.”
“No. One thing about most of these people is they just want to be left alone to do their business. When two people like us who look like we don’t belong here show up, they automatically know that we aren’t trying to hustle or disrupt them. Or we are too crazy to realize where we are. Either way, in both instances, they don’t want to bother us.”
“Interesting,” Amelia said as they approached a new group of girls leaning against a building. And when she looked at them, it pierced her heart to see they were just that: merely girls.
“Good evening, ladies.” Dan took out Melissa’s photo again, holding it up for them to see and asking about the last time they saw her.
“Not for a while,” one girl with hair dyed red said as she cracked her gum. “She and I were sharing the same motel room over on Hyde and Scranton.”
“What do you go by, honey?” Dan asked.
“They call me Chooks. The last time I saw her, she got into a truck, and that was that,” Chooks said, shaking her head.
“A truck. What kind of truck?” Dan asked.
“A piece of garbage truck. I told her it didn’t look right, but she was seeing Crystal regularly, so I knew it was no use talking to her.” Chooks pulled her red hair over one shoulder as Meg did on occasion.
“When was this?” Dan asked.
“It had to be just a little over a week ago. Maybe two at the most,” she answered.
When Dan asked her to describe the truck, she recalled several details that Amelia saw made Dan happy. He wrote everything down in his pocket notebook, including a description of the truck, a bumper sticker logo on the back, the missing mirror on the passenger’s side, and the DIY cab over the bed.
“I think it was held on with duct tape. Real hillbilly stuff.” Chooks chuckled.
“Thanks, Chooks.” Dan reached in his pocket and pulled out what had to be at least a hundred dollars in twenties. “Why don’t you take the rest of the night off?”
She took the money and laughed. “Heck, I’ll make three times more than this if I stay out. But thank you.” She curtsied.
Amelia wanted to slap the young girl for being so ungrateful. First of all, Amelia doubted she’d make another three hundred dollars within the next two hours before all the bars closed down. Second, didn’t she realize what had happened? That her friend or co-worker, whatever it was called, didn’t come back from one of her dates?
Dan and Amelia took three steps before Amelia stopped and turned around. She didn’t know what had gotten into her, but she walked up to Chooks, took her in her arms, and hugged her so tight the girl almost choked.
“That girl, Missy. She was murdered,” Amelia whispered in her ear as she hugged her. “Go home tonight.” She let her go and turned to leave.
“Was she your daughter?” Chooks asked.
“No.”
“Then why do you care?”
“Because she was somebody’s daughter. Like you are,” Amelia said.
They walked back to the car and climbed in without saying a word. Dan drove and pulled up in front of a jumping carry-out restaurant with a sign bragging the best charburgers in all of Oregon. The smell of an open grill made Amelia’s mouth water.
“What did she mean when she said she was seeing Crystal?” Amelia asked.
“A lot of the girls get hooked on crystal meth. It dulls everything. Most girls couldn’t do what they do out here if they didn’t do some kind of drug,” Dan said. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving,” she replied.
“Do you mind eating here?” Dan studied Amelia’s face, and he must have been wondering if he had done the right thing to bring her with him. The girls did talk, and it ended with a hopeful lead. But was it worth it?
“No. I don’t mind eating here at all,” Amelia said.
“Are you okay?”
“I am, Dan. A little wiser. A little depressed. But I’m okay.” Amelia touched his cheek gently. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“It can be hard.” He smiled.
“I don’t doubt that at all.”
“But it helps having a pretty face to come home to,” Dan replied. Amelia blushed as she leaned forward and gave him a kiss that lasted a little longer than usual.
Chapter Ten
When Amelia drove to Venti’s Baking Wholesale Warehouse, she passed by the building the arsonist had destroyed just a couple days earlier. It was a pitiful black pit of jutting beams and an ashen floor, like a rotten tooth surrounded by good teeth. Yellow police tape surrounded the charred remains, as did a notice asking anyone with any information about the fire to contact the police.
She parallel parked her car in front of Venti’s and went inside.
“Hello, Ms. Harley.”
“Hi, Pete. How are you? I heard about the fire. Saw the remains.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the burnt building. “That’s a little too close for comfort.”
“You’re telling me.” Pete wiped his head with a white cloth, which he then stuffed back into his overalls. His hair was receding, but what remained on his head was black and shot straight up in the air. He had broad shoulders, an even broader middle, and hard, callused hands. But his prices were fair, and he did carry several specialty items in bulk, like saffron and morel mushrooms.
“Did you see it happening?” Amelia asked.
“Did I see it? I felt the heat on my face. I just don’t get it.”
“Well, arson is a crime that makes very little sense to me.” Amelia shook her head.
“Arson? I’ll tell you what.” Pete leaned in to Amelia after looking around him to make sure none of his employees stood within earshot. “I can’t prove it, but that guy burnt that place himself.”
“What makes you say that?” Amelia kept her own voice low.
“Believe me. There are some unsavory elements that creep along these streets.” Pete put his index finger next to his nose. “Sometimes you have to play their game or break the rules and risk the consequences.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s probably best you don’t. A pretty lady like you should be worried about her hair and her nails and…”
Just then, the door opened, and an older fellow in a baseball hat, blue jeans, and a flannel shirt strolled in waving to Pete. “Excuse me, honey. Manuel!”
“Yeah?” came the reply from one of Pete’s employees, who was stacking giant cans of liquid heat against the wall.
“Come help this nice lady!”
Amelia smiled, shook Manuel’s hand, and handed him the list of supplies that she needed. He snatched it up and like a bumblebee flitted from aisle to aisle, grabbing things along the way.
Out of the corner of her eye, Amelia watched Pete talking with the older guy who had walked in. He didn’t look or act like a baker. He also didn’t act like he was a friend of Pete’s. From both men’s body language, Amelia got the impression that Pete was being scolded. Yes. The other guy was shaking a finger at him yet still smiling. But Pete wasn’t.
Something about the man and the way he acted seemed familiar to Amelia. Familiar but out of place. She couldn’t put her finger on it, and before she
could study him closer, Manuel tapped her on the shoulder, snapping her out of her trance.
“This is everything on your list. Is there anything else I can help you with?” He had his arms full with two large bags of flour, a new set of stainless steel measuring cups and spoons, and a blender that could be bolted to any surface.
“Oh, I need ten of your jumbo cupcake tins. But I remember where those are, so I’ll get them.”
Manuel helped her get everything into the trunk of her car and gave her a cheerful wave good-bye before going back into the warehouse. Amelia had been too engrossed in the receipt of her purchases and so happy with the final amount that she hadn’t realized how close the car in front of her had parked.
“Thanks, jerk,” she muttered. He was practically on top of her front bumper, leaving her a foot, maybe less, to back up and try to maneuver her way out of the space.
The car was rather old and beat up, but there were fresh bumper stickers on the back boasting the Fraternal Order of Police, a black and white image of the American flag with the thin blue line down the middle, and the catchy slogan “I Back the Badge” on still another sticker.
“This guy thinks these stickers entitle him to park like a jerk.” Amelia shook her head as she climbed into her sedan. After moving one inch at a time, rocking the car back and forth, she finally cleared the other car’s back bumper and sped away.
Before getting out of the neighborhood, she slowed down to look at the rubble of the other warehouse. Amelia wasn’t sure what made her do it, but she pulled down the alley and parked.
When she got out of her car and snuck up on the burnt remains of the warehouse, she could still smell smoke. There was nothing redeemable in the ash. Whatever the fire hadn’t consumed the water ruined as it rushed in at a thousand gallons a minute. The remains were a sad mess that Amelia couldn’t make heads or tails out of. If the investigators learned anything about this crime from these piles of black waste, it would be a miracle.
She crept carefully back to her car. Before she got in, she heard something behind her. When she turned around, she saw the man from Venti’s who had read Pete the riot act. He still wore the baseball hat pulled down around his eyes.
