Moving Targets

by Warren C Easley

  Arch was happy to walk up the incline of Vista Court, which I knew connected back into Monte Vista Terrace a mile or so up the road. We walked a couple of hundred feet and then turned around to face in the direction the car was travelling when it struck Wingate. A car coming down Vista Court would have had a clear view—at least a block in either direction—of anyone jogging on Monte Vista Terrace. I pulled out my cell phone and asked Siri, “What was the weather like in Portland on March sixteenth?” I read the answer a moment later—light rain and no mention of fog. I looked down at Arch and shook my head. “I hope we don’t have a texting teen.” On top of a life taken, a young life surely damaged. A depressing thought.

  Most of that first block was wooded and undeveloped. We kept walking until we came to the first two houses on the street. They sat opposite each other like two contestants in an architectural contest—stacked stone, local softwoods, and acres of plate glass. I felt no need to ring doorbells. I was certain Portland Police Bureau’s Major Crash Team had put a full court press on the folks living there and on the rest of the houses further up Vista Court.

  I considered that for a moment. If the team had found something, there’s a good chance they would have gone public, since they would be under a ton of pressure to show progress in a high-profile case like this. But there were no additional press reports on the accident, so the investigative team had probably accounted for and cleared the cars owned by the families living on the loop, as well as those of any visitors, repairmen, and the like.

  If that held, then the perpetrator had to have been someone driving through the neighborhood.

  Once back in the car, I sat mulling this, oblivious to the view of Portland that spread out to the south and west. One thing was certain. If the perp wasn’t associated with one of the houses on Vista Court, then this case got a lot harder. That triggered another thought—why would someone drive through if it simply brought them back onto Monte Vista Terrace a mile or so later? A shortcut? Maybe, but since the street cut a serpentine path on its way through, not much of one. A wrong turn perhaps, resulting in the driver looking at a screen map instead of the road? A possibility.

  There was another possibility. I didn’t give murder much credence, but it did make me want to learn a little more about Margaret Wingate’s personal life.

  Chapter Four

  Despite a surround of threatening clouds, the sky in the city stayed defiantly clear that afternoon, so Arch and I snuck in a good run. I was low on provisions in my galley kitchen at Caffeine Central, so I texted an order into a little artisanal pizza joint off Burnside and picked it up on the way back. I did have beer, so after feeding Arch, I settled back with the pizza, a Mirror Pond pale ale, and a Jo Nesbo classic, The Snow Man, that I’d somehow missed reading.

  A couple of murders later I took a break to look up the address of the Scarlet Hideaway. Across the river on NE Columbia Boulevard, the strip club’s website promised “The finest nude dancing in the Portland area,” with a bonus feature of “Private VIP sessions with an exotic dancer of your choice.” I was surprised when I first learned that Portland was a veritable Garden of Eden of strip clubs, which numbered more per capita than any city in the country, including Las Vegas. Yet I now see that the fascination for strip clubs makes perfect sense for a city that celebrates its eccentricities and fiercely guards the right of free expression.

  Semyon Lebedev wasn’t at the door, so I paid the five-dollar cover, gave my name, and asked for him. The bouncer at the door nodded and summoned another hard-looking man who escorted me through the club. Music throbbed near the pain threshold, and the interior—a study in faux leather, chrome, and mirrors—smelled of stale beer, human sweat, and bad perfume. Hard-ass led me between two oval stages, sprouting floor to ceiling poles, both of which had young, gyrating women attached to them. I followed him through a set of swinging doors and into a poorly lit, narrow hallway. As we entered, two dancers who still had their tops on passed us hurriedly on their way to the stages.

  “Third door on the left,” I was told. “He’s expecting you.”

  Semyon, a big, expressive man, hugged me like a bear, then held me at arm’s length and beamed a smile that included a gold tooth. “Good to see you, Cal.” He wore Doc Martens, black chinos, and a black silk shirt with the top button unfastened, owing to the wide expanse of his chest and shoulders.

  “You, too.” I raised my eyebrows. “Your own office. Looks like you’re not just a bouncer here.”

  He smiled with modesty and showed me to a seat across from his desk. “You know what they say about the blind pig rooting up an acorn. I’m the head bouncer here.” He laughed. “But we don’t call it that. I’m the floor manager.”

  “Impressive. Congratulations.”

  Semyon produced a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka, poured us each three fingers, and after we toasted our friendship he said, “So what is on your mind, Cal?”

  “On March sixteenth, a woman was killed up in the West Hills by a hit-and-run driver. She was a prominent Portlander, so I’m sure the case has a high priority, but the police are apparently not making any headway. The woman’s daughter asked me to look into it, and for some reason I said yes.”

  Semyon laughed. “Knowing you, I am not surprised.”

  “Anyway, suppose someone had a damaged car but was afraid to take it to a legit body shop. What could be done?”

  Semyon sipped his vodka, gazed at me, and smiled. “You are assuming I have knowledge of such things?”

  “Come on, Semyon.”

  He shrugged and suppressed a smile. “They could sell it to a chop shop, then report it stolen.”

  “They would have to know about chop shops, right?”

  He shrugged again. “It is not a big secret in Portland, although the police seem incapable of shutting these shops down.”

  “What happens to the car?”

  “It is stripped of all useful parts and sent to a crusher. It would be done in one night. End of story.”

  I nodded. The next question was the tricky one. “Suppose I wanted to know if anyone dumped a car with a damaged front end in one of these chop shops, say, in a five-day window following the sixteenth?” I could have asked for a larger time slot, but figured that if this was the direction the guilty party chose they would act fast to dispose of the evidence.

  His brow, burnished with scar tissue from his cage fighting days, lowered a bit, and his face hardened. “That’s a risky question, Cal.”

  “I know. Look, Semyon, it’s a long shot, but it’s the one avenue I can check that the cops can’t. The girl’s mother was tossed across an intersection like a rag doll and left there to die.”

  He poured us more vodka, then leaned back in his chair. “When I said risky, I meant risky for me. I am not involved in the automotive busi—”

  “I heard you were.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I was, but I am not now. This club isn’t either. Here it is small-time prostitution, drugs, and, since the immigration crack down, supplying forged green cards, a very lucrative business. You’re talking about the Boyarchenko operation, the Russian Mafia. They are frying the bigger fishes.”

  “Can you get me that kind of information?”

  He downed his vodka, crossed his thick arms, and considered the surface of the desk separating us for several beats before raising his eyes. “I have a contact who owes me. I will make some inquiries. Killing a woman, someone’s mother, is a shameful crime.” He smiled unexpectedly. “And it would be enjoyable to cause some trouble for that bastard, Ilya Boyarchenko, even if it puts my ass at risk.”

  I thanked him, and we talked about old times for a while. At the door he said, “Cal, the things I mentioned going on here, I want you to know I’m not involved. I am just the floor manager.”

  “Good,” I said, losing my hand in his massive grip. “Glad to hear it.”

  On Thursd
ay morning I called Angela Wingate and left a message saying I wanted to talk to her. Meanwhile, I returned some phone calls and worked on a couple of briefs that needed filing, the kind of work that pays the bills. Caffeine Central was open for business most Fridays, but I knew from experience people would wander in, so I kept the door to the street locked out of necessity. These days a growing portion of my work consisted of defending tenants evicted by landlords with dollar signs in their eyes, Portland currently being one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. Gentrification was transforming the city I loved, and I was engaged in a rearguard action to protect a growing number of its victims.

  Angela called back midmorning, and at half past one I parked across the street from the address she gave me, a two-story industrial building on North Williams in inner northeast Portland. “I’m at the Bridgetown Artists’ Co-op,” she’d told me. “Just ask for me in the showroom. And Cal, can you bring that handsome dog of yours? I’ve got a crush on him.”

  I’d heard of the cooperative but had never been there. I leashed up Archie and crossed to the entry, which was marked by vertical helixes of rusty iron standing about my height, one on either side of the door. The helix on my left was capped with a shiny chrome sphere; the one on my right sported an equally polished cube balanced on a corner. The showroom walls were filled with paintings, prints, ink sketches, even macramé. A jewelry counter and shelves holding pottery lined a back wall, and the sculptures on the floor caused me to zigzag my way to the counter, where a young man with a full beard and a beret awaited me.

  “She’s on the second floor, last studio on the left at the end of the hall,” he told me. He took a ring of keys out of his pocket and opened a door behind the counter for me. “Stairs are on the left.” He smiled at Archie, not the least bit concerned that a dog was in his showroom. This was Portland, after all.

  The stairs and second-floor hallway were poorly lit, and I was relieved when someone emerged from a studio halfway down. I pointed to the end of the hall. “Angela’s studio?” The young man stopped and held his hand out for Archie to sniff. “Last on the left,” he repeated, as Arch gave him permission to adore him.

  I rapped on the door twice before it opened. Angela Wingate greeted me, wearing welder’s goggles on her forehead and a heavy leather apron. “Hi, Cal. I see you brought Archie.” She dropped to one knee to hug him. “He reminds me of a Bernese we had when I was in middle school.”

  “Yeah, a lot of people say that. Same markings, and he’s almost as big as a Bernese.”

  “Give me a sec,” she continued, “while I shut down. I sculpt metal, in case you haven’t guessed.”

  Brightly illuminated by overhanging fluorescent lights, the studio had two windows in the wall running parallel to North Williams and a workbench on an adjoining wall with a cluster of gas cylinders chained in the corner next to it. A heap of scrap metal lay against the opposite wall next to a large anvil and what looked like a gas-fired forge. An exhaust fan droned in one of the windows facing the street. In the center of the studio, a skeletal cylinder, maybe six feet tall, stood on a wooden platform. Wide in the middle and tapered at each end like a vase, it was formed by a series of gracefully curved rods welded in place to a series of horizontal rings. It looked like Angela was in the process of cutting a gaping hole on one side of the cylinder and bending the vertical bars outward.

  I studied it for a moment and smiled. “Nice. I think that butterfly has flown the coop.”

  She laughed, and her eyes lit up. “You got it. The working title’s Chrysalis.”

  “Did you do those helices at the entry to the Co-op?”

  “Yeah. Those were early pieces I used to pay a couple months’ rent here.” She laughed again. “But I still haven’t quit my day job.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m a courier. I deliver for a big cannabis shop in southeast.” I must have looked surprised, because she smiled and went on. “Pot delivery’s a thing since the legalization last year. It’s the perfect job for me. Most of the work’s at night and the money’s good.”

  After doffing her protective gear and shutting off the exhaust fan and the acetylene and oxygen tanks, she ushered me to a small table and two chairs in one corner. “I can make some herbal tea. You want some?”

  I declined the tea, and when we were seated said, “As I mentioned on the phone, I’m checking some sources but don’t have anything yet. The chances that I can shed any light on your mom’s death are still pretty remote.”

  Her face grew solemn, and her eyes locked on to me. “I know that. I’m thankful you’re taking the time, Cal. At least I can say I tried.”

  I nodded. “I looked the crime scene over. That intersection was completely open, and since it was still light when it happened, whoever hit your mom must have been totally preoccupied.”

  She grimaced. “Someone texting?”

  “Maybe. And that person now has a damaged car to deal with.” I went on to explain my approach—looking at the illegal body shops in Portland. “Of course,” I warned her, “whoever did this might simply hide the car somewhere until he thinks the heat’s off.”

  Her big eyes grew even larger, and I knew my caveat hadn’t registered. “Sure, a chop shop. That would be the place to take a car like that.”

  “Only if you know about them,” I responded. “That narrows the field down considerably.”

  She cocked her head and looked at me. “You know about that scene?”

  “I know a guy who knows a guy.”

  “Cool.”

  “We’ll see. We’re talking about a long shot, Angela. Tell me about your mom. What was going on with her around the time she was killed?”

  Angela sighed. “After the Women’s March, she was powered up, looking around for new issues to get involved with, you know, more radical stuff. Suddenly her charity work seemed pretty tame, I think. I’d been telling her about what was happening in Portland, how all this new development was ripping up established neighborhoods and pushing out the long-time residents, the whole cluster fuck we’re living right now.”

  “Your mom owned a big development company and didn’t understand that?” I asked, a bit incredulously.

  “She was kind of oblivious. She’d never taken any real interest in the business. That was always Chuck’s thing. Her thing was her charities and her board work, you know, safe stuff, no controversy. She bought the bullshit, too, that Wingate’s developments were all great for Portland.”

  “So how did she react to what you were telling her?”

  “She actually started to listen, which was a shock, believe me. She began to see beyond her manicured neighborhood up in the West Hills, you know, to get what was really happening at street level. She started taking an interest in the projects Wingate had on the drawing boards and even started questioning some of them.” Angela flashed a sly smile. “I was getting to her.”

  “What happened at the company?”

  She laughed. “She told Brice Avery—he’s the guy who runs it now—that she wanted to move the company toward more socially responsible projects. I know that they got into it over some humongous project on the North Waterfront. She wanted it redirected.”

  “Did she prevail?”

  Angela shrugged. “I’m not sure how it came out. She did say that both Brice and Melvin were upset with her.”

  “Melvin’s the family attorney?”

  “Yeah, and he works for the company, too. He was tight with Chuck. They went to school together. Stanford. He’s, um, not a big fan of mine.”

  “Did your mother leave a will?”

  “Yeah. She left me the house up in the hills, and some stocks and shit. I’m going to sell the house with Melvin’s help.” She laughed. “He acted like he’d just given me the moon and stars, but money scares me. Rich people seem pretty fucked up. They’re so attached to their money
they choke on it and forget to live. I’m into my art, and social justice, I guess. Stuff like that.”

  “An authentic life.”

  She cut a look at me to insure I wasn’t mocking her, then smiled. “Right, an authentic life.”

  “Do you have a copy of the will?”

  She shrugged. “I guess I didn’t ask for one at the reading.”

  “What about the Wingate Company? What’s going to happen to it now?”

  “They’re going to sell it, I think.”

  “Does Melvin have a last name?”

  “Turner, Melvin Turner.”

  I knew him by reputation. The firm, Turner, Ross, and Steinman, was a big player in the city and the state. “Do you mind if I talk to Turner? I’ll have to tell him I’m working for you, which may put his nose out of joint. At the very least, I’ll get you a copy of the will.”

  “Sure, go ahead. I’d love to see the look on his face when you do. Me with a lawyer. Speaking of which, when do I pay you and how much? I’ve got money in the bank now.”

  “Send me a check for three hundred dollars. If this case gets legs, we’ll talk about fees, okay?”

  She agreed, and the conversation wound down from there. Before leaving I nodded at the sculpture. “How did you make those graceful curves?”

  She pointed to a forge. “I heated the rods in that oven over there.” She pointed again, this time to a metal plate propped against the wall with the curved shape outlined on it by a double row of closely spaced pins. “When the steel was soft enough, I shaped it using that mandrel as a guide. I made the rings that hold the piece together the same way.”

  “Nice.” Then out of curiosity I added, “I met one of your colleagues coming in. How many artists work here?”