Moving Targets

by Warren C Easley

  I called Angela, and when she picked up asked if she’d gotten a copy of her mother’s will yet. “No,” she answered.

  “Maybe it’ll come tomorrow. If it does, call me. I’ll be in town, and I want to look it over.”

  “Okay. Have you found something, Cal?”

  “No, nothing like that,” I said, not wishing to stir her hopes. “Just laying some groundwork. Call me one way or the other as soon as your mail arrives, okay?”

  I called Semyon Lebedev next, got his voicemail, and left a message. He called back just as I let us into the studio apartment. “Yes, Cal?” he said, his voice clearly surprised but barely audible over the staccato beat I now associated with pole dancing.

  “Can you meet me in the parking lot of your club in twenty minutes? I have a quick follow-up question,” I said a bit disingenuously. It was a quick question but loaded, too.

  The phone went quiet except for the grinding beat. Finally, “Jesus, Cal.”

  “I know. A friend in need’s a pest. Look, it won’t take three minutes, I promise.”

  I heard him exhale over the music. “Okay. I’ll be at the north end of the parking lot at eight-thirty. We’re busy as hell, so this has to be fast.”

  Semyon was right on time, emerging out of the shadows between two cars like a big cat. I told him I was interested in the name of a man seen with Lenny the Fox at the motel the night he died. “I’m thinking this guy might have been with Lenny when the Lexus got dropped off at the chop shop.”

  “Names are harder to come by.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I realize that.”

  Semyon grimaced and stroked his stubbly chin, making a scraping noise in the stillness. “You are putting us both at risk,” he complained, but agreed to talk to his friend for me once more.

  I thanked him, then thought of one more thing. “Any way your friend could arrange to have the Lexus cube held back, you know, stash it somewhere?”

  He shot me a puzzled look. “Why?”

  “It might be a murder weapon,” I said. “Evidence.”

  “I will ask him.” After a Russian eye roll he disappeared back into the shadows.

  By the time I got back to Caffeine Central the second time, I was beat. I took Arch out for a quick stretch and turned in, knowing I wouldn’t get many more pages of The Snow Man read. My eyelids were lead-lined, but I was glad when Winona’s call came in. I’d tried her earlier without success and was beginning to worry. She asked about me first, and after I brought her up to speed she said, “The thought of someone being killed that way sickens me, Cal. There’s no honor among these thieves. Are you sure you can trust this Russian?”

  “With my life,” I answered. I swung the conversation around to her, knowing things at Standing Rock were in disarray. “What’s the latest out there?”

  She sighed deeply. “It sucks, majorly. We lost our bid for a temporary restraining order. The camp’s been razed, and everyone’s leaving the area. They won, Cal.”

  “What about the courts?”

  “We’re filing a couple of last-ditch motions. We’re saying the pipeline under Lake Oahe could degrade the water, which would interfere with the Sioux Tribe’s religious freedom. Their water’s sacred.” She sighed again. “The motions don’t have much of a chance.”

  The phone went silent for a while, and I listened to her breathing, realizing how much I missed her. “Have you thought about coming back to Portland?”

  Her voice grew thick. “How can I leave when these people are suffering so?”

  “Maybe there’s nothing more you can do at this time. Why don’t you come home? I miss—”

  Click. She hung up on me. “Damn, damn, damn,” I said out loud. The decision to give up the fight was hers to make and hers alone. I knew that. And I sounded like I was putting my feelings ahead of everything else. “What an idiot!” I started to call her back but resisted. I knew her temper well. An apology might escalate the situation even further.

  I sat like a lump for a while, then snapped off the light and lay back, staring up at the darkened ceiling. I thought about how to fix it with Winona, but the last thing to drift through my mind before I fell asleep was the despicable crime that had taken place at that intersection up in the West Hills. That was something else I needed to fix.

  Chapter Nine

  I slept restlessly and got up feeling stiff and tired. It rained most of the night, but a cool east wind had swept the clouds away by the time Arch and I hit the jogging trail. I took my phone with me, hoping Winona would call, but she didn’t. She must be really pissed, I decided.

  When we got back I called her and when she didn’t answer, left a conciliatory message. That didn’t make me feel much better, but after a shower and a three-egg omelet with spinach, bacon, and Gruyere cheese I was ready to soldier on.

  I spent the morning tidying up the files in my downstairs office, which were a godawful mess. Record keeping wasn’t one of my strong points, and I couldn’t justify hiring a clerk. Billable hours weren’t as important in my pro bono practice, but without clerical help I lived in fear of missing a court appointment or a filing date for one of my clients, because I was juggling such a big workload. At one point I looked over at Archie, lying in the corner, chin on paws, with a contented look on his face. “You want to trade jobs?” He raised his chin off his paws and yawned a no thanks.

  At eleven ten, Angela called with the news that her mother’s will had arrived in the mail from Melvin Turner. She said she was on her way to the Bridgetown Co-op, and I agreed to meet her there. Twenty minutes later Archie and I wove our way through the art gallery, buzzing with shoppers that morning, and found Angela right where we left her last time—in her studio on top of a stepladder working on her chrysalis. This time she was brandishing a wire brush instead of a torch.

  “That would look great in my flower garden,” I said, after knocking and letting myself in. “I’d put it right next to a couple of my butterfly bushes.”

  She laughed, a sound I was growing fond of. At that moment I realized why—it reminded me of my daughter Claire’s laugh. Not the sound of it, particularly, but the insouciant attitude it reflected—that most things, big and small, deserved a laugh as a first response. It was an attitude Angela obviously shared. “It’s spoken for,” she said, “but you’re right, it belongs in a flower garden. I’d be glad to make you something. I’ve been known to barter.”

  My turn to laugh. “Me, too. Maybe we can work something out.”

  She hung her brush on one of the curved ribs, got down from the ladder, and fetched a large envelope from her workbench. “Here’s what came this morning.” She extended it to me, her fingers leaving smudge marks on the envelope, then mounted the ladder again, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll work while you read. This piece’s scheduled for a powder coat in two days and needs a ton of finish work.”

  I nodded and sat down to read through the will. By the time I finished Angela had switched from using a wire brush to fine grit emery paper, which was giving the piece a burnished, polished look. “Okay,” I said, “can you take a break?” She nodded, climbed down, and pulled up a chair. Wearing a black bandanna, pirate style, grime under her short nails, and bandages on a couple of fingers, she eyed me expectantly. I’d gone back and forth with myself about how much to say about the stolen Lexus, the suspicious death of Lenny the Fox, and the man seen with him the night he died. I decided against saying anything.

  “Your mother’s will is interesting,” I began. “She did leave you the house and everything in it, furnishings, computers, flat screens, the riding mower.” I smiled. “You could have a blowout yard sale, or I suppose you can sell the house furnished. The Cadillac SUV and the his-and-hers Jaguars were purchased through Wingate Properties, so they don’t belong to you. Same with the boat at the marina.”

  “Good. I don’t want anything to do with those ridicu
lous cars or that speedboat.”

  “When you’re thirty-five, you’ll get the investment portfolio, too. Do you know the value?”

  “Melvin told me it was worth around two hundred thousand at the moment. The broker’s a guy named Chrysler.”

  “Huh, I would have expected a higher balance.”

  She shrugged. “Chuck plowed everything back into the business, so the savings weren’t so hot.” She laughed, although a bit nervously. “It’s more money than I know what to do with.”

  I nodded. “The disposition of the company’s very surprising. The will instructs the executor, Melvin Turner, to sell the company and split the proceeds among the charities your mom was directly involved with.”

  Angela shrugged. “Yeah, I know. Mom said that Melvin was bugging her about updating her will. She asked me if I had any interest in the company. After I stopped laughing I said something like, “If I owned Wingate Properties, I’d make it a nonprofit for affordable housing.”

  “How did she react to that?”

  “She said maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.”

  “So are you surprised at the way the will turned out?”

  Angela blinked into the middle ground between us. “Well, I know that Brice and Melvin talked to her about selling the company before the accident. She said she told them absolutely not.”

  “Did she say why they wanted to sell?”

  “Some outfit with deep pockets was interested.” She laughed. “You know, they’d have more money to rape and pillage.”

  “Are you surprised it’s going to be sold now?”

  “Not really. I figure Mom was trying to honor Chuck’s feelings. You know, it was his company, and he really didn’t approve of me. If I inherited Wingate Properties, he’d start spinning in his grave.”

  “You’re the sole heir to this estate, and that provision cuts you out of the largest portion of it.”

  “I don’t care about that. The only thing I don’t like is that she’s giving all the money to charities that already have tons of support. There are more deserving causes. I thought she got that.”

  “The will is dated March first, just fifteen days before the accident. I was surprised the date’s so recent,” I continued. “Does it surprise you she waited so long after your father’s death to update it?”

  “Not at all. Mom wasn’t what you’d call the organized type. I’ll bet she drove Melvin crazy, putting off that chore. I could barely get her to sign my report cards.”

  I paused at that point to allow myself time to think. Angela got up and made herself a cup of tea, some concoction called rooibos. “Sure you don’t want some this time?” She was half teasing. “It’s from South Africa. Loaded with antioxidants.”

  I waved her off, and when she sat back down said, “You have the right to contest this will.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No way I want to do that. I respect Mom’s decisions.”

  “I know that, and I’m not suggesting you should contest it. But I’d like to give Melvin Turner the impression that after having seen the will we might be considering it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’ll give me better cover for nosing around.”

  “Nosing around for what?”

  I hesitated for a moment, searching for the right words. “I think there’s something odd about the will and about the circumstances of your mother’s death.”

  Her hand rose involuntarily to her mouth, and her big eyes got bigger. “My God, you think it wasn’t an accident, that Melvin’s involved?”

  I raised a hand in caution. “No. There’s nothing to suggest anything like that. I just have more questions to ask.”

  She cocked her head and eyed me skeptically. “You’re not telling me everything, are you?”

  I smiled, impressed but not surprised by her perceptiveness. “It’s better I don’t at this point. Trust me.”

  She hesitated for a moment, then gave a knowing smile. “Okay, that’s cool.”

  As I was leaving I asked her how she got into metal sculpting. “I love to read and draw,” she said, “but school wasn’t my thing. Too freaking regimented, you know? I decided I wanted to learn auto mechanics. Hands-on, that’s me.” She laughed. “Mom was horrified, but she was desperate to find something I could do, so she enrolled me in an auto mechanics course offered through the school system. I didn’t like it, but I became intrigued with the parts. I mean, have you ever looked, really looked, at a piston, for example, or a crank shaft?”

  “Uh, no, not really.”

  She laughed again. “It’s form following function, but there’s more—a kind of elegance in the form, at least to me. Anyway, I decided I wanted to make stuff out of metal. I talked Mom into springing for some courses at Pacific Northwest Sculptors, and after I got sober, it just took off from there.” Her eyes filled with passion. “You know, we think of a material like steel as something rigid and unyielding, but that’s not the case. I love bending it to my will, to some vision in my head that I hope has beauty and integrity.”

  I looked at the nearly finished piece in the center of the room, then back at Angela. “I’d say you’ve come a long way.”

  Driving back to Caffeine Central, I thought about the items in the will I hadn’t asked Angela about, items I knew she had little interest in. First, the will stipulated that in the event of Margaret Wingate’s death, the sale of Wingate Properties was contingent on maintaining the law firm of Turner, Ross, and Steinman, with Marvin Turner as the sole legal representative of the company, and second, if Brice Avery were still CEO of the company, he would remain so. Turner and Avery could only be fired for cause and would both retire at age seventy. I wasn’t that familiar with these kinds of arrangements, but I assumed that clause was added to provide some protection for them, and to insure continuity of operation, at least from the point of view of Margaret Wingate. From a buyer’s perspective, who would normally want to put their own people in place, this could be a serious impediment.

  I was curious to see what Brice Avery and Melvin Turner would have to say about that.

  I brought the will with me and told Angela I’d get the original back to her after I made a copy. I’d examined the back pages carefully, which were witnessed by two Turner, Ross, and Steinman employees and duly notarized, all attesting to the document’s legitimacy. It looked in perfect order, but I wanted to talk to the two witnesses. I was sure Turner would be loath to cooperate with me. But now I had a new angle and maybe some leverage—the threat of a legal challenge to the document that significantly benefited both Turner and Avery and ran counter to my client’s interests. Of course, I had no proof of fraud, and my client really wasn’t upset by the will’s provisions, but the prospect of depositions and the resultant publicity could hold up the sale of Wingate Properties.

  I was fishing, for sure, but my gut told me it was worth exploring.

  Chapter Ten

  Archie and I arrived back at the Aerie that afternoon. A rain shower had just left the smell of damp earth in its wake, and the spectral trace of a rainbow lay half hidden by the towering firs bordering the east side of my property. As I swung the heavy gate open, my dog sprinted into the yard, scattering a flock of robins busy poaching earthworms from the sodden grass field above the driveway. Standing where the robins had been, Arch turned back to me and barked a joyous chorus, making it clear how glad he was to be back in his kingdom.

  It was quiet over in McCallister Quarry, which was a relief, although it was a Saturday and the crew I’d seen in there earlier might’ve taken the weekend off. I gave Arch his weekly bone and took a sandwich and a beer out on the side porch, which afforded a restricted view into the sunken area where the blasting had taken place. I saw nothing, but after lunch I pried Arch away from his bone and walked the half mile down to the gated entrance to the not-so-abandoned quarry. A big, extended cab pic
kup with Patterson Engineering Consultants written on the side was parked next to the gate, which was closed but not locked. We let ourselves in and followed what was now a wide, cleared path that looked disturbingly like a road-in-the-making.

  I stopped dead in my tracks. Arch sat down next to me and whimpered softly, as if he too sensed a threat. A large piece of machinery painted Caterpillar green had been moved into the quarry in my absence. Resembling the ugly offspring of a tank and a locomotive, it sported the mother of all hoppers resting on the center of an elongated body topped with conveyor belts. The body, resting on a combination of tank treads and balloon tires, was powered by a built-in engine that looked big enough to propel an aircraft carrier. Two men wearing coveralls and ear protection were hunched over the controls of the engine, and as if on cue, fired it up. The behemoth sprang to life, shaking the ground and belching black smoke, the whine of the belts rising in the quiet air like screaming furies. Archie yelped once, turned around, and tugged at his leash. I turned to take him out of there when the machine powered back down. “Sit and stay,” I told my dog, then approached the two technicians.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked them, although I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

  They both turned to face me, and the taller of the two, beaming with almost parental pride, said, “This is a Sanme portable rock crusher.”

  “No kidding. You mean this thing moves?”

  “Well, we brought it in on a couple of eighteen-wheelers, but for short distances, yeah.”

  The other technician extended a forearm and pointed with an index finger. “This buggy’s gonna follow a deep seam of blue basalt that runs in that direction.”

  I winced inwardly. He’d pointed in the direction of the Aerie, which was barely visible from where we stood. “Oh, you mean right toward that old farmhouse on the ridge over there?”