by Kit Crumb
“Yes D-a-g-m-a-r, just like it sounds.”
“And where do you work, ma’am?”
“I’m the manager at Across the Border Tacos. We close at two. I was on my way home.”
Candace Dagmar sat quietly in her Geo Metro with the wool blanket Rye had given her draped around her shoulders. Officer Steins met Claire as she approached the car. “You mind staying with her while I call in her driver’s license?”
“No problem. She drunk?”
“Not at all, why?”
“The victim must have lit up like a Christmas tree when her headlights hit him. He had reflective tops on his socks, toes and heels of his shoes, too. He also wore a reflective vest and hat.”
“She could be in shock, she seems coherent, but doesn’t express any concern for the victim,” Steins said. “I’ll be right back.”
Claire walked to the little car and leaned on the driver’s side door.
“Hello, my name’s Claire, I’m an EMT. Do you hurt anywhere?”
Claire knew that Rye had asked the same question, but if the woman had been in shock she might not remember that he was even present.
“No I’m fine. You know, that runner came out of nowhere, just stepped right in front of me. I hope he has some kind of runner’s insurance, cause it’s going to cost me.
“Look,” she said pointing to the deflated air bag draped over the steering wheel, “the air bag came out.”
Claire winced. If the airbag deployed it indicated that the impact was solid and explained the extreme condition of Ben’s injured knee.
“I’ll tell you one thing, Linda was sure surprised.”
Claire looked around puzzled. “I’m sorry? I didn’t know you had a passenger.”
“Do you see anyone? I was talking to her on my cell.”
“You were talking on the cell phone when you were driving?”
“Have you got a hearing problem? I said I was talking to her on my cell.” Claire was turning away as the woman became more belligerent. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”
She met Officer Steins who was returning to finish the questioning.
“Allen, that woman just told me she was on her cell phone at the time of the accident.”
Steins made a face and picked up his pace. Her license had come back clear, but news of the use of a cell phone complicated her situation.
“Ma’am, were you talking on your cell phone when the accident occurred?” the officer asked.
“You act as though I did something wrong. I hope you gave that runner a ticket, he stepped right out in front of me.”
“Please answer the question, ma’am. Were you on the cell phone when you struck the runner?”
“Well yes, I was instructing my assistant manager in how to close. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, that the phone might have affected my driving. That’s just wrong.”
“How’s that, ma’am?”
“I’m almost always on my cell when I drive. I’ve really perfected the ability to split my attention.”
Candace Dagmar seemed smug, sure that she had vindicated her actions of talking on the phone while driving. Meanwhile Officer Steins was shining the beam through the side window as he listened, until he spotted the clamshell-style cell phone peaking out from under her purse on the passenger seat.
“Ma’am would you please hand me your cell phone.”
“What, why?”
“Just a formality ma’am. It might be needed as evidence. Please hand it to me.”
“I will not! That phone is my link with my workers.”
Officer Steins walked around to the passenger side of the Geo Metro and opened the door. When he reached for the cell phone, the woman quickly reached in an attempt to get it first. The two grabbed the phone at the same time. When Claire saw what was happening she walked around to the driver’s side.
“Ma’am, maybe you should let the officer have the phone.”
“And maybe you should mind your own business.”
Claire’s eyebrows shot up at the rebuke, but she smiled and stepped away from the car. “You’re on your own, Allen. I’m going to go transport Ben, good luck.”
“Claire wait, I need a female presence.” He nodded his head at the woman who was still clinging to the phone. “I can’t call for back-up right now.”
“Right, I’ll just stand over here,” Claire said, stepping back to the front of the car where she could see the tug-of-war clearly through the windshield.
“Ma’am, you are obstructing an officer in the line of duty. If you release the phone now I won’t cite you.”
She tightened her grip. “This is my personal property, you let go.”
At that moment her grip slipped, the release of the phone was such a surprise to Steins that he lost his grip, causing the phone to sail over his shoulder. It landed on the asphalt where it shattered on impact.
Steins smiled. “Thank you, ma’am.” He turned and extracted a baggie from his coat pocket and began to pick up the pieces of the phone.
As Claire walked back to the ambulance she could hear the shrill voice of Candace Dagmar threatening to sue the police department.
Chapter Twenty One
“So what’s up for you today?” Claire said, stretching out on the couch watching the sun come up.
Rye lay on his back on the floor, hands behind his head. “I promised Phil I’d make an appearance at his bachelor party and I’ve got an appointment to meet Olden in the afternoon.
“You’ve known Phil maybe thirty years?
“Something like that,” Rye said.
Claire nodded her head then leaned on one elbow and looked down at Rye. “Watch yourself, the rumor is someone’s bringing a lap dancer to the party. The only lap I want you dancing with is mine.”
“Not to worry, I’ll probably leave early.” He flopped over onto his stomach. “What about you?”
“I’ve got some belt tests around noon and sensei wants me to help him plan a winter tournament. I was going to wander over to the hospital morgue, see if I could find someone who knows this mystery doctor. But I think I’ll wait until you’ve met with Olden.”
“Got a couple cellophane belts to give out?” Rye said.
“They’d kick your butt.”
“I don’t think so. I’ve got this personal body guard,” Rye said.
They shared a quick breakfast and a protein drink, cleaned up the dinner dishes from the night before and spiffed up the living quarters before going their separate ways.
* * *
Rye took a deep breath before knocking. A smiling Phil Panther answered the door.
“Hey guys, help has arrived. Anybody passes out don’t bother calling 9-1-1.”
Phil’s house was a modest two bedroom, bath-and-a-half, Craftsman. The living room, decorated for the party, was wallpapered with pin ups and helium filled balloons with crude sayings. One was even shaped like a pair of breasts.
There were many who thought that at age fifty, Phil Panther would never get married and that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to curtail his bachelor ways.
During an evening run with Rye, he’d confessed that he was tired of the dating scene and was ready to settle down, whatever it took. This bachelor party was to be his last hurrah.
Rye took a center seat on the sofa directly in front of a munchies-laden coffee table and a widescreen TV.
“Perfect timing, Rye,” Bobby Panther said, as he stood in front of the TV, wearing a wide, mischievous grin. “The entertainment is about to start.”
Bobby was Phil’s younger brother by two years. He taught math and coached wrestling at Southern Oregon University, and was the mastermind of the party. As he started the video tape and stepped away from the TV, a groan went up from the room
even though every eye was glued to the scene unfolding on the screen.
A voluptuous blonde wiggled out of her clothes and climbed into a waiting tub of bubbles. She slid under the white foam, closed her eyes and moved her hand beneath the water. As she moaned and sighed, the water lapped over the edge of the tub onto the floor. The camera followed the water onto the bathroom floor where the scene segued to the water in a swimming pool and the sound of another female moaning.
“Hey my pool didn’t come with a sound track,” someone in the back of the room hollered.
The camera panned to a knothole in a wooden fence; an eye peering through it. The scene changed to reveal what the peering eye was seeing—two nude bodies on a manicured lawn by the pool. The camera zooms in to a tight shot of the couple’s union, then pans up to the woman’s face…
Rye suddenly leaned over the edge of the sofa, forgetting about the Doritos chip he was raising to his mouth. “Stop the tape!” he yelled.
“C’mon, Rye, don’t be a prude,” Bobby said.
“No, really, stop the tape. I know that woman.”
“We’re glad for you, buddy. You can take the tape home if you’d like. That is, if Claire doesn’t mind.”
The room erupted in laughter.
Nobody tried to stop him as Rye stepped around the coffee table and walked up to the TV. “Someone show me how to pop the tape out.”
“Shit, OK, but sit down. I’ll do it.”
“No kidding,” Rye said. “That woman came up to me at the scene of an accident yesterday and asked for help. I just want to see where it was made, that’s all.” Bobby handed him the tape.
“Hey man, you could have at least waited until the end,” Bobby said. “But since you didn’t, you have to promise to stick around and watch the other one.”
“Sorry,” he said, heading back to his place on the couch, tape in hand.
Phil came over and sat next to Rye who was trying to read the tiny print on the tape’s label.
“You’re really serious about this aren’t you?” he said, taking the tape from Rye. “Looks like the name of the company is Lewd and Lascivious.”
“It was the pleading look in her eye, there was nothing wrong with her, I mean she wasn’t injured. Her husband or whomever the guy was she was with, was the first on the scene of an accident and had set out flares. I got the impression that she didn’t want to go with him. I just don’t know, and now here she is in a porn flick. Maybe this guy is forcing her to perform. I feel like I should do something.”
Phil put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Bounce this off Claire, see what she has to say. Oh, and don’t worry about the guys. I heard a rumor little brother is bringing in a lap dancer.” Turning to get up, Phil looked at Rye and said, “I don’t mind you taking the tape, just get it back to Foxy Lady Video by noon tomorrow.”
Claire was reclining on the couch reading when Rye walked in. She spotted the tape in his hand. “What, you won the booby prize?” she said.
“Very funny. I’ve got something for you to look at.”
Rye walked across the room to the VCR where he inserted the tape. “Remember my mentioning that woman who asked for help at the I-5 accident? Well, take a look at this,” Rye said, facing Claire, totally unaware that his tape had been playing.
The TV screen was filled with a woman’s head bobbing up and down. “Oh shit, sorry.”
He bent down and pressed rewind, which made her head bob even faster, only backwards. Rye stopped it at a scene where the couple on screen were all over each other. He let the tape run until it came to the close up of the woman’s face. Pressing still, the tape paused.
“There,” he said. That’s her, the woman from the accident. She said her name was Crystal.”
When he turned to Claire her expression was etched in stone. “You forgot something when you did maintenance yesterday,” she said.
Rye was taken aback, here he was confronted by a mystery and Claire didn’t seem to care.
Standing she lifted out the jump kit from behind the couch and placed it on the coffee table between them. “Open it.”
“But the tape and the woman,” Rye said.
“Relax, open it.”
Coming around and dropping into a squat in front of the coffee table Rye lifted the twin latches that held the lid shut, pulled it back and found himself staring at a video tape. “What the hell is this?” Rye said.
“I don’t know how it got into your jump kit but it’s got your tape beat hands down, it also has your girlfriend on it,” she said.
Rye traded tapes and pressed start then walked around the coffee table and sat beside Claire.
It was immediately apparent by the overhead angle and the fish eye lens that this was a surveillance tape. It was looking down on three different sets; it took in everything from people standing off the set to the far side of the scene and the backdrop. In the first set, on the far left of the screen, a naked woman was talking with a man holding a clipboard—he seemed to be giving her directions. The middle set was more bed than floor, but was empty. The far right of the screen, the third set, was alive with action. The distortion of the camera lens made it impossible to discern what was happening, but after several minutes, three men stepped away and the woman’s face was center screen for about thirty seconds.
“That’s her, isn’t it? Where was your jump kit yesterday that she had the chance to put a tape in it without you knowing?” Claire said. She got up, walked around the coffee table and popped the tape out. “More important, why did she slip you that tape? What did she want you to see?”
She tossed the video on the coffee table as she came around to sit next to Rye.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
Rye was staring at the tape from the jump kit. “I don’t know, but this woman came to me for help. I feel like I have to do something.”
“Why don’t you talk to Paul Casey, as a PI he’s probably seen a lot of this kind of thing.”
“Good idea. Paul must deal with this stuff all the time. Did you watch the whole tape?”
“No. It started grossing me out. Women aren’t into watching like men are,” Claire said.
* * *
“Casey investigations, Paul Casey speaking.”
“Paul, it’s Rye. How you doing?
“Fair to middlin’. What can I do for you good buddy?”
“I’ve got a need for your expertise.”
At the mention of business, Paul changed gears. “Tell you what, I never do business over the phone, just bad policy. But I do have a long lunch, day after tomorrow. Let’s meet then.”
“Great, Paul. Spencer’s OK?”
“Yeah, fine. You buying? Say, I won’t be facing an attorney will I?”
“No it’s nothing like that. So, twelve o’clock? And yeah, I’m buying.”
“Twelve, and if I’m a couple minutes late just cool your heels. See you then, bye,” Paul said.
“Bye, Paul.”
Chapter Twenty Two
Raven reservoir sits nestled in the Cascade Mountain range. From the town of Medford, Oregon, you can take Reader Road, the more meandering route, or Hillsboro Drive, about five miles shorter at a distance of seventeen miles. Either will take you through beautiful forested mountains to the man-made lake. Some days they drove Rye’s ‘71 VW bus carrying the kayaks, and spent the day paddling around the lake. But no stop today, so they decided to take Claire’s 1963 Austin-Healey convertible.
She tapped the brakes then downshifted as the Healey headed into a curve. “So you have a noon appointment with Paul? What did he say, will he take on the case and find the girl?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t talk business over the phone. Said policy didn’t allow.”
Rye pitched a little to the
right as they entered the next curve. He liked Claire’s driving, she was aggressive and self-assured, plus she had the reflexes of a cat. Generally, when they went anywhere together Claire drove, but Rye usually drove the ambulance.
“Hey you see that?” Rye said.
“What?”
“That blue spot on the embankment. Pull up at the next turnout.”
They’d driven Hillsboro Drive hundreds of times in the years they’d been together. She knew every turnout by heart and they’d stopped at all of them at one time or another. The road cut into a mountainside so there was mountain on one side and a deep ravine that turned into a canyon on the other.
“It’ll be just a bit to the next one,” she said.
Rye had unbuckled his seatbelt and was bending in half, rummaging around under his seat for the binoculars. By the time Claire turned out and stopped, Rye had located the blue dot again and identified it as a car.
He handed the binoculars to Claire. “Look there, just to the left of the group of pines, what do you see?” She scanned the embankment until she found the trees then panned to the left and down just a little.
“It’s a little sports car.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t look rusted or old does it?”
Claire brought the binoculars down so she could look without their aid then brought them back up to her eyes.
“I’m sure we would have noticed that bright blue last week when we came this way,” she said “This is as close as I can get, the next shoulder isn’t for about another mile,”
“This’ll work,” Rye said, hopping over the door rather than opening it. He walked to the edge of the shoulder where the embankment started. By the time Claire reached his side he was peering at the car through the binoculars again.
“You better have a look,” he said, handing them to her. “I think somebody’s still in it.”
“Oh shit, you’re right. And I don’t see any movement.”
They kept a jump kit, rope, gloves and flares in the trunk. Rye looped one end of the rope around the front bumper and threw the rest over the embankment. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go?” Rye said.
