Deception

by Randy Alcorn

  “That’s it?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But I thought you said …”

  “I just said I had a photo of you taken in his house.”

  “Okay. Well … that’s good.”

  “Thank you, Miss Fields. I’ll call you if I have more questions.”

  I stood and moved to the door. She sat motionless.

  “Are you coming out?”

  She shook her head, no eye contact. “I’ll just stay here for now.”

  “I’m … sorry.”

  Her face rested on her hands, which were palm down on the table. I saw a box of Kleenex at the front desk, grabbed a handful, and took them back to Cassandra Fields. Still looking down, she sobbed when she clutched them. I put my hand lightly on her shoulder, then left her to her demons.

  I grabbed a late lunch at the Pizza Schmizza three blocks south of the library, but it didn’t settle, so I left some, which shows how hard Cassandra’s story hit me. I returned to the central precinct at the Justice Center and made phone calls. There’s no point in telling you details about the other contacts I made, following up on A+ papers in Palatine’s file. Five of the nine I was able to reach on the telephone admitted that they’d had a relationship with Palatine. He hadn’t kept these papers for their literary value, but as reminders of something else.

  But when the afternoon had finished, it was Cassandra Fields who haunted me, because hers was the only face I’d seen. I couldn’t shake her vulnerability, hurt, and shame. Had I been her father or brother I might have considered killing Palatine myself.

  I’m no Victorian. I don’t much care what people do in their private lives. But a professor is in a power position, and if he abuses his power and seduces his students, and especially if he does it repeatedly, I think something should be done to him. Maybe not death, but something permanent.

  Short of that, I’d volunteer to beat him within a millimeter of his life, because though I don’t use the metric system, I know a millimeter is a lot less than an inch.

  I sat down in front of Billy the Bartender at Rosie O’Grady’s, munching on pretzels and peanuts. “What time did I leave here a week ago Wednesday night?”

  “Like I should remember if you don’t?” Billy squinted at me. “Haven’t seen you since you was here Saturday.”

  “I’m talking the Wednesday before that. When I came in the door, you were ragging on Mayor Branch’s “Beautify Portland” plan and how much it was going to cost Rosie’s. Remember when I left?”

  “Checking out your own alibi?”

  “Just answer my question.”

  “Little after ten, I reckon. Ten thirty outside. Early for you. I asked if you wanted a cab, but you wasn’t in a mood to listen.”

  “What mood was I in?”

  “Ticked off.”

  “About what?”

  “Government. Religion. Education. The mayor. That newspaper guy. The police chief. You name it.”

  “I mentioned the chief?”

  “You called him names. Want I should repeat them?”

  “What did I say about education?”

  “You was groanin’ about liberal communist college professors who act like cops are the criminals.”

  “I said that?”

  “And a hundred other things. You pushed a customer who made a crack about donuts.”

  “I didn’t push anybody.”

  “Yeah you did. People were backing off. I heard one guy say you’re a lot tougher than you look … said he’d seen you knock somebody cold with a head butt. That true?”

  “You’re sure I was gone by ten thirty?”

  “Pretty sure,” he said, wiping the bar with a wet towel. “Get a memory, will you? Then you won’t have to use mine.”

  I’ve had plenty of firsts. My first kiss, Heidi Holstrom, third grade. My first transistor radio—high-tech, costing me a twenty-dollar fortune—on which I listened to Elvis and Buddy Holly. My first date with Sharon at the original Spaghetti Factory in downtown Portland, back when spumoni ice cream had those little candied fruit doohickeys in it. My first NFL game, in Seattle at the old Kingdome, watching Jim Zorn and Steve Largent. My first World Series, in New York, Yankees versus Braves. My first arrest. My first solved homicide.

  Most of the firsts, with the exception of my inauguration to the oven of Vietnam, when I melted into a puddle, I remember fondly. But today was another first.

  I considered my inability to remember what I’d done after leaving Rosie’s. I thought about Wally’s Donuts, three lousy blocks from the professor’s. I thought about the Black Jack gum wrapper I’d removed from the crime scene. I weighed Billy’s testimony that I was mad enough to push people around.

  It was another first for me when I wrote a new name on my suspect list.

  Mine.

  15

  “Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.”

  SHERLOCK HOLMES, SILVER BLAZE

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30

  I HAD MEANS. I had opportunity. I didn’t have an alibi, and while it seemed that the alcohol in my system would have prevented me from the crime, it also might have emboldened me. Tangible evidence—both the gum wrapper and the rope—placed me at the scene.

  But what could have been my motive? Did it lay in the gaps of my existence, the blackouts that had increased in frequency and duration?

  One of the sore points in comics history is that Hal Jordan, Green Lantern, failed to save Coast City, his childhood home, from destruction. That failure turned him mad. Unable to prevent this terrible injustice, he tried to right all wrongs, but resorted to wrongdoing to do it. The great champion of good turned evil.

  My meals with Jake and Clarence at Lou’s Diner were up to two a week—a bonus for working with Clarence, since it was natural to include Jake, who we trust and who we’re both more comfortable around than each other. This time we were meeting on a Saturday, after which Clarence and I would be working on the case. I sat at our booth, getting in a few beers before my buddies arrived, admiring the orange flower Rory called a gerbera daisy.

  A dilemma is a problem for which you can see no solution.

  When you work with a bunch of guys you’d die for in a heartbeat—even if you don’t like them all—and you follow the evidence, which tells you the murder was committed by one of them … and will cause mega-resentment from the other detectives … and make a community that’s already suspicious of cops believe they’ve been proven right … and when you’re working every day not just with cops you can’t trust, but a journalist … this is a dilemma. It weighed on me enough that it threatened my appetite, though the threat proved hollow.

  Jake entered, said hi, then went right to the Rock-Ola, pressing C3. The haunting lyrics of “Bridge over Troubled Water” transported us again, and we were both thinking of Vietnam.

  Clarence walked in halfway through, and my companions looked as melancholic as I felt. But eventually Rory came to the rescue, burgers dripping with Tillamook cheese and Lou’s special sauce, a doctored Thousand Island dressing. A mouthwatering feast that cures your ailments … or masks them, and I’ll settle for that.

  “Buonissimo?” Rory asked, after we took our first bites.

  “Buonissimo,” we said in unison, wiping our mouths.

  Over lunch, Clarence talked about the hordes of boys interested in his teenage daughter, Keisha. Clarence asked, “What did you guys do when boys paid attention to your daughters?”

  Jake deferred to me, which was odd, since he’s the good dad and I’m not. Still, it was nice to give an opinion on something besides murder or the problem of evil.

  “I remember once we were at Dea’s, enjoying a father-daughter time, with extra fry sauce. In the middle of my Long Burger, I notice a guy, maybe seventeen, giving Kendra the eye. While she was looking at him, I unsnapped my SIG-Sauer P226, lifted it halfway out of the holster, and stared him down like he was a stray dog rummaging my flower garden. His eyes turned saucerlik
e, he left the remnants of his burger, and hit the pavement.”

  Clarence was smiling, which he should do more often since it makes him look like his father.

  “Anyway,” I continued, “Kendra was oblivious to what I’d done, which came in handy because these situations started happening a couple times a week. Approximately two dozen teenage boys, seeing me handle my pistol, decided there were other girls to look at besides Kendra. Finally she started noticing. ‘It makes me want to totally die when he does that,’ she told Sharon. Once upon a time she thought it was cool I was a detective, but eventually it became a great deal lower on the food chain than if I’d been a guitarist or assistant manager at Gap.”

  “She went off to college, right?” Clarence said, as the Rock-Ola told us our answers were “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

  “When she went to Portland State, she moved downtown, and I saw her a lot less. But I felt just as protective. Even after college, she was dating some loser, and I found out he’d knocked her down and slapped her around. She tried to keep Sharon from telling me, but I found out when I bumped into her girlfriend at Starbucks. Kendra was shuffling around like a bag lady, in a daze, waiting for the jerk to come back and beat her up again. When I saw her at Christmas a month later, she’d heard her ex-boyfriend was limping. Apparently he’d been beaten up in an alley by a guy wearing a ski mask.”

  “No kidding?” Clarence said.

  “Yeah. Her boyfriend bragged that he got in some good punches, even though the guy was 6’5” and used a bat on him. So he wasn’t only a woman-beater; he was a liar.”

  “How do you know he was lying?”

  “Because I’m only 6’1”, he didn’t land a single punch, and I didn’t use a bat. It was just Fist One and Fist Two.” I held them up.

  Clarence started to laugh but looked at Jake and said, “Is he serious?”

  Jake nodded.

  For once, neither of them knew what to say.

  At one thirty, Clarence and I set up camp at the Justice Center, where there’s extra elbow room on Saturdays. That’s good, because my workstation is too small for the two of us. Anything is. As Clarence sat writing on his notebook computer, I finished the final paperwork on the Lincoln Caldwell case.

  Given Chief Lennox’s threats, I’d half expected Clarence to be yanked from the case by now. Apparently Raylon Berkley wasn’t willing to pull his fox out of the henhouse and was holding Lennox to his commitment.

  “Look, Ollie … you found my sister’s killer,” Clarence said. “I owe you for that. I’m concerned what’s going to happen if you pursue this theory that the killer’s a detective.”

  “You want me to back off too?”

  “Don’t cops make it hard on other cops who …?”

  “Who turn them in? Squeal like a pig? Guys believe the golden rule is cops don’t tell on cops. Since nobody looks after cops—it’s not like the Tribune’s watching our back—it becomes ‘we take care of our own.’ If you don’t, you’re a traitor.”

  “Can’t you explore other options first?”

  “You think I want this? Nothing’s worse than a dirty cop. And since when are you looking out for me?”

  “My daddy liked you, Ollie. And he was a good judge of character.”

  “Still am, son. Still am.” The man watching the unfolding events on earth smiled broadly and laughed loudly, reaching up to slap the back of the huge warrior beside him.

  It suddenly clicked, seeming to come out of nowhere. I snapped my fingers at Clarence.

  “My daughter took a class from Palatine. That’s when I visited his classroom. With Kendra!”

  “That just came to you?”

  “It was one of my sporadic attempts to be involved in my daughter’s life. I went to a couple of her classes. She made me promise not to show my gun or arrest anybody for smoking pot. It wasn’t a warm and fuzzy day. Maybe that’s why I’d pushed it to the back burner. It must have been … maybe ten years ago.”

  “Call her. Talk to her about the professor.”

  “There’re hundreds of students who took his class recently.”

  “None of them would be your daughter.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “You’ve got a reason to meet with your daughter. Take advantage of it.”

  “No way.”

  “If you found out where Andrea is, would you call her?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, you know where Kendra is. Call her.”

  I shook my head. Clarence grabbed my cell phone from the desk. “I’ll call her. What’s her number?”

  “Forget it.”

  “You don’t know her number, do you?”

  “I don’t know anybody’s number. I speed dial.”

  “What’s her speed dial number?”

  When I didn’t answer, Clarence pressed 1. “This retrieves messages? Oops. 911.” He cancelled.

  “If you don’t give that back, you’ll need 911.” I reached for it, but he turned his back, which is roughly the size of Fenway’s Green Monster.

  “Who’s 2? Homicide.” Clarence was pressing each number and waiting to see the ID pop up before he stopped the call. “3 is … Lou’s Diner. 4 is … Flying Pie Pizza? 5 is … Jake. I’ll let him know he got beat by pizza. 6 is … Ollie, I’m touched. I made your top six.”

  “Only because the video store closed. You got bumped up. I plan to replace you with Krispy Kreme.”

  “Number 7 is … Kendra! How’s that for detective work?”

  “Give me my phone or I’ll pistol-whip you.”

  “Is this Kendra?” Clarence asked.

  I froze.

  “Hi, this is Clarence Abernathy. You know, your dad’s friend? From the Trib?” Clarence paused. “No, that’s Jake Woods. I’m the other columnist. Yes, the big guy. There’s something else about me you may have noticed. No? Really? I’m black. Yeah. Most people pick up on that.” He laughed. “Anyway, can I ask you a question? Do you remember your philosophy prof from PSU?” He paused. “Dr. Palatine, right. You do? Good.”

  With a lightning move I snatched the phone out of his ham-bone mitt.

  “Hi, sweetie, this is Dad. I apologize for Mr. Abernathy. He can be irritating.”

  “He sounds nice,” she said.

  “He’s not.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You had Philosophy with Dr. Palatine?”

  “I took him for 101, then Ethics and another class. Uh … Logic, I think.”

  “Do you remember that day, maybe ten years ago, when I went with you to a couple classes?”

  “I’ve tried to forget. Mom was going to come because it was a family visit day, but she got sick. She begged you to take her place. You didn’t want to.”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, I just—”

  “No, you didn’t want to. More important things to do. Like always. You left my other class early.”

  “Wasn’t that the all-women class?”

  “Feminist Literature. There were two boys in the class. Anyway, you didn’t like it. What’s new? So, I hear Professor Palatine died.”

  “I’m investigating his case.”

  “Why am I not surprised? What do you want from me?”

  “It’s been a while since we talked.”

  “You didn’t call me. Your friend Clarence called. About the investigation?”

  “Well … sort of.” I scowled at Clarence, who gave me a smug look. “Listen, since you had Palatine for three classes, would you mind talking to me about him? Telling me what you remember?”

  “I’m busy. My job keeps me going.”

  “How about tonight?”

  “You think I’m not doing something on a Saturday night?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Lots of people knew Dr. Palatine better than me. I was only at his house once.”

  “You were at his house?”

  “He had groups of students over. There were maybe eight of us one night.”

&n
bsp; “Well … it’s been a while since we’ve gotten together. Could I meet you at Lou’s Diner?”

  “Do they serve vegetarian meals?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve seen … Lou’s has salads, right Clarence?”

  “Their steak salad’s great.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said to Kendra. “There’s a steak salad with bacon and—”

  “Do you know what vegetarian means? I don’t eat meat.”

  “Look, you could order the steak salad without the steak and the bacon, just with … you know, whatever’s left. What about tomorrow night at seven?”

  “It would have to be Monday night. Eight would be better.”

  “That’s pretty late for dinner, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Okay. Lou’s is on Yamhill, near Fourth, halfway between Pizza Schmizza and Chipotle Mexican Grill, you know where—”

  “I’ve seen it. It’s near Pioneer Place, Saks Fifth Avenue, Gap, all the great shops.”

  “Right. There’s those too.”

  “That diner looks … out of it.”

  “Lou’s is cutting-edge retro. Nonsmoking. Has flowers and everything. You’ll love it. See you Monday at eight?”

  She hung up.

  I looked at Clarence and his stupid smile.

  “What?” I said. “You’ve never seen a guy ask his daughter to dinner? No Monday night football for me.”

  I pressed 3.

  “Lou’s Diner.”

  “Rory? Ollie. Listen, do you guys have vegetarian food?”

  He chuckled. “This is a funny joke, Mr. Ollie.”

  “This isn’t a joke. My daughter’s a vegetarian.”

  “I am so sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, stuff happens. Anyway I’m meeting her there for dinner Monday night. Could you make her a steak salad without the steak and bacon? And with lots of extra tomatoes and green stuff?”

  “Lettuce?”

  “Yeah. Lettuce is good. How about cheese? Cheese isn’t meat, is it?”

  “I do not think so. I am Italian. I never run out of cheese. But some vegetarians don’t eat dairy products, no?”

  “That’s scary. Anyway, be sure you don’t run out of lettuce, okay?”