“Andy’s been acting … funny lately. I’ve been kind of worried.”
“Oh? Funny how?”
“Like he can’t sit still. Jumpy. Like a little kid who can’t wait for Christmas to come. Or cranky-jumpy. Like my ex when he was trying to quit smoking. But sometimes the opposite of cranky. I don’t know what you call it—”
“Euphoric?”
“Yeah. Like he’s high on something.”
“Maybe he is,” Cate suggested. The possibility seemed logical to her, but Lily slammed the cans down on her thighs as if Cate had made an outrageous accusation.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she snapped. “You’ve had an easy life. Andy hasn’t. The chance to sell the bike and have a little money for a change really means something to him.”
Lily had a final parting shot when she slid out of the car.
“Maybe I will go to Nevada or Arizona or wherever with him when he gets that money!”
“Lily, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I’ll send you a postcard.”
The door slam rocked the Honda like twenty big bikers hitting it all at once.
26
Cate drove by the garden center at Fred Meyer on her way home, but it was hard to focus on the comparative assets of Early Girl and Big Boy tomato plants. Or whether she wanted regular or burpless cucumbers.
Questions from her conversation with Lily kept interrupting. Were Andy Timmons and Mace Jackson good enough friends that Andy was planning vengeance for Mace’s death? Perhaps had already tried it once in the parking lot? Or was Zig, or maybe some other shady buddy of Mace’s, the note sender? Or did Zig even exist? Maybe quick-thinking Lily had invented him on the spot to divert Cate’s attention away from Andy.
Cate didn’t really make a decision about plants. She grabbed a half dozen Early Girls, another half dozen Big Boys, zucchini, and both kinds of cucumbers. On the way to the cash register she also tossed in green pepper plants.
At home, she changed clothes and impulsively picked up the phone before going out to the garden. This call didn’t have anything to do with Andy Timmons, but then, this was how PI work went. You peered through various keyholes until you found something helpful.
A woman answered.
“Marilee?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but your name came up in connection with some work I’m doing, and I thought perhaps you’d want to know that Kane Blakely passed away a few days ago.” The response was total silence, and lamely she added, “Or maybe you already knew?”
“No, I-I didn’t know. Who is this?”
“My name is Cate Kinkaid. I’m a private investigator in Eugene.” In spite of everything, Cate took satisfaction in being able to say it that way. Private investigator, without any qualifying “assistant.”
“What happened to Kane?”
Cate explained about the shooting during the attempted robbery at H&B. “Mr. Blakely was in a coma after he was shot, and he never came out of it.” She added the details of his burial and non-service.
“I—thanks for letting me know. This is such a shock. It’s hard to believe someone would just shoot him—” She broke off and hastily added, “I mean, I do believe you, of course. It’s just that we don’t think of something like this ever happening to someone we know.”
“When did you last talk to him?” Cate asked.
“I’m not sure … maybe six weeks ago.”
“There’s something I’d like to ask if you have a moment?”
“Yes, of course.”
“As I said, the man who shot Kane was immediately shot to death by the other H&B owner, Matt Halliday. Your ex-husband, I believe?”
“Yes. I went back to my maiden name Hardee after the divorce. We don’t have children and don’t keep in touch.”
“The thing is, Kane’s shooting was first taken to be a robbery gone bad, not an intentional thing. But now there’s been a threat against Mr. Halliday. So what I’m wondering is, do you know anyone who might harbor a grudge against both men, personal or professional?”
“I don’t know anything about any grudges. I didn’t know much about the business even when Matt and I were married, and I’ve never talked to him since the divorce.”
“Did Kane ever mention problems, business or personal?”
“No. Kane helped me when I decided to leave Matt. He didn’t encourage me to do it,” she emphasized. “He just helped me. Emotionally and financially. Finding a lawyer too. Since then, he’s called occasionally to make sure I’m okay, and we have … had dinner once in a while when he was here in Portland. But it was never anything more than friendship, if you’re wondering.”
“I guess maybe I was wondering,” Cate admitted. “And are you ‘okay’?”
“I’m doing fine. I work with an interior decorator, creating one-of-a-kind items for her clients. Kane connected me with her too. Matt thought my interest in arts and crafts was on the level of … oh, kids finger painting with mustard on a kitchen wall.” She managed a small laugh.
“So you don’t know anything about any problems in the company, unhappy clients or employees, anything like that?”
“I know Kane and Matt had troubles within the company,” Marilee said. “That was the biggest reason they decided to split the business into two locations.”
Cate hadn’t heard that before. Her impression was that the men had simply wanted to expand the business. “What kind of troubles?”
“You name it, they disagreed about it. They were just so different. Kane was—did you know him?”
“No.”
“Flamboyant. Very outgoing. He liked the limelight. Liked showing off the cars they restored. Liked—what’s that word? Schmoozing with people. Everybody was his friend. Matt is much more …”
“Stodgy?”
“I was going to say reserved, but stodgy is probably more accurate.” Marilee started to laugh but broke it off as if remembering the serious nature of this call. “Where did you say you got my name and number?”
“From Candy, Kane’s ex-wife. It was in some of Kane’s things.” Cate didn’t elaborate on how Candy got into those “things.”
“I’ve been remiss in not being in touch with Candy. She was always friendly and nice. How is she taking Kane’s death?”
“Harder than she lets on, I think. You knew they were divorced, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Kane told me. Relationships are complicated, aren’t they? I’ve been blessed with a good life since Matt and I divorced.”
“Would you mind if I tell Candy that?” Cate asked.
“Not at all. I should have contacted her myself a long time ago. But, to be honest, I’ve wanted to put that whole era of my life with Matt behind me.”
“This is kind of a personal question, but was there abuse in the marriage?”
A quick intake of breath, then big dead silence. “You mean physical abuse?”
“Physical. Mental. Emotional. Any of it can be abuse.”
“What makes you ask about abuse?”
PI intuition? Lucky guess? Stab in the dark? “Sometimes it’s my job to ask unpleasant questions.”
Another long moment of silence, as if this might be a door Marilee would rather not open. Finally she said, “Whatever happened back then is over and done with. I’ve wound up feeling sorry for Matt, actually. He’s not a happy man.”
“Have you hidden out from him because you think he might retaliate against you in some way for leaving him?”
“I’m not hiding out,” Marilee protested. “Matt could find me if he really wanted to.” After a moment’s thought she added, “I’m not the doormat person I was then. I could stand up to him now. But I don’t see any point in making myself readily available for an unpleasant confrontation.”
“That’s probably wise.”
“Or maybe it’s a convenient rationalization,” Marilee admitted. “Anyway, I have a good life now. I’m even … seeing someone.”
<
br /> “I’m glad to hear that.”
“I’m just so sorry about what happened to Kane. Why would anyone try to rob H&B? I don’t think they ever kept much cash there.”
“I think that’s true, but there happened to be a considerable amount of cash there that particular night.”
“I wonder why?”
Cate hesitated, briefly wondering about the ethics of giving the ex-wife a detail that hadn’t been released to the public. Cautiously she said, “I believe it was intended as a loan to Kane.”
“So Kane did decide he had to ask Matt for money!”
“You knew about a loan?” Cate asked.
“Kane told me he’d had some ‘business reversals’ and might have to borrow some money.” She paused. “No, he phrased it differently. He said get ‘another loan.’ Then he laughed and said something about trading one loan shark for another. And I can imagine, if he was borrowing from Matt, he’d pay a loan shark interest rate.”
Perhaps the loan wasn’t such an all-out generous gesture on Halliday’s part, then?
“Did Kane ever mention a gambling problem?”
“Gambling? No. But I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if he did have one. Kane was always a big risk taker.” After a reflective pause, she added, “A gambler with life, you might say. I remember him driving in a demolition derby once. And skydiving.”
“It seems possible that gambling debts were the reason Kane was borrowing money from Halliday.”
“And someone outside the company knew the loan money would be there at H&B that night?”
“That seems to be a big possibility,” Cate said.
“It seems odd either of them would have told anyone about the loan or the cash being there that night.”
Exactly. “Well, thanks for talking to me. If you should happen to think of something that might be helpful in my investigation—”
“Exactly what are you investigating? The man who killed Kane is dead, and Matt shot him in self-defense, so … ?”
“There’s been a threat, a written threat, on Matt Halliday’s life too. It could be just a crank thing. Crackpots come out of the woodwork when sensational crimes happen. But it may be for real,” Cate said. “I’m trying to find out who made the threat before the person makes good on it.”
“And you suspect me?”
“It crossed my mind,” Cate admitted. “My mentor in the PI business occasionally reminds me that you have to be suspicious of everyone.”
“Interesting occupation.”
“Anyway, if you think of anything, I’d appreciate a call.” Cate added her landline number.
“I’ll do that.” Unexpectedly Marilee added, “You be careful too.”
“Me? I don’t think anyone’s out to get me.”
“It’s Matt you’re working for, isn’t it? Trying to find out who’s out to get him?”
“Yes.”
“If someone thinks you’re getting close to finding out who that person is, you could be a target too,” Marilee said.
Yeah. Right. That thought had slithered around in Cate’s head too, though she hadn’t let it burst right out in the open. Someone might want her out of the way before she identified him. And that someone might be Andy Timmons.
“As you said, be suspicious of everyone,” Marilee added.
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”
Cate and Mitch got the plants tucked in the ground. While they worked, she filled him in on her conversations with both Lily and Marilee. Clancy proudly produced his “buried treasure” when they were picking up their tools for the day.
“Hey, it’s a shoe,” Mitch said.
Clancy gave up his treasure willingly enough, and Mitch dangled it from a finger. A hint of glamour remained. Ragged leather that had once been gold colored, remnant of an ankle strap, a stiletto heel of some apparently indestructible clear plastic material with a gold cloverleaf embedded inside.
Mitch laughed. “Not yours, right? I can’t imagine you ever wearing something like this.”
Right. Definitely not Cate’s style. Although, for a moment, it was a little depressing to think that such a fanciful shoe would never be mistaken for hers. But suddenly Cate realized who would have worn such a shoe. Amelia. The woman who had once owned both Octavia and this property was older, four times married, but determinedly hanging on to her long-gone youth with glamour clothes, sexy shoes, and a younger man.
A woman who was also dead. Murdered. Right here. The shoe had nothing to do with that, and yet …
Cate didn’t believe in dark omens, but there was something about this buried treasure coming to light just now, so soon after Marilee’s warning, that shot a shiver up her back. Would someone someday find one of her shoes buried somewhere, find it long after she was dead? Murdered?
Cate shook off the stab of apprehension. She got out the barbecue grill, and Mitch went to the store for steaks. They grilled T-bones and potato slices while the pleasant spring dusk gathered around them. Afterward they settled in lounge chairs on the patio and sipped iced tea.
It was a peaceful evening but rich with impressions on Cate’s senses. Scent of freshly turned earth, croak of unseen frogs, lingering aromas of steak, rustles and chirps, faint wail of siren somewhere in the distance.
Cate felt a little dreamy now as she leaned back in her lounge chair. “I think I hear our seeds waking up,” she said. “They know they’re in the ground and are free to grow now.”
“Could be.” Mitch didn’t sound dreamy. “I’ve been thinking.”
Cate didn’t feel like thinking, but she refrained from making some derogatory remark about his doing so.
“About this Zig guy,” Mitch said. “You’d like to talk to him, right? Try to find out if he had any connection with the threat on Halliday.”
Cate had a somewhat different perspective on stodgy, all-work-and-no-play Matt Halliday after talking to Marilee. Marilee hadn’t openly answered Cate’s question about abuse by her husband, but her wary attitude and determination to put that era of her life behind her had been answer enough. Yet that didn’t change Cate’s job as a PI, which was to find a potential killer before he nailed a client.
“Apparently Zig was a friend of Mace Jackson’s. He could be the one who sent the threatening note to Halliday. Or know something,” Cate said. “Yes, I’d like to talk to him.”
“Your friend Lily said someone at this bar outside Lorane might know him. It’s Saturday night. He might even be there.”
Cate straightened slowly in the chair. “So you’re saying … ?”
“I’ll get the bike and we’ll take a ride down there.”
“To a biker bar?”
“We don’t have to drink anything just because it’s a bar,” Mitch pointed out.
Cate had thought about driving down and trying to locate the bar on a weekday to ask questions about Zig. She hadn’t thought about trying to hit it when the bikers were there doing whatever bikers did in a bar on Saturday night. But that would undoubtedly be the prime time to do it …
She lifted her arm to look at her watch in the faint glow of moonlight filtering through a riffle of clouds. “Mitch, it’s already past 9:00.”
“So? Do you turn into a PI pumpkin at midnight? Even if you do, we’ve still got three hours. It shouldn’t be more than an hour’s ride down there. C’mon, let’s go!”
27
They zoomed out of Eugene on I-5 heading south. Light traffic, half-moon high in the sky, dark forests on either side of the highway. Those marvelous spots of warmer air mixed with the cool of night that passengers in a car passed through unnoticed, but on a bike hit like a tropical surprise.
Okay, even if they didn’t find out anything about Zig, it was still an awesome night for a bike ride. Cate felt as if they could zoom right up into the sky, silhouetted against the moon, like those bicycles in that old E.T. movie.
The bar was easy enough to find, even in the rural area between Cottage Grove and Lorane. The oversized figu
re of a neon logger looming over the log building was visible from a half mile away, the blade of his axe blinking red against the sky. Closer up, another sign over the double doors spelled out The Midnight Logger in blue neon.
Nothing specifically announced that this was a biker bar, including the name, but the jungle of motorcycles in the parking area said that was what it was, at least on this Saturday night.
Mitch parked the Purple Rocket at the edge of the jungle. The bikes were in an orderly lineup close to the railed walkway along the front of the building, but farther back, the order deteriorated into an every-bike-for-itself arrangement. Some of the motorcycles were chromed up, double seated, complete with trunks and saddlebags. Others were low-slung and mud-spattered, with minimal accessories. Lots of choppers and ape-hanger-style high handlebars. A few colored streamers and flags, which Cate hoped didn’t indicate biker gang connections. Although the only real requirement to fit in here seemed to be that a bike be big.
The Purple Rocket fulfilled that requirement.
Cate slid off and uneasily unfastened her helmet. One door of the double-doored main entrance to the bar stood open, and rowdy country and western music blasted into the parking lot. She couldn’t see much through the opening, but she couldn’t tell if that was because the lights were so dim or if a blue-smoke haze engulfed everything. Maybe both. Moving shadows inside suggested a dance or a brawl. Maybe both.
Off to the side, a low, metal-roofed building held the restaurant Lily had mentioned, its windows lit. An extension of that building was dark, apparently the grocery store she’d also mentioned. Gas pumps stood out front of it.
Cate clutched her helmet, reluctant to set it aside and commit herself to entering the bar. She didn’t have a basic aversion to loud music, although it wasn’t the noise-level setting she’d choose for gathering information.
“Are we sure this is a good idea?” she asked.
“No,” Mitch admitted.
“How can we possibly find out anything in there? It’s dark, noisy—” Even a little scary. “We won’t even be able to find each other if we get separated.”
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