Matters of Doubt

by Warren C Easley

  This time of year most of the steelhead move on, but one particularly big fellow hadn’t gotten the memo. I was swinging a gaudy black and white fly with a chartreuse tail—aptly named a green butt skunk—through a nice little riffle when the fish hit. The strike started Archie barking on the bank behind me in that high pitch that signaled he was also spinning in circles. I battled the fish the better part of ten minutes, and when I finally brought it up to me, near the bank, Arch stepped into the river for a closer look. Its adipose fin was clipped, signifying a hatchery fish, and it glittered like a newly minted silver coin. When I released it, Archie howled with delight. That dog of mine loves fishing as much as I do.

  I didn’t get another bite that morning, but it didn’t matter. The sun had burned off the marine layer and a light breeze rippled the green water. The tasks of executing a forty-foot cast, retrieving the expended line drifting back at me, and then picking my way upstream before doing it all again mercifully demanded my full attention. This was my yoga, my meditation, and by the time I scrambled up the bank for a break, my mind had cleared considerably.

  I had just poured a cup of steaming coffee from my thermos when my cell chirped.

  “Cal? It’s Anna. I just read what happened yesterday. Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on the Clackamas River, above the North Fork.”

  “You’re fishing?”

  “Yeah. The water’s still pretty high, so I thought there might be a few steelies left in here.” I paused, leaving nothing but the busy sounds of the river.

  Finally, Anna said, “Cal, I, uh, I’m sorry about the way I acted. You hardly know Picasso, and I had no right to expect you to just fall in line with my opinion after what happened. My God, I must have sounded like the thought police.”

  I felt a lump in my throat. The surge of emotion caught me off guard. I cleared my throat. “It’s sorry all around then, because I’m not proud of the way I acted, either. My left brain gets in my way a lot.” The call started breaking up, so I added hastily, “Look, Anna, I’ll call you when I get off the river.” The line went dead. Anna. I thought of the fine line of her neck, the perfect arc of her cheek and the lock of hair that seems always across her forehead. And the glacial blue eyes, especially those. Somehow, she made me feel grounded, like I had some purpose, or at least that I should have. Being around her was like an awakening, and I realized at that moment how much I liked that feeling.

  My thoughts drifted to Picasso. Did he take the screwdriver with him? Only if he planned to murder Conyers, and I just couldn’t buy that. And there was the fact that he was left-handed, too. As I told Nando, there’s no way someone uses his off hand or tries some fancy backhand stroke when he’s committing premeditated murder with a screwdriver. I had lost sight of these arguments in the face of Picasso’s deception about the murder weapon. But there it was for me, plain and simple—Picasso didn’t kill Mitchell Conyers. Of course, convincing a jury of that would be another problem altogether. After all, he had the perfect trifecta going against him—the means, the motive, and the opportunity.

  I leaned back against a warm boulder and took a sip of coffee. The eagle had returned to its snag and seemed to be watching me. I felt crappy about Weiman. I knew it wasn’t my doing, but I still felt like I had blood on my hands. I thought about his suicide note. What a joke that was. The death of Nicole Baxter was a tragic accident, he explained. He had shot himself in the hand accidentally and then, in the confusion that ensued, his wife somehow discharged the gun a second time, killing Baxter. Sure.

  He and his wife panicked and hid the body in the reservoir above the cabin. For this act he begged forgiveness from the Baxter family, his friends and colleagues, and a married daughter I didn’t know he had. He never explained what the three of them were doing at the cabin to begin with—an evening of target practice, perhaps?—or why, exactly, the incident was worth blowing his brains out over. My guess was that the media circus he knew was coming had unhinged him. Better to die by his own hand, he figured, than from a thousand humiliating cuts from the media. The man had a point.

  The eagle took off again, swooped low over the river this time, and snatched a trout that had surfaced beneath a cloud of caddis flies. The fish struggled furiously unlike Weiman, who gave up without a fight, his body going slack instantly, relieved, it seemed, to be unshackled from the burdens of living.

  His suicide would close the case on Nicole Baxter’s death. After all, the three principals were dead. There would be no disputing that she was shot by one of the Weimans. It was clear, as well, that he was having an affair with Baxter, giving his wife a strong motive. But only Maria Escobar’s testimony would point the finger firmly at the wife. When I was interviewed after the shooting, I kept quiet about Escobar, as I’d promised. There was no need to take it any further. Weiman had withered in the face of Maria’s moral courage, but even so, she cried when I called to tell her that Weiman had killed himself. She said she would beg God for forgiveness and pray for his soul.

  I returned to the Aerie that afternoon, a Sunday, and spent the next two days catching up in my office in Dundee. Scott and Jones were still on paid administrative leave, and Picasso was still not strong enough to be arraigned. My lawyer friend had told me he was too busy to defend Picasso, which didn’t surprise me. That left a public defender, who turned out to be an inexperienced attorney named Alicia Cole. Cole called and we chatted about the case. She was gung ho about preparing for his defense. I liked her and didn’t have the heart to tell her she couldn’t win the case no matter how good her defense was. It looked to me like the only way to save Picasso was to catch Conyers’ real killer.

  I called Cynthia Duncan that Sunday to tell her who had killed her best friend, Nicole Baxter. I held the phone while she cried and then answered a thousand questions that only a newspaper reporter could ask. Finally, I said, “How’s your investigation of Larry Vincent going?”

  She made a sound half way between a sigh and a groan. “I knew you’d ask me about that. God, I’m so frustrated I could scream and run naked. People in this town either don’t know what happened or aren’t talking. I don’t get it. Vincent’s such an asshole. Why are they protecting him?”

  “Who have you approached?”

  “Well, I went straight to his ex-wife. She lives in Beaverton. It was clear she took money to keep her mouth shut. Wouldn’t tell me anything at first, but finally I got her to give me a list of other people I might talk to, you know, some friends who took her side after the divorce, a couple of guys who had business dealings with Vincent. You’d think one of them would have known about the babysitter, or whatever she was, but I didn’t get a damn thing. I’ve got a couple more to talk to, but I’m not optimistic.”

  I told her to stay at it, and I knew she would.

  On Wednesday morning I headed into Portland to mend another fence. I went straight to Legacy Emanuel Hospital to see Picasso. Cole had gotten me in to see him. He was just coming through a rough several days of high fever owing to an infection and had not been told about Weiman’s suicide. When I walked in, he took one look at me and rolled on his side to face the wall.

  I said, “How’re you feeling?”

  “Shitty.”

  “You look better. More color.”

  “It’s the fever. Let me guess, you came to drop off your bill.”

  “Is that what you want?” He didn’t answer. Except for the whirring of Picasso’s IV pump, the room fell silent. I let out a long breath. “Look, Picasso, I still believe in you, but I’m not going to apologize for being pissed off. You lied to me.”

  “Like I had a fucking choice.”

  “Okay. I get that. You did what you had to do. Why don’t we call it even and move on?”

  He rolled gingerly on to his back, looked up at the ceiling, and massaged his forehead wit
h his left hand. Finally he said, “So, when are they going to hang me?”

  “We’re not going to let that happen. I’ve got some good news. Your mom’s case is solved.”

  He lifted his shoulders off the bed, winced, and lay back down. He waited for me to speak, his big, liquid eyes unblinking.

  “Remember the hotshot lobbyist I told you about, Hugo Weiman?”

  “Mom’s secret lover?”

  “Right. His wife followed your mom and him to the fishing cabin that night and shot your mom. The wife’s name was Eleanor, Eleanor Weiman. She died of cancer five years ago. She also shot Weiman in the hand that night, and that’s what finally led me to him.”

  Picasso closed his eyes, but no tears came. “The woman’s dead, huh? Cancer. Is Weiman going to jail?”

  I shook my head. “No. He didn’t want to face the music, so he shot himself Saturday morning. It’s all over now.” I handed him a newspaper. “You can read about it in here.”

  The room fell silent again. A gurney squeaked its way past the room and down the hallway. He looked up at me, his eyes now bright with moisture. “I dreamed about this moment for a long time, but I don’t feel a damn thing. Closure. What the hell is that, anyway?

  “Closure’s knowing the truth. Give it a chance.”

  Picasso raised his good hand and clamped on to mine. “Thanks, man. Thanks for coming back.” He glanced in the direction of my ear. It was angry looking and the stitches were still in place, but I’d stopped bandaging it. “What’s Doc say about the ear?”

  I shrugged. “I’m going to stop by to see her today.”

  “Good. Maybe she knows a good plastic surgeon.” We both laughed and then he added, “Well, one thing’s for sure.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m glad I didn’t kill that son of a bitch Conyers like I wanted to. Wrong guy.” We laughed again and then he grew serious. “You told me you thought my mom’s and Conyers’ murders were related. You still believe that?”

  “Weiman used the prostitution ring running out of Conyers’ restaurant, but I wasn’t able to find any other connection between them. It’s true he covered up your mom’s murder, but he did that to protect his wife. And that act eventually caught up with him. No, I don’t think he was a murderer.”

  “In other words, I’m still screwed, blued, and tattooed.”

  “No you’re not,” I shot back. “Conyers’ killer made a mistake somewhere along the way. We’ll find it.”

  “We? Who’s we? I can’t even pay this hospital bill. How in the hell can I afford to pay you?”

  “We’ll worry about the money later,” I heard myself say once again. “Right now I have a couple of good leads I want to chase down. Sit tight and behave yourself.”

  That’s what I told him. Of course, in truth, money was still an issue, and I didn’t really have any good leads. Other than that, things were just great.

  I stopped at Whole Foods and dropped a bundle on groceries again before going to Caffeine Central. It was warm that day, and the apartment was stuffy, so I opened the windows over the street. If I stayed much longer in the apartment, I decided, that floral print wall paper would have to go. I leashed Arch up and we walked over to the clinic. Caitlin was there with a small group of street kids. The mural was in good shape. Caitlin made a fuss over Archie. She looked strung out to me, hair unwashed, face drawn, her eyes perhaps a bit too dilated. “Are you in your apartment now?” I asked.

  She examined her boots for a while and ran a hand through tangled hair. “Uh, it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe next week.” Looking up as if remembering something, she added, “A couple of guys were asking about you the other night. I think they were Russians.”

  My stomach did a half twist. “What did they say, exactly?”

  “They wanted to know where they could find you, you know, where you hung out.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  She shot me a look. She was streetwise, after all. “Nothing.”

  Caitlin asked me about Picasso, and I filled her in on his condition and the fact that his mother’s killer had been identified. We talked for a while with the other kids huddled around us, and after thanking them for guarding the mural I went into the clinic to find Anna. Archie stayed behind to catch up with Caitlin.

  I caught her in her office, leaned in the doorway and said, “Hi.”

  She looked up, took off her glasses and set them down. Her hair was up, accentuating her slender neck and her eyes were that deeper blue that seemed to come and go mysteriously. Without saying a word, she came across the room, pulled me in, shut the door, and kissed me. Long and soft and tender.

  “You’re back,” she said when we came up for air.

  “Yeah. I guess I am.”

  She took my hand. “Come on. Let’s get those stitches out of your ear.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Although I was a bit nervous, I had to suppress a chuckle as I parked across from the KPOC parking lot that afternoon. I was about to play private eye like some character in a paperback, and I even had a pair of horn-rim glasses I’d picked up to give myself a different look. After all, my picture had been in the paper again. So far, Cynthia Duncan had struck out trying to get information about Larry Vincent’s young victim through his ex-wife. Apparently, those in the know had been bought off and then silenced with some kind of confidentiality agreement. But what if the source of Nicole Baxter’s story was one of his colleagues at KPOC, the person known to me only as X-Man? It was a risky play, but if I ever had any patience about this case, it was long gone. And who knows—it just might be easier to find the source of the story than the victim.

  Vincent’s spiffy BMW convertible was still in the lot, and when he came out of the station and drove away in it, I made my move. There are no receptionists anymore, just someone who juggles a phone, a computer, and annoying walk-ins like me. This particular multitasker was a woman with tightly curled auburn hair, robin’s egg eyes, and machine-tanned legs that seemed to go on forever below a very short skirt. The plaque on her desk told me her name was Shelly. I waited for her to finish talking and for her eyes to come off the computer screen in front of her, but neither happened. I shifted on my feet. Still nothing. I cleared my throat softly. Finally, she said, “I’ll call you back, okay?” into her mouth piece, then looked up at me. “Can I help you?”

  “Uh, yeah, Shelly, my name’s Syd Walker,” I said in a bright, chamber of commerce tone. “I’m a writer doing some research on small, independently owned AM radio stations. I was wondering if you might be able to help me?”

  She smiled, revealing a set of unnaturally white teeth. “Do I get my name in your book?”

  “Sure. And when it becomes a bestseller, I’ll put your picture in, too.”

  The gleaming smile again. “What do you need?”

  “I’m interested in the history of some of the local stations, like KPOC, going back a decade or two. Who would be the best source of that kind of information? I don’t want to talk to the on-air personalities. I want the behind-the-scenes story.”

  “Damn, there goes my fifteen minutes of fame. I’ve only been here six months,” she replied. “You need to talk to Arnie Katz. He was the general manager for ages. He retired last year, but I’m sure he’d be glad to talk to you.”

  Katz’s place, a meticulously restored Craftsman, was on a quiet street across from Laurelhurst Park in southeast Portland. No one answered the bell, but I followed the keening of a power saw down the driveway and found Katz in his garage. Birdhouses of every size and shape hung from the rafters like exotic fruit. Katz saw me approaching through a cloud of sawdust and shut off the saw, which powered down with a moan. A small man with a full beard and eyes magnified by thick glasses, he wore a forest green t-shirt with a huge yellow O on it, the ubiquitous University of Oregon logo.

  Katz bought my
cover story, and with notebook and pen at the ready I launched into a series of questions about KPOC. I covered the station’s core staff and some of the other programs first before working my way around to Larry Vincent’s show, Vincent’s View. I said, “Vincent’s program really took off in the last decade. Do you remember some of the personnel he had around then?”

  Katz gave me a pained look and shook his head. “Larry’s show rose alright, like a hot air balloon. Apparently you can build an audience on bigotry and racism, even in Portland. But he did have some good people back then.” He ticked through them while I made notes. I was about to ask him if anyone used the nickname X-Man, when he said, “Oh, I almost forgot Bidarte, the researcher.”

  “Remember his first name?”

  “Xavier, Xavier Bidarte. He’s a Basque. Smart as a whip with computers.”

  I almost punched a hole in my note paper. I said, “Uh, tell me a little bit more about him. Is he still around?”

  “No. He worked the show for maybe five years and left, let’s see, around the middle of 2005. Damn good research man. That was back when Vincent stuck to facts once in a while. Left abruptly, as I recall. I always figured he’d had enough of Vincent’s bullshit.”

  “I see. Is he, uh, still working somewhere in the area?”

  Katz shrugged. “I don’t know what happened to him.”

  I asked several more questions about other topics to cover my interest in Bidarte and left Katz a believer, as far as I could tell. On the way back to Caffeine Central, I mulled over the X-Man question. Picasso had told me he was crazy about the movie back then, so maybe his mom chose that name for her source—X-Man for Xavier Bidarte, or perhaps he chose it for himself. It didn’t matter. I liked the fit. And I liked the timing of his departure from Vincent’s staff, too, and wondered why it had been “abrupt.”