Old Chaos (9781564747136)

by Simonson, Sheila

  “So you handed over to him. Makes sense.” Charlie nabbed another cookie.

  “Yeah. I just wish I didn’t have to go through a marking-of-territory ritual every time he shows up. Fortunately I had the files copied before I gave them to him.”

  Meg was disappointed. “So you had to waste a lot of time with bureaucratic shuffling. Pity. Tell me a fact.”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “You said facts were trickling in.”

  “Okay. One of Fred’s investors was Lars Bjork.”

  “Wow. When did he pony up?”

  “I’m not sure. Three or four years ago at least. I imagine our green commissioner isn’t all that happy to be tied to a developer, even indirectly.”

  Meg started clearing the table. Thanks to the previous evening’s melodrama, she had not had a chance to tell Rob the details of her dinner at the Columbia Gorge Hotel. “Would it make any difference that Mr. Bjork has Alzheimer’s?”

  Rob stared. “Where did you hear that?”

  Meg explained. It took a while, because she was scraping and stacking dishes and because Charlie kept asking irrelevant questions about Kayla’s mother. He seemed to find Dede diverting.

  “So Catherine Bjork has power of attorney.” Rob swallowed coffee.

  “She does now. Or so Mrs. Marquez said.”

  “And the son is at odds with his stepmother?”

  “Ready to dish the dirt,” Meg said amiably.

  Charlie grinned.

  “If there is any dirt. Is he staying at his father’s house?”

  “No idea. I doubt it. I could see there was a lot of tension.” Meg frowned. “Maybe he and his wife are staying at the hotel. That didn’t occur to me.”

  “I’ll check it out. Thanks, Meg.”

  “So this how real detectives work,” Charlie said.

  Rob raised his coffee cup in ironic salute. “Stumbling around bumping into choice bits of information by accident? Absolutely.”

  “The old guy can’t be too far along if he’s still able to go out to dinner parties.”

  “He was quiet. I assumed he was shy around strangers.” Meg ran water into the mashed potato pan. “Ask Beth what she thinks. She sat next to him at her dinner.”

  Rob winced. “I’m afraid to call her. Beth raked me over the coals this morning. I’d rather face Mack in a rage any day.” And he regaled them with an account of the dressing down Beth had given him. Charlie found his clowning amusing. Meg’s sympathies lay with Beth.

  When Rob mentioned pepper spray, Meg said, “You could scream and run away next time. That was what I was told to do by a police sergeant when I tried to take a self-defense class.”

  Charlie snorted. “Did you follow his advice?”

  “I dropped the class.” She removed his cup and Rob’s, ran a sink full of soapy water, and handed Rob a scrub brush. “See you later.” As she slipped off to her home office, she could hear the two men discussing who was going to wash. She almost had them trained.

  When she had checked her e-mail, she went out for a stroll and met Tammy walking Towser. He bounced while they chatted. By the time Meg returned to the house, Charlie had gone home and Rob had gone up to bed. She’d neglected to ask him who else had invested in Drinkwater’s scams.

  Charlie left when he finished washing up. After Rob shelved the dishes, he called Beth. She confirmed Meg’s rumor, so he called the hotel, too, while he was at it. Warren Bjork was registered. He answered the phone as if he were expecting an important call. When Rob identified himself, the man sounded hostile but agreed to come to Rob’s office the next day around three.

  A day of solid interviews to come—Inger Swets and Matt Akers in the morning, Warren Bjork in the afternoon. It was time to expand Sergeant Ramos’s horizons. Linda was good at interrogation, but she wasn’t used to mixing with the rich and infamous.

  Yawning, Rob shut down his cell phone and went up to bed. It occurred to him that his back was feeling better. Or maybe it was all those muscle relaxants. Or Jack’s salmon. He was asleep before Meg came in.

  And gone before she woke up the next morning. The Roads crew had uncovered another slide victim at Prune Hill, the driver of a blue lowrider, a young man whose mother-of-pearl rosary lay smashed in the rubble. There had been no missing persons reported the day of the slide and none since, yet there he was.

  Sickened by the sight—and smell—of the crushed remains, Rob came in late for his interview with Matt Akers. Matt fumed and spluttered, but Rob was in no mood to put up with bluster.

  “Sit.” He jabbed a finger at the visitor chair, the one he reserved for people he disliked. Light from the window hit the sitter in the face.

  Matt sat. He was a big, red-faced man whose strong suit was not subtlety. When Linda entered, bearing a recorder and notebook, he leered but not with any real interest. “That your secretary?”

  “Sergeant Ramos will assist me.” Rob nodded to Linda, and she set the recorder on his desk. When she was settled on the other chair, the comfortable one with armrests, he turned back to Akers. “I hope you don’t object to the recorder. It’s standard procedure.”

  Matt objected. He huffed and threatened to call his lawyer. Rob shoved the phone toward him, and he subsided. He had come, he said, from a long interview with Ed Prentiss. “And I suppose you’ll cover the same ground.”

  “Lieutenant Prentiss is investigating another matter.”

  Akers frowned. “Isn’t this about the Prune Hill development?”

  Rob said, “I’m looking into the death of Fred Drinkwater.”

  Akers stared. “I thought Fred had a heart attack.” There had been no public statement regarding Drinkwater’s death.

  Rob suppressed his skepticism with an effort. In a town the size of Klalo word should have got out. “The medical examiner believes he was murdered.”

  Akers jolted upright. If he was faking it, he was doing a good job. “Murdered!”

  “That’s right. Tell me about your involvement with Drinkwater. I know he threw a lot of business your way.”

  Akers looked blank. “He was a good idea man.”

  Wonderful. “And?”

  “I worked for him. He owes… owed me a lot of money.”

  “I hear you invested in his projects.”

  The contractor took out a blue bandanna and mopped his forehead. “We’ve worked together a couple-three years now. Look, Neill, shouldn’t you Mirandize me or something? I mean murder, that’s serious.”

  “I’m not charging you with a crime at the moment. I’m looking for information about Drinkwater.”

  “Then you should look somewhere else. We was strictly business, me and Fred. I didn’t socialize with the guy. Too fancy for me.” He snorted. “Him and his fancy women.”

  “We don’t know why Drinkwater was killed,” Rob said. “Might have been strictly business.”

  Akers mopped his forehead again. Linda adjusted the recorder and flipped a page in her notebook. She was not writing down what Akers said, just how he said it. She was good at that. She was capable of coming up with unexpected, insightful questions, too.

  “You suggested I look at Drinkwater’s women,” Rob said. “Who?”

  “You know who.”

  “I know he enjoyed the night scene here and across the river.”

  “And out at Tyee Lake,” Akers sneered. “Had himself a real love nest out there.”

  “So who are we talking about?”

  “Darla Auclare, for one. That little cunt, Kayla Graves.”

  Rob deduced that Kayla had turned Matt down. He was divorced. “And?”

  But Akers’ mouth set in a hard line. “I dunno. He talked big.”

  Rob decided Akers didn’t know much about Drinkwater’s social life. If Inger had been playing around with the developer, she had been discreet. Well, I knew that, he told himself. Shift gears. “You say you invested in Drinkwater’s projects. Did that include Prune Hill?”

  “No! That was straight co
ntract work. He bought the land. He chose the architect. Back when I invested, we was buying land in the north county, near the national forest. And I put money in the senior condos east of Two Falls. I built those for Fred.”

  “On the edge of the Klalo trust lands.” Madeline Thomas had objected to the construction. Linda raised her eyebrows. Rob nodded, so she watched Akers closely, eyes narrowed.

  The contractor was sweating again. “We didn’t build on Indian land, and we didn’t mess around in the Gorge Scenic Area either. We bought the old Patterson place. It was free and clear. The commissioners approved.”

  “That would be Tergeson, Auclare, and Hal Brandstetter.”

  “Yeah, Hal.”

  “He was a good friend of yours, as I recall.”

  “So? Hal fooled a lot of people, me included.” Akers looked at Linda. “Can she keep her mouth shut?”

  Linda gave him a dazzling smile. “¿Señor?”

  He muttered something about Mexicans.

  Rob said, “That reminds me. Do you know two young men, casual laborers, by the name of Chavez and Santos? What were their full names, Linda?”

  “Jorge Chavez and Manuel Santos-Rivera.”

  Akers paled. “I dunno. I hire some Mexican workers.”

  “These young men were taken into custody yesterday morning. Sergeant Ramos has been talking to them, getting to know them, you could say. They’re illegals. They claim you hired them to attack me.”

  “No!”

  “That so? One of your regular crew says you pulled them off the job the day I was knifed and had a long conversation with them. They drove off together in their pickup.”

  “Who? Who said that? I want a lawyer. Now.”

  Annoyed with himself for jumping the gun, Rob read Akers his rights. He could have pried more information from the man, but there was time.

  It took a while to charge and process Akers. Rob figured the contractor would be out on bail within the hour and didn’t intend to object. He despised Akers for a racist, sexist jerk and an old-fashioned bully but didn’t think he had killed Fred Drink-water. And Matt was unlikely to run. He had too much invested in Latouche County to want to leave it.

  If Inger Swets had been on time for her appointment Rob would have had to keep her waiting half an hour because of the Akers paperwork. She entered his office just as he and Linda returned.

  Rob stood. “Ah, Inger, thank you for coming. Do you know Sergeant Ramos?”

  Inger didn’t smile but she gave Linda a stiff half bow. “Larry said you wanted to talk to me about courthouse procedure.”

  “Have a chair. Do you mind if we record this?”

  Inger sat on the edge of the chair Matt Akers had vacated. “I don’t object, but I don’t know what I could tell you—”

  “That’s the tale I spun for Larry,” Rob said. “In case he doesn’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  Rob sat. He twitched the blue sling for effect. It didn’t do much for his arm but it was a great prop. “I’m looking into Fred Drink-water’s death.”

  “So?” Inger had gone pale but her tone was as cool as a glacial breeze.

  Rob kept his face blank. “Your name keeps coming up. Among Fred’s many, er, romantic entanglements. Were you having an affair with him, Inger?”

  “No, I was not, and I resent the question.”

  He thought she was lying but she was cool, very cool. She was also beautiful in a tall, full-bodied way that was timeless rather than fashionable. If you put Inger beside Cate Bjork, Rob reflected, the stylishly lean commissioner would look like a memento mori.

  Now why did I think of that, he wondered as he waited, silent, for Inger to start babbling. But Inger was not a babbler. Linda Ramos sat very still.

  At last he said, “Your husband is away a lot. Who could blame you for wanting a little companionship?”

  She gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Who? Every voter in La-touche County, not to mention my father the commissioner. Use your head, Rob. I’m not a moron, and I like my job.”

  “You were seen—”

  “I don’t doubt that some busybody saw Fred and me at the Red Hat. He took me out for drinks a couple of times. That was it. He was not my l-lover.” She choked on the word, whether from grief or amusement Rob could not have said. She stood up. “Is that all, or do you want a quick lesson in how to apply for a building permit?”

  “That’s it, Inger. Thanks.”

  She swept out like a tall ship under full sail.

  “¡Qué cosa!”

  Rob grinned. “She was on the girls’ double-A volleyball team the year they won the state championship. I think I just got spiked.”

  Linda said seriously, “I would not allow that woman to come anywhere near my boyfriend.”

  Rob decided he’d better not comment. Linda’s boyfriend was a small, cheerful man. Rob thought he was devoted to her. “Hey, I wanted to give you a turn with the questions. Did you come up with any?”

  She nodded. “Who cuts her hair?”

  Both of them were laughing when the phone rang. The desk sergeant said Karl Tergeson wanted to see Rob immediately. Rob gave Linda a chance to escape before he let Karl come in.

  The county commissioner looked old and ill, Rob thought as they shook hands. Karl talked for awhile about Mack and how much everyone was going to miss him. Rob agreed. Then Karl congratulated Rob on the promotion. He’d already done that at the funeral. Rob asked after Jordis. She was well.

  At last Rob said, “Is there something I can do for you, Commissioner?”

  Karl ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. “My daughter…I understand she’s in trouble with that state patrol detective.”

  Rob explained that anyone with access to the records would come under suspicion.

  “Can’t you talk to him, tell him she’s innocent? Jordis and I, we raised our kids right.” They had three sons but Inger was Karl’s favorite. “No child of mine would take a bribe from a developer.”

  “I’m sure that will come out in the investigation.”

  Karl stared at him from under bushy eyebrows. “And these rumors…”

  Rob kept still.

  “She’s not…she’s a good girl. Faithful to her husband. He’s not worth much, Larry, but she’s true to her vows. I know it.”

  After a moment, Rob said carefully, “I’m sure Inger is everything you and Jordis want her to be. She certainly won re-election by a good margin. The voters like her.”

  That did not seem to console Inger’s father, but at least he left the office. Rob wondered why he’d come. One thing for sure: Karl Tergeson was a frightened man.

  COMMISSIONER BJORK called on Maddie early that afternoon. Cate had made the appointment at Mack’s funeral. Maddie was ready for her, or as ready as possible given the tentative state of planning for the Klalos’ casino.

  As in other states, tribal councils in Washington had opened casinos on reservation or trust land. Federal and state laws that limited gambling didn’t operate there. The same was true of Oregon, where two successful casinos had opened to appeal to coast-bound travelers.

  Casinos brought money to the tribe as a whole and jobs for tribal members. That there were problems associated with large-scale gambling Maddie knew very well, not least the possibility of Mob intrusion. And, in descending order, gambling addiction, traffic, rivalry with other Indian enterprises in the area, and the petty crimes associated with any large-scale tourist magnet.

  Some people in the county had religious scruples about games of chance, and because of the National Scenic Area, the feds were bound to raise objections, too. Every time Maddie had mentioned the word casino in Mack’s presence he had spluttered and gone red in the face. That was partly because he disliked change, but some of his objections made sense.

  Maddie was not set on building a casino. There were other possibilities. She was prepared to discuss the alternatives with Cate Bjork, but she was not prepared to be patronized, especially not by a woman
who had moved to the area a scant five years ago. If Maddie agreed not to push the casino, she intended to see to it that the county compensate the Klalos for the loss of revenue and prestige. In some ways, threatening to build a casino was as satisfying as building it.

  Cate had agreed to come out to Two Falls. Maddie set the scene with care. She met the commissioner in the large room she had created for the tribal council. It was attached to the double-wide mobile home she and Jack lived in, and she had designed it to suggest warmth and collective action.

  She had furnished it simply, with an open central hearth (a good gas-fired fake), a dun-colored outdoor carpet suggesting rammed earth, and built-in benches along the walls, but the chief extravagance was wood. She wanted nothing to detract from the wood used on the walls and benches and in the display area.

  Klalo culture used wood with exceptional brilliance. Maddie meant to remind the council of their own carpenter heritage, and much of the cedar, alder, pine, fir, spruce, and birch used in the room had been donated and shaped by tribal artisans. She did not encourage clutter, just perfect joinery. Above all, because of the cedar-paneled walls, the room smelled good.

  Having restrained herself in the room’s design, Maddie indulged in an orgy of display. Every art and craft that had been passed down from grandmother to granddaughter, from grandfather to grandson, had its day. Pine needle baskets, cedar bark baskets and reed mats, elkskin headbands and robes, cradle boards, bentwood boxes, button-ornamented blankets, sleek obsidian knives, masks and drums for the dancing—she gave each traditional art its time and place. As the seasons wore on, she returned the beautiful things to the families that had created them and asked for others.

  The council room had many uses. Maddie met there with the young people Rob Neill called her “troops” and with the elders, most recently for an oral history project. Her favorite use, though, was story-telling. Her grandmothers had been splendid singers and story-tellers. They would have loved her council room. She set aside times when artists could teach their skills, too, but it wasn’t the ideal space for that.

  Maddie wanted a true craft center to support the traditional arts. That would take money if it were done right—with a big, uncluttered shop, proper lighting, and computer marketing, so artists could make a living from their work. The casino could finance such a center, and other important things like scholarships and a decent, convenient health clinic. She did not think the commissioners would share her passion for Klalo culture to the point of welcoming a casino, even so.