Phil moved aside and another man took his place. He was tall, dark-haired, blandly handsome, with a smooth big-city sophistication that contrasted sharply with Phil's country casualness. The woman with the mike looked slightly frazzled as she said, “I'm speaking now with Chief of Police Robert Harkins.”
“Thank you,” Harkins said. “I just want to make it very clear that there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between the homicide that occurred in our town this morning and the investigation into police corruption over three years ago. Those charges were made by a disgruntled police officer who resigned shortly afterward. Following a thorough investigation, all the allegations were dismissed as unfounded. I consider it an insult to the fine officers of our town to have this matter brought to public attention again. We're trying to solve a murder here.”
Very hastily, the woman wrapped up her broadcast and the station's newsroom reappeared on the screen.
Throwing my bottle of Henry Weinhard's at the tavern's television would have been childish as well as a waste of good beer. I took a drink from it instead and cursed Harkins silently.
Disgruntled, my ass. I'd been mad as hell.
It was during my last year on the force that Mackie first earned its reputation as the black market drug capital of eastern Oregon, a reputation it still maintained. The effort to put an end to the sudden, inexplicable increase in the quantity of illegal prescription drugs flowing in and out of town had been hampered by a series of events that began to seem less and less coincidental as case after case was thrown out of court or never made it that far. Reports disappeared, evidence was misplaced, mishandled, and, in my biggest case, destroyed in a fire that may or may not have been caused by faulty wiring in the police property room.
Phil and I became suspicious and began handling all drug cases with a secrecy unmatched since D-Day. And we came up with the big one, the bust that would put an end to Mackie's thriving drug business. Backed up by most of the Mackie Police Department, Phil and I entered a garage at the edge of town. Sure enough, the four men we wanted were inside. But instead of interrupting a major drug transaction, we interrupted a pinochle game. There wasn't so much as an aspirin on the premises.
I went straight from the garage to Harkins' office, certain that we had been burned by someone within the department. Harkins didn't want to hear it. The city fathers were politely waiting for old Chief Hightower to finish dying of lung cancer before officially replacing him and Harkins didn't want his status as shoo-in for the job screwed up by allegations of corruption. He also didn't like me and had considered me a troublemaker for years.
If Phil had been with me, Harkins might have listened, but Phil had just been going through the motions for months. Patsy was divorcing him and he was compulsively attending every AA meeting within a hundred miles of Mackie. He would have been hard-pressed to work up a little righteous indignation if he had seen Mackie cops, en masse and in uniform, peddling pills on a grade school playground.
By myself, I went over Harkins' head to the mayor, who was surprisingly quick to agree to an investigation. Surprisingly until I belatedly realized it was an election year and he needed an issue to spice up a dull mayoral race. Instead of a quiet investigation, a committee was formed and for eight months an investigation of the police department was carried on with all the hoopla of a Barnum and Bailey grand finale.
The committee's report exonerating the police department from any wrongdoing was made public early in November, just before the election. By that time, I no longer cared. April had been gone since May and on Halloween night I had thrown a pumpkin through a second story window of the police building and had tendered my resignation by flinging my badge out after it.
I finished my beer and left without watching the rest of the news. After I completed my official inquiries about Jessica Finney, I set out to follow my clues.
Chapter Nine
The Rose City School of Performing Arts was in an elegantly restored turn-of-the-century house not far from downtown. The small foyer was lush with ferns, thick carpeting, and deep-green flocked wallpaper. I rang a silver bell that was on a delicate Queen Anne desk. Before the tinkle faded, a small middle-aged man with an ascot and a pompadour stepped through a doorway to my left and asked if he could be of service.
He raised his already high brows at my business card and assured me that the Rose city School of Performing Arts did not harbor runaways. I was at least a foot taller but somehow he managed to look down his nose at me. A very versatile nose. He also talked through it.
“We do get the odd transient wandering past,” he said. “Isn't it just awful the way those people are just everywhere now? God. I just loathe going downtown anymore. You can't walk five feet without one of them asking for money. I just don't know what the police are doing, letting that kind of riffraff wander around. Why, the taxes—”
I didn't want to hear his views on taxes. I waved Jessica's envelope at him.
“We do, of course, send brochures to persons who request information, but we don't accept applications from just anyone. Our students don't choose to come here. We choose to let them come. We have a small enrollment and each of our students is hand-picked and comes most highly recommended. We have the most stringent—”
I stemmed the flow of bloodless rhetoric by shoving Jessica's picture under his elite nose. It wrinkled disdainfully.
“Oh, her,” he said.
“She's been here?”
“Well, not inside. I was just appalled. She was sitting on the steps when I arrived, let me think… yes, it was Thursday. About six. I always arrive early. I do think morning is the best time of day, don't you? Everything is so fresh. A brand new day and all that. Well, anyway, as I said, she was sitting on our steps and, I just hate to think it, but it looked as if she might have slept there! Can you imagine? Right on our steps! She had our brochure and wanted to enroll, of all things. I sent her on her way very quickly, I can assure you. We can't have that type of… I mean… God! She looked… unkempt. She was wearing jeans and the most awful jacket with a horse or something on the back. She looked as if she belonged to one of those street gangs you read about.”
“How was she?”
“What do you mean?”
“Happy, sad, nervous, scared?”
“I believe she was crying when she left.” The son-of-a-bitch smirked.
I stared at his nose, imagining it crunching under my fist. “She's fourteen,” I said and left him shaking his head over the decline of elegance in the world. Poor little Jessica had followed her dream and found it intimidating.
The Northwest Acting and Modeling School didn't look intimidating. Or impressive. Or prosperous. It was sandwiched between a second-hand furniture store and a video rental place on one of Old Town's sleazier streets. The windows were plastered with posters announcing aerobics classes, which led me to believe that future Meryl Streeps and Christie Brinkleys were not exactly clamoring to get in.
Just inside the door was a long counter. Behind it was one of those walls that open and close accordion-style. Through the narrow center opening I could see into a long, carpeted room. At the far end, a ballet barre dissected a wall of mirrors. Reflected in the mirror were several lights on poles, a video camera, and a clutter of other electronic equipment I couldn't identify. I could hear a low hum of speech but couldn't see anyone in the mirror or out of it. There was no silver bell. I knocked on the counter.
The hum broke off abruptly then there was another brief murmur followed by the sound of a telephone receiver clattering into its cradle. A woman came through the opening in the wall. Her face lit up with pure delight when she saw me and her smile made me think I was the best-looking thing she'd seen all day. Considering the locale, I probably was. I had stepped over two winos on the short walk from the car.
She turned her back to the counter in front of me, hitched herself up on it, and spun around on her fanny to face me, crossing her legs in mid-spin.
“Virgin
ia Marley,” she said. “Manager.”
“Zachariah Smith,” I said. “Private eye.”
She gurgled with laughter. “I suppose you're gay,” she said.
“Not that I've noticed.”
“Oh, goodie. All the gorgeous men I've met in this town are either gay or cheating like crazy. Are you really a private eye?”
I said I really was and gave her one of my cards.
“Mackie?” she said. “Where the hell is Mackie?”
Half the population of Mackie owned T-shirts emblazoned with that question. “Out east,” I said. “Near Pendleton.”
“Mm. Cowboy country. I went to the Pendleton Round-Up last year. This friend of mine said I'd have the time of my life. Do I look like sitting on bleachers with a bag of popcorn and a Styrofoam cup of beer watching cowboys fall off horses would just tickle me to death? Some of the cowboys were cute though.”
Virginia Marley was cute, too. She was my age, give or take a couple years, and had big brown eyes and a cute little turned-up nose sprinkled with freckles. There was a space between her two front teeth that her curvy upper lip couldn't quite cover. Her light brown hair was in a fashionably cute frizz that looked as if the curl had been produced by combing out hundreds of tiny tight braids. Her body was very, very cute in a bright blue leotard cut low in the front and high on the thighs. She was wearing hot pink tights with stirrup feet. Even her bare toes were cute.
“So,” she said, “what can I do for you?”
I had the impression the possibilities were limitless but I was on Jason Finney's time at the moment so I stuck to business. She shook her head at Jessica's picture.
“We send a brochure if anyone asks for one. Not a brochure, really. It's just a sheet of paper listing some of the classes, costs, that type of thing. I'm almost always here and I don't remember seeing her. I'll show this to the instructors when they come in. We don't start until ten so lunch break is late and you missed everyone.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You can leave a message at the number on the card. How long have you worked here?”
“About a year. I'm afraid I'm not a very good manager. The place loses money every month but no one seems to care. I think it's some kind of tax write-off for the owner. I'm not complaining. He pays me more than I'm worth.”
“I doubt that,” I said and Virginia gurgled again.
She said, “Believe it or not, the aerobics classes do pretty well. We videotape them so the fatties can see what they look like. Very motivating.”
“Sounds like it would be.”
A cute pucker formed between Virginia's brows. “You know, there was a girl outside. Um, Thursday. I remember because I came in late. Had a little trouble getting out of bed.” Her eyelashes fluttered. “Anyway, there was a girl sitting on the sidewalk out front. The thing is, I didn't really look at her. There are always street kids hanging around. They're usually stoned and most of them are panhandling. And they can get pretty obnoxious if you don't give them money, so I just ignored her and came inside. I noticed her a couple times after that, just sort of hanging around.” She looked at Jessica's picture again. “The hair is about right but I never really saw her face.”
“Do you remember what she was wearing?”
“Well, let's see. Jeans, I'm sure of that. Oh, I know: a jacket, a high school jacket, you know? With the school name or something on the back. And a horse or something.”
“The Mackie Mustangs. That was Jessica.”
“Oh, god, now I feel bad. I thought she was just a street kid. If I'd known she was someone's little lost child I'd have done something.”
“Most of them start out as someone's little lost child.”
Virginia looked hurt.
“I wasn't criticizing,” I said. “Just thinking out loud. They get hard fast on the street and they're not very likable. And I don't do anything about it either. Except look for the ones I'm paid to look for.”
Virginia nodded. “We can't all be Albert Schweitzer,” she said. “What are you going to do now?”
“Keep looking. She doesn't have much money and I don't think anyone would rent her a room anyway. She's bound to be around town somewhere. She doesn't know her way around Portland so I'm hoping she hasn't made it out to Eighty-Second Street.”
“It sounds hard, finding one little girl in a town the size of Portland.”
“Finding kids is mostly a matter of luck. Grownups are easier.”
“Why is that? It seems to me grownups would be better about staying out of sight.”
“They would be but they take all their habits with them. And their credit cards, half the time. If you can find out what town an adult is in and you know he plays the horses or bowls or likes antiques, you hang around the tracks or bowling alleys or antique shops and sooner or later you stumble right over him. Habits are hard to break.”
“Kids don't do the same things they did at home?”
“They might, but the ones who end up running are usually pretty secretive and no one knows what they like to do. Jessica wants to act so bad she can taste it and her parents didn't even know she was interested. Well, look, I'd better get going. I'm already five days behind her.”
“I'll walk you to your car.” Virginia spun around on the counter again and hopped off. She got a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of aerobics shoes from beneath the counter and put them on, leaning over to tie the shoes without bending her knees. Virginia was definitely cute. She slipped her hand around my arm as we walked outside and looked up at me. “You sure are big,” she said. “I suppose you get tired of people pointing that out.”
“It doesn't bother me much.”
“It must be just a little difficult for you to do sneaky undercover work.”
“Yeah, but there's not a lot of call for it anyway. Private investigating isn't nearly as sneaky as it sounds.”
We stepped over the same two winos. The second one looked dead and Virginia gurgled when I nudged him with my foot and he snored loudly.
When we reached my car, Virginia looked at it a bit dubiously. She walked around to the front and looked some more. “Well,” she said. “I guess you really aren't the Porsche type anyway.”
“Would it impress you if I told you I have a four-wheel drive at home?”
“Now that's more your style. Or maybe a pickup with those great big tires. What year is this?”
I told her and she said, “Guess what I drive.”
“A little red Jag.”
She laughed. “An old Volkswagen bug. An orange one. It's a sixty-nine. My favorite… year.”
“Good year,” I said.
“There's a bar called Tonita's over by Portland State. I live nearby and I usually stop in for a nightcap. If you get a chance, drop by. About eleven. I'll buy you a drink.”
I said I'd try to make it and waved to her as I drove off.
The remainder of my plan for finding Jessica Finney had all the subtlety of a triple-X movie—show her picture to as many people as possible and hope that someone had seen her and would be concerned enough or, more likely, greedy enough to tell me where she was.
I wended my way through downtown, Old Town, and Chinatown, showing Jessica's picture to clerks, customers, tourists, loiterers, white collar workers, blue collar workers, cops on foot, cops on horseback, cops in cars, little old ladies, dirty old men, sweet young things, up-and-comers, down-and-outers, three-piece-suited yuppies, time-warped-in-from-Woodstock hippies, hucksters, buskers, hookers, johns, pushers, pimps, bums, blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanics, two Indians in full tribal regalia, and one young man with his face painted blue. I didn't ask him why.
I was smiled at, frowned at, nodded at, winked at, blinked at, stared at, ignored, rebuffed, questioned, shied away from, fondled, flirted with, and told to fuck off. No one admitted ever seeing Jessica Finney.
At six o'clock I headed back to the motel to see what Allison was doing.
Chapter Ten
What Allison was doing was sleep
ing. The covers were tucked up beneath her chin. The honey hair strewn across the pillow had the heavy-stranded look long hair has when it dries without being combed. She didn't stir when I entered the room. The television was on, the volume low.
I went into the bathroom and became highly distracted. Allison's blue dress was dripping dry on one of the motel's hookless, theft-deterring hangers that she had balanced over the shower head. Draped over the shower door, also drying, were a pair of panties, a bra, and a slip—all three white and lacy—and a pair of pantyhose. By my calculations, Allison was sleeping in the nude. I told myself not to think about it.
Myself didn't listen. I checked the label on the bra. I could rationalize looking. I might have to run an ad—Found: one tall blonde. Eyes like the sky of a moonlit mountain night. Bra size 32C. Identify to claim.
I remembered why I was in the bathroom then I went back into the other room and watched Allison. She was definitely asleep. And dreaming. I could see the movement of her eyes beneath the long lids. The only other person I knew who could sleep that deeply in a strange bed in a strange room with a strange man wandering around was nineteen months old.
Her purse was on the bureau and it was no longer bulging. Her toiletries and cosmetics were lined up neatly next to the bathroom sink. I stood facing the bed so I could keep an eye on her while I went through her purse.
It contained her hairbrush, a blue plastic comb, the EraserMate pen, a big white compact, an eyeglasses case, a small zippered leather case, the blue leather wallet, and an X-Acto knife, which seemed odd but I'd searched too many women's purses to be surprised at anything I might find in one.
The wallet contained thirty-seven dollars in bills, a dime, and three pennies, all stuffed into the coin compartment. The place in the middle where the plastic flip-flop window insert should have been was empty. I smiled at the back of Allison's head. Obviously she thought I was the kind of man who would go through a woman's purse while she was sleeping.
Cat's-Paw, Inc. Page 7
