No Way to Die

by Warren C Easley

  Rori shifted in her seat and shook her head emphatically. I asked, “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him they couldn’t neutralize shit, and they knew it. I said if they don’t get me out of this prison I’ll be a dead man walking, pure and simple.”

  “He doesn’t have the final say on this, Kenny. Did he give you the transfer request papers?”

  “Yeah, I have them.”

  I spent the next twenty minutes helping Kenny fill them out. When we finished, I said, “Okay, Kenny, you need to submit this as soon as possible and insist on written confirmation that it’s been received. Meanwhile, I’m going to draft a letter in support of your request and send it directly to the DOC Director. The sooner we get this done the better, so don’t sit on it, okay?”

  “That’s right,” Rori said, “get it in today. We’re gonna get you out of there.”

  Before we signed off, Kenny said, “Hey, Claire, I need a surf report.”

  She laughed. “I knew you would. Bastendorff’s glassed off this morning with a north swell running four to five feet. Perfect conditions. I’m sure Stu Foster and your buds are out there ripping it up.”

  A long pause, then in a thick voice, “I’m picturing that in my mind. Thanks, Claire.”

  * * *

  We were discussing the call when a sharp, double knock sounded that elicited a single bark from Arch. I was closest to the door, so I opened it. “Well,” Walter Sanders said with a smile that showed most of his bleached white teeth, “the whole Free Kenny Sanders team. Anthony said you were all back here.” He glanced at Archie. “Even the mutt.” My dog assiduously ignored him.

  “What do you want, Walter?” Rori said in a voice laced with annoyance.

  He walked into the office before answering, which didn’t surprise me. “I just stopped by to say hi, Aurora, and see how things were going.” He introduced himself to Claire before turning back to Rori, who remained sitting behind her desk. He chuckled and upped the smile intensity. “I saw that article in the Coos Bay World about you. Nice cuffs you were wearing. They looked familiar.”

  Rori remained stony-faced. “They should have. I think we got a lot of mileage out of—”

  He waved her off. “I didn’t come here to argue about the goddamn environment, Aurora. As a matter of fact, I’ve become a believer in global warming.”

  Rori barked a laugh dripping with contempt. “Oh, that’s rich. You’re a believer now, after making a killing on the LNG proposal?”

  He shrugged and opened his hands. “It was business, for Christ’s sake. That project’s backed by Washington, so you know damn well it’s going to get approved, no matter what the Governor says or does. Somebody was going to make that money. And we took a hell of a risk.” He turned to me and changed the subject. “How’s the investigation going, Counsellor?”

  I locked my eyes on his, figuring it was time to insert, if not the thin end of the wedge, at least a suggestion of what was to come. “We’re getting a handle on what actually happened leading up to the murder, who was involved, and who had something to gain from Sonny Jenson’s death. People have a lot of secrets in this town, Walter.”

  His eyes flared, and he produced a brittle smile. “Sounds like you’re making real progress. That’s great news.”

  I held his eyes but didn’t say anything. He finally looked away. Rori said, “This is a race for Kenny’s life, Walter. He was stabbed a couple of days ago.” She explained the situation with the white supremacists. “He’s recovering, but he’s a marked man if he goes back into the prison”.

  “That’s awful, Rori.” He said it as if he meant it, then looked at me. “Surely there’re legal steps you can take.”

  “We’re looking at our options.”

  “I’ve said this before, but let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.” He glanced at the door, suddenly looking uncomfortable, like the uninvited guest he was. “Well, I’m sorry I interrupted your meeting. I’ll leave you to it.” He nodded to Claire. “Nice meeting you.”

  As he opened the office door, I said, “If you think of something else, or remember something you might have forgotten, this would be a very good time to come forward, Walter.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said without looking back.

  I shut the door. Claire smiled. “Dad, I think you scared the crap out of him.”

  “I meant to.”

  Rori looked at me, her face taut, her eyes narrowed down. “Do you have more on Walter now? Is he involved in this somehow?”

  I showed my palms in defense. “I’ve told you everything I can right now, Rori. You’re going to have to trust me.”

  She pursed her lips. “Of course. When are you going to put it all together?”

  I exhaled. “Patience. There’re a lot of moving parts.”

  She looked off to the side, scowled, and said, half to herself, “If Walter’s mixed up in this, I swear, I’ll take a filet knife to him.”

  Claire shifted in her seat. I said, “Come on Rori, I don’t need another client right now.”

  We waved to Anthony on the way out, and once we were out on the sidewalk, Claire made a whistling sound. “I sure wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Rori Dennison.”

  “Me, neither. You can tell she’s a fisherman’s daughter.”

  * * *

  Our next stop was the medical center in North Bend, where I finally got my stitches removed.

  “Oh, that’s a badass scar,” Claire said, laughingly, when I rejoined her in the waiting room. “Gives your face real character.”

  “Just what I needed.”

  “Let’s get lunch at the Fishmonger,” Claire suggested when we reached the Subaru. “I should check in with Sissy. We haven’t talked in a couple of days.”

  It was a bright spring day, and the restaurant was filled with good aromas and humming with customers. When Sissy saw us, she pointed to a small table near the back. When she brought our menus, she spoke to me first. “How’s that head injury, Mr. Claxton?” She had one hand on a bony hip and her face looked borderline gaunt beneath spiked-up hair, but her bearing appeared anything but weak.

  “It’s fine.” I pointed at the thin, pink scar just below the line of my hair. “Got the stitches out today.”

  “Good.” To Claire she said, “Hey, girl, been thinkin’ about you. Did you read my mind?”

  Claire laughed. “Of course. Are things okay?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Still getting threats.” She looked at me. “When’re you going to catch those bastards?”

  “Soon, I hope. How are they threatening you, Sissy?”

  “Mostly phone calls, you know, one of them talking through a sock or some damn thing. I just laugh at them.”

  “They’re cold-blooded killers, Sissy,” Claire said. “You need to be very careful.”

  “Mostly?” I said. “What else besides phone calls?”

  “Oh, they drove by late and shot out one of my windows. Probably drunk. They ain’t gonna kill me.” She smiled with a hint of slyness. “They think I know more than I do and that I wrote one of those ‘read this if I’m killed’ notes.”

  “When was the drive-by?” I asked.

  “Two nights ago.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help you?” I asked.

  She cast her eyes down and shrugged. “Nah, I can take care of myself. Just catch ’em, Mr. Claxton. Howard deserves justice.” She glanced in the direction of the kitchen. “I need to get my butt in gear. What can I get you?”

  We ordered, and Sissy sauntered off. Claire looked at me. “That drive-by was the same night we had our visitors.”

  “Right. The master criminals were multitasking.”

  Claire sighed. “I’m worried sick about Sissy. What do you make of the threats? Do you think she’s right about the Br
others B being afraid to kill her?”

  “Maybe so. I mean, you’d think they would have tried something by now if they weren’t.”

  Claire nodded. “I get why they wouldn’t fear her going to the sheriff—you know, she could implicate herself, and there’s all that money she and Howard stashed. But wouldn’t they worry about her working with us?”

  “Good point. Maybe they didn’t make the connection the day the older Brother B saw you with Sissy. But they know we’re looking into Coleman’s death.”

  “Or, they could just be flat-out afraid of her,” Claire added. “She’s a hell of a lot tougher than she looks.”

  I smiled. “Nando would agree with you.”

  Claire shook her head with a puzzled look. “It’s a weird stasis between the Brothers and her, but I still worry, Dad.”

  “Me, too.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Back at the beach house, Claire immediately got involved in a phone call related to her postdoctoral research, and I started to work on the letter in support of Kenny’s transfer. Sometime after four I had the letter drafted and my phone messages cleared. A lot of the calls had to do with delaying some cases and putting off potential clients looking for legal representation back in Dundee. This was not a sustainable situation, I reminded myself. I also put a call into Harmon Scott to see how the DNA sample was faring. He didn’t pick up, and I didn’t leave a message. Better not to annoy him with a voice mail.

  I’d gone out on the deck to catch some sun when Gertrude Johnson called. “Hello, stranger,” she began. “How’s it going down there?”

  “We’re making progress. How’s the homestead look?”

  “Still standing, last I checked, but the weeds own your garden now.”

  I felt a stab of guilt-tinged disappointment. My vegetable garden was not to be this year unless I solved this case damn soon. “That hurts. Put a couple of tomato plants in your garden for me, would you?”

  She chuckled. “Sounds like you’re not wrapping up down there any time soon.”

  I exhaled in frustration. “This case has kind of mushroomed on me, Gertie. I’ll get back as soon as I can. It’s been what, seventeen days? Hell, I planned on two weeks, so I’ve only been AWOL three days so far.”

  “Okay, you’re the boss,” she said with a notable ring of resignation. “Hug Claire and stay safe, you here?”

  “Roger that.” I tapped off with a vague feeling of anxiety. I told Rori Dennison I’d reduce my rate to a hundred twenty-five dollars an hour after she refused help from Walter Sanders, a fact I’d yet to mention to Gertie. I’d be faced with postponing and losing better-paying business back in Dundee pretty damn soon.

  Nando came back around five that afternoon. “A waste of gasoline and good shoe leather,” he replied when I asked how it went. “The Millicoma River region is sparsely populated, and nobody I talked to recalled seeing anything around the time of Howard Coleman’s murder.” I opened us each a beer, and we went out on the deck to wait for Claire to finish up. A fresh breeze blew off the Pacific, and the afternoon sun cast a glittering silver sheen on the water. Nando took a long pull on his beer and looked south, toward the Cape Arago Lighthouse. “In Cuba, that lighthouse would still be in operation. Americans throw things away too soon.”

  “It’s scenic but obsolete,” I said. “It’s all GPS navigation now. Satellites.”

  He puffed a breath. “Always the technology. Where will it end? In Cuba, people are still driving American cars made in the fifties and sixties.”

  “Plenty of vintage cars in the states. Maybe you should trade your Lexus for one?”

  He laughed at that. “Yes, how quickly we are corrupted with material things.”

  Claire joined us not long after that, and at sunset, with Archie in tow, we made a big show of leaving the beach house in both cars, thus opening the gates of the shark tank once again. Nando announced he was taking us to the Captain’s Cabin, the seafood restaurant on the first floor of the Tioga Building in Coos Bay. His treat.

  Claire said, “I was there the other day. It’s pricey, Nando.”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “Not a problem. It is my treat tonight. After all, am I not getting a free room on this vacation?”

  Claire looked at him. “Vacation?” We all laughed at that.

  Nando ordered the South African lobster tail, and Claire and I feasted on the sushi-grade, seared yellowfin tuna. He also sprang for a 2016 Domaine du Nozay Sancerre that paired nicely with our seafood. After dinner, we took Archie for a long walk on the boardwalk that ran along the bay on the east side of the city. We then put him in the back of the Subaru and returned to the Tioga to kill more time at the restaurant bar. We got some looks when all three of us ordered Irish Coffees without the Irish. It was close to midnight when we headed back toward the beach house with Nando leading the way. Time to check the shark tank.

  Nando pulled over about an eighth of a mile north of the Sunset Lane turnoff and I followed in behind him. I rolled the window down as he approached. “Okay, same plan as last night,” he said as he racked the slide of his Sig Sauer to chamber a round. “Perhaps the sharks have taken the chum tonight. We have rolled out the welcome mat, after all.”

  “Be careful, Nando,” I said. “Remember, come in from the south side where the cover’s a little better.”

  “I plan to. If the Brothers B are inside the house, as we hope, they will have concealed themselves for an ambush, which makes it unlikely they will see me checking the thread.”

  If, I thought but didn’t say, as I watched my friend disappear into the shadows.

  Too far from the ocean to hear the surf, Claire and I waited, listening to the soft rustle of the fir trees in the breeze and the intermittent chirping of crickets in the understory. Nine minutes later, the evening’s tranquility was shattered by three gunshots, pop…pop, pop. The reports caused Archie to shift nervously in the back seat and whimper.

  “Oh, shit,” I said. I snatched the Glock from the glove compartment, chambered a round, and got out of the car. At that moment I felt like I was being ripped in half, as that old saw about the best laid plans ricocheted around in my head like a mocking taunt. Part of me demanded I stay with Claire to protect her, and yet I couldn’t leave Nando alone in a firefight in which he was almost certainly outnumbered two to one.

  Sensing my indecision, Claire looked squarely at me, her expression unwavering, “Go, Dad. Nando needs your help.” She pulled her phone out. “I’m calling 911.”

  “Okay. Keep the car doors locked, the engine idling, the lights off. If anyone approaches the car you don’t know, get the hell out of here. Run them over if you have to.”

  Claire nodded with her ear to the phone. “Go! Now! And be careful, Dad!”

  With my adrenal glands at flood stage, I sprinted into the darkness. When I veered off onto Sunset Lane, I bent low and kept moving, staying in the shadows of the spindly cedars lining the unlighted street. As I approached the driveway of the beach house, three more shots rang out. The muzzle flash of the first report came from a spot halfway down the drive, probably Nando. The next two came from the north corner of the house—separate flashes indicating two shooters. The Brothers B. With my heart practically beating out of my chest, I stayed low, moving along the tree line until I was within several feet of the first shooter. It was Nando, I was sure of it. He was lying prone behind a large landscape boulder adjacent to the driveway.

  “It’s me,” I said as I slid in next to him. He grunted and squeezed off another shot, which elicited a return volley. Bullets thudded into the boulder and one grazed the top, sending a spray of basalt chips over us. Then the scene went silent, except for the noise of my ragged breathing. I’m not sure how much time elapsed. It seemed like a lifetime. I whispered, “I think they’re gone. Probably took the stairs down to the beach.” Nando grunted again. “Let’s pull back
to the cars,” I said. “We can’t leave Claire and Arch alone.”

  Nando grunted, made it to one knee, then rolled over on his back. “You go,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I am hit.” His head lolled to one side, and he went limp.

  “Nando,” I whispered. I shook his shoulder, but he was unresponsive, and I drew back a hand wet with blood. “Oh, no.” With my heart in my throat, I checked his neck and caught a weak, rapid pulse. As I took my cell out to call Claire, I heard sirens wailing in the distance. “They’re gone,” I told her. “Call 911 again and request an ambulance. Nando’s hurt.” She gasped. “Then bring the car. Hurry.”

  I peered over the boulder and saw no movement at the house. I ripped my jacket off and put it under my friend’s head. Using the flashlight on my phone, I tried to determine where he’d been hit. Upper arm or shoulder, judging from the blood, which wasn’t a steady flow. At least he wasn’t bleeding out, I concluded.

  An equal measure of fear, anger, and guilt washed over me. So much for the best laid plans.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  A county sheriff patrol car arrived first. By this time, Claire was cradling Nando’s head in her lap and holding my T-shirt against his left shoulder and chest to staunch the bleeding. It wasn’t immediately apparent where the bullet entered, and I hoped it wasn’t near his heart. In any case, he was coming in and out of consciousness.

  “Help’s on the way,” she said over and over. “Hold on, Nando, hold on.”

  He gritted his teeth and moaned, a sound that was somehow reassuring. “She’s right, Nando,” I said, crouching next to him. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  As the patrol car drew near, I stood out at the end of the driveway and waved to make sure they could see I was unarmed. Both deputies approached cautiously with their service weapons drawn. Claire had pulled the Subaru in and left the lights on so that she and Nando were bathed in light. “My friend’s been shot,” I said. “Home invasion. An ambulance is on the way.”