Not Dead Enough (19 page)

Chapter Thirty-nine

I read somewhere that the name The Dalles is French in origin. In English the city would be known as “The Sluice.” French trappers named the area along that stretch of the Columbia River after a narrow channel carved deep into the volcanic basalt, a natural sluice if there ever was one. The channel—later dubbed the Long Narrows by Lewis and Clark—carried the entire volume of the river in a raging, whirlpool-infested torrent nine miles in length. Now, of course, the Long Narrows and its upper terminus, Celilo Falls, lie buried beneath the lake created by The Dalles Dam.

It was Friday afternoon. I was back on Interstate 84 on my way to interview Braxton Gage. I felt good about a call I'd gotten from Sheriff Bailey. Big C was still in critical condition in the ICU, but her prognosis was now “guardedly optimistic.” I drove to a staccato rhythm of pelting rain and gusts of wind that buffeted my car. Sheets of water temporarily blinded me as eighteen-wheelers blew by like it was a sunny day. I caught a brief glimpse of the dam before I turned off—an unimposing structure riding low in the water, its floodgates like foaming mouths. When Gage's secretary gave me directions, she mentioned we were meeting at his “other office” and left it at that. I was surprised to find it wasn't located in an office building but a magnificent old Victorian on the west end of town. Meticulously restored, the three story structure was sage green with cream trim and a riot of plum colored gingerbread. A conical tower on the right corner of the building jutted above the two brick chimneys on the roof. A bronze sign at the wrought iron entry gate read

The Gage House
1887
Private

A second plaque below it informed me the house had been placed on the National Historic Register by the U.S. Department of the Interior. I was duly impressed.

I let myself in the gate, hit a buzzer at the door, and gave my name through a speaker to an inquiring female voice. She buzzed me in.

The woman behind the voice sat at an antique oak desk in what must have once been the parlor. She wore sketched-in eyebrows, heavy makeup, and lipstick the color of a fire truck. A cigarette smoldered in an ashtray at her elbow. She flashed a half-hearted smile. “Have a seat, Mr. Claxton. Mr. Gage should be free in a few minutes.” Across the entryway in the former dining room, a big man with a shaved head wearing a suit coat he couldn't button was talking on the phone in hushed tones. When I sat down, he got up and closed a set of mahogany sliding doors without acknowledging my presence.

“Nice place,” I said to the receptionist. “Not what I expected.”

She raised the semicircles above her eyes and peered at me through a swirl of cigarette smoke. “This is the old Gage family home. It's kind of a private museum. Mr. Gage has another office at our corporate headquarters down on the river. He spends more time here now that he's retired.”

“What's in the museum?”

“Indian artifacts, historical papers and photos, that sort of thing. Oh, and anything relating to the construction of the dams on the Columbia. Mr. Gage feels that that story needs to be preserved.”

“Good for him,” I chimed in brightly. “The dam building period was an historic time for the Gorge.” The receptionist's intercom buzzed, and after stubbing out her cigarette she escorted me up a broad set of creaking stairs to a hallway on the second floor, her hips swaying in a tight dress that displayed all of her contours. I'd worn a long sleeve shirt to cover the wound on my left arm and carried my briefcase in my right hand. The briefcase felt heavy from the weight of the .357 Magnum resting in it.

When we reached the second floor, a tall, statuesque woman wearing a dark dress and stiletto heels met us in the hallway with her arms crossed. She was maybe a decade older than the receptionist, the kind of woman intent on defying the effects of aging and having some success at it. She had streaked blond hair, dark blue, mascara-enhanced eyes, and full lips that were unadorned. She offered her hand. “Hello, Mr. Claxton. I'm Stephanie Barrett, Mr. Gage's business manager.” She turned to the receptionist and dismissed her with a ring of authority in her voice. She turned back to me and smiled, pleasing enough but with a hint of November in it. “Mr. Gage is tied up in a conference call. Why don't we go in my office and chat?”

“Sure,” I said with a mounting sense that this was some kind of pre-interview, a hurdle I had to clear to get in to see the big guy. A door to an office behind her was open. I figured the door at the end of the hall was Gage's. It was shut. She turned and I followed her into her office. Tight dresses seemed the order of the day at the Gage House. Hers was more conservative, but just barely.

Once thing seemed clear—Braxton Gage was a man who appreciated the female form.

She offered me a chair, slid behind a sleek desk with a black marble top, and smiled again with the same ambiguity. “So, you're a friend of George Lone Deer. How is the chief?”

“Oh, he's fine. I just saw him last weekend. I gave her my best Chamber of Commerce smile. “He's pretty enthusiastic about the possibility of a casino at Cascade Locks.”

She smiled back, this time with something approaching warmth. “Well, we certainly think it's a win, win, win.” I must have looked puzzled, because she went on, “A win for the Confederated Tribes, a win for the city of Cascade Locks, and a win for the state of Oregon.”

I beamed back at her. “That's the way George is looking at it.”

“Well, I certainly hope the Tribal Council listens to him.” She shook her head and made a pouty face. “There're some stubborn holdouts at the moment.”

“Yeah, I've heard that. Some people think the Gorge's a sacred place and shouldn't become a gambling Mecca.”

As if on cue, she launched into a pitch on the supposed benefits of the casino—jobs, tax revenue, income for the Tribes. I must have glazed over because she caught herself. “But you haven't come to hear about the casino. I understand you'd like to talk to Braxton about his early days on the river when he was building dams. What exactly are you interested in, Mr. Claxton?”

This was a pre-interview. I flashed the smile again. “It's Cal, Stephanie. Uh, I'd prefer to discuss that directly with Mr. Gage.”

She sat back in her seat and crossed her arms. “That's not the way it works here. Mr. Gage is a very busy man. Perhaps I can help you.”

I bit back an angry comeback and nodded. Clearly this was going nowhere unless I opened up to her. I did so reluctantly. “Actually, I'm looking into the disappearance of a man named Nelson Queah at the request of his granddaughter.” I plucked a card from my shirt pocket, stood, and laid it on her desk. She made no attempt to retrieve it. “Mr. Queah disappeared the night following the flooding of Celilo Falls when The Dalles Dam was commissioned. That was fifty years ago.”

I read nothing in her face, but the fingers of her right hand curled into a half fist on the marble slab. “Yes, I've read some about that. I understand you were wounded by that crazy sniper.”

Crap, she's done her homework. I nodded and touched my left arm without meaning to. “Oh, I'm fine. I was—”

She cut me off. “Surely this is a matter for the police.”

“Oh, for sure. The murders are police business. I'm just trying to help my client find out the truth about what happened to her grandfather. He was a decorated World War II hero.”

“This disappearance happened a very long time ago. What could Braxton possibly do to help you?”

I sat forward in my seat. “One of the suspects in the disappearance used to work for Mr. Gage. I'm hoping he can answer some questions about this man and others and what was going on at the dam at that time.” I smiled good naturedly. “I understand he's a history buff.”

Her eyes went flat. “We're in the midst of some extremely delicate negotiations. The last thing we need is for him to become entangled in something like this. The media would make a circus out of it.”

“My inquiry's confidential. I just—”

She stood up, her face set in stone. “Sorry, Mr. Claxton. Braxton will cooperate with any police inquiries, of course, but that's as far as it goes.”

I stood up. “Why don't you let him decide that?”

She smiled. Winter ice. “We're done here.”

That was it. No way I was getting in to see Braxton Gage. Stephanie Barrett walked me to the top of the stairs without saying anything else. As I filed out I walked past the bald behemoth whose coat didn't fit, I now realized, because of his massive chest and shoulders, not his girth. He was standing in the hall in front of the mahogany doors with his hands clasped in front of him. He did not wish me a nice day.

The rain had let up, and the long drive home gave me a chance to think. The casino deal with the Tribes was front and center with Stephanie Barrett. There was no doubt in my mind that she had her mind made up before I got a word out. I wondered if she had consulted with her boss before my arrival or made the decision on her own. Like she said, the publicity could kill the deal, and Gage just talking to me must've seemed threatening to her. It made sense.

I thought about Sherman Watlamet, the first victim, the man who was going to come forward and get something dark and heavy off his chest. Gage was connected through his old employee, Cecil Ferguson, who was at the center of it all. What had Ferguson said when I told him Watlamet was dead? Something like, “Should have kept my fucking mouth shut.” He also said that nothing could be proved.

So why take the drastic step of killing Watlamet if the fifty year old crimes could never be proved? It was a question that had been nagging at me from the outset. Maybe the answer was to prevent a ‘media circus' that could cause a multi-million dollar deal to crater.

Could it be that simple?

Chapter Forty

“Why don't you go make some coffee, boy?” I said. Archie had just nudged me with his cold puppy nose and planted a slobbery kiss on my cheek. It was Saturday, and the clock on the nightstand read 6:50. I slipped on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and went down the back staircase to the kitchen, the stair treads cold on my bare feet. A layer of fog lay across the valley, so thick it looked like you could walk on it. Here and there the tallest Douglas firs pierced the gray expanse like serrated watch towers.

I fed Arch and opened the door for him. He flew across the porch and burst into the yard, barking at nothing in particular except the joy of starting a new day. I chuckled and shook my head. Claire had been right about getting a dog. It was therapeutic. I steamed some milk, loaded the espresso maker, and added a double shot to the milk. The cup was warm in my hand, the coffee delicious. I stood staring out at the fog sea and felt, if not at peace, at least not at war with myself.

The cappuccino tasted so good I made a second along with two pieces of toast slathered with Scottish marmalade. I took the coffee and toast into my study and was reading the online New York Times when my phone rang. “Hey, Cal, what's up?” The raspy voice was just north of a whisper but instantly recognizable.

“Big C. How are you?”

She chuckled then coughed. “Oh, I'm sore as hell but they tell me I'm gonna live.”

“Are you out of intensive care?”

“No, not yet.”

“You sure you should be calling me?”

She chuckled and coughed again. “Hank smuggled my phone in. I, uh, wanted to thank you and Philip for patching me up out there. I'm real grateful to both of you and kind of embarrassed I got myself shot like that.”

“Well, I'm just glad you wore your Kevlar. I—”

“Gotta get off, Cal. Nurse Ratched's coming. Thank Philip for me, okay?”

The line went dead and I laughed out loud. It was good to hear Big C's voice, even if it was barely audible.

I called Philip and described the call, and then I told him about my aborted visit to Braxton Gage. He said, “All that way and you didn't even get in to see to the old fart? Maybe that business manager didn't even tell him you were coming.” He said he'd mention it to his dad, but neither of us thought it would do much good. I was groping in the dark and we both knew it.

The last thing he said was, “Eastern Oregon's finest still haven't caught the sniper, Cal. You're watching your back, right?”

The file of newspaper articles Winona had given me lay on my desk. I opened it and looked again at the photo of Sherman Watlamet and Royce Townsend. Another connection from the past. On a notepad sitting on my desk, I'd written the name Sheri North so I wouldn't forget it. She was the singer Fletcher Dunn had mentioned—Royce Townsend's mistress according to Dunn. If Gage wouldn't talk to me, maybe North would. It was worth a shot.

I booted up and began searching the Internet for anything on Sheri North. On an obscure site selling vinyl LPs, I found one reference to a record she'd made in the fifties. Other than that, there was nothing on her. There were a dozen or so listings in the Portland - Vancouver area for the last name North with first names beginning with S. Two were listed as S. North. I had just finished jotting down information on them all when Archie's ears came up, and he began to whine softly. Santos had arrived.

I went down the hall to the kitchen and waived him in from the porch. He set the book he'd borrowed the week before on the table and knelt down and greeted Archie, who by this time was whimpering and wagging his entire backside. He looked at the bandage on my left arm and said, “Get your stitches out?”

“Yep. You ready?”

I pumped up the basketball while Santos swept the driveway in front of the hoop. When he set the push broom aside, I flipped him the ball and said, “First to twenty-two. Take it out.”

He took a couple of dribbles with his left hand, feinted left, then crossed over to his right hand and started to drive around me. When I moved to stay in front of him, he switched hands and direction again, this time by flipping the ball behind his back. By the time I recovered he'd blown past me and spun the ball off the backboard into the net with his left hand.

“Two zip,” he said.

We battled back and forth, but he won the first game easily. I took the second by one basket, but only because I began to back him down and use my height to score in close.

My left arm was throbbing and I was still breathing heavily when I said, “You're good, Santos. Newberg could use you at point guard. Ever think about playing?”

He shrugged and looked down at his shoes. I could tell by the gesture that he had thought about it.

“What's stopping you?”

He continued to study his shoes.

I waited.

He lifted his head but avoided eye contact. “High school sucks, man. You don't know what it's like.”

“Tell me.”

“I'm invisible there. Anglo kids, Anglo teachers, all in their little Anglo club. He flicked his thumb in the direction of the book on the table. “It's sorta like in that book you loaned me. The dude's trying to survive in a place he doesn't belong. That's the way I feel.”

I caught his eyes. “That kid didn't quit, did he.”

He shrugged. “I can't play with a police record, right?”

“Wrong. As long as you're in school, you can play. And you don't have a record yet. We're going to ask the judge for probation at your hearing. If he grants it and you stick to the terms, they'll wipe the slate clean.

“They do that?”

“Yeah, if you do what the judge orders and you don't screw up again.”

Santos didn't say anything, but he looked like I'd just removed a couple of sandbags from his shoulders.

I left him splitting firewood with Archie watching over him and drove to Newberg to run some errands. On the way, I called Fletcher Dunn, but he didn't answer. As I was finishing up, my phone chirped.

“Have they caught that son of a bitch yet?”

“Afraid not,” I answered, recognizing Dunn's voice. “How are you, Fletch?”

“I read about the shooting of that deputy in Eastern Oregon. Damn shame.”

“Yeah, well, at least every cop in the Northwest's looking for him now.”

“That's good, but you're not letting your guard down, are you, Cal?”

I chuckled. “You're the second person who's asked me that this morning. That's why I called. Remember that singer you told me about—Sheri North? I want to find her.”

“You think she can help after all this time?”

“I don't know. She was the mistress of the head honcho at the dam. You never know about pillow talk.”

“You look over in Washington like I said?”

“I looked in the whole Portland-Vancouver area, then both states. There's no listing for Sheri North. Lots of Sharons and Shirleys, but I have no way to sort them out. Of course, like you said, it could be a stage name.”

There was a pause. “You know, the guy you should talk to is Stan Abelman. Know him?”

“The jock on the twenty-four-hour jazz station?”

“Right. He's a walking encyclopedia about the Portland music scene, past and present. He might know something.”

I described my meeting with Stephanie Barrett next and asked Dunn for another favor. I wanted the inside scoop on the Gorge casino project, the key players, particularly anything he could find on Barrett, and the amount of money that was likely to change hands. I could have asked Philip to go through his dad for this, but I figured I'd get a straighter story from the ex-newspaperman. Dunn jumped at this like a cub reporter.

After Dunn and I signed off, I drove back to the Aerie. Santos had finished splitting the stack of logs I'd left him with and was weeding the ground around my blueberry bushes. The day had turned sunny, so he ate the lunch I made him out on the porch. I looked up Abelman's number and got him on the third ring. That's the beauty of Portland—its celebrities are in the phone book. He was very cordial. He knew of Sheri North but had no idea where she was now, or whether that was her real name. He did, however, remember the name of her manager—a guy named Harry Voxell—although he was pretty sure Harry had passed away.

There was only one Voxell in the Portland phone directory. I had just about hung up when a woman answered, somewhat out of breath. “Hello, this is Lydia.”

Telling her the true reason for my call would have taken too much time, so after introducing myself, I said, “I'm doing a retrospective on the early Portland jazz scene. I'm wondering if you're related to Harry Voxell.”

“Um, yes I am. I'm his niece.” The voice grew cautious.

“Oh, terrific,” I said in a cheery tone to reassure her I wasn't selling anything. “Do you happen to know how I could contact him?”

“He passed away ten years ago.”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I paused, but she remained silent. “Uh, I'm also interested in interviewing a singer he used to manage way back in the fifties. Her name's Sheri North. Do you have any idea how I might contact her?”

There was another pause, as if she were considering the question. Then she answered with finality in her tone, “I'm sorry but I can't help you.”

“Do you know Sheri North? Is she still around?” I asked the questions in rapid fire, fearing she was going to hang up on me.

“I'm sorry.”

“But, I—”

Click.

“Damn it,” I said as I threw my pen across the room. “Good thing I didn't go into telemarketing.”