CHAPTER   1


     Private investigator Andi Wicksham stood at the edge of a double row of
small holes aligned in a field with similar rows holding miniature winter-bare
roses.  With the rain plastering her hair to her head and dripping down her neck,
Andi cursed not bringing a hat and that she'd been so eager for a case without 
veterinarians or infidelity that she'd been seduced into this one.  Her eyes flitted
from client to client pondering their real agenda--twenty-four roses couldn't
possibly be important enough to justify her daily fee.
     It was an early spring downpour--with rain falling faster than it could be
absorbed, the ground glistening under a sheen, running to rivulets along each
row to gather into streamlets filling flooding ditches at the far edge of the
garden.  Big drops splashed madly in half-full holes.  Her four clients stood
quietly half a step back on the other side, heads bowed, each alone with their
thoughts as if sharing a grave-side prayer.
     Yesterday Darrel Feight, the missing rose's owner was found dead in his
living room and twenty-four of his miniature roses were discovered missing.  It
had rained all day yesterday like it was raining now, the rain had washed all
detail from the paths once over-run with crisscrossing cart-tracks and muddy
footprints.
     Andi watched her client's faces.  Perhaps it was the water soaking her
pants and socks that made her wish she had another way to make a living. 
Maybe the rain and overcast prejudiced her, but already she didn't like them.  
     She just discovered that her new yellow, thigh-length rain-coat of an
impenetrable rubbery fabric leaked at its seams.  Water ran down her neck--she
squirmed only to feel it trace a cold, damp track down her back.  
     Andi stooped to look closer at the holes; two thrusts with a curve-backed
shovel, one on each side, then the shovel was levered against the path side of
the hole.  Bits of root trailed from the sides and bottom where they'd yanked
from the soil.  She glanced around the soggy crime scene.  It felt vaguely of
standing in Liliput; all the roses in the section were stubby miniatures; bare
branches with only the barest hint of budding leaves.
     She rose to turn and look across to the parking lot--it was separated from
the house by a thick hedge.  A tree-shaking gust of wind dashed a torrent off the
pavement and into a misty-aerosol that caught and streaked sideways like fog
before the rain settled back to a steady downpour.
     "They could still be here somewhere, couldn't they?" Andi asked, peering
through the rain to fix the general lay-out of the property in her mind.  "...behind
a shed or something?"
     "No...we searched thoroughly."  Warren Laroux dismissed the idea out of
hand, blinked water from his eyes and turned from the driving rain.
     Andi accepted the claim without challenge; things could always be
hidden; how hard would this group of overly-comfortable dilettantes look?  Andi
glanced over her shoulder to the shelter of the potting shed, shook her head
and stepped purposefully in that direction.  Despite her slicker she was soaked
to the bone.  She silently cursed the way the mud grabbed with clay-like
restraining tugs each time she raised a foot.
     "Nothing else missing?"  Andi addressed Laroux as he caught up with her. 
He was the executor of the estate and the dead man's attorney; it was he who
had called her in.
     He shook his head "No" and wiped his thinning hair to the side of his
forehead.
     Andi reviewed her mental file.  Yesterday morning Darrel Feight's body
was found by his niece--no signs of violence, no suicide note.  A preliminary
coroner's report noted that the death appeared consistent with myocardial
infarction--he was sixty-three.  
     The roses' disappearance was discovered late yesterday--six hours after
Feight was found, maybe ten hours after his death.  This morning, a call from
Laroux waited on her office machine.  She'd called back and flatly stated her
day was crowded--Laroux insisted and finally she cleared a hour.
     Darrel Feight's horticultural beneficiaries followed behind them up the
path.  Andi watched Laroux as he walked beside her.  "If this is a commercial
nursery, there must be plants dug all the time.  How can you be sure these were
his hybrids?"  She stepped under the overhang and scraped her shoes on one of
the two steel mud-irons set in cement at the edge of the covered potting shed.
     Laroux stood at the other scrapper.  "Not this time of year.  Bare-rootstock season's mid-fall to winter, then pruning, cleanup and Christmas. 
There's little done mid-winter to mid-spring."  He took his water-spattered
glasses off and held them in his hand.  "Anyway...the holes are fresh."
     Andi ignored his pointing out the obvious.  "You said he hadn't sold any
roses in months?"
     "...we checked his bookkeeping--there's no paper-trail...besides, all four
of us were here sunday..."  He gestured toward the others just stepping in from
the rain.  "...we can attest to them being there." Laroux took off his hat and ran
his fingers across his damp scalp.  "I think Jennifer has a photo showing Darrel
and William kneeling beside them."
     Andi felt her attention wandering; she pulled herself back to the problem. 
"Would anyone but a collector would want them?" she queried politely.  There'd
be no difficulty maintaining professional distance from her clients in this case. 
The way they could pour conspicuous amounts of money down muddy holes and
rationalize it as business made her skin crawl even when the money was flowing
to her pocket.  Maybe she was in the wrong line of work--who but the rich hired
detectives?  Why investigate roses instead of their friend and colleague's
death?
     "Any real rose fancier might.  These are the cream of Darrel's
work...culmination of two decades of grafting and hybridizing...they're
distinctive and unique..."  Warren's voice resonated heavy with loss and he
concluded with a heart-felt sigh.
     Andi looked back as the others approached.  "There can't be many rose
experts around.  If the roses turn up in a couple of years wouldn't you know they
were the stolen ones?"
     Jennifer Gould started scraping her shoes, but paused to look over her
shoulder, "Individual bushes are seldom distinctive and we all develop similar
hybrids..."
     "Is it significant that the miniatures were almost bare of buds while other
roses already had shoots and leaves?" Andi looked back toward the holes
again.
     "Its probably easier on the plants to be disturbed now than a month from
now...but its just a species variation." Gould discounted the observation out of
hand.
     "So what made those valuable?"  Andi watched Gould's face.
     Jennifer Gould leaned back to give Andi a superior look.  "Darrel locked
unique attributes together in a stable genetic stock...a lacy-leafed, heavy-barked, tea-noisette with deep apricot color and spicy-apple scent topping off
deep-rose base notes."  She looked over her shoulder and gave a sad-eyed
smile.  "Whoever took them could adapt a new line and claim it as their own. 
They could do that in Santa Rosa, or Victoria, BC or anywhere..."
     Andi made a performance out of trying to understand, self-consciously
scuffing the edge of her shoe on the hard-packed, graveled floor like a kid
asking for her frisbie back.  "You know...it seems a casual collector might want
a plant or two...that might be reasonable for a garden...do you think that all of
them being taken points to a professional?"  She trailed the word `professional'
upward and looked beyond Jennifer in the direction of the rose-less rows of
water-filled holes.
     "You have to control all of a strain to claim it." Jennifer Gould confirmed
with gruff authority.  "Only a commercial hybridizer would need that..."  She
gave a last kick at the mud-iron, pulled at the collar of her coat and pushed past
Andi to give William Tyson a turn at scraping the mud from his shoes.
     Andi nodded and stepped to the rear of the open walled potting shed,
watching her clients mill, shaking water from their clothes and exchanging
generalities.
     "You think Darrel Feight died of a heart attack?" Andi asked Laroux.
     He shrugged disconsolately, "The police evidently thought so...they're
awaiting lab results."  Warren turned away from the others, caught Andi's eye
and replied half-under his breath.  "It's too much of a coincidence for me...you
are keeping your eye on that, aren't you?"  He shot Andi a cold stare, holding
her eyes until breaking away with a little underscoring nod.
     Andi chewed her lip and tried to keep on track.  Stray thoughts of her
partner Lena kept stirring, rising up to steal attention.  Last week they argued
about pets; decided no to a dog, maybe to a cat.  Then they argued about time
spent with friends; how much responsibility to take on when one had a hard
time.  Lena was back warm and dry in their office.
     Andi blinked and shook her head to clear it, yanking herself back her
business at hand.  Laroux said the stolen roses could be worth a couple or three
hundred thousand depending on how they were sold.  It was hard to believe--exaggeration was a basic human trait, but what did she know of the price of
roses?  Still...she made a mental note to cash her checks the same day she got
them.
     Along with the recently departed Darrel Feight--William Tyson, Jennifer
Gould, Elizabeth Dao, and Warren Laroux shared a devotion to rose breeding. 
They were among the Northwest's most successful hybridizers and they lived
within a half-mile of each other.  They were the beneficiaries of Feight's roses. 
Andi did a quick mental division; a few hundred grand--each share would be fifty
or seventy-five--not sharing would probably make the money enough to kill for if
their professional reputations and the breeding potential wasn't enough.
     With no other descendants, the non-rose bulk of the estate was going to
his niece Alison Simpson, a poor relative he'd taken in after her release from
several years in a mental hospital.  She'd answered the door when Andi came,
an insecure, plain woman--but obviously with more sense than her clients--she'd
declined the invitation to join them in the downpour.
     Alison Simpson was rumored to have no interest in her uncle's passion,
hence his will's instructions that the roses go to his rivals--they at least, would
honor the fruit of his work.  Simpson had kept house for Feight the last fourteen
years.  Now, Warren Laroux had quietly explained, Simpson was receiving the
property and house with a portfolio of holdings in the comfortably upper six-figure range.
     Simpson had answered the door when Andi knocked.  She'd let her in
without meeting eyes, simply showing her to the drawing room where her
uncle's friends waited.  Then, without a word to her guests, she closed the
drawing room door and retired to the kitchen.
     The rose breeders greeted Andi with hand-shakes and introductions
while overlooking Simpson the way they'd overlook a waitress or busboy.  Her
uncle's will carried his obsession beyond the grave, giving these snobs a
sizeable portion of what would have been hers.  Andi made a mental note--if her
uncle treated her like his friends did now, she had an understandable reason to
hate him.
     Andi had brought up the expense of investigation during the first minute
together with her clients and had given her standard disclaimer--results not
guaranteed.  None of them seemed concerned with her fee or that it might go
for naught and none excluded Darrel Feight's death from her inquiry's focus.
     They insisted that she view the site the downpour.  The way they'd trailed
passively behind had bolstered the sense of grave-side mourning and fed the
illusion of her presiding over a solemn proceeding. 
     Andi told them bluntly that since each had motive and opportunity, they
themselves were the most likely suspects.  It didn't seem to alarm or dissuade
them.  Andi looked from face to face to read who might be nervous, but learned
nothing--each stared back interested, but unmoved.
     Soaked and bad-humored, Andi finally broke away, declined an offer of
coffee, curtly announcing she'd inspect each of their gardens and need forty
minutes of their time for questions. 
     She retreated to her car, grateful to escape; started the engine and rolled
down the long driveway, cursing that she hadn't gotten the new windshield
wipers Lena'd suggested and trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. 
     Hoping for an insight this morning, after talking to Laroux, she'd called
her mother.  Doris Wicksham, now a retired political science professor had
dabbled in rose breeding and knew Elizabeth Dao.  Her mother first chatted
about some medical tests, then offered impressions and backgrounds of her
clients.
     Elizabeth Dao had been a fellow academic from Lewis and Clark, with an
office up the hall from Andi's mother.  Dow and her mother had a collegial
closeness build through parallel careers liberally scattered with committee
meetings, white wine-and-brie receptions and the tedium of teaching.  Dabbling
in roses ranked low among her mother's retirement interests, but she'd heard
significant gossip.
     There had been five in Portland's inner court of rose hybridizers--a set of
affluent, comfortably-intellectual retirees; Darrel Feight had been active the
longest.  By her mother's account, he'd retired as an engineer to perfect his
reputation as cantankerous old goat.
     Warren Laroux joined the group about the same time as Betty Dao, six or
eight years ago, pouring himself into roses with a passion after the death of his
wife.  The third man, William Tyson, moved from Virginia five years before with a
seemingly effortless entre to their circle.  He was a tall, angular Air Force
retiree vigorously dabbling in real estate, roses and right-wing politics.
     Jennifer Gould joined just after Tyson, moving to the immediate
neighborhood and being accepted among the inner coterie something just over
four years ago.  Gould was a retired bank manager, with a permanently soured
expression and straight-backed, anal fussiness that rankled Andi before they
were even introduced.
     All had been widowed, all were economically comfortable if not affluent,
carried themselves with a condescending air of disapproval and shared a
passion for miniature roses.  All had come out and withstood the downpour to
accompany her.  In all probability though, one of them had twenty-four roses
hidden away among their own.  She had a gut-feeling about Darrel Feight's
death--eat least one of those people behind her knew more than they were
saying.
     Andi turned from Feight's drive onto the small lane.  It was as good to get
away from them as it was to get out of the rain.  They reminded her of the worst
parts of her mother.


     Andi phoned Lena from the telephone booth in front of a convenience
store/gas station on the county road just up from Feight's.  "Lena...call Spinelli
for me, would you?  Make up something, I'm soaked and going to be twenty
minutes late..." 
     "Yo Sherlock...I just talked to him, seems his baritone sax turned up at a
neighbor's.  I told him we'd still bill a minimum...he said `Fine..'"
     "So what time's my next appointment?" Andi shivered as a gust of wind
tore at her wet clothes.  She could see her reflection in the storefront's window,
her short, dark hair lay plastered to her forehead made her ears obvious, the
angular lines of her face in the humorless dead-pan lines.
     "You got a four-thirty in Sellwood about documenting an
infidelity...remember...Mrs. Knowles?" Lena seemed to be reaching across her
table for a file.  "She wants you to come up with high-tech surveillance
stuff...you talked twice on the phone."
     "Oh yeah, the techno-freak..." Andi grumbled disconsolately at being
reminded.
     "She's buying and we're keeping...so don't discourage her..." Lena
cautioned dryly.  "Maybe push her toward an audio dish or infra-red video
camera...you looked through the catalogues?"
     Andi avoided looking through the magazines of Mission Impossible spy-gear the way she avoided TV evangelists.  While legal to sell and own the stuff,
using it treaded questionable ground.  "Why doesn't Knowles just divorce him?"
she complained insincerely.  "Either he's screwing around or not...either she's
unhappy or not...why spend six or eight grand digging up evidence?"
     "Your mid-century roots are showing, Sherlock." teased Lena.  "Maybe
Knowles thinks black-mail will squeeze a settlement...maybe it spices their love
life.  For all we know she's a voyeur and they plan the exploits together...maybe
they'll play your humble recordings over and over in the privacy of their
bedroom.  Think of yourself as a sexual aide...after all, you're charging like a
therapist."
     "Good-bye Watson..." replied Andi, putting as much of a droll edge on her
response as she could.  She returned to her car and turned the heater to max. 
The rain was slacking off.  She'd speed home for a shower and change of
clothes. 
     What a life--lucky her, with Spinelli crossed off her calendar she could
whittle an inch or two of paperwork from her pending box before heading out to
discuss high-tech surveillance with a rich matron into spy novels and intrigue.


     In warm, dry clothes Andi returned to her office.  There in Portland it was
only a steady drizzle.  On her desk was a note that her mother called.
     "She sounded upset..." Lena offered with a quiet voice so unlike her usual
tone that Andi got suspicious.  Lena was dressed in layers of mismatched,
bright-colored clothes, her hair bleached strikingly white and growing out about
four inches long in an carefully un-coiffed mop.
     Without even going around to her chair Andi reached for the phone and
impatiently punched in the number.  It was already well after lunch-time and her
stomach growled objections.  
     "Hello...Doris Wicksham..." her mother answered. 
     "Hi Mom...I got a note that you called..." Andi idly looked out the window
at the people walking the sidewalk across the street in the rain.
     "Hi, honey..." her mother's voice sounded tired, with an edge that could
be the residue of tears.
     "What's up?  You don't sound too good..." 
     "Are you sitting down, Andi?" her mother asked.
     Andi wasn't, but she said "Yeah, why?"
     "I just got the results of a biopsy...my breast cancer's back and...it's
spreading..."  There was a long, long silence in which the world seemed to
contract to a pinpoint.  "Andi?  Are you there?" her mother asked with alarm.
     Andi felt the blood drain from her face.  "Yeah..." she croaked, suddenly
feeling cold and clammy.  "I'm here...are you sure?  Are you OK?  Where are
you?"
     "I'm in shock at the moment...I'd thought I was all done with that..."  Her
mother's voice broke as she subdued a sob with a gasping breath. 
     "Have you told Cinny?" Cinny was her sister, in Dallas now.  "What do
they want to do?  Is there anything I can do?"  Andi fought back the question--what it meant. 
     She was afraid that she already knew.  She didn't want to ask, didn't want
to hear, didn't want to know.
     "...I couldn't face Cinny just now.  Maybe you could call her in a few
days...after the results of the next batch of tests..."  Her mother had lapsed into
the quiet, resigned voice she'd used when Andi's father died.
     "What sort of treatment will this mean?" Andi pushed impatiently.  She
held the phone to her ear as she circled around and sank resignedly in her
chair.
     "Radiation for sure...they think it's into my bones...maybe a marrow
transplant...I don't really know."  Her voice had ebbed to a whisper.
     "Radiation again?"  Andi asked, "Another surgery?"
     "I don't know, honey...I don't know.  I just wanted to tell you.  I'm going in
tomorrow for another appointment.  They'll take another set of biopsies and
blood.  When I talk to Dr. George she'll fill in details."
     "Do you want me to come down?  I could be there..." Andi looked at her
watch, "...in an hour...it's really no problem.  What do you need?"
     Mrs. Wicksham's voice recovered the tone of competency Andi always
remembered it having.  "I just needed to tell you, Andi.  No, don't come
down...stay up there with Lena.  There'll be time enough to visit and discuss
everything..."  The assurance and strength that reentered her voice was more
reassuring than anything she could have said.
     "OK, Mom..." Andi replied quietly.  "...shall I call tomorrow?"
     "In the evening, but if I'm out just try the next day..."  There was a moment
of quiet as if her mother was reviewing a list.  "Now I've a lot more to do so I've
got to hang up.  Thanks for calling back..."  Her mother sounded exactly like she
used to when telling about upcoming plans for a symposium on a weekend Andi
had softball games.
     "Is there anything I can do?" asked Andi in a helpless voice.
     "Well, I suggest you put off calling Cinny for a couple of days.  You'd put
the wrong spin on it entirely if you called her in the state you're in now.  Do what
you think best, but that's my suggestion..."
     "Sure..." Andi responded subdued.
     "Other than that, I can't think of anything dear...I know this is going to be
hard, but I want to put the best face on it that I can.  OK?  Until later then...I love
you..."
     Andi blinked.  The phone line clicked off as she was saying "Goodbye,"
and she slowly lowered the phone to her desk.
     Lena had come over.  "Andi?" she asked gently.  "It's bad isn't it?"  She
looked down into Andi's face and reached a finger to dab away a tear that
formed at the outer edge of Andi's eye. 
     "Her cancer's back..." Andi said simply.  Her voice came close to sobbing
and she had a haunted look in her eyes.  "...it's spread..."
     Lena watched Andi's face until she realized that Andi's eyes weren't
focusing on the room around them.  Without another word, she returned to
chair, took up her phone and rescheduled Andi's appointments.


     That afternoon their office was empty.  
     Lena took Andi out for a walk in the rain.  They walked up and down the
branching paths of Mount Tabor until they were soaked and their muscles
ached.  Still on foot, they drifted back to their apartment, stopped for a drink of
water and dry clothes and stayed to make long, needy love on the rumpled
sheets of their un-made bed.
     Later, as evening over-took late afternoon, Andi sat by herself under the
eves of the balcony while Lena poached some sole from the freezer in lemon
juice and capers and steamed broccoli and rice to go with it.
     Andi could smell the fish, but her stomach felt leaden.  That her mother
had called her instead of Cinny was almost shocking--Cinny had always been
the close one, the one her mother would confide in.  
     Now her mother didn't even want Andi to phone Cinny for a couple of
days--Cinny who was a CPA and always a good girl in the most nauseating
sense of the word.  Andi could hardly believe her mother'd called her first to
share the tragedy.  In a depressing way it was more validation than she'd ever
had before.  The thought brought a cryptic smile--then she hated herself for
finding anything good in the situation. 
     Her mother discovered a breast lump six years ago, had a lumpectomy
and radiation.  No mastectomy and no chemo to take her hair and drain her
strength.  That was it, the whole of it, she thought it a scary chapter long closed.
     For it to return was bad, that it had spread, dangerous, and to her bones,
worst of all.  Andi fought against really knowing, but death rose unbidden
behind other thoughts.  Stomach-gnawing hopelessness opened its maw like a
canyon.  She'd have come home to drink if it were five years ago during her
binge period.  Now, she sat feeling the air on her skin, feeling the slow pacing
pulse of time tick against the ultimate futility of life.
     Lena stuck her head out the door, seeking Andi's eyes before saying
anything.  "Dinner's ready...want to eat out here?"
     "No..." Andi didn't want any favors marking this time as special.  "No, I'll
come in..."






                           CHAPTER   2


     In the turmoil accompanying learning of her mother's diagnosis, Andi had
left her car down by Hawthorne so, after a quiet breakfast of fruit and toast she
and Lena walked to work, umbrellas in hand like a couple of schoolgirls.  There,
they worked quietly; Lena careful and protective, intercepting each call that
came in--Andi with a hard lump in her chest that she almost willed to be her own
inoperable cancer so she could be bonded more securely to her mother.
     She cranked out routine skip-searches as she ruminated over Feight. 
Feight's death was still unexplained.  If the toxicological report came up blank
and it was still a heart attack, what could induce it; electric shock?  Surely the
pathologist would look for that sort of burn marks.  With an elderly man and no
suspicious evidence on the scene the medical examiner might not give him the
attention they should.  They'd probably checked the brain for hemorrhage and
the spine for dislocation and trauma when they checked his heart. 
     That regular examination covered ninety-nine point nine percent of the
otherwise unexplained deaths they investigated.  What was less obvious?  How
would someone kill without leaving a trace?  She jotted a note to ask about his
medical condition in the last month and if withholding medications could have
killed him.  Simpson might have switched real meds for something else. 
Laboratory tests more sophisticated than simple screens were expensive and
only wielded with strong evidence pointing to foul play--it was all to easy to
guess that the Medical Examiner might not go the big-ticket route.
     Mid-morning, Andi drove through an off-and-on drizzle to keep
appointments with Alison Simpson and William Tyson.  Lena'd efficiently
scheduled them without consulting her--she'd meet them both at Feight's. 
Simpson because she lived there, Tyson because he told Lena that meeting at
his place wasn't acceptable that morning.
     Turning off the county road at the convenience store, she drove the small
lane at a crawl, peering up driveways and studying the houses to get a feel for
the neighborhood.  There weren't many turn-offs from the lane, she paused a
moment at Feight's drive, then drove past two more houses before the road
ended in a rutted turn-around. 
     The lane wandered through a small valley of ten to twenty acre plots--tracing both lines of overlooking hills she could see no access roads cutting
over.  Unless a neighbor carted the roses home, the lane was figuratively as
well as literally a dead-end.  She turned her car and drove back to the house
that would soon be Alison Simpson's.
     Simpson must have been waiting.  She opened the door before Andi had
time to knock and led her quietly down the hall to a sunny table in the kitchen. 
She was dressed as she'd been before, in an ill-fitting, much-washed dress with
her greying, dishwater blond hair held back with plain red plastic barrettes like
Dorothy of Kansas.  "I hope you don't mind meeting here..." she apologized
shyly.  "Uncle Darrel always used the living and sitting rooms...I've always
waited in the kitchen...I guess I'm more comfortable here..."  Simpson gave an
awkward shrug, then stood as if waiting insecurely for instructions before
finally gesturing for Andi to sit, "...do you want coffee?"
     Andi smiled, nodded and chose a position where she could look out the
window at the south-east garden.  "You've been here fourteen years?" Andi
asked congenially, she left her notebook unopened on the table, deemphasizing
the business aspect of her presence.  A small double picture frame with photo's
of Feight and William Tyson stood on the counter with scraps of paper from a
small pad.  The room was high-ceilinged and airy, large stove, a dry pantry
stood beside the open door to steep, winding back-stairs leading up to the
second story.
     Alison moved to the stove and turned a flame on under the tea pot.  There
was momentary pause, she glanced up and then quickly away. 
"Yes...fourteen..."
     "Were you close to your uncle?"  There were two more note-pads and half
a dozen pieces of paper.  Andi craned her neck to read.
     Alison twitched as if surprised at the question, still turned away.  "He was
good to me..."  Her voice was clipped and a bit defensive.  "I've never had
anything of my own.  If he hadn't taken me in I suppose I'd be living out of a
shopping cart."  She carefully measured coffee into a filter and waited by the
stove for the water to boil.
     "But were you close?" Andi repeated.  "Did you talk, did he tell you
anything of his friends?"  The notes were all lists; lists of chores, of books of
thoughts, of actions in making coffee.  There was one on mopping the kitchen
floor that included getting out the bucket, taking it to the sink, and turning on
the water.
     Alison shook her head, still looking away from Andi.  "He didn't really
think much of me...we didn't talk.  He was doing me a favor.  I was here to keep
house.  That's all."  She paused quirkily between each phrase and looked
embarrassed at the admission.
     "But you know his friends?  The four he gave his roses to?"  She needed
to get the interview on track.  Feight seemed to have been a jerk, but Andi didn't
care about their family dynamics--Simpson's resentfulness was enough to keep
her on the suspect's list.
     A flash of bitterness washed Alison's face and then disappeared.  "Of
course I knew them, they came over all the time to talk roses with Uncle
Darrel."  She said it simply, without rancor, but with the flat affect of the
severely depressed.
     "You didn't join them?" Andi asked gently.
     Alison swung her head from side to side like a little girl.  "I brought them
coffee and served lunch."  She poured hot water through the coffee, set a plate
with four cookies on the table and settled, ill at ease, to Andi's left.
     Andi watched silently; each of Simpson's actions was simple and
conscious.  Pouring coffee, carrying cups, pulling out the chair and sitting
down--a hand sweeping her dress straight under her as she descended--perfectly polite and proper, though barely risking eye contact since meeting
Andi at the door.
     Andi allowed a silent few moments to tick away.  Alison sat primly upright,
staring at the table between them with nervous anticipation.
     Andi offered a smile and murmured "Thank you..." before raising her cup
to her lips.  She held the coffee as a prop, a symbolic screen between them,
asking "...tell me about them..." from behind the steam rising from her mug.
     "They talked about roses...hardly anything else."  Alison's eyes darted to
Andi's, then flitted away.  "I don't like roses..."
     "What do you think about them as people?  Your uncle knew Warren
Laroux a long time..." Andi let the sentence end as a statement instead of a
question.
     "...longer than I've been here..." Alison smiled suddenly, her eyes
sparked, but didn't quite focus.  "He and Uncle Darrel were
related...distantly...Aunt Tamara and Mr. Laroux's wife were step-cousins..." 
She leaned forward as if to share a womanly confidence.  "They were a couple
of grumpy codgers...playing chess, drinking brandy and smoking their pipes in
the living room...especially before Mr. Tyson and the others came along."  She
squinched up her nose as if remembering a disagreeable smell.
     "That would be after their wives died?" Andi asked more to buy another
moment to think than for the answer.
     "Their wives died before I came..." Alison responded, suddenly sad and
remote.  "That was a long time ago...I went to Aunt Clare's funeral..."
     Andi let another moment or two pass to let the mood clear.  A bulletin
board hung on the wall covered two and three levels deep with more of
Simpson's lists.  Andi sipped her coffee wondering how to bring the
conversation around to her uncle's death.  "How about William Tyson?"
     Simpson shifted uncomfortably in her chair.  "He's an interesting man..."
she admitted with a shy smile.  "He's decisive...I like that."  She seemed to drift
off in thought after making each statement.  She looked up suddenly.  "He has
strong hands, have you noticed?  And he's patriot...Air Force officer and
everything.  Has he talked to you about the constitution?"  Simpson asked as
eagerly. her cheeks had grown rosy and a warm smile graced her face.
     "So you've talked to him more than the others...?" Andi enquired politely,
the tone of the interview had drifted into that of a tea-party.  She set her cup
down and deliberately opened her notebook as if ready to get back to business.
     "Not really...only a couple of times..." blushed Simpson again.  "I've heard
him talking...when I see him by himself in the garden I go out, but usually can't
think of anything..."  She gave a flustered smile before staring selfconsciously
into her coffee.
     "But you like him..." encouraged Andi gently.
     "I respect him..." Alison admitted carefully, then took a breath and held it
as if waiting an explosion.
     "Do you think he's attracted to you?" Andi questioned bluntly.
     Alison Simpson hung her head shyly.  "I don't know...maybe a
little...maybe if he knew I watched him..." she blushed again.  "...he's always so
serious...it makes it hard to get close..."
     "How do you mean?" prompted Andi, kicking herself for wasting time
exploring Simpson's romantic fantasies.
     "Well...he talks politics when he's not talking roses.  He doesn't like the
government or the courts or schools or TV or music.  Sometimes all he does is
complain...but he's very organized and logical."  Her voice dwindled in volume
until it was almost a whisper.  "He doesn't like people who don't think like that."
     It was obvious that Simpson didn't think like that, no use asking if she
thought she did.
     Alison blinked and caught Andi's eye directly for the briefest of moments
before looking away again.  "I don't think he even likes roses...that they're just
something else to be best at."  She held Andi's gaze, her eyes opened wide in
apprehension, her mouth closed to a narrow pucker and a muscle twitching in
her cheek at the audacity she'd shown.
     Andi nodded and looked at the window, the clouds were beginning to
clear.  Simpson's answer might have been appropriate for an adolescent with a
crush, but not for a woman nearer middle age.  "You think he's embarrassed by
what the others might think?"  Andi wondered just how far from rational
Simpson was.
     "Maybe..." Simpson acceded defensively.  "...sometimes he ignores me. 
When the others are around he never looks or says `thank you.'  I think he's
shy...you think so?"
     Andi gave Alison a self-depreciating smile and shook her head.  "Believe
me...I'm not really good for advice."  
     Simpson just sat silently watching her. 
     Andi hazarded.  "I think he'd be difficult to get to know..."  She kept to
safe comments.  There weren't prudent responses to romance-and-attraction
questions.
     Simpson's lips tightened and she stared fixedly out the window.
     Andi paused to share the view, then gave a big sigh to break the mood. 
"Tell me about Jennifer Gould and Elizabeth Dao."  They were looking out to
where the twenty-four holes lay empty.
     Simpson seemed ill at ease at the mention of Gould and Dao.  "More
coffee?"  She asked it without looking into Andi's face, then without waiting for
an answer, stood, strode across to the stove and touched the tea-kettle to see if
it was hot.  "Neither of them like me..." she said in a quiet voice.  "Mrs. Gould
tried to be friendly...sought me out, but there was something about her I didn't
trust..."
     Andi noticed that her hand shook as she poured hot water into the filter. 
Simpson ended up with both hands on the teapot's handle.
     She continued awkwardly.  "...I'm not good at social things..." her voice
grew more insecure and reduced to a bare-whisper, "I'm not like other
people..."
     "Jennifer Dao sought you out?" Andi asked gently, purposefully ignoring
Simpson's comments.
     "One day when Uncle Darrel was outside she insisted I show her the
kitchen, then she turned chatty and nosey...asked about Uncle's business.  She
thinks I'm a meek little mouse and tried to use me..."  Simpson's voice abruptly
turned judgmental and a sneer twisted her upper lip. 
     Andi chewed at her lip and studied Alison's face.  Simpson's swings of
emotion were marked and that made evaluating her more difficult, but the
neuroses that ruled them were beyond her expertise.  The class-conflict wasn't
hard to read though.  It wasn't hard to imagine an unscaleable social barrier
between affluent, upwardly-mobile professional women and a penurious
housekeeper whose last tenure had been at a mental ward. 
     Andi let Simpson pour coffee before continuing.  "Which of them do you
think could have taken the roses?"
     Simpson shrugged as if she didn't care.
     Andi paused then probed again.  "Warren Laroux came out first on that
day you found your uncle, didn't he?"
     "They were all here...sunday and monday...all four of them.  They've
always treated the house as if it were their's...even since Uncle Darrel died..." 
Simpson sat properly, almost stiffly, her eyes blazing with indignation.
     "Did you expect them monday?" asked Andi.
     "I assumed they'd come...I called Uncle's lawyer Mr. Laroux after the
police."  She looked up apprehensively.
     Andi nodded.
     "...there wasn't any doubt that he was dead..." Simpson continued
defensively.  Wetting her lips with her tongue, she lifted her hands from her lap,
shifted the position of her coffee cup a bit to the right, then glanced up at Andi
with what could have been defiance.
     "You found him in the living room?" Andi had read the police report, but it
was always good to re-plow such ground.
     "I tried to help him sit-up, but he was already stiff and the lower side of his
face was purple with settling blood."  Simpson touched a finger to her cheek. 
"His eyes stared straight ahead without blinking...like dead people's on TV." 
Simpson's account was as detached as a morgue attendant's.  She lifted her
face toward Andi but focused on the wall behind her.  "I came back to use the
kitchen phone, then stayed so I wouldn't touch anything."
     "It sounds like you were extremely responsible..." complemented Andi
evenly, "...you called the police, then Mr. Laroux?"
     Smiling at the praise, Simpson continued.  "...he arrived right after the
police...Jennifer Gould came a few minutes later.  The police were only around
a few hours, until they took Uncle Darrel's body...by then all four were here...I
stayed in the kitchen as they came and went through the rest of the day."
     "They came and went?" asked Andi cautiously.
     Simpson sipped her coffee, then blew across its surface as if to cool it. 
"They stayed until the police left just before noon, then left but kept coming
back..."  There was a resentful look on her face and a flash of barely-submerged
hostility.  "They came and went a couple of times, looking at things, talking in
the drawing room among themselves...going into the living room."
     Andi nodded again.  "...and the police?" she prompted.
     A skeptical smile momentarily turned the corners of Simpson's mouth. 
"The police were being official...they asked if things were stolen.  We didn't
know, so Uncle Darrel's friends looked through the drawing room while I looked
through the rest of the house.  We didn't expect to find anything stolen..."
     "Nobody knew about the roses then?"  Andi had the police version.
     Simpson shrugged nonchalantly.  "I guess no one went outside...Mrs. Dao
discovered them missing that afternoon."  Both Simpson and Andi looked out
the window.  "It was three o'clock...I looked at the clock when she came in
yelling..."  A smug smile graced her lips.
     "Before that...it seems strange they'd stay..." Andi tried unsuccessfully to
catch Simpson's eyes.  "What were they doing...why the coming and going?" 
After asking the question Andi sat a quietly as she could, trying to ease into the
background.
     "I don't know...they argued...loudly, looking through his papers, shouting
at each other, driving off and coming back.  I didn't care...I guess I was
shocked...it was all I could do to answer the door when they rang."  Alison
brought her hands up to cover her cheeks.  Her eyes had a far-away look, as if
remembering her uncle--she held that held that pose until Andi spoke.
     "Loudly?  Arguing?" Andi's interest perked.
     "Arguing?  Sure...they were loud..." Simpson again favored Andi with an
unfocused gaze and self-satisfied smile.  "...they take roses very seriously."
     "Was one of the hand carts up at the parking lot when the roses were
discovered missing?"
     "No...not that I know of..."
     Andi chewed her lip.  "As they came and went, did they take anything
away?" 
     Alison, shook her head.  "Unless the front door's slammed, I don't hear it
and the parking lot's on the far side of the house.  I only knew when they'd ring
to get let in..." she pointed to the door bell over the kitchen door.  "The others
wouldn't answer the door."  She smiled contemptuously.
     "You stayed here all day?"  Andi pointed to the kitchen table.
     "Sipping tea and staring out the window." Alison murmured.
     "And you didn't see anyone outside?" 
     "No...I suppose I should have, shouldn't I have?" Alison worried, a wave of
doubt creased her brow.  "I guess I didn't watch every second."
     "I guess not..." smiled Andi.  "Did they leave one at a time or in a group?"
     "I don't know.  I walked around a bit...passed the drawing and living
rooms--the doors were open...a couple of times no one was here..." Simpson's
eyes anxiously shifted from window to floor to wall and back and her voice had a
slight, betraying tremor.
     "Nobody here?  Why would they drive off and keep returning?" pushed
Andi.  Alison must have been listening, at least unconsciously.
     "...checking mail?" guessed Alison vaguely.  "...and getting lunch...maybe
they had chores..."  Her eyes darted about the kitchen as if seeking answers to
the question.  "They used the telephone...I know because I tried to make a call
and they were on it."
     "They all live nearby?" Andi consciously made her voice easy and
undemanding, she lifted her coffee cup to her cheek and smiled as if sharing a
chummy moment.  
     Simpson blinked.  "Mrs. Gould lives on the other side of county road, Mr.
Laroux just north beyond the little store, Elizabeth Dao on the next road north
and William Tyson one road south...just over that ridge."  Alison pointed out the
window, then self-consciously pulled her sweater a little tighter.  "They're all
within minutes of here...do you want more coffee?"
     "No...no thank you..." Andi murmured.  There was a brief, awkward
moment of quiet.  "Actually I'd like to look around.  Can you show me the living
room and sitting room?  Then maybe I'll poke around outside..."  Andi looked up
to read her expression, but she was already rising, looking away, twisting a cup-towel between her hands and shaking her head as if responding to an internal
dialogue. 
     "Are you OK?  Is there something you want to tell me?" Andi asked gently. 
     "No!" Simpson answered a bit too loudly before turning abruptly away,
"You wanted to see the drawing room?" she asked the question demandingly as
she strode purposefully across the floor, leaving Andi to close her notebook,
rise and follow.
     The drawing room could have been more accurately termed a library. 
Bookcases lined two walls from floor to ceiling and two oak tables were strewn
with papers, manuals and reference books.
     Andi quickly scanned the shelves--books on horticulture, plant pathology
and grafting filled one bookcase.  The other was dedicated to books and
pamphlets and typewritten papers on roses.  There were photo albums and
scientific tomes, popular press pruning guides and catalogues from every rose
nursery in this half of the world.
     On a side-wall a locked gun case stood--two hunting rifles and a short-barreled, pump-action shot gun in a rack above three handguns--the case was
all oak and beveled-glass with brass fittings and maroon velvet padding.  These
were not generic hunting rifles.  The guns had hand carved rose-wood stocks
and engraved scrollwork on their barrels.  Even for a non-gun fancier like Andi
they were impressive.
     Simpson came up beside her and lay a hand on the side of the case. 
"Uncle Darrel won competition shooting matches." she volunteered proudly. 
"He loaded his own bullets and everything...want to see?"  Her eyes had opened
wide and her mouth was split with a eager smile.
     Andi looked up with an encouraging smile.
     Simpson turned and led upstairs to what must have been her uncle's suite
of rooms--two with a private bath, the first a bedroom, the bed neatly made, two
chest of drawers, a wood-framed antique-looking mirror on a wall with old
photographs.  There were no dirty clothes in the basket behind the door,
nothing was out of place, even the tops of the bureaus looked dusted.
     Andi followed through that room to the second.  It was obviously a work-room, two long tables waited with an efficient craftsman-like display of tools
and the warm, utilitarian smell of steel and gun-oil.  Parts of at least two
disassembled pistols and a rifle were neatly laid-out.  Two lever-action shell
reloaders were mounted on one side.  Simpson pointed to a shelf of trophies
and plaques--gold and wood--statues of men in various shooting positions with
pistols or rifles, each inscribed with Feight's name, the event and inevitably, a
first or second place.
     "He tried to teach me to shoot..." Alison said, "...but I don't like loud
sounds."  Her face took on a mask of pained concern.
     "I understand..." allowed Andi.  "...he did quite a lot of work here?"  There
were neat stacks of her notes on the table, all firearm related it seemed from
what she could see.
     "Oh yes..." beamed Simpson, "...I helped him clean guns and load shells
and all that...`like Annie Oakly' he'd say..."  She gave an embarrassed grin and
proudly met Andi's eyes a brief moment.
     "Neat..." offered Andi distractedly.  "He must have done lot of that sort of
thing..."
     "Him and Mr. Tyson.  They talked guns and went across to Mr. Tyson's
house to shoot..."  Beaming radiantly, she turned on her heel in slow motion. 
"...now I guess it's all mine..." she looked down at the workbench with obvious
pleasure.
     "I guess so..." responded Andi a bit uncomfortably, "...can you show me
the living room now?"  She stepped back out to the bedroom.
     Simpson paused as if reluctant to leave the room's pleasant aura, but
turned off the light and glided after her.
     "You must have cleaned up since yesterday morning..." observed Andi,
looking at the neatly made bed.
     Simpson followed her gaze and answered awkwardly.  "Well I had
to...with the police coming...didn't I?"  Her eyes swept around the room as if
seeking something she'd missed that was out of place.
     "Did your uncle sleep in this bed sunday night?" Andi asked pointedly.
     "Of course..." snapped Simpson defensively.  "Where else would he
sleep?"
     Andi stepped out to the upstairs' hall way to avoid the question, moving
quickly to poke into at least one more room before she could be headed off. 
There were three other doors off the hall--one was a large, well-lit, tiled
bathroom with pedestal sink and huge old tub.
     There were two other bedrooms; only one with an open door.  Its room
faced south-east garden like the kitchen directly below and must be Simpson's. 
A low, neatly made twin-bed waited with a chenille spread beside a narrow door
probably leading to the back-kitchen stairs, on the other side of the room an oak
chest of drawers had four prescription-labeled bottles lined in a row on its top. 
More notes lay on the bureau and bedside table.  There was an open closet with
neatly hung clothes.  In the open expanse between lay a large braided rag-rug in
browns and grays.  No pictures graced the walls, there were no books, no radio
or TV.
     Andi turned to look back at Alison, she'd stopped a pace behind her,
glowering at her guest's unauthorized intrusion.  The room had the vacant,
austere feel of a guest room.  Simpson set her jaw in disapproval as Andi
retreated downstairs.


     The living room was centered around a grey-brick fireplace. A low table
with a waiting chess board stood between over-stuffed chairs; two massive, oak
buffets lined the inner walls; the front wall held a bay window and cheerful
window seat set with square pillows and lace curtains.  A masculine smell of
pipe tobacco, brandy and dust hung in the air almost possessively.  It lent an air
of serious deliberation, of long evenings in talk and contemplation--contrasting
with the well-lit, studious feel of the drawing room or the yellow, efficient
breeziness of the kitchen. 
     "He was there..."  Alison stood in the doorway and pointed to the area
before the hearth.  A set of fireplace pokers stood to one side, the screen was
pulled open revealing a wrought iron grate with a few charred remains of logs. 
Ornate Persian rugs lay on either side--Feight's body must have lain on the
hardwood floor or the stone skirting before the fire.
     Andi paused beside Simpson just inside the door to take in the mood and
setting before stepping inside to examine things.  
     "Aren't there drugs that can cause heart attacks?" Simpson asked
indelicately.  She held Andi's gaze with her own.
     "The coroner'll check his blood and stomach for drugs..." assured Andi
with a dismissive shrug.  "Do you think he was murdered?"  She glanced down
to the place of death, then back to Simpson to read her response.
     Simpson's eyes narrowed and shifted from side to side as if seeking
escape, two or three waves of expressions washed across her face in a series
of twitchy grimaces.  "He was OK the night before..." she said circumspectly. 
"...but his friends always wanted his roses..."  She walked away to stand by the
bay window chewing nervously at her thumb nail.
     "Were you up with him that morning?" Andi asked, trying to visualize how
he must have been lying, looking about for possible blunt weapons.
     Simpson glanced down at Andi's feet then turned toward the window. 
"No...I made coffee and went back upstairs...I heard him puttering upstairs
while I was in the kitchen, but I didn't actually see him." 
     "You heard him talking?" Andi asked hopefully.
     "No...just footsteps and his cough...then down the stairs, and into the
kitchen." Simpson's voice had a rough-edged intensity, suddenly definitive, sure
of herself.  "I snuck up my back stairs when I heard him coming down..." 
     "What time do think that was?" Andi pursued, glancing in the ashtrays--all
were clean.
     "I don't know...just after dawn...maybe five, five-thirty..." Simpson
abruptly changed to being vague and insecure.
     "Do you think he could have been given something with a drug in it?"  Andi
studied Simpson's face as she asked.
     Simpson shook her head and gave a half-embarrassed, half-confused,
sort of smile.  "No...we had spaghetti on sunday evening...we both ate it.  I don't
know what he had for breakfast.  The police took his medications..."
     Andi swept the room with her gaze.  "Why did his friends keep coming in
here?  Didn't you said they kept coming into the living room?"  Morbid
fascination with death-scenes was normal, but returning several times was
worth an explanation.  Andi poked at the charred remnants in the fireplace
looking for half-burnt scraps of paper.
     "They came for these..." with two quick strides, Alison strode to the
nearest buffet and tugged open a heavy drawer.  Andi quickly rose and joined
her.  The drawers were filled with notebooks, folders and monographs on roses. 
     Andi didn't even bother glancing through them.  It would take months to
wade through the material and probably years of expertise to guess what was
important or missing.  Her prime suspects, separately or together, had already
been through it the day before.
     Andi shook her head--she felt drained.  "Thanks..." she tried to look
sorrowful, "...and my condolences about your uncle."
     "Thank you." replied Alison.  "I'll show you to the door."
     They stepped to the entry and Simpson graciously opened the door. 
"Didn't you say on the phone you were meeting Mr. Tyson?"
     "Yes, but I've got a few minutes...I was hoping to look about a bit before
he comes..." Andi explained with an easy smile.  "Would you tell me him I'm out
here wandering?" 
     Andi suddenly noticed that Simpson stood so ready, so patiently by the
doorway that, despite the fact that she now was owner and mistress of the small
estate, it was hard not to treat her as a servant.


     There was the barest misty drizzle falling now--almost a clear day by
Portland standards.  Andi had a brief thought about her mother, wondering what
she was doing at that moment.  It wasn't a desperate or depressing thought and
she lauded herself for being mature. 
     She returned to the muddy holes and twice traced the paths to the
parking lot, but after three days of rain, there was nothing to interpret. 
Undismayed, she returned to the potting shed to examine the shovels.
     There were seven round-point round-backed standard shovels, six square
potting shovels among an impressive array of other equipment.
     She systematically surveyed the scene--when looking before, she was
inhibited by the watchful presence of her clients.  Even then though, there'd
been a nagging-something that seemed wrong about the scene.  There was a
subconscious-something, something she couldn't put her finger on crossing
some vague subconscious line to seem out of place.  She stood a moment with
her eyes shut, willing the scene to reconstruct itself around her, but she
couldn't retrieve the detail and gave up.
     Before her, plywood tables stood mid-floor, the shelves beneath them
piled high with a couple hundred pots in various sizes and rolls of burlap and
twine.  A mulcher-grinder stood quietly, unplugged, but waiting.  Four large bins
stood at the back, one filled with sand, one of soil, one of manure and the fourth
with mulch.  Everything looked as it should, surfaces of the bins had been
disturbed slightly, a small quantity of pale-clean chips lay scattered over the
greyer, older mulch material.  There was even a trowel left on a ledge with a
residue of manure as if someone came in to re-pot a houseplant, but the amount
of missing material wouldn't fill twenty-four pots and why would the thief risk
doing such work here.
     Andi mentally paced through the steps of someone working at the tables--a person would mix potting soil from-scratch as needed--probably to a specific
recipe for each plant.  The scene was neat, professional, everything in order,
nothing seemingly missing, nothing here that shouldn't be.  She looked among
the pots stored under the tables--there would be no way to tell if twenty-four
pots were missing.  There wasn't the remainder of a pile with noticeably less
dust.
     In the tool shed, a peg-boarded wall held rakes and shovels and hoes,
hoses lay coiled on the floor in a corner.  Measuring cups and pails hung
nearby, hand tools, gloves, insecticide sprayers--it was a legitimate workroom.  
There was a red cabinet locked with a small pad-lock emitting the distinctive
smell of pesticides.  Trowels, clippers, tar and accumulated gardening odds and
ends cluttered the back half of the work-bench.  A well-smudged, tan telephone
hung on the wall.  Everything seemed very much as she'd expect a small
specialty nursery to be.
     Shutting the door carefully behind her, Andi inspect the four waiting pull-carts.  Their green industrial frames had pneumatic tires and the efficient
balance of well chosen tools--the tread on the tires appeared identical and none
had noticeably more, or recent mud.
     It was there that William Tyson found her; `Colonel Tyson,' Andi
remembered cynically.  He held himself with a stiff erectness that seemed more
fitting for a person in a body cast than a trim, fit man in casual clothes.  He wore
canvas sports shoes, tan slacks and a plaid stay-pressed shirt under a light
jacket.  His hair was cut to a uniform quarter-inch length and his gaze seemed
to cut right through, as if assessing how much of his time she'd waste.
     "Thanks for meeting me..." smiled Andi professionally, extending her
hand.  They stood under the potting shed's eves as a light drizzle fell around
them.
     Tyson shook hands without comment or expression.  Andi gave him
opportunity to respond--he didn't, so she continued.
     "I was hoping you could help me understand some things..." She pulled
out her slightly-confused, Colombo-style persona.  "For instance, you and the
others are competitors...adversaries when it comes to breeding roses, but
you're also friends and spend quite a lot of time together..."  She scratched
behind her ear and shook her head in mock confusion.
     "...and?" questioned Tyson impatiently.  "Is that a question?"
     "No...no I guess it's not..." fumbled Andi awkwardly.  "But maybe you
could tell me about your relationship."  She even tilted her head to a side and
gave the sort of helpless smile Colombo used to encourage answers.
     "It's not so strange if you figure that bowlers, car racers and golfers
socialize and train together, yet compete...we're not much different." Tyson
said in a quiet, self-controlled voice.
     "No, I guess not..." admitted Andi.  "I understand you and your friends are
inheriting these?"  She waved an arm to encompass the gardens around them. 
"...they worth much?"
     "Not as much as if they included Darrel's miniatures..."  Tyson admitted
with a bitter smile.  "We'll probably split up the lot to sell through our own
catalogues...without the new miniatures to headline a promotion, it probably
isn't worth the trouble of a joint venture."  He didn't try to hide his frustration
and disappointment.
     Andi paused and looked up to catch his eye as if embarrassed to ask her
next rookie question, "...uhhh...just what would somebody do with stolen
roses?"
     "What would somebody do with them?"  Tyson gave a superior smile that
would have made a politician jealous.  "If I'd stolen them I'd keep them hidden,
maybe salting them in among my others to use in hybridizing.  To be safe, each
pruned branch would have to be clipped to remove Darrel's snipping...that
might be a season or two, but it would only take a few minor changes to obscure
ownership...maybe a different soil chemistry would change flower
expression..."  He waved his hand in dismissal.  The explanation was clinical,
without personal judgement or feeling. 
     Andi watched his face and body language.  He was experienced enough
to know that the best hiding places were often right out in the open.  For all she
knew Feight's roses were still here, waiting among the others.   "...so it would
take a while...months or years...before it would be safe to bring them out?"  She
kept her voice as neutral and uninterested as she could.
     Tyson nodded, his thin lips drawn tightly across his teeth.  "That long to
be really sure...less for any practical purpose...a whole lot less if they were
taken out of the Northwest..."  He spoke in a clipped efficient manner, no
beating around the bush, no obvious evasions, but despite his being straight-forward, Andi didn't trust him.
     Andi shifted the direction of her attack.  "What did you think of Darrel
Feight...personally?"
     "He's a neighbor...knowledgeable...helpful...we shared a passionate
avocation, but weren't friends.  I didn't like his politics..."
     "His politics?" Andi asked.
     "Darrel was a fuzzy headed moderate, thinking he was conservative...I
don't like that type--don't trust 'em.  Once I learned to not talk social issues we
got along fine."  Tyson confided that understanding matter of factly, as if used to
living among lesser creatures and long-ago having given up expectations of
consistency.
     "How about Alison Simpson?"
     "His niece?" Tyson smiled and shook his head as if bemused.  "She's an
little empty head, isn't she?  She's harmless...she didn't kill Darrel or steal the
roses."  Tyson gave a sort of humorless chuckle, then looked up into Andi's
eyes.  "Frankly, I don't think she has the capacity."
     "Who do you think does?  Who would you suspect?" Andi asked
immediately.
     The question seemed to take Tyson off balance, he actually took a step
backward and blinked.  "Suspect?  I don't suspect anybody...like you pointed
out, one of us seem the likeliest thief, but I didn't do it and don't suspect the
others.  That kind of thinking doesn't lead where I want to go...if there's proof of
guilt I'd have no problem pressing charges...otherwise I'm still be working with
them...suspicion would get in my way."
     "You live right over the hill I hear..." Andi shifted subjects effortlessly,
pointing as Alison had, but keeping her attention on Tyson. 
     "Yeah...top of the hills is a green-belt, you know..."  Tyson smiled like a
satisfied burgher.
     "Walking distance?" Andi offered casually.
     "There are paths winding through...but you couldn't walk in this mud..."
responded Tyson with a mocking snort. 
     "You didn't want to meet at your place this morning?" Andi questioned.
     "That's right."  A simple affirmation without explanation, he smiled easily.
     "Why was that?" Andi asked, matching his insincere smile.
     "Some mornings visitors are a pain..." he met her eyes without flinching. 
"Is there anything else you want to know?"  It was a dismissive question, as if
daring her to continue.
     Andi looked across the rows of roses and stretched languidly.  "No, not
that I can think of.  If I think of anything, would you mind if I call?" 
     "No, not at all...but I don't know if I've been much help..."  Tyson shrugged
and looked back toward the parking lot.
     The earlier drizzle had ended and the sky was starting to clear.  They
turned together, stepped from the shed and walked to the parking lot without
sharing another word.  Andi didn't like the man at her elbow and felt certain his
impression of her was equally negative.  All in all, it hadn't been a fulfilling
morning of interviews.  
     Andi sat in the driver's seat without starting her engine, watching Tyson
disappear down the drive before jotting notes on the interviews and all the
details she could remember of the house and shed.  Then she drove slowly out
the private drive and turned toward the county road lost in thought. 
     When she got to the intersection, instead of heading right back to the
office she pulled into the convenience store for a snack.  She pulled a bag of
corn chips from the display and asked the bored clerk if he knew many of the
neighbors. 
     He shrugged and shook his head with the passive, bad-attitude insolence
of the minimum-waged.  She searched her pockets but found nothing but
twenty-nine cents in change.  Cursing, she almost pulled out the fifty she kept in
her wallet for emergencies, but stopped at the last moment with her wallet in
her hands.  Despite her urge for salt, corn chips were not an emergency.
      Behind the clerk was a video monitor showing the back of his head and a
full-faced view of herself.  She waved selfconsciously to see her image wave
back.  The camera was directed so that it caught the display and buttons of the
register as well as customers--the owners were obviously as suspicious of their
under-paid help as they were of potential robbers.
     The on-screen image showed her bag of corn chips on the counter--beyond it and her own image Andi could see down the candy isle to the window
and the intersection beyond.  As she watched, a car pulled in from the county
road.  Surprised, Andi turned around to watch it continue on down the lane.
     Suddenly the corn chips seemed more important.  "Can you cash a fifty?"
she asked, turning back and forth to compare the video image to the view
behind her.
     "Sure...we got lots of twenty's..." the clerk smiled and rang up the chips
and handed her two twenties, a five, a couple of ones and change. 
     "...that thing connected to a VCR?" she pointed to the video screen.
     "Be kind of stupid if it wasn't...wouldn't it?" the clerk responded
rhetorically.  He reached for his paperback book, obviously waiting for her to
leave him in peace.
     "Do you keep the tapes more than a day or two?" Andi asked in her
professional voice, opening her wallet to show her private investigator's license
and handing the clerk a business card.  She looked toward the back-room,
wondering if the VCR were someplace obvious.
     "I don't know...you'd have to talk to the owner."  The clerk was suddenly a
lot less friendly, he had to be cajoled into giving out the owner's name and
number.  The name Andi left the store with was Freedom, Inc.  Thankfully, the
number had a local-sounding prefix.
     She munched corn chips as she drove back into Portland.  Maybe it hadn't
been as worthless a morning as she'd feared.





                           CHAPTER   3


     Back in her office, Andi typed the essential points of the morning's
interviews into her computer; a listing of times, names and places.  Her
notebook held material for the investigation, the computer files were essential
for justifying their work in an bill.
     Lena had been constantly on the phone since Andi returned.  Andi
reached for the receiver, giving silent thanks for extra lines.  She dialed
Ramirez's office number. 
     He didn't answer--no surprise; she left a voice mail message asking if he'd
like to meet for coffee, then looked up Betty Dao and Jennifer Gould's numbers
and left requests for meeting times.
     Andi looked over to Lena as she took information on the missing-person
from Tacoma.  Lena lifted her chin and blew a little kiss before returning to
taking notes.  Andi tuned out Lena's conversation and punched in the number of
Freedom, Inc.
     The fussy, female voice on the other end of the line was far from helpful. 
Yes, the convenience store was one of those they managed, "but.." she drawled
nasally, there was no information available to the public.  She kept asking if
Andi was an attorney and the exact nature of her problem.
     Andi repeated for the third time that she was a private investigator and
that she was interested in the security system tapes for the last few days.
     The voice asked again if there had been an accident? Had somebody
fallen?  Was it related to shoplifting prosecution?  She asked again if Andi was
an attorney.
     Finally succumbing to frustration, Andi repeated that she was not making
a complaint and asked for the owner to return her call.
     The voice, in a doubtful, worried tone, said that she didn't know if they
would be able to or not...
     Andi replied as icily as possible, "Please ask them to...this may be
important to solving a crime...thank you." and hung up, fuming.
     She tried Ramirez again, but didn't leave a second message when the
ringing phone gave way to his out-going message.  She made a half-dozen futile
calls to the Farm Bureau and agricultural extensions of local universities hoping
for background material on the worth and markets for twenty-four specialized,
hybrid dwarf-roses.  She drew a blank.  No one even pretended to be interested--roses weren't considered an agricultural commodity.
     Ten minutes later Lena was still on the phone, so Andi returned to the
thankless task of bailing her pending box below flood-stage; slogging through
billings and proof-reading correspondence before signing at the bottom. 
Twenty minutes later the phone rang.  Andi looked up--Lena, still on her phone,
glanced over again, this time with a smile and shrug.  Andi grudgingly picked up
the receiver and  said "Investigatory Services, Wicksham here..."
     It was a neutral male voice.  "Returning your call, Ms. Wicksham...you do
work quickly.  I didn't expect to hear from you for a day or two."
     Andi closed her eyes and massaged her temples against a sense that her
brain was expanding beyond the discomfort stage.  "And who is this I'm
speaking to?"
     "William Tyson, Ms. Wicksham...I'm returning your call."
     Andi had a moment of confusion.  She hadn't called Tyson--that she was
sure of.  She was about to tell him so when he continued.
     "...you called the office of Freedom, Incorporated about monday's
surveillance tapes?"
     Andi let out her breath.  "Oh, yes...Mr. Tyson of course...I was taken
aback for a minute...couldn't get you in context.  You're the owner of the
convenience store?"
     "It's one of my holdings..." he admitted a bit defensively.  "Thinking of the
store's tapes is brilliant.  Frankly, I'd harbored some doubt, but this impresses
me.  I've pulled an old tape and see what I think you're after...the view of the
corner outside?"
     "I was hoping to see who'd come by...are the tapes available?"  Andi had
little faith.  The tape she wanted would be, maybe they weren't kept more than
twenty-four hours, maybe the camera was on the fritz.  To her surprise, Tyson
responded cheerfully.
     "I've called to have that day's tapes brought over...we rotate in a ten day
cycle.  You'll have to forgive the grainy quality, they're not intended to be
broadcast quality...and to keep to a manageable length we only grab stills every
fifteen seconds, but you can see the intersection and identify cars..." there was
a pause as if he was viewing a tape right then, "...maybe drivers..."
     "Can I get monday's tape?" Andi asked in her very nicest voice.  No sense
beating around the bush.
     "I'll run a copy soon as I get it...you can pick it up at your convenience."
     Andi was startled at the cooperation.  "I could come this afternoon...or
tomorrow morning..."
     "This afternoon's better..." Tyson said curtly.  "Morning's aren't generally. 
Say four...four-thirty?"
     Andi almost tipped her coffee pulling over her notebook and scrambling
for a pen.
     He gave her his address, efficiently repeating it twice.  "I hope it will
help..." he offered in closing.
     She said "Yes...I hope so too..." and mumbled "Thanks." before he rang
off.
     Lena looked up.  "Bad news?" she asked, a touch of concern in her voice.
     "No, I think we just got lucky..."  She shook her head, jotted a final note
and filled Lena in on the morning's events.


     Before heading out to West Linn, Andi visited with Mrs. Knowles,
spending forty minutes discussing options for gathering embarrassing
evidence.  She steered her away from wire-taps and stressed the advantage of
keeping the surveillance with the bounds of her property.  Mrs. Knowles
seemed in no hurry, chatting chummily about skip-traces and DNA evidence
while expressing a gifted amateur's interest in investigation.
     Andi mused that Knowles might really be researching a book and toyed
with the idea of asking right-out.  It was flattering to think of a character
patterned after her style.  The idea bubbled titillatingly on the way to Tyson's. 
Maybe K.D. Lang for the movie version, Andi could almost see herself in dark
glasses, lounging on the busy set.
     Tyson's house was new--a ranch style with clean, Mexican-style tan
stucco, blue tile roof and a formal, monastic-looking front door opening onto the
north side's paved courtyard.  On the south, three wings of the house wrapped a
patio with an acre of windows looking down a serpentine private drive.  His
avocation was testified to by row upon row of roses in terraced courses cut into
the hillsides and looking for all the world like a vineyard.
     The door was answered by a thin, clean-shaven, humorless young man in
khaki slacks and a short-sleeved golf shirt who looked as if he'd be more
comfortable in a uniform.
     She was obviously expected.  Without asking her name, the young man
nodded her in and led wordlessly through a hardwood-floored entry, down a
wide hall lined with display cabinets and a collection of American flags, past a
formal living room over-looking the patio-courtyard, to a closed door that he
politely knocked upon.  Andi glanced at a case at her elbow with a civil war
sword and scabbard decorated with tassels and an eagle.  Her grim escort
stared straight-ahead facing the door.  Mounted on the wall beside the frame
was a punch-in key-pad of the type used for electronic combination-locks.  
     There was an audible metallic click near the knob.  The young man
courteously opened the door and stood aside, letting Andi enter alone.
     Andi entered and heard the door close and lock behind her.  To her left,
William Tyson sat behind a desk in a room resplendent with collectable, and
undoubtedly expensive, military memorabilia.  The walls were crowded with
professionally-framed displays of battle ribbons and yellowing hand-written
documents.  A flag with stripes and a circle of stars in its blue field was
mounted under glass, its frayed edges were charred, its heavy fabric looked
hand-stitched. 
     Another flag stood on an eagle-mounted pole just behind and to a side of
Tyson's chair; to the desk's left was a wide window opened for fresh air, but
barred with close-set security bars.  A few feet in front of the window a couch
and end-table stood at right angles to the desk, bordering the area before it like
a reviewing stand. 
     Tyson rose graciously, asking if she wanted anything, coffee, water, a
beer?  He could have Rex make iced tea...
     "No, I don't really have time..." answered Andi, it was hard not to peer
about her.  "Your hobby?" asked Andi, waving hand vaguely.  The display case
beside her held rank upon rank of little metal toy-soldiers, the exquisitely
painted uniforms with black belts and buttons were chipped and weathered,
next to them stood an identical case with a historic review of the history of
pistols, muzzle-loaders with ball-shot, percussion-caps, old revolvers, trophy
show-pieces and modern automatics.
     "My most valuable are in here...it's my favorite place to work."  Tyson was
obviously enjoying his role as host.
     "I thought roses were..." began Andi, a bit in awe at the collection around
her.
     Tyson smiled.  "...roses are fascinating...but I hire a worker to do the
labor.  My primary passion is military memorabilia and firearms.  I take care of
these things myself..." he said a bit pridefully.  He moved from behind his desk
and paused at her side.  "But, I know...you want that tape..." he shook his head
as if musing at her lack of appreciation.
     "I heard you were a gun expert...you and Mr. Feight I think?" Andi tossed
the thought out like a baited hook.
     "You appreciate fire-arms?  That would make sense in your
profession...I've got a Gluck full auto you'd like..."  He mentioned it lightly, in the
manner another host might ask regarding her choice of wines.
     Andi watched him tap a code into the waiting key-pad and check to see
that the door was locked.  
     "I've a private, indoor range in the basement and a functional collection
like few collectors in the country..."  His eyes gleamed with pride and ardor.
     "Perhaps another time..." Andi demurred, "Unfortunately, I've booked
myself solid...I didn't expect this trip today..."  
     Tyson nodded understandingly.  
     Andi continued, "I hear you and Mr. Feight rebuilt guns...loaded
bullets...fixed antiques..."
     "Oh yes...we did..." he paused for a moment of appropriate sorrow. 
"...I'm going to miss having him to talk to..."  He turned a corner, stepping slowly
to match her pace so they remained congenially side by side.
     "Were you surprised when you learned of the rose's disappearance?"
Andi asked conversationally.
     "No not really, Rex had mumbled something or other about it..." Tyson
acknowledged distractedly as he opened a door and led her into a small
screening room with five tastefully upholstered chairs set before the largest TV
screen as Andi'd ever seen.  He passed across to enter another room with a
video library and editing suite with two grey monitors and a rack of professional
decks and recorders.  He took a tape laying on the corner of the counter and
checked the label.  "Yes...here it is.  I really didn't view much...but it's the one
you wanted..."
     Andi took the tape and turned back toward the door.  "Thank you very
much..."
     "You mentioned wanting to tour my roses?" Tyson lifted his eyebrows in
an obvious invitation.
     "Next time'll be better.  When I come and take your statement..."  She
didn't like Tyson and wasn't ready to spend an hour talking to him.  "...I simply
haven't time."  She shook her head and gave a tight-lipped smile.
     Tyson nodded again, commiserating knowingly of busy schedules, led her
back to the entry and graciously showed her out.  
     She didn't catch a second glimpse of Rex.


     It was past their usual closing hour by the time she got back to the office. 
Lena filled her in on what she'd missed--Betty Dao, Warren Laroux and Jennifer
Gould had each called to claim filled calendars and request alternate times--the
only time available for all of them was two days away.  For good measure, 
waiting until Andi would be on her way home, phoned Tyson to set up a formal
one with him as well. 
     Ramirez called back, requesting a ten in the morning coffee-date.  Lena
had confirmed and asked him to check with his woman-friend Tanya about
whether friday or saturday night were best for a dinner together.
     Andi took the information without responding, straightening the files on
her desk as she listened.  It rankled her to be scheduled without being asked,
but if she voiced dissent Lena would threaten her with a cellular phone.  Now,
Andi just nodded at each point--the subject was perennial, better silence than
losing another round.
     They performed their ritual end-of-day office-cleaning and left for home
discussing whether a larger Persian-style rug or two or three smaller ones
would better grace their office floor.


     She and Lena had been working together two years, living together for
one and had exchanged more barbed words in the last couple months than in
that whole time before.  Perhaps it was post-honeymoon reassessment.  What
started with a appreciative glance had swept into a business relationship,
through friendship to a giddy romance and settled into comfortable
cohabitation. 
     Andi cooked dinner and ruminated on their lives while Lena watered
houseplants.  She put water on to boil, got out an onion and murmured a choice
expletive that they hadn't bought fresh herbs.  The relationship was fine; as a
liaison it was extraordinary, as a business partnership successful, as a
friendship secure--so what was the matter?  She chopped onion,  sauted the
dried basil and thyme in butter--the problem was that there wasn't an obvious
problem only evidence that pointed to one.  She tossed the diced onion into the
skillet to saute, then added a half-empty bottle of white wine rescued from the
refrigerator.  Somehow, despite getting any freedom she asked for, she felt a
loss of freedom.
     That evening over linguine in clam sauce and salad they discussed
clients.  "Our clients and Simpson....all live close...had casual and regular
access...each had motive and opportunity."
     "...an embarrassment of suspects..." Lena quipped as she piled salad
greens on her plate.
     Andi smirked indulgently.  "Everybody but Feight benefitted from him
kicking off."
     Lena spooned grated romano on her pasta.  "They hired you...that's
something..."
     "But if one of 'em was guilty, they couldn't very well object.  It's denial...I
tell them flat out they're the likely suspects and they just give placid smiles." 
Andi took a sip of water and stabbed a slice of tomato.
     "Which one hired you?"  Lena mumbled mushily through a mouth-full of
linguine.  She gave a silly, embarrassed grin and dabbed her napkin to her
mouth.
     "Warren Laroux, but he's sharp enough to figure it might deflect
suspicion.   I don't like any of them..." Andi gave an exaggerated shudder as if
shaking off their memory.
     "They're only clients..." Lena shook her head disparagingly.  "...it's not
like you live with them or anything."  She paused and gave Andi a thoughtful
appraisal.  " I think you should consider getting a matronly dress and a pair of
sensible walking shoes for this case...maybe little white gloves...stolen roses
are a very `Miss Marple' sort of mystery."
     Andi looked across the table in shocked dismay.  "You're
terrible...matronly dress...Lena..."  she threw her wadded-up napkin--it glanced
off Lena's shoulder and fell to the floor.  "Perhaps you're forgetting, my able
friend and colleague...you're following a precarious tradition...Miss Marple
never had a Watson, and Poirot's Captain Hastings didn't stick around long, did
he?"  Andi gave a superior wink and shook a reproachful finger.
     "You can't threaten me, Sherlock..." Lena said smugly, daintily touching
her lips with her napkin and bobbing her head saucily back and forth.  "Hastings
didn't do books or answer the phone and Sherlock's Watson wasn't computer
literate...I'm not scared.  Some of us are indispensable."
     After helping clean dishes and kitchen, Lena retired to the couch with a
paperback and Andi closeted herself in  the bedroom to phone her mom.  She
dialed twice, but the phone rang endlessly, without even a machine to take a
message.  
     Her mother said she might not be available.  It was like her to be out of
touch, Andi grumbled, but she was secretly relieved.
     She reviewed the convenience-store tape with Lena curled beside her
reading a Walter Moseley mystery.  Logging in the corner's traffic wasn't very
difficult, there wasn't much to keep track of.  Andi pushed fast-forward,
watching intently until something flashed beyond the window.  She went through
the entire tape twice, copying every shot with cars or people onto a second
tape.
     Between dawn and five o'clock, nine figures walked past the window. 
Four different people--one making a single return trip, first east, then west and
one making the circuit twice.  Of the remaining three, two walked east, towards
Feight's house while one strolled toward the county road.  She could see all nine
clearly enough, none looked familiar and none carried anything that could have
been roses.
     Thirty-four vehicles left the dead-end lane, turning onto the county road,
twenty-eight entered.  It was such a short, little road, she was surprised there'd
be that much traffic.
     She reviewed cars going in and out and decided she'd reasonable
confidence that none slipped by un-recorded.  A really fast-moving car at
exactly the right instant might just barely swing in from the county road without
being caught, but heading outward, the stop sign demanded at least slowing
before turning and most cars appeared in two or three frames.  She looked
carefully, but couldn't read a single license plate.
     Andi scribbled two pages of notes--the time and date of each frame
glowed handily in the video's lower right-hand corner.  Some of the vehicles
could be sorted by function--two were police cars and one the county van
retrieving Feight's body.  As Tyson mentioned, when the driver's window was
open and the car headed east she could recognize drivers.  Nineteen different
vehicles made sixty-two trips.  She picked the best examples of each car each
trip and took an instamatic photograph of her screen.


     The next morning at the office Andi beat against the latest barrage of
incoming paperwork, only breaking at nine twenty-five because Lena swung
around with a level gaze and insisted she call her mother.  Andi was going to
argue, but saw Lena's eyes and gracefully reached for the phone.
     "Hi, Mom?  It's Andi.  How you doing?"  Andi couldn't think of anything to
say.  She hoped the conversation wouldn't be weepy.
     "...OK."  Tension rasped like static in her mother's voice.  "...I thought
there'd be results by now, but evidently they're asking more specialists for
comment...Dr. George says it's not a good sign."
     Andi murmured "Sorry..." in a whisper.
     "...They're giving me pain pills that make me feel pretty good...you haven't
called Cinny yet have you?"  Her mother sounded tired and a great cloud
seemed to hang over the conversation.
     "Didn't you ask for me to hold off?" Andi asked, reliving three decades of
concern that she'd done something wrong.
     "Yes, of course..." Mrs. Wicksham responded quickly, "...there are a few
things I wanted to think out before we tell her."
     "Like what?"  Andi played with the pencils on her desk, placing a third
and fourth atop two laying before her.  She carefully laid a fifth crossways on
the third and fourth.
     "Like how long I'm likely to be around..." replied her mother quietly.
     "What?" demanded Andi, suddenly refocused on the conversation. 
"...how long you're going to live?"  The pencils were swept away with a sweep of
her hand--two clattered noisily to the floor.
     "Well..." her mother began cautiously, "...there are different treatments
with various trade offs..."  There was along awkward pause that Andi didn't
have courage to break.  She waited, feeling the seconds tick, until her mother
continued.  "One oncologist is pushing massive chemo...but it could kill me and
would make me weaker and frailer than I'd otherwise be..."
     "...would it save you?" Andi burst in, anxious for the answer.
     "Save me...?"  Her mother's question seemed to question if Andi'd been
listening. 
     Andi chewed her lip and remained quiet.  
     "...no, it won't honey...no, I'm sorry...it won't..."
     There was a moment of silence.  "...Mom..." Andi wailed plaintively.
     "Andi..." her mother responded sternly, "...you have to be strong with
this...anyway we don't know the results of the latest tests."
     Andi took a breath.  "OK, Mom...I'm OK."
     "Different treatments may prolong my life for weeks or maybe months, but
that's all..." 
     "I see." encouraged Andi quietly, shutting her eyes, surrendering to that
feeling of falling--adrift at the speed of sound.
     "I've given it a lot of thought..."  She took a deep breath.  "...and I've
decided that quality...enjoying the act of being alive...that's most important."
     Andi could feel the lump in her stomach harden to stone then turn to an
icy leaden mass.  "Ok..." she murmured.  She'd never confront her mother on
something this serious, but inside she shrieked for another answer.
     "...and there are other factors to consider..." her mother continued in her
fussy, businesslike manner.  "I know it's only vanity...but I don't want to lose my
hair..."
     "But to save your life?" questioned Andi outwardly timid, but inwardly
raging with frustration.
     "If it did that I'd be doing it now...but it won't..."  Mrs. Wicksham
responded with definition.  "...and...there's the problem of cost...my insurance
won't cover everything.  Things like marrow transplants would leave nothing in
my estate if I went the full-service route."
     "Mom..." Andi said forthrightly, "...Cinny and I don't care about your
money.  If you'd ask us we'd throw that money into treatments at the blink of an
eye..."
     "Yes, I know dear..." Andi could envision her mother smiling tolerantly. 
"...but it's not your decision.  For me, the idea that I could help you and Lena buy
a house or something is more important than an extra month of life, especially a
month of mortal illness.  Think of it as a motherly gift...a legacy and tradition I
want to hand down.  Hopefully you'll do the same when it's your turn." 
     "Turn?...Mom...you're talking about dying!" Andi's concern erupted as
outrage.
     Her mother chuckled.  "All of us, including you are going to die, dear...I'm
talking about knowing when death's ahead.  It's an incredible blessing to be
able to plan it.  So many people have accidents or can't face the truth...surely
you know me enough to understand..."  She laughed, she actually laughed, a
healthy, robust laugh.
     Andi made a growling sound in her throat.  "...we're talking about your oft-discussed control issues..." she grumbled, not at all pleased at the lightness of
her mother's tone. 
     "Yes dear...I suppose we are.  But I've forged them over decades and
they're liable to continue.  Anyway, I'm weighing all possibilities."
     "OK, Mom..." Andi sighed in concession.  Her mother had called the shots
all through her childhood; this wasn't the time to begin to fighting it.
     "I've always felt Cinny to be the frailer of the two of you.  Here I'm asking
you to shield her...maybe it's been a mistake, but I've always done it.   You've
always been a solid stoic..." Mrs. Wicksham paused, fearing misunderstanding. 
"...it's really a complement..."
     "You still don't want me to call?" asked Andi, eager to interrupt.  She
didn't want to point out that stoic meant shut-down.
     "No, don't...until we can tell her something surer..."
     "Surely the doctors can't predict..." Andi argued.
     "True...that's true dear," her mother responded.  "but I can..."  There was
a long moment of silence, then she continued.  "Anyway, that's enough for now. 
I've made reservations for a night in that motel at the coast...I want to walk
along the beach...it always helped me make decisions.  We'll talk when I get
back.  OK?"
     "OK, Mom...." Andi murmured automatically, she hadn't digested much of
what her mother'd been saying.  "Talk to you then..."  She almost said goodbye,
but bit it off at the last moment.  She didn't ever want to say that to her again.
     "So long Andi...I love you...I love you a lot.  I'll call..."
     "I love you too..." Again `goodbye' almost slipped through her teeth.
     Without another word, her mother ended the call.


     Andi stood and turned to look out the window at the traffic on Hawthorne.  
     Three or four minutes ticked past unnoticed, and Lena appeared at her
elbow.  "Serious stuff?" she asked, slipping her hand in to Andi's and squeezing
tightly.
     "She's..." Andi started, but stopped.  She shook her head, there was
nothing she could say.
     "You've got a date with Ramirez in twenty minutes...I can cancel for
you..."
     "Naw...it wouldn't be right." Andi shook off the clammy feeling that had
taken her.  "What I need is a good strong dose of life and friendship."  She
smiled up at Lena with a hopeless little smile and gave her hand a squeeze
before turning back to her desk. 
     Lena blinked and pursed her lips together.  "...I can do that..."  She swept
gracefully back to her chair and sat a moment to collect herself.  "Now about
your date with Ramirez...not that I'm jealous of you flitting around with your low-life pals in sleazy dens of inequity..."  Lena turned half-away and touched her
fingers to her brow in a classic pose of feminine anguish.
     "Right...Ramirez is a low-life friend..." snorted Andi, happy to exchange
repartee for gloom.  "...and we're meeting at the Underground...you could have
dealt yourself in to this get-together you know..."  She stared fixedly at Lena and
tapped her foot impatiently.  "...you still could come along."
     "Never mind...somebody has to shoulder the burden and be
responsible...go, go off and be happy...never mind me..." Lena used a squeaky
falsetto when she played Jewish mother.  She dropped the voice as Andi neared
the door, instructing unromanticly.  "Get him to commit to a time for our dinner--he was supposed to have asked Tanya."
     "Will do..." Andi smile over her shoulder.  "Want me to bring back a
treat?"
     Lena held up crossed fingers as if warding off a vampire.  "Get thee
behind me Satan...and don't forget...your afternoon's booked with Dao, Laroux,
Tyson and Gould..."
     Andi ground her teeth as she crossed into the hall, beating a timely
retreat.
     

     To the side of the deli counter installed two years ago to increase off-sale
comestibles, Ramirez, coat off, his shirt-sleeves rolled to the elbow and pen in
hand, leaned over a paper strewn table--the perfect image of a harried, public-sector professional getting out of the office to get things done.
     Andi ordered an Earl Grey tea and a small Caesar salad and pointed to
Ramirez's table before sauntering over to slouch tensely in the chair to his right. 
She pointedly averted her eyes to show disinterest in whatever he was trying to
make sense of.  "What do you know about the rose business?" she finally
offered as a greeting.
     "...they like well drained soil and lots of sun...get varieties that are suited
to your micro-climate and blast aphids with the hose..."  Ramirez didn't look up
from his work.
     "That's a lot...more than me actually..." Andi admitted graciously.  "I got
twenty-four missing roses worth a humble retirement, but can't tell one from
another."
     "Luckily you're after the thief and not the plants..." observed Ramirez,
looking over the tops of his glasses.
     "Yeah, but my list of possible perps overlaps my client list."  Andi looked
over to the counter to see if her salad and tea were coming.
     "I'm hardly moved...you cash your checks and take a holiday when you're
done..."  Ramirez didn't break a smile as he re-piled his work and put it aside. 
"Seems you're hanging with a better class of people..."
     "I hardly think so...we don't share values."
     "Family values?" Ramirez offered, deadpan.
     "I got family values...they got free enterprise values."  Andi didn't crack a
smile either--until admitting, "Maybe I'd be selfish if I had more money."
     "Gotta honor political and fiscal diversity, Wicksham..." Ramirez turned a
cynical eye her way as if passing on the wisdom of the ages, "...gotta make
room for all sorts.  The rich want more--it's a bore--get used to it."
     "You are a bright spot on a dreary day..." Andi gave him an up-and-down
sweep of her eyes.  "You know..." she leaned back in her chair, "...Darrel Feight
might have discovered the theft and died of grief...or he might have dug them up
himself and died of remorse."
     Ramirez lifted his latte to his lips, then but it back down without sipping. 
"Yeah...?" he asked neutrally.
     "Well, my contract says roses, but it seems I've also been hired to check-out Feight's death."  Andi rocked her chair back forward and favored Ramirez
with a sour grin.
     "Quit whining...there's something real...Feight's dead, the roses are
gone...there's something to investigate either way you fold it.  If one of your
clients didn't off him, maybe all went in together."  offered Ramirez dryly.
     "Naw..." Andi rejected, "...they wouldn't trust each other...there's not one
among 'em I'd trust enough to kill somebody with."  A waitress brought her
salad and tea, setting them before her, smiling and holding her eye for a
moment longer than she needed to.
     "Does that imply there are people you would kill somebody with?" asked
Ramirez levelly.  The waitress turned half-away, but paused mid-step, lingering
to hear her reply.  Ramirez lifted his cup, sipped, made a face and set the mug
down.
     "I guess it's a friends-and-family thing...slay together to stay together."
Andi responded sourly.  The waitress glided back to the counter.
     "Lena said you got some neat evidence--so don't poor-mouth to me about
what to do."  Ramirez blinked and forced a smile for her benefit.
     Andi grinned and tapped the table with a finger tip.  "...a video of cars
entering and leaving Feight's dead-end lane."  She smirked, picked up her fork
and paused with it poised over her salad.
     "Neat...does it show newly-dug roses and a close-up of the driver?" 
Ramirez rubbed his eyes and tilted his chair back on two legs.
     Andi gave a humoring smile and shook her head.  "...too bad  huh?  I
haven't had time to match cars and people."  She tossed a rubber-band bound
pile of photos across the table.  "Sorry, no license plates..."  She sampled her
Caesar salad, and allowed herself a slight swoon at the salty, anchovy taste.
     "A car jock might ID make and year..."  Ramirez glanced through the
photos and tossed them back. 
     Andi nodded, chewed and swallowed.  "Good idea.  By the way I was
supposed to ask..."
     "Tanya says saturday...she'll bake French bread and a dessert mousse if
you do European or dim sum if you do the Far East."
     "Far east from here's Europe, Ramirez..." Andi pointed out over a fork
impaled crouton.
     "Are you being difficult, Wicksham?" he countered.  "She takes her angst
out on friends..." he extended open palms before him and lifted his eyes in an
appeal to heaven.
     Andi concentrated on her salad while Ramirez rambled about inter-department gossip she only half-followed.  When she finished, he efficiently
gathered his papers and said, "Ready to go?  I'll walk you out."
     "Sure..." Andi said with a smile as she pulled out a twenty and dropped it
to the table.  "I'll pay for your coffee if you take it up...leave a tip...I'm going to
the loo."
     Ramirez smiled, waved her on and reached for the bill.  


     When she came back out Ramirez was still sitting at the table.  "Ready?" 
Andi turned to go.
     "Sit down Wicksham..." Ramirez instructed grim-faced, nodding to her
chair.
     "What's up officer?" Andi mugged, "...change your mind about saturday?"
     "Where did you get that twenty?" he asked bluntly.
     "I don't know..." complained Andi incredulously.  "Jesus, get a grip....did
it have drug residue on it or something?"
     "Can it..." prompted Ramirez in his cop voice.  "Got any others?"
     Andi reached in her pocket and threw her folded few bills on the table. 
There was one other twenty.  "I got them cashing a fifty for corn chips."
     "You broke a fifty for corn chips?"  It was Ramirez's turn to be
incredulous.  He held the twenties up to the light and examined them.
     "It's a long story...at the store with the surveillance camera--the chips
were a business expense.  I gave the clerk the fifty...he said he had lots of
twenties."
     "Both these are bogus, Wicksham..." Ramirez said flatly.  "You're out forty
dollars, because these go with me to the station."
     "They what?" exclaimed Andi in anger.
     "It's the way it is, amiga...funny money gets confiscated when found." 
Ramirez shrugged his shoulders and tucked the bills in his shirt pocket.
     "So who pays me back?" demanded Andi.  "You better at least pick up my
tea and salad..." she pouted--it was clear there'd be no justice.
     "OK, I'll catch your salad...don't get your panties in a twist.  You think I
want this aggravation?"
     "Great...I get stiffed forty bucks because you got a work ethic on steroids
and eyeballs without enough work to keep 'em out of mischief..."
     "OK, OK...I'll get a lunch next week too...but that's as much payoff as
guilt's going to get you."  Ramirez had risen again, picked up his pile of
paperwork and walked over to the register.
     Outside, they parted ways.  "You better give a call and tell me about this
money thing, Ramirez...taking my twenties...you better not be pulling a fast
one."
     "I'll call, Wicksham...auf Wiedersehen.  Keep your powder dry..."


     Andi stopped in at the foreign-car mechanic two blocks up SE 50th before
returning to her car.  As Ramirez guessed, a kid doing a brake-job was able to
ID makes and models and make guesses as to years.  Andi stopped to get a
couple packets of instamatic film and made a quick run to West Linn to see what
cars she'd find.
     The clouds were clearing, hurrying off to the south-east and leaving wide
expanses of pale-blue sky.  Andi first drove Jennifer Gould's house and parked
just off to a side--she could see both house and garage easily from the road over
a rustic split-rail fence.  Gould's roses filled a third of an acre plot behind the
house--neat straight rows with tended paths and a fairly large-sized green
house.  A classic Ford Mustang with a red and white interior was parked in the
carport with a Ford pickup and a tan Volvo station wagon waited before the
front door.
     Flipping through her photos Andi found no Volvos or Ford trucks, but she
did have shots of the Mustang coming and going--six grainy photos with the
vague shape of driver or driver and passenger.  Without getting out of her car,
she took a quick photo of both the all three vehicles, noted the location, time
and date on the photo's fronts and drove on.
     Warren Laroux's home lay up a drive behind a double row of trees that
extended beyond the house.  So much for her desire to not attract attention--she
took a deep breath and signed on for the direct approach, pulling up the drive
and brazenly looking at the cars under the four-car covered carport.  Three
cars were parked in its shade and another, a grey, late-model Nova was tucked
just beyond, next to a tree. 
     She glanced nervously toward the house, waiting the inevitable
confrontation.  The sound of a blaring TV burbled through some window, but
minute after minute passed and nobody came out to challenge and she finished
her quick survey. 
     A Chevy Blazer, a grey Lincoln Continental and a Mercedes coupe were
sheltered by the carport.  She took four quick snapshots, jotted the license
numbers and ground back down the gravel driveway without pausing to look
through the photos. 
     Elizabeth Dao's house was one of two tucked among a stand of cedars
and firs up a small private drive.  A gnarled Monterey pine and decorative
screen half-shielded the entry from the parking area.  The grounds had a
natural esthetic, but were fastidiously tended.  Andi ignored the tastefully
meandering stepping-stones leading to the front door and stepped around to the
side to inspect the double garage set twenty feet back from the front plane of
the dwelling.  
     The lights in the house appeared out, she listened carefully but couldn't
hear music or TV.  No cars were parked in front--perhaps Dao wasn't home. 
With a guilty glance over her shoulder, Andi raised on tiptoe to peek through a
side window into the garage's interior.  A red Porche waited on the far side of
the wide garage.  The dimly lit space was sparsely filled; an empty work bench,
wide shelves with token clutter--no car parts, tools or gardening equipment. 
     The lack of gardening equipment made Andi pause.  She walked around
back looking for a tool shed, but found only a two-level deck extending from the
shadow-draped home into sunlight.  There wasn't a rose bush in sight as she
made a complete circuit around  the house.  The grounds were set up for
minimal maintenance; no beds of annuals or bulbs, few shrubs.  Native
vegetation was prominently utilized, low-woody ground covers and the strong
lines of trees trunks seemed a far different image than she would expect from
somebody with a passion for something as Euro-centric as miniature roses. 
Puzzling on that, Andi returned to the garage, held the camera up to the glass to
snap a quick shot though the window of the Porche and returned to her car to
re-check the video's snapshots.
     There was red Porche among them and Warren Laroux's Chevy Blazer
passed the convenience store three times each way last monday--she
recognized him in the shadowed interior of the Blazer, frozen in time, hands on
the wheel.  He faced forward in the photos, unaware that anyone would be
watching.
     Of the nineteen cars she'd logged entering or leaving Feight's lane she'd
accounted for six--all in all not a promising start.  
     She drove slowly to William Tyson's, pulling up the twisting drive and
parking at the top.  There were three garages--with the house, they enclosed a
pebbled-concrete quadrilateral.  There were no cars parked in the open, but
there was a atmosphere of tension that made Andi opt for ringing the door bell
rather than peeking into the garage's windows.
     The door was opened immediately by the clean-cut young man that
greeted her yesterday.  "Yes?"  He asked expectantly.  "Is Mr. Tyson expecting
you?"  His face was unreadable, his voice wary, but polite, but his steely eyes
seemed to stare right through her. 
     "No, Rex...I'm Andi Wicksham...I was here yesterday..." she held out a
business card that the young man took, but pointedly didn't bother to read.  "I've
been hired by a group that includes Mr. Tyson to look into the disappearance of
some roses from a neighboring property.  I'd like to see what vehicles are here
so I can eliminate them from my search..."
     Rex silently weighed her words, blinked and said, "Please wait...I'll ask
Mr. Tyson..."  The door swung silently closed and Andi stepped away from the
door to enjoy the moment of sunshine.
     A few minutes later the doors of all three garages began automatically
opening.  The formal entry's door reopened, Rex stepped out and carefully
closed it behind him.
     One garage held farm equipment; a narrow-gauge tractor and trailers
with various attachments, an all-terrain vehicle, and two walls of carefully
maintained tools and equipment.
     The other two garages were more conventional, between them easily
housing six vehicles; an open topped jeep, a suburban station-wagon, a light-yellow Corvette convertible, a new-looking, brown Ford pickup with tinted
windows, mud-flaps and fog-lights, a silver Mercedes with tinted windows that
looked like a small limousine, and a dark green 850 BMW.  
     The BMW was the one Andi expected.  Andi thought she'd recognized
Tyson in her photos, identifying his closely-cropped head through the lightly-tinted side-windows.  For Rex's benefit she suppressed any sign of recognition,
neutrally getting shots of all six cars and the tractor and ATV for good measure. 
Her crew-cut attendant stood by mutely observing, hands clasp behind his
back, neither helping or inhibiting in any way.
     She jotted license plate numbers, made a final double-check of her
pictures, then offered Rex a quick "Goodby," returned to her car and sped down
the twisting drive.


     Returning to Feight's road by the convenience store, she made her way
up the narrow lane to its end, stopping at each driveway to peer and snap
photos of cars.  There were seven private drives, six with obvious dwellings and
one with a locked gate across a little-used rutted road winding its way out of
sight.  
     No one contested her presence, though she drew suspicious stares at
least twice.  She let the gated road go--it hadn't been used in a while, no tracks
appeared in the ruts and the padlock had a soft dusting of rust that came off on
her fingers attesting to little if any recent use.
     She saved visiting Feight's property for the end--turning her car to park
facing out as far from the house as she could.  Three vehicles stood in the
parking area, an old, blue rusting step-side pickup, a light-blue Honda Accord,
and a bronze Toyota Corolla.  With an uneasy glance toward the tree-hidden
house, she snapped her photographs and returned to the convenience store to
buy a bottle of juice and look through her photos.  The same bored employee set
aside his paperback to wait on her when she entered.
     She considered hassling him over the bills he'd slipped her.  Somebody
owed her forty dollars--but she pushed the thought from her mind--it made more
sense to pad her bill by a couple of hours.  She smiled for the camera and
escaped to her car.
     Surprisingly, two vehicles from Feight's matched her photos from the
video.  Andi flipped through her notebook to the listing of times she logged.  The
pickup exited and returned early that morning; out from 6:21 to 6:51 AM--the
Honda Accord made a similar run from 12:43 to 1:19.  One trip each, out and
back.  Was it Feight or his niece who'd driven?  Andi kicked herself for not
knocking.  She considered going back, but backed down, the issue would
resolve itself in time.
     She looked through the photos of neighbor's cars, identifying six more of
monday's vehicles.  She counted them up--six from the neighbors, the two
parked at Feight's, Gould's Mustang, Laroux's Chevy Blazer, and Tyson's BMW--she'd accounted for eleven of the nineteen--subtract two police cars, and a
morgue van and she'd almost aced the problem.
     Andi went through all her photos again without picking out anything else. 
She stretched rubber bands around the piles, tossed them into the passenger
seat and drove back to her office.  Maybe Lena could be talked into going out
for a late bite of lunch--Andi remembered her missing forty dollars.  Damn; it
wasn't one thing it was another.  She'd have to hit the bank machine or expect
Lena to pay.






                                                  CHAPTER   4


     The next morning, Lena set about deciphering the slew of phone
messages that had come in.  Andi called Ramirez, left a mumbled message, got
out her notebook and started sorting out that fatal monday's time-line.
     Feight's death had been preliminarily set between three and eight that
morning.  Alison Simpson claimed to have heard him at five or five-thirty, but not
find his body until nine, at which time she says he'd already begun stiffening
with rigor-mortis--her call to 911 was recorded at 9:04.
     Andi leaned back in her chair and bit the end of her pencil.  Figuring three
hours for the onset of rigor, the latest possible time of death was about 6:00 AM. 
If rigor was just beginning at 9:00 and conditions were optimal, that could be
stretched to 7:30 at the latest.  Andi dug yesterday's paper from the recycling
and looked at the back of the sports section--dawn had been at 5:37.  If alive
then as Simpson asserted, the time of death lay between 5:30 and 7:30.
     The pathologist's report hadn't been issued yet--the temperature of the
room and the cooling rate of his various body 
parts would give the experts more to go on, but it didn't seem likely to matter. 
Unless they found some chemical agent leading to a heart attack there would be
no finding that a crime occurred--once "natural causes" was typed into the
report, if it was a murder, it became a perfect one. 
     Andi pulled out the photos taken from the video.  The pickup in Feight's
parking lot had been out around six-thirty--it was back by seven.  Feight could
easily have driven off and returned to die, but that would put his death at best
only two hours before being found already beset by rigor.  She reviewed the
factors and made a note on her time-line--it was pushing the envelope, but
maybe if Feight was thin enough and the room warm enough rigor could begin in
two--maybe. 
     If Feight had taken it--what was he doing at that hour?  If he was already
dead, then who was driving the truck--and why?  His niece, Alison Simpson was
the obvious who.
     Andi inspected the truck's photos again, laying them before her on her
desk.  With the morning light shining on the convenience store window there
was so much glare she couldn't make out the driver.  Maybe the originals would
be clearer.
     "I'll be back..." she called to Lena as she dashed out.
     Andi replayed the two trips of the pickup on her living room VCR, but
between the window's glare and generally grainy image, she couldn't make out
more than a dark-smudged form.  She replayed the re-recorded sections over
and over, then viewed the full-length copy she got from Tyson.  There was
nothing any clearer...
     Andi returned to the office a bit abashed and set again to working the
time-line.  There was the 911 call at 9:04.  Andi pulled out her copy of the police
report, confirmed that the police left at noon, then cross checked the report
against her photos.  The video showed two police cars cruising by the
convenience store at 9:16.  Laroux's Chevy Blazer passed at 9:20, Gould's
Mustang at 9:22.  Tyson's dark green BMW was noted at 9:31.  The dark van with
a county insignia on the side showed up at 11:43 and left twelve minutes later. 
By easy deduction, assuming that she'd come and gone at least once as
Simpson said, Betty Dao's car must either be a silver Cadillac Eldorado that
made two round trips or a burgundy Buick le Saber that made three.
     Andi re-wrote her time-line to absorb the new information.  Between dawn
and seven-thirty Feight had died--his roses, present the afternoon before,
disappeared some time before three.  The times set the boundary.  Within that
span lay her clients predatory behavior and their repeated comings and going's. 
What led from one to another?  
     Ramirez returned her call at that moment.  Not bad timing, all things
considered.  After exchanging their usual banter Andi asked, "Can you ask your
West Linn colleagues what they're thinking about Feight's death?"
     "No..." Ramirez was unusually direct.  "...not unless I had a reason to
ask...which I don't."
     Andi let it slide.  She shifted gears and started describing the case. 
"...Feight...our deceased might have made an early run just before croaking,
but it crowds the timing...more probably Simpson took his truck.  I've got the
four main suspects coming and going, but no smoking gun...so any of the five
them could have removed the bushes and I don't know where any of them went."
     "So, what do you know?" Ramirez prompted.
     Andi took a breath and flipped back a page in her notebook.  "Most
probably he died between five-thirty and half-past seven, that leaves him a
possible driver of the truck returning at seven.  "Two of the suspects came and
left three times, two came and left twice.  Feight's niece Simpson left about
noon and returned, if she made the mysterious trip morning trip that's twice out
and back for her too."
     "Maybe the roses were never there to begin with." offered Ramirez.  "It
could be a total scam...or each suspect could have taken three or four."
     "...and then hire me to find them?  Naw..." Andi grumbled doubtfully. 
"...anyway, it would take a conspiracy.  They were inheriting the damn twigs. 
What's to be gained?"
     "Avoiding inheritance taxes or claiming a couple hundred grand tax
loss..." Ramirez pointed out stoically.
     "Yeah..." Andi admitted grumpily.  "But Laroux still could have just
claimed the roses were worth a dollar seventy-five each and they could have
taken 'em home without ado."
     "So all you know is that each of them made at least two trips from the
site..."  Ramirez pointed out the obvious, "...that ain't much."
     "Right," asserted Andi with resolution, "...other than knowing the number
of trips each made...the case hasn't moved an inch." 
     "Still...this investigation's got to be a better schick than tracking-down
poodles." Ramirez observed idly.  "By the way, the pathologist's report came in,
time of death six to eight...natural causes, heart attack, no violence, no drugs
except prescriptions, those in appropriate levels...nothing pointing to
murder...no crime no foul."
     "What was he wearing?" interrupted Andi.
     "Wearing?" queried Ramirez, with the sound of turning pages in the
background.  "Denim pants, underwear, flannel shirt, glasses, wrist watch, two
rings..."  
     "No shoes or socks?" asked Andi insistently.
     "Not listed..." noted Ramirez in a bored tone.
     "But his truck passed the store at six thirty that morning.  If he'd taken it
he'd be wearing shoes.  It implies Simpson was behind the wheel..."
     "Time-out, Wicksham...you're hyper-ventilating.  Suppose he didn't wear
shoes, or he slipped on thongs or rubber boots or got his socks wet so he took
'em off when he returned.  You're making something out of nothing.  Who cares
who drove the truck?  If you believe Simpson's account of finding rigor mortis,
he died around six.  The only point you can make is that he probably didn't drive
his truck..."
     "...yeah, but..." sputtered Andi.
     "It doesn't touch your problem with the damn shrubs.  Does it change your
list of suspects or the fate of the bushes?  No...it doesn't.  The status is quo, so
the result of that info is na-da."
     "God I hate it when you're both smug and right, Ramirez.  It's
insufferable...you should get out of the nasty habit."  Andi put as much disgust
into her voice as she could come up with on short notice.
     "Yeah, but I keep it hidden most of the time."  He yawned a tired yawn. 
"By the way, those bills you donated are definitely bogus...there's been a rash of
them through the Northwest and the treasury boys are kicking up an incredible
cloud of dust."  
     He paused, Andi didn't say anything so he continued, "...I passed your
bills by Max and he decided in his infinite wisdom that I'm the perfect person to
stick with the job of being liaison with the feds..."
     "There's some sort of poetic justice there, Ramirez." Andi observed
casually.
     "Thanks a hell of a lot...just what I needed....another four hours of
meetings a week on top of my usual pile."
     "It's the karma of being gung-ho..." Andi offered.  "...maybe you'll learn
not to chuck your friend's money down bureaucratic rat holes..."
     "Yeah sorry..." he conceded, grudgingly, then changed the subject. 
"...you and Lena decided on a culinary direction for saturday?"
     "No...things have been too hectic..." Andi suddenly remembered her
mother, but didn't' want to say anything.  "Say, I gotta' go...I'll give a call.  If
anything breaks ring me...otherwise Lena'll buzz Tanya to gab food."
     "Fine...give my love..."  He hung up without waiting for a response.
     Lena continued to talk, her feet up on her table, the receiver to her ear. 
Andi glanced at her watch, it was well past noon--she'd haul Lena out for lunch
when she got off the phone.  Impatient and frustrated, she abandoned the time-line and reviewed for the day's appointments.


     Andi met Jennifer Gould at her home.  The Mustang and truck waited
under the carport, the Volvo was still parked in front--Andi wondered idly if it
could be a lover or room mate's.  Gould was officially single, but that took in a
wide slough of options.
     Gould answered the door with a little high-pitched "Hello..." as if she were
hosting a baby shower.  A pot of coffee and a plate of tiny scones waited on a
table overlooking her backyard queues of roses.  
     There was neither sign or sound of another person about.  The house's
furnishings looked as if they'd been picked from expensive Ethan Allen
showrooms, but they were almost obsessively plain--1950's middle-class;
couches and chairs with gingham slip-covers; a lathe-turned pseudo-Americana
soft-wood dining room suite with flat, square matching pillows that tied to the
chair's back supports with little bows. 
     Unremarkable prints served to break up barren stretches of wall, the
nick-knacks and reading material visible seemed as far from noteworthy as one
could get.  There was a hint of herbal pot-pori in the air, but there wasn't a
personal item, or bright color or exotic note in view.
     Gould herself could have stepped out of a Good Housekeeping magazine
in her pastel leisure suit with matching pumps.  Her nails and hair were recently
done.  Andi got the impression that for some reason the interview was important
to her, that she wasn't simply making herself available.
     "Please, with cream..." Andi responded to Gould's gestured offer of
coffee.  She chose a seat looking out upon the lines of roses that were just now
putting out the season's first shoots and leaves.  "Wouldn't it a bit late to risk
transplanting?" she asked conversationally.
     "I suppose if someone were desperate..." hazarded Gould carefully.  "You
are talking about Darrel's, aren't you?  It will be an incredible loss if we can't
regain them..."
     "Perhaps you'd tell how the four of you decided to call me."  Andi left her
notebook on the table before her--unopened, as if the questions were
unimportant preliminaries. 
     Gould took a sip of coffee, straightened in her chair and looked across at
Andi as if at a job interview.  "Warren suggested the idea the afternoon we
discovered them missing--he didn't think the police would take us seriously."
     "Did you discuss the fact that investigations were expensive?  Unless the
roses are recovered and truly worth something, you could dish-out a reasonable
sum without satisfaction."
     Gould's blue-sparkled lids half-hooded her eyes as she offered Andi a wry
smile.  "Oh that was mentioned...but the roses were worth anything we'll throw
your direction." she said smugly.  "None of us have illusions about that..." 
     Andi looked across without blinking.  "Is Darrel's death relevant to the
rose's disappearance?"  Andi wasn't sure if Gould knew of the coroner's finding
or not.
     "It's relevant to him..." Gould sniggered coldly.
     "Could one of you have done it?" Asked Andi bluntly, not clarifying
whether it was Feight or the roses she asked about. 
     "Of course one of us could have done it." Gould snorted.  "One of us
probably did do it...that's what we've hired you to expose.  And the money's no
object...we can afford it..."  She too didn't clarify whether it was Feight or the
roses they addressed.
     "It doesn't seem there's any trust or warmth wasted between the four of
you...yet you've maintained a relationship for years..." Andi let the observation
float to see what it comment it attracted. 
     "We share a obsessive hobby...a ardor for the illusive perfect rose.  That's
more than most people have in common."  Her words were almost bitter, eyes
had grown hard, losing the gracious, house-beautiful look.
     "When do you think the roses were taken?"
     "I haven't a clue."
     "Mr. Feight or his niece drove off in his truck that morning.  Left about six-thirty and was gone about a half-hour...any idea what they might have been
doing?"
     "He was an early riser...notorious for it..." Gould chuckled.  "Myself, I
sleep until ten."  She gazed into her coffee as if it were a crystal ball.  "...let's
see...six-thirty's too early for most businesses, half an hour's not enough to
drive to Portland or go out for a croissant and coffee."  She looked back up as if
surprised at her conclusion.  "...I've no idea what they could have been doing..."
she waved a dismissive hand and looked bored.  "Do you know?"
     Andi opened her notebook, nibbled at her scone and feigned having to
chew and swallow to leave Gould's question unanswered.  "You drove out to his
place in your red and white Mustang, first arrived about 9:23.  The police were
there already.  You waited with Warren Laroux as the other's assembled.  After
Darrel's body and the police were gone each of the four of you left and returned
once or twice.  Can you tell me what you were doing as you looked through his
papers and why you returned later that afternoon?"
     There was a moment of almost absolute silence.  Andi could hear the
distant buzzing of a neighbor with a chain saw and the sound of her own
breathing. 
     "You know when each of us came and went?" Gould asked in a slightly
incredulous voice.
     "It's what you hired me to do, isn't it...investigate?  I found a low-quality,
out of focus security video...shows car colors and body-type..."  Andi down-played the tape with a depreciating shake of her head.  "Couldn't see much..."
     "But you saw me?" Gould's voice had a sharpened edge.  She leaned
forward, her penetrating gaze piercing.
     "I recognized the Mustang...red, you know...it was fuzzy..." Andi gave a
silly, sheepish grin as if Gould caught her making an unqualified claim.  She
didn't want to telegraph that she'd registered Gould's alarm.
     Gould appeared either relieved or accepting of the situation, she sat back
in her chair and explained authoritatively.  "We were examining Darrel's
breeding records...his chains of root and flower stocks.  He was, as the rest of
us still are...notoriously jealous of his secrets--and in hybridizing, that
information is the key secret each of us has." 
     She smiled smugly at Andi who nodded sagely for her to go on.  With an
arched eyebrow commenting on Andi's silence Gould continued, "None of us
would trust the others to look through the material alone...so we did it
together...none of us wanted to wait even a day before looking...so we did it
then.  That was typical of how we worked--our group dynamic..." Gould sat back
in her chair and showed Andi a self-depreciating smile that seemed patently
insincere. 
     "You did seem to have dropped everything to come to Mr. Feight's house
that afternoon too..." Andi observed casually.
     "I naturally rushed over when the roses were discovered missing."  Gould
shrugged, "But I rushed right over when I learned that Darrel had died.  It's a
normal response...we'd already talked about inheriting the roses..." 
     "You talked of inheriting from somebody who was still alive and healthy?"
asked Andi in surprise.  There was no hiding the implication.
     "Casually...yes..." Gould responded haughtily.
     Andi paused, wondering what lay behind that off-hand little discussion.
     Gould sipped her coffee, then asked quietly over the lip of the cup,
"They're testing for drugs that might have caused his heart attack aren't they?" 
She looked across into Andi's eyes.
     "They're usually quite thorough.  Very little escapes them..." assured Andi
with some certainty, doubly frustrated that the coroner evidently didn't find
anything.  Her clients seemed guilty of at least wishing him dead.  She didn't
want to be the one to tell them there was no official suspicion of murder.
     "But those tests aren't finished yet?" Gould held her cup in both hands,
her elbows on the table, looking across the table meaningfully at Andi.
     "Do you think he was murdered?" asked Andi, baldly avoiding Gould's
question.  
     "Probably..." answered Gould.  "What does the pathologist say?" she
asked directly.
     "The preliminary findings seemed to point to a natural death..."  Andi
admitted with disappointment.  It was as far as she would go.
     "It's such a tragedy...but conveniently timed..." Gould set her cup down to
the table a bit too abruptly.  There was a moment of silence as each considered
what had just been said. 
     After another sip of coffee, Andi said, "At any of the times you were in the
parking lot, did you notice a hand-cart?"  Andi held her pencil over her
notebook, hoping to refocus the discussion.
     "No, was there one?" Gould's mask was up and impenetrable.
     "Each of the four of you came and left at different times, so all of you had
opportunity to have slipped away with the roses.  Who do you think most likely
to have taken them?"
     Gould's frown was sour.  "It could have been any of us.  It would only take
a minute to pop them into bags, then up to the lot and you're off..."  
     "Would the thief keep them or sell them?" Andi asked in her neutral
professional voice.
     "Sell them?" Gould shook her head in dismay.  "For what?  Money?  You
must mistake us for people who struggle to make ends meet.  The question is,
would one of us keep them around here or ship them out until the furor dies
down."  She disdainfully shook her head at Andi's naivete.
     Andi looked out the window and regrouped.  Gould's brand of haughty
frankness was hard to deal with.  "You'd known Mr. Feight for a long time?" she
asked politely.
     "Yes...a very long time." Gould said quietly.
     "Were there people outside your group, who might have wanted the roses
and who could have learned of Mr. Feight's death that quickly?"
     Jennifer Gould sat pondering that question, her eyes on Andi's face as if
reading it.  "There was an editor of The Bloom that visited saturday and sunday. 
He could still have been around the next morning...I don't know who'd tell him
though."
     "The Bloom?" Andi asked politely. 
     "...a rose specialty magazine, grafting, new strains, hybrids...all that sort
of thing.  He was going to do a feature on Darrel, his nursery and his new
apricot tea-noisette.  He was going to write it up and return later in the season
for photos of the bushes in bloom."
     "Remember his name?" Andi asked, turning to a new page in her
notebook.
     "Jason something..."  Gould looked at her slim, gold wristwatch and gave
a surprised "Oh..."  It was a blatant cue for ending the interview, she smiled and
rose graciously to her feet.
     Andi thanked her for her time with as much sincerity as she could muster. 
"May I poke around your garden?  I really need to be able to say that I've at least
looked in all the obvious places."      She smiled an innocent smile, shrugged
away the inconvenience and waved toward the back of the property.
     Herding Andi toward the door, Gould first scowled, then smiled
graciously.  "Help yourself, I've an appointment...leave open gates open and
closed ones closed..."  She recited the instructions as if Andi was there to wash
her windows or turn her compost.  "I'll leave you to it then..."
     Andi slowed a step and glanced across at Gould.  "Oh...there's one last
thing..." she turned as she stepped over the threshold.  "Do you remember
Alison Simpson driving off that afternoon in the Honda sedan?  It was about mid-day for a little less than a half-hour...any idea what she might have been doing?"
     Gould raised her chin and stood straight-backed.  "I've spent years
avoiding that insignificant little nobody.  She has nothing, has done nothing and
is nothing...why would I suddenly pay attention to her?"  She shook her head in
patrician disapproval. 
     Andi nodded slightly in acknowledgment and turned away again.  Half-way down the walk, she turned once more.  Gould still stood in the doorway. 
"She doesn't like roses like the rest of you, does she?" Andi asked, raising her
voice a bit.
     "No, of course not..." replied Gould stiffly.  "They're an acquired taste..." 
She made a show of pulling the screen door closed and slamming the front door
behind her.
     Andi glanced at her watch and walked on around the house, leaving gates
open that were open and closing behind her those that were closed.  There
wasn't much to inspect among the long rows of spindly bushes.  Andi kept on
the look-out for recent digging and empty bags or pots--anything at all that
might seem out of place, but didn't see anything.  She gave up in
discouragement, cursing that she didn't even know what to look for.
     She returned to her car and drove on to Jennifer Dao's--a few minutes
late, but close enough to not offer an excuse.
     Dao must have been watching out her window because she'd come
outside by the time Andi climbed from her car.  The burgundy Le Saber was
parked in front of the garage--Andi fought to keep her smugness from showing.
     "Ms. Wicksham..."  Jennifer Dao greeted her heartily.  "Come on in..." 
She led Andi through a tasteful living room with dark hardwood floors, low
tables with large, colorful porcelain vases decorated with dragons and gilded
phoenixes.  Indirect lighting high-lighted old, hand-painted scrolls mounted
under glass.  The use of subdued spotlights made the unlit walls and corners
recede tastefully into illusionary distance.  "I thought we might sit outside if it
was dry and warm enough..."  It was a question, Dao paused and inclined her
head toward a half-open sliding glass door.  "Water, wine, coffee?" she asked
cheerfully.
     Andi smiled and nodded toward the deck.  "I'm really fine."  She followed
Dao outside, "You and my mother were colleagues.  She'd said you were into
roses."  She smiled again and chose a chair looking in toward the house.
     "I wondered when I heard your name.  You have your mother's nose."  
     Andi blushed and glanced away.
     "How is she?  I'm afraid I've lost touch over the last year or so..."
     Andi could feel herself cringe at the prospect of having to disclose
anything of her mother's cancer; she could feel her cheek twitch as she fumbled
for a response.  "She's still active..." she forced a smile, "...shall I say we've
spoken?"
     "Please..." Dao requested graciously.  "Have you made headway on the
roses?"  She'd seated herself opposite Andi across the white wrought-iron and
glass table. 
     "I've got a good idea of when each of you came and left Mr. Feight's
property.  You came and left three times that day..." she opened her notebook
and scanned her notes.  "...arrived at about nine-forty, left just before noon,
following the coroner's van down from the parking lot..."
     "I'm impressed..." snorted Dao, with deliberate sarcasm.  "Did you find
out what I did for lunch?"
     "No..." Andi figured she was on a roll and fought down the urge to grin. 
"What did you do for lunch?"  She asked, concealing her smile by taking a sip of
water.  
     "I chewed hard Finish rye crackers and washed them down with apricot
juice on my way into Portland." Dao answered musically.
     "You returned at twenty after two.  Left again seventeen minutes later and
returned a few minutes after three." Andi played Jack Friday of Dragnet--deadpan voice with a polite, but long-suffering expression.
     "That last time I'd just come by to reflect on Darrel's passing...so I
wandered in his garden...that's when I found the roses gone."
     "What did you do then?"  Andi tilted her head and allowed a impartial
smile.
     "I came inside and used Alison's phone to call the others. 
     "Called the others, not the police?"
     "Of course..." Dao insisted, "I didn't know where the roses were, but it
might not have been a theft..."
     Andi nodded understandingly.  "So the four of you were together when
you called the police..."
     "But they didn't come out..." Dao interrupted.  "Warren was leery of
telling them the roses real value, afraid he'd lose credibility..."
     Andi again nodded understandingly.  It made sense--property crimes
were far too common for cops to pretend much interest, even West Linn cops. 
"The four of you stayed until almost five, then left six or eight minutes
apart...you left last, at about quarter after five.  Why did you stick around so
long after finding that the police weren't coming out?"
     "I wanted to talk to Alison...she's such a needy thing.  With her uncle
passing away it must be hard..." Dao pursed her lips into the sort of smoochy
expression she'd make pinching a baby's cheeks. 
     "You were concerned for her?" asked Andi.
     "I think I'm more of a people-person than the others, they can be such
frightful snobs.  Alison and I are almost like sisters or cousins..."
     Andi didn't blink an eyelash.  "Why did you leave and come back the
second time?"
     "The second time..." Dao seemed to review a mental list.  "I forgot
something there..."
     "Forgot something?" 
     "Some papers..." Dao answered airily.  "I wanted to compare some of my
own notes to Darrel's..."
     Andi could read nervousness behind her eyes, but doubted that direct
questions would have a chance of bearing fruit. 
     "Do you have any guesses about who took the roses or when it was
done?"  Andi watched Dao push her glass back and forth between opposing
fingers.
     "Like Mr. Plum in the Hallway with the lead-pipe?" she smiled shyly at her
little joke.
     "Exactly..." dead-panned Andi.
     "I think it was Warren and he did it early, while the police were there,
before calling the rest of us."  Dao made the accusation conversationally--without a hint of emotional inflection.
     "How did he get them away?  His car remained in the lot until twenty after
twelve."
     "You would know that wouldn't you?" Dao laughed musically and toyed
with a strand of hair at her temple.  "He could have put them in his car..."
     "He drove a Chevy Blazer, there's no trunk...anybody could have seen
inside..." Andi allowed herself a smile.
     "So..." Dao slapped her hand to the table and bobbed her head in mock
confusion.  "Maybe he simply set them behind the hedge and threw them in
when he left at noon...it would have been easy."
     "I guess he could have..." acceded Andi graciously before taking a sip of
her water.  "I hear there was an feature editor from The Bloom around last
weekend."
     "There was..." Dao confirmed, returning to her sober demeanor.
     "Remember his name?"
     "Jack...Jason...Jonah...something like that--he wasn't interested in
talking with the rest of us."  Dao brushed him away with a dismissive wave of
her hand.
     "He came both saturday and sunday?" Andi looked up into her eyes.
     "Late saturday I understand.  I only saw him sunday afternoon.  Fool
should have known better than to come expecting summer weather in April..."
     "Was he expected back monday?" Andi asked casually as she picked up
her water glass.
     "Don't know...seems that he wasn't or we would have talked about it..."
     "Do you know where he stayed?"  Andi fiddled with he notebook--turned a
page.
     "Motel near the airport would be my guess...he came in a rental car."
     "Was Darrel Feight was an early riser?" Andi tried to keep a steady
rhythm of questions flowing.
     "I suppose so..." Dao shrugged. "...why?"
     "Someone drove his truck at six-thirty that morning...came back a half-hour later..." Andi inflected the end of that statement upwards.
     "That's a question to me?" asked Dao dryly.
     Andi shrugged.
     "...went out for half-and-half for his coffee?" Dao hazarded as if playing
twenty-questions.  "He wasn't murdered was he?"  She pretended that it was
the first she'd ever had the thought and leaned conspiratorially over the table
for Andi's answer.
     "Coroner says heart attack...could have died either before or after that
six-thirty drive."  Andi offered helpfully.
     "I guess that means he either was driving his truck or not." chuckled Dao
sarcastically and leaning back casually in her chair.
     "...doesn't solve the mystery, does it?"  Andi, gave a light sigh, shut her
notebook and started to rise. 
     "No I guess not...when will you be finished investigating?" Dao rose with
her and extended a hand.
     "I'm not really sure." admitted Andi, briefly squeezing Dao's fingers.  "Oh,
I was meaning to ask...where are your roses?  I stopped by a while back and
realized there wasn't a single rose in sight."
     Jennifer Dao laughed her musical laugh.  "...and here I am, a rose-breeder bo-peep without her rosy sheep..."  She laughed again then grew
sober.  "I take roses very seriously, Ms. Wicksham and I'm a business woman.  I
don't know if you'll understand, but rose breeding is serious business and I want
my home to be a haven from work."
     Andi looked back without expression.
     Dao laughed lightly and continued.  "Besides...there was an old Japanese
tea master renowned for his chrysanthemums who, after repeated urging,
finally invited a powerful politician to his tea-house during blooming season." 
     She smiled across at Andi.  Andi shifted from one foot to another, not
really interested--she'd heard too many tea-master stories from her mother.
     Dao continued, now holding her head back so she peered down her nose
at Andi.  "The great man came, but every single bloom had been snipped from
the famous garden...all to show off the single one the tea-master had chosen for
the altar in the tea-room." 
     She gave Andi a knowing smile which Andi ignored.  "...and I've a single
branch with freshly sprouting leaves in a bud vase in the living room."
     Andi nodded stiffly and returned to her car.  She considered that
explanation on the way to Warren Laroux's.  People in Zen stories were weird,
she'd always hated it when her mother dragged them out--maybe it was another
acquired taste.


     Laroux came to the door shoe-less, his sleeves turned up, reading glasses
pushed up on his forehead and a sheaf of papers in his hand.  He greeted her
with the smile of a real estate salesman and directed her with a wave to the
living room as he veered back through an open door into the cluttered study to
initiate a series computer beeps.
     "Ms. Wicksham..." he extended a hand as he returned, then checked his
watch after shaking hands.  "Finally we get our schedules in synch.  I've got a
half-hour to forty-five minutes..."  The last statement came out somewhere
between a question and a challenge. 
     Andi rose and shook hands.  "Perhaps you can tell me about the morning
Mr. Feight died..."  She tried to balance his seriousness with a light, melodious
tone.
     "I got a call from Ms. Simpson at five after nine.  I made a few quick phone
calls and came right over."  Laroux's verbal style reduced things to simplicity as
he were explaining to children or a jury. 
     "You phoned from here?" Andi confirmed.
     Laroux nodded, "Darrel lay in the living room--just as his niece found him I
believe.  The police were already there...there were no suspicious elements
provoking them to treat it like a crime scene.  I comforted Miss
Simpson...Jennifer Dao came almost immediately and we started puttering
about in the drawing room as the police did their work.  The others arrived in
short-order and we stayed until they left.  It didn't seem right to abandon Miss
Simpson to deal with them by herself."
     "You comforted Miss Simpson?" Andi asked, raising her eyebrows
slightly.  "I had the understanding that the four of you and Miss Simpson had a
rather cool relationship..."
     "There was the generational thing...and her emotional problems have
kind of held her back..." he glanced over his glasses meaningfully.  "...but under
the circumstances...the death of a loved-one, kind words and acknowledgement
of grief are always comforting."  His voice was as smooth and quiet as an
mortician trying to sell a full-blown funeral.
     "Do you know anyone Miss Simpson might be close to?" Andi asked
compassionately.
     Laroux smiled a tired smile.  "The only one I saw her even remotely
friendly with was Rex--William's house-boy/butler, whatever...he's closer to her
age..."
     Andi cursed herself for straying afield.  She dropped her smile and
returned to weighing Laroux's facial expressions.  "The four of you stayed in the
drawing room?" she asked carefully.
     "We put some paperwork in order...details of his work of no real interest
to you or others...the five of us were colleagues after all."  Laroux smiled a
gentle, helpful smile.
     "You were going through the details of his cross-breeding notes and the
particular succession of flower and root stocks?"
     Laroux shot her a sharp, defensive glance and his voice was brittle with
tension.  "You must remember we are the beneficiaries of that material... and
I'm executor.  I have an legal responsibility to look through it."  He shifted
uncomfortably on the couch.  "...and under the circumstances the others were
far more comfortable with it being done in their presence."
     Andi paused.  Laroux was more defensive than he needed to be.  "Why do
you think Mr. Feight or Miss Simpson would have driven off in his pick up at six-thirty that morning?" she queried politely.
     "I didn't know that either of them did." Laroux replied simply.
     "For a half-hour..." Andi offered, raising her eyebrows, hoping to prime a
response.
     "I thought Darrel died about that time." Laroux countered.
     "He might have just come back...how about his niece?"
     "Yes...Alison..." reflected Laroux as if pondering something weighty. 
"She was there and had access to the truck keys..."
     "Any idea what either she or her uncle would have been doing at six-thirty?" Andi repeated.
     "No, I don't."  Laroux sat quietly, looking up into her face.
     "Who do you think took the roses?"
     "I have no evidence leading me to definite suspicions." he countered
immediately.
     "Among the three others, who might have been most tempted?" Andi
responded with her next question immediately, reducing his thinking time.
     Laroux frowned.  "I'm sorry...interpreting behavior is outside my field of
study."
     Andi was beginning to get frustrated.  "A feature writer was present the
weekend before that...saturday and sunday.  Did he show unusual interest in the
roses?"  She glared at Laroux, despising his conscious avoidance of her
questions.
     "The roses were the reason he flew up here...of course he showed
unusual interest."  A hint of a condescending smile flittered across Laroux's thin
lips.
     "Do you remember his name?"
     "Jason something...I didn't interact with him.  But Darrel's niece, Miss
Simpson did--they might have been mutually attracted." 
     Andi thought she detected a suppressed leer.  "Did he fly back on sunday
evening?"
     "I don't know...I think he'd finished his business by late sunday
afternoon."
     "Did you see the hand-cart left up at the parking lot when you drove in
later that day?"
     "Hand-cart?  No, I didn't..." There was a sincerity to Laroux's perplexed
look. 
     "You left Feight's just after twelve, but came and went a couple of more
times..."
     "So many details..." Laroux complained broadly, glancing around to
express discomfort.
     "What did you do during those absences?"
     Laroux paused and placed a thoughtful finger to his lips.  "Lunch for that
first one, then once to attend to some legal business.  Is that what you
expected?"
     Andi ignored the question.  "Was that the time you came back to Darrel
Feight's, but only stayed a few minutes?"
     Laroux stared at her.  "Nobody was there.  I couldn't get in...so, after
waiting a few minutes, I returned home."
     "You arrived moments after Miss Simpson left." Andi informed him matter
of factly.  "What time do you think that was?"  She asked the question in as off-handed as tone as she could pull off.
     Laroux looked a bit flustered, as if he hadn't anticipated the question.  "I
guess it was about one o'clock.  I stayed ten of fifteen minutes before returning
home..."  There was a defensive edge to his voice and his brow seemed
suddenly shiny.
     "You had gone home to do some legal work?" Andi prompted.
     "Did I?  Yes, of course..." He asked with somewhat unbelievable
lightness.
     Andi casually flipped back in her notebook.  "You arrived about 12:54 and
left at 1:14."
     "Sounds about right..." he cautiously allowed.
     "Within minutes of Mr. Feight's niece going out, you arrived, stayed
twenty minutes and left."  Andi stared at him, daring him to contradict her.
     Laroux sat back against the couch as if reassessing his position.  "Are
those exact times you're quoting Ms. Wicksham?"
     Andi shrugged.  "Investigation is my field..."  She let the silence tick on a
minute.  "Ms. Simpson was in Mr. Feight's Honda...do you have any idea where
she went?" 
     "No, none..." Laroux stated simply.
     "What did you want to do at the property?"
     "I wanted to make photo-copies of Darrel's notes so each of us could have
one."
     "And you waited on the porch for twenty minutes?"
     "There and in my car...there was quite a lot of rain." Laroux's mouth had
narrowed to a line and there was noticeable tension in his jaw.
     "But you didn't see any hand-cart?" pressed Andi as if she knew a
handcart had been there.
     "No...perhaps I faced the wrong direction..."
     "And then you returned at three-thirty when Ms. Dao called you."
     "That's correct..." Laroux smiled cherubicly, like a jovial, grandfather.
     "...no one else came while you were there?" Andi pushed.
     "You must know that if you have a minute-to-minute log of traffic..."
Laroux responded sarcastically. 
     "Ahhh...except for people on foot..." Andi answered vaguely.  "What do
you think the thief will do with the roses?"
     Laroux smiled and gave a little satisfied nod.  "In the right circles, they're
worth a lot of money.  There are hybridizers all over the world with cash for
exotics...it's a field with affluent players."
     "Would you have access to those people, Mr. Laroux?" Andi asked
politely.
     "All of us would...but anybody who knew of the roses could research it..." 
He was matter of fact about the subject.
     "So you believe Mr. Feight's roses were stolen for resale?" asked Andi,
lifting her eyes to his as she poised, ready to close her notebook. 
     "Why not?" Laroux asked expansively.  "Kept locally there's the chance of
someone recognizing a unique bend of a branch...maybe an unusual pruning. 
There were photos...it would hardly seem worth the risk..."  Laroux glanced
again at his watch, then smiled as he got to his feet.  "Unless you have some
exceptionally important questions, I suggest that I show you my roses..."
     Andi followed him out for his tour.  Laroux had roses in asymmetrical
groups fitting into a larger landscaping scheme spread over five or six acres--little gardens tucked between trees and hedges and rock-sculpture, up the
hillside on his side of a small creek.  He had many hundreds of miniature roses
planted in numerous different groupings.  He led Andi among the plots
describing nuances of combining different strains and lofty sounding breeding
strategies.
     It was obvious he would have had no problem leading her around anything
he'd wanted to avoid.  He could even have showed them, called them something
else and she wouldn't have known the difference.  The time-constraints he'd
pled when she arrived seemed to have evaporated.  He kept on talking until
Andi interrupted, claiming a need to move on.
     "I'm glad we could finally get together..." Laroux extended his hand with
hearty enthusiasm.
     "But of course, Mr. Laroux...it's been quite helpful actually."  Andi allowed
herself to be led back to her car.  "With the coroner's report released, I suppose
you can move on the estate?"
     "Probate, Ms. Wicksham, is a tedious process."  He paused as she
opened her car door.  "Darrel was fastidious about paying bills, but there's a
mandated process of advertising for creditors and concluding affairs."  He
leaned back on his heels and smiled a bit imperiously, "It is my field after all..." 
He gave a final, haughty nod and returned to his house.
     

     Andi pulled onto the shoulder just a little ways up the road from Laroux's
to take notes and review her material.  She scribbled observations in the
margins, then reflected on her up-coming visit with Tyson.  She looked out her
window and pondered tactics as a bird swooped to perch on a fence-post
across the road.
     Rex's place in all this was still a mystery, there had been Tyson's hint that
Rex had known about the roses before Laroux's call.  Tyson's comment about
impassible trails seemed silly--mud was not a barrier to anybody interested in
crossing the hills and his all-terrain-vehicle could make the trip if he didn't want
to walk. 
     She glanced though the photos of Tyson's cars--new, gaudy, expensive. 
Whatever else was said, Tyson had money.
     Andi started her engine and pulled away from the shoulder a little too
fast, spinning her tires in the gravel like a teenager.  Four turns later, as she
pulled on to Tyson's private drive, she saw the flashing lights and commotion. 
     Three police cars and a squat fire engine crowded the end of the drive by
the garages.  A uniformed officer in aviator-style dark glasses and a West Linn
shield stepped up to her window as she pulled to a stop and killed the engine. 
     "What's up officer?" she asked politely.  "Something going on?"
     The officer looked into her back seat and down to the floor of her car,
ignoring her from a foot away.
     "Hello...?"  Andi waved her hand before his face.  Attitude and ego was
his modus operandi--she'd stay in her car until he'd played out his little game.
     Except for leaning away from her window, the officer ignored her, silently
walking behind her car to copy her license plate number.
     "Is there a problem officer?" Andi asked, her impatience with the cop's
ego problem winding into knots.
     "Who are you?" the uniform asked in the rude manner he'd been taught to
seize control of problem situations.  Andi had run across jerks with this stripe
before--no problem but he still played hard-ass--no sense wasting macho
training--it almost guaranteed the problem needed to justify the behavior.
     "Andi Wicksham."  She passed him her driver's license, which he
inspected minutely before copying her name into his pocket note-pad.  "Why the
serious uniformed presence?"
     "Address correct?" the officer asked impersonally, disregarding her
question.
     Andi nodded mutely, averting her eyes, not wanting to feed the sick-o's
control dynamic.
     "What's your business here?" the uniform asked.
     "I've an appointment with Mr. Tyson...what's your's?"
     The officer ignored that question too.  "I'm sorry but you're not going to
keep that appointment."  The officer gave her a surly smile.
     "What the problem?" Andi asked dryly, she'd had enough of his attitude. 
"Oh...you must be one of the new security guards..." 
     "Fucking smart-alec..." the officer muttered to no one in particular. 
"...problem is, your Mr. Tyson offed himself and we're using jaws of life to break
through the bars on the window."
     "Offed himself?" asked Andi.  "Why...?"
     "Do I look like a psychologist?" the officer seemed to lose interest and
turned away.
     Andi considered getting out and asking for somebody in charge, but
luckily realized what a stupid idea it was before pulling the door handle.  
     In three rounds of forward and reverse she got her car turned, then took
the winding drive as fast as her aging suspension could ride.






                           CHAPTER   5

     
     Tyson dead?  Unexpected was a proverbial understatement, unlikely was
another.  He wasn't anyone she'd have suspected as being close to killing
himself.  If it wasn't suicide it could only be murder.
     On her sobered drive back to Portland, Andi reassessed her position--she'd contracted to investigate Feight's roses.  After that it all went murky;
Feight's death, now Tyson's.  Darrel Feight's death was decreed not a crime and
the squabbling of his beneficiaries was, thankfully outside her investigation.  If
smart, she'd wrap her lack of results up with a bow and be done with the case. 
Her focus should be roses...though she didn't really care about them with Tyson
and Feight's demises so tantalizingly dangled before her.  Though she
suspected her clients of murdering Feight, they were hiring her to find evidence
about roses.  Her focus should be roses.  
     Roses...right. 


     Back at her office she called Laroux. 
     He already knew about Tyson's suicide.  Andi was quietly miffed, but
didn't let on.  She'd hoped to use the news as a point from which to question
him, but now she'd lost the element of surprise.
     Laroux admitted freely that he and Tyson had talked that morning--about
an hour and a half before Andi's arrival.  He said Tyson was up-beat, discussing
division of Darrel Feight's roses.  Laroux was shocked at the news of course,
"Deeply saddened...so surprising and unexpected...though such things always
are..."  He parroted the phrases as if reciting from a book.
     He said he'd phoned Tyson within minutes of Andi leaving--a policeman,
not Rex answered.  He probably knew Tyson was dead before Andi pulled off
the road to scribble her notes.  He'd already called Gould and Dao to spread the
news.  There didn't seem much to talk about so Andi offered a gruff "goodby."
     Why would he phone Tyson except to warn him of her questions?  It was a
good question.  She jotted a few phrases in her notebook.
     She called Ramirez and, surprisingly, got him right off.  She cut to the
heart of her agenda.  "I need a favor...there's been a suspicious death in West
Linn...apparent suicide.  I know it's out of your jurisdiction, but this is a please
with sugar on it...you can slide on the lunch you owe me and I'll buy our next
two."
     Ramirez took her urgency in stride.  "You're on.  It wouldn't happen to be
a male, fifty-seven years old, approximately five-nine/one seventy, named
William Tyson, would it?"
     Andi took the phone from ear and looked at it in surprise before returning
it and responding.  "Why would you know that?  It's in West Linn...and a
suicide."
     "I think we'll do lunch at some place nice...and expensive, don't you?  Ron
Paul's or better I think...there's a nice place on NW 21st named Beau
Thai...really great pad thai..." Ramirez was playing it for all it was worth.
     "Sure...fair and square...now what brought a suicide in another county to
your desk after only a frigging couple of hours?"  Andi demanded.
     "Tyson was high on the list as self-publisher of our errant green...the 911
call from his address red-flagged the computer system, Lieutenant Allen
scrambled her team when she saw it and I got a fax a half-hour ago."  Ramirez
sounded like he was grinning from ear to ear.  "I'll keep you up to date..."
     "Got anything on my roses?" asked Andi, hoping against hope.
     "Not unless they used the leaves for green ink...the team's strictly a
Treasury thing...I'm just in for good relations."
     "Did Tyson have a motive?" Andi asked more to keep the conversation
going as anything.
     "Evidently left a note, but they haven't released it."
     "Oh, well...my investigation wasn't going anywhere anyway..."  Andi
scowled at her notebook.  "I guess interviewing him wouldn't have helped..."
     "Tough break my friend...when do you want to start paying off this debt?"
     "Next week at the soonest...you're already coming to dinner tomorrow. 
Shouldn't that count as one of the meals?"
     "Don't welch on your debts, Wicksham...it makes you look cheap." 
Ramirez was enjoying this far too much.
     Andi reined in the desire to leave him with a nasty rejoinder and said
simply, "Right...adieu...keep in touch...I hate it when you smirk...you aren't a
very good winner."
     "Ciao bella, Wicksham...I'll keep you posted." 
     Andi slammed the phone down and wailed to Lena.  "Talk about a day late
and a dollar short...I miss Tyson by hours and both Laroux and Ramirez knew
before I could spring it..."
     "Baby, baby, baby you're out of time..." Lena quoted retro Rolling Stones
and gave a sympathetic look.  "You should put that rose stuff aside anyway...you
have to look through catalogues and pick an eavesdropping toy for your favorite
peeping Thomasina."
     She threw a glossy catalogue of space-age spy and detective gear across
to Andi's desk.  "I circled ones that will best pick-up groans of passion and bed-springs.  After that you have reports on Janice Thompson's witnesses to proof-read...she got the results by phone, but we can't bill without the report."
     Andi strafed Lena with a burdened glare.  "Thanks...what do you want for
dinner?"
     Lena crumpled a paper in her hand and made a high, arching shot to the
waste basket across the room.  It would have been nothing-but-net, if there'd
been a net--she had an uncanny eye.  "I don't know.  Your Mom'll be back, you
should call..."  She glanced at her watch.  "It's four-thirty already...how about
closing-up shop when you finish choosing hardware?"
     Andi tossed the catalogue back on Lena's table, "I'm finished, let's go..."


     At the grocery Lena chattered on about menu options for Ramirez and
Tanya.  Andi followed passively, pushing the cart on auto-pilot, listened with half
an ear--it hadn't been a good day and she was lost in thoughts about her mother.
     Andi let Lena buy what she wanted without comment.  A huge chinook
salmon...almost an endangered species, but exquisite...early asparagus and
three extra bulbs of garlic to roast for spreading on Tanya's bread.  Lena chose
a fourteen dollar bottle of wine--more than they usually spent.  She turned
around in surprise when Andi didn't even comment.
     Back at their apartment, Andi dialed her mother from the living room
phone while Lena heated black beans and steamed rice for burritos.
      Andi's mother picked up the phone half-way through its first ring.
     "Hi Mom...how you doing?"
     "Oh, hi honey...I just got back...it's a pleasure to hear you.  I walked on
the beach all morning, giving life a lot of thought..."  Her mother's voice was
calm and even, no trace of the woe she'd allowed to show before.
     "Did you get your test results?" Andi asked carefully.
     "Yes...I've given them a lot of thought too."
     "You have..." Andi dangled the response, prompting without a questioning
inflection to the words.
     "I have.  This is a wondrous thing we're doing and I think I've allowed too
many unimportant things to distract me..."
     "Mom...what's this `thing we're doing'?"
     "Living, Andi...living...experiencing life...what we're here for.  I just
realized I've kept so busy I haven't paid much attention."
     "Mom..." Andi asked in frustration.  "...cut to the chase.  What were the
results of your tests?"
     "They were positive, if that's the right term...I'm dying.  It's
spread...whether I treat it aggressively or not, probably won't change much. 
I've decided to live whatever time I have as fully as possible."
     Andi tried to respond, but no words formed in her mouth.  She sank into a
chair, mouth gaping like a fish; opening and closing without words coming out.
     "Hello, Andi...are you there dear?" her mother asked.
     "Yeah..." Andi cleared her throat and coughed.  "...yeah I'm here.  What
do you mean you're dying?"
     Her mother's voice was calm and clear.  "The cancer's inoperable...even
radical chemotherapy couldn't truly cure me.  At least I'll avoid the indignity of
losing my hair.  That's something to be thankful for, don't you think?"
     "Mom...what are you saying?" Andi's brain spun, trying to figure the
overlooked option, the angle that could refute what she'd just heard.
     "I'm saying I've spent hours walking around looking at the ocean and
rocks and I think I'm gaining a new perspective into living."
     "Mom...back to this cancer thing.  What did they say?"
     "They said they can keep me comfortable...they said bone cancer can be
excruciatingly painful and that I should be ready for that...they said I might have
six-months or a year, but probably not much more--depending on whether vital
systems get disrupted sooner or later.  They've told me that I'm dying
Andi...they told me in the nicest possible way, but that's what they said."
     "Mom..." Andi wailed, choking again and temporarily blinded by tears.  
     "Andi...get a grip..." her mother admonished sharply and loudly, in the
flat, stern voice she'd used for demanding obedience over Andi's thirty-five
years.
     Andi sniffed and pinched her lips together.
     "Hysteronics won't help either of us...in fact they're exactly the opposite
of what I need.  It's how I'd expect Cinny to react--and why I'm talking to you
instead.  I need your support in facing this calmly and rationally...after all, we'll
all face it; even you, my dear...maybe this will give you a head start."
     Andi took a deep breath and slowly let it out.  "OK Mom, I'm here.  I can
handle whatever you need...just what do you want me to do?"
     "I want to live as much everyday life as I can, so number one, I want you
to treat me like a person who's living, not someone dying.  Number two, if you
can, I'd like you involved...monitoring...I might need to ask a difficult favor. 
Last, I want you to be thankful for your life and Lena.  Funny, but I'm thankful for
the chance to really live my last months instead of running around like I have for
the last fifty years."
     "I'm here for you..." Andi kept her voice even.
     "You're not in this alone you know...I've already talked to both Rabbi
Aryeh and Roshi Sarah...you know them, don't you?"
     "OK..." Andi swallowed.  "...sure, yeah...anything more immediate?"
     "...certainly.  Have a good evening dear.  I'm going to drive back out to the
coast and walk along the beach again...if I leave now I'll be in time for sunset."
     "You're not going to do anything...stupid, are you?" Andi had a sudden,
lurid vision of her mother committing suicide.  
     "Andi..." her mother admonished.  "...have you ever known me to?"


     Andi didn't have much appetite for dinner.  She built a burrito, putting on
mango and the special salsa she and Lena loved, but sat watching Lena and
holding the tortilla until it began falling apart.  "Mom asked me to be thankful for
my life and you..." she said humbly. 
     "Wise woman...." Lena answered with a completely straight face.
     "It's strange being the one she'd call instead of Cinny..."
     "Wise woman..." Lena repeated.
     "But what does she mean by just going off to the beach at a time like
this?" Andi complained grouchily.
     "Beg your pardon?" asked Lena pointedly.  "What do you expect her to
do...stay home and light candles?"
     "Well it is Shabbat..." Andi replied testily.
     "Something you've never observed since I've known you..." Lena stared,
elbows on the table, her burrito half-raised to her mouth.  "Get a grip..."
     "That's what she said..." Andi sat back in her chair and swallowed against
the lump in her throat.
     Lena gave a compassionate one-sided smile, "Like I said before, `wise
woman...'"


     The next morning they slept late.  Their saturday morning ritual, when
schedules allowed, included pillows over bleary eyes, eventual negotiation or
blatant manipulation for bedside tea or coffee delivery, rewarded by carnal
favors for the selfless soul braving the kitchen while her partner lazed in bed.
     They rose around eleven for a luncheon omelet and frantic bout of house
cleaning.  Andi dug through three-inches of old mail and some-what important
documents when the telephone call came. 
     "Andi Wicksham?"  A male, officious voice confirmed her identity.
     "Speaking..." Andi propped the phone between ear and shoulder to keep
her hands free for sorting. 
     "Sergeant Talbert of the West Linn police.  Do you know a man by the
name of Tyson, William Tyson?"
     "The late William Tyson..." mumbled Andi grumpily.
     "Yes, the late William Tyson." confirmed Sergeant Talbert.  "You know
he's dead, then?"
     "I came by the house while you guys were still there...left my name.  I had
an appointment.  Isn't that why you're calling?"
     There was a momentary pause and the shuffling of papers. 
"No...actually..." replied Sergeant Talbert carefully, "...I hadn't put those parts
together yet.  I'm calling because of a note found in Mr. Tyson's study."
     "A note from Mr. Tyson mentioned me?  ...what does it say?"
     "That's the point my of call Ms. Wicksham.  I'd like to discuss the matter in
person."
     "Sounds formal, Sergeant.  Is it urgent?"  
     "I'll be in my office here at the station until four..."
     "Sorry...it's already..." Andi turned her wrist to glance at her watch,
"...almost two-thirty.  I've friends coming for dinner in a couple of hours.  How
about tomorrow?"
     "How about Monday?" Sergeant Talbert suggested in a tired voice.  "But
if I could ask you a few questions now?"
     "What you got?" acceded Andi.
     "Had you been in contact with Mr. Tyson in the last few days?"
     "Met him once or twice...talked on the phone.  He's a client..."
     "Would you say you knew him well?" Talbert was able to deliver the
question with absolutely no emotional spin--dry as British toast.
     "No, not at all." We've probably exchanged less than a hundred and fifty
words in all the time I've known him...all of that over some roses I'm tracking
down."  Andi tried to mirror the flatness Talbert affected.
     "You don't have a personal relationship?" Talbert was not amused.
     "Not in any way, shape or form..." recited Andi, but the reflection of
Talbert's dull style had crossed over the line to a burlesqued lampoon.  She felt
a bit embarrassed and added "Sir."
     "I don't need the sarcasm, ma'am..." Talbert responded, obviously aware
of being mocked.
     "I'm sorry officer..." Andi offered.
     "Sergeant...ma'am." Talbert corrected impatiently.
     "Yes, sir...uhhh...sergeant." 
     "Did you have business dealings with Mr. Tyson?" continued Sergeant
Talbert in his tedious style.
     "He was a client.  I do private investigation...he and some friends had
some roses stolen.  I've been on it a week or so..." 
     "That's all?"
     "All?" asked Andi rhetorically.  "What did you expect?"
     "No `other' business dealings?" pushed Talbert
     "What does `other' mean?" asked Andi dryly.
     "Are you involved in any business he might connected with?"  asked
Talbert obscurely.
     "No..." replied Andi simply.
     "Do you have relationships with any of his business partners?"  
     "Relationships?" Andi fielded, trying to see the angel Talbert was trying
go get at.  "What do you mean?"
     "Are you employed or involved with any his business partners?" Talbert
had his flat delivery down pat.
     "Other than being hired by him and three friends to track down roses...no. 
If those friends are business partners, then yes, but only in looking for the
roses.  What's so difficult to understand about that?" Talbert was pushing her
buttons.  She added icily, "Is there anything else, Sergeant?"
     "Not for now.  We'll meet monday..."  It was a statement--his objectionable
tone didn't ease.
     "Monday it is...ten-o'clock?" she pulled the time out of thin air so as not to
have things totally at his discretion.
     "Ten-thirty?" he countered, counter-punching like a pro.
     "Fine, where?" Andi demanded grouchily, cursing under her breath at the
inconvenience, then deciding with a little, acid smile that the time should be
billed to the stolen roses.  It was only fair.  She hung up, dropped her pile of
papers on the bookcase and strode to the kitchen for her notebook and a pen.
     

     Tanya and Ramirez arrived at six with two loaves of still-warm bread and
a covered dish Ramirez pointed at with a blanching expression and eyes rolled
to heaven.  "The chocolate in this may have to be licensed..." 
     "Welcome, the fish is in the oven...come on in." Lena pecked him on the
cheek and hugged Tanya with her free arm.  "For you I've got a special treat..."  
She led Tanya into the kitchen, whispering conspiratorially in her ear.
     Andi and Ramirez retreated to the living room to choose music.
     "Want the latest on your bogus twenties?" Ramirez stood shoulder to
shoulder with Andi facing the entertainment center.  He turned his head from
the chin just slightly to catch her expression from corner of his eye.
     "Sure..." Andi responded in a quiet, non-committal voice--holding out a
CD of old Lord Buckley routines. 
     "Yeah, I like him, put it on..." Ramirez ran his finger along the row of disk-boxes.  "A very large amount of those twenties, fifties and hundreds...in the
middle six-figure's worth, were in the room with him..."
     "Him being Mr. Tyson?" Andi confirmed, she whistled quietly at the
amount.
     "Him being your friend Mr. Tyson..." Ramirez rocked slightly; balancing
on the balls of his feet like a dancer.
     "...client..." corrected Andi in a neutral, friendly voice.
     "Whatever..." shrugged Ramirez.  "Anyway the tale's a screamer."  He
and Andi watched their reflections in the glass-mounted poster behind the
cabinet.  "...like a Dickson Carr locked-room mystery...with pieces that don't
make sense."
     Andi idly hefted a disk, still watching Ramirez's transparent image beside
her own.  "Like?"  Andi, turned and stared at him as if over the top of glasses.
     "Well, you got your basic body...lying in front of his desk on his back, fatal
gunshot wound in his chest and weapon within inches.  A frontier Colt 44...an
antique...like the cowboys used.  His finger-prints were all over it...it was laying
half-under the front edge of a couch ten or twelve feet from the window...along
with a suicide note." Ramirez's eyes narrowed as he smiled.
     Andi raised herself to her toes like Ramirez and leaned forward
menacingly.  "...and?" she demanded.
     "No finger prints on the inner door-knob but his.  No powder burns on the
guys's white shirt, very-little bleeding...almost all internal--the bullet chopped
the heart...the first officers in noted the lack of powder burns."
     "So there was something over the barrel...how about a pillow as a
silencer?" Andi smiled.  "They missed something..." she sang teasingly.
     Ramirez shook his head "no."  "It took so long to get in they'd all the
equipment you could dream of switched on.  There were two video
cameras...the second, third and fourth officers in were forensics...they'd
discussed protocol while waiting...every blessed item in the room was checked
against the video inventory...there wasn't anything he could have used that
wasn't checked three or four times.  Believe me...they wanted to find
something..."
     "OK...he held the gun at arm's length..." offered Andi helpfully.
     "That would help explain the some of lack of nitrate on his shirt, there still
should have been more...but it was a forefinger, not a thumb leaving the print on
the trigger..." Ramirez obviously enjoyed doling out the answers. 
     "So...the fatal round didn't come from that gun..." Andi theorized with a
grin.
     "Uuhh-hugh." Ramirez shook his head "Wrong-o...very unusual slug...not
only the do the barrel marks match...the expended cartridge still in the gun
matches the spent slug in his chest."  He lowered his chin to look over the top of
his glasses.  "The kicker is that there weren't nitrate traces on either hand." 
     "Is there more..." Andi prompted, there must be more.
     "Yeah...even if you can discount that the chamber had been spun so the
spent shell was three spaces away from the fireing pin, why would he kill
himself without warning?  Out of the blue, with an appointment booked with you
an hour and a half later and having just talked to a friend on the phone..."
     "...to Walter Laroux..." Andi offered under her breath.
     Ramirez pulled his head back and stared.  "You knew that?"  There was a
touch of irritation in his voice, but he didn't follow it up.  "...his hired help said he
was in good spirits and was looking forward to new projects..."
     "So what?  One piece of your puzzle doesn't fit...probably somebody
screwed up.  You got everything else...a note in his hand, for God's sake..." Andi
shook her head and chuckled.
     Ramirez smiled a smug grin.  "Not exactly a handwritten.  It was
typewriter-looking...laser printed on standard white bond.   There wasn't a
printer in the room and all of Tyson's paper was a spendy, cream-colored linen
stock...there was nothing cheap in the two printers he had in the house."
     "So..."  Andi chewed her lip a moment.  "if it wasn't suicide...the killer had
a key and relocked the room."  She thought a second and looked up brightly. 
"Didn't that room have an electronic locking system?  Maybe the killer punched
in the locking code as he left..."
     Ramirez stopped his narration and stared at her over his shoulder. 
"...how much do you know about this counterfeiting case?"
     "I'd scheduled an appointment with him...I'd been there before. 
Remember I'm looking for stolen roses...Walter Laroux is another client on that
case."  Andi shrugged.
     Ramirez nodded doubtfully.  "Anyway, his exterior security
cameras...that's two different cameras watching drive and entrance...didn't
show anybody coming or going.  Neat mystery 'eh?" 
     "I think there must have been a cloth or something around the gun..." Andi
squinted, then closed one eye to help her see through the problems.  "And
people make mistakes.  How old was the reagent they used to check for
nitrate...maybe somebody printed him and wiped the ink from his hands, then
didn't want to admit it..."
     "I tell you," Ramirez nodded, "There was so much attention on this puppy,
that type of mistake didn't happen...West Linn's forensics crew is freaking
out..."
     "There's a trick or mistake..." Andi smiled smugly.  "My guess is a
handkerchief or pillow got flung into a corner..." she gestured with her hand,
flinging an imaginary handkerchief outward from her chest, her eyes shut after
the imaginary fatal wound.
     "Well, it's become a big deal." Ramirez stated soberly.  "Since the lack of
proximity burns and residue at the entry wound was noted at the scene it's
gotten a truckload of substantiation...autopsy, forensic's lab..."
     Andi started chuckling.
     "And the kicker to it all..." added Ramirez, pausing for dramatic
emphasis, "...is who the antique revolver belongs to."
     "...yeah, go on..." urged Andi as expressionlessly as she could.  She was
tired of dramatic pauses.
     "Its Darrel Feight's..." Ramirez chuckled.  "...his finger prints were even
on the bullet casing.  Lieutenant Allen calls it the `supernatural aspect' of the
case."
     "Feight returned from the grave for revenge?  Pretty scary...in the
Macbethian tradition that would make Tyson his murderer..."
     "You got a problem with that scenario?" Ramirez stopped laughing. 
"Being so unhappy at his cause of death, I thought you figured it that way too..."
     Feight's death was a unhappy subject.  "Back to Tyson's locked room...."
she swung the conversation back on track, "...what's the answer?"
     "I don't know..." replied Ramirez, shaking his head.  "Like you
say...maybe operator error?  I don't take it personally."
     "Well...gee..." mocked Andi in a silly voice, "I guess they didn't use
enough expensive police equipment..."  She mugged cross-eyed, putting a
finger to her cheek and turning her wrist.
     "Wicksham..." Ramirez let out a sigh as if disappointed, then broke into a
smile.  "...the redeeming factor is that it's not my case...."
     "I get the picture..."  Andi nodded supportively.
     "...good.  I'm just sharing a bit of the confusion of the world of officious
investigation...I thought it might bring a smile to your day."  He raised both
palms in a gesture of giving it away.
     "Do I look like I'm not enjoying the story?  I think it's great."  Andi put
everything into a display of friendly warmth.
     Ramirez was enjoying himself.  "...it's made worse by the
counterfeiting...Allen and Talbert have three levels of professional worriers
looking over their shoulders, picking apart paperwork and asking embarrassing
questions."  He chuckled at the thought.
     "Does this mean I'm not going to get my forty-bucks back?" asked Andi
innocently.
     "Yeah...bill his estate.  What do you care--you're making the big buck and
traveling in fast circles."
     Lena came out from the kitchen with a platter of hors'doeurves her eyes a
little red from smoking.  "Snacks for the tired professionals?" she quipped. 
     Ramirez turned and beamed a smile.  The snacks were slices of carrot
and jimeca, smoked oysters and a sweetened chili-pepper dip.  Lena
abandoned the tray and retreated back to the kitchen and Tanya.  "Your cash is
gone, Wicksham.  But Tyson's locked room is something else, 'eh?" 
     "You really going to hold me to those lunches?" Andi asked, narrowing
her eyes.
     Ramirez nervously licked his lips, obviously struggling for a reply--luckily
he was saved by Tanya and Lena emerging together to announce dinner and
escort them to the table.
     The evening went smoothly, dinner and dominos, gossip and joshing. 
Finally Tanya and Lena both yawned in stereo, goodbyes were exchanged, hugs
and kisses, then the two of them were alone in the quiet apartment.
     Andi repeated what Ramirez said about Tyson as they finished in the
kitchen.  Retiring to the bedroom, Lena admitted telling Tanya about Andi's mom
and asking her to tell Ramirez and explain that Andi was having a hard time
talking. 
     Tanya had kept it quiet all evening.  Now Andi complained loudly of being
betrayed, wadding her clothes into a ball and throwing them against the wall in
frustration.
     Lena dismissed her with a wave of her dental tape--claiming off-handedly
that it was their right as her friends to know about her mother and her own duty
as her partner to tell.


     Sunday, Andi spent the afternoon playing music--drums, in her jazzy be-bop, rock, alternative group that back up her friend Sonny's poetry.  
     It was fun and she came home sweaty.  Lena made salad to accompany
the leftover salmon.  Andi showered and they ate on the balcony.
     Monday morning at ten thirty Andi, presented herself to West Linn's police
department receptionist.  She waited twenty minutes in an uncomfortable chair
and then was shown to an interview room without apology.  It took another eight
minutes for Sergeant Talbert to make his entrance and introduce himself.  He
sat down and silently glared across the table until the door opened and a thin
woman in a severe, tan business-suit entered.
     "This is Lieutenant Allen, Ms. Wicksham...she's coordinating this
investigation." Talbert said gruffly.  He didn't explain which bureau or
department Allen was from.  Andi remembered Ramirez's mention of her--the
dark-eyed leader of the anti-counterfeiting pack.  She let her eyes flick across
the Lieutenant's squarish face and page-boy brown hair a second time before
returning her attention to Talbert.
     "Do you mind if I record this interview?" he asked after a perfunctory
greeting.
     Andi shrugged, "I'd assumed you would..."
     Talbert exchanged a glance with Allen and turned back to scowl at Andi.
     "Do I need a lawyer or anything?" Andi asked warily.
     "You're not under arrest or suspicion regarding Mr. Talbert's death.  It's
within your rights to have council with you if you really feel a need...though that
might take a while to set up..." Sergeant Talbert answered in a burdened, but
official voice that clearly expressed how pissed he'd be if she gave him such
trouble.
     Andi reflected on the expense of getting somebody to go through the
ordeal and gave it up as another bad idea.  "Go ahead...what do you want to
ask?"  She stared fixedly into Talbert's emerging bald spot.
     "You have a friend named William Tyson?" Talbert read the question from
his notes as if he really didn't care.
     "I have a client with that name." Andi answered plainly.
     "Client hiring you do what?" Talbert avoided her eyes, reading the
questions woodenly, only looking up when she looked away.
     "Hiring me to investigate the disappearance of some roses."
     "When did you last speak with Mr. Tyson?" Talbert droned.
     "A few days before he died." Andi answered stiffly.
     "Your appointment had been arranged some time ago?" Talbert asked
innocently.
     "Well, it had been scheduled for the day before, but was rescheduled." 
Andi scratched an itch behind her ear.
     "It was rescheduled without speaking to him?"  Talbert's mouth split into
a gleeful smile--he snatched at the incongruity like a dog leaping for a frisbee. 
They must have gone over Tyson's appointment book before coming up with the
questions.
     Andi shook her head, sighed and loaded as much burdened-exhaustion
into her voice as it would hold, "...that was done by my business partner."  She
shook her head at their ignorance, no sense waiting to the end to start giving
hints that the interview had gone on too long.
     Talbert glowered and tried another tack.  "Roses in pots?  A truck-load? 
...a couple of hundred, a thousand?" he asked.  "What are we talking about
here?"
     "No, roses planted in the ground...and there were twenty-four...miniature
ones..." Andi kept her answers minimal.
     "And Mr. Tyson was going to review the progress you'd made in finding
them?" Talbert extended.
     "No, actually I was interested in whether he might have been involved in
the theft."
     Talbert leveled his steady, dark eyes upon her, paused a long
moment,then said slowly, "Let me see if I've got this right...Mr. Tyson hired you
to investigate the theft of twenty-four little roses that you feel he might have
stolen from himself?"  He looked up to receive her nodded confirmation.  "Isn't
hiring a private investigator expensive?"
     "The roses may be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars." Andi could
feel her credibility sagging.
     Talbert gave her a look that said that he knew she was lying and that
things would go a lot easier for her if she'd just cooperate.  "That's the reason
you were visiting him that afternoon?"
     "Yes, that's it." replied Andi simply.
     "You weren't friends?"
     "No."
     "But you'd been over to his house at other times?"
     "Twice..."  Andi was beginning to feel uneasy.
     "And talked on the phone with him?"
     "A few times..." admitted Andi,  unsure at the moment how many times.
     "Did Mr. Tyson always pay in cash?" Talbert asked quickly.
     "I've never been paid by Mr. Talbert.  I've been paid by Mr. Laroux...only
once...by check."
     "Mr. Laroux?" queried Talbert.
     "The friend Mr. Tyson called that morning..." offered Andi helpfully.
     "If you didn't talk to Mr. Tyson, how do you know he talked to Mr. Laroux?" 
Talbert asked as if it were a damning point.
     "I spoke to Mr. Laroux that afternoon, they're both my clients...both are
beneficiaries of the missing roses."
     "Are you investigating him too?"  Tyson slathered on a tub of sarcasm.
     "Yes.." Andi admitted with a sense of defeat.
     Talbert shook his head in obvious disgust.  "They went in together to hire
you to investigate the possibility of them stealing roses from themselves?  Do I
have that right?"
     "...correct." Andi replied simply.  To explain would only complicate the
matter.
     "I see..." Talbert replied tensely.  "...they hired you together and both are
suspects?"  
     It sounded unlikely when he said it, but it was burdened with the
unfortunate condition of being the truth.  "Yes..." Andi answered through
clenched teeth, "...to both questions...the two of them and two others..."
     Allen and Talbert exchanged significant glances, Allen tugged on
Talbert's sleeve and leaned to whisper something in his ear.
     "Do you know what Mr. Tyson did for a living?" Talbert asked calmly.
     "...retired military..." 
     "Lived pretty well...?" it came out as half question, half statement. 
Talbert raised his eyebrows to reinforce it as a question.
     "Seemed to..." Andi was growing tired of Talbert's attitude.
     "So you went inside his house?" he asked quietly, as if he wanted her to
confide in him.
     "The first time there I did." Andi admitted easily.  "That's the only time I
went inside..."
     "And you talked with him in the living room?" Talbert was obviously
feeding her an answer he didn't want.  He looked up expectantly.
     "No, I was shown into that study with the keypad by the door..." she
almost made the mistake of saying `where the body was found.  It was a close
enough call to make her break out in a sweat.
     "You met with him in that room?" asked Talbert.  Andi could tell he'd
grown interested by the touch of intensity shown by the way he almost caressed
the words, mouthing them slowly.   He was into the material he felt important
and could probably feel her nervousness.
     "Sure..." Andi conceded, Talbert's gaze had flicked to her forehead,
taking in her sudden sheen of sweat.
     "What did you do there?" 
     "Talked for a minute before following him to another room where he gave
me a copy of a video tape."
     "Did he always meet with you there?" Talbert nodded knowingly.
     "That was the only time I've ever been in his house.  If you weren't paying
attention we can we run the tape back and see if that's what I said." Andi
suggested helpfully, holding Talbert with a steely gaze.
     "Did you look in the drawers of his desk?" Talbert asked ominously.
     "The desk in that study?" asked Andi as if she didn't understand.
     "Yes..." grumped Talbert, "...that one."
     "No."
     "Did he show you anything in any of the cabinets in his study?"
     "No."
     "He just led you into that high-security room to talk a few minutes before
leading you out again?" Talbert's voice oozed with disbelief.
     "He was in that room when I came to the house.  He was already there
when I was shown in."
     "Why do you think he met you there?" Talbert's eyes narrowed.
     Andi shrugged.  She knew impatience or frustration on her part would be
interpreted as guilt, but was on the edge of not caring.  "Maybe that's where he
happened to be.  It looked to me like a study with a bunch of antiques.  Maybe he
wanted to impress me with his collection.  Rich people with funny habits are not
uncommon in my line of work..."
     "Antiques?  I thought he didn't show you anything?" Talbert's eyes lit up.
     "He didn't...but there were display cases all around...in the room, up and
down the halls...you must have been there...didn't you look?"  Andi had taken
about enough of Talbert's nasty innuendo.  "Ah, but of course you knew that..."
Andi gave him a conspiratorial wink, hoping her low opinion of him didn't
telegraph too obviously.
     "What other business did you do with Mr. Tyson?" asked Talbert, he lifted
his chin and glanced to Allen.
     "Beg your pardon?" asked Andi, innocently feigned not understanding.
     "Your other business with Mr. Tyson?" repeated Sergeant Talbert.
     "What other business?" inquired Andi politely.  Talbert must know that his
manner was offensive, but she was on solid ground again.
     "You do other work for Mr. Tyson occasionally, don't you?" Talbert looked
up knowingly.  A touch of a smile flicked at the corners of his mouth and his
eyes glistened.
     "No, I don't." Andi said with definition.
     "But you were intimate enough for him to address his suicide note to
you..." stated Talbert slyly.
     "He what?" demanded Andi in surprise.
     "In his study there was a note addressed to you." Talbert leaned back in
his chair and touched the eraser of his pencil to the tip of his chin.
     "What did it say?" asked Andi indignantly.  "He addressed the note to
me?"
     "Didn't he write notes to you before?"
     "No..."
     "Tell me about what he would have written you..." Talbert urged.
     "Tell you what?" Andi was losing patience.
     "What do you think it would say?" prodded Talbert.
     "What do I think it said?" replied Andi not quite believing that he'd asked
such a stupid question.
     "If he wrote you a note, what information would you be looking for?" 
Talbert's tone was icy, his eyes blazed with moral purpose.
     "...Officer Talbert...what do you think I would be looking for in a note from
somebody I'd never gotten a note from before?"
     "I'm a sergeant..." growled Talbert.  "Answer the question..."
     Andi decided that was as a good point as any to bring the first act to a
close and gave vent to her frustration.  "You're an amazing piece of work
Talbert..." she shook her head in dismay.  "...do you have any idea of what
you're doing...it's not like I've seen this alleged note...I've never received a note
from him before.  Do you think that maybe you're not handling this in an
appropriate manner?"  She barely held herself back from ending with you jerk.
     Talbert leaned forward, his jaw-line taut, his thinning hair in disarray. 
"Listen Ms. Wicksham...my job is to ask questions, your job is to answer them. 
Do you understand that?"
     "No...I'm sorry, but I don't..." Andi leaned back in her chair and inspected
her fingernails then leaned forward icily and lectured.  "You want me to
comment on a note I haven't seen and didn't know a thing about.  Show me the
note if you want me to comment on it.  Straighten up and be professional?"  She
yelled that last at him, curled her lip and turned half-away in disapproval.
     Talbert's face flushed pale then red, before he rose from his chair with his
eyes bulging and stormed from the interview room, a glowering thundercloud
spitting lighting bolts.  Lieutenant Allen smiled silently and stared impassively at
Andi.  After another minute or so with nothing but a few eye blinks lending her
face a live look, she shook her head a slightly, moving her chin a bare inch each
way, then with her eyes glued to Andi until the final second, she slipped out the
door without comment.
     Andi reached in her pocked and pulled out a paperback--good thing she
didn't have any pressing appointments, it looked like it might take a while.
     

     Twenty minutes later, Allen and Talbert returned.  With minimum
introduction they seated themselves and Talbert slid a photo copy of Tyson's
note across the table-top. 




     Andi Wicksham;
          Counterfeiting has ruined my life.  
     I'm sorry stealing the roses caused so many problems.  
     I've lived a lie.  


                         Thanks for helping___

                         William Tyson


     Andi read it twice and laughed out loud, "`I've lived a lie...thanks for
helping?'"  She chuckled and looked across at her questioners.  Talbert and
Allen glowered as if she was laughing at them--which in a way she was.  The
note was worse than vague, it was amateurish.  As Ramirez said it had a
typewritten look, not even Tyson's name was signed.  She looked-up to her
interrogators and smiled, suddenly seeing them in different light--they were
flailing about trying to keep their heads above water.
     With something around a half-million dollars in cash in the room one might
reasonably question his doubting the righteousness of counterfeiting, and if he
took the roses it wouldn't be something he'd apologize for--it certainly wasn't
something he'd kill himself over.
     Talbert continued his questioning, Allen sat quietly, watching quietly, her
dark eyes reading every nuance, leaning occasionally to pass whispered
suggestions--both of them playing their cards close to their chests.  They didn't
mention counterfeiting, didn't mention which room the body was found, or the
gun or fingerprints or wound.  
     They focused on her investigation and contract--to their increasing
frustration.  She reported that she knew nothing in exacting detail, taking left
hand turns time and time again into irrelevant minutia while sidestepping their
attempts to evoke something from nothing.
     She ignored their nasty innuendos and girded herself against a fatal slip--all she needed was Talbert jumping up and down demanding she explain her
source of inside information--it would take days to get clear of the mess if she
babbled. 
     She skirted subjects that could trip her up and insulted Talbert whenever
the opportunity presented itself just to keep him off-track.  It didn't make her
seem like a helpful witness, but was the best she could do.
     The note posed an enigma to Allen and Talbert--did the author know
Tyson's business or did he just want the reader to think that?  The writer knew
of Andi, the roses and the bogus bills.  The question wasn't whether the note
was legit--she'd bet the farm that it wasn't--the question was whether it a
amateur fumble or a purposeful ruse to lead the hounds on a chase.
     Talbert and Allen had Tyson's corpse and bogus bills, but the note was
worse than a dead-end--the note pulled their investigation from a rutted side-road into a quagmire of ooze and quicksand.  They were sure "rose" was code
for something central.  Talbert drilled Andi over and over on her investigation,
but her answers made things worse because she had so few results.  Talbert's
sneer suspected she was withholding a crucial puzzle piece.
     Ten minutes after reading the note Andi felt sure about what was going
on; the note's mention of roses meant Tyson's killer was probably one of her
remaining clients.  No doubt Talbert and Allen already had that figured--it would
explain the questions.  She smiled, they were a subject she could wander
without fear.
     Tyson might have guessed the thief's identity and confronted him--big
mistake.  If it unfolded that way it meant the roses were worth Tyson's life and
that whoever had them was deadly. 
     

     Andi returned to the office just before one o'clock to find a note from Lena
saying she'd be back at one to one-thirty. 
     Andi's stomach growled emptily.  
     No use going for lunch yet, maybe Lena waited.  Weathering Sergeant
Talbert and Lieutenant Allen's unfriendly attention spurred her gloom into a full-fledged bad mood.  She trudged through her notes and tried to get back on
track. 
     Her hands and eyes mechanically chipped at the files ossifying in her
pending box--routine cases--tracking a witness and two pre-employment
checks, but her mind picked at the stray ends binding Feight's roses to the
deaths.
     She tossed the finished files on Lena's desk.  Tomorrow would mark a
week on the case--a long time for the investigation business.  She'd have to
generate an report--it would be a half-day's work at a task that was really
nothing but public relations--to show that their money bought effort if not
answers.  When you don't have results to report you give clients bulk and hope
that a half-inch pile of pages detailing nothing was more satisfying than a brief
sentence on the back of a postcard.  No time like the present--she began jotting
down notes.
     She'd performed interviews, constructed a time line, considered site and
physical evidence, developed a list of suspects and viewed the most obvious
sites.  She'd recognized motivations and uncovered questionable behaviors--it
would pad the report, but it held nothing pointing to the perpetrator.
     Laroux and company must already suspect she was getting nowhere.  It
was a melancholy thought.  She pushed aside her notebook and reached into
her pending box again.
     It was about time for her clients to reconsider their contract.  The
problem was straightforward, save money or not?  If it was her bucks, she'd
have dumped the project before it got started.
     She scrawled her signature at the bottom of a letter, slapped the file shut
and tossed it across to the others on Lena's desk while reaching for next.  This
was the most significant part of a private detective's job, but nobody outside the
business knew it.  Endless reports about lost-puppies, missing witnesses and
dead-beat spouses were the industry's bread and butter and it took constant
bailing of her pending box to keep the flow from burying them alive.
     Lena came in carrying a bundle of packages.  "...you hungry?" she asked
as she dumped her burden on the end of her table.
     "Ravenous..." Andi admitted, "...what's in the box, fox?"
     "I beg your pardon?" replied Lena as if she'd been insulted, she touched
two fingertips to her chest just below her throat, batting her eyelids and silently
mouthing Miss Piggy's question "Fox?  Moi?"  
     Andi smiled, but didn't apologize.
     "...envelopes and stamps, stuff on another bookkeeping program and
coffee filters.  By the way I talked to your Mom..she wants you to call..."  Lena
gave Andi a puzzled look before continuing, "...what's `dependent origination'
and what does it have to do with death being delusion?"  She stood expectantly
with hands on hips.  "...where do you want to eat?"
     Andi covered her face with her hands and winced in embarrassment.  "I'm
sorry...Mom's always laying that stuff on people."  She shook her head, eyes still
covered.  "She is so weird...it's Buddhist...if everything in the universe is always
recombining, then death is an illusion...things change form, only arrangements
end, not the parts...OK?" Andi nervously peeked between her fingers to see if
Lena was going to hold her mother's philosophical preferences against her.
     "I thought she was Jewish?" Lena poised lightly, rocking on her toes and
nodding toward the door.  "...we going?"
     Andi rose and moved around her desk.  "She is, but she's Buddhist
too...philosophically she's Buddhist...a lay-priest.  I'll tell you about it over
lunch...my Mom's a trip..."  Andi beat Lena to the door, relieved she didn't laugh
out loud.
     Andi sought Lena's eyes and felt compelled to keep talking.  "...there's
this mouthy trait we share that gets us in trouble..."
     "Yeah...?" encouraged Lena, smiling at the admission.  "...I hadn't
noticed."
     Andi ignored the comment waiting until Lena closed the door and
checked the knob.  "...six or eight years ago she was guest speaker at a
luncheon for four-hundred Jewish big-wigs...she said Israel's treatment of the
Palestinians was God's way of teaching Jews how there could have been so
many silent Germans during the 1930's..."
     "...and..." Lena demanded just before they descended the staircase.
     "One woman screamed, another choked, a man had chest pains...the
commotion ended her talk...she never was asked again."  They took the stairs at
a fast clip, pounding down shoulder to shoulder.
     "I can see the familial pattern..." Lena responded with a ear-to-ear grin as
they emerged at the sidewalk.  "I'm buying...how about Machismo Mouse?"

 
     Ten minutes after returning from lunch Laroux called and seemed
surprised to catch Andi at her office.  "I wanted to touch bases again after the
tragedy with William.  I've talked to Jennifer and Elizabeth..."
     Andi was prepared to be made redundant, she'd have Lena print a final
bill and warn that the final report might take a week.
     Laroux continued, "...we'd like you to continue your investigation and
expand it into William's death...it would bring us solace to think we were doing
everything possibly."  He spoke in a patient and simple, slow-paced, adult-to-child voice.
     Andi shook-off a bit of her dislike, "Thanks for your vote of confidence Mr.
Laroux.  I was expecting the investigation to be closed...there haven't been
significant breakthroughs...I'm assembling a report..."
     "Elizabeth and I discussed that...she thought William's death might shake
something loose...in any event it seems improper not to make a cursory
look...there seem so many questions..."  Laroux let that last statement hang.
     "Fine..." Andi replied vaguely.  What questions was he referring to.  Feight
died of a heart attack and the police hadn't discouraged the assumption that
Tyson committed suicide.  Did Laroux have his own police-source, or did he
know something more directly?
     "Excellent, Ms. Wicksham...a report would be great."  That said, Laroux
hung up.
     Andi dug through her notebook and called Elizabeth Dao to ask where she
kept her roses--in that last talk, Dao deflected the question by rambling about
the tea master's chrysanthemums.  Andi got a voice mail, muttered a minor
silent curse and requested a return call.
     Frustrated by Andi's foot-dragging, Lena picked a spy-toy from an
electronics catalogue for Mrs. Knowles; a plexiglass dish and amplifier with
accompanying tape deck and headphones officially offered as a bird call
recorder, but with bold type claims that it could record a personal conversation
beyond a closed window from thirty-meters.
     Andi rolled her eyes and felt an uneasy churn in her stomach.  That sort of
technology could lead them into trouble.  Mrs. Knowles would love it though,
she'd already scheduled three hour-long appointments to discuss tactics--offering to take both Andi and Lena to lunch at the posh Jock's Grill  where they
could discuss underhanded doings among the privileged wealthy.
     Andi had not responded either way to the offer.  Considering Jock's
affluent clientele--the woodwork must have heard more fateful deals and
intrigue than most other walls in Portland.
     Though wary, Andi followed Lena's advice to humor Mrs. Knowles.  The
project could probably be kept harmless.  She could pick and chose when and
where the spying would be done.  Lena wondered if Knowles might be her
husband's illicit lover--using a detective like a mirror on the ceiling.
     It would resolve the ethical dilemma, but still the idea didn't appeal
despite being kinky.  Andi consoled herself--she might be able to pawn the job
onto Lena if she wanted out.
     She opened a sub-directory for Laroux's report and ended the day writing
a letter to a grieving parent, passing on that her seventeen year old daughter
was alive and well with her boyfriend in Cannon Beach.
     Andi had extracted a promise; the young woman would phone her mother
in exchange for Andi not passing on her exact location.  The young people
looked happy and healthy, there seemed no evidence of gangs or pierced body
parts.


     That night Andi called her Mom and left a message, offering a dinner
tuesday night--her treat at Three Doors Down.  Lena nodded sagely and
preemptively declared she was staying home.  Andi blinked a drop of moisture
from her eyes and stepped over to hug her tight.






                           CHAPTER   6


     The next morning Andi scratched restlessly at the top layer of her
pending box and answered phones while Lena soared off on a round of morning
errands.  In fifty-five minutes she'd proof-read two reports and three out-going
invoices while fielding a wrong number and negotiating payment of an
outstanding balance.  The morning's third call was from Ramirez.
     "Wicksham here..." Andi answered, her focus still on the file before her.
     "It's Ramirez...got a moment?"  
     Andi pushed away the file she was working on and leaned back in her
chair.  "Sure, what's up?"
     "I heard your name was on Tyson's suicide note." the lilt in Ramirez's
voice betrayed a half-suppressed chuckle. 
     "Yeah I found that out about three-quarters of an hour into the
apparatchiks' inquisition...you could have told me..."  Andi let her disapproval
vent as a throaty growl.
     "Sorry, Wicksham...didn't know myself..."  His chuckle escaped
confinement to fresh air.  "...but considering all you've been through, I thought
you might like to hear the latest on your project...fresh from this morning's team
meeting..."  He was being suspiciously helpful.
     "Why not?" Andi replied dryly. "Knowing details of Tyson's murder almost
brought both of us to grief.  I can see myself trying to explain how I know some
crucial detail I shouldn't have a clue about..."
     "...they used thumb-screws and you didn't break?"  Ramirez let an untold
fortune in fake awe gilt his voice.  
     "...can it, Ramirez..."
     "...you'd have been an incredible dark-side operative.  It's tragic that
you've peaked after CIA affirmative action and the cold war.  MI-5's Smilely
would have loved you...born thirty years earlier, you could have had a real
career."  Ramirez laid it on as thick as Columbia basalt.
     Andi looked wistfully at the pile of files in her pending box, actually
wishing she was doing them.  "...cork-it, flat-foot.  What do you want to tell me? 
I suspect it's something I'm going to regret knowing.  You going to tell about
Tyson's note?"
     The note must have been on the tip of his tongue.  "It was a standard
typewriter sheet folded in quarters...laying at the end of the couch under the
end table...fifteen inches from the body...between the window and the corpse."
     "So it could have been in his hand or dropped after he was plugged ..."
Andi observed indifferently, "I hope Talbert doesn't ask..."
     "Allen thought it might have been on his desk, Sherlock...you could
suggest he knocked it off."
     "Ramirez..." Andi growled loudly.
     "Hey...knowledge's a dangerous thing and it don't mean a thing if it ain't
got that swing..."  He was enjoying her dilemma far too much.
     "Damn it Ramirez...I'm taking this seriously.  It's probably one of my
clients who offed him."  She could feel her blood pressure rising.
     "What?  You dish it out but can't take it?  You're the one who's usually off
the wall when I'm beating square pegs into round holes..." Ramirez's tone
turned defensive.
     Andi blinked as the comment hit home.  She shrugged.  "...point taken. 
What else you got?" Andi pulled out one of her desk's drawers and leaned back
with her feet propped up.
     "...a few tasty, but not earth-shaking details.  Forensics did a total
inventory of his place.  Tyson's study turns out to be a vault pretending to be a
humble room.  Eight-inch concrete walls, concrete floor, super-security
electronic, tamper proof door locks wired into the burglar alarm.  Two low-tech
dead-bolts slid closed on the inside, one-high, one-low...they're supposed to
mean that "A" Tyson locked himself in and "B"--the murderer didn't go out that
way..."
     "Supposed to mean?" Andi posed the question as she sipped coffee, she
smiled to herself, smug that a quarter of million dollars worth of cop equipment
and a dozen uniforms still left unanswered questions.
     "...unless there's a way of sliding the bolts from the outside."  Ramirez
explained.
     "Is there a way?"  Andi practiced her own inflection-less dead-pan.
     Ramirez chuckled.  "None of the high-paid pros have figured it out, but no
one thinks he pulled his own plug."
     "...vault?" Andi prompted, jotting the word in her notebook.
     "Pre-stressed concrete panels overhead, heating ducts about six-inches
in diameter, it's a fortress...right down to having an arsenal and supply of food
and water--a steel-backed bookcase on tracks seals the window..."
     "...so he gets shot crossing the threshold, slams the door and dies thirty-seconds later..." Andi offered a solution to the unasked question.
     "The slide-locks are high and low, it would have been an struggle for
somebody without blood to their brain...it evidently takes a little effort..."
     "OK, OK...so someone shot him from the window, he grabbed the gun,
staggered back and fell dead."  Andi looked up to the ceiling, enjoying herself.
     "That's the best scenario anybody's had...I liked it myself.  The window
wasn't latched.  Nimitz slid it open it from the outside before calling 911." 
Ramirez portioned out a dab of congratulatory tone.
     "So there you have it...no blood on the carpet because there wasn't
external bleeding."  Andi added it up triumphantly.  She waved to Lena who'd
just come in the door.  
     Lena planted a quiet kiss on her forehead before retreating to her table
and depositing two large bags beside her computer.
     Ramirez continued, unaware of Andi's distraction, "You like it...I liked it,
but the forensic pathologist doesn't.  The bars are too close to allow a hand
holding that revolver through.  She's right...I saw a photo of Talbert's hand
trying.  The gun's too big...."
     Ramirez paused to take a breath, Andi didn't interrupt, so he continued. 
"And...to avoid nitrate residue he'd have to be eight or ten feet from the window,
the bullet's impact would knock him backwards--it broke a rib on the way in--then he'd have to stagger forward, around the furniture to wrestle a gun that
was unlikely to be inside of the bars anyway."
     "The bars were kind of close..." Andi admitted.
     "...two inches on-center, about three quarters of an inch square, on the
average leaving an inch and a quarter opening..." Ramirez sounded like he was
reading.
     "Thanks for the detail, Mr. Science..." replied Andi dryly.
     "Any time," replied Ramirez politely, "Best bet for the window
scenario...the shot fired from outside with the gun tossed to Tyson who'd have
to have caught it.  Why would anybody do that?  There were unfired rounds in
the chamber."  
     Andi clamped her teeth together.  He was smirking and she didn't want to
encourage him.
     "...the pathologist claims Tyson had to have lost consciousness in well
under a minute, the bullet hit an upper rib, deflected downwards and sliced the
aorta wide open...no blood to his brain after the shot...he'd pass out quick. 
Even getting to his feet would have been difficult.  Fighting for the gun's a lot to
ask--military man or no..."
     "Hey..." Andi insisted collegially, "...you and I agree on a scenario...that's
the important thing, isn't it?"
     "Yeah, you're probably right...but let me get ask Lieutenant Max's opinion,
OK?"  There was a rustle as if Ramirez were digging through a pile of papers.  "I
got another twenty-four page fax on your funny money...seems there's a super
copier-printer in a back room of one of his stores...color machine, high-tech
resolution...boxes of special paper."
     "Neat..." Andi murmured to keep him going, then took another swig of
coffee, listening to Ramirez was better than working.
     "...seems they first printed a scattering of colored lines like the little
threads, then the grey side, then the green, then the serial numbers...each one
different.  All the graphics digitally programmed, the machine comparing colors
and self correcting.  They even had a specially mixed toner for that peculiar
green..."
     "Counterfeiting meets the digital-age...what's your point?" interrupted
Andi impatiently.
     "The software file of the digitalized bills and most of the colored toner are
missing...and so is Tyson's boy, Rex.  He was seen stopping by that store
yesterday morning..."  Ramirez shuffled papers again.  "You met him...?" he
asked idly.
     "Yeah..." admitted Andi guardedly.  "In passing..."
     "Well his full name is Rex Howard Nimitz...if you see him again...you might
want to pass it on that we'd like to talk.  Nobody's seem him for a day and a
half."
     "His real name is Rex?" she chuckled derisively.  "I thought that was a
house-boy nickname..."
     "What?" Ramirez obviously didn't see the humor.
     Andi mumbled something noncommittal and changed the subject.  "So,
Ramirez, if these are near exact counterfeits, how did you catch my twenties?"
     Ramirez paused, then cleared his throat taking the space of a breath or
two to choose his words.  "I don't think I'm at liberty to say..."
     "Ramirez..." Andi growled as low and menacingly as she could.  "Did you
hustle me for forty dollars?"
     Ramirez seemed more amused than insulted.  "It's noteworthy that you'd
think that Wicksham...you should talk to a shrink about your paranoia."  He
yawned to show indifference.  "Oh yeah...another thing...Tyson's house and
vehicles are all owned by different business covers."
     "How many vehicles you got listed?" Andi perked up and swung her feet
down, Ramirez finally touched on a subject she knew something about.
     "Beside the farm equipment..." the sound of rustling paper filled the
moment of dead air, "...here...a classic Jeep rag-top, Subaru Legacy station
wagon, silver Mercedes, a tricked-out Ford Pickup and a yellow Corvette."
     "That's five...?" Andi asked, pinching the phone to her shoulder with her
ear to free her hands to shuffle photos.  "I can help you out...Jeep, -vette,
truck...Rex is driving a dark green BMW 850...near new."
     "You know that for a fact?" Ramirez asked point-blank.
     "I'm looking at photos of cars that were in Tyson's garage.  You didn't
mention the BMW...no promises, but it was there..." Andi nervously chewed her
lip, she'd been burnt trying to help.  "Hang on, I'll give ya the license..."  Paging
back to her second visit to Tyson's she read out the BMW's number.
     "Thanks...I'm going to take that and run..." Ramirez murmured
distractedly, "...happy trails to you."
     Andi didn't bother responding, he'd already hung up. 
     Lena swung around and beamed.  "I stopped by and saw Jason and Tris's
baby.  She's so wrinkled...like a little ET."  Lena wrinkled her nose.  "I watched a
diaper changing--it was gross..."
     "You'd never seen a diaper changing?" asked Andi incredulously.  "And
how old are you?"
     "...never did...I was youngest kid of three and not once asked to baby-sit...I guess I'm just not the type."  Lena swaggered in a type of pride as she
poured coffee and pulled a pint of half-and-half from their little refrigerator. 
"They asked if we'd like to be Aunties...meaning baby-sitters.  I told them not for
a million dollars..." she chuckled and gave her head a derisive shake.
     "Why'd you say that?" challenged Andi crossly.  "I'd like to be an
Auntie...."
     "Sure you would..." Lena smiled. 
     "I would..." insisted Andi, suddenly serious.  "I think it's neat that they'd
offer...I'd like a kid around."
     Lena stared at her, suddenly silent and expressionless.  "Is that a
biological clock ticking?"  She cupped her ear and pointed at Andi's mid-section.
     "No..." Andi complained.  "And I'm serious about Simone...I'll baby-sit. 
You don't have to do anything..."  She counted out an eight bar phrase of six-eight silence, glaring across with irritation.
     "OK..."  Lena's eyes flashed disapproval, pursed her lips, shrugged and
swung her chair around to answer the phone.
     Andi rubbed her face with her hand and shut her eyes, wanting to say
something appropriate--wishing she had a clue as to what that something could
be.
     Another line rang again, Lena glanced, silently reminded Andi she was
tied up--Andi reached.  "Investigatory Services, Wicksham here..."
     "Hi...its Frank."  It was Francois using his code name from a case from
last year.  Francois made a full-time career as a sub-rosa computer-consultant--expert in nearly everything digital, both legal and illegal--phones, computers,
hacking and phreaking...one-stop, geek-tech, full-service business.
     "What'er you doing awake at this hour?" Andi asked surprised.  He'd
always been a late-night denizen.  She reflexively glanced at her watch.  She'd
first met Francois through Lena--used him as a consultant and now counted him
as close a friend and colleague as they had.
     "I've switched to early-rising...virtuously asleep by nine-thirty or ten. 
What 'cha want?"  Francois sounded disgustingly happy.
     Andi swung her feet under her desk, pulled the chair close, and reached
for her files.  "I want a search on a Rex Howard Nimitz..." she flipped through
pages in her notebook and read Rex's particulars.  "Tall, maybe six-two, wiry,
obsessive self-control, crew cut; into militant right-wing affairs with military
influences.  Early to mid-twenties."
     "How deep?" Francois asked quietly.
     "There's no one at our shoulder...go deep." Andi directed without a
pause.  Usually she felt bad authorizing quasi-legal searches, but didn't feel
anything now.
     "Couple days?" Francois asked lightly.
     "...immediate with anything interesting?"  Andi didn't crowd. 
Conventional computer nerd stereotypes were nowhere close to dapper and
urbane Francois.
     "No sweat...that all?"  Francois was all business.  He was serious about
being an underground cyber-space expert surfing the millennium's curl in
defence of freedom and the American way.
     "If you're up early these days, want to do breakfast?"  She glanced over
to Lena, who ignored her.
     "It's a date..." Francois laughed.  "When...tomorrow, the day after?"
     "Tomorrow...saturday...I don't care.  Give a call after seven...weekend's
after ten."  Andi paused, mentally weighing the purse of her clients.  "Let me
give you a few more names to check..."  She flipped back a few pages without
finding what she wanted.  She kept flipping as she talked.  "William Tyson,
Warren Laroux, Jennifer Gould, and Elizabeth Dao." she recited the names from
memory and kept looking.  "...don't need to dig as far, but get us a good look
into what they are.  Net worth is significant especially liquid assets--let's
see...addresses and numbers..." she flipped back further in her notebook and
found what she wanted, "OK...ready?"
     Francois grumbled that she should fax that type of detail. 
     Andi shrugged it off--she didn't do technology she could avoid.  They
chatted another minute and hung up.


     Lena was still on the other line.  Andi paged idly through her notebook,
then dialed Elizabeth Dao.  Three rings sounded before the line was answered.
     "Hello, Ms. Dao...this is Andi Wicksham..."
     "Hi Andi, so nice of you to get back in touch." Dao gushed chummily.  "So
how is our investigation going?"
     "I'm almost finished the routine part.  In fact that was something I was
hoping you could help me with.  Last time we met I neglected to get the address
of your roses...I need it behind me to go on to more interesting stuff." Andi put a
light and superficial spin to it. 
     "Oh?  Certainly...didn't get the address?" Dao tisked and fussed to herself
as she fiddled with her address book.  "Let's see...here, ready?  R.C. Light
Farms, 27570 Old Grange Trail."
     Andi jotted the information, reading it back for confirmation and asking
the phone number.  "You lease from them?" she asked conversationally.
     "No, I subcontract..." Dao corrected her.  "...I don't get my hands dirty..."
     It took Andi a moment to take that in.  Dao didn't personally fuss over
what she claimed was a passion.  Andi tapped her pencil eraser on the desk-top, deciding against following that line.  "Thanks a lot Ms. Dao.  If there's
anything else, I'll call..."
     "Oh yes please..." crooned Dao.  "No problem at all...thank you again..."
the connection broke before finishing the last "n" of the word.
     Andi paused, still tapping the eraser after hanging up, pondering Dao's
enigma and jotting notes.  Thoughts of Dao merged with thoughts of Gould and
gradually fell aside until she was thinking only of Gould.
     She flipped pages, rereading marginalia on Jennifer Gould with a
burgeoning sense of unease.  Something vague she should remember rubbed
like a prickly burr in the cuff of a sock, some hard to place detail she'd seen had
been out of place--something she'd noted and discounted and now couldn't
quite recall.
     She glanced at the sketched-out time-line and carefully paged back
through the notes from Gould's interview, paying special attention to
observations of the house and yard, shutting her eyes to recall the setting,
trying to recall her feelings and the sounds that would be scattered across any
background to subliminally to make her notebook.
     Nothing clicked--she looked at the photos of the Volvo and red Mustang
as they'd waited by her house, studying the detail in the background, then, one
by one, worked her way through the grainy photos of the Mustang she'd taken
off the security tape.
     That was it.
     On the second of Gould's three trips to Darrel Feight's, there was a
second person in the car.  Andi pulled out her magnifying glass to look close at
the photo of them leaving.  The image was fuzzy, but the familiar sharp-lined
nose and closely cropped head, sitting ram rod straight with an elbow out the
window despite the rain was Rex--Tyson's GI-joe gentleman's gentleman.  She'd
check the tape for a clearer copy, but she'd no doubt that it was him.
     Andi considered phoning Gould to ask why she hadn't mentioned Rex, but
backed off.  Better to check her facts before blundering into skeletons Gould
might assume hidden.  She whistled, "You got to know when to hold 'em, know
when to fold 'em."  Give herself another day or two--she'd find a chance to talk
to Gould.
     Meanwhile she had Dao's roses to inspect.  She gave Lena a make-up hug
and peck on the cheek before driving off to inspect the farms of R.C. Light.

     
     By first glance, the farm of R.C. Light on Old Grange Trail was a routinely
professional sort of place.  A simple sign at the road gave its name and address. 
Tightly planted rows of tulips were being harvested as she drove up the long,
straight drive.  A long double row of plastic-walled greenhouses marched off on
her left and rows of specialty herbs filled three wide fields that alternated with
plots plowed into long, rough ranks of dark-loamy furrows.
     Andi pulled to a gravel-scrunching stop before an old shack whose
peeling, barely-readable sign read "Office."  With no one around to ask, she
pulled opened the door and stepped onto a bare, wood floor crowded with a
desk, two waste paper baskets and two warping tables.  On the desk a radio
crackled aimlessly next to a blinking answering machine.  Three dirt-smudged
and battered filing cabinets took up most of a corner.
     "Hello..." Andi called out.  A second door stood ajar.  Stepping quietly
over in three gliding strides, Andi cautiously pushed it open with the tip of her
finger--it was a dimly lit bathroom.  Retracing her steps to the front, she glanced
through enough of the work littering the desk to confirm that things were
addressed to the R.C. Light Farms, then stepped out and shut the door firmly
behind her.
     A man wheeled by on a forklift, ignoring Andi until she stepped in his way
to flag him down.  "Is the manager around?" she called over the un-muffled roar
of the little engine.
     "That way..." the man pointed to the greenhouses.  "...ask for Buck..." 
That said, he neatly swerved around Andi, roaring on around to a pile of pallets,
his wheels spitting gravel at each turn of his wheel.
     Andi turned and trudged toward the greenhouses wondering if checking
her client's gardens was worth the trouble.  With the warning she'd given,
whoever took them had plenty of time to move the damning bushes.  The
possibility that Dao might not have any roses at all lingered in the back of her
mind.
     Another bustling worker directed her into a wide temporary greenhouse--like the others in the row, made of two layers of clear-plastic stretched over
arches of plastic pipe.  Two figures worked on a wide, make-shift pond of water
hyacinths--an older man stood making checks on his clipboard as a broad-shouldered, heavy-set woman with long, loosely-tied black hair and hip-waders
worked among the shiny-green plants.
     "I'm looking for Buck..." Andi said a little too loudly.
     The two of them looked around.  "Buck?" the man asked.
     "Yeah, I'm Andi Wicksham...I've been hired to investigate the
disappearance of some roses..."
     "I'm Buck." interrupted the woman, slogging to the side of the pond and
stepping over the wood-bound edge.  "I got a call from Ms. Dao warning that
you'd be by."
     Andi paused, on the edge of asking a stupid question.
     "R.C. Light stands for Rebecca Cynthia..."  The corners of Buck's mouth
twitched upwards into a smile that didn't quite reach the hardness of her eyes.
     Andi took a step back and stared--that wasn't the question she had in
mind--she'd wondered when Dao's call came through.  She had to tilt her head
to look up to Buck's face.  "Great...I'd like to see Ms. Dao's roses and whatever
area she leases."
     Buck silently pointed to bags of hyacinths and the older man began
carrying them outside.   
     "I don't lease...everything on my land gets done with my people..."  There
was a defensive edge to Buck's voice.  The older man returned with a roll of
wire mesh that he dropped to the ground and kicked to unroll. 
     "But they're Elizabeth Dao's roses?" asked Andi carefully, looking from
Buck to the man and back.
     "Sure, her roses, my dirt and labor.  She wants cross pollination or
grafting, or labeling, harvesting or pruning--we do it."  Buck straightened up to
emphasize the eight-inch height difference between them and seemed to dare
Andi to make something of it.
     "Sounds like you're a solid professional..." commended Andi smoothly,
nodding appreciatively and making a conscious effort not to crack even the hint
of a smile.
     Buck's stiff-back attitude melted somewhat.  She smiled and gestured
with a broad nod of her head toward the greenhouse's door.  "This way...I've
dedicated a back corner to her roses."
     She led down a graded road between well tended fields in various stages
of growth and production.  Towards the rear, in the north-eastern corner,
waited tightly-planted row upon row of roses in a complex arrangement of plots. 
Set between access lanes, each plant sported a number of colored tags, groups
were carefully marked with placards and numbered stakes and subset lots were
marked for special treatment by yellow or blue plastic barrier-tape.
     "Attribute-identification is crucial so I've utilized an academic model to
keep order." Buck glanced sideways at Andi and smiled uneasily.  "Each plant's
labeled with a bar-code and colored tags key sub-groupings.  I can recall group
protocols or the history of any plant...we maximize cost/benefit using a model
breeding scheme, then expand and adapt it as we get ideas...Ms. Dao doesn't
seem to mind the cost..."
     "This is more than simple farming..." observed Andi respectfully.
     "I've a masters in horticulture and plant pathology from UC-Davis and love
playing in the dirt."  She seemed almost embarrassed at the admission.
     Andi tried to beam approval with her smile.  "It's neat...far more
professional than the other four I've toured."
     Buck chuckled, "I'm doing this on contract so I'm motivated to get
everything right.  I'm paid for not screwing up."  Buck seemed to have warmed
up somewhat, her eyes were finally sharing in the smile that graced the rest of
her face.  "Is there anything particular you want to see?"
     Andi shielded her eyes and looked over the tops of the plants--she
decided there were more than a thousand plants, the plot extended fifty to a
hundred yards beyond them in three directions.  "Most groups look like they
have at least fifty or sixty plants...any smaller sets...say of a couple dozen?"
     Buck nodded and pointed, "We mass-produce from our original
stock...that divides into smaller and smaller sub-sets..." She glanced to catch
Andi's eyes.
     "Uhh...yeah, I guess..." Andi kicked at a dirt clod, but it stuck awkwardly
to the toe of her shoe and she had to scrape it off on a wooden stake.  "New
plants?" she asked distractedly.
     "Not much new in the last year...and nothing new since winter." stated
Buck carefully.  She narrowed her eyes and surveyed the tracts, slowly turning
as if remembering the contents of each section.  "But we've got a few cohorts
around twenty..."  She suddenly started off down a lane; Andi struggled to keep
up.  "Small groups aren't much use...they're a dead-end because we can't try a
variety of downstream trials.  That's the science of all this...keeping the
statistical edge so fate and mistakes show up."
     "I see..." replied Andi, working to keep pace with Buck's confident
strides.
     "Here..."  Buck pointed to two groups of about a dozen apiece marked by
red plastic streamers.  "One's a Argentinean root stock, the other's a
Vermillion, a simple-rose...kind of an antique."
     Both sets were tall bushes.  Andi turned and looked back.  "How about
dwarfs?" she asked as if it were a casual whim.
     "Dwarves..."  Buck turned and retraced the path they'd just come.  "Ms.
Dao got into dwarves and tea roses a few years back.  Maybe a third of her
stock are miniatures now.  It's an market she's aggressively attacking.  Did you
know that she travels all over the world picking stock?"
     "No...no I didn't know that..." Andi puffed, struggling to match her
companion's pace. 
     "Oh yes...she's into it."
     "`Aggressively,' you said?"  The question came out more insistently than
she'd intended.
     Buck turned as if to read Andi's intentions.  "To my mind...but I come with
a grower's perspective.  Marketing hybrids as she does is different...strains
have to be developed quickly and that takes a certain attitude..."
     "Do you follow all the contention and hoop-la over who owns particular
lines?" Andi asked casually, taking a breath of the clean air, it was kind of nice
to be out in the sticks.
     "It's not my thing, but I know how big a deal it is...lots of grief, that's why I
keep out of it...jealously guarded turf and all...there's big money in distinctive
lines."  Buck waved her hands as she spoke; tracing the edges the problem,
then waving it away.
     Andi nodded.  "Has Ms. Dao brought in new stock in the last couple of
weeks?"  
     Buck didn't even pause in her stride.  "No...and nothing's been planted
since last winter's bare-root stock...most of those we had for months..."
     Andi dutifully examined the rows of dwarfs, but had already mentally
moved on.  She disengaged as soon as she was able, shaking hand and thanking
Buck profusely before returning to her car. 


     Once back in the office however, it was as if she'd stepped into a vat of
molasses--old business, new mail, questions, and tedious miscellany snagged,
tugged her limbs menacingly and threatening to drown her in viscous, cloying
clerical detail.  
     It was all she could do to keep her head above the surface and gasp a
breath every now and again--she kicked unsatisfyingly into the spongy
blandness of correspondence, then struck out in agonizingly-slow motion
against a small swarm of routine reports.
     It was Lena's chirpy immunity to that goo that goaded Andi on--it was
frank unwillingness to admit that Lena was better suited to the work.  That
dysfunctional thread of pride kept her at her desk mumbling expletives long
past her usual breaking point.
     That was the way the afternoon passed.  It was none too soon that Lena
looked up and made a passing comment that it had been a productive day.
     "Shall we call it?" asked Andi hopefully.  "It's four-twenty..."
     "Go ahead, I've got another half-page." Lena had taken a breath and
kicked smoothly off into an seemingly effortless extra-lap of free-style typing.
     Andi had misgivings about being perceived as a slacker, but to keep
working she'd have to reach into the gaping maw of her pending tray.  
     She valiantly practiced self-restraint, reassuring herself that discretion
was the better part of valor.  She had the waste baskets emptied and coffee
cups washed by the time Lena finished.  Andi slid the window closed and flicked
off the lights.  The work-day was officially behind.


     Returned to their apartment, Andi took a shower and put fifteen minutes
into deciding what to wear.
     Lena lay on the bed watching.  "There isn't a dress code for this type of
dinner," she observed casually.  "I'm pretty sure..."
     "You mean the traditional dinner with your mother just after she tells you
she's dying?" Andi pulled out a soft cotton peasant shirt and held it before her. 
"Too white..." she muttered.
     "It's beige..." observed Lena.  "You're color blind."
     Andi ignored her and pulled out a silk blouse with pockets and a high
collar--too dressy.  "Do you think just a plaid work-shirt would be funky?" she
asked with frown.
     "You mean too boyish?" Lena smirked.
     "No...that's not what I mean..." Andi snapped.  She glared, sank down to
sit on the bed and wailed, "I don't care...I don't want to go."  She looked up into
Lena's eyes.  "I don't want to hear about her dying...I don't..."
     Lena held out her arms and Andi collapsed beside her, eyes closed,
wishing she could cry.


     Andi arrived at Three Doors Down with a feeling of dread; it was like
entering the principal's office in junior high or starting a test knowing you
studied the wrong book.  Her mother beamed and waved from a linen covered
table.  Andi slipped into the chair across from her.  "Hi Mom..." she smiled.
     "You look good..." Mrs. Wicksham smiled.  "Nice shirt..."
     "Not too butchy?" Andi asked insecurely.
     "Not for you dear..." her mother laughed.  "But then maybe that's part of
what I wanted to tell you."
     "What?" Andi looked down in alarm at her cloths.
     "That I love you and who you are...your life and decisions-- I love you.  I
think I've been so busy being your mother that I've forgotten to tell you that."
     Andi felt a lump in her throat, she felt like a twelve years old, pretending
to be grown up, knowing everybody saw through the ruse.
     "So...now...wine." Mrs. Wicksham lifted her reading glasses to her nose
and picked the wine list from the table.  "I was thinking of a pinot gris or maybe
a dry zin...do you prefer red?"
     Andi looked across the table half-afraid of speaking--she shook her head
"no," though she did.
     "You look scared to death dear..." her mother said quietly, dropping her
hands to her lap to radiate an accepting smile.
     "I guess I am..." Andi acknowledged awkwardly.
     "Thanks for meeting me..."
     "It seemed so formal...like reading a will or something."  Andi winced at
her ill-chosen example and looked into her mother's eyes for forgiveness.
     "Well, we haven't gone out to dinner together much in the last thirty
years..." Mrs. Wicksham laughed.
     "No..." Andi conceded.  "But we could more often..."
     "Great idea...it would do me a world of good."  
     "I never called Cinny..." Andi admitted.
     Mrs. Wicksham waved away the problem.  "It's for the best...nothing's
going to happen that quickly.  This'll give us a chance to get used to the
idea...the two of us, I mean." she pointed back and forth between the two of
them.
     Andi smiled gratefully, warmed by the distinction and honored by the
appeal for closeness.
     Her mother paused, picked at their waiter's sleeve and ordered the pinot
gris.  Then she turned back to Andi, "Did you see the specials?  They've got a
salmon in a sweet plum sauce with potatoes and vegetable, a veal something, a
sea food pasta with shrimp and fresh mussels, and a teriyaki chicken with
ginger and rice."
     "I'm going to have caesar salad." Andi announced immediately.
     "Not an entre?"
     "I've been thinking of a caesar all afternoon.  They use real anchovies..."
she rolled her eyes appreciatively.
     Mrs. Wicksham smiled indulgently and said "Fine..." The waiter magically
appeared at her elbow with wine and bread and took their order with a gracious
bow.
     "I've given a lot of thought to this matter..." her mother confided, she
savored a sip of wine, tore off a piece of bread and lavished it with butter.
     Andi held her wine glass between her palms, feeling its cool smoothness
and shifting weight as she slowly swirled the wine. 
     Her mother leaned forward, "I'm drawn to quality over quantity.  I don't
want to waste life in a vain attempt to evade the inevitable.  It would mean
focusing on sickness instead of health...I'm told the sickness will insert itself
soon enough..."  She looked across as if desperate for understanding.
     Andi wondered how soon that would be, forced a smile and said, "...OK." 
She didn't trust her voice not to break, but was resolved to support anything her
mother wanted.
     "I'm going to travel a little...later, I won't be able...I'd like to spend time
with you...if you want, I mean..." she looked nervously across, seeking
reassurance.
     Andi reached a hand to cover her mother's.  "I want...I have time...I want
to..."  She felt as insecure as she ever did in high school.
     Mrs. Wicksham smiled and reached for another piece of bread.  "I've
decided to absolutely forget dieting...I'm going to indulge myself every way I
can..." she smiled wickedly.  "It's kind of fun to break the rules...do you feel
that?"
     "Sometimes I haven't had a choice..."  Andi set her wine down and
reached for a piece of bread. 
     Her mother tilted her head, watching with tight-lipped consideration. 
Then she nodded as if agreeing to some important point.  "I can see that..."  She
caught Andi's eye and held it a moment.  "...but for me right now it's liberating. 
I've started reading books on it..."
     "...breaking rules or cancer?" Andi asked with a perky lilt.  She smiled
and took another sip of wine.
     "...dying.  There's a whole bookcase of books at Powells.  Most say to live
it up until the moment you're not.  There's quite a Buddhist tradition you
know...The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, charnel meditation and all.  Evidently
passing away is effortless, quite out of one's hands, so you just focus on what's
before you.  It's very Zen..."  She grinned and raised her wine glass, but then
saw Andi's face.  She quickly added, "I'm sorry, that was supposed to be tongue
in cheek..."
     Andi had almost choked, she felt a sheen of sweat on her face and her
eyes bulging--she knew her face had paled.  "I'm just not used to it.  It's OK,
really..."  There was a moment of awkward silence.  "Isn't there something that
you could try, some treatment, medicine, crystals...some herbs...or
something?"
     "What?" Her mother sat upright and looked around in alarm.  "This is my
daughter suggesting crystals to me?"  She looked at her watch.  "Did I come to
the wrong restaurant?  You look like Andi Wicksham...but."  Her eyes narrowed
and her voice dropped into a low-tenor range.  "What did you do with my
daughter?"
     Andi blushed and wanted to throw a piece of bread at her. 
     "Really...crystals...Andi..." her mother shook her head in disbelief and
reached out to pat Andi's wrist.  "...remember the thirteenth commandment of
our tradition...more wine, shall we?"  
     "OK, I'll bite," conceded Andi with a grin, nodding and waving her hand
affirmatively toward her wine glass, "...what's our thirteenth commandment?"
     Her mother filled their glasses to within a half-inch of their rims, smiling
smugly to herself.  "Thou shalt not be stupid..."  She bit her bread and chewed
while holding Andi's eyes with her own.  "Appealing to magic is contrary our
beliefs...I can accept being part of a natural process...not that I'd necessarily
choose this year to croak...but it's OK...better than if you were still a kid." 
     Andi could feel tears welling behind her eyes and a heaviness in her
chest.  Thankfully, she was saved by the providential appearance of food.
     They kept to safer subjects for the rest of the meal, sharing a cream
custard and savoring rich coffee, stretching small talk over a pleasurable forty
minutes.
     "You know those people I asked about?" Andi nodded yes to a waitress's
offer of more coffee.
     "The rose people?" her mother raised a superior eyebrow and flicked a
wisp of hair from her forehead with a fingernail.  "I've been meaning to call
Betty Dao..."
     "Her friend William Tyson's dead...probably murdered.  He was involved
in a counterfeiting ring." Andi leaned across the table and lowered her voice
when she said the word "counterfeiting."
     Mrs. Wicksham shrugged.  "Ever find your roses?  That William-whatever...I never really knew him...even less than Darrel Feight...they were
just rose friends of Betty's..." her mother dismissed them with a wave of her
hand.
     Andi offered a pursed-lipped smile.  "I haven't found the roses...the
deaths and counterfeiting eclipsed them anyway.  Betty Dao and friends asked
me to look into Tyson's death..." she shared a condescending sneer, "...but I get
the feeling it's some kind of ruse..."  Andi lifted both shoulders and eyebrows in
a shrug.
     "You have such an interesting life...I would have loved to have had a job
like that..."  Her mother's voice was warm and friendly--warm enough to be
believable.
     Andi made a face, then admitted.  "...it's boring work on interesting
subjects..."  She leaned forward as if to tell a secret and whispered, "Being a
professor suited you...gum-shoes don't have status...you wouldn't like it..." 
     Mrs. Wicksham laughed in to her napkin.  "I suppose...academics at least
exchanges status for boredom..."  She smiled across the table, then leaned
forward intimately.  "It does seem to fit...you were always more of a Martina
Navratilova or Nancy Drew than Vassar or Bryn Marr type..."
     "Is that a complement?" Andi laughed as she reached for the check.
     "Yes..." her mother paused for a moment of reflection.  "...yes I think it
is..."


     They walked arm in arm around a block before returning to their cars.  
     An hour later, back at home, Andi sat facing Lena at the other end of the
couch.  "...aggressive chemo would make her sick and weak sooner than the
cancer, so she's against it.  She might try radiation to slow it down and reduce
pain...maybe something called chemo-lite..."  She took a deep breath and slowly
let it out.  "She wouldn't live as long going that route...but she could put off
being bed-bound--and she doesn't want to lose her hair..."  Andi beat her fist
into the pillow she held on her lap.  "I can't believe how calmly she discusses
this stuff."
     "Who else does she have to talk about it with?" noted Lena practically.
     "But I'm the last person I'd have thought she'd choose.  All my life I've
been the weird-o who didn't fit in...the bad-daughter embarrassment.  Now..."
Andi waved her hands to fill in what words couldn't say.
     "...never know, do we?" Lena observed obliquely, turning a page without
looking down at her magazine.
     "I guess not...driving home I decided to take up Tris and Jason's offer to
be Simone's auntie..."  Andi held her breath and looked defiantly at Lena.
     Lena dropped her magazine to her lap and shook her head.  "...how is a
kid going to fit into our lives?  We go out evenings, we're gone weekends...we
don't do `kid' things."
     "So?  It's only every now and then.  I'll stay home..." Andi argued.
     Lena looked abandoned.  "I've finally got my life how I like it...it's not like I
haven't given it a lot of thought...babies get into things..."
     "...of course, that's what they're supposed to do." quarreled Andi.  "I want
to do it...it's not like having her day after day or anything.  I'm not talking about
getting pregnant..."  She stared defiantly across their intertwined legs.
     "You're thinking about that...aren't you?  Andi...no..." Lena stared at her
wide-eyed.
     "I'm just talking about being an auntie...Lena...be real.  How much trouble
is it?"  Andi shook her head, not quite believing Lena's fervor.
     "This place isn't kid-safe..." Lena waved her arms around.  "It'll take up
the time we spend together." 
     "...we could do it together..." Andi extended practically.
     Lena looked across--hurt--as if Andi'd chosen between Simone and
herself and she'd lost.  "I'm reserving the right to say I told your so..." she
warned ominously.
     Andi smiled what she hoped looked like a compassionate smile. 
"Absolutely..." she assured straightfaced, fighting with all her might not to let
out a hint of triumphant gloating.  "I told you so's are OK..."
     






                           CHAPTER   7


     Back in their office the next morning, Lena set up coffee while Andi
punched in a call to Ramirez.  Not surprising--she got his voice mail and
contented herself with leaving a message.  She called Francois next, got his
electronic voice and left another message as the heady aroma of french roast
wafted over to catch her attention.  Morning was no time to be in a hurry--she
could wait.
     Lena efficiently processed a stack of monthly invoices, updating
payments and sending out late notices.  Try as they did to get up-front retainers
and keep that pot of money solvent, jobs had a natural tendency akin to gravity
or losing sox in the laundry, to expanded beyond client payments.  
     In the back of her head, Andi worried over how Lena reacted to the idea
of being an auntie.  This morning, they avoided any subject vaguely related. 
Andi's morning shower was melancholic.  Despite Lena's concession, the spat
stole pleasure.
     They barely exchanged two dozen words all morning, quietly aware of the
argument laying behind them.  Andi rubbed her temples with both hands.  With
Lena hurt, how could she even broach the subject again?
     Her own motivation seemed glaringly clear, it had been since learning of
her mom's cancer that she started noticing babies.  Now they were everywhere;
supermarket and cars, running down sidewalks, carried sleeping.  End of life--beginning, there was a symmetry--even if it was simplistic pop-psychology.  Why
shouldn't she be Simone's auntie?
     In high-school, realizing her attraction to girls, she'd given-up
motherhood fantasies.  Pastel wall paper in sunlit baby's-rooms hung with
mobiles and the fresh smell of powder were dreams reserved for breeders. 
Giving it up seemed part of accepting herself and she'd turned away with
resolve.
     Andi snuck another glance; Lena worked silently, bobbing her head to an
inner syncopation, pausing to look from her monitor to the ceiling as if choosing
a perfect word, reaching for a file with her right hand as her left rose to snap
downward at the wrist--held shoulder-high as if popping a crash-cymbal in a big
band.  Lena worked at her keyboard as if it was a loom or some machine she ran
with both hands and feet to a driving, two-fisted beat.
     Andi smiled tolerantly, it was that kookiness that make her appealing. 
She could do without being an auntie if Lena really cared.  Lena's office-dance
was charming.
     Andi suddenly caught herself up short, shook her head and blinked two or
three times.  Damn...what was that anyway?  She rubbed her forehead, chewed
absentmindedly at her lower lip and spun her chair around so she could gaze
out the window.
     Three long breaths later, focus began to return--the beat of life stretched
before her like railroad-ties or power poles when the speedometer touched 70. 
Everything fell into place again.  She counted breaths--two to the measure with
quarter-note triplets--six/eight-swing--her usual meter.  She felt the beat without
moving a finger, reassured that the world ran on.
     She swung her chair back around to her desk.  OK--what had she been
doing?  Working; Feight's roses and murder, considering suspects.
     She tapped her finger on the desk top and considered the research she'd
given Francois.  Surely Tyson was fair game--the dead have few rights.  The
others were suspects in a murder case she'd been hired to inquire into--it might
be tacky to investigate one's own clients, but she could live with it.  She'd do
what they paid her to do--even suspecting them of murder.  It was a funny
business.

     The phone rang, Lena answered and glanced over, then lowered her
receiver and mouthed "Ramirez."  
     Andi nodded as she reached to pick up the phone.  
     "Ramirez here, Wicksham...returning your call..." he boomed the
greeting.
     "...amigo," Andi rejoined, "...I was wondering if our common project's
made progress."  Andi leaned back in her chair and propped her feet on an
open drawer.
     "Our common project being Tyson's locked-room or the funny-money?" he
asked dryly.  "I read new faxes three times a week..."
     "Aren't the cases the same?  And is that all the time you put in?" Andi
asked with a cautious chuckle.
     "I also get to attend three boring meeting and field a dozen meaningless
phone calls...a waste of time..."  Ramirez griped good naturedly.
     "Serves you right for snatching my twenties." Andi observed
unsympathetically.  "I was hoping you could give me background on Tyson and
his boy Rex..."
     "Tyson was a rich, political nut-case...Rex seems to have been a boot-camp Ken doll."
     "You're saying they were gay?" asked Andi incredulously.
     "What am I, a mind reader?  No...I'm just labeling Nimitz as a starched-shirt military type.  His room had piles of militia periodicals...he wasn't a heavy
reader.  Christian-right brown shirt stuff...flag waving...fetus worship...grieving
because his generation hasn't had a real war to fight."
     "Counterfeit bills?"
     "Not a one...maybe he just split when he saw there wasn't going to be a
pay-check." Ramirez continued, "There's nothing we got that can keep him from
walking...he's not a suspect yet."
     "How about accessory to counterfeiting?" Andi offered.
     "That's officially still under wraps."
     Andi doodled at the margin in her notebook.  "No leads on Tyson's green
BMW?"
     Ramirez chuckled.  "You mean that 850 you mentioned..."
     "Yeah...?" responded Andi warily. 
     "It's Nimitz's.  The boy's rich...lot's of money by the sound of it...in a trust
fund." Ramirez sounded disgusted.
     "So why play house-boy/butler to Tyson?" demanded Andi.
     "Exactly..." confirmed Ramirez.  "Our psychologist's profile has him doing
it because of an `authoritarian orientation and a military fixation reinforced by a
rigid, yet vulnerable belief system'..."
     "You got somebody doing psychological profiles?  Wow..." Andi humored,
"...and using big words too...that's nifty..."
     "It's called having a budget, Wicksham...I could get used to it.  Rex's
tabloid headline would be `Could have been a playboy, but militia-terrorism
appealed,'" Ramirez quipped expansively. 
     "Wow..." Andi repeated, underwhelmed at Ramirez's rambling.
     "Is there anything else you wanted?" Ramirez was in an all around good
mood.
     Andi looked down her notes.  "How about Tyson?"
     "The psychologist doesn't like the supernatural angle...the idea of
Feight's evil spirit wisping through keyholes freaks him out." 
     Andi gave an appreciative snort, "And that angle seemed to hold so much
promise..."
     "Yeah...c'est la mort." Ramirez obviously didn't care.  "Tyson's string of
convenience stores have been laundering money three years.  Allen's got the
banks cooperating on condition that the bogus green they collect gets
redeemed."
     "You mean their loss is covered but mine isn't?" railed Andi in mock-outrage.
     "Probably something to do with volume and that they don't mouth-off..."
offered Ramirez idly.  "Too bad Tyson died, he diddled both receipts and
purchase records--we could string him up on fraud and tax-evasion..."
     "Damned inconsiderate of him." consoled Andi.
     "It's hard to get good criminals..." Ramirez observed in standard police-issue monotone.
     "Lieutenant Allen still gung-ho?" 
     "...shoveling resources by the metric-ton, but all I get is excruciatingly-long faxes--thank God nobody asks me to do anything."
     "Small favors...'eh?" consoled Andi.
     Ramirez cleared his throat and changed focus.  "Talbert and the boys
reviewed the security system tapes for the day Tyson croaked.  Nice
system...two cameras, one pointing down the hill covering the approach to the
house, the other watching the parking area and front door.  No one could drive
up without being recorded."
     "And..." Andi prodded.  "You said before the showed nothing."
     "Yeah...they showed Rex taking off, then Tyson walking around; out to a
garage and to look at his roses...later they show Rex returning and the
emergency response of police, fire department and paramedics...the time
imprint on the tapes are close to the police radio-logs, so they're assumed to be
the real thing."
     "So Rex is off the hook?"
     "The time between him coming back and his 911 call was damn short...six
and a half minutes...almost as if he came looking for a corpse.  Not much time to
look around, see Tyson through the window from a flower bed, try to rouse him,
attempt breaking in, then finally calling...but that doesn't bother Talbert and
Allen and they don't ask my opinion..." Ramirez seemed unconcerned.
     "So is Rex off the hook?" Andi repeated through gritted teeth.
     Ramirez seemed ready to answer.  "Never seriously considered...time of
death was set at about two hours before they got through the window bars and
that took forty minutes from the initial call.  Unless Rex parked off camera and
hoofed in to plug him...then trekked back to make his automotive appearance. 
It's unlikely anyway...by the psychologist's profile...and he has alibis covering
his whole time out."
     "He'd know how to avoid the surveillance cameras..." Andi pointed out.
     "Yeah, he would..." conceded Ramirez
     "Any mud on his shoes when the uniforms arrived?" Andi asked hopefully.
     "...there was, but remember he'd stood in the flower-bed trying to rouse
Tyson.  It was noted, but seemed appropriate."  Ramirez seemed eager to move
on.  "Is there anything else you wanted?"
     "I guess not...adieu, mon ami." Andi concluded lightly.
     "Happy trails..." he hung up.


      She could simply confront Gould with a question about Rex--ask why he
didn't come inside.  The concept was plausible--Gould could have kept the
others occupied while he snatched the bushes.  He'd then wait out of sight until
she came by, toss his bags of roses in her trunk and be gone.
     Andi looked in her notebook for the times Gould's Mustang passed the
convenience store in and out--thirty-two minutes--poor Rex, it would have been
a long time out in that downpour.
     Andi spun the scenario another few notches.  Would he have brought a
shovel or risked taking and returning one of Feight's?  Simpson claimed she was
watching out the window much of that afternoon yet denied seeing him.  But
Gould knew Simpson would answer the door--that would take her from the
kitchen window at least a minute, she could strike up a conversation to delay
her another few minutes...it might be enough if Rex was ready with a shovel as
she climbed the front porch stairs.
     Andi made a note in her book and stared off into space.  Simpson was a
interesting twist to the problem--since she drove off the property twice that day
she couldn't be discounted.  And whether or not she disliked roses she might
have resented the others getting them.  As far as her uncle's death--it couldn't
be overlooked that she gained the most.  But that would leave Tyson's death
unrelated.
     Andi tussled silently with the idea of confronting Gould, but abandoned it
for the moment.  Gould would stone-wall and Andi would lose the faint
advantage of holding a possibly overlooked pieces of puzzle.  That Gould and
Rex were together meant nothing to the case other than his possible complicity
in the rose's disappearance--no more evidence than for suspecting Gould alone.
     Andi felt an urge to drive to Tyson's again.  His locked study was like an
itch she couldn't scratch.  There was still the nagging feeling that something
was being overlooked.  Even Ramirez conceded that there must be something
about the setting that facilitated the murder, something allowed the killer to
escape unnoticed.
     "I'm driving to Tyson's..." she told Lena vaguely.
     "Don't forget your meeting with Mrs. Knowles to show off our new
snooper dish...two o'clock..." Lena reminded her brightly, her computer clicked
and beeped as if putting in its own two cents.
     Andi growled under her breath.  "Why would anybody want to listen in..."
she grumbled rhetorically.
     "Safer sex..." Lena murmured without turning around, her fingers steadily
tapping her keyboard.
     "What?  Safer sex?"  Startled, Andi stopped short, her hand on the
doorknob.
     "Safest sex there is, my dear...somebody else's..."  Lena lifted a hand
over her head and wiggled her fingers while still working away.  "Que' va..." .
     "Right..." Andi muttered sullenly as she closed the door behind her. 
     

     A steel-pipe gate had been swung across Tyson's private drive, but its
padlock wasn't hooked or locked.  Andi swung the yellow barrier, drove
through, and remembering Gould's comment on gate etiquette, paused to swing
it closed before driving up to the house.
     She turned off her engine and waited in her car a moment.  The grounds
appeared deserted, no cars waited on the paved expanse before the garages,
there were no sounds of music or radios coming from inside.  Bird songs and
the scratching and clicking of insects seemed inordinately loud, implying an
absence of human activity.  Echoing from across the hills came a slow-paced,
hollow thwack of axe against wood.
     Andi opened her car door and got out.  The sun broiled as warm as
summer and only the barest breath of breeze stirred the air.  She nonchalantly
strolled around the garages and peeked into their curtain-less windows.  The
farm equipment waited as it  had been the day Rex showed her around.  The
second garage held the jeep, the yellow convertible, the pickup and Mercedes;
they might have been moved since she'd seen them last--if it turned out as
important she might figure it out from the photos.  The third garage housed the
station-wagon and, surprisingly enough, Rex's dark green 850 BMW.
     A tingle of apprehension caused Andi to shiver slightly, she could feel a
cold sheen of sweat on her arms and back.  She peered back in the garage for
another look then snuck a fearful glance over her shoulder.
     "Can I help you..." demanded Rex Nimitz from the corner of the garage. 
He stood in a defensive pose, three-quarter's toward her, both hands on a large-bored automatic pointed at her chest.
     "I came up to see Mr. Tyson's roses..."
     He blinked, but didn't respond.
     "I'm still hired to investigate Mr. Feight's roses..." she ad-libbed.  She
lifted her arms slightly away from her body, palms forward so that he could see
she wasn't armed.
     Rex paused, as if considering his options.  "This is private property..." he
stated flatly.
     "...I had permission from Mr. Tyson to come look around...his
authorization should still be valid."  It was tenuous legal ground, but Rex
probably didn't have authorization to be there himself--odds were good he
wasn't legal heir.
     "What are you really doing here?" Rex asked levelly, the gun didn't waver,
but it dropped a notch to point at her abdomen.
     Andi pondered Rex's mental state and considered possible answers. 
Running wasn't an option.  The most obvious half-truth she had he hadn't
bought--she debated whether repeating or changing the story would be the
safer course--she opted for the latter.  "I wanted to see where Mr. Tyson
died...his friends asked me to look into his death..."  Andi held her breath hoping
Rex wouldn't be threatened by that mention of the murder.
     "...anything else?" Rex asked nervously--the gun remained solidly on
target.
     "Well...the gun makes me uncomfortable..." Andi admitted.
     The gun swung down and away.  "OK...you want to see the Colonel's
study?"  He stepped toward her and gestured that she should walk ahead.
     Ill at ease, Andi walked around the garage.  As they passed her car she
hazarded a glance behind--Rex followed, his pistol still held in two hands, but
trained low and off to a side.  She continued around the house to the three-sided
courtyard-patio, trying to remember the study's location.  It was on the far side
of the house, a southern wing facing the patio, two or three rooms in from the
end of the hall. 
     She wondered if Rex turned off the security cameras or if the cops forgot
to turn them back on after taking the tapes for evidence.  If Rex had reloaded
them this walk would be recorded...it would be that much easier to investigate
her disappearance, she thought morbidly.
     Half-way across the patio Rex asked, "Why do you want to see his study?" 
     Andi paused and half-turned, Rex's voice wasn't demanding, but the gun
compelled an answer.  "There's some debate whether it was a suicide or
murder..." the words were out of her mouth before she considered whether they
might be a trigger point.  She nervously chewed her lip.
     "Sure, why not..." was all that Rex replied dismissively.  "It's the next
window down." he pointed with the barrel of his gun.
     The flower bed outside the window was trampled to a muddy mush.  Andi
stepped close and peered inside.  Sections of security bars were wrenched to
either side, one of the bars' snapped its weld and was bent outward and to the
right.  The work left a gap wide enough for a person to slip inside.  Too small to
get a body out--they must have dusted for prints with the body in place, then
opened the study door from the inside.  Across the room she could see the
metallic sheen of the slide locks Ramirez mentioned--one high, one low.
     The window was closed, but she didn't touch it.  Three or four feet in from
the window, the couch faced inward, its end about even with the edge of the
window, with an end table set beyond it.  If the body was beyond the couch, it
was implausible that he could charge the window and back away before dying--that left him in the middle of the room with the gun and the killer
standing...where?  Andi traced the walls looking for closets or something giving
a way out, but the cops had done that from inside and come up with nothing. 
The desk and display cabinets showed signs of obvious, untidy searching.  The
framed pieces on the walls hung askew as if someone looked behind them for
wall safes or hidden cabinets.  
     It did seem far fetched for him to have come in from the hall mortally
wounded, bend high, then low locking the bolts and then wander through the
furniture to where he was found--and if he had, how would the note have gotten
in?  If the police couldn't find secret doors or priest-holes, how did the killer get
out?  She pondered whether bolts could be nursed shut via magnets or wires,
but gave up.  Why think she could figure what the experts couldn't?
     Rex stood beside her, the gun now dangling in his hand on the side
furthest from her.
     "How do you think it happened?" Andi asked quietly.
     "Suicide...what else could it be?" Rex replied simply.  "No one else had
the combination for the security system.  Bolts seal the steel door shut.  The
cops say the bullet came from a gun with his prints." Rex shrugged, "What's
there to question?"
     "The why..." Andi stated practically.
     "...yeah..." Rex admitted with a casual shrug, riveting Andi's gaze with his
own.  "He'd planned a full day.  He was eager about political projects...in great
spirits.  It doesn't add up, does it?"
     "Did he have enemies?" Andi asked routinely.
     Rex looked aggrieved at the question.  "He was an officer in the patriot
underground...that made him a target for liberal hate-groups...any of them
would have liked to silence him..."
     Andi pinched her lips together to keep from smiling.  Liberal hate-groups
was a new concept to her, she wondered if he'd shared the theory with the
Sergeant Talbert.  She stepped away from the window and surveyed the
courtyard.  The surveillance camera was mounted under the eves aiming across
the patio and down the hillside toward the road.  With the other covering the
front entrance, neither would catch anybody standing where she stood or
anybody coming around the west side of the house--a surprising hole in Tyson's
security.
     "If it was murder, why do you think somebody would do it?" Andi asked,
wondering if Rex would unwittingly betray knowledge of counterfeiting.
     "Politics..."  Rex spat the word as if it were a virulent plague, then
continued blandly, "...new world order-socialists." he responded simply.  "You
got to remember...the police are just as much a part of the government as the
liberals...they're all anti-patriot..."  His cleanly shaven face was relaxed--to him
it was obvious truth.
     "Did he receive threats?" Andi asked, casually brushing a bit of cobweb
from her sleeve.
     "...everybody in the movement does."  Rex fixed her with a hard stare. 
"The Colonel quietly supported the fourteen words, but the liberals knew him. 
Why bother to warn him by making threats?"  Rex laughed at the preposterous
notion and kicked a broken branch against the foundation.
     "What are you going to do now?" asked Andi, changing the subject and
exuding friendly concern.
     Rex shrugged, "I've requested re-assignment..."
     "How about friends like Jennifer Gould..." Andi asked helpfully.
     Rex's lip curled in derision before he replied with surprising vehemence. 
"Gould...the bitch.  The Colonel ordered me to get her to trust me."  He
shuddered slightly as if reliving the uncleanliness.
     "Did she steal the roses?" Andi asked point-blank.  His opening up a bit
seemed encouraging and wondered if the outburst could be over Gould
rejecting him.
     He shrugged.  "Might have..." he didn't meet her eyes, "...wanted 'em bad
enough.  I don't really know about that crew and roses, Colonel Tyson didn't
reveal much, but they were fools over them."  Rex's faced twitched once as if
he'd remembered something painful. 
     "Fools?" asked Andi, "Even Colonel Tyson?" Andi noted that he wasn't
meeting her eyes.  She'd better back off a little, it was a delicate line she
walked.  Better not ask what he'd been doing with Gould the day Feight died. 
Her gaze flicked down to the gun.
     "Roses weren't important..." Rex stiffed to attention as if in restitution for
disloyal thoughts.  "...they didn't make profit...they cost him every year.  He said
himself they were a waste of money...considering the cause's needs..."  He
looked up, gave a crooked smile and shrugged, resigned to the fact that she
wouldn't understand.
     "You know Alison Simpson well?" she watched his face as it flashed
recognition, then fear or guilt--something strong before returning to a neutral
stare.  
     "Darrel Feight's niece." he stated flatly.  "I've met her..."
     "Were she and Mr. Tyson friends?" Andi asked lightly.
     "The Colonel was nice to everybody..." Rex allowed grudgingly.
     "The two of them were friendly right up to his getting killed?"  Andi
crowded slightly, asking her questions just as he finished answering.
     Rex blinked and glanced up again as if puzzled.  "Up to just before that...a
few days maybe..."
     "What happened?"  Again she asked on the heels of his answer.  She felt
it safest if he kept talking.
     "I don't know..." he shook his head and looked genuinely perplexed.  "She
just froze up.  She used to like him a lot...maybe he was a father figure.  She'd
follow him around, trying to talk to him.  Then suddenly she changed...I saw her
at her house and she almost spit nails when I mentioned his name."
     "You and she were friends too?" Andi asked lightly.
     "We talked..." Rex admitted grudgingly.  "We'd have coffee and talk about
the weather..."  She could believe they talked about weather, there was an all-American, mid-western tone to both of them that made it credible.
     "She's a nice woman." Andi prompted.  "I understand you're one the few
people talked with..."
     Like a petulant teenager, Rex didn't respond, but his face turned grim
again and his eyes flashed angrily about.  He wouldn't meet Andi's eyes,
glancing down at the gun in his hand, then staring at the hills across the road
while nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot.
     "What are you going to do now?" Andi asked again, concerned that he'd
fallen silent.  The veins in the hand holding the steely-blue automatic bulged.
     He didn't respond.  
     "Going to move on?" Andi tried again.
     There was another long pause before Rex answered.  "Soon, but not right
away..." he traced the line of the hills as they touched the sky.
     Andi grew anxious and grasped for a response.  "You going to stay here in
the meantime?"  She pointed to the house with her thumb.
     "Maybe a few days...I'm locking down some media work...can't have it
falling into the wrong hands..."  Rex's face regained it's steel-jawed look of
resolve, his eyes flashed with purpose.  "It's my duty..."  There was pride in his
voice.
     Andi nodded without responding and took a step toward the garages. 
"Good luck..." she finally offered with as much conviction as she could muster. 
She stepped slowly away, "Do you mind if I look at the roses...I really am
obliged..."  She took another step, then another keeping both hands in plain
sight.
     "It's OK..." he said quietly. 
     Andi took three more steps, then half-turned, afraid to fully turn her back.
     "I'll walk you to the front..." offered Rex gallantly.
     "Fine." said Andi forcing a smile.  "Then I'll be out of your hair."
     Rex left her by her car and went inside.  Andi could hear the front door's
lock click home.   To keep to her story, she made a quick garden tour, making a
show of looking through the roses, keeping in sight of the house.  That
obligation met, she traced a bee-line to her car and sped away, taking care to
close the gate behind her at the bottom of the drive.


     There was no doubt in her mind that Rex Nimitz was dangerous--she was
grateful to have escaped with nothing more than a scare.  Politics was highest
in his mind when suggesting motives for Tyson's death.  Unlikely as it seemed, it
was possible that he didn't know about Tyson's counterfeiting--not having
access to Tyson's study made it at least plausible.  He'd had a strongly negative
reaction to questions about Gould, but that could be explained as male bravado
as easily as complicity with the missing roses.
     Andi drove back to Portland deep in thought.  Nimitz said Alison Simpson
was "nice."  Was there something important hidden under his discomfort at the
mention of her name?
     Back at their office, Lena announced that they were going out for lunch. 
"Sonny, Paco and Francois'll meet us...Francois says he's got something
already..." 
     "He works fast." commented Andi vaguely.  She had a far-away look in
her eyes and bit nervously at her lower lip as she sat in her swivel-chair.
     Lena favored Andi with a concerned smile, "Funny stuff at Tyson's?"
     "Rex was there...pulled a gun, showed me where Tyson died and
discussed their Christian patriot thing...there he was, gun in hand with a glazed
expression showing me the death scene...I was scared..."  Andi admitted that
last quietly; it wasn't something she'd share with the world. 
     Lena came around behind and hugged her shoulders.  "Do you have to
continue?" she asked in a little voice.
     "Sure...of course..." responded Andi defensively.
     "I'm scared for you..." Lena admitted.
     Andi didn't respond.  How could she admit that she liked being scared and
liked pushing hard sometimes--it wasn't safe, but it was effective.  She liked the
image of dancing at the edge of the void. 
     "Lunch 'eh?  Where we going?" Andi changed the subject smiling up to
Lena and turning back to her desk.
     "Thai-Thai's...one o'clock..." answered Lena a bit primly, returning to her
table.  As if synchronized, they each looked at their watches at that moment.
     Eleven-fifty two, time enough to do something before heading off.  She
called Ramirez to leave a voice-mail.
     "This is an anonymous message regarding the whereabouts of Rex
Nimitz..." she reported where he was and that he was armed.  Ramirez would
recognize her voice and call if he had a problem.  The message should keep him
happy--he could pass it on to the West Linn police and say that the informant
hadn't left a name.
     She sank into her chair scribbling notes about her trip to Tyson's.  It was
hard to focus on roses with Feight and Tyson's deaths, right-wing politics and
counterfeiting hovering unresolved in the background.
     Andi glanced at the box holding the new audio-spy disk she had to
acquaint herself with before showing to Mrs. Knowles.  She chuckled under her
breath--it's not like she was short of frustrating work.
     
      
     Sonny and Paco were waiting at a table when Lena and Andi arrived at
Thai-Thai's.  Sonny sat upright peering around like a bird, one knee pulled up
before her.  Paco somewhat absently read a paperback and nodded at Sonny's
comments.  Andi and Lena chose seats beside one another and buried their
noses in the menus.
     Francois showed up a few minutes later in dark slacks and a floral-print
shirt, his shoes tan-towards yellow, his hat, a wide-brimmed, low crowned
Mississippi-gambler type in golden-chestnut with a coat in a subdued brocade
laid across one arm.
     He took off his dark glasses and hung his coat over the back of his chair. 
After an obligatory wipe of his hand over the chair's seat he slipped in and
bathed the two of them in a warm, open smile.  "Have we ordered yet?" he
asked flippantly as he set his hat on the corner of the table.
     They agreed on ginger chicken with minimum negotiation, hot and spicy
coconut-milk soup with shrimp, broccoli in oyster sauce and pad-thai with a
Chinese beer apiece and salad roll appetizer to share.
     Lena asked Paco about his plans for tomato plants.
     "Two years ago I had so many tomatoes I couldn't give 'em away...last
year I stuck in three plants and they did horrible.  So, what do I do, over-react
again and put in a dozen?"  The corners of Paco's mouth twitched slightly
upwards--for him it was a beatific smile.
     "Split the difference..." mediated Lena with a Solomonic sweep of her
arm.  "...plant seven or eight."
     "What sort of tomatoes?" asked Francois as he absent-mindedly
rearranged his silverware into acceptable order.
     "Beefsteak and cherries...maybe romas...got suggestions?" asked Paco
indifferently.  He nervously glanced to the door as a new party of three came in.
     "The expensive ones in the supermarket are hydroponic." inserted Sonny
helpfully.  She squirmed and fiddled with her fork, seeing how easily it bent
backwards during the following moment of quiet.
     "You're clients haven't fired you yet?" asked Paco.
     Andi grinned shyly.  "No...we're still going--just not making progress."
     The beer came and conversation lagged as they savored first sips. 
"Anybody know what "the fourteen words" mean...it's some militia term..." Andi
threw the question out to the table in general and drew lines in the condensing
drops on the outside of her glass.
     Paco held up his glass as if assessing the clarity of the brew.  "The
`fourteen words' stand for `We Must Secure The Existence Of Our People And A
Future For White Children.'" 
     There was a moment of shocked silence around the table.  
     "No shit?" asked Andi finally.  "I can see why they don't go saying it in
public."
     Francois chuckled.  "You hadn't heard that before?"
     "Where have you heard it?" asked Lena, a puzzled expression furrowing
her brow.
     "I..." stated Francois with a little bow, "...frequent the Angry Eagle chat
line and other patriot-type web-sites."
     "But you're a..." Lena paused, with a confused purse to her lip.  "What
ethnicity are you?"
     "Me?"  Francois looked around the table in faux-surprise.  "I'm an
Afro/Korean/German-Jew/Anglo-Irish with some Seminole and Italian tossed
in...some of us consider that full-blooded American."  He smiled proudly.
     "Far out..." smiled Sonny as she struggled to perch on her foot.
     "So why is it you do white-supremacist chat rooms?" asked Andi with a
incredulous grin.
     "Because they're there..." Francois replied flippantly.  "Taking their
stands to ludicrously logical conclusions has made me an expert on The
Protocols Of The Learned Elders Of Zion and post-millennial tenth-amendment
freedoms." he smiled and batted his eyes with obviously posed pretention.
     Lena, Andi and Sonny stared in wonder.
     "What's your moniker?"  Paco leaned forward, suddenly serious.
     "Gideon." Francois replied humbly.  "I scream about the ZOG
government's black helicopters coming to strafe Christian women and children
and how we should claim `quiet title' emancipation.  I've even been a featured
writer on the Posse Comitatus web-page." Francois chortled.
     Paco almost choked with laughter.
     "What are we talking about?" complained Lena suddenly.
     "You follow militia stuff?" Francois asked seriously.
     "Why?" was Lena's response, her mouth screwed-up in a sarcastic smirk.
     "Well...they're liable to be a issue ahead.  Know thine enemy..." Francois
raised a finger in quiet warning.
     "So what were you saying just a minute ago...?" Lena asked, a sardonic
smile splitting her face.
     "Well, let's see..." Francois touched a manicured finger to his temple to
gather his thoughts before looking back to Lena.  "...ZOG is Zionist
Occupational Government...because our democracy is really run by a
conspiracy of Jewish businessmen in Switzerland.  `Quiet title' is a legal myth of
seceding from state and federal regulations.  In right wing nightmares, black
helicopters haul God-fearing white Christians to concentration camps."
     "...people believe that?" asked Lena with a shocked expression.
     "Believe it?" laughed Paco.  "Real right-wingers center their lives on
it...it's why there are survivalist communities."
     The others around the table groaned.
     Francois smiled smugly, "Hey...it's great...I take things way past what's
believable and nobody ever challenges it...though I do have a smooth and subtle
literary style..."  He paused to quietly inspect his nails, breathing on them
affectedly and polishing them on his shirt.
     Andi didn't know whether to encourage him or not--luckily the hot and
spicy soup arrived and the subject was left behind.


     As feasting slowed and conversation revived, Francois leaned to Andi and
said.  "I dug into Tyson and Nimitz..."
     "Yeah?" replied Andi through a mouthful of pad-thai, unsure about talking
in public.  She glanced around--no tables close were occupied.
     "Mr. Tyson was a funding conduit for right-wing causes...arms sales, legal
and not.  The Treasury department has a file documenting illegal arms transfers
and stolen armaments in eighty-two when he was active duty Air Force."
     Andi glanced to Paco.  He sat back, his shadowed face impassive--only
the flick of his eyes, showed awareness.  "You know who the Treasury
department has files on?" she blurted.
     "Let's just say I know where to look..." Francois responded simply,
"...Tyson went to survivalist conferences, hung with the affluent equivalent of
skin-heads...always had a bunch of overlapping schemes like the counterfeiting
thing..."
     Andi shot a censoring look at Lena.
     Lena smiled back and shrugged. 
     Francois continued.  "Being quasi-legal for twenty years he developed a
cover so tortured it'll be nearly impossible to nail it down, but rumor has it he
was into discipline in the erotic sense..." he put his chin to his chest looked up
past his eyebrows at the others.
     "Nobody cares about his erotic life...especially since he's dead." quipped
Sonny, as she slurped up some pad-thai.
     Francois shrugged and continued.  "He was a competitor in the very
worst sense of the word; obstructive, unethical, unsporting...buying into the
cliche that winning was the only thing that mattered...cheating in competitions
and business, dealing from bottom of the deck.  His illegal arms business broke
down because he repeatedly short-changed on deliveries.  It's said his
basement target range is set up with deceptive lighting...and he gave guests
bullets with off-center slugs..."
     "What a nice guy..." observed Andi derisively.
     "Yeah, generally an all around shmuck," admitted Francois.
     Andi drained the last of her beer and set the glass carefully before her. 
"Anything illegal that involves the rose breeders?"  That Tyson was a jerk was
neither news or helpful.
     "Not so far...you said you wanted juicy stuff quick."
     Sonny shook her head in disbelief.  "You got all that this morning?"
     Francois snorted a laugh, "Most of this is routine, easy stuff...I got back
doors into some real nasty data bases; this isn't primary research, I tapped
other people's...I got his shoe size from credit card records...he buys sharp
cheddar cheese...doesn't check out many library books, but sticks with non-fiction military when he does.  His movie rentals..."
     "How about Rex Nimitz?" interrupted Andi.  She drained her water glass
and set it beside the empty beer glass.
     "Rex...Rex is a big-time victim who doesn't know it...third generation army
officer brat...stuck in year-round military academies since age seven.  Evidently
strings were pulled to get him into officer's training at nineteen without any
college...he was mediocre at best, then suddenly released with a honorable
discharge after only twenty-one months total service.  That's suspicious, but
there's no notation of problems.  One suspects his family might have facilitated
a cover-up.  He considers himself a Phineas Priest and plugged into para-military groups immediately after the army.  He seems to be passing through the
upper levels of the underground as a aid-de-camp underling."
     "Phineas Priest?" asked Lena, perplexed.
     "...a Patriot sub-group justifying itself from a Biblical verse where this guy
Phineas murdered a man and his wife because of racial intermarriage...it was
an atonement that turned away the wrath of God, so he was a righteous Biblical
hero..."
     Another stunned silence reverberated around the table.
     "...Numbers 25:1-18..." Paco interjected after a minute.  
     Sonny swung around to stare at him.  "How do you know that?" she
demanded.
     "I read a lot..." Paco gave a dismissive bob of his head.
     "Phineas Priests...I'd never heard of them." admitted Andi.
     Francois quoted, "`As the kamikazi is to the Japanese, the Shiite to Islam,
and the Zionist to Jews--so the Phineas Priest is to Christendom'...they're a
pretty marginal group, but they believe their violence defends God's law."
     "Back to our issues..."  Lena broke in with a small, sweeping wave of her
hand.  "Was he involved in Tyson's counterfeiting?"
     "I ran out of tea leaves and don't do chicken entrails..." returned Francois
sarcastically.  "I know he's never excelled in anything...seems a regular drone,
likes to follow orders...has a lot of experience in that.  One source noted rude
suggestions about him and Tyson, but he's probable too inhibited for sexual
deviance..." 
     Andi glanced around the table, all eyes were turned expectantly toward
Francois.
     He flicked a microscopic bit of lint from his tastefully turned up shirt-sleeves and reached for the last of his beer.  "He doesn't use credit cards,
never bought a house, never had a traffic ticket, only accepts a token visible
salary...he's off the grid as far as he can be without attracting attention.  He
doesn't go to rallies--since he travels in powerful circles, important people
come to where he stays."
     There was another long moment of silence.  Francois glanced from one of
them to another, evidently at the end of his spiel.  
The busboy must have caught the lull in their table's intensity--he seized the
moment to haul dishes and ask if they wanted desert.
     There was a quick meeting of eyes across the table--all of them declined. 
Lena grabbed the check and insisted that their office was going to pay--no
objections came from the others.  She rose and retired to the cash register,
leaving Andi to gracefully leave a tip and follow the others to the door.






                           CHAPTER   8


     Andi called Mrs. Knowles and pled a need of privacy while discussing
their audio dish.  It won her a change of venue from Jock's Grill to the high-ceilinged den of her glass and vista-burdened home in the West Hills.  Lena
backed out, claiming too much work, so Andi was left to endure it alone.
     With the boxed electronic ear tucked under an arm, Andi arrived three
minutes early and was solicitously ushered by Mrs. Knowles into the bright,
tastefully decorated room.  A well dressed matron of the country club and board
room variety offered a polite, but neutral smile from where she stood across the
room beside one of the brocade upholstered couches. 
     Andi stood awkwardly a moment, unsure and a bit uneasy about the
woman waiting with her host.  Coffee waited on a silver tray with a plate of little
crab sandwiches.  Mrs. Knowles played hostess, pouring coffee and introducing
the woman as "Janice Fineman...a friend."
     "Is Ms. Fineman involved in this project?" asked Andi carefully.  In her
tailored business suit over a ruffled blouse, the woman had the presence of a
professional.  Just because she was present didn't mean she was privy to her
client's plans or her client's husband's behavior.
     "We've known each other thirty-five years." Mrs. Knowles laughed. 
"She's heard the story play by play and thought our technology fascinating..." 
She beamed a warm, gushing smile.
     Andi withheld comment, pursed her lips and gave Mrs. Fineman a owlish
blink of recognition.  Then, sitting on the immaculate floral brocade couch, she
opened the box and removed the components, one by one.
     Mrs. Knowles hovered, gracious and eager as Andi reviewed the
instructions and assembled wires.   There was an intelligent intensity to her
face, obviously expecting to understand everything and unwilling to miss a
nuance.  Her eyes rested a moment on the manual, apparently reading it upside
down, then flicked up to Andi's face, then back to the table and equipment.
     Ms. Fineman waited demurely, skirt straight, knees touching properly,
hands together securing the cup of coffee in its saucer balanced on her knee. 
She sat at the forward edge of the couch, formal and more than a touch
obsessively proper, offering a slightly doubtful smile as she listened politely to
Andi's introduction to the world of electronic surveillance. 
     She made Andi uneasy.  Could Mrs. Knowles' cultural cohort really dress
and act this stuffy in their leisure time?  Mrs. Fineman could easily be Mrs.
Knowles' attorney--the thought made the hairs at on Andi's neck tingle and her
mind churn over the possibility that she was being set up.
     She felt herself acting stiff and wary; she carefully kept all her comments
on the conservative side of legal.  There was nothing threatening about her
presence and nothing outright illegal about what they were doing, but Andi
purposefully neglected to put in the cassette--she left the headphones on the
table and flicked the switch for its built-in speaker.  
     By the time the equipment was ready and its batteries loaded, Ms.
Fineman had receded into the background like a neutral witness.  Stepping out
to Mrs. Knowles' deck they listened to a squirrel scrabbling up a tree sixty or
eighty yards away--they could hear the scratching claws and chirping clearer
than if the furry creature was close enough to bite them.  Sudden panning to the
left brought in one side of a telephone conversation of a neighbor they couldn't
even see.  The reception was crystal-clear.  Mrs. Knowles' face lit-up like a
teenager finding fifty dollars under a Christmas sweater.  She glanced over to
Ms. Fineman and her friend nodded reserved approval.
     Andi quickly snatched the eves-dropping disk from the rail and swept
back into the living room to offer her standard lecture on reasonable
presumption of privacy, the horror, anger and legal recourses of those intruded
upon and the usual ratio of a few hundred hours of boredom for a single
meaningful, three-second comment.  She announced firmly that she'd keep
control of the dish because her license was on the line--it probably wasn't, but
the excuse was the best she could muster on the spur of the moment.
     Mrs. Knowles allowed herself to be shunted toward planning their
caper...the dramatic taping of a philandering husband.  She would leave on a
thursday as if flying off for a weekend trip, giving her husband plenty of
warning.  She would then sneak back to her friend's house to await word.  Andi
would follow her husband from his office Thursday evening ready to deploy the
spy dish should there be opportunity, hoping he'd not put off his suspected
debauchery.
     Leaving the snooper dish in the living room, they toured the house, Mrs.
Fineman following like a shadow through all three stories, then surveyed the
house's windows from the hillside yard with an eye toward shadowed corners
that might conceal a detective at her work.
     Andi asked which rooms Mr. Knowles was likely to entertain in.  Mrs.
Knowles passively demurred, changing the subject and insisting assessment of
even unlikely windows.  She ushered Andi from point to point keeping up a
running stream of chatter--would her husband have to be close to the window? 
Should they record telephone calls too?
     After a glance at her watch and a moment's deliberation, Andi replied
professionally that there were so many variables it might take a series of trials
to work the bugs out of the scheme.  The response mollified Mrs. Knowles; at
least she stopped pushing for wire-tapping gear.
     "The equipment will stay at our office..." Andi stated resolutely.  Mrs.
Knowles nodded knowingly, her lips set in a vindictive smile, she looked across
to her friend and again exchanged the slightest of nods.
     With her own smile of poetic justice, Andi offered to send Lena to check
optimum recording levels.  Since she'd been so instrumental in arranging this
contract, it seemed appropriate that Lena should share encounters with Mrs.
Knowles.  How else could she gain a sensitivity to the nuances of work in the
field?
     Mrs. Knowles thought the idea splendid, she'd enjoyed her conversations
with Lena.  Andi said she'd ask Lena to call as she made a graceful exit with
recorder and dish tucked securely under her arm.

     
     Alison Simpson had called while Andi was out entertaining Mrs. Knowles. 
Lena passed over the note with a smile, a pencil was tucked behind her ear and
piles of invoices lay stacked on either side of her computer.
     "Did she say what she wanted?" asked Andi hopefully.
     "Nope...but she seemed nervous..." returned Lena, her body twisting
around elastically until she flash a full-faced smile.
     Nervous wasn't out of character, Simpson was a nervous person.  Andi
settled at her desk and fumbled through her papers.  "By the way...Mrs.
Knowles wants you to give her a call..."  She tossed the suggestion innocently
as she glanced through the pile of opened mail.
     "Sure..." suspecting nothing, Lena paused and made a note on the pad at
her elbow.
     "Anything else happen?" Andi asked hopefully.
     "It's been quiet..." mumbled Lena without turning around, checking
names of lists, folding invoices and stuffing envelopes.
     Andi reached for her phone and punched in Simpson's number. 
"Hello...Andi Wicksham, returning your call."  
     Simpson gave a little cry of surprise, "Oh thank God you got  back...I have
a problem..."
     Andi sat up in her chair, suddenly more interested.  "...what is it?" 
     "I..." there was an awkward pause, "...well, you see..."  Simpson fumbled
for words.
     "If you want help you have to talk..." Andi urged gently.
     "Well..." started Simpson again, "...I was wondering what you thought of
Rex Nimitz..."  It was a weak change of topic, blurted out, rushed and
unconvincingly.
     Andi ground her teeth in frustration.  "Rex Nimitz?"  She looked up to the
ceiling, impatiently wishing for greater vistas, wondering what would be safe to
say.  "I met him a few times...we've never had much chance to talk."  Andi let a
measure and a half beat by, but Simpson didn't respond.  "But, I heard the two
of you were friends..."  The statement dangled pregnantly, like a question.
     Simpson demurred, protesting, "...we weren't close friends...not really." 
A moment later she added, "We'd talk, sometimes...he was nice...at first."
     "But not now?" Andi asked carefully.
     Alison Simpson coughed a little selfconscious cough and skirted the
issue.  "He used to come across the hill three or four times a week...just to talk
and drink coffee...he's really shy and awkward...I think he was trying to be
romantic."  She gave an embarrassed laugh.  "Two days before Uncle Darrel
died he appeared with a big envelope, asking if I'd mail it to him in a little while. 
He was going to travel and would phone with an address...I'd only have to write
on the front and pop it in the mail."
     Andi chewed her lip and unconsciously nodded to herself as she reached
for her notebook.  "Did he call?"
     "Just this afternoon."  Her voice was apprehensive.
     "...he gave you an address and asked you to send the package?" Andi led
her in the obvious direction.
     "Yes..." Simpson had fallen surprisingly quiet after starting this awkward
confession.
     "He did?" Andi prompted.  "Good..."  There was another awkward
silence.  "Alison...you need to fill in the holes of this story."
     Another measure or two of silence beat by before she answered.  "Well,
the last time I saw him he said something insulting to me...and...and I scratched
him..." Simpson sounded ashamed.  "...really hard..."
     "Did you dislike his attention?" Andi asked slowly.  It was like pulling
teeth.  
     "No, I liked him...but I hurt him.  There was blood...he shouted and called
me names and ran out."
     Andi took a breath and rubbed her forehead.  "And now you feel sorry?"
she ventured hesitantly.
     "Well...yes...and no, after what he said.  But this afternoon he phoned all
sweet, as if that never happened...wanting me to send his silly package..."
Simpson snorted in derision.
     Andi let a long moment pass in silence.  "...and?" she queried.
     "And I don't want to..." stated Simpson with sudden finality.  "But if I don't
he'll be angry..."
     Andi remembered the gaunt intensity of Nimitz' eyes when he stood
beside her with the gun--she could believe he could be brutal.  "...and now
you've called me..." Andi prompted, nervously tapping her pencil on her desk-top.  What would it take to for Simpson to open up?  "I'm not sure what you're
asking, Alison..."
     "Could you come and take the package...I don't want to even touch it."
Alison Simpson asked it in a quiet, little-girl's voice.  "...please...with Uncle
Darrel dead I don't know who else to call..."
     It took Andi no time at all to make her decision.  "Of course...I'll come, but
first give me the address he wants you to send the envelope to."  Now here
would be an interesting detail.
     It sounded like Simpson started laughing or crying or both, but it turned
into a bout of hick-ups.  After another minute of prompting she retrieved the
card with an address in Saint Johns and slowly, resignedly, recited it.
     Andi copied it into her notebook and quietly thanked her, repeating that
she'd come right over.  Without even putting down the receiver she thumbed the
off button and made an call to Ramirez.  She impatiently pushed zero when his
message came on, then waited on hold as the duty officer paged him.  Her
pencil tapped on her desk like Buddy Rich driving his big band.
     Three minutes later his monotone came on the line.  "Ramirez here..."
     "Ramirez, it's Andi...I got something you want..."
     "Yo Wicksham, give me a moment to get to my desk, OK?  I'm going to put
you on hold..."
     The line went dead and Andi waited impatiently another minute for him to
come back on.
     There was an electronic click and Ramirez' voice returned.  "I'm
back...what is this about?"
     "Did you ever get out to see Rex Nimitz?  I left word that he was at
Tyson's..."
     "The West Linn Lieutenant..."
     "...Allen, Sergeant Talbert..." Andi filled in impatiently.
     "...Allen..." growled Ramirez, matching impatience with impatience,
"...visited the residence...no response, no cars outside, no lights on..."
     "The BMW was in the first garage and it was daytime..." complained Andi
irritably.
     "Well, she didn't see it parked in front...so she got bored and went back to
the barn."
     "Do you still want to find him?" Andi asked sweetly.
     "Do you have a special way of doing that?" Ramirez asked skeptically.
     "I got an address in Saint Johns he's expecting a package to come to..."
     "OK...shoot..." Ramirez jotted down the address.  "...that it?  I got a zillion
things going...I'll pass this on..."
     "Did the uniforms question Simpson about her Uncle's revolver?" Andi
asked hurriedly.
     "Yeah, sure...she said he and Tyson were always trading guns back and
forth." Ramirez was getting impatient.
     "Nothing else?" Andi pushed.  "OK if I ask?"  She would anyway, but
asking permission was good public relations.
     "Word is she's closed-mouthed...good luck grilling her.  The uniforms
sniveled that she'd all but kicked them off her porch.  Now...is that all?" 
Ramirez was getting grouchy.
     "Yeah...that's all." Andi replied, miffed at the short shrift that her news of
Rex's package and address had gotten.
     "Then I'll see you later..."  That was it, he hung up, the line went dead,
finito.
     Her receiver dropped as if by itself to her desk.  "Sure Sergeant
Ramirez...no trouble...it was my pleasure...pleased to be of help..."  Andi
directed her acidic sing-song at the silent phone.
     "Some days are like that..." observed Lena sagely from her keyboard. 
     Andi favored the phone with another evil glare.  "I'm driving to West Linn
again..." she complained.
     "Oh poor baby..." Lena whispered, "...you poor overworked thing...all the
way to West Linn?  By car?"  She looked across, sad-eyed and with quivering
lip, whatever scrap of genuine consolation she offered drowning under a fifty-gallon barrel of syrup.  Then, smiling sweetly, her point made, Lena turned back
to her computer.
     Andi crumpled the nearest piece of scratch paper and directed the
missile at Lena's head.  Without looking, Lena leaned to a side at the critical
moment and the paper sailed harmlessly over her shoulder.
     Grumbling to herself, Andi slipped out and pounded down the stairs--some days, evidently, nothing at all went right.


     The package in Alison Simpson's hand when she met Andi at the door was
a flattish, padded manila mailing-envelope.  Simpson didn't welcome Andi in,
she just stood behind the partially-opened door and handed out the envelope
and a three by five card, mumbling "Thanks..." with downcast eyes before
starting to swing the door closed.
     "Alison...wait..." Andi protested, she stuck her foot in the door to keep it
open, "...hold up a second.  Do you want me to send this or not?"  She'd drove
Portland making a list of questions--starting with the pistol that killed Tyson,
then whether Simpson had driven her uncle's truck the morning her died.  She
wanted to know where she'd gone that afternoon and about Nimitz leaving the
package and whether she'd seen him the afternoon her uncle died.
     "I don't care..." Simpson dismissed the issue sullenly and pushed
ineffectually against the door.
     "If I don't send it, you said he'd get angry..." Andi argued, frustrated and
irritable at Simpson's manipulatory rudeness.
     "I don't care...If he asks, I'll tell him I gave it to you." she tried to close the
door again.
     "Alison...you need to explain.  There's more going on than you're telling..."
Andi beseeched her.  This could be important...please...talk to me..."
     "No." she whined loudly, then quickly, "...thank's for taking
it...goodbye..."  It came out with a bitter, hiss.  Then, a sudden vicious kick
connected with Andi's ankle followed by a second kick that encouraged her
foot's removal from the threshold.  Simpson leaned her shoulder against the
heavy door and quickly fixed the lock.
     Shocked at Simpson's reaction and dismayed at its effectiveness, Andi
hobbled about the porch cursing, one hand holding the envelope, the other
rubbing her twice abused ankle.
     "Well then...goodbye..." she called out to the closed door, contenting
herself with a strategic, limping retreat to her car to examine her ankle and rail
over the injustice in the investigatory field.
     The entire way back to the office she nursed sour feelings, reviewing the
day's frustrations--by the time she sank down at her desk she was seething. 
Simpson's envelope slapped her desk with a satisfying thud as she dropped into
her chair.  She swiveled so she could stare out the window--directing a flood of
psychic spleen at unsuspecting innocents on the street below.
     Lena must have read it in her eyes, because she didn't say word.  Five
minutes later, when Andi turned back and inspected the package, Lena glanced
up, but remained silent.
     When a client called, Lena smoothly reeled off that Ms. Wicksham was
unavailable, but that she could probably address their problem.  Andi glared at
Nimitz' package.  It reminded her of being kicked in the shin.  Then feeling guilty
that Lena was working while she wasn't, she pulled over her notebook and
began listing physical observations.
     The package was an oversized, padded manila mailing-envelope, "12x15
Inside Dimensions," was printed in the lower left front corner.  There was a row
of stamps in the upper right-hand corner adding up to three dollars and thirty-four cents.
     Andi hefted the package, it was light.  There was more than enough
postage--as if Nimitz didn't have a scale and wanted to make certain there'd be
no dispute.
     His name was printed in block-letters with a black felt-tipped pen leaving
a big space for the address to be added.  There was no return address, no other
writing except the machine printed notification "First-Class Mail" and "Special
Handling Please."
      The flap was taped with two-inch wide, heavy-duty, clear packing-tape. 
Andi peered at the edges--if it had been previously opened, signs of tampering
were hidden.  She flipped the envelope over again, looking closely at the
stamps--remembering a spy story where a dot of micro-film was hidden under
the stamps and a detective novel where the stamps themselves were the
valuables being clandestinely transported.
     Postal regulations were not statutes an experienced person felt
comfortable ignoring--the package hadn't been mailed, but it looked ready, with
stamps and everything.  Curiosity gave caution an impatient nudge...what would
it take to look inside without leaving an obvious trace?  She pondered the
question sulkily, debating a call to Ramirez--it would be the responsible thing to
do, but she didn't really want to talk to him.
     They spent the last quarter hour at the office that way, Andi quietly
brooding, Lena walking on eggshells and avoiding contact.  At four o'clock,
Lena started their day's-end cleaning--well before usual quitting time, by
fourteen-after she'd finished and risked poking the sullen beast once again
staring out the window.
     "I officially declare this work-day over."   Standing like the Madonna on
her half-shell, Lena touched thumb to index finger and waved her hand in a
pope-like benediction.  "Let's go home...you might already be a winner."
     "What?" demanded Andi sullenly, she'd already given herself permission
to be cranky.
     "End of the day, end of the week.  I can leave you here if that's your
pleasure...but I'd rather take you home, force a glass of wine in your hand, turn
on some mellow music and sweet-talk you into a bubble-bath.  I prescribe
comfort food...that's pasta if I've got it right...you can give instruction or take
what you get."  Lena smiled and reached a hand to pull Andi from her chair.
     Andi tried to manifest a suitable grumble, but couldn't even succeed at
that.  She let Lena to pull her to her feet and herd her down the stairs fully
intending to be a formidable, hostile bitch as soon as she could muster the
energy.  Damn the day and Simpson anyway.


     Saturday morning they lazed in bed until roused at six minutes after ten by
a call from Francois.  Lena fumbled for the phone and answered a yawning
"Yes..." and peering mole-like at the red numbers of her bedside clock.
     "Is that invitation for breakfast still good?" Francois chattered cheerfully
in Lena's ear.
     "Who is it?" grumbled Andi, her head still covered by a pillow.
     "Francois..." Lena replied, "...you invited him for breakfast, remember?"
     "If it's not a good time..." extended Francois politely.
     "Tell him to bring orange juice..." mumbled Andi from beneath her pillow.
     "Andi says to bring orange juice." passed on Lena.  "I'll throw together
some waffles if she's too out of it...I'm dying to try her trick of separating the egg
whites and whipping them until..."
     "Whipping until stiff?" queried Francois with mock concern delivered in a
shocked falsetto.
     "...old joke...not funny." responded Lena impatiently.  "You fold in the egg-whites and get these light, yummie waffles..."
     "Hold it." Andi rumbled in ominous outrage, "You can't use my waffle
recipe just because I'm in bed and half-asleep...you recipe thief...right here in
my own bed..." cried Andi, suddenly leaping up and beating Lena with her
pillow."
     "Yeow..." screamed Lena, slipping off the edge of the bed still holding the
phone to her ear.  "It worked like a charm Francois...Andi's up now...sure, half-hour will be great.  Tootles..."  She curled defensively beside the bed in a fetal
position, laughing.
     

     Francois climbed the stairs from the front door with a cantaloupe and
carton of fresh-squeezed orange juice.  "I always thought fresh squeezes were
best...is that coffee...?"  He followed Lena into the kitchen to catch Andi pouring
the second batch of waffles in the iron.  "Hi Andi...you got up to make
breakfast!"  He sounded surprised and shocked.
     "What are you doing being a morning person?" Andi grumbled petulantly. 
"I'm shocked you'd stoop so low...and of course I'm up to make breakfast."  She
accepted a peck on the cheek, pointed to the coffee pot and slipped the plate of
finished waffle into the oven to keep warm.
     "She's so easily manipulated..." Lena confided to Francois as she chose a
mug from the cupboard and handed it over with a little swagger.  "...all it takes
is knowing the buttons."
     "What's that I hear over there?" grumbled Andi menacingly.
     Lena chuckled.  "Nothing Dear..."  She took a sip of coffee and wandered
into the living room to find the jazz station on the radio.  "We eating in the
kitchen or dining room?"  Lena yelled back to the kitchen.
     Andi and Francois looked at each other, then at the kitchen table.  "Here
in the kitchen." they responded in unison.  Andi got syrup from the refrigerator,
decanted some into a little pitcher and slipped it into the microwave.  Francois
set the table and cut the cantaloupe into quarters.  "...ready?"
     Lena was the first to pull out a chair and settle regally before her plate. 
Andi pounced on the waffle iron soon as the little light went out.  "It's show-time...are we ready to rumble?"
     

     They feasted and put on a second pot of coffee.  
     "So what's going on this morning?" Francois asked chattily.  "Anything
exciting I can help with?"
     Andi and Lena shared an exhausted look.  "Nothing...it's saturday, we're
on vacation..." Lena answered smugly.
     "...no work today?" replied Francois, a little concern creeping into in his
voice.
     "There's nothing much to do..."  Andi shrugged nonchalantly.  "There's a
package at the office I want to look into...but other than that..." Andi waved her
hand in an off-hand gesture, dismissing all concerns of the office.
     "You're doing that today?" asked Francois in surprise, "But it's a
weekend..."
     "It's not really going to work or anything." Andi explained with an offhand
shrug.
     "That's good...a mini-vacation...almost like not working." commented
Francois.  He had a smile on his lips and gave Lena a significant look over the
top of his spectacles.
     Andi glanced at him then at Lena, then back to Francois.  "OK, what is
this?"
     "Nothing at all Andi, you're so suspicious..." scolded Francois.  He caught
Lena's eye and grinned.
     Andi again favored each with a doubtful stare.  "OK...come clean. 
What're you smiling at?"
     Lena had kept her expression as sober as a judge.  "We had a bet on
whether you'd want to work through the weekend."
     "I'm not going to work through the weekend." stated Andi indignantly.
     "She means do any work during the weekend." Francois corrected with a
smug little smile.  "Our bet was about whether you'd want to work on the
weekend."
     "And you bet that I would and she bet I wouldn't?" Andi's eyes narrowed
in grim suspicion as she searched for a fitting retribution.
     Francois shook his head, his face suddenly sobered.  "No, that wasn't
it..."
     "She bet I'd work this weekend and you bet I wouldn't?  Betrayal...that's
worse." Andi turned up both pitch and volume and shifted her ire to Lena.
     Francois shook his head again.  Lena struggled to control her laughter. 
"Even worse...we both bet you'd work...both bet you wouldn't get through the
morning without mentioning it.  I bet you'd bring it up before we got up from the
table, Francois felt sure you could hold off until the table was cleared..."  They
collapsed again into convulsive hysterics that left them gasping for breath.
     Andi looked from one red-face to the other.  "I'm truly disappointed..." she
chastised, "...that you'd have so little faith in me."  She shook her head in sad
dismay.
     "Oh, we had ultimate faith in you..." protested Francois, straight-faced,
struggling to regain his composure.
     "Faith you'd talk about going to work at breakfast...I won..." spouted Lena
gleefully, waving her hands in the air as if she'd won Olympic gold.
     "And what's so wrong with that?" she demanded haughtily.
     Lena reached a hand to cup Andi's face.  "Nothing at all, dear...honestly,
nothing...the joke's about how dependable you are..."
     "Yes, absolutely..." chipped in Francois.  "...it's really a compliment on
your dependability..."  That set them off onto another bout of giggling.  "So what
did you want to do today?"  At last he struggled to regain his composure.
     "Nothing..." replied Andi poutily.
     Lena filled in the information, "It's a big envelope she brought back from
Simpson...supposed to be from...or was that to?..Rex Nimitz."
     "Both..." answered Andi flatly.  She didn't dare show enthusiasm.  "Rex
gave it to Simpson to mail back to him."
     "Interesting..." murmured Francois quietly.  "...implying there's something
important inside..."
     Andi leaned her elbows on the table, her coffee cup between her hands,
staring at him.  "Are you guys baiting me again?"
     Francois turned to look at Lena.  She cocked her head, returned his stare
and shrugged.  They turned together back to Andi.  "No..." said Francois simply. 
"At least I don't think so..."
     "Really?" asked Andi with a sarcastic smile.
     Francois silently shook his head "No."  Andi looked to Lena who echoed
his silent head shake.  Andi narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
     "What you got in mind." Lena asked, her face as sober as a judge.
     Andi opened her mouth to respond, then shut it, then opened it again to
speak.  "I don't know if I can trust you two or not..." she said sadly.
     
     
     Alison Simpson's package waited on Andi's desk just as it sat the evening
before.  Lena inspected it carefully, handed it to Francois and chattered about
steaming open envelopes in a microwave with a damp paper towel.
     Andi leaned back in her chair considering the situation--the unaddressed
envelope was given to her in the progress of an ongoing investigation and
probably played a material role.  She might not have the right address.  It hadn't
entered the postal system and there was a decent argument that it was purely
personal property passed to her and that she had a professional responsibility
to check it out.
     It was a definite, if roundabout, conclusion; since the envelope hadn't
been mailed, postal law didn't apply--the only way to ascertain rightful
ownership might be to look inside.  It might even argued that it would be
negligent not to.  Thus professionally rationalized, she leaned forward started a
new page in her notebook.
     Andi caught Lena's eye and pointed.  "Can we get an envelope identical to
this?"
     "Identical?" asked Lena, dubiously.
     "Yeah...so we can switch envelopes..." Andi tried to make it sound off-handed and casual.
     "Probably." Lena glanced at her watch.  "...in three or four stops..."


     Andi stayed to take care of a few loose ends until Lena and Francois
returned with a package of envelopes and a dozen sets of latex gloves.  Then
Andi double-checked the envelope's printing and paper and made a careful
survey of every mark and crease that might have been made as an identifier.
     Francois opened the window and spun the radio dial until he found the
bluegrass show on KBOO.  Andi carefully slit the envelope's factory sealed
bottom edge, cutting through the glued seal, then the inner lining.  Lena leaned
against the table playing surgical nurse, handing scissors or razor blade,
providing the ready extra hand to retract a curling edge.  She bent over the
envelope until their heads touched. 
     Andi carefully pulled a bundle of cardboard-enfolded papers through the
bottom of the envelope and set them aside.  So far so good--next she slit the
back of the envelope from edge to edge and folded it inside out to expose the
inside lip of the sealed opening.
     Portions of the glue-edge flap had been torn open and the package
resealed with tape.  Andi glanced up and smiled at Lena.
     "Could have been Simpson." Lena observed, her eyes never leaving their
work.
     "It's a half-assed job..."  Andi scratched at the glue-marked edge of the
envelope with a paper clip.  "...steamed maybe, but she got impatient and
ripped it..."
     Lena pursed her lips and cocked her head to a side.  "If it was Simpson,
she didn't seem to care who knew...it's an obvious job."
     "Maybe that's why she passed it on..."  Andi put the envelope aside and
turned to its contents--the thin sheaf of papers was protected by a piece of
neatly-creased cardboard.
     Andi rubbed her chin with her palm, looked from Francois to Lena and
back, then returned to the envelope's contents.  They were reports on rose
hybridizing dating back over the last ten years.  She quickly flipped through the
pile, a number had William Tyson's name, others Jennifer Gould's, still other
were Darrel Feight's.  Andi skipped quickly through the pile in disbelief, then
checked the material again more slowly, nothing had been published more
recently than six years ago.
     She chewed her lip and tapped her foot restlessly--something was
obviously wrong.  Francois reached tentatively toward the papers.  Andi
impatiently pushed the pile his way.
     "It doesn't make sense...this stuff's not important..." complained Andi.
     "Unless it includes secrets..." suggested Lena.
     Andi gave her a doubtful look, gave a subdued kick to the waste paper
basket, then ruffled her hair with both hands and clasped her fingers behind her
neck and stretched against them to get a kink out. 
     Lena and Francois looked over expectantly.  
     "Let's copy it, just in case..." Andi responded hopefully, thinking she
might ask her mom if any the stuff was meaningful.  
     "Did she replace the contents?"  Lena wondered out loud.
     Andi shrugged a noncommittally.
     "What do you think of the envelope problem?"  Lena switched on the
copier.  Francois handed over the pages.
     "Since we found extra envelopes, Simpson could have..." Andi pointed
out.  "She could have faked a new one same as us...faked the reopening and
taping up..."
     "That's a scary thought."  Francois grinned nervously.  "Machiavelli had
nothing on you..."
     "It's too convoluted a scenario..."  Lena pushed at the opened packaging
with a finger.  "Not everybody is as sneaky as you..." she observed quietly.
     "Is that a criticism?" Andi demanded defensively.
     "Oh, no..." Lena protested, wide-eyed.  "...to tell the truth, I find it kind of
sexy..." she raised a suggestive eyebrow.
     "Sure..." snorted Andi derisively.  
     "Oh, Baby..." Lena lowered a shoulder and looked slinky.  "...you really
know how to be devious and underhanded...I mean really tricky..." Lena's voice
was low and sultry and she caricatured bedroom eyes.
     "Oh, God...I know we just ate, but I think it's lunch time."  Andi gave
Francois a hopeless smile before loudly changing the subject.  "Let's go, it's
only fair that I treat.  How about bento..."
     Francois laughed and ducked out first, leaving Andi to pinch and push and
make little bites at Lena's neck as she bullied her out the door.


     Sunday, Lena took Andi to the Sandy river for a picnic lunch.  Andi
skipped rocks across the rippling surface and tried not to think of her mother or
that Darrel Feight's funeral was taking place as she wasted time in the boonies. 
She'd been sorely tempted to go just to check out who came and how they
acted, but Lena would call it workaholism--worse still, it would make her think of
her mother.
     Recently, just about everything evoked memories; sidewalks reminded
her of walking with her mother, driving roused memories of trips to grandma's. 
The river evoked vacations, picnics and rock-skipping competitions,
challenging her sister for the number of splashes to reach the other shore.
     Her mother's calm reaction to her diagnosis seemed harder to take than
ranting and sobbing, but her mother had always been alpha stoic.  She probably
looked-up words like, `death' and `dying' and `mortality' in the Oxford English
Dictionary to have definitive derivations, assorted nuances and corollary
concepts ready so she could correct people's offhand comments.
     Andi paused to look through the lace of branches and leaves that
screened the sky.  It would be like her.  As a teenager, Andi hated that more
than anything else--that need to be the expert, to be not just right, but the most
right.  The memory made her stomach hurt.
     She skipped a stone--four splashes in a arc that curved clockwise,
downstream--then stooped to pick another two from the gravel at her feet.  Even
as a little girl she'd been better than anyone else at skipping--maybe she wasn't
that far away from her mother, competition-wise at least. 
     She threw the next stone hard and low, making it across to the
overhanging brush though it only skipped water once.  All in all, though she'd
never admit it to Lena, she'd rather be working than taking this "quality" time-off.  
     Working kept her too busy for uncomfortable thoughts.






                           CHAPTER  9 


     Her mom phoned late Sunday night while she was taking a shower and
Lena promised she'd have Andi return the call after eight-thirty the next
morning.
     Monday morning at quarter to nine, Andi used the bedroom phone for a
short course in therapeutic radiation for the terminally ill.  It was an eight-point-seven five in the ten point scale of mother-daughter bonding.  
     She and Lena got to work late.  Andi didn't meet Lena's eyes or say a
word until they were safely at their desks.
     There were two phone messages from Ramirez--one from last night, one
this morning, plus one from Francois.  Files from friday lay open on her desk
with Rex's new, unsealed envelope reassembled and ready to go.
     Andi sank into her chair and lifted her phone, Francois would be least
likely to answer, but then she remembered his change of life-style.  Phone
pinched between ear and shoulder, she corrected course midstream, shifting to
Ramirez' number by the time her fingers started tapping buttons.
     His voice-mail kicked in on the second ring--Andi risked a smile, maybe
her luck was changing after all.  She left a message that she'd returned his call
and logged it in her notebook.  That phone-tag chore completed, she slowly and
deliberately punched up Francois.
     Half a ring and the phone was snatched up.  "Hey Andi..." he greeted.
     "Yo, it's Wicksham returning your call."  She hated people with caller ID.
     "Good, good..." Francois answered brightly.  Andi could hear rock and
roll blaring in the background, she must be on a speaker-phone.
     "What's up duck?  How about turning the music down a notch..." Andi
slipped into her all-business persona, voice textured with a faintly gritty touch of
impatience.
     Francois turned the music down to a tolerable din.  "You asked about
connections between clients?  Jennifer Gould and Tyson both invested in the
same Eastern Washington land scams and share controlling interest in a bunch
of trade periodicals for gardeners..."
     "The Bloom?" asked Andi, suddenly interested.
     "The what?" responded Francois surprised.
     "A rose magazine...The Bloom...out of Phoenix.  They sent somebody to
write a feature on Feight the weekend before he died."  Andi recited the
information without resorting to her notes.
     There was a long pause.  Over the top of the rock and roll, Andi could
hear the clicking of Francois' fingers on his keyboard and various computer
clicks and buzzes.  "Yep...that's one of them.  Anything special I should look
into?"
     "No...there's an editor or reporter that came to Feight's named Jason or
something starting with a J.  He's probably peripheral...the rag's interesting
because neither Gould and Tyson mentioned owning it."  He didn't need to
waste time with fluff.  "You got more?"
     "Darrel Feight had a history with Tyson.  He was named among Tyson's
colleagues illegally funneling military equipment to Contra death squads in the
early eighties."
     Andi scribbled in her notebook.  "...that so?  Nothing recent?"
     "Nothing much.  Tyson, Gould and Feight were buying small retail outlets
over the last few years.  Almost a hundred percent leveraged...almost none of
their own money in it.  They're making a chunk of money if you go by gross
receipts.  None of 'em have big cash assets."
     "Just three of them do retail stores?  Not Dao or Laroux?" confirmed Andi,
surprised.
     "Dao is in commercial real estate...long time holdings, seems a
conservative investor.  Laroux is in a deep financial hole without even the cash
flow to make regular mortgage payments...he's got zero free capital..." 
Francois seemed to be confirming things from notes as he talked.  "I'll fax you
the stuff in their names...but even together their liquid assets aren't in the
million's..."
     "Laroux's not involved?" asked Andi, surprised.
     "Seems not...at least not with retail stores.  I looked for him as attorney or
agent in title and business transfers, but seems he's a family practice guy not
even good enough to fend off a nasty divorce settlement."
     "I'll make it a point not to use him." quipped Andi.  "Anything more on
Tyson or Nimitz?"
     "Seems your boy Rex has a series of aliases...Samuel Hawk...Don
Lee...and Rob Hardt.  These are iffy...but the guy's only twenty three for God's
sake."
     Andi dutifully copied the names into her notebook. "So...now we put the
focus on Gould.  You might search Feight and Tyson's long-distance phone
records...."
     "...already did...they're too clean to believe.  But it's easy to get a cellular
billed to Timbuctoo for anything dirty." Francois' fingers tapped at a keyboard
and his equipment clicked and buzzed.  "Tyson encrypted his e-mail, I'm tracing
his correspondents, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't use a scrambler for
voice calls.  I'll throw the nets out again and give it some thought...maybe
there's another angle we can work."
     Andi rubbed her forehead and glanced at her watch.  "Thanks....are you
keeping a tab on your time?  There's an actual client to bill to."
     Francois chuckled, "Lena says we're billing the folks we're
investigating...I like the way you do business, Wicksham..."
     Andi glanced gloomily at the wall in front of her.  "Thanks for the
compliment.  We have a problem I haven't figured out...there's got to be multiple
millions of dollars of counterfeit money connecting the important players but I
can't find it.  I look, but instead of cash, everything's coming up roses..."
     "Tough..." consoled Francois, "...but not a bad song title."
     "Give me a frigging break..." Andi was not in mood for humor.  Is that all
you got for now?"
     "Yah, dots everytink I sink..." Francois pulled a Scandinavian accent from
somewhere--it came off decently for someone who'd never lived in the midwest. 
He chuckled and the line clicked dead.
     "Humph..." granted Andi in response.  She hung up the phone and looked
down at her notes.
     Lena looked over and said glibly.  "Isn't this where you're supposed to say
to me `...there's the curious incident of the dog in the night-time,' I'd reply `The
dog did nothing that night,' and you'd respond `That was the curious incident...'"
     "Sorry to disappoint you Watson..." Andi said, shutting her eyes and
rubbing her temples.
     "Wasn't the point of that Sherlock Holmes line that a dog would be
expected to bark unless the intruder was someone it knew?" Lena continued
eagerly.
     Andi looked impatiently across and growled, "...your point being?"
     "Maybe you can't find the stolen roses because they weren't stolen?"
     "Then why are we doing this?" demanded Andi irritably.
     "Maybe that's what the mystery really is." Lena concluded with a self-satisfied smirk.
     "You read too much crime fiction...we're not in the mystery business, we
investigate things..."  Andi plopped a pile of files before her before to emphasize
the point, but then looked in dismay at them and pushed them aside.
     "I still think the Holmes and Watson schick might be a fit..." Lena pouted. 
"There's something about this we're not seeing.  If there were never any roses--that would explain most of the problems."
     Andi shot her a dirty look and returned to her notes.
     There was an ominous silence from the other side of the room.  "I'm going
down to the bakery for a pecan roll..." Lena finally announced icily, already half
up from her chair.  She reeked nonverbal clues about being peeved.  "Want
anything?"  She asked coldly as she reached for the doorknob, it sounded as if
she was daring Andi to say yes.
     The phone interrupted the exchange. 
     Andi shook her head and waved Lena on her way as she reached for the
receiver.
     "Hello, Wicksham..." the voice said evenly.
     Andi recognized the hello.  "Ramirez, mi hermanos.  Como est'a?"
     "I'm not having a very good Monday...and it looks like it'll get worse
before it gets better..." Ramirez snapped irritably.
     "Whoa, slow down...it's only quarter to ten, did Max rake you over the
coals already?"
     "Funny how you're somehow able to sense these things
Wicksham...maybe you should go into fortune-telling."  Ramirez's bad mood was
one of his default settings, Andi'd seen it before.  "Any comments on how you
end up connected to a major counterfeiting ring?"
     "Wait a bit.  Hold up, amigo...my only connection is being hired by the
beneficiaries of an estate--to look for roses.  My work's unrelated and entirely
legal.  I'm nowhere near your funny money..."  Andi'd had the misfortune of
being too close to a couple of police cases and she wanted the record set
straight up-front.
     "The West Linn squad are fronting for the Treasury jerks and they seem to
feel you're a player..."  Ramirez' tone was officiously neutral.
     "I'm a what!!" screamed Andi, far louder than was appropriate.
     "According to them, you mysteriously enter the picture and visit their
quarry just as they were about to spring their trap, insert yourself into the
equation and incidently screwing-up their plans.  You have some phony story
you couldn't keep straight in the course of an hour's questioning.  Then, there's
the convenient fact that you show up immediately after their target gets
snuffed...add that he was found with a suicide note that irrefutably ties you to
the case."  There was a pregnant silence.  "How come their interest seems
believable to me?"
     Andi unfurled her driest, most cynical tone of voice, "You know what I
think?  The jerks don't have a clue as to what's going on and are trying to find an
excuse for not coming up with anything."
     "Yeah...there's that..." allowed Ramirez even handedly.  "They've asked
me to kindle a fire under you..." he warned after a pause.
     "...frigging losers..." growled Andi vehemently.  She'd experienced
Ramirez' fire kindling and had an intuitive sense that counter-attack was the
appropriate defence.  "Just exactly what is it that they think I've done?  Are they
saying I'm spending forged bills, or that I've a hidden bank account, or that I've
masterminded this caper?  Just what sort of criminal activity are they
implying?"
     "I think they'd like to file you in the underling category..." Ramirez
hazarded an honest guess.  "...sleazy, crud on the sidewalk that needs to get
scraped off for the good of society..." his candor was conversational.  "You
know...like dog-poop."
     "Give me a break..." Andi exploded quietly. 
     "I've told them we go way back and that you're weird and pushy but
harmless...but you're an awfully convenient fall-guy...and you got to admit that
your name on the suicide-note draws a lot of attention."
     And paused to let a small handful of beats go by.  "So what do they want?"
she grumbled resignedly.
     "I'm supposed to ask where you were since the morning Tyson was offed--from midnight the night before." Ramirez resumed his tired-cop voice.
     "That night I was home in bed..." Andi responded flatly.
     "...that can be confirmed by?" Ramirez seemed to be taking notes.
     "By Lena of course..." Andi muttered.  She looked across at Lena's empty
chair.
     "Anybody else?" Ramirez pushed.
     "Gee no, Ramirez...we try to avoid orgies on work nights..." Andi asserted
sarcastically.  "Get real...who else could possibly confirm if I was in bed?  What
sort of question is that?  Half my life I'm without an alibi...so what?"
     Ramirez gave a long-suffering sigh and changed the subject.  "Do you
know somebody by the name of Robert Hardt?"
     "...Hardt?" Andi flipped back a page in her notebook.  "It's an alias of Rex
Nimitz...along with Don Lee and Samuel Hawk."
     "Oh yeah?" asked Ramirez lightly.  "They didn't have Samuel Hawk on the
list..."  There was a pause as he wrote it down.  
     "Nimitz was a member of the Phineas Priesthood..." Andi mentioned
grudgingly.  Better that they should have all the information possible--despite
how they were acting.  At least it would be a gesture of good faith.
     "...beg pardon?" asked Ramirez.
     "Phineas Priesthood...P..H.I..N..E..A..S.  Ask your terrorism expert..."
     "Sure Wicksham..." Ramirez seemed willing to tone it down a notch. 
"Treasury doesn't have a prayer to tie you in...but they got pull and desire.  I'll
need to talk to Lena...but it'll be better if it's in a separate call--I'll try to make it
sound like she's not involved."
     "She's in bed with me, but she's not involved?" snorted Andi.
     "Hey, there's involved and there's involved.  It's a funny truth...no one
cares who you boff, but business connections are suspicious...ironic 'eh?"
Ramirez was long past being surprised at the irrational.
     "Hmmmm..." Andi murmured uncomfortably.  "I got some stuff you might
not know about Tyson's contacts..."  She might as well mend bridges and pass
on tidbits before they grew stale.
     "Shoot..." responded Ramirez.
     "Feight, Jennifer Gould and Tyson, were buying up small retail
outlets...might check them all for laundering Tyson's bills."
     "Dropping a dime on your clients 'eh?" asked Ramirez, sounding
genuinely interested.
     Andi tried to ignore him.  "And your boy Rex Nimitz was riding in Gould's
car going out to Feight's the afternoon of the day Feight died...but he didn't go
inside."
     "Why would he do that?" asked Ramirez.
     "Beats me, maybe he grabbed the roses...I haven't got answers.  Might be
nothing, but nobody volunteered that he was even there when I asked."  Andi
paused to rub her jaw with her hand.  "There's a strong connection showing
Tyson syphoning cash into anti-government causes...militia stuff and all..."
     "Yeah?" Ramirez encouraged, scratching notes while he listened.
     "And it turns out the Treasury department's had a file on Tyson since
nineteen eighty-two...when he was an Air Force Officer sneaking stolen
weapons to sleazeball mercenaries.  Incidently, he was doing it with Darrel
Feight."
     "Hold it...they what?" Ramirez called out to stop her.  "The Treasury has a
what on who?"
     "An old file on Tyson doing arms transfers...stolen arms...that surprise
you?  No indictment, no conviction..."  Andi answered smugly.
     There was a long moment where the phone hung silent.  "It's surprising
you have stuff the Feds don't volunteer..." replied Ramirez stiffly.
     "Gee, I don't find it surprising." Andi mumbled dryly. 
     "They have conflicting loyalties..." Ramirez excused them.
     "Talbert and Allen's problem is their loyalties.  Their conservative
connections make it tough for them--it's hard to suddenly turn and treat people
they've worked with the belligerence they give to the rest of the world."
     Ramirez interrupted.  "Where are you getting this Federal stuff anyway?"
     "None of your business, Ramirez...just be thankful you got a friend," Andi
answered quietly.  When he didn't respond she added, "You know...reflecting on
that loyalty stuff makes me a lot more understanding and compassionate of
Allen and Talbert..."  She sighed sarcastically.  "...it must be disillusioning to
realize your agency's old friends are fascists.  Imagine...all this time and they
never knew..."
     "Anything else you want to get off your chest Wicksham?" Ramirez
dropped his personal touch and returned to his official role.  Lena came in the
door at the moment, her mouth stuffed with a pecan roll and a white paper bag
in her hand.
     "No...I'm fine as I am..." quipped Andi, making it sound lighter than she
felt.  "Anything exciting going on in your life?"
     "Naw...too much work...to little fun...too many meetings and too short a
lunch-break.  Unless you got something else I'm outta here..."
     "Catch you on the B side...don't let the Feds tell you lies."
     "Right..." answered Ramirez with a caustic laugh.  "We'll talk later..."
     Andi hung up her phone and let out an explosive breath.  "Damn cops..."
she struck-out angrily.
     "What's up Sherlock?" Lena teased.
     Andi covered her eyes with both hands and took a moment to recover. 
"The West Linn cops want to tie me to Tyson's counterfeiting or
murder...probably both.  They got Ramirez asking for alibis and who can
substantiate them--get ready for a call."  Andi glared unhappily at Lena.  "I feel
outed..." she complained fretfully.
     "Anything else?" Lena shrugged as if she didn't care and turned back to
her computer.
     "No, I guess not...maybe I'm just up-tight." Andi swiveled her chair around
and chewed lightly at her lower lip, debating what to tackle next.  Nimitz'
package languished atop the remaining new manila envelopes.  It had to go--Rex would eventually come looking for it--no doubt mad as hell.
     Andi watched a trio of college coeds saunter across the street in cut-offs
and tank-tops, then virtuously turned back to professional tasks.  Tyson's note
was a problem--the writer knew of the counterfeiting, the stolen roses and her
investigation.  That narrowed down the field quite a bit.
     Andi glanced over and caught Lena's eye.  "It doesn't make much sense
to go through the trouble of a locked room murder only to leave a badly done
note and a half-a-million bucks."
     Lena nodded, half-distracted by what she was doing.  "Yeah, suicide
notes aren't written to strangers."
     "Maybe I'm expecting too much logic; maybe it was a beginner's mistake
like inadvertently locking himself out without the cash."  She picked up her
pencil and tried balancing it on a finger.
     "But how would an amateur pull off the perfect murder?"  Lena got up to
make copies and send a fax.
     Andi turned to stare blankly out the window.  Simpson was a wild card--Ramirez claimed she didn't even have a bank account in her name, would
somebody like that be involved in counterfeiting?  With neither contacts nor
skills, she seemed more liability than asset.  The note-writer knew about Tyson's
counterfeiting--when not many people did.  Where did that put Simpson?
     She spun back around.  "Tyson could have been offed by some faction of
the militias he hung with.  If that were so, it would be somebody settling a
personal score."
     Lena nodded.  "Of course we've got nothing leading us in that
direction...."
     "Shit..." Andi tossed the pencil to her desk.  The classical motives for
murder were money, honor, revenge and sex.  Sex didn't seem to be in the
picture, though that didn't rule it out--Tyson had close, but unknown
relationships with both Rex and Jennifer Gould.  Andi had an involuntary shiver
of disgust.
     "He could have made an ideological faux-pas..." Lena postulated idly. 
"The militia's have unrealistically strict codes about things..."  She sorted some
papers and pushed another button on the copier.  
     Andi "Naw..Tyson was a jerk, but he didn't make stupid statements like a
working-class bigot."  She spun her chair back to the window.  Crossing honor
from her mental list left her with money--and as motives went, millions in phoney
bills made an exceptional motive.  Given half a second to reflect, it was hard to
think of better incentive than control of an unlimited quantity of almost-perfect
bills.
     Andi looked down at the traffic and smiled.  That might explain why the
killer wasn't concerned with the half-million left behind--bills could be printed
faster than they could be laundered.  The wise move would be to go for the easy
get-away, if true it showed the discipline of a professional.
     Andi paused.  The only ones concerned with roses, the only ones who
might possibly gain by her dropping the investigation were her clients and
maybe Alison if she wanted to stretch it.  It was a billboard sized sign that at
least one of them must be involved with Tyson.

     She chewed her lower lip and looked up to find Lena watching.  "Tyson's
suicide note mentioned me and the roses...the murderer has to be one of our
rose nuts."  Andi could feel a hollowness in her chest.
     "That's a revelation?" asked Lena sarcastically.  "I suspected them since
the beginning..."  She made a saucy flounce as she reached for a file and flipped
through it.  "Darrel Feight...roses...rose hybridization...roses, stolen...roses,
wholesale markets...Tyson, roses, Rex's envelope--roses...Gould, Laroux,
Dao..." she looked up expectantly.
     "Counterfeit money seemed a better a motive..." Andi admitted a bit
chagrined.  "Tyson's murder..."
     "The suicide note said..." Lena began to remind her.
     "I know...I know..." Andi shook her head.  "But it started off mentioning
counterfeiting and he had a half-million bucks on hand...that's a chunk of
change to discard as a motive...how about his conservative causes?"
     "He was both a conservative and a rose fancier.  His counterfeiting pals
could be too..." she walked to her table and posed with a hip thrust out.
     "Exactly Watson..." Andi bit carefully at her lip.  "...exactly my thought." 
She turned and stared fixedly out the window a long moment.  "Have we
checked out The Bloom yet?"
     Lena remained standing while she looked through her papers.  "Not
yet...we gave it low priority..."
     "Let's push it higher." Andi turned, her eyes suddenly sharp and clear. 
"...do the preliminaries with their Phoenix office and get Francois to dig into
their officers and subscribers...better make that all of the rose-related
publications touched by Gould and Tyson."
     "Aye, aye, captain..." Lena, who'd taken notes on the back of an
envelope,  gave a mock salute with her pencil, spun on her heel and dropped
into her chair.  "Aawoooga...aawoooga...dive, dive!  Battle stations everyone. 
Avast...belay that bilge and keel-haul any scurvy wretch on deck...pieces of
eight--pieces of eight..." She slid down to a half-reclining position in her chair,
grabbed a hat to pull low down over her eyes and reached up smoothly to
snatch the telephone.
     Andi rolled her eyes, chuckled and paged back through her notebook for
Gould's phone number, spinning possible strategies as she dialed.  There would
be a machine on whether Gould was home or not.  She'd ask for a return call,
but drive out anyway--without notice.  Not a bad game plan.  She'd do it to
Simpson too.
     Lena punched numbers into her phone quietly whistling, "Sixteen men on
a dead-man's chest.  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum..."


     Andi pulled off the road fifty feet from Jennifer Gould's drive, a bit giddy
with anticipation, peering through the bushes to see which cars were there. 
The investigation had grown stale--it was time to stir up the hive and see what
came out.
     Gould's red and white Mustang waited in the drive.  There was the dry-skinned feel of summer to the early spring air and contrary smells of wood
smoke and manure in the breeze.  She turned off the engine and waited a
moment, watching the house for signs of life.
     Andi checked the side to see what cars were parked in the carport.  It
was empty.  She backtracked to knock on the front door--no answer; she leaned
on the doorbell button for the length of an eight-bar phrase, listening to the low
buzz growling inside.
     Andi knocked and rang again.  Two minutes passed--Andi carefully
opened the screen door, grasped the doorknob firmly to deaden any untoward
sound and slowly turned.
     It went only a bare-eighth turn before it stopped--locked.
     Andi carefully shut the screen and peered in the living room window
through to the glass patio-door.
     Sighing with resignation, she walked back around the side of the house,
past the car-port and truck to the rows of roses.  There, half-way across the
garden in dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat was Gould, a basket over one
arm, carefully snipping suckers from budding branches.
     Andi waved, but Gould didn't see her.  Andi continued to the gate before
calling out.  "Mrs. Gould...good to see you."  She stepped through the gate
without an invitation, shutting it carefully behind and striding quickly to where
Gould waited, erect, hands to her sides, watching through her dark lenses.
     "Beautiful day 'eh?" Andi asked insincerely.  "I had some questions and
was in the neighborhood..."
     "Good morning Ms. Wicksham...I wasn't expecting you." responded Gould
icily, slowly opening and closing the jaws of her pruning sheers as she
unconsciously flexed her hand.
     "Well...since I was close by..." Andi lied.  She bent and pretended to
examine a rose bush.  "You're not pruning this time of year?"
     "It's called `pinching....'" Gould responded coldly.  "...are you taking up
gardening?  It doesn't seem your style."  She evidently thought Andi's style was
more along the line of mud wrestling or roller derby.
     Andi pulled out her humble, aw-shucks-ma'am persona, rubbing the toe of
her shoe in the dirt and confessing "No.." in an embarrassed voice.  "I'm limited
to a couple of window boxes and house plants..." she flicked her glance up to
Gould's face.
     "What are your questions?" Gould's voice relaxed toward resignation.
     Andi struggled to look insecure.  "...I was hoping you wouldn't mind?"
     "What do you want, Ms. Wicksham?" demanded Gould impatiently.
     Andi repressed her elation at having baited Gould into demanding she ask
her questions--there was demonstrable practicality to the Colombo approach. 
"I was hoping you could tell me about Rex Nimitz..." Andi inserted what she
hoped sounded like a tremor of insecurity.
     "Rex?  What do you want to know?" Gould's voice was haughty.
     "Well I know you've been occasionally seen with him...I was wondering
what you did together."  Andi scratched her ear to distract Gould from noticing
that she was intently watching her face to gauge her response.
     "Seen with him?" said Gould distastefully.  "Hopefully not by anybody that
matters."
     "Perhaps not..." observed Andi innocently, "...but tell me about him."
     "We're not lovers..." laughed Gould condescendingly.
     "Well, there was talk..." lied Andi again, probing for a weak spot, wishing
she'd worn her own dark glasses.
     Gould ignored the comment, "Pity he's so naive...quite a stud, isn't he? 
He must lift weights..." Gould's half-smile came across as more of a leer.  "I give
him odd jobs...he doesn't make much money at William's...it's some sort of
political placement.  I think he was thankful for the cash."
     "Odd jobs?  Like what?"
     "Is this really any of your business Ms. Wicksham?" Gould stiffened
irritably.
     "Well..." Andi paused as if embarrassed, "...I was wondering about the
afternoon after Darrel Feight died...the two of you were together..."
     Jennifer Gould paused and tilted her head as if the change of perspective
might pierce Andi's facade.  "Yes we were..." she began carefully, "I was having
him move some cedar stakes from Darrel's.  The four of us discussed it that
morning...I needed stakes and would otherwise just buy them..." she reached a
hand to a waist-high stake standing beside a rose near-by.  "...they agreed that I
should take an unused pile.  Warren Laroux kept a record.  Have you asked him
about it?"
     "Oh no..." acknowledged Andi shyly.  "It would have been in bad taste to
say anything if you'd been in a compromising position..."   Andi tried to give an
embarrassed smile, but didn't think she quite pulled it off.  "You didn't mention
that he'd been with you..."
     "You asked me who was there at Darrel's...not who I'd driven out with.  I
didn't see it as any of your business."
     "Wouldn't it have made more sense to drive over in your truck to move a
bunch of long stakes?"  Andi asked innocently pointing back to the carport, she
wondered if four foot stakes would even fit into the trunk of the Mustang.
     "I didn't need many..." answered Gould lightly.
     "Did you mention to Mr. Feight that you were a part owner of The Bloom?"
Andi asked, changing subject as aggressively as possible.  After all she was
there to stir the kettle.
     Gould's face suddenly froze, her jaw tightened, Andi could see her eyes,
wide open, behind the dark glasses.  "We wanted to honor Darrel and his
achievement.  It seemed fitting.  It's what that periodical focuses upon."  The
explanation seemed rushed.
     Andi stood silent, tilting her head expectantly.
     "We wanted him interviewed that weekend because they were planning
their summer issues." continued Gould lamely.
     "But there weren't any roses in bloom, leaves had barely started
sprouting then..." Andi pushed carefully.
     "They could return for photos..." Gould argued, she nervously
straightened and looked around.
     Andi looked too, but there was no one to be seen.  "Did you have many
business ties with Mr. Tyson?" she asked bluntly.
     Gould blinked behind her dark glasses.  "A few...it's good to diversify. 
Friends talk, we share ideas...sometimes we go in together.  That's normal
business..."  Her face had a faint sheen of perspiration now, there was a
nervous impatience to the way she fidgeted.
     "It's really a shame about Mr. Tyson." consoled Andi, watching Gould's
response.
     "A tragedy..." admitted Gould simply.
     "Do you think he committed suicide?" Andi asked.
     "Is that what happened?" asked Gould ingenuously.
     "Shot in the chest in his study by a gun found laying by his hand..."
abridged Andi.
     "Doesn't seem quite right does it?" Gould mused, "But we never know
what's going on in each other's minds..."  She dismissed the thought with a
wave of her hand.
     "I suppose so..." murmured Andi unsympathetically.  "Did he have many
enemies?"
     "None I knew of," laughed Gould coldly then shot Andi an icy glare. 
"...was his death a suicide?" she demanded bluntly.
     Andi paused and took a breath before cautiously explaining, "There's
contradictory evidence...I think there's some dispute." 
     Gould suddenly, visibly relaxed, "Who could have killed him?" she
whispered as if pondering the question out loud.  Andi got the feeling Gould was
willing herself to under-react--window dressing.
     "Were you aware of his political affiliations?" Andi carefully felt her way
forward.
     "Of course." Gould answered simply.  Her lips squeezed together and she
straightened defensively.
     "...the type of people and organizations he raised money for?" Andi
asked, pushing where she knew she wasn't wanted.
     "He funded vital, but unpopular causes..."  Gould's wary response
confirmed that she shared the focus.  Gould's eyes narrowed and she
continued, somewhat guardedly.  "It's necessary...for those of us believing in
private property."  Her lips drew back exposing her teeth, she almost spat the
words.
     Andi felt a cold shiver down her back.  "You and Mr. Tyson worked
together on more than just roses, didn't you?" Andi knew she was venturing a
bit past the edge.
     "Of course..." Gould returned warily.  She sensed Andi's change in
tactics.  "You evidently know we shared a few business ties..."  Hostility
cracked her surface of civility.
     Andi knew she'd crossed some invisible line, but pushed on.  "Do you
know much about his other businesses?"  Andi wondered how much would it
take to really rile her.
     "No..." Gould responded curtly.  "...and unless there's something of
urgency, I should get back to work..."
     "Could his political or business involvements have brought about his
death?"  She was out on too frail a limb, but needed to see where Gould's
buttons were.
     "I suppose so..." Gould returned tersely, "...anything's conceivable."
     Andi smiled to acknowledge their agreement.  "He must have had a lot of
financial irons in the fire that will have to be taken care of.  Are you involved in
many?"
     Even looking through the dark glasses it was clear that Gould's eyes
narrowed suspiciously.  "No...we shared nothing really major.  You know about
The Bloom...that's more recreation than business."  She shook her head in
derision.
     Andi watched a twitch in Gould's jaw.  "But didn't you have other business
ties?"  In for a dollar in for a dime--she watched the lines above Gould's nose
deepen into creases as she frowned at the question.
     "That...Ms. Wicksham is none of your business.   Our personal affiliations
are a bit far from your official inquiry."  Her voice was icy and haughty.  "Some
of us are offended by that type of scrutiny."
     Andi felt the cold shiver again, this time taking the cue and backing off. 
"Well, thank you...that's all my questions...thanks for helping out..."  Andi held
out her hand, but Gould had taken a step backwards, a haughty nod dismissing
her without a word.
     Andi dropped her hand and backed up a few steps.  "Goodbye then..." 
She turned, uneasy about turning her back on the hostile woman, stepping
lightly through the rows of roses, working for as straight a run to the gate as she
could.
     Gould didn't respond, she simply watched, her eyes shielded by her dark
glasses, hands to her sides, the jaws of her shears clicking open and shut with
the nervous flexing of her fingers.


     Andi pulled away before fastening her seat-belt.  It was a revealing
interview, but she'd put a few corners and turn-offs between herself and Gould
before swinging off the road in the shade of a tall yew tree to scribble notes.
     Three minutes later, she closed her eyes to gather her thoughts--then
opened her notebook and began writing.  There was precious little evidence,
but a truck-load of dangling-implications.  Funny that so many led to Tyson, his
business and what he did for the right-wing world.
     She jotted down Gould's account of her connection with Rex--it fit his
ambivalence and with his claim of being ordered to work with her.  It wasn't a
bad bit of work.  She'd alluded to politics, Rex, business and that Gould's
connection to Tyson was public knowledge.  If that didn't rattle Gould's cage,
then very little would.
     Andi wrote quickly, filling two and a-half pages before stopping.  Reading
it back wasn't very reassuring--there wasn't a single point of fact.  It was all
assumption and opinion and her interpretation of body-language and expression
and tone.
     She glanced into the rear view mirror as she turned the key, then turned
around to the left to pull out.  Time for Alison Simpson.
     

     Andi thought resentfully of her ankle and Simpson's treatment of her
when she'd taken Nimitz' package.  She rolled up silently beside the bushes that
separated the parking lot from the house debating her approach, noting with a
nervous smile that all of Feight's vehicles were there; the bronze Corolla, the
blue Accord, the pick-up.  She surveyed the northern garden for activity.  Then,
keeping the shielding bushes between herself and the house, she walked swiftly
to check the south-east garden--there was no one in sight.
     Andi took a deep breath and strode confidently to the porch and rang the
bell, girding herself for confrontation.
     The sound of female footsteps on the hard-wood floor tapped toward her
from the kitchen.  Andi mentally followed them down the hall, keeping count
when they suspended for three beats crossing the rug, picking them back up as
they continued to the front.
     The door swung open and Simpson stood before her, obviously surprised. 
Now, instead of the dowdy dress of a poor-relative/maid she wore a well-tailored business suit and had her hair in a tasteful but conservative coif. 
     "Yes?" she asked politely.  "I didn't think I'd see you today, Ms.
Wicksham...I'm sure we don't have an appointment."  Simpson's voice was curt
and short.  "I'm going out in a few minutes..."
     Andi let the resentment she felt from being kicked well up and spill over. 
"Then I'm glad I was in the neighborhood and stopped by...we need to talk.  I'm
glad  you have a minute..."  She played door-to-door saleswoman from hell,
avoiding Simpson's eyes and boldly stepping through the door as if invited. 
"...there are a couple of important questions that really can't wait..."
     Andi talked a blue-streak as she turned and bore up the hall toward the
kitchen, forcing her hostess to follow. "...I'm sure you'll be able to help me on
this...these questions are really vital."
     Once in the kitchen she turned and smiled, trying to exude every calorie
of warmth in her soul.  "Thanks for Rex's envelope...I'm sorry to barge in this
way, but we have to talk."
     "What do you want, Ms. Wicksham?" Alison Simpson demanded loudly. 
"I'm sorry about kicking you...I was under a lot of stress.."  She didn't sound
very repentant. "Your telephone message simply asked me to call..."
     "Yes, but since I was out in the neighborhood talking with Ms. Gould..."
Andi blustered as she pulled out a chair sat at the table as if invited.
     It took Simpson a moment to regroup.  She frowned at her watch,
evidently deciding that the quickest way to be rid of Andi was to begrudge her a
few minutes.  "Fine...you might as well sit.  What are your questions?"  She
settled across from Andi and pulled a half-finished cup of coffee across from the
space at the end.  The table and counters were littered with fresh lists as if just
compiled this morning.
     "Well, to tell the truth Ms. Simpson, I was interested in your uncle's
pistol...and then maybe one or two more things..."  She tried to give the blank
look a librarian has when she asks what interests you have.
     "You've got some nerve barging in..." Simpson fussed nervously, she
appeared already decided on a cooperative path.
     "I felt I had to..." Andi pleaded.  "...about your Uncle's pistol...it's very
important..."  She sought Simpson's eyes and smiled, her head inclined slightly
forward and to the left, slightly deferential, slightly humble and needy.
     Simpson gave her a doubtful look and sat stone-faced, hands folded
neatly in her lap.  At last she took a deep breath and said.  "The old Colt revolver
was Uncle Darrel's...he loaned it to Mr. Tyson."  That declared, she fidgeted,
suddenly unsure of what to do with her hands.
     Andi nodded as if in complete understanding and asked, "When did he do
that?"
     "I don't know..." Simpson suddenly slumped as if exhausted.  She raised
her gaze to about Andi's chin and opened her mouth as if to speak, but then
jerked her head as if hearing a sudden noise.  Then, just as suddenly, she rose
to her feet walked toward the back door, then turned and headed for the stove,
"Want coffee?  It's already made..."  She called the offer over her shoulder a
moment after she retrieved clean mugs from the cupboard.
     "Sure, please."  Andi watched Simpson's awkward movements, the overly
erect back, her way of measuring the coffee at arms length.  "You seem under
stress..." Andi offered neutrally.
     Simpson glanced over, her chest quivered jerkily and she shut her eyes. 
"I think I'm finally coming to grips with Uncle Darrel being gone."  She took
another deep breath.
     Andi nodded sympathetically, noting how the air of tragedy Simpson
draped herself within seemed at odds with her business suit and hair-style.
     Simpson poured coffee and carried the mugs back to the table before
wiping her eyes and slipping smoothly onto her chair.  "I guess there's been too
much going on..."
     "Regarding your uncle's estate?" questioned Andi, freezing in place and
looking down at her mug so as not to distract.
     "I'd no idea how many loose ends there'd be.  He did so many
things...property and business and bonds and everything..." Simpson shook her
head in dismay.
     "Did his funeral go OK?  I was out of town..." Andi ran finger around the
top edge of her coffee mug, but didn't drink.
     "Fine..." said Simpson, not meeting her eyes.
     Andi searched for a safe subject but drew a blank.  "Are your uncle's
friends dealing with the roses?"
     "They sent a schedule for removing them." Simpson waved generally at
the counter across the room near the telephone.
     "Are you keeping the truck and car?" Andi shifted into low gear and
plowed ahead.
     Simpson gave a slight smile, "They come with the house and
property...only the roses and nursery stuff were divided off."
     "What are you going to do when they're gone?" Andi looked out the
window at the carefully tended rows.
     Simpson eyes narrowed as if in pleasure and she smiled a tight smile. 
"Didn't I tell you...I'll put in lawn.  I never liked roses anyway...in fact I'm
impatient for them to go."
     Andi smiled in return, "Oh yeah...you mentioned wanting lawn." She
shook her head as if musing on her forgetfulness.  "Do you drive the truck or car
much?"
     "A time or two a week...to the store...sometimes Portland.  I'll sell the
truck once the roses are gone."  Simpson had a wistful, far-away look in her
eyes.
     "Did you go to the store the day your uncle died?" Andi tried to make the
question conversational.
     "Why?" challenged Simpson brazenly, her eyes unnaturally wide.
     "You drove the Honda Accord that afternoon...left here about quarter to
one and got back about twenty-after..."  Andi kept her voice quiet and non-challenging to counter-balance the substance of her question.
     "The blue car?" Simpson flushed in embarrassment and appeared to be
mentally grasping in desperation for an excuse.  "I guess I was still in shock...I
forgot..."
     "Of course..." Andi lifted her mug and smiled, waiting to see if Simpson's
discomfort would provoke an explanation.
     Simpson looked embarrassed and confused, but she kept her lips pinched
and looked fixedly out the window. 
     Andi changed the subject.  "Tell me about Rex..." she asked, trying to
return a touch of warmth to her voice.
     Simpson sniffed and tossed her head like a school-girl.  "What's there to
say...he pretended to be friendly.  She flashed a quick glance at Andi to see if
she was being supportive.  "I liked the way he smelled on hot days..." she gave a
little embarrassed blush and glanced at Andi again. 
     "But then something happened?" Andi encouraged.
     "He never cared about me at all..." her voice turned bitter and spiteful
daggers flashed behind an otherwise bland expression.
     "When did that happen, Alison?" Andi asked gently.
     Simpson looked up, needy and hurt.  "A few days after Uncle Darrel
died..." she whispered.
     "But before Mr. Tyson died?" Andi confirmed.
     Simpson suddenly stiffened, "I guess so...I wasn't paying attention to
what day things were..." she didn't meet Andi's gaze, looking fixedly out the
window.
     "What did he do?" 
     "Rex?" Simpson looked for confirmation.
     Andi nodded silently.
     Simpson's face flushed in re-lived embarrassment.  "He said he thought
me motherly...I'd put on lip-stick and a blouse that opened to here..." she
pointed a finger vaguely between her breasts.  "He said I was middle aged...but
I'm not..."
     She looked to Andi to be in her early thirties, Nimitz was in his early
twenties--more than enough difference to be a barrier at his age.  "That was
when you scratched him?"  Andi struggled to keep the chronology straight.  "He
gave you the package before that?" 
     "He gave it before Uncle Darrel died."  She looked sorrowful.  "...the
thursday or friday before." she replied simply.
     "I see..." murmured Andi.  "...the weekend the reporter from The Bloom
came...wasn't his name Jason?"
     Simpson looked up and smiled wide-eyed and innocently.  "Yes...it was..."
     "Jason was nice?" Andi asked hopefully.
     Simpson's face lit up slightly.  "I liked him.  We talked a lot while the
others were being snooty...in a way we were both just hired help..."
     "Do you know why he'd chosen that weekend to come?" Andi queried.
     "He was told to...there was something else scheduled he was told to
cancel so he could come."
     "Did he take a lot of interest in the roses?" Andi asked.
     "The stolen roses?" asked Simpson as if returning a tennis volley.
     Andi smiled wanly.  "Yeah, the stolen ones...did he seem overly
interested?"
     "Overly interested?  They were the reason he came.  But he thought the
whole thing a waste of time...he was disappointed because the roses were
nothing but twigs poking from the mud and because Uncle Darrel's friends
barely gave him the time of day."  Simpson shook her head slowly from side to
side and made a face.
     Andi paused to consider strategy.  "Tell me how Rex came to give you the
package..."
     Alison Simpson looked across the table and gave a resigned sigh.  "He'd
asked before...he'd been coming over for coffee and asked if I'd do him a favor
and hold something until he needed it..."
     "And you said `Yes.'" prompted Andi.
     "Of course..." replied Simpson distractedly.  "Why not?  He'd been
friendly...I liked that he came around.  It's not like it was going to put me out or
anything..."
     "Did he give you any instructions?" pushed Andi.
     "He said that he put enough stamps on it to be ready so it could go
anywhere...I thought that efficient and considerate.  All I needed to do was put
on the name and address..."
     "Name and address?" asked Andi carefully.
     "Yes..." Simpson looked confused at the question.  "...I think he might
have wanted to use some different name."
      "When you gave me the envelope it already had `Rex Nimitz' written on
it..." Andi mentioned casually.
     "Oh..." muttered Simpson a bit deflated and embarrassed.  "I must have
put that on...I guess I didn't finish..." her voice faded to silence.
     Andi paused a moment to let her regain her composure.  Outside, birds
wheeled over the roses, descending to peck worms from the soil, then rising
suddenly all together, wheeling and coming down again.  "How did your uncle
and his friends treat Rex?  Did he know much about roses?"
     "He was just a staff-person of Mr. Tyson's.  I don't think they liked him. 
They were snooty...anyway I know more about roses than him..."
     Andi smiled indulgently.  "...he wasn't an expert, 'eh?"
     "No way..." Alison shook her head and gave a dismissive smile.  "But then
he didn't need to be..."
     "Mr. Tyson didn't hire him for his expertise?" Andi laughingly played
straight-person.
     "Mr. Tyson..." spat Simpson with surprising bitterness before staring
defensively out the window.
     Andi let a couple of beats of time go by.  "Last time we talked you spoke
favorably of Mr. Tyson..." observed Andi putting a reproachful tone to the
words.
     "So?" demanded Simpson sharply, she lowered her chin and stared at the
table.  "He was an insufferable man..." she shuddered visibly.
     "Did something happen that made you change your feelings?" asked Andi
cautiously.
     "No..." muttered Simpson acidly, she didn't look up and her hand shook so
much when lifting her coffee cup that she set it back down without drinking.
     Andi paused a long moment trying to gauge Simpson's state of mind.  She
tried for a safer subject.  "Did you do an errand early that morning your uncle
died...in the pick-up truck?"
     Simpson shook her head without answering.
     "Did your uncle go somewhere in the truck that morning?"  Andi could tell
she was losing Simpson and cursed herself for not returning to her uncle's
pistol sooner.  "Alison..." she asked gently.
     When Simpson lifted her head up there were tears in her eyes.  "I'm tired
now...I've got things to do...I think it's time for you to go..." She rose and turned
away to wipe her cheek with the back of her wrist.
     Simpson walked toward the front of the house without looking back,
leaving Andi no option but to follow.






                           CHAPTER   10

 
     Andi returned to her office squinting from the beginnings of a headache,
but feeling smug about the way she'd handled Gould and Simpson.  There was
some satisfaction in being pushy.
     Two clients with routine missing-person's searches had called asking to
speak to her particularly--they left numbers and requests to call back.  Ramirez
returned her call, there was the morning's correspondence to dig through and
three extra inches of files appeared in her pending box like mushrooms after
rain.
     "I talked to Jason Janowitz at The Bloom's office in Phoenix..." Lena
chirped.
     "Yeah?" responded Andi.
     "He was ordered to come out here to interview Feight..."
     "I knew that." murmured Andi with a smile, she smirked at Lena and
settled in her chair.
     "Did you know that other than a year or two of teaser notices about
Feight's roses and a ream or two of junk dumped into the web, no one in the
rose-breeding business outside our clients had ever seen those roses..."  Lena
put one hand on an out-thrust hip and gave a knowing smile.
     "They weren't award winning?" asked Andi in surprise.
     "Claimed to be, but not awards from competitions...nothing like that to
Jason Janowitz's knowledge...never submitted for competition or special
shows, no pictures--ever.  Nothing..."  Lena smirked and turned to return to her
computer.
     Andi smiled and sank into her chair.  She tossed her notebook onto her
desk and let Lena's bombshell trickle in and unsettle the facts she'd already
gathered.  If true, it explained both Jason's disappointment and why they'd hired
her--to bolster the appearance of the rose's value.  If the entire rose fiasco was
a hoax to collect insurance, her observations took on other hues.  Feight's
involvement would be a given, the group's timing was just rushed by him
croaking.
     "...and I want to thank you for encouraging Mrs. Knowles to request that I
test her snooper dish..." Lena asserted sarcastically over her shoulder before
reaching for another pile of correspondence.
     Andi glanced from her paperwork, then immediately lowered her eyes. 
"So...she got a hold of you?" she asked innocently, finding enough in her files to
keep from looking up.
     "I set up an appointment to run trials, but told her I wasn't licensed to do
surveillance..." Lena smiled smugly.
     "But..."  Dismayed, Andi started objecting, then looked up to Lena's face. 
"Well, it's not strictly true...you work under mine."
     Lena gave a wry "who cares" shrug.
     Andi continued.  "I figured that what was good for the goose was good for
the other goose...call it karmic balance.  You kept encouraging her to buy the
stuff.  Maybe I'll tell her you've just got licensed."  Andi started chuckling, Lena
collapsed laughing in her chair, legs sticking straight-kneed out before her.
     "...karmic balance?"  Lena asked at the edge of laughing again.  "What
tangled webs..." she observed sagely.
     "Pride goeth before the norm..." responded Andi with a flippant toss of
her head.  She suddenly stopped mid-chuckle and soberly checked her watch. 
"Isn't it past time for lunch?"


     Returning just under an hour later, Andi called the missing person clients
to discuss their investigation's negative outcomes.  The first, a woman seeking
a step-sister last seen thirty years ago, was pulling a blank.  The other, a
business man after a dead-beat business partner who appeared to have
skipped to an ex-husband in Quebec.
     Despite Andi's discouragement, the first was eager to throw good money
after bad--the second would appreciate a referral to a Quebecois
investigator...and would she kindly send her final bill?
     Andi had repeated a grim investigatory prognosis to the sister, but
agreed to keep on and had already said yes to the businessman when Lena
swung around holding her phone in the air and mouthing "Francois..."
     Andi ended her call and pushed the button to change lines.  "Hi, Francois. 
Thank God you called, I was stuck on the phone."
     "Did I interrupt?" Francois asked, concerned.
     "...interrupt?  I used you for an excuse..." Andi reassured.  "What you
got?"
     "You mentioned counterfeiting...wanted me to check your suspects?"
     "Yeah..." Andi acknowledged warily.
     "Well, it's old material...some of it anecdotal." Francois equivocated.
     "Ok...what?" Andi snapped impatiently.
     "You know I can't vouch for it a hundred percent..." Francois dragged it
out.
     "So, tell me for God's sake..." grouched Andi.
     "Your dead guy Feight owned a print shop in Seattle and was busted for
counterfeiting eighteen years ago."
     "No..." Andi answered, perking up and reaching across her desk for her
notebook.
     "Yes...big deal in the local papers.  Lost his equipment, charges
dropped..."
     "Anything else?" Andi pushed, her pen waited, poised over paper.
     "Of course...I got reams, but it's recent stuff.  Eighteen years ago
everything was strictly paper files...quill and ink-pot..."
     "Francois..." Andi interrupted.  "...are you going to fax the stuff or what?"
     "I sent it e-mail while you dumped your call.  Lena's already got it..."
     Andi looked up to Lena who gave a silent "OK" sign with thumb and
forefinger.  "Thanks, Francois.  What else?" 
     "What else?" Francois murmured distractedly.  "...on your friend Nimitz...I
shot-gunned a query on the net and got hit from a non-commissioned officer
somewhere in Japan saying he clerked at an investigation of a lieutenant named
Nimitz who was caught forging visas and foreign passports...using photo-copiers...evidently way high-tech."
     "That's promising..." answered Andi, breaking into a smile.  "First good
news in days."
     "...remember...it's chat-room bull, not science.  The time and base were
right for Nimitz...but you can't take it to the bank."  Francois could write
disclaimers for tobacco companies.
     "OK...enough already..." Andi interrupted.  "It's great.  I won't risk my
good name...you done good."
     "Well, gee...shucks ma'am...all in day's work...no more than any red-blooded American would'a done..." Francois did John Wayne.  It would have
been neat to see him swagger in character, maybe slap his hat against his knee.
     "And ah have always relied upon the kindness of strangers." replied Andi
in her make-shift Southern drawl.  "Thanks...unless there's more, I got to run."
     "Bye..." tossed in Francois, then the line went dead.
     Andi marveled at the quirkiness of her friends and pushed her notebook
to a side.  "You checking Francois' stuff?"
     Lena glanced up grinning.  "Some hot, most not.  Records of property
transactions, business ownership, ya-da ya-da...I flipped through maybe eighty
pages, printed maybe twenty, seems he put the good stuff on top..." she pointed
to the printer as it began clicking and spewing paper. 
     "Thanks..." Andi acknowledged vaguely, as she pulled her notebook back
and phoned Ramirez.  One ring, two...then miraculously, he answered.
     "Inspector Ramirez..." he drawled.
     "Yo, Ramirez...it's Andi..." she responded.
     "OK Wicksham, you win at phone tag.  Are you expecting a prize?" 
     "Things point to Tyson being murdered by one of my clients..." Andi
admitted honestly, she didn't mention Simpson, though she had reason to kill
her uncle--it was hard to figure her as part of the counterfeiting and she didn't
seem capable of Tyson's locked-room murder.
     "We've all assumed that...didn't we?" Ramirez pointed out dryly.
     Andi exhaled slowly, determined not to be baited.  "Up until now, the
counterfeiting angle seemed more compelling."  She paused to look down at her
notebook.  "I got stuff you'll want to hear.  First, the rose thing might be an
attempt at fraud, seems they might not have been valuable after all...you might
pass that on to the insurance people...give 'em out number, Lena will want to
charge them something..."  She'd started slow, but sped up with each word.
     "...it don't look good..." murmured Ramirez in a decent imitation of
friendly consolation.
     "I appreciate your solace," Andi pushed on impatiently.  "but did my
clients launder bills through their stores?"
     "Wicksham, slow down...you've over-run your caffeine allowance." 
Ramirez slowed his delivery to a crawl as a good example.  "Yeah they were
looked into and yeah they had a significant number of screwy bills pass through,
but the official opinion is that a steady small volume isn't enough to get an
inditement.  Incidently, most are in North-East Portland where there's what the
Treasury calls a `higher public-turnover ratio'...meaning a cash economy that
results in a lot of phoney money in circulation."
     "Were any of my clients involved?"  Andi closed her eyes, burdened by
the effort to get a simple answer.
     "You're asking unofficially...?" asked Ramirez carefully.
     "...as always." confirmed Andi quietly.
     "It seems obvious some of them have been in on it, but there are two
hundred stores the Feds keep tabs on...thirty of whom are suspect."
     "Yeah?" prompted Andi, taking a deep breath to slow down.
     "On average, each launders a couple hundred a day..." Ramirez's voice
was hushed as if not wanting to risk being overheard there in his office.
     "That adds up doesn't it?" observed Andi.
     "Well...yes and no.  Two hundred a day times thirty places moves a couple
hundred thousand in a month...the Feds claim a million gets laundered in that
much time.  With so much floating around, a couple-hundred a day might come
from legitimate business."
     "A million a month?" Andi whistled.  "Where is it going...my clients aren't
floating in anywhere close to that amount."
     "Well, actually that's the other reason the feds are involved...a possible
terrorist connection..."  Ramirez let the answer float meaningfully.
     "Which of my clients..." Andi asked quietly, she wasn't sure if she really
wanted to know. 
     Ramirez whispered almost conspiratorially.  "Sandra Gould, Feight
himself, and our Mr. Tyson..."
     "Oh God..." sighed Andi.  A cold shiver coursed up her back. "...if Tyson,
Gould and Feight were counterfeiting and Feight and Tyson are dead...the only
one left was Gould...."  No sense worrying that the roses might be a ploy--she'd
just rattled Gould's cage as hard as she could.
     "Have you been threatened?" Ramirez suddenly shifted into professional
concern.
     "No..." admitted Andi.  "But I think I've put my foot in it in a serious way."
     "Not unusual...." commented Ramirez quietly.
     Andi ignored him.  "...that damn note...why would anybody want to tie me
to Tyson?"
     "Good question, Wicksham...we discussed that a week ago among our
group of extended professionals."
     "...extended professionals?" questioned Andi with a chuckle.
     "Give me a break.  Extended...over-extended...do you really care what
we're called?"  Ramirez wasn't going to recognize any humor but his own today.
     "Sorry..." Andi apologized reflexively.
     "Uh...and I got some bad news you probably don't know...it's not going to
make you feel better."  Ramirez came across with enough true-compassion to
telegraph that it was something bad.
     "Yeah?" questioned Andi, guardedly, she stretched a kink from her neck
and glanced nervously out the window.
     "Rex Nimitz was found dead this morning at that address you supplied--shot in the chest, point-blank range.  Thanks for the tip..."
     Andi gave it a moment to sink in--it felt like a lump of molten lead
solidifying in her gut, then she woodenly responded "...what's the story?"
     "Well...it wasn't a random killing.  The place was trashed in the course of
a thorough...and I mean thorough...search.  The body was bruised pretty bad so
they figure he took a beating before being popped.  The TV and CD player were
still there along with his wallet and a fancy watch so it wasn't common theft or
burglary."  Ramirez reported it in a professional, emotionless monotone.
     "Phony bills?" asked Andi.
     "...nothing money-wise but pocket change..."
     The line hung silent a moment.  "And I might have news you don't know,
Ramirez.  Nimitz was probably kicked out of the service for forging documents
on copy machines..."  Andi felt a boost in her spirits telling him.
     "No..." Ramirez said with believable surprise.
     "So I been told...unsubstantiated..." Andi conceded.  "...but couple it with
Albert Feight being arrested for counterfeiting.  And that's not just rumor..."
     "Feight...counterfeiting?" Ramirez almost shouted.
     "That's something 'eh?  Stir in him and Tyson's history of smuggling illegal
weapons..."  Andi smirked at having better research than the pros.
     "I'm impressed..." Ramirez rewarded her.  Praise wasn't one of his usual
gambits.  "Nobody mentioned that counterfeiting either...but then the guy was
slabbed before this investigation kicked in.  You got the year of that arrest?"
     Andi looked over to Lena.  "The year Feight was arrested?" 
     Lena beat at her keyboard, pulling up files and flipping through screens. 
Andi could hear Ramirez's breathing and the rustle of papers as he multi-tasked
some other project in the moment he waited.
     "...here it is..." Lena looked over her shoulder.  "Date of warrant, original
arrest, or disposition?"
     "Any of 'em..." Andi told Lena.  "...they won't trust hand-me-down
research anyway."  Lena read off a date and Andi passed it on to Ramirez.  "Am
I still on your suspect list?"  She asked drolly.
     "You've dropped to the lower half, but our psychologist assures us that
helping the police is a sure sign of complicity.  According to him it shows that
you're either trying to atone for wrong-doing or bribe us for leniency." Ramirez
chuckled.  "I'm working with some seriously bitter cops..."
     "They aren't the ones I'm worried about." Andi admitted.  "Whoever
snuffed Tyson pulled off a magic act getting out of that room.  You gotta re-think
Feight if our murderer can pull off artful crimes...that means a pro...and I'm
about as close to being next as anyone..."
     "Yeah...actually that's part of why you're still on the list." Ramirez offered
in a indifferent tone.  "They want me to keep in touch so we'll have a ring-side
seat..."
     Andi could feel a rising tide of panic.  She couldn't admit she'd just come
from deliberately baiting Gould.  Her heart took off as if she was running a
sprint.
     Ramirez sighed a condescending sigh.  "Gould and Tyson joined Feight
just before the money started showing, but that doesn't make her a
murderer...or even a decent suspect."
     "Ramirez..." Andi interrupted.
     He continued over her interruption.  "There's no evidence to back it up. 
What you're doing is jumping to conclusions.  Deduction is great for detective
fiction, but without evidence you got nothing...there's an affluent-person's
hobby and some business connections tying Gould to a crowd with a couple of
deaths...that's a long way from murder."
     "They had a political connection too..." Andi remembered Gould's
comments about ..vital funding of unpopular causes.  "...she worked with him
funding militia groups."
     "Great..." admitted Ramirez cynically, "...she shared some wacko
ideology...that's still not evidence.  It only means she's social scum.  It's legal to
be an off-the-deep-end conservative.  There are a million people in the state
who share those beliefs...does it mean they're murders too?"
     Andi took a breath and pushed off from another bank.  "At first there were
five in the rose group.  With Gould, Tyson and Feight working together they kept
control.  With Feight dead the voting blocks were two to two...I figure that when
Laroux wanted to hire me, Tyson and Gould went along rather than draw
attention.  With Tyson dead, Gould was left one vote against two...she couldn't
stop the investigation and didn't dare speak against looking into Tyson's death.
     "Yeah...I follow everything you're saying, Wicksham.  But you still got a
big nada..."
     Andi paused a moment, discouraged.  "Where was Gould the friday Tyson
was shot?"
     "That morning she was at a coffee shop in Oregon City sucking capaccino
with some friends, then she was with you, then in Portland where she had a half-dozen appointments...bank, doctor's office, accountant...all of them, even you,
back her up." Ramirez reported the list as if bored with it all.
     "But before and after I met her?  She's only a few minutes from Tyson's..."
Andi wanted to pound the meager evidence until it tied Gould to Tyson's chest
wound.
     "How did she seem when you saw her...stressed?  Nervous or
inordinately impatient?  You didn't mention it to Allen and Talbert.  You said..." 
There was a rustling of paper in the background.  "...you saw her at ten after
eleven, left about quarter to noon.  Is that right?  She was in Portland at twenty-after evidently cool as cucumber--doesn't leave much time to snuff Tyson and
slow her heart back to normal after the rush."
     "But it's possible?" stretched Andi.
     "Wishful thinking, Wicksham...damn-near everything including parallel
universes are possible.  But you had more opportunity than Gould, and if you
were a player like Allen thinks, you'd have motive.  Are you getting personally
involved in this?"
     "Only to the degree that I'm scared of being knocked off...did anybody go
back to review Feight's death?"  Andi could feel hopelessness seeping in
around her.
     "On what grounds?  Asking for a second coroner's opinion would be
slapping the face of a colleague.  That isn't going to happen.  Look, there have
got to be another six or eight others in on the counterfeiting...at the least..."
     Andi rested her elbow on her desk and lay her head upon her palm feeling
the throb of her headache coming on.  "So you got nothing to go on?" she asked
with a pout.
     "Wicksham...I'm your friend...I think you need a break.  Go walk in a park
and watch a bird or two--this thing's getting to you and it ain't pretty.  Believe
me, we're doing everything we can."
     'Yeah...thanks...sorry to whine.  See ya later..."  Andi waited for his
"goodbye" and slowly lowered the phone to her desk.
     "He tell you to chill?" asked Lena with an over the glasses look.
     "Yeah...so what?" responded Andi defensively.
     "Maybe you should..." Lena said pointedly.
     "Thanks for the support...I'll try to remember that if your life is
threatened." retorted Andi.
     "Hmmmm..." murmured Lena disapprovingly, spinning in her chair back
to her table and clicking her computer screen through a couple of menus.  
     "I got someone to see..." lied Andi in a grumpy mumble.  "...I'll be taking a
walk." she admitted after a second.
     "...be back by closing?" Lena looked up, concern wrinkled her brow and
was reflected in her eyes.
     Andi bit her lip, then said, "Sure...I just need a little time to think."   She
offered a little worried grin and gently closed the door behind her.


     Mount Tabor was draped in a brilliant green that contrasted dramatically
with its dark, gnarled tree trunks and loamy soil. Yellow dandelions and purple
and blue bulbs splashed color here and there up the steep slope before her. 
She walked fast and hard up Hawthorne and through streets past 52ed; by the
time she got to the twisting park trails she needed to slow and catch her breath.
     The world seemed determined to bear her down; her mother's illness, the
disagreement with Lena over baby sitting Simone, now the chance that Gould,
who she'd just given a hard, rude shove, was a murderer.
     If asked for advice, Lena would urge a vacation--she'd insist if Andi
admitted how scared she was.  She could do it, there wasn't any reason she
couldn't just call off the investigation. 
     Andi climbed steadily upwards, choosing steeper, smaller trails each time
there was a choice.  She broke into a sweat--it felt good; sticky and cool against
heated skin.  Turning around, a slice of downtown Portland stretched before
her, shimmering grey-blue under the light summer haze.
     She could bolt and run--no one would call it that even if that's how they
saw it.  Nothing held her.  Lena could keep the office going with one hand tied
behind her back--Sonny might even be persuaded spend a couple of hours a day
taking messages and making excuses.
     She gained the top of Mount Tabor and walked the loop to stare east
through the trees toward Mount Hood.  Its glaciers glistened above and below a
layer of clouds.  Did she owe anything to her rose-obsessed clients?  Very little
new besides Nimitz's death had been added to the equation.  What did it matter
if she continued or not?
     Ramirez was right that there must be counterfeiting connections far more
likely to be the murderer.  And there wasn't any reason to quit the case at the
moment.  Ramirez was right, she hadn't been directly threatened.  Andi ambled
down the north slope to where she could see Mount Saint Helens, then back up
for the vistas of downtown and the western hills.
     Feeling better, she started her descent, picking different paths than the
ones coming up.  She picked up mochas and biscotti from Coffee People's and
returned clear-headed to the office.
     Lena poured her mocha into her regular mug, swung her feet up on Andi's
desk and caught her up to date.  "...Alison Simpson just called, real upset...says
she needs you to call her back.  I have the contract ready for P.J.
Blazisimo...with that big-type disclaimer you wanted stating no guarantee of
success...you don't trust our standard boiler-plate?"
     "They kept talking about results...results this...definite that.  I don't think
they understand what we do." Andi shrugged and chewed the end of her
biscotti.
     "Don't forget to call Simpson." Lena yawned.  "You know, we've either got
to get to sleep earlier or set the alarm at a decent hour."  She gave Andi a
cheerful salute with her mug and swiveled back around to her keyboard.
     "Yeah sure..." Andi made a face.  Simpson was hiding something.  Andi
took another sip of mocha and glared at the malignant pile in her pending box. 
     She set her coffee to a side and flipped to Simpson's number, holding the
biscotti in her teeth like a cigar.
     "Hello..." a timid voice answered.
     "Alison?" Andi confirmed, taking the biscotti from her mouth and holding
it like Groucho did his stogie.  The voice didn't quite sound like Simpson.
     "Andi...thank God you called.  I came home a couple of hours ago and
found two men tearing my things to shreds.  They'd taken apart the drawing
room and living room, pulled everything from Uncle Darrel's and my closets,
dumped drawers, flipped over beds...it's terrible."
     "Have you called the police yet?" demanded Andi.
     "They said I shouldn't..." Simpson mumbled, half-in tears.  "They beat
me...kicked my face...broke a tooth...they wanted Rex's envelope...I said I didn't
have it...then they beat me some more and left..."
     "Did they believe you?" Andi was almost shouting.
     "I don't know, they said they'd come back if I was lying..." Simpson's voice
shook and Andi could identify the mushiness of her speech as that from the
swelling.
     "You should pack a suitcase and call the police...ask for Lieutenant Allen. 
Drive to the police station to make a report and help them draw a picture of your
attackers, then go somewhere...anywhere, for a week or two." Andi lectured
forcefully.  "They were there when you drove up?  Do you remember their car?"
     Only the sound of breathing came from the other end of the line. 
     Andi asked loudly,  "Alison...do you understand?  You've got to get
away..."
     "But I look just awful...all black and blue and swollen.  I don't want to be
seen like this..." Simpson wailed and burst out crying.
     Andi cut her off.  "Listen...Alison...you took the time to call me for
advice...listen to me and follow it.  Call the police and get out of there..." 
     "But I didn't call you for advice..." Simpson cried. "...I called to warn
you...I told them I'd given the package to you..."
     "You WHAT?" Andi shouted into the phone.
     "It was the truth...you took it, remember..." Simpson pleaded.
     She shut her eyes against another threatening headache.  "Yeah..." she
replied dully.  "...I did at that..."
     "I'm sorry..." Simpson pleaded in a small voice.  "I had to...do you
understand, I had to..."
     Andi finished the call and hung up.  "Oh my God..." she moaned dismally
to the ceiling.
     Lena spun her chair around, concerned--Andi filled her in.  
     Lena's response was cool and professional.  She immediately hid the
envelope in the closet down the hall, started digging through files to stash
everything related to the rose case and backed up recent computer work.  Next,
after a cryptic call to Francois, she berated Andi's reluctance to have a gun and
vowed to borrow one for the next few days.
     Andi didn't argue, she had a feeling in her stomach that could dissolve
soda bottles.
     Andi's next call was to Ramirez--her prayers were being heard, he picked
up on the second ring.  "Ramirez..." he answered grimly.
     "It's Andi...I got a border-line emergency.  Alison Simpson has been
beaten up by thugs looking for a package Rex gave her to mail."
     "Wicksham...slow down.  Has she called the West Linn police?"  Ramirez
was all-business.
     "Yeah...at least I told her to.  She's awfully scared."
     "Is she seriously hurt?" asked Ramirez calmly.
     "I don't know...broken tooth, bruises...I don't think anything vital..."
     "Did her attackers get what they wanted?" He asked as if going down a
list.
     "No." Andi answered simply.
     "Why not?" asked Ramirez in the bored voice of any cop taking report.
     "Because I have it..." Andi admitted.  "I've got it here...unfortunately she
told them that..."
     "That's handy..." Ramirez responded with an unprofessional lilt.
     "Yeah, but when I opened it there was nothing inside important enough
for someone to kill for.  I mean it...it had nothing but academic papers on roses. 
It made no sense, I can't see the thugs caring about roses."
     "You opened someone else's mail, Wicksham?" Ramirez asked
incredulously.
     "Whoa, Ramirez.  It wasn't mail...it never got mailed and the guy's dead
for goodness sake...it didn't even have an address..." Andi argued.  "...the
important thing is that the package seems fake."
     "No, I don't think so, Wicksham.  The important thing is that the thugs are
going to track you down."  Ramirez actually chuckled at her predicament.
     "Hey...this isn't funny." Andi shouted.
     "Did I say it was funny?" he asked in faux-outrage.
     "What are you going to do about it?" Andi demanded.
     "Do about what, Wicksham?  I'm listing your office and residence as
places our regular patrols will drive by and check.  I'll personally check you out
every time I get on the streets, I'll get the West Linn uniforms to get a statement
and description from Alison Simpson to put out a APB on her attackers." 
Ramirez ran that list off the top of his head, but used his tired-cop voice so it
didn't have a drop of compassion.
     "Lot of help that'll do..." complained Andi. 
     "Hey, it's not like we know who these guys are, who they work for or
where they're hanging out..." Ramirez grumbled as if shouldering the weight of
the world.  "There's no way I can get a round the clock guard for you...if you
want that, call an agency and spring for the tab."
     "Thanks a lot, Ramirez..." Andi replied stiffly.
     "That's what I'm here for, ma'am..." Ramirez answered in the parody of an
old-west sheriff.  "You got copies of that stuff in Nimitz's package?  Fax them
over..."
     "Ramirez..." Andi exclaimed frantically.  "Are you focused in on what's
happening?  Tyson and Nimitz are dead, Simpson's beaten up, I've got the
package his murderers and her assaulters want and they know it...they're on
their way over..."
     "So, give them the package...what's the problem...you say it's not
important..."  Clearly Ramirez wasn't handing out sympathy that afternoon.
     Andi looked in frustration to Lena who was busy with her own telephone
conversation--their eyes met, Lena smiled.  "Ramirez, I don't think you
understand..." Andi tried again.
     "Listen, Wicksham..." he interrupted, "Take the package and tack it to
your door with a note, maybe the thugs'll take it and leave you alone.  Bring
Lena and yourself over to our house for a few days...Tanya will love it.  You need
to get away from it all...you seem a little up-tight."
     "Up-tight?  Of course I'm up-tight, Ramirez...it's how I handle situations
where I might get killed...I consider it a coping mechanism."
     "Well, good...it's good to hear that you got things under control.  I think
you should take my advice and hang out at our house, but I'll make you a
deal...you let me get off the phone, I'll ask Max if we can set up an emergency
response should your bad guys make an appearance..."
     "OK..." Andi grudgingly agreed.  "I'll talk to Lena about visiting..."
     "Fine...goodbye..." Ramirez sounded grateful to finish the call.
     Andi sat back and rubbed her eyes.  No doubt the same person was
behind Tyson and Nimitz's murders and Simpson's assault.  The one still
standing was Gould, but there was no more evidence than they had before and
Ramirez made it clear that suspicions were a waste of his time.
     Lena hung up her phone, looked over and stretched.  "It might be out of
character for the thugs to come to the office..."
     "Because both Simpson's and the place in Saint Johns homes?" asked
Andi doubtfully.  "...maybe they're at our apartment."
     Lena smirked.  "They're not...at least not at the moment.  I've got Daniel
downstairs listening.  He'll call us and Ramirez if he hears anything."  Calling
him was a good idea--Daniel crafted jewelry in his living room and because he
spent his days in a wheelchair he didn't get out very much.
     "You're enjoying this..." Andi accused suddenly.  "You're actually enjoying
this..."  She almost felt betrayed.
     "Call me a sucker for cheap thrills." quipped Lena.  "But I'm calling in old
debts and getting all the outside help I can muster."
     "Help?" queried Andi, "What help?"
     "Francois is doing a telephone link between him, us, Daniel and the
cops...and I have biker friends with serious bad-attitude that'll lurk around and
give us cover..."
     "You've got biker friends?" said Andi incredulously.
     "You don't think I've been a fem-bottom all my life did you?  On the way to
figuring what I liked, I played serious eight-ball and rebuilt motorcycles."
     "No..." Andi responded in a hush of disbelief.  "You're pulling my leg."
     "Straight up, Sherlock...a bi on a bike...though just for a while.  Maybe it
was the scene...I realized my real skills lay elsewhere." Lena stretched her
fingers to inspect her nails and primped the shoulders of her shirt.  "Anyway..."
she continued, "...I also got Paco involved.  Who know's what he'll come up
with."
     They were interrupted by a call from a client.  Andi tried to sound
interested while Lena fielded another call.
     They puttered independently, doing make-work for a nervous half-hour. 
"Ramirez thinks we should hang at his crib a few days..." Andi tossed the idea
out for comment.
     "Francois too...offered a flat in his complex off Division."  Lena dropped
her flippant smile.  "I'm taking this seriously Andi, I really am..." 
     "You want to disappear?  Maybe a week or so...?"  Andi carefully
extended the possibility, half-hoping Lena wouldn't take it.
     Lena leaned back in her chair.  "Naw...I don't think so.  Not right
now...there's a chance it'll all blow over."
     The telephone rang, riveting them in their seats a moment.  Lena reach
back and snatched up the receiver in a smooth fluid movement.  "Investigatory
Services..." she answered in clerical neutral.
     Andi swiveled back to face her desk, but kept her ears wide open.  
     "Yeah...sure...oh, wow..."  Lena's end of the conversation didn't offer
much to eavesdrop on.  "...uh huh, yeah...are you sure?  Yeah, OK..."  She
lowered the phone and addressed Andi.  "Francois's talked with Paco...he
wants you in on a conference call..." she pointed to the second phone.
     Andi reached and held it to her ear.  "Hi Francois..." she mustered a
perky lilt.
     He charged into a monologue.  "Hey Andi...if I got this right you've goons
wanting a package you've got, right?  Paco says he can get a bug/tracer thing to
stash in the package...interested?"
     Francois had spoken so quickly Andi felt left behind.  It took her a moment
to even say "What?"
     Francois started again, a little slower.  "Lena told about your problem.  I
don't have advice on keeping the thugs off, but Paco thinks he can get a toy
that'll track 'em."
     "Oh...yeah." Andi finally got the drift.  "Ramirez suggested we hand it
over anyway."  Once she understood she was ready.  "How's it work?"
     "Not problem for you to worry about..." Francois assured her.  "I'll take
care of that end.  Paco'll get the bug...you provide transportation."
     "How long will it take?" asked Lena practically.
     "Paco's going to call when he finds something...it's kind of short notice..." 
Francois' smile was obvious even over the phone.  "I'll need to match
frequencies, that might take an hour.  We can be there in under two..."
     Andi looked at her watch, it was already getting late.  "Seven-thirty..eight?" she asked apprehensively.  It was already later than they usually
worked.
     "Quick as it can happen..." Francois apologized.
     "We'll stay here...it'll be safer." interjected Lena firmly, catching Andi's
eye for confirmation.
     "Fine..." Andi agreed insecurely.  "You going to call or just come by?"
     "Probably just swing in..." Francois answered.  "...depends on if Paco can
get specs or I have to figure 'em out."
     That last didn't inspire confidence. "Sure..." she answered nervously,
"...see ya then..."
     Lena winked in approval and they put down their phones.  "So, what do
you think of hot chocolate?"
     "What if they snatch the envelope while we're gone...it wouldn't be safe
for one of us to stay alone." Andi glanced at the window wondering if Nimitz's
murders were watching.
     "So?" answered Lena, "We'll both go...it comes with us."
     "What?" demanded Andi.
     Lena was already running down the hall to the closet.  She returned with
it tucked under her arm.  "To lure them into grabbing it, they have to know we
have it...right?"
     "Let them know we have it so they can let us have it?" quipped Andi
sarcastically.
     "Don't worry...I got that covered.  At least while we're here we'll be in
good hands."  Lena gave her a smug smile and waved her toward the door with
a little bow.  
     "In good hands...famous last words..." mumbled Andi half-jokingly.  "I
suppose I'm buying?"
     "But of course, mon cheri...you tops need to feel important...it's a control
issue isn't it?" Lena handed Andi the package and locked the door behind them. 
On the street Lena nodded almost imperceptibly to two big women in leather
pants leaning on motorcycles and smoking.  The women fell silent and the one
facing in from the street casually turned their way.
     As Andi and Lena walked slowly down the sidewalk to the Cup and
Saucer, the envelope felt as big as a suitcase and as heavy as a keg of nails. 
Andi left it on the table screaming silently for attention.
     One of the bikers followed and commandeered a seat between them and
the door.  Andi ordered a hazelnut latte and offered to split a poppy-seed bagel. 
Lena settled for iced herbal tea, shrugging non-committally at the bagel.  "I
pulled out an interesting tidbit from the coverage of Feight's arrest."
     Andi looked up but didn't respond.
     "The neatest part of his counterfeiting attempt was faking that special
paper..."  Lena smiled gently.  "He took a heavy linen bond, starched it for color
and enhanced stiffness and ironed it for the right slickness and polish."
     Andi nodded, "That would be his contribution to the team...but once he
gave-up the secret he became a liability..."
     "Yeah..." added Lena, turning away, her interest in the subject exhausted.
     Andi shrugged and chewed her lower lip trying to pretend there was
nothing out of the ordinary in them sitting quietly in the noisy room. 
Conversation lagged to nonexistence and she pretended not to scrutinize every
customer coming in.
     No ominous figures burst in.  Conversation remained conspicuous in its
absence.  Andi drummed her fingers on the table until Lena reached a
reproachful hand.  The Cup seemed unusually busy,  There were a handful of
early diners, but most patrons seemed there for coffee and socializing--hovering around tables and filling the room with laughter and raucous
conversation.
     Their drinks were delivered, then Andi's bagel.  Andi's appetite had
deserted her.  They sat awkwardly, Lena, looking up at the clock, Andi watching
the door, studying each person passing the threshold.  Lena's biker friend
lounged easily, sipping coffee black and sweeping the room with her eyes every
minute or so.
     Fifteen minutes into the vigil, Lena brought her gaze back to Andi's. 
"Let's go.  I got to get out of here..."
     Andi nodded, dropped a five dollar bill on the table to avoid the problem of
tab and tip, tucked the envelope under her arm and followed out to the street. 
Lena's motorcycle friend, blinked almost unnoticeably as they shouldered past
the line by the cash register, pushed her coffee away and followed a nonchalant
eight or ten feet behind.
     The stairs up from the street had never looked so foreboding, corners
shielded killers and every doorway held assailants.  The hall was quiet, the
work-day ended, there seemed nobody but themselves in the deathly quiet
building.  
     Andi locked the door behind them with a sense of completing a test--and
didn't want to think of leaving.  Lena swung her chair so she could watch the
door with her feet up on Andi's desk.  Andi collapsed wordlessly in her chair,
then with a fearful look at the window behind her, moved out of easy line of fire. 
"I'm getting paranoid..." she squeezed a smile in Lena's direction.  Her voice
was raspy and her smile felt forced.
     "Naw...paranoid is when you imagine people are out to get you..."  Lena
reassured her, glancing from the window to Andi's usual place before it, "...I
think this is real."
     "Thanks..." Andi mumbled insincerely to no one in particular.  "...just what
I needed."  She opened a case file only to slam it shut a moment later.  "Did you
get that gun you talked about?"  She avoided guns herself, but felt reassured
that Lena had one.
     Lena pulled a dark thirty-eight caliber automatic from the purse she'd
kept casually on her lap, pulled back the top with a loud click to cock it and
checked that the safety was on.  "I'm told it's lethal to the max and to not let the
kick surprise me..."  she said conversationally...the stress didn't seem to effect
her at all.  "Music?" she pointed to their radio.
     Andi shook her head "No," it would make her jittery--she could feel her
stomach growl.  "What're we having for dinner?"
     "You really hungry?" Lena raised her eyebrows.
     "My stomach hurts..." 
     "It's an ulcer..." diagnosed Lena offhandedly.  "...too much coffee and not
enough bagel..."
     "Thank you Dr. Watson..." grumped Andi, crabbily.
     "It's what I'm here for...did you ever wonder about Sherlock and Watson's
intimate relationship?" Lena was objectionably chirpy, her voice offensively
melodic.
     Andi was about to make a nasty retort when there was a sharp rap upon
their door.  Andi glanced quickly to Lena who slipped from her chair to stand
against the side wall, the gun held in both hands and her eyes upon the door. 
Andi stepped to the opposite side of the office and called "Who is it?"
     "It's me, Francois, with Paco..." came Francois's voice.  
     As Andi stepped to the door and twisted the lock she noted that Lena
hadn't relaxed her vigilant pose.  The door opened and Paco and Francois
stepped nervously inside--both of Lena's leather garbed friends hovered in the
hall just beyond.
     The woman who'd followed into the coffee shop caught Andi's eye for a
nod of acceptance before Andi closed and re-locked the door.
     "Quick time 'eh?" Francois asked with a lift of his eyebrows.
     "Not on this end." grumbled Andi.  "You get the thing...?"
     Paco pulled a thick spring-clip from his pocket.  It was a heavy-duty
version that might be used for binding reports in a lawyer's office.
     Francois retrieved two plastic boxes from his pocket the size of
paperback books.  "There you go..." Paco said simply, handing her one.  "It's
got a range of a few hundred yards so there's no reason to keep your target in
sight."
     "Just like that?" Andi asked doubtfully.
     "What did you expect, hand-cuffs unfolding from a paper clip?  I could
have gotten an exploding pack of red dye, but that would let them know
something was wrong, wouldn't it?"
     "Thanks..." mumbled Andi.  "This will be fine.  I'm a little on edge..."
     "...a little..." Lena said in an aside only to be rewarded by Andi's
censuring glare.
     Andi picked up the clip and slipped it over the top edge of the material
from Rex's envelope.  "That's it?" she asked, looking up for confirmation.
     Francois flipped a switch on his black box and a needle on the dial sprang
to life.  It pointed directly at the envelope.  Francois backed to the far side of the
room and turned to one side then the other--the needle kept pointing to the
package as if it were north.
     "Not bad..." conceded Lena taking the black box from Andi, "...did you
say the thing was a bug too?"
     Francois looked over to Paco.
     "Couldn't get that one...sorry..." Paco shrugged.  "...too short a notice."
     "No problem..." Andi interjected smoothly.  "...this'll do fine."
     "So, what do you suggest," Andi looked to Paco, "Should we leave the
package or make them pick it up from our apartment?"
     "Leave it here...Lena says you've got safe houses?"  Paco's face was
expressionless.
     Andi nodded silently.  She sealed the envelope, pressed it hard against
her desk top a moment, then ripped it open.  With Simpson's original folder
before her as a model she taped the new one shut, then glued the original
stamps in place.
     "I'll do the name..." Lena volunteered, shouldering her way forward.  After
practicing with a piece of scratch paper she mimicked the block printing of
Rex's name.  "Use the address where he was killed?" she looked up at Andi.
     "Why not?" Andi shrugged.  "Rex expected it there..."  She stepped away
from the desk and watched her friends.  They were certainly casual...with Tyson
and Nimitz dead and Simpson beaten, there was a sense of death in the air...she
could feel it in her bones.
     Lena completed the address.  "Finito mi amora...muy bueno, 'eh?"
     "Bueno...bonita, bonita..." Andi responded absently.  She shook her head
to clear the stream of thoughts that swam threw, then stretched a kink from her
back and asked Paco "Sonny OK?"  Sonny and Paco were usually joined at the
hip, it was unusual to see him alone.
     "...poetry night at Cafe Lena..." Paco's teeth showed again.
     "You leaving the package here?" Francois asked nervously.
     "How will they know it's here?" asked Lena practically, she rested a hand
on a thrust out hip and made a scrunched up face.
     "We'll show 'em..." said Andi.  "You guys slip out...we'll follow in ten
minutes with the envelope.  I'll flash it, then run back."  She looked to the others
for approval.  There was a minute of silence as she looked from one face to
another.
     "OK..." put in Lena cautiously.
     Paco nodded silently.
     Francois shrugged that it made no difference.  "Let me show you how the
boxes work..."
     "Aren't you coming along?" asked Lena uncertainly.
     Francois smiled smugly.  "We got two boxes...you take one, we'll have the
other."  He held a cellular phone out to Andi.  "...Lena says you're against
them..."
     "I just don't want to be available twenty-four hours a day..." Andi said
defensively.
     "....Luddite..." Francois chuckled.  "...I'm told that you've moved
comfortably into the eighties..."
     "You guys are having all together too good a time." said Andi
suspiciously.
     "Why not?" quipped Lena with an evil grin.  "All we have to do is not step
in front of your bullet..."
     "That's no way to talk to a friend." scolded Francois, shaking his finger
back and forth.  "We also have to watch for traffic lights..."






                           CHAPTER  11


     Paco and Francois left together in Francois' car--they'd wait by the
supermarket at 39th.
     Lena phoned Daniel to pass him their cell phone's number.  She and Andi
waited eight and a half minutes--then they descended, coats and envelope in
hand talking as boisterously as they could about dinner and a movie.
     They studiously ignored the women still loitering by the motorcycles. 
Once they'd crossed the street Lena turned and complained scoldingly.  "What
you got that for?  You're not going to carry it around with you the whole night
are you?"  There was insufferable shrill to her voice, "...I don't want to go by a
post office."  She stomped her feet and scowled a spiteful look toward Andi.
     Andi stopped dead in her track and cursed.  "...here, take my coat," she
ordered, "I'll dump it at my desk...sheeze!!" she retorted, angrily throwing her
coat into Lena's arms and dashing back with the envelope waving
conspicuously in her hand.
     She dashed up the stairs, a moment later the light in her second-story
office window flashed on.  It winked off she returned at a skip across the street
to Lena.  "So far so good." she muttered nervously.  "And...thanks for not using
that tone on a regular basis." she gave Lena a peck on the cheek.  "It would
definitely put me off..."
     Lena shrugged off the kiss and fiddled with the box.  "I can't tell if the
thing really works...swing a circle around our office to check it, then park
across from the Wine Merchant...we're supposed to be ready if they head
west?"
     Andi didn't answer, just started the engine and pulled out carefully.  She
glanced questioningly to Lena.
     "So far so good..." Lena granted cautiously as she punched numbers into
the cell phone and swept her bangs to a side.  "...I'll ring the boys."
     Andi swung around a block then headed down Hawthorne, watching her
rear-view mirror.  She turned right on 28th, slowed to a crawl, paused a minute
and slowly rolled ahead.  No one turned or paused at the corner behind.  She
made a few more turns and returned to park in the shadows where they could
see a stretch of Hawthorne.
     She turned to Lena with a smile.  "Now you get to experience the real life
of a private eye...incredible tedium until something happens...if it happens. 
Maybe we should get a snack..."


     Two and a half hours later the cellular phone rang for the fourth time. 
"Yeah Francois?" grouched Andi as she picked it up.
     "For somebody without anything to do you sure resent phone calls...but
this time it's not a false alarm, I think the clip is moving." Paco's voice was quiet
and slow.
     Andi elbowed Lena who shot her a dirty look and pointed at the dial on her
box.  "I see it..." she said irritably.  "...but which way is it going?"
     "...yes, got it..." confirmed Andi into the phone.  She started the car's
engine.  "Which way?"  She glanced over her shoulder and tossed the phone
into Lena's lap.
     "North...whoa..." Lena squealed, her eyes on the box's dial, her hands
turning the box to keep the arrow in its narrow range.
     Andi turned east onto Hawthorne, by the time they were at 39th the
needle pointed straight north.   Andi turned off Hawthorne as the yellow traffic
light turned red.
     Lena held the black box in one hand and the phone in the other.  Andi
swerved around a delivery van and caught the last bit of yellow-signal speeding
across Belmont.
     "Looks like they're turning at Burnside..." reported Lena.  "Paco thinks it's
a green Honda with two men...it pulled into the left-turn lane.  When we catch up
they'll pull ahead and confirm...the Honda's turning."
     "Hold on..." Andi stomped on the accelerator and swung around a bus,
then into the right lane to pass a car, then swerved back to the left, continuing
through to the turn lane and around the corner onto Burnside all in a single fluid
movement.
     "Nice..." complemented Lena.  "That's Francois' brown Subaru." she
pointed, he was two cars behind the Honda.  "Yeah...we're coming up right
behind you...got the license number?"  Lena fished a pen from the ash tray and
scribbled on a scrap of paper.
     Andi came up behind Francois as he pulled into the left-hand lane.  Just
then the green Honda slowed for a bus pulling out.  The car between Andi and
the Honda changed lanes as well, pulling behind Francois to swing around the
bus.
     "Oh, Jesus Christ..." exclaimed Andi suddenly recognizing the foul-up
they were driving up to.  "Duck..." she hissed to Lena, grabbing a map to hold
before her as they rolled up directly behind the Honda still stopped at the light. 
     "Shit...have they recognized us?" she worried out loud  She snuck a
glance from behind the edge of the map, the man in the passenger seat still
faced forward, apparently unalarmed, the driver turned to look out the left-hand
window, then toward his passenger, waving a hand as if in conversation.
     "I'm supposed to tell you?" grunted Lena.  She was folded forward over
her seat-belt, her head turned toward Andi below dashboard level, phone still
clamped to her ear.  "Paco confirms that it's them..." she wheezed, short of
breath from her contorted position.
     The bus pulled away, followed at a safe, considerate speed by the Honda. 
Lena made a rude remark over the phone.  Andi turned on her turn-signal and
held back as if waiting for a parking spot--a car pulled between them so Andi
turned off her signal and followed along slowly.  "You think we should pull off?"
she asked uneasily.
     "Not if they didn't recognize us." replied Lena, dropping the phone in her
lap and pulling a baseball cap and a pair of dark glasses from her bag. 
"Follow...but keep back at least a car or two...isn't that supposed to be the
advantage of the box?"
     Andi didn't answer, but dallied long enough for another few cars to get
ahead, then a truck pulled in and she lost sight of the Honda.  
     "...Paco thinks it's funny." Lena reported with a sneer as she pulled her
hair back and put on the hat.  She snatched the phone back up, "Weren't you
supposed to follow a block or two off to a side?" she demanded indignantly in
the phone.  "Yeah, Ok...you're right..."   Lena turned to Andi and said.  "He and
Francois are being smug and obnoxious.  They'll stay a couple blocks ahead,
we'll hang a couple behind."
     She returned to the phone.  "...whoa-there..see that Paco?  Andi turn
left." Lena ordered in a hiss, pointing across the street as they entered the
intersection.  Andi had to swing suddenly from the slow lane, cutting across two
empty lanes to make the turn heading south.  Then she sped up the next block
as fast as she dared.
     Lena held the box in her hand and turned it round and about as if
confused, then turned to look out the back window.  "Damn...me too..." Lena
cursed urgently into the phone.  "...yeah...west from us and back to the north."
     Andi was already turning right as Lena's arm shot out directing her.  They
caught each other's eyes and smiled.
     "Almost straight north now..." Lena eagerly reported in the phone as she
silently directed Andi to turn right again.  "Yeah, us too...we're going
north...back to Burnside..."
     They pulled up to the corner and Lena pointed left.  Andi turned, following
the traffic unaggressively.
     "In there..." Lena shouted triumphantly, pointing in the driveway of a
motel.  "No, we won't..." she assured the telephone, tugging Andi's arm and
gesturing wildly for her not to turn in.
     Francois' brown Subaru approached from the west and, as they passed,
slowed and pulled into the drive.  Andi negotiated a change of lanes and pulled
to the curb a half a block past.  She caught Lena's eyes and they froze in place a
moment.
     "Show time..." Lena winked, grabbing her oversized bag.  That broke the
spell, they spilled from their car and picked their way through the traffic and
back to the motel on a run.
     Around the corner of the motel's restaurant they could see Francois and
Paco standing beside their car in the parking lot holding a map before them. 
Paco pointed in their direction as if discussing directions, his hand
unobtrusively turning from pointing finger to upraised palm.
     Andi slowed and stopped, out of sight from the inner court.
     Lena leapt beside her and asked in her phone.  "So...what's up ducks? 
Hello..?"
     Neither of the figures lifted a phone to his ear, but Francois pointed right
at them and seem to wave in vague recognition.  They stood by Francois' car
another moment, then Paco wandered off into the motel complex.   Francois
watched a moment, shrugged, then turned and ambled toward Andi and Lena.
     "Paco's using the box to verify the room number." Francois said quietly.
     Lena held the phone to her ear.  "He's left the line open, I can hear
footsteps and the brush of his sleeve...he just said `number 243'..." she reported
in a whisper.  "The clip's inside...he's going to loiter...wants us to watch this
side."  She stepped a cautious step or two from the shielding wall, looking west,
toward the second story walk.
     Andi and Francois joined her, the two of them looking away, Lena
watching over Andi's shoulder as if they were tourists.  They stood in the
growing dusk until the lot's flood-lights clicked on.
     Finally Paco emerged from the cloistered walkway, continuing past until
out of line of sight from the rooms behind.  Without saying a work, the three
waiting friends turned to follow.
     Paco shook his head, disappointed with himself.  "...they're upset...it
wasn't what they expected...they're yelling at each other."  He and Francois
shared a steely meeting of eyes.  "It's a perfect situation for a bug..."
     "Let's go...waiting here's stupid..." complained Lena.
     "Did you tell Ramirez know what we're doing?" Francois glanced to Andi.
     "Of course not..." Andi replied defensively, "...but I guess we should."
     "Room 243..." reminded Paco.
     Andi wrote it on the palm of her hand.
     "Coffee People's on Hawthorne?" suggested Lena.
     "Too far..." declared Andi.  "There's a Starbucks on 28th"  Francois
blinked and Paco nodded as they drifted toward their cars.


     Andi didn't comment until her engine started.  Lena punched in Ramirez's
home number as she slid into her seat.  "Tanya...hi, it's Lena...yeah, I'm out with
Andi on a job and there's something important Ramirez should know...sure..." 
She looked across at Andi and tapped her finger on the dashboard.  Andi pulled
from the curb and hung a right at the corner.
     "Hey...Ramirez, it's Lena...yeah I'm out with Andi.  Nimitz' killers and
Simpson's assaulters are in a motel on Burnside...eastside, just over the bridge. 
Wow, good guess, that's the one...room 243.  Absolutely...yeah, right now, this
minute.  They have the envelope Simpson was supposed to mail to Nimitz...just
believe me when I tell you it's true, OK?"  Lena stared blankly out the window
and shook her head.  "That's right...and there's a tracer bug in the clip holding
the papers together...it's a tracer-bug...it comes back to us, understand?"
     She glanced over to Andi, rolled her eyes, then raised her voice.  "Well
you're the one who told her to leave it for them to find...sure, you can tell them
anything you want, but it's ours and we've tipped you to the collar so we want
brownie points.  Tell Max...if you don't, I will..."
     Andi laughed as she drove, glancing over now and again.
     Lena caught her eye and winked.  "...no, I don't expect you to get up from
your dinner, except that you might want to phone someone who's supposed to
care.  Yeah, right...sure, right." she responded drily.
     Andi could imagine Ramirez's complaint--he'd feel obligated to leave his
dinner half-finished and meet the uniforms at the site.
     "...sure...and they're disappointed in the envelope's contents.  Yeah?  Oh
yeah?  Well, the same to you, but give Tanya our love....yeah, whatever." she
lowered the phone and pushed the off button.
     "He can be frustrating, can't he?" observed Andi knowingly.
     "Just how dissatisfied does he get if you don't help him out?" Lena
grumbled.
     Andi met Lena's eyes, "The package wasn't what I expected either."
     "Do we conclude their expectations were the same as yours?" Lena
questioned with sober suspicion.
     "...Watson..." Andi confided, wheeling left onto Burnside and heading
back to 28th. "...you and Ramirez distrust intuition and it holds you back...I
know what Rex put in the package.  Things are falling into place..."
     "Must be nice..." grumbled Lena "...except that your stigmata stains and
the glow from your halo keeps me awake..."  She punched another set of
numbers in the phone and sat back listening to it ring.  "Yo JoAnn...it's Lena."
     Andi pulled up and parallel-parked on Burnside across from Starbucks. 
     Lena reached a hand to restrain her.  "Oh yeah?  You OK?" she laughed,
"...no shit..." she laughed again, harder.  "OK...send a bill, I think Andi was
impressed and she'll bust a gut when she hears...yeah, sure...sleep tight...OK,
at least sleep..." she laughed again.  "...bye."  She lowered the phone and
pushed the off-button.
     "So...?" Andi paused and looked across, her hand on the door handle.
     "JoAnn and her friend hung out a while, saw a flashlight in our office
window and caught the boys in the Honda sneaking out after kicking in our
door.  The faster one got away, but the slow one got his face beat-in with a Dr.
Pepper bottle, withstood a serious effort toward removing his kneecap and had
his fancy Israeli automatic pistol taken away...the pistol's worth at least a
couple of hundred..."
     Andi chuckled in amusement, they slid from the car and picked their way
across the street against the light.
     "Hot chocolate?" asked Andi after they shouldered in.  Lena nodded and
joined Francois and Paco already with cups in hand, looking for a table.
     Andi ordered and waited for their cocoas--Lena was weaning her from
coffee.  After waiting for their order she followed to a table in a corner near the
window.  "Well, that was a washout..." she complained to no one in particular. 
     "Too bad I didn't get the bug." Paco apologized.
     "Too bad the envelope didn't hold what they wanted...we got copies of
every page." grumbled Andi.
     "Ramirez sniveled that he'd catch hell for moving on an anonymous tip..." 
Lena stirred her chocolate to cool it off.  "...but the bug gives an explanation for
the DA...they'll forget to report whose it was.  Until then he'll use my name so
Max doesn't freak...it'll work."
     "Doesn't anybody care that those guy's would have killed me for that
package?"  Andi appealed to the others.
     "Oh yeah...there's that..." conceded Francois off-handedly.  "I think things
went good.  No one hurt and we worked up to specs..."
     "It was too much to dream that all the loose ends would tie up."
acknowledged Andi, a bit miffed.  "Were there more than the two?"
     "Maybe...I heard two voices." Paco sipped his camomile tea and looked
stone-faced around the table.
     "Saying what?" asked Andi quietly.
     Paco shut his eyes to reconstruct the scene.  "One complained, `I can't
believe it's not here...the stuff's not here...'  The other one shouted, `No...it can't
be.' in a really distraught voice, then the first retorted that he could look for
himself if needed to."  Paco smiled.  "...the second complained that the first
didn't have two broken teeth and a busted leg.  Then they whined the same stuff
over again with different words."
     Lena caught Andi's gaze, but didn't mention what JoAnn had reported.
     Paco hunched his shoulders in a wordless shrug.
     "You couldn't hear anything else about what they expected?" Andi looked
over to Paco.
     "Couldn't tell..." murmured Paco.
     "They complained about broken teeth and a busted leg?" Andi asked,
meeting Lena's eyes again, but maintaining a straight face.
     Paco shrugged again, "...they wondered if they were followed...but not a
clue about us..." he smiled.  "I figured they were due to stick a head out and
didn't want to be caught hanging by their window...too bad about not getting an
audio bug." he glowered gloomily to himself.
     "Leaves us spinning wheels..." observed Andi uncomfortably.  "I suppose
we should still lay low..."
     "You bet, toots..." said Lena with certainty.
     "My place or Ramirez's?" asked Francois, palming his spoon as if
practicing a magic trick--waving his hand over the table; there it is--waving it
again and it's gone.
     "Tonight we'll be with you my friend..." smiled Lena with an after-the-fact
glance to Andi for confirmation.
     "Fine..." he put both palms on the table as if ready to push himself up. 
"Anything else?"
     Andi drained the last of her chocolate and rose in dismissal.  "On the
counterfeiting, Feight solved the paper problem...Nimitz could hot-rod
copiers...Gould probably helped develop the laundry.  It's hard not to assume
this thing doesn't have counterfeiting running all through it..." her voice
betrayed disgust at not having definite answers.  "I guess there isn't much else
to do..." She smiled across at Paco and Francois.  "Thanks a million...nothing
would have happened without you.  Claim what you want...I owe you..."
     "Your tabs running..." confided Francois with a knowing smile.  He
fastidiously straightened his lapels and cuffs and glanced down at his shoes.
     "You don't owe me..." spat Paco bitterly, "...if I'd gotten the right bug, we
might have more answers..." he pushed his chair back under the table, grabbed
his cup to leave off in the bus-tray and left without a backward glance.
     Andi looked over to Francois who just shrugged, shook his head and
walked backward to the door while talking.  "It'll be best to leave your car at
your office.  I'll swing by."  He called the last through the door before
disappearing.
     Lena looked into Andi's face and gave a tired smile.  "Hey sailor...looking
for a good time?" she hadn't stirred from her chair, she pulled a strand of hair
across her face and peered through it.
     "I don't think I can afford you..." laughed Andi.
     Lena used a phony Eastern European accent, "That's OK...I've been told
that I'm cheap..." she gazed up through lidded eyes and extended a limp hand.
     "Please...it's not right to call yourself cheap dharlink..." replied Andi in as
close an accent as she was able, pulling Lena from her chair and escorting her
to the door, "...this is Amerika...the term is competitively priced..."


     Andi called Simpson at seven AM after waking up at four obsessing that
the attackers might have slipped away and would be looking to settle their
score.  Andi would give odds Simpson hadn't  taken her psychiatric medications
since being beaten up.  Lord only knew what that would do to her behavior.
     Last night she'd left her car by their office and Francois settled them in
the apartment he kept as a secret entrance to his cyber lair.  After sleeping
lightly through a night of disturbing dreams and waking early to stare into the
dark, she'd reconciled herself to wakefulness, dressed at quarter after six and
had been sitting by the window watching shadows sweep across the wall. 
There was no answer at Simpson's, no machine--the phone just rang and rang.
     "She's probably hiding out like you told her to..."  Lena mumbled
grouchily, her eyes still shut to mole-like tightness.  She pulled the covers over
her head and curled into a fetal position.
     "Who ever listens to advice?"  Andi muttered to herself, fretting uneasily. 
"Why don't we drive out there this morning...?"
     "Andi..." came a complaining voice from under the blankets.
     "A nice drive in the country...it wouldn't be work...when was the last time
we did that?" Andi wheedled, but just then she was interrupted by the cell
phone on the bureau.
     Andi grumbled snatched it up, "Yeah...what?"
     "Good morning..it's Daniel...there's someone up in your apartment right
now." he whispered excitedly.
     "Really?" Andi responded in an excited whisper.  "Lena..." she held the
receiver aside and hissed, "...get up.  There's someone at our apartment."  
     Lena leapt naked to Andi's side, reaching to the bedside table for her
watch, fumbling for underware and cursing that she didn't have more clothes.  
     Andi watched--the receiver held tight to her ear.  "Thanks Daniel.  What
are they doing?  You're OK?  Good, we'll be there in minutes...yeah she's
dressing...yeah...thanks."
     "So..?" cried Lena excitedly, bounding to her feet and storming to the
chair with her clothes.
     "Twenty minutes ago someone knocked at our door, then he heard them
around at the side door...breaking the lock he thinks...then creeping up the
back stairs to smash a window and get in."  Andi glanced around to see if they
left anything.
     Lena had grabbed her shirt and was pulling on socks a quick as she
could.  "Did he call the cops?"  She slipped on the shirt and charged into the
bathroom.
     Andi yelled over the sound of running water.  "He called Ramirez..."
     "I'm ready..." Lena called out, coming out from the bathroom in a western
shirt and Levi's, her oversized handbag hanging heavily from her shoulder.
     "Without shoes?" Andi stood and pointed at Lena's feet.
     "I'll put them on as we go..." Lena made a dive to grab them.
     "Oh, no..." Andi screamed.  "My car's at the office..."
     "It'll take less time to run home than get it..." Lena plopped to the floor to
pull on her shoes. 
     Andi ducked into the bathroom.  Lena pulled the strap of her bag over her
head so it crossed like a bandolier.  They met at the front door and dashed out,
jogging across Division and  north toward Hawthorne.  Fourteen minutes later
they slowed to catch their breath across from their apartment--the second-story
flat was dark--no dark forms moved among the shadows inside.
     "Let's sneak over." hissed Andi.  She streaked off, continuing at a sprint
past the sidewalk onto the lawn two yards down from their own. 
     Lena stayed at her shoulder, stride for stride as they snuck up the front
porch stairs and warily eyed the curtained door to their apartment.
     Daniel swung the door open before they had time to knock, holding the
knob with one hand and wheeling himself backwards with the other.  "I'm pretty
sure they're still there..."  He whispered tensely.
     Lena closed the door after peeking again to the empty porch.  Daniel spun
his chair and led them back to his kitchen where Ramirez sat placidly, feet up
on another chair, cup in hand, basking in the aroma of fresh brewed coffee.
     "There's been pacing going on." Daniel said in a low voice, pointing up to
the ceiling.
     "Hi Ramirez." greeted Lena quietly, she gave a little waist-high wave..
     "Yo..." Ramirez replied in a casual whisper.  "Doesn't sound like any
searching."  He turned to Andi.  "Maybe you know what's it's about?"
     Andi stood mid-floor and looked up to the ceiling.  "Maybe...did you get
the guys at the motel?"
     Ramirez nodded quietly and held up two fingers.  "One of them had that
Phineas cross made into a P and number twenty-five tattooed on his forearm." 
He looked into his coffee cup and frowned.  "Do you have what they want?"  He
pointed to the ceiling, then reached for the pot and poured himself another cup
of coffee without moving his feet from the chair before him.
     Andi shook her head and pulled up a chair.  "No..." she whispered with a
simple head shake.  Then, "...those two at the motel?"  
     Just then, footsteps looped through the hall from kitchen to living room,
then paused.  
     "Well..." replied Ramirez, looking down to pour milk and take a sip. 
"...runners for the counterfeiters...now they're scared and ratting on each
other.  White trash losers with a grudge...thought they'd take over when the
organization started fraying..."  He toasted them with his cup of coffee. 
"Classic right-wing poster children...bigoted, foul-mouthed, and
sociopathic...wanted for explosives, weapons, harassment and threatening
judges.  West Linn already filled statements of interest."
     "So there's only one person upstairs?" asked Andi hopefully.
     "Maybe..." Daniel said.  "Only one set of footsteps at a time."
     Ramirez nodded, then shrugged, nervous, but smug.  "I checked your
side-door and peeked up the back-stairs.  They weren't elegant getting in..."
     Andi nodded, looking up again.  "Can we have coffee?"  She stared at the
ceiling as if expecting for it to fall.
     Daniel pointed to the cupboard under the counter and Lena pulled out
mugs.  Ramirez sat quietly, observing.  Above them, someone walked across
the living room floor.
     "You here alone?" Lena asked Ramirez point-blank.
     "A car's cruising the hood..." he said calmly.  "Milk?" he pushed the quart
carton over to Lena.
     Just then the footsteps shuffled across the living room floor toward the
bathroom.  In the silence they could hear the faint sound of the door swinging
shut and its lock sliding closed.
     "Time to go..." Andi leapt out of her chair, followed by Lena.
     "Hold it..." cried Ramirez in a whisper with an edge of desperation as he
grabbed at his phone and punched in numbers, "...I have to call back-up..." he
put the phone to his ear.  "You can't go yet..." he hissed.
     "Can't wait..." Andi whispered from the living room.  Her keys were in her
hand by the time she reached her front door.  Lena held the pistol grimly, her
left hand assisting her right.  They crept cautiously up the stairs leaving the
front door open behind them. 
     No sound greeted them as they avoided the seventh step's squeak.  Lena
peeked into the living room, looked back over her shoulder and shook her head. 
Andi crept quietly toward the kitchen, holding her breath as she listened,
suddenly swinging around the jamb.
     There was nobody in the kitchen, but a ten-inch french knife that had not
been out before lay on the kitchen table.  The room looked intact, no cupboards
stood open, no clutter from dumped drawers.  Lena crossed the kitchen in three
smooth steps, looked into the bedroom--first to the windows, then the closet,
again shook her head and pointed, unsmiling toward the bathroom.
     Andi nodded, a nervous lump in her stomach.
     Just then Ramirez appeared at the back door, his eyes sharp and hard
and his own pistol in hand.  Andi pointed to the bathroom and held up two
fingers.  "Two doors..." she reminded him in a tense whisper.
     He nodded, tiptoeing across the kitchen to the hall, checking the safety
on his gun and readying himself for action.  Lena stood, her feet spread, her
pistol raised in both hands, it and her eyes riveted on the door between bath
and bedroom.
     From where she stood in the middle of the kitchen, Andi could hear the
bathroom door click and swing open, then two shuffling steps--probably in
rubber-soled shoes.
     "Hold it right there..." boomed Ramirez in his roughest cop-voice. 
"Police...stay where you are.   Raise your hands over your head." he demanded. 
Andi moved up beside him.
     Lena glided through the bedroom and appeared at the other end of the
hall.  In front of the bathroom door stood Simpson, hands over her head, looking
awful, with two terribly blackened eyes and a welt that stretched across her
chin and up her cheek.
     "I don't have a gun." Simpson said simply.  "I left it in the living room."
     Lena nodded to Ramirez and glided behind Simpson, across the hall to the
living room.
     Ramirez herded Simpson into the living room with a wavering gesture of
his gun.  "Why would you break in here?" stormed Andi.  Lena stood guard at
the end table where a forty-four caliber, gun-metal blue, long-barreled revolver
lay. 
     "I came to see you...but I got desperate so I let myself in...can I put my
hands down?"  Simpson's sounded distracted and tired.
     "Over there..." Ramirez nodded to the chair on the far side of the room. 
Simpson moved across the floor and sat down.
     Suddenly there came a tramping of feet on the stairs and a shout of
"Police..." 
     "In here, Jacobi..." called out Ramirez as the came up into the hall.  
     The cops appeared at the door wearing flack-jackets and guns drawn--a
tall robust man and a slightly shorter woman.  They positioned themselves about
ten feet apart for tactical advantage.
     "She's not with the jerks last night." Ramirez murmured nonchalantly--still
watching Simpson, lowering his gun but not re-holstering it.
     "Who is she?" the woman cop asked, all-business, holstering her service
revolver and pulling her note-book from a shirt pocket.  The Jacobi, Ramirez
called out to.
     "...Alison Simpson, lives in West Linn." answered Andi, "The thugs
arrested last night's second victim..."
     "Will she ID 'em?"  The male cop asked.
     Ramirez shrugged.  "We'll see..."
     Simpson nodded with wide-eyed urgency first seeking Ramirez's eyes,
then Jacobi's.
     "Was this a B&E?" Jacobi asked in an even voice, she studied Simpson's
face with obvious discomfort.
     "Yeah...let me look." Andi gave Simpson a dirty look and went to look at
the back door.  "...broken window...the door below too..." she reported when
she returned a moment later.
     "You want to press charges?" Jacobi didn't sound like she expected to
hear a `yes.'
     Andi glared at Simpson again who gazed back fearfully.  She shrugged
her shoulders.  "I think we're going to talk about that..."
     Ramirez looked over to Jacobi and nodded.  "Thanks for coming..."
     "Want us to stick around?" she asked, looking doubtfully from Andi to
Lena and Simpson before swinging her gaze back to Ramirez.
     "No.  I think we've got it covered.  I'll give a call to coordinate
reports...and bring Ms Simpson in for the ID..." Ramirez lifted a hand in a
dismissive wave, his voice, quiet and amused.  Jacobi shrugged, her partner
nodded and, as if it were choreographed, they turned together and left.
     Andi waited until the bottom door shut behind them, then she walked to
the couch and sat down.  "So...tell us the story, Alison..." she said in a friendly
voice.
     "The story?" Simpson asked as if confused.
     "I know you switched the material in that envelope from Rex..." Andi
encouraged quietly.
     "You do?" Alison looked over in surprise.
     "Sure..." replied Andi, still friendly, consciously modulating pitch and
keeping a round, warm tone.  "The material to counterfeit twenties and
hundreds was inside...you took it."
     Simpson paled.  "I brought it with me to show you...but it's not money...it's
on white paper."  She sounded discouraged.
     "You have it here?" Andi asked, surprised.
     "Over there..." Simpson pointed to the table with her gun and started to
rise.
     "No..." ordered Ramirez loudly.  "We'll get it."
     In a step, Lena reached and pulled the heavy cardboard folder from
beneath Simpson's pistol.  After a glance, she handed it to Andi who opened it
and paged through the half-dozen white sheets lined with perfect pictures of
large-denomination bills.  One of Simpson's personal notes was on top,
reminding her to `keep these papers,' `call Andi Wicksham,' `buy carrots,' `ask
about money,' and `find safe places.'  Andi left it in place without comment.
     "See..." said Simpson.  "I told you..."
     "These aren't what the guy's were after..." stated Andi flatly.  Her voice
had lost its easy, conversational tone.
     "They're not?" replied Simpson incredulously.
     "What about the computer disk?"  Andi rose to her feet and took a
menacing step toward Simpson.
     "The blue one?" Simpson cried in alarm.  "That was what they wanted?  I
put it in my computer, but it seemed to be garbage...it's back at home in a
cookbook..." she looked confused and upset.
     Andi sank back on the couch with a tired sigh.  "How long have you known
about the counterfeiting?"
     "I knew Rex would be mad about me opening his envelope, but thought he
might pay me something..."
     Andi sat silently, eyes focused on Simpson.  She chewed her lip a
moment, then asked, "How about the antique revolver you gave Mr. Tyson..."
     Simpson's mouth opened and she blanched noticeably.  "You..you know
about the gun?" she stuttered in shock, her hand started shaking.
     Andi nodded.  "I know about everything...I know how you killed William
Tyson.
     "They weren't who they said they were..." said Simpson in dismay.
     "But Mr. Tyson rejected you..." Andi urged with an easy, congenial tone.
     Simpson nodded silently and leaned backward, her eyes wide open with
fear.  "I asked him about the counterfeiting...I told him I understood, I thought it
would show him he could trust me.  He'd been so nice before.  I loved him...but
he called me horrible names..."
     "Tell us about the revolver..." prompted Andi, continuing her patient
prodding.
     "Do I have to?" asked Simpson in a little girl's voice, the corner of her
mouth twitched as well as her hand, her voice seemed almost detached from
her body.
     "How about if I start and you fill-in details if I get things wrong...OK?" 
Andi asked gently, her voice was almost a whisper.
     Simpson nodded.  Two quick bobs forward with her head, her eyes never
leaving Andi's face, her dilated eyes gave her an unearthly look.
     "You prepared the pistol the day before, maybe making a list of what to
bring?"
     There was an eye blink response.
     "...then you walked across the hills to his house..." Andi leaned forward,
her eyes far harder than her voice.
     Simpson blinked and gave an almost imperceptible nod.
     "You brought the shotgun with you too...was it the pump-action one?"
Andi tilted her head to a side to illicit a response.
     "Yes..." Simpson whispered, barely audible.
     "You knew Rex was gone, because you phoned first...you approached
from the back and walked around the east edge of the house."
     Simpson nodded. 
     Andi continued, "Tyson was in his study as he usually was...you handed
him the revolver through the bars on the window telling him your uncle wanted
him to have it..."
     "...I told him it was broken..." Simpson said in obvious confusion.  "How
can you know this?" she suddenly screamed.  "You can't know this...you weren't
there..."
     Ramirez rose from his seat and took a step forward, ready to restrain her,
but paused and retreated when she settled down.
     "Tyson took the old revolver, sighted along the barrel, like gun people do
and took it back to his desk to examine it..." Andi continued.
     Simpson nodded, her jaw moving slowly as if she wanted to speak, but
without uttering a sound, her eyes seemed to glaze over and her focus upon
Andi was lost.
     "...when he got to his desk and turned back toward the window, you
raised the shotgun and shot him." Andi concluded, glancing over her shoulder
to see if there was anything on the wall where Simpson was looking.
     "Hold it Wicksham," interrupted Ramirez quietly, "Tyson was killed by a
bullet from the pistol he held in his hands."
     "A bullet originally from the revolver in his hands and from the cartridge
left in it..." Andi corrected.
     "You can't know this..." whispered Simpson with a fierce intensity.
     "So?" demanded Ramirez, his jaw set and lips pinched with impatience. 
"Explain..."
     "The day before, you carefully loaded your Uncles' pistol and shot into
something soft..." continued Andi, addressing Simpson.
     "Into newspapers..." whispered Simpson, her voice sounding dreamy. 
Her gaze was half-focused--off into a corner of the ceiling as if reliving the
scene in her mind.
     "...you recovered the projectile and loaded it into a shotgun shell..." all
eyes were on Simpson now, but she seemed in another world.  "...that's what
you shot Tyson with...maybe with your coat over the open barrel..."
     "...yes, to keep the wadding from exposing me.  I used my old jacket, but
then I threw it away..." whispered Simpson as if already far away.  Her hands
and cheek had stopped twitching, she sat as if frozen.
     "Then you tossed in the suicide-note you typed for him..." Andi's voice
ground to a halt as she realized she'd lost Simpson's attention.
     Ramirez mumbled something unintelligible, patted his pockets for his
cellular phone and retreated into the hall to call the uniformed officers back. 
Simpson sat slightly bobbing her head, slightly moving her lips ever breath or
two as if mouthing unvoiced words, still looking up at the ceiling as if watching a
movie--a few stray tears slid silently down her cheeks.
     Lena quietly came and sat beside Andi.  "You said you knew what
happened to the roses too?"  She looked from Simpson to Andi and took Andi's
hand in her own.
     Andi looked up to where Ramirez stood, still talking on the phone, now to
somebody in his office, then she looked back to Lena with a grin.  "Simpson
ground them up into mulch the morning her uncle died...using the grinder in the
potting shed."  Andi winked and then glanced again to Ramirez who'd moved on
to a second or third call, "We might recover the top layer of chips and give it to
Gould in a box...but I don't really care if that crime gets solved or not."
     Lena gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
     Andi smiled a distracted smile in response.  "Gould brought Rex to
Feight's that afternoon...maybe to steal them.  He would have been first one to
discover them missing.  He told Gould on their drive back."  She leaned back
against her couch's cushions, blinked and fell silent.
     The front door bell rang.  Lena rose to let the police back in.  Ramirez
returned from the hall and counseled with the uniformed officers.
     Andi waited quietly on the couch, watching Simpson, chewing her lower
lip and thinking about her mother.



                    THE END