Chapter  1

     Portland Oregon.  Quarter to five, Monday evening with January rush-hour clamor and a day-long drizzle that drifted all day like snow on an old TV. 
Detective Andi Wicksham stared down to the glistening headlight-smears that
streaked the street below.
     She swung her chair back around to her desk--this time next week she'd
be Cabo San Lucas sucking a Margarita in the shade of a palm with mangos
enough to bath in.
     The phone rang.  "Wicksham..." she answered. 
     "Hi, it's Traci...got a minute..."
     Andi smiled.  "Yeah sure.  But listen to this Cabo fantasy...I could smear
soft, warm, ripe, juicy mango on me...then beg you to lick it off..."  Andi smirked
and leaned back in her chair.
     "What?" Traci's response came too loudly.
     "In Cabo...it's just an idea..."  Andi felt a sheepish grin wrinkle her lip. 
"Not that I'd actually do it....not unless the mangos were golden-sweet..." she
snickered.  Their promised vacation was five days off.  "Five days, three-and-a-half hours..." she said with a glance at her watch.  "...I can't wait..."
     "Andi...we need to talk..."
     "Fine, what's up?" Andi swung her feet onto the opened top drawer and
snuggled into her chair.
     "Maybe this isn't the time...you working?"
     "Up to my gills...so what?"
     "Not now." Traci said firmly.  "I'll wait..." 
     There was a click and the phone buzzed in her ear.  She'd three days
worth of  late reports and billings stacked on her desk--three days minimum to
clear it.  Forget the backlogged correspondence--that, if it grew enough mold,
she could kiss off completely.
     She gritted her teeth, pulled her hair back from her forehead with both
hands and stared hard at the computer screen in front of her.  Then, fortified
with another sip of coffee, she flailed spiritedly at the keyboard.  Daily work-logs, contacts made, details noted; the tedium of investigation--missed
connections, leads followed and discarded, phone calls attempted--some
completed.  A list of the tedious stuff deserving payment; all capped by three or
four paragraphs on how one thing led to another in her search for a dead-beat
dad's secreted assets.  She'd tracked the creep through three jobs, four
apartments and two relationships only to find him holed up in a nice cushy job
selling insurance, taking flying lessons and driving a red car worth thirty-grand...no wonder he couldn't pay his child-support.
     She bit her lip and pushed to wrap it up.  It had already been too much
work for a client she couldn't charge half what she should--no sense making it
worse, killing herself making out the bill.
     Her business card and primly lettered door said "Investigatory Services,"
but report writing was the job.  She made a rude sound and punched
aggressively at the save button. To make-up the loss, she'd have to stick the
next dentist checking prospective partners or next fat-cat executive wife on the
trail of an alimonial golden-parachute--not that many of those had come by
lately.
     The coffee was cold, but the last hour's clerical engineering was about to
leave this report sandwiched in her file cabinet, its duplicate, meagerly figured
invoice, enveloped, stamped and sealed.  She made a mental note--she'd have
to start insisting on decent retainers or go on food stamps.  She'd be lucky to
see half this billing in the next three months.
     She looked at her watch as she finished it...one more report and she'd be
home by seven.
     The phone rang again.  She let it ring twice more out of orneriness before
snatching it up and barking her usual "Wicksham..."   She glared at her
computer screen and backspaced mental curses over a string of typos.  How
did typists type like a bat out of hell without looking?
     "Ms. Wicksham...this is Lionel Morse of Templeton, Morse and Bryant. 
I've been given your name by two different sources, both of whom
recommended you highly..."
     Andi rolled her eyes and exhaled with frustrated fatigue.  She recognized
the firm--not the voice; up-scale law, downtown high-rise, fees somewhere
along the lines of eighty hours on minimum wage--there was no reason for him
call her other than to hassle one of her friends clients.  "I'd like to help, but
unless it can hold I can't fit it in..." she cut the man off mid-sentence.  In her
mind's eye Cabo San Lucas beckoned.
     "You haven't heard my problem, Ms. Wicksham...we haven't just picked
your name from the book.  We have a delicate investigatory matter we've
decided you would be the best to trust with.
     Andi visualized him with a used-car salesman's smile and the mistaken
illusion that compliments would be coin to buy an appointment.
     "...problem is..." Andi closed her eyes for moment of respite.  "My time is
extremely tight and I'm leaving town Saturday...unless it can hold, I can't fit it
in..."
     "This is a delicate matter Ms. Wicksham..." the patient voice continued as
if she'd not just tried to brush him off.
     He exuded firm confidence.  Slick, patient lawyers like him battered with
smooth persistence.  But he pushed her buttons.  Her fee automatically bumped
up two brackets.
     "...its a matter of some urgency...we're prepared to pay a premium for
inconveniencing you."
     Pay a premium?  Too bad.  Andi picked up a pencil and bounced its eraser
on her desk.  He wouldn't pay in the denomination Traci would.  "The problem is,
Mr. Morse, my plate is full and I leave town in less than a week..."
     "I understand juggling busy schedules, Ms. Wicksham..." the voice
droned calmly persuasive; as if she'd implied she might be interested.  "This is
an unusual affair...if we could purchase an hour of your time...perhaps
tomorrow morning at ten-thirty...we would pay a fee of...say two hundred for the
inconvenience of this one meeting.  I'd very much like to lay this problem before
you...no obligation..."
     "Couldn't we discuss it over the phone..." Andi wheedled as she reached
for her appointment book.  The guy wasn't taking no for an answer.
     "I'm sorry..."  The practiced voice was calm but firm.  "Say, ten-thirty...here?"  He dangled the money like a worm on a hook, expecting
confirmation.
     "I don't know..." Andi stalled, sipping cold coffee to stall for time.  "...let
me check..." she glanced out the window and rolled her eyes.  "...no won't
do...how about quarter to twelve?"  She pulled the number from thin air--she
wouldn't be steamrollered far.
     "Eleven-forty-five...excellent!"  Morse dictated address and telephone
number and offered a goodby that sounded like he'd made a coup.  Andi made a
face and pushed aside her appointment book.  Her fee hitched up another
bracket and a half...not that she'd trade the work for Cabo.
     She spun her chair to stare out the window.  Templeton, Morse and
Bryant--they were strictly uptown--corporate acquisitions and environmental
litigation of the large, deep-pocket scale.  Tomorrow morning would be soon
enough to see what she could find on them--it never hurt to have an idea what
you'll face going in.
     Andi sighed and turned back to her keyboard.  Two more hours would
kick this report; she'd  start another tomorrow...a couple hundred bucks from
Morse over lunch and back to her grindstone through afternoon.  God she hated
office work...she'd never let this crap build up again--NEVER AGAIN!!!--she
resolved.
     Sure..like hell. 
     Investigation was dirty business.  In five years she'd rubbed elbows with
some incredible scum.  What she found surprising was that it was the better
class of client she felt slimed by--unethical, bourgeois cretins expecting to buy
unfair advantage--spoiled, yuppie professionals self-medicating with compound
tincture of arrogance.  God, she hated them and Morse didn't seem any
different.
     She glanced out the window at the dark, low sky.  Of course not all those
that graced her door were top-floating sludge; the one who's report she'd just
finished worked on the marginal edge, supporting two kids doing temp work. 
Good thing the other half of her clients had money and didn't flinch a being
charged up-front.  She'd come to peace with charging them more.  God bless
their selfish, self-centered souls...they greased the skids of the sled she
dragged.
     The phone rang again.  She let it go to its second ring before impatiently
grabbing it.  "Wicksham..."
     "Andi..."  It was Traci again.
     Andi's face flushed involuntarily flushed and her palms felt sweaty.  The
warmth of Cabo San Lucas beckoned.  "Hi babe...I was thinking of you."
     Traci's voice was icy.  "Cabo's not happening...I'm calling to tell you I'm
getting back with my ex.  It was wrong.  I hadn't finished..."
     Andi choked, drew a mental blank, then blurted out, interrupting.  "You're
breaking up with me????  What are you thinking?" she shrieked, mentally
searching for the problem...desperately grasping air for reasons.
     Traci's voice ground forward at a defensive clip.  "It's not like we were an
item...it'd only been three months..."
     It had been four.  "...but we'd plans..." The floor turned spongy and
dropped like an elevator to her emotional sub-basement.
     "I'm sorry...that's it."  Tracy fell into a brooding silence.
     "SORRY????  You're SORRY?"  Andi could feel the gasket blowing.
     "I'm not going to argue about it..."  Traci's slamming the phone down
sounded like a gunshot.
     Andi winced, all the worse.....no one to rant to.
     

     The evening went from worse to bad; receipts she needed for billing were
at her apartment, she could only get her friend Sonny's quirky message
extolling the virtues of fudge and her mind couldn't hold an idea long enough to
know what it was, much less write it down.
     Andi punched I Sonny's number again.  She could imagine Sonny's lizard
in its cage beside the phone machine, swiveling its eyes in different directions,
listening to the ringing, while Sonny was probably out with Paco getting silly
over Thai food.
     Frustration mired and solidified around her ankles, self discipline
evaporated--there was a malignant tinge to the office air--she'd been dumped
like a bucket of over-ripe compost.
     Dumped.  Damn-a-mundo...dumped...oh God.
     It would drive her to drink if she was an alkie.  She forced herself to focus,
but her fingers careened faster than her spelling and she ended up pounding
the keyboard in frustration.  She paced a figure-eight around the office, opened
the door just to slam it and careened the wastebasket off the filing cabinet with
a vicious kick.  Another two laps and she returned to typing; cursing lovers,
telephones, lawyers, and the mountainous chore that would chain her to her
desk forever.
     She was getting nowhere fast, so she cashed it in, rinsed the coffee pot,
emptied the trash, wiped uncluttered surfaces, flipped the lights and turned the
key, hurrying down the stairs and up the street to drown her sorrows in a double
chocolate fudge malt (double malt) and hazelnut-bittersweet chocolate truffle. 
Fuck 'em all and nuke communion.  Chocolate never lets you down.
     She dallied in an anonymous corner, grateful nobody near was playing
lovie-dovie.  The last thing she wanted was to go home to her empty apartment
and brood.  She ordered a hot apple juice and nibbled a biscotti, killing another
hour and a half.  
     When she got home there were two anxious calls from Sonny on her
machine.  Andi dialed, but Sonny'd gone out again and there was no one but the
lizard listening.   Whoever said all things would pass was an irrational optimist.


     The next morning, in a tan silk blouse, slacks and bolero jacket she
braved the tenth floor office of Templeton, Morse and Bryant. 
     She stepped from the brass appointed, oak-paneled elevator onto inch-thick iron grey carpet in-cut with sculpted teal and salmon geometrics laid over
ankle-deep padding.  She was in a wide hall across from a glass wall etched
with the firm's name--beyond the graciously opened and waiting glass doors
waited a tasteful French Provincial receptionist's desk with a bright young
woman in prim lace and fawn colored wool.
     Through open double doors on each side she could see the machinery of
their legal locomotive; double rows of blue upholstered cubicals housing
middle-aged professional legal secretaries and eager researchers ringed with
formidable banks of tan, four-high filing cabinets.   It was the picture of efficient
office culture with a vague background murmur of rustling paper and quiet
voices evoking an image of focused industry.
     She turned down the lace-collared receptionist's offer of coffee or Perier
and settled into one of the stiff couches in formal, high-ceilinged waiting room. 
The suite was nauseatingly tasteful--wide barren stretches of the low-tone
tertiary colors design schools must make a percentage from lined with low
couches vaguely of the Egyptian fad of Hollywood in the 1930's.  The doors
stood easily eight foot tall and probably weighed as much as a middle-aged
brick layer.
     Faint, jazz muzak tweeked far toward the bass tones enveloped her from
invisible speakers and the walls held impeccably chosen Georgia O'Keeffes. 
Law was a lucrative business in the realms this firm trod; it was a far cry from
the dogeared offices of the divorce and real estate lawyers she counted among
her usual clients.
     Lionel Morse swept in a minute later--ushering her with a solicitous bow,
down the hall to his office.
     "A partner of this firm has been murdered." Morse stated flatly after
swinging the door closed behind them.  "We'd like you to look into the matter."
     Andi liked that; down to business without formalities--starting even before
graciously waving her to a chair and choosing an identical one across a low
teak and wrought-brass table.  He could have talked from across the rosewood
desk waiting by the window--but didn't.  Morse gestured with a wave to her two-hundred dollar check, four photographs of a man in his mid-thirties and a one
page fact sheet that lay clipped together on the table.  The pictures were
casual, a slightly greying male, well dressed, professional.  He had the moves
down pat.
     "Saturday night at the Yacht Club.  Robert Bryant.  Brutally
apparently...there may have been a struggle.  The police aren't discussing it but
a friend told us blood was found."
     "But no body?" asked Andi in some surprise.
     "No body...it could have been thrown in the river."  Lionel Morse looked
suitably distraught at the thought.
     "...you've never hired me before." Andi stalled.  It was flattering, but
being called from the minors to pitch as a starter in the Series set red flags
waving madly.  "You must have big-time agencies on retainer, surely they could
handle this."  Andi smiled.  It was all very nice, but she'd murmur a polite
"Thanks, but no," take her check and back away.  "Murder is a matter for the
police..."
     Morse didn't bat an eyelash.  "We feel our usual investigators may be a bit
too close for this...they'd lack perspective...and..."  Morse turned aside a
moment, pursed his lips and then continued.  "...we felt you might an easier
entry into the circles he traveled."
     Andi looked him dumbfounded.  Had they investigated her personal life? 
How could she have a reputation in this town of eccentrics where even the a
past mayor posed as a flasher accosting a statue?  She stared at Morse in
disbelief.
     Morse looked out the window and then back to Andi.  "We have the
highest respect for your ability and discretion.  Your professionalism
recommends you."  He spoke evenly, neutrally, with a touch of chest-resonance
that evoked sincerity.  "This an issue we want handled delicately.  Scandal can
be extremely expensive..."
     Morse looked directly into Andi's eyes and smiled wanly.  "We trust the
police to handle the criminal end, but you're keeping abreast might give
opportunity for spin control..."  Morse sat back with a self-depreciating smile,
evidently resting his initial case.
     Andi sat speechless at the illogic of it, a moment later recovering enough
to shut her mouth.
     "Uhhh...what focus did you have in mind?" she finally asked lamely, not
having time for him would have been the best bargaining tactic, but as of
sixteen hours ago, her time lay unincumbered and she didn't think she could
claim it with a straight face.
     "Review contacts, friends, associates...you can question his secretary for
business contacts and related matters.  Probable motives,
opportunity...suspects...standard line."
     "I thought you trusted the police to handle the case?"  Andi tilted her head
and glared directly into his eyes.
     "Meaning...we don't expect you to step on their toes..."  Morse let the
sentence hang.   "What do you expect for a fee?" he ducked the punch and
countered.
     "I haven't accepted your case.  I've had plans to go to Mexico and have a
mountain of paperwork."
     "You need clerical help Ms. Wicksham..."  Morse parried with a lopsided
smile--a lucky guess or something he knew?  "We'll pay a reasonable daily fee
and expenses, plus...say another three thousand to offset rescheduling your
vacation.  Maybe it can help you get out from under your mountain..."
     The man was direct if anything.  Andi wondered just how much he knew of
her paperwork piles.  Who could have told him anything?  Nobody.  Did he know
just how barren her workload of paying cases was?
     Hopefully not.
     She told him four ninety-five a day--twice her usual which she usually
didn't collect--still, probably a single-digit fraction of his.
     Morse seemed physically relieved and passed across another small file.
     She glanced through the papers as he made general comments.  Then
after helping make an appointment with Bryant's secretary and giving a brief
tour of the office, they ended back at the front desk.  His smile remained as he
asked her to fax a contract and offered to sign originals in the afternoon.
     Retreating to the elevator, Andi tried to come to grips with what she'd
fallen into.  She had time for the work now that Mexico was down the tubes, the
bonus more than quadrupled her plane fare.  Anyway, with her relationship
skidded into a ditch and it's tangled wreckage still burning she'd be better off
with something to do.  And now she had money for a secretary if only she was
organized enough to put one to work--which she wasn't.
     Morse was probably avoiding his regular uptown investigators because
they'd work for his competitors as well and couldn't be trusted not to blab. 
Better to hire a small fish without access to people that mattered.  The scenario
spoke of potential dirt--Morse's partner Bryant must have been into something
sticky--why else go to this trouble?
     Andi stomped to her car lost in thought.  Bryant's secretary would be
interviewed at nine in the morning.  Meanwhile she had to crank Morse's
contract, snag a copy of the police report, view the crime scene, and get some
background on her client.


     The morning drizzle had stopped and, as she drove back across the
bridge, the sky was clearing.  Back at her office, a fax from Morse waited with
contract suggestions, she typed his changes and faxed the contract, opened a
"Bryant" subdirectory in her computer and phoned her old friend, now
"inspector" Ramirez--a buddy since teenage days when they toured city parks
together, smoking pot.
     "I can't give what I don't have Wicksham," he complained.  "I got a
standard initial report--which you can have--nothing special...time of call,
responding officers...a sketch of the scene, some pictures that don't show a
thing, some fingerprints we haven't traced...they're checking blood type to see
if it matches the guy who disappeared."
     "DNA...?"  Andi asked vaguely.
     "You watch too much TV....know what does that costs?  We don't even
have a body to say there's a crime.  He wasn't officially missing until yesterday. 
The guy could have tripped, cut his head and be off on a three day bender.  It's
too early to get excited."
     Andi scribbled notes.  "Nothing else?"
     Ramirez yawned.  "I can tell you we aren't putting time into it...nothing to
get worked up over...you being paid to take interest?"
     "Why else would I care?  By the way, you still owe me a pizza on your
dream Seattle would take the Nicks."
     "I should have had my head examined...next time, ignore me."
     "Next time I'll make it two pizzas and a Garden Burger." 
     "You skinny people got too high a metabolism...got to go...ciao, eh?"
     She tried calling Traci again--still the machine--she left a third message,
far more bitter than she'd intended.  Sonny wouldn't rise until noon--Andi
bounced the pencil on her desk and fumed.
     After talking with Ramirez, Andi reviewed her talk with Morse--she was
admittedly overwhelmed, her skepticism wasn't quite back in gear after the jolt
of breaking up.  He'd stated flatly that it was murder and she'd accepted it
without question--but the police didn't share the assumption were taking it
slower. Was the overstatement chosen to get her involved?  Jumping to
conclusions wasn't in character for down-town lawyers in million dollar suites. 
Andi made a mental note to set up a separate file on Morse.
     Next, she dialed the manager at the Yacht Club--Morse had made good his
promise to call him.  Norton Stredlow's voice balanced reserve with practiced
distance, as he agreed to an appointment a half-hour away.  She'd drive by the
police station to pick up a copy of the report first, then, take a minute to glance
through it before zig-zagging back and crossing the river.  She was cutting it a
little too fine and knew heading off she'd end up ten-minutes late--she might
have to check out the report while she was there.


     She'd been to the Yacht Club a couple of times in the past few years--once
for a wedding, another time for a business dinner.  It was, upwardly pretentious
in a Portland kind of way...simple not gaudy; the manager, Norton Stredlow's
lips were pinched in a disapproving pout, but he was polite to a fault as he sat
stiffly on the front third of his chair.  Evidently Morse's call was enough to make
him to perform, but not enough to make him happy about it.
     "Did you know Mr. Bryant?" Andi asked conversationally.
     "I knew who he was...he wasn't a member, if that's what you mean."
Stredlow murmured stuffily.
     "Can you tell me about the incident?" 
     Stredlow favored her with a sour look, then without a blink, ran down a
mental list of details.  Two nights ago Noris-SDI, a local high-tech firm, hosted a
party in the restaurant-lounge; Bryant had been there with Morse and fifty-three
other guests and ten of the Yacht Club employees.  At ten-thirty a staff member
reported the appearance of an accident in the boat house.  Stredlow inspected
it himself, seen the blood and called the police.
     "The person who reported the blood...are they here?"  Andi wished she'd
taken time to read the report.
     "No..."  It was obvious he wasn't going to volunteer the employee's name.
     "Can you get me a copy of the guest list?"
     "No.." the manager drawled haughtily, "We didn't invite the guests."  His
impatient glance at his watch implied that even if he had the list it might be
misplaced.  Andi didn't push him on the employees...hopefully Ramirez could
get it if important.
     They walked through the restaurant and on to the bar, the banquet room
and ample decks gazed down on the marina's river-wall, docks and boat house.
     The boat house stood on the concrete river-wall quay near the far arm of
the enclosed harbor crowding into the west side of the river.  A set of barn-like
doors and a standard one faced the river and were out of site from the Yacht
Club.  Locked and gated ramps led to upper middle-class pleasure craft and
sleek hulled yachts costing more than downtown condos.
     Yellow police streamers still sealed the building's doors, but she peered
in the windows.  The interior was uncluttered, but she couldn't see where the
blood was.  Rowing shells and oars filled racks crowding the far wall, cabinets
and a long work-bench lined another.  It had an athletic, utilitarian look;
scrupulously clean and well maintained, with open beamed ceiling and exposed
framing.
     "Not being a member, I suppose Mr. Bryant didn't have a key?" Andi
asked.
     "Not to my knowledge..." Stredlow replied a bit archly.  "But there are
often guests in and out."  He pointed a manicured finger.  "The was blood was
on the floor in front of that second cabinet...I suppose we'll be let in to clean
sometime...there were smears as if a body had been dragged."  He spoke as if
giving instructions to a janitor.
     Andi examined the deck more closely.
     "...washed away by the rain...it was already almost gone when the police
arrived."  The manager seemed bored and anxious to return to his desk.  Andi
took the hint, pulled out a card, and thanked him.
     Back in her car, Andi scratched out notes and unfolded the three page
police report again.  None of those questioned reported arguments or gunshots. 
The blood was discovered by a busboy collecting glasses--nobody'd been seen
entering or leaving the boat house, but then how hard would the police
investigate, with no body or other evidence and a society party going on? 
     The report mentioned miscellaneous tools, boat tally-logs, prescription
dark glasses, papers, a map, pencils and three drink glasses on the floor--one
chipped.  They were described as, "..signs of struggle.."  The blood was in a
single pool, mid-floor without splatter, streaked drag-marks made while the
blood was still wet led outside, then ended.  No weapon, no bullet casings, no
blood on any of the more obvious weapon-like tools, they'd used a light that
made blood stand out like florescent paint, but found nothing.  Multiple
fingerprints marked glasses, door knobs and woodwork, but none of the lab or
computer searching was completed.  She'd ask Ramirez for an update.
     The sky was beginning to cloud again, the air turning colder, Andi
shivered and wished she'd donned a warmer outfit after meeting Morse.  There
wasn't more to gain there, she tossed the paperwork to the passenger seat and
started her car.
     She'd eaten an apple mid-morning, but missed lunch and now had to rush
to see what Morse faxed back on their contract--maybe Sonny could be talked
into an early dinner.  Except for Andi's somewhat cryptic messages, Sonny
knew nothing of her suddenly down-turned love life.
     Back at her office was another from Sonny and call accompanying a fax
from Lionel Morse.  Lawyers were a pain--now he wanted a paragraph
committing weekly written reports, but he offered a chunky retainer as if to
make up for it.  Andi shook her head as she typed the changes; she'd have given
any reports he wanted with just a simple request.
     While the revamped contract printed, she phoned and reported that she'd
visited the Yacht Club and reviewed the police report.  Then she asked Morse
for help.
     "I need a copy of the party's guest list.  Noris-SDI hosted it?"
     Morse paused.  "I'll see what I can do..."  His voice trailed as if he were
writing a note.
     Andi seized the opportunity for another question.  "Why did you consider
this murder and not kidnaping or just disappearance?"
     "..probably just catastophizing, Ms. Wicksham..."  Morse's voice
remained conversational, with a light touch of self-depreciating humor.  "I was
distressed...and jumped to the conclusion.  We'd plans to meet a client and then
tie-up a few loose ends before calling it an evening.  He missed both
appointments...something he'd never done in seven years...then, he didn't call
Sunday, come in Monday or cancel appointments."
     "You must have suspected he had contacts capable of murder or you
wouldn't have suspected it...who do you think it could be?"  Andi pushed.
     "I really have no idea." 
     Morse's voice was a seamless mask of believability, but Andi didn't
believe him for a second.  "Personal friends...business contacts who would
profit from his disappearance?  Impending cases where his absence would
make a difference?  Murderers almost always have close ties.."  She resented
Morse making her pull details piece by piece.
     "No enemies I know of.  But he worked independently...ask his secretary,
Ms. Chang-Turner.  It'll my staff some time to review his client's status, maybe
I'll know more when that's completed."
     Andi ignored the deflection.  "Past clients or adversary's?  Who might
wish him harm?   Somebody lose a big case?"
     Morse's voice flowed calm and measured.  "Criminal law wasn't his
field...our clients come to agreements, they don't win or loose.  And none I can
think of had that sort of malice..."  The phone line lay quiet a moment.  "That's
the sort of thing I was hoping you'd turn up," he mentioned pointedly.
     Andi bit her lip.  "Do you know who he might have been seeing socially..?" 
She dangled the question hoping Morse would open up.  It strained credibility
that in seven years of late-night workaholism and attention to detail, he hadn't
learned more of a business partner.
     Morse loosened enough to volunteer that Bryant had discussed travel
knowledgeably, but divulged nothing of worth.  Signaling the end of the call he
stated that he'd be in the office until eight and have her retainer waiting.  Andi
mumbled a simple "..goodbye.." and hung up.
     She finally reached Sonny, wailed the story about Traci and agreed to
dinner at the Cafe Underground.  Back to work, she pecked away at her
backlog, reassuring herself that a lot of investigations seemed ill-defined until
well into the research phase.  She glanced at her watch, debating whether to go
first to Templeton, Morse and Bryant and then back to her apartment, or drop
her pending box by an inch and a half, then do dinner and take the contract by.
     She picked away for another forty-five minutes before burn-out made the
decision.  The new contract in a folder, she grabbed her overcoat, fled down the
stairs and back across the bridge to the search out an elusive late-afternoon
parking spot.
     After signing the papers with Morse she was held up by the Hawthorne
bridge raising.  Two cars back from the lowered gate she watched gloweringly--the tourist paddle wheeler only need for raising the bridge appeared to be a
three foot antenna with a small red banner.
     Under the overcoat she draped like a cape on her shoulders she still wore
the bolero coat and silk blouse she'd donned in the morning.  It was far too
fancy and far to thin to wear anywhere but among the high-rises--she'd
gratefully change into a couple of layers of shirts, coat and levis before meeting
Sonny for dinner. 






                            Chapter  2

     Through her  blackened snapper salad and the first bites of whip cream
lathered chocolate desert, Andi ranted about Traci's insensitivity and lack of
basic socialization.  Sunny loyally affirmed it was not something she'd done
wrong.  Traci was low-life scum despite her cute athletic butt and disarmingly
casual smile.
     Tiring of the subject about halfway into her dark chocolate, Andi filled
Sonny in on Bryant's disappearance and possible murder. 
     "Follow the money..." Sonny joked and shifted in her chair.
     "No money..."  Andi countered.  "That's a lot of the problem...standard
theory says motives lead to perpetrators.  Jealousy, money, hatred,
advantage...some reason for what's happened--whether he's dead or taking a
powder, there gotta be reasons."  Her spoon wavered like a lecturer's pointer,
then she made a sour face, "The client, Morse gave nothing but Bryant's phone
number and address."
     "Is Morse the suspect?" asked Sonny pointedly.
     "Looks like he's the front runner.  Tomorrow I'll do Bryant's neighbors and
start background checks."
     Sonny smiled supportively and squirmed about in her chair until she was
sitting on her foot. 
     
     
     Getting an early start Wednesday, Andi started files on Bryant and Morse
and rushed off to keep her appointment with Katherine Chang-Turner.
     She arrived ten minutes early, but Ms. Chang-Turner came out
immediately.  She wore a severe grey blue dress that exquisitely set off her
medium-length black hair and gold jewelry.  Andi turned down coffee and
followed to her executive sized desk in a private alcove beyond a busy room of
cubicles.
     "I've made copies of Mr. Bryant's appointment books and have listed on-going cases and those completed in the past two months."  Chang-Turner began
as they seated themselves.  "It seemed you might need that sort of thing. 
And...Mr. Morse asked me to pass on this guest list."  She offered the two pages
suspended at arm's length until Andi took it.
     Andi glanced at the list, there were the little reference notes of a fax at
the top of the page--that would give her a phone number source if it turned out
interesting.
     "..thanks..." was all Andi could sputter.  Chang-Turner's efficiency must
be the difference between twenty-five and fifty thousand a year secretaries. 
Must be nice to have things anticipated and waiting before you ask. 
"..appointment books--plural?" she carefully prodded.
     "On top is mine--the computer calendar I keep--we both accessed it.  The
other's his hand notated journal kept for billing.  It has occasional notes and
lists telephone calls, length of meetings and errata not scheduled in advance." 
     Ms. Chang-Turner was rigorously professional--no doubt well worth her
professional's salary.  There was no mistaking the intelligence behind her
practiced, almost genuine-looking smile.  She continued without prompting,
explaining office procedures and Mr. Bryant's usually over-booked schedule.
     Pencil in hand, Andi glanced from the papers in her hand to the notebook
laying open in her lap and wondered vaguely how Chang-Turner put up with the
subservient role.
     "In the five years I've worked with Mr. Bryant he'd never missed an
appointment."
     "Vacations or business travel?"  Andi peeked up as she jotted notes.
     "In the last two of weeks he visited Seattle twice, before that Vancouver
BC and Boise, last summer he vacationed in Jamaica." Chang-Turner's face
remained a pleasant mask.
     "...family or financial pressures?" Andi prodded.
     "His mother died a few months ago.  He flew back to Toronto for the
funeral."
     "He was Canadian?"  Andi asked as she continued to scribble.
     "Yes, member of both Canadian and American bars.  It gave advantage in
international agreements."
     "Environmental?"  Andi queried as she read.
     "No...business law, contracts, mergers, representation on this or that." 
Ms. Chang-Turner beamed her disarming smile.
     "Who among your clients or adversaries might have been embittered?
...even a little bit."  Andi pushed the point.  "I don't mean to compromise
attorney privilege, but..."
     "..no..it's OK.  Mr. Morse encouraged me to be completely forthcoming." 
Chang-Turner reached for the sheaf of papers and shifted her chair so they
could look at them together.  Picking up a sharpened pencil she paged through
to the client lists.  "...we'll go through them all and I'll tell you what I think."


     They spent an hour going through lists and the billing journal.  It appeared
most of Morse's legal work was non-contentious and routine.  The few disputes
Ms. Chang-Turner alluded to seemed exclusively business--unlikely issues to
strike out at an opponent's lawyer over.  The closest she came to describing
hostility was "there might have been a problem."
     The list of possibly dissatisfied clients was small.  Andi would compare
what she had, maybe something would jump out.  She asked to see Bryant's
office.
     It had a million dollar view to the south, a glimpse of the Willamette River
on one side and the Health Sciences University on the other.  She scanned the
room quickly--no degrees on the walls, no personal pictures on the desk, she
pulled open the unlocked desk drawers, no phone numbers or laundry tickets or
notes, no scraps, receipts or business cards.  She tried the other drawers, but
found nothing that helped round Bryant as a person.
     "...phone numbers?  Where does he keep addresses and names?" she
asked. 
     Chang-Turner switched on his computer and drew up a file.
     "May I have a print out?" Andi asked, hopefully.  Chang-Turner typed a
few pecks and a printer in the outer office began to hum.
     Andi scanned directory after directory of Bryant's computer files, finding
a directory named RBRYANT with a few personal letters and notes she
requested and got.
     She invested another twenty minutes, but nothing grabbed her eye.  It
would take months to dig through actual files and with attorney privilege she
didn't even bother to ask.
     "How about his personal phone numbers?  Could there be hidden files or
directories?"
     "If there are I don't know about them." the secretary replied prissily.   "I'm
not a computer expert."
     Andi gave up and they returned to Chang-Turner's desk.
     "Had he planned a trip or talked of vacation time."
     Chang-Turner shook her head.  "I arrange tickets and hotels and he had a
full week's schedule here."
     "How about his personal life...he must have taken personal calls every
now and then."  Andi looked for signs of defensiveness.
     "Calls are routed directly to his phone...voice-mail's the default.  I'm only
called for appointments or something special..."  Her voice was clear and
seamless, without a glimmer of self-consciousness.
     "What do you know of his life outside the office?"  Andi asked more
directly.  For all her appearance of cooperation Chang-Turner wasn't
volunteering much.
     "I never enquired into his personal life." said Ms. Chang-Turner sedately.
     "Is he involved with someone...intimately?" asked Andi lightly.
     "I don't know...he might have been..." replied Chang-Turner vaguely.  "I
never asked...is it important?" 
     "Usually..." Andi snapped irritably.  "Back to family or financial
pressures..." Andi guided.
     "I believe he'd been estranged from his family some years...and at least
as far as gross income...this firm seems quite stable." 
     "Social life, friends..."  Andi tried.
     "It was none of my business..."
     "Does he enjoy beer or watch football?  Does he go for walks at
lunchtime?  Did you ever see him after working hours in social situations."  Andi
let her exasperation slip through.
     "We never discussed beer or football and I live rather quiet life."  Ms.
Chang-Turner said defensively.
     Andi sat staring incredulously.  Chang-Turner gazed back, only an eye
blink marring her implacable surface.  "Would you say Mr. Bryant is a outgoing
sort of person?"
     "He has a warm manner and very good social skills."  Ms. Chang-Turner
turned on the warmth again.
     "Yes...people in this firm seem to all have very good social skills." Andi
responded with what she hoped came across as irony.  "...it must be good for
business.  About Mr. Bryant's voice mail..."
     "I'll ask Mr. Morse for access." she said, making a note to herself.  Then,
"Oh my...look at the time..."  She offered a little hopeless shrug.
     Andi thanked her warmly for her efforts and asked if she could call with
other questions.  They rose together, walked to the outer glass doors, then Andi
rode the elevator down alone.


     Back at her office she contrasted her faded posters to the decorations at
Templeton, Morse and Bryant, her thread-bare rugs to their plush pile and their
professional demeanor to her own, rather blue-collar, ground-smooth, but not
polished persona.
     She was definitely working for but not with Morse's firm.  She fumed a
moment and dialed Ramirez.
     "Ramirez...it's Andi." she stated simply.
     "Hey Wicksham...on that disappearance at the Yacht Club, you'll likely be
glad to know that we've turned full professional attention to the matter..."
     "Is that a good sign, my friend?"
     "...well, maybe not for you.  It came with an official `mums the word' from
the brass...my bet is that your client has bent city hall's ear and word is being
passed through the ranks."
     "...you assigned to the case?"
     "No such luck...it's Lieutenant Max's, but to make numbers work it's on
my list with my rotating couple dozen...I'll go to meetings and review memos..."
     "You got the guest list for the party that he disappeared from?"  Andi
asked perkily.
     "No.  Max asked about it yesterday...as of this morning there hadn't been
progress."
     "Well, unofficially of course, I might have access..." she rustled a sheet of
paper next to the receiver "...two pages of names, numbers and addresses."
     "Well...there might be interest...couldn't go official or you'd be personally
involved.  I'll see if we can leak something in return for the favor...not that we
have anything interesting...cause we got basically zip."  Ramirez gave a deep
sigh and continued "...so when you want pizza?"
     Andi chuckled a complement on his professionalism and said
"Tomorrow's good...I'll bring you the list."
     When Ramirez asked about Traci, Andi moaned that it was over.
     Ramirez turned warm and solicitous, "..the shrew," he said "didn't know a
good thing when she had it.  You got to come by for a barbecue...you and your
open social calendar.  You must be heartbroken, you had high hopes."
     "Yeah.." Andi pursed her lips into a twisted smile, "Give my love to
Tanya."
     "Tomorrow for lunch, Wicksham..."
     She threw the papers into a desk drawer, locked the office and returned
to her car, running the conversation with Chang-Turner over and over in her
mind.  Bryant's house was in a closely built transitional northwest
neighborhood--transitional from working-middle to upper-yuppie class.
     On the right side of Bryant's house, a boxy duplex condo stood behind
established street trees, its over-built garage overwhelming the fake-Victorian
gingerbread and stained glass entrance.
     On the other stood a fine example of restored overblown-gingerbread
with sun-ray spindle spider webs around the porch--the baroque, pre-psychedelic passion of the 1890's nouveau-riche.  Across the street were four
row houses on twenty-five foot lots built three-foot apart; Carpenter-Gothic
mini-subdivision of an industrial age developer.  Two of the four were newly
painted--the other two thirty years in need of painting and repair--waiting the
whim of some slumlord owner.
     Andi decided to tackle the duplexes first.  A middle-aged Hispanic woman
at the first unit told her Bryant was a good neighbor, a gentle man who didn't
have noisy parties.  She hadn't noticed if he'd been around the last few days.
     The neighboring unit was decorated in scarce, hardwood-floored
modernity with stark white walls and over-large modern paintings in red and
sunflower yellow.  The resident first swore he never paid attention to neighbors,
but then reported that though he didn't know him, Bryant seemed to have
"dates" or at least liaisons with both men and women--one at a time--very good
looking partners, who often stayed until quite late, sometimes even leaving with
Bryant Saturday or Sunday mornings for brunch about eleven.
     Andi nodded understandingly as the man rambled on about Bryant's
interior decorating.
     "...at least he's had the decency to get good advice...more money than
taste, if you know what I mean."  Andi flashed a conspiratorial smile and asked
if Bryant had been around the last few days.
     "...on vacation I believe...after a yelling, screaming argument." the man
offered with a knowing wink, "left Friday or Saturday in a cab instead of his
green Jag."
     "An argument?" Andi asked "How do you know?"
     "Well I live right next door, don't I?  I heard them, yelling off and on for
maybe half an hour."
     "Men's voices?  Women's voices?  Did you recognize them?" Andi tried to
keep her voice bland and conversational.
     "Men's? Women's?  Hard to tell...Robert had a rather high-pitched voice--I
recognized him...the other sounded like a woman's voice, but later I saw a man
leaving.
     "Description?"
     "...younger middle aged--under forty, but just barely... brown hair,
medium build, medium height.  It was raining so I couldn't see real good.  Got in
a green car and drove away."
     "Bryant's car?" she asked hopefully.
     "No, no...it was something American and a different green." 
     "...two or three days ago?" Andi asked, hoping to jog a little more
information, the description was vague enough to include half the men in
Portland.
     "Oh, at least..." the man waved.  "He hasn't been home in the last
couple...there's something wrong isn't there?"
     Andi reassured him that she didn't know, but that she'd been asked to
check up on him by a mutual friend.  She said "Goodby" and returned to the
sidewalk.
     Nobody answered at the house on the left side of Bryant's, or in two of the
row houses straight across.  Of the other two, the man in the first didn't seem to
know there were people living across the street, staring across the pavement in
apparent disbelief.
     The hostile old woman in the other appeared dressed in a house coat and
seemed displeased at being pulled away from her TV talk show by a butchy-looking woman on a fools-errand.
     Andy threw in the towel and drove back to her office.







                            Chapter  3

     Andi worked with her shirt sleeves folded up, her notebook beside her
and coffee cup to the side.  There were three firms Chang-Turner noted with
minor conflicts that showed in the last two weeks of Bryant's journal.  Houston
Light from All American Industries came twice during the week before the party
and once the preceding week.  He logged four telephone calls to that billing,
mid-week before the party.
     R.I. Drexler from Brian-Core, Inc. met with him once and made three calls
within three days before the party.  Sandra Ibbe from Noris-SDI met twice and
phoned once.  Andi made a note to phone Chang-Turner and ask for details.
     On a whim she telephoned Bryant's home phone number and listened to
his pleasant, high-tenor wish callers a fine day and invite them to leave a
message.  The machine beeped its short electric buzz and Andi heard silence
until she hung up.
     She looked up the number for immigration and asked the receptionist if it
was possible to track the use of a Canadian passport.  After seventeen minutes
on the phone, most of that on hold, she learned that written requests were
processed as per current immigration and international law and would take
weeks if not months for evaluation.
     Andi spent the next hour typing notes into computer files.  It always
seemed such a waste of time, but reports were the inevitable bottleneck in the
path toward payment.  With things typed in, it was easy to excerpt sections for
weekly reports.  Still, she begrudged every second it took out of her day.
     A glance at her watch.  Four thirty--should she go home or make another
dozen phone calls, take a walk, go the Y for weights and a sauna, or sit pecking
away at her backlog?
     Guilt decided the question--raising its head and hissing that she was lazy;
she'd shave another inch from the top of her mountain instead of working on
Bryant's disappearance.  She'd work as late as she could stomach, then catch a
plate of pasta at the Cafe Underground before swinging back toward home.
     She slogged away in silence.  No one waited up for her--no one offered to
distract her with a movie.  God, her personal life was tragic.  It wasn't fair--even
loud, obnoxious, people had relationships.  Why was she summarily dumped? 
She ruffled her hair with both hands, pushed the self-pity from her mind and
settled down to work.
     

     Thursday morning Andi didn't want to get out of bed.  She listened to the
vague traffic noises and indistinct human sounds that leaked through the walls
from the world outside--the barely audible voices, slamming doors, the
clattering heeled background of life.
     She lay warm in her blankets while outside in the morning grey, half-light,
the temperature hovered barely above freezing and the air would bite colder
than ice.  She heard cars grinding and being pumped to a roar, clear ringing
footsteps, and voices talking loud.  She let them drift away.
     Some time later she awoke again and listened, eyes shut against daytime
glare--a bevy of pre-adolescents passed by loudly and a quarrelsome
conversation drifted up from the apartment of the wheelchair bound jeweler
downstairs.  The half-heard voices set her thinking.
     Who was the voice Bryant argued with shortly before disappearing?  How
could she investigate his personal life with everybody was so damned closed? 
She'd learned he had "friends" who came to dinner--but were they business or
social, intimate or casual?  He must have shopped and cooked, talked on the
phone and presumably went to movies and music.
     Andi pulled a pillow over her head and willed the questions away.  Who
would know Templeton, Morse and Bryant's business?  What were Bryant's
driving forces?  Financial troubles?  Disputes?  Outside threats?  Relationships?
     Was Morse's concern for Bryant or his own involvement?  Chances were,
she digging up facts so he'd knew how to muddy the waters?
     There would be no more lying in bed this morning; the demons were
already tapping demands in her brain.  Andy threw her pillow across the room,
indulged in a silent, frustrated scream, kicked the cover to the floor and
stomped into the bathroom for a shower.
     

     An hour later, Andi sat at her desk, cradling the telephone against her ear
and quickly jotting notes.  Chang-Turner was as helpful and as frustrating as
she was before.  Houston Light was a woman--CEO of All American Industries, a
conglomerate running paper mills, a high-tech manufacturing plant, and some
small time electronics businesses...all with reputations for unsavory
environmental and business practices.
     R.I. Drexler was president of Brian-Core, Inc. an engineering and
development firm Andi remembered from an article in the Oregonian.  They
were pushing through an industrial plant after the hostile takeover of a business
that held a major portion of the site.  Andi made a note to look it up.
     The third person, Sandra Ibbe from Noris-SDI was vice president, an
attorney, and point-person in acquiring software development contracts for
military and industrial applications.
     That much was volunteered with little prompting, but that was the end of
it.  Chang-Turner claimed no knowledge of or opinion about any business with
Bryant and she stonewalled, changed the subject, obfuscated, or otherwise
avoided every question on Morse or Bryant.
     Andi hung up and re-dialed, this time asking for Mr. Morse.  She got the
receptionist--he was busy.  Andi settled angrily for voice-mail.
     He called back ten minutes later.  Confronted by bland conciliation Andi
had to down-shift, asking through clenched teeth to suggest contacts.
     Morse listened quietly and shuffled her off with an offer to "look into the
matter...."  He excused himself and hung up--Andi was left holding her phone to
her ear, open mouthed and dumbfounded.  She grabbed her coat, stormed
down the stairs and walked a couple of blocks though the cold to bring herself
back to calm.


     Back at her desk she tried a blind call to each of the companies just to
hear their corporate receptionist's style.  It was singularly uninformative.
     There was busy work to do.  She copied the party's guest list with the fax
notation folded out of view and put it in an unsealed envelope.  Then she
scribbled the morning's questions into her notebook, with an eye to formulating
strategies for each.  At last, she broke down and phoned Traci only to get her
answering machine again.
     Mama said there'd be days like this--but what did mama know?  She
started Morse's first weekly report, glanced at the time and decided it was time
to head to Flying Pie Pizza, it was early enough so she could wind up and over
Mount Tabor--it would be a decent place to think.
     There was a light mist falling.  Mount Tabor was the remains of an old
cinder cone--said to be the only volcano in the city limits of any continental US
city.  Whether or not it was true, it was a park threaded with forested drives,
strategically planted between her office and Flying Pie.
     She grabbed her umbrella and walked up the road to a bench with a view
of Mount Hood.  It's glacier caught the sun through a break in the clouds and
gleamed, framed by thunder-heads like some fabled island rising from a sea of
cloud.
     Years ago she'd stood at that very spot listening to an argument.  The
scene lingered in her mind.  It was drizzling of course--Sonny's older cousin
Danny, a seedy looking forty, argued with a woman twenty-five years older.
     "...fucking veterans." Danny struck out at vulnerable points--maybe
hoping someone would strike back.
     "They paid for your freedom.."  The woman waved her arms.
     "...killing strangers without caring."  Danny almost spit his return.
     "They defended our country..." the woman shrieked--implying he was
pinko peace-scum.
     "The Vietnamese never threatened us...we betrayed America--killing
children for Chevron."  He kicked at the ground in contempt.
     Andi had left them there--it would never end.  The benches weren't there
back then.  "..you don't know...I was there..." he'd screamed in the woman's
face.  "How can you defend murderers with our flag?" 
     A month later he disappeared--just never returned to his rented room--that must be why she was thinking of him now.  He never did turn up.  But he
was far from a corporate lawyer.  Andi pushed him from her mind--she hadn't
been paid to investigate Danny and there wasn't blood on a boat house floor.
     Today joggers, lovers holding hands, bicyclists and young skate-board
youths shared the pedestrian road spiraling around the peak.  Portlanders--ignoring the off and on drizzle.
     The view of Mount Hood was lost to mist and all these years later, Danny's
voice hung in the air--Andi wound her way back down to her car. 


     Ramirez was waiting when she got to Flying Pie, evidently taking a
working lunch.  He already ordered their usual, small Sromboli--pepperoni,
onions, green peppers, and Italian sausage.  He'd chosen a corner table next to
a woman with shaved head and tattoos eating calzone with a man dressed
totally in yellow.  They were talking about skiing.  Andi and Ramirez sipped
water and exchanged third-hand gossip.
     "Ramirez..." Andi said, pushing her envelope over to him.  "...you do good
work."
     "Yeah, what do you want?  I owed the pizza, but I don't know if there's
anything more I can help with."  He casually pushed across an envelope of his
own.  "Copies of Bryant's vehicle records and the lab report.  Blood-type
narrows it to something like twenty percent of the population.  Could of been
anybody's.  No significant fingerprints, not Bryant's anyway...just a
maintenance worker at the Yacht Club and two guys from rowing clubs...all with
alibis.  Oh...and the glasses found at the scene were Bryant's prescription..."
     Andi didn't touch the papers.  A moment later Ramirez' name was called
and she went to get the pizza.
     "Is he a missing person yet?"  she asked, her mouth full of the best pizza
west of the mid-Atlantic. 
     "Missing person?  Without a body or witness they made it an murder
investigation...what a world!!  No body, no motive, no
weapon...nothing...somebody's got a lot of pull."
     "Any hope of solving it?"  Andi slurped after wiping her mouth with a
napkin.
     "Not a snowball's unless we get something to go on...  Oh yeah, a lawyer
hired by Templeton, Morse and Bryant...that's your boys?"  Ramirez met her
eyes.
     She nodded as she bit.
     "...filed a request for some of the boat house blood.  They want to run
DNA tests to see if it's Bryant's."  Ramirez shrugged and let out a tired breath. 
"...it's their money, but it won't mean anything."
     Andi shrugged her shoulders--it was another rather important piece
Morse neglected to pass on.
     Ramirez continued, "One thing came up...an apparently unrelated report
of a boat stolen from the dock just below the boat house...disappeared the night
of the party."  He paused for another piece of pizza.
     "Stolen boat...?"  Andi looked up at Ramirez's face.
     "Mmiffell..pappt" Ramirez pointing with his little finger to his envelope.
     "Thanks."  Andi smiled and took a drink of water.
     Ramirez swallowed his mouthful and said "You got to come for a winter
barbecue.  Tanya wants to feed you chicken thighs and chocolate to see you
through the trauma."
     Andi and Ramirez chit-chatted over the cooling pizza.  She chuckled over
Chang-Turner and Morse, passed on Bryant's neighbor's mention of yelling, and
bragged about the plushness of Templeton, Morse and Bryant's offices. 
Ramirez nodded sagely and promised to pass on anything near the blurred line
of department confidentiality.
     Having stretched the lunch as long as they could, they grinned at each
other, traded congenial belches and went their separate ways. 


     Andi just topped the stairs at her office as a bicycle delivery guy in a neon
jersey with a small brown envelope knocked on her door.  Andi signed his
clipboard, tossed Ramirez' envelope in a drawer and dumped dump the
packet's contents on her desk--there was an audio cassette neatly labeled
"Robert Bryant-voice mail" enfolded in a type-written note on Templeton, Morse
and Bryant letterhead and a somewhat crumpled napkin.
     The note, signed by Lionel Morse, affirmed that the tape was Robert
Bryant's voice mail and that the police were receiving a copy too.  Andi set the
cassette aside and was tossing the crumpled napkin when she saw something
printed in pencil,
          
               Lon Lively
               (homophobe--offer $).

On the other side of the napkin was a phone number.  
     "Dollars to donuts.." she thought "..it's not Morse's handwriting."  She
compared his signature to the penciled block letters--no similarity, but then she
was no expert.
     She unfolded the paper napkin--a bit stained, somewhat used, standard
issue, cheap commercial stock like you could find in any establishment selling
food under five dollars.  "Lon Lively-homophobe"--she chuckled...she'd give the
man a call.
      There wasn't a cassette player in her office--it was part of her regime to
make the office a place of work--no computer games on hard disk, no
crossword puzzles, no dart board or down-sized basketball hoop over the
wastebasket.  The one concession was a low-fi radio left purposefully off except
during the most routine and boring chores.
     There were distractions enough just outside, enough stray thoughts
sprang unasked into her brain.  It was survival discipline; the office was
maintained as a place of toil.  Small businessperson rule #37A "never screw
around when you're pretending to work."
     She'd bring a cassette deck tomorrow to transcribe the tape.  Bryant's
client's needed to be researched.  No sense talking to Lively without first doing
her homework.
     And then there was the party's guest list to go through.  She'd make calls
between other chores.  Most folks worked daytimes so it would be evening and
weekend work.  
     She drove across back across the river to the newly earthquake
remodeled library to winnow the "Business and Commerce" microfilm files for
anything she could find on All American, Brian-Core and Noris-SDI.  Patience
was the primary virtue here and she enjoyed it as a puzzle.  Given enough time
in research, one thing inevitably led to another--single names or references
branching into others.  It was puttering work and would just about kill the day.


     She spent the evening with Sonny and Paco, eating takeout Thai food and
playing Skipbo and Wizards--losing at both as a good guest should.  Paco had a
mysterious past, something he never talked about that left him knowledgeable
of spy-craft minutia.  Now he wrote a column in a dozen newspapers under the
pen-name Leonard Manx and hung around Sonny like a puppy.
     When they started playing footsie and sharing significant looks, Andi
called it a night.  Back home, she tried to conjure images of mangos and Traci,
but the blond face of Traci's ex loomed between them and she gave up in
frustration.


     Friday morning Andi woke in the dark before her alarm thinking back to
the lunch with Ramirez.  A boat stolen the night of the party?  She mulled the
thought as she showered, dressed and sat down to a bowl of cold cereal, trying
to remember the setting.  She hadn't gone down to the dock.  She couldn't be
sure, but it seemed that if Bryant's body had been thrown down to the water
there it would be trapped by the marina's encircling arms.
     It was too obvious--there had to have been a boat.  She kicked herself for
not pacing out the crime, left her half-finished bowl of cereal in the sink, pulled
on a coat and raced back to the office.
     Ramirez' slim, paper-clipped envelope was in her bottom drawer--she
paged quickly to the boat report.
     Reported early Sunday morning.  Twenty-eight foot cabin cruiser, double
inboard engines, lots of electronic gadgetry, valued at approximately a hundred
and ninety grand.  Owner and person reporting the theft: R.I. Drexler.
     Yes...Andi felt her heart shift up a gear.
     She quickly shuffled though Chang-Turner's list of clients. R.I. Drexler--president of Brian-Core, Inc. with contact with Bryant the week before the
party.  Andi grinned and felt a quick smug flush.
     She typed Drexler's address and phone number into her file and picked up
the phone to call Ramirez.  He didn't answer and when she punched zero to
page him the duty officer said he wouldn't receive calls until eight-thirty, would
she like his voice mail?
     It took a moment for the comment to sink in.  Andi looked at her watch--seven thirty-three. 
     "Damn..." she cursed, what was she doing working so early?  She re-locked the office and stomped downstairs; she'd drive across to Java Jan's,
suck coffee and scan a newspaper until it was safe to call Ramirez.


     Ramirez answered the phone like a man condemned to endless
paperwork and phone calls.  Andi didn't bother with their usual small talk,
cutting right to the proverbial chase.
     "It's Andi...the guy Drexler who owns the boat missing from the Yacht
Club is a client of Bryant's...made three phone calls to Bryant before the party
and met him at his office the day before..."  The words tumbled out so quickly
she had to retrace the path to get Ramirez on track.
     "Well...nobody her's done much." he yawned.  "Max's got other fish to
fry."
     "Might be your chance to be a hero..."  Andi gave blatant manipulation a
shot. 
     "You don't understand police procedures, Wicksham..." Ramirez had
slipped into his WC Fields parody.  "If I report something like this I have to tell
people where I learned it..."
     He paused, but Andi didn't interrupt.
     "A guest list can just mysteriously show up in a file, stray remarks can be
attributed to anonymous contacts, but something like this the DA may want to
run with.  Telling the truth will rope you into a can of worms and waste
anywhere from a couple of days to weeks with nobody at all to foot your
bill...you want that grief?"
     Andi let the phone gather dust as she thought it over.  "So, you're the
pro," she answered.  "...figure an angle.  I'm just doing a friendly deed--like
helping a old lady across a street."
     "OK scout..." Ramirez replied in his driest of voices, "Something alluding
to the calls might be on that tape with the voice mail stuff on it, right?"
     Andi scratched behind her ear with a pencil and allowed that it might.
     "The tape's languishing until some intern can be pulled away from file-clerking to listen to it...say I build a fire under the matter so we have a
reasonable lead...you follow?  You say the guy's name is Drexler, with an `X' and
that he's a client of Bryant's?"
     "Yeah, Drexler."  Andi answered impatiently.  "...name and address on
your boat report.  What you don't have is that he's president of Brian-Core,
Inc....that's the business name that ties him to Bryant.  Bryant's schedule and
phone calls can be had from the secretary at Templeton, Morse and Bryant."
     "Somebody already questioned her, but didn't get that..."  He tisked, in
dismay as he finished writing.  "OK, my friend..." Ramirez drawled as he
finished.
     "Ramirez...if all works out you'll be a hero and owe me two lunches at El
Loco Burrito."
     "Hero hell..." Ramirez growled.  "You're going to break me with these
lunches...if this doesn't work you're going to be named in our report and curse
the day you met me."
     "Ciao my friend...my work here is done."  Andi tried a Lone Ranger voice.
     "Sayonara, kemosabe..." Ramirez replied as he rang off.


     She dashed home to get her belt-clip tape player and returned to sit
staring out her office window listening through headphones taking notes.  The
messages were strung together end-to-end for what seemed to be a month.  She
numbered each call from the tape's beginning with names and businesses.  No
telling how much junk was on the tape.  In-depth, verbatim notes would take a
lot of rewinding and seemed a waste.  She jotted the time when people gave it
trying to get a feel for the passage of time.
     It took more than two hours to finish and filled four notebook pages.  In
the two weeks preceding the party, Houston Light from All American, R.I.
Drexler and Sandra Ibbe from Noris-SDI left messages, all three sounded like
they nursed foul moods.  Cross-referencing with his phone log, it appeared he
either didn't return some calls or didn't log them in.
     Even more interesting were messages made after Bryant's
disappearance--two calls by Drexler; both demanding return calls as soon as
possible, with a fair dose of hostility flavoring the greeting.
     Unless Drexler was exceptionally cool and calculating and left the
message to throw off hounds, the message implied that he didn't know Bryant
was missing.  That would be enough to bump him off Max's short-list of
suspects. 
     She considered phoning Ramirez and sharing that insight, but thought
better of it.  Maybe the recruit assigned to transcribing the tape would miss the
significance of the timing and the city would put some effort into checking
Drexler out.  One could always hope.
     She paged through Bryant's vehicle records, the forensic reports and
laboratory analysis---highlighting everything that might fatten her weekly
reports.  Another half-hour of typing notes and scratching her head and it was
lunch time.  She phoned Sonny and sweet-talked her into meeting at the Cup
and Saucer, she for lunch and Sonny for her usual noon-breakfast.


     That afternoon she called Lon Lively.  The gruff, annoyed voice
challenged with "What do you want?" instead of "Hello?"  
     "This is Andi Wicksham Mr. Lively..." Andi played no-nonsense-business-woman-with-a-smile.  "...I'm a private investigator here in Portland."
     She paused to allow let him respond, but the phone hung silent.  "I've
been retained by a local client with interest in some business dealings with
Templeton, Morse and Bryant and understand you might have some knowledge
of them...I'm willing to pay you fifty dollars for an hour or so of your time."
     "Fuckers..."  Lively mumbled.
     "Beg pardon?"  Andi queried perkily.
     "Sure, I know some shit they did.  They canned me you know..."  Lively
seemed like he might have already started drinking.
     Andi made murmuring, understanding sounds and considered the pros
and cons of interviewing him with alcohol on board.  
     "Who are you again..?" He asked suspiciously.  "Fifty dollars...?"
     Andi re-introduced herself and agreed to meet at a hole in the wall bar up
Sandy Boulevard.  "...if you don't think you can trust me you don't have to stay
and earn the money, OK?"
     Lively allowed that it sounded fair.  Andi said "Forty-five minutes or an
hour? ...say two o'clock?"
     Lively grunted agreement and hung up.
     Andi locked her office and rushed home to change into her one and only
plain-print cotton dress, picking nondescript black pumps and a non-matching
handbag to complete the disguise.  She took ten crisp ten-dollar bills from a
book on Islamic Art and rummaged in her underwear drawer for an old pair of
funky glasses.  Then she strode to the bathroom, took out her contacts, slipped
into her coat and dashed back to her car.
     The bar was a greasy cafe with a full liquor license and pretensions as a
lounge despite its graveled parking lot and faded roof-top sign.  Andi parked at
the curb so her equal rights bumper stickers wouldn't sour her story.
     The dark, humid interior was lit by beer signs and three televisions turned
to golf--it smelled of strong spirits, old tobacco, spilt beer and oblivion.
     It took a minute for her eyes adjust.  There were a handful of people in
view.  Two greying, women bartenders moved slowly before three patrons at
the bar who seemed all but passed out over their drinks.  An oddly matched
couple seemed to be negotiating a romantic encounter at a table and single
men sat facing the door.
     Andi stepped slowly toward the bar as she searched the corners for other
people, it was too dark to distinguish faces.  She should have asked Lively what
he was wearing or told him she'd carry a newspaper or something, but just
before reaching the barstools a man emerged from the shadows and cut
directly to her side.
     "You her?" he demanded cryptically.
     Andi recognized the voice.  "Andi Wicksham." She let her name hang in
the musty air and didn't offer her hand.  Lively was quite a bit younger than he
sounded.  Late twenties at the outside, but already sallow and depleted alcohol
and darkness.
     Lively led them back to a corner booth and sat stiffly against he black
naugahyde seat.  "You brought the money?"
     Andi pursed her lips and slowly nodded.
     "No checks..." he demanded abruptly.
     "No check, Mr. Lively."  Andi opened her handbag and pulled out five
crisp bills, splaying them on the table before her.
     Lively reached for the money, but she lay her hand across it.  He paused
and she pushed two bills across the table.  One of the bartenders made her way
across the room.
     "Why don't I buy you a beer Mr. Lively?" Andi offered brightly.  He glanced
up at he approaching bartender and quickly pocketed the twenty dollars.
     "..a beer for me, she told the matron, and..."
     "...boilermaker..." Lively said without looking up.  He fell silent until the
waitress left.  "Templeton et al...cream-puff assholes...faggot fucking yuppies. 
They fired me you know."
     Andi nodded sagely and offered a neutral smile.  "What was your official
role, Mr. Lively?"
     "Research...I did a year of law school so I know the business.  I worked
for that faggot Bryant three years without a problem, then was booted for
putting the make on some lesbo intern..."  He seemed to mire in memories and
sat silently a moment.
     "These things happen..." she offered.  "...but that's not my problem...  I'm
investigating some of their dealings, not you or anything that happened to you."
     He sat back a bit more at ease as the bartender slid their drinks before
them.  Andi handed her another ten, Lively sipped his whisky, blinked and took a
pull from his beer before dropping the shot glass of whisky into it.
     "I want to know about Templeton, Morse and Bryant's relationship with All
American, Brian-Core and Noris-SDI."  She sat back and smiled, giving Lively
any space he needed.
     "American, Brian-Core and Noris?  They hate Bryant's guts...that's the
relationship...them and a dozen others.  He has Ôem by the tail and is wringing
Ôem dry."  Lively ran his finger along the rim of his glass.
     "Wringing them?  They were clients weren't they?"  Andi found herself a
bit lost.
     "Clients...sure they are.  Bryant cranks their contracts and disputes, files
their suits and serves as corporate shyster...he's slick." Lively sat back and
took another sip of his beer.
     "So how was he wringing them?" Andi pressed.
     "He got serious blackmail material over each of Ôem and churns out
lucrative busywork milking the suckers like dairy cows.  Legal services are
impossible to justify...six-hundred, fifty an hour for having lunch and thinking,
two hundred an hour for my work, paper work or not...and then trust accounts
to administer and skim...it's quite a scam."
     "You think Bryant's doing that?" Andi questioned quietly.
     "Scheeze...underneath that yuppie facade they're all sleazeballs.  All
American, Noris and Brian-Core were Morse's opponents in big, nasty law
suits..." Lively leaned forward to lecture.  "Morse developed serious goods on
them, settles on minor issues, and then...surprise, surprise, Noris and Brian
sign up for lots of legal services with Bryant--his partner."  
     Lively leaned back in his chair, then forward again.  "Note that Morse's
dirt was found prior to signing with Bryant.  Different partner, different issues
so no direct attorney client privilege preventing disclosure.  Slick eh?"
     "Maybe they were won over by Bryant's quality work?"  Andi offered,
unconvinced.
     "Hey, I worked there remember...good work is good work, but this is a
whole 'nother thing.  My job was to back-track through the paperwork jungles
and pull out what they wanted--I'm good..." he smiled without humbleness,
"...but I took some enlightening side trips...checking deeper than asked...into
corners they didn't send me.  I know what I'm saying." 
     Lively sat back with smug confidence.  
     Despite her distaste, Andi could accept what he said.  "So what does he
do with the money?  ...I've seen his house, it's no mansion."  Bryant must have
made a huge legitimate salary.  Despite driving a Jag he lived well within his
means.  There was no sign of lavish spending.
     "Who knows?  Off-shore accounts, real estate in Texas, phony
corporations that buy out good ones and turn legitimate over night?  When
you're an expert at bending rules, stashing money's not a problem."  Lively gave
an expansive gesture and watched Andi over the top of his glass.  "Anything
else you want to know..?"
     Andi sat silent a long moment.  "How did you feel about working there?"
     "It was OK...I even liked it.  Paid great, didn't push hard, nice offices...and
there was some kind of poetic justice, don't you think?" He grinned skeletally.
     "What about telling me this?  Are you betraying them?"
     Lively's eyes were lidded.  "Hey, the sharks and barracuda and piranha
are all feeding on each other...his clients were vulture capitalists, screwing
people over without a qualm.  He helped them do that...I kind of like the idea of
being part of taking them down."  Lively offered her a quivering sort of reflective
smile.
     Andi sat quietly, watching his face, listening to the sound of the muted
TV's and distant bar-voices.  "What do you know of the partners in the firm?  Did
they like each other?"  She hunched her shoulders and tilted her head. 
     "Templeton's an old man...with old clients, established industry, old
money, connections.  The family's influence goes back to the 1800's.  He comes
in three times a week for half a day and services his own clients with his own
staff...That's how the office is set up if you didn't notice...each partner working
with their own crew of attorneys and secretaries. Everything separate, files and
everything."
     "Morse..?" Andi lifted an eyebrow.
     "...bad blood between him and Bryant.  Icy tension whenever together,
but they worked OK...Morse setting up bad-guys and digging dirt for Bryant's
fleecing after the fact.  They kept it clean, no direct connection...at least on the
surface."
     They sat together a moment without speaking.  Then, Lively reached
cautiously for the remaining bills.  Andi lifted her hand to let him take them.
     Without looking back up to meet her eyes, he rose and slid through the
dark to the door.  
     Andi left the change from their drinks on the table--it was Morse's
expense-account after all--and returned gratefully outside to breathe fresh air.  

     
     It took the rest of the afternoon to record what she got from Lively and
crank Morse's weekly report--holding back a handful of nuggets to pad next
week's report.  With luck, there was always another report...she'd learned the
game the hard way.
     She typed and reread her notes--quietly weighing and puzzling over
implications until she put the report in an envelope, stamped it and leaned it
against the door jamb to remind herself to mail it.
     Lively hated Templeton, Morse and Bryant for firing him--that was
motivation enough to lie through his teeth trying to get back, but the meat of his
story seemed too obscure to be pure fabrication.
     The questions were, how much was real and even if it held some thread of
truth?  What relevance did it have to have to Bryant's disappearance?  And what
could she do with it anyway?  Her job wasn't protecting the world from legal
malfeasance.  Morse's firm was her client for Christ's sake--implicating them in
blackmail and extortion was way off-beam. 
     If Lively's story was true at least some of Bryant's clients had good reason
to wish his disappearance.  Money and greed ranked high for motivation--tied
second maybe to jealousy and sex--lucre still had considerable standing in the
motivational hit parade.
     There were twenty or more possibly hostile firms Chang-Turner identified
in the lists of recent clients.  It didn't have to be one of the three whose cross
references drew her attention.  If the killers were smart they wouldn't have
gotten near Bryant in the month before taking him out to feed the fishes.
     Andi smirked a sour smile.  The client angle was an OK theory--too bad it
didn't have a shred of evidence to support its dead weight.
     She leaned back in her chair and turned her attention to Bryant's invisible
social life.  Despite the lure of money, sex and friendship still came in as the
overwhelming major player in murder statistics.  Who were Bryant's friends or
lovers and how could she break through their wall of silence?
     Few people were completely without friends and nothing supporting the
idea he was a sociopathic loaner.  He had dinner parties, people came over,
sometimes spent the night and went to brunch.  There was an argument shortly
before disappearing.  Did he confide dark secrets during pillow talk?  What did
he spend his money on?
     She phoned Morse and left a professional sounding voice mail stating the
need to tour Bryant's House.  Maybe she could find an address books before the
cops swarmed through.  When she talked in person she could ask what he knew
of Bryant's investments. 
     Andi mailed the report and zig-zagged north through the Colonial Revival
and Craftsman suburbs before cutting down Fremont and crossing the river to
the Northwest.  
     She ate dinner at Seafood Mama's.  The cioppino was OK; she ate it with
sourdough french bread and a glass of pinot noir.  The after-work crowd still
loitered, slowly turning over space for early diners like herself, it was far too
early for the music scene.  
     A pouty young woman played flirty, but hard to get beside the bar, then
turned rude and insulted when her target realized she was more of a pain than
she'd ever be worth.  Andi left a decent tip and slipped outside--maybe she'd
have more luck with Bryant's neighbors tonight.


     The house on the left side of Bryant's had its lights on.  She rang the bell
and introduced herself, asking a slim, young woman in batiked silk pants if she'd
seen her neighbor over the last week or so.
     "No...I guess not," she shrugged.  "...honey have you seen Robert in the
last week?"  She leaned against the door jamb and called from the door toward
the back of the house.
     "Maybe last weekend...I think.." came a male voice from the kitchen. 
"...Yeah, he was leaving with that friend of his talking about brunch at Jake's
Crawfish...must have been Saturday, cause Sunday we slept 'till noon,
remember."
     The woman at the door shrugged, noncommittal as to remembering
whether she'd slept in or not.  Andi asked if she knew Bryant well.
     "We collect his mail and newspapers when he goes off on business...he
does that every week or so...it would be such a hassle to cancel things and get
them turned back on."  She pulled an errant strand of hair from her face and
toyed with it idly.
     "Did he ask you to watch his house this week?" Andi tried to remain
conversational.
     "No...is there something wrong?"  The woman lifted a hand to her lips in
dismay.
     "I don't know...I've just been hired to ask about him.  He hasn't done
anything wrong...some friends are concerned about not reaching him."  Andi
didn't want to spark embarrassing rumors.  "Do you know who his house
cleaner was?"
     The neighbor shrugged.  "Gee no...but I guess he must have had one..."
     Andi jotted down her answers more to give herself something to do than
for their content, "How about the person he went to brunch with?"
     The woman called back to the kitchen.  "Johnny...what do you know of
Robert's friend, the one he went to brunch with?
     "Not much really...OK sort I guess."  Johnny poked his head out and gave
Andi a puzzled stare.  
     Andi was getting impatient.  "A man?  A woman?  Do you remember the
name?  Maybe hair color or something?"
     "Woman...Maureen something...tall, brown hair...maybe works with him
or something...he's a lawyer somewhere downtown."  The man threw up his
hands and retreated back to his kitchen.
     "Is there anything else...?" the woman wanted to return to the kitchen.
     "Did you hear a fight last Friday or Saturday?"
     The woman's eyes opened wide and she shook her head.  The man poked
his head from the kitchen and shook his too.  "Is there anything else?" the
woman asked. 
     Andi shrugged, mumbled thanks and retreated back to the street.
     The houses across the way both had lights on.  At the first the man that
answered was pleasant, but had little to say about Bryant other than he waved
hello sometimes.  At the other house a tired middle-aged professional woman
answered with her shoes still in her hand.  She knew Bryant casually, thought
she'd seen him with the same man friend a number of times, didn't know their
relationship, and hadn't seen the tall brunette the earlier people mentioned.
     Andi knocked at other duplex on the right side of Bryant's.  The man
recognized her and was friendly again.  She asked if he could remember
anything about a tall woman with brown hair Bryant might have gone to brunch
with last Saturday.
     "Oh my no..." the man answered.  "I'm not awake until noon on
weekends...I really wouldn't know."
     Andi trudged back to her car through a drizzle that was turning into a real
rain.  It was turning cold as well, she hoped it wasn't building up to snow or a
night of black ice.  Time for her to be heading home.  Not bad for a Friday night.







                            Chapter  4

     Andi went into Coffee People's for a Black Tiger Mocha about eleven-thirty the next morning.  She'd risen determined to make a dent in her
backlogged reports and billings, put in a good hour and forty-five minutes,
roughed out the next report for Morse just to be ahead of the game, typed in
yesterday's work into her records and made a few unproductive calls to people
on the guest list.  
     She puzzled over Bryant's mystery guests--a tall brunette maybe named
Maureen and the middle-aged man under forty with brown hair, medium height
and a green car.  Bryant probably fought with one of them.  Then again, it might
have been somebody else--like Ibbe or Drexler.  It was a long shot, but with
current fashions and the obscuring rain the "man" and "woman" might have
been the same person--she typed another line and pushed the save button.
     She was trying to keep her weekends inviolate--work limited to Monday
through Friday and decent hours.  It was a good idea, but maintaining the
division was impossible.  To stave off guilt she promised herself she'd be out the
office door by eleven--she'd done it--or at least had come close enough to count.
     She watched out the window as a slim woman in a military jacket walked
by outside.  Their eyes caught for a brief moment through the plate-glass
window as the woman pushed through the doubled glass doors.
     Andi swiveled in her seat and watched the newcomer--maybe five-three,
slimmed hipped and, from the way she impatiently shifted from foot to foot, a
least a little bit hyper.  Black, curly hair boiled from all sides of her red beret
and wisped across her face.  A few drops of rain beaded, glistening, on her
shoulders and she wore yellow high-topped tennies and paint spattered black
levis.
     Andi turned grumpily away and pursed her lips.  She'd didn't need the
aggravation--was in no hurry to revisit the pain of Traci--anyway this woman
positively reeked of being an artist and was probably attracted to nobody but
male rock-and-rollers.
     At this point Traci was only a charred and smoking pile of twisted
wreckage beside darkened highway of her life.  She'd barely dragged her body
from the flames and limped away.  She didn't have even a shadow of interest.
     The woman with the military jacket sat down next to her.
     "Wet again..." she said.  "Paper says sun tomorrow..."
     "Comes and goes."  Replied Andi non-committedly.
     The button on the woman's coat said "I'm Bi, But I'm Not Attracted To
You!"  
     Andi smiled.  "I like your shoes."  She winced at how dumb that sounded,
it was repartee worthy of a computer nerd.  The woman looked at her through
the corner of her eyes and Andi felt awkward and blushed.
     "This your usual coffee shop?" the woman asked.  Her narrow nose was
slightly ethnic, her skin on the light-tan side of olive.
     "...among others..." Andi replied gruffly.  Damn!  She mentally kicked
herself.  She could at least be pleasant  "You an artist?"
     "Why?" the woman asked defensively, looking down at her clothes as if to
say "What's wrong with my outfit."
     "I like your colors..." admitted Andi lamely, she'd never wear yellow
tennies herself.  God, she was acting like a fourteen year old geek.  She wished
she could slink away.
     "Was an English major at college...now a professional office zombie.  I
dabble at artsy stuff...lately I been putting together a series of decorated
bras..."
     "Bras...!" Andi almost choked.  She looked around to see who might be
listening.
     "Well, they're weird..." the woman said with a half-self-conscious laugh. 
"baby bottle nipples and faucets and tassels...found-art assemblages."  She
shrugged and gave her attention to her cappuccino.
     Outside, the rain was dumping buckets as a young couple unlocked their
car doors, struggled with umbrellas and climbed in.
     Andi was at a loss for words.  Nippled bras were so politically incorrect--she struggled to keep a straight face.
     "Well, I write a little too..." the woman said a bit defensively.
     Andi lifted her eyebrows and smiled.  "That's more creative stuff than the
rest of us.   More than me..."  She'd almost finished her mocha and wondered
how to keep the conversation going.  She glanced about suddenly
uncomfortable.  "I'm Andi..." she suddenly spurted, gawkily thrusting out her
hand.
     It was an awkward moment; the woman had her cappuccino in her right
hand and, after trying to reach across with her left, had to juggle the cup down
to the counter and shift on her stool to respond.  Andi's hand jutted out like a
railroad crossing guard, she didn't have sense to drop it.
     "Lena..." the woman introduced herself breathlessly. "Lena
Kovid...hmmmm...Andi.." she mumbled Andi's name to herself as if to imprint it
in her brain.
     Andi glanced nervously away and bit at her lower lip, "I have an office
down the street and stopped in after knocking out some work..." Andi felt an
awkward need to keep the conversation going.
     "Around here?  What do you do?"  Lena slipped easily into conversational
mode.
     "I do investigations...and serve summonses."  Andi answered with a touch
of embarrassment.  Usually it didn't feel awkward describing herself as a
detective or in silly moments a shamus, or even a private eye, but now she felt
the title too cliched.  "Just a little office, no big deal...track down
witnesses...dead-beat dads and security backgrounds...little stuff."  She felt like
a pretentious fraud.
     "A detective huh?  A sleuth?" Lena burbled with interest.  "You read
Lauren Laurano?" 
     "I'm more the Sam Spade type with a seedy office and not enough
clients." replied Andi self-consciously, squeezing the side of her empty mug. 
"...but I guess I do alright."
     "It's more romantic than my job." Lena muttered in dissatisfaction. 
"...that is if I had a job...temping sucks..."
     "I need office help..."  The words were out of her mouth before she could
stop them.  She bit her lip in annoyance...it wasn't what she had in mind...if she
had anything in mind...which she didn't.
     "How much do you pay?" Lena leaned forward with sudden interest.
     "I..uh...hadn't really thought.  I don't think I'm really organized enough to
tell someone what to do."  It was awkward enough before--if she retracted what
she said about needing help it would sound like rejection.
     "Oh..." Lena turned away and drained the last drops of her coffee.  "What
sort of stuff is it anyway?"
     "Reports and billings...my bookkeeping's a mess, I hardly keep track...I
do the reports I have to, but my tax-person curses me every year when I show
up on her doorstep with a cardboard box."  Andi pushed her mug away and
pulled nervously at her sleeves.  She glanced at Lena and stood, stretching and
slipping into her coat.
     "So...you going to show me?"  Lena got up and picked up her bag. 
     "Uh...sure... I guess." Andi looked at her watch, "I got a band practice
later, but..OK..." she felt suddenly at a loss.  "But I really don't know if there's
anything you can do...my stuff's in such disorder I kind of have to do it all
myself."
     Lena replied "Whatever..." but she was already bouncing by her side into
the rain.

     
     Lena entered the office as if it were her natural environment, running a
finger along the edge of the filing cabinet and shaking her head at the piles on
top and beside it waiting to be put inside.
     "You might not believe it, but I'm really an office whiz..." she claimed
casually.
     "I'm not..."  Andi admitted sheepishly.
     "Yeah...is this a chronological/level-of-interest-at-the-time filing system?"
Lena asked sarcastically.
     Andi blushed.  There was no sense denying it.  "The excess leaks into
cardboard boxes I stack in the closet."
     "Hmmm..." Lena peeked in the closet and quickly closed the door.  "How
about your books?"
     "I send bills and log all the checks I get."  Andi hoped it sounded
reasonable.
     "No books huh?"  Lena nailed her with a level gaze.  "Your tax person
tallies at the end of the year and that's it?"
     "I guess so..." Andi admitted.  Why did she let Lena come see her
dysfunctional worst?  She looked a complete fool.
     "I guess the best place to start would be your backlog of accounts
receivable."  It was a matter of fact diagnosis, like a mechanic would say `check
the fuel pump' or `take out a sparkplug.'
     "Accounts receivable?"  Andi, with infinite compassion and denial hadn't
sent a past-due notice in all the time she'd struggled in business--she hadn't
really kept track, but she didn't want to admit that now.
     Lena smiled a pursed-lip, foot-tapping smile and asked if there were any
plans to exchange the middle aged coffee maker with an espresso machine that
could foam milk into a decent mocha.
     Andi smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
     Lena finally stood back up and said. "OK...Monday then?" 
     "What?" Andi responded.
     "Begin Monday.  I'm obligated to give the agency an hour and a half's
notice before quitting...you want this done or not?"  Lena already had her coat
back on.
     "Sure...Monday."  Andi suddenly felt adrift.  They hadn't even really
discussed it.
     "Seven an hour...?  Until we see how it goes...?  Cash!" Lena smiled,
leaning provocatively against the door jamb.
     "What time...?" Andi asked with sudden concern.
     "Beats me...you're the boss...how 'bout eight-thirty/nine?"
     "I'll be here."  Andi recovered her composure just as Lena waved a bright
good-by and disappeared down the hall.  
     Andi listened to Lena's footsteps retreating down the stairs as she sunk
down in her chair wondering what just happened.


     Monday morning at seven fifty-five a message waited from Morse to
contact Jesse Ohi at River High Realty, no reference to Bryant and he didn't
leave his own name--she wondered if he made it from a phone booth so it
couldn't be traced to his office.  Andi copied the information and set it aside.  No
real estate office in the world would be open before nine--ten o'clock would be a
safer bet.
     Andi set the coffee machine going and stared out the window at the
traffic.  Her short-list of suspects was pitiful.  Morse remained, despite his
absence on the version she sent last Friday.  Drexler, Sandra Ibbe, Houston
Light, and the elusive, brown-haired possible lover.  It was pitiful.
     The extended list held maybes, but that was expected.  Lon Lively and just
about anyone of influence from All American, Brian-Core, Noris-SDI and
Bryant's other hostile clients.  Chang-Turner balanced on the inner cusp as
much because Andi didn't like her as anything--but Andi culled her from the
official short list.
     Andi poured a cup of coffee and sat down at her desk.  She was reading
over the party's guest list when Lena swept in the office door. 
     "Hey boss..."  Lena dumped her bag on a chair and struggled out of her
coat.
     Andi looked across her desk, annoyed at the interruption.  "I'm sorry, but
this isn't going to work..." she grumbled irritably. 
     Lena stopped, mid-sleeve and stared back wide eyed.  
     "My name is Andi...I really don't want to be a employer...so
don't...call...me...Boss."  
     "Oh..." Lena slowly finished taking her coat off, her eyes never leaving
Andi's face.  "OK...Andi, sure."
     "There's coffee made, pick a cup."  Andi sullenly returned to the guest
list.  Bryant and Morse, their clients, even Chang-Turner, but no Maureen.  It
must have been quite an affair--among others on the list were the mayor and a
councilman or two.  It was a who's who of Portland business.  Maybe one of the
big-wigs committed murder--that was a subversive thought.  A smile spread
across Andi's face and she leaned back in her chair.
     Lena gingerly pulled out the last two year's ledgers and cleared a space
on the table in the corner.  She looked cautiously to Andi.
     "What's your shit-eating grin for?"  Lena's  voice carried a hint of
suspicion. 
     Andi gestured at the list before her.  "...a case I'm working on..."  She
smiled, "The mayor and half the commissioners were at the party the guy got
wasted at."
     Lena gave a toss of her head.  "Cool..."  She turned around in her chair
and returned to turning pages and assembling a list of clients.
     Andi pulled over the phone and dialed a number.
     "Brian-Core, Inc." a corporate voice answered pleasantly. 
     "Mr. Drexler please..." Andi used her no-nonsense, business voice.
     "Who shall I say is calling." the voice responded.
     "Andi Wicksham..."
     "...thank you, and what company are you with?"
     Andi hated the question and often lied, after a moment of thought she
said, "Just Andi Wicksham would be fine..."
     "Thank you...of course." It was amazing how polite a person could be at
an entry-level wage. 
     There was a brief silence and then the voice returned.  "I'm sorry, but Mr.
Drexler is unavailable...would you like to speak to his secretary or reach his
voice mail?"
     Andi opted for his voice mail--she left a purposefully vague message so
whoever listened would have to phone back, repeated her phone number twice
and spelled her name.  She had similar luck with All American and Noris-SDI. 
Persistence was going to be the key to breaking the veil of secretaries.  Andi
logged the calls and leaned back in her chair.
     Bryant's background was an empty box crying out for attention.  She
called Chang-Turner who said he graduated from University of Toronto in the
late seventies in business law and from Harvard Law in eighty-two.  She claimed
not to know Bryant's parent's names or address or occupations. 
     Andi gritted her teeth and said "thanks."  She could check the Toronto
phone book at the library to scan the listings for "Bryant," but there'd be a
hundred or more and Mom and Pop might not be listed at all.
     The schools were a place to start, she called their registrar's to check the
dates and then alumni associations.  She asked the U of T Department of Legal
studies for his faculty advisor.  They responded cheerfully, but the professor
died two years ago.  The alumni associations checked files and looked up
yearbooks, but found nothing of interest--he wasn't a member.  The calls
uncovered nothing.  No forwarding address, next of kin, or leads to friends or
clubs.  It would take a trip to Toronto and Harvard to chase things down and
that was about as likely as the Fortune 500 pushing for a minimum wage high
enough to live on.
     She felt an urge to drive to the Yacht Club and check Drexler's berth
space, but was pulled up short by a new concern.
     What to do with Lena?  There wasn't anything valuable in the office, but all
her files and correspondence could be rummaged.  Andi looked over with
apprehension.  She'd only had an employee a few minutes and already her style
was cramped.
     Lena swung around to face her.  "You mind if I bring my computer
here...?"  She inclined her head to a side slightly.  "I need to set up a billing
system."
     "I got something to do anyway..." Andi said gruffly.  "How long it going to
take?" 
     "Half-hour maybe, it's at home...why?"
     Why indeed?  Andi asked herself.  She didn't want to admit that it was
because she didn't trust Lena with a key--was that a lacking in herself?   "It'll
take me maybe an hour... how do you want to do this...?"
     "I'll wait at Java Jan's with my stuff...I could use a break...no sweat." 
Lena had swung out of her chair and was already slipping on her coat.


     Cold icy wind pelted the windows of the Yacht Club with driven rain.  At
nine-thirty in the morning the interior was near empty, but two men and a
woman in the laundered, but tasteless uniform of middle class recreation--polo
shirts, Dockers and baseball caps--were covering the bartender's salary.
     Andi picked her way through to the office where Stredlow sat before a
pile of receipts and schedules.  
     "Can I help you?"  He looked up through reading glasses and allowed a
slight, bemused smile.  "Back again?"  He took off his glasses and shot her what
could be a suspicious look.  He seemed harried and over-worked.  He wasn't
likely to be sympathetic to her taking up more time.  "The police released it
Friday and it was cleaned..."
     "Actually I wanted to look at the dock and berths..." she smiled, stood
demurely and glanced at a note she carried, "...dock 17, berth 64A...and if I
could get into the boat house..?"  She was willing to be a supplicant if it would
get her inside, cleaned or not.
     "Anything special?" he asked, pulling off his glasses and rubbing his
eyes.
     Andi shifted her umbrella from one hand to another.  "Just need to check
the lay-out...can I have a map and key?"
     The manager smiled wanly and shuffled through a lower drawer for a
brochure, then put two keys on the edge of his desk.  "Bring them back when
you're finished..." he instructed gruffly.  He glanced out the window through the
rain at the mooring berths, then back to Andi.
     There was the sound of muted shouting and commotion from the kitchen,
then a clatter like a metal tray of silverware hitting the floor.  He glanced in that
direction, bit his lip and frowned, but put back on his glasses and picked up his
pen.
     Andi took the keys and strode off. 
     

     Berths lined both sides of Dock 17, its walk and gate led from just beside
the boat house.  Andi unlocked the gate and picked her way down the sloping
gangway.  The numbering must have been a marketing decision, there were
only seven or eight docks all counted.  Berth numbers started inexplicable with
35, number 64A, Drexler's berth, lay at the further end and was indeed empty. 
     She looked back up to the boat house, its doors, a large barn-like one and
the regular one were visible, dark and unlit squares against the lighter stucco. 
Andi glanced at the Yacht Club--its windows stood out like lighted signs, looking
down upon the floating docks.
     At night it would be harder to see anything clearly down by the boats,
even with the overhead lights that lined the docks like streetlights.  Boats on the
inner side obscured the view and one would be looking from light into dark.
     Andi made her way back up the gangway and unlocked the boat house. 
She oriented herself.  The blood had been there, she remembered the police
diagram and mentally placed the evidence on the floor as drawn.  It pointed to
Bryant entering the dark room first, being struck from behind and falling
forward.  That would make some sense--doing the violence out sight.
     Bryant would have known his assailant--it seemed a safe assumption. 
After unlocking the door the person with the key might have stepped aside and
gestured graciously for Bryant to go ahead--then as he did, he got popped with
a pipe.
     Everything inside had been meticulously straightened and there was pine
soap smell to the air.  She closed and locked the door and returned to the Yacht
Club. 


     She had to interrupt the Stredlow again to hand back the keys.  She
asked, "Mr. Drexler's boat turn up?"
     The manager hardly turned from his receipts, "Not to my knowledge...but
a boat that size could cruise the coast with good weather."
     "But not in weather like we've had?" Andi asked casually.
     Norton Stredlow turned and treated her with a smile.  "No, I guess
not...without motivation..."  He gave her a practiced, retail smile.
     Andi thanked him again and returned to the lounge where she looked
down at the docks through the drizzling rain.


     Andi found Lena waiting at Java Jan's, feet propped up on the chair
before her, reading something on typewritten pages and bobbing her head to
the rhythms of something on headphones.  When she saw Andi she bounced to
her feet and almost spilled the remains of her mocha.
     "Something particularly good happen?" Andi asked cautiously.
     "Just thinking about you..." smiled Lena cheerfully.  
     Andi's ears burned, so she scowled and turned away.
     Back at the office it took two trips to carry up Lena's computer.  Lena
threw her coat on a chair and began unraveling cords while Andi settled behind
her desk fighting the distraction and trying to focus.
     The phone number of Jesse Ohi at River High Realty waited at the corner
of her desk.  Andi grabbed the phone and dialed--Mr. Ohi?  Would she hold?  She
did...and seemed to hold forever.
     Meanwhile, Lena rigged her system, plugged the plug and punched the
power.  The disk hummed and clicked discretely and the screen blinked a
couple times and came up.  She clicked her mouse and quickly moved through a
series of screens.  Apparently satisfied, she straightened her coat on the back
of her chair, shot Andi a wry, half-smile and started entering client names into
some sort of spreadsheet.
     "Jesse Ohi here."  The voice on the phone startled Andi from a moment of
reverie.  "What can I do for you."
     "My name is Andi Wicksham, I was told to call you to get into a house on
NW 23ed."
     "Oh yes...Miss Wicksham.  I was told you'd call.  When would you like to
see the property?"
     "It will take me about half an hour to get there."  Andi stated.
     "Shall we say an hour?  Eleven thirty?"
     Andi said that would be fine and lowered the phone slowly onto its' cradle.
     "I have to go out in half and hour..."  How come this was awkward?  It was
like Lena was some sort of guest that had to be entertained.
     "No sweat...it'll take me the rest of the day to enter basic info..."  Lena's
fingers flashed across the keyboard; she spoke without turning or missing a
stroke.
     Andi rubbed her cheek trying to decide what to do next, but her eyes kept
straying to the back of Lena's neck.  It was nice having her here--it would all
work out.  She tried to convince herself it wasn't really attraction; it was just
interest--a few issues to iron out, but it would be fine.
     The phone rang.
     "Wicksham here..." Andi answered.  It was Houston Light's secretary
from All American returning her call.  Ms. Light was quite busy...could she be of
help?
     "No, I'm sorry...I really need to speak to Ms. Light." Andi countered.
     "I understand...perhaps if you could describe your situation I can get it
before Ms. Light."  The woman was determined to run interference, no matter
what Andi said.
     "It's about a missing person; a Mr. Robert Bryant, she has a business
relationship with him..." Andi offered.
     "Are you with the police?" The voice was persistent.
     "No, I've been retained by Mr. Bryant's business partners."
     "Well, I'll see that this note gets before Ms. Light, but it might be early
next week before she can return your call..."
     Andi thanked the voice and hung up.  "Persistence..." she told herself as
she pulled over her notebook--frustration was part of the job.
     She glanced over the party's guest list again, but set it aside.  No sense in
phoning everybody if the police were going to do it too.  She'd wait and see what
she could get from Ramirez.  She took a yellow pen and highlighted Morse and
Bryant's name, Bryant's clients and Chang-Turner.
     Why had Chang-Turner, a staff person, been invited to a gathering of
politicos and big-wigs?  As far as she knew, the duties of legal secretaries didn't
normally extend to evening parties with clients--even in informal Portland.
     Andi picked up her coat and notebook and left Lena with only a small
pang of concern...and she wasn't sure whether that was over Lena's honesty or
her own failings as hostess.
     "It's OK," she told herself as she descended the stairs, "It's going to work
out fine..."


     Bryant's house stood dark and empty in the end of January drizzle, trees
that would have lush green leaves in summer were scraggly and haunted.  She
parked half a block away and retreated to her car after a dash to the door to
knock gained no answer.
     Late by ten minutes, Jesse Ohi pulled up in a yellow Honda, squeezed into
a parking space and Andi returned.  He turned off the alarm system, unlocked
the door, flipped on the entry light and stepped aside to allow Andi into the
tastefully decorated hall.
     A scattering of mail littered the floor.  Andi picked it up and quickly looked
through it--no letters or bills, just junk mail.  The doors and trim were polished
oak, the floors a lighter hardwood.  Expensive Persian rugs colored the floor
and the walls were hung with southwest weavings and Picasso pencil drawings. 
     Andi looked back at the door, it was heavy and old, with a leaded cut-glass light and brass-plated hardware.  She opened the door and looked around
the porch, shrugged and came back inside.
     The living room was colorful, couches and chairs gathered in
conversation groups, the January issue of Architectural Digest and a couple of
art magazines were tastefully arrayed on the coffee table.  Two bookcases were
filled with histories of Europe and reference books with a single shelf of
hardcover pop fiction, mostly spy novels and thrillers.  A note pad in the kitchen
listed anchovies, tomatoes, toothpaste, and dish soap.  The refrigerator held
milk with a freshness date that had just expired and half bottle of chilled white
wine along with a goodly selection of relishes and wilting vegetables.
     The dining nook and solarium were uninteresting, the bathroom generic,
though with two toothbrushes.  There were no half finished bottles of antibiotics
she could trace through pharmacy and physician.  There were no cards or
games or puzzles.
     In the office, a filing cabinet drawer was opened an inch, it held less than
half a drawer of generic files.  Andi checked the others--they were full to over-flowing--she flipped through them but found nothing relating to Bryant.  The
desk was locked, its surface as bland and impersonal as a bed and breakfast
writing desk.
     She searched each room for telephone numbers, telephone bills, names
of friends, calendars with dates and names--clues to human contacts, but there
was nothing.  Nothing in the wastebaskets, nothing jotted anywhere, no receipts
or stray business cards, no book of friends and family's phone numbers, no
Christmas cards...nothing.
     Upstairs, another bathroom and two bedrooms waited in silence.  The
master bedroom's closet was full of suits and shirts, the two chests of drawers
seemed to hold appropriate quantities of socks and sweaters.  There was no
significant abundance of empty coat hangers.  The place hadn't been stripped
of clothes or rigorously searched, but there were no memorabilia or trinkets, no
souvenirs or books from student days or bits of change.  There were no
magazines or books beside the bed as bedside reading.  There weren't even
dirty clothes--she checked the bathroom and bedrooms twice.
     Except for possibly the histories and popular fiction downstairs, there
was nothing hinting Bryant's interests.  There were no pictures on the bureaus,
nothing personal at all.
     Left to herself she would have rooted around a bit, done more than
superficially look through the bedside stands and underwear drawer, the usual
secret place for minor things.  She would have checked under the mattress,
over window valences and in the deepest closet corners, but Ohi was at her
elbow; bland, uncommenting, inhibiting--silently observing all she did.
     Back in the kitchen, on a whim, she lifted the receiver and pushed the
redial button.  The phone beeped and rang three times.
     "Noris-SDI." a cheerful voice answered.  
     "Noris-SDI?" Andi queried in surprise.
     "Yes, Noris...how may I direct your call."
     "Excuse me..." Andi fumbled, "...wrong number."  She hung up and
shrugged to Jesse Ohi.
     The basement was almost barren, no clothes in either washer or dryer,
and the garage, except for Bryant's green Jaguar sedan and some generic
garden tools was stark, swept clean and empty.  They returned together to the
kitchen.
     Andi wiped a finger across the table as they returned to the entrance,
there was a slight trace across the surface.  "There's surprisingly little dust. 
Does Bryant have a housekeeper?"  Andi turned to the hovering Jesse Ohi. 
     "I don't know...I suppose he must with his sort of money."  Ohi offered a
slightly embarrassed shrug.
     Andi thanked him and waited as he checked the door locks.  "You keep
the keys of many homeowners?" she asked as they turned toward the street.
     "No...not really.  The company sells property and manages a few rentals,
but houses like these...we aren't usually involved."
     "But you know Mr. Bryant..?" Andi pressed.
     "I don't...I'm just an associate.  I've never been in the house before...as far
as I know this key just arrived with instructions to let you in."  He seemed
thankful that the commission-less task was over.
     Andi said goodby and returned to her car to scribble her notes.  It must
have been Morse...it seemed his form to set up an intermediary...nothing direct,
everything circuitous...plausible deniabiliy always.  His tally on the suspect's list
gained another few strokes.  Did he send somebody over to sanitize the place
before giving the key to Ohi?
     On the ride back to her office she thought about Lena.  She hadn't asked
for references or work history--what a great detective, she couldn't even
manage her own business.  
     A shiver of paranoia coursed her back.  Could Lena have been sent by
Morse?  It would be true to form, but the idea was bizarre.  She shook it off and
decided she'd take Lena out to lunch.


     Lunch at the Cafe Underground was magic.  Lena was irreverent and
perky.  They laughed.  Their eyes met for fiery moments and there were pauses
where it seemed impossible to say anything without innuendo.
     Through it all Lena maintained her chatter...bubbling about making bread
and the political art of the latest darling of the art critics with a cover article in
the A&E.  They exchanged anecdotes, dreams and unexplored careers,
avoiding mention of relationships like the plague.
     Andi was afraid her crush was as obvious as a teen's.  She wanted to
brush Lena's fingers or casually let their knees touch, but held herself back--she'd enough rejection to last through winter.
     As they walked back to the office.  Andi debated asking for references or
job history.  Considering the questions made her an ogre--not asking made her a
fool.
     

     "I'm entering two years of clients...addresses and phone numbers..." 
Lena pointed to her computer screen.
     Andi said "...two years?  I've been in business five." 
     "Yeah, but there's some point beyond which it'll be fruitless and I had to
make a cut off somewhere."  Lena shrugged and tapped her teeth with a pencil. 
"We'll go back further if this works."  She swung around.  "I want envelopes with
address correction notes..."
     Andi stared back. "I got envelopes...two boxes."
     "Yeah, but if they have address correction requests the post office will
send us back a forwarding addresses for the price of a stamp.  Trust me, it's
worth it." 
     Andi gave in.  "OK."  Why not?  How much could envelopes cost? 
     Lena pointed at the file cabinets.  "I'll go back through the dead files and
enter the invoice info, then enter each of checks you've gotten to see who'd
paid what and when... that stuff's all there, right?"
     "Yeah..." She'd logged each payment by check she'd received since
starting business.  She didn't say anything about the few cash jobs she'd
shuffled in.
     "Then I do balances and dump paid accounts in a closed file."  Lena
looked to see if Andi was following.  The rest will have outstanding amounts and
we crank out bills."
     Andi stood quietly and listened.  Never in a million years would she have
gotten around to straightening out the mess.  How had she stayed in business?
     Lena leaned her head to a side, "How you keep expenses logged for
different clients?"
     There was an awkward moment.  Andi mentally treaded water.  With only
a few clients at a time it was no big deal, she just balanced things by intuition
and billed what she remembered or had receipts for.  She'd never had
complicated expenses to divide between clients, but she didn't want to admit it.
     Lena waited a moment, then shot Andi a glance, "We'll get to it by-and-by."
     Andi drew a breath of relief.

     
     Andi phoned Chang-Turner to ask how she ended up on the party guest
list, but the receptionist said she was out.  Andi left a message on her voice mail
that said she'd called and then dialed Lon Lively.
     "Yeah?" the slightly suspicious voice of Lively demanded as the ringing
stopped.  His voice didn't have the slur of drink this afternoon.
     "Mr. Lively?  This is Andi Wicksham...I spoke to you last week about
Templeton, Morse and Bryant...?"
     "So what do you want?" he asked.  He wasn't hostile, but there was a
guarded tone to his voice.
     "I was wondering if you could give me some background on your ex-bosses...Morse first?"
     "Sure..." Lively's smile was evident even over the phone.  "I met Morse in
the hallway and overheard a dozen conversations.  I never spoke a word, but
from everything I've heard, he's ruthless...a powerful man...plays big league and
for keeps."
     Andi asked, "Ruthless?"
     Lively gave his slightly sarcastic laugh.  "Reputation as a shark cutting
deals over port in oak paneled rooms.  You know the image?  Serious thousand
dollar suits?"
     "But he does environmental work." Andi half-objected.  "It seems at odds
in a corporate type.
     "Funny huh?"
     Andi sarcastically murmured "...fascinating..."
     Lively continued.  "Bryant's JD/MBA slime.  Steely grey eyes, never
smiles...doesn't care for anything but money--at least that's his professional
image.  No morals or ethics when it comes to law, no social conscience, no
loyalty or sense of fair play--just a hired gun paid for results.  It was an
interesting place to work."
     "How about Chang-Turner?"
     "...the Dragon Lady?"  Lively chuckled.  "...staff joked that she Bryant's
business with an iron fist...a smart cookie, she is...and evil...I wouldn't trust her
on a bet."
     "Devoted to Mr. Bryant?"
     "Well, there's devoted and then there's devoted." he responded with a dry
chuckle.  "She ran his research...read the files and fine-tuned the focus as we
went along--a hard-core pro, but I don't see her with a secret crush or even
caring--there's iced vinegar under the smile." 
     "What did you research?" Andi asked casually.
     Lively took another breath and gave her the novice's introduction. 
"Research is everything for that kind of law, most of the loopholes and
interpretations have been ironed out...so the game is a matter of lining up
everything you can against your opponent's line and the biggest/stinkiest pile
wins...once the research is in and the lawyers meet, most things settle out of
court... sometimes on merits, sometimes on other factors."
     Andi glanced out the window.  "Other factors?"
     Lively chuckled cryptically,  "...dirt on your opponent or your opponent's
lawyer can be worth its weight in gold."
     "And Chang-Turner ran that research?"  Andi returned to scribbling
notes.  "So she would have known about the stuff we talked about Friday?"
     "Well..." Lively drew the word out, "...we're talking about a law firm
here...there's a difference between what she knew officially and what she might
actually know.  Nobody in their right mind claims to know anything.  Things are
just list after list of allegations to twist.  In law, meanings are contested, so
nobody claims to know them."  Lively warmed to his role as expert.  "She
controlled all the dirt we dug, but she'll officially know nothing but her
typewriter and names on people's files."
     "But if she ran research she must have known of the implications of what
she was after...she must have known what to follow or ignore."
     "Sure, Machiavelli had nothing on her...she knew everything ...but
remember she worked for Bryant and Bryant only did boring contracts and
business law.  On the surface it's all very clean.  Morse did the environmental
work so his staff researched the dirt--we unofficially excerpted Morse's files. 
Officially, strict lines were drawn...different staff, different rooms, different
files...all very carefully managed to look like hermetically sealed offices." 
     "So, did she know of the extortion?"  Andi was getting impatient.
     "...my opinion?  My opinion is that she knew everything.  She set up
research and did Bryant's billings...she kept the books.  I'd bill and get paid for
ten or twelve hours a week I didn't put in.  We'd bill padded time to accounts
they milked--a lot of it didn't have anything to do with contracts.  I think she kept
her own files that even Bryant didn't know about.  But, like I said,
officially...she's just an office grunt."
     "Dragon lady, huh?"  Andi looked up from her notes and rubbed her
temples.
     "Oh yeah...big time.  Say, do I get paid for this?  I should you know, even if
it's over the phone..."  Lively seemed to suddenly awake to the value of what
he'd said.
     Andi made a face, but had to admit that he'd earned it.  "Sure, sure...give
me an address and I'll zip you a check."  She wrote down his address and
asked, "...Chang-Turner was invited to a party at the Yacht Club with a bunch of
lawyers and corporate types...you think that a bit unusual?"
     "Depends...bigwigs don't talk to other people's staff...even Dragon Lady. 
But somebody's executive assistant talking to someone else's...who's going to
know or care?  You got to realize that nobody with power wants to risk being
quoted... there's advantage having all the dirt go through staff.  In this business
you got to think deniability, Wicksham...it's the way the game's played."
     "Right, deniability..."  She resented his lecturing but stuffed those
thoughts.  "You know of anything specific about Bryant's clients?"
     "I could find out...for cash..."  He dangled the proposition bluntly.
     Andi felt the beginning of a headache.  "...yeah, sure... that'll be enough
for now... I'll send a check...thanks..."


     The conversation had been wearing--Andi closed her eyes and took a
deep breath.  Chang-Turner had moved to the head of the short list, though it
seemed a bad idea to report it to Morse.  It seemed she and Bryant probably
worked together to fleece his clients, but it might have been with his knowledge
as Lively thought.  If things started unraveling either of them might have
motivation to want to see Bryant dead.
     Andi looked up to find Lena staring and shaking her head.  "So this is the
exciting life of a private eye...eh?"
     "Well..." Andi fumbled--a bit embarrassed.
     "I'm impressed..I'm impressed."  Wide eyed and slack jawed, Lena
nodded in mock awe.
     "And you didn't hear the stuff on the other end of the phone..." Andi took a
sip of coffee, returned reviewing her notes and the room settled into a warm
silence. 
     The phone rang.
     "Wicksham here..."
     "Ms. Wicksham?  This is Sandra Ibbe of Noris-SDI...returning your call" 
     Andi sat up alert.  "Yes Ms. Ibbe, I don't know if you're aware, but Mr.
Bryant of Templeton, Morse and Bryant is missing and I've been retained to look
into the matter."
     "You're an investigator?"
     "That's right...your company hosted the party at the Yacht Club...I was
hoping you could spare a few minutes."
     Andi waited a moment, but Ibbe seemed content to let her continue.
     "Your company is represented by Mr. Bryant's firm?"
     "Mr. Bryant handles routine contractual matters for us..." Ibbe granted
cautiously.
     "There was tension over a dispute with him?"
     "He is our attorney...and our business dealings are confidential." Ibbe
bristled.
     Undeterred, Andi continued.  "Are you aware of anybody who might have
ill feelings for Mr. Bryant?"
     Ibbe favored her with a dismissive laugh.  "A lot of people have ill feelings
for Mr. Bryant...Mr. Bryant pushes people as far as he can.  That's his job."
     "Did you go to your office that Saturday before the party?" Andi pressed.
     "I occasionally come in weekends...loose ends..."  There was a defensive
tone to Ibbe's voice.
     "Work late that Friday?"
     "I usually work until seven."
     Andi jotted down that Ibbe sidestepped the question.  "Mr. Bryant made a
phone call from his home to your company's number...I assume it was the last
call made before the Yacht Club Party.  Can you tell me anything about it?"
     "What day was that?"  Ibbe grumbled irritably, she seemed to be looking
back into her phone log.
     And fiddled with her pencil and stalled.  "...I assume it wasn't business
hours..."
     "Our phones aren't answered after business hours."  Ibbe snapped.  She
stated it as a categorical fact.
     "No phone calls?" Andi asked.
     "Outgoing calls go out normally...but we don't have a receptionist on duty
after five and people who work late don't want to be disturbed.  Our system
gives a recorded message."
     "I see..." Andi said evenly.  "Do you know who he could have been
calling?"
     "I'm sorry Ms. Wicksham, but I'm a busy person.  Is there anything else I
can help you with?" Ibbe's voice was laced with venom.
     "No...thank's much.  I'll get back to you if I need anything else."  Andi let
out a breath and hung up the phone.  It was easy to dislike Sandra Ibbe.  She
met Lena's eyes and shook her head.
     Andi next phoned the Department of Environmental Quality to see if she
could review their records.  It might be something to check against the lists of
Bryant's client firms.
     "Our files are public." A woman named Brenda said.  Her's was the third
voice she was shunted through.  She welcomed her to come look through their
files, but confided that without dates and places the search would be an
enormous task.  Andi thanked the woman politely, cursed under her breath and
moved on.
     Environmental groups were next on her list; somewhere in Portland were
people who knew companies and corporate leaders--people who knew the
players and the dirt.
     Andi settled in for an afternoon with her phone.  Telephone research
might be an investigator's handiest tool, but the learning curve was brutal. 
Ninety-seven minutes into the project she had two pages of names and numbers
from seventeen different organizations, six promises to call back, nine voice
mail messages languishing in digital cubbyholes, and a stiff neck that
threatened to blossom into a migraine.
     She talked to volunteers and entry-level receptionists each of whom felt
they knew important players who could help.  Andi copied down numbers and
waited on hold, following each lead to another set of names and numbers,
asking for suggestions that led to further names and numbers.
     She hadn't found the person who could lead her through the unknown
world of environmental action, but she'd made headway and kept notes on who
said what about whom.  The same movers and shakers were mentioned time
and again, but she couldn't reach them.  They seemed tied up in perpetual
meetings, but it made sense they wouldn't sit by a phone with time on their
hands.  That's what made them movers and shakers.
     A number of people suggested she talk with Ramone Bodega of
Northwest Bio--she'd left a polite message on his machine.  She'd been warned
that if he wasn't out of town, she might hear back in a day or two.
     It was a good bit of work, no sense beating herself against it further.  Her
nets were out, her bread upon the water; now there was nothing to do but wait. 
If things didn't break by Wednesday she'd give the phone lines another shake.
     She called Ramirez to see if the DNA analysis of the blood was in.  He
answered on the second ring.
     "So, the lab work..." she asked after their usual banter.
     "It's being done, but as far as I know there's no DNA of Bryant's to check
it against.  Blood or tissue held by his doctors will wait for a court order and I
since it's a private deal, don't know anything about it...the way they're pushing
I'm betting they get what they want.  What's it going to prove anyway?"
     Andi didn't know.  "Contact next of kin?"
     Ramirez gave something between a grunt and a laugh.  "We have to get
access to bank records and the like...it takes a while.  Lieutenant Max is getting
his will."
     "How about the boat?"
     "Nothing...and every marina from Seattle to the Bay Area's got the word. 
Drexler's message puts him in contact with Bryant on Friday...Bryant's
secretary confirmed the appointment, but there were two last message after
Bryant's disappearance where Drexler asked Bryant to set up another meeting. 
You remember hearing that?"
     "Oh yeah..."  Andi answered vaguely, she knew he suspected she'd
known when they talked.  "You talk to him?"
     "Says he was hot about a contract dispute.  I bet he can come up with a
witness if pushed...hold it."  Ramirez put his hand over the receiver and talked
to somebody by his desk.  Then when he returned, "...anything else you want to
tell me Wicksham..?" 
     "I got into Bryant's house this morning..."
     "You what?  Why the hell...?  If you muddy up this case Wicksham, you're
ass'll be in a sling." 
     Ramirez was actually yelling at her--he'd never done such a thing in all the
years she'd known him.  She bit her lip.  She'd seen the ploy before, her best
defense was indignation.
     "What case?  You been saying there's nothing.  His house isn't a crime
scene.  This is how I make my living, Ramirez."  She quieted, "...anyway, the
place got a good going over before I arrived."
     "Trashed?"  Ramirez was suddenly interested. 
     "No...that's the strange part.  Just the opposite.  Nobody lives that
cleanly, not a single personal item, no phone numbers or names...no dirty socks
or underwear...it was so clean I expected to see the end of the toilet paper
folded into a triangle.  Somebody rubbed the place spotless."  
     "Him or somebody else?" 
     She paused to consider, "It could be a cleaning lady after he
disappeared...but it's cleaner than that.  My guess is that there isn't a
fingerprint other than mine and the real estate guy's."
     "Cleaning lady's most likely..." Ramirez offered dryly.
     "Sure...whatever...but don't be getting on my back..."  Andi looked out at
the rain-darkened pavement.  "Can you get Bryant's phone records?"
     "...already got 'em for both office and home.  I'll see what I can do for
you...but about those fingerprints you might have left at Bryant's...the brass are
getting all wound up on this thing...they're going to get access in the next day or
two and now you're tied in..."
     "Maybe it'll be good publicity..."  Ignoring Ramirez's low growl of
disapproval, Andi glanced down at her notes.  "All I got now is a can of
worms..."
     "No suspects, Sherlock?"
     "Naw...too many.  And I can't find diddly about Bryant's social life...who
did he know...friends ...lovers...nothing more than two toothbrushes in his
bathroom and someone going out with him for brunch."
     "It's a thankless job..." he offered sarcastically.
     "Yeah, right."  She'd get no sympathy from Ramirez for unrewarded effort. 
"How's Tanya?"
     "As good as can be expected without a dinner party to plan...she's going
to be on my case until you come over and let her empathize over your broken
heart."
     "Well tell her I'm doing much better now..." It was almost the truth.
     "Wow...you rebound fast Wicksham.  So tell me all about it...a new friend
eh?"
     "Naw...I can't talk now...Later..."  Andi glanced over at Lena who was only
pretending to be working.  "It's kind of close to home."
     "She's right there huh?  OK...I got to run anyway...later, eh?"  And then
more distant.  "OK...I'm listening...what?"  Ramirez was already talking to
someone else before the phone reached his desk.
     Andi looked across at Lena.  There was only that button on her coat to
make her think Lena might be potentially interested.  And she was already
involved.  Relationships were overrated anyway.  Andi turned and stared out the
window feeling all alone.






                            Chapter  5
     
     The boat was a crucial piece of this problem--boats didn't disappear off
the face of the earth.  It would take a big trailer and a sling to pull a twenty-eight
footer from the water.  Scuttling it would take a second boat to return to shore. 
Andi burrowed through her papers for the stolen boat report.
     A body tossed into the water from the boat house would be trapped within
the maze of floating piers, her second visit to the boat house confirmed it the
probability.  If Drexler was involved he could have simply returned the boat that
evening--unless there was blood on the deck or blood that had dripped into the
bilges.
     OK...  But what happened to the boat?  She puzzled a moment, the killer
could have punched a little hole and set it cruising toward Japan if he or she
had a way to get back to shore.  Maybe it could have been junked for parts.
     The body could have been dragged or carried from the boat house
despite the floating dock's visibility from the Yacht Club--risky maybe,
considering the party above and that a dead or unconscious body was an
awkward, heavy dead-weight.  It would be made a lot easier with two people.  
     Andi thought another minute--some sort of a cart would work.  She made
a note to ask what they used there.
     She turned to a new page in her notebook, pulled out the phone book and
looked up local yacht brokers and marinas--listing docks with facilities for
pulling a boat that size.
     The boat couldn't go past the falls up the Willamette river.  Up the
Columbia it could use the locks to pass the dam, but from there where?  The
further the trip, the more trouble and time and the more likelihood of people
taking notice.  Down the Columbia to the coast was a similar dead end if one
discounted the open ocean.  It would take more than a weekend sailor to take a
boat out on the Pacific during a winter of stormy weather--and how far would
they have to go?  All the fishing villages and bays and marinas would be
watched.
     Her short list of likely suspects were all accounted for during the first
days of the past week--they couldn't have taken the boat far themselves.  Andi
chewed the eraser of her pencil.  Bryant's murder wasn't some random act like
a robbery gone bad, but there was something that drove the perpetrator to feel
it important to hide the body.
     What would make the body important enough to go through that trouble? 
Evidence implicating the murderer?  She'd have to ask Ramirez what his guess
would be.
     She looked up to find Lena staring.  
     "How late do we work?" Lena bobbed her head like she could go either
way.
     Andi glanced at her watch.  Four thirty.  Where had the afternoon gone? 
"Go another hour?" she asked Lena hopefully.  "...or hit it again tomorrow?"
     "Your call...I'm pat...this don't care."  She gestured dismissively at her
computer. 
     Sonny teased her for working too much.  Maybe she and Lena could do
dinner.  Andi glanced down to her piles and said emphatically, "We're done. 
Let's clean up..." 
     Lena stared questioningly. 
     "Its a thing I do...straighten up before going home."  Andi was
embarrassed at the admission.  "...it's no big deal...waste basket, desk-top
piles, coffee cups, general pottering about."  She tried to make it sound
lighthearted, but heard the defensive edge in her words. 
     Lena shrugged and smiled and started straightening up her table.
     When they finished, Andi stood close enough to feel the warmth of Lena's
body--a barely perceptible reverberating purr.  Lena lingered an extra moment. 
She was shorter, Andi smiled down to her face.  
     Andi asked, "Wanna' get a bite to eat?"
     "No..." Lena looked up with a warm, inviting smile.  "Wanna' go home'n
cook dinner."
     "Wha'cha cooking...?" Andi could play the game.
     "...curried chicken...JC's favorite."
     "Curried chicken...who's JC?"  JC?  The girlfriend.  Andi's voice stayed
neutral, but disappointment lifted her heart up to her throat to choke her.
     "My boyfriend's...been such a grouch."  Lena tossed her head like a
tousled ragamuffin and squeezed her eyes shut. 
     Boyfriend?  Andi's heart squeezed tight and crashed through the floor,
shrieking she was weird.  There was a deafening echo in her mind.  Suddenly
Lena seemed far away.
     "...got a western tattoo...go figure...are you OK Andi?"  Lena was close
again, standing right beside her.  Lena gave a wise-ass grin and Andi fell into
her eyes. 
     She didn't hear the beginning of what Lena finished.  "Yeah...just
distracted."  She smiled back with a swallow.  "I want to do a  few things here
anyway...see-ya eight-thirty tomorrow?"
     Lena waved airily and reached for her coat.  "Things to do, places to
be...I'm gone..." and the door clicked closed behind her.
     Andi clenched her teeth, exhaled a long slow breath and sank into her
chair.  She sat with her elbows on the window stool--chin on hands and
forehead on the glass, as if watching cars on the street below. 
     She picked up the phone.  She needed Sonny to talk her down, but had to
settle for leaving a message.  She grabbed her coat, locked the door and
stomped down the stairs to the street.
     

     Sonny caught her later at home and shared an hour-long huddle.
     After a bit of cajoling Andi related how cute and free and exuberant Lena
was, how her breezy style and look and manner was so appealing.  She told of
meeting her at Coffee People's, showing the office and the way she'd just slid
into the job.
     "...she wore the "bi-" button on her coat?" Sonny confirmed, as if it meant
something.
     "It was just a button...even straight people wear buttons like that...it's hip. 
It's nothing but fantasy..."
     "...never know...never say never." Sonny teased, encouragingly.
     Andi rolled over, tangling the cord 'round arm and pillow--she rolled back
to straighten out.  "I'm a fool, OK?  ...I was flirting, not offering a job.  Now I
don't know how to face her.  I go ga-ga when...God, I don't understand how a
person could be bi.  It's sick..."  She was surprised by the vehemence in her
voice.
     "...she doing a good job?" interceded Sonny.
     "And how." answered Andi disconsolately.  "Fun too....doing a great job. 
It's me not her...like junior high."
     "You could thank her, pay her off and let her go." Sonny said evenly.
     Andi's had a sinking feeling.  "No, it's no big deal...I like her.  I'm just
vulnerable...Lena's fine.  She didn't do anything wrong, I'm just a basket case." 
Andi felt like a moth drawn to a flame.
     "Watch out for sexual harassment." Sonny added casually.
     "What!" responded Andi, insulted.  "I'm not some groper...Sonny...what
you mean?"
     "What?  You don't read newspapers?  Anything beyond work can be
harassment, asking her to coffee or lunch...even touching her hand..."
     "I can read her, she enjoy's it."  Andi mumbled defensively, but could hear
the uncertainty and felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
     Sonny met her gaze straight-faced, lips pursed resolutely.
     "Thanks...I'll give it thought."  Andi uncomfortably played back the
innuendos they'd bantered.
     "We could do breakfast..."  Sonny offered, breaking the silence.
     "Your usual noon-o'clock?" Andi gratefully fell back to their chummy
intimacy.
     "You got it.  Same time, same station?"
     "Ma–ana, Amiga..." Andi switched off the phone, lay back on the pillows,
trying to remember what she had in the refrigerator to make a salad and trying
to keep Lena to a back corner of her mind.


     By the next morning she'd recovered.  It had been a silly crush, like her
puppy love infatuation with Sandra Washington in 10th grade--that ended
painfully too...you'd think she might have learned.
     She arrived at eight-thirty just as Lena strode up the drying sidewalk--overalls and a sunflower yellow tee shirt under her unbuttoned coat.  The latest
rain brought warmer air--Portland weather was kookie.
     They exchanged chit-chat on the stairs and set to work as they walked in. 
     Lena was as irreverent and impetuous as before, arriving spouting an
idea for a bookkeeping/tracking system and questions on the jobs Andi wanted
and how she marketed the firm.
     Andi was vague and defensive, resistant to organizing the office into
some sort of McDonald's.  Except for the cheapest phone book listing and
business cards, she'd done no advertising in five years in business.
     Might explain the dry spells, but she kept the thought to herself.
     Lena drew up sample invoices and past-due notices with addresses,
names and numbers inserting automatically from her spreadsheets.  "Through
the magic of electronics..."  She stepped aside like a magician's assistant,
flourished a finger to the keyboard and Andi's printer clicked and hummed to
life.
     Out came a bill as slick and professional as anybody in town.
     "Wow...OK..."  Andi allowed a suitably impressed expression though she
was satisfied with the ones she did herself.
     "Of course bookkeeping hasn't caught up, but by this afternoon I'll have
kicked your list of old checks."  Lena stood, one knee on the seat of her chair,
with a hip thrust out and her finger poised beside pursed lips.  "We could zip off
letters to all the lawyers in town letting them know you're around...or a
brochure..."
     "Whoa...slow down...just what extra time of mine are you trying to book
solid?"
     Lena wasn't phased.  "Yeah, yeah...all in good time...so what are you
working on? ...want coffee?"  She grabbed the empty pot and veered off to fill it
with water.
     Andi shook her head and called after her.  "Missing person, mysterious
circumstances, possible murder...it's a mess..."
     "Isn't that a cop thing?" Lena asked wide-eyed as she returned poured
water into the coffee maker and fumble for a paper filter. 
     "Our client..."  How easy it was to say "our."   "...is a law firm  and the
missing guy a partner.  They want to know what happened." 
     Lena nodded, set out coffee cups and leaned against the wall like a
colorful James Dean.  "But you got suspicions regarding their motive...?"  She
picked at her teeth with a fingernail.
     "Seems the guy Bryant and his secretary might have been up to their
eyebrows...extorting clients with lot of folks feeling reason to knock him off." 
Andi shrugged nonchalantly.  She indulged herself in the role of hardened-professional.
     "So who's Ramirez?"
     "A friend...a cop I've known since he was a pot-head friend.  I wore a tux
as an usher at his wedding...he's a chum...best straight friend I got."
     "Not culturally straight, I assume?" Lena asked in a dead-pan that came
across as funny as her smirky smile.
     Andi dismissed her with a wave and flopped down in her chair. 
     "So...what's going to happen?" 
     Andi ticked points off on her fingers.  "...they'll stop paying with an arrest--unless the suspect is one of them...or stop if I tell 'em that I've learned too many
compromising things--which I haven't...or if they decide there isn't enough risk
to justify the expense."
     "These good guys or bad?"
     Andi reached for her files.  "...weird.  They do pro-bono environmental
work on one hand, with a great reputation while on the other they might be
blackmailing their clients.  It's bizarre."  Andi made a face as she opened a file
and turned on her computer.  It was time to go to work.
     Lena still leaned against the wall waiting for the coffee.  "So where are
the cops?"
     Andi paged through her notes as she talked.  "No body, no weapon--no
murder case...a little blood at the crime scene...missing boat...a Yacht Club full
of suspects, they got jack...less than me for motivations...I think.  I haven't
opened all the way up to Ramirez yet."
     The coffee started its final spluttering and Lena hovered, nervously
fiddling with a spoon, then the jar of sugar, then the buttons on her overalls.
     Andi was momentarily reminded of the crazy suspicion that Lena might be
Morse's plant, then was angry with herself for the uncharitable thought.  As
penance she pulled the files on the boat and marinas.
     A moment later, as she dialed the first marina on her list, Lena set her
blue cup before her--she got it right without asking; double cream, no sugar.
     

     No marina or yacht dealer admitted to pulling out the boat.  The locks on
the Columbia had no record--but everybody knew the boat was missing.  Three
different people mentioned a ploy of taking the registration numbers of
something similar that was junk and repainting the name.  The Coast Guard
knew nothing, Oregon marine board, and everybody she could think of, even
less.  It had taken most of the morning and she'd come up with a big fat zero. 
     Andi called the Yacht Club manager to casually asked about carrying
luggage the boats, did they have wheelbarrows?
     "No wheelbarrows," Stredlow responded politely, "There are handcarts
on each dock for members."  He'd obviously given the lines as part of a
membership spiel.
     Andi smiled as she thanked him and hung up to enter the comments in her
notebook.  So there was a way to get the body to the boat--throw a tarp or box
on top and nobody casually watching from up in the Yacht Club would ever be
the wiser.
     She straightened the papers and replaced the file.  
     Lena kept working.  
     Andi glanced to Lena and bit her lip to keep from giving in to purely social
talk.  She liked the tingle when their eyes met and they shared a smile, but was
saved from questionable yearning by the sudden ringing of the phone.
     "Andi Wicksham please."  A male voice, round, low and businesslike.
     "Speaking..."  Andi used a down-to-business voice for people using both
first and last names.
     "Ramone Bodega of Northwest Bio...returning your call."  He was to the
point, slightly impatient--a person with a lot before him more vital than returning
calls to strangers.
     Andi figured she could be more than simply civil.  "Yes sir, thank you...I'm
a private investigator in the service of Templeton, Morse and Bryant..." she
assumed that as an environmental professional he'd know them--she hoped it
wouldn't hurt.
     "I'm gathering information on companies that might have less than
positive environmental records."  She took a breath and admired Lena's slightly
frizzy hair as it spilled from its elastic tie down on her shoulders.
     "I know Lionel Morse." Bodega stated flatly.  "You say you're working for
him?"  There was a slight pause.  "He already has extensive files..."  He wasn't
calling her a liar, but the implication was there.
     Careful now, thought Andi.  "Templeton, Morse and Bryant are my client
and Mr. Morse my official contact.  There may be confidentiality reasons to
establish an independent file."  She was shooting from the hip, hoping it didn't
sound too hokey.  "You can confirm with Mr. Morse and we can talk later if you
want." she reached for her notebook.
     "Sounds reasonable." Ramone Bodega said affably.  "What sort of
information are you after?"
     "Sensitive information...reason enough to commit a serious crime. 
Whatever you can tell about people involved...not environmental science.  I'm
looking for motivations for blackmail or murder.  May I give you some of the
names we're looking at?"  She fumbled for the list.
     The phone lay silent, Bodega waited.
     Andi took a breath and continued.  "OK...let's see...All American
Industries, Brian-Core Inc., and Noris-SDI..." she read off another five or six
names. 
     Ramone Bodega "humm"ed and took notes as she listed them.  He was
carefully pleasant and neutral--guardedly exchanged trivial comments and said
goodby.
     Andi logged the call in her notes and tapped the eraser on the edge of the
desk.  Maybe she this industrial angle will crack after all.  If she could only
figure a way into Bryant's personal life she might wrap it up with a ribbon.
     The phone rang.  It was the executive assistant of Mr. Drexler of Brian-Core giving excuses why Mr. Drexler hadn't returned her call--would she like to
discuss the matter with him and have it relayed.  Mr. Drexler was very busy and
might not be available for some time to come.
     Andi silently cursed and snickered at the bold-facedness of the story, but
replied politely that she needed to speak to Mr. Drexler himself.  A business
associate had disappeared and she was looking into the matter.  She took the
nebbish's name, left her own and number and made a note in her calendar to
phone again.
     She wondered if Lena could be that obsequious while running
interference--and bet herself a nickel that she could.
     Andi chewed her knuckle and stared out her window lost in thought,
unconsciously taking a glance at her watch.  Twelve-fifteen...damn...she was
late for her date with Sonny.  She looked over at Lena, but Lena was already
staring at her.
     "Lunchtime..."  Andi announced.
     "I'm buying if you want..." Lena offered.  "Sandwich at the Cup And
Saucer?"
     "...got a lunch date...maybe tomorrow?"  Andi smiled and felt a touch of
power in turning down lunch.


     Sonny and Andi ate sandwiches at Bower's Bakery, head to head at the
little table by the front window.  Sonny seemed grateful not to reprise her
counselor role.
     Returning from lunch, there was a message from Chang-Turner asking
her to call.  Andi groaned inwardly but logged it and called her back.
     Businesslike to a fault, Chang-Turner cut to the issue.  "I found a note
from Mr. Bryant among my pending files..."
     Andi waited, unsure of what response she expected.  "A note?  How
recent?"
     "...instructions for handling work...but there are some things you should
see..."
     Andi noted that she'd avoided how recent.  "Should I come get a copy?" 
She rolled her eyes, mugging silent ridicule for Lena who glance up, smiled and
turned back to her typing.
     "It might be best...are you free now?"
     "It'll take me half and hour..."  Andi assumed Chang-Turner meant Morse
thought it best.
     "I'll tell the receptionist you're coming." she rang off.
     Andi looked across at Lena.
     "Something to do?"  Lena glanced over her shoulder without her fingers
skipping a beat, then she paused and turned over a page in the ledger.  "Knock
'em dead slugger..."
     "Yeah..." Andi grabbed her coat.  "Our client calls and we respond..." 
She gave a super-hero wave and swung the door closed behind her. 
     Andi cut north on SE 20th and zipped down Morrison so she could turn
south on Third once across the river.  Remembering Morse's expense account
she treated herself to a parking garage instead of spending the fifteen minutes
it usually took to find a downtown weekday parking spot.
     There seemed to be no added efficiency having the receptionist
forewarned.  Chang-Turner retrieved her from the waiting room and led without
comment to her desk.
     "There were a number of notes among this bundle..." she casually
avoided greetings, handed Andi a slim pile of papers and launched into
comments as if they were in the middle of a conversation.  "Those are copies of
the ones we thought of interest..." she pointed to a handwritten note at the top
of the first sheet containing a thoroughly ordinary task list of clerical chores.

     Katherine____.
          See that these get into the right hands should I be unable to do it
          myself.  
                    Thanks,   Robert.

     It seemed less than an earthshaking communication. 
     Straight-faced, Andi looked up to Chang-Turner.  "...and..?" she let the
question hang.
     Bryant's secretary reached over and turned over the top page.  The
second page was less than half a page, typewritten, single spaced, without
letterhead, heading or signature.  

          I believe I may be in danger.  I've received numerous threats over
     the past few weeks and feel those responsible may move to silence me. 
     Please find attached, a few notes that may be of crucial importance.
          I'm unclear which of the following people are involved.  I'm leaving
     this material for whoever will be looking into this.
          Please be aware that only one of those mentioned is threatening
     me; the others may be guilty of minor transgressions, but I have no desire
     to bring them to grief...


     
     Katherine Chang-Turner put her hand on the paper and caught Andi's
eye.  Concern showed in the wrinkles on her brow and around pursed lips as
she seemed to be make a silent plea for help. 
     In the brief moment of silence Andi saw that her lipstick exactly matched
her nail polish and noted the expert tracing of eyeliner on her upper lid.  Chang-Turner's look was practiced manipulation.  She appealed as a woman to an
assumed ally in a male world, but her eyes were hard, not seeking, and she
glanced away a bit too soon.
     "It was felt that you should see these first, but we'll want to pass them on
to the police if we can...probably tomorrow or the day after..."
     It was felt...we'll want...meant Lionel Morse.  Andi nodded understanding
and returned to reading.  There was a page on Sandra Ibbe and two on Noris-SDI, another on Drexler and Brian-Core, Inc., others on Houston Light and All
American Industries and Northwest Solids and another three or four firms.  All
of the companies had been Bryant's clients and each person on the Yacht Club's
guest list.
     Andi quickly scanned the material.  Much of it was technical, with
occasional references to apparently illegal maneuverings and questionable
business practices.  If true, they were exposes a journalist would die for, if not it
was slander, vicious and uncompromising.
     "Mr. Morse is concerned for client confidentiality and is retaining council
on the issue of turning these over to the police."  Chang-Turner seemed
genuinely distressed at the prospect.  "...there's an issue of obstructing
justice...but these are Mr. Bryant's clients, so attorney-client privilege is in
effect.  With Mr. Bryant absent the issue is complicated..."
     Andi sat back in her chair--it certainly seemed that there was reason for
concern.  People and dates and materials were connected to illegal toxic
dumping and land-scams.  There was conspiracy and cover-up on the face of it,
plus the underlying illegality.
     Andi asked to see the original documents.  Chang-Turner reached into a
drawer and handed them over without expression.  They were pristine, no dog-eared pages, no erased pencil marks, no obvious deletions.  Andi looked at the
first page with its handwritten note and paged through the rest trying to find the
page that had been beneath it when the note was written in ballpoint pen.  
     "Where's the page that was beneath this one...?"  She set the papers
before Chang-Turner with a questioning look. "It would have been embossed by
the pressure of the pen."
     Chang-Turner looked almost embarrassed.  "There were some papers
that addressed unrelated issues...Mr. Morse decided they were irrelevant to
your work..."  She suddenly stood and strode to glance down the hallway.
     When she returned she leaned close and whispered, "There was a page I
didn't show Mr. Morse...I've made a copy for you...don't ever let anyone know
where you got it..." her eyes flashed with unexpected intensity as she pulled out
an original and copy and lay them on the desk.
     Dragon Lady Andi thought.  She took the copy gingerly and quickly read. 
There were three typewritten paragraphs--almost personal-journal style telling
of Morse's demands for greater percentages of Bryant's profits, of arguments
they'd had, of threats and accusations that Morse was syphoning from client
trust funds and bitter differences of opinion boiling over in their professional
lives.
     Andi glanced up--Chang-Turner was sitting back in her chair pale and
almost passive.  Andi compared the original with the cover sheet, it was as un-marked the rest.  She shuffled the copy to the bottom of her stack.
     "I'll file it separately and not refer to it in reports..." she promised.
     "I felt you should have it..." was all the prim Chang Turner said.  "If I'd
passed it on to Mr. Morse after I found it...you wouldn't have it now...this was the
only way." 
     Their meeting was obviously over.  Chang-Turner didn't even bother to
rise.
     Andi turned back before stepping into the hall.  "Oh...has a woman named
Maureen worked here in the last year or so?"
     Chang-Turner stared back blankly, "Maureen...no.  There's nobody in the
firm by that name."
     Andi walked to the elevator thinking about that uncharacteristic betrayal
of her employer's confidence.  Did accepting Chang-Turner's terms make her an
ally?  Would keeping silent on the matter make her an unwitting conspirator? 
She drove slowly back to her office.
     The pages almost pulsed as they lay beside her.  Suspicion clamored like
an alarm...it was too convenient--impersonal generic pages, only a cover sheet
truly tied to Bryant--the whole thing looked too pat.
     Did Morse plant it for Chang-Turner or she for him, or was it their's
together?  Would Morse really give the papers to the cops?  On a practical level,
it would mean releasing them publicly.  If forged, it would be obstruction of
justice and probably some sort of libel and fraud.  Just what were the stakes of
the game they played?
     Up until this, the firm's style had been seamless--this called attention to
itself showing up after a week and a half, with missing pages and that strange
extra page on Morse.  Could Chang-Turner really have an box of pending files
that languished for weeks or was it found a week ago and only recently cleared
for her out-of-firm eyes?  It was all a bit too bizarre.
     Andi needed to sit down and study her copies, but the Hawthorne bridge
was up again and she waited, caught in traffic, tapping her hand restlessly on
the wheel.
     

     Lena had found the little radio and was dancing to blaring rock oldies as
she typed and fussed at her computer.  The printer was cranking out page after
page.
     Lena sprang from her chair as Andi entered, prancing across the floor
singing "Yeeeow...I feel good...da da, da da, da da, da...you know that I should
now...So good..da, da..So good..da da...I got you."
     Andi waved her hands trying to keep a straight face.  "Enough
already...OK...I got something important...let's turn it down a minute OK?"
     Lena sprang to the radio then scrambled to the printer--pushed a button
and the room went silent.
     "If you got a moment I'd like your help." Andi announced as she dropped
into her chair and tossed the papers on her desk.
     She looked over at Lena, weighing responsibilities in her mind.  "The
official rap on confidentiality is that as an employee you're bound as well as I am
and working in the service of Templeton et al, we're probably bound by their
relationship to their clients.  I don't know exactly what this stuff is, but consider
yourself bound to silence..."
     Lena held up her right hand and spouted, "I Doctor Watson swear an oath
of silence to Sherlock Holmes..."  Then she flopped in her chair and pulled it to
the edge of the desk.
     "Read these before I tell you anything...then give me your impressions..." 
Andi passed a page to Lena and sat back with another.  They spent the next
fifteen minutes in silence.
     "So..." Andi asked.  She raised a questioning Vulcan eyebrow.
     "Are they for real?" demanded Lena.
     "Statements, not questions, Watson..." 
     "OK...the writer's trying to get these folks in trouble... real stinky mud's
being thrown...mostly anecdote and innuendo dressed up with dates and names
and some science stuff...nasty, nasty, nasty...we're working for this person?
     "...for...?  I'm not sure.  Is this a forgery by our client, you mean?  I don't
know.  You want a break from billing?  I'd like you to make lists of all the folks
and places to see if there's anything funny."
     "Funny...?"
     "Details...on made up things dates and stuff are easily screwed up...does
Saturday fall on the 12th?  Do the same names or places occur on more than
one page?  Whatever..."  Andi already had her note pad before her and a pencil
in her hand.
     Lena nodded, but said "By the way you had two phone calls while you
were gone.  A Janice Thompson wanting you to track down a witness and some
woman wanting to talk about child support."  She pointed to the notes laying on
the corner of her desk.  
     "Just what I needed...." Andi grumbled.
     "Hey, it's work..." Lena burbled.  "I can do the phone calls if you point the
way.  I told them you'd call back this afternoon."  She smiled her helpful smile
before turning away with her pile of pages.
     Andi shot a sharp look, but Lena'd already turned her back.  Andi reached
for the phone--maybe Lena could do the calls that the witness skip search would
take.
     She called Thompson and agreed to take the case.  Thompson said she'd
fax over details--it would be a telephone search after all, the guy was an
engineer, probably stable, probably hadn't moved to thirty places or taken a
dozen different jobs.
     The other call about child support took a while, the woman wanted to
know how much it would cost to track down her ex and was near tears when she
found out.  Andi suggested the usual support services and suggested going on
welfare for a month if for nothing else than to turn the state's resources onto
tracking him down.  She had the same conversation a number of times each
month and knew none of the options was satisfactory.
     She and Lena were still at it when Andi looked at her watch and saw that
it was twenty minutes to six.  "Look at the time... you didn't get JC's dinner."
     Lena made a face and turned back to reading.  "Who gives a fig?  I'll finish
this page before we call it..." she waved her hand as if she didn't care at all.
     Andi bit her tongue both to keep from asking and to keep from smiling. 
She finished the page she was reading and pushed it away, studiously looking
straight ahead.  She wasn't going to extend a single tendril fantasy in Lena's
direction--whether Lena cooked for or fought with JC it was all the same to her.
     On a sudden impulse she picked up the phone and dialed Noris-SDI.  Just
as Ibbe said there was no receptionist after five; a mechanical voice answered.
     "You have reached the offices of Noris-SDI after normal business hours. 
If you know the extension of your party please enter it now--if not wait for the
beep and leave a message."
     Andi punched in a random four numbers.  There was a click or two and
the phone rang three times, then clicked again and the voice mail message of a
Greg McCall kicked in.  Andi slowly lowered the phone.  If Bryant knew an
extension he could have phoned in after business hours.
     Sandra Ibbe had lied.
     But if he punched an extension number would the redial button work on
his phone?
     Andi suddenly felt tired and began cleaning off her desk, making piles,
leaning over to sharpen pencils and setting the files in place.  She rose and put
the old coffee filter in the wastebasket and took it and the coffee cups to the
rest room.
     When she returned, Lena was wiping down the coffee tray, her computer
screen already dark and her coat folded across the end of the table.  She looked
across at Andi as if to say something, but then thought better of it.  She picked
up her coat, raised her hand in a half-wave that matched her worried half-smile
and silently slipped through the door. 


     Andi stopped at the supermarket for a salmon steak and some spinach. 
At home in her mail box was an envelope with her name, but no stamp--recipes
from Daniel, who lived downstairs with his wheelchair, crafting jewelry.  She set
the envelope aside and put on basmati rice, slid the fish under the broiler and
sauteed the spinach with sesame oil and chili peppers.
     She took her plate into the living room and sank exhausted on the couch. 
She'd lie there and watch TV if anything decent was on; vegging in front of
Mystery was about as energetic as she wanted to get.  She clicked the set on,
but turned the sound way down--then turned it off and got up to turn on the
radio, spinning the dial to KMHD.  She sat back down and ate and thought.
     Extraordinary as "Bryant's" late-found papers appeared, Andi didn't
expect much meat in them.  As probable forgeries, they were tainted and
compromised beyond interpretation--their only value would be in betraying their
author.
     She carried her plate to the kitchen, turned the TV back on and the radio
off.  That they were the work of Bryant's own hand was a romantic thought.  She
channel-surfed through networks' commercials before Mystery came on.  It
could be someone maneuvering for position, taking advantage of the confusion,
but she'd put money on the author being Bryant's murderer.
     If Morse drafted them, would he have added the page exposing himself? 
It would be his style, a flourish incriminating himself to draw attention from a
greater crime.  Withholding pages could be a baroque detail or ad-libbing by
Chang-Turner.
     She was probably capable of as much deceit as any corporate player. 
She could have been embezzling--perhaps Bryant discovered her.  She could
have blackmailed the blackmailers--that would be a twist worthy of Morse.
     Then again, there could be a third player, perhaps with Chang-Turner's
assistance.  There were many in that crowd of business fat-cats with money and
power enough to lure her.  It might just be an opportunistic attack on a
competitor in hopes that the papers would be leaked.
     Andi remembered a PD James' line, "Love, Lust, Loathing, and Lucre, the
four L's of murder...And the greatest of these is Lucre."  She smiled and glanced
at her watch--almost eight o'clock.
     She clicked up the volume and pushed away thoughts related to work. 
She sank back into the cushions.  Tomorrow would come soon enough.


     When she unlocked the office just after eight the next morning there were
already phone messages waiting.  One from Morse, another from Chang-Turner,
the third from Lon Lively and the last, a long one, was left by the landlord telling
of plans to paint the stairs and hallways and asking Andi to call him at his
girlfriend's.
     Her landlord and his girlfriend wouldn't welcome a call until ten o'clock or
eleven.  She looked at her watch and decided it might be safe to call Morse or
Chang-Turner.
     "Katherine Chang-Turner please." she asked the perky voice on the other
end of the line.
     "Certainly...one moment."
     "Robert Bryant's office..." Chang-Turner's voice announced.
     "Hi, this is Andi Wicksham...I was wondering if I could have a moment of
your time...I could come there..."
     Silence reigned.  Chang-Turner didn't answer.
     "If it were more convenient we could meet for a coffee or lunch..." Andi
wanted to give her plenty of room to let her let down her hair should she feel so
inclined.
     It took another moment for Chang-Turner  to weigh that option.  "That
might be fine...let me check my calendar.  Would ten o'clock be too early?  I
think coffee would be good."  Her voice was as calm and un-flustered as ever.
     "Fine...you want to choose where?"  Andi hoped that meeting out of the
office meant there was something Chang-Turner wanted to reveal.
     Chang-Turner named a cafe near the Portland State campus--a student
dive a significant walk from her office, significantly out of the way of corporate
suits.
     Andi said goodbye, dutifully reaffirmed "Ten o'clock" and entered it in her
calendar.
     She'd just dialed the number a second time when Lena came in--glowering.
     Andi put down the telephone.  "You look cheerful..." She opted for the
playfully-compassionate option and hoped for the best.
     "Damn, damn, damn, damn, DAMN." cursed Lena, appealing to the
heavens with outstretched arms, but then mugging an unhappy smile for Andi. 
"It's the frigging pits..."
     "What's the problem Babe?"  She knew enough to give up jokes after that
opening gambit flopped.  "JC...?"
     "...who else?  The band was all booked to play around the Northwest
through Spring, but now they're going to cancel all those gigs and go off on
tour..."  She held her fists on either side of her head.  "...and Martha Vee, their
singer, is just waiting to get in his pants again.  I know it..."  She looked up
mournfully.  "This does not look good..."
     "...again?" Asked Andi, taking Lena's coat and pulling up a chair.
     "They used to be an item..." Lena wailed.  "She's wild and weird and
flashy."
     Andi looked at her levelly, "Like you're not weird and flashy..."  She
couldn't keep herself from smirking.
     Lena looked back in open-eyed shock.  "I'm not the same league...and I'm
not a musician...and I'm not going on tour with him." she pouted.
     "Maybe he'll show admirable self restraint.  What's your agreement?" 
Andi tried the reasonable approach.
     Lena bobbed a crossed leg, tapped her cheek with a finger, rolled her
eyes and made a face.  "She hates me and would jump his bones just to spite
me...  Christ...he's a jock...what can you expect from  a drummer anyway?"
     "Hey..wait a minute," Andi complained defensively.  "...I'm a drummer and
I don't screw around..." Andi pulled up short of adding not that I get a Chance
to.
     "I didn't know that...who do you play with?"  Lena seemed more than
willing to let the subject slip.
     "Friends.  It's no big thing...be-bop and some poetry jam stuff...we just
have a good time." Andi admitted with a touch of embarrassment.
     "Better that than a bunch of egos with fantasies of the big time.  I'm glad I
have a job to come to."  She didn't look glad at all.
     "How about an early coffee break?"  Andi looked over to Lena and jerked
her thumb toward the door.  "...hit the Underground for a mocha?  My
treat...OK?"  She was willing to put off Morse and Lively. 


     They settled into one of the Underground Cafe's overstuffed couches and
turned to face each other.  Andi perched anxiously, her knees drawn up before
her.
     They sat through an awkward minute with neither saying a word.
     Finally, Andi felt obliged to revealed her affair with Traci and getting
dumped.  She didn't mention that they'd met on Traci's rebound and that Traci'd
gone back to her ex.
     Lena listened attentively, took it in stride and smiled at the mango
fantasy.  She shook her head at Traci's farewell, but responded with "JC and
I've done a year and a half, but I'm living out of an emotional suitcase instead of
having home and garden."  Her eyes were damp with unshed tears.  "And I
wanted it to go right this time."
     Andi felt awkward consoling friends--felt she had little grace and
patience.  But she listened and murmured condolences and bought Lena a semi-sweet brownie to salve the emotional wound.


     When they returned there was call from Ramone Bodega suggesting they
meet for lunch.  Andi looked at her watch--only a half hour or so before she had
to leave to meet Chang-Turner.
     Lena returned to her computer.  Andi dialed Morse's number and waded
through the chirpy receptionist.
     "Morse here...Ms. Wicksham, I've been looking forward to speaking with
you."
     I'll bet Andi thought sullenly.  What she said was,  "Oh good...I have
another item you might help with.  I need an introduction to someone who knew
Mr. Bryant outside the office.  I haven't had any luck with his personal life...not a
storekeeper or waiter, no friends or social contacts, not a cleaning lady,
nothing."
     "I'm..not..sure..." Morse slowly deliberated.  "I'll see what I can do."  He
finished bruskly as if he'd made some decision right then and there.
     The phone hung quiet.  Andi wondered if he was going to ask what she
thought of the papers passed on by Chang-Turner.
     She waited another moment.  "I expect to talk to Ramone Bodega about
Mr. Bryant's clients...did he call you?"  She wasn't going to tell him about her
upcoming meeting with Chang-Turner, but she wondered if he didn't already
know.  Was he expecting her to confide that to him as kind of loyalty test?
     "I expect you will be able to find the information you need, Ms.
Wicksham." Morse said obscurely.  "I'm expected in a meeting in a few
minutes...is there anything else?"
     Andi said "No." and the phone went dead.  She paused a moment as she
considered how much she should trust Lena's skills.  "Lena..."
     Lena looked over questioningly.
     "Janice Thompson's witness lived here up until two years ago.  Here's the
file..." Andi pushed the folder with the faxes with her finger.  "What you do is
phone the old employer--and everybody you can think of--asking for leads.  Start
locally and go from one to another to another.  Get parents and siblings and
friends names and numbers from as many sources as you can--you never know
who's out of date or lying--document everything anybody tells you,
everything..."
     She looked up, Lena was already taking notes--she'd do fine.
     "After that, phone Phoenix information and trace things there--his job,
contact and residence...Chances are it'll be easy.  Don't tell him who you are. 
When you find him pretend you're a phone solicitor...let Thompson make the
overtures in case there's something fishy--he's her's to land.  And remember we
bill by the size of the files we generate so document every little thing that's
said."
     "Got it Sherlock..." Lena winked.  "...this is so exciting..."  She poked her
cheek with an outstretched finger and bobbed her head back and forth.
     Andi rolled her eyes and groaned at the act.  Her next call was to Ramone
Bodega--she dialed and he answered on the first ring.  "Mr. Bodega..." Andi
began, "This is Andi Wicksham returning your call.  So, is it possible to get
together..?"  No use beating around the bush.
     "Ms. Wicksham...Andi?  Do I call you Andi, or..." Bodega's voice sounded
in consciously slow, with paced phrases that hung full-voiced and resonant.
     "Andi's fine."  She reassured, chummily.  Bodega's manner almost made
you like him--she reminded herself that she was being paid to pump him for what
he knew.
     "I'd like to meet in person, but not at either of our offices...I'm free now..."
he extended carefully.
     "Not good." Andi reached for her calendar, "I've got a ten o'clock."
     "Eleven?" Bodega offered.  Andi visualized him looking at a calendar
identical to her own.
     "...I couldn't get anywhere until eleven-thirty...how 'bout lunch?" Andi
asked--she'd be hungry anyway; the day was filling up.
     "If not eleven how about half-past noon...somewhere outside and take-out
if we're going to talk."
     "Done! ...where?" Andi made a notation in her calendar and scribbled a
note in her notebook with a mental image of the two of them in their second floor
offices in different parts of the city sharing the synchronized ritual task--both
bending over their desks at that identical moment making notes to coordinate
their lives.  "I can bring a couple Honkin Huge burritos..."
     "Fine, fine...it's been rather dry today.." Bodega said absently.  He was
probably glancing out to the street from where he sat at his cluttered desk.
     Andi looked at out the window--he was obviously from the
Northwest...there'd only been a single short rain earlier in the morning, but the
streets had been constantly damp from a misty drizzle...who else but a local
would call it "dry."
     "Ever been to the Japanese Gardens?"  He asked.  "Meet there...tennis
court parking lot?  We can walk around if it's not too wet..." 
     "Fine...twelve-thirty at the Gardens..." Andi stared across at Lena's back--her hair, today in yellow bounded pony-tails bounded off from either side of her
head.  She wanted to say something conversational to Bodega but nothing came
to her tongue so she lowered the phone to her desk.
     She looked again at her watch--maybe ten-twelve minutes before she had
to leave.  She still had to call Lively and her landlord, nine-thirty was going to be
have to be soon enough.
     She paged through her opened files, found Lively's number and punched
it in with off-hand professionalism.  The phone rang four, five times.  Andi had
just decided to hang up when a breathless voice growled "Yeah...what do 'ya
want?"
     "Andy Wicksham for Lon Lively." Andi responded.  
     "OK...Lon here...I got stuff I think you want, and some gossip you want to
hear...but for more money, OK?"
     "Depends on what it is Mr. Lively."  Andi shook her head and shut her
eyes a moment.
     "OK...but at least seventy though, OK?"
     "Sixty..." Andi uttered bluntly.  "Where you want to talk."
     "...Waterfront Park, south side of Hawthorne bridge at lunch time"  It was
a statement, not a question.
     "Can't do twelve, how 'bout two."  Andi tried to guess the time to get to
her car and from the Japanese Gardens to the Hawthorne bridge--fifteen
minutes, add five for noon-time traffic, another ten for parking.  If she left
Bodega as late as one-thirty she should make it easy.
     Damn...she'd have to re-visit the cash machine.  She scribbled a reminder
in her book.
     "OK...see 'ya then." He hung up and Andi snuck another glance at her
watch.
     The note with the landlord's girlfriend's number had disappeared.  Andi
cursed and reached toward the piles littering that corner of her desk.  Papers
leapt of their own accord and danced in the air to the floor.
     "Shit..." Andi cursed, leaping to her feet and rummaging through the pile
for the note. 
     She dialed the number not even bothering to sit down.  "Bobby please..?"
she asked the sleepy female voice that answered.  How could people have such
laid back lives when the world moved at such a maddening clip.
     "Yeah..." Bobby "Soxx" Magnolia, her landlord and rock and roll guitar
extraordinaire came grumpily to the phone.
     "Andi here Bobby...you said to call..."
     "God...do you have any idea what time it is?" he demanded with
exasperation.
     "Best I could do...I only got a moment, what do you want?."  Andi looked
down, her foot was tapping in impatience.
     "You got to approve the color for the hallway...I got the color chip's and
can bring them by..."
     "You're the landlord...you decide...your decision will be fine..." 
     "Noooo, nooo...you guys will whine for months no matter what color the
walls get painted so you have to approve before the thing gets done...you think I
haven't dealt with you all before?"
     "I don't have time Bobby." Andi appealed.  "Look I got to run...I should be
back in the office for last half of the day...maybe then huh?
     She said "Yes" a couple more times and finally set the receiver down.
     "Busy day..." she reported rhetorically to Lena.
     Lena swung around.  "Make some time to glance at these..." she waved to
piles of papers on the table beside her.  "Letters and invoices for the unpaid
balances.  The letters are stamped--give 'em a glance and sign the letter...I'll
fold, stuff and pop 'em off.
     "Already..?"  Andi looked over at the table in surprise.  "That's going to
take me an hour." she complained, waving at the piles with a smile.  "How can
you do this to me?"
     "That's me...fem on the streets...butch on the spreadsheets.  It's none of
my business if you don't want to get paid...the beauty of the work itself sustains
me.  Here, take this stack of letters and do your mark before you run, I'll get em
in the mail at noon." She dropped a pile of paper before her. 
     Andy looked at her crossways and made a face, but leaned down and
scribbled her name at the bottom of each without bothering to read.  "I'm glad
we've had this little talk...I'm going out now and I'll be gone much of the day..." 
Andi gave her an exaggerated wide-berth as she edged toward the door.
     "But, colleague of mine...I have no key."  Lena reached imploringly like
Mediterranean diva in a nineteen-thirties movie.
     "Damn..." Andi stepped across to her desk and pulled out the spare.  She
could make a duplicate tomorrow--if she had time.
     "I'll get a copy made at lunch."  Lena slipped the key into a pocked in her
levi's and patted it.  "Don't forget your 'broily..."
     "What?" Andi demanded as she struggled into her coat. 
     "Your umbrella dear..." Lena pantomimed opening one that then pulled
her, open eyed, out of her chair and across the floor.  "Bye..." she waved like
Mary Poppins.
     "...I knew that." Andi mumbled darkly.
     "Shall I answer the phone or let the machine get it?"  Asked Little Miss
Helpful Lena.
     "Goodbye...answer the phone...fine...goodbye." staccatoed Andi as she
closed the door with a firm and definitive bang.  She again thanked her iron
resolve not to succumb to the lure of a cellular phone.  If she had one she'd
never get a moment of peace.






                            Chapter  6


     Andi remembered to stop at the cash machine only a block after having
passed it.  She swung back for the chore before completing the drive down
Hawthorne, crossing the bridge only a few minutes later than she'd planned. 
     Right below her the river was lined with cafes and chandleries,
warehouses and workshops--myriad business perched over the river on pilings--working buildings; docks and wharfs with boats and the smells of fish, tar,
sweat and lumber.
     Portland was a river town, one whose life was the life of river people; of
boat builders and gamblers, hustlers and longshoremen, silo workers,
teamsters and the civilizing influences of industrial age women.  Women swept
west as cooks, clerks and secretaries, teachers and writers and wives in an era
when clothing still was sewn from bolts of cloth, gas lights were an awesome
modernity, and food was grown and canned by people instead of machines.
     Now the western shore was a concrete and grass park skirting a high-rise
downtown and the barren eastern bank an all but a deserted wasteland held,
unused, by speculators maintaining it with weed-killer.  Eccentric characters
were marginal now, scattered bohemian artists, the troubled-homeless and a
rock and roll underground.  The character Portland worshiped was the
character of Nike, Tektronix and Mitsubishi--indistinguishable from other cities;
appealing to transient business types with dreams of forty grand cars instead of
blue collar odd-balls.
     The trend was a tidal forces as irredeemable as rain--the twentieth
century was a cultural autumn.  In the collision of values the character Portland
once flaunted slipped irretrievably away.
     Andi glanced at the last old brick buildings--those walls once knew an
older way.  It had been a romantic time.  Now there was no need for willing
hands and able backs, corporations ruled from a distance and executive towers
only a few ever visited were the symbols of success.
     She drove through the modern concrete and steel canyons, smiling up at
the rising columns of glass.  Portland did have great contemporary buildings. 
Too bad about the cost.
     The hotels that once rented residence rooms had been razed and never
replaced.  Crowded blocks where young families once enlivened upstairs
apartments with eager passion were now offices--deserted nights except for
security guards.
     She passed the bronze elk frozen mid-road behind the Portland Building,
swung left on Broadway and pondered parking.  A quick glance at her watch;
still on time.  The tasteless buildings of PSU loomed.  Three blocks away, but
she grabbed the first open spot.
     The coffee shop was of the plain formica and well worn linoleum variety,
dispensing the caffeine and sugar that generations of students fortified with
before it was time for pizza.  She'd spent hours here herself six years ago--and
was glad the era was comfortably behind.
     She surveyed the bored faces as she waited to be served.  Half had the
overwhelmed, preoccupied eyes and pallor of nervous tension from cramming
or post-adolescent indulgence.  The other half diligently killed time with papers
and books, more traveler contemplating academia as a port of call than
creature in the predatory dusk of competition.  Student styles changed slowly--lack of money, the perennial limiting factor, kept dressing down in vogue and
maintained eclectic as a ploy earning status points.
     She waited in line for a tall single latte and chose a seat from which she
could watch both doors.  It was a people-watching place.  She hung her coat on
her chair and soaked up the florescent-fixtured atmosphere.
     Chang-Turner came in as the place grew crowded with the ten o'clock
academic change of tide.  Her presence seemed more relaxed, her face more
human in the natural lighting coming in from the shoulder-high windows.  Andi
half-rose politely as she approached--Chang-Turner slid into a chair across the
table and looked into her eyes.
     "Mr. Morse has decided that the material I gave you is bound by attorney-client privilege and won't go to the police."  She wasted no time getting to the
point, watching Andi's eyes, her own face a mask of neutral indifference.
     Andi casually took a sip of coffee.  "I was wondering if it would...what do
you make of it?"  Better to keep her talking than be drawn into rhetorical
responses.
     "Frankly, I think he could justify it either way.  The firm would certainly
lose those clients if it got out, but they were Mr. Bryant's and he's not around. 
This may be a felony case..." she shrugged.  "...it's not my decision."
     "You knew Mr. Bryant's writing.  Do you think the papers are his?" 
     "You mean, do I think they're forged?  Sure they could be, the style is `law
school basic,' Mr. Bryant and half the lawyers in the country write that way.
     "The last note wasn't that style...the one about Mr. Morse...."  Andi let the
statement dangle. 
     "Well, no matter..." Chang-Turner waved the inconsistency away.  "I
actually wanted to talk to you about Mr. Bryant." she looked around the room--no one sat close who wasn't out of the classic student mold.  "I'm far more
worried now than I was before."  She glanced around again.  "What have you
found out?" 
     Andi sat up slowly and warmed her finger on the smooth sides of her
glass.  "Well, not a whole lot...loose ends, scraps, rumors...there's one that Mr.
Bryant was not on cordial terms with some of his clients...is that true?"
     "Business law is contentious, large amounts of money are at stake,
people's feelings run high." she shrugged and smiled a condescending smile.  
     "Doesn't that get in the way of working together?" Andi tried to maintain a
bored, routine expression. 
     "Lawyers are hired-guns chosen for skill and bad-attitude ...liking them is
a secondary issue."
     "Why didn't they like him?"
     "Discussing that would be more than I could do..." Chang-Turner had
withdrawn into her professional demeanor.  Andi felt her heart stall--she'd lost
her.
     "But you feel worried now...personally worried?" Andi tried to sound like
a compassionate friend.  "Do you think Mr. Morse or you could be in danger?"
     The question had been expected, Chang-Turner glanced away to gather
herself, it came across like a standard heroine's bit from a 1040's B-movie.  She
swiveled back to stare, full force, into Andi's eyes.
     "I'm not sure...it may be, but I'm not really sure why anyone would target
me."  She gave a little helpless shrug.
     Andi felt the answer a little too pat and responded with an equally
insincere smile.
     Chang-Turner nodded.  "I feel so in the dark about what's going on.  With
Mr. Bryant absent there's really little for me to do."  Her eyes plead for
assistance.  "I was hoping you could tell me what you've learned."  She glanced
shyly down to her folded hands then gave Andi a open-eyed Little Orphan Annie
look--pulled it off quite well, despite her tailored clothes.
     Andi sipped her coffee and stared back into her tastefully brown eyes,
she chewed her lower lip because she knew it made her look like she was
pondering something weighty.  
     Chang-Turner was not her client and had no right to information; Morse
was buying it outright and could chose to dispense or withhold it.  Was this
meeting really unknown to Morse, or was it yet another ruse?  Was Chang-Turner concerned for her own vulnerability or the firm's?
     "There's very little evidence." Andi offered.  "The police seem as stymied
as we are--there's precious little to go on.  If these papers turn out not to be
Bryant's, who could have planted them?" 
     "Not Mr. Bryant's?" she looked at Andi in alarm.  "They were written by
him...had his name on them..."  She over did her surprise, staring wide eyed,
her hands passively in her lap.
     "They might have been assembled from things he'd done...then again they
might be outright forgeries.  It opens up a whole new problem."  She leaned
close and whispered.  "Could they have been slipped there by Mr. Morse?"
     Chang-Turner peeled off her last expression and smiled as if ready for the
question.  "Everyone had access to that area, everyone...all our associates and
clerical help," she looked around as if grasping for possibilities.  "...and
janitors, even clients.  That pending file was never kept secured, because it
didn't hold contracts or confidential information."
     "That a lot of people had access might mean something in court, but I
care more about who had motivation."  She looked down into her latte, then
back up as if broaching a delicate issue.  "Are you saying that because those
particular papers had confidential information they couldn't have been left
there."
     "I found them myself." answered Chang-Turner haughtily.
     Andi scratched her ear and asked pointedly.  "Do you think the
allegations about your clients are be true?"
     "I really don't know...it's not my place to consider such things..."
     "How about the one about Mr. Morse?"
     "It's more than I feel qualified to comment on." Chang-Turner deflected
the question.  She seemed uncomfortable with the question--she might have
even blanched a bit.
     Andi started tentatively, "But by the nature of your role with Mr. Bryant a
great deal of sensitive material must have passed through your hands...you
must have some sense as to what was going on."  
     Chang-Turner didn't respond.
     "You ran the research arm of the office...choosing what to look into, you
must have had an idea what was significant."  
     Chang-Turner's lips thinned as she clamped her teeth together.
     Andi decided to go for broke.  "I know you're not telling me what you
know, and know you have reason to be concerned for your own safety.  I'm one
of the few people you can come to for help in this matter...when you're ready,
give me a call."  Andi pushed her half-finished coffee away from her and began
to rise.
     "Ms. Wicksham..." Chang-Turner put out a hand to hold her.  "People like
our clients play very tough, there are very high stakes.  Knowing things puts
people at risk.  Mr. Bryant was murdered because of what he knew.  With that
material from Mr. Bryant in your possession, even a person like you could be
next in line..."  She shot Andi an undisguised glare that repeated her threat,
rose suddenly and swept away without glancing back.
     Andi sank back into her chair, glanced at her watch and smiled...not bad. 
She'd shaken Chang-Turner's tree and had only to wait to see what might fall. 
She took a last sip her coffee and slipped on her coat.  There was plenty of time
to get food and zip up to the Japanese Gardens.
     Was Chang-Turner now serving Morse as she'd served Bryant or was she
acting on her own?  The parting threat exposed her tension.  If she was involved
in Bryant's disappearance she might be afraid of being exposed--if involved in
his blackmail she might be next on the killer's list.  That would be reason for
concern.
     Had Morse really debated those paper's release, then given them to her,
then decided not to release them further?  It didn't seem quite his style.  He
hadn't commented on them when they talked, could they be Chang-Turner's
alone?  That would be taking an incredible risk.  Andi discounted the possibility,
Chang-Turner wasn't that distressed.
     Whoever decided to give them to her played a desperate game.  They
were too obvious a forgery to be Morse's work from the outset, but he might opt
to use them once they appeared on the playing field.  She'd mention them just to
see what reaction they brought.
     She stopped at a light and wondered how big the underlying predicament
was, was the blackmail all there was at stake?  Besides whatever peccadillos
Bryant's client's presented, was this only the tip of the proverbial iceberg?
     Andi pulled into a `truck parking only' spot near Pioneer Courthouse
Square and looked anxiously up the street for a meter reader cursing again that
she hadn't sprung for the commercial plates that would let her legally snag
those spaces.  It wasn't the cost of the plates, her insurance was liable to have
to go commercial and once she made the first step she'd be committed.  Maybe
next year--how many tickets and meter feeding would make up the difference in
cost?
     After a final look around she stepped from the car and rushed to the
stand.  She was in luck--no line.  She ordered two Honkin' Huge's and grabbed
napkins and plastic forks trying to remember if Ramone Bodega had
volunteered the coffee.
     She set the bag through the passenger door, waltzed around and slid into
the driver's side with a grateful prayer to the Goddess of urban canyons--where
half-known forces roam and the survivors are those who blend with the herd--thanks for help avoiding a ticket.
     She flipped her turn signal, looked behind and merged smoothly into
traffic.
      

     Portland's Japanese Garden was elegant, expansive, walled and formal; a
quietly special place.  Bodega's choosing it lent their meeting a certain
significance and style. 
     Andi pulled up and parked across from tennis courts where she could see
the path up to the entrance.  Eleven cars and a Parks Department van waited in
the lot this side of the street.  No one obviously waiting.  Early--eleven minutes
after, nothing to do but wait and watch.
     She was unsure what to expect, Bodega's voice was all she remembered;
round slow pronunciation.  He was definite about not meeting in their offices. 
Why the security precaution--if that's what this was?
     This could be an elaborate set-up, something rehearsed by Morse to
simulate an independent source. Certainly Bodega had talked to him.  She
bridled at the thought.  The air was damp from the morning's drizzle, but the sky
in its usual shades of grey was already splitting to show clear blue behind.  A
cold wind blustered the tree tops and sent a few leaves dancing across the
pavement.  She'd leave her umbrella, one less thing to lug.  If it rained they
could retreat to a car and drive.
     A car with two young men arrived, but the riders ambled over to the
tennis courts--then another car carrying four women.  The third car, this time
with a single man, pulled in to park beside her, Andi watched in her mirror,
prepared to greet him, but he grabbed a racquet and followed the others.
     Andi left her elbow on the window and her hand on the steering wheel so
she could monitor her watch; twelve twenty-seven.  A dulled amber Toyota
pulled in and took the route closest to the hill.  A medium sized man with a
cardboard tray with two coffees; a trim five-seven, mustache, thinning hair,
levi's and a flannel shirt under a down jacket--the epitome of a Northwest
progressive and dark enough to wield a name like Ramone Bodega.
     She grabbed the bag of burritos, locked the door and stepped quickly
across to him.  "Mr. Bodega?"
     The man nodded with a look that seemed to measure her. 
"Ramone...please." he made a palm-up gesture with his free hand and gestured
that she should take a coffee, "Andi Wicksham?" The sun broke through the
clouds and he shaded his eyes with the side of his hand.
     Andi nodded and burrowed in the bag for his burrito before accepting a
coffee.  Bodega angled to the stone steps leading up from parking like it was a
familiar path.  Side by side they crossed the road, passed through the antique
gate and began the looping trail up to the bus-park and garden entrance.
     Beyond the gate they were swallowed by quietude, but halfway up the
hillside Bodega turned and looked behind him, "I expected someone older..." he
smiled a charming smile. 
     Andi chaffed.
     He noticed.  "Mr. Morse spoke of your competence..." he explained with a
nonchalant shrug.
     Andi force herself to respond with a smile.
     He paused, then turned to her, "You're asking about local industries. 
"Any particular focus...?"
     Andi looked across, from her place up hill a few steps their eyes were
level--surely he'd asked the same of Morse.  "Vulnerability to extortion...reasons
for tension with Robert Bryant."
     Bodega frowned.  "I knew Mr. Bryant socially...met him at parties.  What I
know of Templeton, Morse and Bryant is pretty much limited to Lionel
Morse...we've worked together quite a bit."
     Andi downgraded him from a seven to a three on her credibility meter.  "I
want to hear whatever you can tell me Mr. Bodega...I don't know a lot about
environmental politics or industry."
     "Ramone, please." he asked again with Latin charm.
     Andi pursed her lips, but nodded.  "Ramone..." she said.  Bodega was
good, she had to admit.
     "Let's see...as you undoubtedly know, Templeton, Morse and Bryant are a
major environmental firm involved in many of the issues I work on.  They do
extremely important work."
     "Would you lie for them, Ramone?" Andi asked bluntly.
     Bodega paused a step, pursed his lips as he considered the question,
nodded his head and looked her squarely in the eyes.  "I suppose so, at least
little lies...if it were important and not illegal...but I have no reason to.  All I can
do is tell you how I see things...but you have to understand, most is
anecdotal...only rumor...so you have to take it as opinion."
     They made the first hair-pin turn and continued along the rising grade. 
"Business is a human endeavor so a great many poor decisions get made by
businesses..." he began generally.  "...partly due to dysfunctional corporate
culture, myopic focus on profit...maybe a little stupidity." he chuckled,
"Anyway, bad decisions get made and it's understandable that people try to
sweep them under the rug...it goes on all the time."
     Andi paused to look down at the gate they come through, then back over
her shoulder to meet his eyes. 
     Bodega continued, "For them it's economics...managers of dams don't
admit they kill fish and put fishermen out of work and paper mills deny the
significance of PCB's because they'd have to change their business..."
     This little cleft in the hillside was a vibrant brown and green world of its
own--a few leftover yellow and orange splashes of leaves beside evergreens,
dark empty branches arched against a pale, clearing sky.  Andi looked
overhead, smiling at the crisp dampness, then turned back to Bodega.
     They stepped off again together and he continued seamlessly.  "Luckily
most problems aren't economically vital and, if it's not too expensive, it's in
industry's interest to be a good neighbor.  Non-profit's like Northwest Bio pile up
data and prod things along."  Bodega looked across to see if Andi was
following.  "We try to get the issues into public forums."  Their eyes met in
understanding and he continued.
     "Here in the Pacific Northwest environmental advocates and industries
actually work together a lot.  We agree to disagree on big problems until
dukeing them out before a judge.  That's where Morse fits in--he knows both
sides, sometimes builds bridges sometimes files suits."  He glanced across
again.  "...just because both sides talk doesn't mean we don't sometimes have
to sue."
     Andi glanced and caught his eye, "So Morse works for you?" she
questioned.
     "No, no..." Bodega chuckled, "Templeton et al are usually not the named
attorneys...remember the game is piling up evidence and Morse's got the
biggest files and the most experience.  I'm only an observer when the big fish
feed...and the best complainants are native tribes and other land owners.  I'm
just a eco-system biologist..."  He seemed a bit embarrassed by it.
     "Morse's files are used to blackmail industry?"  It was an interesting
admission.
     Bodega shyly kicked a bit of gravel with his toe.  The sun had come out
and the sky was clearing.  He continued, "That's overstated.  Part of the
leverage we have is what we know about industry's mistakes and
problems...you've got to realize that the threat of using that sort of information
is usually greater than its actual weight.  If they act quickly to correct a problem
so we don't call a press conference--is that blackmail?"
     "You tell me..."
     He grimaced.  "I don't see it that way.  Mr. Morse unofficially negotiates
some agreements, I see his work as ethical."
     Their eyes caught each other as they came up on a parking lot and idling
tourist bus.  "Small environmental groups like mine have little status."  He made
a dismissive gesture with his hands.  "All we can do is keep our eyes open and
do clean science."
     They came up to the entrance and fell silent.  Andi expected to pay, after
all it was her questions and client and he was working for a non-profit.  Bodega
took her empty paper bag and gracefully stepped aside to toss their trash as
she handed a twenty through the window and collected her change, brochure
and receipt.
     Bodega seemed to know the route he wanted--to the left against a
trickling flow of visitors.  A gaggle of tourists led by a self-conscious guide
passed as he veered off on small trail down the hillside to the left. 
     They paused at a wide spot on the narrow ledge of a trail.  "Let's see...you
asked about companies.  Most Northwest businesses see defending toxic waste
as a losing proposition."  He made a cutting gestures and pushed those firms to
one side.  "On the other hand, toxic spewing companies like All American, skirt
the edges of regulations and fight anything that points to them.  They put PCB's
in the river because they don't want to sell cheaper, off-white paper." 
     "Houston Light..." Bodega looked over. 
     Andi shrugged.
     He went on.  "...the owner's style and her daddy's before her is
confrontational, fighting every tiny point...and she lies with out shame.  Their
reputation doesn't matter because the paper market is wholesale...and being
contentious, they're used to getting negative flack--off the top I'd guess that
makes them an unlikely target for blackmail."
     "Makes sense..." Andi took another bite and looked up with a smile.
     Bodega talked freely in secluded corners, but kept moving, ambling up
stone steps and down paths, always away from other people.  They emerged
near the viewpoint overlooking the city. 
     The garden's grounds were quiet, aiding the illusion that the world was
far away--now just below them Portland pulsed and ground like a race-car.  
     They paused a minute.  Andi was mesmerized by the contrast between
city and garden.  They turned back to the silence, gazing down the hill at a rock
garden before turning onto a narrow stone stair, drawn on by the sound of
splashing water. 
     "Sandra Ibbe from Noris-SDI is a hard woman." Bodega continued quietly. 
Strictly MBA attorney...no concerns but bottom line.  Knows the drain of
disputes and the cost of bad press, but doesn't have a compassionate or
reasonable bone in her body."  Bodega smiled, "A psychologist friend of mine
said she was `abstracted from the social world.'"  He gave a scornful laugh.  "I
once heard her argue for less regulation at a hearing about a fatally injured
worker...she didn't have a clue that it might be inappropriate." 
     They paused to look down into a pond and up to the moss ennobled rocks
behind.  "She might be vulnerable to scandal, personal or corporate, but it's
hard to imagine her with a scandalous life...she's seriously under control." 
Bodega gave her a significant look and stepped aside to let an old couple totter
slowly across the wooden bridge.  "Personally, I think she may be capable of
anything if cornered..." 
     Andi paused, momentarily distracted by the line of Bodega's Aztec nose.
     Bodega looked back, and then turned to walk on.
     "Murder?" asked Andi.  Blunt candor was her strong point.  She hoped
Bodega wouldn't be put off.
     "Murder...?"  He rolled the word in his mouth while favoring Andi with a
stare.  He looked away and continued in a slow, deliberate pace.  "...maybe
so..." he glanced at her again--then away.  "It's not my field...she's wound so
tight I can't read her."  
     Andi waited silently, waiting for him to continue.
     When he looked back, his eyes glinted.  "I distrust her...other than that..." 
He shrugged.
     They walked through the natural garden and around the strolling pond,
looking down on eighteen-inch koi.  When another group of tourists came, they
returned to the smaller trails.
     "Brian-Core's Drexler is a different sort of hard case...an east coast man
with east coast ways.  He's believes business is battle and it's a matter of honor
to never give an inch."  Bodega gave her a pained look and rolled his eyes.  "It
doesn't fit Northwest culture...it makes him an outsider among businesses and
that he doesn't understand."
     Bodega fell silent and ambled elbow to elbow with Andi as a couple
maneuvering a baby carriage moved past--he with a mustache and thinning
hair, she with tasteful Middle Eastern ethnic garb--neither glanced up as they
passed.
     "..rumor has it that he has Chicago underworld connections...takes order
from some mafia type and sends boys to lean on suppliers and labor people..."
     "What?"  Andi glanced up and shook her head in disbelief.
     Bryant held up his hands, "...God's truth that's the rumor--I'm just passing
it on.  Even if it's poppycock the rumor persists, especially about leaning on
suppliers...I've heard it more than once."  He shrugged, but his eye caught hers
with a steady gaze.
     Andi responded with a shrug, she'd asked for rumors--she'd take them
with a grain of salt.  She was enjoying Bodega's graciousness and pushed
suspicion to the background.
     "Murder...?" he continued, "There's some limit beyond which even people
who'd beat somebody up don't go...things have to be worth lots of money or be
personal to push them that far.  Maybe it was something more than business. 
Ibbe's wedded to Noris-SDI so it's more than money to her."  His brow wrinkled,
disturbed at the thought.  "I don't know, murder is a serious thing...."
     They walked on, Bodega just carrying his burrito, Andi following and
listening as she downed half of hers between gulps of coffee.  Suddenly she
looked at her watch.  "Oh, shit..." she cursed.  "Got to run...another
appointment."
     Bodega looked across in surprise.
     "I'm really sorry...I should have blocked more time..." she was already
backing toward the garden entrance.  "I'll call in the morning to touch
bases...sorry..."
     Bodega waved a bit dejectedly.
     Andi turned and dashed out the gate and jogged down the path--they'd
have to meet again, it was just starting to get interesting.  Now, if she rushed
like the wind and the track was fast she might get to Waterfront park just in time
for Lively.


      She parked four blocks west of the river, but figured to cut her losses
and take the first spot she found.  The skateboarders were out in numbers.  Andi
pulled her coat a bit closer and slowed to an amble as she cut through the funny
stage-like structure, watching the boarders cut, catch air, and slide their
boards along the edge of the steps.  A gangly youth in goatee and grunge layers
tried leaning backwards into a handstand while threading his way along the
stairs, but miscalculated and ended up sprawled upside down with his board
spinning out to Andi while his friends laughed and slapped their thighs.
     Andi stopped the board with her foot, kicked it back in his direction, then
continued to the edge of the concrete embankment where she could lean
against the rail.
     Lively was five minutes late and didn't offer an excuse.  He came up,
leaned both hands on the railing and looked out over the river.  As if dressed for
low budget movie, he wore a wrinkled trench coat, dark glasses and old fedora.
     "I've come up with some stuff you want..." he began.  "Did you bring
money?"
     Andi nodded, trying to maintain a serious, neutral demeanor.
     "Back when I worked for Bryant and the Dragon Lady I laid away copies I
thought interesting...stashed 'em at a friend's in Tigard..."  He smiled openly. 
"...interesting stuff..."
     Andi didn't like his smile and decided to set him straight.  "I'm not
investigating environmental problems...and don't' want financial statements or
anything general."  Andi needed to set limits.  He might only have annual reports
and was sleazy enough to try to pass them as research.
     "Ten dollars a page..." Lively said firmly.  He looked into her face.  His
eyes were clear and he was clean shaven--nothing of the rummy alcoholic he
was before.  He spoke in a sotto whisper, "You can take them or not, I don't
care."
     "How do I know they're any use to me?" 
     There was a pause as Lively thought it over.  "I'm going over there to pick
out a page...you can look at it for five.  After that it's ten dollars a page...one
page at a time if you like."
     "They come from Morse's office...?" Andi asked.
     "Weren't you listening?" Lively countered disagreeably.  "...now wait..." 
He turned away, walked to a bench and pulled a folder from inside his coat.
     Andi watched the mid-day joggers and thought it over.  Morse might want
all the documents Lively could come up with if only to ascertain what had
leaked.  Then again, she didn't like either Lively or Morse and the idea of just
shining this on and going home held definite appeal.
     Lively came back with a couple of pages in his hand.
     "Let's talk about the other stuff first..."  Andi pushed, wanting to keep him
a bit off balance.
     Lively's face fell, but he recovered.  "Suits me...sixty dollars and five more
for this..." he held up the sheet of paper, "and ten more for a copy of this
memo..."  Andi could see the first paper held a paragraph or two of text and a
column of something else.  Lively flourished the second quickly, then folded the
two together and slid them into his pocket.
     Andi took out seventy dollars and added another five...she counted out
thirty of that and handed it over.
     "Yes?.."  She let the question dangle in the air between them.
     "Noris-SDI was set up by Bryant.  There was a securities fraud venture
they backed out of...Bryant had some memos and a witness who would spill the
beans to the SEC.  Ibbe packages other people's software--mostly obscure
stuff.  She was offering shares in a company developing software she didn't
have for a military contract she also didn't have.  The attorney drawing up the
papers was Bryant--he double crossed her."
     Andi waited a moment, listening to a tug pushing a barge up the river. 
"Tell me about Ibbe."
     Lively stared stiffly out over the river then turned back.  "Her business
ties up potential stuff from brilliant, but naive little programmers via a variety of
schemes--mostly vulture capitalism--offering money against ownership on terms
the shmucks can never meet.  She's a hustler taking advantage of inventive
nerds."
     Andi nodded to show she was listening. 
     "Her contracts have pages of fine print with limitations and conditions
upon conditions no one could live up to, so her fish default...inevitably leaving
her with as much ownership or unlimited use she had guts to stick them
for...without her having to put out all the money.  I got two of the contracts if you
want examples--they're interesting reading.  Bryant...contracts were his
specialty, her's is real estate and trusts."  He glanced up.
     Andi shrugged her shoulders noncommittally. 
     Lively reached in his pocket and carefully pulled out one of the pages. 
"This came from Bryant's files..."
     The page listed developer's names, phone numbers and addresses and
software descriptions with a few had written notations as to quality and
usefulness.  The bit that caught her attention however was the hand-written
comment on the bottom 

          Robert:
          Best not to contact any of the above____.
                                   S. Ibbe.

     Andi smiled at Lively and waved the paper casually in her hand.  She'd
have to check the signature, but she bet it was her's.  "This is the one I bought?" 

     Lively nodded.
     "You have more like this...?" 
     "A few I'm sure of...I've got to dig through to see what fits your needs...it
takes considerable time."
     "I can imagine..." Andi let it go at that.  What sort of archive had Lively
assembled in his three years at Templeton, Morse and Bryant?  "And the other
papers you wanted me to see..?"
     "This is your sample to view...you haven't bought it."  His voice was
matter of fact and businesslike.  "I have a considerable amount of this sort of
material should your client have interest..." 
     Andi took the page and leaned against the railing.  It was an abstract and
overview of a report on All American, Inc.  A single-spaced abstract and the
first two paragraphs of an overview.  It apparently listed a variety of
environmental accidents--mishandlings of solvents and wastes and blowing out
tanks; ranked and indexed chronologically.
     "From Morse's files I imagine..?" Andi tapped the page with a finger.
     "I have the full report with me if you're interested...sixty seven pages...six
hundred, seventy dollars."  He said it matter of factly as if offering a flat of
strawberries.
     "I don't have that kind of money.  My client might be interested in a
considerable quantity...but ten dollars a page is ridiculous..."  She tried to
remember how much money she had on her.  "I want to look at sixteen more
pages...it's what I can afford...I'll buy if they're good."  She reached into her
pocket and pulled out the forty-five she already owed him.  "This is yours..."
     Lively grunted, stuffed the money in an inner pocket and retreated to the
bench.  Andi pulled her cash from her bag and counted out one hundred sixty
dollars.
     When Lively returned he handed her the papers.  "Sixteen plus the one
you bought rights to view...I'll throw that other one in for nothin'."  He looked
pleased with himself and casually cleaned his fingernails as she looked through
the papers.  The pages were consecutively numbered, the table of contents
following the overview took nearly two pages.
     Andi handed him the money.  "What will it take to get more?" she asked
quietly. 
     "...phone if you're interested...a few days...and the price won't drop
much...ten dollars is cheap, even in quantity."  He snickered, snidely. 
"Cheap..."
     "I'll call..." volunteered Andi, "but it'll be a few days."
     "Next week then...I'll be waiting."  With that, Lively sauntered slowly off
towards town.
     Andi returned to her car and drove slowly to her office.  It had been a
fruitful day already.  She would keep the page signed by Sandra Ibbe deep in
her files until she decided how to handle it, but give the report on All American
to Morse.
     He would take a dim view of someone copying his files, but he probably
wouldn't go to the police.  It would be interesting to see how he played it.  Andi
was sure Lively couldn't be trusted and it was extremely unlikely he would give
up his only copies--next week might prove to be an interesting span of time.
     With his copied files Lively could be dabbling in some blackmail himself. 
He didn't seem to suffer from moral scruples.  It wouldn't take much effort to
approach the businesses with dirty laundry.
     Maybe Bryant's death was part of a plan that blew-up in Lively's face.  It
could have been him in the boat house--Bryant laughing in his face and calling
him an amateur.  It would explain his over-eagerness to implicate Chang-Turner
and Bryant.  It made more sense than simple anger at being fired from his job. 
But would he go as far a murder for satisfaction or revenge?





                            Chapter  7
     
     
     Andi returned to the office.  
     Lena worked away, a cup of coffee in one hand as she paged through files
with the other.  "How'd it go?" she asked off-handedly.
     Andi stretched to work a kink out of her neck.  "I got more information
than I ever dreamed...more than I understand for sure..." Andi mumbled.  She
casually laid a hand on Lena's shoulder as she went by.  
     Lena reached up and patted it without looking up.  "I found that guy for
Janice Thompson." 
     "Yeah?" Andi perked up.
     Lena swung around, sparkling with smug pride.  "It was so easy...amazing
somebody would pay you to do this."  She rolled her eyes.
     Andi shrugged.  "Thompson's too busy to run around chasing loose
ends...and it could have been a day or two of hassle.  Anyway...it costs her
nada, she passes on our cost and adds her percentage..."
     Lena shrugged.  "The file's back on your desk for billing.  I typed
everything I could think of to fatten the report...it wasn't exciting at all." she
pouted. "You got phone calls from Ramirez and your landlord...note's on your
desk.  Landlord asked if four o'clock was a good time...I told him your calendar
looked free at the moment."  She swiveled her head to give Andi a quizzical
look.  "...and Ramirez asked if I liked barbecue.  Know what that's about?"
     "Hmmmmm..." mumbled Andi.  How could she admit she'd led Ramirez to
think they might be together?  Damn again.  She sank into her chair and
reached for the note.
     "Friday's the day after tomorrow, Andi...we'll need to crank another
report for Morse...and I whipped out the synopses you wanted." 
     "Oh...the report," Andi remembered.  Thank God there was another day
to beat at details--she wanted to put her head on her desk and close her eyes. 
There was still yesterday's work to make sense of and today's would take hours
to get any perspective at all.  Tonight was a band practice with Sonny and
tomorrow would be a day of notes and reports even if she burned the midnight
oil.  Friday would be OK if nothing came up--but what Chance was there that
things would run smooth?
     "This coffee sucks...and I need a break." Lena announced suddenly, she
pushed her cup away with theatrical bravado and rose to her feet.  "I'm going
down the street for hot chocolate, want something?"
     "Cocoa's fine." Andi said distractedly.  
     "Catch you on the rebound..." quipped Lena.
     Only in my dreams thought Andi as she reached for the phone.


     "Ramirez here."  Ramirez's voice scratched from a long day at his desk. 
Andi could tell when he'd spent too much time on the phone
     "Gotten out of your chair in the last couple hours?" she asked rudely. 
     "My friend..." he responded broadly.  "I thought we might get together
tonight..."
     "Can't...band practice."  Andi said curtly. 
     "We need to get together and talk..." Ramirez pushed.  "...say just after
work at Coffee People's."
     "But I'm piled high with stuff...I just got in from..."
     "Wicksham..." he interrupted, "..slow down, listen to the stress in my
voice...we need to get together...OK?"
     "OK, you got it." Andi glanced at her watch--it was after three fifteen
already.  "Quarter after five?"
     "With bells on, Wicksham.  God, it's hard to break into your busy
schedule.  It must be nice out in the private sector...making all that
money...having all that freedom..."
     "What crap Ramirez...I got to get to work.  See ya at quarter after."  She
reached for her book, scribbled his name, place and time and looked at the
chaos laying before her.
     First, type in yesterday's work, second outline today's madcap
adventures, third...maybe insert an hour to outline what she wanted in the
report so in case she ran out of time she'd get the important stuff done. 
Fourth...oh shit...she was going to have to work late and run to band practice
without a shower or change of clothes.
     Lena came in with two paper cups and set one before Andi.  "You know, if
we took our mugs down we'd be more eco-cool and save fifteen cents a pop."
     "Yeah?  ...thanks."  Andi started straightening the piles on her desk.
     "Don't forget the last of the billings...you'll feel better with an actual cash
flow.  You live off savings between big checks, don't you?" Lena set her cocoa
on the table primly and hung her coat on the chair.
     "...how'd you know?" demanded Andi sullenly.
     Lena waved her hands before her mysteriously.  "I know all and see
all...and I just trudged through what you consider your books...remember?"
     "Oh yeah." replied Andi, a bit deflated.  "We don't even know if we'll get
anything back..."
     "Sure we do...it's like statistical...a standard curve...some percentage of
people lost your bill or are embarrassed at getting dinned and only need this
little push--we'll get their checks first of the week--guaranteed.  The bulk need
two or three letters...the hard-cores you turn over to an agency that takes half
the money but gives the satisfaction that you're putting them through consumer
hell.  The uncollected you take off you're taxes...how long you been in
business?"
     "That's why you're here, kiddo...I don't know diddly about business squat. 
All I do is sleuth about and make a zillion phone calls.  I have the personal
satisfaction of having maintained my billing system on good faith and naivete." 
Andi shook her head and put a goody-goody finger to her cheek.
     "...good faith and denial..." Lena quipped.  "I should have discussed doing
this for a percentage."  She stretched, sank into her chair and pointed at the
piles littering Andi's desk.  "Any way I can help with the albatross?"
     Andi looked down and groaned, "I don't see how...most of its stuff I've got
to puzzle over.  Typing's the easy part."  She looked across at Lena hopelessly. 
"I wish there were.  I'm going to work though the weekend at the rate I'm going."
     "When you want a better system, we can set it up." lectured Lena primly
as she turned around to her table.  "And you know phone work is in my job
description."
     "I'm used to doing everything myself."  Andi's response was sharper than
she intended so she added, "...I'll think on it...OK?" 
     "Workaholics usually have control issues, did you know that?"  Lena
couldn't leave well enough alone.
     "You obviously don't have enough to do..." Andi thundered ominously.
     "Why look here..." Lena said in surprise as she reached out for the
ledgers.  "...there's a bunch more billing stuff I can grind my nose on...funny
how these things kind-of hide in the weeds out of sight."
     "Humph..." conceded Andi.  She flipped through her computer files and
started reconstructing yesterday in her mind.  She glanced over to scan
yesterday's calendar; marinas and yacht brokers, phone calls and meeting
Chang-Turner to get "Bryant's" papers.
     "Where are those synopses you made on Bryant's papers."  She asked
without looking up. 
     Lena swung around and handed them as if they were already in her hand. 
Andi skimmed the neatly typed work.  Lena had excerpted all the names and
places and had inconsistencies notated and cross indexed.
     "Wow...good work.  Buy your weren't impressed, eh?"  Andi looked up to
Lena and waved the papers.
     "My opinion is it's fake.  And that last one seems in a whole different
style."
     "Yeah...but who planted it?  Chang-Turner or Morse?  They're not giving it
to the cops.  That means they know it's fake.  The question is, why risk giving it
to us in the first place?  It's a big risk..."
     "Only if its true..." said Lena dryly.
     "What...?" Andi's brow furrowed.
     "...well, if this stuff isn't true or there isn't enough evidence to prove
anything, there's not a lot of risk...and we're kept spinning our wheels."
     "But they're paying us for our time." Andi said in exasperation.  
     "Hey...I'm not arguing--just pointing out problems...I don't care whether
anything's true."  There was a defensive edge to her voice.
     "Yeah, OK, sorry." she raised her paper cup of chocolate and said
"Thanks."
     "Skoal..." Lena lifted her own in a toast.
     "L'chayim." responded Andi before returning to her work.  What if
Bryant's papers weren't what they seemed?  "You want another job, Lena?" she
looked up and caught Lena's eyes.  "Check with DEQ to see if any of it's true. 
Maybe the Board of Corporations, maybe real estate transactions at the
Courthouse.  Be nice to know how much if any weight to place on it...no matter
who put fingers to the keyboard."
     "Yeeha..." Lena crowed dryly.  "Dr. Watson on the case...I kind of like the
role...I get jealous of you doing the interesting stuff."
     "Wait until you spend three full days in the records room at the
courthouse...you'll be changing horses from the other side of your mouth."
     Andi smiled to herself in grim satisfaction.  "I'll phone Morse and tell him
we're billing your time."
     She scribbled the note in her book and groaned when Bobby Soxx came
waltzing in the door with bigger than life smile and a handful of paint chips.



     She met Ramirez at Coffee People at five-fifteen.  He sat placidly looking
out at the other late afternoon denizens of Portland's cafe society.  When his
daughter hit fifteen she'd decided to move in with mom for "those critical
teenage years" and his present life-mate Tanya worked until seven so Ramirez
had taken to prowling the world of artsy, hip, political, unusual, or otherwise
generally interesting watering holes.
     He'd perfected the art of blending in with people that would shit the
proverbial brick if his occupation were discovered.  Andi suspected it was far
more his natural crowd than the cop shop's studied collection of honest jocks
and shallow thinkers.
     She waved and stood in line for hot apple cider.  Ramirez had saved a
chair by perching his feet on it.  He was reading a copy of Michael Foucault's
Madness & Civilization. 
     "...you really reading that or is it part of your disguise?" she quipped as
she pulled the chair from his feet and sat down.
     "You should read more than escape literature...it would keep you from
living too shallow a life." he dead-panned bluntly.
     Andi let it die, sipped her cider and said "Well...so, what do you want?" 
     "So, we needed to talk.  This Bryant thing has moved on...DNA tests prove
the blood is Bryant's.  Now it's a probable homicide...more to the point, Max is
having a cow."
     "The missing body?"  Andi pulled the floating piece of cinnamon stick out
of her cider and sucked on it.
     "Probably gone by boat...keys to the docks are out in the world by the
hundreds and almost everybody at the Yacht Club party but Bryant and Morse
had access to one.  Coast Guard says it might have been swept out with the
river, but there's so much traffic and it would take a couple of days...  Maybe
Bryant was given concrete shoes?  Who knows or cares really?  Your boy
Bryant had a lot of enemies...but I guess you know that."  Ramirez looked
thoughtfully disapproving.
     Andi studied his face.  Ramirez was being awfully circuitous.  "...so what
was it you wanted to see me about?  Catch me up on your life at the office?"
     "I want to know what you know about this thing, Wicksham.  You've been
hounding it for a couple of weeks..."  He leaned back in his chair and calmly
beamed his eyes right through her.
     Andi fumbled quickly for a strategy.  What should she tell--even for
Ramirez there had to be a limit to how much she could divulge.  "You guys been
working the same couple of weeks." she said calmly.  Stalling would buy a
moment to think.
     Ramirez waved away the diversion.  "So who's on your suspect list...did
he had a lover or anything?"
     "Everybody's on the list..." Andi moaned theatrically.  "Morse, Bryant's
secretary, his clients...and no, none under any rock I've turned."
     "Which clients?"  Ramirez had a pad on the table and his usual automatic
pencil poised above it.  Andi hadn't seen him pull it out. 
     "Somebody Drexler of a company called Brian-Core...mixed up with shady
real estate deals, maybe fraud around some toxic clean-ups.  Mafia type
reputation that might actually be more than cliche.  There's a Sandra Ibbe of
Noris-SDI, scam artist software entrepreneur...used Bryant to draw up
contracts with questionable ethics...a rumor Bryant pulled the rug out from
under a securities fraud they'd strung together.  There's more..."
     "Who else...?"  Ramirez didn't even look up from his writing.  
     Andi lifted her cider.  "An ex-employee named Lively who has a bunch of
stolen files of shady dealings Bryant was involved in...possible blackmail..." 
     "Blackmail?  Who by who?"  Ramirez paused, sipped his coffee and
looked calmly into her eyes.
     "Who?  Everybody it seems...Certainly Bryant and his secretary doing
their clients, Lively maybe doing Bryant and the same clients, maybe Ibbe with a
finger in one of Drexler's pies...Morse sits in the middle of the nest, even though
I still haven't found a tie-in for him..."
     "You're working for him, eh?  He's your client, pays you an hourly fee?" 
Ramirez's dry comment dripped with innuendo. 
     "Daily...but it doesn't mean I don't suspect him..." asserted Andi
defensively.  "Most of the people I've talked to feel he's the puppet master
pulling strings.  I've wondered if hiring me is part of covering his tracks...but I've
nothing to hang it on.  He's not gotten in my way...that's something in his favor--not that he done me much good.  I'm working on motives because I don't have
anything else to kick-off from." 
     "...Bryant's social life..." Ramirez turned to a fresh page in his note pad
and looked up expectantly.
     "Can't help..." Andi shrugged.  "He's a mystery...quiet life...no leads." 
She sipped her cider and smirked a half-smile of commiseration.
     "Wicksham...give it up...covering for Bryant's friends will get you big
trouble...you can be hauled in for obstructing an investigation...this is a
murder."  Ramirez's voice was deep and threatening--he was using his
menacing "cop" voice.
     Andi stared at him incredulously.  Why was he giving her the third
degree?  "Hold it Ramirez... I'm not covering up a thing.  First, I don't know
anything about Bryant's personal life...I've found out zip--nada...I don't have a
single friend or lover, or ex-lover, or barber or housekeeper.  Second...what the
hell you doing grilling me like this for?  ...you change medications or something? 
...is it a bad phase of the moon?"  Andi leaned close and asked, "You and Tanya
doing OK?"
     Ramirez leaned back and smiled a slightly embarrassed smile. 
"Yeah...sorry, Wicksham...I got carried away...chalk it up to enthusiasm.  Tanya
and me are fine.  It's Max...the brass are calling him twice a day demanding
answers, the stupid investigation is dying, grinding away on nothing.  You really
got zip on his personal life?"
     "Ramirez..." Andi spread her arms in a parody of one of his gestures. 
"I..don't..know..nothing.  It's like he lived in a vacuum and didn't do anything but
work.  Morse and Chang-Turner are completely dumb on the subject, one
neighbor says she saw him with a woman, another says a man, maybe there was
an argument a day or two before he disappeared...you're not writing...you
already have that?"
     "Yeah, not me but another guy.  So what gives?  Was he a hermit?  Did he
drink?"  Ramirez pursed his lips in a disbelieving scowl.
     "He had a half-dozen bottles of wine at his house--an open chablis in the
fridge.  I didn't see any hard liquor--which I thought suspicious--not even
something like cognac for entertaining.  I didn't cruise the bars with his pictures
cause I thought it would be a waste of time."
     She paused for a breath.  Ramirez waited impatiently, so she kept on
going.  "And my guess is no, he wasn't a hermit...but remember when I got into
his house it was scoured of everything remotely personal.  Ditto at his office,
nothing in his desk with personal names or numbers.  If you ask me, it's far too
weird a coincidence to be a cleaning lady we can't find.  Somebody wiped the
slate to cover tracks."
     Ramirez jotted notes, splitting his attention between his paper and her
face.
     Andi suddenly remembered another point.  "Oh I know something.  His
next door neighbors used to collect his mail and get his paper when he was
gone on business."
     "Yeah, so what...he didn't this time."
     "But there weren't papers and there wasn't anything but junk mail."
     "So what are you trying to tell me..."
     "I checked with the post office and paper..."
     "And..." Ramirez was getting impatient.
     "He did a change of address to his office last November and canceled his
paper." Andi sat back with a feel of triumph.  She could tell from his expression
that he hadn't know that, which meant the department didn't check it out.
     He countered.  "People do that stuff all the time...cancel their papers and
forward their stuff to their offices.  It wasn't the day or week before or
anything..." 
     Andi gave a disparaging look.  "The bottom line is there's nothing else to
find.  You must have questioned Jesse Ohi.  You were there yourself...nothing
personal at house or office--right?  Speaking of prints...what did you find at his
house?"
     "We found your prints Wicksham...and now there's talk of hauling you in
for obstructing justice or complicity or anything just so Max can sweat some
"truth" out of you.  Its all I can do to keep them off your back...for a while."
     Andi sighed despairingly.  "What did you find in the desk at the house?  It
was locked when I was there."  Changing the subject seemed a tactful ploy.
     "Nothing."  Ramirez said simply.  "Nothing that led anywhere.  I think
there was client's business card and a ball point pen advertising a real estate
agent.  Somebody looked into them...the client hadn't seen Bryant in two years
and there were five thousand pens given out."
     "How about his car?"
     "The green Jag?  A few maps and a smudge of dirt from somebody's shoe--that was it."
     Andi scratched an ear and kept asking.  "...next of kin?" 
     "...getting done, but I haven't' got it."
     "I'd like it if you could get it leaked."
     "...maybe..."
     "Any rap sheets on Morse or Chang-Turner?"
     "What do you think...?"  He shook his head and made a face in frustration.
     Andi was silent for a long moment.  
     Ramirez had finally relaxed and seemed to be back on her side.  The
clamor of the cafe suddenly loomed loud around them. 
     "Thanks...I owe you one, but I really don't know anything more.  I can get
you Lively's number..." Andi finished off her cider and set the mug down with a
purposeful clatter.
     Ramirez gave her a sour smile.  "Thanks, but it will be better if we get it
from Bryant's office...you don't want any official ties to this case do you?"
     "No I guess not..." Andi rose to her feet and grabbed her coat.
     "Keep me posted, OK, Wicksham?  If I tell Max I've talked to you every day
or two it'll back him off somewhat."


     Andi went back to her office and stayed until ten to seven, far later than
she should have, grabbed some fast food tostadas that took an ice-age to be
sacked and handed over and raced on to band practice.  Her drums were left
set up in Brighten's basement--all she had to do was show up and sit down.  
     She arrived twenty minutes late as Sonny dug through lyrics, her partner
Paco was in a corner with a book.  Rick, the bass player was tuning up as Andi
came down the stairs; Brighten had wandered upstairs to talk with Martha.
     Andi twirled a drumstick in silence, savoring the subdued excitement and
prickle of tension just before plugging in. 
     "The prodigal daughter..." Rick quipped, leaning his bass against the amp
and stretching a kink from his back.  He played big-league jazz for big bucks,
but privately claimed it had little soul.  He was far over their amateur league;
flew to New York and Vegas for three or four-day gigs, played with Winton
Marsalis, once backed up Sinatra and made oodles of studio money, but here,
he was just an old friend putting up with their garage-band chops.
     Andi felt an excuse was expected, "Sorry I'm late...I'm so swamped at
work I don't know what I'm doing." 
     "How's what's her name do?" Sonny had paper in both hands and still
riffled through the pile.
     "Lena...real good.  Hard to believe I got along without her."  Andi
straddled her stool and diddled the tuning of her snare.
     "You feel all right about that stuff we talked about?"  asked Sonny from
across the room.
     "Nothing I can't live with..." Andi mumbled, resenting having it mentioned.
     Sonny changed the subject.  "Hey guys...Portland Rap a little slower and
sexier than usual.  I got another stanza.
     "No, no..." Rick waved his arms and appealed to Andi.  "...first warm up
on a boogie blues?  C-Jam Blues...OK?  Count it out Andi."  Rick looked over
and caught Sonny's eyes.
     Sonny shrugged. 
     "C-Jam?"  Andi didn't care.  She looked around, held up a stick and
counted. "One..two..three..and.."  They hit the down beat and kicked off the
tune.
     They played until half-past ten--the usual half-hour past when the cops
could be called--pushing it to the practical limit.  Brighten's neighbors had been
broken into the routine long before and hardly ever complained. 
     

     In the morning, a sense of desperation lingered from a dream--she'd been
fruitlessly searching for something.  She got up to shake it off, but the grey
desperation buzzed vaguely in the background, feeding on residual guilt of
backlogged work while she showered, seeping into conscious thoughts as she
dressed and finally blooming--and sweeping her through a hurried breakfast to
her office around seven-thirty. 
     The back-half of her desk was lined with the files she'd made for the
Bryant's case--she kept them in piles that she shuffled back and forth as she
made new associations.
     She focused on the week's report.  She'd skim over meeting Ramone
Bodega and bury doubts on who authored "Bryant's" papers among face-value
interpretations of clients and people.  There'd be a page or two on Lively; prime
billing with a paragraph of recommendations and a few spare allusions to
Sandra Ibbe's list of software developers.
     Lena came in.  Andi waved a curt hello without looking up.  Lena switched
on her screen and reached for the telephone.
     Andi added her short list of suspects.  A touch of this, a dash of that, a
piece from each section for bulk.  Her deepest suspicions, the ones with either
Morse or Chang-Turner playing pivotal roles, she'd keep to herself.  Good
enough for now.
     "So...good morning Lena."  Andi pushed the save button and pushed her
chair from her desk.
     Lena swiveled around and leaned her head to a side.  "...oh, Andi...I didn't
notice you here.  Were you here all this time?" the comment dripped sarcasm,
her eyes wide in mock surprise. 
     "And how are you...come to work this morning, have we?"  Andi figured
fight fire with fire.
     "...JC and I fought...he went out and didn't come back all night..."  She
gave a quick pained grin.  "It wasn't good."  Her voice was quiet, not touched
with much emotion.
     "You don't seem broken up."  Andi observed cautiously, unsure whether
to touch her hand.  She decided not to and leaned back in her chair.
     "It's denial...but what the hell, it works..."  Lena did her little shrug and
smirk.  "I've been thinking of what I'll do after this relationship bites the big
one."
     "..not a good sign."  Andi carefully offered--then after a long moment of
silence, "What do you want to do?"
     "I've entertained a few options..." Lena said vaguely, not meeting Andi's
eyes.  "But I don't know what might be out there...and I'm still involved..."  She
turned back to her computer and started working.
     "Keep me posted."  Andi said in a small voice.  Suddenly she needed to
get out of the office.  "I'm going out..." she blurted.  She scribbled some notes
from the Drexler file and pounded down the stairs.
     Brian-Core had four addresses listed in the phone book, but financial and
business matters would be run from their main office in the Pearl district.  There
was a corporation yard housing trucks and equipment in Northeast and two
other addresses in the inner Southeast.  She might as well cruise the close two
before crossing the river. 
     The first was little more than a rundown warehouse, its' drive-through
door was down, but the door beside it was propped open with a chair.  Between
the doors were a Brian-Core sign and one saying "PDX MAINTENANCE."  Andi
got out and peeked inside.  Two men in coveralls puttered beside a lawn
tractor, two pickup trucks were surrounded by piles and stacks of construction
equipment.  A small, grimy office hugged the front corner.  Leaning in the door,
Andi could see a desk with piled work orders and a telephone.
     "Hey...what do want?"  One of the men had risen and was swiftly closing
the gap between them.  
     "I was passing by and thought I'd stop...is Mr. Drexler here?"  Andi threw
caution to the winds.
     The man approaching was still ten feet away.
     "Drexler?" the man behind him said loudly.  "Sheeze...why would he come
here?"
     "What can I help you with?" the first man stopped uncomfortably close,
forcing her to lean back through the doorway to look up into his face.
     "I'm looking for Mr. Drexler."  In for a penny in for a pound--she couldn't
change her story now.
     "What's your business?" he asked bluntly.
     "It's personal." Andi responded lamely.
     "Phone his secretary and make an appointment..."  The statement was
deadpan and final, his face held no hint of a smile and he stood silent, as if
daring her to continue.
     "Sorry to have bothered you."  Strategic retreat was a vastly undervalued
tactic.  Andi chose to use it--waving casually and walking down to the corner
and turning out of sight.  She hadn't heard his footsteps so she assumed he'd
stood there watching.  Just to be safe she coursed around the block before
returning to her car.
     The second property was a storefront with the Brian-Core sign and one
stating "PDX PROPERTY MANAGEMENT."  Two secretary types busied
themselves beyond the glass front wall.  A place to pay rent and take complaints
maybe, certainly nothing worth a confrontation like before.  She jotted a few
notes in her book and drove on.
     The Pearl district building was an old warehouse partially renovated for
offices that took up half a large block at the edge of an industrial area in the
course of rebuilding.  She parked a block and a half away and walked casually
by the door. 
     She could see a corporate looking reception room with sectional
furniture, receptionist counter, a single female employee with a headset
focused on a computer screen, a few pastel forgettable prints on the walls.  
     She'd never get past the smiling face without an appointment.  Andi
continued on to the corner.  A loading dock with truck-sized doors filled the
side.  The doors looked like they hadn't been opened in years, but she climbed
up and tentatively tried two to be sure.
     She jumped down and retraced her steps.  On the opposite side there was
a short alley crowded with parked cars and two women and young man standing
smoking just outside an open door.  Coffee break, buy the looks of it.  
     Andi kept walking, then paused, gazed down the street and looked
impatiently at her watch.  She stood, out in the open, but studiously looking
away, toward the building across the street.  She listened for any hint of
anything behind her, hoping to look so common she'd be invisible.
     After a minute or two she looked at her watch again and shook her head
in disapproval, after looking long, up one way and down the other, she kicked
the scuffed the sidewalk with her toe in discouragement and idly turned toward
the alley door.  
     It still stood open, but the stoop was vacant now--break must have ended. 
Andi casually sauntered close and looked inside.  A small empty hallway or anti-room opened into a warehouse area--the inside door stood open.  Andi took a
breath and stepped inside, careful not to block the light and bring attention.
     There was a large industrial space behind the remodeled front office.  On
the far side, a single man in coveralls finished stacking cardboard into a
dumpster, slammed the lid, turned off the overhead light and returned to the
office area.  The high ceilinged room lay clad in half-lit silence. 
     It was impossible to tell what sort of business was done there.  Crated
objects stood on pallets along the far wall, cardboard boxes were piled high on
a mezzanine-level platform under which stood an unlit coke machine and old
industrial sink.  Dust and cobwebs hung on the grimy walls.  A small forklift
waited silently in a corner.  Anything of interest would be inside the offices and
she'd have no Chance at all entering there.
     Suddenly there was a sound behind her.  She ducked around the far side
of the entry alcove, hugging close to the unpainted wall, holding her breath with
apprehension.
     "She came in here..."  Two men in ill-fitting security guard coats stepped
through into the gloom.  One stationed himself in front of the door while the
other paced slowly across the open floor.  She could tell their positions by the
nervous shuffling of the first and the cautiously receding steps of the other.
     "You sure...?" the first one asked.
     "She came in here..."
     "But what for?  Maybe she went into the offices."
     "I didn't recognize her..." the second man was a suspicious one.  
     "She must have been a new typist on break...come on..." The first stepped
slowly toward the second who must by now be mid-floor, turning to survey the
dusky walls.  
     "Know how to turn on the lights?" the second asked.
     "Over there..." the first must have pointed.  Andi hoped it was by the
dumpster across the wide floor.  The plodding footsteps of the first man moved--she could hear the second man hurrying to catch up.. 
     Andi risked a quick peek their way.  Sure enough, they were two-thirds
across and moving away.  It was now or never; she stepped around toward the
corner and was half-way to the door when her toe caught on an irregular edge
in the concrete and made a scraping sound.
     "THERE SHE IS..." the shout came from behind her.
     Without risking a glance back, she dashed through the outer door and
streaked for the sidewalk.  Behind her and gaining came the sounds of boots
striking the rough concrete.
     She made it to the sidewalk and turned right, away from Brian-Core's
offices.  If she could make it to the corner she'd stop.  There was no Chance to
outrun these guys; she'd always been a slow and hadn't even been a jogger. 
Her only hope was to fake them. 
     Andi spun around the corner and struggled to get her breath under
control.  She had head start enough to maybe elude them.  She wiped her brow
with a sleeve and tried to calm her racing heart.  
     The sound of pounding shoe leather grew closer.  She stepped to the curb
and looked up the street as if looking for a bus.
     "There she is..."  They were right beside her.
     Andi forced herself to casually glance their way in disapproval and then
impatiently look down at her watch.  
     "All right lady..." a rough hand grabbed her arm and jerked her around.
     "HEY..." Andi complained loudly.  It was to her advantage to make this a
public scene.  "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"
     The man swung her against the building and brought his forearm under
her chin, against her neck.  "What were you doing sneaking into that building?"
he growled.
     "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT...GET YOUR HANDS OFF
ME."  There were a few cars and trucks coursing the streets, but it would take a
major scene to get any to stop. 
     "What's your name and what were you doing there?" the first spat.  The
two men crowded close enough to block any casual observer's view of her.  The
forearm tightened against her throat.
     "LET ME GO...HELP...FIRE...HELP...FIRE, FIRE..." she screamed at the
top of her voice.  She lifted a foot and kicked sideways, with her full weight, into
the nearest kneecap--there was a satisfyingly-strangled scream.  The arm
thrust out, pinning her to the building and choking her.  She struck out savagely
with her foot again and caught shins at least three or four good licks. 
     The second man hopped away, reaching down to his knee, his face a
mask of sudden agony.  The first thrust against her wind pipe another time and
poked savagely at her lower ribs with a single short punch. 
     "Better not see you here again..." he said menacingly.  He stepped away
and gave a disgusted look to his partner.  
     Andi doubled over, gasping futilely for breath, seemingly unable to fill her
lungs.  
     The men retreated, favoring her with a last surly glance and she was left
alone on the sidewalk.  
     She limped a block in the wrong direction to see if anyone followed, then
circled around to her car.  It had been a thankless, fruitless episode--she would
have been better off staying at the office.  She glanced down at her clothes, she
had cobwebs and dust on her shoulders from hugging the wall.  She hadn't
fooled them a bit.
     She dusted herself off, rubbed her ribs and the residual lump in her
throat.  Not something she'd tell Lena about--at least not for a while.






                            Chapter  8


     Once back in the office, Andi bit nervously at her lip, tried to focus on her
files and fumed at her wasted morning and ineptitude.  Suddenly it seemed a
glaring mistake that she hadn't investigated Chang-Turner--she'd seemed so
much just a secretary it had been difficult to see her as a player.
     Andi didn't even know her home address.  She ground her teeth, angry at
herself for the lapse.  She should have checked her out after that first meeting
with Lively and definitely after their telephone conversation about her.  What
had she been thinking?
     She started with the telephone book.  No listing--no surprise.  Andi tapped
the eraser of her pencil on the desk top, battling her reservations--then she
broke down and dialed Lively.
     "Your boy want more files already?" Lively's smirk dripped through the
phone line.
     "Haven't heard...thought you might tell me some more about Chang-Turner.  Like where she lives, family, personal life..."  Andi tried to sound off-hand and conversational.
     "Tightening the noose, huh?  I'm glad to be of help.  She lives in one of the
luxury condos in the Change Building.  Bought it while I worked at Templeton,
Morse and Bryant...she tried to keep it quiet, but the rumor mill was humming."
     "I can imagine."  Andi knew the building.  The coach of the Blazers had a
million dollar apartment there--and some of the players.  No doubt it had a view
priced well beyond the range of a secretary.
     "She lives with her husband and his mother--no kids.  He's an investment
banker.  He could afford it if you're thinking what I think you are...does high tech
investments..." 
     The phone hung quiet for a moment.  Ibbe was a high tech vulture
capitalist too?  It seemed a natural match, networking marriage between
piranhas so to speak.  Andi made a note to ask around.
     "Do you know the apartment number or floor?" Andi asked.
     "Not a Chance...the place is security mad.  Two uniforms in the lobby and
walkers upstairs...elevator's with keys and remote control from the security
desk."
     "Know her husband's name?"
     "Stanley Turner...I can't remember his investment house." 
     "Any dirt...?"
     "Squeaky clean, both of them...I checked myself.  They both work
obsessively, never vacation.  A co-worker once saw them at the Brasserie
Montmontre eating dinner--once."
     "Rumors of anything kinky?" 
     "...as a leather queen, but she works her fantasies out in the office.  Her
thrills come from swinging the whip of a petty dictator.  I can't imagine her in a
bedroom."  Lively offered a auditory shudder.
     Andi could, but wouldn't want to be there with her.  "...you got any idea
why Drexler at Brian-Core so security conscious?" 
     "Some people are that way..." Lively didn't seem too concerned.  "Maybe
he's a foreign spy or is making nerve gas or raping babies...or maybe he's just
having an affair and is afraid his wife will find out.  What does it matter?"
     "Don't you think he's paranoid and secretive?" 
     "Doesn't he have the right to be?" Lively countered.  "It's the only defense
against living in a goldfish bowl."
     Andi thought about that for a moment.  "Thanks for the help...I'll call when
I hear anything."
     "Don't mention it..."


     She picked up another file, but her thoughts strayed to Ramone Bodega--worldly, calm, competent, productive, intelligent--sexy, if one liked that sort of
thing.  The Japanese Gardens had been a nice touch.  She reached for her
calendar to jot a reminder to phone.  He undoubtedly had more to offer. 
     The report pulled together.  Betraying clients and double crossing
colleagues seemed a recipe for murder, but she had to pass on the misgivings
without appearing to bite the hand that fed her.
     She rewrote sections on Bryant's suspected blackmail and Lively's
suspicion of Chang-Turner.  Morse's complicity was central, but lay beyond
what she dared report.  With Bryant's disappearance, fraud and blackmail,
Morse lurked at the center of a web littered by old flies, but no sense telling him
that.
     Her time was getting booked solid and there were still piles of loose ends
un-traced.  She had to phone Morse to clear the time Lena would spend on the
software developers.  Unfair deals amounting to legal theft were business as
usual, but stealing people's dreams could push them to desperation.  The
question was--did Bryant negotiate the contracts and so place himself in the line
of fire, or did he work behind the scenes?
     Andi stretched and looked at her watch.  Almost twelve thirty.  Good
grief--she'd worked since early morning without a break.  Lena still talked
quietly on the phone, her back to her, scratching out notes in long hand with a
pencil.
     Andi looked out the window--it was raining again.  A new front swept
down from the Bering Straits, driving the cold before it.  She looked across at
the coffee maker--it still stood empty from yesterday.  She hadn't even made
coffee when she came in this morning.  
     She frowned--this devotion to work was undoubtedly neurotic and
unhealthy.
     Lena finished her phone call and looked over her shoulder.  "Boy do I
have stuff for you,"  She sounded triumphant.  "I was wondering when you'd
come up for air."
     Andi looked over at the coffee machine.  "No coffee... sorry...why don't
we go get a mocha.  You can tell me all about it."  She stretched a kink out of her
lower back.  "Cup and Saucer..?"
     Lena shrugged.  "It's a can of worms..."  She was up and struggling into
her coat in a single movement.  
     Andi locked the door and listened. 
     "Our boy Bryant had his finger in some nasty pies...by the way we need to
get another telephone line...bad stuff...with Drexler it was real estate fraud--not
that I'm a lawyer or anything, but this supposedly contaminated property has to
be unloaded dirt cheap, and an offer is accepted...an environmental clean-up
company--another client of Bryant by the way--supposedly did over a hundred-grand worth of cleanup allowing a property to be sold...only it seems no work
was done and the company just flat-out disappears...strange enough...then
another engineer comes in and claims there was no contamination...so the
property's clean, worth a mint, and goes on the market again." 
     Andi rolled her eyes and held the door of the restaurant open.
     "The biggest surprise was the other lawyer involved..." Lena looked up
triumphantly. 
     "Let me guess...it's Sandra Ibbe." Andi struggled to keep a dead-pan
expression.
     "What...!  How'd you know?"
     "Elementary my dear Watson...she's the sleazeball real estate lawyer with
close ties to Bryant."  Andi gave her a little bow.
     "Oh..."  Lena took a breath and continued.  "Anyway the three of them
played things whichever way would hustle a buck...no surprise somebody
bumped him off...I heard lots of threats of lawsuits in my hours on the phone..."
     Andi just nodded and smiled.  It was fine putting her mind on hold and
letting Lena burble on.
     They sat at a table near the front window and ordered almond mochas.
     "Seems Bryant was universally disliked and distrusted by everybody--client or adversary.  Nobody said anything more positive than "effective."
     Maybe that wasn't unusual, Andi thought cynically, Chang-Turner said he
was a "hired gun."  She sipped the mocha and looked out the window as Lena
continued on.
     Lena's stuff had to go in this week's report.  Morse should know if he
didn't already.  Real estate fraud with Drexler?  Property scams with Ibbe. 
Maybe something more than Bryant's extortion schemes bridged the gap
between them.
     They lingered over coffee long enough to decide that it was lunch and
they could split an ortega chili and chicken breast sandwich. 
     Once the food came Andi didn't feel like talking business.  Lena didn't
volunteer anything personal and Andi didn't ask.


     Back in the office Andi phoned Morse and left a voice mail that she was
assigning support personnel to background research.  Let him ask for an
explanation or object if he wanted; their bases were covered.  She searched
among her papers for Bodega's number and punched it in. 
     "Ramone Bodega." the voice responded in a pleasant monotone.
     Andi felt herself relax and smile.  "Hi, it's Andi Wicksham, phoning back
after yesterday's talk."  She leaned back in her chair and flexed her ankles.
     "Ms. Wicksham...of course.  Did you make your next appointment?  I really
should have been more conscious of the time..."  The guy was charming.
     "Well, actually Mr. Bodega..." her appointment with Lively wasn't any of
his affair, even whether she made it to the meeting.
     "Ramone...if its convenient, I'm really more comfortable with it." he
inserted.
     "...Ramone...I was wondering if we could continue our discussion.  It
seemed to touch on some interesting issues...central to this investigation."  She
suddenly felt awkward, as if she was manufacturing an excuse to see him.  It
was silly--Bodega was a principal source all-but set up by Morse...she'd be
remiss if she didn't make time to talk.
     "Of course..."  He paused.
     She could sense him reaching for his calendar as she reached across the
desk for her own.  
     "This afternoon is booked except for the next hour, but I couldn't get
anywhere and back..." 
     Andi visualized him turning his calendar's pages.  "We could talk over the
phone now..." she offered.
     "No...I don't think that is a good idea."  He calmly, but firmly dismissed the
idea.  "...let's see, this afternoon's jammed...except for this weekend...we have
to wait until Monday afternoon..."
     "What time this weekend?" Andi blurted before she thought.  Damn, she
grimaced in frustration.  It would break the promise to keep weekends free from
work. 
     "Well...tomorrow noonish is possible...maybe Sunday afternoon?"
     "Tomorrow will be fine." Andi stated assertively.  "You want to name a
time and place?"
     "One o'clock, Mount Tabor...do you know the basketball hoops by the old
crater?"
     "...my stomping grounds.." Andi admitted smugly.  "One o'clock..."  
     "My turn to bring a snack...do you mind if I bring my dog?"
     "Sure, why not?"  The call was certainly warmer than the ones they'd had
before.  They exchanged pleasant "Goodbye's" and hung up.
     Andi smiled and jotted the note in her book, then looked up to find Lena
grinning.
     "What...what are you looking at?" Andi protested defensively.
     Lena smirked.  "Nothing, nothing at all...you did say you were a lesbian
didn't you?"   
     Andi threw her pencil at her.  "This is business.  He's a contact set up by
Morse...what do you want me to do, ignore half Portland's population?"
     "I understand..." Lena said lowering her eyes and turning back around. 
"Many people have these lapses..."
     "Lena...this is business!" 
     "I understand..." Lena put her hands in the air and turned away. 
     Andi was trapped--the more she denied, the guiltier she sounded.  She
shot daggers at the back of Lena's ears, snorted at the injustice of it all and
turned back to her report.


     It took another hour and a half to polish it, check the spelling and copy it
to a disk.  Lena volunteered to print it out and prepare it for mailing, then
dropped another pile of billings on her desk for her to put her personal scrawl
upon. 
     Andi picked up her pen and felt a sinking feeling in her stomach that the
rest of the day would be this way.  And she hadn't touched the piles she was
working on when the Bryant case appeared.  She'd have to set Lena loose on
them.
     Lena got up and went to the file cabinet.  "Want to get another phone
line?"  asked as she pulled out a drawer. 
     "Fine, I guess we'll need it...what will it..." Andi didn't look up from her
notebook.
     "I already checked.  It's another twenty two dollars a month, plus thirty six
to hook up and maybe something to run the wire inside."
     "Call Bobby..." Andi said absentmindedly.
     "...Bobby...?"  Lena's expression had been chosen to convey that she
wasn't a mind-reader. 
     "...landlord, remember...Bobby Soxx..uh, Magnolia.  He's under the B's in
the phone cards.  He'll run the wire in from the outside box."
     "You file phone numbers under first names?"
     "Hey...it's worked up until now.  Cut me some slack...this was a nice quiet
dysfunctional nest before you came."  Andi stuck out her tongue and smirked. 
"You know, therapy might help you...what sign are you anyway?"
     "Gemini with Virgo rising..." Lena said proudly.
     "Figures..." Andi snorted.  "...lists...organization..."
     "You private sleuths are hard cases, you know that?" retorted Lena as
she returned to her table. 
     "...linear thinking, plodding, peculiar people..." continued Andi.
     "...hard, sloppy cases...and it's deliberate not plodding for me please."
added Lena with a toss of her head.
     "I can live with that."  Andi quipped, she finished the first pile of bills and
exchanged it for another. 
     That afternoon they set up a generalized format for listing names and
phone number and a log of billable time to replace the rambling narratives Andi
had always used for billing in her reports.  She'd always rationalized them as
"personalized," but they would be a thing of the past--paved like verdant
wetland under Lena's bulldozer of progress.  "It's for the best," Andi repeated to
herself--chipmunk burgers ala progress.
     It was decided.  Lena would go through the pending files and get routine
stuff entered so Andi only had to expand and tie it all together with explanations,
advice and excuses.  They dug through the old cases, relegating them to piles to
be processed.  Andi found herself not giving a whit about cases she'd been
passionate about the month before--now all she wanted was clear her desk. 
     "Oh, Andi...pay day was a few days ago..." Lena pointed at the time sheet
pinned on the bulletin board.
     "Damn..." Andi looked at her watch.  "...cash?" she confirmed in a
resigned voice.
     "Cash...I wanted you to have a pile of checks on your desk."
     "Well, OK." Andi grumbled, pulling on her coat and stomping to the door. 
"The cash machine beckons..."
     "Oh and we need more file folders pronto." Lena added.
     "Fine..." Andi mumbled grumpily as the door swung closed.  She smiled to
herself and gave a little skip once through the door--she'd gotten out just in
time.  Given another moment Lena could have come up with another three or
four things to do.


     Andi mulled over the way Ramirez grilled her the night before as she
walked.  She got madder and madder the more she thought about it.  Her
fingerprints at Bryant's house was a flimsy excuse, especially seeing how she'd
been hired by Bryant's business partner to investigate his disappearance and
that it was he who arranged to get her in. 
     There must be a lot of heat coming from the upper brass to get the troops
so riled.  Ramirez still had a lot of nerve.
     She waited as the man before her finished his transaction. 
     And Morse.  What could Morse gain by stirring this whole matter up? 
Seemed he was risking having his own skeletons uncovered--unless he felt
invulnerable.  
     Andi grinned--that illusion brought many a power broker to his knees. 
Andi punched in her PIN number and waited.
     She'd go over everything one more time.  Maybe there was something in
the new material from Lively.  Maybe there were clues undiscovered in tea
leaves--she hoped so, she didn't think she could stomach chicken entrails. 


     Counting Lena's money into her hand left a good feeling.  It was satisfying;
a job well done, honest wage for honest work--fulfilling enough to be addictive. 
Whether she could continue to afford the luxury of an office manager was
doubtful, but she'd cross that bridge another day.  This week was courtesy of
Lionel Morse--why not enjoy it?
     Lena tucked away her money and said, "I checked up on that list of
software developers from Noris-SDI...every single one of them felt ripped off
and scammed."  She stood there as if there was more.
     "And..?" asked Andi.
     "Well, it's up to you...but I'd like to send copies of the list to everyone on
it."  Lena looked up quizzically, head cocked to a side, waiting for comment.
     "Why not...but no return address back to us..."  It was justice on some
karmic level.
     "The folks are pissed.  I'm talking `as wet hens'... most remembered both
Bryant and Ibbe during negotiations.  Bad karma.  Bad!"  She shook her head
and gave an exaggerated shiver of disgust. 
     Andi favored her with a tired stare.
     Lena continued.  "The report on All American from Light seems legit.  I'm
no expert, but anything that dry and straightforward seems an academic work
for internal consumption...that is what he billed it as." 
     "Send it off with the report to Morse..." Andi shrugged.
     "Yeah, I already burnt us a copy for the files.  Morse's report is on the
copier--the pages you got from Lively are attached.  And I took the liberty of
doing a cover letter...hope that's OK...it's all there with the envelope."  Lena
stood jutting one hip out, counting the points off on her fingers. 
     "Are you bionic?" Andi asked, peering at her suspiciously.  "How do you
do all that stuff so easy?"
     "Easy, my mama's dump truck...I'm just efficient and don't waste my time
on the things you're doing.  It's hard work ...and don't you forget it when it
comes to negotiate my benefits package." 
     "OK..." Andi could think of nothing to retort.  Benefits package?  She
didn't get benefits herself.  Andi retrieved the report from the copier and sat
back down.  It was perfect, even offset a half-inch so the staples wouldn't pinch
off the left hand margin.  The cover letter was terse and professional and
waiting her signature.  She signed and set it aside after making a note to phone
Morse--considering its content maybe he'd want it delivered.
     Lena was still standing.  "On those `Bryant' pages you got from Chang-Turner...the final one on Morse is certainly a different style.  On the others..."
Lena swept up a note from her table.  "...there were indeed property
transactions corresponding to the properties...the toxic spills mentioned did
seem to have happened.  The dates seem to follow...all that level of stuff is in
order as far as I could check on the phone..." she looked up with a puzzled look.
     "And...?" Andi waited.
     "And...it's all old hat stuff that's part of the public record...certainly not
nasty skeletons that would threaten anyone.  Anybody who was into this stuff
would know it all already...so why write it out as an expose only to hide it?" 
Lena threw her notes down on the table in disgust.  "Bet your booties it wasn't
Bryant."
     Why indeed?  Andi pulled on her ear lobe and pondered the question. 
"Any guess on the author?" she asked hopefully.
     "Morse or Chang-Turner are on of top my list." Lena replied with dry
sarcasm.
     "Yeah?  Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" retorted Andi.  She'd gotten
exactly nowhere on that question since getting the papers.  She looked at her
watch.  "Time to call it a day...what you doing tonight?"
     "JC and I were supposed to have a serious discussion about our
relationship...if he's home to talk...he's playing tomorrow and Saturday and
practicing Sunday.  I might be giving serious thought to the single life."  Lena
grabbed her coat off the chair and stood looking hopeless.
     Andi wanted to hug her, but didn't trust that it would be all right.  "Give me
a call if you want to talk...we can get a coffee or beer or something..." 
     They waited awkwardly, neither of them speaking, looking at each other
and looking away and looking at each other again. 
     "Sure you're all right?" asked Andi gently.
     "Sure...as good as I can be right now..." mumbled Lena.  "I'll see you
tomorrow..."  She turned away and left without another word. 
     Andi sat feeling empty, wishing she'd said or done something different. 
She looked down her list of unmade phone calls, but didn't care enough to make
them.  
     The things she hadn't gotten to this afternoon would have to wait until
morning.  She went around doing her clean-up, took out the trash and turned
down the heat.  Then checked the window and turned off the lights.  Lena was a
big girl--she'd have to sort it out herself.  
     Andi had her own problems over the affairs of the heart.  Good advice
was beyond her.  All she could offer was friendship--and that was muddied by
desire.
     






                            Chapter  9

     Instead of the quiet evening at home she expected as she left the office
she was waylaid by two old friends.  Mary Ellen and Edee were determined to fill
the empty void despite Andi's insistence that there was none--demanding she
accompany them for dinner and drinks.  Andi promised to be ready. 
     They ate at Lemon Grass, accepting a chili strength rating of two in the
house-scale of twenty.  It was searing enough to preclude tasting anything after
the first few bites and brought perspiration and heart palpitations.  E and Mary
Ellen swore it "perfect."  
     Afterwards they crossed the river to a mixed club near Old Town.  Andi
turned down a margarita and accepted a beer; she didn't really want to drink
and felt uncomfortable.  Friends shuffled by or pulled up chairs, the music
wasn't loud, but still the room was noisy and too many wanted to hear about
Traci.
     Andi eventually made her excuse, left her half-finished beer and caught a
bus up Hawthorne.  With any luck she could be home for the last of Mystery.
     The bus was half empty--she looked through the oddly lit carriage into the
yellowing eyes of Lively.  There was no way to escape--she looked aside and
took a seat near the front, bracing herself, listening to him shuffle to the seat
just behind.
     "So, Wicksham..." he rasped greasily, "...talked to your client yet?  Does
he want the rest of that report?" 
     Andi could smell the alcohol as he leaned forward to whisper behind her
ear.  She slowly shifted and turned to meet him with a level gaze.  "I've prepared
a report with your pages attached.  I probably won't hear until next week.  If he's
interested, I'll be in touch--don't hold your breath."  She paused moment, still
holding his eyes with her own, then she turned away and again faced forward.
     "I'll be waiting..." the voice behind her whispered.  
     She heard him get up and move, but she didn't look around--when she got
off a dozen blocks later he was gone.  She shivered involuntarily and ambled to
her apartment under her umbrella.  It was only a light rain, but the air was
growing icy.  It would be good to be home again.
     What would Morse do?  He could have the police get search warrants and
retrieve the reports as stolen property, but probably wouldn't.  The reports
might be innocuous enough to ignore, but he probably wouldn't do that either. 
Lively couldn't be trusted to hand over all the copies--she'd said as much in her
report--so even buying them back was a doubtful proposition.
     The next moves in the game were Morse's and would come next week. 
She unlocked her apartment door and slipped inside.
     
     
     At eight thirty three the next morning Lena came in subdued.
     "You OK?" Andi asked.
     "I'm fine." Lena snapped as she sat down at her computer.  
     Andi blinked and bit her lip.  Time to find something else to do.  She
looked down at Morse's finished report and picked up the phone, she'd leave a
voice mail describing the reports and Lively's offer to sell more pages.  Then
she phoned Ramirez--he was out and she had to leave a message.  She killed
time going over the entire set of files, glancing at each paper and list,
reacquainting herself with details.  It was nearly eleven when Morse called
back.  He'd already sent a messenger to get the report. 
     "Was there something more you wanted?"  he asked carefully.
     "Yes..." Andi wanted to broach the subject carefully.  "I've heard rumors
connecting Mr. Bryant and his staff to questionable activities..." she waited for
him to comment, but the phone line lay silent.  "I've not included the rumors in
the report because they were outside the scope of my investigation...and the
report might not be secure."  That was about as plain as she cared to get.  She
waited, wondering if he might terminate her right there and then. 
     "Rumors...?" Morse asked quietly.  "Of what?"  His voice was eerily soft
and silken.
     "Blackmail..."  Andi didn't want to embroider the statement, she let the
word float by itself.
     "Have you evidence substantiating the rumors?"  He still spoke in the
voice of a waiter at a candle-lit dinner.
     "No evidence...just innuendo from disgruntled people..."  She wondered if
he would be insulted. 
     "I would like to hear it, Ms. Wicksham...but perhaps in a separate report. 
Is it reasonable to have a short accounting Monday?"
     "Monday afternoon perhaps...at the earliest." Andi hoped she put the
appropriate uncertainty into her voice.  Not what she wanted to do--pound out
another report for him.  Damn, damn, damn.
     "Fine..." Morse's tone of voice signaled his moving on to other matters.
     "Oh, and Mr. Morse...has a woman named Maureen worked in your firm
over the last year?" Andi jumped in before he could hang up.
     "Maureen?  No last name?  I don't think so...I'll ask Rene for you."  A touch
of impatience clipped his voice.
     "Mr. Bryant submitted a change of address sending mail to the office. 
You hadn't told me that..."
     "It was an arrangement freeing him for business travel." Morse said
tersely.
     "Convenient timing...do you have a power of attorney to pay bills?" 
     "You can't be told confidential information Ms. Wicksham.  Is there
anything else?"  His voice was cold.
     "Oh...and Mr. Morse..." Andi inserted.  "We've run to the end of your pre-paid retainer..."
     "Send an invoice with your reports.  I'll have a check cut this
afternoon...will that be sufficient?"
     Andi allowed that it would be fine and they hung up.
     "Can you whip up an invoice for Templeton, Morse and Bryant?" she
asked Lena.  "We'll bill them when the messenger comes."
     "Aye aye, Captain Sherlock..." Lena had obviously recovered her sense of
humor. 
     Andi glanced at her watch, looked across and smiled.  "I'll buy you lunch."
     "You're on...Pizza at the Baghdad?" Lena asked.  She lifted an eyebrow. 
"How much you billing Morse?"
     They huddled, giving Lena an opening to complain again that expenses
weren't recorded in way she could deal with.  They reconstructed what they
could, chose a rate for Lena's time, and billed through the end of the day.
     Fifteen minutes later, Morse's messenger came in the door, grinning and
sweating.  Lena handed Andi the invoice as if it had been ready for an hour. 
Andi glanced, stuffed it in with the report and scribbled her signature on the
messenger's pad.
     "Lunch!" Lena crowed.  "Second star to the left and straight on till
morning...its time for pizza..."  She already had her coat in hand.


     Andi tackled Morse's second report when they returned.  Now that she'd
let her suspicions out of the bag how much did she dare tell?  Could she pencil
the allegations without flat-out implying that as a managing partner Morse was
an extortionist and crook?  She wished she'd kept her mouth shut.
     Bryant had been killed for something related to this--did telling what she
knew buy the next ticket to feed the fishes?  The idea of finding loose ends so
Morse could do damage control was repugnant.  Would that make her an
accessory in Bryant's murder?
     She calmed herself down.  
     This was a time for exceptionally dull report writing--an exercise in
technical craft.  She'd simply play impartial investigative observer, no judgment,
no blame, just the facts ma'am--let the cow chips fly where they may.  
     Lively's allegations and suspicions would be stated third-person.  As a
disgruntled employee it could be rationalized with little effort.  The incongruities
and gaps in Chang-Turner's statements were nothing in themselves, Bodega's
suppositions about Bryant's clients were hearsay and Andi's were pure
fabrication.
     Laid out as in terse understatement it didn't look as daunting as she'd
originally thought--the allegations of blackmail were there--without a single
shred of proof to hang them on.  He asked for a short accounting, that's what
she'd given--the whole thing in two and a half pages.  
     Andi finished the spell check and saved the report for review on Monday. 
She was looking out the window when Ramirez called.
     "Wicksham, here..." Andi answered gruffly.
     "Ramirez returning your call, Wicksham...what do you got?"   He sounded
like he was piled high with details and had squeezed in this call as a favor.
     "Just keeping in touch like you asked...I've hardly left the office since we
talked last."  Andi glanced over to Lena, she was working away at something as
if there was nothing else in all the world.  "I was wondering if there'd been
activity on Bryant's credit cards." 
     "There's been nothing on them..." he said curtly.  Ramirez didn't want to
talk.
     "Next of kin?"
     Ramirez's voice lowered.  "A sister...someone's looking into it."  It
lowered further, to almost a whisper, "Oh...and some friend was listed once on
the `in case of emergency' line of a bank account..."
     "Friend?"
     Ramirez paused as if looking over his shoulder.  "A Samuel Lee...3715
Boyington, apartment 4, but you didn't hear it from me."
     "Samuel Lee...apartment 4...sure Ramirez...no sweat."  Andi felt sorry
she'd bothered him and didn't want the call to be totally one sided.  "Oh...I
remembered something I didn't tell you about my visit to Bryant's house."
     "Yes, Wicksham...." Ramirez's voice was suddenly layered deep with
disapproval.  
     "I hit the redial button on Bryant's kitchen phone and it dialed Noris-SDI...I
figured you'd want to know."  
     "Noris-SDI..." Ramirez groaned.  "Wicksham, what do you think you're
doing?  Do you know what you've done to me?  Jesus H...Now you're an indirect
witness to Bryant's actions before that party...the only witness.  And to make
matters worse you've blown your already dubious credibility by coming up with
this after I've reported."
     "What?  You reported what we discussed at our meeting?"  Andi was
incredulous.
     "Of course, Wicksham...what do think--that I was grilling you for old time's
sake?  Get a grip...it was that or let Lieutenant Max bring you here...remember
your finger-prints at Bryant's?  You got 'em on the milk carton, for God's sake."
     "Oh yeah..." Andi responded quietly, "It was past it's freshness date.  But
I didn't remember about the phone thing until I reviewed my notes just now..."
     "You took notes...?" Ramirez's voice perked up a bit.
     "Of course I took notes.  What do you take me for--a complete amateur?" 
The words were hardly out of her mouth before she started hoping he wouldn't
feel obliged to answer.
     "Notes...OK..." there was a sound of shuffling papers as if Ramirez was
looking through a pile of papers.  "...they might help deflect Max's suspicion that
you're withholding for some foul purpose.  Can you fax them?  We have a
meeting in twenty minutes."
     "Sure...I'll find them..." Andi looked desperately at the piles on her desk
top.
     "Do it...you got the fax number?"  Ramirez went silent and seemed to
write himself a note.  "We'll talk later..." then he was gone.
     She dug out her note book, made copies of the pages from that visit to
Bryant's, filled out a cover sheet and fed them into the fax.  She stood and
watched as it clicked and buzzed and scanned each page.  She'd owe Ramirez a
pizza at least--and she was the one doing the work.
     Lena was still bent over a pile of papers.  Andi looked up Venture,
Investment and Banking in the phone book without finding what she wanted. 
Cursing to herself, she picked a number at random from the investment listings
and asked if the could tell her how to find venture capital sources--it took six
more calls, but she assembled a list of twelve companies.  She called each
saying she was looking for Stanley Turner--on the seventh call she found him;
Aorta Capital.  She smiled and hung up as the receptionist transferred her call.
     Lena leaned back in her chair, pointed to a tall stack of letters and said,
"I've finished the last two years billings.  So...why don't I pick away at your
albatross pile?"
     Andi looked apprehensively at the letters awaiting her signature.  "You
give me papers to sign while you eyeball my pending files?  These're unfinished
reports and stuff waiting responses, not make-work...  I'm not sure..."  Her real
worry was that Lena might see just how ragged her system was.
     "Just a thought..." Lena held up her hands in surrender.  "I could just
pack up my gear and go home..." 
     "But..." Andi didn't want her to go.  If there was any response to the
billings her time would be paid for months.  "...Ok, phone back the software
developers and see if they got funding from an Aorta Capital.  Then maybe you
can enter phone logs and lists...and there are some routine letters I haven't
gotten around to..." it was a concession.  "But don't be ragging to change my
system..."
     "Who?  Me?" Lena looked open-eyed, with her open hand against her
chest.  "Don't worry Andi...I'll be gentle...you'll hardly notice a thing."
     Andi raised an eyebrow.  Famous last words.  She didn't want to admit it,
but Lena was going to be good for her business. 
     "While I'm at it though, I'll see if you need a way to log expenses."  Lena
smiled a smug, self-satisfied smile and reached for the languishing piles.  "Lord
knows you need more room on your desk anyway...you given any thought on
getting more business?"
     "More business?  I'm up to my eyebrows."  Andi shook her head and
reached for a pile of letters.
     "You've got to tell me what sort of jobs you want...I got ideas for business
development..."  
     "Enough..." Andi waved her arms to ward her off.  "I would like to have the
Chance to have a social life someday--thank you."  Then she mumbled as if to
herself, "More business..." she snorted, "..bah humbug." and successfully
fought down an urge to smile.
     She turned away to look out the window as the phone rang.  "Wicksham." 
she answered bruskly.
     "Morse, again..." he sounded excited.  "I've reviewed your report with the
material from Lively.  "The file did come from my office.  This is liable to be a
complicated matter...I want to bring in another investigator..."
     Here we go Andi thought to herself.  He's going to pull the plug in favor of
someone under his thumb.
     Morse continued, "What I'd like you to do is set up another meeting...he
expects you to contact him early in the week?  Call Monday...but wait until I
have the other team watching.  Ask when he can have it ready...tell him I'm in a
hurry and putting pressure.  The other team will know what to do." 
     "Other team?  Sure..." said Andi cautiously.  "How much of the material
do you want?"
     Morse let the phone go silent, evidently reaching for something across his
desk.  "Ask for material on the State of Oregon versus Maybon, it has to do with
sewage creating a public hazard...and Temptation Development versus
Urth...the second one is a phony just to keep him humble...tell him we'll take all
he has at seven-fifty a page.  There might be a couple hundred pages."
     "So how do you want to do this?"  Andi picked up a pencil and turned to a
clean page in her notebook.
     "The other team is setting up weekend surveillance.  On Monday I'll call
you...he'll be home and they'll be ready to tail him.  These people are pros.  I'll
send a check by courier to cover the payment, you can cash it next week for
small bills...let him think he can call all the shots..."
     "Ok.  Is that all you want me to do?" Andi asked quietly.
     "That will be fine.  You're doing a good job, Ms. Wicksham.  You don't want
to be involved in this...it's peripheral to Mr. Bryant.  We want to keep you on the
good side of Lively."
     "Sure..." said Andi unsurely.  "Is that all?"  Once the "other team" busted
in to seize his files Lively would know how they got there.  He wasn't stupid.
     "I'll be in touch Monday."  He rang off, leaving Andi holding her pencil and
staring across her cluttered desk.
     Lena turned from her telephone an hour later.  "Quite a few of the
software folks got funds from Aorta Capital...arranged by Ibbe...sticky wicket
huh?  The thick plottens..."
     "It only means they knew each other and shared a common lack of
ethics..." Andi grumbled.  She put her head down and worked another hour until
the courier came with Morse's check for an even two-thousand. 
     Even that couldn't cheer her up.  The energy of the room had drained. 
They called it a week and locked up--Monday would come soon enough and she
still had to meet Bodega. 
     

     Saturday morning Andi lazed in bed listening to jazz on the radio as late
as she could--which was about eight-thirty.  The weather outside had turned
frigid, the temperature dipping below freezing and there were warnings of
possible snow.  Cold enough to be comfortable cuddled under the covers, but
she didn't want to read and being in bed alone made her feel sorry for herself. 
     She pulled aside the comforter, turned up the heat and ducked into the
bathroom for a shower. 
     She slipped on long thermals, wool socks and Levi's, then pulled her down
jacket out of the closet.  How crazy can you get?  It was one of the coldest days
of the year and Bodega wanted to meet outside.  It was carrying
environmentalism a bit too far.  She chuckled to herself and wondered if he'd
think that line was funny.  
     Meanwhile she had time on her hands.  She'd hit the Hawthorne Cafe
before the Saturday morning brunch crowd mobbed--maybe she'd see friends
and tag along.
     The weather had turned crisp, the temperature near freezing, the sky a
uniform leaden grey.  Andi ate by herself, nodding to friends who smiled from
their tables without inviting her over.  She looked out the window at a paper
scuttling down the sidewalk and considered canceling her meeting with
Bodega.
     The waitress left her check, slipping it casually beside the pepper as she
reached to adjust the two dried flowers in their vase.  Andi looked at her watch. 
There were three hours to kill before meeting, she might as well go down to her
office.  
     Files lurked on her desk like pools of quicksand waiting for the first
unwary step.  She turned to stare out the window.  Cars coursed the street,
pedestrians hurried, holding hats against the wind.  The neighborhood was busy
on weekends; students from Reed and Lewis and Clark and PSU flocked to
shops and hang-outs indulging them with alternative atmosphere.  Hawthorne
was popular and was yet to succumb to the virulent commercialism that had
taken NW 23ed. 
     Andi missed Lena and sulked. 
     She'd come in on Saturday again!  Was that workaholic or what?  It would
be easier to focus if Lena was there.  Lena brought excitement, work became
special, there was magical efficiency.  Andi leaned back in her chair and felt
sorry for herself.
     She flipped on her computer, looked across at the piled files, pulled out
notes on her visit with Bodega and reached for her notebook. 
     Bodega mentioned Ibbe and Drexler.  Both were high on her list--Ibbe
spoke to Bryant before the party and Drexler owned the boat.  Both had been
Morse's targets yet clients of Bryant.  Both seemed to be actively avoiding her. 
Lively alleged both were blackmailed.  Neither was likely to admit it.
     Andi put aside Bodega's file and picked out the one on Chang-Turner. 
There wasn't much in it of any merit. 
     Andi pulled out Lively's file and reread his comments on Chang-Turner.  
     "Dragon Lady"--the hyperbole of a disaffected ex-employee.  She didn't
live beyond her means, even if her husband's investments were an unknown.  It
would be a major effort to find anything.  She attended the Yacht Club party but
if her husband was a business crony it wouldn't be unusual.
     Andi pulled out the party's guest list and found Stanley Turner's name.  It
wasn't Chang-Turner, so she'd never made the connection.  Damn.  Despite gut-level certainty of Chang-Turner's complicity, she was slipping away.
     She could check her out, but Morse wouldn't underwrite a probe without
something more substantial than rumor.  Payoffs from clients could take the
form of business dealings with her husband.  It would be a dead end.
     She pulled over her notebook.  She'd ask Lively if he knew other ex-employees.
     She considered canceling with Bodega, but looked at her watch and
decided there wasn't time.  He might not even go to his office on Saturday--he
was probably out getting the snacks he promised.
     Andi closed the files and carefully replaced them on their stacks.  If she
left now she could walk up to Mount Tabor for that meeting--driving would be
easier and faster, but it was Saturday.  She looked out the window; low grey
clouds blanketed the city, but it was dry and the cold air would be refreshing. 
She pulled on her down jacket and gloves and tugged her hat over her ears.  
     She'd walk.  She needed the exercise. 


     The hike took longer than she expected and Bodega was waiting in his
dull amber Toyota on the curve by the crater.  The air temperature hovered
below freezing, her breath made white clouds and the skin on her cheeks
tingled, but she was pleased that she wasn't out of breath from the walk.
     Andi knocked on Bodega's car window and he turned around in surprise. 
     "I expected you to drive..." he explained unnecessarily as he pulled on a
stocking cap got out.  A big old husky eased from the back seat, shook himself
and nosed Andi's palm.  She gave its ears a rubbing. 
     "I spend too much time in my car...and had the time."  Andi was almost
knocked over as Bodega's dog wagged its tail and leaned heavily against her.  A
few early snowflakes drifted down and survived a moment on his fur.
     "That's Raoul..." Bodega said.
     "Hi, Raoul..." Andi rubbed the dogs ears another time and stepped away.
     Bodega pulled a well worn day-pack from the passenger seat and pulled it
on.  "So, where were we..." he smiled a self-conscious smile. 
     "When we first talked I read you a list of companies I was interested in,
but when we met you focused on Brian-Core and Noris-SDI...was that on
purpose?"  Andi figured she might confirm it.  Bodega could still be leading her
down some primrose path on the directions of Morse.  
     "Comparatively, the others are small-time hoods...the same types of
problems maybe...if you want we can go into them, but Morse and Ibbe have the
biggest skeletons to hide.  You asked my best guess on who might have wanted
Bryant to disappear...it's them."
     Andi nodded and said "Thanks..."
     Bodega glanced across at her as they walked by the swings and jungle-gym.  He seemed eager enough to help yet patient enough to let her lead the
conversation.  Raoul lumbered beside them quietly, expectantly lifting his nose
in the air for olfactory signals, always staying within eight or ten feet, looking
back, his wise old eyes filled with stolid, canine concern.
     "Morse has the largest file on toxic polluters in the state?"  Andi asked.
     "Probably in the Northwest...but not just polluters...he's researched
personnel and stockholders and political movers--the whole web of
interconnections between Northwest industries and their influence on power
and policy."
     "Why?" 
     Bodega smiled.  "Decisions effecting business bottom lines are political,
not scientific--or democratic...so they're decided in back rooms or the golf
course.  It's the way the system works--like it or not..."
     Bodega was casual about such a cynical observation.
     Andi asked, "What does he do with his information?"  They stepped up to
the access road and turned downhill toward the soapbox derby track as the air
filled with light, small snowflakes.
     "Power brokering is a world unto itself." Bodega snorted, "Because he
has so much background, he avoids fruitless confrontations and pulls strings
like no one else.  That's what he sells to corporate clients...he knows back door
approaches to influential board members; what politicians might really want or
need...what issues they might bend on.  All very hush-hush and hands-off...he
knows everything to be known about the legislators, staff and bureaucrats.  The
man's a definite pro."
     "But he does work for environmental advocates?" Andi asked.  It seemed
to go against the grain of a reputed power-broker.
     "I think he care about the state.  Just because Morse's a businessman
doesn't mean he's conservative.  Maybe it assuages his guilt, but he does real
work on real issues...pro-bono..."  Bodega pursed his lips and shook his head. 
"He gets things done..."
     "Would he use that information to blackmail clients?" Andi asked.  She
watched Bodega's face to judge his reaction.
     "For what?  He makes big money from corporate clients...and I always
pegged him as more into power than profit.  Sullying his reputation would cost
him access...and that's worth more than money."  He paused and met Andi's
eyes as he finished; face relaxed, voice calm.  "And for what it's worth...I find it
hard to believe."
     Andi watched the dancing flakes falling around them, veiling the dark
trees in misty white.  One settled on Bodega's shoulder before disappearing into
a shiny dot.  The sloping valley dropped steeply, the city beyond completely
lost--wind swirled the snow in the air, but it was hardly visible on the ground. 
Could she believe him?  He was Morse's friend by his own admission--this whole
interview could have been rehearsed.  
     Bodega moved down the hill and paused by some concrete dividers left by
park personnel.  He unslung the backpack and pulled out a thermos and a white
paper box.  "Dim sum and hot and sour soup."  He looked up to see her reaction.
     "Great..."  Andi rubbed her hands together.  A plume of steam rose from
the opened thermos.
     Bodega rummaged in the pack, pulled out two mugs and poured the soup. 
Andi took it on herself to open the box and set the selection of dim sum before
them. 
     "So tell me about yourself..." Andi asked, holding the soup up to her lips
to feel the rising steam bathe her face with a touch of warmth.  
     "Not much to tell...master's in biology from U of O, a disappointing stab at
writing, an amicable divorce from a ten-year marriage...usual stuff...and you?" 
He tossed a shrimp dumpling to Raoul, who casually caught it on the fly.
     "English major at PSU, played drums in rock and roll bands in high school,
didn't want to teach, stumbled through a couple dismal jobs and stumbled into
tracing down ex-husbands and serving summonses.  One thing led to another
and I'm still doing it."
     "Private eye?" Bodega smiled as he bit into a shrimp dumpling.
     "I wished I was named Sandra Spade, or Lauren Laurano.  `Andi's' too
perky for a detective."
     "You could change it...it's short for...?"
     "Andrea...but I've been Andi since I was a kid.  I think Andrea would have
long hair and lipstick."
     "No doubt..." Bodega stared out toward where the city waited invisible. 
They finished off the food without speaking.
     He repacked the backpack and they began the uphill grade.  He
continued as if he'd never been interrupted.  "Noris-SDI and Brian-Core might
be likely targets of blackmail, but they're hardly influencers of power...their
indiscretions are fodder for groups like mine, but their total net worth is under
seven-eight million.  Profit on that investment is probably a million or two a year,
at most...divided by the owners...they could buy off a senator or two, but not the
workings of the state." 
     He looked into her eyes.  "Morse sells influence to the billion dollar
boys...Japanese mega holders, the timber industry...Bonneville Power.  Why
should he risk that for a measly twenty or thirty grand?"
     "I don't know...but there are rumors that Bryant was doing it."  She kicked
a branch that lay in her way.  "Noris-SDI is a small fish?" she asked in surprise.  
     "Out of my personal league...but small for a corporation ...they're
certainly not a giant.  They don't play at Morse's level.  Look...should
Westinghouse or CBS or IT&T have questions on Northwest politics who do you
think their lawyers would call?  Why should Morse risk that for mere chump
change?"
     Bodega turned up a path at the top of the grade, choosing a route that
would circle up to the top of the hill.  He must come here regularly--Andi tried
another tack.
     "Is the information he has worth killing for?"
     Bodega paused.  Andi took another step before she looked over.  
     "But it's not Morse that disappeared..." he said.
     "But is it?" Andi pressed.
     "No doubt...no doubt about it at all..." Bodega murmured as he looked up
to the darkening sky. 
     They continued on up to the peak, pausing before the statue of the fat-cat
publisher of the late 1800's.  He was probably responsible for a decent share of
the racist policies and land grabs that made up Oregon Territories history.  Now
his bronze effigy pointed westward, his portly belly bulging his waistcoat, as if
he were something to be proud of.  Bodega and Andi climbed up read the
inscription.  Raoul lifted a leg in editorial comment.
     West of them, where the river and downtown usually hummed was
silenced by the snow; there was the dark suggestion of hills under a sky
growing charcoal in the gathering storm.  The snow was falling swiftly now,
blowing across the pavement like dry sand at the beach, already piling in drifts
in gutters. 
     They shared a glance that agreed that they should go back, heading north
to the path that would wind down to the crater.  Andi paced Bodega stride for
stride--it was comfortable walking beside him, as if they were colleagues or
long-time friends.  She was sorry the walk was over and sorry she still
suspected him of working for Morse. 
     He volunteered to drive her back down and she accepted.  It was too cold
to opt for rugged independence.  As he pulled to the curb across from her
office, he turned and asked, "...would you be interested in dinner...strictly
social, if you want..."
     Andi looked down, embarrassed, then looked to meet his eyes, "I guess
there's no reason for you to have known...but I'm a lesbian..."
     Without missing a beat he quipped "So that means that you don't eat
dinner or don't you want to risk being seen with a man in public?"
     "I just wanted you to understand..." she fumbled.  "I do eat dinner as a
matter of fact."  
     "If you're busy or something, it's no big deal..." he extended, giving
Chance for the issue fall away.
     "No...it's OK...if you want to..."  She wasn't doing anything--and Bodega
was interesting. 
     "Any particular food requests?  Vegetarian, vegan, or anything I should
be careful of?"  He smiled a lop-sided smile and scratched his ear. 
     "Omnivore, but I avoid red meat most of the time..." Andi admitted.
     "Ditto...any time or place you want in particular?"
     "How about seven at Three Doors Down?"
     "Sounds good...have a good afternoon."  He leaned back as she got out,
then reached across to flip the door lock, treating her to an easy smile. 


     Andi waited until he drove off, then picked her way through the snow and
traffic to get back to her office.  What had she just done?  Was this a date with a
man?  
     No--she decided firmly.  It was only a dinner with a professional
colleague--not that Lena wouldn't tease unmercifully if she got wind.  
     Andi stamped the snow from her boots before coming in coming up stairs. 
Bobby Soxx Magnolia and three long-haired friends were spreading tarps
across the floors and masking off the doors and windows to the blaring beat of
seventy's rock and roll.
     Bobby grinned, "Better hurry if you want in or out...we're going to be
throwing paint in just a bit...and it won't be a pretty sight."  
     Andi believed him.  She rushed in and grabbed her notebook--she could
write out notes sitting at her kitchen table. 
     She'd record what Bodega told her.  And then there were the casual
connections between Bryant's clients--Stanley Turner financing Drexler, Ibbe's
real estate expertise helping Drexler, Bryant writing Ibbe's contracts, Ibbe and
Turner scamming software developer's.  She had a lot to rethink this afternoon.
     






                           Chapter  10

     Saturday evening went smoothly, the restaurant was warm and only half-full because of the snow.  Bodega arrived first despite Andi coming a few
minutes early.  She found him just inside, his overcoat across his arm, waiting
for the waiter, in a golden-brown shirt and bolo tie under a purple brocade vest--loud, but certainly not too far out considering it was Hawthorne, but at odds
with Andi's subdued turtleneck and scarf.
     They opted for glasses of the better merlot and nibbled on baguettes as
they listened to the evening's specials.  Bodega ordered the fettuccine with
smoked salmon--Andi chose the Caesar salad, "...to leave room for desert..."  
She smiled as he bantered with the waiter over the pronunciation of
pfannkuchen, which neither of them were ordering. 
     They talked amicably--he skied occasionally, she never; she liked
football, he was neutral to spectator sport.  He was good to his word of not
talking business, though it was all Andi could do to keep from crashing
headlong through the promise and grilling him on why he thought Ibbe and
Drexler were the most likely suspects.
     Their food came.  They talked politics and shared barbed comments on
public figures.  Not surprising--they agreed on issues and both donated time to
Sisters Of The Road.  The plates were cleared and they ordered dessert.
     "I listen to rock and roll...mostly old stuff." Bodega admitted a bit shyly as
he sipped coffee.  "Retro..."
     "KMHD, jazz..." Andi smirked as she lifted a bite of chocolate decadence
with her fork.  "I read mysteries and spy novels."
     "Mysteries?" Bodega lifted an eyebrow, "Gumshoe busman's holiday..?" 
It was his turn to smirk.  "Most of my reading's nonfiction, but I do good pulp
friends push on me." 
     "Sue Grafton or Lawrence Block?"
     "Yeah."  He was noncommittal.
     "How about the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Mosely."
     "One of 'em...I liked it I guess...but I end up feeling guilty that I've wasted
time.  I like weird characters more than pretty prose--I guess that's working
class." 
     "Seems normal..." Andi offered, "...for a workaholic."
     Bodega sipped his decaf, his eyes sparkled.  Andi smiled and used her
fork to scratch cross-hatched designs in the last of the raspberry sauce that
had painted her hazelnut-chocolate torte.
     "My parents were professionals," she said, looking over Bodega's head to
the wall beyond.  "My dad an engineer and my mom a political science prof at
Reed.  I was raised with Emma Goldman, Mother Jones, civil rights and
Vietnam."  
     "Yeah?"  Bodega chuckled.  "My grandmother was a labor organizer
during the thirties..." he blushed, "My father a liberal and my mother a
progressive Republican...  I didn't have a Chance..."
     "Progressive Republican..." Andi chortled.  "God..."
     "Hey...what do you know?  There used to be such an animal..a lot of
things have gone extinct.  Progressive social values wrapped up in small
business and apple pie..."
     "Country club conservative?" Andi queried--she couldn't keep the smile
from her face.
     "Well yeah, of course...her dad was a doctor and could afford to be
progressive.  They deplored the problems of cities and class...just from the
other side."
     "Well they weren't very effective..." Andi chastised.
     "Neither was the labor movement..."  Bodega met her eyes levelly.  A
silence descended upon them.
     Suddenly Bodega's face lightened.  "And people wonder why
progressives fight...look at us."  
     Andi picked up her coffee cup and offered a toast. "Ever hear the
difference between patriotism and nationalism?"
     "Tell me..."  Bodega flourished his cup and touched rims.
     "Patriots care about symbols and ideology like the flag and free market
crap while nationalists care about people and the land."
     "Well that's simplistic..." Bodega snorted.
     "So what do you want for a one sentence after dinner rendering of
American politics?"  Andi shook her head in mock reproach.
     "This is fun, isn't it..." Bodega smiled across the table as the waiter
brought the check.
     "Sure..." Andi said guardedly.  Suddenly she was cautious of having too
good a time; they'd stayed long after dinner and dessert.  It took but a minute to
split the check and leave an ample tip--mutually agreeing to get in contact early
in the week.  Andi still had questions she needed to ask, but standing at the door
wasn't the time or place and to go somewhere else after dinner would make it
too much like a date.
     They lingered outside the door in the cold and exchanged a chaste
brother-sister hug, slowly parting and saying goodby. 
     Just a that moment Rhonda and Letti walked up.  Andi and Bodega
blocked the doorway--there was no way they could be tactfully ignored.
     "...going out or coming in..." Letti queried.
     "Rhonda, Letti...this is Ramone Bodega...a business associate."  Andi
established uneasily.  "...leaving..."  It was awkward.  "So how are you anyway? 
Jason OK?"  Jason, Rhonda's son had been kicked out of school for fighting.
     "All's quiet on the western front..." Laughed Rhonda.  "I'm changing jobs
next week...thank God."  Letti was studying Bodega and looking quizzically at
Andi.
     Bodega stood to as side, quietly watching with an amused smile.  Andi felt
awkward and wanted to get away before Letti started teasing. 
     Rhonda opened the door and she and Letti went inside.  
     "Old friends..." observed Bodega.
     "Sorry..."  Andi apologized--had Bodega picked up disapproving vibes or
was she just paranoid?
     "Everybody's got old friends..." he offered.  "Well...it's cold...we'll talk..."
he turned half-around.
     "Yeah, first of the week..." Andi promised, then she spun on her heel
hoping Rhonda and Letti would see them walking off in opposite directions.
     Andi kicked at a chunk of snow, sending it crumbling off into the gutter.  If
Bodega was paid by Morse to get on her good side Morse was getting his
money's worth, but if he thought he could influence her he would be sadly
mistaken.  
     The biggest chink in Bodega's credibility was his defense of Morse--that
was big enough to drive a truck through.  Morse loomed in the background
wherever she looked.
     The snow was still falling, even heavier now, it was getting late, she was
ready for a warm shower and dry book.  Skiers could course Mount Tabor trails
and steep hilly parks tomorrow.  Snow seldom lasted very long in Portland, the
cold would inevitably be nudged aside by rain.
     Bryant's disappearance could wait--it would be nice to turn the heat up
for Sunday morning sipping coffee on the phone.  Oatmeal with apples for
breakfast, maybe walk through snow for a Sunday paper.  Sunday afternoon
would be music at Brighten's.  Traci seemed far behind.

     
     Monday morning the snow was still layered everything like a holiday card
picture.  Lena was in the office working before Andi trudged the repainted
stairwell at eight twenty-five.  Bobby and his friends had finished the painting,
but the walls looked barren without their posters and smelled of damp newness. 
She'd have to talk to her neighbors about returning some color to the place. 
Andi mused and reached for the knob.
     "My, you're here early..." Andi chirped as she came in, she stripped off
her coat, sank in her chair and reached to strip off her boots.
     "`Why not?' I told myself.  The tension was as friendly as a split lip and
lying by someone I didn't want to talk to was boring...coffee's made..." Lena
shrugged and took a sip from her cup.
     "Oh..." Andi considered the wisdom of asking questions and decided that
allowing the office to be a sanctuary was the wisest way to go--besides, she
didn't really want to wade into Lena's domestic misery.  The weekend had been
blissfully quiet and the morning spent pleasantly puttering.  "I haven't given a
thought to work since meeting with Bodega."  It wasn't strictly true, but at she
certainly hadn't worried about it.
     "So how'd your date with Ramone go?"
     Andi glanced across, did Lena know about dinner?  "Our meeting...  We
walked around Tabor with his dog named Raoul as the snow began falling.  He
knows all sorts of environmental stuff...makes me feel naive."
     "And...?" Lena asked, she cocked her head to a side and looked up
encouragingly.
     "And what?" Andi replied defensively.
     "...so what do you think about him?" Lena pushed.  "A friend of a friend of
mine knows Bodega..."
     "A friend of a friend of yours knows Bodega?"  Andi inwardly winced and
recoiled.  Did Lena already know about their dinner?
     "They say he's OK..."
     "So?" Andi wasn't going to fall for it.
     "So...the rumor mill has it that he thinks you're neat."
     "Lena...I'm not interested.  Get it through your head..." Andi snapped. 
"...I've never had a boyfriend in my life." 
     "Well...honoring diversity..." Lena's smirk leaked out of her attempt at
dead-pan.
     Andi shot her an icy look.
     Lena looked at her nails, "So what do you think about him professionally?" 
     Andi looked her right in the eye and recited, "He was helpful, but I still
suspect him of working for Morse...the way he defends him makes me
suspicious."  With that, Andi turned away and busied herself shuffling files.  The
morning had come far too early and she was at a loss about where to begin.
     "Is that all...you going to talk again?  Going to go to dinner?"  Lena got up
to pour more coffee.
     That last comment was too close--she must have heard.  Andi confronted
her, beckoning the truth with a little inward wave of her hand.  "What's this
you're doing Lena, pushing me to go straight or something?  What are you...my
mother?"
     "So are you going to talk again?  Want a cup?"  Lena held up both mugs.
     Andi rolled her eyes and nodded `yes' to the coffee.  "...we're going to talk
on the telephone sometime next week..." She admitted the last grudgingly.  She
wasn't going to admit going out to dinner.
     "You know it was really painful to admit to myself that I'm bi."  Lena
pushed.
     "Lena...why are you doing this?" Andi shifted uncomfortably in her chair. 
"I'm satisfied being a lesbian...I've been one all my life...thank you very much." 
     "You know it was harder to come out as bi than as a dyke..." Lena sank
into her chair, looked up to the ceiling and mused philosophically.  "You risk
loosing your supportive subculture and identity, you get rejected by everybody."
     "Are you letting down your hair or trying to make a conversion?" Andi set
her cup down a little too hard, the cup made a "thwack" and coffee splashed
over her files. "Damn..."
     "Just seems natural to be attracted to both..."
     "Lena..." Andi was getting mad.  "I'm not...to tell the truth I'm far more
attracted to you than to him..."  The comment sprang from her mouth without
warning, Andi abruptly shut her mouth and felt herself blush.
     Lena looked over and raised an eyebrow.
     "I'm sorry.  It just kind of slipped out..." Andi apologized defensively.
     "Hmmmmmmm...?" Lena said quietly.  She turned back to her work and
the room grew suddenly silent.
     Andi wanted to put her head down on her desk.  She'd said it and felt like
a fool.  Bodega was a nice friend for a man...it was healthy to have friends...and
Lena was still in a relationship... a rocky relationship maybe, but still.  And that
dinner with Bodega had been innocent.
     She got a sponge and dabbed at the spilled coffee.  It was time to buckle
down to work; Morse would phone this morning and there were things she
needed to get done first.
     She'd tell him about her lack of success with Bryant's clients.  Bryant's all
but invisible personal life was another uncracked mystery.  Why had Morse and
Chang-Turner been silent while paying her to discover what they knew.  And the
sanitizing of his office and home--what was she to make of that?
     She reached for the phone and dialed Ramirez.  He was sitting at his
desk.
     "Made any headway on Bryant?" She asked after their preliminary
exchange.
     "Two witnesses saw people down at the boat house about that time." he
said matter of factly.  
     "Kind of late to appear, eh?"  Andi perked up and reached for her pencil. 
"How come you missed them before?"
     "Both say there were three men and a woman looking out at the boats
from the boat house--one witness saw them unlock the door." 
     "Three men and a woman?" Andi jotted the notes.  "Tall or short, anything
distinguishing?  What was the woman wearing?  Did anyone took photos at the
party?"
     "Photos...?  That's a good idea Wicksham, I'll bring it up with the
Lieutenant.  Red dress dark hair, men in business suits.  It was a while ago--they
were out of town until last Wednesday ...it's not like any of this seemed
important at the time."
     "They must have known when the police were called to the boat house." 
Andi was incredulous.
     "They say they left at ten...no one saw them go...what can I say?  It's more
than we had before..."
     "...you think they were put up to it?"  Andi thought of Morse.
     "You know Wicksham...you're a very suspicious person.  Why would you
jump to such a conclusion?" Ramirez sounded genuinely concerned. 
     "Just jumpy, I guess.  I see Morse behind every corner.  Am I going to get
the witnesses names?"  She bounced her pencil eraser on her pad of paper.
     "Not just now...but I'll see what I can do."
     "Oh come on Ramirez...I got nothing else to go on."  Andi pleaded half-heartedly.
     "Sorry...I have to clear it with Max...it's a political thing...just the way it
is..."
     "Yeah, yeah.  Thanks.  How about Bryant's estate?"
     "Yeah..." Ramirez shuffled through some papers.  "He left his body to
science and the bulk of his estate to some sister in New Hampshire.  Max is
tracking her down.  The practice reverts to Templeton and Morse."
     "Bank accounts...investments?" Andi asked.
     "Not yet..." Ramirez attention was straying.
     "Do you have anything on Sandra Chang-Turner?" Andi asked hopefully.
     "Nothing that makes her stand out."
     "I've heard rumors that she might have been involved with Bryant in
blackmailing his clients..."
     "Blackmail?" Ramirez perked up.
     "Well, that's the problem...the reported payoff was in legal fees and the
like."  Andi said in a hopeless voice. 
     "That's as good as nothing at all...without a complainant we can't get
started and to complain the victim would implicate himself in Bryant's
disappearance...thanks for the help."
     "Don't mention it..." Andi said sarcastically.  "Some of Bryant's clients
hate his guts real bad."  
     "If you give me the list it'll make some people very happy." he wheedled.
     "Consider it yours.  You'll look into getting me the witnesses?"
     "Sure..."
     "How about Lon Lively?" She asked casually.
     "Fired employee relates hostile rumors he doesn't repeat to the
police...big zip, Wicksham...why? ...do you believe him?"  Ramirez used a keg of
sarcasm.
     "I didn't say I did." Andi said defensively.  "I've thought from the first he
might be set up by Morse.  I'm grasping at straws...you doing better?"
     "Naw...I guess not.  So Tanya still brings up your name.  How about
Wednesday evening?  Short and sweet...dinner and you're out the door a couple
hours later?"  Ramirez cajoled.
     "You're on...what'll I bring?"
     "Bring..?  Tanya'd be insulted."  Ramirez feigned shock.  "Beer or pretzels
or candy...that'll be enough."
     "OK...you got it.  Six thirty?"
     "Fine, fine...got to go...catch ya..." he hung up.
     Andi looked down at the note.  Three men and a woman--assume one was
Bryant.  Chang-Turner and Drexler's boys?  Ibbe and friends removing an
hurdle?  Drexler, woman colleague and thug?  Red dress--flashy for business,
but it was a party.  She wished she'd gotten the witnesses' names--maybe
Ramirez would come through. 
     She'd look into Bryant's friend.  She paged back through her notebook--Samuel Lee.  The phone book gave an S. Lee at the right address.  Bingo--that
wasn't hard. 
     Andi copied it into her notes and punched the keys. 
     No answer.  Andi looked across the desk, shut her eyes and picked a
folder at random--time to look at it all again.
     Luckily the phone rang to interrupt her--Morse.
     "Are you ready to talk to Mr. Lively?" asked Morse, his voice was matter
fact, soft and casual.
     "...ready."  Andi visualized his `other team' coordinating with cell phones
on a conference call, using code and unmarked cars.  She wondered how hard-core they were and again why it was he hired her.  "I wanted to talk to you
later..." Andi said.
     "Now?" Morse asked quietly.
     "It can wait..." .
     "Then we'll talk later."  Morse responded.  "Do you have the cash?"
     "...I didn't want it around...I figured he'd expect me to have to get it."  Was
he implying she wasn't prepared? 
     Andi hung up and dialed Lively's number.  Lena watched wide-eyed from
across the room.
     When the phone rang Lively was listening to talk radio turned loud and
had to turn it down before he could hear.  
     "Our client wants two particular files..." Andi mimicked Morse's dry
monotone.  "...State of Oregon versus Maybon, something about sewage and
public hazard...and Temptation Development versus Urth."
     "OK...let me get a pen...Oregon versus Maybon? ...and... Temptation
Development-v-Urth?"
     "He'll go seven-fifty a page."  Andi added.
     "Eight..." Lively bargained.
     Andi gave him an exasperated sigh.  "I'm not the one to argue with. 
Seven-fifty.  That's what he said." 
     "When..?"
     "He's in a hurry...make it soon."  She figured that sounded short and
sweet.
     "I've got to get them..." Lively said.
     And make a copy.  Andi thought to herself.  "So how long does that
take...this afternoon....tomorrow?"
     "Uh...tomorrow...I'll call..."  He sounded like that was sooner than he
wanted.  
     "Tomorrow morning." Andi stated flatly.
     "We'll see..." Lively said resentfully.  "Anything else?"
     "Do you know any other ex employees I could talk to?" And figured it
never hurt to try.
     "I think I could find somebody...maybe..."  He hung up without saying a
word.
     Andi phoned Morse back.
     "He's got the message..." Andi stated flatly.
     There was a pause before Morse responded.  "I'm  monitoring them on
another line," he finally said.  "Lively's made another phone call after talking to
you...now he's leaving the house and getting in his car..."
     Andi wondered if Morse's "other team" had used an illegal wire tap or
legally matched Lively's wireless frequency.
     "He's driving...OK, Ms. Wicksham, what is it that you wanted to discuss?" 
Morse seemed to have given up on following the boring part of the chase. 
     "I wondered what you thought of me looking into an employee.." 
     "Sandra Chang-Turner?" Morse asked immediately.
     "Primarily..." Andi didn't want to pin it down.
     Morse seemed to take an extra second to consider his answer.  "I've
initiated a check into our financial records...that will overlap onto her
relationship with Bryant and his clients.  Are you focusing on the blackmail
angle?" 
     "...and the possibility of others in your firm being involved..." 
     "Is Lively your source?" he asked bluntly.
     "...ex-employees..." Andi hoped the vagueness sounded pregnant with
meaning and hoped Morse wouldn't ask "who?"
     "Is there anything else...?" The jerked inflection betrayed a terseness.
     "I'm having trouble accessing Bryant's clients and the vaguest detail of
his personal life."  She quickly decided honesty was the best strategy, Morse
probably knew what her limits were.
     "Looking into his finances will help...I'll keep you apprised...I'd like you to
continue what you're doing.  There's this thing with Lively to follow...I want you
to continue your relationship with him."
     Andi stared up into the cheap overhead light fixture deciding against the
"Relationship!" card.  How long would he pay money her to play with the slug? 
Then her eyes fell with a jerk to the door across the room.
     "Sure..." she said, "...you asking me to back-off on doing Chang-Turner?"
     Morse paused a moment.  "No..." he said carefully, "...do what you think
you should...I'll give you an update mid-week, I think I can help you
considerably." 
     Andi scribbled a note in her notebook and asked casually, "By the
way...what does Sandra Ibbe look like?  What color is her hair?"
     "Sandra Ibbe?" Morse sounded surprised.  "Medium height, brown hair off
the shoulder, roman nose..."
     "Light brown hair?" Andi asked.
     "...dark, but not black..?"  It was a question.
     "Just checking out a detail, do you remember what she was wearing the
night of the party?"
     "No..."
     "How about Chang-Turner?"
     "Her clothes?  I'm sorry and that was a while ago now.  Anything else?" 
     "Nope...thanks..." Andi answered in what she hoped was a cheerful tone.
     Morse hung up without a word.  
     Monitoring Lively...Andi shrugged--who cared?  Continue the work she
was doing. What?
     Lena interrupted the reverie.  "Andi..." she looked at her strangely. 
"...you OK?"
     "..'course." Andi answered, "Just distracted.  "What?"
     "I graphed the work pattern of your last couple years and thought you
might want to see."  Lena smiled and waved toward her screen.
     "You what'd my jobs for last years?" Andi asked impatiently.
     "I graphed to show how much overlap -v- dead time you've had.  See..." a
pencil did a sputtered tattoo on the graphic.  "You've had big gaps in your
schedule...here and here, only dribbles going on...you do a job, then wait
around until the next one."
     "So?"  Andi stared back with lidded eyes, and twist to her smile.  "What
you saying?"  Bad direction this was going.
     Those "Gaps" were her quality time; side-benefit of self-employed.  It was
decompression period, lying fallow before the next onslaught--she wasn't sure
she wanted a life with the regularity of linoleum.
     "All I'm saying is that there are these periods of slack income and low
productivity...if they're not controlled there's potential for a drought."  Lena
glanced to her face, then scan the room--incisive MBA, as if it was Fortune 500.
     "Controlled?"  There was the feeling of loosing her footing, a retreating
wave sucking the sand from beneath her.
     "Put it this way...do you take about every job that comes in the door?" 
Lena stared at Andi with a pouty smirk that would have made a sex star jealous.
     "Why?  She couldn't think of any job refused in a couple of years, but she
wouldn't admit it.
     "The point is you can do something about it..."  Lena switched back to
buttoned-down manager and tapped her finger at a paper lying casually beside
the keyboard.  "Get a flow of little jobs...more stable in the long run.  Like
finding that witness...and you don't need to do it.  Pot boilers."  She smiled like a
used car salesman with a customer whose wheels had given up at the curb.
     "I don't know..." Andi had an uncontrollable urge to drag her feet and
brace against being thrown.  "What's to be gained?  We'd need help...we don't
even have another telephone for Christ's sake." The G-forces tore irresistibly,
her bloody fingers gripped raw granite.
     "...new telephone'll come Tuesday.  This isn't anything that needs to be
moved on.  I just wanted you to know.." a pause "..seemed like my job."
     "OK..." Andi swallowed.  "No sweat.  What else's on the agenda?"
     "Long-term disbursement planning...schedule anticipated cash needs and
set an operating expenses draw from the top set aside to hedge unforseen
crises."  Three beats counted by in silence.  "..and you haven't made checks to
an insurance company so I suppose health insurance isn't covered..."
     "You didn't believe me?  Well fine...something's come of you nosing
through my books."  Maybe she'd back off a bit...knowing the grim dips and
dives of the fiscal picture.
     "...you're barely paying rent.  What if your car gorks or you break a leg for
God's sake."  The deal is that this business could support you in a far better
manner than it is...another few jobs overlapped on what you've done would be
gravy..."  Lena was on a roll.
     "Gravy?  What you're not saying is that the overhead of this firm went up
considerably in the past few weeks and the projected balance sheet sucks.  I
should be surprised?"  Andi was no slouch in seat-of her pants accounting. 
"Now you realize your benefit package is limited to the coffee you drink on the
job..."  She looked levelly into Lena's eyes and smiled. "What you're saying is,
you want me to bust butt so you can have a regular job?"
     Lena looked back with a blank expression for the count of four.  It took
her that long to regroup with, "Well...as long as we agree to the baseline
issues...enough for now..."
     She turned back to her table.  Lena knew the value of strategic retreat,
Andi had to give her that.
     "Where's the Bryant thing...you working anything I should see?" Andi was
willing to return to business.
     "Since the papers don't have smoking guns, they might be red herrings."
     "What?"
     "If they're not from Bryant and not slander, maybe they're supposed to
throw us off course.  What would we put less time into if we got excited about
them?" Lena preened, flicking a dust mite, proud of herself.
     "You're going over the top.  The world's a red herring."
     "Exactly..." Lena said excitedly.  "What was going on when we got them."
     "I don't know..."  Andi grumbled resentfully, but paged backwards
through the notebook.  "We'd barely started...I'd contacted Bodega...Drexler's
boat, the Yacht Club..."
     "Drexler's boat...anything new on it?"
     "Haven't heard..."  Andi reached for her phone and called Ramirez.  He
wasn't in so she left a message.
     "I'll try the coast guard." Lena was already dialing. 
     Andi rolled her eyes and opened Drexler's file.  Still hadn't spoken to him. 
She stared longingly for the phone Lena had to her ear and tapped a finger
impatiently. 
     "No boat..." Lena announced, putting down the phone.  
     "Figures." Andi didn't expect the boat to have answers whether it turned
up or not.  Without finger prints in Bryant's own blood, it meant next to nothing. 
"What else you doing?"
     Lena shrugged nonchalantly and checked items off an unexplained list. 
Andi reached to swing the phone to her desk, she was bored with boat and
papers.
     Samuel Lee again, but still no answer.  She'd have to cash Bryant's check
in case Lively called after banking hours. 
     Lena changed the subject without warning.  "I been whittling at your
backlog..."  Most's routine--no sweat...here's a stack for you to check...I'll
cover indexing, package and assembly, you'll have to write out the
narratives...you could dictate them onto tape if you had to." 
     "Fine..." Andi didn't really care.  "I'm going to the bank.  If anything
exciting happens tell 'em I'll be back in twenty minutes."
     "Sure..." Lena was already reaching when the phone rang.  She met
Andi's eyes and waved her to take it.
     "Wicksham here..." Andi grumbled.
     "It's Ramirez...what's up?"
     "Oh...not much.  I'd called to see if you had anything on the boat...but I got
an answer."
     "Want to do lunch?"
     "Well actually Ramirez..." Andi began an excuse.
     "You're buying, Wicksham.  Consider it payment for my services."
     "Yeah?"  He did say he'd try to get the witnesses names and she promised
Ibbe's clients.  "I'm buying?"
     "Max figures to attribute it to a `confidential source.'  Unless there's a
grand jury, nobody'll care."
     "Where and when..." Andi stared at her calendar, but she knew there
wasn't anything on it.  
     "Twelve fifteen at Papa Hayden's."
     "In Sellwood?" Andi complained.
     "Not far--what fifteen minutes?  I'm getting a deposition from Laura Hanks
at the Moreland clinic and will have to risk downtown after lunch...I'm leaving
now.  See you in half an hour."
     "...Hanks...?" Andi asked.  Where'd she hear that name?
     "Acting director...hates it, but the last guy was a sleazy little businessman
with a medical degree."  Ramirez gave a little embarrassed cough.
     Andi paused before giving up on the name.  "I'm buying huh?"
     "Your expense account is, I think..." he drawled sarcastically. "correcto?"
     "Como no.." Andi acceded, "See you there."  
     She rose, pulled the envelope from her desk drawer and peeked to make
sure the check was there.  Then she dug out the list of Ibbe's clients and the list
of software developers for good measure, took a giant step to the copier.  "I'm
out of here ...Ramirez, trading lunch for witnesses."  She tossed the papers
back on her desk.
     "Fine...leave me here sweating over a hot grindstone while you meet your
rowdy friend at a sordid gin mill." Lena held the back of her hand to her brow
and turned in melodramatic anguish.
     "Gin mill...?  Please, this is gourmet...I'm shocked." Andi gave a
lighthearted wave and slipped thankfully out the door.
     Andi walked to the bank to cash Morse's check--she should have
discussed it with Lena and logged the money into a client expense log.  Oh
well...  She'd do it when she got back.
     

     Andi beat Ramirez to Papa Hayden's by ten minutes--it was just before
noon, they'd beaten the noon rush and she got a window table without waiting. 
She spent the time reading and rereading the menu and staring out the window
at the slush.  Papa Hayden's was another of Portland's traditions, usually good
service--if sometimes snooty--tastefully crafted food and acceptable deserts.  
     She occupied herself pretending not to watch the couple at the next table
and had just started feeling guilty about tying up the table and not ordering
when Ramirez slipped in through the door. 
     "So, what do you want?" He asked as he sat down.  
     Andi didn't even have to look back at the menu.  "Thai chicken breast on a
roll."  The woman beside them had inch long pink hair and a tongue stud, her
companion was a grandmotherly type in an upper-class matron's dress
complete with a matching hat and with one of those 1940's veils.  They
chattered away like best of friends.
     "...let's see..." he held the menu out at arm's length to read it.
     "Ramirez...you need reading glasses.  It's a sign of middle age you know." 
     He gave her a stern look.  "I pick 'em up Thursday."  Then he softened into
a chummy smile.  "Last week I thought I was going blind.  Happened all of
sudden...don't laugh, you'll be here in just a few years..." 
     "Sorry..."  
     The waitress came and they both ordered Thai chicken sandwiches.  
     "Oh, Drexler's boat's turned up..."  He said it casually, like an offhand
comment on the weather.
     "Yeah...and?" Andi prompted.
     "Repainted and renamed...up in Canada, Vancouver I think.  When the
new owner tried to register it the US registration came up phoney and it was
traced off engine numbers."
     "Lucky for Drexler...Mounties find anything?"
     "Nothing they think significant...the thing was repainted and everything."
     "How about the people who bought it?"
     "They were interviewed of course.  Retired couple, civil service, no
obvious connections.  Seems they'd saw it and wrote a check that was cashed
the next day.  There's a description of the seller...short, heavy, brown hair and
eyes, Canadian speech, maybe forty."
     "So what are you doing?"
     "They searched...powdered for prints...what should they have done
Wicksham?" 
     "Test the bilge for blood?" 
     "I know they didn't cause they asked Max if he would pay for lab
fees...Max's thinking...it's not going to happen."  He gave her a frustrated look.
     Andi shrugged, "So...witnesses?"  
     "I have an illicit copy of the interviewing officer's report...with two names
blacked out." he pulled a few sheets of paper from an inside pocket.  "I told him
you were a bulldog and would inevitably find out who they were.  The deal is,
Max says you shouldn't contact them or the officer...you understand?  He
doesn't want you putting important noses out of joint."
     "Thanks for nothing, Ramirez..."
     He was saved from having to reply.  Their food came and was set before
them.
     As soon as the waitress turned away Andi asked suspiciously.  "Why's
Max concerned?" 
     "It's politics...everybody there was a political
contributor...politicians...business shmoozing, you know...this is a hot potato. 
Max is being torn down the middle and doesn't know what to do."
     "The mayor was there...she's not involved is she?"  Andi interest perked
at the thought.
     "No!"  Ramirez was quietly emphatic.  "There's nothing at all that points to
those folks.  But there are whispers of a big scandal and high-profile people are
running scared.  You probably already know more than anybody."
     "Witnesses...?"  Andi scanned the copied reports.  They were
paraphrased interviews, not transcripts, but the officers involved seemed
thorough.
     "Just promise me you won't kick up dust, OK?
     "I promise..." Andi laid the papers beside her plate and looked up into
Ramirez's face.  "So tell me what they said."
     "Both witnesses were interviewed...separately."
     "Did they have different recollections?"
     "Well, no...worse...the stories were so identical they must have been
talking to each other--at least.  It happened weeks ago and they claim to have
not known it had any significance."  He laughed a false, sarcastic laugh.
     "Rehearsed by Morse?" Andi asked, interrupting.
     Ramirez pursed his lips.  "They swear nobody mentioned a thing..."  
     Andi shrugged.  If they were married, they probably discussed it over
breakfast.
     "They were standing in misty rain looking out at the river deciding on
whether to go home...they had a flight the next day for a vacation.  It's
plausible...the rain was light that evening, but nobody else at the party braved
the deck to look at the boats."
     The waitress brought water and Andi sipped hers while she listened.
     "They say three men and woman were standing on the quay beside the
boat house.  They were dressed like others at the party and were looking out
over the boats...it was too far away to hear anything.  They pointed out over the
water or at a boat or something--who knows?  Then they walked to the boat
house, unlocked the door and went inside.  That's it..."  He picked up his water
glass and gestured as if giving a toast.
     "Did they turn on the light?"  Andi wiped the corner of her mouth.
     "What light?
     "The light in the boat house.  Did they see it go on?"
     "Didn't report it...it was a while back, you know..."
     "Red dress, dark hair on the woman?" 
     "Yeah...men in dark business suits.  It was night and misting rain...how
can they remember?"  Ramirez shook his head.
     "Description fits both Chang-Turner and Ibbe..." Andi chuckled.
     "Funny thing 'eh...Chang-turner wore maroon and Ibbe was in fuchsia." 
He sponged at the peanut sauce with the side of his sandwich.
     "No surprise...no help."  
     "No nothing, Sherlock...seven other women were wearing shades of red
that evening, one was Houston Light.  That makes nine."  
     "But it could have been either of them."
     "Or other people entirely.  It's not like it was some private residence.  The
place is right on the river, down from Waterfront Park and a few blocks from a
theater.  How many women wore red that evening?"  Ramirez pointed his finger
at her.  "It doesn't mean anything..." He shrugged and gave a hurt expression.
     "So do you want me to look into this for you, Ramirez...?" Andi raised an
eyebrow.
     "Officially...not on your life.  This is police business.  But...if you did look
into the matter and find anything, Lieutenant Max would be very grateful...not
that he would ever officially know of course.  This thing's some football--Investigate the murder without looking into the suspects.  It sucks,
Wicksham...is this anyway to run a department?"
     Andi shrugged and smiled.
     "Did you talk to Samuel Lee?" Ramirez asked.
     "Haven't gotten a hold of him..." Andi dabbed at her lips with her napkin. 
"How'd you find him anyway?"
     "Our new scout caught it as she reviewed the bank records...I don't know
if I would have looked that closely."
     "Did she interview him?"
     Ramirez gave her a wry look.  "No...an inspector did.  Didn't find anything
of interest...he knew Bryant, but not well...didn't know why he should be listed. 
It will probably just waste your time."
     Ramirez was tired of the subject and switched to how there wasn't
equality in the NBA.  Andi nodded sagely and commiserated in silence.  She
tried to push a desert on him, but he pointed to his watch and pleaded no time.  
     He stood and Andi handed him the pages on Ibbe's clients and software
developers.  "Interesting stuff," she told him.  "...even if it doesn't help your
Bryant thing.  Probably indictable crimes..."
     "Sure, I've time for another project..." he gave a wry smile.
     Andi nodded and waved him on, then paid the check and drove back to
the office.  Maybe Lena would like to go out for a mocha.


     When she got back to the office Lena was already back from her own
lunch  She pointed to a pile of letters and said, "Mail came."
     Andi picked up the pile.  Where she was usually lucky to get a letter or
two among the junk there were eleven personal looking letters.  She looked at
Lena.
     "Could be money..." Lena smirked.
     Andi opened the envelopes and laid ten checks and a hard luck letter out
on her desk.  "There's almost two grand in checks here." she said in
amazement.
     "Not surprising...you had almost thirty eight thousand in outstanding
accounts." Lena said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
     "That much?" Andi shrieked.
     "And remember we only went back two years."  You did a lot of work you
never got paid for...good thing you enjoyed it, 'cause you were being stiffed for
what you did."
     "Damn..." Andi said not quite believing it.
     "We did agree to do this on a percentage didn't we?" Lena wheedled good
naturedly.
     "I didn't know there was that much."
     "Adds up, doesn't it?  Time passes quickly when you're having fun...and
you thought you didn't need me."  She shook her head in mock despair.
     "Well I say we go out for a mocha."  Andi felt expansive.
     "You're buying I suppose..." Lena said dryly. 
     "Yeah, I guess I am.  I'm betting it'll be late this afternoon at the earliest
before Lively gets the report copied.  Get your coat, we're going out."
     

     It was nearly five o'clock when Lively called.  The day was already
darkening toward an early dusk and a cold wind rattled the office windows. 
Andi jumped for the telephone.
     "Wicksham."  It was a statement.  "Lon here...I've got one of the reports
you wanted, want to hear how many pages?"  He chuckled to himself.
     "How many?" Andi asked--after all she was getting paid to humor the
man.
     "Two hundred and thirty two...let's see...at seven-fifty a pop that's one
thousand seven hundred and twenty five dollars.  When do you want to get it?" 
Lively was feeling good.
     "You didn't get the second file?" Andi smirked to herself and glanced out
the window. 
     "Naw...I must have let it slip through my fingers..."  He didn't seem very
upset about it.
     "I got to get the money...you at home?"
     Lively's slightly whiny voice grated in her ear.  "Just say the word, but
make it soon or I'm going to dinner...I wouldn't want to miss your call."  
     Andi could sense him smiling. 
     "We'll see..." Andi didn't want to feed his smugness.  "I'll call back one
way or the other." 
     She set the phone down and took a moment to collect her thoughts. 
Morse would already know he'd called, probably knew what she just said on the
phone.  She flipped to his file and punched in the number.
     "Congratulations Mr. Morse."  Andi didn't see any reason to maintain the
pretense of telling him what he already knew.  "Shall I set up a transfer?"
     "I'd prefer it was somewhere public, somewhere you could be observed. 
So, not a movie theater or that bar you first met him..."
     "...but you want him to choose the time and place?"  Had the other team
cased the bar?  
     "Within reason...guide him if you have doubts...you've got a pushy
relationship with him...he won't suspect if you object."
     "Fine..." Andi paused.  "...anything else?"
     "No." It was a simple no, as if Morse had been asked by a waiter if he
wanted more wine.
     Andi called Lively back and asked him where he'd like to meet.
     "You know the big Safeway on Sandy?"
     Andi said, "Yes."
     "There's a little deli, buy a coffee and wait.  Put the money in an
envelope...have it ready--don't count it out there...I trust you, I know where you
work."  
     Andi suspected Lively seldom had the opportunity to tell anybody what to
do.  "How long will it take?"
     "Fifteen minutes...ten if I'm lucky."
     "Let's hope you're lucky..."  With that the phone went dead.
     Andi grumbled as she counted out the one thousand seven hundred
twenty five dollars--it rankled her to have to do his bidding no matter how much
money Morse paid.  She recounted the bills and stuffed them into a nine by
twelve envelope.  
     "So you think you'll come back to the office?"  Lena asked.  It was a
practical question.
     "Are you going to be here?" Andi asked in return.
     "Depends...no, probably not."  Lena shrugged.
     "Then I'll just go on home.  After talking with Lively I'll need a shower."
     "Phone me if anything exciting happens." Lena asked,
     "I guarantee nothing will." Andi growled as she pulled on coat and boots. 
She wondered if Morse was having her tailed as well as Lively.
     
     
     There were three small tables with bent-wire chairs next to a glass case
of sliced meats and cheese in the "deli" of the Safeway on Sandy.  Andi got a
small paper cup of tea and found a seat.  She held the money in both hands on
her lap and tried to look casual.  
     She looked around with what she hoped was a disinterested air.  Some of
the early evening shoppers poking through the aisles were Morse's other team--there to watch, pretending to pick out dinner or tomorrow's lunch meat during
non-rush hours.
     The best agents were those least expected; the obese woman waddling
uncomfortably behind her cart, the young couple oblivious to everything but
each other, maybe the trio chattering in Vietnamese and blocking the aisle as
they pointed around them and laughed.  An older patron moved slowly beside
the cheeses--two others, a man and a woman, sat at a table just six feet away,
talking about digestive problems and medications. 
     Andi decided that they'd be likely watchers, the thought gave her a
feeling of reassurance--she wondered again how much Morse would spend to
play this game.  He kicked into high gear after learning of Lively's files--it must
cost quite a bit to pull out all the stops.
     She spied Lively with a red plastic basket of groceries and a brown folder. 
She pretended not to notice and he nervously turned up a aisle.  Let him watch
her until he was ready; the other team weren't obvious, maybe they switched off
so that nobody looked his way for more than a minute or two. 
     Lively turned her way again, this time making eye contact.  Andi nodded
slightly and turned her head as if to look away, keeping him at the edge of her
peripheral vision.  
     Lively came up.
     Andi extended a hand and gestured him to a chair.  He put his basket on
the table and sat.
     "Are you ready?" she asked him casually.
     "Have you been followed...?" he asked suspiciously.
     "By who?" Andi tried to feign mild alarm.  She looked around and clutched
the money a little tighter.
     "Who knows?" Lively switched from worry to a swagger.
     "Our client might want a number of other files after viewing this one..."
Andi ad libbed.
     "I figure he might..." Lively smiled.  
     "Then this is yours." Andi pushed the envelope across the table and
dropped her hands to her lap.  She tried to remember that she had no stake in
this at all--if he wanted to take the money and run, it was nothing to her.
     Lively glanced down and hesitated, obviously debating on whether to
check the money.  He decided to trust her and handed over the file.  "It's a
pleasure doing business...I suppose I'll hear from you later in the week?"  He
rose to his feet.
     "It's not up to me Mr. Lively..." Andi was purposefully vague.  
     "I suppose it's not." Lively shook his head in condescension and strode
purposefully toward the door.  
     Morse must have had people already in the parking lot, because no one
followed him out.  Andi looked around, but nobody seemed to be watching.  
     So, it's over she thought to herself, maybe the "other team" of Morse's
was just a bluff to keep her honest.  She rose to her feet and picked up the
folder, it had been enough excitement for the evening--time to call it a night.


     When she got back to her apartment she phoned Morse.  
     "Good work." he congratulated her, "I'll send a messenger to get the file
in the morning."  He didn't seem overly concerned.
     He knew that the exchange had gone off, so there'd been somebody
watching.  She wished she had gone back to the office to quietly run a copy
before she gave it back. 
     She didn't ask any questions, he said "Thanks," and hung up.  Andi turned
the radio on--a be-bob group with vibes was pumping Miles Davis's Seven Steps
to Heaven, she shut her eyes and tried to relax as the vibes sailed into an
instrumental bridge.
     The kitchen clock said quarter to seven as she puttered fixing dinner. 
Early really.  No more Monday night football.  She'd spend the evening paging
through the file to see what Morse spent his money for.  If there was anything
exciting she could zip in early to copy it before his messenger came.  
     






                           Chapter  11

     By eight the next morning as Andi returned to her office, the weekend's
snow had all but disappeared from Portland's streets.  The returning rain had
dirtied, then riddled, then melted all but the most protected drifts lingering
under eves and fir trees.  The air was damp and cold and the hour seemed dark
and late.
     Last night she'd spent a couple of hours paging through Morse's file.  It
seemed to her untutored eye that there wasn't much worth copying.  Most was
column after column of raw data, obscure legal boilerplate and correspondence
too arcane to make sense of, but she ran copies of the introduction and
conclusion sections and picked out bits and pieces of the rest.
     It seemed worthless, but she felt she should add it to her file--Morse's
research had been nothing if not thorough, she might as well follow that
example.  She was still standing by the copier when Lena came waltzing in the
door.
     "So, how'd it go?" Lena slung her coat haphazardly across her chair and
rubbed the cold from her fingers. 
     "No sweat...veni vidi vici." Andi decided she'd copied enough, tucked
Morse's pages back into their brown folder and dropped it on her desk.
     "What?" Lena screwed up her face in disapproval.
     "`I came, I saw, I conquered'...Caesar's Gallic Wars." Andi smirked.  "It
was nothing...he came, we exchanged packages and left...piece of cake."
     "All right..." Lena gave a thumbs up.  "You going to charge a premium for
working after hours?  ...you've put in a few evenings and mornings--that's more
than a standard day..."
     "I don't know.  I talked my way into a flat fee..." Andi smiled at Lena's
attention to business details.  "I suppose I could ask Morse."
     "Better just bill...if he doesn't like it he can bring it up...you're too nice to
be a businesswoman--you got to get more aggressive." Lena straightened her
coat and sat down, turning on her computer and reaching for a pile of folders in
the same movement.
     "I don't want to be more aggressive, thank you.  You're aggressive
enough.  We'll do good cop-bad cop...my job is to charm our clients."  Andi
smirked.  "You can be hatchet-woman."
     "Kali...she's my alter ego."  Lena spun around in a Karate Kid
impersonation.  "You deposit the checks?"
     "Nope...you want to log 'em in?"  Andi handed them over.  Delegating
responsibility might be something she could get used to. 
     "How about that two grand from Morse...you note the number before you
cashed it?"
     "Damn..." Andi bit at her lip.  "I was in a hurry and forgot...sorry.  I was
meaning to have you start a client expense log for him."
     Lena said drily, "We'll live...and I already have...no use waiting for you..." 
She looked over her shoulder and stuck out her tongue as she reached for the
ledger.
     Andi clicked onto the file with Morse's extra, confidential report she
promised.  She would check it one more time and print it out--she'd send it along
with the file she'd just gotten; she wouldn't even warn Morse it was coming.
     

     Morse's messenger came at quarter to nine.  Andi felt smug--she wasn't
caught at the copy machine, she just pointed to her desk with a disinterested
smile.  She'd decided the file was chosen because it was meaningless paper. 
He wouldn't care who checked it out it as it passed through.
     As Andi got out a deposit slip, the phone rang.
     "Wicksham..." she answered vaguely.
     "Andi...this is Ramone.  You got a minute?" 
     Andi put her pen down and stole a glance toward Lena.  "Sure, what's
up?"
     "I've heard a hot rumor about one of your suspects." Bodega sounded
excited.
     Andi changed the phone to her other ear and reached for her notebook. 
"Yeah, what is it?"
     "Your friend Drexler's pulling up stakes..."
     "What do you mean?" Andi asked a bit confused.
     "Out of the blue he's backed out of the big development project he'd been
driving.  I was guessing that his zoning and exemptions were in the bag, so this
is really out of the blue...he's leaving his auxiliary investors in the lurch.  There's
going to be hell to pay.  Rumor has it that he sold off other parcels and Friday
afternoon he let half of his office go.  It's a big deal...something major's scared
him off."
     "Could it be retrenching or a scam to bilk small investors?" Andi felt she
could play the skeptic.
     "No...this is a major back-peddle.  They'd sunk a couple of years and a
couple of million and were just finishing the paperwork.  Why would they walk
when they're on the brink of getting it all?"
     "I don't know...who's getting hurt?"  Andi picked up her pencil.  She
debated telling Bodega about Drexler's phoney contaminated property scam. 
Perhaps he already knew.
     "Well Drexler and Brian-Core...and Aorta Capital probably..."
     "Aorta Capital?"  Andi coughed.  "That's Bryant's secretary's husband's
firm, I thought they did high-tech."
     "Is it?  Well they put big money into this."
     "Anything else?"  Andi was too busy scribbling notes to formulate serious
questions.
     Bodega laughed.  "Me and my crowd have been fighting this thing for two
years...this is great for Portland...once the flack settles and the property's
open...the land will go to something better."
     Andi stopped writing.  "So when did this come down?" 
     "Got to have been planned for a week or two."  He paused a moment,
"They pulled their request for a permit Thursday...let staff go Friday.  This
morning I got word of Drexler selling off holdings.  What'd he say when you
talked to him?"
     "I never did...been trying to break through his secretaries for a weeks,
but he certainly isn't running from me." Andi smiled at the thought.  "You sure of
this, Bodega?"
     "Ramone, please...well, as sure as you can be of rumor.  I'm only passing
on what I've heard...but it's the hot item on the eco-net...I got a dozen e-mails
this morning."  He was pleased at being the first to tell her and asked for a
coffee date.
     Andi begged off with a promise to talk again Wednesday.  After scribbling
down Bodega's news she debated calling Morse, finally deciding it was worth
the call.
     "Lionel Morse." he answered bluntly when the receptionist put the call
through. 
     "Wicksham here..." Andi responded though he must have been told by the
receptionist, "...there's a rumor that Drexler is folding up his tent..."
     The line lay silent for a moment or two.  "Yes..." Morse answered
cautiously, "I've heard that rumor..."
     "Well..." prompted Andi, "is it true?"
     "I have nothing concrete on the matter." Morse said guardedly.
     It was Andi's turn to take a moment before continuing.  "It seems a radical
step to take...one that will lose a lot of money..."  She offered the implication
carefully.
     "It'll cost investors..." admitted Morse.  "But I've no knowledge of what
prompted it."
     "Oh..." Andi was surprised at Morse's passivity.  "Have you known about
this long?"
     "Yes, a little while..." he answered vaguely.
     "Did you consider that it might have relevance to our investigation?" Andi
asked pointedly.
     "I'm often given information I'm not at liberty to divulge Ms. Wicksham..."
he let his answer drift without explanation.  Then tacked on, "Thank you for the
report you sent, I haven't digested it, but I'm sure it will be interesting.  I value
your work."
     "Well...thank you Mr. Morse...do you know of Aorta Capital?"
     "Know what of Aorta Capital?"  Morse's tone was icy.  "I'm not at liberty to
discuss other people's business."
     "OK..."  Andi let the phone go silent waiting for him to make the next
statement.
     "We'll talk midweek about Mr. Bryant..."  Morse hung up abruptly and Andi
was left listening to the dial tone with the phone in her hand and a final comment
on her lips.
     "The man's a total jerk." she railed in Lena's direction as she scribbled in
her notebook. 
     Lena looked casually over her shoulder.  "Think good thoughts and
remember that you should get another passel of checks this afternoon...Morse
should be sending his too.  Cheer up, you're going to be rolling in money."
     Andi shot her a dirty look, but smiled despite herself.  "Oh look..." she
said looking at her watch, "we get to lunch again." 


     After wolfing down a salad at Machismo Mouse, Lena launched into the
archive closet, pulling out the dusty boxes of files from the first years Andi was
in business.
     Andi winced at the thought of Lena pawing through her early work, but
restrained herself from comment and phoned Lon Lively.
     "Mr. Lively...it's Andi Wicksham..." Andi slipped into her businesslike
monotone.
     "That was quick...your client ready for more?"
     "I don't know if he even looked at the first one...I called about ex-employees."
     "I said I thought I could find some..." Lively's wary voice held a defensive
edge. 
     "Will it take very long?" Andi asked impatiently.
     "Depends...and it'll cost."
     "How much?" Andi didn't really care at this point. 
     "A hundred dollars..."
     "We'll see..." Andi responded.  "I can probably find other sources."  
     "Do you want me to look or not?"
     "Sure...go ahead...give me a call when you find something." Andi hung up
and logged the call in her notebook; so he asked for a hundred dollars?  Why did
she even care?
     "I'll go down and get the mail." Lena volunteered with a cryptic smile. 
"Wouldn't want you working up a sweat."
     Andi waved her on and kept working.  Just for the hell of it she dialed
Brian-Corp and asked for Drexler--he was unavailable--no surprise.  
     Would Ibbe be frantically trying to get out of town like Drexler?  Andi
dialed and spoke to the receptionist--Ms. Ibbe was out of town on business for
the remainder of the week.  Would Andi like to speak to her voice mail? 
     Andi replied with a noncommittal "Thanks..." listened to Ibbe's recorded
voice, but didn't leave a message.
     She called Ramirez.
     "So, what's new with the Bryant case?" she asked without their usual
small talk.
     Ramirez grumbled. "We got his credit card records...he bought a bunch
of clothes and some luggage last month, but no airplane tickets."
     "Is the luggage in his house?"  She couldn't remember seeing them, but
she hadn't known they should be there.
     "Somebody asked that at yesterday's meeting...but I don't know yet...they
could have been a gift." 
     "...investments?"  Andi glanced down at her notebook's list.
     "Liquidated most a year ago.  We couldn't find but a few hundred dollars
in any of his accounts.  Seems he was cleaned out before being offed."
     "Nothing new on his personal life?"
     "The man was a hermit...he evidently didn't ever talk to anybody." 
     "The blackmail?"
     "There's no evidence of blackmail Wicksham...what you've got is a theory
of blackmail.  His bank accounts might argue he was a victim of blackmail."
     "Well it works for me..."  Andi said grouchily.  "Bryant, Morse, Chang-Turner, Ibbe and Drexler all have something they're hiding..."
     "Well...brilliant observation, gum shoe." Ramirez drawled sagely, "...but
everybody has something they're hiding."
     "Cut me some slack, Ramirez."  
     "Look," he continued. "what you're saying might be true, but none of the
victims are complaining.  Truth means nothing without bankable evidence...now
if you had financial statements or a witness or anything, it might be a great
theory...what you have is a waste of time."
     "Thanks for the encouragement..." Andi retorted sarcastically. 
     "That's what I'm here for.  So...Tanya wanted to know, we still on for
tomorrow night?"  Ramirez seemed more than ready to change the subject.
     "Sure..."  Andi didn't want to be shuffled off, "Morse is supposed to get
back in touch after looking into Bryant's finances, but he doesn't share anything
important."
     "C'est la vie, my friend..." Ramirez said expansively, "What do you want
...perfection?"
     "He's not helping any..." grumbled Andi.
     "Paying you big money isn't enough huh?  Gee, it's hard to get good
clients these days." he quipped sarcastically.  "I'm glad to be in the public
sector."
     "Save it for your boss, Ramirez.  I'll see you tomorrow." Andi hung up,
slamming the phone down on her desk.  Lena looked over and smiled.
     "No luck on the information highway?"
     "I'm scraping up road kill...and still don't have anything."
     "Mail came..." she tossed a pile of envelopes into Andi's lap.  "...this
should cheer you up."
     With the obvious junk mail were another dozen letters, one from
Templeton, Morse and Bryant.  She ripped it open and laid its check on her
desk.  From the other letters she got nine other checks--not a bad haul at all.  
     "How long you think this'll go on?" Andi asked vaguely as she handed the
checks for Lena to log in.  She had more important things to do.
     "Maybe a week...maybe two before it peters to a trickle and we send out
second notices...it's all a game."  Lena spoke with an air of confidence as she
leafed through them.
     Andi mumbled something unintelligible and tapped her fingers on her
desk top.  The way Morse shifted to chasing Lively's files lent credence that she
hadn't been hired to track down Bryant's killer.  She was playing some part of
his game without knowing what the script was.  He certainly could open doors
to Bryant's private life if he wanted and he was probably behind the "political"
pressure on the police brass.
     Incongruity and unanswered questions didn't seem to phase Ramirez. 
He'd burnt out his share of naive enthusiasm early in his career and had
mellowed into a warm hearted cynic--not a bad role model at all, Andi mused
silently.
     Lena finished logging the checks and Andi filled out another deposit
receipt.  Andi stuck the checks in the envelope with yesterday's and pulled on
her coat and hat.
     It was pleasant to contemplate a bank balance exceeding her expenses
for the next few months--even with Lena's wage figured in.  Of course this job
was almost over and the back billed accounts were a one-shot thing.  She'd deal
with Lena later--no guarantees, few benefits, but she seemed to enjoy being
there.  Andi had a sudden twinge of guilt at exploiting her.  Being an employer
wasn't what it was cracked up to be--she wasn't sure she liked it.
     She walked up Hawthorne to the bank machine.  When she returned to the
office there was a telephone company truck parked at the curb and a man with
a handset hanging off a pole.
     Lena glanced over as she came in the door.  "I called Bobby and he'll be
over in a few minutes to hook up this second line.  Do you know he answers his
phone saying `Soxx here.'"
     "Yeah?  I answer `Wicksham'."
     "And you got his name filed under `Soxx' not `Bobby'"
     "Whatever.  So he uses a chosen name.  You think that's weird?  What
planet did you say you were from?"  Andi shrugged off her coat and poured
herself another cup of coffee, humming smugly to herself.
     "...and the creep called you back."
     "How many creeps are we dealing with lately...you must mean Mr. Lively!" 
Andi pantomimed a light bulb going off above her head.  "I suppose he wanted
me to call him back."
     "If you would please."  Lena said primly.
     Andi pulled the phone closer and punched in the number.
     "Yeah, what do you want..." Lively sounded drunk.
     Andi looked at her watch, it was almost four o'clock.  "Andi Wicksham,
here...I'm calling you back."
     "I found another veteran of Templeton, Morse and Bryant...how do you
want to pay?"
     "I'll send you a check like last time..."
     "Can you bring me cash right now?"  It was almost a whine.  Lively didn't
come across with self assurance when he was drinking.
     "No, I'm sorry...I'm far too busy..." Andi figured it was safe to play hard to
get. 
     "Where are you located?" he slurred.
     "Mr. Lively..." Andi didn't want him here. "...let me send you a check...I'll
put it in the mail this afternoon, you might even get it tomorrow...now what's the
name of person who worked there?"
     "A hundred?" Lively whined.
     "I have my checkbook in front of me." Andi said patiently.  "A hundred
dollars...did you work there at the same time as this person?"
     "No...she worked there later...but she worked for Bryant.  I don't really
know her, but I have a name and number..."
     Andi briefly considered making it hard for him, maybe pretending she
already knew the woman once she got the name.  "Fine..." she said, "...OK..."
     "Brenda Shabazz..."
     Andi asked him to spell her last name.
     Lively said he didn't know.  He recited the telephone number slowly and
repeated it.  
     Andi was anxious to be finished.  "OK, Mr. Lively...I'll give her a call and
send you a check..."
     "I'm pretty sure she worked there...you'll pay me?"  Lively was truly
pathetic.
     "First I'll give her a call...but I'll write out the check this very minute. 
Thank you, Mr. Lively...I'll give you a call when my client is ready."
     Lively grumbled and hung up.  Andi shook her head and wrote out the
check like she promised, then dialed the phone number.  
     A female voice with a mechanical/recorded flatness said.  "This is the
message machine for Brenda and Hakeem, leave a message and we'll call you
back." Short and sweet.
     Andi pondered whether she should leave a message, decided against it
and set the phone back down.  She'd try again this evening, after work.  At least
the name he'd given seemed right.  Despite her distrust and dislike, Lively had
been right about nearly everything else he given and she'd promised she'd mail
the check.  Even if he was scamming it would be one of her good deeds--she
reached for an envelope and stamp--it was Morse's expense account anyway.
     She reviewed files to feel justified in billing the time, then called Samuel
Lee again--no answer.
     The outline for this week's report was thin, something had to happen or
she'd be embarrassed to keep charging.  Good thing she'd held back that page
of software distributors, she could bio each of them and quote the nasty
comments Lena'd noted in impeccable long hand.
     At quarter to five Lena, looked up to catch her eye and Andi nodded. 
Without speaking they began doing the afternoon clean-up.  It felt good to be a
team.


     She tried Brenda Shabazz again from her kitchen.  A woman answered on
the  first ring. 
     "Hello, Ms. Shabazz?  This is Andi Wicksham, I'm a private investigator
looking into the suspicious disappearance and I was hoping you might be able
to help me."
     "Who are you with...Miss..." Shabazz asked cautiously.
     "Wicksham, Andi Wicksham, with Investigatory Services...I've been hired
to look into the disappearance of Robert Bryant of Templeton, Morse and
Bryant..." she let the sentence float, unfinished.
     "So somebody finally got the guy, huh?" Shabazz laughed derisively.
     "You don't sound positive about Mr. Bryant..." Andi smiled to herself but
kept her voice a disinterested drone.
     "They're snakes...smiling, natty dressed, prosperous snakes." Shabazz
wasn't laughing when she said it.
     "Just who did you work for while you were there?"  Andi took her
background quickly and efficiently; dates, co-workers--she'd worked in Lively's
place, doing research for Bryant under Chang-Turner's supervision.
     "They weren't good people." Shabazz stated firmly.  "We were digging up
dirt, personal stuff, relationships, business deals, friends...and all in the name
of `business.'  Ha..." Shabazz had a hard edge to her voice.  
     Andi wrote as fast as she could.  "Suspect anything illegal or unethical
while you were there?" she asked as neutrally as possible.  
     "Their manner was sneaky, I know that...but there's a difference between
legally unethical and morally unethical and while they were certainly immoral
slime, I don't know how far they strayed cross the legal line."
     Andi found she liked Shabazz.  "Did you observe any interactions between
Mr. Bryant or Ms. Chang-Turner and their clients?"
     "Naw...I was just a law student doing research.  They kept us in back
rooms with our noses deep in files."
     "Could an employee make copies of files and sneak them out of the
building?" 
     "Probably..." It was a guiltless, matter of fact answer. 
     "You note friction between Mr. Bryant and his partners?"  Despite liking
the woman, Andi wasn't getting much of worth from the interview. 
     "Serious bad vibes for sure..." Shabazz asserted flatly.  "There was
something going on between Mr. Bryant and Mr. Morse that wasn't good.  They
never yelled, but you could tell..."
     "How about Chang-Turner?"
     "She and Mr. Bryant were tight, like hand and glove...she was sweet to
him and a terror to us...she ran the show, no doubt about it."
     "But you no longer work there?"  Andi knew she didn't.
     "It wasn't what I've studied law for...that type of law don't help people--it's
a legitimization of greed.  I got out."
     Andi could hear a child in the background calling "Mommy..."  She asked
if she could call back if she had other questions.  
     Shabazz said "Certainly..."  
     They let it go at that.


     The storm outside was flooding rain-gutters and backing up storm drains
until manhole covers floated in the rush of out-flowing water.  Andi curled up on
her couch and read the latest Tony Hillerman.  She thought about the Navaho
Reservation as she heated a frozen enchilada and steamed some broccoli.  A
third of the people there still lived without water or electricity.  She'd learned
that on a trip seeing Anazai ruins.
     Hillerman didn't make a big deal out of the poverty.  His main characters
weren't that poor and the ones without indoor plumbing seemed rich in Indian
culture--interesting and ethnic. 
     The homeless under the Portland bridges were as poor and were never
portrayed as interesting--she always got depressed when she thought such
thoughts.  
     She looked out the window.  There but for fortune... throughout Portland
at that very moment people huddled in doorways and under overpasses.  
     God...what had they done in sleet and slush?
     

     Wednesday morning the rains continued, pounding squalls interspersed
with steady drizzle.  All in all she liked the rain, it meant life and health and
clean air--one had to like it to remain in Portland.
     She had Bodega's file in front of her, but she sat debating whether to go
out for a mocha or make a pot of coffee.  After dragging herself to the office she
hadn't done a thing but toy aimlessly with a pencil.  She didn't want to work and
felt uneasy at the thought of Lena coming in.  She wanted to duck out to a coffee
shop.  Manager's prerogative--the yuppie version of an overseer standing tall
while workers hunched over short-handled hoes.
     The guilt was class culture residue--the hell with it.  She pulled on her
coat and ducked out the door, calling to Lena as they passed on the sidewalk
that she'd see her in an hour.
     The Cup and Saucer would be fine.  She'd read Tony Hillerman, swill a
mocha and repress her guilt--after all it was the turn of the millennium--anyone
who didn't feel guilty about their place in the world wasn't paying much
attention.
     When she returned,, she brought Lena a mocha in a paper cup, as an act
of penitence.
     Lena was typing names from that nearly forgotten era--she thanked her
with a casual smile. 
     Andi took a deep breath and tried to focus on work.  She straightened her
piles and picked up the file on Bodega she'd left.
     A half hour later she impatiently shut the file, threw it on the desk and
spun around to stare out the window.  
     The scuttlebutt of the environmental world was interesting stuff and
Bodega was fascinating to talk with but it was a futile avenue to follow--none of
it would lead to solving the mystery of Bryant's disappearance.  There was far
too wide a gap between the rumors and real evidence, a veil around corporate
management she'd never pierce.  There were dozen on her list who might hate
Bryant enough to want to see him floating in the river and she knew next to
nothing of any of them.
     She was rescued from those thoughts by the telephone.  She was going to
let it ring at least three times out of orneriness, but Lena picked it up and
answered.
     "Investigatory Services."  Lena answered in a professional voice.  "Yes
sir, she is..." she looked over to meet Andi's eyes and silently mouthed Morse.
     Andi reached for the phone.  "Yes Mr. Morse, this is Andi Wicksham." 
     "Is it possible to meet you sometime this morning?  I've got some material
I would like you to see."  
     Andi pulled over her appointment book, "Sure, of course... what time is
best for you."  Any time at all, her meter was running, he'd already bought her
time.
     "Can you be here by ten-forty?"
     Andi looked at her watch, it was just after ten. "Yeah sure...twenty to
eleven, do you want me to prepare anything?"  It was a shot in the dark hoping
for a hint of his agenda.
     "No...I'll expect you then.  Thanks..."
     Andi quietly lowered the phone and noted the meeting in her notebook. 
Maybe he was going to terminate her contract.  "Lena, would you pull together a
quick update of Morse's account... retainer against hours and expenses."
     "He pulling the plug?" she asked.
     "I don't know..." said Andi as she turned again to stare out the window.


     Andi found a parking place within a block on her first pass by his building
and Morse ushered her into his office immediately.  She sank into her chair and
put her slim folder on the table between them.
     "Ms. Wicksham, I've reviewed Mr. Bryant's accounts and feel there may
be evidence of improper payments."  
     Andi looked up, but remained silent.
     "Trust accounts were set up without fixed purposes and moneys
syphoned into apparently fraudulent businesses.  Much of that billing seems
excessive."
     "Widespread?" Andi smiled grimly.
     "It will be hard to ascertain with clarity...I'm not ready to approach his
clients."
     "Payment for blackmail?" Andi asked.  Why was he telling her this?  Did
he want her to do something?  Was it a way of asserting innocence? 
     "That's my first assumption, but it conveniently provides motivation for
Robert's murder."  
     "You don't want motivations for Bryant's murder?" Andi blurted.
     Morse smiled a benign smile.  "I don't want to jump to conclusions Ms.
Wicksham, they have the tendency to influence me."  He gave an almost
sheepish grin--a very practiced, innocent farm boy in the city, Huck Finn sort of
grin.
     "Is Chang-Turner implicated?" Andi asked, perhaps a bit more bluntly
than she should have.
     "I..don't..know." Morse stroked his chin and mused silently.
     "Two ex-employees place her in the middle of this, pulling strings,
directing research..."
     "That is her job description...we'd need more than that." Morse stated. 
"I'm keeping her employed until we have this issue settled, once she's gone it
will be hard to question her."
     "So you suspect her." Andi pushed.
     "She had opportunity to play a significant role." Morse said carefully. 
"I've avoided questioning staff and had our auditors come after hours.  And I
sent her on an errand so she wouldn't see you now."  He looked up as if asking
"Does that answer your question?"
     Andi nodded then asked pointedly.  "Are you going to go to the police?"
     "Not at this time...I have no desire to involve clients or expose any
peccadillos.  This is a law office, its supposed to be a place where confidences
are kept."
     And it keeps the heat off you.  Andi thought silently.  "Even if it lets
Bryant's murder's go free?" was the question she allowed through her lips.
     "There's more to this picture than you understand Ms. Wicksham.  Our
clients would more than likely keep silent about whatever occurred between Mr.
Bryant and themselves.  Bookkeeping irregularities are hardly substantial
evidence in themselves and Mr. Bryant seems out of the picture.  I don't want to
soil the firm's name...it would serve no purpose."  Morse was defensive now.
     Andi watched Morse as he talked.  He was trying to give an impression of
opening up to her, of taking her into his confidence, of being allies.  She felt
herself brace against the smile while still nodding and looking helpful. 
     "The police'll need to know any substantive evidence..." She felt silly
telling a lawyer the law.
     "I don't have any substantive evidence, certainly not anything pointing to
specific suspects." Morse argued.
     "There's Chang-Turner...there's Drexler and Sandra Ibbe.  Complicity in a
felony or victims of blackmail...those are certainly motivations for murder." 
Andi felt compelled to challenge.
     "But attorney-client privilege shields our clients and if Chang-Turner is
involved it's most likely as Robert's accessory.  That lessens her motivation to
kill him."
     "I'm working for you...does that bind me to confidentiality?  This is a major
felony..."  She knew which side of the issue Ramirez would weigh in on.
     "You probably couldn't be held criminally liable either way Ms.
Wicksham." Morse stated evenly.  "I hope your sense of discretion and business
ethics will guide you...I would like to keep you working on this matter as we
untie the remaining knots."
     Andi assumed that was a veiled threat of termination if she didn't toe the
line.  "Are there other aspects of this puzzle you're not telling me?"  She asked
directly.  She sat back in her chair and met his eyes in a level stare.  "Have you
put pressure on the police to be `careful' in their investigation?  There were
some influential people at that party..."
     Morse blinked and shot her a questioning look.
     Andi looked calmly into his eyes.
     "I'm aware of pressure being put on the city from a number of
sources...there were a lot of influential people there."  He was very careful with
his words.
     He didn't answer the question.  Andi observed silently.  "You assume
there are other reasons for them to do that than guilt in Bryant's murder?" 
     "People have reasons beyond felonies to be devious.  In public life there's
guilt by association."  He stated it as a fact.  "Being at the scene of a crime
provides unfortunate associations, being questioned implies that one's a
suspect.  Image and press is business--investors shy away, deals fall through,
presenting new ideas is impossible if you don't have credibility."
     "Is that why you chose me to investigate the case...because I don't have
access to the political and business sectors?"  She had to ask, whatever the
price.
     Morse fell silent, stroked his chin again and looked into her eyes as if
reappraising his opinion.  "In part..." he admitted candidly.  "...not having prior
ties to Bryant was another plus...but you had great references too..."  He fell
silent another moment.
     Andi let the seconds tick by without responding.  
     "Robert Bryant and I had a very rocky relationship.  I'd suspected him of
extortion last year--confronted him and he denied it.  I'm not entirely sorry he's
out of the picture, but my major concern is damage control..."
     "Not justice?" Andi asked softly.
     "I'm a lawyer, Ms. Wicksham...justice is a myth.  Law adjudicates disputes
and solves practical problems, it doesn't dispense justice.  Justice is a
theological matter...whatever Robert may have done, he's absent and unlikely
to return...my task is to address his impact on my clients and firm."
     He glanced out the window and back to Andi.  "Worse criminals than
murderers walk our streets Ms. Wicksham...the police will catch somebody or
not...it's not the end of the world."
     "So what would you like me to investigate?"  Andi wasn't sure of where
she stood.  
     "What happened to Robert Bryant?" asked Morse simply.
     "He was killed and his body probably washed to sea." answered Andi.
     "Are you sure?" answered Morse quietly. 
     Andi sat stunned...what was he saying--was Bryant kidnaped?  Had Morse
been asked for a ransom he'd never pay?  Now that was a thought!  Andi mused
on the implications and had to smile.  "You think he's alive?"
     "He might be..."
     "You don't like him?"
     "I don't trust him...let's leave it at that." Morse said as he rose from his
chair.  Their meeting was obviously over.
     "What's going to happen to Lon Lively?" Andi asked conversationally
     Morse stroked the back of his chair and smiled smugly.  "I've already
taken care of him.  My work was recovered from his files and replaced with
recycled paper from the insurance office next door."  He chuckled smugly.
     Andi curbed her urge to smile--she didn't want to give Morse the
satisfaction, but the image of Lively eventually discovering the switch rose in
her mind like a tableau.  Morse did have a certain style.
     Andi picked up the unopened folder containing Morse's final bill and
followed him to the door.  It wasn't time for it yet.
     He accompanied her to the elevator, but neither of them spoke.  He
nodded and gave her a tired smile as the doors shut between them and she half-raised a hand in goodby.  She rode the elevator puzzling on her role.
     Bryant alive?  It was an interesting thought...she wondered if not asking
Morse if he'd gotten a ransom note was the right thing to do.
     He would have denied it if he had--would she have been able to read
anything in his eyes?  
     Probably not.  If he wasn't kidnapped or murdered...then Bryant might
have arranged his own disappearance.  It was plausible.
     Andi's mind started clicking as she drove back to her office, she had to
reread all the files and reevaluate everything against the possibility that Bryant
had set up his disappearance to look like murder. 
     She got back to the office just a little after twelve.  Lena was standing
looking out the window.
     "I figured it was my turn to buy lunch." Lena said as she came in.  "Good
meeting?"
     Andi rolled her eyes and let out an exaggerated sigh.  "Get your coat, this
is going to take all noon-hour to explain."







                           Chapter  12

     Returning to the office Andi flipped back though the pages in her
notebook and tried Samuel Lee's number again.
     "Hello?" answered a careful voice.
     "Hello, Mr. Lee?  This is Andi Wicksham, I've been hired by Robert
Bryant's business partner to look into his whereabouts and came across your
name as a friend.  I was wondering if you had any idea of where he was?"
     "Canada probably, he only comes down every month or so...the police
said the same thing, sorry..." 
     "The police said the same thing?"
     "That I was Mr. Bryant's friend.  I suppose I was, but I didn't think of him
that way.  They asked about family, but I didn't know about that."
     "No?  How did you know Mr. Bryant."  Andi puzzled on the question and
doodled a question mark in her notes.
     "I met him at an AA meeting two years ago...we talked and went for
coffee."  The voice was soft spoken and a bit distracted.
     "That was the extent of your contact?" Andi asked incredulously.
     "Well, no...I'd see him every month to give him his mail and we'd drink a
coffee."
     "Mail?" Andi asked, surprised. "You received mail for him?"
     "Yes, but he hasn't been here for over a month now...he never got but a
bill or two."
     "Bills?" Andi interest was perked.
     "Telephone bills...I have two now.  But you say he's missing?"  Mr. Lee
seemed a tad confused. 
     "Yes, do you have those letters now?  The police didn't take them."  
     "Of course...there right here.  The police never asked."
     "Could I come pick them up for Mr. Bryant?  They might help me locate
him."  Andi crossed her fingers and prayed for a yes.
     "I suppose so, but I'm going out soon..."  The voice trailed away. 
     "I could be there in fifteen minutes, Mr. Lee."
     "OK, I'll wait...number 4...just ring the bell."
     "Thank you...I'll be right there."  Andi could have crowed right then and
there.


     3715 NE Boyington was a sleazy, wooden, alleyway tenement inhabited
through most of the last hundred years by one wave after another of people just
barely scraping by.  It hadn't been painted in decades--a smelly dumpster stood
by the stairs.  She peered through the smudged glass of the door as she rang
the bell marked #4.
     Down the dark hallway a door opened, an elderly man looked out,
coughed and waved Andi in.  She picked her way through the unlit, musty-smelling hall.  He appeared Chinese-American, was wrapped in two layers of
sweaters and looked pale and sickly-thin.  He didn't invite her in, but she could
see past him, to the plain linoleum on the floor, a bookcase lined neatly with
paperbacks and, a fraying day-bed against a wall.  There was one chair and
small table beside an open door.
     "I can't remember your name..." He began.
     "Andi Wicksham, here about Mr. Bryant.  Is this the Mr. Bryant you
know?"  
     She held out a photo which he examined without taking from her hand.
     "Yes...of course it is..."  He held out two envelopes.  "I really rarely saw
him.  He'd give me twenty dollars each month to hold his mail.  He seemed nice
and I needed the money."
     Mr. Lee's rooms were clean, but from the apartments around them Andi
could feel quiet desperation clinging to the walls like nicotine stains--decades of
hard times that seeped into the air like the dusky, faintly-uric odor of moldy rug. 
     The slight figure before her was seized by a bout of coughing, touched the
door jamb to steady himself and continued.  "Mr. Bryant was always very polite,
he'd call and meet me at the cafe on the corner."
     "He met you at a meeting and asked you to hold his mail?" Andi asked
incredulously.  Bryant attending a meeting of filled with the marginal poor?  He
must have chosen it because it was unlikely.
     "Yes...a bit strange, isn't it?  I suppose he only came to town every now
and then...lived somewhere in Canada.  He dressed very well, I think."  A faint
sheen of sweat had appeared on Mr. Lee's face and cheeks.
     Andi fished in her pocket for three twenty dollar bills and folded them in
the old man's hand.  "Thank you Mr. Lee.  If I find Mr. Bryant I'll tell him that you
helped."
     Mr. Lee gave a wan smile, nodded and closed the door, leaving Andi alone
with her thoughts.  The letters were both from Cellular Gold--bills for a cellular
phone by the look of them.  The name in the envelope's window was Marigold
Inc.  She could hear Samuel Lee coughing beyond the door.
     When Andi got back to the office there were more letters waiting, but
Andi couldn't get excited about them now--she let Lena open them and log-in the
checks while she reread files and jotted notes.  She set the bills from Samuel
Lee on her desk--unopened.  Nobody but Samuel Lee and herself knew they
existed and he probably didn't remember her name.  It was probably a felony to
open them--even with good intentions. 


     Dinner at Ramirez's house was comfortable and filling--Tanya laid out
food as if feeding twice the number that ever came.
     Ramirez once quipped it was a cheaper hobby than golf--Andi wondered
about leftovers; Tanya was someone who would drop them at the No Hunger
Zone on Hawthorne--warmed up and ready to serve.
     While idling in the kitchen they killed a bottle of zinfandel and a plate of
tomato and feta things on crackers and Tanya broke out her water pipe.  Andi
took a hit to be social--she seldom smoked except for romantic evenings of sex. 
Ramirez never indulged, claiming asthma--Andi suspected it had more to do
with his job, but he never brought it up and she never asked.  Tanya however,
was an unredeemed hippie earth mother and loved the fragrant herb.
     They gossiped through their chicken stew with dumplings and set out
after the world's problems over apple cobbler.  Little glasses of port were
served with a block of dry cheese you were expected to cut little pieces off of
every now and then as you sorted out errors in other people's politics.
     Somewhere in the midst of the cheese course she asked Ramirez if they'd
found the luggage.
     "No..." he smiled.  "...no luggage."
     "I found two letters of his that were sent to Samuel Lee...they look like
cellular phone bills."
     "What?" Ramirez sat up straight and demanded.  "Phone bills?  Where?"
     "I've got them at the office.  I can hand them over."
     "In the morning, Wicksham..."  The demand reverberated like thunder.
     "OK, OK...chill out.  It was your boy that dropped the ball and didn't ask
the old man decent questions...I'm just picking up your slack."
     Ramirez gave an embarrassed grin and waved the issue away.  "Sorry. 
The morning will be fine..."
     The unopened bills lurked in Andi's mind and her third of the conversation
lagged.  Soon she just sat back and gave up trying to keep up with the banter.
     She exchanged front door goodbyes a half-hour later, driving to her office
sober-feeling and anxious.  The bills still lay on her desk.  She didn't even need
to turn on the light; she just grabbed them and scooted home. 
     Turning on the kitchen tap a bare-dribble she carefully dabbed the glued
flaps with water and lay them in the microwave under a piece of plastic bag. 
Eighteen seconds on high and she pulled them out, opened them and lay their
contents on the table.
     There were calls to twenty or more places with Caribbean names.
     Andi took a pad of paper from her desk, sat down at the kitchen table,
listing the numbers and tallying calls and dates.  The Grand Caymans and
Jamaica and Beliez and assorted others more obscure.  Tomorrow she'd sic
Lena on the phone company to find out. 
     The phone company would tell who those numbers belonged to, but
numbers outside the country were liable to take a while.  Morse's expense
account should pick up her long distance, she'd worry about it tomorrow--she
needed to think before ringing them up.
     Finding an obscure person like Mr. Lee from an out of the way, AA
meeting to befriend and act as mail drop was pretty slick.  Morse was such a
snob, if he hadn't slipped up and entered Lee's name on the bank card no one
would ever made the connection.  That slip itself was inexplicable--maybe
Morse pulled the name from his wallet when he had to fill out the form.
     If Bryant set up the accident he would have needed blood taken ahead of
time or face cutting himself in the boat house.  She tried to recall the police
sketch; the puddle was maybe a foot across if the thing was drawn to
scale...smears off toward the doorway...maybe a half or three quarter's of a
cup; a significant amount--more than a usual band-aid cut.
     Slicing a vein was a desperate act.  If Bryant set it up he wasn't
desperate.  Unless it was an accident, he must have had blood drawn and kept
on ice.  Andi tried to remember if blood had to be doped with an anti-coagulant
to keep from clotting? 
     She wrote "Check with lab--heparin?" in her notebook.  She didn't look
forward to trying to get a lay-person's explanation of what was tested for.
     The prescription glasses found at the boat house had bothered her from
the beginning--sun glasses.  On rainy Portland night in January who would carry
dark glasses, much less wear them?  Unlikely.  Add Bryant's mail and
newspaper and there was a scenario.
     All the blackmail stuff and what Lively and Bodega said of Morse's files
could still be true.  What did Morse say?  "People have reasons beyond felonies
to be devious..."  Blackmail could have been the least of their dealings. 
     If Morse knew Bryant was alive it would explain not caring if Andi saw
Drexler and Ibbe and why he and Chang-Turner stonewalled Bryant's personal
life. 
     No, that didn't make sense.  If Bryant flew to greener pastures, his habits
and personal tastes might be the key to tracking him down.  Andi drew a big
question mark beside that question.  Morse might have the other team doing
that.
     The way Bryant's office and house were sanitized was more plausible. 
Instead of needing somebody coming in after the murder, Bryant would have
had all the time in the world to clean.  The call to Noris-SDI could have been
innocent or simply icing on the cake.  That would fit the style if Bryant were like
Morse.  She doubted that Ramirez's partners found Bryant's new luggage in his
house.
     What about the notes Chang-Turner said she found?  Could they could
have been Bryant's?  A final thumbing of his nose at those left behind?  Andi
made a face as she paged through her copies.  No, he would have left
something truly incendiary, not pandering pulp.  Too ragged a play for Morse. 
Most likely Chang-Turner trying to turn some obscure advantage.
     It was a murky glass she gazed into; a blender full of worms.  She took a
quick shower, turned down the heat and gratefully called it a night.


     The next morning at the office, Andi had just slid out of her coat when
Lena sauntered in.
     Lena puttered with coffee while Andi made two copies of the long
distance phone call list, sealed the originals back in their proper envelopes
after wiping off fingerprints, settled in her chair and laid the pages carefully
before her.
     The coffee burbled, filling the room with coffee smell.  Andi held a copy of
the phone bills to Lena.  "Call the phone company to find where they came from,
countries and cities at least...names and if you can." 
     "...tote that barge, lift that bale..." Lena snatched the pages and reached
for her phone.
     Andi glared, dispensing the full brunt of the evil eye; but she restrained
herself from rising to the bait.
     If Bryant called hotels it could be the key to tracing him.  A brief fantasy of
Morse's expense account flying her to Jamaica danced through--then grim
reality set in.  Morse would hire his other team to do anything like looking up an
absconding partner--she wouldn't even be considered. 
     With Lena checking the phone numbers, she could address the puddle of
blood.  Andi pulled the lab report and phoned Ramirez to get the number of the
crime lab.  She promised to bring the phone bills by when she got out.  And then
on a whim she told him Morse thought Bryant might still be alive.
     "Is he going on some new information or is this intuition?" Ramirez asked
sarcastically.
     "I don't know..." Andi answered impatiently.  "He's looked into Bryant's
books and is upset..."
     "Seems like a motive for your client to do his partner in, Wicksham.  What
you think?  Should we re-question him?"  
     Andi bit her lip to keep from sniping back.  Ramirez was trying to lead her
into saying something stupid.
     Andi iced her voice.  "Please...if you question him don't start out about
Bryant's books...he'd know it was me who told."  She wished she'd had sense to
keep her mouth shut.
     "Let me know if you learn anything...and Tanya sends her love.  We
enjoyed your company..."
     "Yeah...thanks for the dinner.  Next time at my place..." Andi exchanged
"Goodbyes" and hung up.
     She copied the lab number into her notebook and punched it in.  
     "Crime lab."
     "I have a question about blood testing...what's tested for?"
     "You know we're a crime lab...part of the police department."  An
insufferably-rude woman.
     "Yes ma'am.  If you could forward me to one of your chemists please." 
Andi stared into the wall across the room, willing the woman to put her through,
     "Hello..."  A chatty young man answered and told her more than she could
follow about the vagaries of testing blood.  Bottom line--they didn't look for anti-coagulants.  Andi thanked him and turned the page in her notebook.
     That information didn't change things, it was just another detail checked
off her list--report filler.  The idea of collecting blood and then pouring it out on
the floor gave her the willies.  Maybe she was way off base.  Bryant as victim of
foul play made sense.  There was a cough.
     "I got the names of the cities...they're promising to send the subscriber's
names by next week."  Lena stretched to hand back the pages with neat notes
written in margins.
     Andi debated calling Morse...it would be embarrassing if he refused to
pay.  She called.
     "I've gotten hold of a two month list of Mr. Bryant's long distance phone
calls--from a cellular phone billed to a pseudonyme."
     "Yes?" Morse sounded interested. 
     "Over that period of time he made a great number of calls to a variety of
Caribbean numbers.  Sometimes three or four times a week."
     "To whom?"  A breath of tension touched his voice.
     "Phone company is researching that--might take a week or more...I
thought I might burn a bunch of long distance and phone each number cold--I'd
ask for Robert Bryant or ask if I could leave a message."
     "No...call but don't use his name, wouldn't want to tip him off."  Morse
played a cautious game.  "Anything else?"
     "No...thanks."


     Andi swiveled her chair, what to ask the other end of the
line...reservations?  If private residences maybe ask for Pablo?
     Lena reached for another folder and typed away.
     Andi looked out the window another minute, then turned and reached for
the phone.
     "Genoise-Marcuse." the pleasant lilting voice answered in an accent that
seemed British and French together.
     "Excuse me," Andi said, "...I'm phoning from Portland Oregon, is this a
hotel?"
     "Oh, no madam..." the voice laughed.  "This is a law firm, not a hotel.  I'm
so sorry..."
     "A law firm?" Andi replied in surprise.  "Can you spell your firm's name for
me..."  
     The pleasant voice spelled the names.  Andi imagined the weather was
warm, it would be early afternoon--beaches, sun, palm trees--beautiful brown
skin.
     "Thank you very much.  Sorry to have bothered..."  She set down the
phone and turned a page.
     The next number had a metallic-sounding recording that said "Please
enter your security code now..."  Andi punched in a random four digits--there
was a pause and it returned with "that is an incorrect number, please re-enter
your security code."  Andi hung up, puzzled and punched the phone number
again.  "Please enter your security code now."  She didn't try another code--better not to raise a red flag betting on the near impossible, no doubt Morse had
contacts who could get him answers.
     The following call got Saint John's Trust of Antiglia and Barbuda, a bank--the next two another bank and a lawyer in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. 
There were two others with machine messages asking security codes and
banks in Curacao, Nasseau, Marineque, Paramaribao, Port au Prince, and
Beliez.
     This didn't take a rocket scientist--she had a good idea of what Bryant
was doing--kiting money between confidential offshore banks, bouncing cash in
and out of numbered accounts until it would be impossible to trace.  
     Whose money?  
     She'd bet the farm Morse felt some of it was his.
     It explained Bryant's bank balances and lack of investments.  He'd
liquidated assets and moved them out of the country systematically over the
past year or two--probably in amounts under the ten thousand dollar threshold
that brought regulatory attention.
     Embezzlement alone or with Morse?  Absconding with illicit profits? 
Either way explained Morse's leeriness of the police and making it public.
     Andi rubbed her temples--what difference would it make which was the
answer?  Who cared?
     Embezzlement fit Bryant working alone to set up his faux murder.  With
Morse everything got more complicated.  Either way, Bryant was gone. 
Certainly her limited resources would be useless in finding him.  If he was alive
he was a rich man in a warm country with a new name and passport.
     Andi put her pencil down on her notebook and shut her eyes.
     She was coming to the end of her patience.  It wasn't important whether
Chang-Turner or Bryant got away--their victims weren't screaming.  Who cared
whether Morse was digging out from under a crooked partner or was a
sleazeball pawing dust over his spoor--she'd probably never find the truth
anyway. 
     Drexler's repainted boat in BC meant nothing without the person who
delivered it.  If Bryant was dead he was part of the off-shore food web and if not,
he was long gone.  Did he set up the boat to be stolen that night--warning the
well chosen thief to sprint to British Columbia and scour it?  
     She shuffled through her files to her first interview with Chang-Turner. 
She'd reported that Bryant made two trips to Seattle and one to Vancouver the
month before.  That gave him opportunity, but it would take a trip up there to
see if he'd visited marina's.  It wasn't worth the trouble.
     Andi put down her pencil and rubbed her eyes.  Burnout had set in--she
knew the symptoms.  She didn't care.  For her the case was over.  Loose ends? 
Who gave a flying fig?  Life, while it scratched, was a was a long chain of
fraying, unfinished business.  Surfing the flat-line was the only real closure--hanging ten on the bottom edge of the stone tied things up.  Call this bailing-out,
practice at living without all the answers.  She shut the folders and repiled her
files.
     She didn't want to call Morse--like he said, there were worse criminals
than murderers and it wasn't the end of the world that they weren't caught.  If he
was really such a pragmatist that he didn't long for justice, then let him stew
another day or two.  She would finish her report and bill Morse until the end of
the week.  He might even be good for more business later.  Loose ends?  This
was real-life after all, things wouldn't tie up like a crime novel.
     Over lunch Lena could tell her "great" marketing ideas.
     Some sort of partnership might work.  Lena was competent and was
working cheap--and Andi still had titular control of the reins.
     Let Lena try to build it--this weekend Andi was escaping to the coastal
bed and breakfast of friends of friends for some R & R--alone.
     Andi picked up the phone bills she promised to deliver to Ramirez. 
"Lunch, Lena...let's take it early...I'm buying."  She had to get out of the office;
there'd be checks this afternoon and she'd run to the bank.  She still had one
last report.
     Lena jumped up, pulled her coat of the back of her chair and said, "Let's
do the Baghdad for pizza and beer."



                             THE END