Chapter  1


	In Oregon, fall leaks into the warmer months almost unobtrusively, filling the summer dry cracks.  First a cooler day, a night curled closer to one's bedmate, the first misty rain renewing dulled, dusty colors, reddening leafs and the once parching wind now a welcome cool touch swirling the summer into corners.
	Mid-afternoon, Andi Wicksham swept through the door into their Hawthorn office, pretending not to see Lena Kovid, her office manager/partner swinging from her computer, telephone to ear, waving for recognition.
	Lena straightened a finger pointedly toward Andi's phone.  A year ago she'd wrangled a full partner's share of profits and earned it from the first day; clerical engineering flowed effortlessly despite endless phone calls with reports and contracts simply leaping from her computer.  More than simply efficient, she cranked enough skip searches and employee backgrounds to cover the rent plus her salary, negotiated a steady dribble of summons and with balance worthy of Solomon, dispensed enough support to make Andi's days flow with enough lip to keep her humble.
	Andi rolled her eyes and veered growling "Wicksham" in the Sam Spade tone new clients seemed to expect and sank gratefully into her chair.
	"I got a friend in trouble." the voice began.
	"Don't we all?"
	"Mine found a friend's body in his kitchen last night."
	Andi took a wary breath and looked up to the ceiling profitable cases didn't come through friends; they came from people personally up to their ears or lawyers.  "You're not his legal advisor."  It was a statement.  She swung around to the window to see a fat squirrel scampered along an wire and leapt up to a tree branch.  Andi grieved the hazelnut latte and chocolate biscotti she hadn't stopped to get.
	"I figured I'd call you for advice before getting one for him."
	"I advise calling a lawyer now."  Just what she didn't need; a third-party client with a friend.  "Try Janice Thompson." she swivelled back to her address book, found the right card and recited her number.  "What's your friend's name?"
	"Lamar Rasheed."
	"Are you involved in the murder?"
	"Not directly." the voice retained its casualness.
	"How indirectly."  She looked over her shoulder to see if the squirrel returned.
	"I know both Lamar and Jimmy Tuft.  Jimmy was the one in the kitchen."
	"Know?"
	"Uhhh, we've been involved politically." 
	"What politics?"
	The reply was hushed.  "Activist stuff."  There were pauses before and after that phrase, then, "Direct action, pranks on environmental bad guys...some mildly illegal.  I was assured you'd be sympathetic."
	"Pranks with a dead guy while he was living--even illegal pranks...that in itself is not involved." she reassured categorically.  "Were you there when he died?"
	"No."
	"Were you there when he was found?"
	"No."
	"Do you know who did it?"
	"Not exactly."
	"So how are you're involved?"  Andi shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, wishing she'd gone for coffee.  She ran a hand through her shortish barbered hair.
	"I know why Jimmy was killed and that Lamar didn't do it."
	The stretching silence hushed the traffic sounds.  "OK."  She chose a new tack.  "How'd you come to call me?"
	"A friend's referral.  Said you were good."
	Andi chewed her lip compliments did not curry favor.  "I work for money."  Anybody could get a few minutes advice, but hand-holding was worth a minimal fee.
	"Of course.  That's not a problem."  It almost leapt from his mouth.
	"Your friend Rasheed needs a lawyer, if you're involved more than peripherally, you'll need one too."
	"I was hoping to keep out of trouble with your help."
	"If you need legal help, hire a lawyer."
	"I'll call your lawyer-friend, but we still need to talk.  This is complicated, but I want to hire you for an environmental investigation."  A hint of impatience.
	Andi yielded.  "I work by the day.  What's your name?"  She let a lilt grace her voice, the tough-guy shtick was a pain to maintain.   She glanced at Lena's lock of wispy, blond bangs dyed red and her violet bandanna.  Lena wore her hair in a short, choppy street-kid look with a single, braided strand dangling behind her multi-ringed left ear the urban look of a retro-waif.
	It took that long for her caller to answer.  "Armando DeVino."
	"That your given name?"
	"Yes."  The edge of irritation had blended magically into a cheerful helpfulness and he gave phone number and address, agreed without a quaver to a five hundred-dollar retainer against a possible day and a half's work, claimed he was the director of a nonprofit and referred by her friend Francois.  Perhaps it was positivism in the face of a friend's murder that seemed out of place; there was a visceral sense of something wrong she could not put her finger on.  "Phoned the police?"
	He coughed quietly.  "I wanted to go over what I'd tell them."
	Andi shook her head and stared blankly up to the ceiling, "You're going to tell them what you know, not some line.  Why don't I think this is kosher?"
	"It's awkward Ms Wicksham, but it's legit."
	"OK...still you need to talk to the cops."  She tapped the eraser of her pencil on the page before her.  "If you know anything that might help your friend, you need to spill it."
	"What we were doing was illegal."
	"More illegal than murder?  More important than freeing your friend?"
	"No."
	"Then you take the risk.  Cops make a big deal about withholding evidence in felonies.  You at home?"  She looked down at the address; just north of Mount Tabor an easy five minutes.  "I'll be over soon as I leave a message for a friend."
	Andi hung up before his response and looked up to Lena,  "Can you crank a standard contract?"  She tossed over Armando's name and address.
	Lena caught the notebook on the fly and stared at her screen.
	Andi punched Ramirez's number.  It was a minor miracle that he answered.
	"Sergeant Ramirez." his flat, cop-at-work voice barked in her ear.  He worked plain-clothed in homicide out of the Southeast precinct and had known Andi since they were teens smoking pot under the trees of local parks.
	"It's Andi.  I got something you want."
	"Wicksham, it's about time.  Tanya yearns for another night of dominos."  Ramirez glided into his old friend persona.
	Andi plunged on.  "There was a body found in a kitchen last night...the guy who lived there's being held.  I got a client saying he knows something."
	"Why doesn't he call himself?"
	"Didn't wanna get in trouble."
	"No doubt.  What does he know?"
	"I'm not sure, but am going over, then want to get you together.  Say a half-hour, forty minutes?"
	"Where?  Here?" Ramirez asked in alarm.
	"Not if we can avoid it.  How's Coffee People on Hawthorne?"
	"You got it, thirty minutes."
	"Sure amigo, ciao."  Andi grabbed the contract on the way past Lena's desk.  "Ramirez is talking a dominos' rematch, Tanya want's revenge.  Come by in an hour?"
	Lena waved her out with a nod and was typing before the door swung shut.

	The new client held up his end of the deal--handing her a check as she came to the ground floor apartment's door and gesturing a bit awkwardly toward a chair.  Andi took the money and chose the couch as she ran through a checklist; curtains drawn against a beautiful day and instead of food smells the rooms smelled musty.  Forty bulbs in table lamps showed a light haze of dust, a spare cobweb and two cheap, light-toned Jackson Pollack prints in minimalist frames.  Armando was thin-faced, in his late thirties with dark eyes and an aquiline nose arguing the authenticity of his name.  His maroon tie was loosely askew under a jacket of conservative cut and indifferent fabric feathers of an executive wanna-be.
	She laid a business card and the contract on the coffee table and sank into the gold sectional couch of questionable taste as Armando settled in the chair across from her.  A radio in a back room lent a muffled hominess and the feeling that someone might be listening, but there was the aura near that of a motel, no books or magazines the miss-matched, better-quality thrift store decor spoke to a bachelor esthetic.
	He skimmed the contract like a speed reader, crossing-out three paragraphs and scribbling notes in the margins as if from memory.   "Might want to give this some thought, vaguer language, cutting the reports and making it piece work."
	"I don't know if I want that sort of job."
	"The job's the same; it's yours, run it anyway you want, I'm limiting your liability."  He held out the page and met her eyes.
	Andi blinked and nodded--she was being paid well enough to be civil, contract or not.  She folded it once, slipped it into her notebook and flipped to a blank page.  "Where do you want to begin?"
	Armando held her gaze and smiled easily.  "Lamar Rasheed and I were doing graffiti.  Painting GET OUT AND VOTE to Nike 'Just Do It' billboards."
	"That's awfully tame."  Too tame to get murdered for.
	Armando shrugged as if amused.   "Afterwards we went for a snack.  I dropped him in front of his house about midnight.  He went right in and found Jimmy."
	"How do you know that if you weren't there?"
	"He called 911, then me.  My phone was ringing as I came in and we were still talking when he let the police in."
	"So, you can give him an alibi for the hours before Jimmy was found?"  Andi's voice remained restrained and professional.  "How come you haven't been questioned?"
	He coughed, "I doubt he named me."
	"What time did you leave him?"
	"We were out from eight-thirty to midnight."
	She tried a smile.  "Where'd you go for the snack?"
	"Common Grounds.  They've already asked the night staff questions."
	She weighed asking how he'd learned that, deciding against.  "When'd you last see the dead guy?"
	"Yesterday afternoon about three-thirty.  He went to video people going into a  meeting at Riparian Industries."
	"Who are they?" Andi's pencil hung poised over her page.
	"Polluters.  The ones who killed him."
	"On the phone you said you didn't know who killed him."
	"I don't know specifically.  Maybe I should have said Riparian's the reason he was killed."
	Andi pursed her lips.  "I assume there's a story behind that."
	"That's what I want to hire for, investigating a polluter."  He smiled, but his credibility stretched like late-term maternity pants.
	"There more you want to want to tell?"  She waited and tried again.  "Nothing else before you see a cop?"
	He only shrugged.
	"You'll talk to my friend Sergeant Ramirez.  He's an old friend of mine."  She held his eye.  "He resents being steered, I suggest opening up more than you have with me.  He's a cop, but not a pig...if you're reasonably honest he might report you and Lamar were doing an art project."  She shut the notebook with a slap and rose to her feet.
	"This is necessary?"
	Andi nodded and gestured for him to get up, "We'll discuss your investigation tomorrow.  Ten o'clock?" 
	He nodded, his jaw set and eyes dark.
	"I'll call at nine-thirty to confirm tomorrow."
	He nodded again, but didn't move from his chair. 
	"Come on.  This is what you hired me for."  She waited as he got to his feet.  "You got a car?  Follow me.  Ramirez hates anybody being later than him."

	Ramirez listened to Armando's statement with a look of professional disapproval, leaning forward across a sidewalk table, taking three pages of notes and dismissing him with the standard warning about someone getting in touch.
	Armando rose from his chair and nodded, tight-lipped and defensive, his dark, long-lashed eyes meeting Andi's with a salutary blink with his murmured, "Tomorrow."
	Armando irritated him mentioning Riparian twice without a reason why they would hate Jimmy enough to kill him.  He watched Armando get into his car and drive away.  "The body was long cold when the uniforms stormed in, six or eight hours.  Bound,  beaten-up and shot...obviously delivered.  Lamar Rasheed isn't a strong suspect, but he's a clam.  Max is trying to use the graffiti for leverage, but exhorting people to vote would get the DA laughed out of court."  He leaned back and changed from horn-rims back to dark glasses.
	Andi slouched in her chair and idly kicked the table leg.  "It was some sort of message."
	"Sure, somebody's playing hard ball.  You got a guess why?  What's important enough to send that message?"
	Andi gave what she hoped was a disinterested smile.
	"Why does he think he's involved?"  Ramirez stared across as if suspecting her of withholding a vital truth.
	Andi examined her fingernails.  "Says he's just an interested friend."
	"You meet ma¤ana?"
	Andi nodded.
	"What for?"
	"Some environmental investigation."
	"Not quite your thing, is it?  Watch your step, in fact I'd advise you don't take the job.  Don't stick your nose into this.  Its Max's investigation.  Do I have to say more?"
	Andi had run afoul Lieutenant Max more than once--in her opinion, each time, helping far more far more than he should expect and still getting grief.  She wondered how close she could take Armando's job without stepping on toes--she didn't believe for a moment it wasn't about Riparian.  She smiled and Ramirez leaned to sip his mocha.  Thankfully, the subject seemed to have collapsed from exhaustion.
	Lena strolled up the sidewalk toward them.
	Andi looked past Ramirez' shoulder,  gave welcoming smile and pushed the extra chair with her toe.  "Que peso, Amiga, ca va?"





Chapter  2


	The next morning, Andi was in the office at nine, beating at the mounting pile in her pending box.  She dropped the contract Armando rewrote on Lena's table with a note to consider the changes, then actively ignored it.  At nine-thirty she listened to the phone rang seven times before his machine clicked on and she was already worrying that he would turn up like Jimmy when he picked up at hearing her voice.
	"I'm here Ms. Wicksham.  We still on for ten?"
	"Where?"
	"Here or anywhere.  Your office?"
	Andi glanced across her work clutter.  "How much privacy do you want?"
	"I'll pick you up.  We'll talk as I drive, OK?"  His voice was as cheery as a Fourth of July hot dog vender.
	"I'll meet you out front at ten."  He hung up so abruptly she was left looking for the downbeat in the dial tone.
	"I take it he hasn't won you over yet."  Lena spun in her chair and tossed a two-inch pile of files into Andi's pending box.
	"No."  Andi decided she didn't even want to bring the rewritten contract, glanced at her watch and kept her head down.  Her hand snuck out to snag a file.  She could get three reviewed if she focused.
	"Given more thought to a vacation?" Lena pressed the issue tactfully over the last months, rationing a few questions a week Andi had been able to shrug a reply to, but wriggle room was running short.
	Andi flailed for a quick answer.  "How about Victoria or Vancouver?"
	"Canada.  I like that."  Lena graced the ceiling's northeast corner with an ethereal gaze before returning to her typing.
	Andi silently cursed and glanced over, Lena's words appeared line after line to a hailstorm of finger taps.  Lena stopped to answer the phone and Andi turned her nose back to the grindstone until a bare two minutes to ten.  Then, with a quick "Sayonara" she slipped down to find Armando's pickup three spaces up the street, the windows rolled down, radio blaring and his feet propped on the dash.
	"Waiting long?" Andi yelled conversationally as she pulled the passengers' door open.  There were two small seats set behind the ample bucket seat, cup holders, brocade head liner, a dashboard of exotic wood and an exquisite stereo pumping salsa.  There weren't many options neglected whenever it was the truck got tricked out--a contrast from the mediocrity of his apartment.
	"Just a minute."  He pulled his feet from the dash, turned the key and pulled out in a single movement.
	Andi fumbled over her shoulder for the seatbelt.  "Mind turning it down?"
	Armando punched and the music stopped mid-phrase.  He glanced over.  "I'll tell you what we need."
	"We?" asked Andi.
	"That's me as far as your needs go, but other's are involved somewhat."
	Andi ground her molars, sure that asking who would not lead anywhere.  "What's the issue we're following?"
	"Pollution, big league stuff, environmental criminals, the real thing."  He glanced over.  "We've worked the regulatory route for years without getting far, now we've decided to search pro-actively for a smoking gun.  That's where you come in--you got chosen to coordinate the investigation."
	Andi filed away the appeal to her ego and lowered his credibility a notch. "I've no experience in it."
	He shrugged. 
	"Does this have anything to do with Jimmy Tuft?"
	Armando gave a quick glance.  "Might.  Make a difference?"
	"I've been warned off.  I'm not supposed to complicate things by mucking in the cop's turf."
	Armando made a sour face.  "Your call on how and where we look.  But our inquiry predates Jimmy's death."  He spun the wheel and pulled onto Powell heading east.  "Been to Powell Butte lately?"
	"No."  His inquiry predating the murder didn't mean squat.  "Tell me about Riparian Industries."  She stretched her legs and stuck her elbow out the window.  Maybe a vacation would feel like this, the rumble of smooth roads and the sun on her arm.
	"Riparian owns a dozen companies that work hand in glove.  There must be a trail of memos or notes that would nail them to a wall.  We ant to find them."
	"It's throwing your money away."
	"The money's committed, my job's arranging the bang for the buck, that means you."
	"Just who would I work for?"
	"Unofficially you're working for us all, the society, for the good guys, for yourself."
	Andi allowed a disgusted look and stared out the window.
	"Officially, for a nonprofit called  Oregon Industry/Nature Coalition, Inc.  It's a front.  Ask you friend Francois, you'll work with him.  He referred you."
	She'd never heard of Oregon Nature  "On what basis?"
	"Straight forward investigation.  You coordinate and call the shots."
	"What's the budget?"  She allowed herself a flicker of interest.
	"We've been salting way into this account for a years." Armando fanned a superior smile.  "It's ample.  You'll get whatever you need."
	"Just who's backing it?"
	"Private sector business.  They think they're busing loggers to environmental rallies and beating up tree huggers."
	Andi paused, Armando's sophistication was at odds with painting graffiti, his tacky apartment at odds with his truck.   She stared quietly, watching his profile, red flags waved and her bullshit meter pegged.  He shot her a glance.  His face was dry and relaxed, breathing regularly, he seemed willing to let her suspect anything and take as much time as she wanted.
	"Riparian's competitors?" she asked evenly.
	Armando responded with a little smile.  "Francois said you were sharp."
	"I get the feeling there's doo-doo to be stepped in."
	"What do you want?  Bank statements?  References?"
	"References to start."
	"Your friend Francois."  He turned into the drive leading to the parking lot atop Powell Butte, revving the pickup's engine to take the curves like a sports car.  "You'll be paid up-front...no financial risk."
	"What's the downside?"
	Armando steered smoothly into the parking lot.  "Jimmy Tufts was murdered, Lamar has been threatened, these people play for keeps.  You want more?"
	"You're saying it'll put me at risk?"  Andi leaned back in her seat, staring out the window at the roof lined valley and rim of haze-masked mountains.
	"Yes."  Simple and straightforward, his eyes didn't waver.  "Don't come to this with illusions.  Riparian hires serious professionals and there's not a chance your involvement will stay hidden."
	"If I take the case, I'll take the chance with Riparian.  Right now, I'm debating who's on this side."
	Armando smiled benignly.  "All in good time.  It's a complicated picture."
	"What you're saying is that everything is not on the up and up with this project."
	"Morality and ethics are." Armando shot her a sincere, haughty glance.
	"Not legality?"
	"Your discretion as to what you do"  He pulled up and set the parking brake, then reached to turn off the engine.  He turned toward her had leaned back against his door.  "I'm not asking for anything unethical.  The investigation will be under your personal control."
	"You're implying something illegal might go on parallel to the investigation?"
	"I was doing graffiti...that's illegal."  He gave a shrug and let the comment hang in before them like the trinket on his rear view mirror.
	"Anything more serious?  You mentioned a 'worst case scenario'?"
	He began in a monotone, his eyes fixed on her own.  "There are a few possible scenarios.  The first has Riparian realizing what cards we'll hold and voluntarily stopping its spewing of poison.  If we get evidence to take to court that option will be played as hard and fast as we're able...hoping to encourage them.  But we suspect they'll respond with hostility.  They've already pushed the stakes to murder."
	"I don't think I want to be involved."
	"How about thinking it over?  The greater part of your work will be done before they get riled and you can walk any time you want."
	"Including now?"
	"You've already been paid." He reached for the key and ground his engine to life.  "But talk to Francois before deciding...please."
	Andi nodded.  He paid for a professionally reasoned decision, the least she could do was talk to Francois.  Just for good measure, she'd call Ramone Bodega, a past client in the environmentalist world, who would know the dirt on DeVino if anyone did.
	

	Andi returned to find four phone messages waiting--a call from Francois, one from her mother, a prospective client concerned about her daughter in law's past and her friend Tris--no doubt about babysitting.
	Armando's contract was retyped and lay on Lena's table within reach, but Andi ignored it.  "Mom called?"  The paper dangled from her fingers and she gave a quizzical look.
	"Cheerful, but tired...wanted you to know she's back from your sister's."  Lena stopped typing.  "You should call.  She could have asked us to meet the plane."
	Andi sank back in her chair, feeling weak.  Her mother breast cancer was in bones and she was weaker every week, but she'd taken the diagnosis better than Andi; staying philosophical while her daughter crumbled.  Andi mustered enough focus to punch in the numbers feeling shrunken to half size as she listened to the hollow ring.
	"Hello?" Doris Wicksham's voice sounded electronic and disembodied.
	"Hi Mom, Andi.  Good trip?"  Cinny, who she'd visited, had been the good sister, Andi, the constant embarrassment who never met the mark.
	"Fine, but exhausting.  I don't think I'll make it again."  Her voice wavered.
	"Are you OK?  What do you need?"
	"Nothing." The rejection was emphatic.  "It's the medicine, either knocks me out or makes me sick.  I need some rest.  Maybe you could visit tomorrow?"
	"Sure Mom.  How's Cinny?"
	"Fine, Bob's fine, Rachel's fine.  She wants me to move down there to hospice."
	Andi waited out a two measure pause before breaking down.  "Are you considering it?"
	"No.  It would limit my options.  Not unless I have to."
	The option was suicide.  "Ok." Andi replied quietly.  "Shall I call this evening?"
	"In the morning dear.  If I'm sleeping, better not wake me."  She offered a little forced laugh then there was a rattling as the phone missed its cradle, then another rattle before the connection cut.
	Andi waited a long moment before putting the phone down.  The receiver's smooth plastic melded with her fingers as she clung to that brief connection.  The world seemed heavy, the air thick, she rubbed her eyes and swivelled to the window, sitting a long time without seeing.
	Lena watched from across the room, brow creased, a worried smile flicking the corner of her mouth.  The tender moment was severed by the phone Lena reached without taking her eyes away.  "Investigatory services.  Hi Francois.  She's tied up at the moment, anything I can do?"  She scribbled, the phone caught between shoulder and ear.  "You talked with Armando DeVino?  Sure."  She glanced up, weighed the options a brief moment.  "Andi?" she asked carefully.  "It's Francois."
	Andi swung about and gave Lena a chin-jutting nod as she lifted the phone.  "Francois.  I talked with your friend Armando.  This thing legit?"
	"The investigation.  Why?"
	"It smells of fish.  I don't know which side he's on."
	"Our side.  For sure."
	"You referred me?"
	"You're who I think should do it."
	"Am I hearing that you think it's important?"
	"Very.  I'm already on board."
	"He said you'd be working for me."  The tide was pulling against turning the job down, it felt like an undertow.
	"I'll do research."
	"So this really an environmental case?"
	"Yeah, complicated by fraud, blackmail, intimidation, destruction of evidence and murder."
	"Why not just drop a dime on 'em."
	"No evidence.  DEQ can only work with what they're given.  They need proof that will stand in court and it keeps disappearing.  Remember I mentioned murders?  That's plural.  A couple years ago DEQ looked into Riparian, the first guy assigned to the case disappeared--flat-out missing.  Since declared dead.  A week later, the local administrator overseeing the investigation was found dead in his camper; gunshot, possible suicide, unsolved.  Then, a guy taking samples in the river was found drowned.  Unexplained boat accident.  The office is too scared to start a file.  Now there's Jimmy Tuft."
	"And the police?  What do they think?"
	"No evidence."
	"Three deaths and community suspicion that Riparian's involved.  That should spark an investigation."
	"Each death was in a different jurisdiction, a state senator got the state police to interview eight people, his office wrote it up as a wash and folded the tent.  It's a slim twenty pages saying nothing."
	"Maybe there's nothing to find."
	"No, there's a lot to find out there."
	"How about the FBI?" pushed Andi impatiently.
	"Who knows?  They don't comment."
	"So, bottom line, you think the investigation's legitimate?"
	"It's real." answered Francois carefully.  "But understand it's of a company that uses lead pipes."
	"And you're asking me to go against them?"
	"He's asking you, I'm already in.  Somebody has to do it.  Got a better way?"
	"I'll give it some thought.  What's the money half?"
	"You'll be strictly payment for services, no liability.  The money's there, even if it's dirty."
	"He implied his supporters are corporate polluters."
	"The lion's share comes from major sleaze, proof pond scum rises to the top.  It's cool by me they pay."
	"Scumbags are paying for it?"
	"Interesting irony, 'eh?"
	Andi let four bars beat.  "You got more?"
	"Non.  Au revoir mon ami."
	"Yeah, so long." Andi hung up.
	Lena looked over.  "Legit?"
	Andi chewed her lip.  "Is the bear Polish?"  She punched Ramone Bodega's number holding Lena's eyes.  A message machine answered, she asked for return call.
	Lena balanced a pencil on her finger.  "I say take it.  You could use a challenge."
	"Ramirez would hate it.  Jimmy Tuft is Max's new baby."
	Lena pointed at the contract.  "It's in the name of Oregon Industry/Nature Coalition, Inc.  Two copies.  His changes were in our favor."
	"I haven't made up my mind." Andi glared.
	"Suit yourself."  Lena slipped the contract about halfway down in Andi's pending box, grinning as if pleased with herself and turning back to her keyboard with a little flounce.
	"Armando's funders?"  Andi sat back in her chair.  "You've talked to Francois about them?"
	"Conservative slime."  Lena mumbled under her breath without looking up.
	Andi pulled out Armando's phone number, but could feel there was something wrong.  Armando answered on the second ring.  "Hello?"
	"It's Andi Wicksham."
	"Yes, Ms. Wicksham?"  He seemed ready to listen for hours.
	"Your organization's Oregon Industry/Nature Coalition?"
	"Yes."  His voice held a quizzical tone, asking what difference it made.
	"Funded by major polluters...and you're executive director?"
	"Yes."  His tone was cheerful.
	"Yet you portray yourself as an environmentalist?"
	"To you I do.  I told you, the coalition's a front."
	The line hung open most of a four-bar phrase.  "Wanna explain that?"
	"The Coalition's a legally incorporated nonprofit, funded by some of Oregon's nastiest that does highly visible public service announcements with a positive, green message, allows a decent tax deduction and rights to brag about being responsible.  And quietly, a portion goes into projects...like this one."
	"This one?  Excuse me?" Andi drawled sarcastically.  "Isn't that fraud?"
	"Absolutely not.  Our bylaws specifically earmark a reasonable percentage of our income for non-reportable expenditures.  It's what the funders want."
	"Non-reportable?" Asked Andi doubtfully.
	"They like to think I hire heavies to break environmentalist's fingers."
	"You expect me to believe that they let you spend their money anyway you see fit?"
	"Sure...they insist on it to give themselves deniablity.  Our mission statement authorizes a pro-active, invisible, role to bring change, without records...the direction is up to me.  They don't want to hear what goes on, but give me credit for any random violence that happens."
	"That's handy."
	"That's salesmanship.  By the way, your friend Sergeant Ramirez called twice.  I said I didn't know much."  He let a moment of silence bob like a leaf before asking, "Made up your mind?"
	"No." returned Andi quietly.  "I just wanted clarification.  Thanks."  Andi sat back and stared blankly at the ceiling.  The pluses money and working with Francois.  The negatives Max's investigation ran close enough to feel the keys in his pocket and the whole thing smelled of trouble.  But she might steer clear of Max and could close-up shop if things went south.  The corner of the contract stuck out conspicuously from the stack, but she reached for the top file, skimming the report, scrawling her signature, glancing at the invoice and going on to the next.  She'd completed her fourth before realizing she hadn't paid attention to a single one.  "Time for lunch." she announced.
	Lena looked over with half-lidded eyes and said, "Tough decision?"
	"No," she lied "just hungry."
	"Beau Thai?"  Lena smiled benignly.
	"That's cross town."
	"It's Lamar Rasheed and Jimmy Tuft's neighborhood." Lena dangled sweetly.  "We'll cruise by."
	Andi returned a stare to curdle motor oil.  Lena batted her lashes and smiled innocently.  Patient as a log jam.
	"OK." Andi surrendered.  "But you have to drive."
	

	Returning after lunch there was a single call on the machine; Ramirez, suggesting coffee.  She returned it.  "It's Andi." she barked flatly after his grumpy, "Sergeant Ramirez."
	He switched to his personable voice, "So Wicksham, you free for a social moment?"
	"Social?" asked Andi, warily.
	"Sure.  Coffee this afternoon?  On me.  What's the problem, going paranoid?"
	Andi took a moment to consider before replying.  "I had this flash that Max imagined I'd stepped on his toes."
	"Guilty conscience, 'eh?  So do we have a dinner plan."
	"I told Lena."  He was pushing a little too hard for it to be simply social.  "What's up with Jimmy Tuft?"
	"He and DeVino stuck their noses in a rattlesnake nest, no surprise he got bit.  Max has 'em as bush-league environmental whiners with more attitude than brains.  When we gonna do dinner?"
	"Who are the rattlesnakes?" Andi half-feigned a yawn.
	"Hasn't your client told you?"
	"I haven't accepted the case yet."
	"Should you see him again, how about asking a question for me?  What pushes the stakes high enough to drop Jimmy's body in Rasheed's kitchen?"
	"You've already asked that.  Anyway, you warned me off."
	"Right.  And you always do what you're told.  I figure you're gonna accept DeVino's job.  Does he want you to look into Jimmy's murder?"
	"Hasn't said a word about it."  Andi smiled to herself, Max and Ramirez were spinning their wheels.  "So Lamar Rasheed wouldn't give what you want?"
	Ramirez came across like a pillar of rationality.  "First, I'm not telling whether Rasheed said anything at all.  Second, he claims he has no idea why anybody would dump Jimmy by his sink."
	"Believe him?"
	"Course not." Ramirez snorted.  "He's a lying little snot who doesn't care if we threaten him."
	"Poor baby, that takes away Max's main prod, huh?  Too bad he didn't play good cop instead of asshole.  Intimidating people, then expecting cooperation is stupid."
	"Yeah, I got in too late to build bridges.  So when do we do dominos?"
	"I heard you talked to Armando."
	"He claims his memory's faulty, but he's sure Riparian did it."
	"That's better than nothing."
	"No, it isn't.  It makes Max suspicious.  You free for coffee or not?"
	"Haven't you already asked me Max's questions?" Andi asked pointedly.
	"Sure, but the personal touch might soften you up.  He tells me to take you out for coffee, I say 'why not.'  He's buying."
	"Too bad it isn't lunch."
	"Could have been.  I tried to catch you earlier."
	"Will it keep until tomorrow so Lena can join us?  Think Max'll go another meal?"
	"Sure, he'll get twice the chance for inside gossip."  There was a pause, "But I got a twelve-thirty meeting."
	"OK.  Eleven o'clock.  Wanna stop by here?"  She got a grunt in reply and they both hung up.  "Early lunch, manana con Ramirez." she called to Lena while punching in the next number.  Babysitting--friend Tris wanted to take partner Jason for an anniversary dinner; a bit of food, a little wine and some spicy food leading up to a little romance.  Could Auntie Andi come over Friday at six, pick up one and a half year old Simone, bring her home, play, feed her dinner and read her to sleep, then drive her back home around midnight?  Of course.  What else were friends for?
	Lena sat quietly through that negotiation, hands in her lap and her screen saver bouncing ever riper tomatoes until they burst with smears of juice and seeds.  Every time it came up she resisted the "auntie" role and had secured preemptive exemption from all such chores.
	Andi scribbled herself a note and worried.  This would be the first time Simone stayed at their house without mama, she hoped it wasn't a mistake.
	The next call had its own set of problems.  The prospective client wanted passionately to shed a ray of darkness on her new daughter-in-law, wanted desperately to catch the creature in some act against nature, but couldn't quite come up with the dirt.  "That's what I want you for." she shrilled self-righteously.
	"I'm sorry ma'am, it's nothing I'd be good at."  There were lots of PI's with no scruples who would take the work.  Some would even manufacture something from whole cloth for enough money.  "I really don't have time.  Have you looked in the yellow pages?"
	"Of course." The distraught mother-in-law scolded.  "You're the only listing with a woman's name.  I assumed I could trust you."
	"You don't trust your daughter-in-law."
	"But she's evil."
	"Sorry, we don't do exorcisms." Andi stated flatly.  "Call a priest."
	The next was incoming, from Ramone Bodega. "What's up?"
	"You know Armando DeVino?"
	"Oregon Industry/Nature something?"
	"Coalition."
	"It's a funny conservative hybrid, I haven't figured out.  Interested in him particularly or the group?"
	"Both."  Andi pulled out the middle drawer of her desk, put her feet up and leaned back in her chair with the eerie feeling Bodega had just done the same.  It was enough to make her pull her feet back and pull herself up to her desk.  "I'm considering taking him as a client."
	"They can afford you, but it's not your crowd."  Bodega allowed dryly.  "Corporate polluters hiring you?  You might ask why?"
	"I did.  Tell me about them."
	"You must have seen their TV spots.  Slick, but with ill-chosen subjects so strange the net result probably isn't bad."  Bodega chuckled.  "One points out how clear-cutting enables us to see more scenery with pictures of nasty clear-cuts framed by untouched old growth and a beautiful sunset.  Such a double message, it makes you wonder."
	"That was Industry/Nature?"
	"Oh yeah.  Most of their stuff's tame.  Resource management being their verb-form for mining, logging and grazing; pastorals of wildlife or and fly fishermen, encouragement to pick up litter and drown campfires, smiling children...mountain vistas."  Bodega paused, but Andi didn't offer anything, so he continued.  "What they want you to do?"
	"Investigate a polluter."
	"Doesn't really sound like their mandate, does it?" Bodega hummed doubtfully.
	Andi slouched.  "No.  What do you know of him?"
	"Never met the man.  He doesn't hang with tree huggers."
	"Claims to be an environmentalist." Andi murmured.
	"Does he now?"  Bodega's inflection exaggerated the question, then he laughed, "I bet he doesn't claim that around his sponsors."
	"A closeted one.  How about his personal life?  Anything?"
	There was moment of quiet as if Bodega had to consider the question.  "Not a flashy dresser, but remember I've only seen him across crowded rooms.  He has one of those faces that seems familiar."
	"Familiar?"
	Bodega took on a thoughtful tone.  "I've heard others say it too.  But understand, my friends don't mix with his crowd."
	"You don't know anybody who could help me?"  Andi could hear shuffling papers in the back ground.
	"Nobody I know.  He's a sweet-talking mouthpiece for industry.  How could anyone with scruples take the job?  Is there anything else?"  There was a final plop of papers on his end. "Sorry I haven't been much help."
	"Actually, you've been a big help.  How about if I buy us coffee as repayment?"  She reached for her notebook.
	"Will it come with a cookie?" Bodega chuckled absently.
	Andi had the feeling he was looking through her calendar just as she was.  "Tuesday?"
	"Tomorrow's tight.  Wednesday?"
	"Morning or afternoon?"
	"Two o'clock, at Powell's coffee shop?"
	"Done." Andi penciled it into her appointment book.  Three files down, she called her mother.   "Hello Andi."  Her voice was definitely weaker.  "I've phoned Portland Hospice."
	"What?" Andi's voice came out an octave and a half high.
	"Checking out options, prices and that sort of thing."  Her mother chirped on, oblivious to Andi's discomfort.  "They're usually booked solid, but I understand there's quite a turnover."
	"That's not a joke, is?"
	"Not a very good one." Her mother admitted.  "I've rather made up mind to stay home."
	Andi shut her eyes.
	"I'd like to talk to you tomorrow or the next day.  Late in the afternoon if possible, maybe before you head home?"
	"Tomorrow?"
	"I'd like to talk things over."
	Andi swallowed.  "Anything now?"
	"No.  Give my love to Lena."
	Keeping the phone to her ear, Andi looked up.  "Mom gives her love."
	"Kiss, kiss."  Lena blew a smooch.
	"She say's 'kiss, kiss.'  There anything you need?  Anything I can bring?  Books, juice, cappuccino?"
	"No.  I keep everything covered.  We'll talk tomorrow."
	Andi was defeated.  "OK."  She felt six years old--not even allowed to bring a magazine.  She could feel the blood drain from her face and felt light-headed.
	"Fine.  See you then."  There was a rasping wheeze to the dismissal.
	"Tomorrow." Andi whispered as she slowly lowered the phone.  Her mother always kept things covered, it left no room for anyone else.  Eyes tight, she filled her lungs and held her breath until it burned.  Then, determinedly, she blinked, snatched the next file and worked another hour without pausing.  She had just finished the invoice of a skip-search file when the phone rang.
	It was Armando.  "Have you made a decision?"
	Andi considered putting him off, but remembered the uncomfortable thoughts that would fill any idle moments.  "I'm a common carrier, detective for hire."
	"When can you start?"
	Andi glanced at her pending box, then across at Lena who shrugged.  "Now, if you want."
	Lena risked a quick glance, the corner's of her mouth twitching toward a barely concealed smile.  She raised an indulgent eyebrow.
	Armando continued.  "Four-thirty at my place?"
	"I'll be there."  It was twelve minutes to four.  She had a half-hour to do something useful.  "I'll bring your contract.  Anything else?"
	He exhaled audibly.  "Thanks Andi.  Just thanks."
	Andi lowered the receiver, she rose to her feet and strode to the door.  "Let's take a break.  I'll fill you in on Armando."
	Lena tapped a few last strokes, watched three screens whiz past and tapped a few final keys.  She stretched languidly as she rose.  "Coming." she claimed, gracefully touching her toes and tapping some papers into a neater pile before joining Andi in the hall.


	They discussed the project over coffee and a scone, then ambled back, where Lena reclaimed her role as high priestess of the clerical Gods and Andi slid the waiting contract into a folder.
	  Armando's red truck waited before his apartment.  Francois' Subaru was parked under a tree around the corner despite ample parking in front.  The front room curtains were still drawn.  Francois sat at the far end of the couch, the same musty smell staled the air, but two fat piles of paper waited on the table.
	"Should I have parked around the corner?"
	Francois made a dismissive wave of his fingers.  "Security.  Come by my place tomorrow and we'll talk details."
	Armando's face was as blank as an IRS clerk's.  "Francois' here to lend credibility.  I took the liberty of cutting a second check to pay-up a couple weeks ahead, we'll settle as we go along; per diem plus expenses, plus overhead,  No need for receipts, just tell me the gross."
	Andi nodded.  The check laying before her started with a six and had three zeros before the decimal.  She fought down a smile.
	"Our primary target is Riparian Industries--owned and managed by Rebecca Sauturne.  Three paper mills, an industrial chemicals brokerage, a trucking firm and a string of machine shops.  Being privately held they're almost completely opaque.  This is the meat of what we have." Armando gestured to piles on the table.
	Andi took one, leaned back and glanced through a fact sheet on Riparian's holdings;  numbers, descriptions, addresses and names.  There were two envelopes containing photos clipped behind the reports.  She looked up expectantly.
	"We'll start by taking a general inventory.  After we have the big picture we'll turn to specifics."
	"If you've been up against Riparian all these years, you must know the big picture."
	Armando shot an amused smile.  "We've been at it so long we have to assume we lack a balanced view.  Call it earning your trust, you can double check everything."  His delivery was smooth as silk, professionally neutral without a hint of political zeal.
	Andi blinked in response.  Visible or not, partisan fervor was in him somewhere, she wondered how big a part it played.
	"The violent arm of Sauturne's organization is a security company called Mardell Special Forces.  They run security rent a cop guards and sub-rosa muscle."
	"Interestingly enough, Riparian companies are Mardell's only contracts." inserted Francois blandly.
	Andi flipped through a couple of stapled reports, lists and table and two fat bundles of photos.  The larger bundle held candids of men in security uniforms, guns on hip, standing at doorways, sitting before consoles, or walking.
	Armando narrated.  "That's the latest batch of security guards.  They bring in new faces all the time, rotate them through the Riparian firms and give 'em a pink slip.  The other snapshots are Sauturne and Mardell's management teams.  Those top two are attorneys."
	"Catch and release guards?" Andi asked casually.  "I thought it was a tight labor market?"
	"It keeps them from getting cozy anywhere or understanding much that goes on.  Their low level office help's the same.  Moral is understandably low as you might guess, the situation doesn't earn much loyalty.  After stepping through the system, good or bad, employees are dumped without warning."
	Andi glanced through the photos, there were only two women among the peons, they all looked tough and world-wise.  "Do they pay a premium?"  She asked without looking up.  "They don't look like greenhorns."
	Armando coughed quietly and answered without inflection.  "No, actually they pay a lot less than industry minimum.  They hire a particular type of applicant."
	"What type?" Andi slid the photos back in the envelope.
	"Men with serious convictions just out of prison.  Sauturne's nothing if not cynical.  Labor without options comes cheap."


	Back at the office Andi cranked into gear, setting up subdirectories and file folders, making lists.  Lena set aside her other projects.  "So we focus on Sauturne?"  She sat by the window looking through the photographs, a pile of new file folders at her elbow.
	"We'll start with generalities; credit checks on management, suppliers, tax histories."
	"Where do we stash the sensitive stuff?"  Lena clipped the photos inside the covers of folders and carefully printed headings on the tabs.
	"What do you mean?"
	"If Riparian's liable to search us we'll need a file they can find as well the real one."
	"This is going to be a pain in the ass, isn't it?  Got ideas?"
	"Ask me tomorrow.  Let's call it a day."
	Andi smiled.  "Soon as we finish.  How about crab ravioli?  White wine, garlic and butter sauce?  We'll stop by Shawn's."
	"Oh, Mama." Lena gave a little contented shiver.  "Throw in a hot bath and some quiet jazz and you're on."





Chapter  3


	During their breakfast of bagel, lox, onion and tomato at Noah's Bakery, Lena discussed the merits of bed and living room color schemes.  Andi nodded indulgently, already preoccupied by her meetings with Francois at nine, Ramirez for lunch and her mother after work.  Once at the office Lena tucked into Riparian's corporate charter, noted that Francois already sent a sheaf of material and left Andi to beat at her pending box before heading off to her meeting.
	Francois had always seemed obsessed with security, but she would confer to keep Armando happy.  She drove down Division where he owned an entire block of storefronts and apartment and where, among the jumble of buildings lay his hidden cache of computers and racks of peripherals with bays of open-faced connections to hundreds of phone lines.
	Andi entered the small Asian market.  The clerk Janeen Tran was the studious daughter of the owner, getting a second advanced degree in the intersection of quantum mechanics and what sounded like metaphysics.  A year ago, Andi'd tried to discuss it but couldn't get past the first concept indescribable without calculus.
	Janeen glanced up with a distracted smile and reburied her head in her book as Andi picked her way through the aisles of bright packages and exotic smells, past the little cubby bathroom, into the light-well behind and up the backstairs of the apartment building beyond.
	She trod the six flights to the third floor landing, ducked inside and tiptoed through the carpeted halls to push a button set into the edge of a window casing, pressing three times, pausing, then once again, watching a station wagon do an awkward job of parking below.
	A minute later, the door on her left opened and Francois appeared.  "I hope it's OK I started on the easy stuff...Lena get it?"  He led through two right-hand turns and ducked into a small mechanical room crammed with an industrial-sized furnace with ducts branching off in all directions.  He pulled open a hinged cover, exposing a door.  The furnace was gutted.  Inside a ladder led upwards.
	They traveled from one dusky attic to the next before dropping down another ladder into his secret office and the industrious smells of coffee and ozone.  A colorful shawl draped artfully over a floor lamp, Miles Davis' Seven Steps to Heaven played on the radio and a high intensity reading light illuminated a patch of desk.  There was a neatly made bed in the corner and a small espresso machine waited on the counter of the minuscule kitchenette.  The subdued light gave Francois' skin complexion a goldish-red tinge.  He settled in one of the chairs.  "How's Lena?"
	Andi headed for the kitchenette for a bottle of lime bubble water.  "Fine, just finished giving a meditation course.  She wants us to take a vacation."
	"She told me you were going to Canada."
	Andi glowered.  "It's not decided."  She wondered how long ago Lena told him, trying to remember if Canada had really been her idea.
	Francois pointed vaguely to two computer screens crowded with scrolling lists blinking to some internal logic.  "Riparian's tax records."
	"Get far?"  Andi didn't bother looking.
	"No.  I'll be careful with anything compromising.  Lena mentioned security."
	"She suggested dividing up the files."
	Francois made a face.  "That's only a start.  We'll encrypt, you'll have things as they come in, to Lena's 'puter on a separate line."
	"Secret codes?"
	"Armando'll spring for another system.  Soxx let us in the attic?"
	Bobby Soxx was her landlord, she nodded.
	"Hide it and link with IR."  Francois scribbled notes, mentally well past the permission stage, halfway into running wires.  "Who do we target?"
	"Corporate officers and executives.  Go for the dirt.  Expand to their friends and family, follow anything interesting...Armando's treat."  She smiled and flicked her notebook with a finger.  "And everything about Riparian there is; interworkings, who buys, sells, what, where, when who."  She put down her list.  "Now how do I get you money?"
	"Dr. L.I. Snowden at OHSU.  Treat it like a normal consultant with an open research account.  All official."  Francois slid out a keyboard and whizzed through menus.  "I'll send a filing drawer of  vanilla stuff to Kinko's for printing."


	Back at the office, Andi sent Snowden e-mail about vaguely sketched-in research.  It went so quick she made followup notes referencing telephoned details, then one confirming an agreement.
	Ramirez arrived at ten to eleven wearing horn-rim glasses and a tweed coat with suede elbow patches like an academic marching toward tenure.  They trooped down the stairs and went three-abreast up the sidewalk to the restaurant.
	"This is Max's treat so you can grill me?" Andi tore a slice from the complementary basket of bread.
	"To grill you both, unofficially.  He assumes you're DeVino's minions."
	"Damned nice of him." Lena chirped.
	"Unofficially, why do you think Jimmy died?"  Andi chewed thoughtfully.
	Ramirez shrugged.  "Looked under some polluter's carpets.  They got scared and struck out."
	Andi nodded.
	Ramirez sighed.  "Seems last time we talked you were gonna do that too.  Think it's the same company?"  Ramirez' voice was quiet and patient, both elbows on the table, he leaning forward for a sense of intimacy.
	Andi looked him squarely in the eye.  "Just started.  Riparian's owned by a woman named Sauturne and has a corporate culture joining the Gestapo and the mob.  I assume that implies they might be bad neighbors, but I don't even know who's on their corporate board."
	The waitress arrived.  Lena ordered the blackened snapper salad, Andi a Caesar with extra anchovies and Ramirez the ravioli soup with polenta.
	"So you took the DeVino job?"
	"Yeah."
	"You know." he drawled slowly, "Armando's a funny guy, never had a driver's license before a year and a half ago."
	Lena busied herself, tearing bread to bits with frozen butter, pausing but not looking up.
	Andi smiled.  "He lived overseas, somewhere on the Mediterranean since high school."
	"Know what he does for a living?"  Ramirez beamed a smile warm enough to melt truck tires.
	"Executive director of Oregon Industry/Nature Coalition, my official client."
	"I suppose you looked into who that is.  Anything strike you as strange?"  Ramirez gave a little depreciating shake of his head and switched to longsuffering, good-cop interrogator--all sincerity and good intentions.  "Why's a corporate stooge poking into the dirt of one of his own?  And hiring you?"  He smiled wanly.
	Andi gave a vacuous smile.  "I looked into all that, but was satisfied by references."
	"Try satisfying me." Ramirez muttered dryly.
	"He admits it's a scam--using polluter's money to do environmental activism."
	"Does that make sense?"
	"Does a corporate-dupe who does leftist graffiti make sense?  You worked out the acronym of his organization?"
	Andi waited until Ramirez's disgusted snort.
	It took him an embarrassment of silence to change the subject.  "So what do you know about Riparian?"
	"It's a conglomerate owning the polluters."
	The smile slipped from his face.  "And?"
	Andi looked directly into his eyes and took a long breath.  "We haven't found anything illegal or interesting, we barely started on their corporate structure and players."  She paused, "I found out their security company hires a high percentage of people with criminal records."
 	Ramirez's eyebrows lifted.  "How did you learn that?"
	Andi ignored the question.  "Their only clients are Riparian-owned, they probably are too."
	"That significant?"
	"Not that I know."
	"Hardly worth the price of lunch."
	"Max's loss."  She offered two palms up.  "How about if we give you Riparian's corporate board and an incomplete list of their holdings?  At least you won't leave empty handed."
	Ramirez screwed up his face.
	Lena nodded, beaming friendly concern.  "I'll show you everything in my computer and files and even write you a note for Max."
	Ramirez combined a disparaging wince with a nod of thanks and tucked into his soup.  "Tanya wants another game night.  Our turn.  Thai stir-fry with peanut sauce on rice noodles, won ton and ginger snaps."
	"Ginger snaps?" Lena repeated in disbelief.  "With Thai?"
	Ramirez got out his planner.  "Mine is not to wonder why.  When are you free?"
	They settled on the Saturday after next, shared a piece of espresso cheesecake three ways, let Ramirez pick up the bill and sauntered back to the office discussing the appropriateness of apricot and peach as living room colors.
	Lena gave Ramirez a guided tour through her files and printed a half-dozen pages of trivia.  Andi picked a folder from her pile to keep her hands busy and her mouth shut.  She kept her eyes down while he surveyed what he was given and smiled vaguely at his "So long."
	Lena returned to Francois' material while Andi knocked-off two easy background checks and chipped away at her pending files to keep from thinking of her mother.  Somehow they managed until five-thirty and drove home.

	Once home and changed, Lena rattled pans and fanned the refrigerator door.  Andi grabbed a Levi jacket and tromped downstairs yelling "I'm going," but not waiting for an answer before striding purposefully to her car and pulling out a bit too fast.
	She parked almost in front of her mother's apartment, under trees that were changing colors.  Fall's coolness was in the air, leaves littered streets and the sky was streaked.  Vitality and life was being blown away by the wind.  Details jumped out; the shaking branch as a squirrel jumped, a glistening snail's track across the concrete, the calls of linemen putting up telephone cables at the end of the block.  She steeled herself and rang the buzzer.
	There was a long wait.  There were at least a dozen layered colors where a chip had come off a much-painted window sill.  Then the front door buzzed, she pulled it open and waded through the warm, deep carpet to where her mother stood clinging to a door jamb. 
	"Hi Mom." she began lamely.  "How was your day."
	Her mother's face was noticeably more gaunt, her eyes clouded, her color grey and pasty.  She nodded a reply and started turning--then all but collapsed as Andi helped her back into bed.
	"You don't look well."
	There was a momentary pause as if considering her answer.  "I'm not well."  There was a pause filled only with labored breathing.  "I believe I've started my decline."  Her voice was reflective.
	Andi could feel her stomach tighten as she remembered Charlotte's Web--Charlotte said languishing.  Andi prayed that her mother wouldn't use that word.  "You'll rally.  Maybe a remission."
	Mrs. Wicksham looked up sadly and flailed a hand to grasp Andi's.  "What for?" she asked with a wry smile.  "So I can be miserable another month?"
	"Mom..." Andi's voice caught in her throat, she bit her lip, then after a moment.  "You barely got out of bed."
	"I'm aware of what I can't do.  Over there, there's a front door key on the bedside table, so I won't have to get up next time."  There were two keys, each on separate little rings, one clipped with a scrap of paper with her name.
	"Two of them?"
	"The other's for a visiting nurse.  She has your number and permission to tell you anything."  The strength returned to her words if not her voice.  "Even though I'm not hungry, I've signed up for meals on wheels and Mrs. Bronstein let's them in twice a day.  I'm not helpless you know."
	Andi squeezed her mother's hand, trying to smile.
	"If I ever ask, in the lap drawer of my desk, in the back, you'll find a pill bottle labeled Ophelia."
	"Andi swallowed, knowing what would be in it.
	"I want a promise from you."  She looked sternly into Andi's eyes.
	A lump in her throat delayed the answer, "What?"  She remembered being twelve and afraid of being sent to boarding school.
	"I've had severe pain, very weakening, it's often unbearable, even with narcotics."
	Andi clung to her hand, staring helplessly into her face, noting the wrinkles, how her thin hair barely covered her scalp, the yellow tinge and milkiness of her eyes.
	"Those pills.  If I can't reach them I'll need your help."
	There was another long silence, thundering noiselessly with echoing memories being tucked in and read stories, oatmeal cookies, clothes still warm from the dryer.  "Mom..."
	"No, Andi.  You have to listen.  Life is a wonderful miracle I've enjoyed, almost every moment.  I've given this an enormous amount of reflection.  I've discussed it with Rabbi Aryeh and Roshi Sarah...the doctors and Mrs. Bronstein."
	"Everybody but me?" whispered Andi, hurt and small.
	"Neither you or Cinny." her mother returned with irritation and shot a reproachful glare.  "Think.  Do you really want to discuss my dying with me?  Could you give honest advice not influenced by love?"  Tears showed in her eyes.  "I needed confirmation, a reality check, not emotion.  I can't stick around forever anyway."  She gave a little sad smile.
	Andi squeezed her hand tighter.
	"I haven't told Cinny anything.  She wouldn't understand.  I'd like it if you didn't either, but that's up to you."  She squeezed Andi's hand, then relaxed as if in exhaustion.  "If I can't swallow the pills you'll have to crush them, mix them with syrup and squirt them in my mouth."
	Andi opened her mouth to object, but her voice refused to function.  She shook her head to protest, but her mother shook her own and hissed an insistent whisper.
	"You have to hear this.  We might not get another time completely alone and I don't want to put you in unnecessary risk.  The nurse will probably put me on an IV so I can get pain meds as I need them.  It'll probably have a branch.   With your key is a phone number.  If I can't keep down the syrup, phone and ask for Jack, mention my name my name and that you're my daughter.  He'll get you vials and a syringe."
	Andi glance over to the bedside table and regarded the square of paper in horror.  This was the issue she'd alluded to over the past months, finally in words though neither could say the words kill or die.
	"I can't ask anyone else." her mother appealed weakly, more helpless than Andi had ever seen her before.  "I know it's a terrible burden, but my last request to be saved the worst of this agony."  She coughed and wheezed.  "I promise I won't ask until the very last moment...until pain blocks my experiencing life, and I don't want more narcotics."
	Andi nodded, lips pinched together to keep from blubbering, her throat choked, her heart hurting.
	Her mother's head sank back into the pillow and she labored for a deep breath.  "Now I'm very, very tired, Dear.  I need some rest.  Can you let yourself out?"  Andi nodded and held her mother's hand, watching the wrinkled eyelids close over her discolored eyes, watching for a long time as her face relaxed, her eyes twitched as if in dream and her shallow breath slowed.
	Some time later Andi disengaged her hand as if it was a rehearsal for the request.  She retrieved the key and it's paper, slipping them into her jacket pocket, then walked around the apartment looking at pieces of furniture she remembered from her childhood home; the brocade wing chair, the writing desk with fawn-like legs, its alabaster pen stand with ink-wells of paper clips and the enlargement of an old daguerreotype of great-grandmother and father Goldberg, stiff and unsmiling in upright collars and formal clothes, little things that had anchored her life being pulled loose by time's tide.  
	It seemed hours were lost when she let herself out to walk slowly through the dark to her car, feeling as if the planet was barren.  The promise to her mother was like a dirty secret she didn't dare tell a soul, back at home dinner waited and Lena would be there, but the issue hovered.
	Lena met her at the top of the stairs with concern creasing her cheeks and adding depth to her eyes.  Andi claimed she didn't want to talk and kept that resolve through a shower that did not clean her and dinner, but afterwards, crying, she described every word and thought she had endured and later that evening they sat together on the couch, Lena reading, Andi holding a book but lost in thought.


	The next morning, tired and depleted, Andi staying in the office attending her backlog and minding the phones while Lena took an early morning run to Salem for a folder worth of corporate data on the Riparian companies from the Board of Corporations.  Riparian Industries, Inc. owned the stable outright and, at least on paper, each was independent, though every single board member was pulled from the same small pool.
	Andi called Francois to let him know she was office sitting.  He started a cautious probing of their computer systems only to run into firewalls and computer trip-wires.  Two hours later he switched to poking along the edges, cataloguing outgoing phone lines and office staff e-mail, lurking in the virtual background for passwords to steal.  Before lunch he reported finding the weekly bookkeeping was encrypted when sent electronically from the companies to the Riparian mother-ship.  Somehow he wrangled copies and set super-computers in three states beating away in pilfered minutes, but wasn't promising results this decade.
	Andi stayed at her desk while Lena drove by each of the Riparian companies' offices, branches and warehouses; confirming addresses, taking snapshots and noting thumb-nail first impressions while Andi sat grumpily in the office, tracking her via phone calls.
	By mid-afternoon Andi saw the bottom of her pending box, a singular phenomenon unique to her experience, unprecedented in the last five years of business, giving her the opportunity to visualize Lena driving about and phoning in.  The threshold sparked the insight that an office manager was a type of puppeteer, a spy master pulling strings from the warm and comfortable safety of her desk.  She could almost feel the pulse of the endeavors at the ends of her telephone lines; Lena sleuthing, Francois in his digital burrow, Armando doing whatever he did, untold others potentially at her beck and call.  Smiling at the thought, she put her feet up and started reading up on Riparian's history of pollution Armando had documented over the past ten years.
	She phoned her mother, catching her between naps and steering clear of the issue.  Her mother sounded tired but maintained a lucid, upbeat conversation and usual, bristly veneer leaving Andi staring blankly at the wall.
	Pulling herself together, she assembled a first-pass version of Riparian's organizational tree, but it bogged down with marginalia and lists.  Lena could no doubt do better, she pushed it aside and returned to reviewing their environmental history.
	Mid-afternoon, Francois called.  "I cranked out the executive's background and credit work-ups."  Forty minutes after that he rang again almost crowing.  "I got a huge break!  A&C Machine Works keeps their work-sheets unencrypted on separate, computer...damn near unsecured."
	Andi lifted her eyebrows, but kept her lips shut.
	He continued on excitedly.  "I lurked in their PBX, figuring which lines fed accounting and waited until the assistant director connected, jammed in a Trojan hoof and daemon to catch passwords and zip them out to a neutral address.  Well it worked.  Once in, I set did the same on all the phone lines, learned the system and collected damn near everybody at work's password.  From there it was down hill through the operating system and making myself a super-user."
	Andi blinked to clear her head.  "Congratulations.  What does it mean?"
	"Means we got one of their computers eating out of our hand and an original to match with the encrypted accounting sent to mama."
	"Oh."
	"Course there are majorly big ifs.  Riparian uses a sperate computer as a gatekeeper..server, buffer, screening and routing.  Unless I find a back door I'll have to barge through that gate and there's no telling what they've got watching the other end of the pipe."
	Andi shut her eyes and tried to imagine what it all meant.  "So far so good." Cautiously encouraging.  "It's Friday afternoon, Dos XX time.  You calling it a day?"
	"Absolutely not, I'm on a run, got ten things going,  I need to check if the other companies are set up the same, see if they use the same encryption.  I'll be up past midnight, catch a few winks and hit it again before dawn.  With any luck I'll do my biggest screw-ups over the weekend while their sys-op's home in bed."
	"That sure gives confidence."
	"What?"
	"I've complete confidence." rephrased Andi, pulling herself from the brink of superciliousness.
	She was putting things away to go home when Lena rushed in, all but bouncing off the walls, her energy sweeping in like a tsunami.  "Just for the hell of it, I followed a suit leaving Janus Chemicals.  He made a bee line to Titan Marine, picked up a big folder, went on to A&C Machine Works where he stayed all of six minutes before coming out with another.  Then he made a bee line to Riparian."  She gave a look of triumph over her shoulder as she paced to the file cabinet and started rooting through files.
	"Recognize him?" Andi asked, raising her eyebrows inquisitively.  "Know what he carried?"
	"Didn't have the photos and of course not." Lena pulled the material from Armando from the drawer, opened it on the desk and hummed tunelessly as she shuffled through the executives' photos.
	"Thomas Boyd"  She read the name from the back and tossed the photo across the desk.  "That's him.  Vice president--Facilitation.  What the hell does that mean?"
	"He facilitates."  Andi turned back to straightening.
	Lena paced at the pace she'd spent her day.  Andi must come in that way without ever noticing, she watched Lena bob on her toes with nervous energy.  "It was cool that I recognized him and followed.  Was I a slick sleuth, or what?"  She gave a smug grin.
	"Congratulations.  So you want to be a gum shoe?"
	"Why not?  I'll lay you odds there are shady goings-on at Titan Marine."  She still cruised along at fifty down from sixty-five.  "I could feel it."
	"No work on weekends, remember, my little workaholic?  Your rule" Andi tossed the photo back.  "Wanna haul the trash, Ms. Sleuth?"

	
	The evening, though not eventless, unfolded without serious injury.  Andi collected Simone from Jason and Tris, installed the car seat, loaded diaper bag, bucket of toys, changes of clothes, favorite videos, blanket, stuffed animal and child for transport and came home to find her first unfortunate situation.  Once carried upstairs, Simone raced joyfully at full bore, grasping at everything in reach not to be trusted not to tumble down the stairs or shred philodendrons, or tug lamp the floor while her extra loads of paraphernalia were schlepped from the car.
	Andi rued her heartfelt promise to remove Lena from all burden.  Fortunately, Lena relented with only the trace of a I-told-you-so smile, sitting on the floor with a mystery novel within reach, her legs fencing half the room and ineffectually trying to engage Simone in piling blocks.
	Andi carried and Lena retreated to the far end of the couch when Andi reassumed the reins, chattering baby talk to Simone who had decided with undampenable resolve that climbing up on the window stool was the most sincere and ardent goal of her life.  It took twenty minutes of distracting, but at last she settled into climbing on Andi and watching A Hundred And One Dalmatians.   It was a classic Andi had not seen in twenty years.  It was magic--she became deeply involved.
	Then there was the crash.
	A tearful wail imbedded itself in the walls and mumbled curse from Lena followed--Simone sat beside a side-table, indignant after pulling a pile of magazines and a vase of chrysanthemums down upon herself.
	Lena hurled herself first with a self-righteous glare.  Simone wailed, strewn with flowers and howling at the injustice of the world.  Lena passed custody of the screaming toddler and dashed for towels while Andi comforted and changed Simone's clothes, understanding why two extra sets of clothes came for a simple few hours of visiting.  Finally settled with stuffed animal and blanket, she stared somewhat resignedly at the movie and Andi and Lena spent a few hasty moments moving the most obvious plants and lamps from ready grasp before settling again into domestic peace.
	Meal time provided another excuse to deep clean the house, including even the tops of the kitchen baseboards and under the bottom edge of the refrigerator.  Lena wiped cabinet doors and mopped the floor while Andi snuggled with Simone in the livingroom, watching cartoons and dancing the favorite stuffed animals.  By eight Simone was tired, but too excited to know it.  Then, about twenty-after a tearful wail erupted as she suddenly realized she'd been tragically separated from mommy.
	She was not to be consoled by any combination of distraction, cuddling, toys or attention.  Abandoning Andi to the fate of all aunties, Lena adjourned without comment to the bedroom with her book and Andi coped until finally, with Simone dozing on her chest, she lay peacefully on the couch watching One Hundred And One Dalmatians a second time.
	All told, it was a win, win, win situation--Andi survived the evening feeling somewhat successful, Lena's predictions of doom proved true and Jason and Tris appeared flushed, ruffled and blissful in quickly donned bathrobes when Simone was delivered to their door, asleep.





Chapter  4


	Armando called just after ten on Saturday morning.  Andi idled at the kitchen table listening to Lena's tussle with the newspaper crossword and reviewing her argument why wall-papering the kitchen and bath would not be worth the hassle.
	"How are things getting on?"
	"We've pieced together most of the big pieces, but nothing you wouldn't already know."
	"Nothing?"  Only a hint of an edge more than a conversational tone.
	"I'm expecting a call from Francois." Andi stalled, grasping for a way to put off the conversation.  "I don't think he'd approve of discussing it on an unsecured line."
	"No?  Ask what he thinks of scramblers."
	Andi groaned.  No doubt Francois'd think it great.  "Where will you be later?"  I'll leave a message.
	"My phone goes with me." he assured smugly.  "It's a life style not a job."
	A half-dozen smart-assed remarks vied at the tip of Andi's tongue, but she swallowed them, "Sure.  I'll let you know."
	"Perfect."  Armando maintained the enthusiasm of a used car salesman--which didn't credit his credibility.  The line went dead.


	Mid-morning, Andi visited her mother, letting herself in with the key.  She was in bed, skin stretched almost transparent across her skull, her ears sticking out from her thin, stringy hair.  "Hi Mom." Andi tried valiantly.
	"Hello sweetie." Mrs. Wicksham gave the smile she would give a waitress.  "Will you get me a little water?  Just tap water, not cold...squeeze of lemon?"  She exuded the energy of a spindly thirteen-year old in an iron lung with hundred and five degree fever and the sensitivity of a drill sergeant.
	"Of course."  She held her mother's head to help her drink and dabbed then at a dribble with the edge of the sheet.
	"I've been thinking about what you asked me." Andi began insecurely.
	Her mother weakly shook her head.  "Not now."  She shut her eyes.
	"Mom?" Andi pleaded.
	Her mother's eyes popped open--they were bleary with film and barely focusing.  "I'm too tired now, we'll talk later."  She shut her eyes and waited.  A minute later she murmured, "Goodbye."
	Andi felt the floor sinking beneath her as she shrank to insignificance.  She'd come with every intention of being supportive, but the issue screamed.  The little bottle labeled Ophelia now sat on the table by her bed, half-behind the bedside lamp.  Andi swallowed the hurt, but a steel band tightened about her heart as she let herself out and drove home quietly cursing.


	That afternoon Andi was able to spend a considerable amount of time preoccupied with Riparian without betraying it to Lena.  They spent an hour touring shelves of first the supermarket, then Pastaworks, then Shawn's deli, Lena content to let Andi wait passively as she made decisions.  Back home at one-thirty to unload, two messages waited--neither from Francois, or Armando.
	They headed back out if only to get away from phones.  The options were the Japanese Gardens or Sauvie Island--Andi chose the latter and trailed along, her dark glasses hiding her thoughts, hardly noticing the blue herons, egrets and pelicans inspiring Lena.
	They gazed out over the river and walked through the lush, stepping-stone paths; Lena absorbing the esthetic wonders and Andi mentally reviewing Riparian's environmental vulnerabilities.  Titan Marine generated a lot of  waste overhauling engines, pumping bilges and scraping poisonous paint off hulls.  A&C machine works went through cutting oils and solvents by the barrel-full.  Janus Industrial Chemicals was just a name so far, but anything labeled industrial chemicals came with hard-core implications.  She'd made a mental note to ask for details.
	When they returned home at quarter to six to change before going out to dinner the phone was ringing.  It was Francois.  Lena handed the receiver over with a shy smile and retired to the bedroom.  There was every indication that it would be a romantic evening.
	"You're back." Francois chirped.  "I been trying to get you."
	"We're about to go out for dinner."
	Francois talked at a rate usually attributable to a triple espresso.  "I got stuff for you."
	Andi closed her eyes, willing the responsibility to go away.  "How important is it?" she asked hopefully.
	"Significant and sensitive."
	"Can it wait?"  Andi asked, still hopeful.  "How about tomorrow?"
	"Uhhh, I guess." Francois wasn't helpful.  "But I was going to work through the night and need to confirm strategy."
	"It really isn't convenient."
	"Shutting down my work isn't either." Francois fussed.
	"How about meeting at," Andi looked at her watch, "Nine-thirty?"
	"Done."
	"Where?"  She didn't care, she was wondering how dressed up Lena would want to make their dinner date.
	"We'll pick you up." Francois replied.
	"We?"
	"I'll come with Armando.  There are things he wants to go over."
	Andi took a breath and sighed it out with her eyes closed again.   "Sure.  That would be fine.  Anything else?"  Lena would unfairly think she'd set it up to avoid a romantic evening.  She hung up feeling soured.
	The walk to the bedroom stretched like an inmate's last mile.  Lena accepted the news with silent disapproval noted with a switch from slinky dress to levi's.  Dinner was good, but less than romantic.  Andi was so used to being blamed for being a workaholic that she didn't make excuses, accepting the mantle of an insensitive scum and hoping for eventual acceptance if not forgiveness.
	When they returned just after eight.  Lena showered, then emerged, clean and smelling of herbal somethings, head swathed in a towel, body in a robe, settling carefully at the far end of the couch without a direct glance or word.  Andi felt doubly grungy and buried herself in a mystery.


	She was in an all-time sour mood by the time Armando pulled up in front.  Francois shifted to one of the rear seats, the one behind Armando, leaving the passenger seat for her.  "Good progress," Armando announced before he'd even pulled from the curb.  "Riparian's choice of encryption left a little to be desired."  He flashed a smile and pulled around the corner heading north.
	"I got a break at the University of Washington campus...a cruncher picked apart the algorithm."
	Andi raised her eyebrows in silent reply, but it was too dark for the subtlety.
	"I'm picking apart the server they use for a firewall, went in on a PSU dorm number and left a ton of footprints so they'll think it was a sophomore geek."
	"You take me away from a romantic evening to for this?"
	"There's more." noted Francois confidently.  Armando smoothly wheeled them onto Sandy Boulevard heading north-east.
	"Their mainframe is a Digital, an old VAX, running VSM.  I think I can get through the firewall but figured we should talk it over."
	Andi looked over at Armando.
	He shrugged and shook his head.  "Your call."  He raised his eyebrows and shrugged then he slowed to stop for a yellow light.
	"What's at risk?" Andi asked cautiously.  She barely knew what he was talking about.
	"If we fuck up they'll know somebody broke their security and will shut it down plus make it triply hard.  As it is now, all they know is that the latest punk of an endless line of them diddled around at their gate.  There's no trace that files got copied, only a half-dozen unauthorized accesses that could be normal error.  Their security is focused on barring access, not internal monitoring and no data's kept in the server so they left it with security a Radio Shack box could break.  It's a pretty sloppy setup, maybe we should offer to upgrade their security."
	"Any advantage to waiting?"
	"Probably not.  And a weekend's probably safest anyway."
	"What precautions would we need?"  Andi noticed Francois' shift from I to we, and played along.
	"Nothing special.  I'll go in through a Riparian switchboard so it'll seem somewhat normal.  I got enough passwords and'll bounce between two separate incoming lines.  The risk is that there's no way to know what's on the other side."
	"What of the other companies?"
	"Breaking the one, unlocked 'em all.  Same setup and they use the same encryption on everybody's accounting."  Francois loss of respect rang warning bells.
	Andi looked past Armando out the window, they were headed toward the airport.  "We've only been going a few days.  We can wait another week."  She glanced over, Armando smiled without glancing over.
	"OK." said Francois cautiously.  "I'll grab copies of everything going in and out, but it'll take more storage than I have on hand."
	Armando glanced over and met Andi's gaze.  "Whatever he needs.  He said you need another computer or two.  Just tell me the bottom line and we'll cover it."  He made a left and then another one.
	Andi counted two eight-bar phrases, then on an upbeat, she asked, "Is Armando DeVino an alias?" She came in low, under radar to see what sort of response it would bring.
	Armando immediately started chuckling.
	Francois coughed uncomfortably and asked, "Where did the cover go wrong?"
	Andi looked from Armando to Francois, back to Armando, then again to Francois.  "DeVino didn't have a driver's license up until two years ago."
	"No license.  Ever?  Damn." cursed Francois.  "I thought he just hadn't renewed in Milan."
	"Milan?" Asked Andi.  "So there's a real Armando DeVino?"
	"Was." corrected Francois.  "He died, or at least disappeared years ago.  Not even an Italian death certificate.  Bureaucratically he's still alive."
	"But you aren't him?" Andi asked Armando.
	"I like to think I am." answered Armando blandly.
	"Stupid answer." Andi grumbled.  "If I ask who you are, would you lie again?"
	"You probably wouldn't believe any other name I gave."
	"How much more of this story is made up?" asked Andi irately.  "The industry group?  The budget?  The problem?"
	"It's all legitimate." Armando glanced up from the road.  "Armando's the only thing questionable.  A years worth of positive articles and a handful of planted editorials in polluter trade magazines,  followed with letters, a publicity package and phone calls put me in this role.  Pure salesmanship."
	"The funders's are legit and the budget's real."  Francois leaned forward so she could see the sincerity in his face.
	"So's the pollution." inserted Armando flatly.  "And the murders."
	Only the sound of the engine, traffic, and a plane taking off could be heard for the next few minutes.  Armando drove down 82ed, obeying every traffic law to the letter.  "We need to discuss phone security," he said without shifting his eyes from the road.  His face shifted from neon pink to blue as they passed from one lit sign to another.
	Francois spoke up from the shadows.  "There's decent audio PGP, but takes computers and has a delay."  He gave a dismissive cough.  "Scramblers are pretty good and unless we're up against somebody with incredible resources, we'll be secure any short while."
	"They'd be a pain." lobbied Andi firmly.
	"We're going to be noticed and monitored." cautioned Armando.  "There's a lot at stake."
	"Scramblers?" asked Francois, counting the vote.
	"Fine with me." conceded Andi sulkily.
	"Give me cost, for say...four."  Armando said.  "Small enough to carry.  Maybe with a few different channels.  Good ones.  OK?"
	"Check." responded Francois cheerfully.
	"Anything else on the agenda?" asked Armando.
	Andi shook her head.
	"No for me." put in Francois.
	Armando, smiled, not saying a word until pulling up to let Andi out.  "Thanks for making time."  He leaning forward to look clearly into her eyes.
	"That's what I'm paid for." Andi said, managing to smile.
	"I know you didn't want to."
	"We'll talk next week."  She waved without looking back and headed up to the porch, cursing to herself as she unlocked the door.  Even double time wouldn't get close to making up for it.
	"There wasn't any reason for me to go tonight." she raged as she crested the top of the stairs.  A conspicuous silence answered her from the bedroom.  Concern gripping her, Andi strode anxiously down the hall and pulled open the door with feeling of apprehension.  Lena lay in bed, her book open in her lap, chin to chest.  Heart in her throat, Andi crossed to her side half expecting her to be cold and stiffening, but her skin was soft and warm with life and her breath came in easy sighs.
	Andi carefully pulled the book from her hands and pulled up the covers.  Lena half-woke, struggling a moment before snuggling under the covers, murmuring something from a dream.  Andi switched off the light and retreated into the bathroom.  Tossing her clothes to the floor she took a quick shower and slipped on sweats and a pair of socks.  Back in the living room she sat, waiting in the dark for hours, think about her mother, listening to the quiet and wishing thing were different.
	

	Sunday morning, before the blankets were kicked from the bed, Lena was insisting they get away from their phone.  Andi called her mother, asking if she and Lena could stop by and offering to deliver a bagel and coffee.
	"With Lena?  Of course, please, oh yes.  But come after you eat.  I really don't want anything."
	They bought a newspaper, stopped by Noah's for lox, tomato, onion and cream cheese and bagels and crossed to Coffee People for lattes and a lingered moment in the sun outside, sharing the alternative smells of incense, patchouli and puppy poop with the neo-hippies and semi-students.
	Mrs. Wicksham held court in her bedroom.  She and Mrs. Bronstein fell into and awkward silence as if discussing something too intimate for Andi and Lena's ears.  Andi kissed her mother and held her hand, on the edge of the bed a bit ill at ease.  Mrs. Bronstein withdrew to the chair by the window and blended into the woodwork.
	"We're going to Saturday Market." Lena smiled.
	Mrs. Wicksham nodded slightly.
	"Can I bring you a book on tape?"  Andi tried.
	"I have two." her mother whispered.
	"How about company?  We can stay or come back?  Every day if you want."
	"I sleep most of the time."  She offered an uncomfortable smile.
	"How about tomorrow?"
	There was a shake of her head.  "Let's talk on the telephone.  Go on to Saturday Market.  Right now I've a few things to finish with Mrs. Bronstein, then I'll sleep again.  It's really OK."  She glanced at the door.
	Andi filled an awkward ten minutes with small talk, feeling it dent the floor like lead biscuits before offering an awkward goodbye and retreating to their car.  Lena made supportive murmurings as they drove down Stark, crossed the river and strolled through the crafts and artwork.  Andi hardly spoke as they walked through Forest Park then found a burrito stand.  An hour later, Andi slipped away a bit disquieted, to her Sunday jam session, thankful for distractions that didn't leave space for thinking.


	Monday morning, the office phone machine had eighteen messages.  Two early ones from Armando, four for employee checks, a lawyer needed a witness and another background on an opponent's expert.  There were four garbled messages from a drunk looking for Irene as if he was sitting with a pile of quarters and reading the number upside down.  There were two hangups and one asking for Andi by name, appealing that she'd been referred by a friend.  The very last was from Ramirez.
	They attacked the call backs, Andi taking Armando.
	"DeVino here..." Armando answered on the third ring, in his car with a low engine roar, street noises and awkward pauses as if he was steering one-handed.
	"Andi Wicksham."
	"There's been a spill at Titan Marine.  I sent people last night to map and sample downstream and wanted you to be in the loop."
	"Do you want me out there?"  Environmental investigation was, after all, why she was hired.
	"No, we'll get lab results before anything's done.  Titan Marine won't let you on their property and your role isn't toxicology--we'll let the science folk do their thing.  If they come up with anything, we'll call."
	"Sure."
	"But it'll be a realistic cover.  I'll fax the map, lab results and an interpretation to fatten your files.  We've got this aspect pretty much down to routine."  It seemed that traffic was demanding his attention.  "That was it, OK?"
	"No problem." said Andi.  Easy, short and sweet.  Log the call in her book and move on.  Her next call went to Ramirez.  "Yo, Ramirez.  It's Andi."
	"Wicksham.  So kind of you to be responsive.  How old would you say DeVino is?"
	Andi shut her eyes.  If Ramirez was asking he was suspicious.  Offhand, she'd guess Armando was something under forty.  "I don't know, maybe fifty?"
	Ramirez snorted derisively.  "I would have guessed thirty-eight, but I only met him that once."  Disbelief dusted like rock salt on a crepe.  "You know he left the country quite a few years ago...twenty seven to be exact.  Any idea where he's been?"
	"The Mediterranean.  Somewhere in Italy."
	"Hmmm." stewed Ramirez, there was a pause as if he was taking notes.  "You got an idea where Lamar Rasheed is?  He had an appointment with Max."
	"No.  How long he been out of sight?"
	"Only since yesterday, but he's been more and more squirrely the last couple of days.  Less willing to talk each time Max hauled him in."
	"You think that's surprising."
	"Probably not.  You learned anything more?"
	"Come on Ramirez.  We just got in the office.  Wasn't Max satisfied with what you got?"
	"What do you think?  It was filler and he's not a dummy.  Right now he's fixated on Rasheed and trying to get enough gravel under his wheels to stop spinning out."
	"Maybe Max's fixation made Rasheed uncomfortable." hypothesized Andi neutrally.
	"Could be." yielded Ramirez.
	"What did the Medical Examiner say about Jimmy?"
	"Twenty-five caliber, low-load pistol round;  point blank to the back of the head.  Didn't expire in-situ, he was brought there already dead.  Arms and legs strapped with duct tape for quite a few hours before he died, multiple contusions from being beaten, nothing forensically interesting in his clothes."  There was a rustle of paper as he read.
	"Physical evidence?" quizzed Andi.
	"Top surfaces of the tape were wiped clean, but a few partial prints turned up on the underside, but they're just bits and they haven't found a match.  The tape's some heavy duty stuff you don't find in hardware stores--expensive but not rare.  Two teeth got broke in the beatings, they weren't in his stomach or Rasheed's kitchen so Max figures they're still wherever it was done.  He wore a coat and glasses that are still missing."  Ramirez sighed.  "Aren't you going to ask how they got his body into Rasheed's without people seeing?"
	"There's a high hedge by the driveway, bushes all around are overgrown, an empty lot next door and an empty house across the street."
	"Wicksham!  You promised to keep your nose out of this."  He tried to sound ominous, but his heart wasn't in it.
	"Just drove by.  I didn't stop, not even to look in a window.  We were on our way to lunch."
	"Cruised Jimmy Tuft's place too?"  Ramirez didn't miss much of what wasn't said.
	"Ask no questions, you'll hear no lies."
	"That's a lie itself, Sherlock."
	"Hey, go easy." she complained.  "Like I said, I haven't the foggiest idea who offed Tuft and my investigation hasn't overlapped in the slightest way...that I know of."
	"Wicksham..." he appealed.
	"Hey guy, I've got your phone number memorized.  If I hear anything I think you should know, I'll pass it on.  What else can I do?"
	"You don't really want me to answer that do you?"
	"Say 'so long' Ramirez.  We're not getting anywhere."
	"Until then." he conceded cheerlessly.  "Ciao, amici."
	"Ciao bella." she replied in kind.
	Lena had returned the calls of their established clients all routine trade keeping the office pot boiling.  The last calls, the ones from prospective clients, they split--Andi got the one claiming she'd been referred.
	"Hello?"  There was an anxiousness in the greeting, as if expecting news of a tragedy.
	"Andi Wicksham of Investigatory Services, returning your call."
	"My name is Robin Dubrinski, referred by Janice Thompson, the lawyer?"  She paused, as if waiting reassurance.
	"Yes, Ms. Dubrinski.  What is it I can help you with?"
	"I need to find a piece of furniture I inadvertently sold last week."
	"A piece of furniture?"
	"Yes an oak roll-top desk...it turns out my husband secreted some valuable papers under a drawer."
	Andi'd traced spouses and pets, once a storage locker and twice safe-deposit boxes, but this was the first request to chase after furniture.
	"You sold the desk last week?" Andi asked noncommittally.
	"Yes, that's right."
	"For cash or check?"
	"Well actually a little of both, they paid half with a check amount and the rest in cash."  She sounded embarrassed and a little fearful.
	"That's not my concern, Ms. Dubrinski...you might trace the check through the bank where you deposited it.  If you call as a customer, they'll order a photo copy."
	"It was a week ago, the check's already cleared."
	"They'll have photo records, but don't encourage digging them up because it's a pain.  They'll probably charge a fee."
	"Will you trace it for us?"
	Andi offered a friendly sigh, "Actually, you can do it better.  We'd have to sign a contract, then get a notarized power of attorney hand delivered to the bank and they'd probably argue about anything they did.  As a customer, you'll get it with a smile with only a phone call.  Once you get a copy of the check you'll probably have an address and phone number.  In worse case scenarios, you trace it back through the bank to whoever's account it is."
	"Uhhh...sure...."  It sounded like she was taking notes.
	"If you hit a brick wall with the second bank, ask them to address and send a letter you'll write and stamp.  They might snivel, but can be done."
	"You don't want the work?" Robin Dubrinski asked, surprised.
	"Actually, I'd rather you do the first part even if you want us later."
	"Well, thank you." there was a moment of confusion.  "Do I owe anything for this advice?"
	"If you get what you want and are still thankful, send us a gift."  Andi rolled her eyes.  Demand money for helping out?  Only a lawyers and New Yorker's would be that cheap.
	"OK." Dubrinski sounded uncertain.
	"Yes ma'am.  Good luck.  Andi hung up before another question could leak out.  She looked up to find Lena waiting.
	"You turned away business?"  She gave an decent imitation of amazement.
	Andi pursed her lips and tapped her fingers.
	"Dr. Snowden at OHSU left an a note asking you to call."
	"Snowden?"  Andi drew a momentary blank.
	"Francois.  Remember?"  Lena dropped her jaw and shook her head.
	"Oh yeah, the good Doctor."  She punched in Francois' number.  "Snowden?" she grumbled.
	"Hello Ms. Wicksham."  Francois affected a posh, faux British accent.  
	"I hear you want to talk."  She was losing enthusiasm for pretend names.
	"Are you free?"  Snowden reeked old world ‚lan.
	"No, but if you get your card stamped seven more times you get an espresso drink."
	"In a spot of foul mood, are we?" Snowden didn't give up.
	Andi refused to respond.
	Her silent rebuke worked, Francois returned.  "OK.  The Division apartment?  Now would be fine."
	"Sure.  Ten minutes?"
	"I'll be waiting."  


	Francois' Division Street apartment was tucked within a rangy complex, one of a few marginal flats he kept as guest rooms, stocked with pots and pans, plates, stray clothes and struggling philodendrons.  As she pulled into the driveway and set the brake, she could see him waiting in the sun, leaning on the porch-rail in a peasant shirt of fawn-colored rough silk.  It was a second-story place, postage stamp size, one of those strange add-ons you find in continually remodeled old buildings, built without permits in the sixty's, of patched together material after remodeling more valuable units.   Fifty leftover square feet of what was once a hallway tacked onto what once was a pantry and an office's back room.  Toss in some make-shift plumbing for an idiosyncratic low-rent student or struggling somebody's apartment with a door above the refuse bins.
	Francois met her at the door.  "Fall's coming early."
	Andi looking down at the street again.  The air was clear and cool, a nice day to be outside.  A maple across the street had half-turned an eye-jabbing yellow.
	They lingered without speaking, watching a young couple ambled the sidewalk enveloped in mutual bliss.  Two cars cruised by, then a nervous old woman in too large an overcoat dragged an empty cart toward Division.  "What you want?"
	Francois turned away from the street, "I got the week's bookkeeping cleaned up, but it'll probably take a team of CPAs a month to figure it out."
	"Any subcontractor names?"
	"They'd be entered as account numbers."  Francois looked down and tapped idly at the rail post with the toe of his shoe.  "Probably have to hack Riparian to get them."  He glanced up significantly.  "Wanna get to it?"  He bobbed he head toward the door.
	Andi nodded regretfully, it was nice standing outside.
	Once in he flipped the dead-bolts with a practiced twist.  She followed into the bedroom where the closet's clothes were already pulled aside, then waited as he tugged at a shoe rack to swing the lower half of the wall open.
	She'd come this route many times before; Francois' security obsession hardly wasn't even surprising anymore.  Somewhere in the past century the adjoining rooms had been a brothel connected with this corridor with peek-holes for blackmailing or voyeurs.  With the holes plastered over, the corridor served as part of an elaborate maze through which Francois moved about his city block of adjoining buildings.
	Around a few more corners, they climbed a ladder, passed through a couple of attics and eventually descended into his hidden office.  The smell of ginger and chilies and rice wafted through the light-well window and the arching guitar of Mike Bloomfield's intro to Our Love is Drifting filled the room.
	"What sort of stuff in the bookkeeping?" Andi asked 
	"Routine.  Hard to believe it's worth the trouble of encrypting, but there's a lot of it.  By the time you tally up a dozen medium-sized industries, it's huge."
	Andi nodded, it always took him a while to get to his point.
	"There are a few ways to go about making sense of it.  I'm filtering everything for text, but have gotten much.  They use six-digit account codes for almost everything.  I've pieced together a few solvents, typing paper and brooms, that's about all."  He tapped at his keyboard and looked up at one of the monitors.  "But all Riparian's companies seem to use the same codes."
	"Problems?"
	Francois looked over the tops of his glasses.  "The subsidiaries got a jumble of different computer systems.  Typical for a collection of bought-out companies I guess.  There are PC networks, a couple mini's, three UNIX's...one an antique, even a MX PDP-10!  I got dead-code cuckoo eggs in...all but two have hatched."
	"In English please." Andi prompted bluntly.
	"Uhhh, different computers have different operating systems.  They do their thing if somebody runs the code it's stuck in, then I set up trap doors to get in when I want."  He paused until she blinked in understanding.  "Things are going OK."
	"What's vulnerable?"
	"We're exposed going in, probably logged as I diddle, but they'd have to know what wasn't their own...unlikely, but it's there if someone suspects.  I'm using very circuitous routes and being very careful once in.  Nothing's obvious."
	Andi got the gist and nodded.
	"I'm setting up phantom accounts as archives and use native programs to search."  He smiled.  "I look like a regular user and split outgoing data into three phone lines that collect at U of O accounts I never actually log-onto because I syphon everything off going in.  Bottom line--we're as secure as we're going to be."
	"Anything else?"
	"Janus Industrial Chemicals both buys and sells materials almost exclusively to Riparian firms."
	"That means something?"
	"Maybe not since their only clients are Riparian, but it's strange for an industrial chemical firm to sell brooms and typing paper.  I'm running lists by Armando."  He slowly reached for a dish of almonds, took a handful and quietly observed her expression.
	"I'm betting Snowden didn't call me here just to fill in background."
	Francois' eyes narrowed as he sat back in his chair, a smug smile creased dimples into his cheeks.  "Running the background's of executives I came upon a guy personally paying the bill for twenty-two cellular phones."
	"That's interesting." Andi allowed an expression of restrained pleasure, raising her eyebrows and pursing her lips.
	Francois shared a self-satisfied smile bordering on a leer.  "I thought so too, four or five might be plausible if he had spoiled teenagers and an on-the-go wife.  Twenty-two's over the top."
	"And?"
	"He's had them over a year and almost all the billings are to the other phones."
	"And?"  She felt she could tell from his almost electric intensity that he was leading into something significant.
	"That was as far as I felt I should go without bringing you in.  We haven't discussed phone tapping.  I want to."  Francois' eyes held Andi's.
	"Aren't cellular phones legal to listen to?" she asked carefully.  "I thought tapping laws don't apply."
	"Wireless frequencies straight out of the phones are fair game, but we'd have to follow all twenty-two phones around and pick 'em out from everyone else's.  Technically easy, but too cumbersome.  What we can manage is tapping, but it's a federal crime."
	Andi stared into his golden-brown eyes  wishing there was an easy answer.
	"Not that I've scruples, mind you.  I'm already tapping for data."
	She didn't interrupt.
	"I didn't want to start without asking, but we should."  He blinked and sat back in his chair.
	"Talk me into it."  Andi forced herself into a neutral state of mind.
	"In for a dollar, in for a dime."  He shrugged and tossed an almond in his hand.  "Left on my own, I'd have already done it.  We've already committed the crime...it would only expand on it."
	"Legality aside...you got other issues?"
	"On ethics?  On one hand it would be fighting fire with fire, on another I'm always pissed when I think somebody's tapping me.  But the cops have tried for years and it's lowered my threshold of shock.  Considering murder's involved and that the cops need evidence for search warrants, if it's going to get done, it'll be us."  He popped an almond in his mouth.  "Call me cynical, but I consider it public service."
	"Set it up, but don't switch it on.  I'll ask Armando."
	"I already did.  He said wire-taps were your decision."
	Andi rubbed her cheek with a finger.  "What else you discuss?"
	"My wish list...with prices.  Snowden already faxed it to Lena and you client's already cut a check."  He smiled contentedly to himself.
	"When do you get the equipment?"  Andi tried to remain objective.
	"I already ordered.  Bobby Soxx gave Lena keys to your attic.  I'll put in the computer tonight, so tomorrow we go encrypted.  Hardware's coming tomorrow, cell phones soon enough."
	Andi felt resentful.  Once they started using phone scramblers Francois was likely to insist on them from then on.  "Anything more we need to go over?"
	"How about hacking Riparian's VAX?"
	"Not yet."
	Francois smiled.  "I didn't figure you'd go for it."  His eyes flicked up toward the hatchway to the attic.  "Ready to go?"





Chapter  5

	Lena made yam soup that evening, with spinach salad and biscuits.  Andi watched football, rooting for the Forty Niner's over Miami, which was easy since they jumped up ten points in the first five minutes and coasted into a twenty-three/fourteen win.
	They ate at half-time and afterwards Lena painted her nails with glitter polish, rearranged her ear and nose rings and looked through a book on quilting while Andi felt every arching pass as if she was running under it.  Their traditional gender roles were almost scary--Andi glanced over and chewed her lip; quilting was another corner of women's culture about which she hadn't a clue.
	Andi celebrated the Niner's win with a scoop of ice cream and a cookie.  She hadn't called her mother and guilt gnawed, but it had grown too late to fix it.  They were in bed by eight minutes after ten with Lena asleep by ten-thirty.  Andi watched the ceiling another hour.


	Tuesday, rain was pounding the window when they awoke to OPB radio's news.  They dawdled through day-old bagels and yogurt, lingering until the last moment before braving the office.
	Armando, e-mailed a ream of numbers and laboratory reports Lena sent to the printer, but he hadn't called, either the spill hadn't offered much of real interest or he had other things more important.  It was nice he had not called--she didn't have to feign dedication.  Andi paged through her notebook while Lena finished her e-mail.  Three or four down was one from Francois:

	Things went fine, you're all hooked up.  Gave both computers a boost in horsepower.  Encryption password is on your bulletin board in your coffee cup--check LEARN.XX file in your LENA dir for misc.

	Keep the faith,  Snowden

	PS: I used the last of the half-and-half.   L.I.S.PHD.

	Lena pulled the scrap of paper from the bulletin board and read, "What type of breeding did an early target of Andi's have?"  She snorted a laugh and leapt back to pull up the LEARN.XX file and typed POODLE when it asked for a password.  The screen blinked, flashed blue and opened to a screen reading;

	"WELCOME TO SNOWDEN'S PLEASURE DOME OF ENCRYPTION.  IT'S NOTED YOU HAVEN'T READ THE 'LEARN.XX' FILE YET...IF YOU DIS THE DEMIGOD YOU'LL EAT FLAMING DEATH."

	Lena squealed with pleasure.  Andi looked over with an indulgent smile and punched the button on the answering machine as Lena exited and pulled up the LEARN.XX file.  Ramirez left a message, mentioning it was Tuesday morning, so they hadn't missed him by much.  Andi settled back in her chair and called him back.
	"I didn't want to disturb you at home, but Lamar Rasheed finally turned up."
	"Max happy?" Andi wasn't much interested.
	"No.  Rasheed was found taped and beaten like Jimmy Tuft...in an alley, Sunday night."
	"Damn."  It was obvious Max's unwarranted attention contributed, if not directly lead to Rasheed's death.  It was a bitter thought; there would be neither justice or recognition, but maybe she could bring it up over a glass of wine someday--get Ramirez contemplating the frailty of human nature, then remind him of his complicity.
	"He was last seen Thursday morning."
	"That all you know?" Andi asked quietly.
	"He wasn't identified right off so no one made the connections.  The case was assigned to Phillips in North precinct.  Max is having to cuddling up with him to get information.  I asked for reports and photos and was told they weren't ready."  Ramirez sounded disgusted.  "Yesterday evening after the identification, Max crossed a blurry line and went into Rasheed's apartment.  It pushed Phillips' buttons."
	"Anything interesting in the alley?" asked Andi carefully.
	"Forensic's spent a few hours, but the rain didn't help."
	"Time of death?  Fingerprints?" Andi pushed.
	"Not in yet...but he was popped somewhere else like Tuft.  No finger prints on the outer surfaces.  Tape looks similar and the way it was done.  Seems the same perp."
	"I suppose there was nothing interesting in their rooms?"
	Ramirez snorted, "Seems they both lived out of suitcases, almost nothing there, little food, not enough clothes to believe they really lived there.  Both appeared in Portland out of thin air a year ago.  Both lived in rented, furnished apartments without visible incomes.  Both were twenty-something.  No fishing rods, auto parts or exercise equipment...nothing personal, no letters or checkbooks, no photos or beer or roach clips, no radical literature.  Don't tell me there's nothing wrong with that picture."
	Andi coughed in lieu of answering.
	Ramirez accepted it as agreement.  "It's comes to mind that the next closest possible victim would be your client."
	"Seems obvious." Andi conceded cautiously.  "Are you developing a concern for him?"
	"I've taken a oath to protect the public." replied Ramirez stuffily.  "Any idea who's pulling the strings?"
	"Armando's sure it's Riparian.  We haven't got anything on them, but we're getting closer."
	"Closer?" Ramirez asked, his voice inflecting musically upwards.
	"Don't ask.  You don't want to know...believe me."  Andi tried to let her voice rumble ominously like he did--wished she'd kept her mouth shut.
	"Wicksham..."
	"Hey, Ramirez.  If you knew, you'd be disappointed and have an ethical dilemma."  That was as close to spelling it out for him as she was going to go.  "Believe me, I'll tell you anything important.  How many deaths is that now?  My count says at least five.  You need all the help you can get, so chill out for Gods sake."
	"Five?" that caught Ramirez' attention.
	"Three DEQ people.  Armando swears it's all tied together."
	Ramirez fell silent.  
	"Killed four or five years ago?  No suspects, no serious investigation, no nothing else?"
	Ramirez's voice was quiet, "I knew about them.  The woman was in our jurisdiction, but it didn't go anywhere.  It was only a missing person."
	"Investigation dropped a bit prematurely, right?"
	"Maybe." Ramirez allowed cautiously.
	"Different venues, different MOs, but all three victims looking into Riparian's pollution...interesting huh?  Not only that, but their files at DEQ went missing at the same time.  There's a report on file somewhere if you want a laugh; I've seen it, we're talking obvious white wash."  
	Ramirez didn't comment, it sounded like he was taking notes.
	Andi took a breath and continued.  "Make sure you're wearing your skeptic's hat and dust off your conspiracy theories.  There's talk of a cover-up from on high, certainly all the obvious loose ends weren't looked into."  She could hear Ramirez breathing and the background noises around him and waited for a response.
	"Four connectable deaths and a disappearance might put things in different light." Ramirez' voice had grown cautious and reflective.  "I'm pretty sure Max hasn't tied in the DEQ stuff."  There was another pause, then his voice doubled in volume and dropped an octave.  "You're sure about this?"
	Andi snorted.  "Of course not.  It's third or fourth hand rumor.  If I knew anything I'd have told you long ago.  I assumed you'd made the connection and were ignoring it."
	"OK." he placated.  "I'll look.  Do you mind if Max knows where the hint came from?"
	"No.  It might salve our relationship."
	Ramirez didn't rise to that bait.  "Any other details?"  He was overly polite, as if his feelings were hurt.
	"No my friend, but I'm glad you're picking up the ball."  Andi let the receiver down to her desk and chewed her lip, deep in thought.  A minute later, she phoned Francois, but had to settle for leaving a message about Rasheed.  "What do we know about the DEQ deaths?" she asked Lena suddenly.
	"Names, dates.  Not much more, you saw the report Armando gave us."  Lena answered without looking over.  She was slogging through Snowden's LEARN.XX file, taking notes as she went.  "What do you want?"
	"I don't know.  More background at least.  I should have paid more attention when Armando brought it up."  She tapped her fingers on her desk top, then looked up into Lena's eyes.  "Damn...why have I been taking this so lightly?"
	"The DEQ thing moving to high priority?" Lena was already saving her work and clearing her screen.
	"Yeah, I suppose so." Andi had her notebook out, searching through her notes and glaring at the piles amassing on her desk.

	There was a check from Armando with the mail--eight thousand dollars.  "You have Francois' wish list?" Andi waved the check.
	"Yo." Lena handed over a list of equipment and costs.
	Andi did a little quick addition and wrote a five-thousand dollar check to Dr. L.I. Snowden at OHSU noting "research" in it's corner.  It rounded up Francois' costs by almost a grand, but the prices he quoted seemed unrealistically low and she rationalized that he had earned anything left over.  She folded it in a blank sheet of paper, enclosed it in an envelope, printed the address and tossed it in Lena's out basket.
	In that short bit of time Lena'd come up with digitally scanned, microfilms of old newspaper reports on the earlier deaths.  The first ran a scant three inches and told of a female investigator with the Department of Environmental Quality who had vanished while out in the field, then two follow-up clips rehashed that she was still missing and that family and friends had no idea where she could be, concluding darkly that foul play was suspected.
	The second and third incidents left bodies, which earned considerably more column space.  The administrator's death was termed possible suicide though nobody who knew him thought him in least despondent.  The drowning was reported as an accident, both articles made mention to the storms and flooding.  There were two follow-up articles on each death, rehashing facts and ten after the second to articles on successive days linking the two with their colleague's disappearance, noting they were from the same office and that they had disappeared or died within a week it alluded to an investigation, but that was the end of it, no note of the eventual report.  No mention of Riparian ended up in print.  Andi punched in Armando number.
	"DeVino." he answered.
	"It's Andi Wicksham.  I'm sorry to bear bad news, but I just heard Lamar Rasheed was found...dead."
	"Killed?" Armando's voice was hushed.
	"Like Jimmy Tuft, cloth tape, close range shot to the head."
	"Oh."  It was a very quiet, shocked response.
	There was near silence for six or eight breaths.  Andi could hear the background traffic noise.
	"Can you wait a minute until I pull off the road?"  There was a few moments of dead air.  "OK.  What a shock.  When?"
	"He was found in an alley Sunday night.  Have you seen him since last Wednesday?"
	"No.  I'm submerged in a project.  I called, but he never called back."
	"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you."
	"Is that why you called?"  Armando asked almost in surprise.
	"Well, actually no.  Tell me about the DEQ deaths."
	"What do you want to know?"
	"I've got the newspaper reports and the white wash.  I was hoping for something meaningful."
	"Sure." Armando gathered himself.  "The first one disappeared, no trace found; she just never returned to her office.  Her car was left in a Safeway parking lot, wiped absolutely clean of prints.  There's never been a trace found."
	"She was investigating Riparian?"
	"Their two paper mills flushing PCB's into the river."
	"How do you know that?  It wasn't in the papers."
	"There's a lot of information on the grape vine."
	"I've friends in the environmental community, but I never heard it."
	"Well..." Armando sighed, "Be that as it may, I'm telling you the straight story."
	"OK." Andi conceded.  "Tell me about the administrator."
	"He was a good guy." Armando sounded genuinely distressed.  "Serious, knowledgeable, even handed.  Everything you'd want in a civil servant--stable, dedicated, a wife and two kids, deacon in his church, coached girl's soccer, no visible reasons for suicide."
	"What happened?"  She was scribbling notes as fast, but needed to slow him with rhetorical questions.
	"He drove his truck to work, left at the end of the day and never came home.  His body was found in the back of the truck three days later near Grant's Pass with a bullet in his heart...next to the gun that killed him.  No one who knew him believed it to be suicide."
	"Did you know him?"
	There was an awkward silence.  Armando coughed to clear his throat.  "I knew of him.  I wasn't here at the time." he stated cautiously.  "Next was a water quality toxicologist out on the river taking samples.  The boat was found overturned, his body the next day, drowned, but with defensive injuries on his forearms and a busted skull.  He was sampling Riparian's out-flow when it happened."
	Andi wanted to ask where he got such specific information if he wasn't around at the time, but held back.  "Didn't DEQ have an ongoing investigation of Riparian?"
	"Yes, but the files were empty when they next looked.  There'd been eleven, fat dog-eared folders, but the police found only two with a page or two each.  The investigation heard all that, but decided it was nothing out of the ordinary."
	"Who can confirm this?" Andi asked.  He'd recited a lot more than was reported anywhere she had seen and his credibility was shaky at best.
	Again there was a moment of silence.  "You said you had friends in the environmental community?" Armando's voice was quiet and hopeful.
	"A few."
	Armando's voice was that of calm reason itself.  "Ask around among people who were around then."
	"How about Ramone Bodega?" Andi pushed.
	"Yes he'd..." Armando began eagerly, but stopped abruptly before saying soberly,  "He'd be fine, I've heard of him."
	Andi waited a moment but he didn't elaborate.  "Thanks for the help.  The police hadn't connected Jimmy and Lamar and the DEQ.  I encouraged them to look into it."
	"Good luck.  I'd given up on them."  He paused again, as if lost in thought.
	"Ramirez pointed out that you'd be next in line."
	There was another silence.  "I suppose so."
	Andi took another breath, waiting for more.  "Be careful, OK?"
	"I will, Andi, I will.  Unless there's more, I need to be going."  He sounded apologetic.
	"Sure.  Thanks.  We'll talk later."
	She immediately called Ramone Bodega.  Of course he wasn't in--she left a message and turned back to the pile on her desk.  It took until mid-afternoon for him to get back--by that time she'd re-read all her notes and was halfway through re-capping Riparian's interconnections.  Lena was on another call so Andi answered herself.  "Investigatory Services."
	"It's Ramone.  What do you need?"
	"Do you remember three DEQ people dead or missing two years ago?"
	"Of course.  It was tragic." Bodega's voice softened.  "They were well liked."
	"Do you know what they were working on at the time?"  Andi didn't want to give obvious hints.
	"Paper mills...carcinogens in the effluent."
	"Remember the company's names?"
	"Not off the top of my head.  Is it important?"
	"Maybe not.  What can you tell me about it?" Andi tried to make it a friendly request.
	He paused like a professor choosing his answer.  "Washington and Oregon rivers have receive more legally dumped carcinogens than any other rivers in the nation...maybe the highest illegally dumped too.  Unfortunately, the data is self-reported and not checked, so it could easily be twice or three times what industries claim."
	"And they get away with it?"
	"Sure do...money and politics."  Bodega seemed to shrug it off as a truism.  "Paper mills are important to small town economies."
	Andi was writing notes as she listened.  "OK.  Why do they use the carcinogens?"
	"They use chlorine to bleach and soften the fibers, but the chlorine bonds to natural molecules making some of them super-toxic.  Why are you interested?  It's a little out of your usual sphere."
	Andi ignored the question.  She wasn't going to be sidetracked.  "You don't know who owns the mills?"
	Bodega, paused.  "I used to.  Two or three companies control the industry.  I think the ones being investigated shared owners or something."
	"Do you remember if DEQ was investigating the owners when the deaths occurred?"
	"They don't investigate owners, just individual companies.  Each location is a point-source, each is handled individually."
	Andi paused, shutting her eyes a moment to help her concentrate.  He hadn't come up with Riparian or its subsidiary companies.  Corroboration was still missing.  Ramone Bodega was coming close, but Armando's spin on the situation still stood alone.  She bit her tongue to keep from prompting.  "What do you remember of the DEQ disappearance and deaths?"
	"I think first a woman disappeared.  I'd met her half a dozen times, an earnest, serious type--I don't think she was ever found.  The second was a real nice guy who ran the north-central office.  An articulate guy with a big smile who could schmooze with us and industry reps at the same time, a real mediator.  He was a suspected suicide.  Then a few days later a toxicologist was found drowned...it was too much coincidence for anybody to believe an accident."
	"Do you remember who was suspected?"
	"No, I'm sorry.  I was up to my neck fighting Rogue Valley air particulates."
	"You can't remember?" Andi could hear the disappointment in her own voice.
	"Sorry.  But there's a guy who was really involved at the time, a guy in a wheelchair, missing both feet.  Long hair in a ponytail, thick glasses...real noticeable, but I haven't seen him around in years.  Why don't I ask around?  His name was Alvin Delgatto."
	"Alvin The cat?" Andi chuckled.  
	"Nice guy, hung out with Sandi George and Jerry Snyder.  But they're no were around these day either."
	Andi scribbled, leery of veering off on a tangent.  "If you remember more about the DEQ thing please get back quick as you can.  There may have been two more murders now."
	"Oh yeah?  Sorry I wasn't more help you more.  Are we still on for coffee tomorrow?"
	Andi quickly flipped through her day planner.  "No sweat, two o'clock.  Thanks again." she scribbled a last note as she hung up the phone.  So much for definitively confirming Armando's story.  She sat ruminating, the investigation was going no slower than many, but this one was lifted by a welling urgency.  She'd never met Tuft or Rasheed, but had lied to one of her oldest friends because of them.  She was already sick of the investigation.
	Bits and pieces straggled in from the Snowden material Lena culled--most not very compelling; purchases, connections between projects and companies, accounting minutia and chains of stray detail.  Andi buried herself in their organizational scheme, tracing hierarchy and responsibilities while glancing through whatever Lena highlighted.  She was making slow, but steady headway at five-thirty.  Lena made noises about closing shop, but Andi dragged her heels.  Finally Lena began the evening's clean-up and Andi was pushed into saying point-blank that she wanted to keep working.
	Lena seemed to expect it, cheerfully offering to get take out from El Loco Burrito.  She straightened the office, emptying waste paper baskets, cleaning the coffee maker and throwing out the wilted flowers.  Andi ate at her desk, hardly looking up when Lena slid the burrito before her and slipped out the door again.  Riparian moved under the watchful eye of three upper-vice presidents answering directly to Rebecca Sauturne.  Each supervised a series of subsidiaries headed by business drones over managers of physical plant, sales and purchasing, environmental, personnel and the like.
	It was eleven before she got to a stopping point.  Exhausted, she called Lena to pick her up, cached the files in their closet hide-away, looked out the window at the night-time traffic, locked the door and descended to the mist-dampened sidewalk.

	Wednesday morning, Andi woke early, caught between eagerness and dread over the investigation.  She lay thinking an hour and three quarters before the alarm went off, then quietly watched Lena set out breakfast.
	"Here, Sherlock." Lena slid a bowl of oatmeal topped with apple sauce in front of her.
	Andi felt a twinge of guilt--Lena seemed strangely accepting of her workaholism.  "Thanks Watson." she offered shyly, undeserving of indulgence.
	"I can take up the slack when it's important." Lena pinned her with a hard look, her knuckles resting on an out-thrust hip.  "We're in this together."
	"Thanks." smiled Andi, pouring milk and wielding her spoon, aware that being nice was how to get back to the office and bury herself in work.  "Winter's coming.  It's frosty outside."
	"What?" asked Lena, startled from the depths of the morning crossword.
	"Simone's cute." Andy smiled, cheek in her palm, her eyes focused on some inner horizon.  "Babysiting was OK.  You think so?"  She smiled--not a hint of a work-related scheme.
	"OK.  Get your coat."  Lena threw down her pencil in disgust.  "I'll get the dishes this evening."  She shot Andi a glare and rose stiffly from her chair.  "It's going to take me a minute to get ready.  No, no, it's OK.  If you're gonna obsess, we can go in early."  Her mouth twisted, playing martyr like a religious pro.
	"What?" chirped Andi defensively, sitting up and looking around.
	Lena ducked into the bathroom, yelling, "Do you know where my purple socks are?"  She turned the sink on full-force and scrubbed away at her face.
	Andi rose, smirking at the way Lena's brain was wired.

	Back in the office, Andi sank into her chair, flipped on her computer, pushed in a floppy disc and pulled up files, having a moment of disassociation as she emersed in the web of Riparian connections she'd mapped yesterday--feeling like a hovering spider, waiting the slightest tremor of prey.
	Lena tapped into the attic computer and fielded the collected phone messages--two of them and a hang-up.  She glanced over at Andi who was oblivious to the world.
	The first call was Ramirez, just checking in.  The second was Janice Thompson wanting an auto body shop checked out.  Lena picked up her phone and called Ramirez.
	"Hey Roy, it's Lena.  What's up?"
	"Put on Andi."  He was not in a chatty mood.
	"What, I won't do?"  She paused.  "You know, it sounds like your blood pressure is pegging the red-zone?"
	"Not now...put her on."
	"Please hold."  Lena pushed the hold button, dryly muttered. "Andi.  The Mexican bear's on a Maxian errand...he's steaming."  She shook her receiver as if it had stuck with glue.
	Andi pushed line two.  "Grumpy are we?"
	"Wicksham?  What the heck is the story with you and Max?  I tactfully pass on what you're doing for us and he goes ballistic, wanting me to run you in."
	"Sheriff, I told you from the git that the boy was off-kilter...he's about a strap and a half short of a straight jacket." Andi drawled.  "What's it gonna take to make you a believer?"
	"Yippy-yi-ki-yo.  I'm officially telling you you're supposed to explain everything you know about anything, and pronto.  Not that I expect you to do that and not that I think it's a wise idea and don't be insulting me now."
	"Lay it on the table Ramirez."
	"Max wasted three hours trying to find something significant in that stack of pages we gave him, then an hour reaming me for letting it get to his desk."  Andi gave a supportive sigh.  Ramirez sounded like he had his feet up and was contemplating the light fixtures.  "He needs something to chase.  What can it hurt?  Give him a tire to snap at."
	"You don't understand."
	"Wicksham, we're talking getting the guy off your back."
	Andi let a touch of dissatisfaction growl in her throat.  "Haven't we been down this path?  Out of the blue, my work becomes Max's case and bingo and I've retroactively broken the Prime Directive.  What's the matter with the DEQ connection?  That's a plum."
	"It's in the works.  Wicksham...I'm pleading here." Ramirez' voice didn't need horns, Bobby Blue Bland couldn't have wrung more soul from it.
	"If he thinks I've learned something, he can retrace my steps, it's not like I'm privy to first-hand information."  Andi fought, but knew she'd have to yield, she was being manipulated by a master.  "If you indulge him he'll come to expect it...it's not good for his training."
	"You're right, but it'll keep him off your back another day or two."  Ramirez sensed her yield and eased off.
	"A day or two?"  She feigned outrage.  "It should be worth a month."
	Ramirez responded, smooth as silk, "It's not a perfect world.  I'll see what I can do.  What do I tell him?"
	Andi pinched her eyes closed, wondering where to send him.  "There was a guy in a wheelchair around a few years ago, amputee or something...no feet maybe, thick glasses, long hair.  He's an activist who followed the DEQ stuff closely, but has been out of things a couple of years.  He's the one to fill in the blanks."
	"No feet?  Is this a con?  Got a name and address?"
	"I'll see what I can do." Andi parroted, making him work for it would stretch the distraction another day or so.
	"Wicksham.  Give it up."  Ramirez frothed at the point of yelling.
	"Ramirez, listen to my words.  At this moment I honestly don't remember his name, but if you're a nice cop...if you're a mild-mannered cop, I'll see what I can do."  she delivered the lines in a hard-edged, but saccharine whisper.
	"OK."  It came in his bright, school kid voice as if he'd flicked a switch.  "That's done.  Are we're still on for Saturday?  Give my love to Lena, gotta go."
	Chuckling, Andi paged back through her notebook to the page with the call to Bodega and ran her finger down the page until she found it.  Alvin Delgatto, the guy in the wheelchair.  She smiled and looked up to get Lena's attention.
	"Lena, drop everything and do a rush skip search on Alvin Delgatto, some environmental friend of Bodega's in a wheelchair.  Disappeared two years ago...should know about the DEQ."
	Lena tapped at her keyboard as she swiveled around, all business.  "Delgatto?  Portland metro?  Nothing but environmentalist and wheelchair, sans feet?"
	"Thick glasses, long hair, smart.  I'll ask Francois to cover the same ground."
	"I'm on it."  She paused and looked up.  "The lady after the desk recovered stock certificates worth a mint and wants to repay your kindness with two hundred dollars.  I set up an file and printed an invoice."  She slid down in her chair as if low-riding--hands shoulder high on the keyboard, chin to her chest, looked over the top of her glasses ready to drag race.
	Andi rolled her eyes and called Armando.  "What do know about an environmentalist, circa a couple of years ago named Alvin Delgatto, wheelchair, thick glasses."
	"What?" exclaimed Armando, then a silence.
	"Alvin Delgatto, I'm told he'll know about the DEQ murders."
	"I'm sure I've heard the name, but..." offered Armando cautiously.
	"But what?"
	"But I never really traveled in that crowd."  The answer came quickly, with a stamp of finality.
	"How many of you could have been paying attention to the DEQ right then?"
	"It's a big world."
	"You really don't know of him?"
	"Of him of course, but nothing much else."
	"Can you ask around for me?"
	"You want me to drop what I'm doing?"
	"No...what's the problem?"
	"Nothing, I'll see what I can find."
	Andi returned the phone to its cradle and checked her appointment book--nothing until coffee with Bodega at two.  She reached again for the phone and called Francois.
	He picked up, first ring.  "Yo, Sherlock.  What's cooking?"  He sounded distracted, as if doing a couple things at the same time--keyboard clicks and equipment hums filled the background.
	"I got favors to ask."
	"Ask and ye shall receive." Francois was still distracted.
	"Everything you can find on the DEQ murders and a quick personal search."
	"Who on?"
	"Alvin Delgatto.  Lived in Portland somewhere...last seen a couple of years ago.  He might have moved out of state."
	"Sure." replied Francois vaguely.  "Can I get back in an hour?"
	"That'll be great."
	Francois yawned.  "OK.  Adios," and he was gone.
	Andi looked up to catch Lena's eye.  Lunch?"
	Lena nodded and turned back to her computer.
	"Where?" Lena asked, swinging around and rising from her chair.
	"Il Piatto?" Andi suggested.
	"For a fancy sit-down meal?" Lena collapsed back in her chair as if she were a rag doll.  "You're going to leave your desk for more than a minute.  Where's that urgency that drove us here at dawn?"
	"Hibernating."  She offered a hand to pull Lena from her chair.
	"You been sniffing glue?" she stood and snatched up her coat.
	"I think I've come to a plateau." annou