Chapter  1

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

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


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


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


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






                            Chapter  2

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


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


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






                            Chapter  3

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

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

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


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


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


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

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


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


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


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


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


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

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


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






                            Chapter  4

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

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


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


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

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


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


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


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


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

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

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


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