Cafe Underground Presents
Andi told Lena of her talk with. Lena simply shrugged.
"Hey." Andi cried, "This starts out questionable...add the illegality and we’re in over our heads. I don't want to feel like it's me against the universe.
"I got no problem with what we're doing, but I’d rather nobody knew."
That evening, Lena made yam soup, spinach salad and fresh biscuits. Being Monday evening and Fall, Andi watched football, rooting for the Forty Niner's over Miami, which was easy since they jumped to a ten point lead in the first five minutes and coasted the into a twenty-three/fourteen win. She sat cross legged on the couch wearing comfy sweats, nursing a single beer and agonizing over a fumble that nearly got run in for a score.
Meanwhile, Lena painted her nails with glitter polish, rearranged her box of ear and nose rings and looked through a book on quilting. Toying with the idea of making a patchwork one, she'd spent two weeks going through books. The traditional roles were almost scary--Andi glanced over and chewed her lip; quilting was another corner of women's culture about which she hadn't a clue.
Andi celebrated the Niner's win with a scoop of ice cream and a cookie. She hadn't called her mother and the guilt gnawed at her. They were in bed by quarter after ten, Lena asleep by ten-thirty.
Andi watched the ceiling another hour.
Tuesday, it was raining when they awoke to OPB's news on the radio with a background of rain battering in gusts and rattling windows, the comforting unmetered tapping, damp earthy smells and closeness of being inside and dry.
Armando hadn't called back Monday. Either the spill hadn't offered much or he'd other things to do. It was nice he didn't call--she didn't have to feign a dedication to the project she wasn't sure she had. Francois would have their hidden electronic archive up in the office’s attic by now.
They dawdled through a breakfast of day-old bagels and yogurt, lingering until the last moment before braving the walk to her car. The rain was hard, but it wasn't quite a downpour. Droplets danced off the concrete and tapped loudly on the car roof as they got in and waited for the engine to warm.
The office looked the same as they left it the night before. Andi paged through her notebook, as Lena flipped on her computer and collected phone messages.
Francois had sent Lena an e-mail note:
Things went fine, you're all hooked up. I took the time to give your computer a boost in horsepower via a souped up chip. Encrypt file protection password is in your coffee cup--check LEARN.XX file in your LENA dir for misc.
Keep the faith. Snowden
PS: I used the last of the half-and-half. L.I.S.PHD.
Lena pulled the scrap of paper from her coffee cup and read, "What type of breeding did an early target of Andi's have?"
She snorted a laugh and leapt back to her keyboard to pull up the LEARN.XX file, learned enough to try an entry, popped into drive-@%, typing "POODLE" when it asked for a password.
The screen blinked, flashed blue and opened to a screen reading "WELCOME TO SNOWDEN'S PLEASURE DOME OF ENCRYPTION, YOU HAVEN'T READ THE `LEARN' FILE YET...IF YOU DIS THE DEMIGOD YOU'LL EAT FLAMING DEATH."
Andi started coffee while Lena squealed with pleasure--she was going to have fun. Andi looked over with an indulgent smile. Lena exited the hidden computer on tactful, cyber-tip toes, offered Andi a smirk and shrug and turned to check the message machine.
Ramirez left a message, mentioned it was Tuesday morning, so they hadn't missed him by much. Andi settled in her chair and called him back.
"I didn't want to disturb you at home, but Lamar Rasheed finally turned up."
"Did that make Max happy?" Andi wasn't much interested.
"No, it didn't. Rasheed was found dead, strapped and beaten like Jimmy Tuft, then dumped in an alley sometime last night."
"Same MO up to the place of delivery?" It seemed obvious that Max's attention contributed to Rasheed's death, but voicing that sort of comment needed a quiet reflective moment. Maybe she could bring it up over a glass of wine--get Ramirez contemplating the frailty of human nature, then drop it into his lap.
"He wasn't seen after Thursday morning...that leaves from then to Sunday evening unaccounted for."
"That all you know?" Andi asked quietly.
"He wasn't identified right off so no one made the connections. The case was assigned to Phillips in North East precinct, but Max is cuddling up to share information. The politics in this department sucks. I asked for reports and photos and was told by Phillips' that they weren't ready. What do I care about their final spin? I need the preliminary data and now have to go through channels to get it." Ramirez sounded disgusted. "Yesterday Max crossed a blurry line and went into Rasheed's apartment. That pushed Lieutenant Phillips' buttons."
"Anything at all in the alley?" asked Andi carefully.
"Forensic's spent a few hours, but the rain didn't help."
"Time of death? Fingerprints?" Andi pushed.
"Not in yet, but the guess was only three or four hours...no spilled blood on site so it seems he was popped somewhere else like his friend Jimmy. No finger prints on the outer surfaces. Everything points to the same perpetrator. No one has much doubt."
"Yeah." Andi agreed with a sorrowful sigh.
"I suppose there was nothing at Jimmy or Lamar's apartments?" Andi played the helpful friend.
"Both seemed to live out of suitcases. Both appeared here in Portland out of thin air a year ago. Both lived in rented, furnished rooms without visible income. Both were twenty-something. There weren’t fishing rods, auto parts, wind surfer or exercise equipment. No beer or drugs or paraphernalia, no radical literature, nothing personal, no letters or checkbooks or photos. Don't tell me there's nothing wrong with that picture." He was daring her to contradict him.
Andi coughed in lieu of answering.
Ramirez accepted it as agreement. "It’s comes to mind that the next closest possible victim might be your client." He dangled the comment like a hook-embedded chocolate truffle, seeing if Andi would bite.
"It seem obvious." Andi conceded cautiously. "Are you developing a concern for him?"
"I've taken a oath to protect the public." replied Ramirez stuffily, evidently miffed. "Any idea who's pulling the strings?"
"Nothing new. Armando's sure it's Riparian. The bad news is we haven't got anything on them. The good news is that we're getting closer to peeking into their operation." Andi offered cautiously. It was obvious he was asking for help.
"Peeking?" Ramirez asked, his voice inflecting upwards musically.
"Don't ask. You don't want to know...believe me." Andi tried to let her voice rumble ominously like Ramirez did to convey a warning. She wished she'd kept her mouth shut.
"Wicksham." he protested, his voice taking on a whiny tone.
"Hey, Ramirez...if you knew, you'd be disappointed and have an ethical dilemma. Leave the damn this alone." That was as close to spelling it out for him as she was going to go. "How many deaths is that now? My count says at least five. You need all the help you can get. So chill out for Gods sake."
"Five deaths?" that caught Ramirez' attention. "What do you mean?"
"There are the unexplained deaths of some DEQ people--my sources suspect it’s all tied together."
Ramirez fell silent. "I knew about them, but didn't hear a Riparian connection," he finally replied. "Only one of those, the woman's disappearance was in our jurisdiction. That didn't go anywhere at the time."
"It was abandoned, right?"
"Maybe." Ramirez allowed cautiously.
"Different venues, different MOs, but all three of the victims were looking into Riparian's pollution. Not only that, but their files went missing at the same time. The state police should have a file and if you want a laugh, you can wrangle a copy of the legislature's investigation."
Ramirez didn't comment, it sounded like he was taking notes.
Andi took a breath and continued. "Make sure you're wearing your skeptic's hat and dust off your favorite conspiracy theory. There's a lot of talk on this end about a cover-up from somewhere on high." She could hear Ramirez breathing and the background noises of the room around him. She waited for him to respond.
"Four deaths and a disappearance might put things in different light." Ramirez' voice had grown cautious and reflective. "I'm pretty sure Max hasn't tied the DEQ stuff in." There was another pause, then his voice doubled in volume and dropped an octave. You're sure about this connection?"
Andi snorted. "No, of course not. It's third or fourth hand rumor. If I knew anything I'd have told you long ago. I assumed you'd made the connection."
"OK." he placated. "I'll look into it. Do you mind if Max knows where the hint came from?"
"No. It might be salve to our relationship. But he’s never respected anything I've given before." Andi noted that peevishly.
Ramirez didn't rise to that bait. "Any other details you want to leave me?" He was overly polite, as if his feelings were hurt.
"No my friend, sorry." Andi let the receiver down to her desk and bit lightly on her lower lip, deep in thought.
She phoned Francois, but had to settle for leaving a message telling him of Rasheed and prodding him on getting the legislative committee report sometime before the end of the decade.
"What do we know about the DEQ deaths?" she asked Lena suddenly.
"Nothing, not even names or dates." Lena answered without looking over. She was slogging through Snowden's LEARN.XX file, taking notes as she went.
"Can you get newspaper articles on-line?" Andi asked.
Lena finished her line of typing and looked over. "Some. What exactly are you looking for?"
"I don't know, background at least...pull everything on the DEQ thing. It's just a place to start. I should have paid more attention when Armando mentioned it." She tapped her fingers on her desk top and stared into Lena's eyes. "Damn...why have I been taking this so lightly?"
"Is this moving to high priority?" Lena was already saving her work and clearing her screen.
"Yeah, I suppose so." Andi had her notebook out, searching through her notes and glaring at Lena and Francois’ research that was mounding on her desk.
There was a check from Armando with the mail when Lena brought it up. The check was for eight thousand dollars and there wasn't any stamp on the envelope. It gave Andi the creeps that he'd come by without stopping in.
"You have the wish list Francois sent?" Andi asked, her eyes still focused on the check in her hand.
"Yo." Lena responded turning from her computer to the files at her side. A minute later she handed over the list of equipment and costs. Andi did a little quick addition and wrote five-thousand dollar check to Dr. L.I. Snowden at OHSU noting “research” in it’s corner. It rounded up Francois' costs by over a grand, but the prices he was getting the equipment seemed unrealistically low and she rationalized that he’d already earned every penny of anything left over. She folded it in a blank sheet of paper, enclosed it in an envelope, addressed, stamped it and tossed it in Lena's out basket.
The old newspaper reports were digital photo’s of blurry microfilm. The first story ran a scant three inches and told of a female investigator with the Department of Environmental Quality who had simply vanished while out in the field. There were two follow-up insertions that basically repeated that she was still missing, that family and friends had no idea where she could be and that foul play was suspected.
The second and third deaths had bodies, so got considerably more space. The administrator’s was called a suicide until they couldn't come up with any reasons to be despondent, only then was it was considered suspicious. Again it left friends and family at a loss. The drowning was reported as an accident, one of two attributed to the storms and flooding. Follow-up articles rehashed the facts in administrator's death without adding anything.
A week later were two articles linking the two deaths and their colleague’s disappearance, noting that they were from the same office and that they disappeared or died within a week. After that, an article reported that an investigative committee was looking into information assembled by the state police. Two weeks after that was a slim few inches of filler noting that no significant findings were made.
No mention of Riparian appeared.
It was better than nothing--padding for their file, but little else. She’d put off the next task as long as she could. Andi punched Armando number.
"Hello, DeVino here." he answered.
"It's Andi Wicksham. I'm sorry to bear bad news, but I just heard Lamar Rasheed was found...dead." She was of the ‘blurting out what you had difficulty with’ school of bad-news reporting--it wasn't subtle, but it got the job done.
"Killed?" Armando's voice was hushed.
"Similar to Jimmy Tuft, duct tape, close range shot to the head."
"Oh." It was a very quiet, shocked response.
There was near silence for nearly two eight-bar phrases. Andi could hear his breathing on the other end over a background of traffic noise.
"Can you wait a minute until I pull to the side of the road?" There was a few moments of dead air as he pulled over, then, "OK, that's a shock. When did this happen?"
"He was found Sunday night. Have you seen him since Thursday?"
"No. I've been submerged in a project. I called once, but he never called back."
"I sorry to break it to you." Andi offered as condolence.
"Is that why you called?" Armando asked almost in surprise.
"Well, actually no. What do you know about the DEQ people's deaths?"
"DEQ? What sort of stuff do you want?"
Andi interpreted the question as a stall. "I've got the newspaper reports. I was hoping for something meaningful."
"Sure." Armando was obviously gathering himself. "The first one disappeared, no trace found that I've heard. She never returned to the office after taking off for a day in the field. Her car was found in a Safeway parking lot, wiped clean of prints. Her boyfriend was at work all day so wasn't ever a suspect. There's never been a trace found."
"She was investigating Riparian?"
"That's right." Armando confirmed. "A probe into their paper mills flushing PCB's into the river."
"Where’d you get that information?" Andi kept her voice neutral. "It wasn't in the papers."
"There's a lot flowing along the environmental grape vine."
"The people in the community I've asked, aren't sure of that much." Andi observed.
"Ah, well." Armando sighed resignedly, "Be that as it may, it's still the truth."
"OK." Andi conceded. "Tell me about the administrator."
"He was a real good guy." Armando sounded genuinely distressed. "Serious, knowledgeable, even handed. Everything you'd want in a civil servant. He left a wife and two kids in school, a deacon in church, coached girl’s soccer, well liked, no reason at all for suicide."
Andi cut in, "What happened?" She was scribbling notes as fast as she could write and needed to slow him down with some rhetorical questions.
"He drove his truck to work, left at the end of the day and never came home. His body was found in the back of the truck three days later near Grant's Pass."
"Suspected suicide?" Andi pushed.
"He was found with the gun that killed him. But no one who knew him believed it."
"Did you know him?" Andi pounced on the hint.
There was an awkward silence. Armando coughed to clear his throat. "I knew of him." he stated cautiously. Then he continued, "The third death was a water quality specialist, a toxicologist who was out on the river doing sampling. The boat was found overturned, his body found the next day. Drowned, but with what coroners call `defensive' injuries...bruises, abrasions from fending off."
"Yeah I understand the term." Andi interrupted impatiently. She was miffed by his avoiding her question, but it didn't seem fruitful to press it.
"People in his office said he was going out to sample Riparian's out-flow."
Andi wanted to ask where he got such specific information if he wasn't around here at the time, but held herself back. "Was there an ongoing investigation?"
"Yes, but all three of the victim's files were empty when the State Police looked into it. Our sources said there’d been at least eleven dog-eared file folders. Afterwards there were only two with only a page or two in each. The committee investigation churned out it’s cover-up. Since then there’s been nothing."
"Who could confirm this?" Andi asked, looking down at her notes. None of his answers contradicted the newspaper accounts, but he'd added a lot. Armando's credibility was shaky at best--she needed corroboration.
Again there was a moment of silence. "You said you had friends in the environmental community?" Armando's voice was quiet and hopeful.
"A few."
Armando's voice was that of calm reason itself. "Ask around among people who were around a couple of years ago."
"How about Ramone Bodega?" Andi pushed.
"Yes he'd..." Armando began eagerly, but stopped abruptly. "He'd be fine, I've heard of him." Mid-comment, he'd changed his response.
Andi waited a moment in case he wanted to elaborate. "Thanks for the help. The police hadn't established a connection between Jimmy and Lamar and the DEQ. I'm trying to encourage them."
"That would be good. I'd given that route up." he noted casually, then he paused again, as if lost in thought. "Unless there's more, I need to be going. I was late to a meeting before you rang me." He sounded apologetic.
"Sure. Thanks." Andi responded. "We'll talk later."
She immediately called Ramone Bodega. Of course he wasn't in--she left a message and turned back to her the pile on her desk.
It took until mid-afternoon for Bodega to get back--by that time she'd re-read all her notes and was halfway through Riparian's interconnections.
Lena was on another call so Andi answered herself. "Investigatory Services."
"It's Ramone. What do you need?"
"Do you remember three local DEQ people dead or missing about two years ago?"
"Of course, it was tragic." Bodega's voice softened. "They were well liked."
"Do you know who they were working on at the time?" Andi didn't want to give him obvious hints.
"Paper mills...carcinogens in their effluent."
"Can you tell me about it?" Andi tried to make it a friendly request.
He paused like a professor choosing his answer. "Let's see...Washington and Oregon rivers receive the highest levels of carcinogens legally dumped anywhere in the nation and maybe the highest illegal dumping too. The data is self-reported and not double checked, so the actual amount could be twice or three times what the industries claim."
"And they get away with that?"
"It’s money and politics." Bodega seemed to shrug it off as a truism. “Paper mills are important here.”
Andi was writing notes as she listened. "OK. Why do they use the carcinogens?"
"They use chlorine to bleach wood fiber white, the process leaves byproducts...chlorine makes soft toilet paper and stark-white stock but it bonds to natural molecules making some super-toxic. That's the problem." He broke from his pedantic tone back to conversation. "Why are you interested? It's a little out of your sphere."
Andi ignored the question. She wasn't going to be sidetracked. "Do you know who owns the mills?"
Bodega, paused. "I used to. Let's see...two or three companies control the industry."
"Do you remember who DEQ was investigating when the disappearance and deaths occurred? The owners."
"They don't usually investigate owners. Each location is a point-source. Each is handled individually."
Andi paused, shutting her eyes a moment to help her concentrate. He hadn't come up with Riparian or its subsidiary companies. Corroboration was still missing, Armando's spin on the situation still stood alone. She bit her tongue to keep from prompting. "What do you remember of the DEQ deaths?"
"The first one I think, a woman disappeared. I don't remember anything ever turning up. The second was a real nice guy who ran the north-central office. He schmoozed with us and industry reps at the same time, a real mediator. He was a suspected suicide. Then a few days later a toxicologist was found drowned."
"Do you remember who was suspected as being involved?" Andi silently begged him to remember.
"No, I'm sorry. I was real busy with the Rogue Valley air pollution. I wasn't in this part of the state."
"You can't remember?" Andi could hear the disappointment in her own voice.
"Sorry. But there's a guy who was really involved at the time, a guy in a wheelchair, missing both feet. Long hair in a ponytail, thick glasses...real noticeable, but I haven't seen him around in years. Why don't I ask around? His name was Alvin Delgatto."
"Alvin ‘The cat?’" Andi chuckled. "But Ramone, If you remember more about the DEQ thing please get back as quick as you can. There may have been two more murders connected with that affair."
"Of course. Sorry I wasn't more help. Are we still on for coffee tomorrow?"
"Yeah sure. No sweat, two o'clock. Thanks again." she scribbled a last note as she hung up the phone. So much for confirming Armando's story.
Andi sat ruminating over where she was in the project. The investigation was going no slower than many, but she felt a welling sense of urgency. She'd never met Tuft or Rasheed, but had lied to one of her oldest friends because of them. She was already sick of the investigation and hadn't finished the first lap.
Bits and pieces kept straggling in from Snowden via e-mail--most not very compelling. Notes that one person or another approved purchases or actions, connections between projects or companies, cost accounting minutia and long chains of details--most of which seemed obscure or meaningless.
Andi buried herself in Riparian's organizational scheme. Pitting her weight against the project's inertia felt like leaning against a million ton rock. She traced connections to pierce the logic of their hierarchy and the responsibilities of their executive class and churned away at the flood that kept coming. She felt she was making slow, but steady headway when five o'clock came. Lena made noises about closing up shop, but Andi dragged her heels. Finally Lena began the evening's clean-up and Andi was pushed into saying point-blank that she wanted to keep working.
Lena took it as if she'd expected it, cheerfully offering El Loco burritos to go. She straightened the office, emptying waste paper baskets, cleaning the coffee area and throwing out the wilted flowers that had waited a week in their vase atop the file cabinets. Andi kept her head down, fearing interruption more than accusations of workaholism and thankful that neither appeared.
She ate at her desk sometime around eight, hardly looking up when Lena slid the burrito before her. She'd made sense of Riparian’s general organization; it moved under the watchful eye of three upper-vice presidents answering directly to Rebecca Sauturne. Under them managers took responsibility for different departments--physical plant, sales and purchasing, environmental, personnel. That level administrator oversaw the stable of subsidiary companies.
It was ten-thirty by the time she'd finished. Exhausted, but satisfied, Andi called, cached their sub-rosa files in the closet hide-away, waited a minute looking out the window at the night time traffic, locked the door and descended to the mist-dampened sidewalk.
Wednesday morning, Andi woke up early caught between feelings of eagerness and dread over returning to the Riparian investigation. She quietly watched Lena set out their breakfast, allowing herself to be distracted and passive.
"Here, Sherlock." Lena slid a bowl of oatmeal topped with stewed apples in front of her.
Andi felt a twinge of guilt--Lena seemed strangely accepting of her disfunction. "Thanks Watson." she offered shyly, she didn't deserve the indulgence. "Sorry I've been distracted."
"S’OK. If that’s how you need to do it, I can take up the slack...as long as what goes around comes around." Lena pinned her with a hard look, her knuckles resting on an out-thrust hip.
"Thanks for the warning." quipped Andi, pouring in milk and wielding her spoon. She was anxious to get back to the office and bury herself with work. Her mind churned on ploys to hit the road early without admitting that. "It’s getting cold outside." she pondered out loud, elbows on the table, staring out the window--it was a diversion to lull Lena into a false sense of security.
"What?" asked Lena, emerging from the depths of the morning crossword.
"Wasn’t Simone cute." Andy smiled, her cheek in her palm and eyes focused on some inner horizon. "I think I'll babysit again." She smiled to herself--not a hint of a work-related scheme.
"OK. Get your coat. We're going." Lena threw down her pencil in disgust. "I'll do the dishes this evening." She shot Andi a glare and rose stiffly from her chair. "It's going to take me a minute to get ready. Jeeze. No, it's OK. If you can't do anything but obsess, I'll go with the flow." Her mouth twisted as if it held a mouthful of something nasty, playing martyr like a religious pro.
"What?" chirped Andi defensively, sitting up with a start and looking around to see what happened. Somehow Lena had seen through her ruse.
"It's what you want, isn't it?" Lena demanded, "You forget I read subtitles instead of listening to the dialogue." She ducked into the bathroom, yelling, "Do you know where my purple socks are?" Then she turned the sink faucet on full-force and scrubbed away at her face.
Andi rose smirking and shaking her head at the way Lena's brain was wired. Who cared? She got what she wanted.
Back in the office, Andi sank into her chair, flipped on her computer, pushed in a floppy disc and pulled up some of Francois' purloined, but not yet encrypted, files. She had a moment of disassociation as she emersed herself into the web of Riparian connections she'd mapped yesterday--feeling like a hovering spider, waiting the slightest tremor from her prey.
Lena tapped into the attic computer and fielded the collected phone messages--two of them and a hang-up. She glanced over at Andi who was oblivious to the world.
The first call was Ramirez, just checking in. The second was Janice Thompson wanting an auto body shop checked out. Lena picked up her phone and called Ramirez.
"Hey Roy, it's Lena returning your call. What's up?"
Evidently Ramirez was pawing the earth--an angry bull, poised ominously before charging.
Lena tried lightening him up. "What, I won't do?" She paused. "You know, it sounds like your blood pressure is pegging the red-zone? You’re shaking this circuit like reverb."
He’d switched to his flat, angry-cop tone that didn’t acknowledge personal issues; staring right past whoever he focused it on.
"I'll see. Please hold." Lena pushed the hold button, dryly muttered. "Andi. The Mexican bear's running a Maxian errand...sounding pissed." She made a face and shook the phone as if it was stuck to with glue.
Andi pushed line two. "Grumpy are we?" she offered before he said hello.
"Wicksham? What the heck is the story with you and Max? I tactfully pass on what you're doing for us and he goes ballistic, wanting me to run you in."
"Sheriff, I told you from the git that he was off-kilter...he needs a straight jacket and padded room." Andi drawled it in her trusty western-sidekick voice. "What's it gonna take to make you a believer?"
"Well, yippy-yi-ki-yo, cowperson Wicksham. I’m officially telling you you're supposed to cough-up everything you know about anything, and pronto. Not that I expect you to do that and not that I think it's a wise idea and don't be insulting me now, I'm calling to brainstorm a way to handle him."
Andi smiled. Put that way, she couldn't refuse. He always did know how to manipulate her. "Lay it on the table Ramirez. What's the deal?"
"Max wasted three hours trying to find something significant in that stack of pages we gave him, then an hour reaming me for letting a pile of bullshit get to his desk."
Andi made supportive, murmuring noises.
"He's too much of a bureaucrat to be impressed by meaningless paper, but he's a sucker for leads giving something to chase." Ramirez' hushed voice sounded like he had his feet up on his desk and was contemplating the light fixtures, while minimizing the opportunity of the inevitable eavesdropper.
Andi felt her stomach growl. "So you want me to come up with a treasure hunt? Maybe an old map with an X marks the spot?”
Ramirez pleaded. "Just keep him happy, he needs something to chase. What can it hurt? Give him a tire to snap at."
"You don't understand. It's not coming up with something that's the problem, it's having to stand by it when it doesn't go anywhere. He already thinks I play him for a fool. He'll broil me if we actually do."
"Wicksham, we're talking getting the guy off your back. How about giving him something you want looked into anyway." Ramirez had been on their high school’s all-star wheedling team.
Andi let a touch of dissatisfaction growl in her throat. "Haven't I been down that path once or twice? Suddenly, everything I've been working on becomes Max's case and bingo and I've retroactively broken the Prime Directive. Next he'll chew me out and threaten me with arrest for obstructing justice and withholding evidence. I’ve been there and bought souvenirs. What's the matter with the DEQ connection? Why’s he an ungrateful chump?"
"Wicksham...I'm pleading here." Ramirez' voice could have used violins, or a soulful quintet, Bobby Blue Bland couldn’t have wrung more soul from it.
"If he thinks I've learned something, he can retrace my steps, it's not like I'm privy to first-hand information." Andi fought, but knew she'd have to yield.
Ramirez moved to phase-two. "Come on, get off it. We're not talking evidence here, we're talking blatant manipulation." He shifted strategy; from request to rationalism.
Andi admired Ramirez’ gift--she was being manipulated by a master. "If you indulge him like this he'll always expect it...it's not good for his training."
"You're right, but it'll keep him off your back for another day or two." Ramirez sensed her yield and eased off.
"A day or two?" She feigned outrage. "This should be worth a month."
With the friendly cooperation of a used car salesman setting the hook, Ramirez responded, as smooth as silk, "I'll see what I can do. What shall I tell him?"
Andi chewed her lip and pinched her eyes closed, wondering where to send him. "There was a guy in a wheelchair, without feet I think, thick glasses, long hair. He's an activist who followed the DEQ stuff closely, but has been out of things a couple of years. He's the one to fill in the blanks."
"Name? Address?" Ramirez asked. He said each word as if it were a demand.
"I'll see what I can do." Andi parroted, making him work for it would stretch the distraction another day or so.
"Wicksham. Give it up." Ramirez frothed at the point of yelling.
"Ramirez, listen to my words. At this moment I honestly don't remember his name, but if you're a nice cop...if you're a mild-mannered cop, I'll see what I can do." she delivered the lines in a saccharine whisper just to rub it in.
"OK." It came in his bright, school kid voice. He’s friendly persona flashed on as if he'd flicked a switch. "We're still on for Saturday aren't we? Give my love to Lena, gotta go."
Chuckling, Andi hung up and paged back through her notebook to the page with the call to Bodega and running her finger down the page until she found it. Alvin Delgatto, that was the name of the guy in the wheelchair. She smiled and looked up to get Lena's attention.
"Lena, drop everything and do a rush-job skip search on Alvin Delgatto, the wheelchair guy. Disappeared two years ago. He knows stuff about the DEQ."
Lena tapped at her keyboard to get another screen and swiveled around, all business. "No town, nothing but environmentalist and wheelchair, sans feet?"
"Portland Metro area, thick glasses, long hair." added Andi.
"I'm on it." She paused and looked up. “Oh, you might want to know that the lady with the furniture recovered a stack of stock certificates worth a mint and want to repay your kindness with two hundred dollars. I set up an account and did an invoice.” With that said, she slid down in her chair as if she was low-riding--hands shoulder high on the keyboard, chin to her chest, she looked over the top of her glasses as if ready to drag race. Too bad she didn't have a driver's side window to stick an elbow out.
Andi rolled her eyes and called Armando. "What do know about an environmentalist, circa a couple of years ago named Alvin Delgatto, wheelchair, thick glasses."
"What?" exclaimed Armando, that was followed by silence as if he expected Andi to repeat it.
"Alvin Delgatto, I'm told he'd know about the DEQ murders."
"I'm sure I've heard the name, but..." offered Armando cautiously.
"But what?" asked Andi impatiently.
"But I never really traveled in that crowd." The answer came quickly, with a stamp of finality.
"But you know so much about the DEQ at that era. He was following it too...closely." Andi longed for him to make the connection.
"It's a big world." consoled Armando sadly.
"You really don't know him?"
"Sorry. Nothing more than the name." He gave a verbal shrug in the form of a sincere-sounding sigh.
"Sure, Ok. Thanks anyway." Andi offered a goodbye and returned the phone to its cradle. Pouting over spinning her wheels, she snagged her notebook to check the day's appointments--nothing scheduled but coffee with Bodega at two. She reached across for the phone and called Francois.
He picked up at the first ring. "Hey-ya Sherlock. What's cooking?" He sounded distracted, as if he were doing a couple of other things at the same time--there were keyboard clicks and the humming of equipment in the background--she was on the speaker phone again.
"I got favors to ask." Andi could hear the hollow reverberation on the other end of the line.
"Ask and ye shall receive." revealed Francois, still distracted by whatever he was doing.
"The committee report on the DEQ murders immediately and a quick check on somebody."
"Who?" Francois asked. The clatter of his fingers on the keyboard stopped.
"Alvin Delgatto. Lived within driving distance of town...maybe in Northwest, last seen a couple of years ago. He might have moved out of state."
"Sure." replied Francois vaguely. "Can I get back to you in an hour?"
Andi looked at her watch. "Yeah, that'll be great.”
Francois yawned. "OK. Adios," and he was gone.
Andi looked up to catch Lena’s eye. Wanna do lunch?"
Lena nodded and turned back to her computer.
"Where?" Lena asked, swinging around and rising from her chair.
"Il Piatto?" Andi suggested.
"For a sit-down meal?" Lena collapsed back in her chair as if she were a rag doll. "You're going to leave your desk for more than a minute. Where's that urgency that drove us here at the crack of dawn?" She looked up in shocked disbelief.
"In hibernation." She offered a hand to pull Lena from her chair.
"Have you been sniffing glue while I've been working?" she queried nervously as she stood and snatched up her coat.
"I feel I've come to a plateau." announced Andi grandly. "Suddenly the clouds are clearing."
Lena gave her a look of sudden, wide-eyed alarm, then burst into high gear and hustled Andi to the door. "My God...it's an epiphany." she gushed. "Let's go quick, it's your turn to buy."
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