Cafe Underground Presents
In the leisurely moment between eating and paying the bill Lena pursed her lips and touched a finger to Andi's wrist. "I called your Mom last night. I figured one of us had to and you were up to your lobes in Riparian." She watched Andi's face for signs of disapproval.
Andi sat up, unsure whether to feel relieved or violated. "How is she?" she asked quietly, fighting a wave of shame--it brought up childhood fears, the bad self-image she always feared; difficult and uncaring, queer, selfish and irresponsible.
Lena took a breath. "Seems OK...all things considered. We talked quite a while." She smiled, "It was OK. I'll do it again." Folding her napkin evenly suddenly took on overwhelming importance, keeping her from looking up. "We talked about you and her." Lena finally smiled and held Andi's gaze with her own.
Andi could feel a hot flush flood her face. "Me?" she croaked uneasily, fearing the worst. "And?" That asked, she could feel all the blood leave her face.
Lena smiled easily. "She knows she's been unrealistically hard on you...says she tries not to be, but slips back into it."
"I'll call her tonight." Andi promised with all her heart.
"She says she's ‘not close.’ And that you'd know what that means."
Andi's breath came in a gasp and she felt tears in her eyes. The crushing weight she'd felt before returned, her stomach soured and she needed to get outside. She fumbled for her wallet, tore out a twenty and a couple of ones and tossed them loosely on the table before getting up and rushing for the door.
Lena followed after checking the tab, adding another dollar to the tip, and gathering both of their coats.
Andi's forehead rested against a poster encrusted telephone pole in the sidewalk beside their car. She stood, breathing hard. "I don't know what I'm going to do if she actually says ‘it's time.’"
Lena unlocked the car, helped her into the passenger seat and went around to slip before the wheel. "There's nothing to decide or worry about now," she stated firmly. It will depend on a lot of things. Whether you think she's in agony, whether you want to do what she wants."
"But it's her decision." Andi retorted.
"Not alone...it's your decision too." Lena argued, lowering her head to peer over her glasses. "You'll do what you think is right. Trust yourself. It's going to be painful any way it goes."
They stopped at the neighborhood flower stand before returning the office. Andi put them in a vase while Lena finished checking voter's rolls, phone books and all the normal sources for Alvin Delgatto. A name search of the newspaper pulled up a few stories and a photo from the newspaper morgue. She added the results of a standard, speedy credit check--sending everything into their new computer’s storage. Andi poured over the results, grateful for the distraction, it still felt like she was moving in molasses.
There was a quick rap on the door and Francois sauntered in carrying a briefcase and wearing dark glasses, a coffee-colored leather coat over a floral shirt, fawn slacks and wide Panama hat. "Kon nichiwa colleagues." he offered with smile and bow. "It's Santa-san with telephone scrambler's for all the good girls and boys." He smiled tolerantly at himself and pulled a chair up beside Andi's desk.
After looking to see if he had their attention, he opened the briefcase and pulled out three rather standard looking, dark-grey cellular phones. "Here, we have the latest in scrambling technology. It slices, it dices, it crawls on its belly like a reptile." He handed each of them a phone and held his own up for demonstration. "Note the stylish charcoal finish, the tasteful appointments, the retracting aerial which is recommended you use extended. Each has a little case of accompanying cords that will plug into standard telephone lines and there's a speak-through option allowing you to use a public phone."
He paused to remove the back of his phone and expose its guts. "It's got three different scrambling technologies that can be utilized singly or piggy-backed. Each of the technologies has six channels or scrambling patterns. The company claims there are hundreds of thousands of possibilities and if we don't like these three we can upgrade for a modest tariff." He took a breath and peered back and forth to see if they were following.
Andi nodded, Lena grinned and held up her phone like a puppet saying "Gee Mr. Francois...how many lawyers does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
He responded straight-faced, without missing a beat. "Lawyers don't screw in light bulbs, they can't get their briefs off...but seriously folks, this little gem is a regular telephone that you work in the standard fashion." he pushed the on button and punched buttons.
Lena's phone rang, she looked surprised and answered. "Hello?"
“‘Hello Lena, down in front.’ When you want to scramble, you hit..." he held his phone up and pointed, "...this button and, voila. a tasteful, fuchsia-colored light starts blinking." When that happens your voice comes out the other end as a meaningless garble. Four score and twenty years ago, our forefathers brought upon this."
Lena held the phone to her ear, smiled in delight and held it over for Andi to hear the scratchy static.
"To un-scramble, you push the button on your phone." he nodded for her to do so. "And there I am, slightly tinny, but actually fairly clear compared with the competition. Not surprisingly, the secret to this miracle is both of us having our phones set on the same scrambling systems. That entails setting it correctly--no problem, 'eh. But it brings up important security issues." He took a breath and looked back and forth like a pitcher checking a runner on first base. "Just a few minutes more, I promise."
Lena was already poking at her phone’s extra buttons.
"We'll scramble when we use ‘em for anything sensitive. And un-set everything afterwards. We’ll try not to let anyone guess what settings we use and schedule changes. If there's a glitch, go back to the last setting you used. If it's an emergency, use a different phone to blab the settings. If it's more important, all bets are off and do anything you need." He sat back, pleased with himself.
"So I have to carry this turkey around with me?" Andi demanded indignantly. She'd dropped it to the desk and pointed to it as if it was covered with ebola virus. "Do you know how many years I've fought the damn things?"
"Since the Pony Express." quipped Francois. "So, don't use it, just carry it. You'll have it if you want it. All four of us have 'em. Might as well get Armando's money's worth."
Andi smoldered, Lena toyed, wide eyed, taking off and on the battery and plugging the auxiliary cord into her regular phone. "Look it's line three." she glowed proudly.
"Moving along and gracefully changing the subject. I have your search for Delgatto here," he reached in the briefcase and lifted a sheaf of papers with thumb and forefinger. "Hard copy, rendered dry, just the way you like it." The pucker of his mouth conveyed his distaste as he pushed the papers across her desk with his finger tips.
"Andi's going digital." bubbled Lena. "She's actually using the archives we’re setting up."
Andi shot her a censoring stare. "Paper will be fine." She said graciously.
"Even if you have to re-type everything." smirked Francois. "I'll drop Lena e-mail copies, just in case."
"Thank you Mr. Science." Andi said dismissively. She took his report and started paging through it purposefully.
Lena caught Francois' eye and nodded toward the door, as they exited she said gleefully, "Show me what you did in the attic. This sneaky stuff is so cool."
Andi kept her head down, comparing Francois' work with Lena's, the standard credit information came up identical, though Francois' went to greater depth. The Veteran's Administration had Alvin Delgatto listed as a legitimate vet who lost both feet and ankles to a land mine. There were no arrests in his record, but a slew of unoffical police department flags dating back decades, warnings to watch for marijuana smoking and seditious activity. Delgatto stopped using his credit cards a year and ten months ago, but his bank balance kept increasing from the automatic deposit of his disabled veteran's benefit.
He hadn't written a check or made a withdrawal in the last couple of years--it implied both that he'd another source of income and that the Veterans Administration assumed him still alive. His driver's licence had been renewed last year, but he'd sold his car about the time he disappeared. After never having missed an election, he'd voted only once in the two years since.
The newspaper photo redrawn on computer showed him as photogenic; looking full-faced into the camera among a group of activists at a clean water conference. His hair was parted in the middle, worn long and tied at the back of neck, he had high cheek bones and an infectious smile. As Bodega noted, he had one of those familiar looking faces even though his most prominent features were thick glasses and a wheelchair.
Andi released the image from her screen and moved on. A search of death records and obits came up blank. He'd taken classes in the PSU Urban Studies graduate program, owned a house in town--she scribbled the address in her notebook to check out. Taxes, mortgage and assessments were current which meant somebody was taking care of his business if he wasn't.
She called main post office asking about forwarding addresses. They referred her to a branch where she finally talked to a man who told her that forwarding addresses only were alive six months. Polite pleading got him to check if the forwarding address was still somewhere in their files.
It was. Andi smiled a resolute smile and copied it into her notebook. There wasn't much more of note. She pushed the notebook aside, reached for the phone and punched in a number.
"Sergeant Ramirez." he answered.
"It's Andi. I got the name of the guy in the wheelchair. It's Alvin Delgatto, lived here in Portland, then disappeared."
"Congratulations Wicksham. Your credibility quotient just swung into the normal range. I didn't know whether you were shining me on or not." Ramirez turned up his dials for warm and friendly.
"Let it be a lesson to you." Andi lectured.
"Anything else, Ms. Good Citizen?" he oozed. She could hear somebody in the background calling his name.
"Can't think of any." she replied curtly. "Auf Wiedersehen, mi amigo."
"Sayonara." He laughed and the line went dead.
Andi turned back to the Riparian corporate structure. Lena returned to the office giggling, but without Francois. After a smirk in Andi's direction, she slid into her chair without a word. Andi put in a decent half-hour, then with mind to poking through the stacks at Powell's before her meeting, she grabbed her notebook and cellphone and went off to meet Bodega.
Powell's Books is a huge bookstore with whole specialized branches for technology, gardening and cooking. Room after room of a couple city block-sized floors were stacked high with new and used books.
She found a parking place two blocks away and hoofed to the entrance, taking a cautious look in the coffee shop before scuttling to the environmental section hoping for something understandable on PCB's. The shelves were lined far past reach with tomes too heavy in science to fathom. If there were books she could understand among the thousands, they were hidden well enough to discourage her. Overwhelmed, she retreated to the arts and crafts section for coffee table picture books--Georgia O'Keeffe prints and a colorful study of contemporary quilting.
With the finds tucked under her arm, she returned to the coffee shop, grinning from ear to ear. She paged through the book of quilts almost forgetting about the time--Bodega providing extra time by arriving twenty minutes late with tales of snarled traffic.
Andi nodded vaguely. She pushed her books aside and cupped her chin in her palm. "I wandered the environmental aisles and got a session's worth of aversion therapy."
"Overwhelmed?" he smiled over his cocoa.
"Totally. Aversion therapy." she shook her head, stretched and leaned back in her chair. She picked up her latte and took a sip. "Incidentally, I've got a lead on Alvin Delgatto."
"Yeah?" Bodega raised his eyebrows.
"Old addresses. Seems he dropped off the charts, but is still paying bills. Maybe he's out of the country."
Bodega shrugged. "Probably burnout. He took thing too seriously. It's hard to beat against the system for years on end, you give and give and get mostly grief." He gave her a sad-eyed look. "The half-life of hard-core activists is about five years."
"You've survived." Andi toasted him with her latte.
"I'm not doing front-line activism...I interpret science for decision makers. You can chip away at science for a lifetime in a satisfied little cubbyhole. Pitting yourself against real-life problems consumes your life." He blinked at some uncomfortable memory and looked off into the distance.
"Been there, done that?" Andi asked compassionately.
"Did the dance and bought the t-shirt." He gave a half-hearted grin, then shrugged and changed the subject. "I asked around about the DEQ thing. Scuttlebutt has it that Riparian Industries was being investigated..its paper mills." His jaw was set with barely suppressed anger and his hard gaze fixed on her eyes. "This isn't just idle gossip, Andi. There's no doubt in the minds of anyone I talked with and each rumor came with a vat and a half of bitterness. Riparian is pinned as murderer, without exception."
It took her a moment, but Andi finally coughed to break the spell. "Yeah. I heard that too. Where'd you get your information?" The question was based on basic investigatory arithmetic--if three people told you something learned something from one person, you only have one useful statement--and sometimes not even that.
"Two different friends. Both of whom were working water and PCB issues back then."
"Can you give names and numbers?" Andi asked, hoping to sound casual--knowing she didn't pull it off.
Bodega's eyes never left hers. "Judith-Anne Chapman and Lenore Wong." He took a card from his coat pocket and lay it before her. Neatly printed, were the names and phone numbers. "Please take this seriously. It’s something we care about. A lot of people are behind you on this. Take it to the wall."
She sat silently, holding his gaze as if they were conspirators. The air between them almost sparked. There wasn't much more to say. She smiled a tight smile, averted her eyes and tucked the card into her notebook. "I'll do everything I can." she promised, wishing she knew how much that was.
Bodega looked at his watch, shrugged nervously and pushed his barely touched cocoa to the center of the table. "Let me know if I can help." He rose abruptly.
Andi looked up, "Sure." she promised again.
He made a stiff little nod and turned away, walking out without looking back. Andi pulled the card from her notebook and read the names once more. It crossed her mind to phone right then, but she couldn't face the embarrassment of pulling a cellphone out in public.
Safely out of public view in her car, she pulled out the card and punched in the number of Judith-Anne Chapman. The phone rang eight times before a machine kicked in. Andi gave her office number and asked for a return call, saying she was referred by Ramone Bodega. Flipping a page in her notebook, she noted the call and tried Lenore Wong.
"Hello?" a businesslike voice answered.
"Hello, Ms. Wong? This is Andi Wicksham, I was given your name by Ramone Bodega as somebody who knew details of the DEQ murders of a couple of years back."
"Yes...Ramone mentioned you." The melodious voice replied. "What do you want to know?"
"I'm investigating what might be an extension of that problem. I'm looking for anything...motive, identity."
Lenore Wong laughed. "Their motive's clear. They want to hide their pattern of dumping their residue into the river. They'd `accidentally' spill every time there was a big storm, figuring enforcement would be off the river and higher river levels would mask the concentrations. If nothing was said, they'd forget to report it."
Andi madly scribbled notes. "How about the who?"
"Generally, it was Riparian Incorporated, but Rebecca Sauturne keeps her hands away from anything dirty. Specifically, I'd guess it was her crew of bullies that did the killing."
"Mardell Special Forces?" Andi asked.
"That's my guess." Wong's answer was clipped, as if with anger.
"What can you tell me about Alvin Delgatto?" Andi slipped the question in without an introductory segue, listening closely to gauge the response.
"Alvin?" Wong's voice sparkled with pleasure. "Until Ramone mentioned him in his phone call, I hadn't thought of him for a couple of years. He was a dedicated team member, worked out of wheelchair, read up on chemistry until he could talk it fluently with chemists, had incredible legal knowledge. I haven't seen him since just after that period. He's not in trouble is he?"
"No," assured Andi, "he seems to be around somewhere. I was going to ask him the same questions I've asked you. Maybe I won't have to now."
"Oh." she sounded disappointed. "Is there anything else?"
Andi took a second to glance down at her notebook. "No, I guess not. May I call you again if I think of more?"
Lenore laughed lightly, "Sure, Ramone speaks well of you."
Andi jotted her notes and pulled into traffic. It seemed silly to follow up on Delgatto's old addresses now. She paged back in her notebook at the stop light. Both were East side streets, she could swing by going home.
The first, the house in his name was a little bungalow set back on its lot, vegetable gardens instead of lawn taking up the front yard. She pulled to the curb uncertain of what she wanted, but curiosity ruled. She walked up to the door and knocked.
The door was answered by a thin man with a loosely-tied pony tail. Rock and roll was playing in the background and there was the smell of beans and rice cooking. "Can I help you?" he asked politely.
"I was looking for Alvin Delgatto." Andi could hear kitchen clamor in the background, then somebody yelling "Who’s there, Chet?"
"It’s a lady looking for Alvin." Chet called back. "Sorry, he's been out of the area for some time, are you a friend?"
"Friend of a friend actually." she admitted. "Can you tell me how to get a hold of him?"
"Nooo." puzzled Chet. "Any idea how to get a hold of Alvin?" he called back to the kitchen.
"He's traveling or something." It came back a little vaguely.
"Where do you pay rent?" Andi tried.
"We send checks to Judith, she's a friend of his."
"Judith-Anne Chapman?" Andi asked helpfully.
"Oh, you know her?" Chet beamed a gap-toothed smile.
"Actually not yet." confessed Andi with a touch of embarrassment. "But I'm getting a hold of her."
"Yeah, she's hard to reach most of the time." confirmed Chet with a knowing nod of his head.
“Do you have her address?”
“I guess we must.” smiled Chet. “What’s Judith’s mailing address?” he yelled back toward the kitchen.
The voice from the kitchen had it on tongue tip. Andi quickly scribbled on the back of Ramone Bodega’s card.
"Thanks." Andi smiled, taking a step backward to signal goodbye.
"Anytime. Sure thing." smiled Chet.
He stood by the door as she turned and walked to her car. When she looked back, the door was closed and no curtains were pulled to watch her.
The forwarding address Delgatto had given the post office was a down-scale real estate office six or eight blocks away with a sign in the window announcing, "We have rentals" and "Post Box Rentals." Andi didn't bother; they’d have a negative stand on questions and she had better things to do with her time.
With DeVino's story about the DEQ murders corroborated and having come up with nothing she hadn't already heard, the avenue looked like a dead-end anyway. She re-ran the conversation she'd had with Bodega and his over-controlled demeanor. In the years she'd known him, she'd never seen the kind of rage that stiffened his lip when he said ‘Take it to the wall.’
Lena worked her way through the LEARN.XX file. Somehow the attic's Pentium evidently knew it and so she wasn’t dished that nasty message. Files decrypted as they downloaded to either of the other computers that meant delay, but if she did all the filing until Andi got used to it there shouldn't be too big a problem. Her eyes darted about her screen and keyboard and she touched a finger tip to her lips, sorting mental details.
She shown Andi the system. "There's nothing in my computer at all, Adolf just watches and when you do this." Lena tapped a flurried command on her keyboard. "It sends in a menu of hidden files." She smiled and pointed to her screen.
"Adolf?" Andi snickered.
"The attic computer. Acronym I didn’t catch." Lena mussed her hair and mugged a happy grin. "This is fun."
"Since you're having fun, I have a simple favor."
"Shoot." Lena smirked.
"Everything you can find on Judith-Anne Chapman and Lenore Wong." She handed over Bodega’s card.
"Thank-you, yes. I'll do it master. Yes, yes, of course" Lena limped a decent rendition of Igor, Dr. Frankenstein's drooling, hunchback.
Andi smiled, shook her head and reached for the phone.
"Hello Francois." she greeted him. "About Mardell."
"Wrong phone, Andi." he abruptly hung up.
Andi cursed and almost threw the receiver across the room. Growling curses under her breath, she pulled out the cellular and tried again.
"Francois." she greeted in as sweet a voice as she could squeeze between gritted teeth.
"Hello, friend. Scramble please."
She cursed impatiently, shut her eyes to remember their system, then demandingly held the phone out to Lena. "Quick Watson, the code."
Hardly looking up from her work, Lena reached for the phone, set the dials and passed it back without comment.
"Francois?" Andi rumbled.
"Andi. Good to hear your tinny voice." he responded.
She didn't bother with civilities, "Mardell Special Forces. How do we get a look-see."
"I assume we're dispensing with the usual discussion of ethics?" Francois asked haughtily.
Andi chewed her lip and said, "OK, we are. What are our options?"
Francois chuckled, "Bugs, tracers and taps. Break-ins and under cover work are stupid and dangerous and it’s too big a problem for simple surveillance. You got an idea what we're after?"
"The connection with Riparian. Who gives orders for darker side stuff and who does it."
"A good start would be tapping those cellular phones. At least we'd track their traffic."
"OK." Andi conceded grimly. "Switch on your recorders..."
"What else do you suggest?" the question came across more peevish than she intended.
"Turn me loose on Riparian's VAX.”
"Go ahead." Andi authorized. It was time to shift gears. They'd wrung about as much information as they were going to from the cautious approach.
"Consider it kick-started. Anything else?"
"Have at it cowboy. Keep the faith."
Andi tossed Francois' report in a folder in the back of her mind nagged the idea that the pages were a waste of trees and that she'd have to let Lena twist her arm and go digital files. Lena'd count it a major coup.
At the moment, Lena was up to her eyebrows sending everything sensitive or questionable to Adolf. Andi could sit on Armando's case for the moment. The file for Janice Thompson's case against the body shop lay at the top of her pending box. Lena had run all the usual numbers; credit reports, consumer bureaus, and the personal material on the owners and managers and Andi’d have to drive to get a subjective feel. She was suggesting as a second phase going through social security and tax records. There wasn’t much obvious dirt more than you’d expect from a marginally sleaze-ball operation. The owner and manager weren’t living high. Andi sighed and reached for the phone.
"Hi, Mom? It's Andi."
"Oh. Hello." the voice sounded drugged and drifty.
"Are you asleep?" Andi asked. "Did I wake you from a nap?"
"No," Mrs. Wicksham snapped to a more lucid tone. "It's a bad pain day and I've medicated myself enough to handle it but too much to be very smart. My bones feel like they're splitting, it's terrible."
That caught Andi up short. Her mother seldom complained. "Do you want me over?"
"No...please don't. I'd feel responsible to entertain and would be better off sleeping. This short call is fine."
Andi waited a little too long after she said that, hoping for something more. "Sure Mom. Your nurse OK?"
"Oh, yes. She's a lifesaver...no that's certainly not the right term, is it? She's been wonderful. I'm on an IV with a button I push when I want...like a research rat. I have good times and bad times..." She was drifting off.
"Do you want to nap again Mom?" Andi asked disturbed and apprehensive.
"Please." her mother whispered. "We'll talk tomorrow." echoed in an interminable silence capped by the receiver rattling into its base, then a click.
The mental image of a long, uninterrupted beep signaling death echoed just over the edge into consciousness, making her skin crawl and her chest tighten. A glance at her watch showed quitting time, she dove from her chair to take on the day's-end cleaning. Busy hands were happy hands.
They were into their coats approaching the door, "Don't forget your cellphone."
Andi stomped back to her desk snarling ominously.
That evening, Jason called, arranging babysitting for Simone. Andi glanced to Lena just after declining--there were more irons heating than they could handle. She exhaled long and loud, rose without a word and walked off to take a shower.
Thursday morning started placidly. They'd been on this case a week and a half already--a decently-lived job in an industry facing demands for immediate information. Lena dove into the bowels of Adolf while Andi chewed her lip, at least the cops seemed to be going no faster. She reached for her phone.
There were three unanswered rings before Francois’ recorded voice came on like a fast-talking TV used car salesmen, offering a two-for-one sale on low-milage coffins complete with flowers (slightly wilted) and a tape of Jim Nabors' version of Abide In Thee.
In as businesslike a voice as she could manage, Andi authorized him to put a pair on her tab if she could have the upholstery in lavender and teal velvet--then asked him to call back. Chuckling, she scribbled her note and pulled up Lena’s new file on Mardell Special Forces.
Mardell was overseen by Thomas Boyd, Riparian's vice president in charge of ‘facilitation.’ Lena tailed him from Janus Industrial Chemicals to Titan Marine and then back downtown. Andi shuffled for the hardcopy file and pulled out his photo--squared chin set at the angle of power; good tan, aggressive; intent eyes and mouth in an impatient twist she imagined twitching with irritation.
The back of the photo had nothing new. She set the lot aside and pulled out Adolf’s growing archive on the security firm. Mardell’s personnel photo’s lay across her desk. The attorneys heading up the company wore thousand dollar suits. One was short and wiry, his face was pitted with old acne scars, hair professionally kept in a back-swept longish cut. The other was a rounder, baby-faced man with a dyspepsic expression and ill-advised crew cut making his face look wider and ears seem badly glued to each side. There were two pictures of them together, in both the rounder man was leaning toward the other, both staring off to some third point, the smaller man talking, hands in the air as if conducting.
Andi made notes; did the pose suggest their relationship, the smaller man calling shots? Why did Riparian need the high-powered, and assumedly expensive leadership their security company appeared to have? These were serious looking men--probably considered themselves tough and all-business.
Andi set the picture of Thomas Boyd with the Mardell duo. This was the security brain trust doing Riparian and it’s owner’s muscle, they dressed far too formally for casual Portland.
"Lena..." she sat back in her chair. "Can you pull background on Thomas Boyd?"
Lena nodded. “The info on Wong and Chapman are here.” She handed over a couple sheets of paper. “Chapman is a blank before eight or ten years ago.’
"Ask Francois to pin Mardell’s big-wigs. Criminal and arrest records, finances...standard work-up, reasonable depth."
"Will do." Lena chirped, making note on the pad at her elbow as her other hand tapping the keys.
Andi glanced at the pages on Wong and Chapman. It was pretty placid stuff, addresses, drivers license numbers, credit history. What stuck out like a sore thumb was that Chapman had no credit history and no educational background and she’d not used plastic in the last decade--that was interesting but not damning and she was a peripheral at best. She pushed the executive’s away and dealt mid-management photos like a solitary game. A long distance lens did half the exteriors, a chest high camera angle and unsuspected camera did the rest. Among the supervisors, there was only one suit the caliber of the bosses. Andi looked at his name. David Zim--it meant nothing to her. The rest of that team were standard-issue ex-cops on a downslide, blue collar, but not stupid.
The photographer pulled off well-framed artiness, a tight-jawed female face staring directly into the camera over her uniformed shoulder with its embroidered MSF patch, in the background a thick-lipped man staring blankly into a bank of five TV screens.
This supervisory crew would had professional loyalty, but if Armando was right, bought for too low wage to not feel some balancing resentment. The loyalty would stretch past thin if it came to murder.
The third tier of personnel were per-hour grunts and most looked it--they probably had no loyalty Mardell could count on. Despite more than passable photography, there was a pasty dullness to the men and women. She counted--twenty two. Then, she sat back in her chair. Twenty two was hardly enough for three shifts covering the dozen Riparian companies. If they averaged three guards per-shift per location there'd be a hundred, if there were six it would be two hundred. She remembered the comment on Mardell's automatic redundancy and factored in an average low-wage turnover. There was steady work for some human-resources person with the telephone numbers of Washington and Oregon half-way houses.
Andi threw the photo's back onto her desk. "Did you get Francois' stuff on Boyd yet?" she asked impatiently.
Lena answered as she spun around. "Already in Adolf." She typed a flurry and an icon began blinking on Andi’s computer screen.
Thomas Boyd was a graduate of UCLA, got an MBA at U of Washington, lived among the surgeons and professors crowded around OHSU's hill-top perch, commuting to the downtown high-rise in the Mercedes Lena saw him in. House fully paid for, stock portfolios, huge 401K tax shelters, credit excellent. Between his UCLA BA in Law Enforcement and graduate school accounting he was arrested twice, once for mail-fraud in an insurance scam targeting nursing home patients, once for aggravated assault. The mail fraud brought a grand jury indictment which was eventually dismissed and the aggravated assault plea-bargained to common--he paid a fine and did fourteen out of thirty-five days in county lock-up and gave up the dream of a law enforcement career.
He paid both child support and alimony to his ex and a second child support won in a paternity suit. She flipped to the financial details. Boyd paid both regularly--at least something beyond expensive taste might be argued in his favor. It was fluff considering they suspected Boyd of directing multiple murders.
Where would Riparian or Mardell hide scraps leftover from those decisions? Would Riparian centralize or decentralize; keep dangerous documents downtown or at Mardell or at one of the small companies? She swiveled her chair to look out the window.
It was obvious. They’d centralize. No doubt. The way their management looked over each other's shoulders spoke to distrust at the top and Sauturne would keep personal control over the skeletons in her closets. Andi swung back to her desk, she’d bet dark chocolate with hazelnuts that the secrets they wanted were in Riparian’s office.
It wasn't much of a revelation. The real question was what was there and who'd have access. Armando might be the one to ask--she shut her eyes and tried to form questions, but drew a blank--it might be better to have Francois doing the asking.
She stretched the tension from her back and neck; flexing her fingers and loosening her joints. Lena worked methodically through a pile of billing entries. Andi rubbed her temples and flipped back to Armando's number, but it rang and rang, only at long last answered by the electronic greeting of a voice mail system.
Andi waited for the beep and gave the message in voice-mail monotone. "This is for Armando DeVino. It's Andi Wicksham. I'm looking for direction...key words, names, dates, places, general subjects. Thanks. Get back as soon as you can." It was cryptic, but she'd touched the bases without revealing much. She yawned, but reached for the phone and dialed he mother.
"Mom?" she asked when the phone was answered.
"No, this is Nancy Fishburne, Mrs. Wicksham's nurse." The voice was cautious and professional. "You must be Andi, Mrs. Wicksham's daughter?"
Andi took a moment to respond. "Is she OK? Why didn't she answer?"
"Mrs. Wicksham is as well as can be expected." Ms. Fishburne's tone was warm, but Andi could find reproach in it still.
"Can I speak with her?" Andi asked with concern.
"No, she's sleeping." There was a pause as if the nurse had gotten up to check. "But if you have a moment, let me move into the kitchen so we can talk more privately."
Andi's heart swelled until it caught in her throat. She sat in shock listening to Nancy Fishburne's feet tap from the living room, through the dining area and into the kitchen, then there was scrape of a chair being pulled before she continued. "Ms. Wicksham? You knew your mother arranged for me to come?" Her voice reverberated hollowly among the hard surfaces of the kitchen.
"She'd mentioned a couple of times. How long have you been around? She just said you'd phone if anything serious happened."
There was a pause as Nancy chose her words. "I've been seeing her for the last couple of months; at first only occasionally, then daily, now I'm spending the majority of my time here. You do know that your Mother is dying?" Both apprehension and concern burdened the words.
"Of course." Andi responded a bit sharply. It was just like her mother not to tell that she'd already brought the nurse in.
"I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page." returned Nancy. "Mrs. Wicksham has been very insistent that I not call you until the last minute. I'm not here to get between you and your mother. She simply felt the involvement of a professional like myself would relieve some of the stress on your family."
"Tell me about my mother." insisted Andi, she was the only family in Portland. Her fingers tapped nervously on her desk top and she could feel the tightening ribbons of sinew in her neck.
"Your mother is in her terminal stage. We've discussed the matter at length...she's an extremely strong woman."
"Yes, I know." Andi answered quietly.
"She say’s she’s told you about her deterioration. She's been incontinent most of the last month and unable to eat much. She's consciously limiting nourishment in order to hasten the final stages. It's the strategy she's adopted for medication. She’s refusing everything but pain medication."
Andi could feel tears on her cheeks. She raged, "And you let her! Isn't that wrong? Don't you have some professional standards you have to uphold?"
Nancy Fishburne took a deep breath and answered in a calm, restrained tone. "Ms. Wicksham. I'm a hospice nurse. The expected medical outcome for your mother is death. I take great pains to try to understand her wishes and help her follow them. Her informed, conscious choice is to limit both her own pain and that of you and your sister. I'm doing everything I can to make her comfortable and honor her wishes."
"Do you know she's asked me to..." Andi started, but her voice caught.
Nancy interrupted quickly. "I've talked to Mrs. Wicksham at great length and know she's made private requests. But I've no official knowledge of any such things...and I'd rather keep it that way."
Andi let out the breath she suddenly realized she'd been holding. "What else has she discussed with you?"
Nancy put back on her professional voice. "She's put her affairs in order, made advanced directives, named you as power of attorney in a living will and appears to understand the physical manifestations of her condition. She's been absolutely rational about everything; I've had no reason to doubt her capacity and am here to serve her interests. Like I said, she's a remarkable woman."
"Yes she is." Andy replied quietly. "But she hasn't asked for me?" It hurt that a stranger was there tending her, as if it implied a vital lack of her own.
"She feels you care so much, it would be hard to actually take care of her physical needs. With her incontinence and weakness you'd have to clean her and feed her and I think she's a little shy."
"Oh." breathed Andi, subdued.
"She knows you love her and fears this period of time will be painful for you. She's trying to limit its trauma. And," she gave a warm, but ironic chuckle, "I think she's very used to keeping as many decisions to herself as she can."
"Yes." Andi smiled to herself a bit distractedly, "She's always done that."
Nancy continued. "I'm sure much of the physical care it's easier for me than you and your sister. I can maintain professional distance."
Andi felt the blood pulsing in her ears. "How much time....?" It was a question she had to ask despite not wanting to, but couldn't quite get it out before her throat seized.
"Some days...perhaps a week? She's weakening fast, sometimes refusing even water now. You can come over whenever you wish, you know."
Andi felt dizzy--as if she might faint. Her lips moved as she tried futily to for words. "But she's sleeping?" she finally croaked. Days, a week--much less time than she’d dreamed.
"Right now she is, but try this afternoon. She said you work until five or six?"
"Yes." Andi replied weakly.
"Come then." Nancy whispered.
"I will." Andi replied before she set down the phone.
Lena looked over her shoulder when she heard the phone go down. "I think we should get out of here."
Andi was too busy choking back tears to respond.
Lena pulled her from her chair, cajoling her into her coat and herding her out the door. They looped south four blocks, then back to Hawthorne before Andi started talking. Scattered clouds sprinkled a misting drizzle, but nothing worth avoiding.
"Some days? Maybe a week?" Andi's voice choked to a throaty whisper and her eyes bulged as she held her hands before her as if expecting them to answer.
Lena took Andi's hand between her own. "What do you want to do?"
"Go see her, but do I say I know she's close to dying. What if she asks for the pills?"
Lena gave her hand a pinch. "You don't have to decide anything now. It's probably better if you don't."
Practical advice. Andi didn't respond and they walked the length of a block without speaking.
"What do you think she'd tell you now?" Lena asked gently.
Andi shook her head. "She'd tell the Zen story about the student asking her teacher for the meaning of a good life."
Lena glanced up expectantly.
Andi gave Lena a self-conscious glance and a disclaiming frown, but started, "The teacher replied ‘grandmother dies, mother dies, daughter dies’."
Except for city sounds and the scuffing of their shoes, there was a long stretch of quiet.
"She’d tell you that?" Lena asked insistently, gesturing for Andi to continue.
"Yeah. That's it...the whole story." Andi replied simply. "That's a good life. When life goes that way, it's as good you can expect."
"Does it hurt that there's no happy ending?"
"Yeah." Andi grimaced. "But it’s the story Mom would tell. I've heard it a hundred times." She straightened her back and studied the clouds.
"Andi?" Lena asked cautiously a half a block later. "What are you thinking?"
"I think life's OK.” She set her jaw and took a breath, "Hard to accept, but OK." She shrugged and offered a smile she didn't feel.
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