Cafe Underground Presents
COMING UP ROSES
Book 2 -- Chapters 5
The Detective Andi Wicksham Series, by RL Bell
Copyright © 1997 RL BELL
MENU
....back to WRITING
....author RL Bell
Andi Wicksham's INVESTIGATORY SERVICES
Chapter 5
Tyson dead? Unexpected was a proverbial understatement, unlikely was another. He wasn't anyone she'd have suspected as being close to killing himself. If it wasn't suicide it could only be murder.
On her sobered drive back to Portland, Andi reassessed her position--she'd contracted to investigate Feight's roses. After that it all went murky; Feight's death, now Tyson's. Darrel Feight's death was decreed not a crime and the squabbling of his beneficiaries was, thankfully outside her investigation. If smart, she'd wrap her lack of results up with a bow and be done with the case. Her focus should be roses...though she didn't really care about them with Tyson and Feight's demises so tantalizingly dangled before her. Though she suspected her clients of murdering Feight, they were hiring her to find evidence about roses. Her focus should be roses.
Roses...right.
Back at her office she called Laroux.
He already knew about Tyson's suicide. Andi was quietly miffed, but didn't let on. She'd hoped to use the news as a point from which to question him, but now she'd lost the element of surprise.
Laroux admitted freely that he and Tyson had talked that morning--about an hour and a half before Andi's arrival. He said Tyson was up-beat, discussing division of Darrel Feight's roses. Laroux was shocked at the news of course, "Deeply saddened...so surprising and unexpected...though such things always are..." He parroted the phrases as if reciting from a book.
He said he'd phoned Tyson within minutes of Andi leaving--a policeman, not Rex answered. He probably knew Tyson was dead before Andi pulled off the road to scribble her notes. He'd already called Gould and Dao to spread the news. There didn't seem much to talk about so Andi offered a gruff "goodby."
Why would he phone Tyson except to warn him of her questions? It was a good question. She jotted a few phrases in her notebook.
She called Ramirez and, surprisingly, got him right off. She cut to the heart of her agenda. "I need a favor...there's been a suspicious death in West Linn...apparent suicide. I know it's out of your jurisdiction, but this is a please with sugar on it...you can slide on the lunch you owe me and I'll buy our next two."
Ramirez took her urgency in stride. "You're on. It wouldn't happen to be a male, fifty-seven years old, approximately five-nine/one seventy, named William Tyson, would it?"
Andi took the phone from ear and looked at it in surprise before returning it and responding. "Why would you know that? It's in West Linn...and a suicide."
"I think we'll do lunch at some place nice...and expensive, don't you? Ron Paul's or better I think...there's a nice place on NW 21st named Beau Thai...really great pad thai..." Ramirez was playing it for all it was worth.
"Sure...fair and square...now what brought a suicide in another county to your desk after only a frigging couple of hours?" Andi demanded.
"Tyson was high on the list as self-publisher of our errant green...the 911 call from his address red-flagged the computer system, Lieutenant Allen scrambled her team when she saw it and I got a fax a half-hour ago." Ramirez sounded like he was grinning from ear to ear. "I'll keep you up to date..."
"Got anything on my roses?" asked Andi, hoping against hope.
"Not unless they used the leaves for green ink...the team's strictly a Treasury thing...I'm just in for good relations."
"Did Tyson have a motive?" Andi asked more to keep the conversation going as anything.
"Evidently left a note, but they haven't released it."
"Oh, well...my investigation wasn't going anywhere anyway..." Andi scowled at her notebook. "I guess interviewing him wouldn't have helped..."
"Tough break my friend...when do you want to start paying off this debt?"
"Next week at the soonest...you're already coming to dinner tomorrow. Shouldn't that count as one of the meals?"
"Don't welch on your debts, Wicksham...it makes you look cheap." Ramirez was enjoying this far too much.
Andi reined in the desire to leave him with a nasty rejoinder and said simply, "Right...adieu...keep in touch...I hate it when you smirk...you aren't a very good winner."
"Ciao bella, Wicksham...I'll keep you posted."
Andi slammed the phone down and wailed to Lena. "Talk about a day late and a dollar short...I miss Tyson by hours and both Laroux and Ramirez knew before I could spring it..."
"Baby, baby, baby you're out of time..." Lena quoted retro Rolling Stones and gave a sympathetic look. "You should put that rose stuff aside anyway...you have to look through catalogues and pick an eavesdropping toy for your favorite peeping Thomasina."
She threw a glossy catalogue of space-age spy and detective gear across to Andi's desk. "I circled ones that will best pick-up groans of passion and bed-springs. After that you have reports on Janice Thompson's witnesses to proof-read...she got the results by phone, but we can't bill without the report."
Andi strafed Lena with a burdened glare. "Thanks...what do you want for dinner?"
Lena crumpled a paper in her hand and made a high, arching shot to the waste basket across the room. It would have been nothing-but-net, if there'd been a net--she had an uncanny eye. "I don't know. Your Mom'll be back, you should call..." She glanced at her watch. "It's four-thirty already...how about closing-up shop when you finish choosing hardware?"
Andi tossed the catalogue back on Lena's table, "I'm finished, let's go..."
At the grocery Lena chattered on about menu options for Ramirez and Tanya. Andi followed passively, pushing the cart on auto-pilot, listened with half an ear--it hadn't been a good day and she was lost in thoughts about her mother.
Andi let Lena buy what she wanted without comment. A huge chinook salmon...almost an endangered species, but exquisite...early asparagus and three extra bulbs of garlic to roast for spreading on Tanya's bread. Lena chose a fourteen dollar bottle of wine--more than they usually spent. She turned around in surprise when Andi didn't even comment.
Back at their apartment, Andi dialed her mother from the living room phone while Lena heated black beans and steamed rice for burritos.
Andi's mother picked up the phone half-way through its first ring.
"Hi Mom...how you doing?"
"Oh, hi honey...I just got back...it's a pleasure to hear you. I walked on the beach all morning, giving life a lot of thought..." Her mother's voice was calm and even, no trace of the woe she'd allowed to show before.
"Did you get your test results?" Andi asked carefully.
"Yes...I've given them a lot of thought too."
"You have..." Andi dangled the response, prompting without a questioning inflection to the words.
"I have. This is a wondrous thing we're doing and I think I've allowed too many unimportant things to distract me..."
"Mom...what's this `thing we're doing'?"
"Living, Andi...living...experiencing life...what we're here for. I just realized I've kept so busy I haven't paid much attention."
"Mom..." Andi asked in frustration. "...cut to the chase. What were the results of your tests?"
"They were positive, if that's the right term...I'm dying. It's spread...whether I treat it aggressively or not, probably won't change much. I've decided to live whatever time I have as fully as possible."
Andi tried to respond, but no words formed in her mouth. She sank into a chair, mouth gaping like a fish; opening and closing without words coming out.
"Hello, Andi...are you there dear?" her mother asked.
"Yeah..." Andi cleared her throat and coughed. "...yeah I'm here. What do you mean you're dying?"
Her mother's voice was calm and clear. "The cancer's inoperable...even radical chemotherapy couldn't truly cure me. At least I'll avoid the indignity of losing my hair. That's something to be thankful for, don't you think?"
"Mom...what are you saying?" Andi's brain spun, trying to figure the overlooked option, the angle that could refute what she'd just heard.
"I'm saying I've spent hours walking around looking at the ocean and rocks and I think I'm gaining a new perspective into living."
"Mom...back to this cancer thing. What did they say?"
"They said they can keep me comfortable...they said bone cancer can be excruciatingly painful and that I should be ready for that...they said I might have six-months or a year, but probably not much more--depending on whether vital systems get disrupted sooner or later. They've told me that I'm dying Andi...they told me in the nicest possible way, but that's what they said."
"Mom..." Andi wailed, choking again and temporarily blinded by tears.
"Andi...get a grip..." her mother admonished sharply and loudly, in the flat, stern voice she'd used for demanding obedience over Andi's thirty-five years.
Andi sniffed and pinched her lips together.
"Hysteronics won't help either of us...in fact they're exactly the opposite of what I need. It's how I'd expect Cinny to react--and why I'm talking to you instead. I need your support in facing this calmly and rationally...after all, we'll all face it; even you, my dear...maybe this will give you a head start."
Andi took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "OK Mom, I'm here. I can handle whatever you need...just what do you want me to do?"
"I want to live as much everyday life as I can, so number one, I want you to treat me like a person who's living, not someone dying. Number two, if you can, I'd like you involved...monitoring...I might need to ask a difficult favor. Last, I want you to be thankful for your life and Lena. Funny, but I'm thankful for the chance to really live my last months instead of running around like I have for the last fifty years."
"I'm here for you..." Andi kept her voice even.
"You're not in this alone you know...I've already talked to both Rabbi Aryeh and Roshi Sarah...you know them, don't you?"
"OK..." Andi swallowed. "...sure, yeah...anything more immediate?"
"...certainly. Have a good evening dear. I'm going to drive back out to the coast and walk along the beach again...if I leave now I'll be in time for sunset."
"You're not going to do anything...stupid, are you?" Andi had a sudden, lurid vision of her mother committing suicide.
"Andi..." her mother admonished. "...have you ever known me to?"
Andi didn't have much appetite for dinner. She built a burrito, putting on mango and the special salsa she and Lena loved, but sat watching Lena and holding the tortilla until it began falling apart. "Mom asked me to be thankful for my life and you..." she said humbly.
"Wise woman...." Lena answered with a completely straight face.
"It's strange being the one she'd call instead of Cinny..."
"Wise woman..." Lena repeated.
"But what does she mean by just going off to the beach at a time like this?" Andi complained grouchily.
"Beg your pardon?" asked Lena pointedly. "What do you expect her to do...stay home and light candles?"
"Well it is Shabbat..." Andi replied testily.
"Something you've never observed since I've known you..." Lena stared, elbows on the table, her burrito half-raised to her mouth. "Get a grip..."
"That's what she said..." Andi sat back in her chair and swallowed against the lump in her throat.
Lena gave a compassionate one-sided smile, "Like I said before, `wise woman...'"
The next morning they slept late. Their saturday morning ritual, when schedules allowed, included pillows over bleary eyes, eventual negotiation or blatant manipulation for bedside tea or coffee delivery, rewarded by carnal favors for the selfless soul braving the kitchen while her partner lazed in bed.
They rose around eleven for a luncheon omelet and frantic bout of house cleaning. Andi dug through three-inches of old mail and some-what important documents when the telephone call came.
"Andi Wicksham?" A male, officious voice confirmed her identity.
"Speaking..." Andi propped the phone between ear and shoulder to keep her hands free for sorting.
"Sergeant Talbert of the West Linn police. Do you know a man by the name of Tyson, William Tyson?"
"The late William Tyson..." mumbled Andi grumpily.
"Yes, the late William Tyson." confirmed Sergeant Talbert. "You know he's dead, then?"
"I came by the house while you guys were still there...left my name. I had an appointment. Isn't that why you're calling?"
There was a momentary pause and the shuffling of papers. "No...actually..." replied Sergeant Talbert carefully, "...I hadn't put those parts together yet. I'm calling because of a note found in Mr. Tyson's study."
"A note from Mr. Tyson mentioned me? ...what does it say?"
"That's the point my of call Ms. Wicksham. I'd like to discuss the matter in person."
"Sounds formal, Sergeant. Is it urgent?"
"I'll be in my office here at the station until four..."
"Sorry...it's already..." Andi turned her wrist to glance at her watch, "...almost two-thirty. I've friends coming for dinner in a couple of hours. How about tomorrow?"
"How about Monday?" Sergeant Talbert suggested in a tired voice. "But if I could ask you a few questions now?"
"What you got?" acceded Andi.
"Had you been in contact with Mr. Tyson in the last few days?"
"Met him once or twice...talked on the phone. He's a client..."
"Would you say you knew him well?" Talbert was able to deliver the question with absolutely no emotional spin--dry as British toast.
"No, not at all." We've probably exchanged less than a hundred and fifty words in all the time I've known him...all of that over some roses I'm tracking down." Andi tried to mirror the flatness Talbert affected.
"You don't have a personal relationship?" Talbert was not amused.
"Not in any way, shape or form..." recited Andi, but the reflection of Talbert's dull style had crossed over the line to a burlesqued lampoon. She felt a bit embarrassed and added "Sir."
"I don't need the sarcasm, ma'am..." Talbert responded, obviously aware of being mocked.
"I'm sorry officer..." Andi offered.
"Sergeant...ma'am." Talbert corrected impatiently.
"Yes, sir...uhhh...sergeant."
"Did you have business dealings with Mr. Tyson?" continued Sergeant Talbert in his tedious style.
"He was a client. I do private investigation...he and some friends had some roses stolen. I've been on it a week or so..."
"That's all?"
"All?" asked Andi rhetorically. "What did you expect?"
"No `other' business dealings?" pushed Talbert
"What does `other' mean?" asked Andi dryly.
"Are you involved in any business he might connected with?" asked Talbert obscurely.
"No..." replied Andi simply.
"Do you have relationships with any of his business partners?"
"Relationships?" Andi fielded, trying to see the angel Talbert was trying go get at. "What do you mean?"
"Are you employed or involved with any his business partners?" Talbert had his flat delivery down pat.
"Other than being hired by him and three friends to track down roses...no. If those friends are business partners, then yes, but only in looking for the roses. What's so difficult to understand about that?" Talbert was pushing her buttons. She added icily, "Is there anything else, Sergeant?"
"Not for now. We'll meet monday..." It was a statement--his objectionable tone didn't ease.
"Monday it is...ten-o'clock?" she pulled the time out of thin air so as not to have things totally at his discretion.
"Ten-thirty?" he countered, counter-punching like a pro.
"Fine, where?" Andi demanded grouchily, cursing under her breath at the inconvenience, then deciding with a little, acid smile that the time should be billed to the stolen roses. It was only fair. She hung up, dropped her pile of papers on the bookcase and strode to the kitchen for her notebook and a pen.
Tanya and Ramirez arrived at six with two loaves of still-warm bread and a covered dish Ramirez pointed at with a blanching expression and eyes rolled to heaven. "The chocolate in this may have to be licensed..."
"Welcome, the fish is in the oven...come on in." Lena pecked him on the cheek and hugged Tanya with her free arm. "For you I've got a special treat..." She led Tanya into the kitchen, whispering conspiratorially in her ear.
Andi and Ramirez retreated to the living room to choose music.
"Want the latest on your bogus twenties?" Ramirez stood shoulder to shoulder with Andi facing the entertainment center. He turned his head from the chin just slightly to catch her expression from corner of his eye.
"Sure..." Andi responded in a quiet, non-committal voice--holding out a CD of old Lord Buckley routines.
"Yeah, I like him, put it on..." Ramirez ran his finger along the row of disk-boxes. "A very large amount of those twenties, fifties and hundreds...in the middle six-figure's worth, were in the room with him..."
"Him being Mr. Tyson?" Andi confirmed, she whistled quietly at the amount.
"Him being your friend Mr. Tyson..." Ramirez rocked slightly; balancing on the balls of his feet like a dancer.
"...client..." corrected Andi in a neutral, friendly voice.
"Whatever..." shrugged Ramirez. "Anyway the tale's a screamer." He and Andi watched their reflections in the glass-mounted poster behind the cabinet. "...like a Dickson Carr locked-room mystery...with pieces that don't make sense."
Andi idly hefted a disk, still watching Ramirez's transparent image beside her own. "Like?" Andi, turned and stared at him as if over the top of glasses.
"Well, you got your basic body...lying in front of his desk on his back, fatal gunshot wound in his chest and weapon within inches. A frontier Colt 44...an antique...like the cowboys used. His finger-prints were all over it...it was laying half-under the front edge of a couch ten or twelve feet from the window...along with a suicide note." Ramirez's eyes narrowed as he smiled.
Andi raised herself to her toes like Ramirez and leaned forward menacingly. "...and?" she demanded.
"No finger prints on the inner door-knob but his. No powder burns on the guys's white shirt, very-little bleeding...almost all internal--the bullet chopped the heart...the first officers in noted the lack of powder burns."
"So there was something over the barrel...how about a pillow as a silencer?" Andi smiled. "They missed something..." she sang teasingly.
Ramirez shook his head "no." "It took so long to get in they'd all the equipment you could dream of switched on. There were two video cameras...the second, third and fourth officers in were forensics...they'd discussed protocol while waiting...every blessed item in the room was checked against the video inventory...there wasn't anything he could have used that wasn't checked three or four times. Believe me...they wanted to find something..."
"OK...he held the gun at arm's length..." offered Andi helpfully.
"That would help explain the some of lack of nitrate on his shirt, there still should have been more...but it was a forefinger, not a thumb leaving the print on the trigger..." Ramirez obviously enjoyed doling out the answers.
"So...the fatal round didn't come from that gun..." Andi theorized with a grin.
"Uuhh-hugh." Ramirez shook his head "Wrong-o...very unusual slug...not only the do the barrel marks match...the expended cartridge still in the gun matches the spent slug in his chest." He lowered his chin to look over the top of his glasses. "The kicker is that there weren't nitrate traces on either hand."
"Is there more..." Andi prompted, there must be more.
"Yeah...even if you can discount that the chamber had been spun so the spent shell was three spaces away from the fireing pin, why would he kill himself without warning? Out of the blue, with an appointment booked with you an hour and a half later and having just talked to a friend on the phone..."
"...to Walter Laroux..." Andi offered under her breath.
Ramirez pulled his head back and stared. "You knew that?" There was a touch of irritation in his voice, but he didn't follow it up. "...his hired help said he was in good spirits and was looking forward to new projects..."
"So what? One piece of your puzzle doesn't fit...probably somebody screwed up. You got everything else...a note in his hand, for God's sake..." Andi shook her head and chuckled.
Ramirez smiled a smug grin. "Not exactly a handwritten. It was typewriter-looking...laser printed on standard white bond. There wasn't a printer in the room and all of Tyson's paper was a spendy, cream-colored linen stock...there was nothing cheap in the two printers he had in the house."
"So..." Andi chewed her lip a moment. "if it wasn't suicide...the killer had a key and relocked the room." She thought a second and looked up brightly. "Didn't that room have an electronic locking system? Maybe the killer punched in the locking code as he left..."
Ramirez stopped his narration and stared at her over his shoulder. "...how much do you know about this counterfeiting case?"
"I'd scheduled an appointment with him...I'd been there before. Remember I'm looking for stolen roses...Walter Laroux is another client on that case." Andi shrugged.
Ramirez nodded doubtfully. "Anyway, his exterior security cameras...that's two different cameras watching drive and entrance...didn't show anybody coming or going. Neat mystery 'eh?"
"I think there must have been a cloth or something around the gun..." Andi squinted, then closed one eye to help her see through the problems. "And people make mistakes. How old was the reagent they used to check for nitrate...maybe somebody printed him and wiped the ink from his hands, then didn't want to admit it..."
"I tell you," Ramirez nodded, "There was so much attention on this puppy, that type of mistake didn't happen...West Linn's forensics crew is freaking out..."
"There's a trick or mistake..." Andi smiled smugly. "My guess is a handkerchief or pillow got flung into a corner..." she gestured with her hand, flinging an imaginary handkerchief outward from her chest, her eyes shut after the imaginary fatal wound.
"Well, it's become a big deal." Ramirez stated soberly. "Since the lack of proximity burns and residue at the entry wound was noted at the scene it's gotten a truckload of substantiation...autopsy, forensic's lab..."
Andi started chuckling.
"And the kicker to it all..." added Ramirez, pausing for dramatic emphasis, "...is who the antique revolver belongs to."
"...yeah, go on..." urged Andi as expressionlessly as she could. She was tired of dramatic pauses.
"Its Darrel Feight's..." Ramirez chuckled. "...his finger prints were even on the bullet casing. Lieutenant Allen calls it the `supernatural aspect' of the case."
"Feight returned from the grave for revenge? Pretty scary...in the Macbethian tradition that would make Tyson his murderer..."
"You got a problem with that scenario?" Ramirez stopped laughing. "Being so unhappy at his cause of death, I thought you figured it that way too..."
Feight's death was a unhappy subject. "Back to Tyson's locked room...." she swung the conversation back on track, "...what's the answer?"
"I don't know..." replied Ramirez, shaking his head. "Like you say...maybe operator error? I don't take it personally."
"Well...gee..." mocked Andi in a silly voice, "I guess they didn't use enough expensive police equipment..." She mugged cross-eyed, putting a finger to her cheek and turning her wrist.
"Wicksham..." Ramirez let out a sigh as if disappointed, then broke into a smile. "...the redeeming factor is that it's not my case...."
"I get the picture..." Andi nodded supportively.
"...good. I'm just sharing a bit of the confusion of the world of officious investigation...I thought it might bring a smile to your day." He raised both palms in a gesture of giving it away.
"Do I look like I'm not enjoying the story? I think it's great." Andi put everything into a display of friendly warmth.
Ramirez was enjoying himself. "...it's made worse by the counterfeiting...Allen and Talbert have three levels of professional worriers looking over their shoulders, picking apart paperwork and asking embarrassing questions." He chuckled at the thought.
"Does this mean I'm not going to get my forty-bucks back?" asked Andi innocently.
"Yeah...bill his estate. What do you care--you're making the big buck and traveling in fast circles."
Lena came out from the kitchen with a platter of hors'doeurves her eyes a little red from smoking. "Snacks for the tired professionals?" she quipped.
Ramirez turned and beamed a smile. The snacks were slices of carrot and jimeca, smoked oysters and a sweetened chili-pepper dip. Lena abandoned the tray and retreated back to the kitchen and Tanya. "Your cash is gone, Wicksham. But Tyson's locked room is something else, 'eh?"
"You really going to hold me to those lunches?" Andi asked, narrowing her eyes.
Ramirez nervously licked his lips, obviously struggling for a reply--luckily he was saved by Tanya and Lena emerging together to announce dinner and escort them to the table.
The evening went smoothly, dinner and dominos, gossip and joshing. Finally Tanya and Lena both yawned in stereo, goodbyes were exchanged, hugs and kisses, then the two of them were alone in the quiet apartment.
Andi repeated what Ramirez said about Tyson as they finished in the kitchen. Retiring to the bedroom, Lena admitted telling Tanya about Andi's mom and asking her to tell Ramirez and explain that Andi was having a hard time talking.
Tanya had kept it quiet all evening. Now Andi complained loudly of being betrayed, wadding her clothes into a ball and throwing them against the wall in frustration.
Lena dismissed her with a wave of her dental tape--claiming off-handedly that it was their right as her friends to know about her mother and her own duty as her partner to tell.
Sunday, Andi spent the afternoon playing music--drums, in her jazzy be-bop, rock, alternative group that back up her friend Sonny's poetry.
It was fun and she came home sweaty. Lena made salad to accompany the leftover salmon. Andi showered and they ate on the balcony.
Monday morning at ten thirty Andi, presented herself to West Linn's police department receptionist. She waited twenty minutes in an uncomfortable chair and then was shown to an interview room without apology. It took another eight minutes for Sergeant Talbert to make his entrance and introduce himself. He sat down and silently glared across the table until the door opened and a thin woman in a severe, tan business-suit entered.
"This is Lieutenant Allen, Ms. Wicksham...she's coordinating this investigation." Talbert said gruffly. He didn't explain which bureau or department Allen was from. Andi remembered Ramirez's mention of her--the dark-eyed leader of the anti-counterfeiting pack. She let her eyes flick across the Lieutenant's squarish face and page-boy brown hair a second time before returning her attention to Talbert.
"Do you mind if I record this interview?" he asked after a perfunctory greeting.
Andi shrugged, "I'd assumed you would..."
Talbert exchanged a glance with Allen and turned back to scowl at Andi.
"Do I need a lawyer or anything?" Andi asked warily.
"You're not under arrest or suspicion regarding Mr. Talbert's death. It's within your rights to have council with you if you really feel a need...though that might take a while to set up..." Sergeant Talbert answered in a burdened, but official voice that clearly expressed how pissed he'd be if she gave him such trouble.
Andi reflected on the expense of getting somebody to go through the ordeal and gave it up as another bad idea. "Go ahead...what do you want to ask?" She stared fixedly into Talbert's emerging bald spot.
"You have a friend named William Tyson?" Talbert read the question from his notes as if he really didn't care.
"I have a client with that name." Andi answered plainly.
"Client hiring you do what?" Talbert avoided her eyes, reading the questions woodenly, only looking up when she looked away.
"Hiring me to investigate the disappearance of some roses."
"When did you last speak with Mr. Tyson?" Talbert droned.
"A few days before he died." Andi answered stiffly.
"Your appointment had been arranged some time ago?" Talbert asked innocently.
"Well, it had been scheduled for the day before, but was rescheduled." Andi scratched an itch behind her ear.
"It was rescheduled without speaking to him?" Talbert's mouth split into a gleeful smile--he snatched at the incongruity like a dog leaping for a frisbee. They must have gone over Tyson's appointment book before coming up with the questions.
Andi shook her head, sighed and loaded as much burdened-exhaustion into her voice as it would hold, "...that was done by my business partner." She shook her head at their ignorance, no sense waiting to the end to start giving hints that the interview had gone on too long.
Talbert glowered and tried another tack. "Roses in pots? A truck-load? ...a couple of hundred, a thousand?" he asked. "What are we talking about here?"
"No, roses planted in the ground...and there were twenty-four...miniature ones..." Andi kept her answers minimal.
"And Mr. Tyson was going to review the progress you'd made in finding them?" Talbert extended.
"No, actually I was interested in whether he might have been involved in the theft."
Talbert leveled his steady, dark eyes upon her, paused a long moment,then said slowly, "Let me see if I've got this right...Mr. Tyson hired you to investigate the theft of twenty-four little roses that you feel he might have stolen from himself?" He looked up to receive her nodded confirmation. "Isn't hiring a private investigator expensive?"
"The roses may be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars." Andi could feel her credibility sagging.
Talbert gave her a look that said that he knew she was lying and that things would go a lot easier for her if she'd just cooperate. "That's the reason you were visiting him that afternoon?"
"Yes, that's it." replied Andi simply.
"You weren't friends?"
"No."
"But you'd been over to his house at other times?"
"Twice..." Andi was beginning to feel uneasy.
"And talked on the phone with him?"
"A few times..." admitted Andi, unsure at the moment how many times.
"Did Mr. Tyson always pay in cash?" Talbert asked quickly.
"I've never been paid by Mr. Talbert. I've been paid by Mr. Laroux...only once...by check."
"Mr. Laroux?" queried Talbert.
"The friend Mr. Tyson called that morning..." offered Andi helpfully.
"If you didn't talk to Mr. Tyson, how do you know he talked to Mr. Laroux?" Talbert asked as if it were a damning point.
"I spoke to Mr. Laroux that afternoon, they're both my clients...both are beneficiaries of the missing roses."
"Are you investigating him too?" Tyson slathered on a tub of sarcasm.
"Yes.." Andi admitted with a sense of defeat.
Talbert shook his head in obvious disgust. "They went in together to hire you to investigate the possibility of them stealing roses from themselves? Do I have that right?"
"...correct." Andi replied simply. To explain would only complicate the matter.
"I see..." Talbert replied tensely. "...they hired you together and both are suspects?"
It sounded unlikely when he said it, but it was burdened with the unfortunate condition of being the truth. "Yes..." Andi answered through clenched teeth, "...to both questions...the two of them and two others..."
Allen and Talbert exchanged significant glances, Allen tugged on Talbert's sleeve and leaned to whisper something in his ear.
"Do you know what Mr. Tyson did for a living?" Talbert asked calmly.
"...retired military..."
"Lived pretty well...?" it came out as half question, half statement. Talbert raised his eyebrows to reinforce it as a question.
"Seemed to..." Andi was growing tired of Talbert's attitude.
"So you went inside his house?" he asked quietly, as if he wanted her to confide in him.
"The first time there I did." Andi admitted easily. "That's the only time I went inside..."
"And you talked with him in the living room?" Talbert was obviously feeding her an answer he didn't want. He looked up expectantly.
"No, I was shown into that study with the keypad by the door..." she almost made the mistake of saying `where the body was found. It was a close enough call to make her break out in a sweat.
"You met with him in that room?" asked Talbert. Andi could tell he'd grown interested by the touch of intensity shown by the way he almost caressed the words, mouthing them slowly. He was into the material he felt important and could probably feel her nervousness.
"Sure..." Andi conceded, Talbert's gaze had flicked to her forehead, taking in her sudden sheen of sweat.
"What did you do there?"
"Talked for a minute before following him to another room where he gave me a copy of a video tape."
"Did he always meet with you there?" Talbert nodded knowingly.
"That was the only time I've ever been in his house. If you weren't paying attention we can we run the tape back and see if that's what I said." Andi suggested helpfully, holding Talbert with a steely gaze.
"Did you look in the drawers of his desk?" Talbert asked ominously.
"The desk in that study?" asked Andi as if she didn't understand.
"Yes..." grumped Talbert, "...that one."
"No."
"Did he show you anything in any of the cabinets in his study?"
"No."
"He just led you into that high-security room to talk a few minutes before leading you out again?" Talbert's voice oozed with disbelief.
"He was in that room when I came to the house. He was already there when I was shown in."
"Why do you think he met you there?" Talbert's eyes narrowed.
Andi shrugged. She knew impatience or frustration on her part would be interpreted as guilt, but was on the edge of not caring. "Maybe that's where he happened to be. It looked to me like a study with a bunch of antiques. Maybe he wanted to impress me with his collection. Rich people with funny habits are not uncommon in my line of work..."
"Antiques? I thought he didn't show you anything?" Talbert's eyes lit up.
"He didn't...but there were display cases all around...in the room, up and down the halls...you must have been there...didn't you look?" Andi had taken about enough of Talbert's nasty innuendo. "Ah, but of course you knew that..." Andi gave him a conspiratorial wink, hoping her low opinion of him didn't telegraph too obviously.
"What other business did you do with Mr. Tyson?" asked Talbert, he lifted his chin and glanced to Allen.
"Beg your pardon?" asked Andi, innocently feigned not understanding.
"Your other business with Mr. Tyson?" repeated Sergeant Talbert.
"What other business?" inquired Andi politely. Talbert must know that his manner was offensive, but she was on solid ground again.
"You do other work for Mr. Tyson occasionally, don't you?" Talbert looked up knowingly. A touch of a smile flicked at the corners of his mouth and his eyes glistened.
"No, I don't." Andi said with definition.
"But you were intimate enough for him to address his suicide note to you..." stated Talbert slyly.
"He what?" demanded Andi in surprise.
"In his study there was a note addressed to you." Talbert leaned back in his chair and touched the eraser of his pencil to the tip of his chin.
"What did it say?" asked Andi indignantly. "He addressed the note to me?"
"Didn't he write notes to you before?"
"No..."
"Tell me about what he would have written you..." Talbert urged.
"Tell you what?" Andi was losing patience.
"What do you think it would say?" prodded Talbert.
"What do I think it said?" replied Andi not quite believing that he'd asked such a stupid question.
"If he wrote you a note, what information would you be looking for?" Talbert's tone was icy, his eyes blazed with moral purpose.
"...Officer Talbert...what do you think I would be looking for in a note from somebody I'd never gotten a note from before?"
"I'm a sergeant..." growled Talbert. "Answer the question..."
Andi decided that was as a good point as any to bring the first act to a close and gave vent to her frustration. "You're an amazing piece of work Talbert..." she shook her head in dismay. "...do you have any idea of what you're doing...it's not like I've seen this alleged note...I've never received a note from him before. Do you think that maybe you're not handling this in an appropriate manner?" She barely held herself back from ending with you jerk.
Talbert leaned forward, his jaw-line taut, his thinning hair in disarray. "Listen Ms. Wicksham...my job is to ask questions, your job is to answer them. Do you understand that?"
"No...I'm sorry, but I don't..." Andi leaned back in her chair and inspected her fingernails then leaned forward icily and lectured. "You want me to comment on a note I haven't seen and didn't know a thing about. Show me the note if you want me to comment on it. Straighten up and be professional?" She yelled that last at him, curled her lip and turned half-away in disapproval.
Talbert's face flushed pale then red, before he rose from his chair with his eyes bulging and stormed from the interview room, a glowering thundercloud spitting lighting bolts. Lieutenant Allen smiled silently and stared impassively at Andi. After another minute or so with nothing but a few eye blinks lending her face a live look, she shook her head a slightly, moving her chin a bare inch each way, then with her eyes glued to Andi until the final second, she slipped out the door without comment.
Andi reached in her pocked and pulled out a paperback--good thing she didn't have any pressing appointments, it looked like it might take a while.
Twenty minutes later, Allen and Talbert returned. With minimum introduction they seated themselves and Talbert slid a photo copy of Tyson's note across the table-top.
Andi Wicksham;
Counterfeiting has ruined my life.
I'm sorry stealing the roses caused so many problems.
I've lived a lie.
Thanks for helping___William Tyson
Andi read it twice and laughed out loud, "`I've lived a lie...thanks for helping?'" She chuckled and looked across at her questioners. Talbert and Allen glowered as if she was laughing at them--which in a way she was. The note was worse than vague, it was amateurish. As Ramirez said it had a typewritten look, not even Tyson's name was signed. She looked-up to her interrogators and smiled, suddenly seeing them in different light--they were flailing about trying to keep their heads above water.
With something around a half-million dollars in cash in the room one might reasonably question his doubting the righteousness of counterfeiting, and if he took the roses it wouldn't be something he'd apologize for--it certainly wasn't something he'd kill himself over.
Talbert continued his questioning, Allen sat quietly, watching quietly, her dark eyes reading every nuance, leaning occasionally to pass whispered suggestions--both of them playing their cards close to their chests. They didn't mention counterfeiting, didn't mention which room the body was found, or the gun or fingerprints or wound.
They focused on her investigation and contract--to their increasing frustration. She reported that she knew nothing in exacting detail, taking left hand turns time and time again into irrelevant minutia while sidestepping their attempts to evoke something from nothing.
She ignored their nasty innuendos and girded herself against a fatal slip--all she needed was Talbert jumping up and down demanding she explain her source of inside information--it would take days to get clear of the mess if she babbled.
She skirted subjects that could trip her up and insulted Talbert whenever the opportunity presented itself just to keep him off-track. It didn't make her seem like a helpful witness, but was the best she could do.
The note posed an enigma to Allen and Talbert--did the author know Tyson's business or did he just want the reader to think that? The writer knew of Andi, the roses and the bogus bills. The question wasn't whether the note was legit--she'd bet the farm that it wasn't--the question was whether it a amateur fumble or a purposeful ruse to lead the hounds on a chase.
Talbert and Allen had Tyson's corpse and bogus bills, but the note was worse than a dead-end--the note pulled their investigation from a rutted side-road into a quagmire of ooze and quicksand. They were sure "rose" was code for something central. Talbert drilled Andi over and over on her investigation, but her answers made things worse because she had so few results. Talbert's sneer suspected she was withholding a crucial puzzle piece.
Ten minutes after reading the note Andi felt sure about what was going on; the note's mention of roses meant Tyson's killer was probably one of her remaining clients. No doubt Talbert and Allen already had that figured--it would explain the questions. She smiled, they were a subject she could wander without fear.
Tyson might have guessed the thief's identity and confronted him--big mistake. If it unfolded that way it meant the roses were worth Tyson's life and that whoever had them was deadly.
Andi returned to the office just before one o'clock to find a note from Lena saying she'd be back at one to one-thirty.
Andi's stomach growled emptily.
No use going for lunch yet, maybe Lena waited. Weathering Sergeant Talbert and Lieutenant Allen's unfriendly attention spurred her gloom into a full-fledged bad mood. She trudged through her notes and tried to get back on track.
Her hands and eyes mechanically chipped at the files ossifying in her pending box--routine cases--tracking a witness and two pre-employment checks, but her mind picked at the stray ends binding Feight's roses to the deaths.
She tossed the finished files on Lena's desk. Tomorrow would mark a week on the case--a long time for the investigation business. She'd have to generate an report--it would be a half-day's work at a task that was really nothing but public relations--to show that their money bought effort if not answers. When you don't have results to report you give clients bulk and hope that a half-inch pile of pages detailing nothing was more satisfying than a brief sentence on the back of a postcard. No time like the present--she began jotting down notes.
She'd performed interviews, constructed a time line, considered site and physical evidence, developed a list of suspects and viewed the most obvious sites. She'd recognized motivations and uncovered questionable behaviors--it would pad the report, but it held nothing pointing to the perpetrator.
Laroux and company must already suspect she was getting nowhere. It was a melancholy thought. She pushed aside her notebook and reached into her pending box again.
It was about time for her clients to reconsider their contract. The problem was straightforward, save money or not? If it was her bucks, she'd have dumped the project before it got started.
She scrawled her signature at the bottom of a letter, slapped the file shut and tossed it across to the others on Lena's desk while reaching for next. This was the most significant part of a private detective's job, but nobody outside the business knew it. Endless reports about lost-puppies, missing witnesses and dead-beat spouses were the industry's bread and butter and it took constant bailing of her pending box to keep the flow from burying them alive.
Lena came in carrying a bundle of packages. "...you hungry?" she asked as she dumped her burden on the end of her table.
"Ravenous..." Andi admitted, "...what's in the box, fox?"
"I beg your pardon?" replied Lena as if she'd been insulted, she touched two fingertips to her chest just below her throat, batting her eyelids and silently mouthing Miss Piggy's question "Fox? Moi?"
Andi smiled, but didn't apologize.
"...envelopes and stamps, stuff on another bookkeeping program and coffee filters. By the way I talked to your Mom..she wants you to call..." Lena gave Andi a puzzled look before continuing, "...what's `dependent origination' and what does it have to do with death being delusion?" She stood expectantly with hands on hips. "...where do you want to eat?"
Andi covered her face with her hands and winced in embarrassment. "I'm sorry...Mom's always laying that stuff on people." She shook her head, eyes still covered. "She is so weird...it's Buddhist...if everything in the universe is always recombining, then death is an illusion...things change form, only arrangements end, not the parts...OK?" Andi nervously peeked between her fingers to see if Lena was going to hold her mother's philosophical preferences against her.
"I thought she was Jewish?" Lena poised lightly, rocking on her toes and nodding toward the door. "...we going?"
Andi rose and moved around her desk. "She is, but she's Buddhist too...philosophically she's Buddhist...a lay-priest. I'll tell you about it over lunch...my Mom's a trip..." Andi beat Lena to the door, relieved she didn't laugh out loud.
Andi sought Lena's eyes and felt compelled to keep talking. "...there's this mouthy trait we share that gets us in trouble..."
"Yeah...?" encouraged Lena, smiling at the admission. "...I hadn't noticed."
Andi ignored the comment waiting until Lena closed the door and checked the knob. "...six or eight years ago she was guest speaker at a luncheon for four-hundred Jewish big-wigs...she said Israel's treatment of the Palestinians was God's way of teaching Jews how there could have been so many silent Germans during the 1930's..."
"...and..." Lena demanded just before they descended the staircase.
"One woman screamed, another choked, a man had chest pains...the commotion ended her talk...she never was asked again." They took the stairs at a fast clip, pounding down shoulder to shoulder.
"I can see the familial pattern..." Lena responded with a ear-to-ear grin as they emerged at the sidewalk. "I'm buying...how about Machismo Mouse?"
Ten minutes after returning from lunch Laroux called and seemed surprised to catch Andi at her office. "I wanted to touch bases again after the tragedy with William. I've talked to Jennifer and Elizabeth..."
Andi was prepared to be made redundant, she'd have Lena print a final bill and warn that the final report might take a week.
Laroux continued, "...we'd like you to continue your investigation and expand it into William's death...it would bring us solace to think we were doing everything possibly." He spoke in a patient and simple, slow-paced, adult-to-child voice.
Andi shook-off a bit of her dislike, "Thanks for your vote of confidence Mr. Laroux. I was expecting the investigation to be closed...there haven't been significant breakthroughs...I'm assembling a report..."
"Elizabeth and I discussed that...she thought William's death might shake something loose...in any event it seems improper not to make a cursory look...there seem so many questions..." Laroux let that last statement hang.
"Fine..." Andi replied vaguely. What questions was he referring to. Feight died of a heart attack and the police hadn't discouraged the assumption that Tyson committed suicide. Did Laroux have his own police-source, or did he know something more directly?
"Excellent, Ms. Wicksham...a report would be great." That said, Laroux hung up.
Andi dug through her notebook and called Elizabeth Dao to ask where she kept her roses--in that last talk, Dao deflected the question by rambling about the tea master's chrysanthemums. Andi got a voice mail, muttered a minor silent curse and requested a return call.
Frustrated by Andi's foot-dragging, Lena picked a spy-toy from an electronics catalogue for Mrs. Knowles; a plexiglass dish and amplifier with accompanying tape deck and headphones officially offered as a bird call recorder, but with bold type claims that it could record a personal conversation beyond a closed window from thirty-meters.
Andi rolled her eyes and felt an uneasy churn in her stomach. That sort of technology could lead them into trouble. Mrs. Knowles would love it though, she'd already scheduled three hour-long appointments to discuss tactics--offering to take both Andi and Lena to lunch at the posh Jock's Grill where they could discuss underhanded doings among the privileged wealthy.
Andi had not responded either way to the offer. Considering Jock's affluent clientele--the woodwork must have heard more fateful deals and intrigue than most other walls in Portland.
Though wary, Andi followed Lena's advice to humor Mrs. Knowles. The project could probably be kept harmless. She could pick and chose when and where the spying would be done. Lena wondered if Knowles might be her husband's illicit lover--using a detective like a mirror on the ceiling.
It would resolve the ethical dilemma, but still the idea didn't appeal despite being kinky. Andi consoled herself--she might be able to pawn the job onto Lena if she wanted out.
She opened a sub-directory for Laroux's report and ended the day writing a letter to a grieving parent, passing on that her seventeen year old daughter was alive and well with her boyfriend in Cannon Beach.
Andi had extracted a promise; the young woman would phone her mother in exchange for Andi not passing on her exact location. The young people looked happy and healthy, there seemed no evidence of gangs or pierced body parts.
That night Andi called her Mom and left a message, offering a dinner tuesday night--her treat at Three Doors Down. Lena nodded sagely and preemptively declared she was staying home. Andi blinked a drop of moisture from her eyes and stepped over to hug her tight.
Go on to Chapter 6
Go back to Chapter 4
Go back to Andi Wicksham Series page
Copyright © 1997 RL BELL.
Last Updated 5/24/97
For more information, contact Webmaven Lena Kovid, at:
geekgirl@cafeunderground.com