A Bitch Called Hope (11 page)

“Let me.”

Dan wrapped his hand around the jack, his hand brushing hers. Swear to God, she felt it. Don’t say it was a surprise; she’d spent her childhood being in love with him. Back then love meant happy ever after dressed up like a princess.

He was a suspect, for chrissake.

“So are you going to tell me who those people are?” he said.

She swallowed, trying to get her cool back. She said, “It’s Santacon. They follow a route of ten pubs or so. You could join them if you wanted to. All you need is a costume and a sturdy liver.”

Dan puffed air through his lips. “Man, Portland’s changed.” Then his eyes landed on hers. He gave a vibe he was talking more than Santacon.

She put the jack back into the wheel well and wiped her hands on a dirty rag in the back.

He said, “Mac’s got a washroom you could use.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. The way she said it was clear: the priest was not one of her fans.

“Oh-oh,” he said. “Did you piss him off?”

“Just doing my job,” she said.

He shook his head. “You know what they say: the Irish will hold a grudge until the Second Coming.”

“You guys are Irish.”

“Me?” he said. “I inherited my mother’s sweet nature.”

Chapter 15

The next morning Lennox drove to her interview with Dan through the woods of Sylvan Hills west to where the Sunset Freeway flattened into a concrete table and fanned to five lanes. It was nine fifteen and the Sunset was choked with worker bees heading to their high-tech jobs along the corridor known as the Silicon Forest. Most of the trees in this particular forest had been cleared to make room for businesses with names like Seer and Synergy and Saber, places that designed all the stuff that goes into computers. Strip malls bordered these high-tech compounds like a grown-up system of “Chutes and Ladders.” Pike Development was built smack in the middle of this so-called forest butted against a real wetlands. Wetlands being the preferred nomenclature for swamp.

Dan was waiting for her in his father’s corner office with its view of the parking lot from one side and tall, yellowed grass and fetid water from the other. Stacks of documents paper clipped to folders spread across his desk. More papers crowded a salmon sculpture on the credenza behind him. The fish were made from oxidized copper and impaled on thin black rods.

Gone was the big city suit Dan wore at the funeral and the slacks and oxford shirt he wore yesterday. Instead he had on jeans and a Pendleton shirt. Good-bye, Chicago; hello, Portland. The whole dressed down woodsy thing looked good on him. He stood and reached over his desk to shake her hand. He asked her about her tire. He looked glad to see her. She was glad to see him, but gladder to have this job. She was all about keeping her priorities straight.

Lennox pointed to a framed photo on the credenza. Dan somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve, Scott a little kid of seven standing next to a much younger Bill Pike and an enormous fish. “I don’t remember Bill having a boat,” she said.

“He only kept it a season. When he took it over the Columbia Bar, both Scotty and me puked our guts out over the side. Dad called it chum.” Dan shook his head. “I’ve never been able to stomach fish since. Tell me what I can do to help.”

“First off, tell me more about the Altar Boys.”

“It’s like I said the other day. They’re Mac’s special project. Ever since I can remember they’ve been mowing grass, parking cars, hauling appliances. They did work for Dad, too.” His eyes widened. “You don’t think they had anything to do with the old man’s death?”

“I’m just gathering information,” she said. “Is this a regular practice of yours, flying from Chicago to Portland for your parents’ party?”

“Not really.”

“Why was this year different?”

“Truth? I’d been thinking about relocating here. The old man has a lot of friends who are interested in investing.”

Seemed straightforward enough. She decided to hold off on asking him about his trip to Chicago last weekend until Ham had a chance to run down the credit card number.

She said, “Did you notice anyone drunk? Anyone fighting or going off by themselves?”

“I’ve thought about this a lot. Fact is, I spent the whole time schmoozing Dad’s friends, not really noticing what Dad was up to at all. Except, you know.” His face reddened.

She leaned forward. “Except you know?”

“You heard about Dad and Priscilla?”

“What happened exactly?” she said.

He turned a little redder and shook his head. “Nothing really. I guess they were flirting. But it looked bad, you know? I didn’t like it, and Scotty—”

“What about Scotty?”

“You don’t think Scott had anything to do with Dad’s death?” Dan said.

“Are you going to keep asking that?”

“It’s just that I’ve never met a real detective before. A beautiful detective.”

Was he nervous about being questioned? Was he trying to distract her? “Knock it off,” she said.

“I’m sorry. You were saying?”

“Scott.”

“Nothing. Maybe he was going to hit her. I don’t know. I stopped him.”

“Have you known Scott to hit women?”

“No, but anyone can be provoked—” Dan looked flustered. “Not that I would ever—” He broke off again.

“Now they’re engaged,” Lennox said.

“Scott and Priscilla?” His face screwed up like he’d bitten into something nasty.

Lennox asked him about Delia. He told Lennox how some of their friends heard Delia tearing into the old man. How embarrassing it was for everyone. “Now our last memory of Dad is what an asshole he was.”

A large shadow skirted the edge of the building. She looked out the window. “A heron,” she said. Beautiful, silent, pre-historic—not that she knew that as scientific fact, but they just seemed like descendants of the great pterodactyls.

“That bird.” He sighed. “The reason I have to take the truck through a car wash twice a week.”

“Back to your dad. Was that the first time Bill flirted with someone other than Delia?”

“How should I know? I live in Chicago.”

“How was your father with money?”

“She said with interest.”

Lennox said, “Excuse me?”

“You know? Money, she said with interest?”

“A pun,” she said. Then she remembered he punned when they were little. Back then she thought it was funny and smart. She said, “Maybe if you treated this like a business interview?”

“Money.” His hair fell in his eyes again. “He was generous. Really generous, as long as it was his idea. So, like with Scotty, he was a one-man patron of the arts.”

“What about you? Was he generous with you?”

He shrugged. “He could be. Do you think I killed the old man?”

“Dan, I’m just asking questions. But it looks like your fortunes had taken a downturn this last year.”

His posture grew stiffer. “Which is why I was thinking of relocating.”

“Did you ask him for a loan?”

“I’m a grown-up. I don’t go to daddy when I run short.”

How many times had Aurora bailed Lennox out since she started her business? A bunch of times.

“I’d like to meet with your dad’s accountant,” she said.

Dan typed something on his keyboard. He wrote the number on a Post-it and handed it to her. “What else?” he said.

“I can’t think of anything else right now,” she said.

“Okay then. I have something for you.”

“What?” she said.

He hauled in a deep breath. “Will you join me for dinner? We could keep it all business. I might have family insights that will only come to light when I’ve had something to eat.”

God, he was cute, if you liked that sort of thing. “I’d like to,” she said, “but it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

Little Ms. Appropriate, the queen of propriety.
She got back in her truck and headed downtown. The crush she’d had all those years ago was starting to wake up. She’d love to see Aurora’s face if she got together with Dan. He was funny like Tommy, but Tommy was one long bundle of bad habits. Who the hell knew what bad habits Dan had? Maybe even patricide. Dan was off-limits. Absolutely off-limits, don’t even think about it. All of this attention he showed her could be his way of manipulating her, get her to not take him seriously as a suspect. Did she take him seriously? It was a good thing she was driving. It kept her from kicking herself.

Chapter 16

It had taken Dan’s prodding to get Scott to agree to an interview. Lennox shifted from one foot to the other as she waited for him to answer his door. Her shoes were soaked through and rain ran off her umbrella in strings. She pressed the bell again. Finally his door opened and Scott leaned towards her at an alarming angle. Dressed in a flannel shirt and sweatpants, he was bleary-eyed, a sleep crease denting his cheek.

“Sorry. I slept through the alarm,” he mumbled. “Hard night.”

Must have been. The place reeked of stale beer and tobacco smoke. Books everywhere and stray pieces of Priscilla’s clothing draped on the furniture. A single high-heeled sandal perched atop a couple of weeks’ worth of
The Oregonian
by the front door. A beer bottle had rolled and settled in a corner of the room and a nearly empty scotch bottle stood on the sofa table next to a stack of typed pages next to a huge glass ashtray heaped with cigarette butts and the ends of cigars.

“Sorry about the mess,” he said. “My muse is a night owl.” And a tippler, from the looks of it.

Lennox pointed to the manuscript. “Delia said you were writing a book.”

“That I am,” he said and drifted towards the back of the apartment. Lennox followed him into the kitchen.

“What’s your book about?” she said.

He looked at her a long moment. “You probably read bestsellers or crime stories.”

“Is that bad?” she said.

“I write language-driven stories.”

She had no idea what he was talking about but she said, “I like language.”

He looked as if he were debating whether to answer her or not. Finally he said, “It’s about an old drunk living in northern Minnesota. He’s recently lost his wife and brother to cancer so he buys a half gallon of Jim Crow and drives to his icehouse to die. The story is about his reminiscences as he drinks and slowly freezes to death.”

“Wow,” she said. What else could she say?

Scott shot her one look that said he didn’t expect her to understand. He turned to the sink. “Do you want some coffee?” he said over his shoulder.

“Sure,” she said. “Look, I know it’s a hard time right now. If I could ask you just a couple questions, I’ll be on my way.”

“Fine,” he said. “Do you take milk?”

“Just sugar.” She reached into her bag. “Do you mind if I record our interview?”

“Record?” He turned and faced her. ”Yeah. I mind.”

It made for an awkward moment that maybe meant something, maybe nothing at all. Lennox slipped the recorder back in its case and pulled out her notebook. When she looked up, he was still leaning against the counter watching her. His build, the line of nose and jaw: he was the blond version of his brother.

He’d been a chubby little kid when she knew him. Had she teased him? She seemed to remember he was the kind of kid who invited abuse.

Lennox poised her pen over a blank notebook page. “I was hoping you might have some ideas about your father’s murder.”

He poured their coffee, handed her a mug. “The only one I can think of is that doctor fuck. He’s camped out at Mom’s house. I think he’s living there.”

Scott was right. It did look suspicious, only problem being that if Doctor E murdered Bill Pike, was Delia an accessory?

“Is Doctor Engstrom an old family friend?” she said.

“Not that I know of.”

Lennox jotted a note. When she raised her eyes from her notebook, Scott was still watching her, his expression complicated.

Then he dumped his coffee in the sink. “On second thought, I think I’ll have a beer. You want one?”

She told him no thanks. He twisted the cap off his beer and leaned against the counter facing her. Next to him, snugged against the drain board was a three-inch-high cigar box the size of a sheet of paper. Lennox remembered just such a box from when she was young. Her Uncle Joe had given her dad a box of Cuban cigars. Bill’s lungs had showed recent signs of tobacco use.

She got up and moved to the counter to get a closer look. “Is that from Cuba?” she asked Scott. “May I see it?”

She crossed in front of him to take the box. The box was made of a lovely dark wood with a seal where the box latched, a purple and white sticker she’d swear was a Canadian duty stamp, and a chevron sticker glued over the corner. “I had a box just like this when I was a kid. Yeah. This seal here? Habanos,” she said. “Cuban cigars. Very cool. Christmas present?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “You sure you don’t want a beer? I don’t like drinking alone.”

She pictured him hunched over his laptop writing depressing books no one was ever going to read. Engaged to a girl right out of high school, a girl who flirted with his old man. The way he watched her, she figured it wouldn’t take much to be his new best friend.

“Sure,” she said.

He turned to fetch the beer. She opened the cigar box. The heavy, sweet, nauseating smell she remembered from her childhood. There were five out of the ten cigars left.

She flipped the box closed as Scott handed her a beer. He smiled. “Do you want one?” he said.

She smiled back, told him no thanks. She asked him where he bought them.

“Are you kidding? These suckers are worth eighty bucks apiece.”

He’d found them in his mother’s garbage can. Why was Lennox not surprised; he was the kind of guy who went through his mother’s garbage.

“If they’re so valuable why were they in the garbage?”

“Mom must’ve found them. She hates smoking.”

She asked when he found them. Before the funeral, Scott thought. Scott told her how the old man got so he couldn’t even look at a cigar without wheezing. Lennox asked him who would buy cigars for Bill knowing his condition.

Scott shrugged. “Beats me. A client maybe?”

Bill smokes a Cuban cigar, guaranteed to make him short of breath, needs his inhaler. Only the inhaler in his sock drawer is insulin. He takes long pull off it. Heart attack.