Dead in the Rose City: A Dean Drake Mystery (13 page)

If Sinclair had murdered his wife, with or
without an accomplice, he had planned it carefully. I sensed he was
not about to leave town any time soon and make himself a suspect.
That gave me some leeway to wait for him to make misstep.

I had lunch at Johnny’s Rib House, the best
barbecued ribs joint in the city, before going to my office.

Someone had arrived ahead of me and the place
had been ransacked. Evidently someone was looking for something I
had or thought I had. It could have been the missing blonde with
the white hat double-checking to make sure I had given her all the
negatives that proved I was hired to spy on Gregory Sinclair. Or it
could have been The Worm or one of his associates bent on taking
away any leads I may have gathered in zeroing in on his ass.

In any event, as I began picking up items
strewn about the floor like a cyclone had hit, I now knew what I
had to look forward to for the rest of the afternoon.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ned Manchester was one of the few friends I
still had on the force. He was also probably the best fingerprint
technician they had. That combination meant I had to call in a
marker for past favors.

We met at a secluded spot in the Columbia
River Gorge, away from inquiring eyes and ears.

Ned was one of those people who looked as
intelligent as he was. Horn-rimmed glasses. Mousy brown hair. Tall,
thin, pale, and extremely conservative in his attire. At
thirty-six, he was already at the head of his class as far as techs
go and class individuals.

“Thanks for coming, man,” I told him.

“My off day,” he said, downplaying his
presence. “I don’t get out as much as I should to see the river
we’ve polluted more than I care to think about.” He stared at it
disgustedly, then looked at me. “Looks like you’ve outdone yourself
this time, D.J. Murder. Strangulation. Kinky sex. Lies.” He flashed
his eyes at me whimsically. “Please don’t tell me there are
videotapes out there, too?”

I smiled without laughter. “Not that I know
of,” I muttered. “But nothing would surprise me at this point.”

“So how can I help?”

I removed a plastic bag from my jacket
containing a glass. “I don’t wash my dishes as often as I should,”
I told him shamelessly. “If I’m not mistaken, my blonde lady friend
had her hands all over this, even though she left most of the wine
behind. I’d be real curious to know if her prints are on file. Not
to mention her name and address...interesting stuff like that—”

Ned took the glass, frowning. “I could be
putting my ass on the line for you,” he said as if I wasn’t aware
of this.

“And you could also be saving my ass,” I told
him soberly.

He sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. Whatever
I find out, even if it’s nothing, this makes us even. Okay?”

“Absolutely.” I squeezed out a smile.

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Make it soon, Ned,” I prodded with a sense
of urgency. “Whoever she really is, she owes me something. My good
name for starters.”

He nodded. “Like I said, I’ll be in
touch—”

* * *

“You ought to be more careful who you take
your pants off for, D.J.,” Gus was saying over the rim of a mug of
beer. He had read about my arrest before I could give my account,
which I did anyway. “That white bitch had you pegged all the way
and you went for the bait between her legs.”

“Guilty as charged,” I admitted regretfully,
and took a large gulp of beer. “Unfortunately, that admission won’t
change the fact that one woman is dead and another is out there
somewhere licking her chops for a sucker job well done.”

“And you think she’s in cahoots with the
husband?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” I
said. “Sinclair stands to gain the most from his wife’s death. It
only figures that they’re in this together.”

Gus leaned his huge frame forward. “I’ll ask
around. Maybe someone knows something about your blonde Jezebel
that can help you track her down.”

“Thanks, Gus.” I finished the beer. “I can
use all the help I can get.”

“Coming from you,” he said, “that’s a major
concession.”

“Hey, when we’re talking about my life, it’s
easy to be humble.”

Gus scooped up some peanuts. “Are your old
cronies on the force backing you on this one?” He stuffed the nuts
in his mouth.

I shook my head. “Nope. It’s cop politics.
The family that stays together plays together. Once you decide to
do your own thing, it’s open season on your ass. I think most of
the Portland P.D. has already dedicated itself to seeing my hide go
down one way or another,” I said glumly.

Gus looked over my head, back to me, and said
indignantly: “No one who knows you believes for one minute that you
wasted that lady. You ain’t that crazy. No woman, no matter what
she’s putting out, is worth going to prison for.”

If I didn’t appreciate his friendship before,
I did now.

Then I heard a voice from the past, and
occasionally the present, say: “Mind if I sit down?”

I looked up at Lew O’Malley. Once upon a time
we used to come to Jasmine’s together. That was before I moved from
professional to private detective. Since then, I could probably
count on one finger the number of times I’d seen O’Malley there. I
often wondered if it had something to do with the company.

“I don’t own the table,” I muttered, and
glanced at Gus. “This man does.”

“Sit down,” Gus said in a gruff voice as he
stood. “Don’t let me come between friends. What’s your pleasure,
O’Malley?”

“Beer,” he responded tersely, easing onto a
chair.

Gus eyed me whimsically. “Coming right up—”
he swallowed, and walked toward the bar.

“Thought I’d find you here,” said O’Malley,
dreariness in his tone.

“So you found me,” I said frostily. “Are you
here to arrest me?” I couldn’t rule it out.

O’Malley looked uncomfortable as he lit a
cigarette. “It’s never been anything personal, D.J.”

“Of course not,” I said wanly. “Just the way
it is. Right, man?”

I didn’t expect an answer.

He gave one. “I haven’t changed, Drake.
You
have.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I granted. Being
independently employed had given me new insight into things. “I see
people for what they are now, not what I want them to be.”

He frowned. “And what do you want them to be,
clones of yourself? That’s not the way it works.”

“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to be like
me, O’Malley,” I snorted, “heaven forbid. But it wouldn’t be bad if
you lightened up a little...gave a bit more credit where credit’s
due.”

He chewed on that one while sucking in
nicotine.

Gus brought a pitcher and filled two mugs
before disappearing. In a way it almost seemed like old times for
O’Malley and me. But in my heart I knew those good old days were
gone forever.

When O’Malley seemed reticent in being
forthright, I asked bluntly: “Did you come here for old times’ sake
or to read me my rights?”

He put foam between his lips before getting
to the root of his visit to Jasmine’s on this warm night. “You
can’t go around harassing Gregory Sinclair,” he said laboriously.
“Not when you’re the chief suspect in his wife’s death.”

So Sinclair had gone crying to the cops.
There weren’t enough police in the city to protect his ass if he
was guilty of his wife’s murder and trying to pin it on me. My
voice rose an octave as I said to O’Malley: “The man knows more
than he’s letting on. Like who the mystery blonde is and probably
where she is. If I don’t harass him, who the hell will?”

O’Malley frowned. “Believe it or not, Drake,
I still know how to do my job.”

“You have a strange way of showing it.” I
started for my drink, but changed my mind. “Maybe you ought to be
trying to find Catherine Sinclair’s killer instead of telling me to
lay off her guilty husband.” I knew I was pushing it, but decided
to go as far as I could. “If nothing else, the bastard is
definitely guilty of lying his ass off, O’Malley—”

“Aren’t we all?” O’Malley turned his blue
eyes on me accusingly. “That doesn’t make Sinclair a murderer,
especially when he has a solid alibi. Two people at his office
claim he was there around the time his wife was killed.”

“And what time was that?”

“Between three and four a.m., according to
the M.E.,” said O’Malley.

“Doesn’t it seem strange to you that Sinclair
would be working at that hour?”

O’Malley shrugged, sucking on the cigarette.
“Some people work odd hours,” he suggested weakly. “You should be
able to relate to that, Drake.”

I could, but not legitimate business at a
consulting firm. Of course,
illegitimate
business was
another matter.

I still wasn’t buying Sinclair’s solid alibi.
I’d learned long ago that alibis were a dime a dozen. Any halfway
clever killer would make sure he/she was seen elsewhere, if only
for a cursory appearance. In my book, that wasn’t sufficient enough
to let Sinclair off the hook in his wife’s untimely demise.

My stubbornness and instincts for
self-survival continued to force my tongue. I told O’Malley
passionately: “Don’t ask me to turn my back on an investigation in
which you yourself say I’m the chief suspect. You see, there’s only
one small problem with that—I’m innocent!”

O’Malley seemed to reserve comment on that
last sentence. Smoke streamed from his nostrils. “Sinclair has
connections all the way to the mayor’s office. If you press him, he
can make things difficult for you.”

I laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, right. I don’t
think it can get much more difficult for me.” I suddenly felt the
need for a drink, lifted the mug and took a big swallow. “Let
Sinclair try,” I slurred with rancor. “I sure as hell intend to
make it difficult for him!” Not to mention the woman who led me to
believe she was his wife.

“By the way,” O’Malley broke into my
thoughts, “the autopsy on Catherine Sinclair came in today.” His
face darkened as if there was more bad news on the horizon.
“According to the M.E., she was raped. There was semen in her
vagina and a preliminary DNA test shows it matches your blood
type—”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Catherine Ashley Sinclair was a woman who
had the better part of her life snuffed out violently for a reason
we may never know...” said the minister contritely at the
gravesite.

Not if I could help it
.
Wearing
my brown business suit, I stood out like a tall, half-Jamaican man
at a white midget convention. Amidst a sea of white faces, I
counted only two of minority descent. And I was one of them.

The funeral was held at the Evergreen
Cemetery on a gloomy day. The dirty looks I received from some
mourners made it clear that they considered my presence
inappropriate. I considered it very appropriate. Whether I liked it
or not, I had become forever linked to Catherine Ashley
Sinclair.

I had been made a pawn in her death. She’d
been beaten, raped, and strangled, and I’d remained the number one
suspect, for lack of evidence to point toward others. Though no
charges had been filed yet, I had a bad feeling that when the
complete DNA tests came in they would point towards me conclusively
as Catherine Ashley Sinclair’s rapist and, by implication,
murderer.

If someone truly wanted me to take the rap
for Catherine’s death, it wasn’t too far-fetched to think that my
sperm could have been extracted and injected in her while I was
unconscious. The real rapist and murderer probably used a
condom.

It left me in a very precarious and
uncomfortable position. Even from the grave, I could almost hear
Catherine Ashley Sinclair telling me to fight like hell for justice
for both of us.

Gregory Sinclair looked for all the world
like a grieving widower. There was no sign of the woman I believed
he was having an affair with and who had manipulated me into
spending time in my bed. I was somehow hoping that if she was
clever enough to masquerade as Catherine Sinclair, she just might
be bold and calculating enough to attend her funeral. Apparently
she wasn’t foolish enough to risk running into me again.

I noted a red-haired woman who seemed
overwrought with emotion. A man not far from where Sinclair stood
comforted her. Was she a relative of the deceased?

“. . . Catherine Ashley will now know peace
in a place where no more harm can come to her,” the minister
crooned dramatically.

I seriously doubted that Catherine Sinclair
could ever be at peace so long as her killer or killers remained at
large.

Following the service, I waited along a
stretch of moss-green grass for Gregory Sinclair to go to his
limousine. He seemed in no hurry to do so, almost basking in the
spotlight.

Then our eyes met. He excused himself long
enough from a woman young enough to be his daughter—but old enough
to be more than merely a friend to him—to approach me.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he barked
in a low voice.

“I came to pay my respects,” I said, which
was partially true.

Sinclair twisted his mouth into a sneer.
“Have you no sense of decency after what you did to her?”

“I tried to save her life,” I told him
acridly, “or at least the life I thought was hers—”

He shook his head dismissively. “How long is
this going to go on?”

“As long as it takes to find out who killed
your wife,” I said, “and whoever set me up!” Standing a good three
inches above Sinclair, I angled my eyes forcefully at his. “If it
wasn’t you, then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”

He fixed me with silent edginess. If Sinclair
thought I was simply going to step into the background and watch
myself be charged with a rape and murder I didn’t commit, he was
greatly mistaken.

With a smirk, I said: “See you around,
man.”