Hand of Fate (14 page)

Chapter
21

McCormick & Schmick's Harborside Restaurant

While they waited for their table, Allison was quickly moving from hunger to nausea, a continuum that her pregnancy had shortened considerably. Swallowing hard, she pressed her fingers against her lips.

"Here." Cassidy put something in Allison's other hand. "Eat this."

It was a granola bar studded with nuts and chocolate chips. Her stomach rumbled, but she hesitated."Isn't it kind of rude to eat something they didn't sell you?"

Nicole shook her head. "Girl, you could starve to death before we got anyone's attention:' She shot a rare grin at Cassidy. "Did that come out of your magic bag?"

Cassidy hefted her huge, black leather tote. "You know it. If I ever get stranded on a desert island, I'll be fine as long as I have my purse."

It was a standing joke that Cassidy's purse held everything anyone might need: safety pins, sewing kit, makeup, food, bus tickets, greeting cards, and of course, food. Allison wouldn't be surprised if there were a small tent and a ham radio in there as well.

Surreptitiously unwrapping the granola bar, she scanned the room. People were five deep at the bar, laughing, shouting, flirting, and, by the looks of things, drinking hard. Everyone was giddy. Only the day before, so many had been convinced that they were dying. But only a dozen people had been hospitalized, injured in the mad panic.

And now Portland, having so narrowly escaped disaster, was more than ready to party.

As Allison remembered how people had collapsed all around her, a wave of relief washed over her. Thank You, Lord, for watching over us. She grinned at her two friends.

"What?" Cassidy shouted above the noise.

"It's nothing," Allison said as Nicole leaned in to hear. "I'm just glad that we're all okay."

Fifteen years earlier, the three of them had graduated from Catlin Gabel, one of Portland's elite private schools. Then they had barely known each other, although they had known of each other. Nicole had stood out by virtue of being one of the fewer than a half-dozen African American students. Cassidy had been a cheerleader. And Allison had been a fixture on the honor roll and captain of the debate team.

At their high school reunion, their common interest in crimeCassidy's in covering it, Nicole's in fighting it, and Allison's in prosecuting it--had drawn them together. When Nicole was transferred to the Portland office, Allison had suggested they meet for dinner, and a friendship began over a shared dessert called Triple Threat Chocolate Cake. In its honor, the three women had christened themselves the Triple Threat Club. And whenever they got together to talk about their jobs and their private lives, they made it a point to share the most decadent dessert on the menu.

"To the Triple Threat Club!" Cassidy said, raising her gin and tonic.

Nicole echoed her words, bumping their glasses with hers of red wine.

"Long may it reign!" added Allison as she tapped her glass of orange juice against her friends' glasses. When she tipped her glass back, Allison caught a glimpse of the TV screen over the bar. "I can'
t b
elieve they haven't taken that commercial off the air," she said, pointing. The other two women turned to look.

The political ad began with a video, shot at an angle, of Quentin Glover talking with his mouth full, a half-eaten hot dog in his hand. Slumped and slovenly, he obviously had no idea he was being filmed. As he gestured to an unseen listener, a piece of food fell from his mouth.

But it wasn't that image that had made Allison think they would have pulled the ad by now. It was the voice-over, which she had heard so often in recent weeks that she could have recited it from memory. The announcer was saying,"Radio talk show host Jim Fate was Quentin Glover's best man. Now even Fate says we shouldn't reelect Quentin Glover."

The noisy bar quieted as Jim Fate's own voice, recorded from his show and laced with indignation, came on. "Quentin Glover has now been indicted on charges that he lied about receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from a manufacturing firm. Some of the goodies he allegedly received include a car and a second home at Sunriver. Now, people, you know I find it hard to believe that the guy who was cheating on his wife was 100 percent honest."

On the screen, the words THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN GIFTS, GOODIES, and CHEATING ON HIS WIFE appeared.

"I'm not saying our congresspeople have to be perfect," the voice of a dead man continued, "because I myself have weaknesses. But our standard is that just because you are popular doesn't mean you can get away with committing felonies. And if this week it's perjury, and next week it's theft, and the week after that it's having somebody beaten up, then one day America may well end up a sleazy country like Iraq, where the corruption is unending."

An angry man appeared on the screen. He wore traditional Middle Eastern clothing: a long, white robe; a white kaffiyeh head covering;

and a black circlet to hold it in place. With one hand he hoisted a machine gun. In the other was a stack of money.

Only two days earlier the commercial, paid for by a group called Clean Up Oregon Politics, had been annoying or amusing, depending on your political leanings and how many times you had already seen it. Now people muttered and shook their heads at the sound of Jim's voice. The three women looked at each other, and Allison knew they were sharing the same thought: exactly how angry had that commercial made Quentin Glover?

Just then the hostess came up with a smile. "Sorry for the delay, ladies. Your table is ready now."

"This was worth the wait," Allison said as she settled in next to the window overlooking the river. The tables, set in tiers, all offered a view, but the ones next to the window were the best.

After they ordered, the three women took out notebooks and pens. Normally when they met, it was as friends, with work being just one topic of conversation. But this was work, taking place over dinner.

"Let's start at the beginning." Nicole turned to Cassidy. "Allison and I need to know everything you know about Jim Fate. Leif got this photo of him at the radio station. We'll be using it for the canvas. Is this a current likeness?" She set a photo on the table. Usually they dealt with candid snapshots, not eight-by-ten glossies.

Picking it up, Cassidy regarded it critically. "This is a bit out-of-date. He's had a little work done in the last couple of years. Botox, some resurfacing. Most of these old acne scars are gone. Although I don't know why Jim bothered. They just give a man character."

"So you knew him pretty well," Nicole observed. She rested her glass of wine against her cheek, partly obscuring her mouth. In high school, Nic had had a prominent overbite. A few of the crueler kids had dubbed her Mrs. Ed. Somewhere in the intervening years, she'
d h
ad her teeth straightened. With her dark, smooth skin and slightly slanted eyes, she had always been pretty. Now she was beautiful. Still, old habits died hard.

Cassidy shrugged and set the photo down. "You know. Portland's a big town on a small scale, so we cross"--she corrected herself--"crossed paths a lot."

"Where did all this path crossing take place?" Allison asked. "Press conferences, fund-raising dinners, that kind of thing." The waitress set down a basket of bread and carafes of olive oil an
d b
alsamic vinegar. Cassidy busied herself pouring the oil and vinega
r i
nto a small, white dish.

"We both worked in the media, albeit in opposite ends." Cassidy dabbed a slice of bread into the mixture. "Is it true that he refused to leave the studio when he knew he had been exposed to the gas?"

Allison said, "That's what we're hearing. He stayed inside so that the others wouldn't be exposed."

"He died a hero. He would have liked that." Cassidy's eyes sparkled with tears, but she managed a smile. "Except for the dying part. Would he have lived if he'd opened the door?"

Nicole shook her head. "No. At the autopsy this morning, they said he would have needed an immediate dose of an opioid antagonist. And maybe even that wouldn't have saved him."

Cassidy's perfectly groomed brows drew together. Her eyes were an arresting teal blue--the result, Allison knew, of colored contacts. "That's what I don't understand. I was at the press conference John Drood held this afternoon. So it wasn't sarin gas?"

Nicole said, "No. The results of the autopsy point to some kind of opiate. We won't know which for a while."

"What do you know?" Cassidy asked. Sometimes Allison and Nicole would give her tips that she wouldn't have heard anyplace else
,
allowing her to scoop the competition. In return, Cassidy occasionally brought her own findings to them.

"Something interesting did turn up today," Nicole said, "but you can't air this. Not yet. A neighbor told us she saw a blonde woman leaving Jim's condo yesterday--and it was probably after Jim was already dead."

"Really?" Cassidy's eyes widened. "Do you have any idea who it was?"

Allison wondered if she was jealous.

"That's the thing. There were no signs that he was living with anyone," Nicole said. "Do you know if he was dating anyone?"

Cassidy shrugged one shoulder. "Remember, you're talking about a guy who started his own Internet dating service for conservatives: Let Fate Find You a Date. Jim dated any beautiful single woman in Portland he could get his hands on."

Matter-of-factly, Nicole said, "So that would include you." Allison winced at her bluntness, but she had had the same thought. "I didn't say that." Cassidy flushed and looked away. "Besides, i
t w
asn't anything serious. Jim plays--played--the field."

"How about his cohost, Victoria Hanawa?" Allison asked. "Do you think she was having a relationship with Jim?"

"You mean, had they dated?" Cassidy asked. "Of course. A couple of times. But was Victoria his girlfriend? No. Jim always said he liked to keep his work life separate from his private life. Of course, this is the same guy who always used his name to get a good table at a restaurant."

"What was Jim like, anyway?" Allison asked. "Especially off th
e a
ir."

Cassidy looked up, remembering. "Shrewd. Intelligent. Street-smart as well as book smart. Some of his fans called him The Great One. He pretended not to like it. Jim's charming when he wants to be, crank
y w
hen he doesn't. Like pretty much anyone who works in the media, he can be a gossip. He likes--liked--power. Liked getting people to do things for him." Cassidy's description bounced back and forth between past and present tense as Jim became alive for her again. "Fastidious. He liked everything tidy. At the same time, Jim's macho. That is one man who would never back down. Never."

Allison looked at Nicole as Cassidy finished. They were sharing the same thought--Cassidy knew Jim a lot better than she had admitted.

"But why would someone kill him?" Allison asked. "We need to figure out if it was personal or some kind of domestic terrorism. The anthrax attacks targeted the media and the government, so there's a precedent."

"I don't even really think of people like Jim Fate as members of the press," Nicole said. "It's not like they report the news. They report their opinions."

"In the anthrax case, the first person to die was a photo editor at a supermarket tabloid," Allison pointed out, "not a Tom Brokaw type. It was only later that they sent anthrax to ABC, CBS, and NBC. Cassidy, Jim told you he was being threatened. I talked to him, Nicole and I had set up a meeting for the day after he died, but he wouldn't give me any details. We need to know what he told you."

They stopped talking for a minute as the waitress brought their food: New York steak for Cassidy, king salmon for Allison, and arctic char for Nicole.

After the waitress left, Cassidy said,"He never said who he thought they were from, or even what was in therm. He just said he was getting threats and asked for your phone numbers."

"Do you know how they were delivered?" Nicole asked. "Through the mail, dropped off at the station, phone ... ?"

"E-mail, I think. And in the mail. But mostly e-mail." Cassidy cut a piece from her steak. She had ordered it rare, and Allison averted her gaze from the juices collecting on the plate. Some days she craved red meat; on others the very thought repulsed her.

Nicole said, "Did Jim try to find out what IP address they were sent from?"

"An IP address?" Cassidy took the last piece of bread from the basket and used it to mop up the juices from her steak. "That shows what computer you're using, right?"

"IP addresses are how we caught all those sick pervs who chatted me up when I was working Innocent Images," Nicole said.

Innocent Images was the FBI's cyber crime squad's effort to take down online predators. Nicole had spent hours pretending to be thirteen. Not surprisingly, Nicole's work on Innocent Images did not seem to have improved her view of men. Allison didn't know what had happened in the years since high school, but Nicole was now wary, even dismissive, of nearly all men. Only Leif had seemed to crack that hard shell.

"Each time you go to a Web site, your computer's IP address is recorded on its servers," Nicole said.