Hidden Pearl (11 page)

"You were only there one week-end and you already have created quite the story for it," he said with a grin. “Imagination part of the secret of being a gifted photographer?”

She gave him a look. “All right, ignore my intuition. I am no foolish woman who quakes at the slightest risk. You don’t know me well, but I have gone into dangers that many men might hesitate about. This is different.”

“I didn’t intend to put you down.”

"Okay, I can see where you might think I am overreacting since you haven’t been there yet. I don’t think I am; but if you have to go, you have to go. Soul wanted me to bring the proofs back to look at. I’ll do that."

She believed Soul would know her real reason then shook her head at her own foolishness. Maybe it was too much imagination. Was she giving him too much credit for reading people’s minds? Maybe not a psychic, not connected to some demonic force, but he was an expert at human motivations. She’d bet on that; and after seeing her in S.T.’s office, he would know what was bringing her back.

He shook his head. “We barely know each other. I don’t know why you feel you have to protect me."

She smiled. “I don't either," she said not pretending to misunderstand him. "I just know I want to help, and I'll see what I can find out about Peter Soul before you have to meet with him again."

"Have to?"

“Isn’t that how you feel?”

His smile was gentle. "If you are so good at reading minds, why don’t you already know my birth name?"

“Because someday soon you will tell me."

She could see that shook him. He was smiling though as he rose from the table and reached to pull back her chair. Standing beside him, the top of her head not coming to much above his shoulder, she knew she would be seeing him again and he would matter to her life. Perhaps more than she wanted.

#

"S.T.?"

"What can I do for you, Jim?" S.T. asked, balancing the receiver of the phone between his shoulder and ear as he wrote a list of things he wanted Dusty to do while he was off playing detective.

"I'm not sure," James Bailey said slowly. "It's about Lane Brown. His wife is pretty upset."

"Understandable. Does she need help financially?"

Bailey laughed. "Do you know who Katy's father is?"

"Should I?"

"You know Cleveland Hayward?"

"If it’s
the
Cleveland Hayward, only by reputation. Big money investor, technology genius from the Seattle area, right?"

"You got it. Katy is fine financially. She probably got her first trust fund to teethe on."

"If it’s emotional comfort she needs, I can’t provide it.”

"She’s grieving and angry. She does not believe Lane killed himself."

"Not many wives or mothers would want to believe such," S.T. said, laying his pen down.

"She and Jayne have been talking. Katy said the police refuse to investigate because of that suicide note, and her family's so afraid of scandal they won't help her. She doesn’t believe Lane wrote that note. It did not look like his natural handwriting to her or even how he would phrase things."

"The police appear to disagree."

"Police like tidy solutions."

"She got a reason besides loving her husband?" S.T. asked cynically.

"Gut feelings more than facts."

"Those aren’t very reliable in such a situation." S.T. stared out the window at the threatening clouds building up overhead. He wished he'd not taken the call. His life was complex enough without adding Lane Brown's grieving widow. He didn't know if it was because the Navajo half of him that didn't like thinking about the dead or his normal reluctance to get involved in the personal business of others.

"She agrees that Lane was upset... Something about the project he was working on. She thinks it had soured in some way, but he wouldn't talk about it."

"Which could have led him to kill himself. It wouldn’t be the first man."

"How well did you know Lane?"

"Only professionally—nice enough guy. He was proud of his family, showed pictures to anybody who would stand still long enough. Pretty kids. Beautiful wife."

"That's it. He loved his family. I tend to agree with Katy. I can't imagine him committing suicide."

"Depression can do strange things." He wished he could break the connection, not hear anymore about this. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work out the sudden tension there.

"Katy wants friends, working relationships to go to the police. Tell them what they know about Lane, that he wasn’t the kind of man to kill himself. Get them to look beyond the note."

“I can’t help with that. As I said, I barely knew him. Besides, is there a kind of man who kills himself? Seems to me nobody knows what a breaking point will be with anyone.”
Even ourselves,
he added silently.

"I'd consider it a personal favor, S.T."

"Calling in IOU's?"

"No, not that, just I think something stinks about this, and I'm going to find out all I can. I hoped I could convince you to do likewise."

"You know it’s hard to believe anybody would get mad enough at an architect to murder him. Sue maybe but not kill."

“Not usually. Hey, I don’t know what was going on, but you know the project your contractor was trying to dump you for. Peter Soul was that client Lane was working with.”

That did add some interest. “You seriously think Soul might’ve forced Lane to commit suicide because of a design he drew up? Get serious.” He remembered though Christine’s warnings about the man. More there than met the eye.

“I’m not suggesting he did but it’s somewhere to start, isn’t it? Soul visited Katy after the funeral, expressed his sympathies, asked if he could help in anyway.”

“Nothing suspicious in that.”

Bailey hesitated a moment. “You know how intuition goes. There are these things... women... men too sometimes feel that just says it’s not what it seems. That was what Katy feels. Of course, she knows she might just be desperately hoping that she can find out so that someday she won’t have to tell her girls that their father killed himself.”

“All right. All right. I get it. Okay, how far was Lane into the project when he died?”

"Just preliminary work, I think. She has his drawings, portfolio. I don’t know if it would help, but it might make more sense to you than me."

"Was there anything else that I should know, something that wouldn’t make the news reports—something more personal as a possible motive for suicide or a murder?"

“You mean like another woman?”

“It happens.”

“Jayne and I saw them a lot socially. Saw how much Lane loved his girls—all three of them. He didn’t have another woman.”

S.T. wasn’t so sure. Humans often didn’t follow logic where it came to affairs of the heart or the groin, but he just listened as Bailey went on.

“Lane was supposed to go to San Francisco on an overnight consultation for a future project. That’s what he told Katy anyway. She got worried when he didn’t call because he always calls. Then she couldn’t reach his cell. The hotel had no record of him checking in. She called the airport. He had never even picked up his boarding pass. No car left in the lot. He wasn’t on that plane. That’s when they started looking for him. Two days later a hiker found his body in a heavily wooded area of that Eugene park."

"The newspaper said he left a note."

"Stuffed in his shirt pocket. He had an ice box, one Katy didn't remember them owning. He had stood on it after he fixed the rope around his neck, secured his own hands behind his back with those handcuffs people get for kinky sex before he kicked away the box. All prints on the box were Lane’s."

"So far that just sounds like suicide. What about the client in San Francisco?”

“There wasn’t one. Not that Katy can find anyway. Listen, S.T., if someone killed him, it seems like they set this up.”

“I wish I could help you but... Did they do an autopsy?”

"Yes, but no results back from toxicology yet."

"How about signs of a struggle, bruises on his body, cuts? Anything to indicate a fight?"

"No, and I think that's part of why the police aren't buying Katy's suspicions."

"No wonder. He sets up a phony meeting to go to, disappears, and then turns up dead. That all sounds like he planned it, not someone else.”

“I am not denying you could be right.”

S.T. could tell Bailey was not convinced. “All right... I'll ask some questions when I’m down at the compound."

"You going there to negotiate terms regarding your contractor?”

"Actually Soul wants us to build his church."

There was a moment of silence. "Hellfire and brimstone," Bailey swore with as strong of curse as he ever used. “You going to do that?”

“Not a chance. I don’t build temples to any god unless it’d be mammon; but I had another reason for going even before this.”  He told Bailey about his sister's disappearance.

"This isn’t sounding good. You be careful."

"How could you think otherwise?”

Bailey laughed. Then his tone grew more somber. “I really do think something stinks about all of this."

"I'll get back to you if I find out anything."

When he'd hung up, S.T. sat at his desk staring into space, thinking about Soul's visit to his office and the fact that he'd never mentioned Lane's connection with the church project. Of course, he might not have thought to do it, but still...

S.T. wasn’t a superstitious man, nor one who took on problems before he needed to; but everywhere he turned, there was the man’s name. For someone he'd never heard of a week ago, Soul was invading his life.

He found himself wondering what Christine would say about all of this when she came to his house for dinner later that night. He was tired of questions and ready for some answers, hopefully before he made his trip to the Servants of Grace.

#

S.T. heard Christine's car drive up and met her at the front door of his home. "This is lovely," she said as she looked up at the tall trees surrounding his multi-leveled dwelling, then at him. "Did you build it yourself?"

"Every inch." He was enjoying his own view. She had let her long, blond hair hang loose, tan slacks and a light matching sweater clung lovingly to the curves of her body.  He remembered a saying his mother had taught him
--"In beauty may I dwell. In beauty may I walk."
At that moment, Christine Johnson was fulfilling that completely.

"Your home is fantastic and on all levels." From the outside view, S.T. knew the home impressed most people. Cedar sided, it soared up three stories, not wide, but narrow, a little like the trees that surrounded it. He hadn’t cut any that weren’t required absolutely.

"I don't think I've ever seen a house quite like it," Christine said, still looking up.

"I am an architect," he reminded her, feeling the warmth of pride and satisfaction that she liked what he'd created. It was his private retreat, his escape valve, and he shared it rarely. He was glad now that he'd invited her to dinner.