Heaven Is High (3 page)

She explained the situation briefly without mentioning names. “I've become a defense attorney,” she said, “and my lack of knowledge about your area of expertise is woeful, I'm afraid. I don't even know anyone on the West Coast who is an expert.”

“Ms. Holloway, it is doubtful that anyone can be of much help in such a case. Without papers, a passport, visa permit, a Green Card, Social Security number, and so on, there's little recourse but to return her to her country of origin. If, as you say, there is some question concerning what country that is, it becomes a little more complicated, but I would assume there's a photograph of the girl the father claims was kidnapped, and if she resembles the person in such a photograph, probably the case will be concluded expeditiously by returning her to her father with the understanding that in her home country she will have access to the legal system to appeal such a decision. If the young woman has done nothing to draw attention to herself, applied for a passport or a Social Security card, something of that sort, or has broken the law and has been arrested, since she has married, with a name change, there seldom is a reason for the immigration service to take notice of her, unless they received a tip. But even if that is a given, that someone has tipped them off, the pertinent facts are unchanged. She is in the country illegally and almost certainly will be sent back home. I can give you the name of someone in your area to represent her, but I'm afraid such information does not immediately come to mind. In a day or two perhaps.”

“I would appreciate that very much,” Barbara said. “May I call you again early next week?”

“Yes. Monday or Tuesday. I'll make a note, my dear.”

Tuesday, she thought with dismay after hanging up. With the deadline on Friday, that was cutting it too close. Her father might know someone, although it was not his field any more than it was hers, but he knew a lot of people. He might know an expert. She called his office and had to settle for Patsy, his secretary.

“Oh, you just missed him,” Patsy said. “He left five minutes ago. He said he has some shopping to do, and he wants to get home before dark. You know how awful that drive is in the best of weather, and a day like this one.… You have his number out there, don't you?”

“Of course,” Barbara said, and thanked her. Okay, she told herself, stymied. Coffee, and get to those articles. She nuked leftover coffee, never good but better than any she might make, she admitted to herself. Then she returned to her desk and began to read.

“My God!” she muttered after the first two articles. Piracy was alive and thriving in the Caribbean, off the African coast, in Indonesian waters, other places. She'd had no idea. So that part of the message Shala had left her daughter very likely had been true.

She was immersed in another article concerning contemporary slavery, again all around the world, when her doorbell rang. Not at all regretful about leaving the disquieting article, she went to see who was calling this time.

One of the reasons Frank objected so strenuously to her housing arrangement was the fact that she admitted strangers inside. “You're inviting danger,” he had snapped when she defended the practice that she knew was somewhat less than prudent. The man on her stoop that late afternoon would be chalked up in her father's column, she thought. He was at best nondescript, middle-aged, tired-looking, wearing a dripping wet, shapeless raincoat and an equally wet slouch hat down low on his forehead. He had one hand in his coat pocket.

“Yes?” she said cautiously, keeping the chain on her door.

“Ms. Holloway, Jeffrey Nicholson.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and, shielding it with his body, showed her an official ID. “DEA,” he said. “Drug Enforcement Agency. May I come in?”

She opened the door. Inside, he looked at the rug at his feet and said diffidently, “Maybe there's someplace where the water won't hurt anything?”

It wouldn't hurt the cheap rug, but she nodded, motioned for him to come along, and went to the kitchen. “Drape it over a chair, I'll bring a towel to put down.”

After spreading a towel under his coat, she said, “We might as well sit in here, Mr. Nicholson. What can I do for you?”

He placed his hat on the towel and pulled out a chair. “This is fine. Thanks. Ms. Holloway, I've come to ask you to assist the agency in an ongoing investigation. I don't want to take a lot of your time, so I'll try to explain quickly.”

Barbara sat opposite him at the table and waited. Don't judge a book by its cover, she thought, and don't judge a man by the sound of his voice. But Nicholson's voice was high-pitched and rasping, the kind of voice that, if he were a hostile witness in court, she would encourage to talk on and on, knowing the jury would find it as irritating as she did.

“It concerns a big drug-smuggling enterprise,” Nicholson said, “one that involves people here in Eugene. We have reason to believe that your city is one of the major redistribution centers for drugs smuggled into the country and sent on to other cities up and down the coast. And the focus of our investigation is this neighborhood.”

If Eugene had a slum, Barbara knew, it was this area, with some of the poorest of the poor, unemployed, unemployable, immigrants with minimum education if any, many with no English. And some, most of those she had met so far, very good people who simply were impoverished. She knew there were drugs, but probably no more than in the university neighborhood, just more likely to get the possessors into trouble.

“Exactly what are you after?” she asked. “Assist you in what way?”

He looked very earnest as he said, “We've been unable to get a reliable informant in the area, and we really need one. There are a couple of snitches who tell us things now and then, but they are as likely to lie as not, and that's not good enough. We think you might help with that effort.”

She shook her head. “Mr. Nicholson, as an attorney I sometimes give advice to local residents, but my oath as an attorney would prohibit disclosing to anyone whatever matters I discuss with such clients. I can't help you.”

“No, no,” he said. “We understand that relationship, Ms. Holloway, and we respect it entirely. We wouldn't think of asking you to break your confidentiality oath to your clients. Never. It's an urban legend that where federal agencies are concerned the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. But there are times, Ms. Holloway, when that isn't true. For instance, we know that the immigration service is homing in on Mrs. Binnie Owens as an undocumented resident, an unregistered alien here illegally. And we also know that Martin Owens, a football star, is a hero to many of the young people here. They look up to him, respect him, and they confide in him. We are asking you to tell him that if he will simply relate to us any information he hears concerning a shipment, a delivery, anything about who the headman is of the ring operating here, anything of substance that he hears, we will come to his assistance in negotiating an appeal with immigration. We can be of great help to him and his wife, Ms. Holloway, if he will cooperate with us. Will you deliver that message to him? That's all we are asking of you, to deliver the message.”

“Why don't you tell him yourself?” Barbara asked coolly.

“When you're in trouble with one government agency, would you even listen to a second one?” he said, spreading his hands in a discouraged manner. “We wanted to approach him before, but without any leverage, it appeared pointless. He's clean, young, suspicious of the government and somewhat fearful of it. With cause at present, I must admit, with cause. Now, with a little leverage, an offer of help in his real trouble, he might be willing to assume such a role. And, Ms. Holloway, it would benefit those young people he already befriends. Whenever we can take drugs off the streets, it can only help society as a whole. Surely you would agree with that.”

She rose from her chair and said, “I'll deliver your message, but I won't advise him in any way concerning it. Was that all, Mr. Nicholson?”

“That's it,” he said, reaching for his hat. “Thanks for giving me this time.” He put on his coat and hat and followed her from the kitchen after a swift glance about. In the living room his glance lingered a moment on the library books as he adjusted his hat down low again and buttoned his coat. “I'll be in touch for his answer,” he said at the door. He opened it and left with that.

She locked the door, then returned to the kitchen, deeply troubled. She was very much afraid that she had found out who had tipped off the immigration officials about Binnie's status. And to do that and now demand that Martin Owens become a stool pigeon for them was so reprehensible that she thought that if she knew of an anarchist group she could join, she'd become a card-carrying member immediately. It had not been a simple request; it was a demand. It was blatant criminal extortion.

3

It was eleven when Barbara closed her book about Belize and wandered into her office to make a few more notes and reread the ones she had made earlier.

Something was wonky, she kept thinking. Something was nagging at her without defining what that something was. Jeffrey Nicholson, she jotted his name with a question mark. Domonic Guteriez, another question mark. After Nicholson's name she wrote the question: Why did he come to me? How did he know to come to me?

One of his stoolies could have informed him, she thought. But she didn't believe it. In that kind of rain? An unreliable stoolie tagging along after Martin Owens and his wife? One who knew that she was an attorney living in this wreck of a house? It seemed unlikely. Yet Nicholson had known that. If he already had a stoolie who knew it also, why did he say he needed Martin? Why bother with her?

As for Domonic, why hadn't he continued to press the kidnapping charge? To all appearances the matter had been dropped, or the FBI would have become involved. There would have been publicity. Had Martin Owens paid him off?

Back up just a little, she decided. Martin and Binnie got the letter from INS the day before yesterday. It had been in their mailbox when they got home at ten thirty or a little later, and they stewed about it for one day, then came to her door. Nicholson had shown up hours later, and he had come knowing she was an attorney. It didn't add up, she thought irritably. It was all too damn fast.

One of the articles she had read was about Haiti, which the World Health Organization had described as having a high incidence of the new scourge, AIDS. Superstitious, with a strong belief in witches, curses, even zombies, one of the poorest nations on earth, practically denuded of its trees, with attendant soil erosion, chronic food shortages. Corrupt government. If INS deported Binnie, escorted her from a plane to return her to Domonic, she would vanish to a bordello somewhere and never be found again. Even if Martin got a visa to follow her, he would fail.

Barbara shook her head. Not her goddamn case, she reminded herself. She was as helpless as Martin Owens in this matter. But she wanted to talk to them again, a long talk. And she wanted answers to the questions she had written.

Before she left her office an hour later, she wrote one more note on her pad: Call Bailey.

*   *   *

She placed the call at eight thirty the next morning. When she asked if he was free, Bailey said, “Depends. What's up?”

“Can you come around at ten? I'll explain when I see you.”

“The old man's office?”

“No. My place.” She gave her address.

“I've got another job going, so I might not have a lot of time,” he said in an aggrieved-sounding voice, his skepticism over the address no doubt on his mind.

“Let's talk about it when you get here,” she said. “See you later.” She hung up.

From one of the articles she had read, a brief profile of the NFL linebacker Martin Owens, she had learned that he had made a lot of money in the six years he had been on the Giants, but also that he had spent a lot of money, buying his mother an expensive house, another slightly less expensive one for his sister's wedding present, new cars for both, and that he had established a substantial trust fund for his mother. She had cleaned houses in Atlanta to support him and his sister. And he and his buddies had rented a yacht for three weeks and probably had indulged in other extravagant holidays, as well as expensive toys. Barbara hoped he had kept some money. Bailey Novell, the best private detective west of the Mississippi, according to her father, did not come cheap.

Bailey usually was prompt, and he was that morning. Barbara, watching for his old Dodge, already had her jacket on, purse in hand, when he pulled to a stop at the curb behind her own car.

She met him on the sidewalk.

From his appearance Bailey was exactly the kind of danger her father had warned her about. He looked like a bum dressed in thrift store clothes that didn't quite fit. He looked perfectly at home in this poor neighborhood.

“Let's talk a minute in your heap,” she said.

He was looking past her at the house, badly in need of paint, with an unkempt yard that had a mixture of wild grass and weeds growing luxuriantly that wet spring. “You've got a nerve, talking about a heap,” he said with a shrug.

He got in behind the wheel and she settled into the passenger seat. The rain had yielded to a fine mist and their breath fogged the windows almost instantly.

“So what's up?” he asked.

“You know who Martin Owens is?”

“Never heard of him.”

“The football player.”

He gave her an appraising look. “You kidding? That Martin Owens? Sure, who doesn't?”

“He has a restaurant here,” she said, and described the broad outlines of the situation. “Anyway, I wonder if his restaurant is bugged. And I wonder if my house is. For openers.”

“You flying solo?”

She nodded. “I assume Owens has kept some of the money he earned playing football. I'll find out. But keep the cost down. Just in case I have to pony up.”