Never Look Down (10 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Cal

Archie and I stopped at Whole Foods as we walked back from the Pearl District. I saw some fresh rockfish, which I bought along with tomatoes, jalapeños, a couple of limes, a handful of fresh cilantro, and a pack of tortillas. Back at Caffeine Central, I fed Arch and whisked up a marinade for the fish. I drank a Mirror Pond IPA and sifted through the day's e-mails while the fish marinated. But my thoughts kept flashing back to those divots in the brick wall above the scene of Claudia's murder. Did the tagger know how much danger he or she was in?

Not likely. The thought was unsettling.

After the best damn fish tacos I'd made in a long time, my thoughts turned back to Manny Bonilla, the only thing close to a lead I had left. I didn't want to bother his mother in her time of grief, but I was anxious to know what she could tell me about her son and his situation at the Federal Re-entry Center. I decided to chance a call, hoping it wouldn't be too invasive.

Her husband, Robert Hidalgo, answered the phone and told me she was too upset to talk. When I explained I was a lawyer looking into the death of Claudia Borrego on behalf of her fiancé, he said, “We already talked to the Portland Police.”

“I'm sure you have, Mr. Hidalgo. We're working in parallel with the police, you know, just making sure no stone's left unturned.” It was a true statement as far as it went.

He surprised me by agreeing to talk. Some people need to talk in a time of grief, and Hidalgo was apparently one of those.

“Look, Mr. Claxton,” he began after I expressed my condolences, “Manny didn't kill himself, I can tell you that. He was a good Catholic boy.”

“Are the police saying he did?”

“Reading between the lines, yes. But they're not through with all the tests yet.”

“What do
you
think happened?”

“I don't know. A crazy accident. A robbery. It was Portland, after all. We wanted him to come to eastern Oregon when he got out, but he wanted to stay there. Now look what's happened. Nothing good ever happens in that damn city.”

“What plans did he have?”

Hidalgo exhaled a long breath, and when he spoke his voice broke a little. “He, uh, he was so excited. He had a decent job as a waiter in the Pearl District and was going to get his own apartment. Had a better job offer, too, but he turned it down.”

“What was that?”

“He was going to be the driver and sort of all-around handyman for a wealthy family. It wasn't ideal but beat working in a kitchen. He was real mechanical, you know, and tried to get on as an apprentice in a machine shop, but with a record it was hard. Anyway, two days before his release he announced he wasn't taking the driver job.”

“Did he give a reason?”

“Nope. Couldn't get a thing out of him.”

“Do you happen to know the name of the family?”

“The Jenkins family. They own a bunch of gun shops. Real wealthy. He said he was going to work for the woman who owns it all. It was a good place to start, I guess. His lawyer got him the job.”

“Manny had a lawyer?”

“Well, he's the lawyer who represented him at his trial. He stayed in touch with Manny when he was at Sheridan. Helped him get into that halfway house, too. He helps felons that way.”

“What's the lawyer's name?”

“Jack Pfister. Has an office over in Oregon City.”

When I finally worked up to the drug bust that had sent Manny away, Hidalgo didn't give me much. Apparently, Bonilla was caught driving a truck with a lot of drugs in it. According to Hidalgo, he was set up, something I hear a lot from loving parents with wayward kids. I took him through a few other questions but didn't learn anything else. I didn't bring up the connection between Bonilla and Claudia Borrego. I wasn't supposed to know about that. And Hidalgo didn't volunteer it. My guess was Claudia had sworn the Hidalgos to secrecy to protect her job.

After the phone call I did some online research. Rosalind Jenkins had to be the woman Manny was slated to drive for. She owned a string of “family friendly” gun ranges and shops headquartered in Portland and stretching from Seattle down to San Diego along the I-5 corridor. The headquarters—aptly named the Bridgetown Arsenal—was located along the river on SE Water Street. I'd vaguely heard of Rockin' Roz, a celebrity in Oregon's gun-friendly circles, who, if memory served, advocated lifting all restraints on gun ownership.

I found Jack Pfister's website next and jotted down his phone number and address in Oregon City. In addition to advertising his defense work, he billed himself as something called a Gun Trust Lawyer.

With not much else to go on, I decided the Arsenal/Jack Pfister connection was worth a closer look. I also made a mental note to ask Pfister, if and when I saw him, what the hell a gun trust lawyer did.

Before I turned in that night I removed an unopened letter from my briefcase, the one from Russia. I started to tear it open, then hesitated and leaned back in my swivel chair. The ceiling needed paint, and a wispy spider web had formed in a far corner. No sign of the spider.

I opened a desk drawer and pulled out a photo of the woman who'd written the letter. I'd snapped it on a trip we'd taken to Canada. A big steelhead had her rod bent double, but her face was turned toward me, grinning, radiant with childlike enthusiasm.

I tore open the envelope and read the letter through. She was settling in okay. She'd found a job teaching English. She understood that nothing else could be done legally. She missed me, wished me well, and signed it with love.

I propped the photo up on my desk and got up, the old roller chair creaking in protest. The most painful things in life, it seemed, were the things that might have been.

Chapter Twenty

Cal

I slept fitfully that night as a cavalcade of strange dreams and half-formed images marched through my head, dominated by the image of a shadowy young person stranded high on a sheer rock wall. I kept wondering if the figure was my daughter, Claire. I awoke the next morning with a vague sense of anxiety, so I called her at Berkeley. “Claire, it's Dad,” I said. “Did I wake you?”

“No, Dad. What's up?”

“Oh, I just wanted to hear your voice. I, uh, I've been missing you.” I apologized for not having told her about the death of Nando's fiancée. I just didn't want her to worry about it but realized now how ridiculous that was. She knew Nando and deserved to know. I gave her a brief rundown.

“That's terrible,” she said when I finished. “Please give him my heartfelt condolences.” The line went silent for several beats. I knew what was coming. “Are you involved in this in any way, Dad?”

“Well, I'm helping Nando chase down some loose ends, you know, routine stuff. He's keen to see the killer caught, as you can imagine.”

“Uh huh,” she said very slowly, her voice assuming a tinge of wariness. “Nothing risky, right?”

As if on cue I swear a rogue throb of pain radiated out from my bruised ribs. “No worries,” I answered with faux casualness.
How did this happen?
I asked myself. I'd called Claire to ease my anxiety, and now I felt like a kid lying to a parent. My daughter had a way of doing that to me.

I got off the line without doing too much more damage. It was worth it, though, just to hear her voice. And I extracted a promise for her to come home for Christmas, too.

I fed Arch, had a double cappuccino, and after calling ahead for an appointment, drove to Jack Pfister's law office in Oregon City. The office was located in a four-story office building on High Street, near the museum. I figured Pfister would have a good view of the river and Willamette Falls, and I was right. After checking in with his receptionist, I went over to admire the view from a window facing west. The horseshoe-shaped falls cut a massive white gash in the river, which ran bluish gray in the cloud-filtered light.

“Great view, isn't it?” Jack Pfister stood in the doorway of his office, his close-set, avian eyes regarding me with unabashed curiosity.

“Uh, yeah, I've never seen the falls from this angle before. They're much larger than I thought. Amazing.”

I introduced myself and followed him into his office, a study in Scandinavian austere, and took a seat in front of a teak desk with nothing on it except a thin stack of papers. I felt a twinge of envy at his tidiness. His black hair was pulled into a short ponytail, and he wore dark slacks, a briskly starched white shirt, and an understated, striped tie configured in a full Windsor, a knot I never quite mastered back in my suit-wearing days.

“What can I do for you, Cal?”

“I, uh, have a small practice out in the valley. Dundee.” I slid a business card onto the desk. “I'm doing a favor for a friend. His fiancée, a woman named Claudia Borrego, was murdered last week in Portland. You probably read about it.”

Pfister's expression remained neutral. “Sorry to hear that. Your friend—anyone I know?”

“A PI out of Portland. Hernando Mendoza. Anyway, he isn't a fan of the Portland Police Bureau, so he's insisting on doing his own investigating.”

Pfister gave a skeptical smile and shook his head.

I raised my hands and smiled back. “I know. I know. But, he's a friend. I couldn't say no.”

“What's this have to do with me, Mr. Claxton?”

“Uh, we're wondering what you can tell us about Manny Bonilla?” He registered a couple of rapid blinks at my question. “I'm sure you heard about his death.”

Pfister dropped his gaze, shook his head, and exhaled a breath. “Manny's death is a real tragedy. We had such high hopes for him.” He brought his gaze back up. “But I'm not seeing the connection here.”

“His body was found the day after Borrego was shot. She was his caseworker at the Federal Re-entry Center. We're just wondering about, you know, the timing.”

In a kind of slow-motion double take Pfister seemed to reappraise me, this time with more care. It was a reaction I got from a lot of people I questioned. “My God, come to think of it, I did read something about that shooting, but I didn't make the connection. Are you suggesting foul play was involved in Manny's death?”

“His stepdad says no way Manny killed himself.”

“Huh. That's interesting. What are the police saying about it?”

I shrugged. “Not much at this juncture. Uh, Mr. Hidalgo also mentioned you arranged a job for Manny as a driver for the Jenkins family.” I gave him what I hoped would pass for an admiring smile. “He had nothing but praise for your mentoring efforts.”

A flash of white teeth. “Oh, we do what we can.”

“Any idea why he turned the job down?”

Pfister furrowed his forehead in what looked like genuine exasperation, not at me for asking the question, but at Manny. “I don't really know. I think Manny made a big mistake, and I told him so.”

“How does that work, you getting him a job?”

“Oh, it wasn't difficult in this case. I do legal work for the Jenkins family, and they said they needed someone. I told them Manny could not only drive but could take care of their cars, too. He was quite the mechanic. They were willing to give him a chance. It was pretty embarrassing when he changed his mind.”

At this point Pfister glanced at his watch and announced he had a court appearance coming up. I thanked him and got up to leave. Pfister stood and took a card from a silver box on his back bar and handed it to me. “The link to the website of my foundation's on this card. It's called A Hand Up
.
Check it out, Cal. I'm always looking for new volunteers, especially lawyers.”

I told him I'd do that, then at the door turned and asked one more question. “What's a gun trust lawyer, anyway? Just curious.”

Pfister leaned back in his chair and beamed a smile. “Gun trusts protect a critical asset in many estates—firearms. I help families plan for an orderly transition, you know, so they're passed on responsibly when an owner dies. Divorces can be a disaster, too. A good trust makes sure they stay in the right hands. Best of all, a trust can protect against the specter of future restrictions. After you die all your firearms will stay legal if you put them in a well-crafted trust.”

I nodded approvingly. “How's business?”

“Couldn't be better. Gun sales in this country are booming, thanks to Obama. He's been a one-man stimulus package for the firearms industry. Look into it, Claxton. Plenty of gun owners out your way in the Willamette Valley.”

“Sounds interesting. I think I'll check it out.” I thanked him for the tip and left, feeling like there was a whole universe out there—the universe of guns—that I knew very little about. And I was also unsure what to make of the gun trust lawyer and mentor of young felons, Jack Pfister.

Chapter Twenty-one

Cal

I took the 99E back into Portland and just before going over the Hawthorne Bridge turned into the industrial area that ran along the east side of the river. The Bridgetown Arsenal was housed on the ground floor of an old warehouse. After parking, I sat in the lot mulling over the pros and cons of popping in unannounced on Roz Jenkins. On the downside, if I showed up asking questions ahead of Scott and Ludlow, they'd take a dim view of it, to say the least. On the other hand, there was a fair chance they wouldn't even bother coming here to ask about Bonilla.

I decided to go for it.

The front door of the Arsenal opened into a brightly lit retail space. Aside from the sporadic, muffled reports of weapons being fired behind a back wall, the first thing I noticed was a play area in a corner, just inside the door. A flat-screen TV, a small, indoor slide, a couple of tables stocked with Legos, books, and jars of crayons stood at the ready. A cute little blond girl, maybe all of five, sat at one of the tables, deeply absorbed in a coloring book.

A perky female clerk with short, dark hair and designer jeans came from behind the glass case that lined an expansive wall. The case was filled with handguns, and the wall behind her arrayed with all kinds of rifles, most of which looked like military-issue with their hollow-frame stocks, ventilated barrels, and large, curved ammo clips. “Hi. I'm Jamie. Welcome to the Arsenal.”

“I'm Cal. I'm, uh, just looking around.” I was fascinated and maybe a little disturbed by the place and wanted time to browse. As an ex-prosecutor, I was familiar enough with guns—at least what they could do to people—but had never been inside a store devoted entirely to the sale of firearms and their accoutrements.

When she sauntered off I noticed how tight her jeans were. Sex sells, I reminded myself, even in the gun market.

Racks near the center of the store displayed all manner of shoulder holsters and clothing designed for concealing a carried weapon. Sport shirts with hand-entry slots and cargo pants and chinos with hidden pockets allowed someone packing heat to go casual. The pants styles designed to conceal a weapon were referred to as “covert” and “tactical,” I noted.

I was checking out a rack of women's handbags when Jamie rejoined me. “Those make a nice gift for the wife.”

“How do they work?”

She removed a sporty leather bag from the rack, placed the strap over her shoulder, and slid her hand into a side pocket. “There's a hidden compartment in here for a handgun.” She removed her hand and tilted the bag so I could see the compartment inside. “If your wife's in the parking lot and a mugger or rapist shows up, she can access her weapon quickly and with complete stealth.” Jamie slid her hand back into the side pocket, swung the bag to face me. “Bang, bang, you're dead.”

“Incredible,” I said. “How do they sell?”

She gave me a perky smile. “Like hot cakes. The holidays are right around the corner. Makes a great Christmas gift, or,” she went on, “we have some really nice handguns for women, too. The pink Glock's my favorite. It's light and compact, but a .44-caliber round will stop a horse. Would you like to see one?”

She was good, no doubt about it. “Actually, I'm a little pressed for time, Jamie. I was hoping I could talk to your boss. Is Roz Jenkins around?” I removed a card from my shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Tell her I'm an acquaintance of Jack Pfister's.” It wasn't a lie.

Jamie made a call and then showed me to a staircase. “Up the stairs, first door on your left.” I knocked on the unmarked door, and a voice boomed out, “Door's open.” Jenkins sat behind a massive desk in an equally large office with a window that looked out over Water Street and east toward Mount Hood, which was out there somewhere behind the cloud cover. She laid her reading glasses on the desk and stood to greet me. She was tall, close to six foot, and full-figured, with short, blond-going-to-gray hair atop a round, open face that was windblown and wrinkled, yet attractive at the same time. Her eyes were robin's-egg blue, wide and intense, almost unblinking. She met my eyes and smiled, disarmingly so. “You're a friend of Jack Pfister's?”

I introduced myself and said, “I practice law out in the north valley—Dundee. Jack's been, uh, advising me on becoming a gun trust lawyer. Sounds like a growth opportunity.” When in Rome, speak Italian.

She nodded and smirked. “With all the goddamn laws and regulations out there today, people certainly need good legal advice about handling their firearms. Pfister's one of the best.”

I nodded back. “But that's not why I'm here.” I went on to explain my interest in Claudia Borrego's murder using the just-doing-an-old-friend-a-favor routine, which was working for me. Then I said, “I understand a young man named Manny Bonilla was set to be your driver.”

Jenkins looked surprised. “Was that his name? Never met him. My son-in-law handles the hiring and firing around here.”

I nodded. “He turned the job down at the last minute. I'm just trying to fill in some blanks, wondering if you recall anything about this? Jack Pfister helped him get the job.”

“What, he wants the job after all?”

“No. Unfortunately, he was found dead shortly after Ms. Borrego's murder. The cause of death's still under investigation.”

Jenkins made a face. “Damn, that's too bad. Bonilla, huh? Name rings a bell. That the fella they found in the river up by Sauvie Island? I remember reading about that.”

“That's the one.”

“He an ex-con? I know Jack's real active in helping them out.”

“Yes. Bonilla did time at Sheridan and was in the federal re-entry program here in Portland.”

Roz popped up from behind her desk. “Come on, let's go find my son-in-law, Arthur. I believe he's down at the range.” She walked fast in a pair of pointy-toed boots with some handsome inlay work, straight leg jeans, and a checkered shirt with pearl buttons. A diamond-encrusted Rolex with a gold band jounced on her wrist. At a door in the retail space marked “Firing Range,” she removed two sets of molded plastic earmuffs and safety glasses from a rack and handed me a set of each. “Here, put these on. Arthur's demonstrating the Thompson right now.” I must have looked puzzled, because she laughed, the sound coming from her belly. “You know, the Chicago Typewriter, a vintage submachine like the Al Capone days. Come on. You'll get a kick out of this.”

The firing range was twenty stations deep, with each station separated from its neighbor by insulating foam walls, the targets retrievable by the push of a button and backed by a huge mound of what Roz explained were ground-up tires. There were half a dozen single shooters scattered along the range and a group of four or five huddled toward the far end. As we entered we heard a muffled
rat tat tat tat tat tat
coming from the far end, followed by howls and peels of nervous laughter.

Jenkins pointed in that direction and smiled broadly. “That's the Thompson. Arthur collects guns and loves to demonstrate them.” We joined the group where a man I took to be Arthur was adroitly reloading the straight clip with .45-caliber bullets that looked like fat bumblebees. He was substantially shorter than his mother-in-law, with thinning hair, an angular face that tapered to a sharp chin, and eyes the color of shallow water.

A twenty-something standing next to him held the Thompson, which had a gleaming blue-black barrel and a wood shoulder stock and matching, curved handgrip with finger grooves. The wood was burnished to a rich luster by years of use and meticulous care, giving the weapon the appeal of a fine antique. I could understand the desire to own such a gun. The rest of the group, including one man my age, was arguing about who was going to fire the Thompson next.

Jenkins and I waited through two more
rat-tat-tat
cycles before Arthur broke free of the group, submachine gun in hand. I gave him a gee-whiz look as Jenkins introduced me but watched his face carefully as she explained what I wanted.

“Manny Bonilla? Yeah, I seem to recall the name.” He smiled affably enough, but the muscle along his jawline flexed a couple of times as the smile faded. He looked at Jenkins. “I really don't think our hiring practices are any of Mr. Claxton's business.”

Jenkins straightened up. “Oh, hell, Arthur, tell the man what he wants to know. He's just trying to help a friend out, for Christ sake. This fella's turned up dead.”

Arthur seemed unfazed by the news of Bonilla's passing. “He was going to be your driver. God knows you can't afford another accident, Roz.”

Roz drew her face into a pout and waved a hand at him. “That last one could've happened to anyone.”

Turning to Arthur, I said, “Uh, Bonilla turned down your offer so he could work at a minimum wage job at a little bistro over in the Pearl. Any idea why he did that?”

Arthur fixed me with his pale eyes and shrugged. “Beats me. We start our people at seventeen an hour—”

“With benefits,” Jenkins interjected.

“—right, with benefits,” Arthur said. “All I know is Pfister called and told me Bonilla wasn't coming. It was no big deal. There were five more in line for that job.”

I said, “Was Bonilla upset about anything?”

Arthur shrugged again. “Dunno. He didn't bother to call me. Look, Mr. Claxton, I have over a hundred wage employees working for me up and down the coast. I don't get into the way their heads work.”

“How did you feel about hiring a convicted felon?”

Arthur smirked at what he clearly considered an inappropriate question, and his jaw flexed again. “If Jack Pfister says a man's okay, that's good enough for me. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do.” He turned abruptly and sauntered off, the Thompson lolling at his side.

As Roz Jenkins was showing me out I said, “Looks like a great business here. You must be very proud.”

She stopped, put her hands on her hips, and smiled broadly. “Sure am. We just opened our fifteenth store. For me, it's the family aspect. Folks can come here and spend an afternoon shooting, not out in the damn woods somewhere, like we did when I was a kid. Especially families in the city. They need a decent place to shoot.”

I nodded. “I see your point. Arthur seems very knowledgeable.”

She chuckled. “Oh, he's an expert on firearms. Has an MBA, too. Stanford. Wants us to be the Starbucks of gun shops and ranges. He runs the day-to-day operation now. Gives me more time to devote to my passion, gun rights.” She paused then added, “Do you shoot, Cal?”

“Oh, I have a Glock up in the closet a friend gave me. But, I'm, uh, not very handy with it.”

She flashed the broad smile again. “You come on back then. Bring the Glock. I'll teach you how to shoot it.”

I told her I would, and as she turned to leave I nodded at her feet. “Nice boots. Who made them?”

She glanced down. “Oh, a custom shop out near Estacada. Bootmaker named Timmons.”