Dead in the Rose City: A Dean Drake Mystery (6 page)

Gregory Sinclair exited the house just after
2:00 p.m. He was wearing a crisp navy suit and carrying a
briefcase. The man was taller and thinner than I had guessed him to
be based on the photo, but definitely the same person. He got into
the Mercedes.

I made myself inconspicuous as the gate
opened and he drove out past my modest transportation—a brown Ford
Bronco that had seen its better days.

I followed Sinclair seemingly through the
entire city of Portland, giving me a chance to check my messages
and leave one before refocusing on the matter at hand. At first I
figured he was on to me, since he seemed in no hurry to get
anywhere fast. About ten minutes after leaving downtown, we went
across the Interstate Bridge to Vancouver, Washington—just on the
other side of the Columbia River that separated Oregon from
Washington.

Sinclair drove into a motel lot and I
suddenly felt that something was about to go down. I parked on the
opposite side of the lot between two other cars and waited while
Gregory Sinclair went inside the motel lobby. This gave me time to
get out my camera. It had cost me more than a grand, along with the
lenses. The money had been well spent. I put on a zoom lens and
practiced my technique with the surrounding landscape.

Sinclair emerged from the lobby and went back
to his car, evidently waiting for someone. Ten minutes passed
before a dark blue Ford Taurus drove into the lot and parked next
to Sinclair’s Mercedes.

A white woman, wearing shades on this cloudy
day, got out. Looking through the zoom lens from the rear window, I
focused on her. Sunglasses came off once she met Sinclair halfway.
She was casually dressed and not as good looking as his wife, but
nice nevertheless. The woman in question was short, blonde, tanned,
and slender. She looked to be in her late thirties.

I watched as the two wasted no time
displaying their affection for one another. This was almost too
simple, I considered, while snapping some wonderfully incriminating
shots of a married man doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a
woman other than his wife. But the proof was in the pudding.

Sinclair and the mystery woman stopped
kissing long enough to walk towards a first floor room, all the
while arm in arm like two teenage lovebirds. I found it odd that
Sinclair—a man who admitted almost flauntingly to his wife that he
cheated on her—should have to go well out of his way to have an
affair. Was the mistress also married?

I followed them partly on foot and mostly
through the camera as they entered the room, shutting the door
behind them.

Given that they were going to be occupied for
a while, I took the liberty of taking a closer look at the blonde’s
car. It was a rental. Figured. Always a convenient way to avoid
being identified through your license plate number. I looked
through the window for anything that might give me more to report
to Catherine. Seeing nothing unusual, I used a dirty trick I
learned as a cop to engage the door lock with the help of a little
metal pick I kept especially for such occasions.

Upon opening the door, I could smell perfume
saturating the car as if air freshener. The scent was familiar to
me. It was the same perfume Catherine had worn when we were
together. Coincidence? Or was this Sinclair’s personal favorite for
all his women?

I looked in the glove compartment. The car
was rented to Gregory Sinclair. This seemed to rule out that his
mistress was married. A kept woman sounded more like it. If she
drove his rented car, he probably provided for her living expenses
as well.
But why not meet at her place for their rendezvous? And
why not rent a more upscale car for her?

The questions were always easier to conjure
up than the answers. I had answered the one big question. Sinclair
was definitely involved with at least one other woman. I decided
that was enough for now. Sinclair obviously had underestimated his
wife—in more ways than one.

If she played her cards right, Catherine
Ashley Sinclair could well turn this into a small fortune. And I
would have to settle for pleasant memories and a private
investigator’s fees.

CHAPTER SIX

If dog was man’s best friend, then the
personal computer must be his electronic wife. Ever since I’d gone
to computerized record keeping three years ago, it had probably
extended my career as a private eye by ten years. Keeping track of
my clients and cases had suddenly become much more efficient and
less time consuming and frustrating.

I typed in all the data I had on Gregory
Sinclair and labeled the file C&G Sinclair. For a moment, I was
lost in reverie thinking about my one-nighter with Catherine.

Lunch was two McDonald’s cheeseburgers, large
fries, and a Coke. I was eating while going over my bills for the
month, when the phone rang.

“Dean Drake, Private Investigations.”

“It’s me, D.J.” A ragged breath. “Nate.”

“What’s up, Nate?” I took another bite from
the burger.

“I’ve got something I think you might wanna
hear.”

“I’m listening—”

“Word is The Worm is hiding out at a dive on
Brook Street called Rest Rooms.”

I put the burger down and asked bluntly: “Who
did you get the word from?”

“Don’t ask me that,” moaned Nate. “You know I
can’t say. I got to live in this town just like you, man.”

“Okay, okay,” I conceded. It was worth a try.
“You have a room number?”

“202.”

“Thanks, Nate. I owe you—”

I hung up. By nature, I was a suspicious
fellow. The bells always rang a little louder when I feared I could
be walking into some type of trap. I trusted Nate, up to a point,
but it was his shadier acquaintances that I had to worry about.

I finished off lunch.

After checking to see that my Glock was fully
loaded, I vacated the office for Rest Rooms.

* * *

The motel I arrived at seemed worse than
sleazy and hardly the place to look forward to a good night’s rest.
If The Worm wasn’t worming away here, I could well imagine some
other lowlife’s taking up sanctuary amongst the hookers, gang
bangers, and drug pushers who ruled the area.

The light was on in Room 202, but the curtain
was closed as if to ward off evil. Listening at the door for the
slightest sound of anything proved futile. I couldn’t hear a damned
thing short of a siren wailing in the distance.

With both hands clutching the gun in
preparedness, I used the barrel to tap on the door. No answer.
Knocked again, twice. Nothing but silence.

My guess was no one was home. But I couldn’t
discount the real possibility that the man named The Worm, if he
was inside, wanted no company.

I waited a moment longer before kicking open
the door, gun pointed at anything that moved. The room was empty
and in disarray, as if a cyclone had rearranged the furniture. I
checked the bathroom. Empty. Someone had obviously left in a hurry.
Could The Worm have been tipped off? Was he even the one occupying
this room?

Drug paraphernalia was scattered on a table,
along with traces of cocaine. Was The Worm an addict as well as a
dealer? It made sense. The two usually went hand in hand.

I searched the drawers. Most were empty.
There were a few clothes in the closet, some of which belonged to a
woman. If Jessie Wylson had been staying here, he wasn’t alone.

Next to the phone I saw a pad with a number
sloppily scrawled on it. I dialed the number. “Portland Police
Bureau—” I hung up, half embarrassed I had failed to recognize the
number. Why would someone in this hellhole have called the police?
Had a crime been committed? Or was the caller looking to speak to
someone in particular—like a crooked cop?

I’d known cops who dirtied their hands in
drugs, kickbacks, prostitution, and other violations of the law,
including murder-for-hire. It made me sick to my stomach. As far as
I knew, they were still in the minority among the force. But they
were by no means eradicated from the department.

“Who the hell are you?” The voice screeched
at me.

I swiveled around quickly, ready to blast the
person to kingdom come if necessary. Standing inside the door was a
man in his fifties, wearing what looked to be a black-gray toupee.
He looked scared to death. He should have been.

“You nearly lost your life there, man,” I
told him in no uncertain terms. With the Glock still pointed at
chest level, I bellowed: “Who the hell are you?”

He sighed in a near groan, hands up like this
was a bank robbery. “I manage the place.”

I approached him, easing his mind somewhat by
lowering the gun and pulling out my I.D. “Dean Drake. I’m a private
investigator.”

He studied me warily. “So what’s a private
investigator doing snooping around in one of my rooms?”

I took out The Worm’s photo. “I’m looking for
this man. His name is Jessie Wylson. He goes by the nickname The
Worm. Is he—was he—staying here?”

“I mind my own business,” the man said
shiftily. “You live longer that way.”

“Well make this your business!” I yelled.
“Jessie Wylson’s wanted by the cops for drug trafficking and
distribution.” I nodded at the table with the drug paraphernalia
and cocaine residue. “I’ll bet they’d also be interested in knowing
just what kind of establishment you’re running—”

His face turned a dark shade of red. “Yeah,
he was here,” he admitted. “I was just comin’ to tell him to leave
if he didn’t pay up. He was a week overdue.”

“Looks like The Worm beat you to the punch
and left before he wore out his welcome.” I put my gun away. “What
about the woman staying here?”

He cocked a brow. “What about her?”

“What did she look like? I’m sure you must
have noticed.”

He scratched the side of his face like a
mosquito had bitten it. “Just a woman,” he shrugged.

“Black, white,
green
—?” I was getting
impatient.

“Black. Dark-skinned. Had blonde-black hair.”
He gave me a wary look. “And she didn’t stay here. Just visited on
weekends.”

The woman he’d described sounded a lot like
Nicole—Jessie Wylson’s supposedly “ex” girlfriend.

I took one more visual sweep of the room. “I
suggest you clean this place up. I doubt The Worm’s coming
back.”

* * *

I showed up at the house where Nicole and The
Worm had previously taken up residence. Maybe he’d gotten homesick.
I knocked on the door testily.

A black woman in her forties opened it. She
gave me a piercing look, and said: “What the hell do you want?”

“Is Nicole here?”

The woman eyed me distrustfully. “Ain’t no
Nicole livin’ here.”

“She was a couple of days ago.”

She flattened her hands on heavy hips. “You
got the wrong house, mister.”

“I don’t think so.” I glared at her. “Late
thirties. Dark skin. Short, dark hair with blonde highlights—”

Just when I thought she was playing a
dangerous game with me, the woman said, as if her memory had
suddenly been jarred: “Oh, you talkin’ about Terri—”

Why the hell not. “Right. Where is
Terri?”

“Ain’t here. Moved out yesterday.”

I furrowed my brow. “Do you know where?”

“Didn’t say. And I didn’t ask.”

“What about the Rest Rooms motel with Jessie
Wylson?”

Her dark eyes widened. “Hey, honey, I
wouldn’t know. I don’t have nothin’ to do with that.”

“With what?”

“With whatever it is the two of ‘em is
into.”

But she obviously knew they were into
something illegal. “Where did they go?” I pressed.

She gritted her teeth. “I told you I don’t
know.”

Or won’t say.

The Worm, with the help of his girlfriend,
Terri/Nicole, seemed to stay one step ahead of me. I gave the woman
my card and belatedly identified myself, then said: “If you hear
from them, it would be in your best interest if you let me
know.”

Something told me hell would freeze over
before she ever used that card. But I was one who happened to still
believe in miracles.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I ended up at Jasmine’s in time to catch the
last half of the Mariners game against the Tigers. Gus had invested
in a big screen TV back in January. It was the perfect complement
to the sounds of jazz that exploded from the stage.

Unfortunately, the Mariners were losing
again. However, the Seahawks had begun exhibition play two days ago
and were looking good.

I was on my second beer when Gus joined
me.

“What’s up, D.J.?”

“Everything,” I muttered. “The rent, my phone
bill. Even my subscription to
Sports Illustrated
has gone
up. Seems like I can’t win for losing—”

“You and half the damned human race,” groaned
Gus. “That’s life, man, like it or not.”

He had that right. There were some things you
simply couldn’t control, no matter how hard you tried. It was
called fate. And I seemed to be constantly testing it. I tasted my
beer.

Gus put a mug to his bearded face. “Heard I
missed a hot one the other night.”

“The singer
?
” I played dumb.

He wiped froth from his mouth and smiled
lasciviously. “The blonde babe with the big tits. Or so that was
the description I was given.”

“Her breasts weren’t
that
big,” I
clarified.

Gus turned a soft grin into a wide smile.
“Are you sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’?”

“Probably.” I found myself blushing. We often
shared our war stories—that is the war and romance between the
sexes.

“Well, was she worth it?” Gus asked on a
breath, panting for details.

I thought about it. “Yeah,” I had to admit,
“she was definitely worth it.”

He laughed like Jolly Old St. Nick. “More
power to you,” he said enviously. “Obviously you’re doing something
that works.” He shook his head. “I only wish I knew what the hell
it was.”