Never Look Down (15 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

Cal

Anthony Cardenas was immediately arraigned for the murder of Claudia Borrego. He entered a plea of not guilty and was remanded to custody at the Multnomah County Jail. Bail was denied, which was typical for a murder charge, particularly when the defendant was a rich, itinerant gambler. The chess game between the prosecution and the defense would now begin.

Nando went to the arraignment and called me afterwards with a blow-by-blow description of the brief proceedings. You'd have thought it was the actual trial the way he carried on. It seemed my friend had regained his footing, although I worried that perhaps he was trying too hard. Grief is a tricky emotion. It has to run its course. I wasn't sure my friend understood that yet. He wanted it done with. Now.

Tay Jefferson called me shortly after the news broke. “So, that bastard Cardenas did it, huh?”

“Looks that way, yeah.” I described the case against Claudia's ex-husband and answered her questions as best I could.

“What about Manny Bonilla?” she asked when I finished. “Did Cardenas kill him, too?”

“I don't really know. I'm sure Scott and Ludlow are trying to link the two deaths. Having Cardenas in custody should help.”

“What about you? What are you going to do now?”

The question caught me off-balance. I paused. “Nando's happy. I guess I need to move on.”

She didn't respond, giving me the impression she was somehow expecting more from me, but I left it at that. After the call ended I sat there thinking about what I just said. I wanted to move on, but the fact that I hadn't found the tagger or understood what really happened to Manny Bonilla still nagged at me. I decided to do what I normally do to clear my head—go fly fishing. Steelhead weren't running in the coastal rivers, so Archie and I packed up the next day and headed for the McKenzie River, whose upper reaches abounded in wild rainbow trout year-round.

I knew a stretch of river high in the Cascades between mileposts 13 and 16 on the McKenzie River Highway that alternated between roiling whitewater and the pools and eddies preferred by the feisty native rainbows. Framed by steep hillsides of old growth Douglas fir and western hemlock, the McKenzie ran a deep turquoise in the autumn sun that day. The first sight of the river always got to me, and I had to swallow to relieve the catch in my throat. It was the same catch I got from certain riffs by Coltrane or an achingly pure soprano note from Callas or Baez. Closer in there was the sound of the river, too—the happy noise of water striking rock that never failed to relax me.

Trout or no trout I would've fished the McKenzie that day just for the beauty of the river.

The caddis fly hatch I expected to see that afternoon didn't materialize, and the fish I hoped to coax up from the bottom of the river stayed put. I switched over to a fly called a Chubby Chernobyl—a big, leggy-looking bug tied by a fly designer with a sense of humor—and immediately hooked into a half dozen nice fish. This turn of events delighted Archie, who was shadowing me along the bank. He barked and spun in circles every time I hooked a fish. And, of course, I had to show him each fish before I released it.

I was just releasing an eighteen-incher when my cell pinged with an incoming text. Surprised that there was any reception at all, I waded back to the bank and retrieved my phone from the waterproof pouch in my waders. A single signal dot showed on the phone, apparently enough for the text to make it through. It read: “Hello, Mr. Claxton. You're not picking up, so I decided to try a text. Could you please call me? It's important. Brent Gunderson.”

I stood there weighing my options.
You came here to fish
, I reminded myself. The man said important, not urgent. I tried calling and texting him back, but both attempts failed. I fished until it was nearly dark and tried Gunderson when we got back to our campsite downriver, where the cell signal was much stronger.

He answered the first ring. “I, uh, found some things today that Manny left behind,” he began after we exchanged greetings.

“What kind of things?”

“A gun. And some other stuff.”

I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. “A gun?”

“Yeah. It was in a bucket in the window seat along with a brush and some rubber gloves. Those were mine. The gun was wrapped in a tee-shirt. There was a box of bullets and some diagrams of some kind, too.” I thought he chuckled. “I guess Manny figured I'd never look in a bucket filled with cleaning supplies. He knew I hated housework. But my sister's coming. I had to clean up.”

“Did you touch the gun or any of the rest of it?

“God, no. When I saw what it was I just recoiled, you know?”

“You said diagrams—of what?”

“Uh, they were of rifles, you know, showing how all the parts go together. They looked like instructions, maybe. Probably something to do with the job he was going to take.”

“Okay. Look, Brent, leave everything right where you found it and call the police and tell them about this.”

He paused for several beats. “Yeah, well, last time you told me to call the police, they sent some homophobe named Ludlow to interview me. Turns out he's Mormon, like me. Let's just say he made no effort to hide his contempt for my sexual orientation. That's why I called you. Any way you could help me handle this?”

That little voice—the one I should listen to but hardly ever do—told me to say no. But it was too late. My curiosity had already trumped my sense of caution. I heaved a long sigh. “Tell you what…I'm up in the Cascades right now. Sit tight. I'll be there around nine. We'll get this sorted out.”

Damn
, I thought as I began taking down my tent.
Tomorrow morning was going to be primo fishing
. But I was as hooked as some of those rainbows I caught earlier.

I fed Arch before we broke camp but I didn't bother to eat. Hunger finally got the better of me, and I pulled off the I-5 at the Carmen Drive exit for a black bean burger and sweet potato fries at a Burgerville. I called Gunderson to tell him I was running late. “No problem,” he told me. “I have to go to class tonight. If I'm not back when you get here, just go on in. There's a pair of keys under a ceramic frog on the left side of the front steps.”

I found a parking space directly in front of his apartment building at a little after ten. His lights were on, but no one answered the doorbell. I found the hidden set of keys and let myself in. The apartment was done in primary colors with black leather and chrome furniture and plush Oriental rugs. The only problem was it had been thoroughly tossed. A couch in the living room was stripped of its cushions, an end table lay on its side, and I could see a rifled desk in the next room. I stopped dead in the doorframe and called out for Gunderson. Nothing. I listened intently for couple of seconds. Not a sound. “I've seen this movie,” I said as I backed out of there.

Keeping to the shadows, I moved quickly to the back of the building to see if I'd flushed anyone. The back door was ajar and a side window smashed, but no one came out. After calling 911, I returned to the front of the building and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Gunderson walking across the 405 overpass toward me.

A patrol car arrived next, and it took an hour and a half for them to complete an investigation. You guessed it—the bucket in the window seat was gone, along with the items belonging to Manny Bonilla. Nothing else in the apartment had been taken. I put a call into Harmon Scott's cell phone and left a message. Gunderson looked pretty shaken, so I offered to put him up at my place.

Later that night we sat at the kitchen table going over what had happened. Sensing a certain vulnerability in Gunderson, Arch curled up at his feet as a show of support. My dog was like that. Gunderson's cherub cheeks were darkened by a day's growth, and he looked tired, so I made him a cup of Darjeeling tea I kept around for guests. I was having a Rémy Martin that I kept around for me. No, he hadn't noticed anyone watching his apartment, and no, he hadn't told anyone else about the items he found. There didn't seem to be any explanation for the timing of the break-in, either. Gunderson discovered the items in the bucket that morning, and the burglary occurred that night. His phone or mine could have been tapped, but that seemed highly improbable. A lucky coincidence for the intruder, and unlucky for me, I decided.

“I know you didn't get a good look at the gun or the box of shells, but what about the drawings?” I probed. “What else do you remember about them?”

He sipped his tea and wrinkled his forehead. “Like I told the police, they looked like some kind of engineering drawings, you know, exploded views, showing how the parts of rifles go together.”

“Which parts?”

He paused and stroked his chin. “The triggers and the thingies that hold the bullets.”

“Ammunition clips.”

“Yeah, those and the trigger mechanisms mostly.”

I probed some more, but that's all he could remember. “That's it? Nothing else in the bucket, right?”

Gunderson dropped his eyes and studied the nicked surface of the table for a while, then sighed deeply. “Well, there was something else, something I didn't mention.”

I almost spilled my Rémy. “What the hell was it?”

He brought his eyes back up but evaded my gaze. “There was a notebook, too, but I, um, took it out after I called you.”

By this time I was standing. “
Why?
” Archie got up, too.

Gunderson's cheeks burned red through his dark beard. “Manny had written some mushy stuff in it about us. I, I didn't want it to get out, you know, be part of evidence that's made public or something.” He rolled his eyes. “I could just imagine that cretin Ludlow's reaction.”

“What did you do with it?”

“That's why I called you instead.” He reached down and extracted a small spiral notebook from his backpack and slid it across the table. “Here.”

Oh, great
, I thought. There's nothing like being given evidence that's been tampered with.

Chapter Thirty-three

Cal

I let the notebook lie there on the table between us. “Is there anything else in this besides the mushy stuff?”

“Yeah, some notes and dates and weird stuff I really didn't understand.” He smiled and nodded toward the notebook. “Manny's handwriting's almost indecipherable. I spent most of the time on the entry to me. It was, um, a draft, I think, of a note he was going to send to me.” Gunderson's eyes filled but he held back the tears. “He didn't finish it.”

“You realize you're going to have to turn this over to the police.”

“Do I have to give them
everything
?”

“Yes.” I sighed and drained my Rémy. “But let me read it. All of it.”

He was right about the handwriting—it looked like the scratchings of a drunken chicken. I skipped over the other entries and went straight to the unfinished love letter. With Gunderson's help I finally got through what turned out to be a sweet, almost poignant declaration of love, which included some details that no one would want made public. I could certainly understand his reluctance to part with it. When I finished, he eyed me expectantly. I exhaled a long breath and ran a hand through my hair. “Tomorrow, you need to call Harmon Scott and tell him you found the notebook when you were straightening up. I advise you to give him everything, but if a couple of pages are torn out, I can't control that and don't want to know anything about it.”

Exhausted but obviously much relieved, Gunderson slept on my threadbare couch that night. After taking Arch for a quick walk, I used my cell phone to photograph everything in the notebook except for the unfinished love letter. But any attempt to decipher what Bonilla had written would have to wait. I was exhausted, too.

The next morning I made us a six-egg omelet with some black morels I had stashed away along with Tillamook cheddar, green onions, and fresh garlic. I sent Gunderson off a well-fed man, although he was rightly concerned about his safety. I told him to start carrying his house keys or find a better hiding place, and if he couldn't get his smashed window repaired that day, he could stay with me until he did.

Later that morning, my favorite police detective called. “Goddamn it, Claxton,” Harmon Scott said the moment I answered, “I thought you were out of my life.”

“Good morning to you, too, Harmon.”

“I know you had something to do with Gunderson coming forward in the first place, and I'm grateful for that—”

“Always a pleasure to serve.”

“—but how in hell did you turn up as a witness in that break-in last night?”

“Blame your partner, Ludlow. He and Gunderson share the same religion but not the same beliefs about sexual orientation. Gunderson didn't want to deal with him, so he called me for advice. It screwed up a good fishing trip, if you really want to know.” I answered some more of Scott's questions, and he told me Bonilla's death was still classified as “suspicious” and that they'd found absolutely no link between his death and Claudia Borrego's other than their blood relationship.

When I asked about the assault on me and if he'd followed up with Timmons the bootmaker out in Estacada, he replied, “Sorry. Dead end. The guy's paranoid about Big Brother, purges his tax records religiously, and couldn't remember anything that far back.”

“No search warrant?”

“Nah, you know how it goes. Money's tight. Searches ain't cheap. No reason to doubt him.”

“What if he's covering for a friend?”

When Scott didn't respond, I let it ride. I did know how it goes. We signed off after I extracted a promise that Scott would have a patrol car watch Gunderson's apartment for a couple of nights.

I thought about taking a run before looking at the material I'd photographed in Bonilla's notebook, but a front had moved in, and it was pelting rain. I fixed myself another cappuccino instead, and after e-mailing myself the photos and saving them in a file, set to work at my computer. Reading the love letter the night before prepared me somewhat for the mangled, torturously cramped combination of cursive and print letters and atrocious spelling that characterized Bonilla's handwriting. But, it was still slow going. The notebook served as a kind of do-it-yourself day minder and catch-all for the young man.

The first dozen or so pages were notes from meetings, sequentially dated from the latter half of August through September. Several entries were headed “Meeting with CB,” and were followed by brief notes, mostly tips on interviewing and résumés. I assumed these referred to meetings with his case manager, Claudia Borrego. Nothing in the notes caught my eye. There were also a couple of “TJ Meeting” entries, probably sessions with Tay Jefferson, his psychological counselor. No notes were recorded.

On September 12, Bonilla had scribbled “Interview—Sept. 19.” I assumed this referred to his interview for the driving job. An entry dated September 19 read: “Training Sept. 23, 26, 30 at 9 hm.”

“Three days training for a driving job?” I said loud enough to cause Archie to lift his head in the corner. I couldn't read the first letter following the 9, but surely it was an “a” and not a “p.” I mean, why begin training at nine at night?

There were three pages titled simply “Notes” with no dates. The pages contained odd jottings and crude three-dimensional sketches of a block of some kind showing a curved appendage that jutted from the bottom and what appeared to be a lever arm on the top. A few dimensions were noted and lots of arrows with the tagline, “See Diagram.” I wondered if this referred to the drawings Gunderson had described that disappeared along with the gun and ammunition.

There were three even more puzzling entries on the next page. The first read,

Oct. 23 – two trucks/100 units

ECA-25

MGC-30

BRC-45

The second,

Oct. 24 – one truck. 45 mods - SDGC

The third,

Nov. 19 – two trucks/80

ECGR-35

RBRR-45

And the fourth,

Nov. 23 – one truck SDGC – 40

On October 12, just five days before he died, Manny Bonilla wrote a final entry in the notebook, right below the heading for a ten o'clock meeting with Claudia Borrego. It read,

I am not a product of my circumstances.
I am a product of my decisions.

I pushed myself away from my desk, leaned back, and clasped my hands behind my head. Certainly the quote on the last page suggested Manny was having a change of heart, but I already knew that. His nearly incomprehensible sketches suggested a link to the diagrams stolen from Gunderson's apartment, but only that. I would need help to decipher the sketches. The entries referring to the training were interesting, but, again, only suggestive of a link, this time to the Arsenal.

I considered the missing gun again. He must have known the possession of such a weapon jeopardized his release from federal prison. Did he acquire it for self-protection, or did he have a darker use in mind?

The alphabet soup meant something, too, but I didn't have a clue. Units of what? Mods? What the hell did these refer to?

Finally, I wondered what that old fox, Harmon Scott, would make of all this. I smiled just thinking about it and knew, even though neither of us would ever admit it, there was kind of a competition going on between us.

The rain had dwindled to a light mist, so I put on my Asics and Gore-Tex, leashed up Arch and headed for the river. Arch gave me a couple of irritated looks but fell into a brisk trot beside me. We went past the Salmon Fountain and all the way to McCormick and Schmick's before turning around. My lungs were burning when we finally came to the steps at the Burnside Bridge, but I forced myself to take them without slowing down and kicked it all the way back to Caffeine Central. Frustration neutralized, at least for the moment, and next steps decided.

After a shower, I made two phone calls. First, I called Jack Pfister and invited him to lunch. He accepted.

Next, I called Roz Jenkins at the Bridgetown Armory. I was told she was tied up, but she called me back a few minutes later. We made a date to meet at the Bridgetown Arsenal the next morning.

Just like that I was back in it.