Tainted Trail (17 page)

“Oh, this is so weird.” She lifted a Post-it note with the cryptic number
OR 364.1523 B26.
Ukiah had faithfully copied what he had seen as he flipped through the pages. On this page it had been
Call Uncle Ra . . . un block, D batteries, CHOCOLATE, newspaper. Check Ukiah weather. Ukiah history: obits.
There had also been a doodle, the bulk of it hidden by the Post-it note. By lifting the square of yellow, Sam revealed the perfectly square blank spot. “It looks like one of those model homes, all decorated as if someone lives there, until you noticed the books are blocks of painted wood.”

“OR 364.1523 B26,” Max read off the Post-it note. “What do you suppose that is? A telephone number?”

“That's not a local exchange.”

Ukiah consulted his memory. “It's not a phone number in her address book.”

“OR could be Oregon or the word ‘or.' B26 sounds like a
vitamin.” Max shook his head. “Maybe it's a map reference number.”

“Or something that has to do with geology,” Ukiah said.

“Is the other geologist in town?” Sam asked.

Max shook his head. “Kraynak put her on a plane last night.” He winced. “I have no idea how we're getting Kraynak's van home. Kraynak wants to fly Alicia back when he finds her, and now he's in no shape to drive it back to Pittsburgh.”

“I occasionally work as a driver,” Sam grinned. “Money up front for expenses, fifty dollars an hour that I spend driving, and return airfare.”

“Drive stick?”

“Yup.”

Max studied Sam, a minute of stillness. “We might take you up on that. Otherwise, it's up to Ukiah and me, and I'd rather avoid that if I can. We're stretched painfully thin now; we really need to take on another investigator.”

Max usually avoided leaving town; financially it didn't make sense to drop all their cases to pursue just one. Their part-time investigators, Chino and Janey, were currently covering the ongoing cases, but neither of the two had the experience, skill, or temperament to cope with a long absence. Ukiah wondered why Sam had no qualms accepting out-of-town work; was it because she had little work to neglect?

“How many miles is it to Pittsburgh?” Sam wondered aloud, somewhat gleefully.

“Two thousand three hundred and fifty-five.” Ukiah pulled the number out of his memory.

Sam looked surprised, then even more pleased. “Twenty-four hundred? That's over thirty hours of driving. Three or four days to do it.”

Max gave him a questioning glance, picking up a glass of water.

“Mom Jo and I drove it after she—” Ukiah started, then stopped as Max frowned him into silence over the rim of his glass.

“That's a good ventriloquist trick you've got there,” Sam
said dryly to Max. “But you better practice the drinking water routine. He stopped talking.”

Max slapped a napkin over his face and snorted water. “Brat!” he said after he finished laughing.

“So what did your mother do that I'm not supposed to know about?” Sam asked.

“Embarrassing family vacations aren't the agenda of the day.” Max said. “Finding Alicia is. She came to town four times, and these are the places we know she would have visited.”

Ukiah glanced over the list Max had made. “She had some color brochures stuck in the pages too. I think they were tourist sites in the area.”

“Okay. We can hit those too.”

Ukiah described them, and Sam guessed from the description which site they represented. Max added them to the list. For being in the area for such a short time, Alicia had managed to visit an impressive number of places.

“Do we split up, or work together?” Sam asked.

“Well, we'll cover more ground split up,” Max said, obviously unhappy with the thought.

“I'm fine,” Ukiah said. “I've got my pistol, it's daylight, and I've got my phone.”

Max frowned at Sam. “And you probably think I'd be domineering if I don't let him solo.”

Sam held out her hands, palms up. “Hey. You decide without trying to please me. I might talk big, but the fact remains someone plowed over your big cop friend. I'm not going to open my yap and be responsible for something ugly on down the line.”

“Three is overkill.” Ukiah said. There was slim hope for Alicia, if kidnappers took her and demanded no ransom. Every hour could be critical. They had wasted so much time since last night, yet they couldn't have done more, not with Kraynak in the hospital and himself hurt so bad. “You don't have to worry about me.”

“Fine. We'll split up.”

Sam picked up her coffee. “What I would love is a picture of Ukiah's father, so I know all the players.”

Max looked at Ukiah, puzzled.

“Rennie,” Ukiah said. “Indigo says he flew into Portland yesterday.”

“Oh, shit! That's the last thing we needed!” Max pulled out his PDA and played with it a few moments. “Here. This is him.”

Sam viewed the picture a moment, sipping her coffee, and then suddenly spit it all back out. “This is the FBI Most Wanted list!”

“Yes, it is.” Max reached for his PDA. “I don't have any other picture of Shaw.”

Sam leaned out of reach, scrolling down through the entry. “Wanted for arson, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, auto theft, burglary . . .
kidnapping . . . manslaughter . . . murder
—oh my god, you weren't kidding! He is a homicidal lunatic! And he's coming here?”

“See, I'm not the only one he has that effect on,” Max said to Ukiah.

“He's not that bad,” Ukiah said meekly. “Once you get to know him.”

Pendleton, Oregon
Saturday, August 28, 2004

Sam had guessed that
OT Trading—Main
in Alicia's diary meant the Oregon Trail Trading Post. Peering into the windows, the place looked a likely site to interest Alicia. Just from the window Ukiah could see baskets, buckskin dresses, moccasins, seashells, and furs cluttering the front of the store. Ukiah nearly itched with curiosity, wishing he could go inside. It looked like no store he had ever been in.

But the doors were locked. A red-and-white
CLOSED
sign hung in the window, listing hours. Saturday, it turned out, was the only day it wasn't open. Closed Saturday, but open Sundays? In Pittsburgh, stores tend to only close on Sundays. Often they even had extended hours on Saturday. Closed Saturday? Was it a culture thing? Did Native Americans celebrate their holy day on Saturdays? Or was he making a huge assumption, and Jewish people actually owned the store? He knew the Jews celebrated Sabbath on Saturday. The office of the Bennett Detective Agency in Pittsburgh was located next to the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, which had a heavily orthodox Jewish population.

Ukiah leaned his forehead against the glass, frowning as he thought about those Jewish families walking to temple. Somber black clothes, side locks, and skull caps. His family attended church each week, but there never seemed to be that solidarity, that belonging those Jewish families must feel. To be surrounded not only by those that believe, but
were the same, down to genetic similarities. To be able to see it stamped on the face, the color of the eyes and hair.

He thought of Jared and Cassidy Kicking Deer. His family. His people. What church did they belong to? What did they believe? Were they in church today? Did they sing the same hymns? Did they even believe in the same God? He peered into the darkened store, at the beaded shirts and headdresses, and felt bewildered and lost.

The second store was open. Alicia's planner had labeled it as
Beads—22 SW Dorion.
BLUE HAWK BEADS
proclaimed the sign over the door, and once again, Alicia's attraction to it was obvious. Loud rock music played on the sound system. Incense perfumed the air. On the right there were tiny square bins of beads upon beads, and on the left a display case full of stone-and-silver bracelets, stone pendants, beaded barrettes, and buckles. A treasure trove to the eye.

The saleswoman was checking out a customer, so he crouched down to study the beautiful exotic knives in the nearest display case. The handles were of antlers, banded with a strip of bright woven seed beads. The blades themselves were stone, chipped away to sharp edges. One was displayed with an elaborate sheath beaded and fringed with leather. He gazed at them, wondering if they were traditional. Were they on sale here because all Native Americans wore one? Or simply because they were beautiful?

“Can I help you?” The saleswoman could have been a soul mate for Alicia: a halo of red hair instead of brown, but the same tall, sturdy build, bright smile, and clothes completely unique. The woman wore a tight tie-dye dress that flared out midthigh to a full skirt, a jasper necklace, and a beaded chain that tied into her hair and hung down her back.

“What are the blades made of?”

“They're obsidian. Aren't they beautiful?” She came to lean on the display above him. “The artist creates the edge by flaking the stone by hand.”

“What are they for?” he asked.

“I suppose you could use them as knives, but they're mostly for display.” She seemed confused by the question. “They're traditional artwork. These were the blades that the
natives used before the white man came. They're somewhat fragile, the blade will chip if you knock it against something hard. They're too expensive to actually use, I would think.”

“How much are they?”

She gave him their prices. They ranged close to a hundred dollars each. He suspected they would go for much more at the fashionable stores of Shadyside.

He introduced himself then with a firm handshake, as he was taught. “Ukiah Oregon, yes, like the town. I'm a private investigator.”

“Really? That is so awesome!”

“And you are?”

“Cecilia. Like the song.” She broke into song. “Cecilia, I'm down on my knees, I'm begging you please, to come home.” She smiled. “My mother was a huge Simon and Garfunkel fan.”

“Actually, I wanted to ask a few questions.” He pulled out the photograph of Alicia. “This is a friend of mine. Her name is Alicia Kraynak. She's disappeared; we're afraid she might be in danger.”

Cecilia frowned in puzzlement at the picture. “I had heard she was lost hiking.” She dug through a stack of papers behind the counter and produced an
East Oregonian,
dated Wednesday, featuring Alicia's photograph. “She was camping in the national park.”

Max had taught Ukiah to “ease” people into being witnesses. Weaned on too many movies where murderers betrayed themselves by revealing facts about the case, Americans often went silent if approached too directly. Max used what he called the “crayon” approach, where you gave the person as blank an outline as possible, and let them color in the details. It went against Ukiah's natural directness, so it was weird trying to phrase questions, like thinking sideways.

“We think she might have been kidnapped. There's evidence that she might have been forced into a car.” There, a vague sketch of the details. “We're trying to re-create everything she did in Pendleton. Perhaps someone saw something without realizing what it meant.”

“Kidnapped? Oh, God, the poor woman.”

“Alicia had plans of visiting your store. She would have visited here sometime between August first and last Sunday. Do remember if she came in to your store?”

“She came in. It was a Saturday. Not the last one, but the one before it.” Cecilia said it slowly, as if she wasn't sure. A leather-bound guest book sat open on one of the counters. She pulled it over to her and started to flip through it. “Yeah, here. Alicia Kraynak, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August fourteenth, 2004.”

So it was. It was Alicia's handwriting, down to the circles over the I's which, in her teenage years, used to contain smiley faces. There were two other names after hers. One claiming to live in Portland, and the other said they were from Boise, Idaho.

“Was there anyone with her?”

“No.” Cecilia squinted as she thought, as if peering back through time to see Alicia walk through the store. “She came in alone. She was my only customer for like an hour, so we talked a lot. She liked the CD I was playing, so I wrote down the name, but I forget which one it was now.”

“What else did you talk about?”

“Beading. She bought mostly loose beads, wire, and some earring backs.” Her eyes traveled about the room, watching that past Alicia. “She bought a strand of turquoise nuggets and all the wolf fetishes I had. She was going to make presents during the trip home. She liked the knives, everyone loves the knives, but she couldn't afford them.”

“Did she mention anything about someone following her, watching her?”

“Nothing like that.” Cecilia was startled out of her time seeing. “She asked about places to eat. She wanted information on the local tribes. I gave her one of the newspapers”—she pointed out a stack of papers beside Ukiah—“and I told her about Tamástslikt.”

The newspaper was the
Confederated Umatilla Journal,
which was subtitled “The monthly newspaper of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation—Pendleton, Oregon.”

“What's Tamástslikt?”

“It's the cultural institute for the tribes in the area. They're the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla tribes. The reservation is just east of town.”

He recalled now seeing signs for it while driving out to the casino. “Did she say why she wanted the information?”

“I took a phone call, so I was half-listening to her. She said something about Ukiah. The newspaper said she disappeared from a campground near there, so I guess that she was researching the town she was in.”

“At the reservation?”

She shrugged. “The Indians have been here the longest. Hey, wait; didn't you say your name was Ukiah? That is so wild! Well, now I don't know. She might have been talking about the town, or maybe she was talking about you. Hell, she might have been talking about getting you a present. I really wasn't paying attention.”

Ukiah found it disquieting. Since the insanity of June, he had barely thought of Alicia until her disappearance. It was disturbing to imagine her thinking of him right before she vanished. “Her uncle is my partner's best friend.” Spoken aloud, the link seemed so tenuous. “I guess we're fairly good friends. We're thrown together a lot.”

Cecilia grinned at him. “I wouldn't mind being thrown together with you.”

“You say she was your only customer?” He angled for a second witness.

“I don't remember anyone else coming in while she was here. Mostly we just talked about beads. Food and beads. She did ask what were good places to eat, other than the fast-food places.”

“What places did you recommend to her?”

“Shari's is good and inexpensive. I told her that if she was out at the reservation to check out the Wildhorse Casino. The restaurant has a good buffet.”

“Did she mention needing to meet someone? Or someone she would like to see?”

Cecilia shook her head, eyes looking back again, but seeing nothing. “I don't remember anything else.”

He gave her a brief description of the kidnapper, tall and blond, remembering to hold back the blood type. She couldn't match it to anyone specific, certainly not anyone that would kidnap someone. He wrote down the mysterious number in Alicia's planner. She shook her head, bewildered as they were. The bell hung over the door twinkled as several, women entered. Ukiah took out his business card.

“Thank you. If you think of anything, you can reach me at the first number listed.”

“Sure. No problem. I hope you find her. She was really nice.”

 

Underground?
was all Alicia wrote. Sam had expanded it to
Pendleton Underground, corner First and Emigrant.
It was nearly impossible to miss with a huge wall painting of a hand pointing down Emigrant Street at the corner of Main Street. The door read
TOURS AND GIFT SHOP
and swung open on a room with two banklike teller windows. A mannequin of an Abraham Lincoln look-alike sat at one of the windows.

On the wall was a map of the world with thousands of bright colored pushpins. Visitors were invited to stick a pin at the place they were from. Alicia had stuck a yellow one into the mass surrounding Pittsburgh.

A woman came out of a side room, investigating the bell that jingled as he had entered. “Oh, I thought I heard that bell. I'm sorry, all the tours are sold out today and tomorrow. I can make you a reservation for Monday afternoon.”

“I'm a private investigator looking into a kidnapping. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“A kidnapping?”

He produced Alicia's photo. “This is Alicia Kraynak. She was kidnapped earlier this week. I've been hired by her uncle to look for her.”

She looked dutifully at the photo. “I don't recognize her, but we have lots of people in every day. They mill around, maybe buy something in the gift shop, and then they leave. The tour guide spends ninety minutes with them. If she was on one of our tours, he'll probably remember her.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“Them. There are several. It depends on which day she was in.”

“It probably was a Saturday, sometime between August first and this Sunday.”

“We have a guest book. Most people sign it. We can check that to see if she signed it.” She led him into a small gift shop with an unusual range of gifts. Some were clearly Old West Cowboy. Others were Native American crafts. There were also a puzzling number of Chinese items.

At the center of it all was a stuffed grizzly bear inside a glass case. It stood on its back legs, mouth open in an unending roar. Like most things of his childhood, the grizzly seemed smaller than he remembered grizzly bears being, even while standing on a rock pedestal. The fur on its belly was sparse, the crudely stitched seam from its skinning zigzagging haphazardly through a rough tic-tac-toe pattern.

Its claws, the length of his fingers, however, remained impressive.

The ticket woman was beyond the bear, flipping through a book much like the one at the bead shop, chanting, “Alicia. Alicia. Alicia.” She paused. “K-ray-nak. Was that the name? University of Pittsburgh?”

“That's her.”

“She was here on August seventh.” The woman handed him the book. “I'll see who was on duty.”

That Saturday had been busy. Signatures representing nearly a hundred people had dates of August seventh. Rose had gone on the tour with Alicia, signing immediately below her. Most of the people, like the pins outside, came from the West Coast, but there was a married couple from Australia, and another from Boston. None of the people, however, were locals. That was, of course, if everyone signed the book.