Phillip Margolin - The Associate

Billie Brewster sneaked a peek at the clock over the guard’s station at the end of the visitors’ room at the state penitentiary.

Her brother noticed and he flashed her a tolerant smile. “You got to go, sis?” Billie was embarrassed at being caught. She’d never been able to put one over on Sherman. “Duty calls, little brother.” “That’s okay. Ain’t no one wants to stay here longer than they have to.” “You remember that,” Billie said as she squeezed his hand. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m bein’ good.” They stood and he hugged her tight. Billie hugged him back. She hated visiting her brother in this place, but she hated leaving him more. Every time the iron doors clanged shut behind her, she left a piece of her heart in the prison.

“Go on now,” Sherman told her, flashing an innocent, toothy smile that almost made her forget that he was kept here by a trap of his own design. • • • Outside, a sleeting rain was falling, cold and unpleasant, like Billie’s mood. As she walked along the sidewalk toward the prison parking lot, the detective hunched her shoulders. Her visits to her brother were always hard on her. After their father walked out, their mother had been forced to work two jobs. Billie was the only one around to raise Sherman. She was sixteen-still a child herself-but she’d tried the best she could to keep her brother straight. Her mother had told her repeatedly that it was not her fault that Sherman was at the penitentiary. She never really believed it. This was Sherman’s third fall, but his first since she’d joined the police force. He used to get nervous when she visited, afraid that someone would find out his sister was a cop. A high-school friend who was a guard at the penitentiary kept her up-to-date on Sherman. She knew he was in a gang. Since he’d joined and made a rep he’d loosened up.

Billie hated what he was doing, but she wanted him safe. Life was loaded with trade-offs. Billie kept herself from thinking about her brother on the trip back to Portland by listening to loud music and reviewing her cases. When she passed the Wilsonville exit, she phoned in for messages and was glad there was one from Dr. Brubaker, the forensic dentist. The murder at the lab was her most interesting case.

She got Brubaker on her cell phone. “Hi, Harry, what have you got for me?” “An identification on the body at the primate lab.” “Don’t keep me in suspense.” “It’s the lawyer from Arizona.” “You’re kidding.”

“There’s no question about it. The dental records of Gene Arnold match perfectly.”

Completed in 1912, the thirteen-story Benson Hotel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and was the hotel where presidents stayed when they visited Portland. Billie entered a luxurious lobby paneled in rich walnut, floored with Italian marble and lit by several crystal chandeliers, and found Kate waiting for her. “Thanks for letting me tag along,” Kate said as they headed for the reception desk. “You’ve been straight with me about your information. It’s the least I can do.” “I can’t believe the body wasn’t Kaidanov.” “I’d have lost a bundle myself if I was a betting woman.” Billie flashed her badge at a bright-eyed, Japanese woman and asked for Antonio Sedgwick, the hotel’s chief of security. The woman went through a door behind the desk and returned a few minutes later with a muscular African-American in a conservative business suit. When the ex-Seattle cop spotted the homicide detective he flashed a big grin. “Hey, Billie, haven’t seen you in a while. You over here to scam a free lunch?” “No such luck,” Billie answered with a smile. “Who’s your friend?” Sedgwick asked. “Kate Ross. She’s an investigator with the Reed, Briggs firm.” Billie turned to Kate and pointed at the security chief. “You have my permission to shoot this man if he comes on to you. He’s a notorious womanizer.” Sedgwick laughed. “I ain’t lyin’,” Billie said with mock seriousness. “Shoot to kill.” “Besides ruining my love life, what brings you to the Benson?” “One of your guests checked in on February twenty-ninth and disappeared by March seventh. Now he’s turned up dead and I’d like to see his belongings.”

Sedgwick snapped his fingers. “The guy from Arizona.” Billie nodded.

“His name was Gene Arnold. What do you remember about him?” “I never met him. He didn’t check out on time, so we sent a bellman up to his room. There was a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. We usually wait when we see that. At the end of the day I let myself in. It looked like he planned on coming back. All his stuff was there: toiletries on the sink, clothes hung up in the closet and neatly placed in the drawers. If I remember, there was even a book open on the end table, American history or something. “We called his contact number to see if he was going to stay another day. They didn’t know anything about it.

We didn’t need the room right away, so I left everything there for one more day. Then I had his stuff packed up and put it in the checkroom.

If you want to take it I’ll need a court order, but I can let you see it.” “That’ll be fine for now.” The checkroom was to the right of the concierge desk. It was a narrow room with a high vaulted ceiling decorated with ornate molding that had been the hotel’s original entrance. Its glory had faded over the years. Half the floor was marble but the other half was plywood and there were exposed pipes to the right of the door. Two bare sixty-watt bulbs produced the light that had once been provided by a crystal chandelier. Arnold’s valise was on a shelf to the left of the door. Sedgwick carried it to a small, unobstructed area near the front of the checkroom and opened it. Billie took out each item, inspected it, then placed it in a neat pile while Kate watched. When she was done she replaced the items carefully. “Suits are over here,” Sedgwick said, pointing at two suits on a pole that spanned the room. Billie’s inspection of the first suit revealed nothing, but she found a slip of paper written on the stationery of a SoHo art gallery in the inside pocket of the second suit jacket. It contained a name, Claude Bernier, a street address, and a Manhattan phone number. Billie and Kate wrote the information in their notebooks and Billie replaced the paper in the suit pocket. “Mr.

Bernier?” “Yes.” “My name is Billie Brewster,” the detective said as Kate listened on an extension in Sedgwick’s office. “I’m with the Portland Police Bureau.” “Maine?” “Oregon.” “I haven’t been there for a while. What’s this about?” “I’m investigating a homicide and your name came up.” “You’re kidding?” “Do you know Gene Arnold, an attorney from Arizona? He was in New York in late February.” “Late February?”

Bernier sounded puzzled. “Wait a minute. Is this guy bald, maybe forty-five? Glasses?” “That’s him,” Billie answered after consulting the photograph that Benjamin Kellogg had sent her. “Okay, now I’ve got him. Arnold, yeah. He was at my apartment. You say he was murdered?”

“Yes, sir. What can you tell me about the meeting?” “Arnold bought one of my photographs from the Pitzer-Kraft Gallery. Fran works there. She called and told me that Arnold almost fainted while he was looking at it. She thought he was having a heart attack. Then he insisted on seeing me.” “What did he want?” “He wanted to know everything about the couple in the photograph. That was the subject of the show, couples. This one was from Portland.” “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing much. They’re all candid shots. I’d see a couple and snap them without them knowing I’d done it. I never got any names.” “Can you describe the couple in the shot that Arnold purchased?” “It was a man and woman walking across that big open square you’ve got in the middle of the city.” “Pioneer Square?” “That’s it.” “Anything else you can tell me about them?” “Arnold was pretty upset about that picture.