Jan was very curious and Shirlee was looking at us as if she’d stepped into some domestic unrest. I broke the speculation, “That was Mr. Aldo Frank, ladies.”
Jan’s face went white. “Who is Mr. Frank when he’s at home?” Shirlee asked.
“He’s a computer genius from Silicon Valley who claims to be the most misunderstood embezzler on the planet, and right about now he’s wondering what to do about me now that he’s admitted his thievery and tax fraud that goes back 40-odd years.”
I gave that speech as I broke out a container of artichoke-spinach dip and put it in the microwave to defrost.
I set the oven on to pre-heat, and then busied myself with the task of making Boodles martinis – a shaker full of them.
When the oven was ready, I transferred the dip there and placed a pizza pan full of baguette toasts on the bottom rack. I set the timer for three minutes and dialed Jack’s cell number.
“Hello, Jim!” He answered on the first ring. I explained what I was doing and asked him if he wanted to come down, or if I should come up.
“You’re welcome up here, of course. Bring Judy and a shaker full of your highest calling. I have chili on the stove.”
“I’m on my way!” He laughed and hung up.
“It’s a tough call, ladies – vegetarian dip of the highest order or Jack Nelson’s chili-con-carne – but it’s just the kind of call real men have to make.”
I delivered that while I broke out another shaker and started mixing the traveling cocktail.
Jan held her glass up in salute, “We’re proud of you, but what are you going to do about Mr. Frank?”
“Not a damn thing, but until further notice, I’m strapped, and I expect you to be within arm’s reach of your Colt. There’ll be loaded weapons in all the closets, too.” I looked at Shirlee, “And I’m going to suggest the same thing for your house.”
“You think he’s dangerous?”
“I think he has dangerous friends. I think I’ve met some of them, and we’ll want to be prepared.”
I delivered all that in an upbeat, almost kidding tone, but behind my false bravado my mind was churning. I wanted to enlist Jack Nelson’s mind into the process.
I let Judy out in front of me, and trudged up to the end of the road where Jack’s house sits on the verge of the Umatilla National Forest land that is part of a chain of federal lands that consume most of the rest of the mountains in Eastern Oregon.
He was stirring the chili as I entered his kitchen. He tossed a Milk Bone Judy’s way, and pointed to two glasses and a jar of olives on the counter. I poured, and added an olive and drip of juice from the jar to each.
We clinked glasses, and he gave me a look of appraisal.
“Something special on your mind, Jim?”
I sat at his kitchen table. Jack is a retired soil scientist who still writes and lectures on the subject. He also studies Eastern Oregon history from the individual on up. In addition to all that, he may be the world’s only specialist on the moods and practices of one James Michael Stanton.
My friend for more than twenty years, he held my hand through the loss of my wife, Sandy, and through my marriage to Jan. His counsel is never volunteered, but when asked, he delivers.
I told him about Frank’s visit, filling him in on the ending to the back story of Charley and Chloe.
That took us through two drinks each and a serving of his fabulous chili that left both of us with sweaty eyebrows.
“There’s only one thing I don’t understand, Jim.”
“What’s that?”
“Why are you here and not at home tearing your house apart to find what Charley left you?”
I was stunned. Frank had actually given me that tip and I’d missed it. “You never know what you don’t know?” I said aloud.
He was nodding, “I think we should hustle down there, now.”
I didn’t say anything, just rose out of the chair and headed for the door with Judy in front of me and Jack a step behind.
“He was sitting at the island when I came in,” I told everyone when we’d convened in the kitchen. Jan had given Shirlee the back story on Charley and Chloe, and told what she knew of Aldo Frank.
The Nelsons have known their share of the violence that sometimes shadows our life. In addition, by nature they don’t rattle easily.
“I think I’ll take the basement,” Jack volunteered. “I probably know more about what’s down there than you do, Jim.” It was a running backhanded slap at how much I lack in the domestic arts. I chose to ignore it.
“I’ll take my office and the master bedroom,” I said.
Shirlee headed for the garage door. “I guess I’ll take this floor,” Jan said in what I thought sounded like resignation.
“What are we looking for, you think?” Shirlee asked.
“I’m guessing a Ziploc bag with a diary, flash drive or disks,” Jan said.
I looked a question at her, and she explained, “I noticed a lot of Ziploc bags used to organize things in the Seattle house.”
“What kind of things? Things that Chloe would use, or did you connect them to Charley?”
“Both, I think. I didn’t give it much thought, but I saw it throughout the house – work bench in the basement, Chloe’s craft room, the kitchen, and the laundry. They were everywhere.”
“Sounds like a reasonable place to start,” Jack said as he headed for the basement.
My first stop was at my gun safe in my office. I took my 20-gauge Benelli semi-auto shotgun, loaded it with some No. 5, 3-inch shells, two in the pipe, one in the chamber; then duplicated that act with my 12-guage Remington duck gun, this time loading with No. 2 steel ammo. Then I took my over-and-under Franchi 28-gauge with skeet loads in both barrels. I put the Benelli in the ironing board closet in the laundry room by the back door to the garage, the Franchi on the shelf over the French doors to the deck, and the Remington in the coat closet by the front door.
I had my .357-magnum, seven-shot Taurus revolver stuck in my waistband. I had seen Jan put her Colt auto in her cardigan’s pocket. I went back to the safe and took the 1911 Colt .45 out of its box, slipped a loaded magazine into it, and checking that it was on safe, I caught up with Jack in the basement and handed the weapon to him.
“Ah, the real deal,” he sighed as he checked that there was a round in the chamber, that the magazine was full and safety at “on” before putting it in his belt.
Then I went back to my office and started carefully going through every drawer and file folder. There were cushions on the couch that faced my desk, and I checked each and every one of them.
I heard Jan downstairs quietly going through every drawer, every utensil drawer, every bowl and every pan in her kitchen. I heard the freezer door open and the rattle of ice cubes hitting the sink as she emptied the in-door dispenser.
I stuck to my process. I was at my bookshelves and was preparing to take every volume down when my eye landed on “Water Dog,” by Richard Wolters. In a flash, I recalled a scene from my days in New York when Charley and I were spending a lot of time together.
Wolters wrote several books on training hunting dogs, employing techniques that were founded on the way seeing-eye dogs are trained, methods that play on the dog’s need to please, and shunning the “forced” methods championed by many trainers in a hurry.
The scene that flashed in my mind was a day when we were building a run for my dog. “You’re going to cut a hole in your garage wall?” Charley had been incredulous. Dogs, dog training, and dog care were foreign to him. Raised in the city, he had come to hunting by way of trap ranges, skeet clubs and sporting clays.
He hunted to shoot and he shot well. Hunting to enjoy the work of the pointer or the retriever was all new to him, and the care, housing, and feeding that goes into owning one of these superior athletes often made him scoff.
“That dog lives and eats better than I do,” he’d said more than once.
“If you were as important to me as that dog is, I’d feed you better. As far as this kennel, look at it this way: It’s where I keep my most valuable asset when I can’t have it at my side.”
I tried as hard as I could to remember my first impression when I peeked into the kitchen and saw Charley at the island. I played that memory in real slow motion, trying to recall anything at all, but I just remembered thinking how calm he was – calm, I now thought, as if he’d just solved a troubling problem.
I realized I was nodding as I slowly made my way down the stairs, out through the kitchen and into the garage. Shirlee looked up from my workbench where she was going through every old coffee container that I used to store junk that I might need desperately in some future time.
I smiled at her, opened the gate to the kennel, and, getting down on all fours, I crabbed my way to the house where Judy slept when we were away. I reached in and pulled the dog bed housed in her hut out of the doorway and onto the garage floor. I heard the clunk and rattle of the package before I reached back in and felt around for it.
When my hand closed over the plastic bag, I felt a surge of adrenalin. I paused, focused on my center. I felt my pulse slow perceptibly, then I pulled the bag out. I stuffed it inside my shirt, pushed the dog bed back into place with a mental note that it needed some time in the washing machine.
I crabbed back out of the gate and stood up. “Shirlee, just put that stuff away, don’t spend any more time on it.” I held up the bag. “Come inside, okay?”
I went into the house and told Jan I’d found it, and then went to the basement steps. “Jack? Come on up, I found it.”
“Good, I was starting to worry. Where was it?”
“Judy’s bed in the dog pen.”
When they were all in the kitchen, I made them wait while I called Ray Jensen.
“Jensen here.”
“Ray; I have Charley’s evidence. He left it hidden here when he visited me. Aldo Frank was here earlier today, and I’m sure either he or some of his friends will be coming back. I think you need to send the cavalry up here ASAP.”
“I’m on it. You protected?”
“The Nelsons are here. We’re all armed and ready.”
“Don’t shoot the help, buddy. I’ll have them on their way.”
That conversation had been pretty easy for listeners to follow, and everyone sitting at our island had a serious and sober look.
“We could just climb into the truck and boogie down to Pendleton,” Jack said.
“We should, maybe, you know, move up to our house,” Shirlee said quietly. “Your Mr. Frank doesn’t know about us, does he?”
I nodded sadly. “I’m not sure what he knows or to what extent, but he waited until you two left for town before coming to visit this morning. I think we should sit right here until the state troopers arrive.”
I looked at the clock. “Going on four o’clock; it’ll be dark soon.”
“Before 5,” Jack confirmed.
“About the time Ray and the Feds land in Pendleton.”
“You think we’ll have visitors before then?”
“I have no idea what to think, Jack. Frank was really believable when he insisted that he had never harmed anyone, had nothing to do with the way Charley and Chloe died, but was he lying? I have no idea.
“I do know that he has close ties to a family in Phoenix, and I really believed they had sicced goons on us in Seattle, but it turns out that was more of Charley’s plan to manipulate us and the FBI.
“I think nothing will surprise me, and nothing will make me feel safe until I can hand this baggie over to the OSP,” I said as I slipped the bag containing the thumb drive back into my shirt.
“Do you think that will end it as far as the threat to us goes?” Shirlee asked. “I remember when those crazies from Portland came out here to kill you, when they could have and should have run off and disappeared with all their money.
“Instead, they almost killed Jack using him as bait to lure you in. That was some kind of vindictive form of retribution, but how do you know if that’s abnormal for people like that, or if it’s perfectly understandable from their warped point of view?”
As usual, I had no answer for that kind of thoughtful and sensible question. I once again felt helpless, just as I had when I saw Jack under the gun that day in his backyard. I had often wondered what would have happened if Pete Boyd and Jan hadn’t been there to save the day.
“We’ll just have to play this out and see,” I said finally. I was standing in the shadows of the front room, with a clear view of the road coming from I-84. Jack came and stood beside me, then went back to the kitchen and dragged one of the stools back for me to perch on. “This’ll be more comfortable. I’m going up to your guest room. That window gives a great look at the backyard.”
I nodded and listened as he climbed the stairs with Judy padding up behind him.
My phone chirped, and I opened it and listened.
“Jim? It’s Ray. Any sign of the cavalry yet?”
“Nope.”
“They told me they had troopers from both Pendleton and La Grande in the Emigrant Springs area – isn’t that right near you?”
“Not far; what’s going on there?”
“They didn’t say, but they said they’d dispatch both of them to your site, so it must have been pretty much over or pretty insignificant. We’re airborne right now out of Sea-Tac, ETA Pendleton in an hour and ten. Call me when the OSP arrives, okay?”
“Roger that.”
And then we waited.