A cat’s brain and a human brain have many similarities. Both have identical regions responsible for emotion.
I had nothing but questions, but so did she, and her questions trumped mine. Luckily Halle showed up about the time the interview got past name, date, and other mundane statistics. She had left the games early, enlisting an unsuspecting cousin to take her place. Though I felt guilty for being the cause of this fiasco, I was sincerely thankful she was there.
I thought we looked a great pair in our full Highland dress, though it didn’t seem to intimidate our interviewers. The police had confiscated Halle’s Sgian Dubh, the black knife she wore in her stocking, somewhat muting the Ladies from Hell ferocity that marked the kilted regiments as they charged across the heathered hills, bagpipes blaring, sporrans swinging, broadswords, dirks, halbard axes, and the infamous two-handed Claymore at their fore.
Though on television the interrogation is portrayed as the crux of the investigation where the detectives shout and the perps bluster and deny, then waive their rights and finally confess their crimes, real life was a whole different matter. My interview was a monotone of repetitive questions, some puerile and brainless, others so complex and bizarre they were impossible to answer. I hadn’t been Mirandized since I wasn’t officially being held in police custody, but Halle advised me to cooperate. Each time a question was posed, I’d look at her; she’d either nod or shake her head. If she nodded, I answered with full disclosure; if she gave me a negative, I graciously declined.
The detectives asked all the obvious ones: Did I know the victims? Did I own a gun? Did I know the location of two very valuable chocolate diamonds? They also quizzed me on things that had nothing to do with the brothers Badass as far as I could see, such as when was the last time I’d been out of state and what make of car did I own, as well as a raft of personal queries that, in my unofficial opinion, were none of their business. Detective Croft made me go through the kidnaping once again, from sitting in my back yard with Frannie to waking up in Longview General.
This went on for three-and-a-half hours, not including the periodic breaks which were required by law. I was asked oh-so-politely to submit a voluntary DNA sample for their records. Halle objected on the grounds that I wasn’t under arrest, but I overruled her, allowing an oversize Q-tip to be swabbed across the inside of my mouth which, in spite of the drinking water, was dry as cat sand.
I’m not sure why I did it. I guess I hoped my cooperation would hurry things along. It didn’t. By the time I was released, my belongings returned to me, and the obligatory mandate given that I was not to leave town, it was after ten o’clock at night.
* * *
Coming out of the station onto the brightly lit city streets, I felt a sudden blaze of gratitude for my freedom. You’d think I’d been in lock-up for the relief I felt upon pushing through those heavy metal doors. I skipped down the marble steps into the neon night. Everything was wonderful; even the bums in the park across the street seemed to be smiling.
I hit the sidewalk at a run, my tartan skirt swishing and my sash fluttering in the breeze.
“Lynley, hold up,” Halle called. I stopped and turned to see the older woman shuffling breathily toward me. Halle, though basically healthy for her age, was a teeny bit portly and maybe just a speck out of shape.
With fond amusement I watched her chug up the sidewalk, a short Scottish steam engine puffing away. “Sorry, Halle,” I said. “Just couldn’t get out of there fast enough. What the hell was that all about anyway?”
Halle must have considered the question rhetorical because she didn’t reply, and we set off to the car park at a more leisurely pace.
There’s a popular local bumper sticker that reads Keep Portland Weird. I laughed, thinking we fit right in, costumed as we were. Then I noted the others on the nighttime street: the young rebels left from the Occupied protest; loud and fearless bands railing against society—what little they knew of it; the disenfranchised, lugging great bundles of plastic grocery bags, recyclable cans, Goodwill blankets, and sometimes a pet—everything they had on this earth; the loners slinking, head down, hands in pockets, from doorway to doorway—Artists? War veterans? Serial killers? Who knew? Those kinds of weird seemed a lot more solemn than a couple of old ladies playing dress-up.
Halle and I made it to the car without being mugged, murdered, or solicited for sex. I phoned Erin first thing to check on Little; Erin said she was set for the night and not to bother coming to get her until morning. That out of the way, I lapsed into a mindless daze. I was exhausted. It had been a long day, and though the interview was over, I had the nagging feeling it wasn’t anywhere near finished yet.
Halle drove in silence as we sped across the Willamette River, clattering on the metal grid of the Hawthorne Bridge. I watched the lights stream by: Burgerville, Safeway, the Hot Dog Hut. The scenery grew more eclectic as we traveled up the trendy boulevard. Sign boards and security spots gave way to fairy lights and Japanese lanterns; warmth and color glowed from unique shops and restaurants that catered to a generation or two after mine.
We stopped at a red light beside the neon brilliance of the Bagdad Theater. A throwback to the flamboyant twenties, the vintage Arabian Nights-style movie palace had recently been refurbished into a theater brew-pub. The sidewalk tables were filled with happy imbibers, a new addition since I was a kid. Their youthful laughter wafted in through the open car window like honey on the tongue.
Farther on, the new New Seasons grocery was lit up like a rhinestone, but after that, the density waned. The grade began to steepen as we neared Mount Tabor, a dormant volcano masquerading as a small lump of grass and trees smack dab in the middle of southeast Portland. A few blocks before Hawthorne morphed into a one-lane road that wound its way into the hill park itself, we turned left onto a residential side street. Halle slowed, watching for cats who might dart out from behind parked cars, and other urban hazards. The houses lining the narrow lane were old, mostly Victorian though not the gaudy style that’s come to be associated with the era. These were solid laborers’ houses, remodeled, restored, or left to proudly decline in their old age.
Halle veered to the curb in front of my place, killed the engine, and sat, staring out the windshield at the night. “Lynley, what’s going on?” she finally asked. Her voice sounded brash in the quiet.
“I don’t know.” I gave a little sigh. “I don’t know anything about what happened to the brothers. And I really don’t care,” I added with all the spite I could muster in my wearied state. “I really haven’t a clue why the police took me in.”
She turned to me. I could see only her spiky silhouette against the street light. “They detained you because you’re a suspect in a murder case.” She paused. “Lynley, I think I’d better come in for a minute. We need to talk.”
* * *
Tea and cookies with an old friend is usually a pleasant affair, but this was the exception. The Oolong tea was tasteless and the shortbread cookies felt like dust in my mouth. The combination of exhaustion and anxiety had set off an unpleasant reaction in my nervous system, a sort of adrenaline angst that began as whiskers in my stomach and tickled out to every part of my body. My hands ached, my head was foggy, and I couldn’t feel my toes. Even having Red on the back of the couch like a big orange pillow, Harry in his donut at my feet, and Fluffs curled up on my lap didn’t make me feel better. Violet gazed at me from across the room, her eyes sad, as if she knew everything I was feeling. Drama is great fun when you’re young, but there comes a time when a person grows up and sees it for what it is: an inconvenient pain in the ass that threatens one’s quest for serenity.
I don’t think Halle was faring much better. Her red spikes were wilting, her suntanned face was pale, and no amount of concealer could have hidden the worried bags under her eyes.
“I’m sorry to bring you into this,” I told her for the umpteenth time.
“It’s my choice, Lynley,” she replied—again. “Not only are we proud descendants of the great MacKay clan; we’re friends, and friends don’t let friends go to jail if they can help it!” She smiled, but only for a moment. “Seriously, Lyn, I’m afraid this may become big trouble. I imagine they’re going to want to speak to you again.”
I’d had the same feeling, but still I asked, “Why? I’ve already told them everything I know.”
“But they don’t know that. As far as they’re concerned, you could be lying through your teeth. That wasn’t just some random query to see if you could assist them with their case; that was a real live suspect’s interrogation. Which means they must have some kind of evidence that ties you to the murders.”
“But what?” I exclaimed, sloshing tea onto my skirt in my exuberance. “Bother! Now I’ve got to get it dry cleaned.”
Halle dabbed the spot with her napkin. “Salt water will take it out. Or a drop of mild shampoo. It’s on the black, you’ll never see it.”
I set my mug on the table for safety; the tea was cold anyway. Halle tossed the soggy napkin in a handy waste basket. “Did they say what they had on you?”
I shook my head. “They were too busy asking me questions I couldn’t answer.”
“If this goes any farther, I’ll make sure you know. As your lawyer I can do things like that.”
Halle was trying to put on a good face; optimism was as much a part of her innate personality as her crimson hair, but it wasn’t working this time.
She absentmindedly petted a cat or two. “Lynley, think. Is there anything—anything at all that happened when you were up on the hill that you might not have mentioned, passed off as meaningless, or maybe even forgotten? You’d been doped, after all, to say nothing of being scared to death. I mean, if you had killed them, it would only have been a matter of self-defense.”
“I didn’t kill them!” I rose, shifting Fluffs to the couch so she wouldn’t get dumped onto the floor. “Now I almost wish I had!”
“Don’t say that!” Halle cautioned. “Not even to me. If you’re going to plead innocence, you need to act it—mind, body, and heart. Okay?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I picked Fluffs up again and sank back into my corner of the couch. The little gray cat had had enough however; she indignantly sprang away and headed to the kitchen for a snack. Red thought that was a good idea and leapt down like a tiger, landing with a thud as he hit the floor.
“Lyn...?” Halle urged. “Anything. Something that could tie you to the victims?”
“I’m thinking!” I snapped. “Sorry,” I added the minute the rudely toned words popped out of my mouth. She was on my side, for heaven’s sake, and I’d be stupid not to remember that.
So think I did. “Well, the car, for one thing,” I offered reflectively. “Obviously my fingerprints would be all over the inside of it.”
“Your abduction is on record; they’d expect your prints there. No, it would have to be more specific.”
“DNA evidence, blood, hair, saliva? Same thing, but...”
I stopped mid-sentence. “Halle, I just thought of something! Did I miss it, or did the detectives skip the part about just how the brothers were killed? And when and where—all that stuff?”
Halle raised her fleecy eyebrows. “They never told you? I assumed they’d covered all that before I came in. Shouldn’t assume, should I?” she giggled. “As my mother used to say: it makes an ass of u and me.”
I had to laugh at the old adage. Women of our mothers’ generation were great for platitudes like that. Obviously we were as well.
“No, Detective Croft never said a thing, and I didn’t ask. Or maybe I did, but I never got an answer.”
“Well, I’m sure it’s not a secret. Where’s your computer? I bet we can find out.”
“It’s upstairs. You really think it’ll be on the internet?”
Halle gave me a sly look. “Everything’s on the internet, hon, if you can just figure out where.”
I led her up the steep stairs to one of the spare bedrooms—the vintage house had four. This one I had turned into a combination storage, hobby area, and media center for my family tree project. The computer was old with only a near-obsolete Windows program, but it worked fine for my purposes. I sat down, turned on the monitor and clicked the mouse to bring up the screen. My wallpaper was a group shot of my cats sitting on a brightly colored afghan—what a surprise!
Little had followed us as I knew she would. In a single bound, she vaulted to the top of the computer desk and draped her lovely black self above the monitor, tail trailing like a twitching feather boa in front of the screen. I tucked it back underneath her and grasped the mouse.
Once I connected with the internet—something I had to do the old fashioned manual way—I looked over at Halle who had pulled up a chair. “Where do we start?”
She leaned forward. “Let’s try Sinclairii and see what happens.”
I filled in the Google search box and punched the little magnifying glass. I was rewarded with a page of suggestions, blue underlined links to websites that the computer thought might be what I was looking for. The computer doesn’t always think the way people do, however: for my efforts, I got Meryta sinclairii, a large leaved evergreen tree endemic to New Zealand; Species Phellodon sinclairii, a ground fungus; Acianthus sinclairii, an orchid; and the anti-obesity effects of Isaria sinclairii.
“Lots of botanicals,” I observed.
And then there were the usual advertisements: Purchase Sinclairii on eBay; Best prices for Sinclairii at Amazon.com; Find Sinclairii and all your old friends for only nine ninety-five unlimited access.
“Scroll down,” Halle instructed.
I scrolled, but though several pages were listed, the search veered increasingly off the mark the farther I went.
“Try... what’s his name? Leonard?”
“Lawrence,” I corrected. “And George.”
“Try them both, Lawrence George Sinclairii.”
I did as told and this time I got somewhere. I scanned through the new set of links: lots of Georges, even George Lawrences, mostly connected to genealogy sites, but only one contained all three names. I clicked and was taken to the Oregonian website: a big flashy header, a border of blinking animated ads, and a tiny little box of text buried obscurely in the center.
The article had run in the newspaper a few weeks previous. The headline was as short as the article—Two Found Dead—but both Halle and I peered at the words on the screen as if they were the Holy Grail.
It went on to say that the bodies of Lawrence Sinclairii and his brother George Sinclairii had been discovered in their car by some hikers on a Washington back road. The place was described only as a ‘rarely traveled dirt road west of Longview’. They had been dead for some time.
I looked at Halle with concern. “But when they dumped me on the mountain, Larry said they were going to hit the road and disappear. I got the impression he meant Las Vegas or Florida or even the Caribbean, not off in the boonies somewhere.”
“Maybe they didn’t get that far,” she offered solemnly.
“What are you saying?”
“Maybe they died before they had a chance to get away. Maybe they never got off the mountain. You may have been the last person to see them alive—besides the killer, as they say in the movies.”
I didn’t like the sound of that but it would explain why the police were interested in me.
“Hey, I just thought of something!” I exclaimed. “In the interview, Detective what’s-his-name said they’d been brought in on the case by the Cowlitz County police. The mountain’s in Cowlitz County.”
Halle beamed. “See? I told you that you knew more than you thought. It’s the way the mind works.”
I read on. The article didn’t say how they were killed, though it did say the deaths were being considered suspicious. The police requested that anyone with knowledge of the brothers’ movements on that or the days prior to their demise should come forward. They were still seeking next of kin.
I scrolled down, but the only thing after was a list of related articles, none of which were remotely related to the case. “That’s it?” I said with disappointment.
“That’s it. Go back to the search and see if there’s anything else we can look at.”
I clicked the back arrow, retrieving the Google page, but none of the other entries were connected to the Sinclairii brothers.
“Try an obituary search; that sometimes brings up some new sites. Just put in the last name and obit.”
My fingers faltered, reversing the l and the a in Sinclairii. “Good grief!” I muttered as I backspaced to change it.
“You’re tired, Lyn.” Halle peered at the little clock at the bottom of the computer screen. “And it’s late. We can do the rest of this tomorrow if you’d rather.”
“Let’s finish the obituaries first. If we could just figure out what happened, maybe...” My statement fizzled.
“Maybe you’d feel more on top of things?”
“Yeah, that. Knowledge is power, so they say.”
Nothing came up in the obituaries. I was disappointed but not really surprised.
“Got any other ideas?”
“Not a one,” said Halle. “My brain is fried. But we got somewhere, didn’t we? At least we know where it happened, and when.”
“Sort of. Maybe,” I added dubiously.
Halle rose. “Lynley, I’ve got to go home. If I don’t get out of this kilt, I’m going to go crazy.”
I hadn’t thought of it all evening, but other than taking off our sashes and Halle unclipping her sporran, we were still in full dress. “And I should get my tea stain soaking before it sets. Thanks for all your help.”
“You’ll get my bill in the mail,” she said.
I stared at her blankly, then saw the twinkle in her eye and realized she was kidding. “No, really,” I stammered. “Of course I’ll pay you as my lawyer.”
She waved a hand. “This one’s a freebee. If the case gets more involved or, heaven forbid, goes to trial, we’ll talk about fees then.”
I disconnected the internet and turned off the monitor to conserve a few watts of energy, and we trudged back downstairs.
Halle gathered up her things. “Call me in the morning?”
“Oh, I’m okay. I don’t want to bother you.”
She reached up and took my shoulders in her hands. “You aren’t bothering me. I’m your attorney, remember?”
I nodded reluctantly, not wanting to admit to myself or anyone else that I might need one.
“It’ll be good to rehash everything in the clear light of day.”
I nodded. “You’re right. I’ll call. Not too early though.”
“Fine. Then I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She moved to go, then turned back and gave me a hug. “Try to get a good night’s sleep. And don’t worry about things.”
“Okay. Thanks for everything.”
Halle sashayed down the steps, her kilt swishing across the backs of her knees. As I watched her go, I wondered if she had told me not to worry because in her professional opinion, I had nothing to worry about, or because even though I was now in deep doo-doo, worry would get me nowhere.