At the time of his death, Roland was still married to Melinda McCrae Hatchmere, though they were living apart. I believe Violet reconnected with Roland and they started a steamy affair. Let's face it: some pretty powerful feelings caused Violet to hit him with the tray. Maybe the relations.h.i.+p had started to sour. Maybe he decided to stick with Melinda. Maybe Gigi got in the way of her father's new romance. Whatever the case, I'd taken to calling him Rol-Ex, which I think is screamingly hilarious but other people seem to find lame. Violet sure does.

Sometimes I think I'm the last person left on the planet with a real sense of humor.

So, whether she cops to it or not, I believe Violet and Rol-Ex were hitting the sheets together. It's almost a given. There's just something ripe, luscious and ready to pick about Violet that can't be missed. And she's not the type of woman to spend time mourning the death of a previous relations.h.i.+p, such as the one she was working on with Dwayne. Nope. More likely, Violet would simply zero in on the next opportunity and head that direction. I admire her ability to get over bad stuff. She says there's no time to dwell, regret, rue or wallow. She's supercharged in a sultry, throbbing way that reminds me of Mae West or Marilyn Monroe.

And she's n.o.body's fool.

I come by my paranoia over Violet's chances with Dwayne for good reason. I don't care that she's ten to fifteen years older. It didn't stop Demi Moore, and it would never stop Violet.

And I've grown pretty sick of her evasions, to tell the truth. No "amethyst" gown is going to change my feelings. After I talk with Sean I plan to have a serious tete-a-tete with my client and hopefully an exchange of information. I'll offer up what I learn from Sean, and she'd better come completely clean with a full account of what went on between her and Rol-Ex before she hit him with the platter.

I got ready for the evening early, more out of boredom than an urge to be ahead of the game. I opted for a pair of expensive brown pants-something my friend Cynthia had made me buy in a weak moment-a white, silky sh.e.l.l and a black leather jacket. The weather was unpredictable. Hail one minute, followed by surprisingly warm wintry sun the next, followed further by gale winds that shook the windows and rattled the branches. Whatever the case, Oregon nights in November require layering. It was going to be cold, cold, cold once that sun went down.

I threw a longing glance toward my sneakers; I like to be ready to move, if need be. The Binkster was curled up in her little bed in the corner of my bedroom watching me as I pulled items from the closet, tried them on, discarded them, then put them back. When I was finally dressed to my satisfaction I turned around and looked at her, splaying my palms up to ask for her opinion. Her little tail whipped into a curl, the only movement I could discern apart from her eyes. I've come to recognize this as "Hi, there."

"So, what do you think?" Her tail jerked into a speedy wag. "I have to go out tonight, so you need to head outside and take care of business." I moved to the kitchen door of my cottage, which leads to a back deck. Stairs descend to the backyard and a body of water known as West Bay. At the eastern end of the bay is a bridge, and once beneath the bridge you enter Lake Chinook itself.

Binks's toenails clicked against my hardwood floor. I opened the back door, then followed her down the steps, waiting patiently while she nosed around the yard. She can let herself out through her doggy-door cut into the wall, but I wanted to get the job done and lock her inside for the rest of the night. She looked up at me once, her wrinkly black face comically quizzical. I motioned for her to get at it and she got right down to business. I cleaned up after her as I can't stand dog doo-doo littering my yard and flushed the remains down the toilet.

Binkster looked at me expectantly. She seems to think everything she does requires a reward. Have I created this expectation? Undoubtedly. Do I regret it? Well, yeah, some. Did anyone tell me how to train a dog that was dumped on me unceremoniously? h.e.l.l no. I figure Binks is lucky to be alive, at this point.

I reached over and grabbed her face and leaned down and let her half jump up to lick my lips. These kisses used to gross me out. The idea of dog germs is a very real thing. But now I don't know...I just sort of go with it, which is surprising because I have real Seinfeld-ish problems with that kind of thing.

My cell phone started singing. I dug in my purse for it. Why are those things so d.a.m.n hard to find? When I finally corralled it and looked down at its brightly lit LCD and recognized the name and number, my brows lifted in surprise. It was my landlord, Mr. Ogilvy. This is not a man who calls me up. Our communication is by mail. I write him a rent check and send it to him. He responds by cas.h.i.+ng the check.

"Hi," I answered.

"Jane?"

"Yes."

He didn't waste time. "I've decided to sell the place. I'm putting a sign up tomorrow."

My legs sagged beneath me and I had to sit down. Selling? My cottage? I'd been renting from Ogilvy for over four years. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. I can afford the rent. The house is on the water. There's nothing like it anywhere in my price range. I don't want to leave. Ever. "Selling?" I repeated faintly.

"You don't have to move till it's in escrow," he said magnanimously.

Well, la-di-da. My mind immediately searched for a way to buy the property myself, but it wasn't possible. It was too much money. The property's value had to be in the stratosphere by virtue of the lakefront land beneath the cottage. The one-bedroom building itself wasn't much, but it was my home. I was horrified.

"You're going to have to take your stuff out of the garage," I said in a voice I barely recognized as my own. I couldn't think of anything else to say. I'd never been able to use the garage because of all of Ogilvy's junk that was padlocked inside. I guess I hoped this might deter him, but apart from an unhappy grunt of acknowledgment, he didn't react.

I left the cottage with that bad feeling that comes from unresolved issues, the kind that stays in your head, never quite put aside, remembered with a jarring lurch and a pit in your gut. I couldn't think about moving. I couldn't. I was p.i.s.sed off at Ogilvy for even suggesting I should.

In a funk, I drove to my friend Cynthia's art gallery, the Black Swan, located in Portland's chichi Pearl District, and hung around until she closed at nine, and then even later, sharing a gla.s.s of red wine with her in her office. She looked sharp in a short forest-green skirt, a matching double-breasted jacket and a pair of silver heels. I asked her to go with me to the Crock.

"Can't," she declined. "Got to get to bed early. Much to do tomorrow. And I'm short-staffed, as ever, since Ernst left, which isn't a bad thing because the last thing I needed was to look at his ugly face every day."

Ernst was an ex-lover and ex-employee.

I walked her to her car, then climbed back in mine, heading east toward the Willamette River which feeds into the Columbia River, the dividing line between Oregon and Was.h.i.+ngton. The Willamette bisects Portland whose city center lies on the west side. The Crock, short for Crocodile, is located on the east side, not far from Twin Peaks, the two bluish gla.s.s towers that are perched atop the Convention Center. I crossed the Morrison Bridge and began a kind of haphazard journey down narrow streets in search of the bar. I'd never been to the Crock and I wasn't all that familiar with this area. It's a part of Portland that was once, and is largely still, industrial, this close to the river, but there are cubbyholes of trendy restaurants and nightclubs tucked here and there. In a few years it will probably be blocks of urban hot spots. I'd been to several of the clubs around town to see up-and-coming bands at a number of these joints: they were, to a one, dark, bare, crammed with young people and loud noises.

It had been a number of months since Megan Adair left Binkster in my care. She'd made noise that she might actually give the dog a home since Aunt Eugenie, Binky's original owner and a friend of my mother's, had departed this world, leaving her beloved pet in my mother's care. The fact was, Aunt Eugenie was not my aunt. She was, however, Megan Adair's. In our one meeting, when Megan dropped off the dog, I'd learned that Megan worked at the Crock and that she was in between places to live. I'd hoped she would come back for the pug soon, but now I felt completely different. If anybody were to try to take Binkster from me, they were in for a fight. It was like a bad love affair, really; the dog belonged to me and only me, and by G.o.d, I'd go to any means to keep her.

So it was with a slight chip on my shoulder that I entered the bar. If I saw Megan I was going to make it clear straight up that the dog would not be leaving my care. Which was just another reason why I couldn't be ousted from my cottage. My heart karumphed hard, hurting. I had to have a place that would take me and my dog. Had to.

"Five dollars," the bouncer manning the door said on a bored yawn. He was broad, s.h.i.+ny bald and wore all black.

"Five dollars? Really."

"Five dollars." He gazed at me hard, his left hand knotted into a fist that he lightly pounded atop a narrow podium.

"The cover's for...music?"

He just stared at me. Normally this kind of thing totally intimidates me, but I hate parting with money, especially when I can't see any discernible value to a potential purchase.

"I'm meeting Sean Hatchmere here? He's a musician?"

He mouthed, "Five dollars." The way he did it sent a s.h.i.+ver down my spine. I forked over a Lincoln and he stood aside. I could feel my heart beating inside my rib cage like it was trying to escape. Sheesh. Sometimes it feels like the whole world's in a really bad mood.

I was too early for the bands, even though they were already charging a cover, so I headed around a corner-I swear the wall was simply a sheaf of black cardboard-and turned into a room with a circular bar in the center. It was all corrugated metal and chain link and spotlights that sent silver cones of illumination down upon a motley a.s.sortment of patrons.

I saw Megan immediately, her short, spiky blond hair taking on a bluish tint. She wore a tight T-s.h.i.+rt in some gray tone, if the lighting could be trusted, and a pair of darker cargo pants. She was rattling up drinks in a silver shaker, straining a dark red liquid into two martini gla.s.ses that looked to be made of molten silver. Everything had that urban, hard, cold feel to it, which I guess was the point. I could think of a million different names more suitable than The Crocodile, but no one asked for my opinion.

A barmaid in black pants and a gray top studded with rivets swooped down on me as I pulled out a metal stool and settled myself at the bar. I ordered a Mercury, and hoped I wouldn't be poisoned.

I watched as Megan a.s.sembled my drink. Something cool and grape-colored disappeared into the shaker with some sugar solution and premium vodka. I sweated the cost. Sometimes they'll charge you d.a.m.n near ten dollars for a martini. I'd been so intent on slipping inside without Megan seeing me that I hadn't registered the price. Or maybe I just didn't want another fight like with the bouncer. I am kind of a chicken.

I worried that I'd obsess over the cost. Then I worried that I would worry about obsessing over the cost.

Life's h.e.l.lish when you're cheap.

The silver martini gla.s.s was pushed toward the barmaid, who in turn carefully put it on her tray, and carefully brought it to me. "Three dollars," she said, much to my grateful surprise. To my look, she said quickly, "You paid the cover, right?"

"Oh yeah."

"Then you're okay till midnight. Price goes up then."

"Really."

"We get a lot of good musicians here. A lot of 'em. Nothing gets going till late, though."

I sipped away. The drink tasted more pomegranate than grape and it was good. I slurped it down so fast I pretended to keep drinking long after the last drop was absorbed. Thank G.o.d for opaque gla.s.ses. But then I remembered I could probably put this on an expense account, so I ordered another, and this time Megan herself brought it to me as my barmaid was busy elsewhere.

We locked eyes. I could tell she registered that she knew me from somewhere, but she was having a hard time placing it. I said, "h.e.l.lo, Megan. I'm Jane Kelly. You brought me the pug this summer. Your aunt Eugenie's?"

"Oh, Binky!" Her eyes widened. "Is everything all right with the dog? Can't you keep her any longer?"

"Oh no, she's fine. I'm...well, I've grown attached to her. Honestly, I'd have a hard time giving her back now."

"Oh, good. I'm just struggling with my apartment, y'know? Good roommates are like hen's teeth." She smiled. "One of Aunt Eugenie's favorite sayings."

"Good old Aunt Eugenie."

"I've got a guy living with me now who tried to tell me he doesn't spank the monkey. This after he ate a bag of Cheetos. Your Honor, I saw evidence to the contrary."

In my mind's eye, I witnessed what she'd seen in all its orange glory.

"I don't care what he does. Masturbation's supposed to be healthy. It's the lying I can't stand. You know what I mean?"

I nodded. I hate being lied to. Lying to others, however, is what I live for. An unfair dichotomy that rarely bothers me.

"Gotta get him out and someone else in." She eyed me some more. "You looking to move? It's a nice place. Not far off Hawthorne."

Her words had the power to almost pierce me. It was like the whole world knew I was being kicked out. "I'm pretty happy where I am."

"I don't doubt it," she said a bit ruefully. "That's a nice cottage. I was just hoping."

Aren't we all?

"So, what brings you down to the Crock?"

"I'm meeting Sean Hatchmere here."

"Who?"

I half twisted in my chair. "I think he's with a band...maybe?"

"Oh. Yeah, the musicians. They're all stoned or worse. That's a stereotype and a fact. I've smoked some weed, but that other stuff'll kill ya."

Megan, I remembered, smoked Players as well. Sometimes I like the scent of a freshly lit cigarette, but the environs of the Crock were saturated with that stale, musty scent of old cigarettes, dust and, drifting from the kitchen, overused grease. I imagined boiling oil somewhere beyond that turned out jalapeno poppers, clam strips, chicken fingers and a.s.sorted deep-fried appetizers at an alarming rate.

"Didn't you say you used to tend bar?" she asked.

"In Southern California. A place called Sting Ray's."

"If you ever want to moonlight, we're always looking for someone to fill in."

"I'll keep it in mind," I said as Megan went back to fill another barmaid's order.

I tried to put myself in the picture as an employee of the Crock. I liked the dress code. Pants, as opposed to shorts or short skirts. Easier to work in. But the hours, and the lingering smells, and the drunks...

Not that process serving, one of the offshoots of my business, doesn't have its perils and pitfalls. While Violet's case was on stall, I'd delivered a few notices with varying risks to my person. Three days ago I'd d.a.m.n near gotten run down by a guy I'd served with divorce papers. The a.s.shole got in his car while I was heading toward mine, suddenly s.h.i.+fted in reverse and stamped on the accelerator, roaring backward straight for me. I'm always a little more on my toes when I deliver people bad news, so I nimbly leapt out of his Porsche's path. He reversed right into the street and broadsided a pa.s.sing sedan, luckily catching it at the back wheel well, so no one was seriously hurt. Everyone started screaming and shrieking and a man the size of Greenland unfolded himself from the sedan's driver's seat and glared down at the p.r.i.c.k in the Porsche. I gave Greenland my phone number, told him I'd seen the whole thing, then climbed into my Volvo and calmly drove around them. I'd really wanted to flip the Porsche driver off. He'd tried to kill me, after all. But it looked to me like justice would be served, so I just rolled down my window and whistled the theme from Rocky at him as I cruised past.

Maturity may not be my long suit. Doesn't mean it didn't feel good.

I finished my drink but held on to my silver gla.s.s as I strolled away from the bar and toward the back of the room where scruffy men in dark T-s.h.i.+rts and wrinkled pants checked the sound and lights. I watched a guy unroll a wad of thick electrical cable, his movements so deliberate I wondered if he was in a zone. A drug zone, possibly, although I've known other people who moved at the speed of sloth.

There was a grouping of two-person cafe tables in front of the stage and I snagged a chair. The lighting was dim, which was probably a blessing as I tend to get anxious when I see the acc.u.mulation of dirt and crud that seems to go hand in hand with small nightclubs. I can live with a certain amount of dog hair clinging to my clothes. But true dirt? Inside, not outside? Uh-uh.

My eyes narrowed on the dusty footprints layered upon each other atop the dark stage. Get a broom, somebody.

"Sean, get up the catwalk and check that spot."

The speaker was an older guy with a frizzy, gray ponytail. He was pointing to a track light attached to a crossbeam above the far end of the stage. Sean was the guy slowly wrapping up the cable.

Could there be two Seans? I wondered hopefully. This one was slight with s.h.a.ggy hair to his shoulders and a dopey expression on his thin face. Either he was under sedation or there was one very long neuron between sensory input and brain processing. He was, however, about the right age. Twenty-five, maybe?

Sean slowly balanced a tall ladder against the aforementioned catwalk. I held my breath as he climbed upward, his movements at a steady pace of .002 miles per hour. He trudged across the walk to the light, which he fiddled with and fiddled with while Frizzy Ponytail barked orders. Eventually they were both satisfied and Sean crept back down the rungs and returned to coiling cable. He'd sounded a lot more energetic on the phone.

I checked my watch. Eleven-thirty. Maybe I could get this interview over early and skedaddle before the witching hour. The thought of my bed was an invitation I wanted to accept sooner rather than later.

"Sean Hatchmere?" I asked, as he walked across the stage in front of me, his sneakers and pant legs pa.s.sing by at eye level.

He stopped, shading his eyes against the lights to look down at me. "Yeah?"

"Jane Kelly."

It took a moment. "Oh. Yeah. Ya wanna come on back?" He veered toward the rear of the stage and after a brief second of hesitation, I hauled myself onto the dusty ap.r.o.n and followed, brus.h.i.+ng off my palms.

Behind the enormous speakers and false walls was a rabbit warren of alleyways fas.h.i.+oned from more enormous false walls and black set boxes. I could see the bright green of an EXIT sign through a slit between black curtains. Sean stopped ahead of me and motioned me into a room with a haphazard selection of folding chairs. The greenroom, apparently, where the performers waited before going onstage.

Sean took a folding chair and I pulled up one beside him. The light was dim enough that I couldn't tell if his eyes were unfocused or not. "You wanted to talk about Dad," he said. His voice was a near monotone, but I thought that might be just his natural way of speaking rather than a pa.s.sive-aggressive kind of compliance, the kind I might have used in the princ.i.p.al's office once upon a time.

"Violet didn't kill your father, either purposely or by accident," I said, forcing myself to sound positive. "She wants to find who did, and I'm trying to make that happen. I'm just gathering information. You're the first person interested in talking to me."

"You're a private eye?"

"Something like that."

"What does that mean?"

"It's a work in progress." I explained about the steps it took to be licensed, and Sean listened with apparent interest.

"That's cool." He bobbed his head. "You can't, like, bust some-one for something, though, huh? Like drugs, or...stuff..."

"I'm not the police."

"I dunno what I can tell ya. Dad was a control freak. Really wanted me to be a doctor, like he was. But y'know how that turned out." He peered at me through hanks of hair.

"He got his medical license revoked," I said.

"He was a lot more fun before that." His tone was wistful. "All of a sudden he's, like, climbing down my throat, turning my room upside down, sniffing around like a drug dog, y'know? Found a little stash of weed and thinks I'm a crackhead. Sends me to this rehab place with, like, these old people. Everybody's got a prescription drug problem. I mean, really. Like housewives and businessmen and lawyers and s.h.i.+t. They are really messed up. If these people had had a little weed, y'know? They'd be a lot better off."

"Did you tell your father that?"

"You bet. I told him lots of stuff. All that hypocritical s.h.i.+t. I kinda laughed at him, if you want the truth," Sean said sheepishly. "He just, like, blew a blood vessel. Really, really out of control."

I decided Sean might be stoned. His emotions seemed detached from his narrative. "So, were you and your dad having a problem when he died?"