Daniel paused on the doorstep and listened, but he heard no sounds inside. The night air was cool and a wind whipped through the trees. Daniel hunched his shoulders against the chill and rapped on the front door. It swung open slightly.
'Mr. Briggs,' Daniel called into the dark interior. All he heard was the sigh of the wind. Daniel pushed the door open and was about to call out again when he saw someone stretched out on the floor. He knelt beside the body. It was Arthur Briggs. Blood had pooled around his ex-boss and Daniel was careful to avoid getting any of it on him. There was a bullet hole in Briggs's forehead and two more entry wounds in his torso.
Daniel started to reach out for Briggs to check for a pulse when he heard a car driving toward the house and headlights lit up the front room. Daniel leaped to his feet and raced out of the house. The headlights swung in his direction, illuminating his face. Daniel flung up his arm to block the driver's view and dove into his car, then he floored the accelerator and drove away like a madman.
Chapter Twenty-One.
Arthur Briggs was not the first murdered man Daniel had seen, but it had been years since his first encounter with violent death. Daniel was fifteen when he ran away from home for the second time. After two evenings of sleeping in doorways, he had spent his third night with two other runaways under the Broadway Bridge in an encampment created by the homeless. The sounds made by traffic passing overhead and the voices of the river were impossible to shut out, but most disturbing were the unfamiliar noises of the camp. Drunks wept softly and the insane raged at things others could not see. Daniel feared being beaten and robbed or worse, so he tried to stay awake. When he did nod off, the slightest noise near his bedroll would jerk him into full consciousness, knife in hand.
Around two in the morning Daniel had passed out from exhaustion only to be awakened by the sounds of two men fighting over a bottle of screw-top wine. He had looked on wide-eyed as the men struck each other with insane energy. When the fight was over the winner was covered in blood and the loser lay curled in a ball, moaning in pain. The wine bottle had been destroyed early in the struggle and the liquid victory prize had seeped into the dirt of the battlefield.
Daniel lay in his sleeping bag, stunned by the violence and paralyzed with fright. By the time he was able to move, the prostrate man had ceased to moan. Daniel had not slept for the rest of the night. In the morning, after he packed his gear, he had walked over to the dead man. The image of his first corpse was still a vivid memory and Arthur Briggs resembled him in many ways. His eyes were sightless, his skin waxy, and his incredible energy had drained away.
Halfway back to Portland the adrenaline that had fueled his mad escape began to wear off and reality set in. Briggs was dead and a witness had seen him running from the cottage. Did the driver get a good enough look to identify him? It was dark, but the headlights had caught him before he could cover his face. Daniel felt sick. He had been jailed as a teenager and he had hated the experience. If he went to jail now it would be for murder.
As soon as Daniel was back in his apartment he ran into the bathroom and examined himself in the mirror. He could see no blood, but to be safe, he changed his clothes and put them in the washing machine in the basement. When he returned to his apartment, he tried to think of ways the police could connect him to the murder. He was pretty sure that he hadn't left fingerprints in the cottage, but the witness may have gotten a good look at him. Then there was Renee Gilchrist. He'd told her that Briggs wanted to meet him that night at the cottage. If she told the cops he was dead.
Suddenly Daniel remembered the recording of Briggs's call on his answering machine. The message would place him at the Starlight Road cottage at the time of the murder. Daniel had just finished erasing the tape when his phone rang. He waited. It rang again. Daniel picked up the receiver.
'Mr. Ames?'
'Yes.'
'This is Detective Brewster of the Portland Police Bureau.' Daniel's gut did a back flip. 'We met the other night.'
'Oh, right.'
'I'm downstairs with another detective and some uniformed police officers. We'd like to talk with you.'
'About what?' Daniel asked as he went to the window. Brewster was talking on a cell phone. Zeke Forbus was standing next to her. A uniformed officer was looking up at his window. Daniel pulled back.
'I'd rather not discuss the matter over the phone,' Billie said. 'Would you be willing to come downstairs?'
Daniel went through his options. He could stay in the apartment and the police would kick in the door and drag him out or he could go downstairs voluntarily. Either way he was going to be arrested; it was just a matter of how.
'Okay,' Daniel said, 'I'll be down in a minute.'
Daniel looked around the apartment. His clothes were in the washing machine in the basement. The police would search his apartment, but they might not look downstairs. He started to leave when it dawned on him that he might be locked up. He needed to tell someone, but who? Daniel hesitated, then dialed Kate Ross. Her answering machine took the call.
'Kate, this is Daniel. The police are downstairs. I don't know what's going on,' he said to protect both of them, 'but check on me. If I'm not home I might be in jail.'
Daniel hung up and locked the apartment. When he got to the ground floor he could see Brewster and Forbus waiting outside the door. He guessed that the uniforms would be on either side of it to grab him in case he had a gun. To avoid being roughed up, Daniel opened the door with one hand and held the other hand where it could be seen. As soon as he walked outside the two uniforms converged on him. One had his gun drawn. Daniel expected this, but it scared the hell out of him just the same.
'Please stand with your hands against the wall, Mr. Ames, and spread your legs,' Zeke Forbus said.
'I'm not armed.'
'Then there won't be a problem.'
The frisk was fast and thorough. During the pat-down, the officer emptied Daniel's pockets and took his key ring.
'What is this about?' Daniel asked.
'We're investigating the murder of Arthur Briggs,' Billie answered.
'Why are you talking to me?' Daniel asked. He immediately regretted saying anything when it occurred to him that most people would have expressed shock at the violent death of someone they knew.
'We have a witness who saw you driving away from the scene of the murder,' Forbus said.
'We're here so you can explain why you were there,' Billie told him. 'If you have any information that can help us find Mr. Briggs's killer, we'd appreciate the help.'
Daniel's mouth was dry. The only way the police could have found him this quickly was if the witness recognized him.
'I'd like to talk to an attorney before I say anything else.'
'You seem like a nice enough person, Mr. Ames,' Billie said. 'If you have any explanation for what happened I'll try to help you.'
Billie seemed so sincere that Daniel almost fell for her line, but he'd had run-ins with the police when he was on the street and he knew the game she was playing.
'Thank you, Detective, but I'd rather wait until I've talked to a lawyer.'
Billie nodded. 'We'll respect your wishes. Please turn around and put your hands behind you.'
'Why?'
'I'm placing you under arrest for the murder of Arthur Briggs.'
Daniel rode in the back of a patrol car with his hands cuffed behind him. He spent the first few minutes of the trip to the Justice Center trying to get comfortable and the rest of it with his thoughts, because no one spoke to him during the ride. By the time the car parked in the police garage, Daniel was sick with worry.
The Justice Center was a modern, sixteen-story building in downtown Portland that was home to the Multnomah County jail, two circuit and two district courts, state parole and probation, the state crime lab, and the Portland police central precinct. Brewster and Forbus drove behind the car transporting Daniel and escorted him up to the detective division. Neither detective spoke to him except to tell him what to do.
The detective division was a wide-open space that stretched along one side of the thirteenth floor. Each detective had his own cubicle separated from the others by a chest-high divider. As soon as he was brought into the
