Never Look Down by Warren C Easley

Author:Warren C Easley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2015-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-two

Cal

Anthony Cardenas was immediately arraigned for the murder of Claudia Borrego. He entered a plea of not guilty and was remanded to custody at the Multnomah County Jail. Bail was denied, which was typical for a murder charge, particularly when the defendant was a rich, itinerant gambler. The chess game between the prosecution and the defense would now begin.

Nando went to the arraignment and called me afterwards with a blow-by-blow description of the brief proceedings. You’d have thought it was the actual trial the way he carried on. It seemed my friend had regained his footing, although I worried that perhaps he was trying too hard. Grief is a tricky emotion. It has to run its course. I wasn’t sure my friend understood that yet. He wanted it done with. Now.

Tay Jefferson called me shortly after the news broke. “So, that bastard Cardenas did it, huh?”

“Looks that way, yeah.” I described the case against Claudia’s ex-husband and answered her questions as best I could.

“What about Manny Bonilla?” she asked when I finished. “Did Cardenas kill him, too?”

“I don’t really know. I’m sure Scott and Ludlow are trying to link the two deaths. Having Cardenas in custody should help.”

“What about you? What are you going to do now?”

The question caught me off-balance. I paused. “Nando’s happy. I guess I need to move on.”

She didn’t respond, giving me the impression she was somehow expecting more from me, but I left it at that. After the call ended I sat there thinking about what I just said. I wanted to move on, but the fact that I hadn’t found the tagger or understood what really happened to Manny Bonilla still nagged at me. I decided to do what I normally do to clear my head—go fly fishing. Steelhead weren’t running in the coastal rivers, so Archie and I packed up the next day and headed for the McKenzie River, whose upper reaches abounded in wild rainbow trout year-round.

I knew a stretch of river high in the Cascades between mileposts 13 and 16 on the McKenzie River Highway that alternated between roiling whitewater and the pools and eddies preferred by the feisty native rainbows. Framed by steep hillsides of old growth Douglas fir and western hemlock, the McKenzie ran a deep turquoise in the autumn sun that day. The first sight of the river always got to me, and I had to swallow to relieve the catch in my throat. It was the same catch I got from certain riffs by Coltrane or an achingly pure soprano note from Callas or Baez. Closer in there was the sound of the river, too—the happy noise of water striking rock that never failed to relax me.

Trout or no trout I would’ve fished the McKenzie that day just for the beauty of the river.

The caddis fly hatch I expected to see that afternoon didn’t materialize, and the fish I hoped to coax up from the bottom of the river stayed put. I switched over to a

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