I have a Friday routine; I rise early, tinker around the house in Washington, then drive into the tiny town of Ridgefield for an espresso mocha and a scone while I read the Wall Street Journal. To finish the morning, I spend an hour at the Public Library, sometimes talking up my favorite girl, Marion, a seventy year-old volunteer who re-stacks the shelves and what not. She’s cute in the way that only old women who were very beautiful in their youth can be. They never quite lose that air of confidence they acquired while moving through a less than pretty world. And she was still standing straight despite the gray of age; old people gray I call it, like a painting where it’s been mixed into every normal hue of black, white and gray.

    Marion volunteered for the library after her husband died. Thursdays and Fridays, nights and weekends, Marion worked the books. She took the burden of the mundane, stacking and filing, packing and unpacking, but what she enjoyed most was being the master of the Friends of the Library annual book sale.

    Every Thursday, she arrived early and took the boxes of donated books into the little workroom next to the librarian’s office. Marion first shelved the books, then sorted out the usual of Turows’ and Kings’ and the like which she stored in a long closet in the large community room. The books that might be rare or valuable were set aside for the Librarian (she said it with a capital L). Before filing, she flipped through the pages looking for the non-literary gems.

    Bookmarks. Readers use an extraordinary variety of bookmarks. Money was common, and when there was a name in the book, she’d call the person to try and return it. If no one claimed it, it went to the Library. The most popular bookmarks were pictures, then letters and documents. She was pretty adept at getting half of these back to the owners. The un-homed flotsam and jetsam was tacked up on the cork bulletin board in the entry lobby. Marion was a bit anal, so each item had a little tracking number attached with a yellow sticky. A note at the top said, ‘Friends of Library - Items Found in Donated Books - Please Check With The Librarian Before Claiming.’ Most of the items just disappeared without notice.

    As soon as I walked in that morning, Marion placed the pile of books she was re-stacking on the nearest table and rushed over. She took my elbow, which she had to reach up for, and guided me to her little workroom. She waited for me to sit before she took her chair. She flattened a newspaper clipping from the local weekly. It was an obituary for a local man who died in a running accident. He slipped on a jogging trail and fell into a ravine.

    "So who’s Jeff Jacobs? Is he someone you know?"

    Marion bent close and whispered, as if anyone could hear, "No, he came in three weeks ago last Thursday ... but I’ve seen him before. He was thirty-eight, owns an electronics company in Kelso." She lowered her voice another notch. I had to turn my head to hear her. "He saw one of the pictures on the bulletin board." She read the confusion in my face. "You know, the bookmarks I find in the donated books."

    I nodded, "And?"

    She covered my large left hand with her two tiny ones. "He asked me where I got the picture. I told him about the books. He said he knew the four men in the picture. He asked if he could have it, that he’d get it to one of them. I told him I couldn’t see why not. He took it, and then I see this in the paper. I recognized him right away, but I checked the computer because he took out a book that day. It was him."

    "People die all the time, Marion."

    "No," she said a little too loudly, then lowered her voice again. "No, he was scared by the picture."

    I let her lead me on, "So what was the picture?"

    "You know those picture booths, four for a dollar, like at the beach?"

    I nodded.

    "It was one of those. These four college kids were crammed in the booth, and they all had Wilton sweatshirts on. They were holding this dog with a beanie on its head."

    "So?"

    "So, I still have the book."

    I motioned her onward with a circular motion of my right hand.

    She opened her drawer and pulled out a hardcover of Rex Stout’s Alphabet Hicks, in mint condition, a book I might kill for. She took off the dust jacket, turned it inside out. The name on the inside left edge was Carter Logan.

    "Carter Logan died three months ago."

    Marion was playing me, but I let her have her way, "And?"

    "And," with a note of triumph, "and, he died in a fire that burned down his house."

    I didn’t see it yet. "Marion, it sounds like coincidence to me."

    She shook her head, her lips pursing at my credulity. "No, I found Carter Logan’s obituary. They were the same age, and both went to the Wilton University." She pulled another piece of newspaper from her pocket and flattened it. The good-looking man appeared to be in his late thirties. "He was one of the people in that picture."

***

    Jeff Jacobs lived on the outskirts of the small town, overlooking the wilderness preserve on the Columbia. The property brought back a recollection from my youth in upstate New York, of how the houses of the recently dead looked sad, back when you knew your neighbors, and the dead were made visible by their absence. This was a dead man’s house, the grass a little long, the shades drawn tight.

    I pulled around the looping driveway to a garage facing away from the front of the house. On the back deck I saw a woman in a black dress buttoned high up under her chin, swaying softly in her rocking chair on the open back deck.

    She turned her head when she heard my car. She was in her late thirties, and very attractive. She returned her gaze to the marshland below. Six black and gray elk moved silently through the tall grass.

    I knocked on the upright column and she brought her tear-darkened eyes to mine. She didn’t say anything, so I filled the vacuum, "Mrs. Jacobs, I’m sorry to hear about your husband. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes."

    She nodded with her head to the rocker across from her. I took the seat. It seemed like the right thing to do, to rock and say nothing. I waited for her.

    She seemed to be talking to herself, like I was an observer, "Jeff worked really hard to get here. Fifteen years building up the company, living on credit, cajoling workers to keep at it while we waited for the checks we were told were in the mail. Fifteen years." She turned her pleading eyes to me. "It wasn’t worth it. Was it?"

    "I don’t know," was all I could muster.

    Suddenly a small smile changed her pretty sad face, like she was laughing at the person she thought I was looking at. "Don’t mind me, I’m just a new widow."

    "I think it takes time to get used to it."

    She shook her head, "I’ll never get used to it, I’m just going to have to get by it."

    I repeated myself, "It takes time."

    She nodded, "I’m taking that time, in bits and pieces, I’m putting Jeff in the grave in my mind. I’ll know when it’s done, then I’ll stop." Then, as if recognizing for the first time that she didn’t know me, she said, "I’m sorry, a bit too public with my widow’s weeds." She reached out a hand, "I’m Jessica Jacobs."

    I shook the firm grip. "CB Green," I said. "Mrs. Jacobs;" she tried to correct me but I persisted, "Mrs. Jacobs, I’m a private investigator and I’ve been hired by a third party to investigate the death of your husband."

    She leaned forward, the expression on her face hardening. "My husband died in an accident?" Her voice made it a question.

    I was guarded, "There was an incident a couple of weeks ago that this third party felt may have been connected with his death." I held up a hand. "It’s very likely just a coincidence, but she was quite adamant."

    "Who is she?" Fearful jealousy? No.

    "She’s a very old woman who saw something. She did a little research and came up with some loose ends."

    "Such as?"

    "The death of Carter Logan three months ago."

    A look of distaste crossed her face. "He died smoking in bed, and, as far as I know, friendless except for Jeff."

    "This woman thinks the deaths were connected."

    A look of wonder crossed her face. "Who is she? Why should she care?"

    I waited for her sky-gray eyes to refocus on me. "I can’t tell you who she is, but she cares because she’s that kind of person, the same kind of person you’d be."

    She shook her head, the dark gray flyaway hair fluffed in the breeze. "Don’t count on that," but she didn’t mean it.

    "I need to ask some questions. Are you up to it?"

    I saw her decision in her eyes. I took her through the paces. She didn’t know about the picture Jeff had found, but he had seemed excited a few weeks earlier. Then, out of the blue he visited two fraternity brothers he never liked, Bob Brandle and Canby Morton. Brandle lived in Portland, but he owned a chip manufacturer in Salem. Jeff had breakfast with her sister, Marsha, in the Portland first. When he returned he said he had an important decision to make, and once he made it, he would tell her about it. That wasn’t unusual for him because he was a deliberative man. That time never came.

    About Carter Logan, she had less than nice things to say. Logan was born in Ridgefield, inherited his parents house, and remodeled it ten years ago. They’d see him in town, talk about old times, then part unchanged by his presence. Logan didn’t, in fact had never, worked for a living. She figured he made his money being mean.

    I left her swaying on the deck and made my way home to cull facts from the Internet. The Jacobs were good people. If Marion was right, someone was going to pay.

***

    I called Bob Brandle and said Jeff Jacobs asked me to stop by and say hi, show him some pictures. He’d hemmed and hawed, then told me to come to the company. I told him it was confidential, I’d meet him at his house.

    The large home was located in the exclusive West Hills overlooking Portland and Mt. Hood. I was an hour early, so I sat in my car a half block away and watched the front door. When the garage opened, a pretty gray-haired woman, young gray hair, backed out with her full-sized two-tone gray Mercedes.

    Ten minutes later a tall man in a gray suit parked in Brandle’s driveway and opened the front door without ringing the bell. He called in, and then entered. He hadn’t left when I rang the bell.

    Brandle let me in. No smile. No handshake. He led me to the living room. "So, how can I help you."

    I got to it, "Mr. Brandle, I’ve got a copy of a picture at the office that I thought might interest you?"

    He laughed despite his face contorting with anger, "What could you have of interest to me."

    I gave him a tight smile.

    He made a threat, "Do you know who I am? I can make your life miserable."

    I stood up and flattened out my smile. "Mr. Brandle, you’re going to have to go some to scare me. You talk to Mr. Morton there in the other room, then you call me at this number." I gave him my card. "Up to you." I closed the door and didn’t look back.

    I drove down into Portland.

***

    Marsha Aldus lived in an upscale gentrified area, just seven blocks from my office and apartment. Her name was on the third bell. I rang and she buzzed me in. She had a pot of coffee brewing. She was a short woman with a thin boyish build, bobbed coal-black hair, transparent gray eyes, pretty features, attractive package. She looked to be in her early thirties.

    She read my face, or maybe my mind, "I was fourteen when I started at Wilton. A bit of a child prodigy." She suddenly frowned, "Never was much of a prodigy with my private life though." She poured me a cup of coffee, pointed me to the couch.

    I discounted it for her, "Everybody makes mistakes."

    She shrugged. "Yeah, well I’ve made some doozies. The only good choice I ever made was Jeff Jacobs, but I was too young, so I set him up with my older sister, just to keep him in the family." She blushed a little, then talked into her cup, "Jeff was a good man."

    She dismissively waved her hand. "But then that’s not why you’re here." She sat down catty-corner from me. "Sis said you have some questions about Jeff’s visit."

    I told her yes, then she went into her story without a preamble. Jacobs spent the morning discussing their two overlapping years at Wilton, picking her brain about Bob Brandle, Canby Morton and Carter Logan.

    "Then he asked me if I remembered when Jack Arnold died."

    "A new name. Who was he?"

    "Jack was another fraternity brother, a sophomore while the others were seniors. He was a gofer kind of guy, but sort of sweet. He had a crush on me, but he was too much of a gentleman to say anything. Bob Brandle used to pick on him unmercifully, but Bob was always a real ass."

    "What happened to Jack?" I asked.

    The recollection made her sad. "There was a football game coming up, I don’t remember which college, but the fraternity wanted to steal the school’s mascot. Jack was picked to do the dirty deed. The next morning he was found dead by the railroad tracks, the damn mutt still leashed to his hand. His neck had been broken."

***

    I called Marion to drive to the city, then went to the main Library. I found the fiche for the right period and spooled the Oregonian into the machine. I printed the page with a picture of the dead Arnold.

    I got to my office and checked my messages.

    The first one was Brandle’s voice, "Hello," there was some muffled sounds, then, "We have to talk." He left a number.

    The second message was from Marsha, "Hi, it was nice meeting you today. I hope when you find what you’re looking for, you can come and tell me." There was a long pause, "I know you’ve got my number."

    I stayed in my apartment that night. The next morning I rose early, ran three-and-a-half miles uphill, then coasted home again. When I got back, there were two more messages from Brandle.

    Marion arrived looking bright and chipper, like she was on a field trip. I put her in the car and we drove to the West Hills. We stayed in the car. I showed her the photograph of Jack Arnold and she said he was one of the four boys in the picture. While I was considering how to prod Brandle to make an appearance, he exited the house dressed in running shorts.

    Marion said, "He’s one of them, I think." Then she turned her head and pointed at an approaching runner. "And him, he’s one. He still looks the same." Canby Morton stopped at the bottom of the steps to wait for Brandle.

    I dropped Marion off at her car and contemplated my next move. We had no proof, and the memory of a seventy-year-old woman wasn’t going to send anyone to jail. Sure, maybe they were clues to be found regarding the blackmailing Logan, but it was a bit dicey to me. I wanted justice to be certain, in my black and white world the guilty don’t run free.

    It’s why the cops hate me. It’s why the cops love me.

    I called Brandle. I said I wanted a hundred thousand in cash delivered to my office the next day, that I’d be waiting for it. I finished with, "Brandle, don’t you ever call me. When I need more money, I’ll call you."

***

    I have a good friend, Dennis Doyle, a homicide cop I’ve crossed paths with a couple times. A lot of people might not describe it as a friendship, but it was probably as close as two loners get. I didn’t know him as well as a hundred other acquaintances, but if I was killed, he’d find the killer, and I’d do the same for him.

    Doyle tsked, tsked me, said if I was a cop, this would be entrapment, or worse. I said, lucky me, lucky him. He said he’d have to clear it with the captain. He was waiting with two large suitcases when I got to my office. He had a squirrely little electronics technician with him. They followed me in.

    Doyle shook his big gray-freckled head, the thick, two shades of gray hair a half-beat behind. "You know, the captain is still burning up from that trick you pulled on the mayor. He said we’re in big trouble if it comes out we saved your life."

    "Such are the quandaries of serving and protecting," I laughed.

    Doyle, all six-five, two-sixty of him, chuckled, "Yeah, but you shouldn’t act so happy about it. The brass really has a soft spot for you, it’s just too bad it’s lining the bottom of a coffin somewhere."

    The tech drilled holes and installed three pencil thin wireless cameras in my walls, plus two mikes, another camera in the hallway, and a fifth camera to watch my car in the parking area that came with my lot. I own the building, so I have an apartment upstairs. I’m listed in the phone book.

    We sat up in my apartment playing cutthroat euchre for a dollar a point. The tech was taking us both to the cleaners when, at three in the morning, Canby Morton saved us from further embarrassment. Doyle saw it first. The BMW pulled up behind my car, then it backed away. Ten minutes later he came walking up to the car, purposefully, like it was his. He had a black and white shopping sack. He pulled out a thick blanket and laid it on the ground, then picked a pistol from the bottom of the bag and put it in his belt. He carefully lifted an eighteen inch long, three inch thick pipe bomb with two long wires sticking out from one end. He pulled out a thick magnet and pushed it up under the driver’s side, then stuck the steel bomb to it. He got under the car and worked for two minutes, then attached the wires and stuffed everything out of sight.

    Morton was folding up the blanket when Doyle said, "Police, hold it right there."

    Morton turned, reaching for his gun and Doyle said in his best John Wayne imitation, "Don’t even think about it, pilgrim."

***

    According to Doyle, Canby Morton sang slowly, but completely. By seven a.m. Brandle was in custody. It took him only a few minutes to explain it all to me, but I drew it out a little longer for Marion.

    Eighteen years ago the four fraternity brothers stole the opposing team’s mascot, all good clean fun. They used the picture booth to record the event for posterity. They were taking the mascot to a hiding place when Brandle and Arnold got into an argument. Morton didn’t know about what, but Brandle killed Arnold. Logan kept the picture.

    So Logan started blackmailing Brandle, a couple grand a month. Then Brandle’s company got really hot, and when the company went public last December, he put a big move on, five million dollars. Now Brandle could afford it, but he wasn’t willing to pay, so he killed Logan. Then Jacobs found out about Arnold. He confronted Brandle and Morton, said he’d give them a week to turn themselves in, else he’d go to the cops. If he’d known they’d killed Logan, he’d have been more careful. By the time I made my appearance, killing was getting easier.

    Marion frowned sadly as the story came to an end. She looked at me with wet eyes. "I knew he was a good man, that Mr. Jacobs."

    "It cost him his life."

    "Being good is worth dying for, don’t you think?"

    I wasn’t sure. I said, "Yes."

    She twisted the Logan’s first edition Alphabet Hicks in her thin hands, then pushed it at me. "The Librarian agreed we could give this to you." She was searching for words, I waited. "Jacob’s widow brought in his books this morning." Another pause. "You know, I see these books come in, from the living and the dead, they’re like markers to a changing world, and I have trouble seeing a bright future for the next generation. You know people through their books, what they read, what they save, what they read over and over. Jeff Jacobs read good books." She pointed to the boxes by the door. "I’m going to take them home, read them. Maybe I can find the man within."

    I said I hoped she could too. She said she’d like to read my books when I died. I said I’d like that.

***

    Marsha waved as I made my way through the lunch crowd. She wore a smile, an enigmatic, fearful smile, wondering about me. But I knew she believed I was a good man. I am.

  Contact the Author - bill.capron@mindspring.com

Author Site - www.thecolorblinddetective.com