Table of contents | Previous chapter Introduction | Cast of characters   Playing with Fire A novel by Scott Lazenby   Chapter Seven he Crown Victoria climbed up into the Penumqua Heights gated community, its engine barely registering the effort. Inside the gate, the road leveled off. We ran the gauntlet of imposing three-car garages and newly planted saplings. Officer Mike Howlett waved to a couple strolling down the sidewalk.       “Surprised to see anyone walking in here,” he said. “The whole point of the gate is to keep the outside world out. Seems like folks mostly drive straight into their garage and close the door behind them. If they’re real adventurous, they’ll duck into the backyard to barbecue a steak. And if a person has the nerve to walk in front of someone else’s house, we get a call from the block watch captain. They drive their kids to the neighborhood park two blocks away, for Pete’s sake — it’s outside the gate, you know.”       Every once in a while I went on a ride-along with one of the patrol officers. If nothing else, it was a good way to keep up with the changes in the city.       “They always want us to catch speeders on the main drag, but they complain if we actually ticket one of the residents. Who else do they think drives in here?”       I laughed. “You have much trouble with burglaries? Seems like there’d be some pretty lucrative jobs here.”       “Nope. But domestic violence ... you’d be surprised.”       “Money can’t buy me love, huh?”       “What’s that, a Beatles song? Before my time, anyway. And I bet if we dug into a few of the teenagers’ bedrooms, we’d have us some pretty good drug charges.”       Mike circled out of Penumqua Heights and pointed his cruiser toward a new subdivision. We slowly passed by houses in various stages of construction. It was 7 p.m., but most of the workers were still there, finishing up a 14-hour day. The builders counted on the long days and dry weather of July and August, and homes seem to go up overnight. A roofer in shorts and a tank top saluted us with his nail gun.       We dropped down the hill back into the main part of town, turning onto Chief Joseph Boulevard, a major arterial that connected Trillium with Portland. The traffic was still heavy with the last of the evening commuters. Mike eased the car into the parking lot of an insurance office and calibrated his radar gun. Within minutes a white BMW shot by, twenty miles over the speed limit. Mike reacted quickly, and the sudden acceleration caught me by surprise. He switched on his lights as he merged with the traffic. It only took a couple of blocks to catch up with the BMW. As we pulled over, Mike punched the license number into his mobile digital terminal. A radio modem linked up with the state and national crime information centers, scanning for outstanding wants or warrants. The search came back empty. Mike grabbed his ticket book and walked up to the driver’s window. I could tell that the driver was a woman — probably the registered driver listed on the screen of Mike’s MDT — but couldn’t see much else. Her bumper had a sticker that said REALITY IS FOR PEOPLE WHO LACK IMAGINATION. It took Mike ten minutes to check her license and insurance forms and write the ticket.       “That’ll help our revenue picture a little,” he said.       “How much was the ticket?”       “Eighty bucks. She wasn’t happy about it, of course. Said she was in a hurry to pick up her kids from day care.”       After we took out the state’s share of the fine and our court system’s cost for processing the ticket, there wouldn’t be much left to cover Mike’s salary. But the traffic stops were intended more to keep speeds down than to make money, anyway.       Mike wrote up a few more speeding tickets. The fourth car that he hit with the radar gun was an old Ford pickup, going 55 in a 35mph zone. He whistled when he entered the license number into his terminal.       “What’s that mean?” I asked.       “The Portland Police Bureau has an arrest warrant out for him. He’s wanted on a few assault and battery charges, it looks like.” Mike squeezed the button on his radio’s handset. “Three Charlie Six.”       “Three Charlie Six, go ahead.”       “I’m on a traffic stop, on Chief Joseph just south of the T Marketplace. Got a possible wanted. Could you roll cover?”       “Okay, Three Charlie Six, rolling cover.”       Mike picked up his ticket book and loosened the Velcro flap on his service revolver. He went out and spent a few minutes talking to the driver, then got back into the car.       “What’s up?”       “I told him to pull up to the parking lot there so we can get his truck off the road. He’s going to take a little trip with us.”       “Is he the guy with the warrant?”       “Well, wouldn’t you know, he gave me a different name, but he just doesn’t seem to be able to find his license, or anything else with his name on it. He matches the description, though, so we’ll take him on down to the jail and let them sort it out.”       Mike stayed on the truck’s bumper as it moved down the shoulder and pulled into a supermarket’s parking lot. The cruiser’s red and blue lights painted the parked cars in the growing darkness. Mike got out and talked to the driver, then motioned him out of the car. Another black and white sedan pulled into the parking lot. Officer Tony Sanchez got out of his car and walked over to Mike. I got out to join them.       “Hi Ben. You want to be one of the Reserves?”       “Sure, Tony. Don’t know if I could pass the test, though.”       They laughed.       “Everything under control?” Tony asked.       “Yep, so far,” Mike said.       “Looks like it’s turning into a busy night. Must be the full moon. We already have a couple of drunks cooling off back at the station.” We had caught some of that through the radio traffic. “Well, take it easy.”       “Yeah, thanks.”       Mike escorted the pickup truck’s driver into the back seat of the patrol car. Tony stayed in the parking lot until we were underway. The twenty-minute drive to the Multnomah County jail was relatively uneventful.       Back in Trillium, Mike parked at the fire station. The food and coffee were better there than at the police station, and there were more people around in the evening. The firefighters were either watching TV or cleaning up after dinner, depending on seniority. They were surprised to see me there after hours, but they were cordial enough. Mike probably felt a little awkward with me hanging around, but the officers did enough ride-alongs with citizens and council members that he handled it well. We were in the middle of a discussion on the Mariners’ prospects for the playoffs when Mike’s portable radio summoned him to another call. It was a burglar alarm at a local art gallery.       “Probably a false alarm,” Mike said.       He was right. The gallery was dark and the doors and windows seemed secure.       “Happens all the time. A blowing curtain or something sets off the motion detector.”       “Frustrating for you, huh?”       “Sometimes, but we’re on patrol anyway. Might as well check out this place as anywhere else.”       Around midnight we cruised through a neighborhood at the edge of town. A girl — must have been around 12 or 13 — was walking alone, apparently in a hurry. Mike called out his window, “Excuse me, miss. Can I help you?”       She stopped. “No, I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m just going home.”       Mike got out of the patrol car and talked to her quietly, for several minutes. At one point, she seemed to hesitate, then showed him her arm. I couldn’t make out much in the street lights. After a minute, he opened the car door for her.       “She was babysitting for her uncle. Seems he was out drinking, and came home and started hitting her and the kids around. Says she lives on the other end of town, but doesn’t want to go there.”       Mike gave the house description to the dispatcher and headed for the police station. All four interrogation rooms were full. We no longer maintained any jail cells or even holding rooms. The civil rights laws made our old cells obsolete — we just used them for records storage — and we couldn’t afford the medical and other costs associated with holding prisoners. So we relied on the county jail, and used our interrogation rooms for temporary secure space when the officers were too busy to make the trip into Portland. State law allowed us to hold suspects for a few hours before officially booking them.       “Listen, do you mind staying with Stacy here while I try to sort out what’s going on in the home front? I’d rather not leave her alone.”       “Sure, Mike.”       Stacy wasn’t very talkative, but we managed to find some common ground.       “Where do you go to school?”       “Nowhere, yet. We just moved here this summer. I guess I’m going to Snook Middle School, or something like that.”       “Chinook. It’s named after a kind of fish. Some of my daughter’s friends are going there next year. Where did you live before?”       “California. Yreka. My stepdad got a job up here. He’s in construction.”       “He must be pretty busy now.”       “Yeah. I don’t see him much.”       Tony Sanchez let himself in from the sallyport. “Man, what a night. I got to get some of these characters out of here to free up some room.” We heard him unlock one of the interrogation rooms. It sounded to me like he must have trapped a rabid longshoreman in there. Stacy had heard that language before, I guessed.       “Crazy place, huh?” I said.       “Yeah. What do you do here? You don’t look like a cop.”       “No, I work at city hall. I’m just riding around with Officer Howlett to see what it’s like.”       “Oh. So do you want to be a policeman?”       I smiled. “Maybe some day.” •      •      •       Every other week we held a development coordinating meeting to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks on major projects. The team members included Bess Wilson and Jake Wildavsky, as well as our city engineer, the chief building inspector, and the fire marshal. Bess’ secretary handed out a status sheet.       “What’s going on with the Trillium Village subdivision?” Bess asked.       “Search me,” Jake said. “We red-lined the plans and got them back to their engineer about a month ago. Haven’t heard anything since.”       “There’s a rumor out there that Heinz Hesse is trying to sell the thing,” the building official said.       “Well, that would explain it,” Bess said. “Nothing much we can do now. Wasn’t there some issue with a sewer easement?”       “Yes, there is,” the city engineer said. “They need to run the line through the Boatwright’s property. We met with Dick Boatwright, and he seemed open to it, but he wanted to deal with the city instead of with Hesse. Ben, we may need your help on this one.”       “Sure, just let me know.”       The next project on the list was Nova Estates. The company was proposing a mix of six-plex apartments and townhouses as part of their project. Combining housing with an industrial plant broke with several decades of exclusionary zoning practice. That was fine with me — it was exclusionary zoning that gave us urban sprawl, increasing commute times, lifeless suburbs and dysfunctional communities.       “Nova is set for a public hearing on the housing project next month,” Bess said. “It may be a little rough — apparently the Hemlock Creek neighborhood has formed a group to oppose it. They’re calling themselves Citizens for Good Planning.”       “What are they, your typical Nimbies?” the fire marshal asked.       “No, they’re Bananas ... Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything,” Jake said.       “More like Nopes,” Bess said.       “What’s that?”       “Not On Planet Earth.”       “Ha ha. Really, what’s their beef?” the fire marshal asked.       “Not sure,” Bess said. “I got hold of a flier they’ve been circulating — full of bullshit about how residential and industrial traffic can’t mix and how the environment will be destroyed. I think they’re mainly worried that poor folks will move in there.”       “At least they’ll be poor folks with decent jobs,” I said. “Besides, Hemlock Creek is separated by a major arterial from Nova’s property — I really don’t see how it will affect them. How does the project look from a planning perspective?”       “They need to keep a few more trees on the northeast corner,” Bess said. “And the state will probably restrict them to right turns onto Chief Joseph. Other than that, it looks pretty good. They’re keeping plenty of separation from the creek, and the design for the apartments looks better than your typical barracks.”       “Well, good luck with the hearing.”       We dealt with a gas station remodel, a car wash, a five-story downtown office building, a row-house development, an assisted living center, four subdivisions in various stages of planning, a manufactured home park, a warehouse building and a mini-storage lot. After two and a half hours of that, I was ready to retreat to my office, even though it inevitably held a dozen voice messages. Pete Koenig caught me in the hall.       “You know Pete, I’m not sure I’m glad to see you. Seems like all you’ve been giving me is bad news.”       He chuckled. “Well, here’s some more, then. I got a call from Todd Pritchard’s lawyer. They want to take a deposition from you and Bess.”       “Great. Maybe I can schedule some root canal work instead.”       “You’ll do fine. Besides, I don’t think the deposition is admissible in court. The writ of review isn’t a regular trial — the judge has to limit his review to the record of the city council proceedings.”       “So why do we have to go through with it?”       “Well, you still do — it will have to be up to the judge to decide if it’s admissible. But really, you’ll do fine. I think Bess actually enjoys these things. She told me she wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to get screwed by an attorney.” •      •      •       The offices of Snodgrass, Sandlefurt and Bump were on the twenty-second floor of the New World Bank Building in downtown Portland. The decor, from the glass-walled reception area to the mahogany paneling of the conference room, was designed to impress clients and intimidate adversaries. The firm made its money on contingency contracts in lawsuits — mostly product liability and civil rights claims — and the opulent offices were intended to convey the message that they were successful at it.       At the corner of the table sat the court reporter, an anachronism in the days of speech-recognition software, but in keeping with the Byzantine procedures of the judicial system. Todd Pritchard had short brown hair and a goatee, and he wore a navy sport coat and navy slacks. The colors didn’t quite match. It was the first time that I had had face-to-face contact with him, and I wasn’t impressed. In fact, I was amazed that he had been able to work his way into a leadership position with his good old boy network.       Terry Judd, his lawyer and a junior partner at Snodgrass and Sandlefurt, was dressed in a dark pin stripe suit and wore a gold watch. He was leaning forward and staring at Bess Wilson.       “So you’re telling us that you didn’t know from the start that Northwest Construction was going to do the work on the Nova project?”       “That’s what I said. I spent most of my time trying to make sure that Nova would locate in Trillium. Why would I care which contractor they used?”       “All right. You say your job was to persuade Nova to choose Trillium. How did you do that? Tax incentives, special treatment, or what?”       “We don’t have any tax incentives to offer — you should know that. About all we can do is sell the benefits of our community — workforce, available land, freeway access, high quality of life — ”       “But wasn’t the financing from the state part of the deal?”       “Think about it before you ask stupid questions, Judd.” I saw a hint of a sparkle in Pete Koenig’s eyes. He was enjoying Bess’ feistiness. “First, we couldn’t guarantee the state funding; all we could do is tell them we would apply for it. Second, any town in Oregon could have made the same offer. Third, do you really think a million bucks in grants and loans makes that big a difference in a fifty-million-dollar project?”       Judd looked through his notes.       “What about special treatment in the planning process? Did you tell them you would fast-track their development application, or anything like that?”       “We told them we would process it as quickly as possible, but we still put them through all the hoops that anyone would have had to go through.”       “Does that mean that you gave their project a higher priority than, say, an application from a local business?”       “No local business had a project that big. We handled the building plan review concurrently with the development application to speed things up, but we’ve done that for other businesses ... including Pritchard’s here, come to think of it.”       I watched, but not with complete detachment, knowing that my turn was coming up next. Bess seemed completely at ease. She wore a simple maroon v-neck top and gray pants, and had either made a calculated decision to dress casually to avoid giving too much dignity to the occasion, or — more likely — she hadn’t thought about it at all. She leaned back in her chair and ignored the notebook in front of her.       Terry Judd was barely thirty years old. His shirt collar was a little too big for his neck, and it looked like he used some kind of mousse in his hair. He kept his attention on Bess and his yellow legal pad, but I got the feeling that his primary goal was to impress Todd Pritchard.       Pritchard, for his part, watched with a smug, sanctimonious look as if he had already trapped Bess in some grave misdeed. It was just a spectator sport for him, since he wouldn’t have to take the hot seat. “So you made promises of special treatment,” Judd said, “and you offered a special financing deal to Nova, a company you had never heard of before, is that right?”       “Listen, it seems you’re trying to imply that we did something wrong or out of the ordinary, and that’s just bullshit.”       “Miss Wilson, I need to remind you that the court reporter will make a transcript of this deposition for the judge.”       “Oh, I’m sorry. That’s spelled b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t, Marilyn.”       Marilyn gave a slight smile and continued tapping her keys.       “So whose decision was it to exempt Northwest contracting from the bidding process,” Judd asked.       Bess paused. “The city council’s, ultimately.”       “But they based it on staff’s recommendation. Was it your recommendation?”       “Yes.”       “Why did you recommend that?”       “Because it was in the city’s best interest.”       “Or was it in your own personal interest, too? Did you receive any fees or special consideration from Nova for your cooperation?”       “No, of course not. You watch too many movies, Judd. I’ve never even been offered a kickback on anything, let alone sought one out. Your client may be more familiar with that kind of thing, but it’s not part of my professional experience.”       Judd spent a minute flipping through his notepad. Finally he looked up.       “Okay, Bess, that’s enough for now.”       For an hour Judd questioned me about the financial arrangements behind the Nova and Northwest Construction contracts. He seemed to take special interest in the fact that Nova was making all the loan payments, although the city was acting as the conduit for the state financial package. During a break Pete, Bess, and I got coffee at a Starbucks shop in the building lobby.       “Why is he so hung up about the fact that Nova is paying for the road, water, and sewer work?” Bess asked. “What’s so unusual about that?”       “I suppose he’s trying to make a case that the city shouldn’t have used cost savings as a criterion in bypassing the bid process,” I said. “Since Nova was ultimately paying all the costs, a few hundred thousand more wouldn’t have affected the city.”       “Maybe you’re right, but the statute allows a bid exemption based on cost, regardless of the source of the city’s funds for a project,” Pete said. “If you think about it, almost none of our construction projects are financed with city taxes. Most are paid for by developers or property owners one way or another, through local improvement districts or development impact fees. They’re still city projects if the money goes through us, though.”       “Sure, if you follow Judd’s reasoning, it isn’t a city project at all, since Nova is paying for the work,” I said. “If that’s the case, then it isn’t bound by the bidding process in the first place, and we’re wasting our time here.”       They laughed. Pete said, “I doubt he really thinks he has a case. I still believe the purpose of the deposition is just to rattle your cage a little. Do you want a refill on your coffee?”       “No, I’d have to take a pee break in the middle of the deposition. But maybe that isn’t such a bad idea.”       For the next hour and a half, Terry Judd probed around on the circumstances leading to Nova’s decision to locate in Trillium.       “Early on in the process, didn’t you and the mayor join John Collins and some of the other Nova executives on a trip to San Jose?” Judd asked.       “Yes.”       “What was the purpose of that trip?”       “Nova has a plant there. We wanted to see what we were getting into.”       “The minutes of the April 20 council meeting indicate that Nova paid for that trip. How much did it cost?”       “They offered to pay,” I said, “but the mayor and I paid our own way.”       “What, out of your own pocket?”       “No, with city funds.”       “Why did you do that?”       “We wanted to avoid any conflict of interest.”       “So what did the trip cost?”       “Oh, I don’t know. Around sixteen hundred, total, I suppose.”       “So you used city tax money to accept Nova’s invitation to check our their plant. Why did you decide to do that?”       “I told you. We wanted to see what the city was getting into. We wanted to see what kind of impact the plant had on the environment, working conditions, the range of wages and salaries they had. ...”       “What, they let you look at their payroll records?”       “No, we could get an idea by the kinds of jobs they had.”       Judd looked at his notes.       “How long were you in San Jose?”       “Around two days.”       “Aren’t you sure?”       “No, it was last spring. I can’t remember the details.”       “So you spent at least one night there. Did the Nova people entertain you or take you to dinner?”       “They joined us for dinner one night, and then we all went out to a jazz nightclub. But the other night we didn’t do anything since we had an early flight back to Portland.”       “Who paid for all that? The dinner, drinks, club cover charge and that sort of thing?”       “Mayor McTavish and I paid for our own dinner — ”       “City funds?”       “Yes. We paid for drinks out of our own pocket. Nova may have picked up some of that. But it was fairly minor.”       “Now Ben, you said earlier that you wanted to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. But here you were in closed meetings with members of a for-profit corporation, socializing with them, letting them entertain you. Doesn’t that seem to you to present a conflict of interest?”       “No.”       “Why do you think that?”       “A lot of reasons. We were visiting a factory in San Jose. That’s not exactly a political junket. We went with the city council’s approval. Everything was aboveboard.”       “But if nothing else, you established a friendship with John Collins. Isn’t his daughter on a team you coach?”       How did Judd know that? I looked at Pritchard. He tried to suppress a grin.       “Yeah, so what? The players are assigned by the softball league, they aren’t drafted by the coaches.”       “I just want to get that on the record. What other social activities do you engage in that involve Collins, Ramon Diego, or any of the other executives of Nova or Northwest Construction?”       This was getting tedious. There was no way any of this would have a bearing on their lawsuit — if they wanted to pursue a conflict-of-interest case, they would have to go after city council members, not me, since the council made the final decision on the bid exemption. And with the possible exception of Rob Titus, I knew the council would come out clean on that score. I wished I had Bess’ ability to dish it back to Judd.       “Trillium’s a small city. We bump into each other occasionally. Ramon is a member of my church. Except for Collins, Nova doesn’t have much of a presence in Trillium yet, but I see John at chamber functions. But you can say that about most people involved in business in Trillium. You grew up there, you ought to know that.”       “Okay. Let me return to the financing issue. First you said the work was a city project. Then you said that Nova was paying for it. Which answer do you want to go with?”       Nice try.       “They’re both accurate,” I said. “It’s a city project, but we have a development agreement that states that Nova will pay us an amount equal to the state loan payments. What’s so complicated about that?”       “Fine. Thank you for your time, Mr. Cromarty.”       We left the conference room without speaking. Next chapter: public accusations Copyright © 2001, Scott D. Lazenby. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the author is prohibited. Illustration: Paul Salmon