Free Not Dead Enough by Warren C Easley Page B

mention anyone named Queah. He was worried the truth might hurt a man named Cecil. Cecil was an old friend of his.”
    â€œCecil?” I recognized that name. “Did he mention a last name?”
    The Reverend paused for a moment and wrinkled his forehead. “No. I don’t believe he did, Mr. Claxton. All I remember is the name Cecil.”
    â€œDid he tell you what it was he wanted to set right?”
    â€œNo. I’m afraid he didn’t. All he said was the passing of a man’s wife got him thinking, a man he had wronged in the past. I didn’t probe.” Then he paused again and met my eyes. “This could have something to do with Sherman’s death, couldn’t it, Mr. Claxton?”
    â€œI honestly don’t know, Reverend. But I think you should consider passing this information along to the Sheriff’s Department. They may contact you, but if they don’t, I’d call Deputy Grooms, and tell her what you just told me.” I wrote the name down for him.
    ***
    Frampton? Farmer? What the hell was Cecil’s last name? Archie and I were back on the highway, heading north toward I-84. Out on the horizon, white clouds scudded east to west like a thawing ice floe. I figured the wind was up in the Gorge, and hoped it wouldn’t rain now that I was missing a back window. I couldn’t for the life of me remember the last name of the Cecil mentioned in Nelson Queah’s letters—the guy who had offered him a job if he would stop protesting against construction of the dam. I thought about calling Winona when it came to me—Ferguson. That was it—Cecil Ferguson.
    I pulled off the road and let Archie out to stretch his legs. An eighteen wheeler whooshed by, and my dog instinctively moved away from the highway. We walked a few yards into the sage brush, and I dialed one of the numbers I retrieved off Watlamet’s phone. A female receptionist answered at the Rose City Senior Living Center. “Uh, this is Jim Smith from Fed Ex,” I said. “I’ve got a package here for a Cecil Ferguson. Just checking to make sure I’ve got the right address.”
    â€œYes,” she answered brightly, “he’s one of our residents.”
    Bingo. “Thank you. Uh, do you have a room number?”
    â€œHe’s on the fourth floor, four-oh-two, but you can leave the package at the desk.”
    Well, well, every now and then I get lucky.
    We got back in the car, and I Googled the address of the Rose City. I looked back at Archie. “You up for one more stop, big boy?”

Chapter Twelve
    The Rose City Senior Living Center was on Eighty-second Avenue in Southeast Portland, an area known not so affectionately as Felony Flats. Across from a used car lot and wedged between a beer joint and a mini-mart, the building had a weather-stained façade, squinty little windows, and a low, covered portico propped up with faux Greek columns needing paint. A large, free-form sculpture made from bent tubes of stainless steel welded together stood on one side of the entrance—the builder’s contribution to the arts, no doubt. It looked like a train wreck to me.
    As I approached the entrance, I fell in with a middle-aged couple. When they were buzzed in, I smiled, held the door, and then followed them into the elevator and got off on the fourth floor.
    Cecil Ferguson had been a big man once, but age and some wasting disease had stooped him at the shoulders and taken most of his body mass except for what held him together, skin stretched over bone, mostly. He had thinning, red-gone-to-gray hair, and his wavy nose and hollow cheeks swarmed with tiny blood vessels, most of them broken. His pale blue eyes blazed at me, as if all the life left in him had retreated there to make a final stand.
    â€œWho the hell are you?” He stood in the doorway, his bony fingers gripping the edge of the door, his hoarse words stalling between us from lack of