Chapter Two
If Portland detective Chad Remington’s partner, Audrey Packer, was an inanimate object, Remington imagined that she would be a wire. Packer was strung tight and she had a slender, wiry physique that was the product of years practicing Brazilian jujitsu, a martial art in which she held a black belt.
If Audrey Packer engaged in the same mental exercise, she would probably imagine that Remington was a sofa. It wasn’t that he was soft. Chad still had the large, solid build of the linebacker he’d been at Oregon State. But he was a comfortable, easygoing counterpoint to Packer’s intensity.
Packer had been complaining constantly during the drive to Congressman Horan’s house.
“We’re Homicide. Why are we working this case?”
“We are working this case because the DA called our boss and our boss told us to get our asses to Horan’s house to see what we could see.”
“Fucking politics,” Audrey swore.
“Horan is a member of the United States Congress and is one of the DA’s biggest donors,” Remington reminded his partner.
“That’s what I just said: ‘Fucking politics.’ Horan has only been missing two days. He’s probably shacked up with one of his interns.”
“Quit complaining and put on a happy face so we don’t get a bad Yelp review,” Remington said as he parked in front of a yellow Dutch colonial with white trim that was set back on a large lot in Portland’s West Hills.
Moments after Packer rang the bell, the front door opened and the detectives found themselves face-to-face with Francine Horan, the woman the congressman had married after the conclusion of his highly publicized and contentious divorce from his college sweetheart, Millie Horan.
The reason for the divorce was the congressman’s affair with Francine, who handled his public relations and who had been involved in intimate relations with Horan while the representative was three thousand miles away from Millie in Washington, DC.
Millie had come out of the divorce with a lot of money after she’d agreed to sign a nondisclosure agreement. There had been rumors that she would have been able to disclose a lot of tasty information about the source of the congressman’s finances.
Audrey and Chad held up their credentials.
Francine barely looked at them before inviting the detectives into a large living room.
Remington could see why the congressman had been attracted to his new wife.
Francine was blond and slender with the large breasts and narrow waist Remington imagined Horan had fantasized about when he was watching internet porn during his virginal days in high school.
The difference between the internet blondes and Horan’s wife was the absence of a winsome smile on their host’s face.
Instead, Remington saw the drawn, exhausted look of someone who had not had a restful sleep.
Francine sat in a large armchair, and the detectives sat side by side on a couch across from her.
“Can I get you coffee or tea?” Francine asked.
“We’re good,” Chad answered with a smile that he hoped would relax Horan’s wife.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Francine said.
“When was the last time you saw your husband?” asked Packer, who was not a fan of small talk.
“He flew back from DC after the UFO hearing two days ago. I picked him up at the airport, and we drove home. Then he got a call. He didn’t say who was calling.
After he hung up, Tom said that he would be home soon.
He wasn’t home by the time I went to bed, so I called his phone.
The call went to voicemail. Then he wasn’t home in the morning.
That’s when I thought he might have been in an accident, and I called Frank,” she said, referring to Frank Curtin, the newly elected Multnomah County district attorney.
“He told me to wait a day. Tom didn’t come home last night, so I called first thing. ”
“What do you think happened to your husband?” Chad asked.
“I have no idea. He’s never done anything like this before.”
“Have you tried his phone again?” Chad asked.
“He doesn’t answer.”
“Okay. We’ll get on it. We can call hospitals, check to see if he was in an accident,” Chad said. “We’ll also need the names and addresses of anyone he might have gone to visit.”
When Remington and Packer finished their interview with Mrs. Horan, they headed back to the precinct. On the way, the dispatcher told them that Congressman Horan’s car had been found on a side road near a farm in rural Silverton.