Lies We Bury(9)

Scrolling through the internet on my laptop, I see that other news outlets seem to have caught up to the Post. KGTV 8’s and the Portland Metro Times’s websites dedicate the most space to details of the Four Alarm death, with the Portland Post now coming in third.

According to the Times, the body was discovered not in the basement but in an adjacent tunnel. The infamous Portland Shanghai Tunnels, once thought to be used to kidnap men at the turn of the twentieth century and force them into labor aboard steamer ships, lie about a mile east; the Times suggests this tunnel beside the brewery may be a forgotten passage.

Jesus. Shanghai Tunnels?

The victim’s identity has been confirmed, but family is still being notified. The cause of death has been preliminarily called a homicide, due to the restraints found near the body. This woman was held against her will, then left to die—or killed—in the darkness belowground. I sit, glued to my computer screen, struck by the similarity of her end to my beginning.

At the same time, without more details, it’s hard to speculate how her death relates to the note I received. Although she was killed around the time I took photos of Petey the Penguin, and the note suggests that her death is the first of at least two, the author doesn’t explicitly claim responsibility.

A slow curl of tension tightens my stomach. Memories of scratchy blankets and the white noise of a television tiptoe around the edge of my senses. Blurry happiness slides forward to wrestle with vibrating fear.

I slam my laptop shut. I can’t do this. I can’t presume we’re to blame—I’m to blame, somehow—for this woman’s death. I can’t create some relationship to this victim where there’s none. If the killer is the author of the note, it’s coincidence he saw me taking photos and recognized me.

My phone buzzes with an unknown number. I let it ring another three times before I hit “Accept.” “Hello?”

“Claire, it’s Pauline Adebayo of the Portland Post. Do you have any free time today? We need new staff portraits, and I was hoping you could assist.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure, I’m free,” I reply, eyeing my framed photo of the treetops. I agree to meet at the office in an hour, then hang up and grab my keys.

Monday morning traffic puts yesterday’s to shame, and I sorely underestimate the drive time. When I finally find a spot on the street about six blocks over from the Post’s building, I make a mental note to research nearby parking garages.

The ground floor is crammed with people when I walk in—“Mostly interns,” Pauline says, weaving through the room—and the low current of laughter and phone calls feels like a college dorm hall, from what I’ve seen in movies. As we approach the stairwell, we pass desks that were empty on the weekend, now occupied by people, stacks of folders and paper, and breakfast food wrappers.

“Hey, Claire,” a voice calls. Oz Trainor waves at me from beside two young women. His smile is relaxed as his eyes trail down my neck and chest. “Good to see you again.”

I lift a hand in return, then follow Pauline up the stairs.

“So the digital marketing team has an influx of new hires, and they all need headshots for our internal website. That is your specialty, right? Headshots?” she pauses on a step to ask.

“I do a little of everything,” I lie.

“Even better.” She turns onto the second-floor landing and down a hallway lined with framed newspaper pages. At the end, we continue straight into a conference room. A long white table occupies half of it, while tall bookcases filled with binders, videocassettes, and books take up the rest of the space. A woman with a topknot and natural curls sits in a deep armchair near the mini library.

“Claire, meet Amanda, our marketing director. If you could start with her, she’ll send in the next person to be photographed until we get the whole team’s gallery completed. I’m looking for business casual, not too stuffy. I don’t think it should take more than a couple of hours or so, and I’ll pay you five dollars per portrait. I want some light retouching to make everyone look their best. Sound good?”

This new rate is still not ideal, because retouching can be painstaking work if you’re a perfectionist like I am, but I don’t have any bargaining power. Hopefully it’s enough to cover my apartment company’s late fee. “Yeah, that’s fine. Thanks again for thinking of me.”

“You got it, Claire. Oh, and here’s a TriMet pass for getting around the city while you’re doing work for us. Just one of the many Post perks.” Pauline hands me a card with a bus in the foreground.

“Ah. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” she says, as though the extra emphasis will nourish me the way an increase in wages might. She smiles before walking out the glass door.

From among the book spines, I find the brightest ones in the collection—Crayola red, Egyptian blue, and spring green—then move them to a shelf by one of several windows along the back wall for the best lighting. I ask Amanda to stand in front of my makeshift backdrop, and she automatically adopts a charismatic smile. Not her first photo shoot, either, apparently.

“So what do you do for digital marketing?” I ask, snapping two test shots. “Can you tilt your head forward a bit?” There’s more shadow in the room than I’d like, and I narrow the aperture of my Canon for a sharper image.

“Like this?”