Gumshoe Gorilla (19 page)

"Your mother. You sure that only thing bother you?"

"Yes," I signed, putting on my most winning smile, "I sure."

And then I kissed her quickly, before she had a chance to study my face. Like I said, it's hard to put much over on Skye. But then, I am a professionally trained liar.

And there are some things she should never get mixed up in.

It caught me off guard. I opened the door to my office, took a deep breath, and almost choked. The place smelled like the inside of a perfume bottle. Jen and her incense, again. She must have burned twenty pounds of the stuff last night while she was going over the background data on Charles Rockland.

I opened the windows and turned the ceiling fan on high. I just hoped that the smell wouldn't cling to me this time. It's hard to scare people into giving you information when you smell like potpourri.

I settled in behind my desk, and glanced at the time. Two fifteen PM. Jen and Rockland would be on the
Czechmates
set for a few more hours. I couldn't do much more on Skye's case until they left.

Well, maybe I could make some progress on our other open case. I called up Jen's notes on the Hastings woman and her new son-in-law. It looked like a pretty simple background check. I read over the transcript of her interview, and then started running down the handful of leads that Jen had highlighted. Don't ask me how she picked them. I've given up trying to figure out how that woman thinks. But I know from experience that whatever logic or intuition or voodoo witchcraft she uses tends to hit pretty close to the mark.

Today, it was right on target. Jen's hunch that the man calling himself "Collin Cartwright" really had gone to Auburn was dead on. I had Sherwin pull the university's yearbooks for 2026 to 2031 and run a comparison against the current photo that we had on Cartwright. That turned up four likely matches, which I looked over myself. I hit pay dirt with a picture of someone named "Collin Bayer". The hair was a little darker, the eyebrows a little heavier and the nose was still original equipment, but this was our guy all right.

OK. So "Collin Cartwright" is really "Collin Bayer". That's one link in the chain. I ran a quick search on the Auburn alumni site to see what our boy had been up to since college. I found an announcement for his marriage to a Miss Brittany Towers back in 2031, but nothing else.

OK. Having the name of his wife opened a few more doors for me. I ran a search for documents mentioning both their names, and turned up their marriage license, a business that they'd owned together in Alabama, and a divorce settlement dated last year in Santa Monica, California. Santa Monica, in turn, led me to the form Collin had filed to legally change his last name.

Hm. It was an interesting background, though not a particularly sinister one. A name change and a prior marriage hardly seemed like the sort of dirt that Ms. Hastings had been worried about. Still, it did suggest a few more places to look. I decided to check up on Collin's ex-wife. The California settlement had been a "no fault" divorce, but maybe I could talk her into spilling some juicy details.

Trouble was, Brittany Tower-Bayer seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth. Her phone had been disconnected a couple years ago, and there was no new number. I couldn't find a current e-mail address. And according to National Demographics, she hadn't hit a web site, made a major purchase, or filled out a warranty card since 2033. I checked for a death certificate, but there was none on file for her. Nor had anyone filled out a missing persons report on her.

It was a puzzle, but I finally tracked her down through the newsites. A couple newspapers in Alabama had run stories about her arrest and trial. According to the reporters, she and Collin had started a business using seed money provided by her parents. It was a memorabilia dealership, of sorts, called
Pravda Prints
. The couple ran ads in Russian newspapers encouraging little old babushkas to search their attics for Soviet Era posters, which the couple then bought for hard currency. They then turned around and sold the stuff to American collectors, who were getting nostalgic for the "Evil Empire". It had turned out to be quite a profitable little business.

Unfortunately, most of those profits were coming from Russian mobsters eager to do some money laundering. Eventually the Feds caught on. When the FBI examined the company's books, they found that most of the revenue was coming from "phantom sales", in which the object being sold never actually existed, and the only thing changing hands was dirty money for clean. The Feds had pegged Brittany as the mastermind, and cut a deal with Cartwright to turn on his wife. In exchange for testifying against her, and surrendering his share of the company's assets, he managed to get off without doing jail time. Brittany, on the other hand, was doing three years at the Federal Penitentiary down in Mobile.

Now that was a bit more juicy. Jen and I just might earn our fee on this one. The next step was for me to set up a chat with the ex-wife. I figured that since Collin had testified against her at the trial, Brittany must be pretty pissed at him. If she had any dirt on him, she'd probably be in the mood to share it.

I got the number of the prison, and checked on the tele-visitation hours. She was available to take phone calls anytime between three and five. I made a note of it in the case file, and then had Sherwin pull together everything he could on her background: family, where she grew up, what her hobbies were. It's always good to know a little something before you do an interview.

I leaned back and started ploughing through the information on Brittany. But my mind kept wandering, and I found myself re-reading the second paragraph of her bio over and over again. I got up and made myself a cup of Kona. I was probably just tired. I sat back down and tried to tackle the material again. But my mind wanted to go somewhere else.

It wanted to think about Daniel. And not idle, happy thoughts, like remembering his smile or what he looks like with his shirt off. No, this was more like "What the fuck has Daniel gotten himself into?" There was the bliss. There was the arrest. And there was the mysterious new boyfriend.

Last night, I ran a background check on Daniel's new crush, Mr. Vincent Jett. And I'd come up with a complete goose egg. Collin's ex-wife had been a challenge to find, but at least she existed in the system. She had a past. But Vincent was a ghost. He'd never had a driver's license. Never had a credit card. Never opened a bank account. Never filled out a warranty card. Never been arrested. Never registered to vote. Never even bought a damn fishing license.

In other words, "Vincent Jett" was a fabrication, and not a very good one. It was a fake identity so thin that you wouldn't even be able to get a library card with it. So who was "Vincent", really? And why was he using a fake name? And what did all of this have to do with Daniel's arrest?

I tried to make myself stop thinking about it. Daniel was a grownup. He could look out for himself. He had not asked for my help. Whereas Ms. Hastings had. She was even going to pay my partner and I a respectable chunk of money for that help. So back to work.

I turned back to Brittany's bio, and managed to make it as far as the third paragraph. But I found myself staring at my own reflection in the desktop. My eyes. They made me think of the way that Daniel's pupils had been dilated last night. When I was younger, I'd had friends who got involved with heroin. I'd seen what it did to them.

I had a paying case in front of me. But I wasn't going to be able to concentrate on anything until I got this Daniel thing out of my system. The smart thing would be to check up on him, put my fears to rest, and then come back to work with a clear head.

I turned this rather flimsy excuse over in my head a couple of times, and decided that I could live with it.

I had Sherwin dial the number of a friend I have on the force. She answered on the second ring.

"Detective Strand."

"Hey Megan, it's Drew. I was wondering if you could..."

"Drew? Drew who?"

"Drew Parker, of course. How many..."

"Parker? Drew Parker? Hm... Seems like I used to know a Drew Parker. But he stood me up for lunch and never called to reschedule."

"Are we still harping on that, Megan?"

"Hey, one time I can understand. Emergencies come up. But twice? In a row? That's major groveling time, Drew."

"OK, Megan. What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I think we're into dinner territory now. Your treat. A nice steak... No. Make that lobster. And the real, farm raised kind, not that fake lobster sashimi stuff that they try to push off on you at the ball park."

"Fine, dinner. You're right, I owe you. Happy?"

"Not till I'm at the table and you've actually turned up. But it will do for now. So how's the private sector? Witchy Woman got you into any trouble lately?"

"Jen is fine, if that's what you mean. Look, I'm calling cause I need a favor."

"Big surprise there."

"I'm serious. A friend of mine got arrested last night. I was hoping you could bend the rules a little and tell me what's in the police report."

"Hm. I don't know. Any chance that this friend of yours is gonna find out about it and sue my ass?"

"None whatsoever."

"OK then. But only because we go back. What's the perp's name?"

"Daniel Boone. He was arrested around one in the morning."

"Daniel Boone? Really? Boy, his parents must have an interesting sense of humor."

"Uh... something like that," I muttered.

Actually, Daniel had chosen the name for himself, since his parents hadn't provided him with one. The test for the gay gene had come out the year after he was born.

"All right. Let's see what sort of trouble Mr. Boone has been getting himself into. Hm..."

She paused for a couple seconds as she called up the record.

"OK, got it. Daniel Boone, arrested 12:42 am on Renaissance Parkway between Juniper and Peachtree. Possession of a controlled substance. Posted bail... What exactly are you looking for?"

"I'm not sure. Just give me the highlights."

"Fine. Let me take a second to..."

She mumbled a bit, as she scanned over the rest of the document.

"OK. It looks like your friend was standing on the sidewalk with a group of three other caucasian males when he was spotted by a patrol car. The officer behind the wheel noticed that Mr. Boone had blood on his shoulder, and stopped to see if everything was copacetic. When they got within a foot of him, the drug sniffers on their belts went off. That gave the officers probable cause, so they searched him and found a couple Bliss tablets in his pocket."

"What about the guys that Daniel was with?"

"Uh... sniffer was positive on all three of them for Bliss, but a physical search came up negative. They probably ditched their tablets while the officers were searching your friend. Anyway, the beat cops had no grounds to detain them."

"You mentioned some blood on Daniel. Did they find out the source of that?"

"Let me check... Hm. The report doesn't say anything else about it. And the records don't mention any injuries when he was booked. Either it was a superficial cut that they didn't notice when he was processed, or it wasn't his blood."