I boarded the flight to San Francisco and hoped that working on this Parker thing would keep my mind busy and the pain at bay. I sank into the seat, and took out a notebook. I listed some things to get started on. When the plane landed, I fought through baggage claim, and then hopped into a cab. I called Salem.
“Can you come in? I need to start on this Parker thing right away.”
“Do you know how hard it is to explain phone calls from another woman in the wee hours of the morning? Noemi is seriously eyeing the door.”
Salem’s girlfriend didn’t like his lack of schedule. She also didn’t like me. I tapped the cabbie’s window and gestured for him to take 24th street.
“How long have you guys been together? Like a few minutes? Why is she complaining already?”
“We’ve been together seven months, and she doesn’t like how you look, by-the-way.”
I could hear him knock over and break something glass, and then mutter. He was irritable.
“What’s wrong with the way I look?”
“Nothing, that’s the problem.”
I heard him knock something else over.
“What are you doing? Getting dressed in the dark?”
“Uh, yeah. I just got in like, an hour ago. I’m exhausted.”
I checked my watch. It was only eight in the morning.
“What are you complaining about? Why are you so tired?”
“I left the house at this time yesterday morning. Your Mr. Bower has some seriously lame habits.”
Salem’s first assignment as my investigative intern was to continue surveillance on Bower. He watched him the whole night? I made a mental note to be more detailed with instructions next time.
“Who takes a twenty-minute trip, at four-thirty in the morning, to buy cupcakes?”
“That’s when they’re fresh out of the oven. What else did he do?”
“I’ll tell you at the office. You’re getting take-out, right?”
“Just get there.”
I hung up as we pulled to the curb. Jumba’s was my favorite place to pow-wow with clients, or staff. West African in flavor, it melded the tropical with the spicy Cajun influences of the owner’s upbringing in Louisiana. I looked at the familiar stucco building with its colorful mural of twirling ladies, and palm trees dancing across the front.
“Wait here for a second.”
“The meter’s running.”
I waved at the owner, Sirena, through the open wood doors.
“Well look who’s dragged herself back in. Where have you been? I didn’t see you all this week.” Her accent always made even her admonishments sound slightly amused. She hugged me.
“I need something quick for me and Salem. Can you fix us up?”
“You need to slow down your life, Reyna. What about bringing a date to eat here sometime?”
“What about some Chicken Yassa? I love the lemon-vinegar sauce.”
“Did I tell you that I have a nephew your age?” Sirena grabbed me in a walking-hug, propelling me toward the restaurant’s doors.
“Sirena, I’ll just take the chicken.”
“He’s a wonderful young man, works with children…”
Twenty minutes later, I dragged my bags onto the elevator, exhausted. I used the heel of my pump to hit the floor button, as I balanced Styrofoam boxes with the meal; it smelled heavenly.
Salem rushed out to help and his eyes lit up when he grabbed my suitcase.
“Do I smell Chicken Yassa?”
I nodded, dropped my purse on the table, and grabbed some diet sodas from the mini-fridge in my office. I was tired, but determined. I needed to do something to stop the racing thoughts. I sat down at the desk and handed him a soda. I told him about my plan to check out Parker’s alibi.
“So you want me to drop my surveillance on Bower?”
“We can’t drop it entirely, but I do want your help on this Parker thing. We can watch Bower at night mostly.”
“And Parker?”
I pointed at Salem with my plastic fork.
“When I was at the hospital, Mona said Parker was in Colorado on business.”
“Is that not true?”
“I’m not too familiar with Parker’s business, but he’s a pharmaceutical executive, don’t they have territories close to their homes?”
“That’s usually how it works.”
I pulled out an atlas, and found Colorado. I brought it back to the table.
“If he and Summer live in Seattle, then what would he be doing a few states over?” I refused to talk about her in the past tense yet.
“Conferences take salespeople out of their territory. That’s easy enough to check on. It would also be pretty easy to check how large the company territories are. Somewhere under the company contact info it should have the territories breakdown so prospective clients can figure which rep to contact.”
“Before we waste our time calling another state, we should get started on a skip-trace file.”
“Skip-trace?” Salem made a face.
“You didn’t read that book I gave you, did you?”
“I wanted to get to the meat of investigating,” he said under his breath.
“Like it or not, Salem, reading is the cornerstone of investigating anything.”
I walked to his desk, grabbed the book on investigative techniques, and flipped to the right chapter. “A skip-trace is simply what you call the person you are investigating. It comes from way back when tracking down bail skippers was what most private detectives did.”
“Oh,” Salem muttered. “I should know that one.”
“Yeah.”
“OK, so what do we do to get started on this Parker guy?”
“First, we get any information on him available through public records.”
“That’s what…birth certificate…” Salem pushed his dinner aside and grabbed a pen and notebook.
“No. We go through Washington’s secretary of state website. We can find out about any professional licensing, permits, corporate records that have Parker’s name on them.”
“So do you have his social security number?”
“Full name and birthday actually gets more information so do a search with his name; Parker Evans. I’ll have to check my calendar, but I think his birthday is on Labor Day. I remember Summer mentioned it before.”
“That’s it?” Salem seemed disappointed.
I stood up and threw the rest of my meal in the trash.
“That’ll get you plenty. I have a list of public records websites to check. You need a Private Investigator’s license to get DMV records, so I’ll take care of that. Right now I just want a solid background on what Parker has been up to for the past two or three years. After that, we’ll dig deeper.”
Salem was writing.
I leaned over and stopped his pencil. “You’ll learn by doing. It won’t make sense until we compile a record.”
“Good, because right now it seems like you want a lot of useless information on this guy. What about phone records? What about…”
“This isn’t a movie, Salem.” I pointed to the investigative techniques book. “This is real. It’s detailed and sometimes tedious, but almost always fruitful. People just can’t hide what they’re doing these days.”
“Not from you anyway,” Salem said. “Anything else?”
“Uh, yeah. We need to check the Property Tax Assessor’s files for Washington and maybe Oregon just in case. I’ll ask Jimmy if he knows of any recent purchases. And run his name through some of our professional search engines. Maybe he’ll pop up somewhere we don’t expect.”
Salem was writing frantically again. I thought about Jimmy’s warning about trusting Salem.
“And, how is Jimmy?” Salem cleared his throat, and avoided my gaze.
“You know I love you, right? I consider you the closest thing I have to a brother.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“Jimmy is off-limits as far as personal conversation goes, OK? I just can’t go there. Not now.”
“Reyna, I just wanted to know how he was holding up, after his sister died.”
“I know, but I need to be clear. I can’t even have a conversation with myself about Jimmy.”
Jimmy overwhelmed my senses. He always had. I doodled on the paper and wondered how he was doing. I’d promised to call him when I got in.
“What about taking a peek at Parker’s financials?” Salem changed the subject. “If you knew which bank they used—”
I put my hand up, stopping him.
“No, Salem, nothing black-hat. You can’t hack into Parker’s financials.”
“I wouldn’t. I just wanted to know how serious you were about this.”
“I’m serious. Just not willing to do anything illegal, you knew that was the deal when I hired you.”
“What are you going to do about Parker suing you?” Salem gathered his dinner trash and dumped it in the garbage. He opened up another can of soda and half sat on the conference table, studying me.
“I don’t know. I guess I need to find a defense lawyer.” I sighed. I felt deflated and tired, and this business with the lawsuit just made me angry.
“Oh, that reminds me.” Salem walked over to his desk. He rummaged around on the piles of paper already littering the top. “I compiled this for you after we spoke on the phone.” He handed me a typed list of names. It was a list of attorneys.
“Thanks.”
“You have tentative appointments with the top three this week. They realize your schedule is fluid.”
“You’re my glue, you know that, right?”
“I vote for the first guy on the list. He’s a bulldog. Come to think of it, he looks like one too.” Salem made a jowly gesture at his chin.
He was sweet, and I was lucky. I sat up suddenly remembering something. I reached into my purse and pulled out a small box wrapped in black paper. I handed it to him.
“I got you this the day before I left for Seattle. Congratulations.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Just open it.”
He took the package, opened it, and looked at me with shock. He held up the gift receipt from the computer store. “You did this for me?”
“The guy was impressed I knew so much about computers.” My first car didn’t cost as much as Salem’s new system, but he was worth every penny.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll pick it up tomorrow and, you know, won’t get arrested for using it to do evil again.”
“You were crazy for trusting me back then.” He smiled and leaned back in his chair.
“Yeah, well…happy End-of-Parole Day, jail bird.”
“Do I get to hug you now?” He opened his arms in a grand gesture.
“Absolutely not. You know I hate people.”