District.”
Doc was standing by a whiteboard mounted to the wall opposite the window. I turned to him and said, “Write it down anyway, okay?”
Up to this point, clues were pretty scarce, but we were still writing down what we had. So far, Doc had written:
To this he now added:
We stared at the board.
“Not much to go on,” Toni said.
I shook my head. “Not much.”
“Well,” Kenny said. “We could always just jump in the car and drive by the houses around all the parks north of the U-District looking for a white beemer with two black guys in it.”
I looked at him then at the board. Then I looked back at the group. “I suppose.”
“Really?” Kenny said.
I shrugged. “It’s a simple answer.” I looked at the board again. “But sometimes the simple answer is the right answer-especially when you don’t have any others.”
“It’s called Occam’s razor, dude,” Doc said to Kenny.
I looked at Doc and smiled. “Doc, you never cease to amaze me.”
“Part of my job description,” he said, smiling back. “So how many parks you think are up there, anyway?” Doc asked.
“We can look on a map and count ’em out,” Kenny said.
“How long will it take?” I asked
“We can do it right now,” he said. “While you wait.” He opened up a map program and zoomed to the area north of the U-District.
I studied the map for a few seconds. “It’s a pretty big area, but according to the map here, there aren’t that many parks-maybe fifteen or twenty if you count school playgrounds.”
We all looked at the map for several seconds. Finally, Toni said, “This is a big area, Danny. Are you seriously thinking about driving around up there looking for a white BMW?” She looked like she thought it was a bad idea. Looking at the map, I started to think that it might not be such a great idea. We’ve done this before, and it usually doesn’t amount to much. Then again, we were short on clues. That said, I decided to give the creative process one more shot.
“As a last resort,” I said, “we’ll drive the area. But before we go burning gasoline, let’s use our heads and think this through. Kenny,” I looked at him, “I really need you to come through for us. I want you to go back to your office and close the door. Then, I need you to sit there where it’s all nice and quiet, and just think. Figure out some little angle that we’re missing-something you can use to help us find these guys and short-circuit this groping- around-in-the-dark search of ours. Then, maybe we can zoom right in on Isabel. You can search a lot faster on your computer than we can in our cars. Be a detective for us.”
Kenny considered this for a second, then he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’m on it.”
“Good.” I turned to Doc. “Doc,” I want you to take the DMV records and the property records that Kenny found earlier and start assembling them into a report we can give to Nancy. If we find anything, we’re going to need her to move on it, and she’s going to need the backup.”
Doc nodded. I turned to Toni. “You,” I said, “you and I have an appointment with Ferguson and Sons. We’ve got to keep the money engine running.”
Two hours later, Toni and I were on the way back from the SODO district of Seattle where Ferguson’s main warehouse is located. We’d presented them with a contract for review, and we’d agreed on a start date a week from next Monday. The stereo was on, and Toni had chosen “Something in the Water” by Chris Webster. Just as we exited I-5 onto Mercer, my cell phone rang. Caller ID: Kenny.
I tapped the speakerphone button. “Hey there,” I said.
“Got something,” he said.
“Go.”
“I checked out the name ‘Donnie Martin’ with DMV, and there was nothing, so I checked ‘Donald Martin’ instead and bingo! — I got a match on a Donald Allen Martin on Twenty-First Avenue. Didn’t you say Donnie Martin’s aunt lived in the Central District?”
“Interesting,” I said, thinking. “Hold on a second-I need to pull over.” I pulled the Jeep into the parking lot at the Lake Union Park. “So you’re thinking that Martin still has his driver’s license address at his aunt’s old address, then?”
“It gets better,” he said. “I’m pretty sure of it because there’s also a car registered to the same Donald Allen Martin at the same address.”
“And?”
“2005 BMW 750i.”
“Bingo!” I said.
“Wait, boss,” he said. “There’s more. We’re pretty sure the guy we’re looking for lives up north of the U- District, not in the CD. So I started thinking, what would the guy have to have at his new house-wherever it might be-that would most likely match up to the place where he actually lived? Now that I know his name, I had something I could work with.”
“Did you hit something?”
“Yeah.”
I waited for a second, but he didn’t answer. He wanted me to pry it from him. “Come on, man, quit playing games,” I said impatiently. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
“Electric bill,” he said. “The service address on the electric bill has to match up. I took a quiet little peek into the Seattle City Light records and voila! Donald Allen Martin has power service at 6345 Fortieth Avenue Northeast- right up where you guys are looking. And I looked on the maps-the house is right across the street from the Bryant Neighborhood Playground.”
“Dude, you’re a genius!” I said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“And humble, too,” Toni called out.
We were excited again. We were back in business. Now that we had an address, it looked like a good old- fashioned stakeout was in order.
We have three vehicles that we’ve converted especially for surveillance over the past four years. The first two are nearly identical windowless vans-a white one and a dark green one. Seeing as how we’re particularly clever, we generally slap a colorful commercial sign on the sides of the vans to disguise us. The vans are tricky, but our mack daddy, crown-jewel surveillance rig is our 1982 Winnebago Brave motor home. No one ever suspects it.
With their work areas concealed by a curtain, all three vehicles look harmless from the outside. Inside, though, they’re all business. They’re loaded with audio, video, communication, and computer gear and with a bevy of recording devices. We can take clear photos from one hundred yards, clear video from fifty yards. With a boom mic, we can record a conversation from nearly one hundred yards away if ambient conditions are favorable.
In addition to being workhorses, the vehicles are also long on creature comforts-especially the Winnebago.
