“And you don’t know how to get in touch? Don’t have a phone number, an address?”
“No.”
“Tell the cops to find him.”
“I don’t want them . . . It’s awkward.”
“Why?”
“Alex hadn’t spoken to him for several years. To his son. They were estranged.”
“The police can find him.”
“I need someone else to find him.” This through clenched teeth, her eyes hard.
“There are a hundred private investigators around, Karen. Any of them could do it.”
“I need someone I can trust.”
“And you can trust me?”
“Yes.”
She said it immediately and with confidence. Instead of being flattered, I was angry. All the things that had happened between us, and she was still sure I’d be there when she needed me. That I’d do what she wanted, as she wanted.
I shook my head. “I’m not the man for the job, Karen. Sorry.”
I was thinking about getting to my feet and moving for the door when she said, “He’s inheriting eight million dollars, and he doesn’t know it.”
“They were estranged, and the kid’s still getting eight million?”
She nodded. “And he doesn’t even know Alex is dead. I need someone to find him, so I can tell him these things. And so . . .”
“What?”
She dropped her eyes. “It doesn’t need to be in the paper and on TV, Lincoln.”
“What doesn’t?” I waited. “That Alex Jefferson was estranged from his son?”
She nodded but didn’t look at me.
“Ah,” I said. “Image. I see.”
Her head rose, and this time her look was sharp. “It’s not that.”
I didn’t say anything. She took her hands off the chair to lean forward, and when she did it they were shaking. She pressed them together and squeezed them between her knees. “You know what one percent of eight million dollars is, Lincoln?”
“Eighty grand.”
“It’s your fee. That’s what you’ll be paid, even if it’s the easiest job you ever have. I promise you that. An accountant will write you the check the same day you find him.”
Joe was probably done with physical therapy now. A two-hour session that would cost several hundred dollars. Insurance would pay a chunk, but not all of it. Joe went to therapy three times a week. Had been doing so for many weeks. The session fees stacked up on the rest of his medical bills, many of them extravagant. Last week, the only work our agency had was that one damn custody case, for a client who more than likely wouldn’t pay the full bill.
“You and I would not have the ideal investigator-client relationship,” I said. “I can recommend someone else. Someone better for this situation.”
“No.” Her voice was firm. “Lincoln, please . . . just find him. How long can that take you? To find someone?”
With every minute I sat there and talked to her, the house felt bigger and emptier, and she looked wearier. I remembered the way she’d looked on a Saturday one June when we’d rented a sailboat out on the Bass Islands, her wet hair plastered against her face and her neck, her smile so damn genuine. For some reason, that was the moment to which my mind returned most often. I’d be in the kitchen or in the car or in the middle of a workout, and suddenly I’d see her there on the boat, see her smile and the sun on her skin and her wet hair, and something inside me would break. Then I’d think of her with Jefferson and push the rest of my memories beneath his smug smile.
“Finding someone can take half an hour, or it can take weeks,” I said. “I’d have to know the details.”
“It’s been five years.”
“That’s how long he’s been missing?”
She nodded, then said, “Well, no. Not missing. I mean, missing to Alex.”
“But not the kind of missing where you call police.”
“Right.”
I lifted a hand and ran it through my hair, looked at the floor. “Where’s his mother? Is he estranged from her, too?”
“No. She died about two years after the divorce. Matthew was probably around fourteen at the time. She’d moved to Michigan. He came back to live with Alex until he went to college. They’ve been estranged since Matthew was in law school.”
“His name’s Matthew Jefferson?”
“Yes.”
“A hell of a common name. Probably a couple thousand of them in the country. I’d need identifiers. Date of birth, Social Security number, whatever you’ve got.”
“I can get everything by this afternoon.”
I raised my head and looked at her. “The fee you quoted is ridiculous. It’ll probably take me a day or two at most. Regardless, I’ll bill my normal rate.”
“You’ll get what I promised.”
Eighty grand for a routine locate. I did skip traces for two hundred bucks. At the end of the day, that’s all this would really be.
“I remember when you borrowed a hundred dollars from me to cover your car payment,” I said.
She looked at me, trying hard for empty eyes, but not succeeding. After a few seconds, she turned her head.
“Call me with the identifiers,” I said after some silence passed. I’ll find him for you, and then we’ll be done. Okay?”
She didn’t answer, but she nodded. I stood up and paused for a moment, considering crossing the room, reaching out to her, an embrace, a hand on the shoulder, something. Instead, I let myself out of the house.
3
Joe was on his back on the living room floor with a broomstick clenched in his hands. While I leaned against the doorframe and watched, he lifted the broomstick from his waist and raised it in an arc. A normal person would have brought the broomstick back behind his head. Joe stopped with the broomstick at about chin level and grimaced. There was sweat on his face, and when he remembered to breathe, it was a harsh gasp. He narrowed his eyes, and I saw his jaw muscles bulge slightly, the molars clenching. The broomstick inched back, but just barely. He held it there for a moment, took another breath, and tried for another inch. Didn’t get it. He exhaled heavily and returned the broomstick to his waist.
“Didn’t you have therapy this morning?” I said.
“Yes.” He shifted slightly on the floor, then began the exercise again.
“So you come right back from therapy and start all over again? Isn’t there a rest period in there somewhere?”
“You’ve got to work hard at it.”
I shook my head, swung my body off the door frame, and moved around him and into the living room. He was pushing it hard—probably harder than any of the medical professionals who dealt with him wanted—but it was Joe. I knew him too well to be surprised, and certainly too well to try to discourage it.
He took another one of those shallow, gasping breaths, and I looked away. Almost three months of this now, and still I had to look away. That’s how it goes when someone takes a bullet because of you.
“You heard about Alex Jefferson?” I said, taking a seat on the couch.
