Pushing Up Bluebonnets

'The ME investigator took the keys, so Moby, here I come.' DeShay hurried to the unmarked and opened the trunk.

'What's a Moby?' I asked. 'A whale with an attitude? A rock star who suddenly grew muscles?'

Hamlin smiled. 'Lady has a sense of humor. You need that in our business.'

DeShay started for the front door carrying a two handled battering ram. I'd seen those things on Cops a hundred times. Now I knew what they were called.

'Let us know when we can go in, Sergeant Peters,' Cooper said as DeShay rushed by.

'You got it,' DeShay said over his shoulder.

A few seconds later I heard DeShay shout, 'Houston Police Department. We're entering the residence,' before the earsplitting crunching and cracking of the door drowned out anything else he might have said. From the sound of things, I was betting that door had been reduced to sawdust.

Hamlin said, 'What's your connection to Dugan?'

'Cooper and I knew him. Sort of.' I didn't add that I knew him far better after our little conflict—was it only yesterday? I licked my lips, the heat fueling my sick stomach and the headache that I'd thought was completely gone.

'So you got my message about the guy?' Cooper said.

Hamlin nodded. 'Got a message from Jeff Kline, too. I decided to come out right away. I arrested Dugan for being a paper hanger back when he used to live in an apartment across town. Very downscale place compared to this. Looks like he bought himself a piece of the American dream—probably with someone else's money.'

Cooper and I filled Hamlin in on the possible forged IDs we knew JoLynn had in her possession at the Richter place.

'You think Dugan made her those IDs, huh?' he said.

'Seems logical.' I was about to come clean about peeking in windows and seeing the copier and laminator that backed up my theory, but DeShay appeared on the front path and waved at us with a gloved hand, saying the house was clear.

We all went inside the well-air-conditioned condo and I felt better almost immediately. Ninety percent humidity can't be good for anyone's health.

The home's pristine appearance remained unchanged from my last visit.

'No one's here,' DeShay said. 'Some kinda neat freak, our friend Dugan. Hamlin, you'll be interested in the room down the hall to the left. I had to force that one open, too.'

'He had a shop? Did I die and go to heaven?' Hamlin pulled gloves from his pocket, his eyes wide and bright, just like his smile.

'Hey, that's your territory, man, but tell CSU when they get here what you want carried to the crime lab 'cause I don't know anything about financial shit, not even my own.'

'I will be more than clear about what I need. Can't wait to get in there.' Hamlin snapped on his gloves and started toward the hall.

DeShay looked at me. 'Maria found the girlfriend's last name on a credit card bill. She's on the phone in the kitchen trying to locate Georgeanne Wilson now.'

'And then we'll question her?' I said.

'Maria will. I don't want to intimidate this woman. At least not yet. You get what I'm saying?'

Yet he was sending the less-than-shrinking-violet Maria Chavez to question her? Maybe she had interpersonal skills I'd somehow missed in the little time since we'd met.

Cooper said, 'Can we stay and observe?'

'You both know what you're doing, so sure,' DeShay said. 'But I gotta say, nothing's jumping out at me aside from the ID shop. I'll do a little more hunting. See if I can get a lead on this guy's least-best friends.'

'Just so you know,' I said, 'Georgeanne and I hit it off when I paid her that visit. I can help out with her.'

'I might take you up on that later, Abster. But we have to do this my way for now.'

'Abster?' I said. 'I'm not an SNL joke, DeShay.'

He smiled. 'Touchy, aren't we? Anyway, I can't rule this out as the primary crime scene until CSU tells me so, but even the damn garage is cleaner than my front room. I'll be checking out the master bedroom closet if you need me. Lots of shoe boxes on the top shelves in there.'

Touchy? I was not touchy. 'I'd like to see the ID shop.' I nodded in the direction Hamlin had gone.

DeShay smiled. 'Cooper, my man, make sure Abby keeps her hands in her pockets—if she can get her hands in those pockets. Nice threads, Abster. Glad you're showing off what you got today.'

I gave him a playful punch in the arm as Cooper and I walked by. Maybe my capris were a tad tight, but my T-shirt was clingy only thanks to the weather.

We found Hamlin busy looking in one of two tall filing cabinets when we got to the now-unlocked room.

He said, 'Check this place out. Dugan went totally high-end. Shoulda kept track of the bastard. Probably raking in cash left and right with this stuff. Excellentquality IDs, that's for sure.'

I glanced around the room, realizing DeShay had been right. I wanted to search through everything . . . open cabinets and drawers, lift the lid on the color laser printer, see what was in those filing cabinets for myself. But I stayed put just inside the door and said, 'That printer probably cost, what? Twenty grand?'

'More than that,' Cooper said. 'We had one similar at the bureau. I heard it cost forty.'

Hamlin nodded. 'That's in the ballpark.'

I kept exploring with my eyes. 'Big old laminator, too. Nice desktop computer. So this is what you need to create the driver's license JoLynn had?'

'If the folder labeled 'holograms' and the one marked 'licenses' contain what they say they do, then yes. Dugan has every weight and color of paper and card stock in here. Probably has blank passports and Social Security cards, too.' Hamlin's gloved fists rested on his hips as he glanced around the room like this was his best Christmas ever.

'But you don't know exactly what he's got in those filing cabinets?' I said.

'Have to wait on CSU to photograph everything before I start making my list for evidence collection. That hard drive is definitely going to the property room—that and who knows what else.'

'We have to wait? Don't you have a camera?' I was beginning to sound as anxious as the third monkey on the Ark's gangplank.

Cooper rested a hand on my back. 'If the guy wasn't dead, Hamlin could take his own pictures, but now we have to wait on CSU.'

Hamlin added, 'We know Dugan created and sold fake IDs, probably bribed someone to sell him the blank Social Security cards, but I want client and seller names. Dugan may be dead, but whoever he did business with is going down and that's why I have to dot all the t's and cross my eyes.' He did cross his eyes then, probably hoping I'd chill out.

I had to smile, because this made him look like he had the mental capacity of a windshield wiper. 'How long until CSU gets here?' I said, once he'd grinned back at me.

'They're part of Homicide Division,' Hamlin said. 'Homicide needs to come first and they have the Dugan crime scene to work. But come on over here. There's something a little strange that I can show you.'

My hands still in my pockets, I walked over to the filing cabinet with Cooper alongside me. I'd left my bag in the unmarked and wished I had my phone so I could snap off a few of my own pictures.

Hamlin carefully bent over the open filing-cabinet drawer and pointed a gloved finger inside. 'See what's under those files?'

'Looks like newspaper,' I said.

'That's right. Wondered at first if the guy was lining the bottom of the drawer for some reason,' Hamlin said. 'But he didn't do that in any of the other drawers.'

Being careful not to rest my stomach against the side of the drawer, I tilted my head and tried for a better look. 'Looks like about an inch-thick stack of newspaper. Why no file? Dugan seems to have filed everything else.'

Hamlin looked at me. 'You sure you're not a cop?'

'She's not, but I'd sign her up,' Cooper said. 'Anything else unusual?'