brandy that Mick and Charlotte gave us? Toast to us and our new beginnings.”
Damn, the man certainly could drop a bombshell and just walk away while the rubble was settling. But it was a conversation I’d just as soon walk away from anyway, so I smiled and said, “Why not?”
Later that night, though, as Hy slumbered peacefully beside me, I tossed and turned and fretted. When I’d first seen the little house on the tail end of Church Street out beyond where the J-line streetcar tracks stop, it had been a pathetically shabby structure. One of the city’s four thousand earthquake cottages-makeshift two- or three-room structures erected as emergency housing after the quake of ’06-it had been moved from its original location, expanded to five rooms, and raised up to accomodate a garage and laundry area beneath. I was able to buy it at a very low price because of the extensive work it needed to make it reasonably habitable, and I’d had the kitchen remodeled and later contracted for three new additions: a full bathroom to replace the cold cubicle on the back porch that contained the toilet and shower, a master bedroom, and a backyard deck. I loved the house, and I loved the close-knit neighborhood.
Where else in the city could I hire a teenaged girl who was a wannabe real estate mogul to twice daily administer insulin shots to my diabetic cat, and also tend to my other cat, plants, and mail during my frequent absences? Where else would I have a doctor across the street who paid house calls? Or another neighbor who frequently dropped off care packages of homemade bread and preserves? People here cared about one another, watched out for the security of one another’s homes. I supposed there were more enclaves like this in the city, but it might take years to find one, more years to develop those kinds of friendly ties.
No, I didn’t want to sell my home. But I could understand Hy’s rationale about it being too small. And, after all, he was willing to sell his equally beloved ranch…
God, marriage was already changing things. Was this what Rae had hinted at when she’d said, “Just wait and see”?
Wednesday
My staff members were milling around our conference room on the second floor of Pier 24 1/2, cups of coffee and muffins in hand. I set my briefcase on the round oak table and began taking files from it. While I arranged them, I studied my investigative team.
Ted was clad in chinos and a vintage Hawaiian shirt, his latest fashion statement. His black goatee was trimmed very short because, he’d told me, it had begun to show more gray than the hair on his head. Beside him stood Kendra Williams, his latest candidate for the position of “paragon of the paper clips.” Dozens of young men and women, all of them eager to become Ted’s assistant, had been paraded before my eyes in the past few months, but none had worked out. So far Kendra, whom I’d met the previous afternoon, seemed the most promising. A tiny woman of twenty-five, with a chocolate-brown complexion and cornrows, she had greeted me cheerfully and hadn’t so much as winced when a great crash echoed up from the floor of the pier-two deliverymen dropping a crate destined for the architectural firm off the opposite catwalk. An ability to remain calm in chaotic circumstances was often required here at the pier, and apparently Kendra possessed it.
God, I hoped she proved equal to the challenge of the job! I would need to rely heavily on Ted’s efficiency in the days ahead, and it would be good if he also had someone competent to fall back on.
Mick, who headed our computer forensics department, was leaning against one of the bookcases that lined the room, talking with his new assistant, Derek Ford. While both were tall, the resemblance stopped there. My nephew’s blond good looks came from the Scotch-Irish side of our family; Derek was a handsome, dark-haired Eurasian. Mick showed evidence of putting on weight, a consequence of his and Charlotte’s fondness for trying whatever new restaurant came along; Derek was very lean and had told me he followed a strict vegan diet. Mick dressed casually, with little concern for style; Derek was a devotee of urban chic, a tattoo of linked scorpions encircling his neck. But the two men had instantly bonded over their fascination with the endless possibilities of computer technology. Together they were working on developing investigative tools that I failed to understand. Of course, I didn’t understand the tools they now possessed, even though Mick would dismiss them as rudimentary. I did know that one day they’d be able to retrieve just about any piece of information I’d ask for. And they’d retrieve it within the bounds of the law. Or else.
Charlotte and Mick also shared a love of technology, but her expertise was in business and finance: give her a credit card number, and she’d run a subject to earth in no time; present her with evidence of corporate chicanery, and she’d build a case that would stand up in any court. She stood by the door with her new assistant, Patrick Neilan. Charlotte was telling him a joke, one that involved a lot of hand gestures and shaking of her brown curls. When she finished, Patrick blushed to the roots of his red hair before his wide mouth twitched and he snorted. Charlotte threw her head back and let fly one of her bawdy laughs. A risque joke, no doubt about that.
Only two staff members had yet to put in an appearance: Julia Rafael and Craig Morland. I’d decided to call the meeting to order without them when they rushed in, practically knocking each other over. Julia, a tall Latina with haughty features, moving stiffly as a result of having been shot in the chest by a sniper last month, immediately looked mortified. She was a relatively new hire; minor faux pas that wouldn’t have fazed the rest of us severely discomforted her, and it didn’t help that during our last investigation she’d unwittingly become embroiled in a situation that had almost cost me my private investigator’s license. Craig, who shared an office with her, sensed her discomfort, and threw his arm around her shoulders, leaning on her and miming great pain. After a moment Julia smiled wryly. Craig, in his running clothes, his longish brown hair tousled, barely resembled the tightly wound FBI field agent whom I’d met a few years before. Over the time he’d worked for me, I’d found him to be a surprisingly perceptive and sensitive man-just the kind of person Julia needed as a friend.
Once they got their coffee and muffins, I called, “Let’s get settled, folks. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
For an hour I went over every case on the assignment sheet, finding out its exact status from the person who was handling it. Then I called a fifteen-minute break while I did some further reshuffling. Finally I was ready to get to the Laurel Greenwood disappearance. I’d had Ted make up packets containing all the background information on the case, as well as a transcript of my tape of yesterday’s meeting with Jennifer Aldin. While they glanced through the packets, I summarized the situation.
“Normally,” I concluded, “I wouldn’t be briefing everyone on this. But the case is high pay and thus high priority; and it promises to be a difficult one. Any cop will tell you that if you don’t solve a missing person case-no matter if it’s foul play, kidnapping, or deliberate disappearance-within the first twenty-four hours, chances are you’ll never solve it. And what we’ve got here is a twenty-two-year-old case. Nearly impossible.”
“Not for
“I said
“You’ll be in the field, Shar?” Craig asked.
“Yes. Ted’ll be holding things together here in the office, and Kendra-you’ve all met Kendra, right?-she’ll be holding
“About time somebody did,” Charlotte said.
“Wait till you turn in your next expense report,” Ted warned her.
I said, “Okay-assignments. I’ll be personally talking to everyone we can locate who is mentioned in the accounts of Laurel Greenwood’s disappearance, as well as anyone else Jennifer Aldin suggests. Derek-you’ll locate and background those people, starting immediately. I’d also appreciate it if you’d make yourself available to conduct spur-of-the-moment searches for me while I’m in the field.”
Mick was frowning, hurt at being left out.
I said to him, “You-the genius, as Derek calls you-need to concentrate on running your department.” There was
