I took a chance and phoned, surprised when a woman answered on the second ring, giving her name as Helen. I told her I was looking for Frank Oleson.
“Frank? Stephen’s father?” I heard the incredulous note in her voice. “He passed away ten years ago. Hasn’t been active in the firm in over twenty years.” Kayla pressed her ear next to mine to listen in, as Jeri had done the other day. I hadn’t had this much girl scent in a decade. Okay, ever.
At least we’d tracked down Frank Oleson, even if he was dead. Almost like real PIs. “Could I talk to Stephen?” I asked.
For a moment she didn’t say anything. Not many people had phoned that week looking for a man who’d been dead for a decade. “I could make an appointment for you,” she said finally. “He won’t have an opening until, let me see”—papers rustled in the background—“Wednesday at three fifteen, if that’s convenient.”
“He’s not there now?”
“Oh, heavens no. Not on a Saturday. We only keep the office open until noon to catch up on all the paperwork.”
“Fact is, I’m interested in something that took place quite a few years ago.”
“Oh? Exactly what are you—?”
Kayla pressed the disconnect button, ending the call.
I stared at her. “What’d you do that for?”
“Questions like the one you were about to ask—especially over the phone—she was already nervous, Mort. After everything that’s happened this week, you were going to scare her half to death. Let’s go talk to her. It’s a good bet this Stephen Oleson guy is Dad’s lawyer now. Or was. Or might know something useful.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Which I suppose would probably make him mine,” Kayla added thoughtfully.
“Uh-huh,” I said again.
“Which would mean, Mort, that maybe that lady, Helen, will talk to us. In person.”
In person. That was Jeri’s argument, too. And, given who I was, it sounded like a good idea. A phone call from Mortimer Angel at this juncture in Reno’s history might be like a call from the Unabomber, years ago.
“Okay,” I said. I peeled a curtain back an inch to peer outside. Four vans. Hell. They were starting to regroup. Might be a sign that our school systems are improving, and with it the attention span of a nation. One van was Channel 10 out of Seattle. It was a long drive home, so they had a stake in sticking to the story like a corporate executive to an outright lie.
“Get dressed,” I said. “Let’s go out the back.”
“But of course,” Kayla said. “How else?”
Five minutes later she was ready to go. We ducked through the fence. I had Jeri’s wig in one hand like a dead possum, skinned and dyed. As we crept down Velma’s side yard, she poked her head out a window right above us and said, “Oh, no you don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I asked, looking up at her.
“Not without tellin’ me nothin’, “ she answered cryptically.
“Telling you what about what?”
“You know.” She grinned at Kayla. “Da, da, da-da.” Those first four notes of “Here Comes the Bride.”
I dragged Kayla toward the street. She looked back at Velma and called out, “I’ll let you know, Vel.”
“You’d better!”
“Now you’ve done it,” I said when we reached the street. “She will hound us to the ends of the earth.”
“She’s a dear.”
“You just threw twenty pounds of raw hamburger to a starving grizzly, lady.”
“Surely you exaggerate.”
“Don’t I wish. Now she’ll want the whole cow.”
Kayla led me to her car, a VW bug two decades older than my Tercel, five blocks away. It had been painted at least three times. A ding in the left rear fender revealed the geology: sky blue now, formerly algae green, formerly hot hippie yellow. A fender bender would’ve turned it into a psychedelic acid trip.
“You drove this straight through from Ithaca?” I said, amazed, walking around the thing.
“Uh-huh. Runs great. Hop in.”
She started the engine. I hadn’t heard that sewing-machine sound in years, at least not from the inside. We took off, headed for Liberty Street. It took us four times as long to get there as it would have taken Jeri, but we did it without whiplash.
Kayla got a purse from under her seat, which is why I hadn’t found it or anything else useful the night she’d arrived.
Like many law firms in Reno, Beatty, Oleson, & Myers was in a refurbished two-story mansion. This one was blue with lavender trim, scalloped siding, plate glass windows, wooden stairs leading up to a big front door. I left the wig in the car and Kayla and I climbed the stairs and went inside.
Two women were there, filing papers. Classical music filled the room, coming from a CD player. I hung back while Kayla asked for Helen.
“I’m Helen,” said the thinner and older of the two women. “May I help you?” She turned the music down to a background level.
“Uh, well, my name is Rosalyn Sjorgen. Rosalyn Williams, now.”
Helen stared at her. “Oh, my.”
“Oh, my?” Kayla echoed.
“We’ve been trying to contact you all week. Ever since Jonnie… was…since he…” Her eyes went to me, widening in sudden recognition. “You, you’re…”
“Mortimer Angel, ma’am,” I offered in as non-threatening a manner possible. The other woman, Teresa, chubby and dark haired, was at a filing cabinet with papers in one hand, staring at me in either horror or awe, hard to tell which.
Kayla said, “Why were you trying to find me? Is Stephen Oleson my father’s lawyer now? I mean…was he?”
“Yes, of course,” Helen replied nervously.
She finally asked for some form of identification and Kayla dug her driver’s license out of her purse. I kept quiet, not wanting to cause a panic with any sudden moves. They talked for a while and the tension left Helen’s face. Kayla introduced me as a friend,
