Road and the details he provided point to vehicular homicide. I can’t find a record of any similar accident in that area in the past ten years, but the telling thing—the thing that persuades me this isn’t a hoax—is that all information about Leung just stops by April 2006. There’s nothing. It’s as if the man stepped off the planet and no one cared—not even his survivors, who never filed a missing person report.”
“Could Leung have moved out of state or entered some kind of medical care?”
“There’s no forwarding address for him so far. Even if he was in a nursing home all this time, his mail would have to go somewhere. There’s no death certificate or record of cremation or burial in Clallam, Kitsap, Pierce, or King County and no record of his car being sold or the registration renewed by anyone. There’s no release of interest to indicate he’d transferred ownership to a wrecking yard or charity, either. The only other lead I have is that the witness said something about an area called ‘Blood Lake.’ It sounds like a local place-name, but I didn’t have time to look for it before this meeting today.”
“I don’t find this missing person case that’s five years cold particularly compelling.”
She didn’t ask what I wasn’t telling her; she just fixed her commanding gaze on me and waited. I wasn’t sure how to persuade her; I couldn’t say that I had it from the ghost himself that someone had done him in and that there might be a lot more to the situation than a simple disappearance. I made up my mind and leaned forward.
The motion made me wince as the muscles in my back and abdomen pulled unevenly. I still hadn’t rebuilt all the tissue destroyed by the passage of a .45-caliber bullet through my middle and I didn’t move as fluidly as I once had. “I think it’s murder, Nan. You know that every delay in pursuing something like this lowers the chance of solving it. And yes, I know it’s five years old already, but how long should anyone have to wait for justice?”
She studied me for a few long seconds before she replied. “Are you sure you’re in condition to pursue an undetected homicide?”
“Am I in shape to chase down an unprosecuted corporate malfeasance complaint?”
Nan gave it some thought. “All right. Chase Shea for a few more days while you work your case, just to see where it leads. If you turn up enough to justify continuing, so be it. If not, I’ll expect you back on my pretrial work immediately. In the meantime, call Feldman and brief him on the malfeasance case to date and get him to work before you leave town.” She stood up and took the report file off the table. “Is there anything further on this witness?”
“Not from me.”
“Good. I need a report Monday.” She turned and strode out, which was pretty much the only way Nan walked. She was disappointed, but she didn’t give any outward demonstration. She never showed an emotion outside the courtroom that I knew of, and I wouldn’t have been able to guess what she was feeling if I hadn’t had the ability to see the colors of energy that cling and swirl around most people.
Auras and energy lines didn’t seem as blazingly bright or vibrantly colored to me as they had before I was shot. But they’d been getting a little out of hand by then anyhow, and I was just as glad that—except around Lake Crescent—the colors had faded a bit and I no longer heard a constant, inescapable singing and whispering in my head. It made me feel more human to know there were limits to what I could do and see.
There had been moments during that last, horrific investigation when I’d felt I
I gathered my papers and headed back to my own office to track down more information on Steven Leung. Outside, the February sky was the dull color of an old galvanized bucket, but it hadn’t yet begun to rain and if I walked as briskly as I could, I’d make it back to my office dry.
TWO
It’s amazing how much information resides in databases and on Web sites if you know where to look and how to pry. I do a lot of my investigative work from my computer or in records offices while someone else pokes their specialized electronic beast for me. Even a lot of my Grey work has clues and trails through the world of electrons flying through the void of cyberspace. Steven Leung, strangely, hadn’t left much trace in the cyber world. He was survived by two adult daughters and had been predeceased by a son and a wife. He owned a house out in Port Angeles—or what was listed as Port Angeles, since the postal district covered most of the northern end of the Olympic National Park and unincorporated towns nearby. The property records showed the house was still in his name and someone had, apparently, been paying the taxes. It was too late in the day to catch up to the Clallam County payroll office to find out whether his retirement was still being paid out, but I’d have been willing to bet it was. Assuming the ghost I’d seen was not some spectral joker jerking my chain, it looked as if something quietly dreadful had happened to Steven Leung.
I paused in my electronic prying to call Dave Feldman to bring him up to speed on Nan’s case. Since the case was a little complicated, the conversation took a while and I’d just finished faxing a lot of documents to Feldman when someone knocked on my office door. It was late in the afternoon, the glow of rain-diluted neon and the dregs of sunset creeping in through my tiny window, and I thought I should be a bit more careful than I had used to be and not just open the door willy-nilly.
I called out, “Just a second,” as I watched the last of the pages crawl through the scanner and fall into the pile below. I gathered up the papers and refiled them before opening my door. I didn’t like to risk confidential files being in sight of other clients, and although I didn’t have any more appointments on my schedule for the day, clients and my neighbors in the building did sometimes drop in without one.
Cops are particularly fond of making unannounced visits, so I shouldn’t have been too surprised to see Seattle PD Detective Rey Solis in the hall. I had a lot of respect for him, and we’d worked together a few times, but we weren’t friends and the messy ending of our last encounter hadn’t helped that.
At five foot ten plus boot heels, I’m taller than the taciturn Colombian, but he never seemed to care. I glanced down at him and didn’t smile. “Hello, Solis. What can I do for you?”
“I’m seeking information. May I come in, Ms. Blaine?”
“Is this going to be the sort of information that leads to subpoenas?”
“I’m tying up loose ends of the Kammerling case, largely for my own curiosity.”
“But not entirely.”
“No.”
That left me with the option of being rude or taking a risk on the other direction of his curiosity. I didn’t feel that I owed him anything, but I didn’t see any upside to annoying him, so I stood back and waved him in. “You might as well sit down and ask what you came to.”
He gave me a small nod and entered while I closed the door. I noticed that he stood next to the nicer of my two client chairs and let his gaze wander over the scarred oak faces of my filing cabinets and shelves and across the computer-burdened surface of my desk. The moisture on his coat didn’t run and puddle onto my floor, so I guessed the rain had started only a few minutes earlier. He patted the chair absently and took off his coat before sitting down with a satisfied grunt and a nod.
“What?” I asked, taking my own seat again.
“Your office is very . . . Raymond Chandler.”
I found myself grinning; I’d read all those books, too. “I am from Los Angeles.”
“The file cabinets are antiques?”
“No, just heavily used. I got them cheap and refinished them.”
He gave me a curious glance.
I shook my head. “I don’t think you really want to talk about my office decor.”
He inclined his head—my point. “I have been wondering what you’re currently working on.”
“I can’t discuss my clients’ business.”
