5. 5. Watch the ten o'clock news.
6. 6. Rewatch the tapes on a big screen; license #???
7. 7. Work on report.
Making TO DO lists is always far easier than doing TO DO lists, but I left the conference room and headed back to my cubicle to get started. My first call was to D.G.I. Bill Whitten wasn't in, so I asked to speak to Deanna Compton.
'Detective Beaumont,' she said when I identified myself, 'did you get the packet I messengered over to you?'
'Yes, thanks so much. I've taken a cursory look at the tapes, and I have a couple of questions for you. Does D.G.I. have any wheelchair-bound employees?'
'Wheelchair? No, none that I can think of. Why?'
'There was a car with a wheelchair rack parked in front of the building on the night Don Wolf took the girl up to his office. I was wondering if you had any idea who the vehicle might belong to and whether or not there was a legitimate reason for it to be here. For instance, could it belong to someone working on the janitorial crew?'
'If it does, I don't know anything about it.'
'Let me ask you something else, then. On your personnel records, do you ask employees to list people who should be contacted in case of emergency?'
'Yes.'
'Could you check and see if Don Wolf listed anyone other than his wife?'
'You can't find her?'
Time to duck and run. Right that minute I didn't want to reveal to anyone even the most general details of the grisly remains we'd found waiting for us in Don Wolf's condo. 'Not at the moment,' I said. 'I was hoping you could help me locate someone else.'
'Just a minute, please,' Deanna said. 'I have his file right here.'
There was a long pause. I could hear paper shuffling on the other end while she looked through the file. 'No,' she said eventually. 'Lizbeth is the only one listed here.'
'I see.'
'Does it list a place of birth?'
'Tulsa, Oklahoma.'
I thought about that for a moment. Birth records generally stay put, but people don't necessarily do the same. Trying to track down someone that way can be a time-consuming, tedious process. What I needed was a shortcut.
They say the only things in life that are certain are death and taxes. But right up there on the list, running a close third, are calls from college and university alumni associations. I think it's virtually impossible to permanently dodge the armies of telephone-wielding fund-raisers who track their potential victims to the ends of the earth.
'Where did Don Wolf go to school?' I asked.
'His bachelor's is from Stanford. MBA is from Harvard.'
With Deanna reading me the information, I jotted down the degrees Don Wolf had earned, his majors and minors, and the years in which the degrees were conferred. Obviously, at four o'clock in the afternoon, it was far too late to talk to anyone at Harvard. But there was a chance I could still reach someone down at Stanford.
In the past, I would have played it straight-called in, identified myself properly as a police officer, and then worked my way up the chain of command. Recently, though, my months spent in a tempestuous off-again/on-again relationship with a lady named Alexis Downey, a development officer who raises funds for the Seattle Repertory Theatre, has given me another perspective.
Alexis is an enticing handful, but she's one of those women who, although she has a strong career track going, also has an audibly ticking biological time clock. We broke up completely when I finally convinced her that, at my stage of advancing middle age, I would never be willing to take a second crack at fatherhood. Being with Alexis has taught me a thing or two, not only about women, but also about how devious-minded and cagey development officers can be.
Bearing that in mind, I approached the Stanford alumni office with what I knew would be irresistible bait. Once I had a likely candidate on the phone, I identified myself as Roger Philpott, an attorney with Bates, Philpott, and Orange. (I figured if I was going to try my hand at lying I could just as well have some fun with it.) I told the young woman on the phone that one of the university's alums had died suddenly and there was a chance, if no other heirs could be located, that his entire estate would be left to the university.
'Is it a very big estate?' the young woman asked. The audible catch of excitement in her voice made me feel like a regular heel.
'It's the biggest one I've ever handled,' I told her. That, at least, wasn't a lie.
'Do you have his matriculation number?' she asked, and I knew I had her. I couldn't provide a matric number, but I gave her everything else-the year Don Wolf graduated and the degree he'd received, and then I waited. And waited. And waited some more, listening to Muzak all the while. Finally, she came back on the phone sounding puzzled and disappointed.
'There must be some mistake,' she said. 'I can't find a Donald R. Wolf registered that year. In fact, the closest Donald Wolf I've found is a Donald B. who graduated in electrical engineering, but that was five years later than the date you gave me.'
'That's strange,' I said. 'Let me do some more checking and get back to you.'
I put down the phone and sat looking at it. If one statement on a job application isn't true, chances are other things are false as well. I picked up the phone once more and redialed D.G.I.
'Do you have Don Wolf's previous employment records?'
'I suppose,' Deanna said, sounding slightly impatient. 'Just a minute.'
Again there was a period of paper shuffling before Deanna came back on the line. 'Do you need complete addresses?'
'Please,' I said.
Deanna ended up giving me three names, addresses, and phone numbers: Downlink, San Diego, California; Bio-Dart Technologies, Pasadena, California; Holman-Smith Industries, City of Industry, California. It was almost five o'clock by then, but I figured even if the switchboards were closed, I'd probably still connect with someone.
I dialed the first number. After two rings, the distinctive disconnect sound came through the receiver, followed by a recorded message. 'The number you have reached is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again. If you feel you have reached this number in error, please hang up and dial the operator.'
My first thought was that maybe the company had just moved, but a check with the operator came up empty. Mentally, I crossed Downlink off the list. I tried the number listed for Bio-Dart. This time, a little kid answered. Figuring I had somehow misdialed and rather than trying to explain, I hung up and redialed with the same result. This time, though, the phone was wrested away from the child by a woman.
'Who is this?' she demanded.
'I'm looking for a company named Bio-Dart,' I told her, and then read off the number Deanna Compton had given me. 'They probably do some kind of bioengineering.'
'That's my number, mister,' the woman responded. 'But there's nobody here but my son and me. The only kind of bioengineering we do here is an occasional batch of chocolate chip cookies.'
'There must be some mistake,' I said. 'Please excuse the ring.'
The number for Holman-Smith turned out to be a disconnect as well. In other words, as near as I could tell, not one of those three companies existed at the moment. I was beginning to wonder if they ever had. Most likely, the Harvard MBA would turn out to be equally bogus, but checking on that would have to wait until morning.
When an investigation runs into an unexpected blank wall, that's the time for partners. Sometimes, all it takes is a brainstorming session over a cup or two of coffee to figure out a way to get back on track, but Sue Danielson was stuck in Cincinnati with a bad case of chicken pox. That meant brainstorming with her was out, and I sure as hell wasn't going to try mulling things over with Paul Kramer. When it comes to the free-flowing exchange of ideas, Detective Kramer is definitely not my type.
What I did do finally was pick up the phone and call Audrey Cummings at the medical examiner's office up in Harborview Hospital. 'Make this quick, Beaumont,' she said. 'I was supposed to start Don Wolf's autopsy half an
