40 Nickels
Page 16
“He claimed that he did it because of the commute, but that wasn’t the real reason. You were his model, August, his hero. By slipping into your old life as completely as he could, he felt like he was donning your mantle.”
“Christ, I wasn’t Batman. I don’t know whether to be flattered or weirded out.”
“Some of both, I expect.”
“All right. What about the last case you worked? Anything about it that could have blown back on Chris or the firm? A disgruntled client, for instance?”
She pushed a manila folder across the desk toward me. “I figured you were going to ask, so I printed out the file. To answer your question, no, the client was happy with the resolution, and I really doubt she would be the sort to kill anyone, much less Chris.”
I reached over to snag the file and started flipping through the pages. The client was a coed at UC-Berkeley, and the assignment had to do with determining the identity of someone she met on a website called Looking for Daddy. “Is this site what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is?”
“A service to reunite adopted children with their biological fathers?”
“Please. It’s a sugar-daddy site. It matches wealthy older men with so-called sugar babies who want an arrangement.”
“Wealthy older married men?”
“Usually, but not always. In this case, the person our client was talking to was married.”
“Did she hire you to find that out?”
“Not really. The daddy acknowledged he was married in his profile. Our client—Ivy is her name—wanted to know more about his background and personality before getting involved with him. The site doesn’t use real names, of course, so finding the real-world identify of someone involves reverse-engineering it from the details they do reveal.”
“Huh.” I slumped back in my chair. What Gretchen had suggested earlier was right: I was a dinosaur from another era. I wouldn’t know the first thing about using the internet to find out that sort of thing. “The file says you identified him. May I ask how?”
“Chris figured it out. Daddy had a picture posted on his profile.”
“You pretty much have to, don’t you? How do you go from a random picture to a name?”
“He made the mistake of using a picture he had posted on social media before. One that he thought made him look athletic, I guess. Chris used an image-search program to find the photo on the guy’s page, then we had his name and a bunch of other stuff about him from his account.”
It was exactly the sort of clever trick Chris would come up with. In spite of myself, I felt a little sympathy for the daddy. He wasn’t the only one out of his league. “What did Ivy do with the information?”
“I don’t know. We gave her the report and she seemed happy, but she didn’t say if she was going to pursue the relationship.”
“So it’s possible she cut him off, daddy somehow found out that Chris was involved, and then he went looking for revenge.”
Gretchen made a face. “I suppose. But listening to you lay it out like that, it seems pretty far-fetched. The ratio of women to men on these sites is three to one. I think daddy would have just moved on.”
I closed the folder and set it back on the desk. “You’re probably right, but I’m going to look into it anyway. What about other cases? Any others stand out as having a possible connection?”
“I’ve started a search. I’m looking for anyone who complained about an outcome, failed to pay their bill or was involved with anything criminal.”
“Sounds about right. Can I help you dig through the files?”
She smiled. “You could, except Chris moved everything to the computer…”
“And I’m a Luddite.” I stood abruptly, sending the chair wheeling backward. “Okay, how about tossing his office for clues? That’s something we old-school detectives can really sink our teeth into.”
“I don’t think you’ll find it much of a meal.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll show you.” She retrieved some keys from her desk drawer and used them on the door leading to the suite’s private office—my old office. I had filled the space with furniture I bought at an auction when a grade school burned down and hung a couple of black-and-white photos of my favorite jazz bassists on the walls. All of that was gone. In its stead was a motorized standing desk, a motorized treadmill to walk on while you worked at the motorized standing desk, a sleek laptop connected to an enormous monitor, and several pop art prints by the guy who painted in a comic-book style. The famous one of a fighter pilot shooting down another plane with WHAM! written in bright yellow next to the exploding plane was behind the desk.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
I walked over to the computer and ran my finger over the trackpad. A password screen flashed up. “You’ll include his computer in your search?”
Gretchen nodded.
I sighed and stepped onto the treadmill. If you weren’t expending shoe leather the old-fashioned way, I guess you needed another way to do it during your virtual investigations. I glanced back up at the colorful prints. “What’s with all the pop art? His apartment is full of it, too.”
“It wasn’t just pop art. He was on a whole sixties kick. He spent nearly every weekend shopping in retro clothing stores.”
“Men’s or women’s clothes?”
Gretchen laughed. “Both. But he looked better in the miniskirts than he did in the bell-bottoms.”
I looked over at her and thought about what she had said about Chris’s enthusiasm for life. We both teared up again, and I stepped off the treadmill to wrap her in another hug. “Relentless,” I said softly.
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