Favors and Lies

by Mark Gilleo

  “I just need to have a quick word with someone in line and then we’ll be gone. Two minutes.”

  The cop looked down at Dan. Sue was staring into the eye of the massive horse. “Two minutes,” the officer agreed. “I will be watching you from here.”

  The horse moved back as if he understood the conversation and Dan and Sue again started to climb the marble stairs. Sue watched with curiosity as Dan peaked under hooded sweatshirts and examined exposed faces popping from sleeping bags. He whispered the name of the person he was looking for under his breath and then gradually raised the volume.

  Nearing the front end of the line, Dan had used a minute of their allotted time.

  “Jerry Jacobs,” Dan yelled, looking upward.

  “Why don’t you just use the phone?”

  “Because he doesn’t want any phone records. I usually contact him via pay phone.”

  “Now that’s convenient.”

  Dan yelled again for Jerry, and two steps from the top a face popped out from beneath a black hoodie. Jerry pulled the headphones from his ears. A wool army blanket draped from his waist to his knees. A stash of newspapers was wedged into one armpit.

  “Dan Lord,” Jerry said. The two exchanged an elaborate handshake that was more for show than for reason. “Who’s the girl?”

  “My assistant, Sue.”

  “Since when do you have a partner?”

  “Been busy. Needed some help.”

  “You always are.”

  Dan turned towards Sue. “Jerry here works in the Office of the Clerk at the DC Circuit Court. He has access to public information in a more expedient fashion than I do.”

  “He does your dirty work.”

  Jerry jumped in. “SShhhhhh. Don’t say dirty. I deal with public information. Public. It’s just that Dan here can’t wait for public information to be officially public.”

  Dan nodded. “I was hoping I would find you here.”

  “At two hundred bucks an hour, where else would I be?” Jerry motioned downward towards two acquaintances huddled on the ground under a red blanket. “Two hundred a piece.”

  Sue looked at Dan for an explanation.

  “Lawyers, and others who can afford to, pay people to wait in line for them. It’s officially unsanctioned, but accepted. Just another shortcut in a city that lives on loopholes. Anyone who wants to listen to the entire argument before the Supreme Court has to wait in line. If you only want to hear a few minutes, usually done as part of a tour of DC, you stand in the other line. It’s much shorter.”

  Dan turned back to Jerry. “Who’s on the docket?”

  “Lewis and Leaven. A revisit of automatic weapons and the second amendment.”

  Dan felt the weight of his weapons, one in the small of his back, the other on his ankle. “Appropriate. How much longer are you here?”

  “Doors open at eight thirty. Whoever I’m holding a spot for needs to be here by then. Have to be at work by nine.”

  Sue interrupted. “You haven’t met the person who hired you? How are you going to know them when you see them?”

  “He’ll be the person with a thousand dollars in his hand.”

  “Each,” a voice rained out from beneath the red blanket.

  Dan glanced down the stairs at the police officer who was still watching him. “I need your help looking into something.”

  Dan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a copy of the paper from Tobias’s house. He handed the map of the cell coverage area and the physical address of the cell tower on Chesapeake Street.

  “I need to find property ownership records for addresses in this circle.”

  “Man, you can do that online.”

  “You can’t if the files have been deleted.”

  Jerry rolled his eyes. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I need you to look at the hard copies on file at the courthouse. I need you to check the physical paper files on properties located in the red circles. Then I need you to see if there is anything online. I am looking for properties that are not online but have a paper record.”

  “That won’t be easy.”

  “I need it done for every address in the red circle.” Dan pointed at the map.

  Jerry looked at the address and the circle. He turned the map once, turned it back, and got his bearings. “Shit, Dan. That is a highly populated area. The University of DC. American University. Rich. Poor. Condos. A ton of apartments. It will take time.”

  “I don’t have time. I’ll make it worth your while. Recruit some help. I’ll pay you double what you are making here.”

  “Triple,” a voice boomed from the blanket.

  “Dan, if you need this now, I will have to take time off from work. I do have a job you know. I have to use sick leave. That ultimately costs money. And if I am going to have to dig around online, I need a new laptop. Mine got swiped a few days ago.”

  “OK. You’re hired. You and your friends. Triple what you are making. Six hundred an hour, per person. And three new laptops. I don’t want any excuses.”

  Jerry felt like he should have asked for more. “You got it.”

  “No Happy Hours until it’s done. I catch you out on the town, any of my bouncer friends tell me they saw Jerry bellied up to the bar hitting on some GW student, and you and I will have words. And no smoking weed until you are done, either. I can’t afford something being overlooked.”

  “Hey, that’s uncool. I don’t smoke dope,” a voice called out from under the blanket.

  Jerry grabbed Dan by the elbow and pulled him close.

  “What are you into? You look nervous and I’ve never seen you nervous. Quite frankly, it upsets me.”

  “Just get me the information.”

  “A needle in a haystack.”

  “At eighteen hundred dollars an hour and three new laptops for you and your friends, you won’t find a better job.”

  “Let me call in sick.”

  Chapter 20

  —

  Detective Wallace sat in the forensics office in the basement of Police District 2. The forensic analyst left with the task of locating Dan Lord’s fingerprints was organizing his information, preparing for a presentation of his findings. Wallace was seated across the desk from the young man with a clear complexion and brown hair. The analyst finished making three short stacks of folders, cleared his throat, and began.

  “The individual you asked me to find is definitely unusual. I spent a week calling in favors. Breaking some rules. Breaking a few laws.”

  “For a good cause. Welcome to real police work.”

  “Easier to say when you are a bit closer to retirement than I am. I barfed twice yesterday from the stress.”

  “If anyone gets you in trouble, tell them I forced you to do it. I have a long list of people who don’t like me, including a Senator and an unknown terrorist organization. Tell them I made you do it. They would much rather have my balls on a platter than yours.”

  The forensic analyst looked down at his crotch.

  “No offense,” Wallace added. “I am sure your balls are attractive.”

  “Thanks. And I am not complaining about the work. Just providing some background.”

  “You stuck your neck out, I get it.”

  “More precisely, I stuck my neck out and I got nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Not exactly nothing. More than nothing. But nothing. The suspect is a chameleon.”

  “Explain.”

  “Well, he does not have a criminal record that I could find. And he definitely has not worked for the US government, or the US military.”

  “Are you sure? Detective Nguyen thought perhaps he had a military background.”

  “I am confident in the results I got back. There are no prints in the military database for a D
an Lord fitting the description you provided. There were two Daniel Lords who were killed in the line of duty in World War II. One in France. One in the Pacific on some island I have never heard of. But unless your guy is in his nineties, neither of those is him.”

  “I agree. Continue.”

  “You told me this guy was a private detective in Virginia. All private detectives have to be fingerprinted. Those fingerprints are checked against the criminal database before the person can get a license. Dan Lord passed that inspection—as you would expect given I couldn’t find prints for him in the criminal database. Virginia, fortunately, is one of the few states that also keeps an electronic copy of those fingerprints on file after the application is processed.”

  “So you found some prints?”

  “Don’t you want to know what it cost me?”

  “Not really.”

  “I am going to tell you anyway. Turns out that Sherry Williams, who handles the fingerprinting for private detective licensing in the Alexandria courthouse, lives in DC. She has a parking issue. And when I say parking issue, I mean that she can’t seem to read the parking signs. She has over thirty outstanding parking tickets and has been booted a dozen times. For a copy of Dan Lord’s prints, I had to make those parking tickets disappear. In order to make those tickets disappear, I had to agree to a date with Olga’s sister.”

  “Olga in parking enforcement?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope her sister is better looking than she is.”

  “So do I.” The forensic technician slid a photocopy of the prints to Detective Wallace.

  “So these are his prints?”

  “Those are printouts of his electronic record. But not exactly.”

  “Contrary to what you may think, I assure you I am not into riddles.”

  The forensic analysts nodded. “Dan Lord also has an active conceal and carry permit. This, too, required a background check and fingerprinting. Getting access to this information required another favor regarding a cousin of someone charged with indecent exposure in Georgetown at two in the morning. To make that charge go away, I am now taking a Boy Scout troop to a Washington Wizards game. It is a long story.”

  The forensic technician sighed and then slid another set of prints across the desk. “As you can see with the naked eye, the electronic prints on file are not the same.”

  “WTF?”

  “Indeed.”

  “This story is not going to have a happy ending, is it?”

  “No, it is not. The third print was obtained from the Virginia Bar Association application. All applicants taking the bar and applying for a law license in Virginia are required to undergo the standard background check—with fingerprinting.” The forensic technician slid the third set of prints across the desk. “And I cannot tell you what I had to agree to in order to get those prints.”

  “Dressing up in heels and running the DC Drag Queen race?”

  “Not far from it.”

  Detective Wallace looked at all three prints in turn. “So this guy leaves us a water bottle with no prints and then leaves three different prints for three different civilian applications?”

  “Yes. And those applications are not trivial. We are not talking about taking an electricity bill to the DMV to get an ID. Those applications require multiple forms of government issued ID, in addition to the prints.”

  “So how did he do it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Whose prints are we looking at?”

  “I don’t know. But you are dealing with someone who may require more care than usual.”

  “I guess I’m going to have to get a print another way.”

  “How is that?”

  “Old school detective work.”

  “Good luck. Oh, and by the way, none of those three prints match the prints found on the gun that killed Detective Nguyen.”

  “Of course they don’t.”

  Chapter 21

  —

  Dan looked at his cell phone and didn’t recognize the number. “Dan Lord, here.”

  “Dan, it’s Jerry. I got something for you. Can you meet?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Rosslyn.”

  “How about Common Grounds in Clarendon?”

  “That place is a maze.”

  “I’ll meet you upstairs in the far back room. Overlooking the church parking lot. Last time I was there, the room was painted blaze orange. Make yourself comfortable.”

  “In an hour?”

  “That should be perfect.”

  —

  Dan carried his coffee up the worn linoleum stairs and meandered to the back of the second floor of the coffee shop. The establishment had once been a large family house, the myriad bedrooms now converted to individually themed rooms. The orange room, as Dan called it, was dedicated to surfing, and various posters of monster waves combined with a large mural to provide the necessary décor. A Hang Ten sign hung on the wall over the door to the toilet in the corner. Dan stepped into the room and Jerry the clerk waved from a large, worn leather sofa, an accordion file folder of information in his lap. Dan sat next to the sofa in a gold wingback chair with torn seams.

  “Tell me what you found.”

  “Man, you better have the money. Took us two days. Up most of the night. Three dudes. Working our asses off. Copying shit. Digging around. Lying to people. Burning favors at the courthouse for after-hours access.”

  “I’ll pay you. And don’t talk to me about calling in favors.”

  “We looked at everything in that red circle of yours, except for the dorms and most of the University property,” Jerry said, looking around suspiciously.

  “And . . . ?” Dan said, snapping his fingers to focus Jerry’s attention.

  “Right. It was two hundred and some square blocks, by the way. Which is a shitload of property records. A shitload of property owners. Buildings with multiple owners, trusts. If it’s residential, each condo on each floor has a different owner.”

  “I get it. A shitload.”

  “We went street by street. Building by building. And we were finding nothing. I mean nothing concrete. All records are online for DC. All records have been electronic for at least the last five years. But the information is not perfect. People screw up. Bits of information can be missing. Some properties don’t have online sales information. Some properties don’t have information for assessments. Some properties don’t have accurate survey and plat information. Some don’t have information on taxes paid. All this information comes from different sources but is presented online in a single property search. And don’t get me started on REITs, which opens up another can of worms.”

  “Get to the good part.”

  Jerry took a sip of his coffee and looked around again. “Of all the properties we looked at, only one property didn’t have all of the above. No sales data, no tax data, no land survey data. Nothing online. As if the address didn’t exist in the online records. I mean, there is the possibility one or two records could be missing, but for all of them to be missing . . . ?”

  “Only one property had no records?”

  “One. It only exists in the real world. There are no online records at all.”

  “What’s the address . . . ?”

  Jerry pushed the folder in Dan’s direction and took another drink from his tenth coffee in as many hours. Dan glanced at Jerry’s shaking hands and pulled out the stack of paper. He started reading from the top, flipping the pages over as he went. Jerry watched as Dan’s eyes moved rapidly from line to line.

  Then Dan looked up.

  “Silver Star.”

  “Exactly,” Jerry stated proudly. “A company named Silver Star owns the property. It has no online records. It has no tenants. The only way you would know this property existed is if you went looking f
or the physical record.”

  Dan looked up at Jerry and said something to make his court connection sweat. “This building exists. I know the address. It’s on Wisconsin Avenue. I was there last week.”

  “I don’t want to know anymore.”

  Chapter 22

  —

  Dan pulled up to the curb on Wisconsin Avenue, took a couple of quarters from the ashtray of his car, and shoved them into the parking meter. He surveilled the building from afar with a walk on the opposite side of the street. At Guapo’s Restaurant he crossed four lanes of traffic and headed back downhill. He moved slowly, using the reflection in the windows of various shops and storefronts to keep the building in his periphery while remaining inconspicuous. Methodically, he examined the building from all sides, absorbing the details of the glass-and-rock façade. On his second pass in front of the building he pushed on the revolving door. It didn’t budge.

  He shaded his eyes from the sun and touched his nose against the glass window of the lobby. Gone were the security booth and the desk he had passed by. The floor was barren. The directory on the far wall where he had checked his sister-in-law’s attorney’s location was void of names. The empty floor glistened with moisture. Dan felt a momentary pang of failure. His instincts had failed him. He had been catfished. Hook, line, and sinker. By a fake lawyer of all things. Clyde Parkson, Esquire, my ass.

  Dan looked up again at the outside of the building and then back at the wet floor of the lobby. And then he smiled with the prospect of redemption.

  He stepped back from the door, casually walked to the corner and turned down the alley beside the building. He tugged on the fire doors and peeked into spotless Dumpsters.

  In the far corner of the alley, Dan smiled again. The white van with the large magnet on the door that read “Capital Cleaners” glistened like a mirage in the desert.

  Dan sent messages on his phone, checked in with Sue, and waited for an hour on an old wooden bench before a six-person cleaning crew poured from a locked backed door. He sprang from his seat as the women in bright yellow attire walked empty-handed from the building to the white van.