by Glenn Rogers
The day we graduated from the academy, he told me that he knew he would not have made it without my help and that he owed me big time. I'd told him that was not true, but it was. He wouldn’t have made it. But he graduated and we were both assigned to the Los Angeles field office and worked closely on the Organized Crime Unit, though we were never actually partners. We remained friends after I left the FBI and try to meet for either lunch or dinner at least once a week.
Since I'd left the FBI, his friendship had proven quite valuable, professionally speaking. An FBI agent has all kinds of resources a private investigator doesn't. Through Alex, though I try not to abuse the privilege, I have resources I would not otherwise have. An advantage for me. But the favors go in both directions. Sometimes Alex needs an extra pair of legs running down a lead. A couple of times there had been jobs that needed doing, nothing terribly ominous, but jobs where the FBI could have no official involvement. I helped out.
*****
I'd taken Wilson home, fed him, and arrived at Kung Pao a few minutes before Alex. The pot of tea I'd ordered arrived just as Alex walked in.
Physically, Alex is pretty average: five foot ten, one hundred sixty-five pounds, brown hair, brown eyes. Mentally, however, there’s not much about him that’s average. He has an eidetic memory and an eye for detail, which means he sees what there is to see and he remembers everything. Those two features put Alex in a different class than the rest of us. Not much gets by him.
Alex was still wearing his work clothes—a dark blue suit, white shirt, a blue and red-stripped tie, black wingtips. When he sat down, he immediately began looking around. “Any of the women in here worth the effort?” he asked.
It was an old joke between two bachelors who found the task of meeting women somewhat daunting.
“Well, I was just having tea with Scarlett Johansson and Kate Upton. When I told them you were on your way, they left.”
“Probably afraid they wouldn't be able to control their raw sexual appetite once I arrived.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that must have been it.”
Alex poured himself some tea and the waiter came and took our order.
“So, how's Pritchard?” I asked.
“Still messed up. Hard to work for. He’s angry at the world.”
“Finding out your wife’s having an affair with your best friend can be hard to take,” I said.
Alex shrugged, sipped some tea, and said, “So, I heard you nailed Ryan's campaign manager for fraud. What was his name?”
“Leventhal.”
“Yeah. Also heard you had to bust up some big security guy.”
“Big but not tough,” I said.
Our food came and we dug in.
“So, what’s going on now?” Alex asked.
“Rich family. Twin girls. One of the twins walked away from the family thirty years ago. She died recently. The other twin wants me to find out why her sister walked away.”
“You think she's ready to hear the truth?” Alex asked.
“She seems pretty sturdy. Probably depends on what I find.”
“Are you deep enough in it to have any ideas?
“Just started,” I said.
“Well, if you need anything, let me know.”
I nodded.
We ate and chatted for a while about this and that: agency gossip, how his new Lincoln Navigator has more cool features on it than my Jeep Wrangler has… and how much I really didn't care.
As we cleaned our plates, Alex asked, “Meet any interesting women lately?”
He asked carefully. He knew it was a sore spot. I shook my head.
“It's been almost four years now.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“She'd want you to move on.”
“Probably,” I said.
“She wouldn't blame you,” he said.
“Probably not.”
“But you're still blaming yourself.”
“We’ve been through this before, Alex,” I said. “It was my operation.”
“But there was no way you could know it would go so wrong. Neither one of us saw it coming.”
“I made a mistake,” I said.
“The only mistake you made was in falling in love with your partner.”
I didn't say anything.
“I'm sorry, man,” Alex said. “I'm just trying to help. She loved you.”
I nodded.
“She wouldn't blame you,” he said again. “You shouldn't blame yourself. You can't live like a monk for the rest of your life.”
“I know,” I said. “I'm just not ready yet.”
“My sister asks about you every time we talk.”
“Yeah? How is she?”
“Okay, I guess. On the surface she seems normal, but she thinks you're dreamy. So there must be something wrong with her.”
“She's a discerning and insightful woman,” I said. “Beautiful, too. Obviously the two of you are not from the same gene pool. You were adopted, weren't you?”
Chapter 9
The next morning Wilson and I went for our morning run at the park. It was overcast and cool as we ran the wooded trail. We usually did four miles a day five days a week. Keeps us both in pretty good shape. I also try to get to the gym three or four times a week to lift weights and work out on the heavy bag. That’s been my routine for over ten years. If it gets disrupted for some reason, after a few days I start to feel it. Working out like that also means that I can eat pretty much whatever I want and not gain weight. I’ve weighed two forty for ten years. At six-three, two forty is comfortable.
Wilson and I had finished our four miles and were heading back to my Wrangler. I checked the time. It was six forty-five. There was only one other car in the lot, a silver Toyota Corolla, parked one space away from my Wrangler. Two men were sitting in it. As I opened the driver's side door of my Jeep so Wilson could get in, the two guys got out of the Toyota. The guy who got out of the passenger side, the side closest to me, stepped across the empty space between his car and mine and said, “Jake Badger?”
He was a little taller than me but not as heavy. His hair was cut short. He looked to be in pretty good shape. From the way his sport coat hung, he had a gun on his right hip.
“Yes,” I said.
His shorter but thicker friend had come around the back of the Toyota and stood beside him. He, too, was carrying a gun.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“You've been asking a lot of questions about Jane Lindell,” the taller one said.
“Have I?”
“You need to stop asking them,” the thick one said.
“Do I?”
“You're going to stop,” the tall one said.
“Am I?”
“Stop it with the stupid questions, asshole,” the thick one said.
I smiled. “This is like a night club routine, isn't it?” I said. “What's your stage name, Tweedledum and Tweedledee?”
The thicker guy didn't like that. He threw a slow right hook at the side of my head. I pulled back a few inches and it went by. His balance was off and the momentum of the punch pulled him forward and turned him slightly so that he was off balance. I put both hands on his shoulder and push him hard into the taller guy who was now behind him. They both stumbled back a bit. They recovered themselves and came at me. I threw a sharp fast left into the throat of the thick one. He gagged and went down, his hands to his throat. The tall one threw an awkward left. I moved my head to the right as it went by and then put a hard right into his ribs. I could feel them crack. He went down. They both looked like they were in considerable distress. I pushed the thick guy over onto his stomach and got his wallet out of his back pocket. According to his driver’s license, his name was Francis Gillespie. There was nothing else in his wallet that told me anything important. I rolled him over and he tried to kick me. I punched him in the nose, probably harder than I needed to, and he stopped trying to kick me. In his inside jacket pocket was a Lindell Industries security ID t
hat also said Francis Gillespie.
The tall one with the cracked ribs had recovered himself to some degree. He was sitting on the ground, leaning against the Toyota. I checked his inside jacket pocket. He didn't try to stop me. Same Lindell Industries ID. It said his name was James Bickel.
“James,” I said, “What's the deal? Who at Lindell Industries doesn't want me asking questions about Jane Lindell?”
He tried to look tough, but was in too much pain to pull it off.
“Hey,” I said, and looked around the still empty parking lot. “There's no one around and I got all day. I can beat on you some more if need be, but why put yourself through that? Just answer my question. Who sent you and why?”
He told me I should have sexual intercourse with myself, which kind of annoyed me, so I broke his nose. He had a handkerchief in his jacket pocket so I got it for him to help slow the bleeding.
“Now, James,” I said, “let's try this again. Who sent you and why?”
“I don't know why,” James said through the blood, the pain, and the hanky. “All I know is I got a call from a guy. He said to warn you off. He said you were tough so I should bring some help. We'd be paid five hundred each to make you go away.”
“A call from a guy?” I said.
He nodded.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“It's the truth,” James said. He sounded sort of nasally.
I looked at the thick one who was still lying on his back. He had one hand on his throat and one on his nose, concentrating on breathing.
“Got anything to add, Francis?” I asked.
There was an inarticulate grunt that I took to be a no.
I turned back to James and said, “When your anonymous caller gets back to you, James, and he will get back to you, he will not be happy. He'll want to know what happened. Tell him that you brought extra help like he told you to, but it wasn't enough. You should also tell him that if there is any further nonsense of this kind, I will hunt him down and put him out of business.
I took James' gun off his hip. A Glock 17. I took Francis' gun as well. He preferred something a little more substantial. His was a Smith and Wesson, 1911. Neither of them objected to me taking their weapons.
I got into my Jeep. Before I closed the door, I said, “You guys might want to consider a different line of work. Dog walking maybe, or carpet cleaning.”
Chapter 10
Wilson and I went back to our apartment where I fed him and ate breakfast. I showered, shaved, and put on a clean pair of Levis, a blue Oxford button down shirt, and slipped into my shoulder holster. I put a .357 magnum with a four-inch barrel into the holster. I have an older Smith and Wesson .357, but given the morning's events, I decided to carry my new Taurus 608. The Taurus is not popular with gun snobs, but I find it to be a very serviceable weapon, and I like that it has an eight-shot cylinder. Two extra rounds can sometimes come in handy. Most people carry semiautomatics. But I prefer revolvers. When you pull the trigger, they fire—every time. I put on a tan corduroy sport jacket, size fifty, long. It dressed me up a bit and hid my gun. Wilson and I headed out the door a little before eight. My office was five minutes away.
*****
Mildred would be in at nine. I made a pot of coffee so she could feed her caffeine addiction. I can drink coffee but I don’t especially like it. I prefer hot tea with half and half.
I checked my email and the list I was waiting for from June was there. There were eleven names on it, address and phone numbers as well. I printed it and then called June.
She had given me her cell, so that's what I called.
“Good morning, Jake.”
“Morning June.”
“Get my email?” she asked.
“I did. Thanks. I got something else this morning, too.”
“Oh?”
“Two guys showed up at the park this morning where I run. They told me I should stop asking questions about Jane Lindell.”
“Why would someone do that?”
“Good question,” I said. “Turns out they were security guys employed by Lindell Industries.”
She was silent for a moment. “I don't understand,” she said.
“Neither do I,” I said. “After an unpleasant exchange ...”
“Are you all right?” she asked, interrupting me.
“I'm fine. They're not.”
“How badly did you hurt them?” she asked.
“Not enough to do any permanent damage,” I said.
“How do you know they worked for Lindell Industries?”
“They were carrying ID cards.”
“Who were they?” June asked.
I gave her their names.
“And they told you to stop asking questions about my sister?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask who sent them?”
“I wouldn't be much of an investigator if I didn't know enough to ask basic questions like that.”
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to suggest that you ...”
“It's fine,” I said, interrupting her. “I was kidding. And, yes, I did ask who sent them. They claimed to have gotten an anonymous phone call from a guy who offered them five hundred each to warn me off the case.”
“Surely you realize that I had nothing to do with that.”
“Of course,” I said. “Why would you hire me and then send a couple of goons to warn me off?”
“I'll find out who sent them and why,” June said.
“Probably not,” I said. “I suspect that whoever sent them was smart enough to use an outside contractor to make the actual arrangements. Other than the person who set this up, no one will know anything.”
“Who would do something like this?” June asked. I could hear the concern and confusion in her voice. “Why would anyone want to keep me from finding out what happened to make my sister leave?”
“Someone who knows what happened,” I said, “and who doesn't want me to discover what it was.”
“I don't understand any of this, Jake. What could have happened?”
“June, did it occur to you that for a young woman like Jane to walk away from her family and her career, something serious must have happened?”
“Well, yes, but serious enough for this sort of thing? What are we talking about here?”
“I don't know,” I said. “But I'm going to find out.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “How serious were the guys who threatened you?”
“Not as serious as they thought they were,” I said, “or as serious as they needed to be.”
“Are you in danger?” she asked. “I don't want you to place yourself in jeopardy over this.”
“I'm not in any jeopardy and the fact that someone wants us to leave this alone tells me that we need to keep at it because something serious happened thirty years ago. You need to know what happened that made your sister walk away ... if that's what happened.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“What if she didn't just walk away?”
“You think someone could have taken her away?” June asked.
“Or blackmailed her perhaps. There are all sorts of possibilities.”
June took a deep breath. I waited. Finally, she said, “I need to know what happened.”
“I agree.”
Chapter 11
I spent the next thirty minutes going over the list of contacts June had emailed me. She'd put a note next to each entry explaining who the person was. There was a neighbor who had lived next door to Jane and June when they'd returned from Harvard. Another was one of Jane's undergraduate professors with whom she'd remained in contact. Another was June's sister-in-law. Evidently, Jane had been friends with Greg’s sister. Yet another was the minister of the church the sisters attended when they'd returned from Harvard. There were seven more people on the list. One was a childhood friend with whom Jane had remained close. Two more were friends from Harvard. Two were Jane's doctors,
one her general practitioner, the other her therapist. One was a family lawyer, and the last one was an aunt with whom Jane had been especially close.
An interesting list. Neither the lawyer nor the doctors would want to tell me anything. Confidentiality. But confidentiality may have been why Jane might have spoken with one of them. I'd start with the lawyer and then go see each of the doctors, just to see if they’d tell me anything.
As I was calling to schedule an appointment with Gavin Leonard, the attorney on June's list, Mildred arrived. Wilson went to greet her and to collect the large Milk Bone she gave him each morning. He brought it back into our side of the office, though I suspect he thought of it as his side of the office. He ate it lounging on a large, square doggy pillow in the corner behind and to the right of my desk.
I was able to schedule a ten-thirty appointment with Gavin Leonard. It would take me about thirty minutes to get to his Century City office, so I had a few minutes to think about the two Lindell Industries security goofs.
Why had someone used Lindell Industries security people to warn me off the case? Maybe they wanted to keep the whole thing in house. But then why use someone outside the company to set it up? Maybe it wasn't someone outside the company. Maybe the guy who got the call just didn't recognize the voice of whoever called him. But why would anyone in the company not want me to learn about why Jane left thirty years ago? Why would they care? Because it somehow involved the company? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was a personal matter but involved someone who was part of the company, someone involved with Jane. Maybe it was something Jane did, maybe something Jane discovered.
Whatever it was, I needed to know more about Lindell Industries.
“Mildred,” I said, loud enough that she could hear me in the front office. “I need to make use of your naturally inquisitive mind.”
She came in and sat down in one of my guest chairs. “The last time you said something like that to me, I spent the next two weeks locating all the people who had spent the night in room seven of the Do Drop Inn in Belzoni, Mississippi, between the twelfth and the twenty-third of August, 2011.”