“One moment,” the receptionist intoned and I was put on hold.
I waited through a series of clicks and then a man answered.
“Anti-tussives,” he said easily. “Chuck, here.”
“Hello. I’m looking for Shane Morrison,” I said with authority.
“One second.”
Most people think it’s rude to ask too many questions about a phone call that isn’t for them. I always found it amazing how that attitude translates even to the workplace. Besides, no one questions phone calls from within the company, and many multi-line office phones will indicate an outside versus inside call by lighting up the phone line button in different colors. I called through Cary’s office so that when I was transferred, my call would appear as an inside line. It was a trick I picked up from Maurice back at the law offices.
“This is Shane.”
He sounded young and maybe…Midwestern? I scanned the list of Veno Pharmaceutical departments that Salem had on the bed. I picked one.
“Hi, this is Rachel from Purchasing. Did you guys order another box of…” What did labs use a lot of? I was about to say rubber gloves, but Shane beat me to it.
“Pipettes? Yeah, did they come in?”
“Oh, no not yet. I just wanted to double check before we put the order in.”
“Oh man, we need those soon.”
“Don’t worry, they’re coming,” I assured him cheerfully.
“OK, anything else?”
“Nope.”
I hung up and looked at the three resumes on the laptop’s screen. Most legitimate job search websites don’t ask for birthdates, but if you backtrack from the high school graduation year, obviously you can figure it out.
I didn’t have Shane’s birthday, but I knew from his voice that he was under forty years old. I eliminated the Shane Morrison that listed his high school graduation date in nineteen seventy-three. He was too old.
Next, I compared work histories. While one S. Morrison did extensive work in university labs all over the east coast, the other did not. In fact, the second S. Morrison dealt almost exclusively with pharmaceutical labs on the west coast. I decided that he fit the mold for the guy working in Parker’s department.
That left me with one Shane Morrison. I scanned his resume, saw that he had neglected to leave off the phone numbers of his references and copied them down. Most people use a work person, a family member, and a friend for reference. I dialed the number for the first reference. It was a pharmaceutical company called Dinamins. I hung up. The next number was answered by a woman. I could hear a child crying in the background, definitely a personal reference. I used my bored secretary voice.
“Hi, this is Sarah from Mr. Morrison’s employer, Veno Pharmaceuticals.”
“Uh, yeah?”
“We’re just doing a routine reference update. Is this still Veronica Miller’s phone number?”
“Yeah, I’m his sister.”
“Great, well that’s all we need ma’am. I just need to call his apartment number in Freemont, and he’s all clear.”
“It’s Queen Anne. He lives in Queen Anne now.”
She took the bait. Most people can’t help but correct wrong information.
“Oh, yes. I’m sorry, that’s right here. Well, I guess there’s a reason we do these updates, huh?”
The child was crying louder, and I could hear the tension in Veronica’s voice.
“Is that everything?” she asked.
“Yup,” I said and hung up.
I called up my reverse look-up database, typed in Queen Anne, Seattle and entered Shane Morrison’s name. One hit came back. It was Shane Morrison of 1447 Queen Anne Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98108.
“Gotcha.”
I had Shane’s full name, and now his address. That was all I needed to do a DMV request. My problem was I wasn’t a licensed investigator in Washington, just California, but I had that covered. I dialed Maurice’s number from memory and waited through ten rings. He never answered before then. He said people who didn’t know him would assume he wasn’t home and would hang up. When I worked as his secretary, Maurice drove the lawyers we worked for crazy because he never answered his phone, and he wouldn’t set up a voicemail account. Maurice was old school. I heard him fumble with the phone and then he answered in his gruff voice.
“Yeah?”
“Hey Maurice, its Reyna.”
“Well it’s about time I heard from you, old girl!”
Maurice was pushing seventy, and he called me old.
“I’m doing great, Maurice. I know you like for people to cut to the chase so here it is…”
“Well, hold on, hold on there missy,” he interrupted. “I haven’t heard from you in what…a few weeks?”
“Well, you know how neglectful I can be.” I smiled. I talked to him last week on his birthday.
“I’m just sayin’.”
I heard him chuckle.
“Thanks for the vacation package. Sarah and I are gonna stay at your cabin at Lake Tahoe when it gets cold. You didn’t have to pay for the plane tickets too, though.”
I arranged for he and his wife to stay at whichever of my cabins they liked. To make sure they took me up on it, I’d thrown in some plane ticket vouchers. They were celebrating fifty years of marriage this Christmas. I thought that deserved something special.
“I hope you have a wonderful time, Maurice. And you buy Sarah something shiny and pretty.”
“I’ll do that,” he said and was quiet for a beat. “I’m sorry about your friend, Summer. How’s Jimmy doing?”
Maurice had been privy to all the drama between Summer, Jimmy, and myself for the four years I worked with him. It was with his help that I relocated with my license to California. He deserved for me to be straight with him.
“Well, that’s what this call is about. I need to ask a favor.”
“OK then, shoot.”
“I have a name and address, and I was wondering if you could do a DMV request for me. I need to know what the guy’s car looks like.”
“I can do that. Are you going to tail him?”
“Yes, me and Salem…and probably Jimmy.”
“Hmm. You two spending time?”
“Yes, we are.” I loved the way he put things.
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Nothing, just…listening. This guy you want information on, does this have anything to do with Summer’s murder?”
Hearing Summer’s name in the same sentence as murder made my stomach flop. I’d pushed the two apart in my mind just to get through the investigation. “Yeah, Maurice, it does. That brings me to my other favor. I really need to see the murder book.”
When a detective opens an investigation on a homicide, all of the information goes into a three ring binder. Photographs, coroner reports, any notes or transcripts from interviews, everything goes into the binder which is called the murder book.
Maurice was silent for a bit. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, Maurice. I think to do this right I need to see the book.”
“On two conditions.”
I hesitated. Maurice never bargained. It was always either yes, or no with him.
“What is it?”
“You don’t look at it alone, and Jimmy never sees it.”
“What?”
“I’ll get the book to you, but you look at it here, with me.”
“Why?”
Maurice was worried. I could hear it in his voice. The only other time I ever heard that tone was when he’d approached me on the bridge that night I’d poured out my heart about Jimmy, the baby, and everything that had happened that year. He’d been over-protective ever since. It was a weird feeling, having a father figure.
“You run headlong into things other people shy away from. This is one of those situations, Reyna. You’re so focused on doing this investigation that you’re forgetting how much she meant to you. Those murder books are clinical, harsh.”
I looked out the window at
Jimmy and Salem. The lawyer in him would win out. He’d want to know the details and they would torture him. I loved Summer, but I wasn’t her twin. I had some distance. Jimmy didn’t. He never left, never stopped trying to help her. He couldn’t read the murder book. Not ever.
“OK,” I agreed. “When can you get it?”
Maurice put his hand over the phone, and I heard a muffled conversation. When he came back on, I heard Sarah’s voice in the background.
“I can get it by dinner, six o’clock. My source at the department said he could copy it and get it to me in an hour or less if need be.”
I was confused. He’d already asked after the murder book?
“How…”
“As soon as I read about it in the papers, I knew you’d be calling, Reyna.”
“Really?”
“A tiger don’t change its stripes.”
“I guess not,” I agreed.
I chatted with Maurice for a few more minutes and promised to be by the house before dinner. He said he’d call me with the DMV results within the hour. I rang off and sat back on the bed watching Jimmy drink his coffee outside. His smile was tired, but at least it was there. He’d lost so much in such a short time. His sister, his niece, even his mother had pulled away. I wanted for Jimmy to have closure. I wanted justice for Summer—and I wanted Parker to pay.
I closed the laptop and poured some coffee. Jimmy looked up and smiled crookedly when I joined them on the terrace.
“Hey, chér,” he drawled. “You taking a break?”
“Well, yes and no. I have Shane Morrison’s DMV information so now we can head over to Veno Pharmaceuticals and sit on his car.”
Jimmy raised an eyebrow.
“How did you get that information so fast? We just figured out his name a few hours ago.”
It’s what I do best,” I said and handed him the slip of paper in my hand. “Maurice got the information for me. Now we have Shane’s car description and license plate number. That means we can go and watch his car, wait till he leaves work, and follow him.”
“Oh,” Jimmy said and hesitated.
“What?”
“I have to do something tonight. It’s for the sanctuary. The university’s ornithological society is having a catered dinner at my house to benefit the pink-footed shearwater. “
Salem and I stared at Jimmy.
I was sure I’d heard some English words in there somewhere. “You’re having a catered dinner at your lodge?”
“It’s not a lodge, Rain. And yes, I agreed to host this benefit as a favor to a friend at the university. She asked me to speak tonight.” Jimmy made a face.
“About the pink-footed shearwater?” Salem asked. “That’s a bird, right?”
“Corinne says they’re in big trouble.”
“Uh…Corinne?”
Jimmy smiled broadly. The thought of him dining in that beautiful home with another woman actually made my heart race and he knew it.
“Yes, Corinne. You’d like her, Rain,” he said with that lazy lilt of his. “She’s so passionate about conservation.” He was enjoying this.
Although I was more than a little peeved to be missing dinner with him, the timing was actually quite perfect. I waved my hand dismissively in his direction and feigned disinterest. “Well, have fun with Corinne. Just be sure she doesn’t seduce you with all of her sexy recycling talk.”
“You’re not jealous, are you, Rain?” Jimmy grabbed me around the waist and pulled me to his lap. He grinned at me.
“Let’s just say I’m sorry I won’t be there,” I said and meant it. “Really sorry.” I couldn’t help myself. Jimmy was actually giddy. I smiled at him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and gave him a peck on his nose.
Purple Knot
31
“Why aren’t we following Parker?” Salem fussed with the camera lens. He fidgeted when he was nervous. We’d seen Jimmy off and were headed to the Veno Pharmaceuticals campus.
I honked at the car in front, and the driver woke up enough to go through the intersection on the yellow light. It turned red just as it was my turn. Frustrated, I turned to Salem. “We aren’t following Parker because the police probably are.”
“Really? Do they suspect him?”
I wasn’t sure if they found out about his stay in rehab the night of the murder, yet. My guess was that his father, Grayson, had already had their lawyer tell the detectives. “I don’t know, but if the police suspect Parker of hiring a hit, they’ll have a loose net around him. I don’t want to get caught up in it if they do. Besides, following associates, or relatives, often works just as well when trying to keep track of a skip trace.”
“Skip-trace,” Salem repeated. “That’s the subject of our investigation, right?
I nodded. “I once tried to find this accountant named Artie for a fortune 500 business. He embezzled a few million dollars but I didn’t find any evidence that he bought a plane ticket. In fact, he’d fallen off the grid. I’d checked his credit cards, his phone records, his friends, and even his wife and had no clue where the guy was. I went back over his business expenses for the last few months and found a pattern. He ate mostly fast food except on Thursday nights. He’d go to a fancy restaurant and list it as business meetings, but Artie’s business associates said they hadn’t heard about any appointments on those days. In fact, he cleared his Thursdays from lunch on almost every week for three months.”
“Artie was being a bad boy,” Salem interjected with a smile.
“Artie had a girlfriend. After some digging I learned she was a secretary in his department. I followed her to a beachfront condo she rented for the summer. It was way out of her price range. Sure enough, Artie was there. I borrowed my neighbor’s dog, and went for a jog on the beach. I walked right up to on him while he was happily drinking coffee on the porch and served him with the subpoena.”
“Very nice.”
“Thank you,” I said. “We’re going to use the information I gained from Maurice’s DMV request to follow Shane. If he’s doing business or meeting with Parker for any reason, we’ll know about it.”
“So we stick with Shane.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think we missed their meeting, the one from the email?”
“No, I don’t think we missed it.”
“How do you figure?”
“If you remember, Parker wanted to meet at a place called, ‘On the Border’, right?”
“Did you figure out what that was?”
“Well, my guess is that it’s not an actual border, like on a map, but a place. The thing is, I think it’s a bar.”
“How did you get that?”
I showed him my phone. I’d done a search for the words, ‘The Border’ in the Seattle yellow pages and got the name of a bar in Columbia. The listing gave the hours of operation for the bar. They were closed yesterday.
“So, you think they’ll meet there tonight?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure, to be frank. “It’s my best guess. Bars are good places to meet because they’re dark, people mind their own business, and this one is in a seedy part of Seattle.”
“Because Parker wouldn’t be caught dead there.” Salem said. “So he knows no one will recognize him, or suspect he’s there.”
“Right.”
“How are we going to get pictures of them in the bar?” Salem looked out the window and sighed.
I smiled. Salem was a rookie with too many television detective stories in his head. “Pictures of Parker meeting with a business colleague are worthless. So what if two guys who work at the same company go out for a beer after work?”
“Then why are we going to follow them to the meeting?” Salem looked at me with his eyebrows knit.
“We’re not. We’re going to follow Shane from work. If he meets with Parker, then great, it means we’re on to something. If he goes home, we follow him there, too. I want to see who this Shane guy meets with. I want to know who he calls. Parker is too paranoid by
now and he knows I’ve been looking into him. That’s why he sent the text and flowers. He won’t do anything stupid.”
“But Shane might.” Salem nodded, his face lighting up.
“Exactly.” I turned in and did a slow drive around the three floors looking for Shane’s car. He had an orange, nineteen sixty-five Mustang registered to his name. It wasn’t hard to find even without assigned parking. I’d stopped by N. Hale’s spy shop on the way and bought a live update GPS tracker. Salem was registering the serial number with the online mapping service while I checked to make sure that the motion detection mode was on.
Battery powered with live updates every ten-seconds, the matchbox size device was a little on the pricey side, but it required no service contract. I could track it using a mapping program available on the web. I’d opted for the one that had a motion sensor mode because the device put itself in sleep mode after sixty seconds of inactivity. That would make the battery last for at least a week if I was lucky.
There were no cameras on any of the floors that had a guard station. Shane had been kind enough to choose one with a guard station, probably because it was closest to his side of the building. I hopped out of the SUV, stuck the magnetic tracker underneath his front bumper, and flicked it on.
Salem watched with a nervous grimace stretched across his face.
But when I climbed back in behind the steering wheel he smiled broadly.
“That was way more boring than I anticipated.”
“I’ll wear my trench coat and fedora next time.” I checked my watch. I had to be at Maurice’s house in two hours. I turned to Salem and smiled reassuringly.
“Do you think you can handle this one on your own?”
“What? You’re leaving?” His head snapped in my direction and he stammered.
“You need the experience hours for your license, and I need to get to a meeting.”
“What meeting?”
“I’m having dinner with an old friend,” I hedged.
“So…you’re just…” Salem shrugged like a marionette. “What if Shane leaves while I’m taking you back to the hotel?”
“I’m taking a cab.” I grabbed my purse and pinched his cheek like a doting mother. I tossed him the keys.
Purple Knot Page 19