Читать книгу Like Pizza and Beer - Elle Parker - Страница 6

Chapter 3

When I finally chased Seth out of my apartment the next morning, it was ten past eight. He was late for work, but it was too early for me to get started. I fixed coffee, showered and dressed, and ate a quick breakfast. That used up an hour, and I still had a few more to kill before Salvatore’s would be open and I would be able to get to work on Gigi’s case.

In the meantime, I could get a start on Seth’s. I poured another cup of coffee, sat down at my desk and switched on the laptop. My commute was still the length of my living room because progress on the office downstairs was slow, and I had to fit his job in between paying work.

I ran a few basic background checks on Frank. I have some software and a couple of internet services I subscribe to, because they all have slightly different areas of effectiveness, and I can usually save a lot of time running several searches at once.

Not surprisingly, his credit was trashed. He had way too many credit cards, all maxed out, and the bulk of those had missing payments. One of them had already filed an order to garnish his wages. Not like that would do them a hell of a lot of good. The guy bounced from job to job. He was currently listed as a part-time employee of a remodeling company, but I knew for a fact he did a lot of his work for cash under the table. Just to round things out, he also owed back taxes.

Frank didn’t have too much of a police record. Mostly it was traffic violations, including a decent number of speeding tickets. Maturity must have seasoned him, though, because those were several years ago.

To get a really accurate picture of just how bad things were, I also ran a credit report on Molly. Her rating was starting to show signs of decline as well, and I figured Seth had good cause to be concerned. It was my experience, however, that cause or no cause, women didn’t typically give up a man until they were good and ready to. I didn’t bother with police records on her, because I knew damn well they would be squeaky clean.

I took out my notebook and wrote down the address where Frank worked, his truck’s license plate and description, since Seth had only ever referred to it as “that cheap-ass piece of shit,” and a few other pertinent details I thought might come in handy.

This was one of the more delicate cases I’d handled. Mostly because I knew Seth and Molly, and they were like family to me, but also because Molly stood a good chance of getting hurt. For whatever reason, she loved this guy, and making her see him for what he really was wouldn’t be fun for her. Personally, I thought he’d been using her since day one, but it wasn’t my place to say. We would have to tread lightly.

Gigi’s case beckoned, and either way, it was time to hit the streets. I was still a little early, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to do some of the preliminary leg work, so I grabbed my phone and keys and went downstairs to the car.

The ladies were out on their patio, so I went around the corner of the building to say hello.

“Good mornin’, sugar,” Della purred with a broader smile than usual. Which is saying something, because Della Vinson Owen is a Southern belle who learned her craft well and has never once said anything to me that didn’t have at least a hint of innuendo in it. “Don’t you look all chipper and satisfied this morning.”

Ruth gave her a stern look and turned to me. “Dino, good morning. Wonderful day, isn’t it?”

“Ah, yes it is,” I said, watching the silent, but not entirely subtle battle of wills between the two. Ruth Fletcher is Della’s roommate, and they live upstairs next to me. She is ordinarily as down-to-earth and practical as you can get.

The other two women at the table were Adele Triggs and Fern Quigley, her sister-in-law, who shared the ground floor apartment. Adele owned the building and ultimately ruled the roost over all of us. She took a deep drag of her cigarette and blew out smoke. When I turned to her, she said, “Della wants to know who that woman was last night, and Ruth thinks she should mind her own God damned business.”

Adele is nothing if not blunt, but for all her gravelly ways, she’s a decent lady.

Ruth said, “Well, I wouldn’t phrase it like that, but yes, I have been trying to convince Della that we can’t be prying into Dino’s affairs. Especially considering the line of work he’s in.”

“Oh, is it an affair, sugar?” Della clasped her hands together with girlish glee. “She’s very lovely, and the two of you made quite a picture.”

“Della!” Ruth shook her head.

I chuckled and slipped my hands in my pockets. “She’s a client, Della, nothing more.”

“Oh, but she said you two were old friends,” Della countered, eyes twinkling. She’s not stupid, and she knew exactly what kind of friends we were. That was all I needed.

“You spoke to her?” I asked.

“I did my best to keep Della from grilling her,” Ruth told me. “We were having a nightcap out here last night when she came up to the door. She asked if we knew whether or not you were at home, that’s all.”

“I offered her a glass of wine,” Della said, “but the poor dear looked nervous and said she’d rather wait in her car.”

Adele coughed and said in her sandpaper voice, “You don’t think she was just trying to get away from you?”

Della thrust her nose in the air. “I was only tryin’ to be polite.”

“Polite, my ass. The FBI is polite compared to you.”

“Well, I never.”

I laughed and held up my hands. “Ladies, it’s all right, really. Gigi’s a tough woman, she can hold her own. Della, don’t quiz my clients, or I won’t have any left.”

“I’m sorry, sugar,” she pouted. “Normally, I wouldn’t dream of it, but you know I can’t help myself when there’s romance in the air.”

“There is no romance in the air, only detective work.” I looked at my watch. “And speaking of detective work, I better get started on it. You ladies have a lovely day.”

They all wished me a good morning, and I turned to walk out to the car.

* * * *

I drove up to Clearwater, heading for the county courthouse. To start with, I planned to build a background file on Salvatore’s. I knew most of the history of the place from having dated Gigi, but I wanted to make sure there weren’t any surprises, and it didn’t hurt to cover old ground. You never know what you’re going to turn up.

I pulled into the lot of the Pinellas County Courthouse and found a little slice of shade to park Matilda in. I generally try to hit places like this before the lunch hour when the clerks are in a more helpful frame of mind. In this case it paid off, because the girl behind the counter was as perky as I could have hoped for. I was third in line, and by the time I got to the window, I had a pretty good read on how to approach her.

“Hi there,” I said, flashing my most charming smile. I set my briefcase on the floor and leaned against the counter casually.

“Good morning. How can I help you?”

“Well, I need to get a report on a piece of property I’m interested in.”

“All right. Address, please?” I gave her the address for Salvatore’s, and she started tapping away at her keyboard. “Okay,” she said, scanning the screen, “if you have specific questions, I can answer those, or for ten dollars you can get a printout. I should tell you that you can also look up most of this stuff online for free if you want to.”

I knew that already, and I didn’t want to, because I don’t care what anyone says, you don’t get complete or accurate information that way. The internet is great for all kinds of stuff, but some things are still better done the old-fashioned way.

“Is there a lot there?”

“There’s standard property information, which I’m sure you want, but there’s also all the business statistics. There’s licensing details, plus a list of all complaints and inspections.”

“Really,” I said. “What can you tell me about the complaints? Are there a lot of them?”

“There aren’t a ton of them, but quite a few are recent ones.”

“Does it say who made the complaints?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, that’s confidential. But I can tell you what the complaints were. That’s a matter of public record.”

“Yeah, okay, can you just add it to my printout?”

“I sure can,” she said with a smile, punching a few more keys. “Now, are you the same person who requested these reports a month ago, or do you need the full set?”

That caught my attention. “Ah, no, I am not that person. Does it say who requested the report?”

Again, the head shake. “Sorry, no. There’s just a timestamp telling me when the last report was run.”

“I don’t suppose you could find out what other records were run with it?”

“I don’t know,” she said, furrowing her brow. “No one’s ever asked for that.” She started typing again, clicking through various screens. “Well, the best I can find is a list of all the records requested on that date, for all the stations here. It’s pretty long.”

“Are we talkin’ ten pages or a hundred?”

“Looks like eight,” she said.

“Can I get you to print that too?”

She chewed the edge of her lip. “We’re not really supposed to do stuff like that. We’re only supposed to supply public records.”

“Aw, come on, please?” I said, flirting. “I’ve had my eye on this place for a while, and I don’t want to get scooped by my competition. If I can figure out what other properties he’s been looking at, I’ll have an advantage, see?”

She considered that for a moment. “Look, just don’t tell anyone, all right? I don’t know if this is allowed or not.”

“My lips are sealed, I swear it.” I gave her a genuine smile this time. “You’re doing me a great favor.”

She grinned and looked pleased with herself as she scooped the sheets out of the printer tray and straightened them up. She slipped everything into an official looking envelope and printed off a receipt for me to sign. I thanked her and gave her the ten dollars.

Outside in the car, I pulled the reports out and flipped through them. The official stuff was mostly all information I already knew, and the complaints matched Gigi’s story. I turned my attention to the other list she’d given me. The list was a whole lot of names, addresses and report types, in no discernable order. I looked through it a few times, and I found Salvatore’s listed there, but otherwise it didn’t look like anything meaningful. That was all right. I hadn’t been expecting a whole lot, but the list gave us a starting point to check things against as new bits of information came along. Something always clicked eventually.