‘‘I feel ya,’’ I said to her.
‘‘Cool. Now go home and hug that tall blond drink of water.’’
I didn’t have the energy to fill her in on the latest spat between Dutch and me, so I said my good-byes and clicked the phone off. On the way home I stopped at Just Noodles and picked up a big, steamy portion of comfort food. When I got home, the light on my phone was blinking. I had messages.
While I slurped up some carbs I listened to the three messages. The first was from Cat, who was wondering if I was still alive, since I hadn’t spoken to her in over forty-eight hours. Her voice sounded slightly panicked, and I knew I’d have to call her before going to bed, lest she contact her good friends in the merchant marines to drop in and check up on me.
Dave had also called, to say we had a closing date on Fern for Friday. I was to be at the title office at noon. The last message was from Dutch. ‘‘Hi, sweetie,’’ he said. My eyebrow arched. He only used ‘‘sweetie’’ when he was really in the doghouse. ‘‘I’m cooking mahimahi on the grill tonight. If you’d like some, come on over, okay?’’
I looked down at the container of noodles and scowled. Mahimahi was one of my favorites and sure would have been good. ‘‘Damn,’’ I said as I put my feet up on the ottoman and leaned back against the couch cushion. ‘‘Cowboy, you don’t play fair.’’
After supper I called Cat. ‘‘Hey,’’ I said when she answered.
‘‘Where have you been?’’ she demanded.
‘‘Working the streets, hanging out with the wrong crowd, and getting into all sorts of trouble. You know—the usual.’’
Cat sighed. ‘‘You drive me crazy,’’ she said flatly.
‘‘Back atcha, my sistah,’’ I said with a laugh, then changed the subject. ‘‘We close Fern on Friday.’’
‘‘This is good news,’’ she said, perking up. ‘‘I’ll have my attorney review the closing statement and give you the clear to close before you go.’’
‘‘Great. The closing’s at noon.’’
‘‘I’ll mark it down. Say,’’ she said, and I could hear her voice take on a breezy tone. This, of course, put me on high alert. ‘‘I called over to Dutch’s place, and he said that you moved out.’’
‘‘Uh-huh,’’ I said. I had no intention of sharing the intimate details of our cat-versus-dog fight.
‘‘He sounded really sad,’’ she went on.
‘‘He’s probably just tired.’’
‘‘Well, he said he was sad, so I think he really was sad,’’ she insisted.
I rubbed my temple with my fingertip. I didn’t want to talk about this right now. ‘‘I’m sure he’s fine. Hey, I’m back in the gym this week,’’ I said. Sometimes you could divert Cat with another tidbit of information that she was likely to pounce on.
‘‘The gym? You mean you’re working out?’’ she said. (Yahoo! It worked.)
‘‘Yep. Lori gave me the all clear last week, and Candice has agreed to be my personal trainer.’’
‘‘Just be careful about your injury,’’ Cat said, the worry in her voice making it a bit shrill. ‘‘You could do more harm than good if you’re not careful!’’
‘‘I’m fine, Cat,’’ I said. ‘‘Really. I’m not pushing it. I just want to get my stamina back.’’
‘‘I’m asking Sven about what regimen would be best for you,’’ Cat said, referring to her personal trainer.
I rolled my eyes. ‘‘Don’t ask Sven. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m healed, and getting fit, and everything’s good, okay?’’
‘‘Maybe I should fly him out to you,’’ she said, completely ignoring me. ‘‘He can show Candice how to properly train you.’’
‘‘Oops!’’ I said, my patience at an end. ‘‘That’s my call-waiting, Cat. Gotta go!’’ And with that I hung up the phone, then promptly headed to the kitchen for an aspirin. While I was gulping down two with a glass of water, my eyes wandered to the FBI file from Dutch, still resting on my kitchen counter. My shoulders sagged when I saw it. I’d promised him that I’d give him my impressions and drop it off for him soon.
‘‘Well, there’s not much on television tonight anyway,’’ I said as I took a seat at the table and grabbed a notepad and pen. I sat there with my eyes closed for a while, allowing my mind to clear and my radar to kick in. I placed my hand over the file and waited for a few impressions to hit, then jotted some notes.
The first impression I had was of a flag and a rat in a maze. I smiled. Together these two symbols were my sign for a government position. I opened my eyes and wrote down, Someone who works in government. Next I saw a postcard I’d had on the bulletin board in my room as a kid. It was from this place up in the northern part of Michigan called Sea Shell City. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but just then the phrase ‘‘postcards from the edge’’ floated through my mind.
I shrugged my shoulders, opened my eyes, and wrote that down. Next I glimpsed a map of the United States. Michigan stood out on the map, but so did Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. ‘‘Weird,’’ I muttered and recorded all that as well. The last symbol sent a shudder through me: I saw a dagger dripping with blood— my symbol for murder. After I’d scribbled that onto the paper, I opened the file and read about a Michigan state senator’s daughter who disappeared from her dorm one night in early December and hadn’t been seen since.
The case had been turned over to the FBI because an Ohio state congresswoman’s son had also disappeared from his dorm four weeks prior to the other incident. The cases sounded similar, since both abductions had occurred on the first Monday night of the month.
There were photos of the students, and I frowned as I stared back at their flat and plastic images. Both of the images looked dead, and the notes in the file indicated that the FBI firmly believed the students were dead as well. They were great kids with bright futures, doing well in school, with no reason to run away from their friends and families.
An intensive search had been conducted on both campuses, but not a single clue had shown up to lead the police or the FBI in a specific direction.
I closed my eyes again and focused hard, but the same clues came back to me, and that phrase, ‘‘post-cards from the edge,’’ just swirled around and around in my mind. Finally I opened my eyes and looked back at my notes. I underlined Indiana and Illinois. What did these two states have to do with the murders?And further, what the hell was this constant reference to postcards? Did the kids send a postcard before they died? There was nothing about it in the file, and my radar said that the clue didn’t fit that way. I sighed and continued to try and puzzle it out for another hour before I gave up, closed the file, and called Dutch.
‘‘Hey there,’’ he said when he answered the phone. ‘‘I was wondering when I’d hear from you.’’
‘‘I’ve been working on your case file,’’ I said, feeling a bit guilty about avoiding him recently.
‘‘Yeah?’’
‘‘I’d love to tell you I cracked the code, but right now I’m really stumped.’’
‘‘Did you get anything at all?’’ he asked.
‘‘Yeah,’’ I said wearily. ‘‘One thing, but it’s weird.’’
‘‘What was it?’’
‘‘ ‘Postcards from the edge.’ ’’
There was a pause. ‘‘I don’t understand,’’ he finally said.
‘‘Makes two of us,’’ I replied.
‘‘You think there’s a postcard from one of the kids?’’
‘‘No.’’
‘‘Is one of them going to send a postcard?’’
‘‘Big no,’’ I said sadly. ‘‘They’re both dead, Dutch.’’
‘‘We were afraid of that.’’
‘‘Can I keep this file for a little while and try again in a day or so?’’ I asked.
‘‘Keep it as long as you like, babe. We’ve been working both cases hard for five weeks now and haven’t made an inch of progress.’’
‘‘I do think ther
e’s a connection,’’ I said.
‘‘We were afraid there would be, but until something points us to either a body or the killer, we’re stuck.’’
I rubbed my temple and changed the subject. ‘‘So how was the mahimahi?’’
‘‘Missing something,’’ he said, with a hint of mirth in his voice. ‘‘Like maybe a little spice that usually sits next to me at the dinner table.’’
‘‘I had noodles,’’ I said. ‘‘Yours sounds better.’’
There was a low chuckle in my ear. ‘‘Next time just get your butt over here, Edgar, and join me for dinner, okay?’’
‘‘ ’Kay. Good night, cowboy.’’
I went to bed that night exhausted but was unable to sleep well. It’s amazing how quickly you miss that warm body sleeping next to you.
The next morning I was already awake when my alarm went off at five thirty. I joined Candice in the gym, and during our workout we went over the game plan again for my first day at Universal Mortgage. ‘‘Stick close to Darren for a while,’’ she advised. ‘‘Pick his brain about the politics of the place, see if any of the other employees have been around for a long time.’’
‘‘Won’t he get suspicious?’’
‘‘Not if you phrase it right. Just tell him you’re getting the impression there’s a lot of competition among the other loan officers and ask him who you should steer clear of, et cetera. He should buy that.’’
‘‘Got it.’’
‘‘Also, try to focus on using their software. I want you up to speed as quickly as possible. That way you can start searching their internal database and see if any familiar names pop up.’’
‘‘Uh-huh,’’ I said, already feeling nervous. ‘‘I swear, I don’t know how you do this on a regular basis, Candice. This shit scares the crap outta me.’’
Candice set a pair of dumbbells on a nearby rack.
‘‘You’ll be okay,’’ she said, flashing me a grin. ‘‘Remember that you can leave anytime. If things get sketchy, head out to lunch and don’t go back.’’
I nodded, feeling a little better now that I had a quick ‘‘out.’’ ‘‘How long am I supposed to nose around before I can quit?’’
‘‘Well,’’ she said, ‘‘till the moment you get something concrete, I would imagine. I also want to do a little nosing around on Bruce Lutz. I’ll start with his family, see if anyone close to him is willing to talk, and then you and I should take a trip up to Jackson and see if he’s accepting visitors.’’
‘‘Won’t that get back to Wolfe? I mean, what if he and Lutz are tight?’’
‘‘It won’t get back to Wolfe if he’s the one trying to get rid of Lutz, which seems highly likely.’’
I sat down on a nearby bench and worked through a set of arm curls. Then I asked, ‘‘Should we look into Walter’s past too?’’
‘‘Absolutely,’’ said Candice. ‘‘But I want to save that for last. Cops get upset when you start sniffing around one of their own, and I don’t want to alert the media until I have to.’’
I drove home from the gym feeling high on endorphins but nervous about my first day at the fake job. I arrived at Universal Mortgage ten minutes early and was given a quick tour around the massive office by one of the receptionists. The mortgage company was divided by department. Underwriters were at one end of the building and loan officers at the extreme opposite end. Between them were the processing and closing departments, and two small additional suites housed an appraisal firm and a title company.
The walls of every corridor were painted with the slogan, WE CLOSE LOANS FAST! and I had no doubt that was true.
After getting a cup of coffee I was shown to Darren Cox’s cubicle and told to wait until he arrived. At eight thirty the first of the loan officers trickled in. One or two of them gave me a cursory nod, but no one came over to introduce themselves. ‘‘Friendly,’’ I mumbled under my breath as one heavyset man came in, looked me up and down wordlessly, then sat down to enjoy his jelly doughnut and coffee.
Finally, at quarter to nine, Darren showed up. ‘‘Good morning,’’ he said as he fumbled with his tie.
‘‘Morning, Darren,’’ I said. ‘‘Ready to show me the ropes?’’
‘‘Sure,’’ he said, taking his seat and flipping on his computer. ‘‘You used to write mortgage paper a few years ago, right?’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ I said. ‘‘I worked for a bank and closed quite a few in my day.’’
‘‘What was the most you ever wrote in one month?’’ he asked.
I thought back. ‘‘Probably half a million,’’ I said proudly.
Darren chuckled. ‘‘Half a million here will get you fired,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re given a quota of nothing below seven hundred fifty thousand a month.’’
My eyes bulged. ‘‘You’re kidding!’’ I said. I knew that was an incredibly aggressive figure. ‘‘How do you do it?’’
Darren smiled confidently at me and leaned forward to whisper, ‘‘I’ve got a system.’’
‘‘What kind of system?’’
‘‘The kind that allows me to close four million a month,’’ he said quietly.
‘‘Get out of here!’’ I whispered. ‘‘That’s amazing!’’
‘‘My last paycheck was for ten thousand dollars, Abby,’’ he said cockily.
Again my eyes bulged. If he made ten thousand, that meant Wolfe made ninety off Darren alone. ‘‘Wow,’’ I said, trying to play to his ego. ‘‘You must really have a fantastic system!’’ My radar buzzed, and intuitively I had a feeling that Darren’s ‘‘system’’ wasn’t exactly aboveboard.
‘‘And if you play your cards right,’’ he said, putting a hand on my knee, ‘‘I could give you a piece of that sweet apple pie.’’
I stifled the urge to slap the snot out of Darren and opted to politely laugh as I moved his hand over to his own knee. ‘‘I’m excited about making money,’’ I said. ‘‘You don’t make a lot of money as a psychic.’’
‘‘Really?’’ he asked. ‘‘Well, then, you’ve come to the right place. I figure with your psychic abilities, you can probably let me know which prospects to pursue and which ones to back off on.’’
I smiled. That was my in. ‘‘Of course,’’ I said.
The rest of the morning I sat next to Darren and watched him call all the applicants in his pipeline, confirming figures, status, and gathering additional information. We broke for lunch and agreed to meet back at his cubicle in an hour.
I called Candice the moment I hit the street and gave her an update. ‘‘Have you seen his system yet?’’ she asked me.
‘‘No,’’ I admitted. ‘‘Mostly I’m sitting there watching him make phone calls. Everything seems legit at this point.’’
‘‘Have you had a chance to hop on their computer?’’
‘‘Nope. I offered to enter data for him, and Darren said he’d think about it after lunch.’’
‘‘Okay. Well, stick with it, Abs. So far, so good.’’
‘‘Have you been able to get anything on Lutz?’’
‘‘Not yet. No family nearby that I can identify, so we may be at a dead end until we head up to Jackson.’’
I was back at Darren’s cubicle at quarter to one. The place was fairly empty save for one man who was having a heated conversation with a customer on the phone, who had apparently changed his mind about going through with the loan. The longer I listened to the conversation, the angrier I became, because it was clear that the man was using fear and lies to get the customer to the closing table.
Finally Darren returned, and as he took his seat I asked, ‘‘Who’s that guy over there?’’
Darren looked in the direction of the man who was yelling into the phone. ‘‘Sheldon Jacob. He’s been here since Dick first opened.’’
‘‘He doesn’t take no for an answer, does he?’’ I said.
‘‘Nope. And of anybody in here, he’s the guy you want to steer clear of.’’
‘?
??Really?’’ I asked. ‘‘Why?’’
Darren lowered his voice to barely a whisper. ‘‘He’s Dick’s stepbrother, and he has one hell of a bad reputation. I’ve seen him beat the snot out of an appraiser who came back with a value that was too low for Sheldon’s deal to go through.’’
‘‘He beat him?’’
Darren smiled, but there was no mirth in his eyes. ‘‘It can get pretty rough around here. Just stick to your own business and stay out of everyone else’s and you should be okay.’’
I gulped. ‘‘Why would you work someplace that is so volatile?’’ I asked quietly.
‘‘Four words,’’ he said seriously. ‘‘Ten-thousand-dollar paycheck.’’
‘‘Ah.’’ I nodded. ‘‘Okay, for that amount of money I suppose I’d be willing to put up with a lot too. Now, about this system you were talking about. Show me.’’ I was being bold, I knew, but the longer I was in this atmosphere the more I just wanted to get the hell out.
Darren looked over both shoulders and discreetly reached into his briefcase. He pulled out a CD and carefully loaded it onto his computer. ‘‘This is the same software we used at the PI firm,’’ he said. ‘‘Now, watch this.’’ The screen filled with a GPS map of a section of Bloomfield Hills, one of the priciest neighborhoods in all of metropolitan Detroit.
Next, Darren positioned the cursor over one of the addresses on the screen. A window popped up and revealed a name and a plus sign next to a dollar figure. Darren moved the cursor to the next residence and the same type of information appeared. He did this six more times until finally, instead of a plus sign next to a dollar figure there was a red negative. ‘‘Gotcha,’’ he said.
‘‘Got what?’’ I asked, squinting at the screen.
‘‘See that?’’ he asked, pointing to the dollar figure. ‘‘Mr. Ron Weis hasn’t paid his property taxes in over a year.’’
I blinked a few times. ‘‘Okay,’’ I said. ‘‘Why is this important?’’
‘‘Hang on,’’ Darren said, copying Ron Weis’s name and address. Then he minimized the program, opened up a new window, called CreditSearch, and typed in the copied information. In seconds we were looking at Ron Weis’s full credit history.