"None.
I figured maybe she had some kind of independent income and was just
using the job as a supplement. Something like that. Whatever it was,
she had some other agenda besides selling."
"And
that was okay with you."
"In
a flat market like this, I was willing to put up with it. In better
times, I'd have gotten on her case about it. But hell, as it was, she
was outselling a couple of the people who've been with me for years.
People who work their butts off."
"When
did she quit?"
"Never.
She never did quit. She just stopped coming in altogether."
While
I mulled this over in silence, Nancy leaned back against the window,
resting her hands on the sill behind her.
"Married?"
she asked with a smile.
Noticing
that she'd taken me off guard, she widened her smile.
"I
was once. But not for a long time now."
"I
didn't mean to embarrass you."
"You
didn't," I lied.
No
matter. She ignored me.
"I
hope I wasn't being too pushy for you. Twenty years of selling makes
a person a mite forward."
"No
problem. I bang on quite a few doors myself."
"Spoken
for?" she persisted.
"Depends
on who you ask," I hedged. "Sort of, I guess."
"Don't
tell me you're one of those types who breaks out in a cold sweat and
runs for the weeds at the very mention of commitment."
"Actually,"
I countered, "it's more like the other way around."
"She's
the one who's scared?"
"No.
What she is, is smart."
This
new admission brought forth a deep-seated chuckle from her.
"How
romantic. That sort of makes you the knight errant in pursuit of the
unattainable lady, doesn't it?"
"God,
I hope not."
"I
can see now how come you're more accustomed to being the pursuer than
the pursued. No wonder I upset you."
Denial
wasn't going to work, so I quickly changed the subject.
"So,
I assume that she had a real estate license."
"Absolutely."
"Do
you have a copy?"
"Absolutely.
It's the law."
"Could
I see it?"
"Why?"
I
told her the part about the missing next of kin, the aunt in
Wisconsin, leaving out everything else. Her pale blue eyes filled
with mirth as I wound my tale to a close. "I don't believe a
word of it," she said when I finished.
"It's
my story and I'm sticking to it." She again treated me to her
throaty laugh. "Anyway, it's almost true," I added. "Close
enough," she said, walking over to the file cabinets.
She
rummaged through the files in the top drawer, finally pulling out a
clean orange folder. From the folder, she extracted a photocopied
real estate license. She surveyed the wreckage of the room.
"They
took the copier in the first load."
I
pulled out my notebook.
"I'll
just write it down."
She
handed it over. I wrote down everything that I could imagine to be
useful and handed it back.
"Did
the cops ask for the license?"
"Nope.
They just asked about her employment history. I was no help there,
I'm afraid."
"No
letters of reference or anything like that?"
"Not
worth the effort. Warm body. Current license. I'm covered. They
either sell or they don't. Hello. Good-bye."
I
handed the copy over; Nancy returned it from whence it had come.
"Thanks," I offered my hand again. Again she took
it.
"Anything
else?" she asked speculatively. "Not unless you can think
of something else." "We've already covered that, haven't
we?" she grinned. "I believe we have."
She
rolled open the top drawer on the nearest desk, pulled out a business
card, scribbled something on the back, and handed it to me.
"I'm
moving the office over to Magnolia. Closer to home. Better rates. A
more fluid area. I put the new address on the back. In case you need
anything else."
"I
appreciate it."
I
was halfway back to the car before I remembered my wet foot.
"Pacific
First Federal."
"Paul
Waterman, please."
"May
I tell Mr. Waterman who is calling?"
"Mr.
Waterman."
I'd
confused her.
"That
is who you asked for, isn't it, sir?" she tried again.
"No.
I mean . . . yes, it is. Tell him it's his cousin Leo Waterman
calling."
"One
moment please, Mr. Waterman. I'll try Mr. Waterman."
Two
years my senior, Paul was the sole issue of the other branch of the
Waterman family tree. As the only child of my Uncle Dan and Aunt
Helge, Paul was my closest living relative on the paternal side of
the family.
My
father had, over the years, arranged a series of increasingly more
responsible and thus increasingly more lucrative city jobs for his
little brother Daniel. For his part, Uncle Dan, unlike my mother's
brothers, had quelled the grumbling about cronyism by proving an
adept if not particularly imaginative city administrator. By the
time he passed away, back in the late seventies, he'd risen to the
rank of city water commissioner and, within the corridors of
power, become a force to be reckoned with.
Paul
had been born old. Somehow sensing this quirk of fate, his parents
had always dressed him accordingly. They'd trussed him up in
scaled-down madras sport jackets, knit ties, miniature trench coats,
and worst of all, those terrible little porkpie hats that made him
look like a midget FBI agent. Paul and I had spent a great deal of
our childhoods sequestered together at the mandatory social
functions required of public officials. Invariably, before
consigning me to the children's section of whatever gala we were
attending, my mother's last words were always the same.
"Go
find Cousin Paul, and I don't want to hear that you've been picking
on him again. Do you understand me, young man?"
I'd
reckon how I understood, and I'd mean it. I really would. I'd mean it
all the way until I got my first look at his dour little face. From
then on, it was all downhill.
They
say time heals all wounds. They're wrong.
Predictably,
Paul had become a banker. These days he was submerged among the
legions of VPs over at Pacific First Federal. His specialty was
commercial real estate. He called me two or three times a year,
keeping his foot in the door, waiting for the day when he'd be able
to broker the property in my trust fund. He hit the line affable. The
strain was palpable.
"Leo,
Leo. To what, pray tell, do I owe the honor of a call from you on
this fine Monday morning?"
"Desperation.
I need a favor."
"Now,
how did I know that?"
"Must
be that prophetic streak of yours."
"Indeed."
Paul took the offensive. "Still playing detective?"
"Sure
am," I replied, determined to keep cool.
One
of the ways in which Paul exacted his passive revenge on me was by
also calling several times a year to let me know about insider
employment opportunities to which he was privy, in the vain hope that
he could induce me to take some steady but servile position, thus
confirming his long-held reservations concerning my genetic
deficiencies.
Experience
had taught me what came next, so I was prepared.
"You
know, Leo, I've been meaning to call you. Honestly. I was just
thinking of you. I flew down for a seminar in the Bay Area last
month. On wills and trusts. Incredibly interesting. They had a
speaker from a big firm in New York. A fellow named Wrigley. I forget
his first name. From what he told us about recent court decisions, I
believe that we might actually be able to break that trust of
yours. What do you think of that?"
"Interesting,"
I replied, as noncommittally as possible.
I
resisted the temptation to tell him, as I had so many times before,
that I had no desire whatsoever to mess around with my trust fund,
that the old man's instincts had been right on the mark, that
forty-five was, if anything, an optimistic estimate of when to give
somebody like me a substantial amount of folding money.
"We
could double, maybe triple the income on the principal."
"You
don't say."
"I
do. According to Wrigley—"
"Can
you check a real estate license for me?" I interrupted.
"Check
it for what?"
"Validity,
I suppose. And anything else you can find out." "Like?"
"Where
it was issued. Where the holder took the real estate test. When.
Other places where she's worked. Stuff like that."
"What's
in it for me?"
"I'll
let you take me to lunch at your fancy club and run all this
trust-busting stuff by me. I promise to sit through the whole thing.
How's that?"
"You
mean it?"
"I
swear."
"You'll
wear a tie? They won't serve you at the club without a tie." "Oh
God."
"Everything
has its price, Leo."
"Okay.
Okay."
"You
at home?"
"For
another hour or so."
"Be
back at ya."
We
hung up together. I went back to the paperwork. Twice, I'd
persevered through everything Heck had collected in the fancy green
bag. Every phone bill, electric bill, and rent receipt. Nothing. Or
almost nothing. Nicky Sundstrom had personally signed every
credit card receipt. Allison, it seemed, paid strictly cash. Even for
the rent. I'd called their building super to see if I could get a
line on one of her personal checks. No such luck. The one occasion
when Allison had done the actual paying, it had been in cash. The
super remembered. Nobody had given him cash in years. Dead end.
First
thing this morning, I'd started in on the long distance numbers.
Thirty-five long-distance calls to fourteen different numbers. All
Nicky's calls, it turned out. Medical specialists. Marine electronics
suppliers. Marge's mother. Not one long-distance call attributable to
Allison. The girl was either frugal or careful, or both. Another
trail to nowhere.
I
sorted the bills and receipts into their various categories. Credit
card receipts in one pile, gas receipts in another, a third for
the phone, and so on down the line. Then I arranged each pile
chronologically. I had just finished stuffing each group into
labeled business envelopes and was preparing to return them to their
home in the bag when the phone rang.
"Waterman
Investigations."
"This
is just soooo tawdry, Leo. Even for you."
"What's
that, Paul?"
"This
whole thing with this license. You've embarrassed me again."
"Embarrassed?
You're a banker. For most of human history, they stoned people
for doing what you do. They called it usury, tied them to stakes, and
pitched rocks at them. Nobody can embarrass a banker."
"Hardy-har-har."
"So,
what's the matter with the license? It's not valid?"
"Oh,
it's valid all right."
"Then
what's the problem?"
"The
problem is that this particular license was issued to one Rosalee
Weber, that's Rosalee with two e's but Weber with one b, of Lakeside,
Washington, on October eleventh, nineteen eighty-eight. She works and
has always worked for Shore Properties Inc. of Lakeside, Washington.
Your mythical Allison Stark appears nowhere in the state files."