Jon Talton - The Night Detectives

“They didn’t have a clue,” Sharon said. “But the world of high-end call girls can be very different from the sexual exploitation you find with streetwalkers or immigrants from Eastern Europe who thought they were getting a trip to America for a job in a factory and it turns out to be a very different kind of assembly line. What Grace was doing was even more specialized, working on her own. Most work for agencies. But powerful men will pay very well for the services.”

“I bet.” Peralta licked his fingers. Sharon shot him a civilizing glance and he stopped, using his napkins instead.

“These men pay for the sexual skills, no question. The more versatile, the better. They think they have a woman in her sexual prime who really wants to have sex and enjoys it. Many of them are narcissists who want a beautiful young woman on their arms. It’s a prestige thing. If he’s an executive, it’s gotten too risky to hit on subordinates. So a discreet hooker is the thing.”

Lindsey said, “Is it only about the prestige and the sex?”

Sharon shook her head. “Many of the johns also want an emotional connection that they feel they aren’t getting from their wives. If Grace was all these things, plus polished, cheerful, intelligent, sophisticated, and romantic, then she could get top dollar. In San Francisco, I met call girls who were getting more than five thousand an hour.”

“An hour?” Peralta raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“Considering she was their daughter-in-law,” I said, “it’s better that they didn’t know her past.”

I certainly didn’t know Lindsey’s recent past.

Sharon said. “They liked being a family to her. It sounds as if Grace’s mother was totally self-absorbed and her father was even worse. Tim’s parents went to her graduation last year. Neither of Grace’s parents did. Her father was at a golf tournament with his buddy, some washed up pro football player.”

I stopped in mid-bite and pushed the hot dog away.

“Larry Zisman?” I asked.

“That the name,” she said. “He was a star for the Sun Devils back in the seventies. I remember.”

Occam’s Razor, indeed.

Peralta attacked his second chili dog with more aggression than usual. A Scottsdale McMansion of possibilities had opened up. One room contained the obvious, that Zisman was a client. Another held the possibility that Zisman had hit on his buddy’s daughter and gotten it for free. The rest of the floor plan was too twisted to think about over lunch.

I said, “Maybe Zisman wasn’t her client.”

“He wasn’t,” Lindsey said.

Everybody turned to her.

“It took me about two minutes to break into that flash drive,” she said. “It contained an Excel spread sheet with sixty two clients: names, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, dates, and amounts. No Larry Zisman.”

Nobody took a bite.

I said, “The johns gave her that information?”

“They would have to do that for an escort agency,” Sharon said. “It helps ensure safety.”

“But,” I said, “Zisman knew Grace’s father and covered it up.”

I could see the slow burn on Peralta’s features over Hunter lying to him. Maybe Grace’s father didn’t know his daughter had been intimate with Larry Zip. That was the most charitable explanation. But he sure knew that Grace had fallen out of Zip’s condo, and yet he hadn’t admitted their friendship either to Peralta or Isabel Sanchez.

“There’s something else.” Lindsey nodded toward our front parking lot. “The Prelude has a GPS tracking device tucked inside the front fender. You can buy one in any spy shop.”

My legs and feet felt very heavy on the floor.

“What did you do with it?” Peralta asked.

“I left it there.” She ate a bite of salad and dabbed her lovely, orgasm-flushed face with a paper napkin. “If they don’t know we found it, we have an edge. From what Dave says, San Diego PD has a hard-on for Zisman now that Dave’s shown that Grace didn’t kill herself. Maybe we can work with them.”

“They’re not going to work with private detectives,” Peralta said.

After a long silence, I looked at him. “These scumbags have had the upper hand from before Felix walked in that door. They placed a call to our number using Grace’s cell phone so the cops would be suspicious of us. I’m tired of playing defense. What’s our next move?”

He inhaled and rose up in his chair. “I’ve heard a person’s cell phone can be tracked. Not only the calls they make and receive, but the locations of the user at any point. Is that true?”

“Absolutely,” Lindsey said. “Wherever you go, your cell phone sends data and it’s mapped. And the cell providers keep those records. So somebody could find out Grace’s moves on any given date.” She paused and looked into her lap, and then she pushed her hair out of her face. “These companies have very sophisticated security and firewalls.”

“Can you hack it?”

My appetite fled. I stood and stalked the six feet to his desk. “I can’t believe what you asked her to do. That’s a federal crime.”

He shot up out of his chair and stabbed a finger at me. “What’s your plan, Mapstone? Get blown up again? You might not be so fast next time. We’ve been played for chumps and our clients are dead. Do you know why? I don’t. What I do know is it’s only a matter of time before we’re dead, especially if they get that flash drive.”

“Then we’ll take them on. Why bring Lindsey and Sharon into it?”

“Because they’re already in it with us.” He spat the words. “These assholes are cleaning up loose ends. Tim and the baby were loose ends. Why do they have a tracker on your car? Because they’re afraid of you? No. So they can find you and kill you when the time is right. Who’s going to help you? Your new buddy, Isabel? Not when she finds out you’ve been withholding evidence.”

He wasn’t the only one running hot. I went from zero to asshole in three seconds. I barked, “Lindsey could go to prison! Put your own ass on the line. Put mine. But leave her out of it! Let San Diego PD track Grace’s movements. Somebody cased our office. My god, are you nuts? We’re not safe here. We’re not safe at home. You said it yourself. We’re loose ends.”

So much for our convivial reunited family.

And then Vesuvius went dormant. He sat back in his executive chair and pushed his hair back with both hands. In a conversational voice: “We are safe as long as they are willing to bargain for the flash drive. That’s our hole card. They want it badly. If they hurt us or kill us, no flash drive.”

“Did the guy in the parking lot know that?” I told him about our visitor.

“Yes. He was probably some vagrant. If not, he was only on a recon mission.”

He looked so damned sure of himself.

“Now,” he said, “As for San Diego PD, I would leave this to them, David, but I don’t know how sophisticated they are or how big their caseload is. They might figure this out tomorrow or next month or never. The more I meddle, the more suspicious Kimbrough is going to be that we’re holding back evidence. I would hack those phone records myself, but I don’t know how. Lindsey does. She spent eight years in the Sheriff’s Office Cybercrimes Unit. She can reverse-engineer that knowledge.”

“I know how to be a hacker.” Lindsey’s voice was small but sounded weightier than our explosions.

It wasn’t as easy for me to dial back my anger, but I tried to match her soft voice. “Don’t do this, Lindsey, please.”

I had just, maybe, gotten her back. Now I would lose her again.

She took in my imploring glance, studied Sharon’s practiced calm, and then looked back at Peralta.