Bite the Moon (9 page)

After a big sigh, he continued. “Anyway, you need to send in a report every week—send it to Kristi’s e-mail. I don’t want any details—that’s for Travis. Just sketch it out. I talked to four suspects. Staked out the house of another. Bribed a public official. Whatever. Things get more formal if we develop a more permanent long-term relationship. Like if I actually pay you for doing something. But that’s it for now. Any questions?”

He paused long enough to finger brush his comb-over off his forehead and back over his bald spot, but not long enough for me to fashion the first word of a question before he was off again.

“
Kristi’s setting up access for you to the most comprehensive privacy-invading tools we have at our disposal. Addresses. Phone numbers. Social Security numbers. Credit reports. Criminal records. You name it, you get it. Don’t share the passwords with anyone.

“
Before you leave, Kristi will give you a disk with a template of the business card. Get your cards right away. Our twenty-four hour number is on there and you’ll need to add your own. If you don’t have a cell phone, get one. I’m always available if you need any professional advice.” He extracted a business card from another monumental mountain of files and flipped it toward me.

“
About that bribing an official remark I made: that was a joke. You do anything illegal, I don’t want to know about it. Any questions?” Without pause he swiveled back to his monitor and the commotion of fingers in motion began anew.

Kristi tapped a finger on my shoulder and I started with enough violence to jar my teeth. I hate when I do that. She wiggled her index finger and I followed her again.

She handed me a typed sheet of paper with all the necessary access information, including technical support numbers. Then she went through the instructions for using the programs with all the simplistic detail required for someone who had never booted up a computer in her life. I’m not kidding—she actually told me that if the little lights did not come on, I needed to make sure the computer was plugged in. I was tempted to interrupt, but she seemed to have her spiel memorized, making me fear if I intruded, she’d have to take it again from the top. She wrapped up with a huge synapses jump: “I really did like chemistry class.”

I shook my head to reorient my thoughts.

“
Well, I did have this really dreamy chemistry teacher so I’m sure that helped,” she said with a languid smile and a deep sigh as the memory flickered the old flame in her heart. “I’ll bet the boys in your class felt the same way.”

“
How did you know I was a chemistry teacher?” I wondered if there was a scarlet C emblazoned on my forehead.

“
Oh, I helped Arnie do the background research on you for Mr. Travis.”

Welcome to the twenty-first century, where privacy is just an illusion. Soon even our genetic make-up will be an open book.

Kristi’s features puckered into a look of pain. “Oh, Molly, I am so sorry about your husband.” She shook her head, patted my arm and the furrows faded even quicker than they had formed. “But I know you’re going to get that poor boy out of jail. I just know it. Now that Bobby’s fate is in your hands, everything will turn out just right.”

I looked at her eager, glowing face and longed to share her faith in my abilities. I smiled back at her but inside I grimaced. The weight of the burden I’d sought and acquired now fell on my shoulders with a thud. I had a job to do, and I hoped to God I was up to it.

By the time I escaped from downtown, Interstate 10 in Houston had transformed from a highway into long stretches of rush-hour parking lots. I oozed through town, crawled through the suburb of Katy and finally broke loose. I-10 was still crowded, but at least movement was perceptible. A few exits west, I was up and over the seventy-mile-per-hour speed limit. To break up the monotony of the miles home, I slid in a Tracy Nelson CD recorded live at a women’s prison. By the time she hit the cut with her old classic about Mother Earth, I was singing along and oblivious to the ugly scenery that flew past my windshield.

At the house, I slapped together a sandwich and plopped down in front of my computer with my passwords to the magical world of Internet privacy invasion. I ran reams of reports on each of the members of the band. I was disappointed to discover no criminal records, except for a few traffic violations and a couple of bounced checks. Of course, there was no telling what could be contained in sealed juvenile records. I’d ask Arnie if there were any legal—or not so legal—way to get into those.

Next, I ran Mike Elliot, manager of Solms Halle, through the databases. Mike was a local boy and I thought I knew all I needed to know about him. We were never close, but I had known him most of my life. Surprise! Surprise! Mike showed up with a criminal record. While out in Lubbock attending Texas Tech, Mike was busted for attempted robbery. My, my, my. I’ll have to have a talk with Mike about that. He was found guilty but served no time, except for the few days he spent in jail until he could post bond. He paid a fine and court costs and did community service. Obviously, the authorities did not deem him to have a lifelong inclination to commit acts with felonious intent. Sure would be easier if they had. On the other hand, I would just as soon find out that someone I did not know killed Rodney Faver and framed Bobby Wiggins.

The sudden onset of small stabs of pain in my shoulder blades reminded me of the toll of the last couple of days. I signed off the Internet and climbed into bed.

*

I hadn’t set my alarm the night before and woke up a little later than usual. I clambered out of bed about ten past eight, feeling a little guilty but quite rested. After downing a dose of hot, liquid caffeine, I called Thelma Wiggins.

“
Good morning, Mrs. Wiggins. This is Molly Mullet . . .” Slam.
Damn
,
I sighed. Travis must not have informed her about the latest developments.

I scooted by the printer’s office and dropped off the disk for my business cards and then drove to Thelma’s house. In the car, I scratched out a short note to Thelma explaining that Dale Travis could confirm that I quit the police force and was now working on Bobby’s case. I went up to the front door and knocked. The curtain in the window twitched but, as I expected, the door did not swing open in welcome. I knocked again and heard only the sounds of silence. I did catch a whiff of baking bread sliding around the edges of the front door, causing my mouth to water and my ire at Thelma to reach a new high. I stuck my note between the wooden screen door and the jamb and went home.

I ran a few more possible suspect names and found nothing of interest. Then I ran Rodney Faver. Here was a colorful background. Faver had a long list of traffic violations, including driving while intoxicated charges in a number of states. He had also been charged with misappropriation of funds, fraud and assault and battery. The charges never mounted to more than a speed bump in Faver’s life, though. A few convictions were settled with a small fine; the rest were dismissed.

In another database, I found a long list of civil cases. Some were charges brought against Faver, but a much longer list was of suits he initiated. He was a litigious little guy. He must have accumulated a lot of enemies with that practice.

I made a round of phone calls to the numbers for the band I had uncovered on the databases. Most numbers dialed reached an answering machine promising a prompt response. I suspected that all were hollow promises, but I left a brief message about the reason for my call. When I called Happy Parker, though, someone answered the phone. It was a woman who sounded half asleep, under the influence or both. She mumbled, dropped the phone with a thud and went off hollering “Happy” in a long-suffering whine.

“ ’
Lo,” Happy said after fumbling with the phone.

“
Happy Parker?”

“
Yep. Who’s this?”

“
Happy, I’m Molly Mullet. I am working for Dale Travis on Bobby Wiggins’ case.”

“
Bobby who?”

“
Wiggins. The boy who has been accused of killing Rodney Faver,” I explained.

“
No. No comment. Nothing to say. Bye.”

Once again, someone hung up on me. It was getting more than a little annoying. I called back. The phone rang and rang. After twelve times, I gave up. I hoped he was hungover and each signal drove a spike through his brain.

I needed to expand my list of people I could use as suspects or sources of information. Research of media coverage of the band would provide a wealth of that kind of information. That required a trip to the main public library in San Antonio. We had a public library in New Braunfels but for in-depth access to periodicals, San Antonio was the place to go. If I had a San Antonio library card, I could look at a lot of that material on-line at home. But I always balked at paying the huge annual fee required for a non-resident card. Besides, I loved visiting the library downtown.

A half-hour drive down Interstate 35 and I was there. The second I spotted the library building, a grin of appreciation stretched, as always, across my face. I loved its massive enchilada-red structure at first sight. When the stuffy Anglos of the town shrieked and sniveled at the ostentatious color and design, I was delighted. Those elitists stayed worked up over the library until writer Sandra Cisneros was kind enough to distract them with a powerful purple paint job on her house in the historic King William district.

I paused outside to absorb the power of the colors and the emotions they evoked. The structure rose up from its bland institutional urban surroundings, making a statement that could not be denied. The brilliant cream-of-tomato-soup hue had dramatic accents of Aztec gold. Around the grounds huge geometric sculptures were tossed in the grass as if they were the abandoned toys of the children of a race of giants. The library and its grounds shouted: “Here I am. Come inside. I am an exciting place to be.”

The interior reflected the same demand to be noticed and an in-your-face defiance of subdued Anglo tradition. Everywhere I looked, my eyes captured splotches of sunny yellow and royal purple with highlights of Aztec gold. The vaulted ceilings created a sense of grandeur that said here was a place where the exploration of human knowledge was as vast and limitless as the human imagination itself.

I made my way up the stairs to the periodical section and camped out at a computer catalogue. By working in the computer files, I was limited to the past ten years. The band had not been around quite that long, so I probably wouldn’t need to dig farther back in the paper indices.

I was making a list of names and jotting down any pertinent information I could harvest from the feature articles I found when I felt an odd and startling sensation on my leg that catapulted me out of my chair. My heart was pounding and my breathing disintegrated into gasps before I recognized the source of the odd feeling. I had forgotten I had set my cell phone on vibrate and slipped it into my pocket.

By the time I extracted the phone, the caller was gone. I swung my gaze around the space hoping no one had noticed my startled gyrations—either no one did or no one cared. Grateful, I went outside to return the call. When the phone answered, I recognized Thelma Wiggins’ voice right away.

“
Hi, Mrs. Wiggins. This is Molly Mullet. Sorry I didn’t get the phone out in time to catch your call.”

“
Well, I’m sorry I hung up on you this morning and didn’t answer the door when you came calling. I talked to Mr. Travis, and I’ll talk to you now if you want to come on by. I was fixing to brew up some fresh iced tea and I got some banana nut bread just baked this morning.”

The memory of that escaping aroma caressed my nose again and induced another round of excessive salivation. “I’m down here in San Antonio just now but I’d be glad to stop by this evening after supper.”

“
You know you can’t do that, Molly Mullet,” she snapped. “It’s Wednesday night.”

Oh, yes. Wednesday night. Prayer meeting night at the Baptist church. Thelma was as devout in her attendance there as the average Texan was with Friday night football games at the high school. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Wiggins. I forgot it was Wednesday.”

She sniffed, but she was mollified and continued the conversation in a more pleasant tone of voice. “Come on by in the morning, Molly—say about 7:30. I’ll fix you up some breakfast and we’ll talk a spell.”

“
That would be real nice, Mrs. Wiggins. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“
Don’t be late, now. I’d rather eat cardboard than cold eggs,” she warned.

“
Yes, ma’am. I’ll be on time.”

At last, one person was willing to talk to me. On my way back, I’d stop in and see if Mike Elliot would give me the time of day. First, though, let’s see what the archives here reveal about his unsavory misadventures out in West Texas.

On the way into town, I picked up my business card order and then headed out to the historic community of Solms. I parked in the big lot across the street from the gray, weathered boards of the building that housed Solms Halle. I found Mike inside talking to the driver of a beer delivery truck. I flipped one of my new cards in his direction and said, “Hi, Mike.”

“
Well, well, well. This is very interesting. How are you, Molly? And just what are you up to with The Agency?”

“
I’m doing fine, Mike. And my job right now is to find the information necessary to get Bobby Wiggins out of jail.”