GUMSHOES

Chapter 9 - Theories Abound

If Wendell thought vacuuming and dusting the house was a chore, he would soon revise his thinking after seeing what Donnie did to his office.

"I don't see anything here to worry about," Fletcher said, kicking aside the file papers Donnie had dumped on the floor.

"We'll take the computer," Donnie said.

"Forget that." Fletcher turned it on and stood watching the slow revolution of the cursor and the welcome sign. "Goddamn thing weighs a ton, and it's still got CD ports. Did you see any disks anywhere?"

"No. Maybe he has them where he lives."

There was no password necessary and Fletcher opened the file explorer, reading the different names and clicking on a few, before straightening up in disgust.

"Nothing but crap. You could be right. He might have kept all his investigative stuff separate."

"So it's off to Wendell's house we go." Donnie kicked some debris out of the way and headed for the door.

"Wait, wait, wait. We'd better check with Hardy before we start doing any home invasions."

"You heard what he said on the phone."

Fletcher groaned softly and followed Hardy's enforcer out to their car.

******

Audrey brought fresh coffee for everyone, and they settled into chairs in the living room. Jerome was looking up fatuous on his phone, while Wendell practised flipping open his wallet, revealing his licence.

"Just exactly what have you learned so far in your intrepid investigations?" She asked.

Wendell put his wallet away and picked up his coffee. "I sense a bit of sarcasm there, Audrey, but I'll ignore it and fill you in." She smiled and waited. "Dad was looking into the custom trafficking of international criminals and political figures. These were all people who had to leave their countries for fear of assassination, arrest or extradition."

"So this isn't like truckloads of young girls being delivered wherever?"

"No. Nothing like it. This is custom extractions for individuals. Dad finally had a chance to catch both the trafficker and the traffickee--"

"Traffickee!"

"The person being trafficked," he said with annoyance. "But when they both crashed in the chase . . . well, all was lost. They couldn't identify the driver or the- the other guy."

"What about your dad's partner?"

Jerome coughed, and shook his head at Audrey. She pulled a face and sipped some coffee.

"Okay, go on."

"We traced some information to that Max Shine guy--"

"Oh, my undercover information."

He frowned. "Turns out his business is reality type masks, and we figured that this was how they were planning on spiriting these clients out of danger."

"With a mask?"

"You haven't seen them, Aud," Jerome sat forward. "Amazing. Really."

"So you know what happened next. We staked out--"

"I staked out," Jerome cut in.

"-- and we followed his customer to his apartment. That's when the gun incident occurred--"

"And you had your licence crushed."

"Thank you, Jerome." Wendell replied with exasperation.

Audrey kicked off her shoes and drew her legs up under her. "Now what? I mean, what do you really know?"