Part 9 (2/2)

”Very corporate-y,” Ellen said.

”Shabby chic, taken to a whole new level,” I said.

There were two more rooms, one of them Hornsby's office, the other empty save for a wastebasket stuck in the corner.

Not surprisingly, the rest of the s.p.a.ce was filled with giant logs, blocks and oddly shaped pieces of wood. Most of the wood had at least one side of it finished, in the sense that it had been sanded and varnished. Hornsby's display samples, I a.s.sumed.

The wood was beautiful.

”Look at this,” I said to Ellen. We both looked at a block of wood that was a dark honey color with some of the most intense grain I'd ever seen before. In fact, it was more than grain. It was swirly almost. It was absolutely beautiful.

All the pieces were unique. Some were dark, almost black. Others were blonde. There were huge grain patterns, others small and incredibly complex.

”Amazing,” Ellen said. ”This stuff sat on the bottom of the lake for hundreds of years.”

”I wonder if mob informants look this good.”

”Why, you wanna make a desk out of one?” Ellen said.

She had stopped just outside the door to Hornsby's office. I could see a few black-and-white photographs hung on the wall. I stepped up next to her and looked. They were archival type photos of early loggers on Lake St. Clair. They showed burly looking guys in dark wool pants and plaid s.h.i.+rts walking on top of logs with big black boots.

I left Ellen there and went into Hornsby's office. The place had been thoroughly gone over by a forensics team. His desk was old and ready to fall apart. The chair was old with a smoothly polished seat, made so by years and years of b.u.t.t cheeks sliding on and off. I sat down and looked around. There was no computer or anything. Just a phone and piles of folders, invoices and coffee cups, soda cans and beer bottles.

It was weird to be sitting in a dead guy's chair, not that Hornsby was the kind of guy who spent a lot of time here. I pictured him on the boat or in the shop.

I used my handkerchief to pull open the drawers. As I suspected, they were chock full of paperwork. I spied a date on one. 1993. If Jessie Barre loved Hornsby, it probably wasn't because of his filing ability.

Ellen had walked into the office and was looking out the small window, which gave a view of the lake. Next to the phone was a pile of yellow Post-it notes, which was interesting because I knew Post-it notes were invented sometime in the 1980s and it surprised me that Hornsby had purchased office supplies that recently. In any event, there were a few Post-its and I gently pulled them toward me. I peeled off the first one, which was nearly indecipherable. The second was a string of dimensions. The third had a scrawled name and a phone number.

The name was Randy.

I slipped the note into my pocket just as Ellen turned toward me.

”Anything interesting?” she said.

My heart was beating a little quicker than usual. Like I said, I don't like deceiving my big sister, but sometimes I have to.

”Not to me. Maybe to the Society of Mold and Fungus Collectors.”

I wanted to follow up the Randy lead by myself because I figured that it was probably nothing. And even if it were something, I didn't want to put Ellen in harm's way because of some half-c.o.c.ked idea of mine. Even though she was probably better equipped to handle it. I remember one time I spilled a bunch of milk at the dinner table and she waited outside for me afterward and kicked my a.s.s. And that was Thanksgiving. Last year.

Ellen took my spot in the desk chair while I looked out the window. The lake was cold and gray, like it so often is at this time of year. I wondered if Nevada Hornsby had ever stood here and contemplated the water. Probably not. He didn't seem like the philosophical type.

I wandered back out into the main room and looked at the different pieces of wood. They were truly spectacular. I'd heard Bill Gates had used this stuff to make the kitchen cabinets in his 40 million dollar house. I knew that only a guy like Gates could afford the wood.

”All done?” Ellen said when she emerged from Hornsby's office. ”Satiated your insufferable curiosity?”

”I guess,” I said.

We left and Ellen locked the door behind us.

”What are you up to now?” she asked. ”Going to try to sweet talk a few more waitresses?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

”Why do I get the feeling that you know more than you're telling me?” she said.

”Why do I get the same feeling about you?” I said. ”In fact, it seems terribly coincidental that you would just happen to drop by a the same time as me. Are you sure you weren't following me?”

By now we were at her cruiser and I could see my Taurus across the street.

She climbed behind the wheel and rolled down the window.

”Maybe the next time you thoroughly charm a waitress, you should make sure she doesn't see you cross the street and snoop around a place where a guy worked that you were asking questions about. She might call the cops.”

Ellen smiled at me, rolled up the window and drove off.

I couldn't believe it. Mich.e.l.le hadn't believed my story. She hadn't trusted me.

I was slipping.

Big time.

Twenty.

To a resourceful private investigator, and after a few cups of strong coffee I had no problem putting myself into that category, there are many ways to take a phone number and match an address to it. If you have a computer handy, there's the Department of Motor Vehicle database, there's the Nexus database, there's even the good old phone directory database. Now, if you're not at a computer, there are still ways to do it. For instance, you call the operator and say you're looking for Randy Can't Remember-His-Last-Name, but you've only got his phone number and you know he used to live on Whatever Street. Most operators will call up the number and say Randy Jones? You say, yep, that's him. And she'll say, oh, he's not on Whatever Street now, the address listed to that number is 334 Bourbon Street. You say, great, thanks and hang up.

The problem is, it doesn't work every time. Some operators are more cynical than others. In fact, they seem to be getting more and more leery. So when I'm in a pinch and I've got a phone number but no real name or address, I go to the quickest, most dependable resource I have.

”Nate, I need an address.” I could hear the usual hubbub of the Grosse Pointe News office in the background. People talking. A copier banging out sheets of stories on the school board, and my overweight friend's heavy breathing.

”How soon and what's it worth?” he said.

”Let me put it this way, I'll wait for it.”

He snickered, the sound of a fisherman who's just sunk his treble hook into the lips of a trophy. ”It's worth that much?”

I paused. He knew he had me.

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