The Common Lawyer (26 page)

"Mrs. O'Hara?"

"Who?"

"Ma'am, are you Frankie's mother?"

"Where's Frankie?"

"I don't know, ma'am. I'm trying to find her."

"I want to see my baby."

"May I come in and talk?"

She smiled. "Okay."

Andy stepped through the door and into 1955. The carpet was shag, the upholstery brocade, and the room dimly lit by a few old lamps. He counted five cats lounging around. The television was on to the soaps. Mrs. O'Hara sat in a thick chair directly in front of the TV. Andy looked around. A dozen framed black-and-white drawings by "F. Doyle" hung on the walls. All were stark and desolate landscapes. They reminded Andy of West Texas and New Mexico.

"Frankie's an artist."

"Yes, ma'am, she is. Mrs. O'Hara, do you have a photo of Frankie?"

She reached over to the end table next to her chair and picked up a framed picture. She held it out to him. It was a photo of a pretty young woman and a cute girl in thick snow. They were wearing parkas with the hoods snug around their faces. They were happy. And alive.

Andy considered stealing the photo, but just the thought made him feel like a creep—stealing from an old lady with Alzheimer's. So he tried to memorize Frankie Doyle's image. Hers was not a hard face to look at. Her hair was tucked inside the hood of her parka; he assumed a girl named O'Hara would have red hair—or perhaps it was just wishful thinking, given his thing for redheads—but there was something about her that made him want to find her. To see her in real life.

Mrs. O'Hara was focused on the soaps, so Andy walked into the adjacent kitchen. On the small table was a short stack of bills. He thumbed through them and saw a telephone bill.

"Mrs. O'Hara, does Frankie call you?"

"Frankie's on the phone?"

"Uh, no, ma'am."

Andy removed the telephone bill and scanned down the numbers listed for the calls that came daily. All were incoming but no location was noted; the numbers were all 888 prefixes. Hollis was right; Frankie was smart. She was using a prepaid phone card to call her mother. She could be calling from New York or L.A.; there was no way to know.

Andy couldn't think of anything else he might learn from Colleen O'Hara, so he went back into the front room and said goodbye then handed the framed photo back to her.

"Mrs. O'Hara, where was this photo taken?"

She put on her reading glasses and looked at the photo.

"That's Frankie … and Abby."

"Yes, ma'am. Where were they in this photo?"

"In the snow."

"What state?"

She gazed off as if trying to find the answer written on the ceiling. Andy thought of his father, how his memory had deteriorated as a result of his liver disease. His forgetfulness frustrated the hell out of Paul Prescott; at least Colleen O'Hara didn't know to be frustrated.

"Thanks, Mrs. O'Hara." He gave her his business card. "When Frankie calls, ask her to call me. It's important."

She smiled.

"I'll let myself out."

He was almost out the door when she said, "Montana."

Benny had said that Frankie Doyle had never traveled farther than fifty miles from Boston, so the Montana photo must have been taken after she had left Boston three years ago. Frankie Doyle had moved to Montana.

Where Andy Prescott now was.

Billings was in eastern Montana and the largest city in the state with a population of 100,000. Hollis McCloskey had said Frankie Doyle might have moved to a small county in a state out west to change her name. So Andy tried to think like Frankie Doyle. There was usually a statutory period to establish residency, typically six months, so Frankie would have to live in the county for at least that long before she could change her name. So she would find a small county near a bigger city. Billings wasn't Boston, but it would have some amenities. That's what he would do; maybe that's what she had done.

He had flown from Boston to Billings and rented a Lincoln Navigator. He had consulted a map and found the least populated counties near Billings: Golden Valley (population 1021), Petroleum (population 497), and Treasure (population 735). The latter county was located ninety-three miles east of Billings on Interstate 94. An easy drive.

Andy exited the interstate and drove into Hysham, population 330, the county seat of Treasure County. The Yellowstone River flowed through town; rolling land stretched in all directions as far as he could see. It was a stark and desolate landscape, and it was in one of Frankie Doyle's sketches at her mother's house.

He was in the right town.

Andy parked in front of the Treasure County Courthouse. He hurried inside—he wasn't dressed for thirty-eight degrees—and into the county clerk's office. He asked for name change filings from two to three years before for "Doyle, Frankie." The records were not online. The clerk had to search manually. But she found it.

Two years before, Frankie Doyle had changed her name to Rachel Holcombe.

Andy checked the tax records, but he could find no real estate or vehicles owned by a Rachel Holcombe. He found no Rachel Holcombe listed in the phone book for the greater Billings area. Andy bought a copy of the name change filing and went outside. He called Hollis McCloskey. When McCloskey came on the line, Andy said, "Frankie Doyle is now Rachel Holcombe. H-o-l-c-o-m-b-e. Find her, Hollis."

SIXTEEN

The cell phone woke Andy at six-thirty on the last day of October.

"Hello."

"Did you find Frankie Doyle?"

Russell Reeves.

"I found out she got divorced and moved to Montana three years ago. Changed her name."

"Why?"

"She's running from her ex-husband. He hit her."

"So you found her in Montana?"

"No. She moved again."

"Where?"

"I don't know. Hollis searched under her new name, couldn't find her anywhere in Montana, so I flew home last night. I'm going to see him this morning."

"Find her, Andy."

Two hours later, Andy walked into Hollis McCloskey's office. The PI smiled.

"You didn't have to dress up, Andy."

Andy was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a "Don't Blame Me—I Voted Kinky" T-shirt. Hollis was being sarcastic. Again.

"Nothing else was clean."

Hollis nodded. "Best thing about having a wife, Andy. Clean clothes."

Agent McCloskey was a romantic bastard.

"Tell me about Rachel Holcombe."

"She ceased to exist a year ago. Same deal."

"How can she do that?"

"Because she's smart. She knows what she's doing. Andy, this girl, she does not want to be found."

"So she divorced Mickey, moved to Montana, changed her name, moved again, and changed her name again?"

Hollis nodded. "She must really be afraid of him."

"He didn't seem that interested in finding her."

"Assholes like Mickey, they don't usually fess up."

"But he's working at his garage every day."

"Probably hired someone to find her. Like you did."

"But you didn't. Find her."

Hollis turned his palms up. "Look at the bright side, Andy: neither will Mickey. Oh, I ran criminal background checks on Frankie Doyle, Frankie O'Hara, and Rachel Holcombe with that DOB. No arrests or convictions. She's clean."

"Any luck on her social security number? That would follow her through her name changes."

"It would, but she's using a fake number."

"How do you know?"

"Because she hasn't gone to all this trouble only to be tracked down with her SSAN."

"Hollis, isn't there anything you can do?"

"By the book, Andy."

"Damnit, Hollis, we gotta find this woman!"

"Why? Why does your client want to find this woman?"

"I told you, that's confidential."

"Look, Andy, I'm getting a bad feeling about this assignment—I smell a rat."

"The woman?"

"Your client."

"He's not a rat, Hollis."

"Then why's he spending so much money to find these women?"

Andy and the ex-FBI agent stared at each other as if to see who would blink first. How much should he tell Hollis? How much information would allow Hollis to identify his client as Russell Reeves? He needed Hollis McCloskey to find Frankie Doyle. And he needed to find Frankie Doyle to keep his rich client happy. And he needed his rich client happy to stay in the life—the money, the loft and lounges, Suzie and Bobbi.

"These women, they're my client's old girlfriends. He wants to find them and help them because he didn't treat them right. He wants to make amends."

"How?"

"Money."

"How much?"

"A million."

"Each?"

Andy nodded.

"That sound reasonable to you?"

"Hollis, rich people are eccentric."

"No, Andy, rich people are connivers, cheats, crooks, conmen, and criminals—at least all the rich people I met when I was with the FBI were."

"Now you work for rich people."

Hollis shrugged. "I'm not with the FBI anymore."

"My client's not that kind of rich guy. He's just …"

"What? Troubled, delusional, psychotic, sick?" Hollis sat back. "Andy, this doesn't pass the smell test. I don't know what your client is up to, but I don't like it. I'm off the case."

"You won't try to find her?"

"Not unless you tell me what this is really all about."

Andy didn't think he should mention the sick kids. That might make the G-man suspicious; and he might connect the dots: sick kids … rich man in Austin with a sick kid … Russell Reeves.

"Hollis, it really is all about a rich guy finding his old girlfriends and giving them money. He wants to clear up his old debts, so he can have peace."

Hollis shook his head. "I don't buy it."

"Why not?"

"Rich people don't give their money away for nothing. They always want something in return."

"Hollis, I've personally handed cashier's checks to the first six women, for a million dollars each. He's never asked for anything in return. Will you at least look for the others?"

Hollis handed him a file. "This is the dossier on the eighth woman."

"So that's it?"

"I'm done."

"Why?"

"Because I think I'm being used, Andy … and I think you are, too."

Andy walked out of Hollis McCloskey's office and called Tres to ask a small favor: pull Michael and Frankie Doyle's income tax return from three years back then track her later returns. Get her social security number. Find her address. Tres laughed.

"Andy, did you get hit by a car and suffer a head injury?"

"No."

"Well, you're asking me to commit a felony. Jail time, buddy. They can track our computer usage, every keystroke. I type in her name, Big Brother will know it … and want to know why I did it. Sorry, Andy, but no way."

"Tres—"

"Andy, you're drinking the Kool-Aid."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you've had a taste of it, and you like it. The money. Reverend Russell gave you salvation, lifted you out of your old broke life and gave you a new and improved life, and now you'll do anything to keep it—even drink his Kool-Aid—so you don't have to go back to your old life. I told you, Andy."

Tres was wrong. Andy Prescott wasn't doing it for the money. He could walk away from Russell Reeves and his money—and the new life his money had given Andy—any time he wanted to. He wasn't doing it for the loft and the lounges and Suzie and Bobbi; he was doing it for Frankie Doyle … and for her sick kid. Okay, she might not have been sick three years ago, but she probably was now. And to find her and help her, he needed a more creative private investigator than some lame-ass by-the-book I-don't-wander-off-the-reservation ex-FBI agent.

So he rode the Stumpjumper straight from Hollis McCloskey's office in downtown Austin to Lorenzo Escobar's office in SoCo. PRIVATE INVESTIGATION and BAIL BONDS were painted in black letters on the plate-glass front window. Andy walked in and found a Spartan space and a handsome Latino man sitting at a big wood table and tapping on a laptop. Andy recognized Ramon's distinctive work on his forearms. He looked to be about forty and had jet black hair combed straight back, a neatly trimmed black goatee, and black reading glasses riding low on his nose. He was wearing a black T-shirt tight around his lean torso and muscular arms, black leather wrist bands, black jeans, black cowboy boots, and a black gun in a black holster clipped to his black belt. He was a good typist.

Without looking up at Andy, the man said, "It's legal."

"What?"

"The gun."

The National Rifle Association's Austin chapter—also known as the Texas legislature—had recently passed numerous "shoot first and ask questions later" laws giving Texans the right to (a) kill any person unlawfully entering their homes, (b) carry a weapon in their cars to protect themselves against carjackers, and (c) carry a concealed weapon provided they take a firearms safety course. Twenty-four million people now lived in Texas; half were packing heat. The other half should be—to protect themselves against the first half.