Only way to really keep your nose clean is to keep your nose clean. Try to play cover up, you'll slip up somewhere. Then it's just a matter of if someone finds out or not. Whoever Deke's Partner was, he couldn'ta been the most up and up guy, or if he pretended to be, we'd see signs he wasn't.
I told Dara to start using the internets, try and find D.P. Especially look at slobs Deke was with in prison, slobs got out around the time he did, everyone he dealt with that didn't make much money. She didn't like not being able to really find much about Deke [Really, it's not right. In our day and age, you leave a digital trail, and we can use it to track you down. Why wouldn't that be the case? Unless you intentionally delete as much of your trail as possible, it's just wrong. -Dara].
I also told her to contact the Wellingtons, see if they heard anything, tell em we had some leads. Turned out she had a hell of a time dancing around when they asked how the case was going, and I was passed out in the next room. At least now, she could give them some hope.
Meantime, I was gonna go try and find Deke and Clara. My best bets were storage spaces, warehouses, motels. They weren't gonna let Clara out, but they had to bring her back sometime after they got the money. Plus, it was a long shot, but if anyone saw Deke, I could narrow down where he was.
It hurt even drinking my coffee. Every time I breathed, felt like my rib was gonna bust apart again.
Three days I hoofed it across the warehouse district, found a lot of blisters I didn't know I had. Wellingtons got another note, telling them to wait for a call in a couple days, told them where to make the drop. They came to the office while I was out ruining my good shoes [His only shoes. -Dara]. Probably best, I didn't look the same like the last time they saw me. Dara took the letter and the polaroid it came with. Clara was still breathing in the pic, and the bruises were light yellow and purple.
They told Dara they'd gotten the money by taking out another mortgage on their home, breaking into their savings and stocks. She told them we were doing our best. It was just that our best looked like it was gonna cost em big.
At the 11th hour, Dara figured out who D.P. mighta been. Lissa Jones.
[Deke's efforts stonewalled our efforts to locate him, but they also made it nearly impossible to track down any of his associates. Trace hit it right on the nose. I would have had to pore through the records, determine which of the inmates might possibly work with Deke, then determine what types of behavior might crop up, revealing the man or woman helping him.
What my efforts revealed were a host of potential suspects. Even after eliminating those that were Deke's enemies, as well as those reincarcerated, it turned out Deke had a multitude of friends within the criminal fraternity.
One by one, I tracked their lives online, made phone calls to see where they went offline. One by one, I crossed them off my list. Mainly, they all remained easily accessible within the past few weeks, and their movements readily accounted for.
By the end, when I'd crossed off the last name, I was stymied. Every ex-con on that list had an alibi, insofar as I could find an alibi without tipping my hand.
A potential solution came to me while I was debugging a project. We assumed the old adage held true, that birds of a feather would flock together. We couldn't necessarily make that assumption. I spread my search to even possible casual acquaintances, locals around his halfway house, frequent bar patrons at Choppers that never got in trouble with the law. Fruitless.
Finally, I decided there may have been something in the parole reports, some hint as to what his plans were. I couldn't just ask for them, as that would reveal what we were doing to the authorities. I managed to find some copies of the parole reports through a questionably secured page on the police department's web site.
Reading through the reports, they all read as if nothing wrong had happened, which at the time was correct. There had been no reason to suspect any wrongdoing.
Then, I checked the last few records. The most recent had been filed two days ago. It stated all was well. Deke had checked in, still employed as a stocker at the local supermarket. Either Deke was checking in, which meant we might have been able to track him, or D.P.'s identity was the parole officer, Lissa Jones. -Dara]
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