I jotted my home address and phone number on the back of my business card. "I don't give this out often so please be discreet," I said, as I handed it to her.
"Of course. Thank you."
We went through the business arrangements. I'd brought a standard contract and we filled in the blanks by hand. She paid me an advance of five hundred dollars and sketched out a crude diagram of the section of the Slabs where her mother's trailer stood. I hadn't had a missing persons case since the previous June and I was eager to get to work. This felt like a routine matter and I considered the job a nice birthday present for myself.
I left the Gersh house at 12:15, drove straight to the nearest McDonald's, where I treated myself to a celebratory Quarter Pounder with Cheese.
2
By one o'clock I was home again, feeling smug about life. I had a new job, an apartment I was thrilled with…
The phone began to ring as I unlocked the door. I snatched up the receiver before my answering machine kicked in.
"Ms. Millhone?" The voice was female and unfamiliar. The hiss in the line suggested the call was long-distance.
"Yes."
"Will you hold for Mr. Galishoff?"
"Sure," I said, instantly curious. Lee Galishoff was an attorney in the public defender's office in Carson City, Nevada, whom I'd worked with some four years back. At the time, he was trying to track a fellow named Tyrone Patty, believed to be in this area. An armed robbery suspect named Joe-Quincey Jackson had been arrested and charged with attempted murder in the shooting of a liquor store clerk. Jackson was claiming that Tyrone Patty was the triggerman. Galishoff was very interested in talking to him. Patty was rumored to have fled to Santa Teresa, and when the local police weren't able to locate him, Galishoff had contacted the investigator for the Santa Teresa public defender's office, who in turn had referred him to me. He filled me in on the situation and then sent me the background information on Patty, along with a mug shot from a previous arrest.