CHAPTER-14.
It is funny the things you think about. There was simply no way I was going to put the same underpants back on from yesterday, and the jeans still had a bunch of blood on them, so I left the hospital in a my good old hospital gown.
Jill drove her car with me riding shotgun and it is fortunate that it wasn’t raining because the two driver side windows were still busted. At my house, and still in my gown I got into my Taurus and Jill followed me the several blocks to a rented house in downtown Irving. My friend Tony was there but quite drunk. He told me he could replace the glass in Jill’s car and told me to pick it up Tuesday.
As soon as we got back to my house I called Samuels. He still had Jana in custody. She still claimed she had nothing to do with my beating but, of course, had no other explanation to suggest. They had taken a polygraph and according to Samuels she had passed. He more or less asked me if I wanted him to hold her any longer. I was not sure how I actually felt. I mean I was really relieved to hear that she had probably not been involved but still couldn’t figure out how else it could have happened. I mean it was quite possible that I had misunderstood what the man had said when they were beating me but the memory was so clear. Mostly though, even if she were not guilty, I just didn’t want to see her right now. I mean if she were not guilty of arranging my beating then I was guilty of blaming her for something she had not done. Either way it was not good for a couple so new to each other. In the end I asked him to release her but to request that she not contact me until I contacted her.
Samuels finally had one other thing that helped. A couple of days ago I had requested that he look through old tax forms and see if Lola’s social security number had ever shown up as someone’s dependent and if so, were there other dependents listed. Well his people had found a fifty year old IRS form that listed Lola and two other dependents. He gave me the information and I made immediate plans to go to work on it. On the same tax forms there was listed Lola’s mother along with her maiden name and social security number. If I failed to contact either of the siblings I could always see where her mother’s side of the family tree led us.
I sent Jill to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee and then sent her to the donut store. I needed some energy. While she was at the store I took a quick shower that hurt way more than it should have.
Dry, clothed, sipping coffee, and chewing on a coconut drenched pile of calories. Life was close to getting better. I had been an athlete all my life and was in a violent profession so I was not new to having a few nicks and cuts and bruises but this was the worst I had ever been beaten. It would take some time to fully recover but I couldn’t just convalesce. I had to push on. I had work to do and the case was starting to come together.
I fired up my own computer and hit that magic blue “e” that connected me to the entire world wide web. I searched through my drop down menu of favorites until I found the web page for the reverse Kohl’s directory. I use this site all the time so I knew my login ID and password by heart.
There were two people to look up. Both with the last name Martin, and I had the social security numbers for both. I had access to and would check the Social Security database eventually, but in my past experience this Kohl’s directory had served me well. This time was similar.
I set the parameters to search by last name and social, then I requested that it give me current address, phone number, and aliases. I typed the word “Martin” into the last name field, then I checked the notes I had scribbled during my phone call with Detective Samuels. The first was a Michael Martin so I poked his social security number in and hit the search button. In just moments it returned the message that it had not found anything. That did not mean that Michael Martin had never existed. What it meant was that it did not have any hit with a current address and phone number so it could mean he died fifty years ago, or it could also mean he simply had no listed phone number.
The second name Samuels had given me was a Sheila Martin. So once again I typed in “Martin” for last name and put in the expected social security number. When I hit the search button it took a few seconds longer and it returned everything I needed.
Sheila Martin had several aliases which probably simply meant that she had been married a few times. It listed a current address in Durant, Oklahoma which was just across the Red River and about an hour and a half away by car. There was a phone number listed so I dialed it.
The conversation itself took about twenty minutes. It probably could have been done in three minutes but Sheila was one of those people who actually enjoy talking on the phone and was quite pleased she had someone to talk to so she just wouldn’t let me off the phone.
She was, in fact, Lola’s older sister. She had even worked at the antique store. It had been called “Lola’s Attic” when her parents had bought the store and since Lola had not yet been born they had named her to inherit the place. I vaguely remembered Lola telling me that she was the original owner’s grand daughter. That did not mean that Sheila Martin was lying, it probably just meant that Lola had invented a story for prospective customers.
Sheila and Lola had some falling out about thirty years ago but Sheila could not remember what it was about. Her younger brother Michael had been one of the first of the troops shipped off to Viet Nam in the early sixties and returned in a wooden box. Sheila had moved to Durant because her third husband owned a small hardware and paint store there. He too was now gone and she was living from month to month on a small social security pittance. She, of course, was sorry to hear that Lola had been killed, but was quite thrilled to find there was a little money coming her way. She took the information about the funeral and promised to be there tomorrow when we lowered Lola into the ground.
There it was. I was done with my job. It would take some time to type up the proper reports, and the city of Dallas would pick up my medical bills and cut me a check for my services that would near three thousand, but I had been hired to find Lola’s next of kin, and I had now completed the task.
Never mind that my life was now in total disarray. No matter that I had a new love that I had just falsely accused of a crime. No matter that my partner’s car had been damaged. No matter that my body hurt from head to toe. No matter that I had turned a million dollars worth of heroine over to the cops and that had not yet been fully explained. No matter that Jill and I were still in quite a bit of danger from whomever owned the drugs. No matter that a killer was still out there. No matter that I would host a funeral in just a few hours.
I was not in a good mood, and certainly not ready to spend hours at a keyboard typing up a report for my client. I called Eric Samuels and gave him Sheila Martin’s contact information.
I turned all the jets on in the hot tub and climbed in. I told Jill to turn the radio onto a station I listen to all the time that plays mostly sixties and seventies rock and roll. I spent the rest of the day letting the swirling warm water work on my wounds.