Chapter 9 - Looking for clues

It was a quarter past three when I pulled my VW into the DMV’s parking lot. I had a few hours to spare before meeting Lukas at six, and I wanted to find anything I could about the licence plate Dan had provided.

I was curious if it would belong to the Harrington and Leigh Corporation. Umbridge mentioned people would find and kill him, but he never specified who, so I wondered if he meant them. It couldn’t be a simple coincidence.

Once my car was parked, I strolled inside the DMV and tried to spot Doris. She was the oldest person working here. Although she was past her retirement date by maybe twenty years, she refused to stop working and clung to this job like a safety buoy.

Doris was convinced she’d get sick and die if she stopped working. Many of her friends had died soon after their retirement, so she stuck to her job, hoping death would ignore her. After all, what was the meaning of life when you worked all your adult life for your retirement when very few retirees had the chance to live it without sickness or diseases?

When I spotted the old lady, she was helping some poor soul out at the far-end counter. She visibly annoyed the man, and I sat on a waiting bench to watch the show. I wondered what it was today: hard of hearing or the start of dementia? She found pleasure in torturing unpleasant clients. Doris would have made a fine actress should she have gone down that path.

“Listen, lady. I just want to pay for my licence. Here’s the paper with the amount, and here’s the cash. Now, for the millionth time, hurry up. I ain’t got all day!” The man threw the papers in Doris’s face. She didn’t even blink and slowly moved to gather everything up.

She had a distant look in her glassy eyes, and she even had a slight tremble to her lip.

Oh, she was good.

Doris continued her slow movements and eventually gathered everything the man had thrown. She started counting the money painfully slowly. She was using the speed of a sloth. Boy, what did that man do to Doris for her to give him the turtle, not the hare?

“I’ll also need to inspect your vehicle’s registration. Please give me your certificate.” Doris slowly extended her arm and opened her hand.

I could almost see the man’s face become instantly red. I wondered if I could crack an egg over his bald spot and cook it. I laughed, and Doris saw me waiting for her.

“That’s it. Where’s your supervisor? I don’t want your service anymore, and I’m making a complaint. They shouldn’t keep paying dusty, slow and almost senile dinosaurs to serve clients.”

I noticed Doris push a button under her desk, and soon enough, a nice-looking man came over and took the unhappy customer away. After the scene this caused, no one came in line at her counter for fear of having the same awful service, so I gingerly got up and leaned on the counter’s frame.

“What’d he say to make you this mad?” It must have been pretty bad for her to upset the client.

Doris raised her eyebrow at my question and pressed her red lips together.

“He said I smelled funny.”

“All this dramatic slowness just for that? Come on, it’s not that bad, and I love how you smell. You smell like a grandmother I’d spend my day snuggling up to. What really happened?”

Doris smiled and placed a strand of her red-turned-orange dyed hair that had fallen from its hold. She then repositioned her leopard print blouse and smoothed the front.

“You see right through me, Max,” Doris sighed. “I lost fifteen hundred yesterday. I was one number away from calling Bingo, and that old crone Cecile Newport called it first. She ruined Bingo night….”

I smirked at the old gal. “All this just for that?”

“Yep. And I’d gladly do it again. This just ain’t my day,” Doris huffed but brightened her mood when she looked me in the eye. “Got anything good for me today? Anything to change my mind?”

I smiled at her and fished the small paper from my jeans pocket, dangling it before her. Doris quickly plucked it from my hand and looked at the licence plate number. She typed in the information and searched it in her computer files.

“It’s a company plate, but it’s registered to Wilfrid A. Ventura as the owner.”

I frowned.

“Which company is it for?”

I heard Doris’s press-on ruby-red nails hit the keyboard with ease. She wasn’t even looking at what she was typing. Doris was fast and efficient when you didn’t insult her.

“It’s called V Enterprises. From what I can see on the internet, it’s a child company that falls under the Harrington and Leigh Corporation.”

“So Harrington and Leigh is the parent company?”

“It would seem so. Why the interest in that plate number?” She asked, peering from under her bright red, fifties-styled, far-sighted spectacles.

I groaned when Doris confirmed my suspicions. On the day they bailed Michael Umbridge out of prison, someone who worked for the company he was running away from picked him up. Also, the SUV was similar to the ones that intercepted us when I caught the guy. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Now the question was, what happened between when he was bailed and died?

“It’s for a case I’m looking into. Thanks for the help, Doris! Always a pleasure working with you. I hope they won’t fire you over what happened with the gentleman before me.”

Doris clicked her tongue on her perfectly bright-white dentures and laughed.

“They’ve tried many times, my dear. And they can keep trying. I ain’t ready to stop working just yet. Besides, I look good for their quotas. They get a bonus for hiring an old lady like myself, and they don’t have to fully pay me because of it. The government bonus covers half my salary.” Doris smirked gleefully.

I returned the smile and thanked her once more before taking my leave. I had much to think about.

Sitting inside my Beetle, I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. As far as I knew, Umbridge’s last known conversation had been with whoever was in that SUV, with someone from the Harrington and Leigh Corporation. I’d need to get more information on Umbridge’s case. Maybe sniff out his house or check the morgue for the official cause of death. I refused to believe that he had committed suicide. Not with everything I was discovering.

I decided to go to his house first, but that would need to wait until the following day. I’d have to go to Moe’s and retrieve Umbridge’s file to get his house address. Since it was too obvious, I hadn’t gone to his house when I started working on his case. I preferred to go to the café listed as his go-to place. Michael Umbridge had been quiet for about a month until he felt comfortable returning to his usual habits, and that’s when I grabbed him.

I looked at the clock in the car and shifted in reverse. I needed to get home and change. It was close to six, and Lukas had asked me to meet him at Sal’s. For what? I hadn’t the slightest God-damn idea, which scared me to death.

What that man made me feel was not natural. I should be running for the hills. But there I was, remembering the taste of his kiss and the smell of his aftershave as his firm hands slipped down my ass and pulled me up.

I groaned at the memory, and it surprised me it wasn’t from shame but need. I wanted more….

“I’m so fucked…” I whispered to myself and cursed.

I refused to give Lukas any satisfaction, so when I got home, I dressed in my gym clothes and returned downstairs to stretch. I would ensure I wasn’t dressed for anything but fighting, and Lord knows I desperately needed a good brawl to change my mind. Everything that was happening clouded it.

I did my usual run and beat my record. I arrived at Sal’s with minutes to spare until six, and when I didn’t spot Lukas, I went inside the gym.

Sal was coaching a young man when he noticed me. He threw a towel over his shoulder and marched up to me, a furrow forming on his wrinkled forehead.

“What happened to you last night? One moment you were here, and the next thing I knew, someone said they saw you leave.”

I waved a hand in the air to shake off his question.

“It’s fine. I remembered I had to do something, so I quickly left. Why? Did you need me for something?”

He looked at me for a time, then passed his hand over his face.

“It’s nothing. You’re the only girl who comes here, and I’ve grown fond of you—like a grandfather. I was just worried that the newcomer had upset you.”

“Ha! It would take more than a freakishly handsome man to upset me.” I laughed at Sal and lightly punched his arm.

“I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment,” a gravelly voice sounded on my back. My underwear was instantly wet, and I clenched my teeth together as shivers danced over my skin.

When I turned around, Lukas had his hands in his front pockets, and I noticed his nostrils flare. He looked me up and down, and I could have sworn his eyes became darker as they drank me up.

Swarms of butterflies filled my stomach, and I almost wanted to pull him inside Sal’s office and finish what we had started the night before. But I didn’t act on it. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. This man made me lose control over my common sense, which worried me. I’d have to do the next best thing. If I couldn’t fuck him, I’d fight him, and maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to fight my attraction to him with it.

“Ready for round two?” I grinned in Lukas’s direction and secured my hand wrappings.