Damaged Goods

Chapter Thirty-One

I was tired of thinking, tired of dealing with the fallout from a case I was no longer hired to handle. It wore me out just sitting in front of my computer. With my eyes closed, my thoughts began to drift.

What I really needed to do was relax. One thing I'd learned since returning home from the war was that I needed to tune out every now and then. Taking a meditation class had helped a little bit with that, but unfortunately, I didn't use what I had learned as often as I should. But every once in a while, I'd give it a try . . . and this seemed like the perfect time.

I closed my eyes and sat upright—not ramrod straight, as if at attention, but comfortably upright, as if my head were a balloon attached to a string. I tried to be aware of any tension, noting each body part and relaxing it. Face, eyelids, jaw, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, then downward.

After fully relaxing, I took a few deep breaths, mentally unfocused and, with the aid of a mantra, let go of conscious thoughts, or tried to. Even now, it seems a bit unnatural for me to focus on not focusing. I decided to chalk that up to my lack of regular practice.

Thing was, each attempt at meditation seemed to make the next try easier. This should've encouraged me to treat it as I would treat brushing my teeth—make it a habit. But some impatient inner demon insisted on spending time doing other things. And what little patience I had started with was wrung out of me by the time my last tour in Afghanistan ended. I thought about this and then tried not to think—to let those thoughts go and allow the mantra to take over.

Time passed. Maybe 15 minutes. That was about as much non-thought as my mind could handle. When I reopened my eyes, the world seemed like a better place. I was ready to return to the problems at hand—and maybe even solve them. Without any effort, one notion for a solution clicked into place.

Maybe I hadn't gotten the license plate entirely wrong. Perhaps I was off by a letter or number. I could go through countless iterations, but it might be wise to try a few of the obvious ones.

I checked the plate number. There was one letter that could have been a "C" or a "G." I thought it was the former, so I tried running the plate number again with the substitution. No luck.

The numbers weren't ambiguous. A "7" wouldn't be confused for a "4", for instance. I focused on the letters instead. Maybe the "O" was actually a "Q". I tried again. Nothing.

The third letter was one I doubted would be confused for another. I figured I'd try substituting both of the other two and see where it got me.

To my surprise, I got a hit. However, a look at the details revealed the car to be a Porsche owned by a 63-year-old woman who lived in a toney section of Baltimore.

In other words, I may have hit the lucky number, but the plate was probably stolen.

I figured, "Okay. It's not the end of the world." Knowing that the license plate may have been stolen was informative too.

I didn't figure the Russian mob operated this way. It was much more likely that my unwanted companions were the kind of lowlifes who might have screwed around with Terry.

That reminded me about the photo. I got up and retrieved it from the coffee table. The man pictured resembled Terry, but was it him? And what about the apparent bruises and blood? A closer look was in order.

From a junk drawer in my kitchen, I dug out a magnifying glass. An old-fashioned, round magnifying glass, stuck on the end of a short, black handle. Standard issue private eye gear for Sherlocks of any era.

I studied the photo through the magnifier and looked for obvious signs of retouching and Photoshopped effects. While I can't claim expertise in spotting faked photos, there was something a bit off about the look of this one. The bruises were a bit too monochromatic. The skin around them too smooth.

Or maybe that was just false hope talking to me.

I was still scrutinizing the picture when I heard knocking at my door again. I placed the photo and magnifier down as gently as possible, padded toward the door, and peered through the peephole. A man I didn't recognize stood on the other side. He wore a dark suit, tie, and white shirt. He didn't carry a clipboard, so he wasn't here to sell magazines or proselytize for any religion. Apparently.

After a moment, he knocked again. I moved toward my bedroom and called, "Hang on."

Not wanting to keep my visitor waiting, I ducked into the bedroom and found my Sig P320 handgun. I keep a gun for emergencies only. It seemed like my life was becoming one long emergency. I tucked the gun into the back of my waistband, hoping I wouldn't need to use it.