“How much time you got?” Faz laughed. “You weren’t doing anything illegal, were you, Nik?”
Nikolic eyed Del with suspicion. “I just threw three perfectly good phones into the lake, and Marta was about to destroy my laptop.”
“You can afford it.”
Nikolic had once told Faz the police came banging on his door on a tip he’d helped a fugitive slip away. Anyone who knew Nikolic knew it to be a ruse. Nikolic refused to work with fugitives, members of organized crime, or people he suspected of stalking. Many of his clients were well known, and the information he possessed, sensitive. He made a healthy six-figure income, and the first number was not a one.
“I can afford a Ferrari too, but that doesn’t mean I want to drive it into the lake. What the hell do you want?”
“Need to talk to you about the woman we pulled from Puget Sound in a crab pot.”
“She wasn’t mine, if that’s what you want to know.”
“That’s where I was going to start. You heard anything about it?”
“Come on in. You got me out of bed; I haven’t even had my coffee yet and I can’t think without caffeine.” Nikolic looked again to Del. “Is this your bodyguard?”
“Partner. Del, meet Nik.”
Del offered a tentative hand, as if any movement would throw him off balance. Nikolic took it, then stepped back, leaving the door open.
“What’s wrong with him?” Nikolic asked.
“He’s not much of a water person,” Faz said.
The bottom floor of the house was Nikolic’s office, the upper floor his personal residence. At the end of a narrow, wood-paneled hallway, they entered a room with three desks, multiple computer terminals, printers, and assorted clutter. Filing cabinets lined the back wall. Above them hung a colored print of a man standing in the doorway of a lighthouse built on a rock that looked to be in the middle of an angry ocean, a massive wave bearing down on him. Below the lighthouse it said, “Want to get away?”
A light breeze blew through an open sliding-glass door, bringing the faint odor of diesel fuel and the sound of a boat engine and seagulls cawing. The paddles of a ceiling fan slowly rotated above a barefoot woman standing near the door, sucking on a cigarette and holding a mug of coffee with the word “Gotcha!” on it.
“Sorry to get you up so early, Marta,” Faz said.
Marta wore a tank top and shorts. “Good to see you’re still an asshole, Fazio,” Marta said.
“Some things never change,” Faz said.
“Where are your manners, Faz?” Marta nodded to Del like he was the special on the menu. “I assume this is your partner now that you’re a big homicide dick.”
“Del, meet Marta Nikolic. The Nikolics are two of Seattle’s most upstanding citizens.”
“How do you work with this guy?” she asked Del.
“It ain’t easy sometimes,” Del said.
“So what do a couple of big-shot homicide detectives want with a couple of law-abiding citizens such as us?” Marta asked.
Ian Nikolic poured himself a mug of coffee from the stained pot and filched a Camel from his wife’s pack. “Let’s sit on the deck.”
Del looked like he’d just been asked to jump out of an airplane without a parachute.
“Too hot to sit outside,” Faz said. “You know me. I don’t tan. I cook.”
Nikolic and Marta had begun their careers as skip tracers. Clients paid them thousands of dollars to find people who didn’t want to be found or to locate money others had wrongfully taken. They were so adept at finding people, even the police department had, on occasion, used their services, which was how Faz got to know them. In fact, they’d become so good at finding people they’d branched out to hiding people—women in abusive relationships, corporate whistleblowers who feared for their safety, and stool pigeons not interested in entering the Federal Witness Protection Program and spending the rest of their lives living in a Midwest suburb as some everyday Joe. For the most part, they kept their noses clean, but getting information often required ingenuity that bordered on illegal.
Nik spoke to Marta. “He wants to know if we’ve heard anything about the woman who died on Mount Rainier and showed up in a crab pot in Puget Sound.”
“Wondering if anyone was looking for her,” Faz said.
“Someone looking for a dead woman,” Nikolic said, nodding his head. “Not a bad place to start.” Nik and Marta blew smoke out of the corners of their mouths toward the open door. “If someone around here helped her, they’re keeping it quiet and I don’t blame them,” Nik said.
“Why’s that?” Del asked.
“It’s bad for business when your client gets found, worse if she gets killed,” Nikolic said. “Not only is your reputation ruined, you got the police and everybody else knocking down your door.”
“What about a husband looking to find his wife?” Faz turned to Del. “What was his name?”
“Graham,” Del said. “Graham Strickland.”
“You heard his name or rumors of a husband searching for his missing wife?” Faz asked.
“I haven’t, but I can ask around.”
“I’d appreciate it.”