J is for Judgement

Whiteside at the police department, asking him if I could have the telephone number of Lieutenant Harris Brown, who'd worked on the case when Wendell first disappeared. Jonah Robb had told me Brown had since retired, but he might have information. "Do you think he'd be willing to talk to me?" I asked.
    "I have no idea, but I'll tell you what," he said. "His telephone's unlisted, and I wouldn't want to give it to you unless I had his okay. When I can find a minute, I'll give him a call. If he's interested, I'll have him get in touch with you."
    "Great. That'd be fine. I'd appreciate the contact." I hung up the phone and made a note to myself. If I didn't hear in two days, I'd try calling back. I wasn't sure the man would be any help, but you never knew. Some of those old cops loved nothing better than to reminisce. He might have suggestions about places Wendell might be holing up. In the meantime, what? I went back to the Xerox machine and ran off several dozen copies of the flier with Wendell's photograph. I'd added my name and telephone number in a box at the bottom, indicating my interest in the man's whereabouts.
    I filled my gas tank and hit the road again, heading back to Perdido, I cruised past Dana's house, did a U-turn at the intersection, and Dulled into a parking place across the street. I began a door-to-door canvass, moving patiently from house to house. I worked my way down the block, leaving a flier in the screen door if there was no one home. On Dana's side of the street many couples apparently worked, because the houses were dark and there were no cars in the drive. When I found someone home, the conversations all seemed to share the same boring elements. "Hello," I would say, quickly trying to work in my message Before I could be mistaken for a salesperson. "I wonder if you might give me some help. I'm a private investigator, working to locate a man we think might be in the area. Have you seen him recently?" I would hold up the artist's composite of Wendell Jaffe, waiting without much hope while the person's gaze moved across his features.
    Much mental scratching of chins. "No, now I don't think so. No, ma' am. What was it the man did? I hope you re not telling me he's dangerous."
    "Actually, he's wanted for questioning in a fraud investigatIon.
    Hand cupped behind the ear. "What's that?"
    I would raise my voice. "Do you remember a couple of real estate developers a few years back? They had a company called CSL Investments and they put together syndicates -- "'
    "Oh, my Lord, yes. Well, of course I remember them. The one fellow killed himself and the other one went to jail."
    On and on it went, with no one contributing any fresh information.
    Across the street from Dana and about six doors down, I had better luck. I knocked on the door of a house identical to hers, same model, same exterior, dark gray with white trim. The man who answered was in his early sixties, wearing shorts, a flannel shirt, dark socks, and an incongruous pair of wingtips. His gray hair was all abristle, and he wore a pair of half-glasses at the mid-point on his septum, peering at me blue-eyed above the smudged surface of his lenses. A mask of white whiskers covered the lower part of his face, a possible refusal to shave more than twice a week. He was narrow through the shoulders, and his posture seemed stooped, a curious combination of elegance and defeat. Maybe the hard-soled shoes were a holdover from his former occupation. I was guessing salesman or a stock-broker, someone who spent his life in a three-piece suit.
    "What can I do for you?" he said, the question intended more for efficiency than any real assistance.
    "I wonder if you could help me. Are you acquainted with Mrs. Jaffe, from across the street?"
    "The one whose boy's been screwing up? We know the family," he said cautiously. "What's he done now? Or what hasn'r he done might be the better question in this case."
    "This is actually about his father."
    There was a silence. "I thought he was dead."
    "That's what everybody thought until recently. Now we have reason to believe he's alive and possibly returning to California. This is an updated likeness along with my business number. I'd appreciate a call if you should spot him in the area." I held the flier out, and he took it.
    "Well, I'll be damned. It's always something with that bunch," he said. I watched his gaze trace a triangle from the photograph of Wendell to Dana's house down the street and then back to my