P Is for Peril

certainly couldn't practice medicine, which is how he'd earned a living for the past forty years.
    Of course, if he'd cooked up a false identity, he could do as he pleased as long as his story was plausible and his bona fides checked out. If this were the case, finding him would be next to impossible after only nine weeks. There simply hadn't been enough time for his name to surface in the records. My only hope was to plod my way systematically from friend to friend, colleague to associate, current wife to ex, daughter to daughter, in hopes of a lead. All I needed was one tiny snag in the fabric of his life, one loop or tear that I might use to unravel his current whereabouts. I decided to focus on the areas over which I had control.
    Sunday went by in a blur. I gave myself the day off and spent the time puttering around my apartment, taking care of minor chores.
    Monday morning, I got up as usual, pulled on my sweats and my Sauconys, and did a three-mile jog. The cloud cover was dense and the surf was a muddy brown. The rain had eased, but the sidewalks were still wet, and I splashed through shallow puddles as I ran the mile and a half to the bathhouse where I did the turnaround. The earthworms had emerged and lay strewn across the sidewalk like lengths of gray string from an old floor mop. The path was also littered with snails traversing the walk with all the optimism of the innocent. I had to watch where I stepped to keep from crushing them.
    Back at my place, I picked up my gym bag and headed over to the gym. I parked my car in the only space available, tucked between a pickup truck and a late-model van. Even from the parking lot, I could hear the clank of machines, the grunts of a power lifter straining with a dead lift. Inside, the rock-and-roll music coming in through the speakers competed with a morning news show airing on the ceiling-mounted TV set. Two women on the stair machines climbed patiently while a third woman and two men trotted smartly on treadmills set at double speed. All five sets of eyes were focused on the screen.
    I signed in, idly asking Keith, at the desk, if he knew Clint Augustine. Keith's in his twenties, with a busy brown mustache and a gleaming shaven head.
    He said, "Sure, I know Clint. You've probably seen him in here. Big guy, white-blond hair. He usually works out at five o'clock when the place first opens up. Sometimes he comes in later with his clients, mostly married chicks. They're a specialty of his." Keith's intermittent use of steroids caused him to swell and shrink according to his consumption. He was currently in shrunken form, which I personally preferred. He was one of those guys with a great chest and biceps, but very little in the way of lower-body development. Maybe he figured because he stood behind a counter, he didn't need to buff out anything below his waist.
    "I heard he's been working with Crystal Purcell."
    "He did for a while. They'd come in late afternoon, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Isn't she the wife of the guy who disappeared a while back? Man, that's a tough one. Something skanky going on there."
    "Could be," I said. "Anyway, I gotta get a move on. Thanks for the info."
    "Sure thing."
    I pulled on my workout gloves and found a quiet spot. I stretched out on a gray mat and started with my ab routine, two sets of fifty sit-ups, hands behind my head, my bent legs resting on a free-weight bench. I could smell glue fumes wafting through the asphalt-gray carpeting. The Nautilus and Universal machines looked like elaborate constructions built from a full-size Erector set: metal verticals, bolts, pulleys, angled joints. Once I finished my sit-ups, I started with leg curls, the exercise I most despise. While I counted fifteen reps, I pictured my hamstrings popping loose and rolling up like window shades. I moved on to leg extensions, which burned like hell, but at least didn't threaten any crippling side effects. Back, chest, and shoulders. I finished my workout with preacher curls and dumbbell curls. I saved the best machine for last: triceps extensions, always a favorite of mine. I left the gym damp with perspiration.
    Home again, I showered, pulled on a turtleneck, jeans, and my boots, grabbed a bite of breakfast, and packed myself a brown-bag lunch. I reached the office at nine o'clock and put a call through to the police department, where Detective Odessa assured me he'd do yet another computer check to see if there was any sign of Dow Purcell. He'd