Old Poison Read Free Page B

possible, I
guess.”
    “So you think I should drop it and return
the retainer?”
    He thought a minute. “Not at this point. You
know how to evaluate his requests for information. If they stop
sounding like science fiction and start sounding like Leavenworth,
get out. I think you can handle this, Diana.”
    At that moment the waiter walked up with two
plates of steaming lobster. “Besides,” he added, “you’re going to
need that retainer to pay for my dinner.”

    * * * * *

FOUR

    I was up at five a.m. and by six was settled
in on a discreet surveillance near Carpenter’s house. My second
rule of process service is: Never let them see you coming .
No matter how many lead-footed, inept servers have tipped them off,
I can still surprise them if I handle it right. A corollary to this
rule is my sexist rule of thumb: Never hire a man for the
job . Most of the men in this business are too puffed up with
macho images of themselves to use stealth. They have to pound on
the doors, kick the trash cans, and announce, “I am a PI!” It’s the
Sam Spade syndrome.
    My subject left his home about eight,
driving a Toyota pickup with a plate that matched his vehicle
ownership records. His physical description matched the one on his
driver’s license and I was ninety-nine percent certain that this
was Carpenter. However, as all young PIs and police officers are
taught, never assume . Once I found a guy living in the
subject’s house and matching his description, but he turned out to
be the wife’s live-in boy friend.
    I followed Carpenter to work and watched as
he parked the Toyota. His work place also matched my research, but
I didn’t try to jump out and run him down. Rule number three: Never chase after the subject . Breaking this rule not only
caused one of my few failures, but also a broken high-heel, a
sprained ankle, and the loss of a client. I watched Carpenter walk
into the building, then drove back to Bluff Beach.
    It was time to do some research on Red 19.
My first job out of college was as a librarian, and I carry a
reverence for the wonderful resources of the reference desk. Not in
my wildest imagination, however, did I ever envision the amazing,
living, breathing, growing leviathan of information that would be
born on the Internet. With information being loaded from all over
the world and growing exponentially, it seems that any subject you
search for can be found. Everything, that is, except for Red 19.
Try as I might, I found no fuel or fuel byproduct that begins as a
viscous red liquid and transforms into a gas when it hits the
atmosphere.
    However, I did learn a great deal about the
R and D of alternative fuels and identified a couple California
firms working in this field. I gave them each a call, but I never
made it past the PR desk in either firm. The responses I got made
it abundantly clear that my inquiries were considered suspect. Next
I tried three chemistry professors to see if anything in basic
science could behave like Red 19. No luck.
    Next I tried Mike Shelley, a friend of mine
who works as a tech writer at Space Delivery Systems, Inc. SDS,
Inc., is a well-funded, low-profile, private company working on
exploration and colonization of the planet Mars. This is not a
governmental operation nor a bunch of science fiction dreamers, but
a private corporation that is dead serious about showing a profit,
someday. I knew that among other subjects, Mike was well read on
the development of fuels for space flight. He wasn’t in, so I sent
him an email and asked him to check on my mystery fuel.
    Finally I called the Wedgeworth Clear Sky
Foundation. I am not usually shy about asking questions, but then I
normally feel comfortable with my reason for asking them. By the
time I dialed Wedgeworth, I was beginning to feel both foolish and
frustrated.
    Steven W. Wedgeworth had been one of the
first chemists to accept and verify the work of Nobel Prize winners
Rowland and Molina. Their research had determined