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hardnose and I can promise him I won’t step on any official toes.”
    She gave me one of her Tamara the No-Nonsense Businesswoman looks. “You wouldn’t be thinking of a pro bono investigation, would you? Assuming you get the go-ahead.”
    â€œNo. We’ll charge Mrs. Fentress expenses and a nominal fee if nothing comes of it. Full agency rates if I turn up answers for her.”
    â€œWhich you probably won’t.”
    â€œWhich I probably won’t, but I’ll give it my best shot.”
    â€œYou always do.”
    â€œCorrection: we always do. I’m going to need some Internet help from you.”
    â€œUh-huh. Tamara the techno slave,” she said, and pooched up her face and rolled her eyes in that way she had. Whenever she did it, I was oddly reminded of Hattie McDaniel in the actress’ pre– Gone with the Wind days. As round and plump and dark as Tamara was, she even looked a little like Hattie McDaniel when she did the face-pooching, eye-rolling thing. Not that I’d ever said as much to her. If I had, she would probably and with some justification have accused me of racial stereotyping and brained me with her computer keyboard.
    I put in a call to Lieutenant Heidegger in Santa Rosa, or tried to; he wasn’t available. I left my name and both office and cell numbers and asked for a callback at his earliest convenience. It being Friday afternoon, I didn’t expect to hear from him until Monday, but he surprised me. The return call came in less than half an hour. I was still at my desk; going straight home would have meant finishing up the plumbing job and dealing with more household chores. So I’d decided to stick around and do some paperwork on an employee background check for one of the new dot-com companies that had infested the city— infested being an apt term because the proliferation had driven real estate prices to exorbitant levels and caused a lot of small businesses and private residents to sell out and move elsewhere.
    Heidegger had no objections to what Mrs. Fentress wanted me to do. He’d have to check with his superiors, he said, but as far as he was concerned I could go ahead as long as I stayed within the established boundaries and immediately turned over to him anything pertinent I might happen to find out. Then he said, “Frankly, I think it’s a waste of time. Pretty clear-cut that Fentress went to see Mears to buy or steal weed and the two of them ended up blowing each other away. I just don’t see any other explanation.”
    â€œSo the case will probably end in the closed file.”
    â€œLooks that way. You sure you want to work for the widow? She’s bound to wind up disappointed.”
    â€œI know it. But she practically begged me and I never could say no to a bereaved party.”
    â€œWell, it’s your time and her money. Good luck.”
    â€œThanks. I’ll need it.”
    I went into Tamara’s office, waited until she finished what she was working on and looked up from her Mac before I spoke. “Looks like it’s a go. Can you squeeze in a few searches for me?”
    â€œGrumbling all the while,” she said, and softened the words with one of her quirky smiles. “Fentress, Mears. Who else?”
    â€œFentress’ friends and former employer. Short list of three.”
    â€œNames?”
    â€œWhat, you mean you didn’t write them down while you were eavesdropping?”
    â€œHa-ha.”
    â€œJoseph Buckner, bartender at the Bighorn Tavern in the Excelsior,” I said after consulting my notes. “Peter Retzyck, R-e-t-z-y-c-k, works in a sporting goods store in the same neighborhood. As far as Mrs. Fentress knows, those are the only two her husband had any contact with since he got out of Mule Creek. The former employer is Philip Kennedy, owner of Kennedy Landscape Designs in Millbrae. Fentress had been on the job there seven years when he was