Bad Memory_A Jake Abraham Mystery Novella by Jim Cliff

Author:Jim Cliff [Cliff, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Private Investigators
Publisher: Antbear Books
Published: 2017-05-01T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Lucy Hopper lived in a single story house in Oak Lawn, a half hour from the city. From her voice on the phone, I was expecting a friendly schoolmarm with a little gray in her hair, so I was a bit taken aback when the door was answered by a woman who looked like she babysat Lincoln when he was a kid.

She was about five feet tall and stood hunched over a walking frame with a crocheted purple shawl over her shoulders. I seriously doubted she would be able to find any evidence Grady had ever visited the networking group, but I was here now, so I figured I might as well go through the motions. Perhaps if she was OK with me taking the paperwork away with me for a few days I could find something.

”Now, dear,” she said, her voice completely free of the fragility of her body. “You wanted to know about guests we had in the early nineties, correct?”

”One specific guest, actually. I know it’s a long shot, but if you still have the records...”

”Nonsense. Of course I still have them. If he ever visited us, we’ll find him. Come on through.”

I followed Lucy into her living room, which looked uncannily like my grandmother’s. Floral patterns were everywhere. She had wall-to-wall carpeting, velvety curtains and two couches with lacy covers on the arms. I started heading for one of the couches but she carried on through the room, down a small hall, and into a room I assume had once been a bedroom.

”This is where I do my work,” she said as she opened the door. It wasn’t what I was expecting. The room contained a huge glass and chrome desk which held two large PC monitors apparently connected to a glowing tower under the desk, and a huge iMac screen. Next to the desk was a rack of shelving containing tablets of various sizes and makes, topped off with a stack of three or four laptops.

“What work do you do?” I asked.

“I design apps.”

“For smartphones?”

“Sometimes. Also iPad, Android tablets, whatever my clients need. Now, the files you’re looking for are on one of these,” she said, holding up an old 3.5-inch floppy disk – the one that looks like a save button. “These babies weren’t designed to last twenty years, and when I tried to read it I had a few access problems, but I’ve been running some data retrieval software I designed, and I think it’s got most of it.”

“Wow. I don’t know why, but I kind of expected your records to be on paper.”

“Oh no, I was using Lotus 123 right from the start. Of course, I don’t have Lotus anymore, but you can still open the files in OpenOffice. Let’s take a look. What was the name?”

“Grady Caldwell.”

Lucy opened up a spreadsheet in OpenOffice and hit Ctrl-F to bring up the find menu. She typed Grady’s name and hit enter.

“One result. August 16, 1993. Told you I’d find him.”

“That’s amazing, Lucy. Thank you.

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