The Common Law by Gene Grossman

Author:Gene Grossman [Grossman, Gene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths
ISBN: 9781882629398
Google: 4D2FngEACAAJ
Amazon: 1882629396
Barnesnoble: 1882629396
Publisher: Magic Lamp Press
Published: 2008-03-15T05:00:00+00:00

Thursday morning Jack calls in. The van driver didn’t drive to the rental place to pick up a car today. He walked. From what Jack tells me, it’s impossible to tell where he walked from. He may have even taken a bus and got off down the street and then walked to the car rental place. This part of the assignment is going to be harder than Jack thought. He did succeed in getting some good photographs of the guy and we’ll be using Suzi’s facial recognition software to see if we can get a match with any headshot in California’s Department of Motor Vehicle’s drivers license database.

Several years ago California gave drivers an option. Your driver’s license could display either a photo or your thumbprint. Because my drivers license picture always comes out looking so terrible, one time I decided to opt for the thumbprint. Everything was going along fine until I got stopped for a traffic violation one afternoon. The motorcycle cop looked at my driver’s license and then asked me a question.

“Is this your license, Mister Sharp?”

In one of the stupidest acts of my career, I smugly held my thumb up to him and said. “Sure, don’t you recognize me?”

By that action I immediately failed the ‘attitude test’ and in order to avoid the moving violation from appearing on my driving record, I was forced to sit all day in a ‘traffic school,’ which is an alternative that California traffic violators are offered. You can only attend the school once every twelve months, and avoid having the ticket on your record.

Because insurance rates are so high, everyone wants to keep moving violations off their record, so the schools are doing a big business. They even have ‘comedy traffic schools,’ which is the kind that I chose to attend back then. It wasn’t the least bit funny. The only reason they call it that is because the teacher is an out-of-work stand-up comedian who isn’t funny at all… that’s why he’s out of work.

And on the subject of not being amused, Jack B. definitely isn’t We didn’t get any hit on the van driver’s photo and his address on the driver’s license given to the rental company is an empty lot in North Hollywood. When Jack points this fact out to the car and van rental places they don’t seem to care, responding that this customer always pays cash, leaves a nice big deposit and buys the highest amount of insurance available. Also, there’s always the possibility that the place he was living in when he got his drivers license was recently demolished for new construction. The rented vehicles are always returned promptly with full gas tanks, and all they care about is their bottom line. Another dead end. People believe whatever they find convenient to believe.

Jack spends each successive Thursday morning watching a different street for the driver to appear from at the rental cal place, but the route varies and Jack can’t find out where the guy comes from.

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