Page 38 of Long Gone

After he hung up, I headed into the courthouse. I had less than an hour to get the information I needed before it was time to meet him.

The property department was on the first floor, and when I walked into the waiting area, I could see two women sitting behind the counter. An older woman with white hair who looked like she would have been eligible for retirement two decades ago sat at a desk stacked with papers, and a younger woman, probably in her early twenties, was walking out of a back room.

“Hi,” I said as I approached the counter. I knew the properties wouldn’t be in Hugo’s name, so I made sure to use his corporation’s name. “I’d like to see what you have on land owned by Burton Management and also Larkspur Limited. And any plot maps you might have as well as the history of the properties.”

The younger woman wrote the names on a piece of paper, but the older woman’s eyes narrowed. “Why’re you askin’ about Burton Management?”

“I’m researching one of the partners.” Sure, Hugo had been the sole owner, but they didn’t need to know that.

“Hugo Burton?” she asked.

So much for that.

The fact she could put all that together so quickly caught me off guard. “Yes. I know he had two properties at the time of his disappearance, so I’d like to see what you have on those as well as anything else he might have owned.”

“We don’t just give that out to anyone,” she snapped.

“Actually, I think you’re required to,” I said. “Freedom of Information Act.”

The older woman pursed her lips tightly, then approached the counter. “You’ll have to fill out a request. We have ten to fourteen days to perform a search.”

“Ten to fourteen days?” I asked, trying to hide my dismay.

“That’s the best I can do.” She shoved a form in front of me. “Fill that out, and I’ll need to see some ID.”

I pulled my driver’s license out of my wallet and handed it to her. She looked it up and down with suspicion, then glanced up at me with a frown. “I need to make a copy.”

“Of course,” I said with a smile that took a ton of effort to form.

When the older woman disappeared into the back, the younger one gave me a sympathetic look. “Sorry about Lucinda. She’s retiring next week and she’s pretty cranky about it. They’re kind of forcing her out and…well…”

I guess I had the retirement part right.

I started filling out the form, and the young woman kept chatting.

“Lucinda hates when people request records like yours. She says she’d rather have a root canal.”

Looking up records was her job, but I refrained from saying so, because the younger woman was talking, and I wanted to keep her talking.

“Plus,” she continued, lowering her voice. Lucinda was in the back of the room, standing in front of a copy machine. “She’s probably not happy that two people have requested the same thing within such a short period of time.”

My brows shot up. “Someone else has been asking about Burton Management and Larkspur Limited?”

At the same time, it made sense. They hadn’t asked me for clarification because they’d heard the request before.

“Oh yeah, a man came in late yesterday afternoon asking about High Tower.”

“Not Larkspur Limited?”

She made a face. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Do you remember what the man looked like?”

“I don’t know,” she said, making a face. “I was in the back, and I only heard him asking about it. Lucinda wasn’t very happy about him asking either.”

“Did you happen to hear his name?”

“No. Sorry.”

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