Free Bodily Harm by Robert Dugoni Page A

working around here? You just said it, people don’t care. Nobody cares.”
    “I care.”
    Seeley’s eyes widened. “Well, whatever you’re going to do, you better do it fast because Payne just walked around the corner in this direction and he’s bringing a security guard with him.”
    LEWIS COUNTY COURTHOUSE
CHEHALIS, WASHINGTON
    PERPLEXED, SLOANE DOUBLE-CHECKED the spelling with the article clipped in Kyle Horgan’s file and retyped the name, but the computer again indicated no match.
    He approached the clerk’s window of the Lewis County Courthouse, located about twenty minutes from Mossylog. Amiddle-aged woman with reading glasses dangling from a colorful beaded chain around her neck sat behind the glass.
    “I was wondering if you might be able to help me. I’m a bit of a computer dinosaur,” Sloane said.
    “I’m with you,” the woman replied, smiling up at him. “But I can try.”
    “I’m looking for the name of the attorney who represented a young boy who recently died in Mossylog.”
    “Mateo Gallegos,” the woman said without hesitation. “It was in the papers. He got an infection from a rusted nail. It was so sad. Cute little guy.”
    “A rusted nail?”
    “That’s what I heard. The family didn’t have insurance, so they waited to bring him to the hospital, and by that time it was too late. We get that here with the migrant workers.”
    The information puzzled Sloane further. “So do you know if there was a lawsuit?”
    “I don’t think so,” she said, “but I heard that Dayron Moore was their attorney.”
    Sloane retrieved a pen attached to a chain glued to the counter and wrote down the name. “Darren?”
    “Day-ron.” She wrote the name on a slip of paper despite three-inch-long red nails adorned with stars and moons and handed it to him. “Day-ron.”
    “Interesting name.”
    “Wait until you meet him.”
    “You know him?”
    “Everyone knows Dayron around here. He’s here so often he could do my job.”
    “He files a lot of lawsuits?”
    “He files his share.”
    Which made it even more perplexing that Moore hadapparently not filed a lawsuit in this particular instance. “Does he handle a lot of personal injury cases?”
    “Dayron does anything that walks in the door, has a heartbeat, and can pay fifteen hundred dollars up front.”
    Sloane pointed to the computer terminals. “So I gather that if I type in his name it will bring up a list of his cases?”
    The clerk smiled back at him. “Sure. But be prepared to sit there for a while.”
    HALF AN HOUR after leaving the courthouse, Sloane got out of his car and walked the block but could not find the address on State Street in Mossylog. He stepped into Smokey’s House of Billiards on the corner to ask for help. The man behind the bar pointed to a small sign on the wall at the back of the building that said LAW OFFICE . A bent arrow directed anyone interested up a narrow staircase. Dayron Moore likely didn’t get many walk-ins.
    As the clerk had warned, Sloane’s search using the attorney’s name pulled up a long list. Scrolling through the cases, Sloane had quickly deduced that most of Moore’s clients had Hispanic surnames. Clicking on a few of those particular cases he found a paucity of pleadings after the initial complaint. That meant Moore routinely settled, and quickly, which gave Sloane a pretty good idea about Dayron Moore the lawyer.
    At the top of the stairs Sloane stepped into an office and instinctively ducked. He estimated the rectangular tiles and fluorescent lighting to be about a foot lower than a standard eight-foot ceiling, though it felt just inches from the top of Sloane’s head and made the man who stood from his seat behind a laminated wood desk look even more peculiar. Perhaps five six and dressed in a light blue, short-sleeved polo shirt and black slacks that bunchedat his shoes despite being hitched well above his waist, Dayron Moore was as round as a Kewpie doll.
    “Can I help you?”