Free Loyalty by Ingrid Thoft Page A

building numbers weren’t sequential, but after a few minutes of searching, Fina found herself in the parking lot farthest from the road in front of a building with the number matching Zyxco.
    This building was two stories and seemed to have five separate entrances. A machine shop anchored one end of the complex, with large garage doors open to a two-story bay full of machinery and sweaty men. An outside area demarcated by a chain-link fence was crammed with an assortment of machines and parts.
    Fina pulled her car into a space so she was facing the entrance. Her cell earpiece provided a good cover if anyone wondered why she was hanging around, and she pulled a map out of the glove compartment to complete the look. Fina scanned the numbers painted on the awnings. There was no sign for Zyxco under the awning matching the number; instead, the door with the correct number said MODE ACCESSORIES in black letters.
    Fina trained her gaze on that door and sat and waited. Most people didn’t realize that the average private investigator spends an inordinate amount of time sitting around, watching and waiting. You couldn’t read or do a crossword or even talk on the phone when you were on surveillance. You had to focus on the absence of action and hope that something would relieve the boredom. Fina didn’t plan to sit there all day, but she wanted to gather a little more information before she made a move.
    The sum total of her two-hour surveillance: The machine shop was loud, and she needed to pee like a racehorse.

    Fina had two accountants in her life: one handled her money, and the other, Hal Boyd, investigated other people’s money on her behalf. On the drive back into the city, Fina called Hal and asked him to dig up everything he could on Zyxco and Mode Accessories. In addition to being a top-notch researcher highly adept at ferreting out obscure data in the public domain, Hal also favored a loose interpretation of the law. So really, every domain was Hal’s domain.
    After hanging up with Hal, Fina made a new round of phone calls to Risa and other friends of Melanie, but no one had heard a word from her. She dialed another number and waited for an answer.
    “Menendez.”
    “How about I buy you a drink?” Fina asked.
    “It’s a little early, don’t you think?”
    “Well, I need to talk to you so I was trying to sweeten the deal.”
    “There are better ways to sweeten the deal.”
    “I agree, but I’m a little preoccupied right now. How about a rain check on that, and I’ll buy you a beer in the meantime.”
    “I’ll take the rain check and an ice-cream cone. Meet me at Scoops.”
    In the city, Fina wedged her car into a space on a side street near the Fenway and walked the few blocks to Scoops. Getting ice cream might seem like a distraction from the case, but those kinds of “distractions” were the bread and butter of any investigation. Fina had to court each person she met, and the courting took a variety of forms—a cup of coffee while admiring a clown statue collection, a nightcap in a hotel bar, a hand carrying in groceries. Expecting to get information without these interactions was like expecting to get lucky without buying a girl dinner. There were no guarantees either way, but shrimp cocktail and a steak increased the odds.
    The streets were cluttered with young people carrying musical instruments and boxes bursting at the seams. It was that magical time in Boston—moving-out day, the mass exodus of students from the urban campuses. Some adults were thrown into the mix, hustling in their khakis and golf shirts, capris and sweater sets. The men’s faces glistened with sweat as they hauled their kids’ stuff, and the women guarded the cars. The labor of having kids never really ended.
    Scoops was freezing inside; goose bumps rose on Fina’s bare arms. Cristian was second in line wearing an untucked shirt that fell over his gun.
    “What do you want?” he asked Fina when she stepped into line next