Free Detective D. Case by Neal Goldy Page B

preferring to keep profiles low and do business where everyone
can see them and yet, at the same time, not caring as to what they’re doing. The
public is far too interested in more public people with scandals involving the rich
and the famous and people they love to hate to go peeping around looking for private
wealthy families. I doubt that they ever cared to go incognito.” He paused. “Wait,
not even incognito. The Davidson family never disguised themselves and preferred
to announce their presence where everybody could see them. Hiding in plain sight,
I guess.”
              “And
what has this got to do with me, Baritone?” Lincoln asked. “I apologize for interrupting
but I don’t have time to stay here and listen to you rambling about private families
whom no one cares about.”
              “I
think you should care a great deal,” said Baritone. “For one of their members is
missing.”
              “Why
are they wealthy, anyway? Exactly what did they do to make themselves private and
hidden from seemingly ‘public’ view? Or is it made up from the same family to make
people like you believe in this nonsense yourself to keep me busy?”
              “I
like the questioning and doubts you’re presenting to me, despite the fact that I
made myself specific about you not asking questions while I’m speaking.”
              “I
don’t understand.”
              “Neither
will you.” And with that Baritone chuckled; it sounding darker than the man intended
it to be. “Do you have a wife or children?”
              “No,
I don’t. I divorced a long time ago.”
              Baritone
thought about this response. “And how did you feel?”
              “I
remember being very depressed. But why do you care about what I felt in the past?”
              “I’m
saying this because the Davidsons were very depressed, too, when they lost the only
boy in the family. He wasn’t very young, but he wasn’t too old, either. When he
disappeared I remember the Davidsons thinking he had died and made a small funeral
for him. Unlike other wealthy families where press and media come scouring over
to the scene like superheroes who never save, just gossip, nobody gave a second
look. They went on doing what they did every day, and nothing different. However,
the police had been searching for the boy ever since, you know.”
              The
police . . . this was sounding familiar.
              Before
he asked, Baritone went on. “Six or five years, around that, since the police took
the case into their hands. You’d think they – the Davidsons I mean – would’ve hired
a private investigator to look at the disappearance, but they handed it off to the
police. And with that in mind, you’d even think again that something like a missing
person case like this would’ve been solved in less than six months. But nooo, five
goddam years later, until right about this second as I speak, and they’re still
searching. I suspect that those police people are looking for an excuse to get stories
published with big headlines crying out, ‘WILL THE SEARCH FOR DAVIDSON MEMBER CONTINUE?’
If they were, then they did a good job, because now the Davidson family has finally
become a publicly famous one-- ironically, exactly what the parents of said family
promised they wouldn’t do since the beginning.”
              The
Davidsons were sounding more and more like the McDermotts, but with a different
name – or were they the same? Lincoln wasn’t sure, and it spun him dizzy. When he
glanced at Baritone, the man didn’t seem too angry by Lincoln interrupting with
something to say, so he went on ahead.
              “We
. . . we had a case like that, too. It also has been going on for some time.”
              “But
with the name changed from the Davidsons to the McDermotts?”
              Lincoln
went