Free Gina Cresse - Devonie Lace 04 - A Deadly Change of Power by Gina Cresse Page B

I haven’t forgotten the last time.
    Ronnie’s voice turned to a whisper.  She turned around in her chair to try to make the conversation private.  “I can’t discuss that with you right now.”
    She cleared her throat and turned to face me again.  “Do you have any idea who might be behind this?” she asked, bringing the conversation back to center.
    “No.  I didn’t think so.  Well, thanks for all your help, Jake,” she delivered with a sarcasm I hadn’t heard from her before.  She hung up the phone.
    I flashed her a sympathetic look.  “No help?” I said.
    “I don’t understand that man,” she said, frustration ringing in her voice.  “He’ll sit in a meeting with his team of engineers and pass on every proposal that shows any promise of hitting one out of the park in favor of the ones that merely meet some insignificant government requirement.  Then he’ll turn around and curse the oil companies for holding the world hostage by demanding ransom at the fuel pump.”
    “It sounds like he’s torn — fighting some war waged in his own conscience,” I said.
    I slid Ronnie’s folder across the table toward me and flipped it open.  I spread the six patents out in front of me.  Harvey Brewster and Clyde Waterman were dead.  Ozie Dartmond was living it up in the Bahamas.  Casper Harris was a big question mark.  His phone had been disconnected. 
    “We need to find out what’s going on with these other two guys — Gus Tiller and Bo Rawlings.  I couldn’t find anything on them on the Internet,” I said.  I noticed a name and address at the top of Gus Tiller’s patent paperwork.  “Who’s this?” I asked.
    She looked at the name.  “That would be the patent attorney who did the actual filing.”
    The address was in Boulder, Colorado.  A patent attorney was also listed on Bo Rawlings paperwork.  I called information and got both phone numbers in less than a minute.
    Bo Rawlings’ attorney was not very helpful.  “Client confidentiality” was his favorite phrase.  He would not give me an address or phone number for Bo.  I gave him my name and number and asked if he would relay it to Bo and have him contact me.  The matter was urgent, I told him.  He did allow one interesting piece of information to slip when he told me that Bo and his family lived outside the continental United States in a time zone that made it difficult to contact him at the moment.  I assumed that meant Alaska or Hawaii, or maybe even Puerto Rico. 
    Gus Tiller’s attorney was not in, but his secretary had no qualms about discussing Gus.  Client confidentiality didn’t seem to be part of her vocabulary.  I suppose, because all the details she’d spilled to me had been reported in the local newspapers at the time the events took place.  Gus disappeared from his studio apartment six years ago.  He’d been missing for over a year when a pair of brothers, who were out riding their motorcycles in the desert, found his body — well, the one part, anyway.  Wild animals had probably carried off the rest of Gus, but they left his head.  Dental records confirmed his identity.
    I asked what would happen to Gus’s patent since he was dead.  She explained that the patent was only good for seventeen years, subject, of course, to additional maintenance fees.  Since there were no heirs or other family members to keep up the fees, the patent would be considered abandoned. 
    I thanked her for the information and hung up the phone.
    Ronnie studied my face.  She looked as concerned as I felt.  I slid Gus Tiller’s patent across the table to the side reserved for the dead inventors.
    Craig walked in and dropped his keys on the counter.  He crossed the kitchen and kissed me on top of the head.  “Honey, I’m home,” he said, then smiled as though he’d just had a thought.  “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
    I smiled back.  “Hi, honey.  How was your day?”
    “Oh, you know, the same-old