Read Online Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman - Free Book Online

ignoring him for months, kept passing the forms to various committees, then Community Relations, legal counsel, the janitors, the catering truck drivers. We still haven’t heard back. If the bosses don’t get off their collectively spreading duff, I may just find myself a personal copy by accident. It’s nuts. Here I am going through boxes and breaking fingernails and Isaac’s got years worth of mayhem on a disk. Not that you just heard any of that.”
    “Heard what?” I said.
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “What kind of static is the department getting about privacy?”
    “Mario Fortuno,” she said.
    “Private eye to the stars,” I said. “That was what, three years ago?”
    “Three and a half is when they got him on the explosives charge but the larger issue is his wiretapping and what I hear is the fallout from that is just beginning.”
    “What do illegal taps have to do with Isaac’s crime stats?”
    “Fortuno gained access to personal data, had people stalked and harassed and generated some not-so-subtle threats to citizens who’d offended his honcho clients. One way he got the info—and once again you never heard it from me—is by bribing sources at DMV, the phone company, various banks. And the department.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “Oh, indeed. If Fortuno ever opens up, there are Hollywood honchos and big-time criminal defense lawyers who could find themselves in the defendant’s chair.”
    “Code of silence, so far?”
    “In the beginning he put out the
omerta
line, guy loves the whole Mafia intrigue thing. But what I hear is he’s got six more years on a nine-year sentence and prison life hasn’t been fun. Whatever happens or doesn’t, the brass hears ‘computer disk,’ there’s a stampede to the little boys’ room.”
    “Is there anything stopping me, as a concerned private citizen, from talking to Doctor-Doctor Gomez who is now a concerned private citizen?”
    “Gee,” she said, “that’s an interesting question. Here’s his phone number.”
    “Thanks, Petra. Good talking to you.”
    “Same here,” she said. “I think I’ll cut out early and get file dust out of my hair.”
     
     
    Isaac Gomez answered at his parents’ Union district apartment.
    “Hey, Dr. Delaware.”
    “Congratulations, Dr. Gomez.”
    “Dr. Gomez is some guy with gray hair and bifocals,” he said. “Though if you ask my mother, I’ve already earned tenure and it’s only a matter of time before the Nobel committee knocks at our door.”
    “Your mother’s cooking might clinch the award,” I said. “Getting ready for med school?”
    “I’m not sure you can ever be ready. I sat in on a few classes last semester and after grad school it seemed regressive, everyone sitting in one room, no curriculum flexibility. One factor might make it more enjoyable. My girlfriend will be in the class.”
    “Congrats again.”
    “Yes, it’s great.”
    Heather Salcido was a tiny, dark-haired beauty whom Isaac had saved from a killer. As good a foundation as any for romance.
    “She’d already taken the premed courses studying for her RN. I convinced her to take the MCATS. She scored high, applied, got in. She’s still a little apprehensive but I’m certain she’ll excel. We’re hoping seeing each other daily will help ease the process. So why are you calling?”
    I told him.
    He said, “Making you a copy of the disks—there are two—is no problem. But they’re encrypted and fairly inaccessible unless you’ve had experience decoding.”
    “Not since I worked with the Navajos and unlocked secret Nazi transmissions.”
    “Ha. Why don’t you give me the specific addresses on your list and I’ll check for straightaway matches. If I don’t find any, I’ll program a search function that pulls up loci in a steadily widening concentric net where we can adjust for radius. Do you have any geographical criterion in mind?”
    Close by.
    I said, “Not yet.”
    “Okay, so we’ll adopt an empirical approach. Swing