"We'll need to investigate James Hawet's whereabouts on the night of Emily's Cavanaugh's murder" Adrian continued.
"Can I use your phone, Max?." Leland asked. "I need to make a call" He decided to have Randy look into James Hawet.
"I'd rather talk to this guy myself" the barfly referred to Hawet. His face grew hard.
"Would that mean having to fly to San Francisco?" Monk whined with an anguished face. "What if he doesn't live there anymore?"
"Then I guess we'll need to go look for him." Leland said. "I'll have Randy do some preliminary legwork"
By the next evening, the group was on its way towards Baggage claim three at San Francisco Airport.
"I'm sorry you couldn't see this great city under better circumstances" Leland told Max, whose thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.
"What do you mean you haven't gotten those records???" Jordan yelled into her cell phone, and hung up after arguing with her friend Woody. Meanwhile, Adrian tried to straighten the various items on the carousel as they passed, causing a flood of dirty looks from cranky and tired passengers.
The next morning, they were debriefed by Randy in Leland's office.
"This was his last known address in San Francisco, sir" the lieutenant handed the captain a piece of paper. "He could be using an alias."
Quickly, they, sans Randy went to the apartment building, and questioned some neighbors.
"Do you remember a man by the name of James Hawet? Max asked at an apartment on the second floor.
"He was a quiet fellow who kept to himself" a balding man answered.
"Did you ever talk to him?" Leland added, they all stood around the man's living room. The smell of curry, pizza, and other food permeated the apartment, as well as take out containers of all shapes and sizes.
"Sometimes we'd chat about sports in the elevator."
"Only sports?" Max was suspicious.
"Yeah."
"We've heard about your 'other hobbies'" Max bluffed and he stepped closer to the man. Perhaps he was up to something that could give them leverage? The man, who was two feet shorter than the six foot barkeep, gulped as he did go outside the law, on occasion, to make his living.
"Do you by any chance have any air fresheners?" Adrian asked with a face of disgust, as he took it upon himself to pick up the containers.
"Is this some new ploy?" the man thought to himself "Bad cop, crazy cop?"
"Is there anything else you wanna tell us?" Max furiously took the man by the shoulders. This demonstrated why he was no longer a cop; too many years on the job, and the obsession with his wife's murder had taken their toll. He had been forced to retire, when his partner had reported his rough treatment of a suspect, who ended up in the hospital because of him.
"Uh.....the air freshener is under the kitchen sink" the man mumbled as Max put him against the wall. "Alright, Alright......we sometimes had drinks"
"And....?" The ex-detective lifted him a bit.
"He mentioned having friends in Pasadena."
"Names?"
"One of them owned a small bookstore called Fred's Books on Colorado." The man sometimes lived in Southern California.
Max finally put him down, and they all left the apartment.
"Leland can continue with the neighbors, and the rest of us can go to Pasadena." The barfly vaguely remembered that the city was in California.
"Could we go by car?" Adrian asked as Sharona groaned.
"But it's eight hours, Adrian!" Sharona tried to reason with the sleuth. "You've survived two cross country flights. What's one hour?"
TBC