I was about to go back on that promise.
I didn’t delude myself for a millisecond that Larry’s reason for wanting me to dig up information on the Steels had any validity, but I had my own reasons for wanting to know more about them, and with the city’s sources at my disposal, I’d be in a great position to find out exactly what I wanted to.
So I smiled and nodded. “Absolutely. Glad to do it. Is there any type of information in particular that you’re looking for?”
Larry handed me a stack of manila folders. “There’s been some speculation that Bradford Steel was involved in organized crime and money laundering.”
Talon’s father? “I guess I don’t understand why that’s of any importance. Bradford Steel is dead. Do you have reason to believe the Steels are still involved?”
“That’s part of what I want you to find out, Jade. Even if they aren’t, a lot of their assets might be seizeable as dirty money. Our evidence goes back further than Bradford. His father, George Steel, was also allegedly involved.”
“And what evidence might this be?”
Classified. I heard the word before he said it.
“I’m afraid that’s classified.”
“Isn’t this a little out of our jurisdiction? Shouldn’t the FBI be involved? Or at the very least the Colorado Bureau of Investigation?”
“Are you questioning me?”
“I’m just trying to understand exactly what you’re looking for.”
“Take a gander through the files I just gave you. They’ll be a good starting point. I don’t want to bring in the Bureau unless we find anything hard. That’s why we’re keeping this local and under wraps for now. No reason to screw up the lives of nice people like the Steels if you don’t have to, right?”
I nodded. “Right. I understand.”
I understood all right. Larry wanted to screw the Steels, and I doubted it had anything to do with organized crime or dirty money.
So I’d be doing three investigations. I’d investigate the Steels for Larry. I’d also investigate the Steels for myself. And third, for Marj. Last week, she and I had done a little investigating of our own in the basement of the ranch house. We came across her birth certificate, giving her first name as Angela, something she never knew. Her father had always told her that her first name was Marjorie and she didn’t have a middle name. We also found the marriage certificate for Bradford and Daphne Steel, Marjorie’s parents. The certificate had listed Daphne’s maiden name as Wade, rather than Warren, which Marjorie had always thought it was.
I took the file folders. “I’ll get right on it. When do you need this information?”
“As soon as possible, though I don’t have any particular deadline. I’m more interested in accurate information, and I think you’ll have to do some digging to find what I need. So I don’t expect you to be in any hurry. Just do the best you can and keep me apprised every few days.”
I nodded. “Understood.”
“And in the meantime, if I need you to work on something more important, I’ll just pull you off this for a few days.”
I nodded again and left. I walked into my office and sat down at my desk. Before I even looked inside the file folders, I decided to do a little investigation of my own.
I keyed in the appropriate passwords to access Colorado records. First, the marriage certificate.
I typed in Steel, Bradford and Wade, Daphne.
Nothing.
My skin chilled. I had seen the original marriage certificate with my own eyes, and it was between Bradford Raymond Steel and Daphne Kay Wade.
I got my bearings and typed in Steel, Bradford and Warren, Daphne.
Bingo. Everything else on the certificate was the same—their birth dates, the date of the marriage, the signatures…
My heart did a jump. Was the marriage certificate that Marjorie and I found a forgery? Or had someone gotten into the Colorado database and changed Daphne’s name?
Next I accessed records of birth. I pulled up Jonah’s, Ryan’s, and Talon’s. All were identical to the copies we’d found in the Steels’ basement. I inhaled and typed in Angela Marjorie Steel.
No record.
I typed in Marjorie Steel.
Bingo again. Marj’s birth certificate popped up, minus her unknown first name.
Why would anyone change these? Again, I wondered if the documents we found were forgeries or whether someone had accessed the Colorado database. That would not be an easy thing to do.
Unless one was a city attorney maybe? I shook my head, erasing the thought. Larry had the same access to the files that I did. He didn’t have authority to change them. If he had that kind of authority, he certainly didn’t need me to do his investigating for him.