The Agency

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Kip had taken Sheriff Long’s words to heart.

He’d hiked down to Grand Junction where he managed to catch a ride with a long-haul semi driver leaving late that afternoon. In return, he did what he had to, to repay the man, meaning giving him a couple of blowjobs. It was worth it, though, as the man had driven him all the way to Denver. Kip succeeded in getting a job as a dishwasher at a small diner a couple of days later. Within six months he’d worked his way up to being a waiter, making enough to get off the street, find a tiny furnished apartment, and buy necessities.

Tom, his boss, had taken a liking to him—because Kip was industrious, he’d said. At his suggestion, Kip had checked out places where he could study for and then earn his GED. One of the shelters had free prep classes, which he signed up for.

Two months later he took the tests, passing with flying colors.

“Now it’s on to college,” Tom said when Kip showed him the certificate.

“Right. Not in my budget.”

“Kipling…” Tom always used Kip’s full name when he was being serious. “You have what it takes up here.” Tom tapped his forehead. “Figure out what you want to study and we’ll make it happen.”

Emily, Tom’s wife and co-owner of the diner, nodded. “You’re like our third son. Anything we can do to help, we will.”

Kip knew what he wanted to study—criminal justice. He admired Sheriff Long and had kept in touch with him, talking with him at least once a week. That was how he’d learned that the body of the man he’d seen being murdered by the two thugs had been located, three weeks after it happened. A hunter’s dog had found the grave, the sheriff said. Unfortunately, there were no clues to who had killed him.

Kip knew. Well, not who, but I know what they look like. Several times he’d been tempted to let the sheriff know, only to change his mind. The men had seen him and would know he was the one who had turned them in. He felt guilty about staying silent, but not enough to take a chance the killers would find him, since he wasn’t willing to trust the police could protect him. He finally convinced himself that even if he had, it wouldn’t have stopped their boss from using other men to kill for him.

He had no desire to become a police officer, despite his admiration for the sheriff. A private investigator however…I could help people like me who might be in danger.

When he told Tom and Emily—although not the real reason behind it—they were all for his idea. Tom was friends with a man who owned an upscale restaurant in Cherry Creek and made it a point to convince the man to hire Kip, which he did. From there, it had been a case of finding a school he could afford, with Tom and Emily helping him pay for it, then spending the next two years earning his degree. That happened soon after he turned twenty-one.

Degree in hand, figuratively, he started job hunting and found an agency that was willing to hire him. He stayed with them for almost four years before deciding, soon after his twenty-fifth birthday, to strike out on his own. He rented office space in a building close to downtown Denver in the Baker District, bought the furniture he needed, and had the name painted on the door—’Faulkner Private Investigation Agency.’ His last step was to hire Nina Cox.

“Now I’m official. All one man plus Nina as my secretary s***h receptionist,” he’d told both Tom and Sheriff Long. Neither of them seemed to have any doubts that he’d make a go of it.

During the time between when he’d witnessed the murder of Mr. Constantine and when he’d opened his agency, Kip had kept track of any news about the man. In the beginning, after his body had been found, reporters speculated that he had been involved with someone else in the theft of the payroll and his accomplice had killed him. Or, he had been working for the mob and had stolen the money in an attempt to break free and go into hiding. Or…there were various other theories for his unsolved murder, some of them possible, others way off in left field as far as Kip was concerned. Given what he’d overheard and having seen the two men who had committed the murder, he tended to believe it was a mob hit.

Not that I’ll ever know for certain. At least I hope I won’t, because if I do find out it was, it will probably be when one of the guys sees me somewhere and decides to take me out. That idea had given him many sleepless nights for the first couple of years after he’d come to Denver. When it hadn’t happened, he finally relaxed, putting the episode in the back of his mind, although he never forgot what he’d witnessed. He never would. But he did stop worrying that the killers would find him.