Sosa rummaged through Poobar’s case file and found the Xerox of the business card, with the bloody fingerprint on the back. He read the business card outloud to Mikey. “Tom Donoghy, ValleyIst.” He turned the card back and forward. “Why would Mark put this in Poobar’s pocket?”
“Who is this guy anyway?” Mikey asked. He checked the gel on his hair. “They say Gavin stopped using gel. Should I stop too?”
Sosa punched Beth’s number into his phone. “I’m going to ask Beth who this guy is. Easier than looking it up a million places.” Sosa got Beth on the phone. “Hey, wondered if you knew who this was…”
While he did that, Mikey typed up the url in a browser window. “ValleyIst.com… woah, look at all these chicks… I didn’t know computer chicks were so h-o-t-t…
Beth spoke to Sosa on the phone. “Yeah, that’s Tom. He’s basically all of ValleyIst. It’s a, like, a gossip column on all the skinny on all the little Web 2.0 deals going on. It can be quite a lot of money, like billions now that Google bought YouTube. But this is so weird, like how is he involved? I mean, like, is he a suspect?”
“Turns out our number one suspect Mark put the card in the back of Diane’s pocket.”
“You mean poobar?”
“I call her Diane. “
“But why does Mark want to frame Tom? He did it in such a dumb way, too.”
“Well Mark isn’t making any smart points lately. I can’t tell you how dumb criminals are. In one way, it makes my job a lot easier.”
Mikey spoke from behind his monitor. “Dude, this Tom guy hangs out with some hot babes.”
Beth spoke to Sosa on the phone. “Is that Mikey I hear? Tell him to look for Tom on Flickr or MySpace.”
“I’m just going to give Mikey the phone.” Sosa said, handing his cell phone to Mikey. “Beth has something to say to you.”
“Hey Mikey, this is Beth. Check Flickr and MySpace. When you’re on flickr, look in the tags, no space, just his name.
“How do you know which one is him? I see all these crowd shots.
“He’s short, light brown hair…”
“Oh yeah. OK I see him now.”
“Let’s go talk to him, the old fashioned way.” Sosa said, and put on his jacket.
“But we don’t know, uh, where to go.” Mikey said, looking up from the computer.
“Ask Beth.”
Mikey asked the same question into the phone. Beth didn’t even pause: “Ritual Roasters, on Valencia.”