He got himself a beer and took a seat at the small table in front of the sliding glass door. Cracking the door open slightly, he glanced out at the golf course. There was no one to be seen anywhere, since the temperature had dropped some and low clouds had moved in off the Cascades. Something was bugging him about the development Cliff Humphrey and his partners wanted to build. According to Melanie, the housing market in the area had started to slump a little, with the high-end houses taking the biggest hit. So why build now? What did Cliff Humphrey know? He got up and went for his second beer, retrieving his laptop computer on his way back and hitching it up to the phone. When Tony took on a case, one of the first things he did was check into the person who hired him. In this case, since the guy was a friend of his Navy friend, Joe Pellagreno, he hadn’t done a thorough job of checking out Cliff Humphrey. That could have been a mistake. Maybe Tony figured the guy’s reputation should stand for something.
