The Game Is Afoot

[Zinta]

It's hard to put into words how nice it was to take off the monkey suit and put on my normal clothes. It's a comfort zone thing. Ditto for the sterile office; I much prefer my bat-cave. I'm sure if someone filled a dump truck with books, computers, and a machinist's tool shop and then dumped it into a land fill, it would probably look more orderly. But I have a system -- doesn't every evil genius?

"The same thing we do every night, Pinky," I mumbled as I scanned the jump drive. A wet hiss drowned out the click-whirring of hard drives as I opened up a Coke. A glass bottle, which I had imported from Mexico. Not only was it glass instead of plastic, it still used sugar. None of that cane syrup bullshit.

Yes, I'm particular. I just know what I like.

The only decent thing from my fishing expedition turned out to be a phone number from an emergency contact document.

(916) 555-0911

Just to see if it was my lucky day, I pulled out my Cole criss-cross directory to see if it was listed.

[Jmiland1]

"Jenny" must have rubbed her rabbit's foot extra hard today, then, because the Cole offers up a name and an address to go with the mystery number. It's registered to a Richard Kasabian; running the address online shows its on the southern end of California Avenue, by Ancil Hoffman Park.

[Zinta]

"Well, someone's living right..."

I study the map, idly tap-tap-tapping a pen. Hell, if I lived there, I'd probably never go into that office, either.

Considering I work from home, that's not an exaggeration.

After I check on how long he's lived there, and the price tag, I grab my bag and head out to have a walk in a park...

[Jmiland1]

So close, yet so far--poring through the Assessor's web site pulls up this bit of info:

Due to privacy concerns contained in Government Code Section 6254.21, ownership information is not available on-line.

But that's no real hindrance; there's a phone number that can be called, or an office to visit, where those details could be obtained. Sleuthing on the site, though, seems to indicate that heavy additions were built in 2002. Added to the original property value, that puts the total assessed value at well over 1.4 million dollars. Some quick arithmetic indicates the additions themselves account for about $800,000 of that.

[Zinta]

The bad news was that the recent additions might mean updated security rather than just an ADT tack-on. The good news was...

...well, there wasn't any. Except maybe that the bad news wasn't worse. OK, there was a park nearby I could leave my car at. See? I'm a glass half-full kind of girl.

Just don't ask what the glass is full of.

Waiting til dusk, I load my gear into my car and head out.