“First I have to talk it over with Rina. Then I have to check my schedule again. Then we have to deal with the boys. I’ll try to make it happen, Cindy. It actually seems like something that everyone could enjoy. And I’ll pay for you two. It isn’t going to send me to the poorhouse.”

“Absolutely not. Koby would never agree to it. But if you want to pay for the helicopter ride so we can walk on the glacier, I won’t object.”

Decker raised his espresso to his lips. “This was an expensive cup of coffee.”

Cindy reached into her pocketbook and took out several pieces of paper. “You didn’t think I came all this distance just to talk you into going to Alaska.”

That’s exactly what he thought. “What do you have?”

“I’ve been doing a little background check on Travis Martel and Geraldo Perry.”

“With or without Rip Garrett’s permission?”

“I didn’t ask for his blessing, but if he found out, I wouldn’t care. Both of the boys have a long sheet: drug offense, theft, B and Es, D and Ds, GTA, soliciting, illegal possession of firearms.” She looked at one of the pieces of paper. “Here you go. For your files.”

“Thanks.” He already had them, but why make her feel bad.

“I’ve also done a little bit of investigating beyond the obvious. Perry is from Indiana, so I don’t know too much about his youth, but Martel is a local boy. He went to L.A. High for about a year before he dropped out. I found his yearbook. He was in the rappers’ club.”

“They have a rappers’ club in high school?”

“Clubs are a reflection of the student body’s interests. All you need is a sponsor and some kids for membership. Anyway, his being in a rappers’ club makes total sense because when Martel was booked, he listed his occupation was ‘aspiring rapper.’”

“As in he’s never made a record.”

“That’s not entirely true, and we really don’t say ‘made a record’ anymore, Daddy. It kinda sounds like classic vinyl.”

“Cut a CD?”

“These days you don’t need a label and a producer to get your song out, since you have the Internet. Do you know about MySpace?”

“It’s a networking website.”

“Exactly. It’s actually a social networking website as opposed to a professional one. One of the things it’s known for is sharing material. Anyone who has a MySpace account can surf and look at your websites unless he or she is specifically blocked. Lots of bands and singers without contracts use MySpace to showcase their material. It’s specifically geared toward downloading music. So I started surfing to see if either Perry or Martel had a profile.”

“And you found something.”