Ghost of a Chance

9 The Legwork

It was a quarter past nine in the morning when Alex got off at the crawler station across from the Waldorf hotel. He’d gone to bed early, just like he promised Iggy, but he felt like he hadn’t slept a wink.

The way his day was shaping up, he needed that sleep. Since the Waldorf wasn’t too far out of his way, Alex decided to stop there first. As he entered the sumptuous lobby, he remembered that he still had Leslie calling hotels looking for the widow Watson.

A row of phone booths stood against the side of the lobby and Alex made for them. When he fished a nickel out of his pocket, his hands shook badly enough that he had trouble dropping it in the slot. It was then he remembered Jessica and the flask of elixir.

“How could I forget her?” he asked himself, pulling the flask out of his jacket pocket and taking a swig. A moment later he wished he had forgotten. Jessica’s elixir tasted like dishwater.

Shuddering as he forced it down, Alex capped the flask and put it back in his pocket. He was supposed to take another shot at noon and he was already dreading it.

In the time it took him to put the flask away, the trembling in his hands had subsided and he easily dropped the nickel for the call into the phone’s slot.

“Lockerby Investigations,” Leslie said after the operator connected them.

“It’s me,” Alex said. “I wanted to—”

“It’s about time,” Leslie interrupted in a harried whisper. “Where are you?”

Alex explained about his visit from Callahan and going to see Anne Watson.

“So I called to tell you not to look for her anymore,” he finished.

“I haven’t been looking,” Leslie said, her voice indignant. “Do you have any idea what’s been going on here?”

Alex admitted that he didn’t; in fact, he had no idea why she seemed so upset.

“I have an office full of people here,” she said. “And those are just the ones that insisted on waiting for you.”

“What do they want?”

“They all read that story in the tabloids about the Runewright Detective,” Leslie explained. “They’re all here to get charms or wards to protect them from the ghost. One woman claims the ghost is living in her attic and wants you to drive him out.”

Alex laughed. He couldn’t help himself.

“Oh, real funny,” Leslie growled at him in a dangerous voice.

“Sorry, doll,” he said, managing to put on a straight face. “Tell you what, how would you like to close the office for the morning?”

“I can’t,” she said. “There might be some paying customers who come in and I’d like to eat next week.”

Alex remembered the money Andrew Barton had given him, patting his pocket to make sure it was still there.

“Don’t worry about that,” Alex said. “I need you to go over to the library and look up everyone the ghost has killed. All but one of them are society swells so they’ll be in Who’s Who.”

“What about eating?” Leslie wondered.

“I’ve got fifty bucks in my pocket right now,” Alex said. “Swing by the Waldorf on your way downtown and pick it up. I’ll leave it at the front desk for you.”

There was a long pause on the line.

“You on the level?” she asked.

Alex was shocked. Leslie had never questioned whether he was telling her the truth before. He was really going to have to make all this up to her.

“My word as a gentleman,” he said.

“Try again.”

“I swear on a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch?”

“Aw, you do care,” she said, her voice returning to its playful self. “How’d you dig up that much cash?”

Alex told her about his visit to Barton and his missing traction motor.

“When are you going to work on that?” she asked.

Alex sighed.

“Right after I figure out who kidnapped Leroy Cunningham and catch a murdering ghost,” he said.

“Good luck then. I’ll be at the library.”

Alex hung up, then went to front desk and got an envelope from the clerk. He slipped the fifty dollars into it, sealed it, and wrote Leslie’s name on it before leaving it with the man.

The widow Watson looked much better when she answered the door. Her dark eyes weren’t red, and her makeup wasn’t running. Alex had been right, she was quite pretty when properly made up.

“I was beginning to worry,” she said, inviting Alex in. “I thought you weren’t going to come.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Alex said, taking his hat off. “No one told me where you were.”

Anne apologized for that and invited Alex to sit down. The hotel room had a parlor that was separate from the bedroom, with elegant couches, a writing desk, and a fireplace.

“Would you like a drink?” she offered.

Alex accepted and noticed that she poured herself one as well.

“I don’t know what to do with myself, Mr. Lockerby,” she said, sitting on the couch opposite the one Alex occupied. “It seems like some horrible dream, like I’m going to wake up any minute and everything will be fine. Like David will come walking in through that door.”

Alex didn’t know what to say. He’d heard that same sentiment, more or less, from dozens of people over his career. He’d felt it himself when Father Harry died; still, there just weren’t easy words that would make everything better.

“I think that the police won’t be bothering you much longer,” Alex said.

“What if they come to arrest me?” Her voice was fearful and small.

“If that happens, call your lawyer. He’ll take care of you.”

She wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold, and nodded.

“Do you have someone who could come here and stay with you?” Alex asked.

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Good,” Alex said, finishing his drink and setting it aside. “Call them up. I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

Anne nodded, and she looked more hopeful.

“Do you still want me to find whoever killed your husband?” Alex asked.

“Yes I do,” she said, without hesitation. “It’s clear I can’t count on the police and I want whoever did this punished.”

“All right,” Alex said, rising and indicating the writing desk. “Then I need you to write out a letter giving me permission to be in your home and to search your husband’s business files.”

“I gave you one of those,” she said.

“This one needs to say specifically that I can come and go at your house whenever I want and that I can go through your husband’s files,” Alex explained. “The police might still be there, and I don’t want trouble.”

Anne rose and crossed to the desk.

“Why do you want to look into David’s business?” she asked as she began writing.

“Because whoever killed him killed those other people the same way. There must be a connection between them.”

“I can’t imagine what it would be,” she said. “David’s been retired for almost ten years.”

“Let me worry about that,” Alex said.

Anne finished writing the letter, blotted the ink dry and handed it to Alex. She also reached into her pocket and withdrew a twenty.

“Is this enough to get you started?” she asked. “I ran out of the house without much cash and I haven’t had a chance to go to the bank.”

“This will do fine,” Alex said, accepting the money. “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

The architectural firm of Milton & White was located on the twenty-second floor of a skyscraper in the south side Mid-Ring. It was a large open area where men at drafting tables worked. Displays with models of buildings were spread throughout the room, mostly professional buildings with a few houses. No one here seemed like the kind of person anyone would kidnap.

“I don’t know what I can tell you, Mr. Lockerby,” Phillip Milton told Alex. He was a tall slender man in his fifties wearing a pinstripe suit that had the unfortunate effect of making him look even thinner. “Leroy Cunningham is one of my best people, but he hasn’t been here all week. If he was kidnapped, as you say, then why haven’t the police been here?”

“They’ve got their hands full with that ghost thing,” Alex said. It was quicker than explaining the ins and outs of how the police handled missing persons cases, which was that they didn’t unless the person missing had an Inner-Ring or Core address. “Is there anything Leroy was working on that a kidnapper might want to know about?” Alex went on, “a bank building or something like that?”

“No, nothing like that,” Milton said. He took off his spectacles and nervously cleaned them with his handkerchief. “We mostly do small commercial buildings. I mean, we have done a few fancy homes, but there’s nothing unusual in their design.”

“Would you mind if I looked at whatever Leroy has been working on?”

“Not at all.”

Milton led Alex to a drafting table with what looked like the design for a train station on it.

“Leroy is designing this?” Alex asked.

“Oh, no,” Milton said. “Leroy is an apprentice draftsman.” He picked up a paper with numbers and math written out on it. “These are the specifications that Leroy is using to draw out the plans.”

“Did you know he was going to school to become an architect?” Alex asked.

Milton brightened up at that.

“Of course,” he said. “The firm is paying for his schooling.”

Alex was impressed; for a company to pay for their employee to go to school meant they really liked him.

Unless they didn’t.

“Is he doing well?”

“Oh, yes,” Milton said. “He makes excellent marks. Of course he was already a good draftsman when we hired him. I do hope you find him.”

Something about that tickled at Alex’s mind, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Lockerby?” Milton asked, picking up the drawing and the papers from Leroy’s desk. “I’ve got to get this work to someone else to finish and we’re really quite busy.”

“No, go ahead,” Alex said. “Thanks for your help.”

Milton moved to a nearby desk and began explaining the train station drawing to a bespectacled draftsman with a pencil mustache.

“One more thing, Mr. Milton,” Alex said. “Could I look at Leroy’s résumé paper?”

“Uh, yes,” Milton said over his shoulder. “Just ask our receptionist.”

Alex thanked him and made his way back to the little blonde at the front of the office. She had a round face and frizzy hair that blossomed over her head like a halo.

“Done with the boss?” she asked, smiling when Alex walked up.

“Yes, he was a big help. He said you’d be able to get me Mr. Cunningham’s résumé?”

She smiled and nodded, then went to a filing cabinet against the wall and dug through it.

“Here you go, honey,” she said, handing Alex a paper folder with the name Leroy Cunningham printed on it.

Alex paged through it slowly. According to Leroy, he had learned drafting as the Assistant Safety Engineer for the Coaldale Mining Company. That matched what his wife Hannah said. There was a drawing Leroy had done of what looked like the machinery for an elevator as well. Alex didn’t know anything about drafting but the elevator looked competently done.

“What does an Assistant Safety Engineer do?” he said out loud.

“No idea, honey,” the receptionist said.

Alex’s stomach rumbled at him and he looked up at the big clock over the blonde’s head. It read twelve-fifty-three. He’d missed breakfast, it was past lunch, and he’d forgotten his elixir again. The thought of facing the elixir without something in his stomach made him queasy, though.

“Is there a café or a lunch counter near here?”

“Sure,” the receptionist said. “Down in the lobby there’s a good place.”

“Thanks,” Alex said, handing Leroy’s folder back to her.

Alex called his office a half hour later and was surprised when Leslie picked up.

“Back from the library so soon?” he asked.

“If you didn’t think I was here, why did you call?” she noted.

He heard the click of the touch-tip lighter on her desk and the sound of her inhaling. She’d used her money to buy cigarettes. He’d just spent most of his pocket money on a dry sandwich and this phone call.

For a long moment, he was jealous. He still had the twenty dollars from Anne Watson, he reminded himself. Of course he needed that to pay Leslie, so he couldn’t very well use it to buy smokes.

“Did you find out anything about the ghost’s victims?”

“Yeah,” she said. “The ghost’s first victim was Seth Kowalski; he made a killing selling farmland out in Suffolk County to rich people wanting to building summer homes.”

“The Hamptons?”

“Yep,” Leslie said. “You see, he was the County Assessor up there for years, so he knew the whole area. When the rich and famous started looking for a place to build mansions, he bought up everything he could get his hands on and made a killing.”

“Interesting,” Alex said. “Mr. Watson was a builder and there was surveying equipment in his display case in his den.”

“I don’t know about that,” Leslie said, “but you’ll never guess where Watson’s company built their first house?”

“Suffolk County?” Alex guessed.

“Got it in one.”

“How about the others?” Alex asked.

“So far they don’t seem to have any connections to Watson or Kowalski,” Leslie said. “Betsy Phillips was killed second. She had money of her own, but I can’t tell where it came from. Her husband, George, is a stock broker.”

“One of the survivors,” Alex said.

“Last was Martin Pride,” Leslie read off her notes. “Get this, he died poor, but he used to be rich. Lost his money in the market crash.”

Alex nodded as he made notes, even though Leslie couldn’t see him through the phone.

“So they were all rich at one point,” Alex said. “So if they’re connected, it must be before Pride lost all of his dough. Is there anything else?”

“Nope,” Leslie said, puffing loudly on her cigarette to rub it in. “That’s all I could find this morning. Now I’m back here in the circus.”

“Are we still getting people wanting magic charms?”

“Yes,” Leslie said, tension returning to her voice. “Some of them are very insistent. I think you should just make up a rune and sell it to them for a buck.”

Alex laughed.

“Oh, Lieutenant Detweiler would love to be able to pick me up for selling snake oil,” he said.

“Well you need to wrap this case up quick, then,” Leslie said. “I’m not going to be able to get much done, what with it’s being Grand Central Station in here.”

That gave Alex an idea.

“Speaking of Grand Central,” he said. “I need to find out if Kowalski and Watson knew each other when Kowalski was County Assessor.”

“You want me to call over to the Suffolk County Hall of Records and find out?”

“I don’t see how that’s going to help,” Alex said. “What I need is for someone to go out there and talk to the current assessor, ask around town, that sort of thing.”

“Are you asking me to get out of the city and go upstate?” Leslie purred through the line.

“You’ll have to spend some of that scratch I got you,” Alex warned.

“It’ll be worth it,” she said. “I’m looking up the train schedule right now. You want me to go first thing in the morning?”

“No,” Alex said. “Go today and you can and stay the night. That’ll give you time to ask around. Call Iggy if you find out anything urgent,” Alex said.

“What about the circus?” she asked.

“Take down everyone’s name and what they want and we’ll figure it out once the rest of this is wrapped up.”

“You’re the boss.”

Alex wished her Godspeed and hung up. This Suffolk County thing felt like a lead. It was too coincidental that two of the victims had been involved in land deals up on the Captain back in the day. Still, he was going to have to pay for Leslie’s trip, lead or not.

“Time to track down the Lightning Lord’s missing motor,” he said.

The building from which Barton’s motor had been stolen turned out to be an unassuming building in the west side’s Mid-Ring. Inside it, men labored at a wide variety of machines, turning out strange-looking parts that were then taken to one of several large areas where machines were being assembled.

Alex recognized a nearly-complete Mark V Etherium Capacitor in one corner. As close as it appeared to completion, however, no one seemed to be working on it. All the activity seemed to be directed in another space where over a dozen men were assembling parts for something that had yet to take shape.

“You Lockerby?” a big-shouldered man in a brown suit asked when he noticed Alex watching.

Alex pulled out one of his business cards and handed it over. The big man had dark eyes and hair with a square jaw and bushy eyebrows. His skin was browner than simply being in the sun could account for, marking him as being of Latin descent. The accent, however, was all Jersey.

“Mr. Barton said you’d be coming by,” he said. “I’m Jimmy Cortez, floor manager here at Barton Electric. The boss told me to take ya around and answer any questions you have.”

He stuck out a massive paw of a hand and Alex shook it.

“What are they building here?” Alex asked, pointing at the rush of activity.

“That’s the new traction motor, to replace the one that got pinched,” Jimmy said. “Between you and me, Mr. Lockerby, I hope you find the old one real soon. I’m not sure we can get this done in time.”

Alex watched as a man in coveralls finished grinding a curved piece of metal and hurried it over to a man with spectacles and rolled-up shirt sleeves. The bespectacled man tuned the part over in his hands, then consulted a blueprint that had been unrolled over a table and weighed down with bits of scrap metal. After a moment with the blueprint, the man placed the curved bit next to a neat row of parts on the floor. By the time he was done, another man in a coverall had another bit for him.

“Looks like you’ve got it well in hand,” Alex said, turning back to Jimmy. “Barton said this motor weighs about six hundred pounds, is that right?”

Jimmy thought about that for a second, then nodded.

“Give or take,” he said.

“How did a thief manage to steal it then? I mean that would take time and a crew, right?”

“Ordinarily, yeah,” Jimmy said. “There’s always people here, day and night, and we’ve got security guards in the warehouse area and the loadin’ dock.”

“You didn’t answer my question though,” Alex said. “How was the motor stolen?”

“The guy was good, Mr. Lockerby,” Alex said. “He walked right into the dock just as the motor was loaded on a truck and drove it away.”

“Where were the driver and the security guard?”

“Once the trucks are loaded, the driver has to inspect the load and sign out the truck,” Jimmy explained. “He was in the office doing that when the truck drove away, and the guard was at the other side of the dock walkin’ his route.”

That seemed like exceptionally good timing on the part of the thief.

He must have watched the dock, figured out the pattern, and then waited for his opportunity.

“Who knew your shipping schedule?” Alex asked.

“You mean when the motor was goin’ out? Just me and the dock manager,” he said. “Oh, and Mr. Barton, of course.”

“Mind if I take a look at the loading dock?” Alex asked.

Jimmy escorted him over to the other side of the building to where a cement dock stuck out from a set of carriage doors. A small shack stood on the far side and Alex could see a man working at a desk inside.

“That’s Bill Gustavsen,” Jimmy said. “He runs the loadin’ dock.”

The lot beyond the dock was paved and enclosed by a high fence. It was large enough to accommodate parking for several trucks. One bearing the name Barton Electric on the door was parked up against the fence on the far side. To the left was an opening big enough for a truck to exit that led out to the street.

“Did your security guard report seeing anyone loitering around in the days leading up to the theft?”

Jimmy shook his head.

“No. We sometimes have to run drunks or vagrants out, so he checks when he goes by. But he didn’t see nobody.”

Alex thanked him, and Jimmy returned to overseeing the building of Barton’s replacement motor. Alex stood on the dock for five minutes before he crossed to the other side and knocked on the open door of the little shack.

“Yes?” Bill Gustavsen said, looking up from his desk. He was older, in his fifties if Alex had to guess, with white hair and a skinny frame. He wore trousers and a white shirt with a tie. His sleeves were rolled up and held in place by garters with his suit coat draped over the back of his chair in the August heat.

Alex introduced himself, and explained why he was there.

“I don’t know what more I can tell you,” Gustavsen said. “I was in here signing out the truck to the driver when it just drove away. It was the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I was outside for quite a while,” Alex said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the dock. “I didn’t see your security guard come by at all.”

Gustavsen chuckled at that.

“No more deliveries are due today,” he said. “The guard only patrols when we’re working here at the dock. Otherwise he comes by every half-hour.”

“How often do shipments go out of here?”

“Out?” Gustavsen said. “Every other day or so. We ship out receivers for wireless power along with replacement parts for the Etherium Capacitors and anything else Mr. Barton might need.”

“Doesn’t seem like enough work for a full-time dock manager?”

Gustavsen bristled at that.

“Shows what you know,” he said. “We get deliveries every single day. It’s my job to inspect everything, inventory it, and make sure it’s stored properly. I also make sure all our outgoing shipments are right.” He puffed up like a toad and thumped his chest. “In the twenty years I’ve been here, there’s never been a bum shipment… not until the motor was stolen.”

Alex asked him who knew about the shipments in advance, and he gave the same answers Jimmy had.

“Is that the truck that was taken?” Alex asked, pointing to the lone vehicle in the lot.

“No,” Gustavsen said. “That’s the spare. The police have been looking for the truck, but it’s still missing too.”

Alex wondered if there were any way to use the finding rune on the missing truck and find the motor that way. Unfortunately he’d need something connected to the truck and everything that fit that bill was likely to be on the truck itself.

“What about the driver?” he asked. “Does he usually drive the missing truck?”

“No,” Gustavsen said. “We have a contract with the Teamsters. They provide our drivers.”

Foiled, Alex thanked Gustavsen and descended the stairs to the paved dock. He walked up to the opening in the fence and looked both ways.

The lot emptied onto a side street that ran between the factory and a clothing mill next door. There wasn’t a good vantage point to watch the loading dock from anywhere on the street, no place that the security guard wouldn’t have seen.

There was a narrow alley between the mill and whatever was behind it. Alex crossed the street and peered down the space. It ran along the mill until it intercepted the next side street. Boxes and crates were stacked behind some of the buildings on the opposite side and trash was strewn along the ground.

Alex examined the ground around the entrance, looking for signs of surveillance. If anyone had been watching the Barton Electric loading dock, they cleaned up after themselves. There were no cigarette butts or apple cores to be found.

He was about to leave, but suddenly wondered, What if the surveillance might have been a team? The crates just up the alley would be a perfect place to sit while your partner watches the dock.

He walked down the alley to the crates and examined the ground but found nothing tell-tale there either. Cursing, he straightened up and shook his head. At this rate he’d never find Barton’s motor, and that meant he couldn’t pay for Leslie’s trip upstate. He had a feeling that the widow Watson wouldn’t want to pay either if he didn’t find the ghost.

Turning back to the street, Alex wished he had found some cigarette butts; after all, one of them might be long enough to smoke.

He was chuckling grimly at his own dire circumstances when a shot rang out and a bullet slammed into his back. It hit him on the lower right side, near the kidney and the sudden impact caused him to stumble.

As Alex tried to catch his balance, three more shots rang out. Two hit him in the upper back and he lost his balance. The third shot skimmed his hip as he went down and distracted him enough that instead of catching himself, he landed on his face.

The impact stunned him and he was vaguely aware of someone rolling him over and ransacking his pockets before taking his red-backed rune book and running off.