Probable Claws

5

December 29, 2016

Thursday

“You have a sharp eye,” Cooper noted.

“I don’t know about that but I try to notice things.” Harry stood in the small foyer of Gary Gardner’s office. She’d been asked to meet Cooper there as she knew his office work habits well.

“He worked alone. Small operation. He was the creative one. He really didn’t need other people, especially with what computers can do now.”

“That’s what he always said. That’s why he moved here. The company became too big in Richmond, too many layers of people piddling in his work. He was happy here.”

“The way of the world these days. Nothing gets done quickly, that’s for sure. Everyone wastes time covering their ass.” Cooper noticed the framed photographs on the walls. “So I’ve been talking to former clients. No one has had a bad word to say about him.” Cooper turned to face Harry. “How often would you say you’ve been in his office?”

“A lot. He came here in the mid-eighties. I was a kid when he moved here, but he and Mother got on so I’d accompany her to his office. He designed homes or additions for friends; as I got older I’d see him socially. He did a beautiful job for Nelson and Sandra Yarbrough, also Sara Goodwin. People saw his work. He helped Tazio Chappars and our group with the old school buildings we’re returning to their original state but with modern plumbing, etc. They researched old photographs, building materials of the time, really the late-nineteenth century. He made it fun and since neither one could design anything new, they didn’t butt heads. I doubt that they would have anyway.”

Tazio Chappars, in her late thirties now, moved to the area after graduate school. Her family and college friends, Midwesterners, warned her that Virginia, a Southern state, would not be welcoming. They were wrong. Then again Tazio, warm, good-natured, could win over most people.

Cooper returned to the expensively framed colored photographs. “I’m not an architectural historian but I do read. Mostly everyone around here wants the Georgian or Federal look, he seemed more influenced by the French.”

Harry smiled. “Gary swore there were enough people in the area to design à la Palladio. He went his own way. He teased me and said I needed to expand my history mostly in the direction of the French.”

Cooper smiled back. “So is anything different in here?”

“The office?” Harry moved into the large room with his big computer, the drafting table in the middle of the room, also large, a regular desk, and the square bookshelves all along one wall.

“My plans are still on the table.” She looked up and around, walked over to the bookshelves. “Coop.”

The tall deputy came alongside her friend. “What?”

“These shelves were packed. Some books are missing.”

“Could he have taken them home?”

“No, because when we met, I was here at the drafting table. The shelves were full.”

“Can you remember any of them?”

“Beautiful picture books. They’re still here.” She pointed to large coffee table books of French architecture, a few on great American houses. “His Vitruvius’s De Architectura is still here.”

Cooper pulled one off the shelf, as there were ten volumes. “It’s in Latin.”

“Gary said it was easy to read because it’s so technical. Little has changed. He went to an expensive prep school, St. Paul’s, I think. The boys had to take Latin. Said it was the best thing he ever did.”

“You took a language, didn’t you?”

“French. Four years in high school, four at Smith, and I’m still lousy at it. Occasionally he’d say something in French just to tweak me. Gary was a highly educated man.”

“Think. What’s missing?”

Harry slowly walked along the shelves, stopping at the gaps in the lined-up books. “Did you look in his computer?”

“Our tech wiz did. The only thing he mentioned was that Gary kept records of his recent work but nothing concerning Richmond.”

“I would guess Rankin Construction Company has records of his designs there. And as far as I know no one here ever complained about his work in Richmond.”

“No.”

Harry stopped at a gap on a lower shelf. “Mmm.”

“What.”

“He kept boxes, you know those boxes like extra-large fat books. He kept building codes in them. They’re gone.”

“Building codes. I’ll have his house double-checked but I don’t remember them.”

“You know the big orange kind, looks like hard cardboard, old books. I can’t imagine anyone stealing them because you can get all that stuff online.” Harry was puzzled.

“Did you ever look in them?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know what was in them.”

“You’re right. But I do remember what was printed on the spines: codes and the years they were updated or changed from before he moved here. The recent changes he got off the computer. Every county has their own codes. Confusing, to me anyway.”

“Anything else?”

“No,” Harry replied as she returned to her design on the drafting table. “But you all secured this office. The files are missing. Did the department take them?”

“No.” Cooper frowned. “The files were taken after the scene was supposedly secured. I’m not familiar with this office, but you are. I just felt something was off. I will, however, have his house double-checked for them,” she vowed.

“Let me ask you a question. How many Ducatis are registered in Albermarle County?”

“Very few. Six and one is from the late 1950s.” She paused. “We’ve spoken to each of the owners. No one was riding yesterday. We’ll send Dabney out”—she named a young fellow officer—“to double-check the models, but since we don’t really know the model of the bike on which the killer rode all we can do is gather stats and wait.” Cooper glanced outside as a light snowfall was starting. “How’d you know what the bike was?”

“Motorhead. And I read all the car and bike magazines. That was a brand-new Ducati XDiavel. Cost about fifteen thousand dollars. No license plate.”

“That bothers me.” Cooper frowned. “You’d think some traffic cop would have noticed.”

“You would, but then again maybe the killer didn’t ride far. Maybe that bike is in a garage or maybe he towed the bike here in a closed trailer from who knows where, unloaded, did the deed, loaded it back up again. It’s not too far-fetched.”

Cooper had known Harry enough years to appreciate her logic if not her curiosity. “I guess not if you’re determined to kill someone. If only it were his ex-wife,” she ruefully admitted.

“Cooper!”

“It would make this a lot easier.”

Harry changed the subject. “I don’t know why it gets me, but it gets me that my plans are on the drafting table. Like he just stepped out.”

“He did.” Cooper sighed. “He did.”