Ghost of a Chance

by Dan Willis

  Alex considered it but shook his head.

  “There’s nothing out here that you’d need to dig a tunnel to steal,” he pointed out.

  “Well, I’m still going to mention it to Callahan,” he said. “You’re right about the list of things stolen — a lot of that stuff would be useful in a robbery. Maybe they’re not digging a tunnel at all, maybe it’s something else.”

  “Then how does Leroy fit in?”

  “He doesn’t,” Danny said, puffing on his cigarette. “You’re trying to make him fit, but if there’s no tunnel, there’s no reason for him to be involved.”

  Alex didn’t like it, but Danny had a good point. One of Iggy’s first lessons in being a detective was not to get attached to any one theory. As his famous detective said, it leads to twisting fact to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. He’d been letting his need to find Leroy shoehorn into Danny’s case.

  He sighed and took out a cigarette of his own.

  “I guess that’s it then,” he said. “Can you drop me at a crawler station?”

  Danny nodded and started the car.

  As they drove, Alex racked his brain over Leroy. Nothing about his kidnapping made sense. He didn’t know anything a group of kidnappers would need and he had no money or family connections. The only thing that had any logic to it was the tunnel idea, but Sanderson had put the kibosh on that notion pretty effectively.

  It was frustrating, and he angrily flicked the stub of his cigarette out the window. He was pretty sure Leroy Cunningham was going to die sometime in the next few days, and as things stood now, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  The hall of records was an imposing building of white marble that always reminded Alex of a public library. In reality it was quite like the library except that people visited the library for fun. No one visited this monument to government red tape unless they had to.

  Alex made his way inside and went downstairs to where he knew the permit records were kept. He only had an hour and a half until the office closed at five, but he’d only brought twenty-two of David Watson’s files, so it shouldn’t be hard to look up the permits for just those.

  “Can I help you?” a white-haired man said from behind a raised desk. He was thin to the point of being gaunt, though the sagging skin around his jowls indicated that he hadn’t always been so. Alex couldn’t tell if the dark circles under the man’s eyes were a sign of lack of sleep, or just the stark lighting in the basement. He looked to be in his sixties, but seemed worn down, probably by too many years working for the government.

  “I need to see some building permits,” Alex said, passing over a list of the permit numbers he’d copied from Watson’s files.

  The man’s hand trembled when he took the paper and he had to put it down on the desk to read it properly.

  “That’s a lot of records, young man,” he said, giving Alex an appraising eye. “Are you looking for something particular?”

  “I’ll let you know when I find it,” Alex said with a shrug.

  He lit another cigarette, leaving him only four more, while he waited for the old fellow to get the files. He came back after about ten minutes with five folders under his arm.

  “We can only let out five at a time,” he said. “This will get you started.” He opened a register book and wrote down the numbers of the files he had, then turned the book around for Alex to sign.

  “I’ll pull the rest and have them here for you, Mr…” He squinted at the name in the book. “Lockerby.”

  “Thanks,” Alex said, picking up the folders.

  “My name is Edmond Dante,” the old man said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  Alex took the files to a nearby table and spread them out in front of him. The first one dealt with a piece of farmland Watson surveyed so that a mansion could be built on it. Alex was about to set it aside when he noticed that Watson’s wasn’t the only survey attached to the permit.

  It turned out that the building permit encompassed six different parcels of land, only one of which had been surveyed by Watson as a condition of its sale to North Shore Development. It wasn’t anything major, but Alex wondered why the company used different surveyors for the other parcels.

  “It’s because each parcel was surveyed as a condition of sale,” Edmond explained when Alex posed the question to him. “When this company bought the land, they had to get it surveyed. They used whoever was available.”

  “Thanks,” Alex said, happy to have the mystery explained but not any closer to finding any meaning in the files.

  He paged through each new file, looking for something, anything, that might explain why David Watson had been murdered, but nothing seemed improper or out of place. It was almost five when he opened the last folder and quickly looked through it. This one was for a large property owned by a wealthy family who wanted to build a home on it.

  Alex checked the information on the parcel and found that, like most of the others, it had been put together from several smaller parcels.

  That tickled something in Alex’s brain.

  He picked up the folders on the desk and found the one he wanted. Opening it, he confirmed that this survey was for a five acre parcel of land. Like the first file he looked at, there were other parcels that made up the lot being built on, Watson had only surveyed that five-acre piece. The difference was, when aAlex checked Watson’s file, it said that he’d done the work for a woman named Martha Gibbons, not for North Shore Development.

  “She probably got him to do it so she could sell the land,” Alex said, shutting the folder.

  He collected the folders and took them up to Edmond at his desk. Something about Martha Gibbons was bothering him but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “Do you have land sale records here?” he asked Edmond.

  The old man shook his head and Alex noticed that he was sweating.

  “Sale records would be in the assessor’s office of whatever county the land was located in,” he explained, panting as if he were out of breath.

  “You okay, Edmond? Alex asked.

  “Nope,” Edmond said with a mischievous grin that revealed a dimple in his cheek. “Doc gave me the long face. Leukemia, he said. Gave me six months.”

  Alex’s mouth dropped open. Leukemia explained a lot, especially the weight loss, the shakes, and the sweating.

  “I—” he began but Edmond waved him off.

  “That was five years ago,” he said with a chuckle. “I suppose it’ll get me eventually, but not today.”

  “Well, stay healthy, my friend,” Alex said.

  Edmond thanked him, and Alex headed upstairs as the security guards began to sweep through the building before it closed. He felt like he should have said something more to Edmond, but what was there to say? The man had outlived his doctor’s dire prediction by years; nothing Alex could add would change that reality. He did resolve to be more like Edmond, though. After all, his days were just as numbered. It would do him good not to think about it and just live his life.

  A row of phone booths lined the wall by the front entrance to the building and Alex stopped to check in with Leslie. He still had some time before Jessica would be in, so he wanted to make sure he didn’t have anything else on his plate.

  “Hey, boss,” Leslie said once they were connected. She sounded even more chipper than before if that was possible.

  “What’s the good word?” he asked.

  “Randall is coming in to town on Saturday and taking me dancing,” she said.

  Alex laughed at that.

  “Of course he is,” he said.

  “He just called me,” she went on, ignoring Alex’s dig.

  “Well call him back for me, will you? I want him to look up a property owner named Martha Gibbons.” He gave her the parcel number and she wrote it down.

  “Do you need this tonight?”

  Alex thought about that.

  “No,” he said. “Tomorrow is soon enough. I j
ust need to know if there’s anything unusual about her land.”

  Leslie promised that she would, and Alex was about to hang up.

  “Hey,” she said, trying to catch him.

  “Yeah?”

  “I talked with Hannah this afternoon, just checking up on her. She’s doing fine, by the way.”

  “I never doubted you,” Alex said.

  “She said that when Alex worked for the Coledale mine that the safety engineer broke his leg and was laid up for six months.”

  Alarms went off in Alex’s head.

  “Who did his job while he was laid up?”

  “Hannah didn’t know, but I was thinking—”

  “What if it was Leroy?” Alex finished her thought. “That would explain everything. Thanks, doll, you did great.”

  “Remember that when it’s time for my Christmas bonus,” she teased.

  Alex promised to remember and hung up.

  “Lobby’s closing, Mister,” a flat-faced security guard said, waiting politely for him to finish.

  Alex absently thanked the man and made his way outside. If Leroy had done the safety engineer’s job then he would know how to shore up a tunnel. That explained everything, the stolen tools and construction equipment, Leroy’s kidnapping, even why the finding rune couldn’t link to him. Wherever Leroy was, he was likely underground.

  That had to be it.

  “But how are they going to use those big drill bits?” Alex checked himself. “Sanderson was right, they’d need a big, noisy engine.”

  He thought about it as he walked down the bock toward the crawler station. The target had to be a bank; no one else had anything valuable enough to make such a big job worthwhile. But all the banks were in the Middle and Inner rings, far too quiet for the noise of tunneling.

  The crawler station was empty when Alex reached it. He must have just missed one. Trying to shake his mental gears loose, he walked down to a news stand and bought a copy of the Times. He and Iggy hadn’t had dinner together in a few days, so he was certain the old fox would want to discuss the news tonight.

  As Alex handed a dime to the man at the stand, he caught sight of the screaming headline on the afternoon edition of The Midnight Sun.

  Runewright Detective Cracks City Wide Theft Ring, Ghost Still at Large.

  Alex scooped up the paper and began reading the story.

  “Hey, Mac,” the newsman said. “This ain’t a library.”

  “Sorry,” Alex said, dropping a nickel on the man’s counter.

  According to the story, famous runewright detective, Alex Lockerby had been observed by reporters leading police on a wild trip through the city. At the end of the journey, he’d revealed a stash of stolen trucks hidden in an abandoned west side factory.

  Alex felt sick to his stomach. Danny wasn’t likely to believe that Alex had given this story to the tabloids, but Detweiler was going to blow his top, and Callahan too. The way the story read, the department was a bunch of idiots who needed Alex to solve all their cases, literally leading them around by the nose. In the end, the writer wondered why Alex wasn’t on the ghost case and openly accused the police of putting the city at risk.

  Alex flipped back to the front page and read the by-line. It was Billy Tasker, the same reporter who’d outed Alex’s involvement with the Watson killing case in the first place.

  “What is it with this guy,” Alex growled, tucking the tabloid under his arm. The death of Paul Lundstrom was the lead story on the cover of the Times, but with far less salacious details than The Midnight Sun. Alex flipped the paper over and read the articles below the fold while he waited for the next crawler. There wasn’t much interesting, some tax bill the legislature was considering, and a political scandal in Washington D.C. A sidebar article mentioned a successful test of the first section of Andrew Barton’s elevated crawler line, which ran from Empire tower north and along Central Park West.

  Alex nearly dropped the paper.

  “Hey, buddy,” he yelled at the newsman. “Where’s there a phone around here?”

  The man pointed to a bar on the corner of the next block and Alex ran the whole way.

  “Get me Danny Pak,” he told the police operator once he reached the Central Office switchboard.

  “I’m sorry,” the voice came back a moment later. “Detective Pak doesn’t answer.”

  “Take a message for him, please.”

  “Go ahead,” the voice said after a moment.

  “Tell him to call Alex Lockerby at home as soon as he can. I need to know if one of the trucks he found today is from Barton Electric.”

  The police operator said she would give him the message and hung up.

  17

  The Checkup

  Alex wanted to go home and wait for Danny’s call, but he still had to go see Jessica. As much as he felt he was on to something, going home wouldn’t make Danny call any faster, and he definitely didn’t want his tremors coming back.

  It was just after six when Alex walked up to the brick, two-story house with the alchemist sign in the yard. This time he didn’t bother with the front door, opening the gate to the back yard instead and following the paved path around to the back.

  He peered in the long bank of windows next to the door and saw Jessica moving from table to table in the back of the dimly lit lab. She’d pick up a clipboard on one table, make adjustments to the equipment or add things to the various jars, then make notes and move on. The lab was mostly dark, with hanging lights over each table, and Jessica’s red hair would shine as she moved beneath them. Alex watched her for a few moments, then knocked on the glass. Jessica was so startled she nearly dropped the clipboard she was holding.

  Alex took off his hat and waved at her as she made her way through the maze of tables to the mud room and the back door.

  “You startled me,” she said, a little flushed.

  “Sorry,” he said with a smile.

  Jessica smiled back. She wore he work apron over a cream-colored dress, and she had her green scarf around her neck. Alex assumed she liked to accent the green of her eyes.

  “Well, no harm done.” She held open the door so Alex could come in, then shut it behind him.

  “I was disappointed that you didn’t come see me on Tuesday,” she said in a voice that implied that Alex should be sorry too.

  “I got shot,” he said with his best, trust me smile.

  She raised an eyebrow while running an appraising eye over him, looking for any signs that his statement was true.

  “It was a busy day,” he said.

  “I’ll bet,” Jessica said, leading the way back into the lab. “Since you’re early, you’ll have time to tell me all about it while I make my rounds.”

  She walked over to the table where she’d been standing when Alex knocked on the window and picked up its clipboard.

  “What are you doing?” Alex asked.

  Jessica showed him the clipboard. It might as well have been written in Chinese for all the good that did. The paper on the board was covered in columns with each one headed by a time. To the right of that were some pre-written notes and some blank spaces.

  As Alex watched, Jessica noted the time from a clock on the wall, then checked it against an alarm clock on the table. The clock on the wall was elaborate and ornate, with carvings of animals all around it and a large set of counterweights hanging from it. A brass pendulum hung from it as well, rocking gently back and forth while emitting tick-tock sounds. Alex had seen clocks like this before; they were prized for their accuracy and very expensive.

  Finding that the clocks matched, Jessica wound the alarm clock and set it to go off at eight-thirty.

  “What’s that for?”

  “This is when I need to stir the solution,” she said, putting a check mark in an empty column next to the printed time of eight-thirty.

  “So you set the clock to remind you,” Alex said, nodding with understanding. He looked around the lab at the almost two dozen tables and their glasswa
re and burners. “Do you have to do that with all of them?”

  Jessica laughed, or rather giggled. The sound was girlish and held none of her usual, sultry tone. She covered her mouth as if she were embarrassed, but Alex knew she was smiling behind her hand.

  “Of course I do,” she said. “That’s what I do here, make sure the major potions are done right.”

  She put down the clipboard and moved to the next table. This one didn’t have a light hanging above it, so she moved back into the light of the previous table with the new clipboard.

  “Why is it so dark in here?” Alex asked. Most of the room’s lights had shades and hung directly over their tables. “Magelights are relatively cheap.”

  “Some potions are sensitive to light,” she explained, putting the clipboard down and bringing a sealed can and a ring of measuring spoons from the dark table. She carefully measured out some brown powder from the can, then added it to a jar of liquid bubbling away in the dark.

  “You’re stalling,” she said, moving on to the next table. “You’re supposed to be telling me about how you got shot, and why you think that’s a good excuse for missing our appointment.”

  Alex signed and began relating the story of his looking into Andrew Barton’s stolen motor and how he’d been shot in an alley outside the Lightning Lord’s factory.

  “Is he handsome?” Jessica asked with her half-smile in place.

  “Who?” Alex asked, surprised by the question.

  “Barton,” Jessica said, as if the answer were self-evident.

  “I suppose he’s handsome enough,” he said. “He’s worth over a million, and most people find that more than attractive enough.”

  Jessica smirked at that.

  “Indeed most people would,” she said, setting another alarm clock. “So did you find the Lightning Lord’s motor?”

  “Not yet,” Alex said.

  He started explaining the kidnapping of Leroy Cunningham and how the man that shot him was involved. She listened attentively, asking the occasional question as she worked her way along the tables to the far back of the room.