by Dan Willis
“So what does all this mean?” Alex asked, tracing the rings of the calendar with his finger.
“Dr. Hargrave wasn’t sure,” Iggy said with a sigh. “Mayan is a dead language.”
“Then how do they know this is a calendar?”
Iggy laid the book back on the table and pointed to the innermost ring.
“These are months,” he said. “Days, then years.” He moved his finger out to each of the other rings.
“But the linguist has no idea what these say,” Alex said, picking up one of the symbols Iggy had torn out of the rune book. It looked the head of snake with a string of pearls around its neck and too many teeth.
“Even if he could read Mayan, I doubt he’d understand these,” Iggy said. “It’s clear that these are runes, and from a school I’ve never heard of. That concerns me.”
“So you’re going through the Monograph to see if there’s any mention of other schools?”
Iggy nodded.
“All the known schools are mentioned,” he said. “All the writers seem to believe that Archimedes was the first runewright, and that the Kanji and Arabic schools are offshoots of that. But I’m starting to doubt it.”
“How could ancient Mayans have copied from Archimedes work?”
Iggy shrugged.
“It’s technically possible,” he admitted. “Archimedes died around two hundred B.C. and the Mayans existed until about the seventeen-hundreds.”
“Assuming someone knew how to get from Ancient Greece to South America,” Alex felt compelled to add.
Iggy didn’t respond, just shrugged and stared at the strange runes scattered around the table.
“That’s not what’s worrying you, though,” Alex guessed. “Is it?”
“No,” Iggy said, picking up the Monograph. “This book has been legendary for the better part of a century,” he said. “I always believed it was the pinnacle of runic lore. A collection of the most powerful and dangerous runes ever created.”
Alex nodded, seeing where Iggy was going, and he picked up the black book.
“But now there’s a new game in town,” he said. “And we have no idea what they can do.”
The thought was sobering. Alex realized that if he thought enough about it, it would probably be terrifying.
He resolved not to think about it.
“So far,” Iggy said, beginning to stack up the reference books, “the runes we’ve seen have been fairly straightforward. Tracking, force, fire, that sort of thing.”
“But how did they activate that rune that burned the dead man?” Alex asked.
“And burn that rune into Mrs. Cunningham,” Iggy agreed. “They’ve definitely got a few tricks over on us.” He indicated the black book. “I’d feel better if I knew what any of these glyphs did.”
“Glyphs?”
“That’s what Mayan writing is called.”
Alex set down the glyph book and picked up the Monograph. Just holding it in his hand, he could feel its power. Normally, the book was shielded by powerful obscurement runes, but they didn’t work when it was open.
“I take it there’s no rune in here for translating languages,” he said.
Iggy took the book and closed it, setting it back on the table.
“Actually there is,” he said, “but I wouldn’t try to use that on an unknown magic. What if it activated the rune? That’d be fine if it was a light rune, but what if it was something more deadly?”
“Point taken,” Alex said.
Magic was a great tool until it wasn’t. Iggy was always telling him that there weren’t any shortcuts when it came to being a detective. Still, Alex seemed to always be doing things the hard way. It would be nice if something came easy, every once in a while.
Alex helped Iggy clean up, putting the Archimedean Monograph back on the bookshelf in the front room. The shelf and even the space where the book sat were covered in invisible runes that drove the viewer’s eye to look anywhere but at the book. Alex knew it was there and still had problems looking right at it once it was back in its place.
“I’m hungry,” Iggy said once Alex was done.
“Don’t look at me,” Alex said. “Dinner is your department.” He hadn’t been paying attention, but now that Iggy brought it up, his stomach rumbled.
“I was busy learning about glyphs so we can hopefully find your missing draftsman,” Iggy said. “What did you do to help?”
A slow smile spread across Alex’s face but he didn’t answer.
“You figured it out?” Iggy guessed, sounding impressed. “You know why these glyph runewrights took Cunningham.”
“Not yet,” Alex said. “But I’ve got an idea. That reminds me, did Danny call for me?”
Iggy shook his head.
“It’s too late to cook,” he said, heading for the stairs. “I’ll get my coat and we’ll walk down to the diner for a bite. While we eat, you can tell me all about your solution to the kidnapping.”
Alex’s stomach grumbled again but he shook his head.
“I can’t,” he said. “I need to be here in case Danny calls.”
Iggy looked at the big grandfather clock standing in the corner of the front room. It was already pushing eight o’clock.
“By the time we get back, Danny is sure to be home,” he said. “You can call him then. Now let me get my coat and we’ll go.”
Iggy went up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom to remove his smoking jacket and put on his suit coat. Alex waited impatiently. That feeling that he should be doing something more to find Leroy kept coming back.
If he was right about why the glyph runewright and his friends had taken Leroy, Alex would need the help of the police to find him. Right now Alex was not their favorite person. If he wanted to have a chance of getting Leroy back to his wife alive, he would have to play a very careful game. He needed proof, or at least seriously compelling conjecture, in order to get the cops on board.
Of course, standing in the foyer waiting for Iggy, there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it.
It was frustrating, but Alex took a breath and resolved to wait for the evidence he needed. If he moved too soon, if he couldn’t convince the police that he was right, it would cost Leroy his life.
19
The Connection
Alex woke the next morning to his phone ringing. He knew that sound meant something important, but he couldn’t seem to wrap his head around it. Finally he managed to work up the energy to roll over and pick it up.
“Lo?” he slurred.
“Alex?” Danny Pak’s voice came out of the receiver at what seemed like an excessive volume level.
Alarms started going off in Alex’s head, but try as he might he couldn’t put together why he thought hearing Danny’s voice was important.
“You called me,” Danny reminded him. “About a missing Barton Electric truck?”
Synapses started firing and Alex sat up.
“I need a minute,” Alex said, then set the receiver down and poured himself four fingers of bourbon from the bottle on his nightstand. Downing it in one go, he felt the liquor burn its way down to his stomach.
Normally that would do the trick, but his head still felt like it was stuffed with wool. Whatever Dr. Kellin had done to the nerve tonic, it was making him sleep a little too soundly.
Alex forced himself to stand and staggered to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. He tried not to look in the mirror at the dark circles under his eyes and the unkempt mop of white hair hanging down into his face.
You’re a train wreck, he thought.
Train!
Alex jumped as if he’d been jolted by a bolt of lightning. Tearing back into his bedroom, he scooped up the receiver and pressed it to his ear.
“Danny?” he said, trying not to yell.
“I’m still here,” his friend’s voice announced. “Were you asleep when I called?”
“Yeah,” Alex admitted, picking up his alarm clock and pressing it to
his ear. The time read eight o’clock, but he couldn’t believe that was possible. The ticking of the clock told him it was.
“Rough night?”
“Rough week,” Alex said. “Did you find out about that truck? I expected you to call last night.”
“I got your message last night,” Danny said, “but I had to wait till this morning to contact the sergeant in charge of evidence at the abandoned factory. I just got off the phone with him and he said that there is a truck in there from Barton Electric.”
“Is it empty?” Alex asked.
“Yeah,” Danny said.
Alex let out a pent-up breath. So far, everything was lining up perfectly. If he was right, he might just have a chance to save Leroy, help Danny solve his case, and get paid double his fee. Not a bad day’s work.
“I didn’t have a Barton Electric truck on my list of stolen property,” Danny said. “How did you know about it?”
Alex started pacing, fully awake now.
“Andrew Barton asked me to find a stolen electric motor for him,” Alex said.
“But why did you think my thieves took it?”
“I’ll explain it all to you at the Central Office,” he said. “You’ve got to run this by Callahan as soon as possible. Can you meet me there in an hour?”
“Do you have a death wish?” Danny said with no trace of humor in his voice. “After that tabloid article yesterday, Detweiler has you on his shoot-on-sight list, and Callahan’s not far behind.”
Alex groaned. He’d forgotten about Billy Tasker of The Midnight Sun. Something would have to be done about that guy, but now wasn’t the time.
“That’s why I need you,” Alex said, thinking quickly. He had intended to let Danny bring his solution to Callahan and take the credit. Tasker burned that plan and now Danny might be risking his own career by helping. Alex hesitated for only a moment before continuing. “I need you to sell this to Callahan. Someone’s life is at stake, I can’t afford for the Lieutenant to give me the brush off.”
“Whose life is at stake?” Danny asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Leroy Cunningham,” Alex said. “I promise I’ll tell you the whole story at the Central office. Meet me in the lobby at a quarter to nine.”
To his credit, Danny didn’t ask if Alex was putting him on. He just sighed and agreed to the meeting. Alex hung up with only a little trepidation. If his hunch proved out, Danny would get a very big notch in his belt. If he was wrong, though, he might lose his badge.
It was a tough spot in which he was putting his friend.
“Can’t be helped,” he said out loud, more to convince himself than anything. He peeled off his nightshirt and headed for the shower.
“I wonder if Danny would like to be a partner in a private detective agency?” he asked his reflection as he waited for the hot water.
He didn’t need his reflection to answer, he already knew. Danny would hate it.
Alex decided he would have to work extra hard not to get his best friend fired.
Fifteen minutes later, Alex was showered, shaved, and dressed. Iggy had gone out again, leaving him a note saying he’d gone back to the museum to talk to Dr. Hargrave, the linguist, about the glyph runes. Since Iggy usually made breakfast, and coffee, it was irritating to have him gone two days in a row, but there was no helping it. If Danny couldn’t make the police listen, the glyphs were the only lead Alex had left.
He was about to head out the door and try to grab a cup of coffee from a dog wagon somewhere near the Central Office when the house phone rang.
“Glad I caught you,” Leslie’s voice chided him when he picked up. “You all right?” she prodded when Alex mumbled a barely intelligible greeting at her.
“Tell you later,” he said. He didn’t want to go into it and he really didn’t have the time. “I’m on my way over to the Central Office. I think I know how to find Leroy, but I’m going to need the cops’ help to do it.”
There was a long pause.
“Okay,” she said finally.
Alex knew that meant she was worried. She would make jokes and try to bully him if she thought everything was okay.
“Don’t worry,” Alex said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “Danny’s with me on this one.”
“Do not get that nice boy in trouble,” she said.
Alex smiled at her bullying remarks. He’d said the right thing to calm her fears.
“What did you need?” he pressed. “I need to get going.”
“One thing,” she said. “Randall looked up Martha Gibbons like you wanted. She owned that land for years, but she fell behind in the taxes.”
“What happened?”
“She died and the land was passed to a relative named Duane King.”
“Okay,” Alex said, taking out his notebook and writing King’s name down. “I’ll try to look him up at the Hall of Records after I’m done with the cops.”
It wasn’t much, but he felt like he was one step closer to figuring out why David Watson was killed.
“There’s more,” Leslie said with a sly grin Alex could hear. “When Randall looked into it, he found that the land was sold at a tax sale.”
Alex had no idea what that meant.
“What’s a tax sale?”
“Apparently, if you don’t pay the taxes on your land for five years, the state will sell your land at auction to cover them.”
“Didn’t Mr. King have the money to pay the taxes?” he asked.
“Randall didn’t know. All he could find out from the report was that the land value had gone down in the year before it sold.”
“That doesn’t sound right. I thought land on the North Shore was valuable.”
“That was before the big push for millionaires to build houses in the Hamptons,” Leslie said. “Randall said that land does lose value sometimes. He figures King didn’t want to pay the taxes on land that wasn’t worth that much to begin with.”
“Well if this is all so normal, why did Randall bother telling it to you?” Alex was starting to get irritated. He knew very well why Randall would want to keep Leslie on the phone but why would she pass useless information on to him?
“There might have been a detail he found interesting,” Leslie said. Alex could tell from the teasing shift in her voice that she was annoyed that he’d gotten short with her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “What did Mr. Wonderful find so interesting?”
“The tax sale for that land was moved to a new location on the day of the sale,” she said. “Randall said that tax sales are announced to the public in advance. Moving it would make it hard for people to find.”
Alex nodded, starting to see where this was going.
“Do you know who won that auction?” he asked.
“North Shore Development.”
“Well that’s not suspicious at all,” Alex said, making quick notes in his book. If Seth Kowalski or someone in his office changed the auction’s location to make sure North Shore got the land, then maybe one of the losers was the ghost.
That’s a long time to wait to take revenge for a bad land deal, his logical brain reminded him.
It wasn’t a concrete motive, but it wasn’t nothing. Alex needed to find Duane King.
“Thanks, doll,” he said, tucking his notebook back in his pocket. “Call your beau back and see if he’s got an address for Mr. King. I’ll run the rest of this down as soon as I’m done with the police.”
“If I haven’t heard from you by dinner, I’ll come by with bail money,” she promised, then wished him luck and hung up.
Thanks to his call with Leslie, it was nine-fifty when Alex got off at the crawler station across from the Central Office. At the corner of the block there was a vendor selling hot dogs and sandwiches. Alex noticed the bullet shape of a coffee percolator and he headed that way instead of crossing the street.
He wasn’t sure that he could get the police to help him recover Leroy, even with Danny’s assistance.
He needed to get his head clear. The way things were going, this might be his only chance to find Hannah’s missing husband.
He decided that in addition to clearing his head, he needed something for his nerves. He took out one of his two remaining cigarettes and lit it.
“I thought I might find you here,” Danny’s said when Alex stepped up to the dog wagon.
Alex must have needed the coffee more than he thought. Danny stood back from the street, leaning against the corner of the building. He wasn’t hidden at all and yet Alex had missed him.
“Coffee,” he told the man working the dog wagon.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about now?” Danny asked as Alex paid for his drink.
“Remember my theory from the other day,” he said, sipping the scalding liquid as fast as he dared.
Danny nodded.
“You thought my thieves were actually bank robbers trying to tunnel into an underground vault.”
“I was right.”
Danny raised an eyebrow at that.
“As I remember it,” Danny said, pulling out his notebook and flipping it open, “you called an expert on mining who told you that my thieves would need a special mining engine to make that work. One that would make far too much noise and probably asphyxiate the people using it.”
Alex nodded. He hoped it didn’t sound that impossible when Danny told Callahan.
“That’s where the Barton Electric truck comes in,” he said. “That truck was carrying an experimental electric motor that Barton developed to pull trains.”
Danny didn’t seem sure what to make of that.
“So,” he said after a long silence. “You think the thieves are using the Lightning Lord’s motor to turn the boring bits to dig a tunnel.”
“Think about it,” Alex said. “Electric motors are quiet and they don’t have exhaust. Whoever stole all that stuff has everything they need to tunnel from the basement of one building into a bank vault. Even one across a street.”
Danny hesitated, flipping to his notes on the things that had been stolen.
