by Jeff Ross
“Were you sanding this car this morning when he was here?” Grady says.
Hank looks at the Mustang. “I’ve been sanding this car for two straight days. The most delicate piece of work I have ever had the misfortune of undertaking.”
“Okay, thanks,” Grady says. “Sorry to bother you.”
“No worries. Tell Rod I say hi and that I have that Subaru ready for him whenever he wants it.”
“Will do,” Grady says.
Hank flips down his goggles and revs the electric sander back to life, and we walk away.
Grady stops while we’re passing the empty unit. “If we were inside there, the sander would sound muffled, just like the one on the ransom call.”
“You think JJ has Ben?” I say.
“Maybe,” Grady says. “Do you?”
“It’s possible, but JJ is always so full of hot air that I imagine he’s trying to use the situation to his advantage.” I look in the window again.
“How could he think he’s going to open a garage here?” Grady asks. “Where is that coming from?”
“Maybe Daddy doesn’t want him around cars after what happened and won’t lend him the money for his own shop. Like you were saying before about that Furgo movie.”
“Fargo,” Grady says. “Where does that leave us?”
I pull away from the window and look Grady in the eye. “Nowhere,” I say.
TWENTY-TWO
Grady drops me at home and I spend the afternoon watching Fargo. My mother comes home, exhausted and hungry. I make her my special Hamburger Helper stew, and then we settle in to watch Survivor. It’s something we’ve done since I was a kid and always makes me feel at home.
Neither of us says a word about Tom or Ben or even flicks to the news. I don’t feel as though we’re avoiding it either. It’s just that there really is nothing we can do. Not at this moment anyway.
Halfway through the second episode, my cell vibrates. I pull it out of my pocket and answer without looking at the name. “Hello?”
“He has an uncle.”
It’s Grady. I climb out from under the blanket my mother and I have stretched over us and walk to my room.
“Who?”
“Ben. He has, like, not an uncle uncle, but a step-uncle.”
“A step-uncle?” I say.
“Jack has a stepbrother,” Grady says.
“I don’t think that’s true,” I say. “I mean, I’ve never heard about this.”
“That’s because Jack’s never told anyone. Or maybe he has. Let’s say the news outlets don’t know, because it would be incredible information if they did.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s an ex-con.”
“What?” I say.
“His name is Joe. He’s five years older than Jack. His father—get this: Jack and Joe’s father led this crazy double life. He lived out west in Seattle for most of his life. He knocked this woman up before skipping town. He bounced around the States for a while before settling here and, very quickly, knocking Jack’s mother up.”
“At which time he stayed?”
“He married, settled down and, I guess, left that old life behind.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I had to trace Jack’s father, Don Carter. Luckily, he was drawing a GI disability check before he moved here. He was injured in the Second World War. So that wasn’t too difficult to follow back. I did a little research into the high school and college and everything else. I found people he knew, looked them up and kept going. One guy he he was in the army with told me about the high-school sweetheart Jack’s dad left behind. So I called her.”
“You called some old woman? She must be in her eighties or nineties.”
“Ninety-seven. Anyway, all I had to do was say Don Carter, and it all came out. The whole mess of a story. Her name is Martha Fisher. She admitted that Don was her son’s father. Then she told me about her son Joe.”
“Jack’s stepbrother.”
“Yeah. Jack’s stepbrother. I asked where he was, and she said she didn’t know. That he’d left years ago and hadn’t spoken to the family since. There’d been a disagreement, apparently. She didn’t get into it. But with that I was able to take the guy’s name, Joe Fisher, and follow him around the United States.”
“You did this all this afternoon?”
“No, not all of it. I’d been trying to put this together before. It seemed weird because he kind of came out of nowhere.”
“And you didn’t tell me because…?” I say.
“It might not have led anywhere. And anyway, Don’s dead. But you said Detective Evans suggested Ben’s disappearance would have something to do with a family member. Right?”
“Family first.”
“So I investigated the family.”
“And?” I was getting a little impatient.
“As far as I can tell, when Joe left Seattle he fell straight into a life of crime. He went to jail in Denver for car theft. He robbed a 7-Eleven in Las Vegas. A couple more cars. I mean, these are the crimes he was busted for. And drug dealing in New York. He did five years for that, but he’s been out for two.”
“And now where is he?”
“That’s what I’ve been working on. Tracking this guy wasn’t hard. There’s information about everything he has done. But he suddenly disappeared. The next thing I know, I found a couple of personal checks being written to Joe on Jack Carter’s personal account.”
“How did you get into his personal account?”
“He left his Wi-Fi open, remember? He’s even left himself logged in to his bank account a few times lately,” Grady says.
I sit down on my bed and look out the window. It’s getting dim out, that purple time of evening. “How much were these checks for?”
“One was for $3,000 and then a week later there was one for $800.” I hear some crashing around on Grady’s end. When he comes back, he’s speaking even more quickly. “The checks were just the beginning. I had to go back to when Jack became mayor to really look into what was going on.”
“You’re losing me.”
“When you become a public official, like a mayor or senator or whatever, you have to give up any business that you could use your power to influence.”
“Such as?” I get off the bed and stand at the window. Some kids are playing road hockey in front of my house. I watch them pushing and shoving one another, sticks flashing in the evening light.
“Real estate, mostly. I mean, that’s the big one.”
“And did Jack Carter do that?”
“He had a lot of investments before he became the mayor. He was on the board of Racmar Homes, which does about three quarters of the construction in town. He also personally owned a lot of property. So when he became mayor, he had to leave the board and sell his shares in Racmar.”
“So he gave all that up to be mayor?”
“He didn’t have a choice. Every new building in town would be a conflict of interest for him. He didn’t have to sell his personal property though. If it came to building on land he owned, he’d have to declare a conflict of interest and keep out of any negotiations with the building companies, but there was nothing wrong with him holding on to the properties. What’s really strange is that one of these properties is outside the city limits.”
“Why’s that strange?”
“Because he didn’t have to sell it,” Grady says. He has that excited jingle in his voice again.
“You just said he di
dn’t have to sell any of his private property.”
“Right, okay,” Grady says. “He wouldn’t have to sell anything that was, like, a house or apartment building. Land that was set to be developed had to be sold. But only if it was inside the city limits. He can own anything he wants outside of Resurrection Falls.”
“But you’re saying he sold this other property?”
“Yes, he did.”
“And you know who he sold it to?”
“I do,” he says.
“Tell me it’s Joe Fisher.”
“You are correct, dear Lauren. It was Joe Fisher. I actually knew that a while ago, but it didn’t set off any alarm bells. So when I was researching Jack’s father and went all the way back to Seattle…”
“And then heard the name Martha Fisher…”
“It connected. Right,” he says.
One of the kids scores a goal, and the rest argue about it. I turn away from the window and sit at my desk.
Grady is silent for a moment. I let him be silent. When he finally speaks, he comes out with, “The thing is, everything is about wanting. If you can promise someone they’ll get what they want, they’ll do anything for you.”
“What does that have to do with this?”
“Jack wants something. I’m guessing it’s power. Control. I don’t believe people who are uninterested in power go into politics. What does Joe want though? That’s the real question.”
“He wants to be part of this deal, I guess,” I say. “For the money.”
“Maybe,” Grady says, though he doesn’t sound convinced.
“Where is this property we’re talking about anyway?”
“That’s the best part, Lauren,” Grady says, sounding excited again.
“What? What is the best part?”
“Are you interested in going for a little drive?”
Forty-five minutes later, we’re parked in the middle of the lot outside the weird industrial mall. There are a couple of baker’s vans and an old pickup that looks as though it hasn’t moved in months. Otherwise, it’s a ghost town.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
“This is one of the proposed locations for super-high-speed Internet,” Grady says. He shuts the car off and we stare at the building in silence.
“For what?”
“A geek’s dream. Really fast download speeds. So fast you wouldn’t be able to tell if something was on your computer or on the Internet.”
“Okay, so what?”
“It will help bring major businesses here. Web designers and online innovation companies. There’ll be tax breaks as well.” Grady turns back to the complex. “This area could be one of the next places to get those kinds of speeds. Right now, only Kansas City has it.”
I shake my head. “What would a chop shop and a bakery and a portrait framer and a used-furniture place want with super-high-speed Internet? Half of these stores are closed.”
“That might be the point,” Grady says. “Jack Carter has been lobbying heavily for this to happen here. It has to go through Google and the telecom companies and everything first. But the underground infrastructure is here already. There were tunnels drilled for sewage and water that were never used. It’s the setup necessary to bring super-high-speed fiber wires in here.”
“But why here?”
“There are plans in city council to build a campus for Internet start-ups and other uber-geeky companies. So whoever owns this building will be in line to make a mint. Think about it.” His fingers are going on the steering wheel again. His hair is a bit floppy, as if he hasn’t had time to deal with it. He’s changed into a hoodie, jeans and blue Converse All Stars.
“I’m thinking,” I say. “Okay, I’ve got nothing.”
“What you have is condos coming in from that direction. There are plans for three towers in the next year. Trendy little shops and restaurants are opening along Draper Road. If this space turned into a high-tech center, we’d be looking at one of the coolest, most advanced communications hubs in the country. The tech world in California has reached its peak. There’s no space left for all the businesses, and a lot of companies have been looking for somewhere else to open data centers.” He points at the building. “This could be it.”
“Who owns it?” I ask. I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.
“A numbered company—181572, to be exact. It took a little digging to get to the bottom of it. It felt like a front from the beginning. There’s a real-estate company involved, a couple of landowners, but they’re all working under the umbrella of this company called Otomo.”
“Like, Otomo Lake?” I say.
“Exactly.”
“And who is Otomo?”
Grady looks at me.
I look back.
“You know the answer.”
“Joe Fisher,” I say.
“Exactly. What do you think the possibility is that Joe is being shafted by his brother and has become desperate or angry about it? Maybe something in the deal has fallen apart, and Joe feels left out. Or the mayor is suddenly afraid that he’s made a mistake in trusting his half brother. So Joe has decided to take matters into his own hands. What leverage would he have? He couldn’t suddenly turn his brother in. That would leave him with nothing.”
“You think Joe may have kidnapped Ben?” I say.
“If he did, then Jack would know exactly where he was.”
“What? Where?”
“You said it yourself. Otomo Lake. There’s one tiny cottage there.”
“That doesn’t explain how Joe would have gotten Ben out of the house,” I say. “I mean, would they even have met?”
“Yeah, that was bothering me as well. But if Joe had found out about the difficulties between Jack and JJ, he could have easily placed himself between the two of them. All he would have to do is tell JJ he could help him get what he wanted.”
“The shop,” I say. “Joe could help JJ get the shop he wants.”
“And all JJ had to do,” Grady says, “is help Joe borrow Ben for a couple of days. Help get him out of the house.”
“JJ would see no problems with that, I bet,” I say. “And Ben’s such an easygoing kid, he would have gone with JJ.”
Grady starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot. “It all adds up,” he says. “Joe is Jack’s caretaker on this property. He also owns the Otomo Lake area. It’s a perfect fit.”
“How so?”
“Think about it,” Grady says for the eight hundredth time. “You buy this area and get the high-tech firms in here. The little cubicle zombies put in their hours, then go back to their little dinkpads down the street…”
“Dinkpads?” I say.
“Double income, no kids, probably a dog. Dinkpads.” He laughs. “Dinks are a marketer’s dream. They like all-inclusive holidays, long walks on the beach, retro gear of any description, soy lattes and are as flush with cash as all other demographics put together. But the one thing they desire more than anything else is a place to unwind. A little spot of their own with some trees, a beach and water to stare at.”
“A place not too far away,” I say, starting to understand. We’re hurtling down the highway. Headlights are coming on as the purple sky darkens to black.
“An hour with traffic,” Grady says. “A quick drive outside of town but with the feeling that you’re hundreds of miles from civilization.”
“Otomo Lake,” I say.
“Otomo Lake.”
TWENTY-THREE
Once you
leave the highway, only a single road cuts through the Otomo Lake area. It’s little more than a series of dirt paths. This particular dirt path seems remarkably well traveled.
It’s too dark to tell exactly what is around us, but as the car bounces on the rough road, the headlights illuminate flashes of massive trees and bushes. Branches reach out above the road, though many have been snapped off and tossed to the side or crushed into the dirt.
“Look at those tracks,” I say, leaning forward as Grady slows the car down. “They’re huge.” We come around a corner and discover what has been so angrily destroying nature.
There are three semitrucks loaded with trees parked on the right side of a split. Grady cuts to the left and stops once we’re safely behind some brush. He shuts the car off, and we sit in the resulting silence.
“What is going on back there?” I say.
“It looks like clear-cutting to me,” Grady says.
We get out of the car. The clicking of branches clipping one another in the wind and the scurrying of animals through the underbrush take over from the hum of the wheels on the road. We stay close to the larger trees on the side of the road, though it seems unlikely that anyone would be working at this time.
It’s a clear enough night that the moon illuminates the lakefront area.
“It looks like they’re making room for cottages or a resort or something,” Grady says.
There is no sign of life around the trucks and machinery. “Wouldn’t you need permits for this?” I say.
Grady spots something across the road. He runs over to a tree with a giant orange X on it. “Not if the trees are diseased,” he says.
There are X’s everywhere. Tall, healthy-looking trees marked for destruction.
“I’m not a botanist or anything, but they look fine to me,” I say. “You said there was a cottage or something here?”
“Yes,” Grady says. He looks at his cell. “It’s this way.”
We leave the car and walk the rest of the way. The road here is less worn. The branches above our heads are so full that the sky is no longer visible.
