Ghost of a Chance

“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.”