Ghost of a Chance

“I don’t see how that’s going to help,” Alex said. “What I need is for someone to go out there and talk to the current assessor, ask around town, that sort of thing.”

“Are you asking me to get out of the city and go upstate?” Leslie purred through the line.

“You’ll have to spend some of that scratch I got you,” Alex warned.

“It’ll be worth it,” she said. “I’m looking up the train schedule right now. You want me to go first thing in the morning?”

“No,” Alex said. “Go today and you can and stay the night. That’ll give you time to ask around. Call Iggy if you find out anything urgent,” Alex said.

“What about the circus?” she asked.

“Take down everyone’s name and what they want and we’ll figure it out once the rest of this is wrapped up.”

“You’re the boss.”

Alex wished her Godspeed and hung up. This Suffolk County thing felt like a lead. It was too coincidental that two of the victims had been involved in land deals up on the Captain back in the day. Still, he was going to have to pay for Leslie’s trip, lead or not.

“Time to track down the Lightning Lord’s missing motor,” he said.

* * *

The building from which Barton’s motor had been stolen turned out to be an unassuming building in the west side’s Mid-Ring. Inside it, men labored at a wide variety of machines, turning out strange-looking parts that were then taken to one of several large areas where machines were being assembled.

Alex recognized a nearly-complete Mark V Etherium Capacitor in one corner. As close as it appeared to completion, however, no one seemed to be working on it. All the activity seemed to be directed in another space where over a dozen men were assembling parts for something that had yet to take shape.

“You Lockerby?” a big-shouldered man in a brown suit asked when he noticed Alex watching.

Alex pulled out one of his business cards and handed it over. The big man had dark eyes and hair with a square jaw and bushy eyebrows. His skin was browner than simply being in the sun could account for, marking him as being of Latin descent. The accent, however, was all Jersey.

“Mr. Barton said you’d be coming by,” he said. “I’m Jimmy Cortez, floor manager here at Barton Electric. The boss told me to take ya around and answer any questions you have.”

He stuck out a massive paw of a hand and Alex shook it.

“What are they building here?” Alex asked, pointing at the rush of activity.

“That’s the new traction motor, to replace the one that got pinched,” Jimmy said. “Between you and me, Mr. Lockerby, I hope you find the old one real soon. I’m not sure we can get this done in time.”

Alex watched as a man in coveralls finished grinding a curved piece of metal and hurried it over to a man with spectacles and rolled-up shirt sleeves. The bespectacled man tuned the part over in his hands, then consulted a blueprint that had been unrolled over a table and weighed down with bits of scrap metal. After a moment with the blueprint, the man placed the curved bit next to a neat row of parts on the floor. By the time he was done, another man in a coverall had another bit for him.

“Looks like you’ve got it well in hand,” Alex said, turning back to Jimmy. “Barton said this motor weighs about six hundred pounds, is that right?”

Jimmy thought about that for a second, then nodded.

“Give or take,” he said.

“How did a thief manage to steal it then? I mean that would take time and a crew, right?”

“Ordinarily, yeah,” Jimmy said. “There’s always people here, day and night, and we’ve got security guards in the warehouse area and the loadin’ dock.”

“You didn’t answer my question though,” Alex said. “How was the motor stolen?”

“The guy was good, Mr. Lockerby,” Alex said. “He walked right into the dock just as the motor was loaded on a truck and drove it away.”

“Where were the driver and the security guard?”

“Once the trucks are loaded, the driver has to inspect the load and sign out the truck,” Jimmy explained. “He was in the office doing that when the truck drove away, and the guard was at the other side of the dock walkin’ his route.”

That seemed like exceptionally good timing on the part of the thief.

He must have watched the dock, figured out the pattern, and then waited for his opportunity.

“Who knew your shipping schedule?” Alex asked.

“You mean when the motor was goin’ out? Just me and the dock manager,” he said. “Oh, and Mr. Barton, of course.”

“Mind if I take a look at the loading dock?” Alex asked.

Jimmy escorted him over to the other side of the building to where a cement dock stuck out from a set of carriage doors. A small shack stood on the far side and Alex could see a man working at a desk inside.

“That’s Bill Gustavsen,” Jimmy said. “He runs the loadin’ dock.”