Ghost of a Chance

As far as Alex could tell, David Watson had only been a surveyor for two years after he started working for himself. Alex had no idea when Watson had quit working for the assessor’s office, but he felt sure it was before the man started in the building trade.

Alex went back to the wet bar and refilled the empty shot glass with single-malt.

Watson had kept meticulous records. That was what was bothering Alex. In two years he went from being a surveyor to being a builder, but there was no record of his ever learning the building trade. He hadn’t apprenticed or gone to school, he just stopped surveying and started building for some of New York’s richest families. All in the space of two years.

Alex knew enough about building to know that Watson could never have pulled off a glassed-in tennis court with his surveyor’s knowledge. That meant he’d hired someone who did have the experience to run his crew. Add to that all the materials he would have to buy up front and it added up to a tidy sum. Watson would have needed that money before he put up the first glass panel in that tennis court.

“Where did he get the money?” Alex asked the stack of folders.

It was possible, of course, that someone had fronted him. A silent partner who believed in Watson enough to set him up.

Alex shook his head. That wouldn’t work. The folders contained every detail about the builds Watson did, and there was no payout to any partner. All the expenses were listed and catalogued.

“So where did the money come from?” he asked again. “There’s no way he saved that kind of scratch on a county surveyor’s salary.”

Alex’s stomach rumbled, and he sighed. If he wanted to make any more progress on this, he was going to need something to eat.

He picked up the telephone on Watson’s desk and gave the operator his office number. A few moments later, Leslie answered.

“It’s me, doll,” he said. “I’m over at Anne Watson’s house looking into her husband’s business dealings. I think I’m on to something, but I wanted to know if you’ve heard anything from lover boy?”

“I’ll say,” Leslie said, her voice positively bubbly. “He had a lovely bouquet delivered here for me.”

Alex chuckled.

“Not exactly what I was hoping for,” he said.

“Randall did send a card,” Leslie explained. “He said he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary in the files, but he’ll keep looking. Apparently there’s a lot of records to go through.”

With tax assessments on each property in the county required every year, and every land sale documented, Alex could well believe it was a mountain of paperwork.

“Well, if you talk to him, tell him to keep on swinging,” Alex said. “I’m going to grab a bite and then head over to the hall of records. I want to check some of Watson’s information against the permits he had to file with the state. Maybe I’ll find something there.”

“Before you do that, Danny called,” Leslie said.

Alex rubbed his forehead and stifled a curse. He’d forgotten about his promise to help his friend and he hadn’t even glanced at the lost property statement Callahan had given him.

“All right,” Alex said. “Call him back and tell him to meet me at Gino’s. I’ll go over his case while I get lunch.”

“Will do,” she said and then hung up.

Alex picked up the seventeen folders that encompassed David Watson’s surveying career, along with the ones for the first five builds he’d done, and slid them into his kit bag. The room looked pretty much as he’d found it except for the empty shot glass on the desk.

Thinking it would be rude to leave that out, Alex took it back to the wet bar, refilled it, drained it again, then rinsed the glass out in the sink.

* * *

Gino’s was a little hole in the wall diner with a short counter and a half-dozen booths. They catered to the beat cops who came in to grab a sandwich or a bowl of chowder. Alex was never one to be picky where food was concerned, and he liked that the proprietor, an older woman named Lucy, never skimped on the meat in her sandwiches.

“Two hot pastramis on white,” he ordered once he sat down at the counter.

Lucy wore a floral dress under a stained apron and her white hair was bound up behind her in a bun. She looked to be about fifty with a lanky, slender build and a rough but smiling face. Nodding at Alex, she took two ready-made sandwiches from a cooler and dropped them on a buttered grill.

“Cup of joe?” she asked, picking up the steel coffee pot from the far side of the griddle.

Alex checked the handful of change in his pocket before nodding.

The bell on the door jingled behind Alex but he was too hungry to care.

“There you are,” Danny’s exasperated voice assaulted him. A moment later them man himself was pulling on his sleeve. “I’ve been looking all over town for you.”

Alex picked up his coffee cup and sipped it, relishing the energy it was giving him.

“Well, you found me,” he said. “Pull up a stool.”

That was meant to be a joke as the stools were bolted to the floor and therefore, immovable.

“Get up,” Danny said, still pulling on his sleeve. “We’ve got to go.”