Ghost of a Chance

Alex felt sick to his stomach. Danny wasn’t likely to believe that Alex had given this story to the tabloids, but Detweiler was going to blow his top, and Callahan too. The way the story read, the department was a bunch of idiots who needed Alex to solve all their cases, literally leading them around by the nose. In the end, the writer wondered why Alex wasn’t on the ghost case and openly accused the police of putting the city at risk.

Alex flipped back to the front page and read the by-line. It was Billy Tasker, the same reporter who’d outed Alex’s involvement with the Watson killing case in the first place.

“What is it with this guy,” Alex growled, tucking the tabloid under his arm. The death of Paul Lundstrom was the lead story on the cover of the Times, but with far less salacious details than The Midnight Sun. Alex flipped the paper over and read the articles below the fold while he waited for the next crawler. There wasn’t much interesting, some tax bill the legislature was considering, and a political scandal in Washington D.C. A sidebar article mentioned a successful test of the first section of Andrew Barton’s elevated crawler line, which ran from Empire tower north and along Central Park West.

Alex nearly dropped the paper.

“Hey, buddy,” he yelled at the newsman. “Where’s there a phone around here?”

The man pointed to a bar on the corner of the next block and Alex ran the whole way.

“Get me Danny Pak,” he told the police operator once he reached the Central Office switchboard.

“I’m sorry,” the voice came back a moment later. “Detective Pak doesn’t answer.”

“Take a message for him, please.”

“Go ahead,” the voice said after a moment.

“Tell him to call Alex Lockerby at home as soon as he can. I need to know if one of the trucks he found today is from Barton Electric.”

The police operator said she would give him the message and hung up.

17 The Checkup

Alex wanted to go home and wait for Danny’s call, but he still had to go see Jessica. As much as he felt he was on to something, going home wouldn’t make Danny call any faster, and he definitely didn’t want his tremors coming back.

It was just after six when Alex walked up to the brick, two-story house with the alchemist sign in the yard. This time he didn’t bother with the front door, opening the gate to the back yard instead and following the paved path around to the back.

He peered in the long bank of windows next to the door and saw Jessica moving from table to table in the back of the dimly lit lab. She’d pick up a clipboard on one table, make adjustments to the equipment or add things to the various jars, then make notes and move on. The lab was mostly dark, with hanging lights over each table, and Jessica’s red hair would shine as she moved beneath them. Alex watched her for a few moments, then knocked on the glass. Jessica was so startled she nearly dropped the clipboard she was holding.

Alex took off his hat and waved at her as she made her way through the maze of tables to the mud room and the back door.

“You startled me,” she said, a little flushed.

“Sorry,” he said with a smile.

Jessica smiled back. She wore he work apron over a cream-colored dress, and she had her green scarf around her neck. Alex assumed she liked to accent the green of her eyes.

“Well, no harm done.” She held open the door so Alex could come in, then shut it behind him.

“I was disappointed that you didn’t come see me on Tuesday,” she said in a voice that implied that Alex should be sorry too.

“I got shot,” he said with his best, trust me smile.

She raised an eyebrow while running an appraising eye over him, looking for any signs that his statement was true.

“It was a busy day,” he said.

“I’ll bet,” Jessica said, leading the way back into the lab. “Since you’re early, you’ll have time to tell me all about it while I make my rounds.”

She walked over to the table where she’d been standing when Alex knocked on the window and picked up its clipboard.

“What are you doing?” Alex asked.

Jessica showed him the clipboard. It might as well have been written in Chinese for all the good that did. The paper on the board was covered in columns with each one headed by a time. To the right of that were some pre-written notes and some blank spaces.

As Alex watched, Jessica noted the time from a clock on the wall, then checked it against an alarm clock on the table. The clock on the wall was elaborate and ornate, with carvings of animals all around it and a large set of counterweights hanging from it. A brass pendulum hung from it as well, rocking gently back and forth while emitting tick-tock sounds. Alex had seen clocks like this before; they were prized for their accuracy and very expensive.

Finding that the clocks matched, Jessica wound the alarm clock and set it to go off at eight-thirty.

“What’s that for?”

“This is when I need to stir the solution,” she said, putting a check mark in an empty column next to the printed time of eight-thirty.