Ghost of a Chance

Absently he wondered where he would take Jessica. He supposed there were still a few dollars of emergency money in his safe, the hollowed-out book he kept on the shelf right next to the Archimedean Monograph. If they went to a diner, he might have enough for a decent meal, but what would Jessica think of that? She’d told him to take her somewhere nice. He suddenly realized he didn’t have the faintest clue what she might like to eat.

Some detective you are, he chided himself.

“Here you go,” Edmond said, coming back with a heavy looking folio. He dropped it on the counter, kicking up some dust from inside, then took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. He looked paler than he had before.

“You should go home,” Alex said, turning the folio around and removing the elastic band covering the cardboard flap on top. “Spend time with your family.”

Edmond smiled at that, but it was wistful rather than happy. He didn’t have any family. Alex instantly felt like a heel.

“Don’t be sorry,” Edmond said, reading Alex’s expression. “My wife and I had a good run before she passed.”

“No kids?” Alex knew he shouldn’t ask, but his curiosity got the better of him.

“A son,” Edmond said with undisguised pride. “I lost him in the war.”

Alex had heard that story before. A lot of people lost sons in the war, but it never got easy to hear about it.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“And I said don’t be,” Edmond admonished. “I miss my family, but I’m grateful for the time I had with them. Besides, I’ll be with them soon enough.”

Alex looked down at the folio. He missed his father, of course, and now Father Harry, but he still had Iggy and Leslie. If he played his cards right, he might even have Jessica in his life. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose them all. To be alone.

“You got lucky,” Edmond said.

“What?”

The old man pointed at the paper tag on the outside of the folio.

“According to that, North Shore Development went out of business about ten years ago,” he explained. “These records are scheduled to be moved to storage in a couple of months.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, talking just to ensure the awkward silence didn’t come back. “Lucky.”

He opened the folio and pulled out an inch-thick stack of papers. Some were stapled together into packets, but others were loose and none of them seemed to be in any kind of order.

“Here it is,” Edmond said, reaching into the stack as Alex fanned them out on the counter. He pulled out a yellowed packet of papers that had been stapled together. The cover had the name North Shore Development on it and several official-looking stamps.

Alex turned to the front page and found a mass of legal phrases and clauses. Skipping that, he turned to the back and found what he was looking for.

A slow smile spread across his face as he read down the list of names of the partners in the company. There were eleven all total. All were names that Alex recognized.

He laughed out loud and Edmond looked confused.

“Something funny?” he asked.

“No,” Alex said, still grinning. “Definitely not funny.”

He copied down the names, then wrote down the index number on the folio.

“That’s all you needed?” Edmond asked, somewhat incredulous. “Who are those people?”

“If I’m right,” Alex said, stacking the papers neatly and returning them to the folio, “they cheated someone out of a fortune a long time ago.”

Edmond looked shocked, then sad.

“Some people,” he said. “Did they get away with it?”

“For a while,” Alex said with a sigh. “But as near as I can tell, the man they cheated is killing them one by one.”

“So, you’re going to stop him?” Edmond wondered. “The killer I mean.”

“That’s the plan.”

“What about the people who cheated him? Are they going to keep getting away with what they did?”

Alex gave Edmond a determined smile.

“Not if I can help it,” he said.

* * *

Alex walked Edmond back to the reception desk, then went to the pay phones near the door.

“It’s me,” he said as Leslie picked up. “Did you get an address for Duane King?”

“Yes,” Leslie said in a worried voice, “but we’ve got bigger problems. Did you see today’s issue of The Midnight Sun?”

Alex groaned.

“Don’t tell me,” he begged.

“They printed that entire list of names you gave the cops,” she said, ignoring Alex’s entreaty. “That Lieutenant over the case called here and raised hell. He wants you to call him right away.”

“Do me a favor,” Alex said. “If he calls back, stall him. Tell him you haven’t heard from me.”

“You on to something?” There was hope in her voice.

Alex grinned.

“Get this,” he said. “The company that bought King’s land at the tax sale, well it turns out the assessor wasn’t just working with them. North Shore Development was entirely made up of Seth Kowalski and ten people who worked for him.”

Leslie whistled.

“And you think Duane King is the one killing them?”

“Makes sense,” he said. “But I’ll need more evidence if I want to get Detweiler off my back. I’m going to go by King’s address and see if he still lives there.”