Ghost of a Chance

10 The Engineer

Alex’s pocketwatch showed two-thirty when he used it to open the door to the brownstone and limped inside. The shield runes he’d written on the inside of his suit jacket had saved his life, slowing the bullets enough that they wouldn’t penetrate. That said, he still felt like someone had worked him over with a Louisville Slugger.

His hip was another story.

The bullet had hit below the protection of his jacket, scraping a trough out of his flesh. Fortunately it had only grazed him, but he still bled like a stuck pig. By the time he got home, his pant leg was wet with blood and the handkerchief he was pressing against the wound was saturated.

“Iggy,” he called from the tiled floor of the brownstone’s vestibule. “I’m bleeding, bring your vault rune.”

Even though Alex knew how to write cleaning runes now, he didn’t want to waste them on the Persian carpets that covered the floor between the vestibule and the kitchen if he didn’t have to.

“What happened?” Iggy said, hurrying down the stairs from the direction of his room. He was dressed for the evening in just his shirt and slacks with a smoking jacket over top and slippers on his feet.

“Somebody took a shot at me,” Alex said, holding up his blood-soaked handkerchief. “Several shots, in fact.”

“How bad?” Iggy said, tracing a door on the wall with a piece of chalk he took from the pocket of his smoking jacket.

“I took three in the back, but the shield runes stopped those. One took a bite out of my leg but it doesn’t look too deep.”

“It’s bleeding enough to be serious,” Iggy said, lighting a vault rune. “You feeling light-headed?”

“No.”

Iggy opened his vault and motioned Alex inside.

“What happened to your face?” he asked as he directed Alex to the table in the middle of his operating theater room.

Alex touched his forehead and felt the bump there. He’d forgotten about that.

“The shots took me by surprise,” he admitted. “I fell on my face. Damn near knocked me out.”

“Can you take off your trousers?” Iggy asked as he rummaged through one of his cabinets full of potions.

Alex unbuckled his trousers and let them fall to the floor. It was better than letting Iggy cut them off as it would take less magic to repair.

“Here.” Iggy handed him a small vial of red liquid.

Alex drank it and handed back the container.

“And this for that black eye,” he said, pressing a small square of flash paper to Alex’s eyelid. “Hold still,” he said, taking out a cigarette case and his lighter. A moment later he touched the smoldering end of the cigarette to the rune paper. It flashed and Alex resisted the urge to jerk back. He felt a tingling spreading out over the right side of his face and he knew the rune was taking effect.

Iggy examined the gash in Alex’s hip.

“Not too bad,” he said, getting out his sewing kit. “Now, lie on the table and tell me what happened.”

“I was looking into Andrew Barton’s missing motor,” Alex said, laying on his side with his hip in the air. “It was stolen from the loading dock of his factory right after it had been put on a truck.”

“Convenient,” Iggy said, using a cotton ball to dab an ice-cold liquid on the wound. Alex winced as he began sewing it up, but the cold had penetrated into the gash and he couldn’t feel the needle.

“That’s what I thought,” Alex said. “Whoever did it had a window of about a minute to get in and get out with the truck. I figured they were watching from the alley across the street, so I checked it out.”

“Find anything?”

“Nope,” Alex said. “From what I can tell you can’t even see the loading dock from that alley. I was just about to leave when someone shot me in the back and stole my rune book.”

“It’s probably a good thing you fell on your face then,” Iggy said. “If the man who shot you had realized you weren’t really hurt, he’d have shot you in the head for good measure.”

Alex hadn’t considered that. His clumsy stumble might just have saved his life.

“Did you see the back-shooting coward?” Iggy asked, washing the stitches with iodine.

“Just his arm,” Alex said. “The rest was a bit… blurry.”

“You were dazed. Was there anything distinct about the shooter’s arm? What did his footsteps sound like when he ran? Did you smell anything?”

Alex searched his memory. He hadn’t heard the shooter approach. The first sign of his presence was when he turned Alex over. His face swam, blurrily into Alex’s minds-eye but the only detail he could clearly see was a mop of black hair.

“What happened next?” Iggy probed as Alex recounted the memory.

“He searched my jacket pockets. I remember seeing his arm. His skin was brown.”

“Asian maybe, or Latin,” Iggy said.

“He had a mark on his wrist,” Alex said, struggling to remember. “A tattoo.”

“What did it look like?”

“It had a face looking up toward his body.”

“Was it a person?”

Alex shook his head.

“No, it was… it was square,” Alex said, focusing on the image in his mind. “Like something from the funny papers.”

“Was it colorful?” Iggy asked.

“No, it was in that blue ink most tattoo artists use.” Alex shook his head and the vision vanished. “That’s it.”

Iggy picked up Alex’s sopping trousers and wrapped them in a towel.

“I’ll let you handle these,” he said, handing the towel to Alex.

“I lost my rune book.”

Iggy gave him an unamused look.

“If you haven’t taken the simple precaution of preparing a spare, then go to my table and write a cleaning rune and a restoration rune. I’d like to see how steady your hands are.”

Alex signed and left the bloody towel on the operating table. He moved to Iggy’s runewright lab, with the doctor in tow, and sat down at the writing table.

“So, who do you think shot you?” Iggy asked as Alex drew a minor restoration rune.

“Someone who doesn’t want Barton to get his motor back,” Alex said, showing the rune to Iggy for approval.

“Yes, yes, you can draw simple runes,” he said, setting it aside. “Now the cleaning rune if you please.”

Alex set to work on the much more complicated of the pair.

“You said the prize for this railroad contest is a million dollars, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex muttered, concentrating.

“Well, men have certainly killed for much less. How did the shooter know you were investigating?”

“Well,” Alex said, his hand moving slowly as he traced in the delicate details of the cleaning rune. “I’m guessing someone at Barton’s warehouse called them when I showed up there.” He remembered Jimmy Cortez saying that Barton had called and told him to expect Alex. “Maybe before.”

“So you think the theft was an inside job?”

“The timing was exact,” Alex said. “The thief walked into the dock just as the driver and the security guard were out of sight. That’s much easier when someone tips you off.”

“I agree,” Iggy said as Alex finished. He held up the rune to the light for a long minute. “Good enough,” he said, passing it back to Alex. “You need more practice, though.”

“Maybe someone will shoot me tomorrow,” Alex said with a sardonic smile.

“Perish the thought.”

Alex and Iggy left the vault and went through the kitchen to the door that led to the brownstone’s tiny, walled-in back yard. Once there, Alex stuck the cleaning rune to his trousers and held his breath as he activated the rune. Blood and dirt burst into powder and swirled away down the alley, leaving his pants still torn, but clean.

“Adequately done,” Iggy said once Alex had come back inside. “Practice and you’ll be able to work the restoration rune and the cleaning rune together. Saves time.”

Alex ignored him, setting the towel aside and sticking the restoration rune to the tear in his trousers. He lit the rune and the torn fabric wove itself back together as if it had never been damaged.

“So how goes the case of the missing husband?” Iggy said as Alex put his pants back on.

“I went by his work this morning,” Alex said, describing his conversation with Leroy’s boss. “It doesn’t sound like whoever grabbed Leroy wants him for his drafting abilities, and they don’t do any confidential work there.”

“You’re sure he’s not heir to some secret fortune?” Iggy asked, tapping his cigarette into an ashtray on the kitchen table.

“Not likely,” Alex said. “He grew up in a coal town in West Virginia.” He sighed and sat down next to Iggy. “The only thing I can figure is that whatever the kidnappers want, it must be something from Leroy’s past. There just isn’t anything in his present.”

“Well,” Iggy said, puffing on the cigarette. “I’ve always said that if you remove the impossible, whatever is left must be the truth.”

Alex rubbed his face, which felt better already. Iggy’s cigarette was bugging him, though. He wanted one pretty badly.

“I hate it when you quote yourself.”

Iggy chuckled, taking another puff as if to spite Alex.

“Be that as it may, what will you do now?”

Alex looked at the clock. It was after three, but there was still plenty of daylight left.

“Do you know what an Assistant Mining Engineer does?” he asked.

“No,” Iggy admitted. “What’s that?”

“Leroy’s job back in Coledale.”

“Well, if that’s a mining job, there must be someone here in town that can tell you. Maybe someone in the coal industry or a supplier of mining equipment.”

“Not a bad idea,” Alex said. “I’ll call Leslie and have her…oh.”

“What is it?”

“I sent Leslie out to Suffolk County to run down a lead in the ghost case.” Alex thought for a moment, then got up and went to the phone. “Ralph’s Building Supply,” he told the operator. Alex had helped Ralph deal with some vandals a few years ago and now Ralph gave him tools or hardware at cost.

“Ralph, it’s Alex,” he said once the operator connected them. “No, I don’t need any tools this time, but I’ve got a question for you. Is there anyone in town who makes gear for mining?”

A few minutes later Alex hung up, having scribbled the address of a mining supply manufacturer in his notebook.

“How many shield runes are left in your coat?” Iggy asked as Alex headed for the door.

“Three,” Alex said, putting on his hat.

“Try not to get shot again.”

Masterson Tool and Die was on the south side in a four-story office building attached to a factory and warehouse. A perky receptionist with black hair in a pixie cut greeted him when he entered the lobby and asked, very politely, what she could help Alex with.

“I need to see somebody that knows about coal mining,” he said.

“Did you have specific questions about our tools?”

Alex handed her his card.

“It’s about someone who’s been kidnapped,” he said. “I just need a few minutes with someone who knows about mining.”

She looked at Alex as if she wasn’t sure if he was serious, but decided after a minute that he was. She picked up the phone and spoke into it for a minute.

“Mr. Sanderson is our lead engineer,” she said. “He’ll be down in a minute if you care to wait.”

Alex thanked her and took a seat in one of the overstuffed chairs in the lobby. Almost exactly one minute later, the elevator door opened and a large man with short brown hair got off. He wasn’t just tall, he had a bigness about his frame that spoke of an athlete’s body gone soft. His hands were rough, the hands of a man who’d done physical work. His face was lined, with a strong, Roman nose and brown eyes.

“Mr. Sanderson?” Alex said, standing up.

“What’s this about?” Sanderson said, sticking out his massive hand.

Alex explained about Leroy Cunningham and his life in Coaldale.

“Could someone have grabbed Leroy because they needed help digging a tunnel?”

Sanderson thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“If he was the engineer, maybe,” he said. “All the assistant safety engineer does is keep the records of the inspections and draw out where the tunnels go.”

“So that’s where he learned how to be a draftsman,” Alex said. “But he wouldn’t know anything about how to dig a mine.”

Sanderson shrugged.

“He might,” he said. “If he worked in the mine before he became the assistant engineer.”

“How much could he really know?” Alex asked.

“At his age, not much,” Sanderson said. “If whoever took him needed to understand mine safety reports, he’d be the guy.”

“Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Sanderson,” Alex said, sticking out his hand.

Sanderson shook it.

“Good luck finding Leroy,” he said. He started to turn away but stopped and turned back. “Let me know if you find him.”

Alex promised that he would, then put his notebook in his pocket and headed for the street. It just didn’t make any sense, someone grabbing Leroy. He wasn’t worth any money, he didn’t design banks, and he knew virtually nothing about mining beyond the safety reports.

It didn’t track. The people who took him had a reason, but he just wasn’t seeing it.

Half an hour later, Alex opened his vault on the wall of his office. He took off his coat and draped it over his writing desk. On the inside, running down the back on either side of the seam, were three shield runes. Each one was formed from a triskaidecagon with a triangle on the top point and circles and diamonds alternating the rest of the way around. The circles had symbols in them defining resistance while the diamonds bore radiant symbols. Inside the center was a rune that looked a little like a fountain wearing a hat.

Each construct was done in silver ink with diamond ink for the rune at the center and alternating sapphire and gold ink for the symbols inside circle and diamond shapes.

Alex laid out the inks and the special pens needed to use them, then paced around his vault, going over the process for writing the complex construct in his mind. One of the reasons he’d come here, to his office, was that he didn’t want Iggy kibbitzing while he worked. The rune was already one of the most complex he knew.

He checked his hands and found them shaking a bit, though whether that meant the elixir was wearing off or he was just nervous was impossible to tell. Taking the flask out of his pocket, he took a shot of the noxious stuff and put it back.

“All right,” he said out loud. “Time to get to work.”

He was grateful a moment later when the phone on his desk rang.

“Lockerby Investigations,” he said once he’d reached it.

“Hey, I’m glad I caught you,” Leslie said. “I found something you’re going to want to hear.”

Alex perked up immediately.

“Give it up,” he encouraged.

“Not only did David Watson and Seth Kowalski know each other, but Watson worked as a surveyor in the assessor’s office when Kowalski ran the place.”

That was a definite connection.

“Great work, doll,” Alex said, finally feeling like he was getting somewhere with the ghost.

“There’s more,” Leslie said. Alex could hear the mischievous energy in her voice. “I had Randall, he’s the current assessor, look through their employment records and you’ll never guess what he found.”

“Randall?” Alex said with a smirk he was sure Leslie could hear. Leslie was a serious beauty and she had a bad habit of wrapping men around her little finger, especially when he wanted them to do boring things like comb through records for her.

“Yes, Randall,” she purred. “Now are you going to guess what he found or not?”

“Watson’s not the only one who worked for Kowalski?”

“Got it in one,” Leslie said. “Betsy Phillips was Kowalski’s clerk back in the day.”

“How much do you want to bet if Randall looks for the name Martin Pride, he’ll find him too?”

Leslie laughed.

“No bet,” she said.

“While he’s digging, have your beau look up the names of everyone who worked in that office when Kowalski ran the place. Five will get you ten that some of those people are on our ghost’s hit list.”

“I’ll take care of it in the morning,” Leslie said. “Right now Randall and I are going to dinner.”

“Have fun,” Alex said before hanging up.

Now he had a definite connection between most of the ghost’s victims. Whatever these killings were about, it had to do with the Suffolk County Assessor’s Office.

“Now all we have to do is find out who hated Kowalski and his crew enough to still want to kill them thirty years after the fact.”