Ghost of a Chance

11 The Lunch Box

Alex sat at the massive oak dining table in the brownstone’s kitchen sipping his third cup of coffee.

It wasn’t helping.

“You look terrible,” Iggy said. He was dressed in his heavy dungarees and a work shirt, his usual attire for puttering with his orchids in the greenhouse.

“I didn’t sleep a wink,” Alex muttered. “None of these cases make any sense and if I don’t solve at least one of them, I won’t be able to pay Leslie. She’ll quit and then everything will go straight to Hell.”

“Don’t forget that if you don’t solve this ghost business, the police will never work with you again,” Iggy chuckled. Alex gave him a sour look but then nodded.

“And if I don’t find Leroy in the next few days, he’s probably a dead man,” Alex said.

Iggy’s smile disappeared, and he sighed, looking weary himself.

“Steady on, lad,” he said. “Work your leads and I dare say you’ll figure it out.”

“What if I don’t?” Alex said, setting his empty cup aside. “How am I going to tell Hannah Cunningham that I let her husband die?”

Iggy patted him on the shoulder.

“If we reach that bridge, we’ll find a way to cross it,” he said. “Until then, Leroy is alive and you have a chance to keep him that way. What’s your next move?”

Alex shook his head and shrugged.

“I have no idea,” he said. He told Iggy about his conversation with Sanderson, the mining expert. “If there’s a valid reason to kidnap Leroy Cunningham, I don’t know what it is.”

Iggy nodded, stroking his mustache, something he always did when he was thinking.

“Well, what do you know?” he asked at last.

“Nothing about Leroy.”

“What about your other cases?” Iggy prodded.

“Someone at Andrew Barton’s factory was in on the theft of his motor,” Alex said.

“Start there.”

“How does that help Leroy?”

“It doesn’t,” Iggy said. “Not directly, anyway. But it gets your mind working and once that happens, you might just think of something about Leroy that you haven’t before.”

Alex sighed and stood.

“Work the problem,” he said.

Iggy nodded and patted him on the shoulder before turning toward his greenhouse.

“Work the problem,” he echoed. “But have another cup of coffee before you go, you look like the very devil.”

Two more cups of coffee and a long crawler ride later, Alex walked onto the work floor of Barton Electric. The replacement traction motor looked virtually the same as it had yesterday, though Alex noticed that some of the piles of parts had been assembled into incomplete-looking shapes.

“Back so soon, Mr. Lockerby?” Jimmy Cortez said, spotting Alex. He stuck out his hand and Alex shook it. “It’s something ain’t it?” he said, indicating the bits of the motor.

“Yes,” Alex agreed. “Still think you won’t finish on time?”

“Between you, me, and the wall, it’ll be done next Tuesday,” Jimmy said. “That’s if everything goes right.”

“When’s the contest?”

“Wednesday.”

“That’s pretty close,” Alex admitted.

“Too close,” Jimmy said, with a worried look. “What can I do for you, Mr. Lockerby? Are you here to talk to Mr. Barton?”

Alex was taken aback at that.

“Is he here?”

Jimmy shook his head.

“Not yet, but he’s coming in to supervise the motor personally. I have to admit, I’m kinda glad. If there are any screw ups, he can’t blame me.”

“Well, I’ll get out of your hair,” Alex said. “Just point me at your personnel department.”

Jimmy pointed at a second-floor office with a metal stair running up to it.

“Good luck,” he said.

Alex crossed the floor and climbed the stairs to the office. An elderly secretary brought him a stack of folders for everyone who was working on the day of the theft, and directed Alex to an empty office. One by one he went through the employee files, but nothing jumped out at him. There was one man who had asked for a raise several times in the last few months, but a quick check of his time card showed that he’d been given the requested raise a week before the theft.

If there was someone in the factory that had a beef with Barton or the company, there wasn’t any evidence in the files. Alex sighed and shut the last folder, dropping it back on the stack.

“That bad?”

Alex looked up to find the Lightning Lord himself leaning on the frame of the open door. He was dressed casually, in a white shirt and dark slacks with a burgundy vest. The ends of his lightning bolt mustache were turned up in a smile.

Alex didn’t know how long Barton had been there watching him. It spoke to how tied he felt that he didn’t notice the man arrive.

“No,” Alex said. “Just not as easy as I’d hoped.”

“What have you learned?”

“I’m pretty sure someone here tipped off the thief.”

Barton’s easy demeanor vanished.

“How dare you makes such an accusation?” he fumed. “Where is your evidence?”

Alex wasn’t prepared for this response. Barton seemed to be taking the suggestion that one of his employees was in on the theft rather personally.

“I don’t have any evidence,” Alex said. “Not yet, anyway.” He explained about the timing and how the thief must have known the loading dock schedule down to the second in order to get in and steal the truck at exactly the right moment.

“It points to an inside job,” Alex explained.

“That’s the easy explanation,” Barton admitted, his voice still full of resentment.

“There’s also the guy who took a shot at me yesterday,” Alex said. “I was across the street, checking out the alley just down from the loading dock. I wanted to know if someone could have watched from there and learned your schedule, but it turns out you can’t. When I went to leave, someone shot me in the back and stole my rune book. They probably thought it was my notebook.”

“You don’t look like a man who got shot in the back,” Barton said.

“Shield runes,” Alex explained. “I do find it interesting, though, that someone was waiting for me in that alley. How did they know when I’d be here?”

The anger in Barton’s eyes abated a bit.

“You think someone here called the gunman and tipped him off?”

Alex nodded.

“Who knew about the shipment the day the motor was stolen?”

Barton thought for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.

“Only Jimmy Cortez, Bill Gustavsen, and myself,” he said.

“What about the men who loaded it on the truck?”

“Jimmy would have called them in to load the motor, but they wouldn’t have known beforehand.”

Alex leaned back in the chair and thought for a moment.

“What about Gustavsen’s log book? Could someone have looked in there and seen the shipment?”

“No,” Barton declared with certainty. “He didn’t know when it was supposed to be shipped out until that day. I called him in the morning.”

“So the only people who had time to tip anyone off were Cortez, your floor manager, or Gustavsen?”

“The idea is preposterous,” Barton said, his indignant tone coming back. “I’ve known both of them for years! They’re loyal men.”

Alex held Barton’s gaze for a long moment, the shook his head.

“There is one other possibility,” he said. “But you’re not going to like it either.”

“I’m listening,” Barton said.

“If no one here tipped off the thief, then maybe this was a crime of opportunity.”

Barton laughed out loud at that.

“You came highly recommended, Mr. Lockerby, but I must say I’m not impressed. Why would someone take the motor if they didn’t know what it was?”

“They just wanted the truck,” Alex explained. “I noticed that you have spaces for two trucks to park in your loading dock, but there’s only one there now. The other truck is still missing, isn’t it?”

Barton tacitly admitted that it was.

“If the thief only wanted the truck, then they might have just dumped the motor. If they dropped it in the river, that would explain why the rune can’t connect to it.”

Barton’s expression didn’t soften one bit.

“There’s just one hole in your theory, Lockerby,” he said, darkly. “If the theft of the motor was a crime of opportunity, then who shot at you in that alley? Assuming you were telling the truth about that.”

He had a point. The idea that some random person had shot Alex in the back and then stolen his rune book didn’t seem likely.

“People in my business make enemies, Mr. Barton,” Alex said. “It’s possible one of them followed me here from somewhere else and just waited for me to leave before jumping me.”

“Well, I can understand how someone might want to shoot you,” Barton said. “If you’re guessing right, there’s very little chance I’m going to get my motor back. To make matters worse, there’s no conspiracy by my competitors so there’s no chance I can get the deadline extended.” He clenched his fists and Alex could hear a humming noise like an electric motor under a load. “I suppose I need to put all my efforts into making sure the new motor is ready on time, then.”

Barton reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a roll of cash that had a thousand-dollar bill on the outside. He opened it and peeled off a twenty and a five, handing them to Alex.

“Your daily rate, I believe,” he said. “I won’t be needing your services any longer.”

Alex accepted the money.

“There’s still a chance,” he said as Barton turned away. “Give me till Saturday to find your motor.”

Barton looked back and shook his head.

“I never throw good money after bad, kid,” he said.

“Are you a betting man, Mr. Barton?”

Barton’s handlebar mustache turned up in a smirk.

“You’re speaking my language,” he said. “What do you have in mind?”

“You give me till Saturday, double or nothing,” Alex said.

Barton considered him for a moment, looking Alex up and down.

“For someone who seems to be right out of clues, you seem awfully confident,” he said, then he stuck out his hand and Alex shook it. “Done then,” he said. “You have till Saturday to find my motor. Good luck.”

With that, Barton turned and swept down the hall and out onto the metal stairs that led to the factory floor.

“Coffee,” Alex told Doris as he dropped his hat on the stool in front of The Lunch Box counter. “And some poached eggs on toast.” She smiled and nodded at him, laying out a cup and saucer.

Alex moved to the pay phone on the wall and dropped a nickel in the slot. He didn’t know if Leslie would be back from Suffolk county yet, but he gave the operator his office number anyway. The phone rang for a long time until Leslie’s voice came on.

“How was your trip?” Alex asked.

“Divine,” she said with a smile Alex could hear. “I’m not even mad at the mass of people already here who want anti-ghost runes.”

“Wow,” Alex said. “Is Randall as happy as you are?”

“You’re just jealous.”

“So, do you have anything for me? Other than gloating I mean.”

“Be nice,” Leslie said. “Randall worked late last night and we found twenty-three names of people who worked for Seth Kowalski.”

“Good,” Alex said. “I’m at The Lunch Box right now, but I’ll come by as soon as I eat, and we can go over it.”

“That’s great, but there’s more,” Leslie absolutely purred. “I convinced Randall to look for any suspicious activity during Kowalski’s tenure.”

“Did he find anything?”

“Not yet, but he’s going to call me this afternoon if he finds anything.”

“You must have made quite an impression on him.”

“What can I say? I’m very good at my job.”

“See if you can run down any of the names on that list and I’ll see you soon,” Alex said.

“Wait,” she said before he could hang up. “Did you find the guy who was kidnapped?”

Alex sighed. He didn’t want to talk about Leroy. Despite Iggy’s assurances, he didn’t have any better idea how to proceed now than he had at breakfast.

“You need to call the wife right now,” Leslie admonished when Alex explained his situation. “She must be going crazy, Alex.”

He sighed again. Leslie was right, of course. He’d been a heel to make Hannah wait by the phone for any word on her husband. The news wasn’t good, but she ought to know the truth.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll call right now.”

He said goodbye, then dropped another nickel in the slot. Pulling out his notebook, he gave the operator the number for Hannah Cunningham’s apartment.

“I’m sorry,” the operator came on a few minutes later. “Your party doesn’t answer.”

Alex thanked her and hung up, being sure to retrieve his nickel from the return slot. He’d try her again after he’d finished his eggs.

“You look like hell,” Mary said, setting down Alex’s plate. She winked at him as he came back to the counter. “You need to eat better,” she said. “Come by more often.”

“Sorry,” Alex said. “I’ve been up to my neck in impossible cases.”

Mary opened her mouth to ask him about it, but right then a half dozen people came in and she had to vanish back to the kitchen. Alex hated to admit it, but he was grateful not to have to talk about his frustrations, even to Mary.

It felt good to just sit and eat and not have to think.

“Hey, where are you?” Danny’s voice suddenly cut through his thoughts.

Alex looked up from his empty plate and was surprised to find his friend sitting next to him. He checked the clock on the wall and found that nearly three-quarters of an hour had gone by.

“Sorry,” Alex said, finding it difficult to focus. “I guess I was lost in thought.”

“I’ll say,” Danny said with a concerned look. “I was talking to you for a couple of minutes before I noticed that you’d punched out.”

“You here for lunch?”

“As I tried to explain, Leslie told me where to find you,” Danny said. “I was wondering if you could help me with all these thefts. The Captain is leaning on Callahan and he’s leaning on me and I don’t have any idea where to look next.”

“Join the club,” Alex said.

“What?”

“I don’t know if I can help,” Alex said. “I’ve been officially forbidden from helping the police.”

Danny gave him a steady look.

“When has that ever stopped you before?” he asked. “Besides, I really need your help.”

Alex rubbed his eyes. He could feel a headache coming on.

“All right,” he said after a long minute. “Come by the brownstone tonight and bring your case file. We’ll go through it and see if there’s anything you missed.”

Danny slapped him on the back and Alex winced. The spots where the bullets hit him were still bruised and tender.

“Thanks, I really appreciate it,” Danny said, oblivious to Alex’s discomfort.

Alex nodded and stood.

“Where you off to now?” Danny asked.

“I’ve got a lead on your ghost killer,” Alex said, heading for the phone. “Need to run it down.”

Alex called Hannah one more time with the same result. As he hung up, her absence bothered him. Why would a woman whose husband was missing leaver her phone unattended? He should have thought of that before. It didn’t feel right.

Dropping the nickel back in the phone, he called Leslie.

“Did Hannah Cunningham call you recently?” he asked once Leslie picked up.

“No, but I was out most of yesterday and all of this morning, remember?”

“I’ve tried her twice with no answer.”

Leslie started to respond but stopped, picking up on Alex’s tone.

“You think something’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he said, surer now that there was. “I’ll be by as soon as I can, but I’m going to go by Hannah’s apartment first.”

“Be careful,” she said. “Remember somebody out there took a shot at you.”

“You’ve been talking to Iggy,” Alex accused.

“Just be careful,” she said with a sigh. “It’s starting to look like you might actually get paid soon.”

“You’re all heart,” Alex chuckled.