Titan Song Dan Stout (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

“A warehouse or a vacant building,” I said.

“A vacant first floor, in an occupied building. The rents pay for expenses, and it could be held indefinitely.”

“Address?”

She looked away. “I wouldn’t know, since it doesn’t exist.”

We’d hit the limits of her concern for Gellica. I leaned forward and lifted Vandie’s transcription. “Do you know what this will do to your daughter?”

Someone knocked on the door. I sat back, slipping the transcription back into my coat as the door swung open. A technician stuck his head in.

“Sorry, Detective,” he said. “There’s some kind of issue with the recording. We can move you to another room, or you can wait while I fix it.”

Over his shoulder, I spotted Mitchell, looking embarrassed at how quickly his plan had collapsed.

“No,” I said. “We’re done anyway. I was just getting a lesson in real estate.” I turned back to Paulus. “In a situation like we discussed, the owner would still need to tend to the building. Keep the exterior up to code, that sort of thing.”

She pursed her lips, silent.

“They’d need a facility management company. I hear excellent things about TPM.”

“Yes.” She drew out the single syllable, studying my face. “They recently bought out another company. One I’d used in the past. You know them?”

“Not exactly.”

I’d seen the TPM logo before. On the blueprints and schematics in Vandie’s office. The management company had been the one gift Vandie Cedrow retained from her uncle. In my years on the street, I’d seen some bizarre coincidences. This wasn’t one of them.

35

IT WAS AN AFTERNOON’S WORK to turn up a former TPM employee with a criminal record. I paid the guy a visit and asked nicely for a list of the company’s clients. He coughed it up without a fuss—anything to get a cop off his front stoop. He also confirmed that Vandie’s first act after landing the festival contract had been to leverage the buyout of a smaller boutique management company. From there I eliminated the properties that didn’t meet the criteria: too far from the Mount or fully occupied. Finally, I was left with the perfect candidate.

I paged Jax and an hour later we met in the Estante shopping district. The vertical signs along the corner indicated that the building held a handbag shop, a men’s clothing store, and a stationery store. The other upper floors, unlabeled, likely held offices, where men and women in suits dropped their expensive handbags on desktops while exchanging overpriced business cards—the whole ecosystem of consumer culture. But we only cared about the first floor. Vacant, with papered-over glass. In this neighborhood, the paper couldn’t be scrap newspaper or fish wrap. It had to be decorative and charming, making promises of exciting retail spaces to come, though records showed that floor had stood empty for decades. Until TPM took over management.

We parked by a posh sit-down restaurant, two cops in a division car eating takeout five paces away from diners who probably spent more on pet grooming than my annual salary. I brought Jax up to speed, telling him that I’d paid a visit to the festival grounds, been let into Vandie’s office by staff, and seen documents pertaining to the geo-vents in plain sight. My only lie was one of omission. I neglected to mention I’d taken the tapes and notebooks. Just like I failed to mention the source of the technical glitch during my interview with Paulus, or how I’d gotten a snow-runner off the books. I figured that would provide him a little cover if my career came crashing down around us.

I did tell him that someone mysterious had swept the rest of the tapes away, and that I suspected we were about to run into the heart of Vandie’s operation.

He took it all in silently, nodding to himself and stirring more vinegar into his coffee. “So we’ve got no warrant, and not the thinnest echo of a chance to get one from even the most lenient judges on the bench.”

“We’ll have to sweet talk our way in, or spot something that provides justification for letting ourselves inside.”

“And you’ve been working on this all day, without consulting me?”

I shrugged. “I had to get it done.”

“Hold my coffee.” He handed me his sour-smelling cup while he dug out his wallet. Opening it, he produced Murphy CaDell’s business card. “See the address on here?”

I did, and immediately remembered standing at the festival site, holding CaDell’s card and wondering what a property management company was doing with such a posh address in the Estante district. “She probably wanted an office near the geo-vent access,” I said.

“Right,” he agreed. “You probably could’ve saved a couple hours by checking in with me, but that’s okay. I was making progress on the actual murder cases we’ve been assigned.”

“This is a case. The deaths of Tanis Klein and the mystery teenager, along with anyone else who died in that sinkhole.” I handed him the card and his coffee. “Now are you ready to check out this building, or do you have some more complaining to do?”

We strolled along the opposite side of the road, acting as though we were talking about something else, but actually covering the visual reconnaissance.

“The thing that I’m curious about,” Jax said, “isn’t why you went to the festival. CaDell lied to me about the badge, then it showed up in the sinkhole. I get that. What I want to know is, why did you go alone?”

“You were taking the day off. I was working to forget about my hangover. I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Is that why you talked to Paulus alone? That was this morning, Carter.”

I wasn’t going to talk about my methods or motivations in that meeting. Instead, I nodded toward the building. “Front door looks completely papered over.” The paper covered not only the glass of the door, but the frame itself. “No one’s getting in or out that way.”

Jax side-eyed me, but went along with the change of subject. “No alley