A Field of Red (27 page)

Two cars sat in the same grocery store parking lot as before, their driver’s windows facing each other again. Behind them, Burger King stood next to Main Street. Tonight, there was no rain.

“And that’s it?” the man said.

Tyler nodded. “Yup. It’s all taken care of.”

The other man nodded, looking around at a car that passed by, exiting the Burger King drive thru. “It’s not safe, us meeting.”

Tyler, the boss, shook his head. “Don’t worry. Every cop in Cooper’s Mill is downtown, getting ready for the big party. You’re not going to give me any grief about that money?”

“You keep it,” the other man said. “You earned it. I just want this all wrapped up by tomorrow.”

Tyler nodded. “Good. I’m glad you’re not pressing the issue.”

“Hey, it’s your deal,” the man said, trying to make his point for the hundredth time. For a criminal mastermind, this guy was pretty thick. “I want it over with. What will you do with the girls? Can they identify your friends?”

Tyler shook his head. “Didn’t I say not to worry? You should pay me more respect. This whole thing has gone off without a hitch. Not that you need to know, but it’s taken care of. Beep, beep, they’re going on a trip. The girls will be transported out of state and then freed, and my contacts will be long gone.”

The other man nodded. “Good. Just make sure it doesn’t get back to us.”

Tyler nodded. “No problem.”

The other man nodded, not sure of what to say. The cop was always quoting songs and repeating those weird lyrics and attributing them to his mother. That was the problem with getting in bed with a psychopath: sometimes, all you could do was nod and laugh at their jokes and count the seconds until you could get away.

Frank was out driving again, trying to clear his head. Peters had left to help out with the HarvestFest security, and King was expecting Frank to drop by as well, but Frank just wanted to get into his car and drive. It was freeing. Over the last few days, since he’d arrived, he’d slowly gotten to know the narrow country roads surrounding the small town.

Frank did some of his best thinking while driving, and there was nothing waiting for him back at the hotel except for those last two inches of bourbon in the bottle in his shower. Even out here, driving in the darkness, Frank could hear it calling to him. He was trying to be strong, but the headaches and nausea weren’t helping.

The windows were down and he was listening to the Benny Golson CD again. He’d never really liked jazz until he lived in New Orleans. He’s been around jazz since birth, of course, growing up in Beaufort, just outside of the BR. But blues and jazz music had been an acquired taste. Maybe it was something you grew into, or perhaps only adults could really appreciate the music’s subtle ebb and flow.

The CD ended—he was driving east of town, past some place called Dalton Farms—and he reached down and popped open the CD player. Even though the player was jury-rigged and skipped whenever he hit a hard bump, it still worked. He’d had it for a while now. Frank found he could easily swap out and start new CDs without taking his eyes off the wheel.

He felt in the compartment in the dashboard that had once held an operational stereo and took out another CD, swapping it out and hitting PLAY. After a moment, blues filled the car—Earl Hooker.

The car engine purred along, as he wandered in search of answers or, at least, direction.

Frank reached the light at the corner of 202 and 571 and turned west, approaching Cooper’s Mill. The area east of Cooper’s Mill was all open fields and low farmland and pitch black. There were no street lights or anything on this side of town to illuminate the road other than the headlights of Frank’s beat-up Taurus.

He crossed the river—a black streak in the darkness below the bridge.

It was strange, if you thought about it—rivers and lakes and streams just went about their business, flowing through the night, never stopping, oblivious to all the goings-on around them. They ebbed and flowed, rose and fell with the rain, continuously washing everything they carried to the sea. Frank didn’t like water and didn’t spend any more time on the water than he absolutely had to, but you really had to respect the overwhelming power of flowing water. As he crossed over it, the river gurgled below the bridge, loud enough to hear even over the engine noise.

Frank passed Freeman Prairie, then climbed the hill into Cooper’s Mill, stopping at the light at First and Main.

Downtown Cooper’s Mill was lit up and bustling with shoppers and partygoers. It was a busy Saturday night, and visitors were enjoying the brisk weather and getting out for a meal. There were signs everywhere for the “HarvestFest 2011” tonight. Held by a local volunteer group, they shut down part of Second Street and threw a huge, Halloween-themed, outdoor adult party.

The light turned green, and he drove through town to the next light. Second Street was blocked off next to O’Shaughnessy’s, and a huge banner that read “HarvestFest 2011” hung from the yellow barricades. Frank saw Chief King and Deputy Peters and several other familiar faces and decided to pull over, parking down the street in front of the library. From the reports, Chief King and Nick Martin had stood on the stoop of the library, waiting to deliver the first ransom.

The second ransom now sat in a nondescript box in the trunk of Frank’s car, along with his boxes of case files. He’d toyed with leaving it all unattended in his hotel room, but it just made more sense to keep it with him wherever he went. It had taken two trips to bring it all out to the car.

Frank climbed out of the Taurus and carefully locked up the car before crossing the street. To the west, the sound of the train horn drifted over the town. The gates lowered and a train appeared, the sound low and reverberating through the streets.

A group of volunteers was setting up tables and tents and checking folks into the party. A trailer festooned with a huge “Bud Light” sign was parked inside a fenced-in area; apparently, someone had put up snow fencing all the way around to keep the beer-drinking attendees confined to a designated space. Everyone was dressed in costumes. Beyond, a stage had been set up in the middle of the road, and Frank could hear instruments being tuned. It sounded like a band was getting ready to play.

“Hey, Deputy,” Frank said, as he walked up to the barricade.

Peters smiled, turning to see Frank. “Long time, no see. The Chief wants to see you.”

Chief King walked up. “Hey, Frank.”

Frank nodded and noticed several of the volunteers setting up tables were in costume. “You need any help?”

King shook his head. “No, everyone is pretty well behaved, though we do step up the DUI stops, after the event is over. You out at Ricky’s again, questioning patrons and kicking asses?”

“Nope, just driving,” Frank said, smiling. “Helps me think.”

“Good—we need thinkers,” Chief King said, nodding. “Just don’t get any bright ideas tonight. We’re stretched thin, with most of the staff here working this event or out on patrol. No one gets the night off,” he smiled.

Frank glanced around – it looked like most of the town was represented. “Sure you don’t need some help?”

King shook his head. “No, we’re good. But stick around if you want – they put on a good show. There’s a band and costume contests.”

“Nah, I’m OK,” Frank said, thinking about all that money in his car. It made him nervous, leaving it there on such a busy street, exposed. “After last night at Ricky’s, I could use a break.”

“OK, we’ll see you in the morning,” the Chief said.

Frank gave Peters a friendly wave—he was off, helping get the beer tent set up—and made a loop through the downtown on the way back to his car. He saw locations that were starting to become familiar to him—the coffee shop, the toy store, the barber shop. He saw the bench in front of O’Shaughnessy’s where Peters and Barnes had waited, and where the buxom decoy had distracted them. He walked in front of Elise’s Antiques, the small shop through which the kid had run with the ransom money.

Frank got back to his car. As he was pulling out, another car slowed and turned on its signal, waiting for his spot. He’d never seen the town busy—of course, he’d only been here a few days, but it was good to see an old-fashioned downtown like this one still had a little life left in it.

He drove the streets, familiar buildings moving past him. Frank reached up and grabbed a piece of paper from the dashboard. Peters had made a printout of the various properties and locations in the area owned by Martin Construction.

Frank was still convinced the whole kidnapping plan was really an effort to bankrupt the company, so he’d been driving around and checking out the properties. Yesterday, he’d driven down to Dayton and walked around the old brick building that was slowly being converted into retail and residential space. The building managers had been extremely helpful, taking him on a tour of the space and saying how sorry they were that Martin had had to drop out of the ownership group. Frank had to agree with at least part of the assessment of the property—from the top floor conference room, there had been stunning views of the baseball stadium and the riverfront developments beyond.

He shook his head in wonder at those types of people who could walk through a dilapidated, waterlogged hovel and see through the dirt and mess to envision a thriving retail shop or a beautifully-appointed home. It took a special kind of focus, he thought, to ignore all the details and just hone in on the possibilities that came at the intersection of careful planning and hard work.

Frank had also dropped in on a few of the other properties that had recently been part of the Martin Construction portfolio—open fields, an apartment building, and one sad strip mall between Cooper’s Mill and Troy, the larger town to the north.

There was a train passing through town, and he slowed and stopped, waiting for it to pass. He glanced at the papers and saw, near the top, a listing for “Holly Toys Lofts,” one location he’d not visited yet. The building had apparently been near and dear to Nick Martin, who had let it go only after much discussion. Nick had grown up near the place and been particularly fond of it. Nick had been able to come to an agreement with his business partner, Matt Lassiter, and the sale made it possible for Martin to gather the entire ransom.

It had been mentioned several times in the files and reports, but Frank hadn’t seen it in any of his treks around town. Following Peter’s crude map—he’d drawn one for each property—Frank crossed the tracks after the train was gone and slowed, turning right onto North Sixth. Frank found the massive brick building with no problem.

The exterior of the Holly Toys building wasn’t anything special to look at, but the building was immense. At four stories high, it was one of the tallest in Cooper’s Mill and nearly a block long. The massive, 40,000 square foot brick building ran along the train tracks north of Main Street, surrounded by large parking lots on both sides.

Frank slowed at the curb but did not pull in yet. He wanted to loop around the property before getting out.

It looked like an abandoned warehouse, except for the large, weathered sign out front, advertising the new loft condos that would be available after the building was gutted and converted. Large, attractive renderings showed what the condos would look like, along with a number to call for inquiries. A large, faded banner across the bottom proclaimed, “Coming Spring 2009,” so the project was over two years’ past schedule. And, from what Frank could remember about the property, they hadn’t sold a single condo.

Nick Martin seemed pretty fastidious about marketing, as did his partner on this project. Frank wondered why they had left up that “Coming Spring 2009” sign. It looked bad and would hamper any future sales. Frank wondered if the phone number was even still active.

He continued on, past the large brick building and tried to make a right on Plum, only to find that it was one-way the other direction. He continued up Sixth, did a U-turn, then passed the warehouse, and turned on Walnut, driving past more houses. As he crossed the tracks, he looked to his left and saw the massive brick building running along the tracks, finally getting a real feel for just how large the building was.

He drove on, taking two more lefts and coming back up Plum. The warehouse stretched the length of the block, but the building had definitely seen better days.

Slowing, he turned into the parking lot and stopped his car, climbing out of the Taurus. He thought about what his car held for a moment, but Frank was just going to walk around the building, maybe take a peek inside. He wouldn’t be out of site of the car for more than a few minutes. Besides, it was an empty parking lot, and no one was around. And no one would suspect a half-a-million dollars in cash would be hiding in the trunk of such a dilapidated vehicle.

According to the reports, the downward economy had stalled the project in mid-2009, making it impossible for Martin Construction to complete the conversion. Neither Nick Martin nor his business partner had been able to buy the other out or front the kind of money required to complete the project or overcome the bad economy, so now it sat here, or at least it had until yesterday, when Nick had sold his half to Lassiter.

He was no architect, obviously, but Frank could see the potential. It was a beautiful brick building, and he could see how condos or apartments could be attractive. The bottom floor was supposed to be set aside for retail spaces, if he remembered correctly, making it an even cooler place to live.

And Peters had said there weren’t any other high-end apartments or condos in town, so the building owners could probably charge whatever they wanted to.

Frank started across the empty parking lot. It was cracked from the hundreds of heavy trucks that had once delivered raw materials or picked up completed toys for delivery. Nick Martin had said in the report on the project that the Holly Toys factory had operated for nearly sixty years out of this location before closing down in the late nineties.

Frank crossed the wide parking lot and saw one car parked near the front entrance. Next to the doors stood another sign advertising the condo project. This sign had renderings of what the condos would look like on the inside. Frank walked up and studied the sun-faded pictures in the fading light: large, open rooms, floor-to-ceiling windows, and those exposed brick walls that always somehow looked brand new and vintage at the same time.

The night was quiet. In the distance, Frank could hear the sound of the rock band playing at the HarvestFest concert downtown. It felt like he was a long way from the downtown area, but he was really only four blocks off the main drag. He could also hear the distant wailing of another approaching train.

 Frank walked around the building. On the east side, facing the train tracks, was another, smaller parking lot. A fenced-off portion contained several pallets of construction materials, a Bobcat, and two forklifts.

“Can I help you?”

Frank turned to see a security guard walking up to him. The older, black man carried himself with a relaxed air, but one of his hands was resting on a gun in a holster. It looked like a small revolver.

Frank smiled.

“Hi. My name is Frank, Frank Harper,” he said. “I’m working with the police department on the kidnapping of those two girls. Have you heard about it?”

The man stopped and nodded. “What a mess. Christ, I hope they find those girls. You here ‘cause Mr. Martin used to own the building?”

Frank nodded. “Yup. I was with the New Orleans PD for a long time, and old habits are hard to break. I’m checking on some of his old properties, although what you said is right. He doesn’t actually own this anymore.”

The black man nodded and walked over to join Frank. “I was on the force up in Detroit, before I retired down here. This is all the construction materials and equipment. They put up the fence last year after some of the copper disappeared.”

“Theft or vagrants?”

“Mostly vagrants,” the security guard said. “They go around and strip whatever they can from abandoned buildings, rental properties—wherever they can find materials—and then take it into Dayton and sell it for scrap. I’m Monty, by the way. Monty Robinson.”

Frank shook his hand.

“Ever notice anything odd around here? I’m looking for where the kidnappers could stash the young girls, but I’m sure you’d notice people coming and going. Is the place watched around the clock?”

Monty nodded. “Yup, after those thefts. Me and two other guys. There’s a little office, but there’s rarely anyone here. Mr. Lassiter was here a couple days ago, but that’s been it for weeks. Wanna see the inside?”

“Sure, sounds good.”

Monty led him through a back entrance and into a first floor office—a small television, desk, coffee maker, and a stack of magazines—and then out into a dingy wide hallway.

“That’ll be the restaurant down there,” Monty said, pointing into a big open space in the gloom, “along with a couple other retail spaces. Up here, near the doors, was supposed to be the sales office for the residences, along with a small dry cleaner and a little grocery, like a 7-11 or corner grocery. Then the other three floors are all condos.”

Frank looked around—it didn’t look like they’d gotten far on the retail spaces, but the walls were all up and strung for power. Plastic sheets hung everywhere. “Too bad this place never got off the ground. It would’ve been a cool place to live.”

The guard nodded. “Back here is the loading dock and freight elevator,” he said, leading Frank down the darkened hallway to an open area on the northern end of the building. Boxes and shipping pallets blocked the way to two large loading doors. “Wanna see the condos?”

Frank glanced out a window and checked on the Taurus, which sat undisturbed. He nodded, and Monty led him to a rickety elevator. Monty pulled the metal gate across and hit a button that said “Fourth Floor” in old, blocky print.

“They get very far on the residences? I heard they didn’t sell any,” Frank asked, trying to ignore the fact that he was in an enclosed space. At least it was a freight elevator, with one of those open doors that let you see the floors sliding past.

“That’s not exactly true,” Monty said. “They sold several, almost half of the ten on the top floor, but all but two of them fell through. Foreclosed, even before they were built. Mr. Lassiter wanted one of the condos for himself, but he ended up buying a building elsewhere. His condo here was the only one they really came close to finishing, and they used it as the model home to show off to buyers.”

The elevator rattled to a sudden stop, and Monty pulled the gate open. The top floor was pitch black, except for the light in the elevator, but the guard exited the elevator and faded into the dark. After a long moment of silence, lights began flipping on, and Frank could see the security guard at an electrical panel, switching on banks of florescent lights.

“These up here got the closest to being done,” he said, pointing. Most of the floor was taken up with open spaces and temporary walls, but on the southern end, he saw a door. They started down the open space that would have been a hallway.

“There was also going to be a gym for the residents, and a common room for them to throw parties and such, down on the second floor. But these condos up here were the fanciest, with the big floor-to-ceiling windows,” Monty said, leading Frank across the huge open space. “Thick glass, too, to block the sound of the train.”

The guard pushed the condo door open, and Frank could see what he meant. While the residence wasn’t close to being finished, you could get a sense of what it would look like. The huge windows afforded a great view of downtown—from here, four stories up, he could see over the train tracks and houses and easily make out several now-familiar shops and restaurants. He could even pick out the corner where they were holding HarvestFest tonight—all the milling folks on the street gave it away.

“Yeah, too bad they didn’t finish,” the security guard said. “Seems a shame, letting all this stuff just go to waste. But now that it’s changed hands, the project should get going again.”

Frank turned.

“Matt Lassiter is going to get the project going again? I thought he didn’t have the money to finish.”

“He doesn’t. That’s why he said he sold it,” Monty replied.

“Wait,” Frank said, shaking his head. “I’m confused—you mean Nick Martin sold it to Lassiter, right?”

Monty nodded. “Yes, and then Mr. Lassiter sold it to another investment group. That’s why he was a couple days ago—he was gathering up paperwork. Said he needed all the schematics and a bunch of up-to-date photos of the interior. The new buyer wanted them. The building had some water damage last year.”

Frank nodded and walked over to the windows, looking down. The tracks ran right in front of the building—he hoped they were planning to fence off the tracks or something, with people living here.

“Impressive, huh?” Monty said.

“Yes,” Frank answered. He glanced out across the downtown, finding the bookstore and the coffee shop. “It’s a great view.”

“Yup,” Monty grunted. “Wish I could afford it.”

Frank turned and smiled.  “You mean they aren’t giving you a free one?”

Monty smiled.  “Nah, but if I’m lucky, they’ll let me hold the door open for them,” he said sarcastically.  “Hey, I have to get back to my rounds.”

 “Sure, and thanks for the tour,” Frank said, following the guard out of Lassiter’s one-time condo and back down the hallway to the elevator. The elevator descended loudly, as Monty told Frank about his time on the force in Detroit—even then, the place was going to hell. When they got to the first floor, Monty pulled the door open, and Frank followed him to the office.

“Well, that’s pretty much it,” Monty said, walking him outside. “Let me know if you need to get back in some time.”

Frank nodded. “Thanks again.”

“No problem—hope it helped. I’m gonna continue my rounds—I gotta go back in and walk the other floors. Not that I ever find anything other than an occasional pigeon, snuck in through an open grate.”

Frank started to walk away, then turned back.

“Sorry, I gotta be clear on something,” Frank said. “You’re saying Lassiter sold it already? Nick only signed it over Tuesday morning.”

The security guard shrugged. “What can I tell you? Rich people. It was Thursday when he was in here, going through the papers.”

Frank shook his hand. “Thanks,” he said.

Monty Robinson disappeared back inside. Frank wasn’t sure what to do next—his mind was racing. For him to sell it that quickly, Lassiter must have already had a buyer lined up for the property. Or just been incredibly lucky, or expecting it to be coming “on the market.” There was no other way he could turn it over in less than 24 hours. But why hadn’t they seen a report on it, or any mention of the sale in all the financial records? Surely Agent Shale must have known about it—

Agent Shale.

He had access to all the financial records and could have removed anything he wanted. And why had the Bureau sent such a dunderhead—was he really an idiot, or just playing the part?

Frank walked back to the car, walking across the parking lot that fronted the tracks. He could the rock music drifting up from downtown.

Lassiter had benefited greatly from Martin having to sell his share. But was that reason enough to kidnap his partner’s daughter?

Frank wanted to call Chief King but also wanted to wait until he was in the car. He rounded the corner of the huge building and looked ahead—evidently, no one had broken into his car, or if they had, they’d been kind enough to close the trunk after themselves. There was another car parked next to his, a white car he hadn’t seen earlier.

Frank took out his phone and dialed Chief King’s number—there was no time to waste. This had to be information no one else had, or they would have been looking more closely at Lassiter. And Agent Shale had to have known about the quick sale. If Lassiter had the sale already lined up—