“I was never working this case with the police,” Alex said. “I understand Lieutenant Detweiler is running the investigation. If you want information, you’ll have to take it up with him.”
With that, Alex pulled away and maneuvered through the crowd to the big glass doors at the end of the lobby.
“Thanks for nothing, mac,” the reported called after him.
Ten minutes and a short crawler ride later, Alex pushed open the gate to the Watson home. He was surprised to find it locked and empty. There wasn’t even a squad car on the street.
Detweiler must have called off the investigation into Anne when Paul Lundstrom was murdered.
Alex hadn’t anticipated being locked out of the house, but he came prepared. Taking out his rune book, Alex paged to the back. He passed a green and gold rune that would open the lock magically, but the components of that rune cost forty dollars. Alex preferred a much cheaper method of entry.
He tore out a vault rune and, taking a bit of chalk from his jacket pocket, drew a chalk door on the wall of the porch. A moment later he was back on the porch with the beat-up leather doctor’s bag that held his kit.
Alex paused for a moment to wipe away the chalk outline before he opened his kit. Anne Watson was his client after all; no sense in leaving her porch untidy. He took out an ornate pencil case that held the various writing instruments he might need on the job. The case was made of wood with a slender, mahogany tray and a cherry cover. Turning it upside down, Alex pushed his thumb along the bottom of the mahogany tray and a concealed panel slid sideways, revealing a hidden compartment. Inside were several tools for picking locks.
The Watsons’ lock was the newer kind that took a small key with multiple teeth. Setting his kit and the pencil case aside, Alex selected a slim tool with an undulating end and an L-shaped tension tool. It had been a while since he’d been forced to pick a lock, but Iggy kept saying it was like riding a bike. Alex had never ridden a bike, so he wasn’t sure that was true, but the lock clicked open after only a few moments of manipulation.
Feeling quite self-satisfied, Alex replaced the tools inside the hidden compartment of the wooden case, picked up his kit, and went inside.
Two hours later, Alex sat at David Watson’s enormous desk. It was no longer a shrine to neatness and order. Piles of file folders were stacked from one end to the other and his immaculately organized file cabinets stood open and mostly empty.
With a sigh of disgust, Alex closed the file he’d been reviewing and dropped it on a stack to his left. He’d been through almost every land deal for which David Watson had records, and none of them involved anybody on the ghost’s list. There were many records from Suffolk County, mostly houses David had built.
Alex stood up and went to the wet bar he’d found concealed behind a folding door. Locating a bottle of single malt scotch, Alex poured himself two fingers in a shot glass and sipped it.
It was exquisite.
He closed his eyes and enjoyed the aroma and the taste of the liquor. On his budget, the best he could do was bourbon. Occasionally Iggy would break out the good stuff from his liquor cabinet, but that was a rarity. He reserved that for important conversations and deep contemplation.
“I could get used to this,” Alex said, taking another sip. He looked around the office at the wall with the glass-enclosed shelves. Watson’s old surveyor’s transit and other equipment were there, showing his humble beginnings. The next case held blueprints and photographs of houses, detailing the man’s years as a builder and finally a developer. According to the files, Watson had built some of the biggest houses on the north shore.
Alex took another sip of the whiskey, but it didn’t go down as smoothly this time. Something about Watson’s wall bothered him.
Setting the drink aside, Alex moved back to the desk. Each of the folders had a label on it listing the date of whatever transaction the files detailed. He began staking them up by year and returning them to the file cabinets where he’d gotten them. After an hour of this, the clock on the wall read one o’clock; he was ravenously hungry, but he had a small stack of folders left on the desk.
These folders represented Watson’s work as a surveyor. None of the files detailed his work for the Assessor’s office; those records would be in storage in Suffolk County. The files on the desk represented Watson’s independent work. There were seventeen of them. The eighteenth file, in chronological order, had been the first building Watson had ever built, a glassed-in tennis court for a wealthy family.
As far as Alex could tell, David Watson had only been a surveyor for two years after he started working for himself. Alex had no idea when Watson had quit working for the assessor’s office, but he felt sure it was before the man started in the building trade.
Alex went back to the wet bar and refilled the empty shot glass with single-malt.
Watson had kept meticulous records. That was what was bothering Alex. In two years he went from being a surveyor to being a builder, but there was no record of his ever learning the building trade. He hadn’t apprenticed or gone to school, he just stopped surveying and started building for some of New York’s richest families. All in the space of two years.
Alex knew enough about building to know that Watson could never have pulled off a glassed-in tennis court with his surveyor’s knowledge. That meant he’d hired someone who did have the experience to run his crew. Add to that all the materials he would have to buy up front and it added up to a tidy sum. Watson would have needed that money before he put up the first glass panel in that tennis court.
“Where did he get the money?” Alex asked the stack of folders.
It was possible, of course, that someone had fronted him. A silent partner who believed in Watson enough to set him up.
Alex shook his head. That wouldn’t work. The folders contained every detail about the builds Watson did, and there was no payout to any partner. All the expenses were listed and catalogued.
“So where did the money come from?” he asked again. “There’s no way he saved that kind of scratch on a county surveyor’s salary.”
Alex’s stomach rumbled, and he sighed. If he wanted to make any more progress on this, he was going to need something to eat.
He picked up the telephone on Watson’s desk and gave the operator his office number. A few moments later, Leslie answered.
“It’s me, doll,” he said. “I’m over at Anne Watson’s house looking into her husband’s business dealings. I think I’m on to something, but I wanted to know if you’ve heard anything from lover boy?”
“I’ll say,” Leslie said, her voice positively bubbly. “He had a lovely bouquet delivered here for me.”
Alex chuckled.
“Not exactly what I was hoping for,” he said.
“Randall did send a card,” Leslie explained. “He said he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary in the files, but he’ll keep looking. Apparently there’s a lot of records to go through.”
With tax assessments on each property in the county required every year, and every land sale documented, Alex could well believe it was a mountain of paperwork.
“Well, if you talk to him, tell him to keep on swinging,” Alex said. “I’m going to grab a bite and then head over to the hall of records. I want to check some of Watson’s information against the permits he had to file with the state. Maybe I’ll find something there.”
“Before you do that, Danny called,” Leslie said.
Alex rubbed his forehead and stifled a curse. He’d forgotten about his promise to help his friend and he hadn’t even glanced at the lost property statement Callahan had given him.