The rock was a boiler stone, the invention of Sorcerer Malcolm Henderson, one of the New York six. By itself the stone was an unremarkable, if slightly creepy, rock, but submerge it in water and it became hot enough to boil that water. Most buildings in the city had their boilers converted to use boiler stones instead of oil or coal. Alex was grateful tat they could also be used to make coffee.
“Things aren’t really that bad, surely?” she asked, dropping crystals of instant coffee into the pot as the water began to boil. Before Alex could protest, she added a second scoop. Leslie knew his habits almost as well as he did.
“Well, I almost got arrested last night,” he said
“How does someone almost get arrested?” Leslie asked.
“Remember Duane King?”“Yeah. The guy who the old Suffolk County Assessor cheated out of his land.” Leslie nodded.
“Well, I told Lieutenant Detweiler that he was the ghost killer.”
“Let me guess,” she said, refilling Alex’s cup. “He has an alibi.”
Alex nodded, as he drank deeply again.
“Real good one,” he said. “He’s dead.”
“Ouch,” Leslie said, a pained look on her face. She picked up the coffee pot by its wooden handle and poured Alex a cup. “I’m guessing the Lieutenant didn’t take it well. So what now?”
Alex accepted the cup and took a long sip of the scalding liquid. It burned his tongue but he didn’t care.
“Now, I have to prove that King faked his death and is actually the killer.”
Leslie raised her eyebrow at that.
“It sounds like I’ve got a full morning ahead of me,” she said. “Did you get those runes written that I asked for?”
“Last night,” Alex said, finishing his second cup. “They’re in the lockbox, but what does that have to do with your morning?”
Leslie smiled sweetly at him and sauntered around behind her desk.
“Because,” she said, “I either have to get these runes to the people who ordered them, or I’ve got to go out and find a job that can pay me.”
“I made up two weeks of your back pay,” Alex said in a hurt voice. It was a game they played. He knew that Leslie wouldn’t just quit, she’d go down swinging. So would he for that matter, but her bringing it up meant they were still in danger.
It seemed like they were always in danger.
“Well, you’ve got your work and I’ve got mine,” he said, after a long silence.
“What about the Lightning Lord’s missing engine?” Leslie asked.
“Motor,” Alex corrected. “And I don’t know. I talked him into giving me another day to find it, but if I don’t hear from Danny or Callahan today, that’s a bust.”
Leslie reached across the desk and put a hand on his arm.
“You’ll get it done, kid,” she said, despite the fact that she was only ten years older than him. “You always do. Now get to it. I’ve got people to call and money to collect.”
Alex met her gaze and nodded, passing silent thanks to her. She knew him well enough to see he was on the ropes. He wondered again why he never made a pass at her; she was amazing, after all. Theirs was more of a kid brother and big sister relationship and to be honest, Alex liked it that way. He could be himself around Leslie without the pressure of a relationship making him watch what he said or how he said it.
“Good luck,” he told her, and headed for his office.
The first thing he did was to call Anne Watson at her hotel and give her an update. Detweiler had already informed her that she wasn’t a suspect, but she was glad to hear that Alex was still on the case. He told her the story of Duane King and why he might want revenge on her husband.
“I don’t know if I can believe that, Mr. Lockerby,” she said, voice and manner somewhat cold. He had just accused her husband of fraud, after all.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you, Mrs. Watson,” Alex said, meaning every word. “But I figured you deserved the truth. I can’t prove that King is still alive or the one responsible, but I’m going to keep digging until I know who killed your husband for sure.”
Anne paused for a moment, then sighed.
“Thank you for not lying to me,” she said. “Part of me wishes you had, but I appreciate the truth. Call me when you know for sure.”
Alex promised that he would, then hung up. He sat at his desk, paging through his notebook, searching for something, some bit of information he’d overlooked that would help him find Duane King. Alex felt sure Iggy was right, and King was still alive. The question was, how to prove it? He didn’t have any better idea now than he had last night about how King was stalking his victims.
“But he is stalking them,” Alex said out loud. “He would have had to, in order to know when they’d be home.”
If King had been loitering in Inner-Ring neighborhoods or Core apartment buildings, someone would have noticed him. And however he got into the houses, he would have started outside.
Reaching for the phone on his desk, Alex intended to call Anne Watson back. Since picking the front door lock in broad daylight was risky, he’d need her house key to get back in and look for King’s means of entrance. Everyone had been so focused on what happened in the locked rooms, Alex hadn’t searched the rest of the house.
King had been careful not to leave any traces at the murder, but had he been that carful getting inside in the first place?
Alex grabbed the phone’s receiver, but it rang before he could pick it up.
“Lockerby?” Andrew Barton said.
Alex wondered if he’d heard from the police about his motor. Danny would be sure to call him once they found it, but Alex expected to get a call first.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Barton continued. “Which do you want first?”
“Let’s have the good news,” Alex said, needing some this morning.
“I called around and that idea you had about using my traction motor for mining was a damn good one. It’s perfect for their needs. I’ll have a prototype for them in a month.”
“I’m happy for you,” Alex lied. “What’s the bad news?”
“I don’t think those bank robbers could be using my motor the way you think they are.”
Alex felt a sinking feeling in his gut and he wished he’d eaten breakfast.
“Why not?”
“That motor weighs six hundred pounds,” he said. “It’s smaller than a normal traction motor because it’s a prototype, but it’s still capable of pulling a locomotive.”
“I don’t see the problem,” Alex said. “They’ve probably got enough men to move it.”
“But how are they going to power it?” Barton asked. “A motor that size pulls a few thousand volts, even to do light work like turning a mining drill. You can’t just plug that in to a light socket.”
Alex wasn’t sure exactly what the problem was, but if Barton was right, it would mean that Danny and Callahan were looking for a tunnel that might not exist.
“They have a couple hundred feet of heavy gauge copper wire,” Alex said. “I figure they’ve patched in to the fuse panel of whatever building they’re tunneling from.”
Barton thought about that for a moment.
“Well, the wire could certainly carry the current, but if they were pulling that much voltage through a building, no one inside would be able to run a toaster.”
Alex thought about it. He hadn’t considered the traction motor’s power requirements. That didn’t mean he was wrong, but maybe he was wrong about where the kidnappers were digging their tunnel.
“What about the Edison Electric lines?” he asked. While Barton powered most of Manhattan from Empire Tower, the rest of the city was wired to the power grid, owned by Thomas Edison’s company.