I shook my head, twisted some steaming noodles onto my fork and started eating my dinner. “Anyway, enough on that. I don’t want to think about the damned thing for a while. How was your day? Did you find the guy you were looking for? The reporter?”
Dave shook his head as he took a sip of his wine. "No, nothing. His wife is worried sick, he's been gone for days. It's not the first time he's gone to ground, but he's always managed to get a message to her in the past to let her know he's ok."
"Poor woman," I murmured. "Does his editor know what story he's working on?"
"No," Dave replied. "He was apparently keeping this one very close to his chest. He normally covers organized crime, but his editor wasn't sure if this was about that."
"I hope you find him," I said. "But with the types of people he associates with, I don't like his chances of being alive."
"Nor do I. Either way, his wife needs to know. And you never know, he might just be dug in somewhere until he finds what he's after."
I nodded, Dave was right. There was no way of knowing what or even if anything had happened to him.
With dinner over, Dave collected the dirty dishes, walked into the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher. I looked over the back of the couch and smiled at him. “Thanks, babe.” He sat back on the couch and I snuggled in under his arm.
He picked up the remote and idly flicked through the channels. Nothing was on, and I stifled a yawn. “Sorry, babe, long day,” I said sleepily.
He pulled me close and kissed me. “Not too tired, I hope.”
“I think I’ll manage,” I smiled as I kissed him.
---
I woke around seven the next morning. The wonderful aroma of coffee was coming from the kitchen. I looked beside me; Dave was no longer there. After a quick shower and getting dressed, I went to the kitchen and found my coffee cup with a sticky note attached.
I took the sticky note off my empty cup and read it. "Gone to the gym before an early start at work. Coffee is in the pot, sleepyhead. See you tonight. D".
Smiling to myself, I picked up the pot and poured myself a coffee and made a quick breakfast.
My thoughts crept back to the issue with the basement footings and the water seepage. It just made no sense. In the meeting with Olsen the day before, James Anderson had been careful to play it down as likely just surface water, but I was worried.
We were just going to have to have a good look at it, inside and out. I was meeting Jack Myers, the project’s chief engineer, at the building site at nine o’clock to inspect the basement. Hopefully, we would then have an answer as to where the damned water was coming from.
Checking the time, I closed the lid on my laptop and swallowed down the rest of my coffee. It was a fair drive out to the construction site and I needed to get moving. I packed my laptop in its bag, finished getting ready and headed out the door.
—
I arrived at the site just before 9 am. Work had commenced hours earlier, and dozens of workers were busy with various jobs. Cranes lifted pallets of material to the partially completed second floor, and I could hear the muffled bang of nail guns inside.
Jack Myers met me at the unfinished front entrance. He was a short, squat man with a round tummy that betrayed his love of beer and rich food. He wore a bright yellow hard hat, and the buttons of his blue shirt strained against his large belly.
His face was pink and sweaty, there were dark stains under the armpits of his shirt. He'd evidently run from the other side of the construction site to meet me and was breathing hard.
"Hey Nat," he wheezed. "Jeez, I gotta give up the fatty food!"
I smiled at him. "One vice at a time, Jacky! You only just gave up the cigarettes."
His breathing easing, he replied, "Yeah, I know. But the doc told me I was a goner if I don't get my blood pressure down. That and stress." He sighed. "Yeah, right."
Jack was a jovial man, and highly competent at his job as an engineer. He managed to get the best of out his team, but he always looked like he was one hamburger shy of a triple bypass.
"I think we'll all be happy when we have this done, Jacky," I said.
He nodded. "Yeah, Moira has a few unkind words for Old Man Olsen right now, but the job is what the job is." Moira was Jack's wife. He held two torches, he handed me one and gestured to the stairwell just inside the doorway. "Shall we go look at this bloody basement?"
"That's why I'm here!" I smiled. I switched on my torch and started walking down the stairs, Jack following closely behind with his torch on.
"I took another look from the outside before you got here," he said. "There is a lot of standing water from the recent storms."
We had descended two levels, the light from outside barely filtering into the stairwell now. "But is it enough to explain the level of seepage we're seeing inside?"
"I just don't know, Nat. There is a lot of water in here and it's a long way down."
"That's what worries me," I replied.
We had finally reached the bottom. The basement car park was a huge empty expanse, with thick concrete posts set out at regular intervals. The beams from our powerful torches seemed paltry in the heavy darkness.
The faint sound of water dripping could be heard ahead of us. We walked across the car park, torches held out, to the source of the dripping.
"Has the seepage gotten any better? It hasn't rained for a few days now." My voice echoed in the open space.
“No,” Jack replied. “But that could still be consistent for groundwater. It takes a while for water to seep this far into the ground.”
“So do you think that is what it is?”
“I want to say yes, but my gut says no. It’s fat and cranky, but I trust it.”
"Let's see if your gut knows what it's talking about."
Finally, we arrived at the far end of the car park. We shone our torches at the ceiling, where water dripped constantly. The entire section of the concrete wall was wet and water pooled on the floor.
"There's definitely more water here than last time," I said. I pointed my torch at the wall where the concrete was wet and placed my hand on it. "See how it seems to be soaking through the wall itself? That's not runoff seeping from the floor above."
Jack grunted. "I really wish my gut would stick to food," he said tightly. "I HATE it when it's right." He looked at me. "The obvious question is, where's the water coming from if it's not groundwater?"
"That is a very good question, Jack," I replied.
I fumbled in my bag for my phone. The stupid thing was always impossible to find when I needed it.
"Here, hold this," I said as I gave Jack my torch, and I dug around inside my bag once more. I finally located it at the bottom and pulled it out.
I took several photos of the seeping section of the wall and the pool of standing water, the flash on my phone momentarily lighting the car park. I then recorded a short video of the water dripping from the ceiling as Jack shone the torches on it for me.
After inspecting the wall once more, I put my phone in my bag. “All right, I can’t do any more here right now. Let’s go take a look from the outside.”
Jack handed my torch to me and we walked towards the stairwell and back into the bright sunlight.
---
We stood next to the wall at the back of the partially completed shopping mall. Although it hadn’t rained for a few days, the ground was still very muddy. Pools of water lay in the deep track marks from the heavy machinery that surrounded the building.
I looked closely at the muddy ground. “This looks like clay,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Jack replied.
“What was the ground like when they excavated it? Was it clay?”
“Nope. Solid bedrock, just like the geo report said it would be.”
“So it can’t be clay that’s causing the water?”
Jack shook his head. “Not according to the geo report, no. There is some surface clay, that’s what you can
see around here, but it has no structural impact on the footings. It only goes down a foot or two.”
"So we're no closer to figuring out where the water's coming from."
"'Fraid not, Nat. It's got me stumped. We need to figure this out though because seeping water could be the least of our worries. The whole bloody footing could become unstable."
"I really didn't want to hear that, Jacky."
"Better to know that not knowing, I guess."
I nodded. "True story." I took one last look at the muddy clay. "Doesn't look like I'm going to learn much more here, so I may as well head back to the office."
"Thanks for coming down, Nat. Sorry that it doesn't look like good news."
"Not your fault, Jacky, I appreciate you taking the time to look with me. Give my love to Moira."
We said our goodbyes and I walked back to my car. I was not in a good mood.
Chapter 3
I arrived at the office around 11:30 am. On the drive back into town, my mind kept going over what we'd found, or rather not found at the construction site.
My boss, Pete Larson, caught my eye as I exited the lift and motioned me over.
I walked into his office, still carrying my laptop bag and handbag. "Hey, Pete."
"Hey, Nat. How'd you go on-site this morning?" Pete's tie was loosened and his sleeves rolled up, his suit jacket hung on the back of his chair. Papers covered his desk.
"Not great," I answered as I put my bags down. "It doesn't look like it's coming from rainwater. There's a fair bit of water seeping through the wall."
"Any idea where it is coming from?"
"I wish I did. Jack confirmed that they excavated into solid granite."
"So it must be groundwater after all."
"It seems to be coming from lower down, but I just don't have any other explanation."
Pete nodded. "I guess we wait until the rainwater has completely subsided, then check it again. Thanks for going out, Nat."
"No problem, Pete," I replied as I picked my bags up. "I just wish I could give you something more definite."
I walked to my own office, put my handbag under my desk, took my laptop out of its case and opened it. Many emails waited for me.
I sighed. The basement water issue was only one of many that I had to deal with. There was little I could do about it right now so I turned my attention to the emails.
"Jeez, a girl leaves her desk for a few hours and it goes crazy!" I said to myself. I scanned through the list of emails and saw one from Samuel Olsen marked “urgent.” Bracing myself, I opened the email.
Olsen was worried that the construction of the second floor was taking longer than expected. It was still within the planned timeframe, but starting to push against the extra time that had been factored into the project plan. He wasn’t happy.
His email finished with,
“Ms. Shaw, I cannot express enough how important it is to complete this project on time, and that means that every element of your design must be delivered on the date is expected. I will let nothing stand in the way of that.
Please solve this issue immediately.
Samuel Olsen.”
I wasn’t directly responsible for the project timeline – that was the project manager’s job – but as the chief architect, Olsen always attributed any delays to me and my design. Sighing again, I responded to the email, reassuring him that the project was still on schedule.
It was 3:30 pm before I finally dealt with the backlog of the rest of the emails from the morning. As I was about to look at the next batch of emails and tasks for the day, I realized that I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since leaving home to go on site.
Coffee and food was a priority. Now reminded of its missing meal, my stomach grumbled at me. I looked down and said, "Well if you'd said something earlier, we wouldn't be in this predicament!" I laughed. "I MUST be hungry, I'm talking to my tummy now!"
I reached into my handbag under my desk to get my purse so I could buy myself some food and a coffee.
It wasn't there.
Starting to panic, I grabbed my handbag, sat it on my desk and rummaged inside it.
Still nothing.
In desperation, I emptied the contents of my bag all over my desk. My purse definitely wasn't there.
"Oh, crap!" I said. "Where is it?"
I knew I had it this morning as I'd had to fill my car with gas on the way to the construction site. I looked up the number for the gas station I'd visited that morning and rang them.
"Hi, I filled up this morning, but I may have left my purse there. Has anyone seen it or handed it in?"
"Sorry ma'am, we haven't seen it. Have you checked your car?"
"Not yet, I'll do that now. Can you please ring me if someone hands it in?" I gave them my number. "Thanks," I said and hung up. I grabbed my keys and my security swipe card for the basement car park and headed for the lift. Hopefully, it was in my car.
My search proved to be fruitless. I crawled around inside my car, feeling under the seats. It wasn't there. I sat in the driver's seat to think.
Suddenly it hit me.
In the basement, I'd taken my phone from my bag to take the photos. It had been right at the bottom, I'd had to rummage around to find it. My purse must have fallen out as I searched, then obscured by the darkness, it got left on the ground where we had been standing. It had to be in the car park.
"Well, damn," I said.
With a sigh, I took the lift up to my floor and sat at my desk. I checked the time; it was a little after 4:15 pm. The site office closed at 4 pm as work began at 6 am each day. I picked up my phone and rang the number anyway. As expected, there was no answer.
"Damn it! I said again. I wasn't worried about my current problem of an empty stomach, I'd be able to borrow a few dollars for that, but my purse had my cash, credit cards, license and pretty much everything else in it. I really needed to retrieve it.
I walked out of my office, knocked on Pete's door and told him what had happened.
"Oh jeez, Nat, you'd better go grab it!" he said when I finished. "Don't worry about anything here, it will wait until tomorrow."
"Thanks, Pete," I replied gratefully. I turned to leave when Pete called out, "Oh Nat!"
"Yes?" I said, turning back toward him.
"Grab yourself something to eat and drink, first, won't you?" He held out a twenty-dollar bill.
I reached over, took the money and smiled, "Thanks, Pete."
After I had satisfied my grumbly stomach with some food, I grabbed my bag and drove out to the construction site. It was about an hour's drive from the office and I arrived around 5:30 pm. The workers had left for the day and the site was deserted.
I stopped my car outside the gate in the chain fence that surrounded the worksite. The gate was always locked after hours with a loop of chain and a combination-lock padlock. I hopped out of my car to unlock the gate. To my surprise, the chain was missing.
"That's odd," I murmured to myself. It wasn't unheard of for the chain to be unlocked but normally it would be hanging off the gate. Perhaps someone had come back on to the site, put it in their car, and forgotten to relock the gate when they left.
I’d have to have a look for it later, I still needed to make sure my purse was in the basement of the building. I pushed the heavy gate open before driving through. I was only going to be a minute, so I didn’t bother pulling it shut once I’d entered.
I parked outside the main entrance of the incomplete shopping mall and took the powerful torch I’d used earlier with Jack Myers from the boot of my car. I had forgotten to return it to him when we’d finished our inspection; I had planned to return it to him the next time I visited the site. I was glad I still had it, the inside of the building was completely black. The building’s glass doors were not yet in place, so I entered and walked down the stairs toward the basement.
I quickly descended into the darkness; the sun was already fading and very little light permeated the stairwell. Fi
nally reaching the lowest level of the massive basement car park, I shone my torch toward where Jack and I had been examining the wet wall that morning.
The dripping water was loud in the otherwise silent basement. I walked towards the sound, anxious to see if my purse was sitting in the darkness.
"Oh darn," I thought. "What if it's ended up in the water coming from the wall?" My pace quickened.
At last, I got close enough for the light of my torch to show the pool of water. And sure enough, I could see a small, dark shape sitting on the ground a few feet from the water. It had to be my purse.
"Oh thank God," I exclaimed. I nearly ran the last few meters toward it.
It was my missing purse. There was no reason for anyone to be down here and have found it, but I picked it up and opened it to quickly check if my driver’s license was still there. It was. I blew a sigh of relief. That would have been the last thing I needed.
I looked at the pool of water in front of me. It seemed to be a little larger than it was that morning. I shone my torch at the ground, following the wall along to look for any further water seepage. Twenty meters away, a dark pool was visible on the concrete floor.
It didn't look like the water coming from the wall that was on the ground. I walked toward it cautiously. It also didn't seem to be originating from the wall.
"What the hell?" I said, both curiosity and dread starting to build as I approached.
The water, or whatever it was, appeared to be pooling in a slight depression in the concrete. I pointed the torch in the direction it looks to be coming from. A few meters further away, I could see a large dark shape lying on the ground.
It was lying in the pool of liquid and seemed to be where it originated. With horror, I realized it was a man lying face down in the dark liquid. It was blood. His blood. His jacket was soaked with it.
He was dead.
There was a body in the building.
Chapter 4
I stumbled back in shock. A dead man was lying on the ground in the basement. Blood was everywhere. I could see a hole in the back of his jacket; that was where the blood was coming from.
The Body in the Building Page 2