* * *
The LC Leasing, Inc. offices were located approximately two miles from the Portland & Sea Tavern in a one-story slate-gray building with batches of floor-to-ceiling windows at odd intervals backed by closed vertical blinds.
The detectives weren’t sure what to expect, but Nick suspected Lamar Crawford had never intended to meet them at the restaurant, that he’d simply been stalling for time. To what end, Nick couldn’t guess. Maybe he needed to inform his accomplices, especially if the truck hijacking had been an inside job.
Unlike the restaurant, the office was open for business. Nick held the glass door open wide so Hank could enter on his crutches. A young blond receptionist in a form-fitting red dress greeted them pleasantly.
“Welcome to LC Leasing,” she said with an expansive smile. “How may I help you?”
Hank flashed the detective’s badge hanging from the lanyard around his neck.
“We have an appointment with Lamar Crawford,” he said.
The receptionist’s smile faltered, but she rose and said, “This way.”
Large photos of modern office buildings hung in thin frames mounted on the wall to their left. Nick recognized some of the buildings from the Pearl District. To the right, he peered into a row of five offices, one after the other, each one unoccupied, but with computer displays and paper-filled inboxes on glass-and-steel desks.
“Where is everyone?” Nick asked.
She gave a perfunctory reply, “Tours with potential clients.” Now that she understood Hank and Nick had no interest in leasing office space, her earlier graciousness had evaporated.
The receptionist ignored the side offices and led them to the office in the rear, which looked twice as large as the others. She tapped on the doorframe.
“Mr. Crawford, these police officers say they have an appointment with you.”
“Detectives,” Hank corrected. “Griffin and Burkhardt.”
An elderly gentleman with a sallow complexion, watery eyes and hollow cheeks looked up from his computer display and gave her a wan smile.
“It’s quite all right, Nancy,” Crawford said. “I’ve been expecting them. Please hold all my calls.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, turned on her heel and left the room. She avoided eye contact with the detectives on her way out, as if they no longer mattered in her world.
Hank exchanged a look with Nick, but neither commented.
“Please, have a seat, Detectives,” Crawford said, indicating the two chairs in front of his own modern glass-and-steel desk. The same style as the side office desks, Crawford’s appeared half again as large as the others. A definite pecking order existed. His office also featured a lion’s share of the slender floor-to-ceiling windows.
Crawford’s desk presented an immaculate workspace. Aside from the computer display, keyboard, mouse, and a multi-line silver telephone, the glass surface held only a framed photo of a middle-aged woman with a teenage boy, and a manila folder under Crawford’s left palm. His right hand gripped a Mont Blanc ballpoint pen.
Nick took the chair to the left, farthest from the door, so Hank would require less maneuvering on his crutches before sitting. As Hank settled into the uncomfortable chair beside him, Nick assessed Lamar Crawford. His first impression had been accurate. In addition to Crawford’s poor complexion and apparent ill health, his bespoke suit hung loosely on his shoulders, as if his frame had withered too quickly for his tailoring to keep up. Crawford’s earlier claim of feeling too ill for the restaurant meeting seemed entirely plausible.
“I understand you have questions about the lost shipment of restaurant equipment,” Crawford said, squeezing the Mont Blanc in one skeletal hand.
“Lost when someone hijacked the truck carrying the equipment,” Hank pointed out.
“Yes. Assuming that is what happened,” Crawford said. “The driver and equipment went missing simultaneously.”
“You believe the driver was complicit in the theft?” Nick asked.
“Frankly, I don’t know what to believe,” Crawford said dismissively. “To this day, neither the driver, nor the equipment has turned up. The supply company filed a police report at the time—and my office cooperated fully with the investigation. But we never received that shipment. And—I might add—we had prepaid for everything. I’m still awaiting a refund from the supplier, who is, in turn, waiting for an insurance settlement.”
“You purchased the equipment personally?”
“I placed the order, yes,” Crawford said, tapping the Mont Blanc against the glass desktop: bock—bock—bock! A sign of nervousness or simply a nervous habit?
“You have purchase orders?” Hank asked.
“Of course,” Crawford said, insulted. “I placed the order and paid for the equipment. This is not an attempt at insurance fraud, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“Not at all,” Hank said. “Just establishing your connection to the order.”
“Is there a connection?” Crawford asked rhetorically. “Absolutely. I ordered the equipment. I authorized the payment.”
“Anyone in your office acquainted with the driver?” Nick asked.
“No,” Crawford said. His pen paused mid-tap. “We had never ordered anything from this company before, which is why we prepaid. How could any of us possibly know the driver of the delivery truck?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Hank said.
“In this case, no one at this place of business had… prior knowledge—is that how you phrase it?—of the driver. At least not to my knowledge. You are welcome to interview anyone here to confirm that.”
“Speaking of your business,” Nick said. “LC Leasing? You lease property?”
“Office space, primarily,” Crawford said. “Business to business.”
“Own any other restaurants?”
“As a matter of fact, no,” Crawford said. “Portland & Sea Tavern would have been our first.”
“Why now?” Hank wondered.
Bock—bock—bock!
“Let’s call it an attempt at diversification,” Crawford said. “The real estate market has gone through some… challenges in the last few years. Business investment down. Hiring down. The tavern would have been our first restaurant.”
“Restaurants have a high failure rate,” Nick said. “Not exactly a safe bet for diversification.”
Crawford squinted at him. “Are you questioning my business acumen?”
Nick shrugged, spread his arms. “Just thinking out loud.”
“Opening the restaurant was my wife’s idea,” Crawford said. “Not that she wanted any direct involvement in the enterprise.”
“As you know, we came from the restaurant.”
“Yes,” Crawford said, setting the pen down. “Again, I apologize. I intended to meet you there rather than bring police business here, but my health…”
“We couldn’t help but notice the restaurant is empty.”
“Except for a card table and couple folding chairs,” Hank added.
“That is unfortunate,” Crawford said. “As you said, restaurants are risky ventures in the best of times. With my failing health and the lost shipment, I took it as a sign to abandon the whole project. We may decide to use the rental space for some other venture. Or cut our losses.” Crawford took a deep breath, which did little to fill out his baggy suit jacket. “Well, if there are no further questions, I’d like to wrap this up.” He glanced at his gold wristwatch. “I have scheduled appointments this afternoon.”
Nick glanced at Hank, who returned a slight shake of his head.
They both stood, Hank propping himself up on his crutches.
“If you don’t mind,” Nick said. “I’d like to get a copy of the equipment purchase orders.”
“Of course,” Crawford said, rising unsteadily. “They’re in our computer system. Give Nancy an email address on your way out and I’ll have her forward copies to you.”
Nick had the impression a strong gust of wind could
topple the gaunt man.
They turned to leave. Nick waited for Hank to exit on his crutches, and happened to glance down. A balled-up piece of tan paper had missed a trashcan flush against the side of the desk. Nick picked up the paper, intending to deposit it in the trashcan, but paused with it clutched in his fingers. The paper was mottled, not a solid color. Faux parchment paper. Curious, Nick opened the ball of paper, revealing a hand-drawn circle surrounded by a series of acute triangles above an address printed at the bottom of the page.
His gaze flashed to Crawford.
Standing behind his wide modern desk, eyes wide with sudden fear, Crawford woged, exposing himself as a Geier. Seeing Nick’s look and realizing that the homicide detective who’d been questioning him was a Grimm, the man’s fear became palpable. He gasped audibly, almost a croak of pain, and dropped into his chair.
Startled by Crawford’s sudden collapse, Hank glanced over his shoulder and caught the tail end of the unspoken acknowledgment between Wesen and Grimm. He shook his head.
“Should have known,” Hank said.
Nick placed the creased paper printed side up in the middle of Crawford’s desk.
“I know what you are and you know what I am,” Nick said with the forceful tone of authority. He jabbed his index finger at the center of the circle. “So explain this to me!”
* * *
In between other appointments, Juliette had covered her desk with reference books and textbooks, each flipped open to pages dealing with kidney disease and anything relevant to the constellation of signs she had noticed in Roxy or in line with the results of her blood tests. She’d cross-referenced this information with online materials available through her various reference subscriptions.
And she’d found a possibility.
Something that would require another test to confirm. Something she couldn’t share with the Bremmers because it might not pan out. Unfortunately, she only had a few hours before the family would arrive to say their final goodbyes to their beloved pet.
Roxy had been miserable and mostly unresponsive—barely a tail thump in greeting—when Juliette had drawn 3cc of blood and then hooked up an IV to give her one vial of Cortrosyn. An hour later, when she’d taken more blood, Roxy’s only physical response was an ear twitch, as if this annoying medical treatment was one more small piece of a bad dream she’d been having for far too long. With the ACTH stimulation test completed, Juliette submitted the blood work to the lab.
She collapsed in her office chair, feeling wrung out after the last few hours. A low tide of energy after the adrenaline rush of research and discovery had worn off. She stared at her cluttered desk, her hands dangling off the chair arms, and felt unequal to the task of cleaning up. All the heavy lifting had been mental. Yet the physical resources eluded her. She fantasized about the nearest hit of caffeine. Coffee pot in the break room. Vending machine in the hallway.
Somebody rapped on her office door.
“It’s open.”
Zoe poked her head in, then did a double-take when she noticed the mounds of books on the desk.
“Final exams coming up?”
“All done.”
“Pass or fail?”
Juliette frowned. “To be determined,” she said. “Fingers crossed.”
“You look wiped.”
“An accurate diagnosis,” Juliette said and sighed. “How’s the lobby?”
“Empty at the moment,” Zoe said.
“How’s the coffee?”
“At this time of day?” Zoe said. “Like tar, I imagine. I could start a fresh pot.”
“Would you?” Juliette asked, savoring the prospect of fresh, hot coffee.
“You need a hand with this stuff.”
“Books go on shelves, right?” Juliette asked, quirking a tired smile. “I seem to recall a connection between the two.”
Together they closed and shelved the books, in no particular order. Seeing the top of her desk reappear was its own reward. Zoe left to make the promised fresh pot of coffee. Juliette leaned back in her chair, head tilted up as she stared off into space, and hoped for good news.
That’s all she could do while she awaited the test results.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Tell me what this means!” Nick demanded, his index finger pressed to the hand-drawn circle surrounded by acute triangles.
“How should I know?” Crawford said, refusing to look at the image on the faux-parchment paper. “It’s a flyer.”
“Did you print it?” Nick asked, glancing at an all-in-one personal laser printer on a small stand in the back corner of the office. The original design had been hand drawn with a black marker, but it could have been scanned and printed on a laser printer stocked with novelty parchment paper.
“No, I didn’t print the damn thing,” Crawford said, agitated. “I picked it up in the library. On a table with a bunch of other flyers and business cards. Anyone could have left it there.”
Nick glanced at the address printed below the geometric symbols. He couldn’t remember any libraries in Portland at that address. Barring an online search or physically visiting the address, he couldn’t know for sure.
“Why did you take it?” Hank asked.
“I don’t get your meaning,” Crawford said evasively.
“What was it about that symbol—or that address—that made you decide to pick up this particular flyer from that library table filled with other flyers and business cards?”
“No particular reason,” Crawford said, somehow looking more exhausted than he had mere minutes ago. “I grabbed it with other flyers.”
Nick glanced down into the empty trashcan.
“And where are they?” he asked. “I’d like to see the selection.”
“Look, I thought it looked interesting. So I picked it up. But, as you can see, it makes no sense. So I threw it away—or tried to, anyway.”
Nick tapped the address on the bottom of the page.
“What will we find here?”
“How should I know?”
“The flyer was interesting enough to take with you,” Nick said. “But it made no sense to you. So you threw it out, without bothering to find out what’s at that address?”
“That’s right.”
“You change your mind a lot.”
“That’s not a crime!” Crawford exclaimed, but the emotional outburst had drained him.
His phone buzzed, one light blinking insistently.
“That’s Nancy,” he said and grabbed the receiver before they could object. “Everything’s fine, Nancy,” he said. “No, of course not. They are the police. Just… stay out of this. It’s not your concern.”
The phone almost fell from his grip as he hung up. His hands were shaking.
“I don’t know what any of this means,” Crawford said, his voice quavering. “If you continue to harass me, I will call my lawyer.”
Nick had the sense that Crawford was on the ropes, ready to come clean with the proper encouragement, his threat to call a lawyer nothing more than a last-ditch bluff.
“This flyer you seem to know nothing about,” Nick said. “We found another one just like it at a vacant lot where multiple murder victims were buried in shallow graves.”
“And we can tie you to another missing person and likely murder victim,” Hank said. “The delivery truck driver.”
“I told you,” Crawford said. “I never met the man.”
“Murderers kill strangers all the time.”
Nick placed both hands flat on Crawford’s desk and leaned forward, fully expecting his superior position and proximity as a Grimm to intimidate.
“The driver carried a load of equipment for a restaurant you had no intention of opening,” he said. “The only question is: are you the ringleader in this series of murders, or are you working for someone else.”
“Somebody put you up to this, Crawford,” Hank said. “Give us a name and maybe you don’t spend the last few months of your life rotting in jail.�
�
Crawford clutched his expensive pen, squeezing the barrel as if it were an anchor to the comfortable and privileged lifestyle that was slipping away from him minute by minute. He took several deep, shaking breaths and finally calmed himself before he spoke.
“They promised me a cure…”
“A cure?” Nick asked.
“To this wasting sickness,” Crawford said, looking down at his hollow chest. “To human medicine, it resembles cancer, but is less treatable and always fatal.” He clasped his hands together, the pen trapped between them, to quell their trembling. “But they… With their experiments, and everything they collected, they told me… they offered a treatment that would prolong my life, if not cure the disease. A type of remission.” He ran one hand through his thinning hair. “I am not a young man, so the promise of five, possibly ten more years… that meant everything to me! I would live to see my son graduate from high school and college, maybe even marry.”
“What price for this treatment?” Nick asked.
“A simple thing,” he said. “Open a restaurant, for all intents and purposes, or at least begin the process. Then order the equipment.”
“Why?” Hank asked.
“At first, I thought it was a front,” Crawford said. “A legitimate business to launder money from some criminal enterprise.”
“But they wanted something else,” Nick said.
“The equipment, obviously,” Crawford said. “Untraceable back to them.”
“It wasn’t a front,” Hank concluded. “It was a cover.”
“They wanted anonymity,” Nick added.
“I should have known—from the start—what they were about,” Crawford said. “I participated last time, in Rio. So long ago. But it’s time again, and that’s what they wanted from me. Time.” He shook his head. “I wanted more time from them. Instead, I bought time for them.”
“Time for what?” Nick said.
“To finish,” Crawford said with a resigned shake of his head. “It was all a lie. The cure. The remission. They’ve given me a few so-called treatments to string me along. Placebos? Maybe. I believe they whipped up some kind of energy drink cocktail, of all things. To make me feel… invigorated. To think I had hope—and more time.”
Grimm: The Chopping Block Page 15