Page 111 of Deathmarch

“I’ll wake up the judge,” Bing said immediately. “I’ll let you know when we have that warrant. I’m on I95. I should be there in another hour and a half.”

“And the training?”

“They’ll have another one in the fall.”

Harper’s throat tightened as he said, “Thank you, Captain.”

They ended that call just as Chad Holmes’s house came into sight, the porch light on.

The front door opened as soon as Harper jumped from his car.

“Come on in, Detective.” Holmes waved him in, wearing a beige sweater over his old-fashioned blue-striped pajamas. “I already booted up my laptop. I have all my files on there. Claire told me what you need.”

“Thank you. Sorry to bother you this late. Hope I didn’t wake up the whole family.

“Widowed,” he said, the overhead light glinting off his thinning gray-brown hair. “All alone and can’t sleep much anyway.”

“Sorry,” Harper said again. Then he added, “We might have to wait a few minutes. I need the warrant to come through.”

“Claire explained about the situation. I don’t care about the warrant. You can look at any records I have.”

“I appreciate that, Chad. Really do. But I want the evidence admissible in court when this is over.” Yet if Allie’s life depended on it… “Let’s see how fast that warrant comes in.”

He walked behind the man into the guy’s kitchen where the laptop waited on the table.

Holmes slipped on his glasses, then dropped into his chair and typed on the keyboard. “Here they are. Donovan’s files. What do you need?”

“A complete list of employees for twenty sixteen.”

Holmes’s fingers drummed across the keys. “Twenty sixteen.” He clicked to bring up the file, talking while he unzipped it. “Donovan’s was never a large business. Had maybe a dozen residential customers, the rest all small businesses up and down Route 1, and the shops on Broslin Square.” He paused to read the spreadsheet that opened. “Here we go. Seven employees that year.”

“I’m not interested in the receptionist or anything else but installations. Any way to tell which people were responsible for installing the safes?”

“I don’t have job descriptions.” Holmes clicked on another tab. Shook his head. “Just names, social security numbers, and payroll information.”

Harper’s phone pinged. A PDF from the captain.

“Okay. I got the warrant.” He opened the file and showed it to the accountant. “List me the names.”

Chad did.

Harper knew a couple of them. Dusty Chotkowski was one, Leila’s neighbor’s nephew who’d given him advice on the damage on Lamm’s safe. He dialed the guy, but Dusty didn’t pick up. Probably because it was after midnight.

“Any phone numbers in the files?” Harper asked Chad.

“Sure.”

“Give me Brandon Speidel’s.” They’d played baseball together in high school. Brandon would remember him, help him out.

As Holmes read the numbers off his screen, Harper made the call. The phone rang a dozen times before it was picked up, a groggy voice saying, “This had better be good.”

“Brandon? It’s Harper Finnegan.”

“You know what time it is?”

“It’s a police emergency. When you worked at Donovan’s, did you install safes?”

“I did security systems.”