Page 22 of Simon Says… Fight (Kate Morgan Thrillers #11)

He looked down at his watch. “Give me about twenty minutes or so.” He ended the call and headed back toward home.

Going to Kate’s office meant he needed a vehicle.

Then he wondered whether there would be time to sneak her out for a meal or something.

She wasn’t exactly the easiest to pull away from work, but, given her rough morning, maybe she could be persuaded.

He wasn’t so sure she would agree with that, but he had hopes.

To her, it was probably just a normal morning.

When he got to the police station, he sent her a quick text, saying he was here. She walked out to the reception area and opened the door for him. He followed her to the back, where he greeted Rodney, who looked up with a confused expression.

“Need to get a statement for our records,” she explained.

“Oh, right,” he muttered, then frowned. “Let me write it up.”

“Good idea,” she replied, then pointed out the spare chair at Rodney’s desk.

Simon sat down and waited. Giving a statement wasn’t difficult, but he wasn’t exactly sure how much he should say. He looked over at Kate and asked in an undertone, “How much do you want officially recorded on that sense of… knowingness?”

She looked over at him and smiled. “We can keep most of that out of your statement. Just say that you were out there, looking at derelict buildings you might want to purchase, and this just happens to be another that you were curious about. You went in to have a look and get an idea of what work would need to be done.”

He looked at her and then nodded. “Something I do on a regular basis.”

Rodney shuddered. “You may want to rethink that, after being with Kate and finding a body.”

“I had that conversation with one of my foremen today,” Simon shared, looking over at him.

“What exactly?” Rodney asked.

“He told me that I looked like I’d seen a ghost, so I told him where I’d come from and about the body and all. That led to a discussion about how lucky we are that we haven’t had anything like that come up on our jobsites yet.”

“ Yet ,” Rodney noted, with a shudder. “I’m not sure I like that.”

“No, I don’t either, but it’s certainly something that is entirely possible. We’ve come across drug overdoses and things of that nature, but never something like this.”

With that, Rodney ran him through a series of questions to help get the information they needed. When he was done, he nodded. “Okay, seems we’ve got everything you’ve got to offer.”

“Is that it?” Simon asked, with a smile. “That didn’t seem too bad at all.”

“What were you expecting?” Rodney asked, studying him curiously.

“I don’t know, bright lights, no heat, hard chairs, you know?… A generally uncomfortable setting and the same questions over and over.”

He snorted. “You know, we could have some fun with something like that, but I don’t think that would wash in the end.”

“Maybe not,” Simon noted cheerfully, as he got up and looked over at Kate. “Any chance I can convince you to go out for lunch?”

She frowned at him, then checked the time on her phone. “Oh.”

Simon nodded. “Yeah, it’s lunchtime.”

“It’s past lunchtime,” Rodney pointed out. “I’ll go as far as saying it’s way past the lunch hour, and my stomach feels as if it’s been cut off.”

She nodded, then turned to Simon. “We can go catch a bite around the corner, if you want to.”

“Sure,” he replied, with a smile at Kate. And, with a wave of his hand, he said goodbye to the rest of the team and left with Kate.

As soon as they got outside, she stopped, looked around, and pointed up the street. “A little hole-in-the-wall Thai food place is up here, I think,” she said. “I went there a few weeks back.”

He looked at her and chuckled. “That was probably a few months back.”

“Maybe,” she muttered. “Time goes by so quickly.”

“Especially when you’re having fun.”

“Or not,” she muttered. Then she looked at him and stated, “You really could end up with a body in one of these buildings of yours.”

“It’s probably quite a normal thing to consider,” he noted. “I’m not too bothered about it, but obviously it is a possibility.”

“Right,” she murmured. “I can’t say that would be something I would be terribly impressed about.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t be all that happy about it either, but realistically it’s a possibility, probably grows more likely with each project, statistically speaking,” he added, giving her a lopsided grin.

“But it’s not something I’ll worry about because, if it happens, it happens.

What am I supposed to do? At least let’s be happy that this body’s been found. ”

She winced. “So many times nobody says anything.”

“And have you considered that?”

She stopped and frowned at him. “Actually…”

“What?” he asked, turning to her. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

“I just wondered about Arnie.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You mean, whether he knew the body was up there?”

She nodded. “I’m just not sure that he would have said anything. Everybody tries to avoid the police if they can, and the homeless doubly so,” she murmured. “But there is a chance that Arnie knew.”

“And maybe he didn’t,” Simon suggested, yet frowning, thinking about it.

“But it wouldn’t be fair to think any less of him because of it,” she added. “It’s a big ugly world out there for him.”

“Right, I agree,” he said, putting hands in his pockets. “I guess I can ask him, but he’s just as likely to say hell no either way.”

“And, if he did know, it’s not likely he would have said anything. He wouldn’t have wanted to get involved,” she suggested. “Knowing his situation, I can’t really say that I blame him.”

Simon pondered that thought as he headed back to work after lunch.

Unable to let it go, he decided when he got back to that corner of the world, he would pop in to see how Arnie was doing.

As he walked down the stairs on the boat, he found Arnie sitting there, holding Elsie in his arms. Simon looked at Arnie, saw the tears flowing down the old man’s face, and sighed. “You gave her what you could,” he said.

“It wasn’t enough,” he whispered.

“I don’t know about that.… She’s quite old.”

“About fifteen, as far as I know,” he muttered.

Simon nodded. “That’s quite old when it comes to dogs.” He looked at the old man and asked, “Did you wake up to find her this way?”

“No, she just had her nap after breakfast, and that was it,” he said, tears running down his face still. “It’s like she was telling me that she wouldn’t go out in that cold anymore.”

Simon smiled. “I’m not surprised. It’s a cold world for her.”

“Yeah,” Arnie agreed, his voice husky.

Simon watched as the old man rocked Elsie in his arms and asked, “Do you want me to take her down to the vet?”

The old man looked up at him and shook his head. “I don’t want you to, no.” Then he frowned. “But I don’t have any other options, do I?”

“We don’t exactly have acreage to bury her on,” Simon noted, as he sat down across from him, seeing how shattered the old man looked. “And this would confirm she gets taken care of properly and not just dropped in a Dumpster around the corner.”

At that, the old man winced. “And that would be about the only thing I would have as an option,” he admitted.

Simon looked down at Elsie, then got up and made tea for both of them.

A little bit later, still sipping his tea, Arnie looked over at him. “Please, can you look after her?”

Simon nodded. “What about you?” he asked curiously. “What will you do?”

The old man shrugged. “I’m not long for this world either. I can’t really do anything to move it along, but I can go to a shelter now,” he admitted. “And I know that’s what Elsie would want me to do.”

Simon stared at him.

“She really loved the shelters. People were always around. It’s just… she was never allowed to stay, so I never stayed either. I really, really appreciate the fact that you gave her this,” Arnie said, waving a hand around the Running Mate .

Simon nodded. “Do you want to stay another night, to give you a chance to catch your breath?”

“No, I couldn’t enjoy it without her. I’ll be on my way.”

“Can I at least give you a lift somewhere?”

He looked around and nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind, I want to go back to my old stomping grounds. I know my way around, and my friends are there.”

“As long as you go to a shelter where you’ll get meals and a bed for the night.”

“I’ll huddle around the place and become one of the regulars,” he noted. He got up and carefully handed the blanket with Elsie to Simon. “Please look after her.”

Since he had the car, it didn’t take very long to get the old man loaded up.

Once Elsie was delivered to the nearest vet clinic, he took Arnie down to where he’d first seen him.

As he looked for a place to park, he asked Arnie, “We found a still-alive but beaten-up man in that warehouse where I found you and Elsie.”

“Yeah? That’s a really ugly place to be,” he muttered.

“During a full search the cops found another body,” he added.

Arnie stiffened and looked at him, with that knowing in the back of his gaze.

Simon sighed. “A body you knew about apparently.”

“No, it’s not one I knew about. It’s one I heard rumors about,” Arnie clarified.

“And believe me, that’s not something I would ever go looking for.

A bunch of kids were around at one time who used to talk about it, and it’s always been one of those whispered rumors.

Always in the background, always somebody talking about it, but never anybody really knowing if it was truth or not. ”

“So even though you haven’t seen it, you knew?”

“I didn’t go looking for a body, that’s for sure. But if you found one—or that partner of yours—in a way that should put another ghost to rest. And that place has a lot of ghosts to put to rest.”

“And you don’t know any details about it, right?”