Page 38 of Simon Says… Fight (Kate Morgan Thrillers #11)

B y the time Kate walked back into the office—after grabbing a short nap—Lilliana eyed her expectantly.

Nodding at Kate, she said, “Just heard the news. That was a hell of a deal.”

“Yeah, you’re not kidding,” Kate muttered.

“How do you think Simon feels, having just bought the building?” Lilliana asked.

Kate winced. “Not my skin in the game, so I’m not sure.”

“I hope he didn’t pay very much for it,” Lilliana said, with a smirk.

“Yeah, he’s probably thinking about that right now too,” Kate added, with a smile. “Yet he planned on dropping it already, and, since it will undoubtedly be condemned as soon as the city ordinance guys get there, that’s a good thing.”

“Yeah, you’re not kidding,” Lilliana noted. “What did you find?”

“So, current count is two recent floaters, one skeleton in the warehouse from a year or so ago, now four very old skeletons in a secret basement room of the same warehouse, and a sickly homeless man—which was an exception—plus our beating victim. And that’s not counting the four dead bodies in other precincts that seem to have been beaten to death as well.

What we don’t know,” Kate added, “is whether there is any connection between the newly dead and the long-ago dead.”

“Of course,” Rodney noted, as he walked back over to his desk, a cup of coffee in his hand. He looked at her, held up the cup, and said, “A fresh pot is in there.”

“You know that does sound good, yet I lived on coffee all night.”

“Were you there all night?” he asked.

“Most of it,” she said, waving a tired hand at him. “We found one long-lost skeleton in the boarded-up basement. Then, just as we were about to leave, forensics found two more, so that meant pulling an all-nighter.”

“Of course,” he muttered, “so you probably didn’t get a chance to question our van delivery guy.”

“No, but I will be going back there today.”

“I’m coming with you,” he added. “That building is now one hell of a dumping site.”

“I know, and I’m sure the city will be there as well. It’s just one of those lovely little sites that needs to be dealt with,” she noted, “the sooner, the better.”

He nodded. “We can go now, if you don’t want to settle in over a cup of coffee.”

“Let’s have a short meeting,” she suggested, “and I’ll bring you up to date on what we found, and then we can head back.

” And heading back put her right at the same warehouse, but thankfully forensics was gone by then.

It was almost noon. She and Rodney went inside the main warehouse and took another look around, specifically searching for boarded-up doorways inside the building.

As she looked out the window, she noted that most of the crowd had dissipated as well.

“That’s a good thing,” Rodney noted, pointing outside.

“It is. At the same time, it feels pretty rough to know these bodies were discarded here all that time.”

“And was… Simon behind all that?”

“Simon is the reason we kept looking,” she admitted. “Obviously, when the building finally comes down, the bodies would have been found, but it’s better that it can be dealt with now.”

“Yeah, that’s a good thing.”

“It’s still hard to think that so many people were left in that situation. Some of them have probably been there for years, decades even. I don’t know yet, but we’ll hear soon, I hope.”

“Where were these bodies at?” Rodney asked.

“They were jammed in the basement, along with the utilities,” she explained, “or behind them. Another room was just behind where the utilities were. The door to access the basement was outside, all boarded-up. Simon will try to talk to one of the previous owners and see if they give up any information. Then I’ll have to contact them myself, of course. ”

Rodney looked around the interior again. “Just another desolate empty warehouse, like people just picked up and left. Half the stuff here is from the last company, and half the stuff is just garbage from vagabonds over the years.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “Simon has the plans that were on file at City Hall. He had them delivered so he could take another look, and, since he is the new owner, it made perfect sense for him to do that. That provides good cover, considering why he probably really contacted them.”

“You mean, why he pushed it?”

“Yes,” she stated. “What I still don’t know is whether that voice in his head has gone quiet because, if it has, then hopefully we’ve found all the bodies.”

“Or at least found him , the body of the voice,” Rodney pointed out. “I have to admit, since meeting Simon, I’ve had to rethink my views on life and death a bit.”

“I think we all have,” she noted, “including Simon.”

“And that’s the part that just blows me away, that he really had no clue about any of this psychic stuff.”

“Just what he knew of his grandmother,” she noted, turning to look at him, “but he swore he would never get into that.”

“Yeah, and look how well that’s gone for him,” Rodney quipped, followed by laughter.

“I have no idea what’s going on in that mind of his half the time. And you’re not kidding. Simon is definitely not impressed with it these days.”

They walked outside to the back of the building now, and she showed him where everything had been boarded up. Then she brought him to the hidden basement area.

He stepped inside to the small extra room where the final two skeletons were found. Rodney shook his head. “Jesus, it’s like it could have been created just for this.”

“That was my thought,” she shared, as she looked around. “Hence the need to talk to the previous owners.”

“But how long were they the owners? This could have been built over decades ago.”

“We have the history of the building, and the main warehouse has been around for about one hundred years,” she shared. “So we know the bodies were left here after that.”

“True,” he murmured, “but maybe not by much. It was pretty rough in those days. Nobody necessarily reported anybody missing.”

“Even if they did,” she noted, “it doesn’t mean that they were ever found or that files were ever opened. It was definitely the wild, wild west back then.”

“It’s scary to even think that something like that can happen.”

“And yet it happened all the damn time. We can only work with the tools available to us, and think about what they had back then.”

“I know.” He shook his head, as he stepped back out again. “And now it’s all on Simon’s plate.”

“It is and it isn’t. He plans to drop it, and we’re expecting the city to come through now and officially condemn the place.”

“How come it wasn’t done before?”

“I guess it was, and then the owners paid some fees or something to get it back to a status where they could fix it up, but then they didn’t do it.

Meanwhile, that city inspector must have retired, died, decided it wasn’t his problem.

I don’t exactly know,” she said. “Or who knows? Maybe a lot of money changed hands, if that’s even a thing. ”

“Of course it’s a thing,” Rodney confirmed, rolling his eyes, “but now it’s almost as if maybe they had a personal reason for it.”

“That is definitely a concern, but we don’t have anything to connect that to our recent beating victims.”

“Right, and the one guy found alive upstairs?”

“I don’t know about Sonny. I haven’t got back to him yet,” she said, turning to look at her partner. “I’m not sure he’s connected to anything here either. It’s not as if he was in here in the basement, with all these other skeletons.”

“Right.” Rodney frowned at her. “Damn, this is a hell of a thing to be caught up in.”

“It sure is, and it makes you wonder how many other places in this city are empty like this and filled with bodies. One hundred years isn’t even old in this city.”

“No. Not for a building like this.”

She shook her head. “God only knows how many other things are going on around this warehouse. But it was just left to decay, and that’s probably one of the biggest problems with it.”

He nodded. By the time they had a thorough idea what they were looking at, Rodney suggested, “I would say we should take another look around, but I don’t even know what else we could possibly find.”

“We’ll have to take another look around for sure,” she stated, with a nod in his direction, “because, every time we come here, we keep finding more victims.”

“What about the old guy you talked to? Arnie, wasn’t that his name?”

“Yeah,” she said. “What about him?”

“Was he old enough to know anything about this building?”

“Old enough perhaps,” she replied, “but I don’t know whether he’s always been here or came from somewhere else. I’ve been meaning to check on him anyway, so it’s worth a shot.”

“Is he likely to be around here?”

“He should be around this part of town, I would think, but I don’t know exactly where. So we’ll probably have to look around.” But, as she stepped outside, she saw Arnie and several of his cronies staring up at the building.

When he saw her, he frowned.

“Or not.” She laughed and waved at him. “Hey, Arnie. How are you doing?”

“I’m doing okay,” he stated. “So much better since Simon took care of Elsie.”

“Simon is a good guy,” she noted.

“And you”—he looked at her—“are you?”

“I would like to think we’re the good guys, but maybe not always,” she admitted, giving him a smile. “I don’t know if you’ve heard…”

“Oh, I heard,” he stated abruptly.

She nodded. “But they’re old murders, not recent at all.”

He relaxed at that. “As in old , old?”

“As in ninety, maybe one hundred years ago. We don’t know exactly yet.”

“Oh, wow,” he muttered, staring at her.

“It looks as if they may have been walled in, down in the basement,” she muttered, “but we don’t really have any detailed information yet.”

“Right.” Arnie shook his head. “That really sucks.”

“It certainly did for them. Listen, Arnie. Have you seen that dark van at all?”

“No,” he replied, “but it does come around here on a regular basis.”