Page 39 of Simon Says… Fight (Kate Morgan Thrillers #11)

“Right.” She looked over at his friends, identified herself, and said, “Still looking for this van.” When she held up the grainy photo, they just shrugged and didn’t say anything.

“You think it’s connected then?” Arnie asked, staring at her worriedly.

“No, not necessarily, but, until I can talk to the owner, I can’t write him off, can I?”

“Right, right, right,” he muttered, as if that made sense.

She nodded to his friends and turned to walk away. “Take care of yourself, Arnie.”

“Hang on a minute.” He drew closer. “Make sure you tell Simon I really appreciate it,” Arnie whispered. “Elsie meant everything to me.”

“I know she did.” Kate smiled. “I think that’s one of the reasons he ended up buying this old wreck of a property.”

“He bought it?” he asked, staring at her in shock. “This mess?”

She nodded.

“But why? It’s nothing.”

“Simon felt a connection in some way.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Arnie murmured, looking up at the desolate building in wonder. “Nothing is here.”

Kate laughed. “But the owner’s name… was Elsie.”

He stopped, and tears came to his eyes. “Now that I can understand.” And coughing a bit to clear the raw emotion choking him, he headed back to his friends.

Rodney, still at her side, just stared. “Seriously?” he asked her.

“Oh, it was definitely part of it,” she stated. “Simon doesn’t do anything for no reason, but he does listen to his inner voice a lot.”

“But you don’t just buy a piece-of-crap building because the owner has the same name as a dog,” Rodney stated in amazement.

“No, of course not,” she agreed, “and, if the numbers hadn’t worked, it wouldn’t have worked at all.

” But inside she just smiled because, of course, it was Simon.

If he could make the numbers work and still fit it into what he wanted to do, then that’s what he did.

Especially if there was a tug on his heart.

That’s how he rolled.… Hell, that’s how everybody rolled.

As they walked to one of the main streets and took a look around the area, she turned to Rodney and asked, “Do you want a coffee?”

“Absolutely,” he declared, a smile on his face. “You must really need some since you didn’t have any at the office.”

“No doubt, but that’s okay. A couple coffee shops are right around the corner.” As she reached the corner, she pointed. “That one over there is decent, and this one is where we got our coffees earlier.”

“Oh, so you’ve got them all scoped out then, do you?”

“Not me, Simon. He works in this part of town a lot,” she shared, with a laugh. “Trust me that he knows them all.”

Rodney laughed at that. They picked up a coffee and kept walking. As she went to take a seat on a bench, she froze.

Rodney looked at her. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“What’s that up ahead of us?”

He turned and looked. “What? Are you talking about the van?”

“Yeah. What color is it?” she asked, already off at a good clip.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered and took off walking. It was all he could do to keep up with her.

As she came around the side of the van to see the driver, he was ticking off deliveries on a big chart he had in his hand. “Hey,” she greeted him and held up her badge.

He looked at her. “Hey. What can I do for you, Detective?”

“So, are you Oscar?”

“That I am. My name is right here,” he said, as he flashed her a smile and pointed to his name tag on his shirt. “If you need a package delivered, I am your man.”

“You’re around here all the time,” she asked, “in this area?”

“Yeah, I sure am,” he confirmed. “This is a route I carved out for myself quite a while back. I’m not one of the big name-brand guys, just a little guy trying to make a living, but my customers can count on me, even if it’s late in the day. I’m here to confirm stuff gets from point A to point B.”

She nodded. Pointing in the general direction, she asked him about the warehouse building they had just left. “Do you ever go over there?”

“Oh, there ain’t no building there. Well,… there is a building,” he clarified, then shivered. “But that’s just a bad scary-ass building,” he added, shaking his head. “I even heard they found more bodies in it. I’m not surprised, as that place is freaking spooky.”

“And do you do deliveries around there?”

“If anything is open around there, it’s certainly within my route,” he clarified, eyeing her curiously. “Why you asking?”

“Just curious,” she replied, “since your van was seen in that area.”

“Sure,” he said, his smile odd. “My van would be seen in all kinds of areas. As I mentioned before, it’s all part of my route.”

“Okay. Are you the only one who drives it?”

“Yeah, I sure am. Why?”

She hesitated. “Because it’s been suggested that it might have been used in a crime.”

Eyes wide, he frowned at her. “What?”

She nodded.

“No way,” he declared, eyeing her as if she were a viper.

“I spent most of my lifetime building up this business, so no way in hell I would do something so stupid. If I was in trouble, nobody would trust me with their stuff, so I would be done. And really done since deliveries are my only source of income.”

She nodded, as he stammered on and on.

“Why the hell would I do that?” he asked, staring at her. “But I can tell you one thing. I’ve worked hard and earned respect from my clients. Do you know what that means for a guy like me? No way I would do anything to jeopardize my business.”

“Understood,” she said. “Do you ever see any other vans like this?”

He shook his head. “That’s why I chose this one, so people know it’s me. Everybody else has white delivery vans.”

“Why this color?”

“I just needed to be different, to be unique, so I was easily identified,” he explained, scratching his head. “You can look at my schedules. I don’t care. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, and then gave him a searching look. “So, I’m going to ask this question again.”

“Which one?” he asked, obviously still very confused.

“Does anybody else ever drive your van?”

He shook his head again. “It’s the only wheels I’ve got.”

She nodded. “And where do you live?”

“Downtown,” he replied, naming a street in an area she was familiar with.

“I’ve been there for a long time. I don’t make much money,” he said, staring at her.

“I make about a dozen deliveries a day, but that’s all.

This is hardly a business that’ll make me rich, and, when I die, won’t be anybody to take it over because there won’t be anything left.

Hell, I’ve had to fight to stay in business as it is because of the big delivery companies.

We get all the big guys in here too, and there’s no room for us.

Sometimes I’m not even sure I’ll be in business much longer,” he shared, frustration evident in his tone, “but I still am because I’ve worked with these people for a very long time.

I’m small enough to provide good service to my customers and can get things moved pretty quickly, when they’re in a pinch. ”

“So, you do courier runs as well?”

“Sure, I do anything and everything,” he said, then frowned. “Anything that’s legal. I’ll deliver most anything, but again, I’m not risking my business moving something illegal.”

She smiled at that. “I’m glad to hear that, and it’s a smart choice. So, you’ve never lent your vehicle to anybody, never? It’s just not something that you do?”

“Hell no,” Oscar stammered. “Again, it’s the only set of wheels I’ve got, so I can’t not have it when I could get a call for a job anytime.

I even take it to the shop on weekends, when I don’t do deliveries.

It was in the shop here just a few days ago, on the weekend.

That’s the only time I can get work done on her, without risking losing business. ”

“What shop did you take it to?” she asked, something twigging in the back of her head.

“The one down by my place,” he said, naming a big mechanics franchise. “Then I pulled her back out, and I’m on the road again. I take her in for regular maintenance all the time.”

“And you didn’t notice anything different when you picked it up?”

“No, of course not,” he said. “It was clean. Every once in a while, they do that, if they have time, not that they have very much time anymore, but it was cleaned this time. I sure as hell appreciated that. I can be bad about that,” he admitted, looking around as if that were a crime.

“You know, leaving coffee cups, food wrappers, and garbage inside. I’m really bad at that,” he repeated.

Then he frowned. “That’s not a crime though. ”

She smiled at him, aware that he was confused and a little nervous. “No, no, it’s not a crime, and I get it. I get busy, and my vehicle suffers too.”

“Right,” he agreed, smiling nervously. “We’re out here working, so it’s not as if we have time for anything else.”

And she believed him. But he had given her one little lead, and she would take it. Thanking him for his time, she took his contact information, then turned to Rodney. “Let’s go.”

Just as she was about to walk away, Kate turned back to Oscar. “Where do you keep your vehicle parked at nighttime?”

He shrugged and said, “In the garage at the back of my place.… I’ve had a few break-ins but nothing major. I don’t keep much in my vehicle, and I don’t keep it locked.”

“Why not?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Because if it’s locked, and they’re looking for a few bucks, they’ll just break my damn windows. It was happening so often that the insurance was threatening to not cover me anymore,” he shared, anger in his tone. “I ain’t got nothing to hide. You want to take a look at it?”

“Please, if you don’t mind, I want to,” she replied.

He shrugged, walked around to the back, then popped it open for her. As she walked around, Rodney asked, “Where do you get it serviced, which one of those centers?”

“The one off House Street, in the back. They are usually pretty accommodating for me.”