Chapter Seventeen
Tom
Lattimore
called me Monday after the bomb incident. He was, I thought, trying to sound upbeat and not quite pulling it off. “Kelly, I hate what happened at your house the other night. How bad is the damage?”
The Fairmount grapevine—no six degrees of separation in our neighborhood! “Some scratches to furniture from flying metal fragments and one torn chair. It can all be fixed.”
“Well, thank God no one was hurt, and the girls weren’t home.”
How did he know that? Boldly, I asked him, “How did you know about it? Was it in the paper?”
“No. Nothing in the paper. Maybe Keisha told me. I called her yesterday to check on you. You weren’t in the office. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is that we’ve got to put an end to this. I can’t feel responsible for putting you in danger.”
“Are you?” I was not playing games with him anymore.
“Inadvertently, maybe. Can we meet? I don’t want to come to the office—I think the walls have ears.”
“Keisha can be trusted,” I said. “I tell her everything.”
He laughed nervously, “Well, I hope not everything. No, that’s not what I meant. I just think it’s better if we meet some place unlikely.”
Something dinged in my head. There was someone he didn’t want to know he was meeting me. Couldn’t be Bella, because she followed me everywhere. In fact, I was beginning to think I’d miss her when this all ended. And wouldn’t Bella report back to whoever Tom was hiding from? Maybe if I met him he’d open up about North Side Properties. I had friends with a café in the Stockyard District on the North Side—maybe that was enough off the beaten path that he’d agree. I suggested the Star Café.
“No, not the North Side,” he said too hastily.
I began to picture him on the other end of the phone, nervously twisting a pencil in his hands, sweating a little and wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. I was making this as difficult as I could.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “How about The Lunch Box in
Ridglea
?”
“Perfect. Today? Eleven-thirty?”
“I’ll be there,” I said, and then, “I may bring Keisha.”
“Uh, well, if you’re sure….”
“I’m sure. Get a table for three.”
We’d stand out like a sore thumb in The Lunch Box, a place with wonderful tuna and chicken and egg salad sandwiches plus other delights. The gray-haired crowd pretty much dominated there, and there were almost no men younger than sixty-five. Plus it wasn’t usually very racially diverse.
What fun,
I thought as I turned to tell Keisha of our lunch plans.
“Did Tom
Lattimore
call yesterday and talk to you about the smoke bomb?”
She shook her head.
“Well, he says you’re the one who told him the girls weren’t home. Just keep that little secret under your bonnet. We’re having lunch with him today.”
“I don’t want lunch with that scum,” she protested.
“Be sweet.”
“Someplace good?” She was hoping perhaps for
Patrizio’s
or one of the other upscale places that had opened in the So7 district.
“Yep. The Lunch Box.”
“Sandwiches,” she sighed. “I eat enough tuna salad to deplete the tuna in the ocean.”
“So order chicken.”
I called Mike and asked him to have Conroy drive him home, reminding him we had a four o’clock appointment with his surgeon. It was time anyway, but I wanted to be sure he hadn’t done any damage the night the bomb went off. He was still only at about six months post-op, not ready to be dancing yet.
“Where are you going?” he asked suspiciously.
“To lunch with Tom
Lattimore
.” Before he could object I added, “I’m taking Keisha. After all, Conroy wants to follow up.”
The Lunch Box was sort of buried down an outdoor corridor in a huge shopping center in the
Ridglea
area along Camp Bowie. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d never find it, but lots of people find it daily. I doubted the menu had changed in thirty years and maybe not the personnel. It was a sunny, cheerful, tea-room type of place, surely not the place to be discussing smoke bombs and stalkers and other threats. Yet there we were—Tom had, probably deliberately, gotten there early enough to get us a table in a corner. I decided he had a thing about corner tables.
He rose to greet us, kissed me on the cheek (yuck!) and took Keisha’s hand in both of his. I thought she’d wince, but she played it like a trooper. Tom did look a little more disheveled, a little less arrogant than usual. His tie was loosened and crooked. He’d thrown off his jacket, and even in this cold he had sweat stains in the armpits of his shirt.
Stress! He’s really stressed. My job is to find out why.
While we waited for our sandwiches, I said, “Okay, Tom, let’s put our cards on the table. What can we do to stop this, other than removing all opposition to the big-box store?”
A nervous laugh. “Well, of course, that would make everything better, but I think it’s gone too far for that.”
“How about finding an alternative site?”
“I’m afraid they don’t want that—they’re set on that site.”
“Okay, let’s get real here. Who are ‘they’?”
He squirmed in his chair, looked around nervously, and said, “Kelly, I don’t know. I get instructions.”
Keisha looked at him scornfully. “You just a gofer? I thought that’s what my kind did.”
He ignored her until I changed the subject.
“Tell me about North Side Properties.”
He looked startled. “It’s my company that handles rentals on the North Side. One reason I didn’t want to go up there today.”
Keisha again. “Why? You got so many disgruntled renters they might attack you in a simple café?”
“It’s not that….”
“Wait a minute, Tom. You don’t own North Side Properties, do you?”
He drew himself up. “A portion of it, yes, I do.”
“What portion?”
He was fiddling with his iced teaspoon and now he almost threw it on the table. “For Pete’s sake, Kelly, that doesn’t matter now. I just don’t own a controlling interest.”
“Do you think whoever does had Sonny Adams killed?” I was really getting good at grilling.
The waitress arrived with our sandwiches, and we all three shut up and began to eat. Then I repeated my question.
“Yeah, I do think that’s possible, Kelly, Keisha, but I don’t want that to go any further. Adams was skimming off the top of the rents he collected.”
“Yeah, you told me that. But you just said he was let go, not that he was killed because of it.”
“Kelly, what you need to know is that there are people behind this who won’t listen to me, won’t let anything get in their way. They want that property.”
Keisha asked the question I’d been about to, but as she asked, her open dislike of Tom was evident. “Why that property? There’s lots of places to put a grocery store.”
“They don’t want any other property. They want that corner.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I wasn’t sure if he was lying or not. But we weren’t getting anywhere, and I was through with my sandwich. “We seem to be stalled. The only way to stop this harassment—and danger to my family—is to allow the development, which really isn’t in my hands anyway. Things have gone too far with the zoning commission and landmark commission and even the neighborhood to do that. What exactly is it that you think I can do to pull your chestnuts out of the fire? I sense I’m not the only one in trouble here.”
He nodded. “You’re not. I admit it. I guess what I want to know is if there is any way to use the concept of adaptive re-use to pull this project through?”
“Adaptive re-use to build a big-box store?” I exploded so loudly that he looked around, and I did see a few heads turn. Well, be darned!
“We talked once about putting the store in the existing historic buildings. All it would take is remodeling, and I kind of like the idea—sort of kitschy. Different departments in different buildings—produce in one, meat in another, you know.”
“And you think kitschy is a good thing?” Keisha chimed in. “It means a cheap imitation.”
“I didn’t know that.” He did look surprised. Then, defensively, “Well, I still think it’s a good idea.”
The waitress came with our check, and for once Tom didn’t grab it in the grand gesture. I waited and finally took it.
“I’ll leave a tip,” he said.
I refrained from a sarcastic, “Gee, thanks,” but I did say, “We aren’t through here.” There was a wait for tables—I could see the crowd by the door—but I wasn’t leaving. “You want me to persuade all those tenants—including Otto Martin who intends to kill you—to give up their leases so the other owners and I can sell?”
“Otto Martin is the least of my worries,” he said hastily. “I mean, yes, that’s what I want. Most of them have agreed, and I don’t want any more goons visiting any of the others.”
“Why?” Keisha asked. “Because it might be traced back to you?”
“No, because I don’t want people hurt. I’m done here.” He threw some money on the table and left abruptly by a side door. We rose more leisurely, and I paid at the cashier’s stand.
On the way home, I said, “Christmas is less than a week away.” It would fall on Sunday this year, and I thought Keisha and I deserved to close down the office for a few days. I had most of my shopping and about half the wrapping done—hard to find the privacy to wrap without someone peeking. And I needed to start on some baking. Toward the end of the week, I’d make a massive grocery trip—I’d already ordered the fresh turkey—and start cooking. “Let’s take this afternoon and tomorrow to wrap up things, and then we’ll close until a week from tomorrow.”
“A whole week? Boss lady, you’re
gettin
’ soft. But I like it!”
So that afternoon, we ploughed through paperwork, and I made phone calls to people with pending deals telling them we were closing for a week. I also called John Henry to ask about the Landmark Commission.
“I think I’ve got the votes,” he said. “Never can be sure, but I think it’s wrapped up. We announce tomorrow.”
I felt pretty smug about all we’d accomplished and thought probably we’d get away by noon the next day. I could get a lot done before the girls got out of school Thursday afternoon for the holidays.
Everything changed Tuesday—or Monday night. Mike’s phone rang in the night. He muttered a few things and said, “Yeah, see you in the morning.” Then he shook me gently and said, “Conroy. Tom
Lattimore’s
office was bombed last night.”
“Another smoke bomb?”
“No, Kelly. A firebomb. Like a homemade Molotov cocktail. Office and all his records completely destroyed. Fireman saved the other two offices in the building—a dentist and a lawyer. Conroy’s keeping me in the loop even though officially it’s none of my business.” After a minute, he added. “Nor your business.”
Even Mike, who could always sleep, lay awake. After a while he went to put on a pot of coffee, even though it was four-thirty in the morning.
I lay figuring, or trying to. Was this to scare Tom or was there something in his records someone wanted destroyed? I guess we’d never know unless Tom himself told us, and that wasn’t likely.
I refused to get up at four-thirty. It was against my principles. I heard Maggie go into the kitchen and then soft murmurings as Mike led her back to bed. I lay there. Mike came back to bed but didn’t sleep. When the alarm went off at six-thirty, we were both awake but exhausted and a bit cranky.
I threw on jeans and a big shirt and started bacon and eggs for the girls, while Mike oversaw their teeth brushing and dressing. Em dressed with her own definite style but Mike wasn’t sure it was appropriate for an ordinary school day and urged her to save the tiered skirt and sparkly top for the last day of school and put on her jeans. She refused, and I arbitrated with a cross, “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Let her wear what she wants.” There was talk of citywide uniforms for public school next year, and I’d be glad if they were adopted.
The girls picked at their food. Maggie wanted to know details of what had happened last night, and Em pouted because no one woke her up. I told them both we didn’t know any more than we’d told them, and we’d let them know when we did. Such an education my girls were getting!
“Mom, will somebody bomb your office next?” Em asked seriously.
“No, darling. Why would they?” But the thought had occurred to me. Except Tom and I were on different sides of this issue, so, logically, if someone bombed his office, they’d want to support me.
Logic doesn’t work in this case.
Tom called the house just as I was getting the girls into the car. “Can’t talk, Tom. Late for school, but I’m devastated about what happened to your office. I’ll call your cell in about fifteen minutes.”
“As soon as you can,” he said, “I need help.”
Help? What kind of help could he need from me?
I dropped the girls off first and then took Mike to the substation. “Call me right away and let me know what
Lattimore
wants,” he said.
The shoe, I thought, was on the other foot. I was the one with information—or would be—and he wanted it from me. If it weren’t so serious, I’d have laughed. Between the substation and the office, I picked up Bella. I drove by Tom’s office and sure enough, it was gutted and still smoldering. That the fire department had been able to protect the other part of the building was amazing. When I got to my office, I made a u-turn in a nearby parking lot and then parked in front of the office. Bella parked across the street, and when I waved, she almost waved back.