Chapter 12

K ate couldn't quite believe that this was the same homeless guy who had been speaking to Simon. Of course, with her luck it would be, and that was the last thing she needed right now.

When Smidge arrived, he frowned at her, and she shrugged. He bellowed, "What the hell are you doing here? I told you about the old case from here, didn't I?"

"You did," she confirmed, then she explained about the homeless guy and Simon.

He sighed, his gaze narrowing on her. "More woo-woo stuff, huh ?"

"Apparently, although I'm not exactly sure any of us like that term."

Smidge shrugged. "Then come up with a better one."

She winced and nodded. "I would if I could."

"Right, so in the meantime, woo-woo it is." He looked down at Shawn and began, "Blunt force trauma to the head, but what's he doing here anyway?" He sighed, when he looked around. "This place has got such an ugly history."

"I know," she murmured, "and I'm really not trying to add to it, but, after what Simon told me the other day, I found myself wanting to come back here."

"I'm sure that thrilled him to no end."

"He was pretty livid that I would disregard his warning and come back anyway."

"Yeah, that makes sense to me," Smidge agreed, without looking her way. "I mean, it's a death wish if you'll ignore Simon. He's already saved your ass a couple times, so going against his suggestions?… You're just putting your ass in a sling. Nobody will have any sympathy for that."

She glared down at him, as he bent over the dead body. "That's one way to put it," she muttered.

"How else should I put it?" Smidge asked, turning to look at her. "Somebody warned you well and truly. Not to mention that Simon's got a good record of telling the truth. You ignored him, and you got yourself into this shit. What else is there to say?"

She groaned. "Fine, if you want to look at it that way, then, yes, it was probably a foolish thing for me to do. I did call Simon when I got here at least," she snapped, "and he did say that, at the moment, he didn't feel any warnings."

"That's interesting. I wonder if it's something that comes and goes."

"Or maybe Shawn just died recently."

"Why do you say that?" Smidge asked, twisting back on his heels to look up at her. "I don't have a time of death yet."

"No, but Simon ran into Shawn at Simon's usual downtown coffee shop yesterday."

"So, somewhere in the last twenty-four hours? That's a good start." He rolled his eyes. "Pretty soon you won't even need me to do my job."

"Ha, that would mean you could retire."

"I don't know what retired coroners do," he muttered. "I still find myself unable to watch the cop TV shows because of all the ways they screw up the process."

"Yeah, but those shows are for entertainment only, not because they're technically correct."

"Good thing, otherwise everybody in the production world would get fired for the bullshit they promote on their shows."

"Don't you like to fish or something?"

"I do," he said, "and fishing does sound like a good way to retire."

"So, there you go. However, right now you're not retired, and I need some answers."

"So do I," he stated, "and you'll get them when I get them, so leave me alone."

Now she rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll go search the rest of the house."

"You mean, you haven't yet?"

"No, I haven't. I was sticking by the body."

"Anybody come around?"

"No, but I did hear something," she noted.

At that, Smidge stood and turned to look at her. "Like what?"

She winced. "Nothing of this earthly plane," she shared.

"Ah, noises, things that go bump in the night." Smidge nodded. "Yeah, place where mass murders occurred would have lots of those, but then abandoned buildings are at the top of that list anyway."

"Apparently," she muttered. "Anyway, do your thing. I'll go check out the rest of this place." And, with that, she walked away and left Smidge to gather whatever information he could scrounge up. She had done a bit of walking around, while she'd been waiting for forensics to show up, but only in the downstairs portion. Now she wanted to go upstairs.

There had been noises earlier, but she chalked it up to the creaking of an old house—at least that's what she was hoping. She had certainly not seen anybody but wasn't taking any chances at this point either. With an officer beside her, she quickly did a sweep of the rest of the house—the second and third floors. When they confirmed both were empty, after they had searched everywhere, top and bottom, she let the cop go downstairs again.

Now she went over the second floor again, looking for clues of whatever. Something must be here, but that didn't mean it would have anything to do with Shawn's murder, and it certainly didn't mean it was evidence for any other known case, other than confirmation that the Feldspar property had been left abandoned for many, many years. She wondered who currently owned it and what their plan for it was.

In many ways the house was a stunning property, but, with such an ugly history, she wasn't sure how easily it would be to sell. Somebody like Simon would be okay to buy it, and she had to wonder if he hadn't already considered it. After all, he did property rehabs, although this house may not be a big-enough project for him. He generally preferred the larger apartment buildings and complexes, whereas this was definitely a far smaller space.

And yet, as she wandered upstairs, she noted that this home had to be four or five thousand square feet, and that was an astronomical amount of space to her. Even untended for a decade now, it was also quite beautiful.

As she returned to the third floor, she looked around carefully. A few things remained hanging on the walls, and some personal possessions remained, with things left in bedrooms, things that nobody wanted or cared for at this point in time. As she continued to search, she went from bedroom to bedroom and realized that, in many ways, this house had been put into a time capsule of sorts.

No wonder people liked to come in and browse through it. Some bedding and various items remained in the bedrooms. Some of it had been tossed on the floor. Some of it had obviously been stolen, with only the bare mattress remaining, and some of it was still here, just rotting away. The longer some of these things remained here, the worse they got the less likely they were to be stolen.

*

Simon waited anxiously to hear from Kate. When she didn't contact him fast enough, he sent her another text, and he kept it blunt. Are you alive?

When his phone rang, and he saw it was Kate, he put his cell to his ear. "That answers that question," he muttered.

"It sure does, and, yes, I'm alive. You already know that I found your homeless guy here in this house, but I'm checking out the rest of the house now that Smidge is here. Anyway, I'm still at the Feldspar house. I don't think I'll make it to your place tonight."

He felt a pang of regret at that. "I suppose that also means our sailing this weekend's off?"

" Um , I'm not so sure about that," she said. "I'll check security cams around this area, and I'm waiting for forensics to come and work the kitchen. I've got officers doing a canvass of the neighborhood, starting that right now. So, depending on what information we come up with, I'll need a day of downtime, just to let some of this work away in my mind."

"How about you take off tomorrow night? It'll be Friday, so we can go out for an hour or two tomorrow before dusk and stay out overnight. If we get Saturday off too," he suggested, lost in wishful thinking at this point, "we can stay out on the water."

"I would like that. I would like it a lot, but, for now, I've got to go. I'll talk to you in the morning."

He looked down at his phone, checked the time, and calculated that she would be there for the next few hours. It was close to seven in the evening, and he couldn't believe that the entire day had just ended like that. At least Ariel had turned the lights on when they'd arrived. It was a huge building to walk through with only flashlights.

He wanted to go back to the group of homeless guys who he had talked to earlier, to see when and if anybody had seen Shawn more recently than Simon had, but he also figured Kate might need to do that canvassing of the homeless guys herself, since she had found Shawn.

On a whim he headed downtown and figured that he would stop off at one of his favorite restaurants. As he came back by the Paragon, his stalking realtor stood there, talking impatiently on the phone.

Ariel's eyes lit up when she saw him. "I knew it," she crowed, as she put away her phone. "You just can't stay away."

"The homeless guy I found in the building was murdered today."

Her face fell, and she looked back up at the building. "Dear God, please not here."

Simon shook his head. It was so typical of Ariel to only be concerned about the property value. "No, it wasn't here. His body was found on the other side of town."

Ariel frowned. "That's strange, since most homeless guys stick to a small area they can navigate on foot."

"I know, and I'm not sure how he got from here to there, but that's for the cops to sort out."

"It's not our problem," she stated, then boosted her smile and gave him a pointed look. "I was talking to another client just now."

"That's nice," Simon muttered, knowing full well Ariel was faking it. "I'm sure once people find out that the homeless guy got murdered, it might change their view of the property."

"He didn't get murdered here … so it has nothing to do with the Paragon property," she repeated, "and the sales price is already pretty cheap, so don't try to get the price down."

"If I decide to put in an offer," he stated flat-out, "it won't be full price anyway. The place is a dump, and at least 90 percent of it will have to be completely redone, taken down to the bones," he declared, looking back at the building from the bottom up. "I won't even begin to look at it seriously until after my engineers go through it."

She nodded, as if none of that surprised her, which it didn't, since he'd bought several properties that she had listed before. As he stared at the property looming up behind her, he added, "Besides, if it's such a great deal, how come you haven't sold it yet?"

She glared at him. "You know these old buildings.… Sometimes they go fast, and sometimes they don't."

"You mean, they go fast if it's cheap, but they don't go unless it's dirt cheap," he said, with a smirk, "and this one isn't dirt cheap."

"It is a very good price," she stated, raising her hands in protest.

"No, it's not a very good price, and it sure as hell isn't cheap."

"I suppose you only want it if it's a really cheap price," she noted warily.

He gave her a lopsided smile. "Maybe, but looking at the amount of work potentially involved in getting it back in shape, I'm not so sure I want it at all."

"One of the big conglomerates contacted me about it today," she added, with a smug note.

"Good. If you can get that price for it, more power to you." He had injected just enough happiness into his tone for her to step back slightly in order to search his features. He nodded. "Yes, I'm serious. Am I interested in it? Possibly. But at that price?… No way. So, if you can get that price for your owners, that's good for you and them. We also know that they could have sold the Paragon to me years ago, and it would have been a hell of a lot better deal, and they would have made more money on it. As it is now, it's falling down around their shoulders. So, the sooner they can get rid of it, the less the city will be all over them to demolish it."

"Has the city been here?" she asked, startled.

"You can bet I'll make that phone call pretty damn fast, if need be."

She shook her head. "That would be a shitty move."

"It doesn't matter if it's shitty or not," he declared. "The building will fall down all around you, all around them. And the owners will be liable for damages."

She winced. "I'll keep that in mind."

"My engineers will be out soon," he told her, "and I'm not kidding. If I don't end up buying it, whoever does knows perfectly well it'll be on the city's demo list."

"I haven't been down there to talk to them, but I presume that they're fully aware of the condition of the building. I assume so anyway," Ariel muttered. "It's not the first time we've had that happen. "

"No, and it won't be the last."

She glared at him and nodded. "If you're interested, don't waste any time." And, with that parting shot, she turned and walked away.

He almost laughed at her grandiose exit, but he had to give her some leeway. It was always tough to sell these old buildings. She did pretty well on them, but mostly because he had purchased so many of them. But this one? Well… this one would have a special place in his heart. He just wasn't entirely sure he needed to take it on. This rehab wouldn't be easy, and it sure as hell wouldn't be fast. But, as he stared up at the old building, he knew it would be a worthwhile endeavor.