Clay flipped over his brochure as if he was looking for something. “How many cleaning people do you need?”
“Juanita handles the common areas. But she and her husband also do most of the painting, so I let other women clean the vacants.”
“Do you have anything that’s not all cleaned up?” Myles asked. “So we can get an idea of how rough they can get?”
Dixon’s face tightened. “There’s one down the hall I’ve been working on. I suppose we could look at it.”
The apartment was darker than Stump expected and had some dust on the windowsills and counters. As the adults discussed painting costs and other trivialities, Stump drifted toward the kitchen, where the stove was pulled a few inches away from the wall. He flicked one of the burner knobs causing a loud snap and a huge flash ball to pop out. His hand recoiled and he jumped back.
“Damn it.” Dixon rushed over and returned the knob to its rightful place. “This stove has a short. I knew I shouldn’t have brought you guys in here.”
“You okay?” Myles asked.
“Yeah,” Stump said, catching his breath.
“We have to leave,” Dixon insisted.
After a brief walk the entourage reached building two. Dixon stopped and pointed to the parking lot where two men were leaning up against a parked car. “Dammit. I’ve already told those guys that it’s illegal to drink beer out there.” He handed the key to Clay. “You go show these fellows Apartment 202. I’ll catch up with you.”
When they reached the second floor a tenant with a basket of dirty clothes stepped out of her apartment. “Excuse us,” Myles said. “We’re inspecting the building. Would you mind if we took a quick look through your apartment?” It was immediately obvious that the woman didn’t speak English, but Stump had taken enough Spanish in school to gain her approval.
In the living room, another woman stood by a crib, changing a child’s diaper. A bunch of toys were packed underneath it. The kitchen had a stack of clean dishes on the counter. The bathroom was clean and a pile of towels teetered on the vanity. There was no bed, just two double mattresses, piled one on top of the other. The closet door was open, revealing shoes and boxes on the floor. The whole exercise only took a couple minutes. Then they regrouped in the hallway.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Myles said. “You get a completely different impression when they don’t know you’re coming.” He turned to Stump and pointed to another unit on that same floor. “See if you can get us in that one.”
Once more, the renter graciously complied. The two-bedroom model had very little furniture. Myles and Clay went toward the bedrooms while Stump looked in the kitchen, which was cluttered with dirty dishes. A large bowl on the counter contained a newly dated deposit receipt. As before, it just took a couple minutes to complete a quick visual inspection.
As they were leaving the apartment Dixon startled them from the landing. “What the hell’s going on? You weren’t supposed to do that.” He held out his hand to Clay. “Give me my key.”
“Sure. Here ya go.” Clay said before turning to Myles. “Anything else you guys want to know?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a few more questions,” Myles said, “but you don’t have to stick around. We can touch base a little later.”
After Clay left, Myles and Stump followed Dixon to his office where Myles asked several general questions about the building and operations. Then he turned to Stump. “What about you? Anything on your mind?”
Dixon looked at the clock on his desk.
Stump ignored the disrespect. “How much is the damage deposit?”
“Five hundred,” Dixon said abruptly.
Stump pointed at a checkbook-sized pad on Dixon’s desk. “Is that a receipt book? Can I look at it?”
“Be my guest.” Dixon handed him the book.
Stump flipped through a few pages. “Do new people have to pay all of their deposit before they move in?”
“Yes. If they start out behind, they never get caught up.”
“So you don’t accept partial payments?”
Dixon sighed and shook his head. “That’s what I just said.”
“This book is for the last three weeks and the receipts are numbered from 651 to 700?”
“Yeah? So?”
”Well, there was a receipt for two hundred bucks in that apartment we just looked at. It was numbered 126 and it was dated a few days ago. So there must be another book. One that shows the partial payment.”
Dixon shifted his feet, jiggled his teeth. “Oh, yeah. I had one left in an old book, which I used that day.”
“What about the partial payment? You just told us you don’t take those. Can I see that other book?”
Dixon rolled his eyes and smiled. “My wife threw it out. Anything else?”
Stump scratched his head. “The broker told us you don’t allow more than three people to live in a one-bedroom apartment. Is that true?”
“Unless three people already live there and a woman has a baby. Then we let them stay a few months before they have to get a two-bedroom or move out. Why?”
“We looked at another apartment before you got there. There were six toothbrushes in there.”
Dixon glared at Stump. Waited several seconds. “Maybe they brush their teeth a lot.”
“But there were extra mattresses on the floor and two different sizes of men’s shoes in the closet.”
Dixon smirked. “Sometimes people have guests, you know.”
Before Stump could ask another question, Myles’s cell phone squawked. Myles glanced at the readout. “It’s about my mother,” he said, mostly to Dixon. “We’ll get back to you if we have any more questions.”
Dixon rose and glared at Stump, who caught the scowl and suddenly realized he was going to have to work with this man and probably shouldn’t have pushed so many buttons. “You keep this place really nice,” he said.
Chapter Nine
A day later stump was thinking about the City Council meeting and was so confused he could have hidden his own Easter eggs. When it came to making older homes safe, he expected more cooperation out of the government, yet the Mayor threw the bulk of the problem right back in Stump’s lap. How the hell was a sixteen-year-old kid supposed to make adults fix their homes?
Thankfully, the Mayor had instructed the City Planner to help Stump out, so Stump asked a fairly new friend, James, for a ride to BigBunz’s office.
Stump liked James because the guy was an oddball. His dark-rimmed glasses and pale skin lent him a misleading Clark Kent-like nerdish image. They became friends earlier in the year when they registered for tenth grade. James suggested Stump substitute James’s phone number and email address for those of Myles’s on Stump’s registration card. That way if Stump wanted to ditch school, which Stump had only done a couple times in his whole life, the robo-call of the attendance office would go to James instead of to Myles.
James went on to say he would provide Stump’s contact info in the same way and as long as they didn’t overdo it they could ditch school from time to time and cover for each other. A few weeks later James tested his concept and it worked perfectly.
As Stump and James got to know each other, Stump discovered that James was born in South Africa and had immigrated to America with his parents when James was a toddler. That meant that, in spite of his pale skin, James was both technically and literally an African American. Predictably, James was totally willing to exploit his status. For instance, the previous spring he had snail-mailed a job application to the Parks and Recreation Department. On it he indicated he was an African American student in search of summer work. Apparently, they were interested in diversity because they hired him, sight unseen, to work at the pool for the summer. When he arrived, they were surprised, but he hadn’t lied so what could they do?
Now at the municipal building, Stump and James popped out of James’s Subaru and headed for the City Planner’s office, or BigBunz, as Stump remembered her.
>
At the reception area a woman was working behind a large, thick window with a hole cut into it. “Help you?” she asked.
“The mayor said I should talk with Mrs. Crumpler,” Stump said, assuming that a little namedropping wouldn’t hurt. “I’m Neal Randolph.”
“Have a seat. I’ll tell her you’re here.”
Stump and James joined a few others in the waiting area, “Just watch,” Stump said. “Now that the Mayor’s on my side, this woman is going to take me more seriously.”
“I dunno, Dude. You said you ratted her out. She might want to teach you a lesson.”
They watched people come and go for quite a while until finally James tossed a brochure on the table. “I ain’t impressed no more. It’s been a half-hour. You’d better check to see what’s taking so long.”
Stump rubbed the top of his head and approached the check-in window for the second time. “Excuse me,” he said more humbly than before, “I asked for Mrs. Crumpler a long time ago.”
“I know,” the receptionist said, “but she’s in a conference. You’ll just have to wait.”
Back behind the receptionist, a man walked out of a hallway, followed by BigBunz who had a cup of coffee in her hand. Stump pointed. “That’s Mrs. Crumpler right there.”
The woman checked. “Sure is. Hang on a second. I’ll go see if she’s free now.”
Stump watched as the lady explained the situation to BigBunz, who rolled her eyes and then walked off. The clerk returned to Stump. “She said she’ll get to you as soon as she can.”
“Did she say how long that’d be?” Stump asked. “My friend has to get home.”
“I’m sorry, but she didn’t say.”
Another fifteen minutes dripped by. Then, “Too bad we don’t know which car is hers,” James said.
“It’s the green one by the entrance where we came in,” Stump said. “License plate says Crumpy. Has to stand for Crumpler.”
James smiled that goofy grin of his. “I have an idea. You sure her phone number is BigBuns?”
“Yep. With a Z. Why?”
“You go wait by the back door out of sight so she can’t see you and I’ll deliver her right to you.”
Stump’s hands lifted to his waist. “How you gonna do that?”
“You want to talk to her or not?”
Stump sighed. “Nothing else is working. I just hope you know what you’re doing.” He shuffled out the main entrance and moved to the corner of the building where he could see the employees’ entrance on the other side.
It only took five minutes before Mrs. Crumpler darted out the back door and headed right toward her car. At the halfway point, she stopped and looked around like she was lost. Stump had his chance. “Mrs. Crumpler,” he said from behind her. “I need to talk to you, like the Mayor said.”
James came around the corner grinning and swaggered over to join them.
Crumpler glared at Stump. “Is this your idea of a joke? ’Cause I don’t like to be ambushed.”
“Well I’m sorry, but people shouldn’t have to trick you just to talk with you.”
“And I don’t have to deal with idealistic children. This is precisely why we changed the regulations so that only serious, older people can address the Council.”
“If you would have returned my calls, everything would be easier for both of us.”
“I had you on the agenda. That’s all I had to do. Now what do you want?”
“I just want to help those people, for my mom, but I don’t know how to go about it.”
She shifted her weight to one foot. “I was thinking about helping you, but after what you guys just did I’m having second thoughts.”
“Please. There has to be something we can do. People are going to die,” Stump said, hoping a little hyperbole would reveal how important this was.
Crumpler glanced at James and back to Stump. “You obviously loved your mother. That’s the only reason I’m going to tell you this. There might be some small things we can do.”
Stump rose to his tiptoes. “Really?”
“Yes, but I’m not going to invest one minute of my time into this unless you get an attorney or a professional community developer to help you. I won’t return your calls or meet you in the lobby or anything. I’m not going to hold your hand. Got it?”
“But won’t that cost a lot of money?”
“Welcome to the real world, where mommies don’t do everything for you. If you want my help, you’re going to have to get an attorney and you’ll have to do most of the work yourself. If you’re like my kids, I’m betting you won’t do a damn thing.” She stuck a finger to within inches of James’s face. “And don’t you ever trick me again. Got it?” She turned to walk away.
“You’re just a power-hungry bully,” James said loud enough that she was sure to hear.
Stump grabbed James’s arm. “C’mon, Dude. Didn’t you hear her? She’s disappointed in her kids. That must suck.”
James smirked. “Bullshit. Her kids probably ain’t no worse than you or me.”
Stump laughed. “That’s my point, Dude. How would you like to have a couple kids like us?”
James laughed too and they headed for the Subaru. “How’d you do it?” Stump asked.
“Get her to come outside? Easy. I told her I was a tow truck driver and I was hired to haul her car away for not making payments.”
“How’d you know she didn’t make a payment?”
“That wasn’t the point. I just had to convince her that there was a problem, so I agreed that there must have been a banking error. I said I couldn’t leave my truck, but if she’d come show me a payment receipt or a copy of a check, I’d give her a couple days to straighten it out with her bank. You know the rest.”
Stump smacked James on the arm. “Wow. That’s pretty cagey, Dude.”
“Yeah. My mom had one of her co-workers pull that same trick on my dad once, to serve him divorce papers. Asshole deserved it, but what was he going to do, have the guy arrested for impersonating a tow truck driver?”
Stump laughed out loud. “Good for her. I like it when moms win for a change.” Stump rubbed the back of his neck. “BigBunz was right, though. I’m in over my head. She ain’t going to help me, and I sure as hell can’t afford an attorney. The whole thing has gotten too complicated. I think I’m just gonna have to forget about it.”
James lifted a fist in the air. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Now we can focus on more important things—like this.” James lifted his leg and let out a loud fart while simultaneously belching.
Stump about lost it. He’d never heard anybody’s orifices work in unison before. “Dude! We should totally make a video of that and put it on YouTube.”
Chapter Ten
After her most recent meeting with her psychiatrist, Delores was feeling more optimistic about her career and more motivated to reel in Dixon Browne. Given that there were going to be high demands on her time and there was still some uncertainty whether Dixon Browne might be dangerous, she asked her boss, Sergeant Byrdswain, who was often referred to as Birdman, what he thought of bringing Myles Cooper into the case strictly as back-up.
It had been three years since the trio met in a professional capacity. At the time, the ink was not yet dry on Delores’s criminology degree and most of her time was spent reviewing old case files. Then Myles Cooper called Birdman and said his newly adopted son, Stump, had solved a double murder. Further investigations by the detectives uncovered two additional murders, leaving plenty of good press to spread around.
Now, Birdman welcomed the idea of having another seasoned detective close by, just in case Dixon Browne proved to be violent. Both Birdman and Cooper were at the police building in one of the meeting rooms sucking down coffee when Delores, soda in hand, arrived. Even though protocol was always a concern, she gave Myles a warm hug.
“Well, Sergeant Myles Cooper. How the heck have you been?”
“Not bad for an old dude, Detective. Good
to see you again.”
“How’s Stump?”
Myles snickered. “He’s growing up too fast for my liking and too slow for his. He’s just about ready to get his driver’s license.”
“The young ladies better watch out,” Byrdswain said.
Delores grinned. “I see he got the doggie park up and running.”
“It took all of his reward money but he hung in there. The same woman who donated the money was so impressed she put him in her will. She had no other heirs so she gave him ten percent of her estate. Three mill.”
“Well, he deserves it,” Delores said.
“I guess so, but he thinks he should have the money anytime he wants it and I’m trying to hold him back so he doesn’t get the impression that money is easy to come by.”
“Nice problem,” Byrdswain said.
Myles shrugged and turned to Delores. “How ’bout you, Detective? You like being a cop?”
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t look so young. Certain people don’t take me seriously.“
Myles grinned. “Is Birdman giving you guff?”
“Naw. He ain’t half-bad. I’m talking about the public.”
“I assume that has something to do with why you called me?”
“Sure does,” Byrdswain said. “Last month a Hispanic woman, named Yolanda Vigil, got pulled over for speeding. She told the officer he had to leave her alone because she had been married to an important man and was about to become a citizen. She handed the officer some suspicious papers, including a crude divorce decree that looked like something a couple entry-level college guys might draw up. So the officer brought her to us for questioning.”
“Fraud, huh? That’s right up my alley.”
Delores scooted some papers aside. “Ms. Vigil wouldn’t say a lot, just that everybody had to leave her alone because she was almost a citizen. I know about the naturalization process and sensed that she had been misled. We had her old address so I popped on over there and spoke with a neighbor. Turns out Ms. Vigil was talking about the manager of an apartment building and the guy had done the same thing with other women. It smelled suspicious so I pretended to be a potential tenant and signed a lease so I could meet the guy and find out what he was up to. There’s something really evil going on in that place.”