Decker looked at the line item on the page he was looking at. “The cinderblock count is pretty much spot on. But what if I told you the concrete outlay was way over quadruple what you just said?”
“That’s impossible.”
“Tell me a way that it wouldn’t be impossible.”
Earl was silent for a few moments. “Well, the only way to justify that much concrete is if they built a full basement, so their pour obviously would be a lot more. But why would a restaurant want a full basement instead of just footers and foundation you build on? You couldn’t possibly need that much storage.”
“Good question,” said Decker. “Hope I find the answer.”
He thanked Earl, told him to have his wife call back when she was done, clicked off, and looked down at the plans.
The American Grill was turning out to be far more special than he had previously thought.
A full basement for what?
And maybe whatever that was would explain why David Katz had built it, and why Rachel Katz had kept it all these years.
He went on his laptop and loaded in the name William Peyton and added the qualifier “the American Grill.” Nothing remotely relevant came up in connection with the longtime manager of the restaurant.
He took out his phone and pulled up the photos he’d taken of the trainees including the one named Daniel. The trainees who never stayed very long. Then his memories shifted to the guy who’d been staring at him from the kitchen. There clearly had been suspicion in that look.
He glanced back at the construction plans and then focused on Earl Lancaster’s words:
The only way to justify that much concrete is if they built a full basement.
But as he’d also pointed out, why would David Katz have gone to the additional time, trouble, and expense for more storage area than he could possibly ever need? And if there was an underground room, it would have to be accessible somehow. There would have to be a door down there. And steps. And what would be down there?
Mary Lancaster called him back twenty minutes later.
“Long shower,” he grumbled.
“I had to dress and dry my hair too, and do it all with a friggin’ hangover,” she snapped. “Earl told me about your questions. Where are you headed with this?”
“I think there’s another room under the American Grill.”
“Why would that be?”
“I have no idea. But Earl couldn’t think of another reason why so much concrete would have been used. And maybe that’s why Rachel Katz hid the documents I found. That’s where the additional concrete was listed.”
“Meaning she knew about a possible underground room?”
“Katz told me that she and her husband met on a blind date. And six months later they were married. This was after the American Grill opened.”
“So maybe she didn’t know about the underground room, then?”
“At least not at that point. And that might explain why they used tarps over the construction site and used outside contractors and rented equipment. They didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing.”
“And Fred Palmer told us that the equipment they rented was a lot more horsepower than was needed. But they might need all of that if they were going to remove enough dirt to make way for a full basement.”
“Right. Although I guess somewhere in the permitting process, they’d have to tell the folks in government about their plans and get approvals. Code compliance and inspections and all that. But I guess there’s also no law against having a basement underneath your restaurant.”
“But you would have to have a way to access it,” said Lancaster.
“A waitress at the restaurant told me some interesting things.” He quickly told her about the trainees and wait staff, the longtime manager, and the seemingly one-year turnover for all except the kitchen staff.
“Okay, this is just getting weirder and weirder,” noted Lancaster. “What is going on in this alleged room underneath the restaurant? Do you think it might be a drug operation?”
“If so, it’s certainly an odd one.”
“And that would mean that instead of an innocent citizen who was murdered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Katz was dirty. Maybe that’s what led to his getting killed.”
“That could certainly be the case if somebody wanted him out of the way.”
“But why kill the Richards family too?”
“Don Richards gave him the loan for the Grill. Maybe that ties in somehow.” He paused. “I wonder about something.”
“What?”
“I’m wondering if the loan was ever paid off,” said Decker.
Chapter 66
“OKAY, I’VE GOT BAD NEWS and bad news, which do you want first?”
Decker was talking to Alex Jamison on his cell phone.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?” he said.
“Okay, we struck out on the shell companies you gave us. We can’t penetrate them.”
“Okay.”
“And the tattoos on the two dead guys? I ran them through the relevant databases and came up with zip. I mean, most of the tats taken separately are well known. But the Bureau has never seen them all strung together like that before. It’s quite a mix of hate groups. Nazi, Aryan, Klansmen.”
“Well, thanks for checking.”
“No, you don’t understand, Decker. I’ve got people freaking out here. When the FBI can’t find out something, that’s news. And they’re also afraid that maybe these different hate groups are starting to come together, sharing resources, coordinating terrorist actions, accomplishing more terrible things together than they can separately.”
“You mean the shell companies are unusually hardened, and the tats may reflect some new sort of new terrorist threat?”
“Bingo. When I told Bogart, he was really concerned.”
“Well, I share that concern.”
“Anything from Rachel Katz yet?”
“She hasn’t regained consciousness. The doctors are getting worried.”
“What else can you do?”
“I can find out what’s in the basement of the American Grill.”
“Haven’t you seen the movies? You never go down to the basement.”
“I did in Baronville.”
“My point exactly.”
Decker clicked off and went in search of Lancaster, finding her getting some coffee in the break room.
“You want a cup?” she asked.
He shook his head. “We need to go to the bank.”
“Why, do you need money?”
“No, answers.”
* * *
On the drive over to Don Richards’s old bank, Decker said, “David Katz owned a late-model Mercedes sedan when he was killed. It’s the car I think his murderer drove over in. Katz and his wife were living in a very nice apartment in town. He owned the American Grill after building it with a construction and operating loan. And he might have had other loans.”
“So?”
“So how do you get a big loan like that without putting up collateral?”
“Maybe he put up collateral.”
“Meaning he had money of his own.”