Chapter Thirty-Seven
Parker
We emerge into the morning sun and stare up at a tall, glass office building.
Apex Building Solutions occupies the entire fourth floor of the building on Congress, the kind of address that photographs well and tells you nothing.
The receptionist buzzes us back to a cubicle near the windows, where Todd Ferris stands up so fast his chair rolls into the desk behind him.
He starts sweating almost immediately, and swipes a hand over his forehead, disturbing one of the worst combovers I’ve seen outside of politics. His driver’s license put him at forty-two years old, but he’s not aging well.
“Mr. Ferris? I’m Captain Parker Elmore and this is Captain Nate Hardison. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Oh, God. You have to believe me. I never drive that fast, but my kid threw up in his backpack, it was leaking all over the floorboards, and he was about to do it again. Do you have any idea how much vomit a fifteen-year-old has in him?”
At my side, Nate shudders. I doubt it has anything to do with the sick kid and everything to do with the mess in Ferris’s car.
I hold up my hand. “Mr. Ferris, we’re with the Ranger division, not APD or the State Troopers. While we hope all of Austin’s citizens drive the speed limit, we don’t write tickets. Or track down a speeder after the fact.”
Todd takes a step back, his shoulders heaving with a heavy sigh. “Oh. Then why are you here?”
“Is there somewhere we can talk? A conference room?” I ask.
His gaze swings from one side of the large open space to the other. “The Longhorn room is empty. Um…you can follow me.”
Todd picks up his mug, a monstrosity with World’s Okayest Golfer in bright green letters on one side. Nate shudders again, and I elbow him in the side. “It wasn’t your car. Get a grip.”
“The upholstery, Parker. Think of the upholstery.”
I’d roll my eyes at him, except Todd is holding the conference room door open for us, his gaze pinging between us and the hallway like he’s planning his escape route. “Do…uh…you want coffee?”
“No, thank you,” I say.
Todd gestures for us to take seats at a beautiful polished wood table, then drops into one of the rolling chairs across from us. He’s not sweating anymore, but he keeps clenching and unclenching his hands around the mug.
“So…what’s this about?” he asks.
Nate opens the red folder he brought up with him and slides the Aldrich inspection certificate across the table. “Is this your signature, Mr. Ferris?”
Todd squints at the paper. First, the almost unreadable chicken scratch at the bottom, then up to the address and inspection details. His face goes from a splotchy red to ghostly pale to a sickly gray in under thirty seconds. “This…wasn’t me.”
Nate leans forward in his chair. “I’ll repeat my question. Is that your signature?”
“It looks like it, but I’ve never been assigned to a job that big.
I handle residential sales, mostly out in Pflugerville and Georgetown.
” He’s getting flustered now, and reaches for a keyboard and mouse in the center of the conference table.
A large screen lights up on the wall in front of him, and he logs into Apex’s internal scheduling system. “See?”
The assignment calendar is blocked out in bright colors. I can practically hear Nate’s disappointment that there are only five different shades. And that the dates surrounding the Aldrich inspection are completely blank.
“Why don’t you have any assignments for the week of June sixth?” I ask.
“I was in Orlando.” Todd reaches for his phone and opens the Star Airlines app. “We go every year with my wife’s family. Her birthday is on the eighth, and we got married on the first.”
He shows us the airline confirmation, then switches to his camera roll.
Photo after photo of him and his family—a teenage boy burying his little sister in the sand, a woman in a floppy hat with a wrap-around skirt over her bathing suit, and a selfie where Todd is wearing entirely too much sunscreen.
“Here. And here…I posted about it,” he says, switching to his SocialGram app and passing me the phone.
I tap the picture—one of the whole family on the beach, his wife tagged—with at least forty separate commenters wishing him a happy anniversary.
My photos never get that much interaction. Then again, they might if I posted more than once a year.
Nate peers at the phone, a muscle in his jaw ticking once, then passes Todd one of his cards. “We’ll need copies of your airline confirmation, hotel and rental car receipts, meals…all of it. Send everything you have by the end of the day.”
“I will. All of it.” Todd’s voice cracks. “I didn’t have anything to do with that fire. Two people? My God. I’d never forgive myself.”
“Let’s assume that everything checks out,” I say, doing my best to be reassuring. Innocent or guilty, I don’t want Todd having a heart attack on my watch. “Any idea how a mistake like this happens?”
He glances up at the empty calendar on the wall monitor.
“It shouldn’t. But…every inspector has their signature on file with the Texas Department of Insurance.
It’s keyed to our license number. Ten years ago—when I started this job—we were on site for the inspection, then came back to the office, filled out all the necessary forms, and had to sign them in ink.
Then we carried them to the county clerk’s office to be stamped and filed. But now…”
“So that’s your official electronic signature,” Nate says. “No one forged it.”
“That’s what’s on file with the clerk’s office, yes.”
I lean back in my chair, my pen poised over my small notebook. “So how does your signature get applied to a file you never touched?”
“That’s the thing.” Todd swipes at his forehead again.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a face as his thinning hair sticks almost straight up.
“Every inspector at every firm in the state has one of these.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like a thumb drive that’s attached to his belt loop by a retractable cord.
“There’s an RFID chip in this fob. Without it, we can’t file a damn thing.
And when I go on vacation, I lock this in my safe at home.
There’s no way my signature should be on that inspection. ”
We thank Todd for his time, warn him not to discuss our questions with anyone else at Apex, and head back to the reception desk.
I flash my credentials at the young man playing games on his phone. “We’d like to speak to the head of Human Resources.”
We didn’t get much of anything from Todd. Time to ask anyone who’ll talk to us about Roger Haight—and why no one at Apex reported him missing.
Apex’s twenty-eight employees are mostly independent contractors, so their Human Resources “department” is just one overworked woman named Carol.
She tucks a lock of graying hair behind her ear and straightens a stack of papers on her desk.
“I’m sorry you had to wait so long. No one told me you were here.
I’ve been training a temp most of the morning.
I’m goin’ on vacation to Galveston next week, and I gotta make sure this place don’t shut down without me. ”
Nate and I sat outside Carol’s office for almost an hour before she came rushing down the hall, coffee staining her pale green blouse and a run in her pantyhose.
“Ain’t no never mind,” I say and flash her a sweet smile. “Captain Hardison and I just have a few questions about one of your contractors.”
“Of course.” Carol pulls her keyboard closer. “Name?”
“Roger Haight.” I open my notebook, rest it on my thigh, and uncap my pen.
“Can you spell that for me, hon?” she asks.
At my side, Nate sits up a little straighter, but my side-eye is enough he stands down. “It’s Captain. And Roger’s last name is H-A-I-G-H-T.”
Carol types his name, then nods. “He was one of our contractors. But he hasn’t worked for us in over a year.”
I slide my left hand under my notebook and ball it into a fist, digging my nails into my palm. “And you never thought to track him down?”
“We do not locate contractors, Captain. When they want to work, they show up.” Her fingers fly over the keyboard for a few seconds longer.
“The last job I have on file for him was an inspection in Cedar Park after the building was sold. Before that, he had a handful in Austin city limits, then a couple more in Round Rock. One in Pflugerville.”
“The Cedar Park inspection was fourteen months ago,” Nate says. “You’re telling me no one noticed that he simply…stopped looking for work?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m sayin’. Because that’s how we do things here. He ain’t on payroll. We don’t have to pay into Social Security on his behalf. A contractor who stops requestin’ assignments isn’t unusual. It’s a regular Tuesday ‘round here.”
Nate doesn’t write anything down. While I watch Carol’s face—looking for the way her eyes move left or right, whether she licks her lips or blinks too quickly—Nate watches her hands and listens.
“He ever come by the office? In person?” I make a show of scribbling in my notebook, though it’s just a reminder to buy more coffee beans on the way home.
“Not that I can remember. Most of what we do is electronic.” She glances down at her watch, gray brows arched. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Roger Haight is dead, Carol.” I watch her expression change from annoyance to shock to disbelief.
“Oh, my God. What happened?” she asks.
I give her another smile, though this one is softer. Full of understanding. “I’m afraid we can’t comment on an active investigation.”
Nate clears his throat. “We need to know what happened to Haight’s electronic fob.”
Carol pulls open the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet that’s stuffed so full, I don’t know how she can find anything inside.
Riffling past a stack of hunter green hanging folders, she pulls out a manilla envelope.
Roger Haight is scrawled across the front, along with “Front Desk” and a date stamp.
She breaks the seal, and a fob tumbles into her hand, followed by a lanyard with Roger’s photo on it, and a single slip of paper.
“Someone dropped his gear off at the front desk. Laptop, ID, his gas card, and his fob.” Carol pinches the bridge of her nose. “I just assumed he’d found a better job. Apex pays less than the other big firms in town.”
“Any idea who dropped it off?” Now we’re getting somewhere.
“Can’t tell you that, hon. Captain. Not after this long.”
“You didn’t think it was strange? That somebody else returned his equipment?”
“I think a lot of grown men don’t want to say the words, ‘I quit.’” For the first time since we sat down, she smiles, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared. “Half my job is people avoiding me.”
Nate leans forward, finally writing something down. “That equipment return. You keep security footage from the lobby?”
“There’s a camera by the front desk.” Carol’s still looking at the fob. “I don’t know how long we keep it, though.”
“We’re going to need that fob,” I say. “Along with the envelope and anything that can corroborate the time on that return—sign-in log, security footage, whatever exists.”
“Of course.” She’s already tucking Roger’s personal items back into the envelope, and passes it to me. “You take all of this, and I’ll see what else I can get you. Might be a couple of days, but I won’t leave you hangin’.”