Chapter Eleven
Wheels
The Ledger had walked right up to our front door. They hadn’t fired a shot. They hadn’t kicked in the door. They hadn’t burned another building.
Instead, they’d left us four sentences.
Somehow, that had rattled everyone more than bullets had.
I sat at the table with a mug of coffee cooling beside my elbow while I watched Plug lock the front door for what had to be the sixth time that morning.
He checked the handle. Pulled on it. Checked it again. Satisfied, he nodded once and walked toward the back hallway.
“Hell of a time to suddenly become security conscious,” Hodge muttered from the pool table.
Plug looked over his shoulder. “I’d rather Twister tell me I checked it too many times than not enough.”
“Fair.”
Twister looked up from the stack of papers in front of him. “Plug.”
“Yeah, Prez?”
“Front windows every fifteen.”
“You got it.” Plug disappeared.
Method sat on the couch with a legal pad balanced on one knee, writing addresses from the documents Goldie had brought us.
Podge stood at the copier he had set up behind the bar, making duplicates of everything.
Rev leaned against the bar quietly, reading one of Marv’s handwritten notebooks.
Gramps occupied his usual recliner, wide awake for once. Mostly because Tempi had threatened to dump coffee on him if he started snoring before noon.
Cord was outside with Chewy, making another lap around the building.
I took another drink of coffee.
The front of the clubhouse looked normal. The inside looked like detectives had taken over.
Maps. Blueprints. Property records. Inspection reports. Survey plats. Utility maps. Deeds. Permits. Receipts.
Every flat surface in the room held paper.
The Ledger wanted something, and we were going to figure out what.
The stairs creaked, and every head in the room looked up.
Goldie came downstairs carrying another armful of folders.
She’d changed into jeans and a faded green T-shirt that hugged her curves just enough to remind me I wasn’t dead. Her blonde hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, and reading glasses rested on top of her head.
She looked comfortable. She smiled when she reached the bottom. “I found something in my bag.”
Twister motioned toward the table. “Bring it.”
She set a folder on the table. “I forgot I’d shoved these into my backpack before everything happened.”
“Anything good?” Method asked.
“I honestly don’t remember.”
She opened the folder, and there were more inspection reports, building permits, and survey notes. Nothing exciting, at least not to anyone else.
Goldie started sorting without anybody asking.
Twister watched for a minute. Then pushed back from the table. “We’re done guessing.”
The room quieted.
He looked directly at Goldie. “Teach us.”
She blinked. “Teach you?”
He nodded toward the mountain of paperwork. “You understand this.”
She looked around the room. At all of us. “I... I don’t know where to start.”
“Start where you’d start,” Twister said. “Help us figure out what we should be looking for.”
Goldie took a slow breath. Then reached for the first permit. “This one doesn’t matter.” She tossed it into a separate pile. “This one doesn’t matter either.” Another pile.
Podge frowned. “How do you know?”
She held up the page. “Roof replacement.”
“So?”
“So if someone wanted access underground...” She tapped the paper. “...why would they care about the roof?”
Podge slowly nodded. “Okay.”
She grabbed another. “Window replacement.” Toss. “Parking lot resurfacing.” Toss. “Exterior brick repair.” Toss.
Method leaned forward. “So what are we looking for?”
Goldie looked at him. “Basements.”
Everyone looked at each other.
She continued. “Utility access.” Another paper. “Foundation work.” Another. “Easements.” She grabbed a blueprint. “Storm drains.” Another. “Old maintenance corridors.” She spread several papers across the table.
“These.”
Twister stepped closer. “Explain.”
Goldie nodded. “Think about it this way.” She grabbed a pencil.
“If somebody wanted to hide something underground...” She drew a simple square.
“...they don’t build around it.” Another square.
“They change access.” She connected lines between them.
“They move entrances.” Another line. “They abandon maintenance rooms.” Another.
“They reroute utilities.” Another. “They seal stairwells.” She looked around. “You don’t erase a tunnel.”
“You erase the ways people get into it.”
Nobody spoke.
Because suddenly, it made sense.
Method slowly leaned back. “Holy shit.”
Rev looked down at the map. “So every one of these...”
Goldie nodded. “Changes access.”
Twister folded his arms. “And someone approved every one.”
Goldie pointed at the permits. “Exactly.”
I didn’t understand half the technical crap she was talking about.
Didn’t need to.
I watched her instead.
Her eyes were brighter than I’d ever seen them.
She wasn’t scared or looking over her shoulder. She was explaining something she knew. Her hands moved while she talked. She pointed with the pencil and tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear without thinking.
Every time someone asked a question, she smiled.
Tempi walked through carrying fresh coffee, and she caught me looking. Then she bumped Twister with her elbow, and he followed her gaze.
Son of a bitch.
I looked away, and Tempi’s grin got bigger.
Goldie kept working. She spread another blueprint across the table. “This building...” She pointed. “...used to have basement access from the alley.”
Method looked confused. “But it doesn’t now.”
“Exactly.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Someone sealed it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yet.” That last word came from Twister.
Goldie smiled. “Yet.”
The morning slipped by.
One brother after another drifted away.
Twister sent Rev and Plug to pull old historical maps from the library. Method went upstairs to compare addresses. Podge headed for the copier again. Hodge disappeared into the basement with Cord. Gramps wandered outside muttering something about checking the mailbox again.
Eventually, it was just me and Goldie.
Goldie sighed. “My brain hurts.”
I stood. “You stay there.”
She looked up. “Where are you going?”
“Kitchen.”
She nodded and bent back over the permits. Five minutes later, I came back carrying fresh coffee.
She hadn’t moved, not an inch.
I set the mug beside her, and she kept staring at the paperwork for another few seconds before finally reaching for it.
Her hand stopped, and she looked at me. “I was into looking at that paper.”
“I noticed.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
She took a drink and closed her eyes. “I swear coffee fixes everything.”
“Hangovers.”
“Mostly.”
“Murder conspiracies?”
She laughed softly. “Still testing that one.”
I leaned against the edge of the table, and she went back to work. For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Pages turned, coffee steamed, pencils scratched, and then she froze.
“What?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she reached across the table and grabbed another permit. Then another. Then another.
She spread four documents beside one another.
“What?” I asked again.
She leaned closer. “No...”
“What?”
She pointed. “I’ve seen this.”
I stepped around beside her. “I don’t know what I’m looking at.”
She tapped the bottom corner of one permit. “Signature.”
I squinted, and it still didn’t mean anything to me.
She slid another permit beside it. “Different year.” Another. “Different building.” Another. “Different project.”
I frowned. “So?”
She looked at me.
“These should all have different approving officials.”
“But...”
“They don’t.” She pointed again. Every permit carried the same signature. Gene Kettler.
I looked at her. “You know him?”
“No.”
“Then...” I still had no idea where she was going with this.
“I know the name.” She started digging frantically through another pile. Folders opened. Papers scattered. Maps slid across the table. “There.”
She yanked out another inspection packet and circled Gene Kettler. Then another, Gene Kettler.
She pointed her highlighter at me. “It’s actually the last name that I remember seeing.” She grabbed another. This time, the signature she circled was Hollis Kettler.
She pulled out at least four more permits with the Hollis Kettler signature.
Different buildings. Different decades. Different contractors.
Same approving signature with the same last name.
Every single one involved foundations, basements, utility corridors, or abandoned access points.
The front door opened, and Twister walked back inside.
“Find anything while I was outside?”
Goldie didn’t answer immediately. She simply turned every permit toward him.
Twister stepped closer and read the signatures she had highlighted.
“Kettler.” His expression changed, and he pointed at one of the Hollis Kettler signatures.
“Gramps and Swift dug up this guy’s name already.
This fucking confirms that this asshole, and I’m assuming his son Gene, are part of, if not all of, The Ledger. ”
Hell, we had been on the right track this whole time.
Goldie looked up first. “I think...” She swallowed. “I think Hollis Kettler spent decades approving permits that erased every official record of the underground tunnel, and when he took off to Oregon, his son took over.”
This wasn’t a scheme that had started last month. Or last year.
It had been carefully built, one permit, one signature, and one hidden corridor at a time.
For decades.
And somewhere along the way, the Kettler family had helped bury an entire piece of Madison beneath the city.
Twister looked at me and then at Goldie. Finally back down at the permits. “Just what the hell is so important about those tunnels that The Ledger wants to erase it?”