Unknown Means by Elizabeth Becka Page B

problem, really . . . Angel had school all day, and Evelyn’s mother lived next door, always ready to stuff her granddaughter with more calories than any teenage Cosmopolitan reader wanted to encounter.
    “Justin,” she asked when he hung up the phone, “how many people work in this building?”
    “There’s me, Terry, and Leroy on the desk. We rotate. There’s Frank, of course. Our maintenance guy is Gerard. He’s got an office off the garage. That’s it, really.”
    “No cleaning staff?”
    “Gerard takes care of the lobby and the stairwell and maintains the heating and air-conditioning. The tenants hire their own staff and make their own arrangements for them to come in and out, so that’s got nothing to do with us,” he clarified with something like relief. “That includes home improvements like paint or appliance installations—of course, that has to be approved by Erie Realty first, but on the whole the tenants are free to do anything they want as long as it doesn’t make too much noise.”

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    The building did seem pretty streamlined. Not a potted plant or even a piece of carpet took up space on the lobby’s white marble floor. Ditto for the sidewalk out front. “No valet parking?”
    “Nope. That adds a lot of liability, I guess, so Erie just doesn’t do it. Besides, there’s only fourteen suites in the entire building. The garage has three floors, and that’s plenty.”
    “No way from the garage into the building?”
    “Only that door right there.”
    “Such wealthy people don’t mind parking their own cars and carrying their own groceries?”
    “Well, there’s me to carry stuff.” He grinned. “But our tenants are kind of more interested in being left alone than they are in being pampered. That’s why there’s no fitness center, no party room, no rooftop deck—just residences. It’s a quiet place. And they don’t have to haul too many groceries, they have people to do that. There are only three floors with children, and not even those families are into home cooking, I don’t think. There’s an elderly couple on four—he made piles of money in munitions during the Korean War—and they eat every single meal out. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
    Her stomach rumbled. “I can’t decide if that would be good or bad.”
    “Oh, bad. Definitely bad. All the preservatives and additives in food these days, not to mention the sodium level in most prepared dishes.” He patted his textbook. “It’s amazing that stuff hasn’t given them four heart attacks apiece by now. Which would be a pity,
    ’cause they’re nice.”
    “Are most of the residents nice?”
    He thought. “Most are just in and out. We don’t interact enough for me to know.”
    The door to the office remained closed. “What’s Erie Realty?”
    “The owners’ group. That’s where Frank and Gerard send their reports. They pay our checks and manage our benefits. That’s why I

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    took this job—dental.” He tapped his two front teeth for her, apparently demonstrating some recent work. “That, and it gives me plenty of time to study, especially on weekdays, when it’s quiet.”
    “Do they own any other buildings?”
    “Sure, a bunch. They have the Crown Point place on Ninth, the Guarley Towers next to Jacobs Field, two office buildings side by side across the river, the Harrity in Euclid, a big complex out in Lakewood . . . and more than that, but I don’t know them all.”
    “And here there’s just you and the other guys you mentioned?”
    “Yep. Why, though? I mean, you don’t think—”
    “At the moment I don’t know what to think, Justin. Could you show me where Gerard’s office is?”
    He plunked a small “Be right back” sign on the counter and came around to the front. She cringed a bit when he plunged through the door to the parking lot, half-expecting the hovering monster that had attacked Marissa to be waiting, but the garage held only