“Ah, but they were looking for the wrong things.” He popped his own loaded chip in his mouth ad crunched thoughtfully, watching Jeff’s face.
“Okay.” His friend made a ‘come on’ gesture with his hand. “Give.”
“Do you know those properties are all adjacent to areas that are about to be rezoned a combination of residential and commercial? The plan is for a combination of retail, offices , restaurants and condos. High end. If you look at a map you’ll see each complex is at the edge of an area being redeveloped.”
Jeff let out a slow whistle. “You’re shitting me.”
“Not even a little.” Noah took a bite of tamale, chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. “If a developer approached the owners of that land they’d get a hell of a lot more than they would by just rebuilding the apartments. Assuming they could, that is.”
Jeff frowned. “But the city or county or whoever has jurisdiction can’t just arbitrarily rezone parcels of land and tell people they have to get out, can they?”
“No.” Noah shook his head. “That’s true. First of all the rezoning request ahs to be consistent with the long range plans of the governing body, which in this case it would.”
A look of anger washed over Dan’s face. “But the owners can’t simply tell the tenants to get out, even if they tried to relocate them.”
Noah nodded. “Right. Besides which, it would cost money they don’t want to spend or maybe don’t have. They’ve already given relocation stipends to those tenants burned out by the fire. If they damage the complex sufficiently and the tenants are informed they don’t intend to rebuild…”
“And they don’t want to live in an unsafe place with the rubble from burned out buildings,” Dan went on for him, “they can move on their own, find other places. Cheaper for the owners to give everyone relocation money so they can move forward with their plans. And the owners are free to have the remaining units knocked down, the rubble cleared and sell the land for high dollars to the developers.”
“Got it in one.”
“Well, shit.” He frowned. “Wait a minute. When were those apartments bought by the current owners? And wouldn’t they have to have had notice that this was happening?”
“They would,” Noah agreed. “This particular long range plan was adopted by the council three years ago.”
“Three years?” Dan almost shouted the words. “Three fucking years?”
Noah thought it was a damn good thing it was so noisy on the River Walk. Otherwise people would be staring at them and trying to overhear whatever conversation inspired such expletives.
“Keep it down, guy. We don’t want to broadcast this.”
“So here’s the thing. Did you find out who else knew about the plan, since it hasn’t been announced yet.”
“Of course not.” Noah flapped a hand at him. “If words gets out before they’re ready, property owners will jack the prices up higher than the Hemisphere Tower.”
The two men looked at each other for a long, heavy moment.
“Some people have been very clever here,” Dan said at last. “It burns my ass to think a cop is involved.”
“Here are some questions for you.” Noah pointed at him. “One. How did they find the right cop to tap for this? Two. How did they know about this long range plan? And three, who is going to do all the legal maneuvering necessary to cover their tracks and negotiate with the new developers?”
Jeff chewed thoughtfully on an enchilada, his forehead creased in thought.
“I hate to say this, but there is a cop or two that I know can be bought, although they’re so obvious you should probably write them off.”
“You’re right. It’s the ones who don’t come readily to mind I’m interested in. This is going to take a lot more digging because it’s obvious a great deal of planning and a lot of money went into this.”
“Watch yourself,” Jeff warned. “If these guys get wind you are on to them they’ll do anything to protect what they’ve got going on. Why don’t you let me nose around a little. Listen to cop shop talk.”
“You don’t expect them t discuss it where people can hear them, do you?” Noah wanted to know.
“Please. I didn’t make detective because I have no brains. Trust me. I’m a trained investigator. Let me investigate.”
“Okay,” Noah agreed at last. He paused and took a long swallow of his drink. “Here comes the hard part.”
“Uh oh. I have a feeling I’m not gonna like this.”
“You won’t, especially considering our earlier conversation.”
“Spill it.”
“I need to find a way to get Randi off this case. These people are dangerous and she could get hurt.”
“Jesus, guy, do you never learn?” Jeff raked his fingers through his short hair. “Enough already.”
“I can’t help it. I want to keep her safe from these people.”
“Did we not just have a discussion about this?” Jeff demanded. “Randi will be royally pissed if you try to talk her into stepping back. This is onetime you have to suck it up.”
“But these people are dangerous,” he reminded his friend. “With this much money involved anything goes.”
“She’s not going to put herself in a dangerous situation,” Jeff insisted. “The best thing you can do is figure out who this is as fast as you can so the danger goes away.” He signaled for the check. “Let’s keep in frequent contact. I want to make sure you don’t get screwed over.”
“My man, I could not have said it better myself.” He studied Noah across the table. “I’ll see what I can find out. You figure out how to cement your relationship with the beautiful Randi.”
*****
Noah would have been a lot more alarmed if he knew that another set of circumstances
