Well, now it was time for Carson to tell Spalding what he knew about the escape attempt. That would hopefully put him in the big man's good graces for the last few days here.
In the morning, while everyone else was at the breakfast table, Carson excused himself and left the room. He made straight for the slide room and tapped out the five beats on the pipe.
“What is it?” A whispered voice came from a hidden speaker right beside him. Carson jumped and looked to the wall but couldn't find where the sound came from. He didn’t have time to look, if they noticed he was away from the table too long they might get suspicious and come looking for him. He leaned close to the wall and said,
“Megan and Ellie are planning an escape. It's going to be the next time you leave. I heard them talk about it last night.”
“I see,” came back the thoughtful voice, “Thank you for letting me know.”
“No problem,” Carson replied. He waited a few moments and then felt like Spalding was gone. He was expecting something more than this as a response but that didn’t seem likely to happen. He crept back to the hall and then walked back towards the dining room, the first coil of guilt starting to gnaw away at him already.
Chapter 36
TYLER WAS IN BALTIMORE at his office. It was late afternoon and he’d eaten lunch outside the old Poe house around the corner as he often did when the weather was fine. He had spent the morning running down people who might have links into the world of organised crime in the city and region. He wanted to make sure he was right about Spalding being the one who took Carson, but he also wanted to look into something else Carson had told him in relation to the ‘Agrarian’ case.
Organised crime was always a tough area to get information. Everyone within the fold was either too scared or else would implicate themselves if they told a reporter anything. If it was found out it would be treated the same as if they had told the police. Many a mob member had wound up in the river after even innocent remarks to a journalist in the past.
It wasn’t all plain sailing for a journalist either. More than once in his past, Tyler had been close to being killed in relation to a story that involved high level members of the Baltimore mob. Hell, even Ellicott City had its own minor mob scene.
Still, wherever there was money to be made or grudges to be settled, someone was going to let something slip. It was often a matter of chance and timing. His query this time, however, was not one that could get anyone in trouble. Tyler just wanted to know about the evacuations of the car storage units at the farms where the men had been murdered.
He’d been surprised to find that his informants at various police departments and even at the FBI could not give him anything about this operation. It was beginning to look like it wasn’t the police at all who tipped off the mob about the imminent raids but someone else. Someone who had some other reason to want the farms to be quiet and avoid unwanted interruptions while he was there carrying out his dark work. In fact, Tyler was hard pressed to find out if these raids had ever happened at all. It was beginning to look like they had not.
In Tyler’s mind it boiled down to this. Whoever had alerted the mob about the police was the same man who killed all those farmers. That meant someone in the underworld knew who he was. They mightn’t know he was a killer but they knew the name, or the face of the ‘Agrarian.’
The phone at his desk rang and Tyler looked to the small screen. It wasn’t a number he knew but that wasn’t unusual, his desk number was listed in the paper and the website of ‘The Baltimore Echo.’
“Hello?” he answered leaning back in his chair languidly.
“Can you talk?” the metallic raspy voice came and Tyler shot back to sitting up straight at once. He looked around the room and so no one. The editor's door was open, but it sounded like he was on a phone call of his own.
“For a minute, yes,” he answered.
“I assume you have been worrying about Carson,” Spalding said.
“Not especially,” Tyler replied to which Spalding burst out laughing.
“You know what, I believe you!” the killer said.
“What do you want, Spalding?” Tyler asked as the laughter subsided.
“I want an exchange, fair and simple.”
“An exchange of what?”
“I give you Carson Lemond, and in exchange you give me information that you alone have, Tyler,” Spalding said. Tyler didn’t have a clue off hand what this information might be but he needed to get Carson back.
“Are you sure I have the information you want?” Tyler asked, “I don’t want to be putting Carson in danger by not keeping up my end of the bargain through no fault of my own.”
“You have the information,” Spalding said and Tyler could feel the grin on the killer's face, “The only way you’ll put Carson in danger is if you refuse to give it up.” Hundreds of titbits of information flashed through Tyler's mind as he tried to find something Spalding would want to know about.
“So, how do we do this then?” he asked looking around the office to be sure he was still alone.
“We will meet; the three of us, you, Carson and I, in the old Saffron Clothing Warehouse by the docks. Do you know it?”
“Yeah,” Tyler said, “This won’t be my first clandestine meeting there,” he added.
“I didn’t think it would have been,” Spalding said. “You come alone or Carson gets it.” This last wasn’t delivered like an order but Tyler took it as one. Spalding was too good to
