Rancho Chapter 3

Chapter 3

   Friday evening, I invited Greg and Janet to come for snacks and told Greg that Melissa and I would help get to the bottom of his business problems. I gave him the new names we would use. “I don’t want to involve the Rockwell Pond house, so we will be looking for another place to live.”
   “Well, I have a fully furnished spec house on Howard Street on the other side of Selma you can use,” he said, and went to get the keys for us. He gave me the address.
   “We need to be hired as employees. I can work as a general laborer. Melissa needs to start as an office clerk. That way, we can get a picture from the inside. Since the latest trouble came from the office building on Orange Street, that seems like the best place to start.”
   Melissa and I spent Saturday and Sunday moving to the spec house, a beautiful place with a pool. It was completely furnished, except for food, which we solved with a quick trip to a supermarket.
   “If this is his work,” Melissa said, “it’s no wonder he has so much business. I’m surprised this place hasn’t been snatched up.”
   “Yeah, I wonder what the story is?”
   “Do you think this might be part of the problem?”
   “Well, look around. Do you see any other houses for sale in this neighborhood? And yet, here sits this one. I wonder how long it’s been on the market. From the looks of the lawn and furnishings, I’d say a while.”
   “You can take the master,” I said, “and I’ll take the one across the hall.”
   Early Monday morning, I, now as Taylor Allen, drove into the LaBree Construction parking lot. Greg’s car was already there, so I walked through the open warehouse door and found him behind a desk surrounded by paperwork. “Good morning, Taylor,” Greg said. “Clint Newton, our general foreman, will make work assignments. Newton has been with me from the start and knows the jobs as well as I do. Since the office building will not be released by the fire investigator and insurance adjusters until tomorrow, there are two other large jobs, two houses, and three remodeling jobs underway.”
   Other workers arrived, and a tall man walked through the door, his head barely clearing the 6’8” door frame, and his shoulders appeared to rub the sides. “Clint,” Greg said, “I’d like you to meet Taylor Allen; he’ll be joining us today.” I have large hands, but my hand was enveloped by Clint’s firm handshake.
   “I’ve known Taylor for years, and he and his daughter just moved to town.”
   Clint’s piercing steel gray eyes and square jaw were softened by a wide, friendly smile. “Welcome aboard, Taylor. We can sure use some extra help. What’s your experience?”
   “I’ve done a little of everything. Spent a lot of time on the end of a shovel handle.”
   “Read blueprints?”
   “Yeah.”
   “Electricity?”
   “I’m not licensed, but yes.”
   “Okay, let me introduce you to some of the guys, and you can get acquainted while Greg and I look at the schedule.” We went to a table in the bullpen, and Clint made the introduction. He pointed to the coffee urn and cups and then went back to Greg’s desk and took a seat. While they looked at a spreadsheet, I had conversation with the twenty other workers.
   When Clint returned to make the work assignments, he was visibly different. “There was a fire at the Orange Project,” he said. “Fortunately, Louis got the fire department there before it got inside the building, so we’ll be shut down there today while the inspectors do their work.”
   He assigned the jobs, and the workers went to their trucks. “Taylor, this is George Bearden, an electrician on the McCall Avenue bank job. You’ll work with him. That job’s behind schedule because of some material delays, but everything’s here now. So, we need to try and catch up.”
   “Taylor, you want to ride with me?” Bearden said.
   “Sure.”
   When we arrived at the bank job, we saw signs that the work was behind schedule. Most of the exterior was complete, and progress was being made on the parking lot. But the electrical installation had all the inside work on hold. We unloaded the equipment, unfolded the blueprints on a table, and started installing conduit.
   “What is the holdup here?” I asked.
   “It’s been one screw-up after another. First, someone ordered PVC conduit, but the specs called for all metal. This is a commercial building. That set us back almost a week. Then someone ordered Cat4 tech wire, but the specs call for Cat5 brown cable, another three days. And everyone’s waiting on the electrician. Makes me look like a lout.”
   “Any idea how that happened?”
   “Nah, I don’t think Greg would screw-up his own job. We’ve never had such a string a’bad luck. And the fire. That’s over the top!”
   We bent and hung conduit all morning. “Let’s have lunch,” George said. We found comfortable chairs and sat down at the table. “You know your way around the conduit bender.”
   “One of the many jobs I had during college was working for an electrical contractor.”
   “George, you said there have been a lot of screw-ups. What did you mean?”
   “Well, I don’t know about some a’them; just what I hear. I’ve worked on several of Greg’s jobs, but always as an electrician. I know firsthand about the mistakes here. But I heard about some bad concrete on one job and bad orders on others. It’s not like him to make these mistakes. Of course, the fire wasn’t his fault. But still—”
   “I guess that on a job this size, some mistakes are possible.”
   “Not likely. I’ve worked for Greg for years on different jobs; never a screw-up,” he said.
   “Doesn’t everybody make mistakes?”
   “Hmm. Strange, you should say that. There was another contractor in town, about the same size as Greg, whom I did work for,” he said. “I heard he used substandard PVC water pipes on a big job. They started bursting. The owners sued to have all the PVC removed and replaced with copper. The original specs called for PVC, and the contractor had invoices for the correct PVC, but somehow, he got the inferior stuff. The lawsuit and damages bankrupted him.”
   We continued bending and hanging conduit, and I heard George mumbling. “What’s up?” I asked.
   “Here’s another screw-up,” George said, leaning the breaker box against the wall. “The specs call for an 80-circuit box, and this is only a 40-circuit box. I’ll have to call Greg; but fortunately, this won’t hold us up. We’ll just jump over to the tech wiring tomorrow while they straighten this out. I’m ready to call it a day. How about you?”
   Back at the warehouse, I got a ride home with George, who also lived on the west side of Selma. I walked through the house to the pool, where Melissa was sunning. I noticed the detail of the privacy fence; every post and board was square and straight. The back of the house showed the same attention to detail as the inside. Melissa was right; the craftsmanship of this building explained why Greg was successful. “Mind if I join you?”
   “Aren’t you going to change?”
   “Nah, I’m too tired. It’s been a while since I’ve done this kind of work. Kinda out of shape, I guess. I just need a chair.”
   “Poor baby,” Melissa said, laughing at her joke.
   “So, how did your day go?”
   “Long day, too,” Melissa said. “It’s a one-woman office. The office manager, receptionist, and clerk is Olivia Shaw, who has been with Greg for years. Her husband owns an auto parts store. She seems intensely loyal.”
   “There are two computer systems,” Melissa said. “The financial computer is password-protected and not connected to the net—a high level of security. Only Greg and Olivia know the password, and she showed no inclination to share it.”
   “The other computer is used for general business, and it is connected to the net. Olivia introduced the ordering program, the filing system, and the communication file. Since I’m a newbie, I spent most of the day answering the phone.”
   “Olivia is protective and a little suspicious of me. So, she kept a close eye on me and didn’t give me any private time on the computer.”
   “Strange,” Melissa said. “In the afternoon, Olivia received a call about a wrong electrical part. I think she talked to Greg. She pulled up the order, and the wrong part had been ordered. I got the feeling she was about to cry. I asked her what was wrong, but she seemed too emotional to explain.”
   “Yeah, I know about that. It was on the bank job. It didn’t slow the job, but it will take time and money to make the swap. And that’s just a little screw-up.”
   “I worked with the electrician, and he described some of the other problems Greg is having. He did talk about another contractor who had a major problem, got sued, and went bankrupt.”
   “That’s the doorbell. I ordered dinner; I didn’t think either of us would feel like cooking. Would you get it? I don’t think I should answer the door like this,” Melissa said, gesturing to her bikini.
   “Yeah, I don’t want the vice squad here.”
   On Tuesday morning, Clint and Greg were studying a spreadsheet when I arrived at the warehouse. I went to the bullpen, got coffee, and joined the good-natured banter, trying to remember each worker’s name. There were plumbers, carpenters, HVAC techs, and laborers. “George,” Clint said as he began making work assignments. “Can you get by without Taylor today? We need all hands on the Orange Project.”
   “Sure. It’ll be slow, but I can do it.”
   “Okay, Taylor, you’ll work with Daniel Framer’s crew. There will be scaffolding and a cherry picker on the job. You’ll tear off all the burned sheeting and anything else that’s charred. The new sheeting will be delivered this afternoon. The bricklayers will start tomorrow, so this is a rush job.” Clint completed the other work assignments and returned to Greg’s desk.
   “Hey, Taylor, you want to ride with me?” Daniel called out.
   “How long have you been with Greg?” I asked as we rode to the job.
   “About a year. I’ve been in construction all my life. I worked for another company, mainly residential, until a year ago.”
   “Why the change?”
   “He went bankrupt. When the subcontractor on the job put in the street, he put it ten feet off. He said he followed the survey stakes, which he did. The stakes were still in the ground, but they were ten feet off.”
   “The connection to the city street was ten feet off, so there was a zoning issue. Each lot along the street was either ten feet too long or ten feet too short. There were lawsuits after lawsuits. By the time it was over, the contractor was bankrupt. The development still sits there, but it’s so tied up in court that no one wants to touch it.”
   “Did anyone ever figure out what happened?”
   “Well, the surveyors had all their paperwork, and they were right on. As near as anyone can figure, someone moved the survey markers.”
   “That sounds familiar.”
   “How so?” George asked.
   “Greg had a job where the survey stakes were moved, but the excavator caught it.”
   “You don’t say.”
   When we arrived at the Orange Project, George drove around the building where the other laborers waited. There was no scaffolding or cherry picker. Uttering expletives, Daniel called Clint, and there was an animated conversation. The laborers gathered around. “Clint will be here in a bit. He’s checking.”
   An hour later, Clint pulled into the parking lot. “What a screw-up. Someone sent an email and canceled the dumpster truck, scaffolding, and cherry picker,” he said. “The dumpster truck is on the way, and scaffolding will be here within the hour, but the cherry picker was already rented until noon, and I can’t find another one.
   A large green garbage truck pulled into the lot. Hoisting himself up on the driver’s step so he could look at the driver, Clint said, “I need you to unload the dumpster and move it to the back of the lot.”
   “Sorry, I can’t do that. I can move the dumpster to the back of the lot, but I have a full load, and I can’t risk unloading a burned dumpster on top of it when there might still be embers. I can come back for the dump when I’m empty.”
   “Okay,” Clint said.
   Two hours later, still no work had been done. Clint called the rental company again:


…
This is Clint Newton from LaBree Construction. We’re expecting a load of scaffolding.
…
Mama, that’s what you said earlier. We have men waiting. How soon will it be?
…
Is there any way to expedite this order?
…
Would it be quicker if I sent a truck?
…
Okay, thanks.


    “They’re loading the truck now; it should be here within an hour,” he said, holding back expletives. “Let’s remove the sheeting we can reach until the truck arrives.”
   “I don’t think we can reach any more,” Andrew said. “We’ve removed all the damaged sheeting on the first course.”
   When the delivery truck arrived, we began unloading the scaffolding. “That’s only enough for one tier,” Clint said.
   “Sorry, man, that’s all we have in the warehouse,” the driver said. “Someone else took a truckload earlier.”
   “We put in this order a week ago,” Clint said.
   “Yeah, but it was cancelled yesterday. You’re lucky we have this much left.”
   “Canceled? On whose order?” Clint said. The driver backed away, sensing there might be an explosion coming.
   “I don’t know, man. That’s what Roger, the expediter, said. Someone sent an email and cancelled the order. That’s why he was surprised when he received your call this morning.”
   “Okay, thanks,” Clint said. The driver wasted no time leaving.
   “We’ll work with what we have. I think we can get the next course of sheeting removed.”
   A large transport truck with the cherry picker on a lowboy trailer arrived at three-thirty. I thought it would take a skilled driver to get the truck out of the cramped parking lot. Daniel was familiar with the machine and backed it off the trailer, checking after each foot of travel ensure the machine was unloaded properly.
   “Guys, we need to get this sheeting off and the new stuff up tomorrow. I’ll pay overtime for anyone who is willing to stay and complete the work,” Clint said. Everyone agreed to continue working.
   At dusk, Daniel said, “I don’t know about you, Taylor, but I’ve had a day.”
   “Yeah, me, too,” I said, and we stowed our tools.
   On the way back to the warehouse, I said, “Daniel, is this a regular occurrence?” “You mean one snafu after another?”
   “Yeah.”
   “No, I’ve never had a day like this. Up until recently, we rarely ever had a mix-up. Greg and Clint are good expediters. They’ve been doing this long enough that they know what nut’s the shiniest.”
   “Nut’s the shiniest?”
   “Yeah. That’s what my dad says about someone who knows how to do his job. I don’t see how anyone can stay in business like this,” he said.
   Again, I caught a ride home with George to Howard Avenue. When I walked into the house, Melissa was sitting at the dining room table working on her computer. “I checked to be sure the VPN was connected,” she said. “I made dinner, but Greg said he didn’t know how much longer the crew would work, so I ate and put your dinner in the fridge. You’ll have to nuke it.”
   “Okay, I’m going to shower first.”
   While I ate, Melissa sat tapping away on her computer keyboard. “I gathered from what took place in the office today that you had some problems,” she said.
   “Yeah, there was one delay after another. So, what happened in the office?”
   “Well, about eight-thirty, Greg came in talking about orders being canceled. They looked up the orders, and there they were. They checked the email Sent File, and there were emails to all the vendors cancelling the orders. Olivia was beside herself; she swore she didn’t send the emails. And, you know, I believe her. I think she’s loyal. So, in all the confusion, I had time to install Gregor.”
   “Gregor?”
   “Yeah, it was a project I worked on in my computing major. Look.” She turned her screen toward Leon.
   “What am I looking at?”
   “Greg’s computer. ‘Gregor’—that’s what I call the program—is undetectable, but I can control the computer from here. There are similar programs out there. Gregor is rather primitive: I have to physically install it. But it’s powerful.”
   “How many machines do you have it on?”
   “Oh, I don’t know. Not many. If I install it and don’t have any further use for it, Gregor can completely expunge itself, so there’s not even a byte of him left.
   “Well, would you look at that,” she said, showing me the cursor movement and folders opening. A hacker had put spyware on the computer. The hacker looked at the daily log and searched through the emails.
   “It’s sure a good thing that Greg has all his financials on another computer,” she said.
   “Can you erase the spyware?”
   “Yes, but do we want to do that right now? That would signal whoever’s out there that we’re onto them.”
   “Can you track the spyware source?”
   “No, I’m not that good, but Ana can. She can trace it back to the individual computer, but she won’t be back until next week.”
   “I would gamble that this is part of Greg’s trouble. What do you think? Should we tell him?”
   “How does this sound?” she said. “For now, we don’t mention it; we don’t show our hand. I’ll keep a watch on the email. These cancellation emails have gone out right after closing time.”
   “Olivia leaves the computer on and lets it go to sleep. However, if she starts turning off the computer, the hackers can’t get into it. That way, we don’t have to alert anyone, and we won’t tip off the spy; their program will still be there during the day. When Ana gets back, we can trace the bugger down.”
   “All right. I’m trying to get a bead on the employees,” I said. “You can never tell, of course, but it seems that Clint, George, and Daniel are loyal. They have a lot riding on Greg’s success. I’m going to get acquainted with the others. There are twenty in total.
   “Greg said it was a drywaller who told the driver to unload the dumpster next to the building, and I can identify five of them. I’ll look at ‘em more closely.
   “For now, it’s been a long day. I’m going to bed.”
   Wednesday morning, the sun was just inching its way over the Rockies when I called, “Breakfast.”
   “Wow,” I said when Melissa walked into the dining room. “You don’t wear your hair down often, and I can’t remember when I saw you in a suit.”
   “Well, you know the old saying, ‘You catch more flies with honey than vinegar,’” she said, coquettishly blinking her eyes.
   “The flies better look out, then.”
   While we ate, I said, “I’d like to know how strong LaBree Construction is financially. Can the company weather these setbacks?”
   “Olivia’s protective of that computer,” Melissa said. “I’d swear she’s more like Greg’s mother, or at least, his older sister. I’ve only been there two days, so she’s still a little wary. But I noticed some of her posts are starting to stack up, so maybe I can volunteer to post the data without scaring her. I’ll see.”
   “I’ll take care of the dishes today so you don’t get any water on her pretty suit,” I said. “But it’ll be your duty the rest of the week.”
   “I accept, kind sir.” I had the feeling that there was a deeper meaning in her acceptance.
   “Good. I’ll ride to work with you.”
   At the warehouse, I drank coffee with the other laborers in the bullpen while Clint and Greg studied the spreadsheet for the day’s work. However, I noticed that Greg’s eyes were red, and he was unshaven and stooped. Something didn’t seem right.
   Clint assigned the work, putting most of the laborers on the Orange Project to repair the sheeting so the bricklayers could get started. They were already three days behind, and Greg had to pay for all the lost time.
   I walked by Greg’s desk. “What’s up, man, you look terrible.”
   “Later,” Greg said, not looking up.
   “Ride with me, Taylor?” Daniel said.
   “Sure.”
   On the job, everything was ready, and we made good progress. By the end of the shift, new construction had replaced the fire-damaged area. We moved all the equipment away from the building, and the site was ready for the bricklayers. Clint was there to thank everyone.
   That evening, Melissa prepared dinner at home. Coming through the door, I headed straight for the shower. “Is something wrong?” she asked when I came to the table.
   “Wrong?”
   “Yeah, at work,” she said.
   “Why do you say that?’
   “Well, when Greg came into the office, he looked like he hadn’t slept, and he was short with Olivia. I’ve never heard him like that before. He hardly acknowledged me, threw some invoices on the desk, and left. It was like he couldn’t focus.”
   “I did some posting and took a look at Greg’s financials. The business is strong. It looked like last year was profitable, and this year has been good so far. The ‘screw-ups,’ as he calls them, were expensive but not destructive.”
   “Before leaving this evening, I switched off the computer. When Olivia asked what I was doing, I told her that leaving the computer on was a fire hazard. If something in the computer overheated, there would be no one there to keep the building from burning. Olivia was already upset by Greg’s treatment, and the thought of the building burning pushed her over the edge. She started to cry. I tried to comfort her and told her that switching off the computer was simply practicing safety first.”
   “I thought Greg looked strung out this morning, and when I asked him what was wrong, all he said was ‘later.’ I need to call him, but I don’t want to do it from here. Let’s take a ride.”
   They drove the seventeen miles to Fresno and found a mall parking lot. I put the battery in one of the prepaids and made the call as Melissa listened.


Hello.
…
Yeah, it’s been a while.
…
How are you?
…
Sure. Goodbye.


   I clicked off, removed the phone battery, and said, “Something’s gone to hell.”
   “How so?”
   “First, he called me John. He recognized my voice, but he cut me off. Second, he said, ‘Okay, okay, okay.’ I haven’t heard that since the Middle East. That was the warning code for our outfit. If we heard that phrase, we ducked and covered our asses. We need to get to him.”
   On the way back to Selma, we developed a plan. At the Howard Street house, we dressed in black with black balaclavas. “We’ll use your car,” Leon said.
   “Because it’s black?”
   “Yeah, and I’ll tape the dome light switch. We can approach the Rockwell Pond house by boat; there’s a boat across the pond from the house. I’ve seen it several times. Since the moon is dark, we’ll use the house lights for navigation. From the end of the airport road, it’s less than half a mile to the pond.”
   The rowboat was there, and we rowed to the shore behind the house, avoiding the dock. All of Greg’s house lights were on. Carefully threading our way through the yard, we used only the light from the house. I whispered, “Do you see that car across Flora Avenue? You can make it out when the headlights pass. I feel like I’ve seen that car before.”
   “Got it.”
   “It looks like there are two people in it,” I said.
   “That’s my take.”
   “Did you see that flash of light when that car passed?”
   “Saw that.”
   “I think that was a binocular lens reflection.”
   “Yeah.”
   “So, we’ll stay on the back side of the house out of sight.”
   I crept to the window for a careful look. Greg and Janet were sitting at the table holding hands. I tapped on the window, “• — •• • — — — — •” (Leon). Greg nodded without looking up.
   Leon tapped, “Are you bugged?”
   Greg shrugged.
   I tapped, “Bathroom.”
   Greg spoke to Janet, stood, and walked to the bathroom.
   Greg used the toilet, flushed, turned on the sink faucet, slid open the window, pushed out the storm window, and I said, “What the hell’s going on?”
   “Someone’s taken James.”
   “What?”
   “Yeah.”
   “When?”
   “Tuesday evening.”
   “Okay, there’s a car on the other side of the street. We’ll see what we can do. Hang tight. We’re out here. We’ll be back.”
   I told Melissa that I was going to try to get info on that car. She should check Greg’s house for any surveillance. “Be careful.”
   “Got ya.”
   I worked my way along the pond bank, down two houses, and across Floral Avenue. Keeping away from the highway, I approached the car from the rear. A car came by from the east, and I made out two figures, but there wasn’t enough light to read the license plate. Another car came from the west, and I saw the Illinois license plate and noted the number. I was sure they were watching the house. Without alerting anyone, I worked my way back to Greg’s house.
   “What have you found?” I asked.
   “I couldn’t see anything from the outside, but there may still be something inside.”
   “Okay, we need to move that car, so I’m going to take a chance,” I said, taking a phone, inserting the battery, and dialing 911.
   “Hello, what’s your emergency?”
   “I live on East Floral Avenue just east of the Fowler Canal, and there’s a car parked in front of my house with two men inside. It looks like one of them may be having a heart attack. Please send an ambulance. Now!”
   “What is your name?”
   “Please hurry. He may be dying.”
   “What is your name?”
   I clicked the phone off and removed the battery. “Let’s see what happens.”
   Within five minutes, we heard sirens wailing and saw an EMS ambulance and two patrol cars surround the car. We watched the EMTs check on a man having a heart attack. It was fifteen minutes before they switched off their emergency lights and headed back to town.
   The patrolmen, however, took longer. They appeared to check identification and registration, and to make notes in their logbook. They checked the vehicle and appeared to copy the license number. At last, they allowed the car to drive away. The patrolmen switched off their lightbars and drove back toward town.
   “One thing down,” I whispered.
   The sirens and lights had everyone outside, including Greg and Janet. Melissa and I came in the back door. To avoid startling Greg or Janet, I flashed the kitchen light off and on. When they came into the dining room, I signaled silence, and Melissa and I began a search of the house while Greg and Janet sat at the table.
   After fifteen minutes, I held up one finger and pointed to the kitchen. Melissa held up three fingers and pointed to the den, dining room, and bedroom.
   Signaling for silence, I switched on the television and led Greg outside while Melissa sat with Janet.
   Beside the pool, we talked in hushed voices. “What the hell’s going on?”
   “Last night, James had a soccer game. When he went to get his street clothes and books from his locker, he disappeared. Then I got a call telling me to go home, not call the police, and wait for instructions. It was a gruff male voice. This morning, there was an email telling me to dispose of the company if I wanted to receive my son back.”
   “Do you have the email?”
   “Yeah.” He handed me a copy of the email.


To: Mr. Greg LaBree
From: A Friend
Date: Tuesday
Subject: Business opportunity

Mr. LaBree,

The safety of your son depends on your following these instructions.
First, under no circumstances involve the police.
Second, put your construction company up for sale.
Third, you will receive several offers.
Fourth, do nothing until you receive further instructions.
It is important that you follow these instructions exactly.

NOTE: This is copyrighted material.

Directory
Chapter 1
Chapter 2