Only, it seemed less and less like Brody was imagining things. Dev walked slowly and carefully around trodden areas as the two men perused the site. The hulk of the ruined mill sat empty and cold. It had yet to be demolished. It was odd to be there without it standing and odder still that the flow of the river was the only sound. That, plus the shutter of Brody’s camera, as he shot photos and documented their tracks. Near the riverbank, one more dip pattern in the soggy soil was recognizable: that of a surveyor.
“You know the problem with all this,” Dev trailed off a few minutes after they got into the cruiser. He’d been silent—maybe even brooding as he thought it through. “They’re not doing anything illegal. And the longer we keep the investigation open, the more they’ll say they have a right to be on the scene. It’s been three months and we haven’t made an arrest.”
The thought weighed on Dev more and more every day. Everything about the Packard executives was halfway suspicious but he couldn’t prove a thing. He’d looked into the company’s financials—used every bit of business training he had to search for even a tangential motive. He hadn’t been able to find a single one.
“They’ve got something to do with it,” Brody insisted yet again. “Hire someone to plant the explosives, blow up their own mills, get the insurance money and get off scot free. Who says they’re even gonna rebuild all these mills?”
“The fact they’re surveying the land and asked for the blueprints and have been to see builders says that’s exactly what they’re gonna do.”
Brody still looked pissed, and Dev didn’t like to feed Brody’s theories, but saying out loud what he was thinking couldn’t hurt. Soon enough, he’d have to share his theory with Cliff.
“They’ll build in more automation this time,” Dev said. “Save on workforce costs. Make it so they need fewer people on the floor.”
“Well, there you go!” Brody sputtered out as if Dev had stumbled on the motive itself.
Dev shook his head. “Not so fast. I ran some numbers on that. Building a plant like that would cost twice what they’ll get out of the insurance settlement. Even saving on workforce costs, it would take them fifteen years to recoup the capital cost of building modernized mills.”
The car fell into silence as they came upon Number Ten—a fair bit away from the other plants, on the other side of the river, up a long, meandering road on an isolated hill. It was the site of the first accident and far away from the other mills. Brody parked in his usual spot. They got out of the car in silence.
“Now what do you see?” he asked.
Dev looked down at the ground. “Nothing.”
Brody looked at Dev meaningfully. “That’s exactly right. This one’s been down three months. But there are no signs of entry—no surveying or evidence that anything’s going on, even if this is the only one that’s authorized for a rebuild.”
“So they’ve been here all this time and they’ve only been to Eight and Five?”
This, too, was suspicious.
“I escorted them here to Ten, that first week they came—but just once. I think it’s fair to say that they’re focused on Eight and Five. The question now is, why?”
Better call Delilah, Dev thought, thumbing on his phone as soon as he got back into Brody’s car, half an hour later than Brody had promised to have him back.
“Hey, D…” Her voice was high with sweeping laughter when she picked up. “What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Uh…yeah…” he said slowly, drawing it out. “I was just gonna see whether you could take Silvio’s delivery. I’m tied up with the investigation. I can get there, but not on time.”
“Don’t worry—I’ve got it. Shea's with me too.”
“Oh yeah?” Dev said with more interest than he intended. He hadn’t thought Shea was working that day. And he was disappointed that he hadn’t seen her that morning around the store.
Dev heard some chatter in the background, then Delilah spoke again,
“Silvio says Shea’s a lot sweeter than you, and he’d prefer to work with her.”
As soon as Delilah said it, the background erupted with Silvio’s obnoxious cackle. Dev ended the call soon after. He had choice words for Silvio, but none he wanted to say in front of Brody, let alone in front of Delilah or Shea.
Instead, he seethed silently all the way back to town. Dev had seen neither hide nor hair of Shea for more