She should stay here, but Rick and Beau aren’t back from the site yet and due to the late hour, the building is nearly empty.
“I don’t want to leave you here by yourself.”
“Cool!” She jumps up and grabs her jacket, and with my heart pounding, I follow suit. I tuck the manual into my purse and check my phone. No word from Rick—they must still be waiting for the engineer to examine the warning system.
Mack is parked near the curb, sitting in the driver’s seat of a huge black SUV, earbuds in his ears. He jumps out when he catches us trotting down the steps to street level toward the car and opens the back door for us. We both climb in. “Can you drive us to Tony Kelly’s house again? Do you remember the address?” I ask, leaning over the front seat.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
We don’t reach Tony’s neighborhood as quickly as we did this morning. It’s dark by the time Mack pulls up in front of his house, night falling so early in the near-winter, and he parks in the same place along the curb. Tony’s already decorated for Christmas, and lights I didn’t see in the sunlight hang from his roof twinkling merrily.
“We’ll be right back,” I tell him. “I only have a couple of questions.”
Mack nods and helps us from the truck.
Talia and I cross the street, and I ring the bell.
Tony answers the door, dressed in the same clothes he was wearing this morning. “Did you forget something?” he asks through the screen door, and the scent of a beef roast floats out to us.
“No, but I have a couple more questions to ask, if it’s not too much trouble.”
He glances at Talia.
“This is my sister. She’s been helping me dig through the evidence.”
Reluctantly, he opens the door, but he doesn’t let us go farther than the foyer. “What can I help you with? My wife’s home cooking dinner, and this whole thing upsets her. I’d rather we didn’t talk in front of her.”
“That’s fine. I just need to know if this is the manual you used when you put the crane together.” I pull out the manual with the missing front cover and table of contents.
He ruffles through the pages. “It sure is. Neil marked the counterweight for me. It’s right here,” he says and points to the highlighted number.
“Neil?” I ask, trying to keep my voice from betraying my excitement.
“Neil Simpson, the foreman at the time. He worked real close with Rick on that project.”
“He gave you the manual?” I ask to be sure.
Tony narrows his eyes. “Yes. I’ve worked with Rick and Neil for years, and Rick always made sure communication was open on the site. I trusted them both, no questions asked. Why?”
“This manual is for a bigger truck. The counterweight highlighted would have been too heavy for the lift. You’re sure this is the manual you used, the counterweight you used?”
“Son of a B,” he murmurs, running his finger down a page in the back of the booklet and stopping at the model of the truck typed in fine italicized print at the bottom. “I never double-checked. Why would Neil give me the wrong manual? Tell me the wrong counterweight?”
“That’s what we need to find out. Do you have contact information for him?”
“Neil’s in rehab for Sweet addiction. I can find the information for you. Hold on a second,” he says, passing the manual back to me, and I store it carefully in my purse as he shuffles toward the kitchen.
“Why would the foreman want to sabotage the lift?” Talia whispers to me.
“The only reasons I can think of is that he was bribed, maybe blackmailed. That doesn’t tell me who was after Rick and Beau, though.”
“Here’s the address,” Tony says, holding out a piece of paper. “It’s a little state-funded rehab center on the east side of the city. After the accident, Neil dropped off the face of the earth. I know where he is because my wife and his were friends. We’d gone out a lot when times were good.”
“Thank you. I don’t know Neil’s motives, but I think you can put your part in this aside. You trusted him, did anything anyone else would do.”
“I appreciate that, but I should have double and triple checked. Neil had his reasons for lying to me, but he was my friend and I trusted him. People paid for that trust.”