Approaching it from different angles like she was building a three-dimensional picture of the moment when Clare mentioned the truck at 2:00 in the morning and Dorothy's partial plate number. Torres and Beckford exchanged a look that lasted about half a second fast enough that you might miss it. I didn't miss it. They knew the truck or they knew part of the plate. One of those things I didn't say anything.
I filed it and kept listening. When the formal statement was done, Torres asked for the brass key and for the metal box from the yard. Clare handed them over. Torres bagged them separately, labeled them, gave Clare a receipt. Then Torres looked at me.
"Mr. Mercer, when you were at the property yesterday, the vent panel on the garage. Can you describe exactly what you observed?" I described it. The new screws bright silver against old painted wood. The way they stood out against the weathered surface.
Torres wrote something down. The county infrastructure inspector Bill Harrove he noted recent disturbance in the soil along the drainage corridor as well. That's what he said. He said someone had been accessing the old drainage channel from the property. Torres closed her notepad.
I need to go to Alderton Road. She said I'd like both of you to come if you're willing. Not inside the garage. We'll have a team handle that. But I'd like you on site to point out what you observed.
Clare looked at me. Well come, I said. We followed the federal vehicles back to Alderton Road. Pulling onto the street, I could see that things had already changed. There was a second sheriff's vehicle parked at the curb and a white van I didn't recognize and two men in dark standing near the end of the driveway talking to Bill Harrove, who apparently had also been called back.
Bill saw me get out of my truck and made his way over. You know what this is now? He asked me low enough that only I could hear. Getting a better picture. I've been doing infrastructure inspection for this county for 28 years.
He glanced toward the garage. I've seen a lot of things get buried under a lot of ground. But what's under this property, if I'm understanding the scope of it, that's not amateur work. That took planning. That took equipment.
How far does the channel actually run? The segment that's been accessed from this property connects to a larger eastwest spur about a/4 mile south of here. That spur runs toward an industrial corridor. He looked at me. The whole network is probably 3 or 4 miles of usable tunnel, big enough to move equipment through, and it's been below anyone's radar because the county records show it as decommissioned.
Decommissioned doesn't mean sealed. Apparently not. Torres came over and spoke to Harrove for several minutes. I watched them look at the ground, at the garage, at the line of depression I'd noticed the day before between the sinkhole and the garage wall. Harrove pointed things out.