Redemption (Amos Decker #5)(102)

Lancaster answered. “I’m just about to step into the shower, Decker, can I call you back? And I had too much to drink last night. My head is splitting.”

“It’s actually Earl I want to talk to.”

“Hang on.”

A few moments later Earl’s voice came on the line. “What’s up, Amos?”

“Got another construction question for you.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“I’m looking at the construction plans for the American Grill and invoices for construction materials.”

“All right.”

“You know the size of the place, right?”

“Generally. It’s a typical footprint for a retail restaurant operation.”

“Talk some more about that.”

“Well, I mean a four-exterior-wall, one-story basic rectangle. Cinderblock construction with brick veneer and a flat tarred and pebble-topped roof where the outside HVAC units are housed.”

“What sort of square footage are we talking?”

“For a sit-down restaurant as opposed to a fast-food place, about sixty percent of the space goes to the dining and bar area and forty percent to the kitchen, prep areas, and storage. The Grill, I would estimate, is about five thousand square feet, so about three thousand of that would be the dining and bar and the rest for kitchen, prep, and storage. Then you have your enclosed Dumpster area out back. The interior layout allows about fifteen square feet of space per patron seat. That’s the general rule of thumb in the industry. That way, the Grill could comfortably accommodate a couple hundred diners at a time. Which I think is around its fire code limit of customers at any one time.”

“Okay, how much concrete are we talking about for a place that size?”

“You’d pour your footers. That’s not all that much. Then you’d lay your block walls.” He gave Decker an estimate of the concrete, and the blocks required.

Decker looked at the line item on the page he was looking at. “The cinderblock count is pretty much spot on. But what if I told you the concrete outlay was way over quadruple what you just said?”

“That’s impossible.”

“Tell me a way that it wouldn’t be impossible.”

Earl was silent for a few moments. “Well, the only way to justify that much concrete is if they built a full basement, so their pour obviously would be a lot more. But why would a restaurant want a full basement instead of just footers and foundation you build on? You couldn’t possibly need that much storage.”

“Good question,” said Decker. “Hope I find the answer.”

He thanked Earl, told him to have his wife call back when she was done, clicked off, and looked down at the plans.

The American Grill was turning out to be far more special than he had previously thought.

A full basement for what?

And maybe whatever that was would explain why David Katz had built it, and why Rachel Katz had kept it all these years.

He went on his laptop and loaded in the name William Peyton and added the qualifier “the American Grill.” Nothing remotely relevant came up in connection with the longtime manager of the restaurant.

He took out his phone and pulled up the photos he’d taken of the trainees including the one named Daniel. The trainees who never stayed very long. Then his memories shifted to the guy who’d been staring at him from the kitchen. There clearly had been suspicion in that look.

He glanced back at the construction plans and then focused on Earl Lancaster’s words: The only way to justify that much concrete is if they built a full basement.

But as he’d also pointed out, why would David Katz have gone to the additional time, trouble, and expense for more storage area than he could possibly ever need? And if there was an underground room, it would have to be accessible somehow. There would have to be a door down there. And steps. And what would be down there?

Mary Lancaster called him back twenty minutes later.

“Long shower,” he grumbled.

“I had to dress and dry my hair too, and do it all with a friggin’ hangover,” she snapped. “Earl told me about your questions. Where are you headed with this?”

“I think there’s another room under the American Grill.”

“Why would that be?”

“I have no idea. But Earl couldn’t think of another reason why so much concrete would have been used. And maybe that’s why Rachel Katz hid the documents I found. That’s where the additional concrete was listed.”

“Meaning she knew about a possible underground room?”

“Katz told me that she and her husband met on a blind date. And six months later they were married. This was after the American Grill opened.”

“So maybe she didn’t know about the underground room, then?”

“At least not at that point. And that might explain why they used tarps over the construction site and used outside contractors and rented equipment. They didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing.”

“And Fred Palmer told us that the equipment they rented was a lot more horsepower than was needed. But they might need all of that if they were going to remove enough dirt to make way for a full basement.”

“Right. Although I guess somewhere in the permitting process, they’d have to tell the folks in government about their plans and get approvals. Code compliance and inspections and all that. But I guess there’s also no law against having a basement underneath your restaurant.”