Chapter 74

"First of all Sylvia, EZ lived within twenty five miles of Jefferson Island most all his life. He was living around New Wales all of those five years. He has been in trouble with the law, but he has cleaned up his act. Had his share of woman troubles, but there was no sign of hostility issues.

You can't say the same for Brian. But there is no connection between them. If they ever met, I can't tell from there cyber footprints," Wilson said.

"Okay I gave him some cock and bull story about needing a picture for the insurance files. So stand him against a plain background," I suggested.

Then I went back into the house to make more phone calls. I came up with another place to look for a grass field. It was a tax foreclosure of a tiny farm. Actually the owner had sold off a lot of it trying to keep it going. In the end he just gave up and walked away. He kept his chicken business until the very end. They gave him the chance to turn a profit on the least amount of land. In the end he lost even that on a tax foreclosure.

I called my financial advisor and asked him to check it out for me. It was barely enough land, but it was in the right configurations. The chicken houses had been end to end and each one was about a third the length of a football filed so the whole stretch of empty space was about one hundred and twenty five yards of flat ground. I had no idea what it was worth on the open market, so that's why I had the advisers look at it.

I was looking through photographs of ultra light aircraft on the net when EZ's voice came through the air. "Ahoy aboard the barge," he said.

I walked on on the second story deck. "Ahoy yourself," I said.

"Did Wilson get you all taken care of?" I asked.

"Yep, I'm going now to pick up the Wrecker and then go get a new contract signed. One of the banks is looking to try out a new recovery company. I already do property managements on foreclosures for them."

"Well good luck keep me in the loop information wise," I suggested.

Wilson and I were in the car and headed west toward Rock Hill when the conversation turned to EZ. "So tell me Wilson, what do you think of EZ?" I asked.

"Hell I don't like him," Wilson said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Let's see he is tall, he is good looking, he could probably lift a car, and he has a good shot at a successful business, what the hell is there to like?" he said.

"Well if you look at it that way," I said and laughed.

"Actually for a muscle man, he is surprisingly good natured. I don't think he takes steroids, if that any help. He is too even tempered.

"Not exactly what I had in mind. From your research is he on the straight and narrow these days?" I asked.

"Best I can tell yes. His uncle got him started in his current business and he had been adding businesses ever since. Now that you put him into the recovery business, he should do even better." Wilson speculated.

"I didn't put him in the business. I leased a truck to him." I explained. "So what's the deal on Dana does she know we are coming?"

"I couldn't get her. It's the middle of the week surely she will be home or at work. She manages a boutique for young hipity hop women," he said. He made it sound like an insult. Sometimes I wondered how much he knew about me. I also wandered it he were needling me. I could take it, so it was more than okay.

An hour and a half after EZ left the pier, we were in the driveway belonging to Dana Summers. There was no car in the driveway, so even before I got out of the Honda I knew it was a waste of time. Even so we knocked. I checked the mail box since she had a home delivery type box hanging on the outside wall. there was mail but it appeared to all be from the same current delivery date.

"Well she is still living here," I said. "We can either wait for her or try to find her."

"How about we go to the boutique. If she isn't there, or we can't get a better lead. We can come back." Wilson suggested.

"Sounds right to me," I agreed. Wilson had the address and the GPS coordinates. So we went right to it. In a town the size of Rock Hill the little retail shop had to be struggling.

When we entered, I looked at the small inventory of pretty expensive things for her type store. Since she was just the manager, she probably wouldn't lose anything, when it went under. It wasn't an if it was going to fail, it was when it was going to fail.

I saw the very attractive though rather Goth looking young woman. Her clothes were Dark and pretty much out there. "Hi my name is Sylvia Porter. I'm looking for Dana Summers," I stated.

"What you want?" the Goth girl asked.

"If you are Dana, I will be happy to tell you," I said.

"Yeah, I'm Dana," she said.

"Dana I'm going to be looking into what happened to you on Jefferson Island last year," I informed her.

"Why," she said.

"Because I live in New Wales and I want to know what is going on there," I said.

"Did it happen to you?" she asked.

"Yeah, but I didn't go to the police, so now I want to know the who and why of it all," I suggested.

"I don't really like to talk about it," she said.

"I can certainly understand that," I said. "I'm the former Sheriff of Warren County, so I have a friend or two who can help me. If you help me, we just might get this son of a bitch."

"What do you want to know?" she asked.

"Well you have had time to think about it. So tell me, why do you think it happened?" I asked.