Even the Wind: A Jonas Brant Thriller by Phillip Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

insatiable thirst for cheap land to build cookie-cutter condos that could be flipped at double the price of construction. Long-time residents, meantime, would be priced out and pushed away, forced to vacate homes they could no longer afford. He’d seen it before and it made him angry. Yet another inequity in a city and country that had become immune to the plight of the working class. Why cater to the ninety nine percent when the one percent controlled the wealth and the means of creating it.  
      Brant had more than a passing interest in the area. His parents had grown up not far from the Aberdeen in a part of South Boston known as Dorchester Heights. His mother had been a beauty from the Lithuanian community, his father the rare Protestant in a neighborhood best known as working class Irish American. It’d been a rough neighborhood of small clapboard houses, alcoholic fathers, June Cleaver housewives and crushing poverty.
      The Brants had been one of the early ones to escape Dorchester Heights. Brant’s father had served in the Korean War and upon his return home had enrolled in local college. University followed, then onto the State Department where Brant Sr. got a job as a foreign service officer. Brant had been born in South Boston, but had only lived in the two-storey wood-framed terrace home they’d owned at No. 36 Story Street for three years before the family took up their first posting abroad in Malaysia.  
      Though he had little memory of growing up in the neighborhood, Brant still felt a deep affinity for the area. Which made the recent gentrification all the more difficult to watch as row after row of homes succumbed to the wrecking ball.
    Still, there was no denying the Aberdeen was impressive. It had a pink marble facade topped by a cap of gray. The building’s prow thrust upward with the confidence of a ship’s bow, then tapered in steps. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered city views while outdoor balconies offered that rarity of rarities in the city center — access to a private patio.
      ``I’m Lieutenant Jonas Brant. This is my partner, John Clatterback.’’
      The woman dismissed Brant’s introduction with a nod of her head.  
      ``Susan Chua. Now what’s happened to Allison?’’
      ``You haven’t seen her today?’’
      The woman shrugged. ``We work different schedules.’’
      ``So you’re…’’
      ``Roommates. We share the apartment.’’
      ``And how long have you lived here?’’
      ``A couple of months. Maybe three. Is Allison in some kind of trouble?’’  
      ``You’d better sit down, Miss Chua.’’
      She led them down the hallway and into a lounge. Windows hugged the room in a sweeping curve, framing a view of a neighborhood park with mid-rise buildings beyond. The tops of trees swayed lazily in a strengthening breeze. The Cabot Yard rail facility pulsed with the comings and goings of commuter trains while traffic on Dorchester Avenue flowed in drips as if on intravenous.  
      Brant caught Clatterback’s face as he scanned the apartment. The lounge was decorated simply. A beige oval rug had been placed in the center of the room. A sofa and two chairs — white leather cushions on frames of silver chrome — had been placed around a black lacquer coffee table. A small blue vase filled with freshly cut flowers sat atop the table. In the corner of the room, an oversized ceramic holder contained a leafy plant. Four framed oversized posters of women dressed in period fashion hung along a far wall. The remaining walls were white and devoid of artwork. Simple but elegant — and expensive.
      ``Something’s happened.’’
      Brant took the cellphone from his pocket and passed it to Chua. The woman took the handset and began flipping through the photos.
      ``That’s your roommate? Miss Carswell?’’
      Chua’s face turned gray. ``I think I’m going to be sick.’’
      The young woman gagged as beads of sweat formed on her brow. A look of disgust