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“We do,” Lucas said.
“There’s definitely something wrong. The question is, what? Does Burston have a powerful client who wants to stop the housing project? Does he have a personal problem with it, like, does he have property next to this low-income housing? Low-income housing, especially for street people, can devalue property for blocks around. You’ve heard of NIMBY...”
“Not In My Back Yard,” Lucas said. “Now,that’san interesting idea.”
“It is,” Virgil said.
“If you don’t have any more cases you want me to solve, I’ve got to go floss,” Letty said.
—
Virgil called Cooperagain. “Who runs this ‘Home Streets’ charity?”
“A man named Bob Dahl. Sort of. He’s the director. Noah Heath is the chairman and is also the CEO and chairman of Heart/Twin Cities. Noah is the one pushing the housing initiative, the concept, but Bob would probably be better on the day-to-day details. Are you onto something?”
“Don’t know, just poking around. Who’d know about the politics of it?”
“Either one. I’d talk to Bob. He lives with the daily issues. Noah is the one who rounds up the rich people and gets his hand in their pockets.”
“Do you have phone numbers?” Lucas asked.
“Give me a minute, let me punch up my contacts list.” They heard her fingernails tapping on the phone, and as she did that, she asked, “You have some kind of a break?”
“Not a break. More of an idea. Another one we can’t talk about.”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone,” she said.
Virgil laughed and said, “You’re the one we don’t want to know. The arm-twister. The squeaky wheel.”
She found a listing for Heart/Twin Cities and read off three phone numbers, two for Dahl, a personal phone and one for his office, and one for Heath. Virgil thanked her, rang off, and punched in a number for Dahl. The call was answered by a secretary, andwhen Virgil identified himself as a BCA agent, she transferred him to Dahl.
Virgil identified himself again, explained that he was working on one aspect of the Sand murder. “Now that Alex Sand is gone, if Ms. Cooper decides not to contribute the hundred thousand that Alex was considering... what effect would that have on your project?”
“It’d be a kick in the pants,” Dahl said. “We have, we had, nineteen board members until Alex was murdered. We need at least a half million local dollars up front to pull in the grants we’re looking at, and a million would be better. Twelve of our board members, uh, living members, are quite well off, but even for them, a hundred thousand is a stretch. It looks like we can count on maybe five hundred thousand from them. The other members might scrape twenty thousand between them. Frankly, I was hoping that Alex would increase his contribution a bit, to a hundred and fifty thousand. We were talking.”
“He hadn’t committed?”
“No, but he was leaning our way. We’re hoping Ms. Cooper will honor that, but her charitable contributions have always been directed at arts organizations. So... it’s all up in the air.”
“Do you know what property you want to buy?”
“Yes. It’s ten acres of old railway property on the east side of St. Paul. It has everything we need, and we’ve already got a commitment from the city council because it solves a lot of problems for them. Not much residential or small retail property around there that street people might disturb.”
“Could you text us some addresses?”
“I can. At this number?”
“That would be fine,” Virgil said.
—
When the addressescame in, Lucas said, “Do a search for the tax assessor’s office, and call them.”
Virgil did that, and as the phone rang, asked, “You have a name?”
“Yes, I do.”
When a clerk picked up, Lucas identified himself and asked for Talullah Brooks, was put on hold, and he said to Virgil, “Old friend.”
